by Helen Allan
“We should shoot it,” the first guard said, “before it gets away again.”
“No!” Sorrow shouted and advanced two more, quick steps, “your leaders will be very angry with you if you kill me. I have information they need to know. There is danger coming for your kind, a big war.”
“On the ground,” the second guard said, “with your hands behind your back.”
Sorrow reluctantly laid on the hot desert sand and did as she was told.
The two guards ran towards her, one jumping on her back, his knee digging painfully into her side.
“I got her,” he laughed.
“You didn’t get me, you idiot,” Sorrow snorted, “I surrendered.”
“Tie her hands,” the first guard said.
“That is really not necessary,” Sorrow muttered, spitting out sand, “I gave myself up.”
The pair continued to tie her, before hauling her to her feet, ignoring her protests.
“Should we take her back?” the first asked, poking her stomach and breasts with his gun and tilting his head to look up her nose.
“Yes, you know what the captain said last time.”
“It has a pet findaile monster, remember, it almost killed us.”
“Yeah, true. I guess we should shoot it and then go back, in case its monster is nearby.”
“It would be good to show the other cadets first, though, you know they didn’t believe us – we can shoot it in front of them.”
“Oh yes,” the first laughed, “good idea.”
“Walk,” the first said, turning Sorrow East and giving her a hard shove.
“You don’t need to push me,” Sorrow growled, “I want to go with you.”
The pair continued to argue about what she was, whether they were doing the right thing, who had won at dice and who had captured her for the next two hours, as they frog-marched her across the hot desert sands.
Finally, having completely zoned out for much of their vacuous discussions, Sorrow noticed the terrain change slightly, the ground more littered in rocks and boulders than before.
Stumbling on a rock, she righted herself before she could fall, and addressed the closest guard.
“Are we nearly there?”
The guard ignored her and took her arm, drawing her to a halt before a section of ground that was clear of rocks and pebbles, and spinning her around three times.
“Ugh,” Sorrow muttered, feeling even dizzier as they opened a trap door and led her down a long flight of stairs, one guard before her, one behind.
The stairs, Sorrow counted 900, eventually ended at the entrance to a wide tunnel. They then pushed her into an elevator which dropped, Sorrow estimated given her feeling of nausea, several hundred feet per second.
“Why did you spin me?” she asked when they stepped out of the lift and all stood together, her eyes slowly adjusting to the new subterranean light.
“So, you wouldn’t know which way we went,” he rolled his eyes, as though this was perfectly obvious.
“It is stupid,” the second laughed.
Sorrow held her tongue.
The tunnel system was well-lit with a bright white luminescent light that seemed to beam down from the ceiling, nothing like what she had expected after her months living in the cavern beneath the mountain with the resistance. But, like the cavern, there was more oxygen down here than above ground.
“You don’t have to push me,” she frowned as she received another jab in the lower back, “I obviously came here of my own accord.”
“I didn’t see any cord,” one guard said
“It speaks strangely. It is not of this world, obviously,” the other replied, giving her another sharp jab in the back with his weapon.
“I think it is. It is a slave, but a deformed one. Perhaps it escaped its masters.”
“I’m not a slave,” Sorrow shook her head, but they continued as though she had not spoken.
“I will be the one to kill it,” the first said in a light, almost happy voice, as though it was discussing the weather.
“I’m the one with my gun out. I get to kill it.”
“We both want to use our guns; maybe we could both shoot it.”
“Yes, but I get to shoot it in the face.”
“Very well, I will shoot it in the chest – if it is as hard to kill as they say the red ones are, it will need two shots.”
“Agreed.”
“If I had attacked,” Sorrow muttered, “neither of you would have had time to shoot me, you fucking idiots.”
“Maybe we should both shoot her in the face too,” the one jabbing her in the back responded, causing them both to laugh.
“Halt,” a third voice said from the end of an intersecting corridor they were now approaching, “what do you have?”
“It’s the captain,” one of her captors whispered to the other.
“Let me handle this,” the other replied. “A prisoner,” he said loudly, and Sorrow thought, somewhat proudly, to the Nãga who now approached from the other end of the hallway.
“He will take it from us for sure,” the first guard whispered, “and we didn’t get to show the cadets.”
“Shit on shit,” the second whispered back as the one who had called to them came close.
Sorrow assessed the newcomer as he stepped into the light and stood, studying her in return. He was taller than her captors, older and more muscular, his face more angular. His scales shone golden and green in the light. He wore no shirt, just tight brown leggings and what looked to be weaponised gauntlets on his forearms. Clearly, this one was a soldier, fit, dangerous, and yet, something about his face didn’t say to Sorrow that he was a killer, his eyes, large and golden, seemed soft.
“I am not a prisoner,” Sorrow said, loud enough to cause the one who had spoken to step back slightly and frown as he scanned her from head to toe. “I came here to see your leader. I am on this planet to overthrow the alien gods and their army, and I need your help.”
“We can shoot it if you like,” the guard at her back said hopefully.
“Is it totally impossible for you two to follow orders?” the soldier barked at the two Nãga, ignoring Sorrow.
“Well,” one began.
“That was a rhetorical question,” the officer growled, “I told you, in no uncertain terms, that if indeed you did see something jump through the portal you were to leave it and return here to report the matter.”
“Yes, but it didn’t jump through,” one of the Nãga replied quickly, “it just walked by, and we caught it.”
“You didn’t catch me,” Sorrow said again, drawing the eyes of the soldier, who regarded her coolly.
“You are both under punishment duties for the rest of the week; you will report to my headquarters the moment you lock this creature in the cells.”
The two Nãga holding her groaned and began to move.
“Wait,” Sorrow said, trying to step back, but finding herself pressed close by the two guards behind her, “I came of my own accord. I do not intend to escape; prison is not necessary.”
“We don’t know what you are,” the one who ordered her imprisonment frowned, meeting her gaze and shaking his head, “it is for your own protection, and ours.”
“OK,” Sorrow nodded, “but you might want to keep Heckle and Jeckle here at a distance, they are dead keen to shoot me in the face.”
The Nãga captain laughed a deep and rich chuckle which echoed through the tunnel.
“I can assure you that will not happen,” he said, still laughing as he nodded for the guards to lead her away, “their weapons contain only blanks.”
Sorrow sat in the cell and studied her nails. The dry desert air had caused them to split and chip. The highly oxygenated water in the pool she bathed in inside the mountain retreat of the resistance had also seemingly contained minerals that dried out, rather than fed her skin, which also felt parched.
She ran a hand to her hair and retied her ponytail, her hair felt like straw, and she
grimaced. What she wouldn’t give for a long hot shower with soap, shampoo, conditioner and a fluffy white towel to step into.
She swallowed hard and frowned, the thought of water making her even more acutely aware of her thirst. Two hours walking in the heat, and the long walk down the stairs followed by the frogmarch through countless corridors to this cell had left her gasping.
“Hey,” she shouted now to the door, uncertain if anyone was behind it or could hear her. “I need a drink, please, I need some water.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise as she heard a key turn in the lock and watched the door swing open.
A young Nãga entered, holding her gun at the ready in one hand, a container of water in the other. Sorrow could immediately see the guard was a girl, her body shapely underneath her tight uniform, hips clearly feminine, although her chest seemed flat.
“Here,” the girl said, putting the flask on the floor and stepping backwards towards the door, her eyes not leaving Sorrow’s.
“Do you even have real bullets in that thing?” Sorrow smirked as she leant down and, opening the bottle, sniffed the contents.
‘Water.’
She gulped greedily from the flask, spilling a little down her front, continuing to watch the female as she stood uncertainly at the doorway.
“No,” the female Nãga said. “But how did you know that?”
“You might want to rethink your strategy when it comes to prisoners,” Sorrow snorted ruefully, “if I was dangerous, if I wanted to get down here and kill you all, you wouldn’t have stood a chance. Especially don’t go around telling people you are carrying blanks – just a heads-up there.”
“Thank you,” the Nãga said earnestly, “I will remember that lesson.”
Sorrow frowned.
“Why are you guarding me? Don’t your people have real prisons for criminals and dangerous offenders?”
“Oh yes,” she smiled, lowering her gun, “but those are back on world. This is the cadet recruitment and training centre; we do up-world manoeuvres and training, so, we don’t really have a proper prison. This room is for cadets who misbehave.”
“Ah,” Sorrow nodded, “so the man who ordered me locked up…?”
“Oh,” the girl smiled, her face suddenly softening, “that is the Captain, he is our high commander and a very important Nãga, but we are not supposed to talk about that. Isn’t he gorgeous?”
“By your standards, I’m sure he is very attractive,” Sorrow laughed, as much as at the girl’s words as at the strange conversation she was having.
“Oh no, by any standards,” the girls said earnestly, “he is perfect – I mean, did you smell him?”
“No,” Sorrow shook her head, ruefully, “I can’t say that I did smell your captain, but I’m sure next time I will rectify that.”
“Oh do,” the girl said, her eyes wide.
“Listen,” Sorrow said, placing the empty flask back on the floor where the girl had initially placed it, “when I first landed on this planet I had a pack with me, it had clothes, things from my homeworld, books. I wonder if you know what happened to it. It was taken, I think, by the two cadets that brought me down here.”
“Oh yes,” the girl said, suddenly very earnest. “The captain has your bag.”
“Well,” Sorrow smiled, “could you tell your captain that I want my bag, and I want to see the leaders of your people – and I’m not going to wait much longer to get what I want.”
“Will you escape?” the girl said, suddenly breathless with, if Sorrow wasn’t mistaken, excitement.
“I might.”
“Ooooh,” she shuddered and stepped back through the door, “I’ll tell him.”
“Good girl,” Sorrow said, as the door closed.
She waited, but didn’t hear the click of the lock and shook her head. Rising, she opened the door but didn’t leave the room, just sat back down to wait. If these Nãga couldn’t see that she was telling the truth by having the opportunity to escape, but not taking it, then they were perhaps a very, very stupid race and the cadets were just indicative of the whole.
‘Imagine that,’ she thought, ‘imagine if the whole race were friendly, naive, stupid lizard-people. Would I be doing the right thing to involve them in a war? A war that otherwise might not touch them, safe and hidden as they are beneath the surface of this world?’
She frowned as she thought through her options. But what had Judge said? Still a couple of hundred thousand troops to contend with, and his supporters just a few hundred at most. No, the only way to defeat the Gharial, now that their numbers were as low as they had ever been, was to have a significant force behind them. If the Nãga had a force, that could swing the tide of the battle. There might be no need to nuke the whole world – many would die, yes, but more would be saved.
Her thoughts were interrupted some thirty minutes later when she heard heavy steps in the corridor, and two faces appeared at the door.
“You might want to re-think your security measures,” she said dryly to the captain as he leaned on the doorjamb and considered her, the guard hopping from foot to foot behind him, her eyes wide.
“Perhaps,” he drawled, “or perhaps I did not seek to have you guarded particularly well.”
“This was a test?” Sorrow frowned.
The corners of his lips turned up slightly, but he did not answer.
“I need to see your leaders,” she said, letting out a deep breath, “there is a war coming.”
“There has been a war on this planet for thousands of years,” he said, now suddenly serious, “we are untouched by the violence on the surface of this once beautiful world.”
“Beautiful?” Sorrow shook her head, “you mean it wasn’t always a desert?”
“You have much to learn,” he said gently, “but come now, we will eat, you will tell me what you do know, and I will decide how to proceed from there.”
Sorrow nodded and rose.
As she left the room and followed the captain, the girl fell into step beside her.
“Did you smell him?” she whispered.
“No,” Sorrow laughed.
9
The subterranean world of the Nãga was like nothing Sorrow could even have imagined. It was a planet, inside a planet – a world so alien and different from what lay hundreds, maybe thousands of kilometres above, that even the wildest of imaginations could not have dreamt it up.
She swallowed hard as the lift opened and she and half a dozen cadets were spilled out onto the busy main street of a what appeared to be a small, rural town in the midst of a market day.
Sorrow sniffed and recoiled at some of the smells from the stalls they passed as Captain Micah led her and his cadets down the road towards the barracks. Much of the produce looked like food in various forms, but there were also clothes, shoes, hats, animals of all types and sizes in cages and in various stages of being killed and cooked.
Beyond the township were rolling hills interspersed with trees, shrubs, crops and paddocks of livestock, the like of which Sorrow had never seen.
“You have a world, within a world,” she said, shaking her head, “just as you said.”
“Yes,” the captain said, keeping his eye on the way ahead and guiding them through the crowds.
“How do you power this world – it looks like sunlight, but I know it can’t be that?”
“Algal fluorescence,” he said, as though this was something Sorrow would know about, something as obvious as saying ‘coal-fired power stations’ on Earth. She tucked this information away for a quiet time when she could ask him more.
“Your people are not vegetarian?” she frowned, trying to block her nose with her hand to stifle some of the smells that were now assaulting her nostrils.
“Some are, some aren’t,” he shrugged.
Sorrow looked around in wonder at the world she now stood in.
“Was this always here?” she whispered aloud.
“What was that?”
“I wa
s just wondering if this world always existed here, if your kind never used the surface.”
“The surface is a place of interest to explore, a place to keep a watch on, lest creatures arrive that might disrupt our way of life, but it has not been inhabited by my kind for thousands of years.”
“Is this because of the invasion of the gods?”
“No,” he laughed gently, “it is because we blew the shit out of it with weapons we misunderstood and destroyed all life above the ground.”
“Oh,” Sorrow smirked, thinking of Earth and its arms race, “I know of another planet with that potential.”
‘And your world might once again suffer this if I cannot convince your leaders to fight.’
Micah nodded as though he was only half-listening to her questions, and continued to lead her to the barracks.
As they arrived, she could see, quite plainly, that this was an army of weekend warriors, no more. These people were not primed for war or prepared for any kind of attack. They were obviously mostly cadets, like those she had already encountered, and their trainers.
“Captain,” a female soldier saluted as he walked through the double doors of a large building, Sorrow in tow, the cadets having branched off to a range of smaller buildings.
“Lieutenant,” Micah smiled, nodding to the soldier, “have you arranged the meeting, as I requested?”
“I tried,” she said, shaking her head, “can we speak in private?”
Micah nodded and indicated to Sorrow to take a seat on some nearby benches.
Not having any reason to do anything else, she did as she was asked and sat to wait.
“And here it is.”
Looking up she saw the cadets she called Heckle and Jeckle in the doorway, a swathe of young faces peering in behind them, too scared, obviously, to enter the room.
“Wow, you caught it?”
“Sure did,” Jeckle laughed, “we would have shot it too, but orders are orders,” he said the last in a deep, serious voice that had the others looking to him in awe.
Sorrow smirked.
“Hello,” she said, rising and walking towards the door.
As one the crowd of faces disappeared amid squeaks and squeals as they raced across the open courtyard the way they had come, leaving Heckle and Jeckle shaking their heads at her.