‘Arthur, what are you doing? You can’t trust what he says,’ whispered Sky, who had already arrived with Margot.
The Solarian broke off from staring at Arthur to look at Sky.
‘Your friend speaks wisely. What makes you think that I will tell you the truth?’
Arthur said nothing as the prisoner picked up the flashing device Yan had given him and placed it back on his neck.
‘Your crew are being held on the Northern Plateau,’ he said, and cackled.
Arthur gasped, and shot a glance first at Sky, who looked equally shocked, and then at the Major. The Major showed no emotion at all.
‘A word, Arthur,’ said the Major, motioning for Arthur to join him out of earshot of the others. ‘I don’t want you to get your hopes up, lad. But you must realise that he’s most likely playing games with you.’
‘I understand, Major, it’s just that… I feel…’
Arthur was just about to say something else when a sudden commotion broke out behind them. He spun round to see the Solarian wrestling Yan to the ground and lunging for his gun.
‘Drop it!’ yelled the Major as the prisoner seized the gun and pointed it in the direction of Vijay. Without waiting, the Major opened fire and the Solarian fell backwards and lay motionless on the ground. Yan scrambled to his feet and grabbed his rifle.
‘Damn it!’ yelled Yan. ‘I was just trying to help him!’
‘He knew what he was doing,’ said Captain Schmidt, who had been a second away from opening fire himself.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Margot, shocked. This was the first time since they had left Earth that she had come close to being involved in the fighting.
‘I mean he did this on purpose: he had no intention of shooting Vijay, or he would have done it before we’d had a chance to stop him. No, I think for him there was more honour this way than if he’d allowed himself to fall into the hands of the Andarrans.’
Margot, still shaking, took out a blanket from her rucksack and laid it over the prisoner.
The group waited for Sorin and his men to return, taking it in turns to sleep if they could. From time to time, they would hear plasma fire, or an explosion would light up the darkness, somewhere away in the distance. Eventually, these became less frequent and finally stopped. As dawn’s first rays crept over the horizon, the Argon fighters returned. Arthur, who was awake, noticed straight away that several of them were missing and Finna wasn’t with them. Without so much as a greeting, Sorin demanded to interrogate the prisoner, and exchanged angry words with the Major when he learned what had happened.
An uneasy silence quickly developed among the groups as they descended back down the pass towards the Nira valley. Arthur listened to what was being said by the Argon fighters about what had happened. The Solarians had managed to get away with Finna and two other Andarrans, and it seemed clear that they must have realised the value of their prisoners by the ferocity with which they’d fought off the Andarrans’ attempts to free them. Sorin would now bear the brunt of the Commander’s wrath for their failure to bring his daughter back, and the Earth group’s failure to keep their Solarian prisoner alive only made matters worse for him.
‘What can I do for you, Keeper?’ asked Sorin, without disguising his lack of interest in hearing why Arthur had moved up the line to speak to him.
‘Before the Solarian died, he told us that our crew are still alive and that they are being held on the Northern Plateau,’ said Arthur.
Sorin stared at him contemptuously.
‘And he just told you that, did he?’
‘Yes,’ replied Arthur, thinking that he should definitely have tried to phrase it better.
‘Did he, indeed,’ laughed Sorin. Several fighters behind Arthur, overhearing their conversation, also laughed.
‘I have never heard anything so ridiculous! If you have nothing useful to tell me, get back in line.’
‘He wouldn’t listen?’ whispered Sky once he had returned to his place in the column.
‘Not even close. I know no one believes that he was telling the truth, but I can’t let it go… it’s a feeling.’
‘I think it’s because no one can think of a reason for him to have wanted to tell you the truth, that’s the problem.’
‘I understand what everyone is thinking.’
‘I think we should sleep on it,’ came the voice of the cat, who had been strangely quiet.
‘Brilliant, Cat! Where have you been all this time?’
‘Where do you think I’ve been? Stuck in this cube of a space wondering when I was going to lose my tail!’
‘You were strangely quiet,’ said Sky.
‘Yes, well, I might have fallen asleep under all the stress! But, for what it’s worth, I agree with Arthur: I think that he was telling the truth.’
‘Why do you think that, Cat?’ asked Sky.
‘I don’t know, it’s a feeling.’
‘A feeling,’ she repeated, looking at both of them and frowning. ‘I don’t know how you’re going to get anyone to believe you.’
The remnants of Tiran squad slipped back into the mountain. Getting off the shuttle and heading over to the brigade HQ, Arthur noticed Finna’s father already engaged in an angry conversation with Sorin near the parade ground. Arthur and Sky stood and watched for a moment before following the rest of the squad to put their equipment back in the storeroom. When they came out, Finna’s father was no longer shouting. He was standing by himself under a large statue of a figure charging into battle.
‘Maybe we should go and tell him?’ suggested Sky.
‘Tell him what? That we might know where our crew is, but, oh, sorry about your daughter?’
‘I don’t know, Arthur – yes, something like that!’ said Sky, irritated by his answer. ‘Maybe he won’t see it like that. Isn’t it at least worth a try?’
Seeing the two of them looking at him, the Commander called them over.
‘We are sorry about Finna,’ said Arthur as soon as they reached him. The Commander nodded frostily.
‘Do either of you know what she was doing sneaking out of the valley?’ He asked.
Arthur and Sky shook their heads.
‘She didn’t say anything to you?’
‘No, Commander,’ replied Sky. ‘ Nothing.’
‘But you were talking to her the day before yesterday, is that not so?’
Sky nodded.
‘Yes, when we were outside,’ said Arthur.
‘And what were you talking about?’
‘Um, well, nothing really.’
‘Nothing! You expect me to believe that?’ He asked heatedly.
Sky hung her head. ‘I don’t understand what you’re expecting to hear. We were all sitting outside after training, and she seemed happy, and then…’ She stopped and thought.
‘And then?’
‘And then the Major came over and told us that we were going to be joining the Argon brigade and that training was over.’
The Commander frowned. ‘Do you think that this news affected her?’
‘Yes, maybe. She seemed preoccupied with something after that.’
‘I see.’ The Commander went quiet and the expression on his face became bitter. ‘I knew it was a mistake agreeing to President Insuro’s request to help you, and now I see where it has led. My own daughter had a ridiculous notion to prove that she was worthy to join the brigade – and now she has been taken! Did you not at least try to talk some sense into her?’
Sky was about to open her mouth to protest.
‘Enough! You are both responsible for what has happened to my Finna, and now you will both help to rescue her. No longer will there be a welcome in these halls for the two of you whilst my daughter is not safely back under my protection.’
‘But Commander, how…’
‘S
ilence! These are my final words on the subject. I will hear no more. Go and ready yourselves and make your farewells. You move out at the thirteenth hour!’ The Commander turned and walked away. Arthur and Sky watched him go, in disbelief at what had just happened.
‘Well, that was a good idea!’ said Arthur.
‘Sorry,’ said Sky sadly. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything about Finna.’
‘You weren’t to know.’
Arthur stood for a moment in silence.
‘We should go and tell the others.’
There wasn’t much time before the thirteenth hour. With no possibility of sleep, and already feeling tired, they had to settle for a meal with the rest of the group in the Mess hall. The group already suspected something was going on.
‘What happened?’ asked Margot as Sky came over and sat down next to her. ‘The Commander was looking pretty hot-tempered.’
‘Yes, and some!’ replied Sky. ‘He is holding us personally responsible for what happened to Finna. He told us that we have to go on the rescue mission and we’re not to come back without her.’
‘What!? Major, can he do that?’ asked Margot in alarm.
The Major frowned.
‘He can do whatever he wants,’ he growled, getting up and excusing himself from the table.
After that. Margot tried to make out as though everything would be okay, whilst Yan busied himself doing something that no one really understood. Vijay looked upset. Soon they were all called away from the table, leaving Arthur and Sky to count the minutes before they were due to leave.
‘You don’t seem very annoyed about what’s happening,’ said Sky, watching him shovel food into his mouth.
‘Hmm?’ He muttered, not having heard a word of what she’d just said.
‘I said that you don’t seem very annoyed about what’s happening.’
‘I am and I’m not. I don’t know… I’m trying to look on the plus side, you know. Maybe there is a small chance that my father and the crew are in the same place where they’ve taken Finna.’
Arthur glanced at Sky and then at the giant clocklike device suspended above the table. It always reminded him of a picture he’d once seen of a huge old clock back on Earth.
‘We should go,’ he said.
Sky sighed and nodded. ‘What about saying goodbye to the others?’
‘Vijay said they’d come and see us off, I think.’
‘I almost forgot – I found some of that bread stuff,’ she said, opening her pack and handing him a sizeable chunk.
Arthur folded it over and stuffed it into a jacket pocket.
‘Come on, Cat, let’s go,’ he said, taking a last swig of water.
‘It wasn’t much of a last meal for a condemned cat,’ he meowed.
Sky laughed. ‘A condemned cat? You should try to be a little more positive.’
‘Positive? What’s to be positive about? We are being sent out to face almost certain death because of the angry father of a silly girl who couldn’t control herself. I don’t see anything positive about that!’
‘Cat! The Solarians were soundly beaten on Tresk. We were there – have you forgotten?’
‘I haven’t forgotten, but it took a hundred years and the Treskans had giant robots. This lot live underground like rabbits and they don’t have any robots!’
‘Fat lot of good those robots would be in these mountains,’ said Arthur as they left through the mess door and went out to the busy square. He gazed at the Andarrans going about their business. From the shopfronts and ornate fountains gushing with water, to the high ceilings and side streets with rock gardens outside each home, everything had been painstakingly and lovingly carved out of the mountain.
‘You see this, Cat? They may not have robots but they know how to build. I bet they could even teach the Treskans a thing or two.’
The cat just looked at him blankly. If cats had learned to roll their eyes, he would have done so.
‘My point is, Cat, that Andarra is their home; not Tresk, not Earth. The Solarians control the skies but you’ve seen for yourself that they can’t touch the Andarrans underground.’
‘Being underground is not what I’m worried about. It’s when rabbits venture outside of their warrens that they become targets,’ retorted the cat. ‘And we are being sent outside!’
Arthur shook his head and strode off towards the Argon HQ, past a group of Andarran children playing Remo.
They arrived at the Argon HQ early. There they found several hundred fighters, all heavily armed, standing at ease.
‘Wow,’ exclaimed Arthur, ‘so many!’
They hurried to the Kit Room, as the Major and Captain Schmidt had named it, and were given extra plasma generators, plus extra food and water in addition to the usual equipment.
‘Judging by the look of all of this, they don’t expect us back soon,’ said Sky, stuffing the supplies into her pack.
‘Yes, it doesn’t look like it,’ agreed Arthur, doing the same.
Grabbing their rifles, they returned to the parade ground.
‘Sky look!’ said Arthur. ‘It’s the Major and the others.’
‘Oh! I thought they were just going to come and say goodbye.’
The Major and the others were already there, standing to the side of the main group of soldiers, sorting their equipment.
‘Major, why are you all here?’ asked Arthur, unable to hide his smile.
‘There you are, lad. Well, obviously, we all had nothing better to do and it sounded like you’d be having all the fun, and we couldn’t let that happen without us,’ replied the Major, and winked.
3
Rybok
Unlike the last time they’d left the valley, they didn’t use the short shuttle to the top. Instead, they went on foot through long tunnels cut through the middle of the mountains. The Andarrans had been building their network of tunnels for a thousand years, and were now using them to get their fighters to distant points without having to risk moving large numbers of troops and equipment under open skies. The tunnels were wide enough for two columns to fit side by side as well as mobile artillery. But they were damp and dimly lit, and Arthur soon began to feel as though they had no beginning and no end. It was in these tunnels that they were to spend the next five Andarran days.
Eating and drinking on the move, with few rest breaks, the troops and their commanders pushed on relentlessly. Apart from the Major and Captain Schmidt, who were used to such conditions, the Earth group found it tough going. They knew the Andarrans were expecting them to give in; that was clear from their jokes and smirking. They were determined not to show weakness, though, for if they did, they all knew it could be the last time they’d be able to get out of the valley. If that happened, they’d lose the opportunities to search for the others. But it was not easy. At one point on the third day, Sky tripped and fell whilst walking half asleep. Arthur quickly helped her back to her feet, and the others divided her baggage between them. It was all done without fuss and without a word, almost as if it had never happened. None of them spoke except to encourage anyone who was flagging under the relentless rise and fall of the tunnels.
By the fourth day, even the Argon fighters were showing signs of getting worn out. The fact that the little group from Earth had been able to more or less keep up with the powerful Argon fighters had won them a kind of grudging respect. Eventually, though, ‘Hell’s March’, as Yan had nicknamed it, came to an end. Sorin signalled for the company to rest. Arthur dropped down on the ground, falling backwards onto his pack.
‘Good thing I wasn’t still in that,’ commented the cat drily. The cat had been made to walk during their journey through the tunnels.
‘Good thing I remembered that you weren’t!’ said Arthur and stretched his legs out in front of him. Using his backpack as a pillow, he closed his eyes. Sky sat down next to him an
d did the same.
‘I could sleep for a week,’ she said.
‘Put me down for a month!’ groaned Margot.
‘And me!’ added Vijay.
Arthur was about to fall asleep when the Major, who had been speaking with Sorin, returned.
‘Okay, listen up! I know you’re tired, but I have a few things to say,’ he announced to the group, who were sprawled out against the tunnel wall. ‘Firstly, I want to say well done to all of you. None of the Andarrans expected you to last this long, especially you younger ones, so well done. You have certainly given those who doubted us food for thought.’
Arthur opened his eyes and blushed slightly as the others all nodded at him and Sky.
‘Secondly, I know you’re shattered. The current Andarran time is the twenty-third hour. We move out again at the sixth hour, shortly before sunrise, so do your best to get some rest.’
Yan, busy attaching something to his rifle, raised his hand. ‘Major, where exactly are we?’
‘All I know is that we are close to the Solarian base where the Commander’s daughter has been taken,’ answered the Major.
Arthur frowned.
‘How do they know that she was taken there?’ He asked, suddenly wondering if the Solarian had been lying. Perhaps his father and the crew would also be there.
‘It would appear that she was able to activate some sort of tracking device. So, well done her.’
‘And not so well done for getting caught in the first place,’ said Sky, sounding annoyed.
Arthur gazed at her in surprise.
‘Sorry if that sounded very catty, but really, you know, all of this happened because she was jealous that we joined this silly brigade and not her.’
‘Well, maybe it sounded a little catty,’ he chuckled, lowering his voice so that the others couldn’t hear. ‘If they’re holding Finna, what do you think – maybe there’s a chance that the others are there also?’
‘Oh… What do you feel?’ She whispered.
‘I don’t know… nothing. Ever since we arrived on Andarra, I’ve not been able to feel anything. Do you remember how, when we were in the Osmari, I saw my father? Since we’ve been here, I’ve tried, but nothing ever happens. It worries me that something bad might have happened and that’s why I can’t establish contact. The first time I felt any kind of connection to him was when the Solarian said that about the Northern Plateau. I… but maybe I just imagined it, maybe that’s all.’
Arthur and the Andarran Rescue Page 3