The Gatekeepers (The Survivors Book Eight)

by Nathan Hystad

  “And you’re from Earth, or one of the other human settlements?” she asked.

  “Earth,” I said, adding, “originally. Kind of all over the place now.”

  “You seem to know Udoon,” she said quietly. I had to strain to hear her voice.

  “I’ve been there. To the Udoon station, at least,” I told her. That was where we’d caught the scared Kraski as he’d tried to meet Lom of Pleva with Karo in hand.

  She made a noise. “Depravity, if you ask me. I know the locals love the station, but I never understood the point of a place where all one did was drink, gamble, or associate with illegal activity.”

  “I see your point,” I told her. I needed to learn more about my surroundings. “How long have you been imprisoned?”

  “Five of your years,” she told me.

  “How did you end up here?” I asked. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Aren’t we?”

  “You’re correct. I was part of a team specializing in experimental ship drive technology. We were stranded after our core exploded and sent us to the far reaches. Our life support failed, and everyone died,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. My body was pressed to the wall, and I leaned over, hovering near the hole that allowed us to communicate. “You made it, though.” It wasn’t a question.

  There was a slight pause. “I did. I flew a pod to the surface. I saw the lights and continued to them on foot. They opened the doors to let me in, then shoved me in a cage.”

  “Are you ever able to leave your cell?” I asked.

  “Yes. They’re assessing you first. Trying to see if you’re a danger. If you play along, you should be able to walk about in a few rotations of their world,” Loweck told me. This was good news. Maybe I could see Slate and Karo again, perhaps find Polvertan and Dreb.

  This woman might be a mole, though, and I had to keep some of my questions strategic, especially about my connection to the others. “Do they give you any indication that you’ll be released?”

  Another pause, then Loweck spoke again. This time, her voice had a hint of sadness to it. “No. No one is released. At least, not as far as I can tell.”

  “What do they do with the prisoners, then? Why are we here?” I asked, angry at the entire situation. My only objective was to secure my crew and head home to Mary and Jules. This had already taken too long, and I tried not to imagine how worked up Mary and Nat would be by our lack of communication. In another day or two, they’d be ready to single-handedly tear apart planets to find us.

  “We work the rock. Six hours a day. Bashing stone with pickaxes,” she said.

  Great. That was what I had to look forward to for the rest of my life. “How many prisoners are there?”

  “I don’t know. We’re only one side of four. The workers are in shifts, and I see the same thirty faces every day. Other than that, I could only guess,” Loweck said.

  “I’ll take a guess,” I told her.

  “Two hundred. Maybe more.”

  “And guards?” I hoped she wasn’t a mole, because this wouldn’t look good.

  “Maybe twenty. There are usually four along the walls, and two watching the workers in the pit. But they have drones, and other means of keeping everyone in line,” she said.

  I didn’t ask what that meant, not yet. I was about to bring up Pol and Dreb when she spoke again. “They’re coming. Fill the hole with something. Clothing, dirt, a small pebble.”

  I scrambled around, searching for something to shove in the tiny opening, and found a piece of rock the right size. “Thank you, Loweck.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” she whispered.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re going to help us escape.” The voice muffled as she covered her end, and I heard the guards barking at her from beyond. I stuck the stone in on my side and leaned against the wall, her last word echoing in my mind.

  Escape.

  ____________

  Three days passed by with the same routine. Terrible food. No discussions. No bed to sleep on. I was so glad at that moment that Jules and Mary weren’t here with us. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. They were safely on Haven, warm and protected. It was the only solace I found while lying on my back, staring at the black ceiling, counting grooves in the stone.

  It was the worst. On the fourth day, after first talking with Loweck, someone different approached the cell. This local guard was shorter yet, but he moved with dignity, a sense of self-confidence the others didn’t relay. He tapped the barrier off, stepping inside. None of the others had done this. I stood straight up, ready to defend myself, though I kept my arms loose at my sides to not appear aggressive.

  He was without a gun, but the little guard didn’t seem to care. He stomped over to me, reaching up to grab my jaw. I let him touch my face with his black-gloved hand, and he assessed me as if I were a show dog on display. It was unsettling.

  I could end him there, I knew it, but I restrained myself. Killing this guard would only kill me, and with me, the others’ chance at escaping with Loweck’s help. I clenched my hands in fists as I thought about my daughter and Mary’s smile.

  The guard turned his back to me and motioned me forward. I followed cautiously, past the lowered energy barrier and into the corridor. After nearly a week locked in the cell, it was strange being on the other side. I refused to glance over at it. I expected they’d return me here at some point.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, my throat dry and rough.

  He didn’t answer. We finally passed other cells that held all kinds of beings. How many of them had arrived through the portals? Why did this prison have a veritable zoo of aliens at their disposal? I wasn’t sure if I’d ever find out, but I hated this place with a fervor. A few of them peered up at me with sad eyes. They were beaten, hungry, and desperate.

  I was led out of the cells and into an open room with twenty-foot ceilings, windows carved out of the roof, allowing natural light to seep through. This was the chow hall, for lack of a better term. Most of the people milling about were in black jumpsuits, and many were the local race. These ones didn’t have on masks and uniforms like the guards. They were pale and bald, their large eyes jutting from their heads like they were trying to escape their sockets. A few of them glanced up at me before returning to the brown piles of food on the trays in front of them.

  The guard brought me to the line, and I understood he wanted me to eat. Once I had a tray in my hand, he left my side, heading for the door, where he paused and whispered at the one watching the dining room. And with that, I was now part of the general population of the prison.

  There were twenty tables, each allowing for ten prisoners. I found the only one devoid of anyone and sat at the edge of it, my back to the wall so I could see everything in the room. Slate stumbled in. He looked like crap, his hair a mess, his beard sticking out at all angles. His red eyes met mine, and he gave me a slight nod. A few minutes later, he was bringing a tray to me, and he sat beside me, not across.

  “Thank God you’re okay,” I told him.

  “Me? I was worried about you. You’re too dainty for this kind of place,” Slate said, ever the joker.

  “Have you seen Karo?”

  He shook his head, scooping up some food with something resembling a spoon. At least they gave us utensils here. He was looking around grimly. “This is my first time out. You?”

  “Same.” I told him about my encounter with Loweck in the cell behind mine.

  “Can we trust her? I haven’t seen any other women here, have you?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. These aliens could all be females,” I told him.

  He took another spoonful and shuddered. “You’re right. What’s the plan?”

  “The plan?”

  “Yeah, how do we break out of here?”

  “We haven’t seen outside yet. We have to do some recon first. Loweck mentioned escaping with us. I’ll need to explore that. She’s been held for five years. That mea
ns she has a much better lay of the land then we’ll ever have. We need her.” I tried the food and gagged at the taste. Maybe it was eating at a table with a spoon instead of my hands, but it did taste better than in the cell.

  “What about this work detail? A pickaxe can make a good weapon,” Slate said.

  “Sounds like they have the firepower to blast you on the spot. We’ll have to see,” I said.

  “We might be given the chance sooner rather than later.” Slate nodded to the exit, where the prisoners were lining up.

  “We need to find Karo. Loweck said there were other complexes connected. Other wings to the prison. If we don’t locate him here, we’re going to need to extract him,” I whispered.

  Slate nodded his agreement and finished his tray of food. I ate as much as I could and washed it away with a glass of murky, tepid water.

  We were the last ones seated, and a guard came behind us, kicking my chair. He motioned for me to stand with his harpoon-shaped gun.

  “We’re up,” I told him, and my big friend and I followed the line outside. It was bright, everything with a red tinge to it, reminding me of New Spero.

  The rock wall shimmered, and I saw that it was an energy barrier projection. I made a mental note of the location of the keypad, ten yards to the left of the opening. I did a quick count and saw there were indeed thirty of us, like Loweck had advised.

  The guards lifted in the air, soft propulsion from thin packs harnessed to them.

  We were led a mile, then two. I was sweating through my jumpsuit by the time we arrived at the pit. When Loweck had mentioned it, I was picturing a minor area, contained and guarded. This was massive. Steps were carved out of the hard black stone, and we advanced into the maw of the ground here. By the time we hit the bottom, my legs and calves were burning fiercely. It had to be three hundred steps underground. The guards were down there waiting for us, and one cut his jet pack inches above the ground and landed on the rock, kicking up a little dust.

  “This is no joke,” Slate said, running a hand through his damp hair.

  Above us, silent droves hovered as a reminder they were watching. There were only the two guards who came with us, each with weapons strapped to their backs, but not in their hands. They were complacent, and maybe that was a crack in the foundation we could exploit. Only time would tell.

  The line began to spread out, these people knowing what their tasks were. One figure stood at the front, and she turned to us. She was a dark orange tone with wavy long hair, somehow not greasy. She lifted a hand at her side in a hidden greeting.

  “I think we’ve met Loweck,” I said.

  Slate’s voice was low. “She’s beautiful.”

  Thirteen

  We made the trek to the pit again, my fourth day in a row. This time, my legs didn’t burn as badly once we neared the bottom, and Slate and I escorted Loweck to the far edge of the fenced-off area.

  “What do they do with all this rock?” I asked, searching for an answer.

  Loweck shrugged. She was humanoid, though we’d never heard of the race she was part of. She was clearly not a local from Udoon. She’d told us her people were called Rescaps. Slate glanced over at her, and I shook my head. Leave it to Slate to remain solo for years after Denise betrayed him, then find someone he was interested in at a prison millions of light years from anything we knew.

  It was as if the universe had a strange sense of humor.

  “I know what they do with it,” Slate said.

  “And?” I prompted him as he used a laser to cut into the stone. Apparently, it went on for a few miles of the planet’s surface, and everything around there was built with it. The prison had to be there for cheap labor. I wasn’t expecting a judge and jury any time soon.

  “They throw it in a pile. Probably make a mountain to counter the crater the prisoners have made over the years. What else could they do with so many tons of rock?” Slate wiped sweat from his brow. It wasn’t warm out here, but the journey mixed with the endless labor was enough to make us perspire.

  Once we were done, the moisture quickly cooled, and by the time we ended up within the high prison walls, I was shivering.

  “They must have a reason, but I really don’t care what it is. Loweck, we can’t keep doing this forever. We need to find a way out,” I told her.

  She lifted the visor she was using to protect her from rock chips jutting in her eyes, and met my gaze. “If you haven’t noticed, your friend has been watching us every day.”

  My pulse hurried, and I searched for the man, trying to not be obvious about it. She hissed at me quietly, “He’s not there right now. He’s quite stealthy at avoiding detection.”

  It had to be Magnus. So he’d eluded capture after all. That was a good sign. He’d also salvaged enough supplies to keep going, along with weapons. He had the option to leave through the portal and bring reinforcements, but with the volatility of the stones, I wasn’t sure he’d risk it.

  We worked for another two hours, cutting away rock in even chunks, then transporting them with the aid of a robotic hover lift. It was strenuous, even with the advanced tools. It was far from the old mining days on Earth.

  Everyone was lining up, ready to move, and the guards were lazily standing near the stairs, chatting to each other, when I heard the falling rock. It bounced along the walls before landing ten yards away from my feet. I jumped in reaction and set my sights to the ridge above. I thought I saw Magnus’ form for a brief moment before there was nothing. The drones were up in the air, focused on inside the pit, not the ground around it.

  I crouched, as if I was tying my shoelace, and picked up the flat rock.

  The others are in pit 3. Karo with them. Four days. End of shift. Be ready.

  The words were engraved into the rock face, and I grabbed the cutter, slicing the evidence into pieces, then kicked the remains around.

  The guards barked at me, and I set the tool onto the rocky floor.

  “What is it?” Slate asked. He and Loweck had been talking, and neither even noticed the drop.

  “Magnus sent a message. Four days. He said the others are working pit three.” I grinned at him.

  “Four days. Then what?” Slate asked.

  Loweck took the answer. Her orange skin darkened, and her bright blue eyes danced as she spoke. “Then we escape.”

  ____________

  Waiting for another few days was excruciating. We kept our heads low, eating before and after our shifts before being relegated to our cells. Loweck and I talked each night, deciding how to disarm the guards. We agreed they would be tired and disinterested by the end of the workday, as they always were, and we’d be able to attack easily.

  It was the night before Magnus’ planned extraction, and we were beat after the long shift. It had been warmer, and I really wished we were supplied more than a bucket of water to rinse off with after the pits each day. It was also disturbing washing off with the rest of the local prisoners staring at me. They were strange creatures.

  “So how good is this friend of yours?” she asked through the secret hole between our walls.

  “He’s the best. Military, captain of space vessels, husband and father.” I knew the last weren’t necessarily prerequisites to most people, but they would be to anyone with children.

  “How will he deal with both pits at once?” she asked.

  I didn’t know and told her so. “If it were me, I’d rescue us out first, then head to pit three as a unit. Are you ready if it comes to a fight?”

  There was a slight pause before she answered, “I’m ready.”

  “Good. I hope we can pull this off. Truth is, we’ve been in stickier situations than this one.” I had to laugh.

  “And look at you now,” she said with a hint of mirth.

  I glanced at my filthy uniform, my black rock-dust-covered hands, and shook my head. We were going to escape tomorrow, and with the two rookie Gatekeepers at our side. It was already decided; we only had to follow the steps. I told m
yself this a few times, fighting the doubt creeping into my mind. We were bringing them all home.

  “What’s the deal with Slate?” she asked quietly.

  I’d been waiting for this. I didn’t know how compatible the two races would be, but from everything I could tell, we were very similar. “He’s… complicated.”

  “He doesn’t seem complicated,” she said.

  It wasn’t my place to tell her his past. I couldn’t tell her about his brother being killed overseas long before the Event. About Slate signing up for the military with a head full of revenge, only to never find peace from it. He’d been by my side since we’d arrived at the base in New Mexico, and had traveled all around this great universe, helping me save people and saving himself in the process.

  I definitely couldn’t tell her about the woman Slate considered his one love, the very same woman that was working for Lom of Pleva, and that I’d shot dead at point blank. I couldn’t tell her any of that, but I could tell her something. “He’s the finest man I know. He’s my brother, and he deserves the best.” I closed my eyes, thinking about how much we’d all been through.

  “I can tell. I didn’t mean to pry,” she told me.

  “Where will you go when this is all over?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know. I don’t have a home to return to. My home was our ship, my family the crew. They’re all dead now. Perhaps…” She stopped.

  I had a feeling where this was heading. “Go on.”

  “Perhaps I can come with you. Live on this Haven you spoke of. Would they let someone like me live there?” she asked.

  Someone like her? “Of course. Haven is a refuge for the unlikely and outsiders. It has been since Kareem of the Deltra started it. It may be turning into a regulated planet, but the heart of the place hasn’t changed. You’d be more welcome there than you can imagine,” I told her, and meant it. Leslie and Terrance were building something special.

  It had only been ten days, but I was feeling the itch to resist authority. The sheer idea we might break free the next day had me vibrating with anticipation.