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As we filed out, we were met by a guard of armed men. I’m no expert, but their armor didn’t look like anything I’ve seen in the movies. Breastplate, helmet, and smallish shield, but they looked thicker than in the movies. Rustier, too. Most of the armor was worn over leather or leather-like clothing of some description. Every one of them had at least two pieces of edged weaponry on them, but they were mostly swords that looked longer and thinner than most of what you see in the movies, crossed like an X on their backs. Most carried a short sword or dagger on their hips as well, and they moved much more easily than I would have believed under that kind of load. A few had long spears with really heavy heads – I later learned that the actual term was “pole-arms.” I hadn’t really been exposed much to our military; most Americans aren’t, but I started to wonder if it was just that they were used to the load or if there was something else going on. For some reason the whole show made me a little nervous. I was carrying a little Mark 7 disrupter TiaGrace gave me and showed me how to shoot and handle, but it’s not imposing like that much metal, and I’d developed the habit of carrying it mostly because Tia Grace expected me to. I could hit something with it, but I was no trained commando.
A line of the armored men came between us and Golden Hind, and I used my datalink to close the hatch so they wouldn’t go in. We didn’t really have a method of communication, so that seemed a smart thing to do in lieu of slapping their hands away from everything they weren’t supposed to touch. All of the armed men were larger than average for this time and place, but even Will was taller than any of them. One of the armored men said something in a harsh, guttural tongue that sounded nothing like any of the languages I knew, but it sounded challenging. John Dulles tried to respond, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m sure it’s nothing to get upset over.” He spread his hands in that calming way that most Americans will use to reduce tension. The native leader gestured imperiously, come here. I felt a certainty it was not directed at me, but Dulles walked straight towards him, like a zombie in a trance.
With unbelievable speed, the leader then drew his short sword and gutted Dulles. Dulles stood there for a moment as in disbelief, then crumpled, bleeding and bloody, onto the muddy ground.
Simultaneously, his men cut us off from Dulles, fencing us in with suddenly drawn weapons. We didn’t speak a word of their language but their gestures with their weapons were pretty much universal speak for stand right there and don’t do anything to make me kill you.
We were in shock. None of us had any idea what the hell had just happened, or why. I wasn’t even certain Dulles had made a sound other than a wordless grunt as he was being eviscerated, and that sounded more due to pressure on his lungs while making the wound rather than any pain. None of us liked Dulles, or even respected him, but he was supposed to be our leader, and there he was bleeding out in the mud while we were standing there hemmed in by a ring of sharp metal. I mean, what the hell? Damned savages. The leader was smiling and laughing, damn him.
Will and Jayden were wailing, and I was pretty dismayed myself. Even John Kyle was visibly shocked. Then another of them stepped away from the circle, gesturing for us to follow. I had just time enough to think, no way. Better to go down in a futile gesture of defiance than like a sheep to the slaughter, but then the ones behind us started prodding, not gently, with their weapons. It wasn’t an invitation to slaughter. They wanted us to follow Savage Number Two for some reason. Okay, I wasn’t going to make them kill me if they weren’t already minded to, but I saw the others start towards Golden Hind, and I was damned if they were going to get their hands on that. I took piloting control via datalink, locked the door, set full hull charge and told Golden Hind to take off and hover ten ithirds (23 Earth kilometers or so) straight up. It would stay there until I called it back or some critical component failed decades or centuries from now.
That generated some excitement. Lots of shouting and gesturing. I wasn’t certain, but I think they thought there was still someone on board. Good, let them think there was someone onboard. Just to encourage the illusion, I had our energy gun target that little shithole castle, and used the most energetic setting the system would let me use on planet, which was a dampering of six. The central section of stonework blew apart in a blast of newly-created gravel, tumbling to the ground. Underneath where it used to be, a ten meter crater gaped.
John Kyle, Will and Jayden all started babbling, “What the hell!”, “How did that happen?” It occurred to me I’d better feign ignorance as well, and joined in. It only takes one slip, and if there are four times as many people who know the secret, there are four times the number of opportunities for betrayal. None of us knew what was in store, but with the offhand way they’d butchered John Dulles, I didn’t want to make any bets it would involve dancing girls and extended vacations drinking pina coladas on the beach. They silenced us by controlled jabs with sharp pointy things, and herded us off to where they wanted us.
It was a blacksmith’s. Enroute, I noticed a stark dichotomy. Everyone was either armed, or wearing leg chains. Never both, never neither, always one or the other. Even the women. So you can guess why they wanted to take us to the blacksmiths. The set up here had just acquired four new slaves. The blacksmith himself was chained, as were his assistants. First hypothesis, you were either a member of the warrior caste, or you were a slave. It didn’t take him long to hammer us each into our very own rusty manacles. John Kyle tried to fight, and got the crap beaten out of him for trying. Major Kyle had five or six inches on the armored savage and some kind of hand to hand training, but it was completely one-sided. Major Kyle’s blows all missed, and the counterpunches were too fast and too hard to be deflected. It was all over in seconds, and the contemptuous ease with which the savage beat him was shocking.
By the time we were all nailed into our chains, it was full dark. Jayden and I helped John Kyle rise, and supported him as they herded us into a cell for the night, a cage made of parts wood, metal, and rough rock, roughly eight feet on a side and five feet high. The only light was a single torch next to the building entrance, a loose fitting wooden door. We had to hunch over to walk or shuffle, and be careful of protrusions in the irregular ceiling. There were two other bedraggled wretches in the same cell as us, about ten others in two additional cages in the same room. One cage looked like it was a family of five – two parents, two adolescent girls, a third prepubescent. They were all dirty, smelly, miserable wretches, with barely enough meat on their bones to stay alive. If we’d been back on Earth, I’d say the girls were probably about nine, thirteen, and fifteen, the parents in their sixties. Here it was more likely the girls were older and the parents much younger than what you’d guess. The third cage held four adult – more or less – women, two of them obviously pregnant, and one young child, no more than four. In both other cages, the occupants huddled together for warmth. The two elderly-looking men in with us looked too beaten down to care. The smell was worse than the portable toilets on the fourth day of some over-crowded weekend festival. Funny how none of the stories about ancient times mentions how bad it all smelled. If there was a place to do your business, I didn’t see it.
The chains between our ankles were long enough that they didn’t stop us from walking somewhat normal, but running at speed was right out. We still had an edge – we didn’t have to run all the way away, wherever the border was to the next little shithole king or noble. All we had to do was get free enough long enough for me to call Golden Hind. Even if we could just gain fifty meters or so of clear space, I could probably use Golden Hind’s weapon to defend us from pursuit.
The four of us huddled together as far from the others as possible. “Major Kyle?” Jayden was trying to help him, keep him awake. He’d been hit pretty hard on the skull at least twice.
“Wha?”
“Stay with me. Stay awake. You might have a concussion.” I hoped Jayden knew more than I did about medicine. I couldn’t imagine him getting a Ph.D. in biology from Johns Hopkins without some idea of medicine.
“’kay.”
“How long until they start looking?” That was Will. He meant Earth, VSC, or the Empire. Potential rescuers.
“They were allowing up to two weeks for us to make the circuit. They were only expecting about five days, but the mission profile said two weeks in case we found something really interesting or got delayed. How long after that until they send someone looking, we don’t know, but if we’re hoping for rescue, we’re stuck here at least a week and a half. I’d say up to about fifteen days, no more, before TiaGrace wonders why I’m not back in time for my turn on her ship.”
“You know anything about why the ship took off like that?”
“I’d rather not talk about it. What you don’t know, you can’t tell. Accidentally or under torture. Better if these savages think there’s still someone on board.”
“Point.” Will wasn’t stupid, just naïve. I wasn’t exactly the Kingpin of Temecula, but I had cousins whose options were worse than mine. On both sides, but especially some of Mom’s cousins. You pick shit up. One of those was, “What your enemies don’t know doesn’t get you killed.”
“Joe, “John Kyle was trying to speak, “So’ethig’s na ri. ‘M goo a ‘do. Thir’ dan.” Third dan was impressive. It should at least have been a fight, even if his opponent had been a real life version of Bruce Lee.
“What I don’t understand is why we all of a sudden decided to land and pile out,” Jayden chimed in, “That was stupid. I knew better. There was no way we should have done that. For all we know, we could be dying right this moment from a thousand different bugs we have no resistance to.”
“Well, know better or not, we’re stuck with it now,” I told him, “Any advice on cutting down the risk?”
“Well, yeah. Don’t eat anything native, especially don’t drink the water. Stay away from close contact with the natives.”
“None of which is going to help us in our current situation.”
“True that.”
And then an explanation hit me. “Shit!”
Copyright 2016 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.
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