Idiots, Victor thought, as he adjusted his binoculars as the women ran past him. They didn't look bad for girls who had been trapped in the camp for five years; their buttocks still looked shapely, as if they’d been working out constantly. He followed them as the men picked themselves up and gave chase, still screaming about bets. No doubt they’d been playing games with the women, Victor decided, and now the bitches were trying to welsh out of the agreement. Maybe they’d offered to put out if they lost the game.
He watched the men as they chased the women in and out of the next set of barracks, alternatively helped and impeded by other prisoners as they stepped out into the open air, despite the falling drizzle. The other guards were watching too and calling out bets, trying to guess when the women would be caught and what would happen to them when they were caught. Victor wasn't sure what the guards should do if the prisoners started to fight each other; their orders were to keep the POWs safe, but also never to go into the camp itself.
“Get a hose,” he said, as one of the women slipped on the mud and fell to her knees. Mud clung to her skin as she scrambled upwards, just before one of the men caught her and started to drag her back towards the barracks. “We might need to separate them before it goes too far.”
“Or we could just watch,” another guard said. “This is better than porn!”
“That’s because you’ve watched everything a million times over, wanker,” Victor said. The CO would not be happy if they woke him for anything short of a mass break-out, but he was starting to feel there was no alternative. “Get some more the next time you go home.”
He snickered as the woman kicked her captor in the chest, then broke free and started to run again, mud slipping down her chest and clinging to her breasts. The other woman appeared at the far end of the barracks, shouted something rude about the man’s lack of manhood, then vanished again as the other man gave chase. Victor laughed and settled down to watch the show.
***
Kailee had always been scared.
It was something she had had to learn to live with, growing up on Earth. There was no such thing as safety for a teenage girl - or anyone else, for that matter. A person could be attacked, raped or even murdered in the giant CityBlocks and no one would really give a damn. She had known girls in her class who had been forced to have sex by boys and others who had just vanished one day, with only rumours to mark their passing. All she had been able to do was dream of escape ...
... And she had escaped, only to wind up in another nightmare.
It didn't seem fair, somehow. She had survived a crash, a thug who had raped her and a gang of bandits who might have done worse, only to wind up a hostage for her boyfriend’s good behaviour. They’d told her, when they’d taken her into custody, that she would be unharmed as long as Gary behaved himself, but she'd known they were lying. Even if they never touched her, the certainty that she’d lost control of her life once again had destroyed her fragile stability. She’d dated Gary, she’d fallen in love with Gary, because he would never attempt to control her. She’d studied with Austin’s sister, she’d learned to shoot and look after herself ... and none of it had mattered because, once again, she was a helpless pawn.
And now a new woman had arrived, offering her the chance to escape.
She wasn't sure what to make of it. On one hand, she didn't want to stay in the camp; on the other hand, she hated the idea of risking her life once again. Life might be bad, but it could easily be worse. The guards might decide to use her for sport, the other prisoners might turn on her ... or they might escape, only to be killed for being collaborators. She could easily imagine the locals turning on her, calling her a Dirty Earther who had never truly adapted to Meridian. They had thought of her as a liability long before Wolfbane had arrived.
“It’s time,” Jasmine said quietly, as she slipped into the barracks. There was a blithe confidence in her movements that Kailee couldn't help admiring - and envying. “Get undressed.”
Kailee eyed her, doubtfully. She understood the logic, but she hated the idea of being naked. It made her feel hopelessly vulnerable, when she already felt far too vulnerable for her own peace of mind. If the guards caught them, or a bandit gang ... God alone knew what had happened on the outside, after she had been taken into the camp. It was vaguely possible that Gary and her friends were dead and no one had ever bothered to tell her. Nothing she’d heard from the moment she’d entered the camp had reassured her that Wolfbane was practical enough to release her once her value had dropped to zero ...
“Get undressed,” Jasmine repeated. She shucked off her own prison outfit at the same time, revealing a lithe muscular body. “Hurry.”
Kailee stared, even though she knew it was rude. Jasmine was built like a small man, not a woman. Her breasts were barely larger than a man’s, while there wasn't a hint of fat or wasted meat on her body. Hell, if she hadn't been completely naked, Kailee would have wondered if she was looking at a man pretending to be a woman. But she was very definitely female, just ... unfeminine.
“All right,” she said. “But can we do this quickly?”
Jasmine shrugged. Kailee nodded back, then removed her outfit and dropped it on the ground. It didn't smell pleasant - she washed and changed as little as possible - but she’d seen it as a way to defend herself, even in the camp. Besides, they’d always been hectored to save water on Earth ...
“Come on,” Jasmine said. Outside, Kailee could hear someone shouting and screaming loudly. “Leave your shoes and hurry.”
Kailee hesitated, then followed Jasmine out into the rain.
Chapter Five
In addition, the victors of the war would almost certainly seek to try the losers in court, if only to bolster their own claims. Mistreating prisoners, therefore, would come back to haunt the leaders of the losing power.
- Professor Leo Caesius. The Empire and its Prisoners of War.
Meridian, Year 5 (PE)
Jasmine heard Kailee gasp behind her as Stewart and Watson, wearing nothing more than their birthday suits, appeared out of the rain. They’d covered themselves with mud, in the hopes it would provide some additional concealment, but the rainwater was washing it off their bare skin at terrifying speed. She glanced at them both, then nodded towards the place they’d picked beside the fence. One way or the other, they were committed.
“Get digging,” she muttered, as the sound of female screaming grew louder. There was no way to be sure what the guards would do, even if the whole event looked more like fun and games rather than a rape in progress. They might have orders not to let the prisoners have too much fun. “Hurry.”
Kailee hung back as Watson started to dig, pulling mud out of the ground with his bare hands. Water pooled around him as he kept digging, slowly widening a passage under the wire. Jasmine and Stewart knelt behind him and started digging themselves - it struck her, suddenly, that she must look terribly undignified - until the passage was wide enough for her to slip under the wire. She crawled underneath, careful not to actually touch the metal, then beckoned for Kailee to follow her out of the camp.
The girl had frozen, staring at nothing. “Force her,” Jasmine hissed, as the rain started to lighten. “Hurry!”
Stewart grabbed Kailee’s arm and pushed her towards the hole, then into it. Jasmine grabbed her arms as soon as she was within reach, then pulled her through a gap that was rapidly filling with muddy water. Stewart followed her, with Watson bringing up the rear; they paused long enough to push more mud into the gap, then hastened towards the jungle. Mud dripped off them as the rain washed their bodies, leaving them bare and alone. Jasmine glanced back at the camp, making sure that no one had seen them, then led the way into the foliage. There was no sign of any pursuit.
Kailee staggered as soon as they were safe, half-falling to the ground. Jasmine sighed impatiently, then nodded to Stewart, who hefted the girl up and over his shoulder. Kailee looked alarmingly thin, even by the standards of the other women in the cam
p, but then women on Earth had been expected to be pencil-thin. It hadn't been remotely healthy, Jasmine knew, yet fashion had a life and a logic of its own. And besides, someone had probably thought it saved resources.
“No sign of any pursuit,” Stewart said. “I think we made it.”
“Let us hope they don’t count heads,” Jasmine agreed. If she’d been running a POW camp, she would have held headcounts every morning, noon and night, just to make sure that all the prisoners were where they were supposed to be. “For the moment, we’d better keep moving.”
Stewart nodded, then looked at Kailee. “Should we keep carrying her?”
“For the moment,” Jasmine said. Kailee didn't seem to be much of a fighter, but that too was a legacy of Earth. It was astonishing how wimpy most of Earth’s citizens, male or female, had become. But then, she’d been told that the brave and the bold had set out to conquer a galaxy. “She’s our only hope of making contact with the resistance.”
She took a long breath, then peered up at the overcast sky. The rain was finally coming to an end - she could see chinks of sunlight burning through the cloud - and once the skies were clear, they could start navigating away from the camp. It was impossible to be sure, but they had seen aircraft flying over the complex, heading south, and it seemed likely there was something there, either a farm or a small settlement. Once they made contact with the locals, their options would get better.
Or we will simply be betrayed, she thought. Conduct After Capture had focused on denying as much as possible to her captors, but Escape And Evasion had warned of the dangers of making their way through hostile territory. The civilians might be friendly, or hostile ... and they might be afraid to do anything but call the enemy to catch them. She’d had to make her way through enemy-held territory on the Slaughterhouse and she’d been caught far too many times. They’d all been caught before they’d learned not to take too many chances.
“We move on,” she said. “I want to put some more distance between ourselves and the camp before they decide to check for any missing prisoners.”
She sighed, inwardly, as they started to walk. It had been too long since she’d carried out a route march, but at least she’d managed to stay in shape. How long had it been since she’d run the two kilometre run she’d had to do when she’d entered Boot Camp? They’d been told that the only easy day was yesterday, but she hadn't understood what it meant until she’d realised that the Drill Instructors were upping the pressure every day. She’d joined a class of one hundred recruits, male and female; by the time she’d been accepted at the Slaughterhouse, only nineteen recruits had made it through. And seven of them had quit once they’d seen the Slaughterhouse ...
The mud squelched below their feet as they kept moving, looking around for signs of possible threats. Meridian was a stage-one colony world, Jasmine recalled; the Empire probably wouldn't have cleared it for settlement if there had been any real dangerous native animals living on the planet. But the settlers might easily have imported something dangerous, something that might have developed a taste for human flesh ... her lips quirked as she recalled tales of biological catastrophes, caused by introducing Earth-native vegetation into undeveloped biospheres, but few of those had involved anything dangerous to humans. Rabbits and cockroaches had done more damage than lions and tigers.
“Ouch,” Kailee said. “What happened?”
She needs a proper doctor, Jasmine thought. She normally had no time for headshrinkers, but Kailee probably needed therapy. And perhaps a chance to strike back at her enemies.
“We made it out,” Jasmine said. Kailee probably didn't like being carried by a man, but she wasn't protesting. It took her a moment to realise that the girl was too scared to protest. “Do you think you can walk for yourself now?”
Kailee looked down nervously, then smiled weakly. “I think so,” she said. “Please.”
Stewart put her down gently, then gallantly looked away as Kailee remembered she was naked. She wouldn't have lasted a day in the barracks, Jasmine thought mischievously, as Kailee struggled to cover herself. Modesty went out the airlock on the very first day, along with any illusions about going into Boot Camp on Monday and becoming a super-soldier on Tuesday. It was astonishing just how many would-be Rambo-types never completed Boot Camp, let alone the Slaughterhouse. Becoming a Marine was hard work.
“Take the lead,” Jasmine ordered Stewart, who nodded. “I’ll bring up the rear.”
Kailee eyed her doubtfully, but didn't attempt to suggest that she should bring up the rear. It wouldn't have mattered if she had; Jasmine knew she could keep up with the two men, but she didn't dare let Kailee fall behind. Route marches had been hellish until the recruits had gotten into the swing of them ... and this was unexplored territory. She nudged the girl forward as Stewart started to walk, then followed her slowly. There was no point in trying to run, not now. They’d just exhaust themselves for nothing.
The rain came to an end, gusts of wind blowing final splashes of water into their faces before fading away into nothingness. Jasmine let out a sigh of relief as she looked up at the blue sky, then at the mountains in the distance. Navigating by the stars would have been impossible, even at night time, but she knew where the mountains were relative to the POW camp. It would allow them to make their way towards the settlement - possible settlement, she reminded herself - without delay.
She stopped as something ran across the path, then vanished into the undergrowth. It looked like a large mouse or rat, she decided; she wondered, absently, if they tasted good when cooked and eaten. They might have to stop and harvest something to eat, which would have its own risks. It was quite possible that fruit or seeds that looked edible would actually be deadly poison. They’d have to carry out tests, all the time getting hungrier and hungrier ...
“Kailee,” she said, slowly, “do you know what’s safe to eat?”
“Not everything,” Kailee said. “It’s been too long since they told us what we could eat.”
Stewart glanced back at her. “You live here and you don’t know what you can eat?”
Kailee staggered, as if he had struck her a physical blow. Jasmine caught her and held her steady, studying the younger girl thoughtfully. Everything she’d undergone had broken her, piece by piece, until there was no strength or determination left. The merest rebuke would have her in tears, if only because she could fear worse in the future.
“People on Earth don’t know where food comes from,” she said. It still seemed absurd to her that Earth’s citizens couldn't draw a line between the cattle in the farming zones and the beef they ate for dinner, but people could believe anything if it was hammered into their heads from a very early age. Besides, most of Earth’s population would have eaten algae-based foodstuffs rather than real meat or vegetables. “It must have been a surprise when you tasted real meat for the first time.”
Kailee smiled, slightly. “I threw up,” she said. “It was not my proudest moment.”
“I imagine it wasn't,” Jasmine agreed. She'd known a girl, back home, who had been violently allergic to chicken. No one had taken it seriously, apart from her parents, until she had almost died. Normally, allergies could be treated, but this one had proven surprisingly resistant to all kinds of treatment. “What do you eat normally, when you’re at home?”
“I try not to think about it,” Kailee said. “How do you cope?”
Jasmine shrugged. She’d grown up on a farm. Her family had learned, quickly, never to get attached to any of the animals, if only because they were eventually slaughtered and turned into dinner. They’d been allowed to keep dogs, but they’d been regarded as part of the family. It hadn't been until she’d gone to Boot Camp that she’d tasted algae-based foods and she’d considered them rather bland. The Marines had practically drowned them in spicy sauce.
“Tell me about Earth,” she said, instead. Talking would keep Kailee’s mind off their predicament. “What happened towards the end?”
“I d
idn't see anything special,” Kailee said. “All we really know is that Earth ... Earth fell shortly after we left. And that was the end. My family ...”
She shook her head slowly. Jasmine understood. Kailee was clearly lower-class, at best; it was highly unlikely that any of her family had made it out before the end. Just what had happened on Earth was something of a mystery, although the Commonwealth had collected hundreds of thousands of rumours, most of which were contradictory. The only thing known for certain was that Earth had died roughly six months after Stalker’s Stalkers had been exiled from the planet.
Never Surrender (The Empire's Corps Book 10) Page 5