William Keith Renegades Honor

by Renegade's Honor

  "A rescue?"

  "That's the idea."

  "And then what?"

  "And then we flee."

  Morganen's eyes widened. "Flee? Where? TOG controls most everything in the Galaxy, don't they?" He chuckled. "Unless you want to go visit the KessRith, that is. I imagine they'd just love to see us!"

  "TOG doesn't control everything," Elliot said slowly, with careful deliberation. "And there are other possibilities...ones we'll have to explore together. The first thing is, will you help me?"

  Morganen thought for a moment. If this was a trap, a TOG attempt to frame him, it was certainly a cumbersome way of doing so. They could, after all, have included him in the court-martial charge, as Elliot , had suggested.

  "I'd like to help Fraser," Morganen said.

  "You haven't always liked him."

  Morganen looked up sharply, trying to penetrate the other man's thoughts. Elliot's sudden shifts could be disorienting. "You know that ; much about us, then..."

  "Oh, I learned about it from Kendric, actually. But, you see, I heard about you trying to defend Kendric at his court-martial. That made me think that something had changed in your attitude toward him."

  Morganen nodded. "I'm not sure what it was. Maybe just the fact that.. .that he cared for his men, no matter what. He risked his career several times over at Trothas and always to protect his people. Maybe I just came to admire him for that."

  "Kendric Fraser is a good man," Elliot agreed. "He's a lot like his j father. At any rate, I sought you out because I thought you might want to help him. And it will take a good ship Captain to get him out of the place they've sent him."

  "What I'd like to know is why your interest, Citizen? You say you were a friend of his father's, that he was like a son. But that's hardly enough reason to put your own life on the line, is it? You say this IS might be after you. Hell, what you're talking about is treason!" Morganen let the word hang in the air between them for a second, then continued, more gently. "Look, I understand your wanting to help him, but it sounds to me like helping him is impossible! And you're a high-ranking TOG bureaucrat. You must have quite a comfortable life. You could lose it all, including your life, if this goes wrong! What can you possibly hope to gain that is worth such a risk?"

  Elliot took a long time to answer. "Let's just call it...call it the payment of a debt of honor," he said quietly.

  Despite continued problems caused by local seismic activity, gennium-arsenide production in the Grod facilities is up almost 2 percent from this time one standard year ago. Despite criticism from certain quarters, lack of automation is definitely not a problem at this facility, because there are more than enough Class E laborers to maintain steady production levels.

  —From a report on the Grod Complex HQ, Mine 12, to Chief Administrator Deston Clovis, at his villa on Narbon II, 1 Sep 6830

  Walking into the main diggings of the vast, underground complex of tunnels and man-made caverns known as Mine 12 was like walking into a sauna. The temperature was well above 40 degrees C. And the humidity so high that water droplets glistened on every plane and surface of rock, drizzled constantly from the ceilings, and puddled underfoot at the slightest depression in the rock floor. This upper level of the mine was reached by descending a broad, concrete ramp from the surface. Kendric had a blurred and confused picture of supply crates stacked along rock walls, of electric carts, of gigantic, rust-streaked hoppers linked end to end on a slow-moving railway, but of very few people.

  Those hoppers dominated the cavern. Each was twenty meters long and five high, decorated with the struts and molded fittings that identified them, to Kendric's eye, as cargo containers for shipping bulk ore on star freighters. Their progress along the railway moved, each in turn, under a massive battery of black-snouted plumbing that Kendric thought of as giant spigots. There were at least thirty openings in the massive tubes that snaked down out of the rocks amid a maze of crossbraces and struts, and a steady stream of rock clattered and rumbled from each opening into the waiting hoppers. The line of hoppers extended into the depths of the tunnel for as far as Kendric could see.

  The party's path across the cavern took them near enough to the thunder of the artificial rockslides that the noise was physically painful. They came to a halt outside a small and featureless sheet tin building squatting underneath a labyrinthine forest of girders and cables. There, custos walked down the line, taking each new slave's right hand in turn and pressing a small, pistol-gripped device against the wrist. When it was Kendric's turn, he offered no resistance. Still shackled, still sick from the horror of what they had seen outside, none of the slaves seemed capable of speech, much less of resistance, though most flinched or started at the gun's touch. The wide, flat muzzle of the gun burned for an instant, as though a red-hot blade had momentarily brushed the skin of his arm. Then the custos were gone on down the line, and Kendric was left with a line of small, red scars along his wrist, forming numbers that read, "12/30-023744."

  Labeling complete, the slaves' shackles were removed and their group was divided, then divided again by prods and curt instructions from the virga-wielding custos. One man resisted briefly, then shrieked and fell when a custos stepped up from behind and touched him lightly with the virga. The man struggled to his feet moments later, but the shirt material over his left shoulder showed scorch marks, and his left hand continued to tremble from the effects of a large jolt of electricity. After that, no one opposed the custos's orders.

  Kendric' s group remained by the small building while the rest were marched in ragged formation off across the cavern floor. Then a pair of custos separated ten slaves from the waiting group and led them inside the building, leaving the rest still standing among the thunder of the rockfalls. Kendrics decided that the building must be an elevator head, because he could hear the squeal and rattle of cables amid the din. It was a long time before the two custos emerged alone from the building and selected ten more men and women. This time, Kendric was one of them.

  The elevator was an open cage with a waist-high chain railing suspended within a light metal framework over a square, dark pit in the building's floor. "Stay clear of the walls," one custos said, then pressed a control on the side of the cage. The primitive elevator plunged into gloom so complete that Kendric could no longer see the head of the

  man who was standing on his toes, scant centimeters in front of him.

  The mine elevator had not been built with the safety of slaves in mind. Above waist level, there was nothing between the passengers and the rock walls but the four struts at the corners of the cage. Though there were no lights, the plummeting sensation in the pit of Kendric's stomach told him that the cage was dropping into the depths of the mountain at a speed that anyone who accidentally brushed against those invisible walls could lose a hand or arm, or worse, be yanked from the elevator and crushed. The clattering rattle of chains and wire ropes squeaking through pulleys was as deafening as the rockfalls had been above, and the floor of the car jerked and shuddered as the crowded slaves tried to huddle yet closer to one another in the center of the cage.

  After what seemed like an endless drop into stifling darkness, the cage slowed, then was flooded with light as it arrived at an open level. Kendric and the others blinked against the sudden glare as one of the custos opened the cage gate. "You and you, out," he said gruffly, then punched the controls again and the cage resumed its rapid descent.

  The cage stopped twice more. At the third level down, the custos prodded Kendric and another man out. They were left blinking in the light as the elevator dropped away, rattling further down into darkness. The spot where they stood was at the end of a low-ceilinged passageway, lit by fluoro sticks bolted to bare rock. If anything, it was hotter and more humid here than in the upper level. The remnants of : Kendric's black uniform clung to him, soggy with sweat and with 1 water condensing from the steamy air. A dull, throbbing sound, more felt than heard, seemed to pulse within the rock under his boots, and he guessed
that it must be from pumps of some sort.

  Kendric glanced at his companion. He looked to be just barely into his twenties, for he wore a shirt and trousers in blended pastel shades that might have been fashionable on some planet elsewhere in the Galaxy. Like Kendric's uniform, the other man's clothes had not held up well under the crowding and dirt of their passage to Grod.

  "I guess it's straight ahead, then," Kendric said. His voice seemed to startle the young man, whose eyes widened with the luster of terror.

  "It's all a mistake, you see," the man said, his voice so soft Kendric could barely make out the words. "I shouldn't be here at all! It's all a mistake!"

  "Come on, son. Let's find some people."

  "You don't understand!" The voice was louder now. "It's all been a mistake! A mistake! I shouldn't have been sent here! I tried to tell them..."

  It was as though the pent-up terror and frustration of past months were finally breaking through some long-standing dam. The man talked louder and faster, his eyes growing brighter, his words more disjointed.

  "Simmer down, son." Kendric put the edge of command authority into his voice, but with no effect. His companion looked wildly both ways, then turned and lunged toward the yawning elevator shaft behind them.

  Kendric spun sharply and swept out with his foot, which sent the panic-stricken man down in a helpless sprawl on the rock. He came up blood-smeared and sobbing, but no longer gripped by sheer, blind panic.

  "You've got pretty quick feet there, toggie."

  Kendric spun at the new voice and found himself facing a man as tall as himself but at least twenty kilos heavier. He was mud-smeared, and his hair and beard were shaggy, as though hacked off with whatever sharp edge might have been available at the time. He wore sandals, a cloth strap tied across his forehead like a sweat band, and nothing else. Though it was difficult to see behind the nearest fluoro-tube, Kendric could make out the shadows of perhaps a dozen more men and women farther down the tunnel.

  "Sometimes, though," the man continued, "you just gotta let them go. They're not worth the trouble."

  "He was bolting for the elevator shaft," Kendric said. "If he'd gone in, he'd have killed himself.. .and maybe everyone in the cage below."

  "So? No great loss. If enough people die that way, maybe they'll put doors across the shafts. And just maybe I'm going to throw the two of you down that shaft anyway."

  Kendric said quietly. "I don't want to fight you. I'm a prisoner here...just like you."

  "Haw!" the man guffawed. "Hear that? The toggie thinks he's a damned muckin' slave like us! C'mon! Let's show him the proper respect for a TOG naval officer 'n gen'leman!"

  "Leave him alone, Van," a woman's voice said. "We don't have time for your games."

  "Stay out of it, T.C.!"

  "Like hell I will." The woman stepped forward into the light. She was tall and slender. Though it was hard to tell through the dirt and mud, Kendric thought her hair might have been blond and her face beautiful under the smears of dirt. She wore no more clothing than the man she'd called Van. "You and your gang always feel you have to bully everyone they send down here. It doesn't make sense when we're

  all in this together!"

  "Oh, listen to the lady!" Van' s sarcastic tone was echoed by a ripple of dull laughter from the crowd.

  Kendric spread his arms in a not-armed gesture and stepped forward. "Look, Van, I don't want trouble with you or anyone else. I'm..."

  The big man spun and charged with a roar that echoed from the tunnel's rock walls. The youngster still on the ground yelped and backpedaled on all fours to avoid the charge.

  Kendric was not as unprepared as his stance suggested. His gesture had been deliberate, in fact, one he suspected the giant might try to take advantage of. Van brought one arm whistling around in a broad arc as he charged. If it had connected, it could have broken Kendric's neck. But Kendric was no longer in the same spot.

  Though Fleet training for a TOG Imperial Naval officer did not stress hand-to-hand combat or the martial arts, Kendric's background as a Gael did. A tradition of prowess in war thousands of years old had left a legacy of several martial arts forms to which most Gael youngsters were exposed as soon as they began formal schooling. Kendric had been no exception and had studied two ancient Terran combat forms that had survived the Gael Cluster's Dark Age. When Kendric had been chosen to attend school on the Imperial world of Kathlandi Primus, he had missed the regular routine of physical exercise and mental discipline. On his own initiative, he had discovered a small Kathlandian dan led by a Black Belt tutor willing and able to continue his instruction in both karate and ju-jitsu.

  Kendric did not attempt to block Van's attack. Instead he spun, sidestepped, and pushed, his thrust guiding the elbow of the big man's arm as it swung, adding to its impetus. With a meaty thwack, Van's fist connected with the stone wall of the tunnel, and his second bellow beat his first for sheer volume.

  As Van rebounded from the tunnel wall, Kendric was there, guiding his opponent's lunge across his hip. The move called for the fighter to grasp the opponent's shirt front to throw him. In the absence of a shirt to grab, Kendric made do with a fistful of Van's wiry, mud-slick chest hair. The big man screamed until his impact with the tunnel floor drove the wind from his lungs.

  Kendric was on top of him in the same instant, one thumb jammed like a steel rod hard against Van's carotid up under the angle of his jaw.

  "Do I pass your test?"

  The big man gasped for breath once, then managed a short, sharp nod. Kendric stood and stepped back, letting the other man up.

  "That was pretty good for raw meat," a woman's voice said. Kendric turned and saw it was the same young woman whom Van had called "T.C."

  He smiled, pleased that the moves had come when he'd needed them, though it had been several years since he'd practiced ju-jitsu. Kendric was definitely rusty, but Van's attack had been all muscle and strength and rush, the easiest type to redirect. He jerked a thumb at the man behind him. "Is this some kind of initiation, Miss?"

  "I suppose you could call it that," she said. She pitched her voice louder, directing it at Van, who was sitting up now, holding his injured wrist. "If the custies find you've broken your hand, you know what you can expect from them!"

  Van glowered. "Ain't broken."

  "Better let me have a look," Kendric said. Van's glower darkened, but he sat still while Kendric manipulated the man's fingers and wrist. "Doesn't feel broken," Kendric said a moment later. First aid had been part of his Navy training at Grelfhaven. "Though we'd need a scan imager to be sure."

  "Yeah, well, you won't find that stuff down here, toggie."

  "From the swelling, I'd say you sprained it. If you can get some ice..."

  "We don't have that down here, neither." Van snatched his hand back. "I don't need your help, toggie. Leave me alone!"

  "You're a cool one, for raw meat," T.C. said. "And you certainly handle yourself well. What's your name?"

  "Kendric Fraser."

  "And that's what's left of a Navy uniform?"

  "I'm afraid so. But somehow, I don't think I'm on the Imperial promotion lists anymore."

  T.C. laughed then, a strange sound in that dark, underground corridor. "You got that right. But you'll want to get out of those clothes."

  "Uh..." He hesitated, suddenly uncomfortable. The other people in the tunnel had moved closer while he talked with T.C., and he was warmly aware that none of them, men or women, wore more than a loin cloth. Most didn't even bother with that. Though attitudes had been changing in the years since the Gaels had met TOG, there were still deeply ingrained feelings—taboos, almost—against nudity among most Gaels. Though Kendric no longer regarded himself as Alban, his upbringing by conservative parents in a small Alban town had left him embarrassed by the sight of so much skin—even when it was largely hidden by mud.

  The woman nodded. "Believe me, you'd better strip, both of you. There's a fungus down here that likes warm, wet, dark places, a
nd it's sheer misery if it starts growing under wet clothing." She put her hands on her hips and shook her head. "I promise you, halfway into your first shift you'll be entirely too tired to think about anything except food and sleep."

  "I think I'm beginning to get the idea."

  "Your stuff won't last long down here, anyway. Those fancy boots of yours will be rotting before the week's out, and your feet with them. 1 recommend that you cut the soles off and give them to Van, over there in the corner. He'll make you some sandals out of them."

  Kendric's eyebrows crept up. "Why would Van do anything for me?"

  "Why shouldn't he? We're all in the same family. Right, Van?"

  The big man grumbled something untranslatable as he got to his feet. T.C. continued. "We'll tear up your shirt to make sweat bands. They're useful for keeping mud and sweat out of your eyes, and if you break a gas pocket, they might help you breathe for an extra few seconds."

  "What about those suits we saw people wearing, up on the top?"

  "What.. .the custies? Protective slickers, to keep the acid off. The water has a pretty high acid level higher up, and the rain on the surface will eat your face off if you stand in it long enough. It's not so bad down here on this level. You were lucky to be assigned here! The acid is mostly neutral i/ed by the calcium carbonate in the rocks above. Anyhow, protective gear is just for the bosses and the custies. We don't rate that sort of stuff."

  "I ain't sure we rate you, toggie," Van added.

  Kendric turned to face the man squarely. "Would you like to discuss it... again?"

  Van stared at Kendric a moment, still rubbing his wrist. Then his eyes dropped, and he turned away, shrugging. "C'mon, then. Let's find you a place to flop. Next shift'll be called before too long, and we don't want the custies to find us gathered around the elevator shaft!"

  They had a brief period of time to talk after that, in the dark, mud-floored cave called the barracks. The woman's name was Terra Chenetta Lloyd. "But everybody calls me T.C.,'" she explained. Kendric could understand why, after witnessing Van's reaction to his uniform. "Terra" was a popular name throughout the Imperial Human diaspora, but not among TOG's less privileged classes. T.C. had been a slave laborer at Mine 12, Level 3 for almost a year. She didn't know exactly how long because there was no way of keeping a record, but the work shifts in Grod ran according to a strict schedule of twenty work shifts down, four shifts up. She had "seen the sky," as she put it, twenty-eight times since beginning to keep count in her head. Assuming that each alternating work and rest shift was six hours long, twenty work shifts equalled ten days, and the entire cycle added up to twelve. Only two others in the group had been there longer, Van and a gray, withered woman named Ellen.