“This is the latest shipment of lasers from Planet Doom for King Erinol,”
one of the younger men said, prying open the one of the crates to show
the rest of the Resistance leaders gathered inside one of the caverns they
had made into their headquarters. “Peilor and I led a team of eighteen
men, and we had no trouble snatching this shipment away from the bungling
hunks of metal Zarkon left as Erinol’s personal guard.”
“No injuries, Kilnar?”
The question came from the man whom they all looked upon as the leader of the entire Resistance movement. With his unruly dark hair and the dark beard that covered most of his face, he seemed menacing, but all the men respected his strength and his wisdom in battle – even the ones older than he was. It was he who had trained the rest of the men to become fighters, and now it was about time for their work to come to fruition.
“None, sir,” Kilnar replied proudly. “And we were able to get seven crates of these babies over here. About fifty in each crate, latest models, too, from the looks of it.”
The rest of the men inside the cavern nodded in approval.
“It was a job well done, Kilnar,” the head war leader praised, ruffling the slight young man’s hair. “You and the rest of your team may move the crates into the armory and inventory them.” He smiled at the younger man. “You do us proud.”
“For the sake of our freedom, Sir Lyon,” he said, flushing with pleasure at his mentor’s compliment. Beaming, the young man took his leave.
“With that shipment of weapons, we now have new lasers eight hundred to eight hundred fifty strong from the three hijacked shipments and from Erinol’s soldiers who have chosen to join us,” the chief of the armory told the rest of the gathering when the younger man had gone. “That is not yet including the two hundred fifty or so we secured by taking out some of the robot soldiers during perimeter patrol.”
“That is enough, isn’t it?” one of the older men asked the chief war leader, Lyon, who had walked towards the cavern entrance to survey the community they had made for themselves deep within the forests of this planet’s mountains, his hands clasped behind him. So very different from the way it was when he first arrived, years ago, when the people were afraid and hid within the caves, content with merely surviving yet another day free from Erinol’s slave pits.
It was a grand place in its way, this refuge that he and the rest of the members of the Resistance had created as a bastion against Erinol and Zarkon, for all who sought hope that they would one day be free. There were houses on the branches of the tall, sturdy trees, hundreds of feet above the ground, wooden bridges held together by thick hemp ropes connecting one house to another, each part of the intricately bound community. It was, the man thought in a rare fit of whimsy, much like the legendary Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest in its nature, recalling the ancient Terran legend with a small smile.
They had been like those ancient characters, stealing from Erinol to build up their strength, freeing a small number of slaves at a time when they could. And all the while, they were training in the meantime for the day that they could confront Erinol in a final battle that would send the traitor away from the planet forever.
It appeared that, after ten years, the time had finally come.
“Yes, it is enough. It is time,” the man called Lyon finally replied after a heavy silence. “This last heist will have alerted Erinol to the fact that we mean serious business,” he continued, turning back to the rest of the leaders inside the cavern. The men within gazed at him with solemn eyes. “Zarkon, who will not want to lose one of his strongest slave suppliers, might send reinforcements here to crush us. We have to strike before he does, or all the years we have bided our time will be worth nothing.”
“This will be an all-or-nothing battle, will it not?” the chief of the armory asked quietly. “Do we have the strength to do it?”
The war leader nodded, sighing heavily. “Yes,” he agreed, raking a hand through his thick dark hair. “We will have take the fight into the heart of Erinol’s realm, freeing all the slaves there as we do. They will help us fight the rest of the forces within Erinol’s castle.”
One of the elders raised his hand to be heard. “We cannot allow them to come to us here, where they will destroy the homes we have created for ourselves. As it is, they are not aware of where exactly we are in the forests, and they do not take us seriously enough to look for us,” the man said, turning to the other men around him, watching all of them nod to what he was saying. “We could take Erinol by surprise, could we not, Lyon?” he asked. Lyon nodded in agreement, stroking his beard thoughtfully.
“But we could also end up losing everything, even if we have reinforcements ourselves,” the chief of the armory argued. He paused, letting his words fall into the cavern’s heavy silence. “Are we ready to take this risk?”
Lyon looked at each of the men in turn, gauging their reactions to the chief of the armory’s challenge. It appeared that they were all willing now, their faces set with determination. As if of one mind, they all nodded.
The war leader nodded to them as well. “So be it,” he said quietly.
“We will announce our decision to the community tonight. Tomorrow, we will
set the plan into motion.”
The woman wore the veil over her face, a gauzy square of chiffon that was transparent enough to give a hint of her generous lips and the tip of her pert nose, leaving only her wide emerald-green eyes fully visible. She was wearing pants of the same material, gathered at the ankles so that the material belled away from her shapely legs and silk underpants also the color of her eyes. The pants rode low at her hips, leaving her smooth white well-defined midriff bare, her entire costume completed by emerald chiffon covering a strapless forest green top. Her slightly curly hair, dyes the color of roasted chestnuts, fell to her shoulders in tumbling disarray.
She kept her head down as two of King Erinol’s human guards made their way down the line of other young girls dressed in the same manner, taking an appreciative look at all the beauties exposed to them. It was always a treat to admit the new members of Erinol’s slave girls and dancers into the Castle; it was like being treated to a free display of young and nubile flesh. These were most beautiful maidens to be found on the planet – some coming by choice, most snatched by force – meant to serve the king himself or be sold to neighboring planets as highly priced commodities of the Doom slave trade.
The woman kept her eyes cast on the ground for two reasons. She did not want to appear defiant and spirited because this would cause her to be singled out. If the guards looked closely at the fine lines around her eyes, they might realize that she was not as young as she appeared to be. She wanted to blend into the background, but she was also aware that her unusual coloring made it impossible. Most of the women on the planet had dark hair and dark olive-colored skin; a few had lighter olive skin, but women with white skin like hers were a rarity.
“Look, Teigor, skin like fresh cream on this one!” one of the uncouth soldiers hooted, his booted feet stopping in front of her. She could feel his insolent eyes raking over her, and it was all she could do not to take the man on then and there and beat him up for the insult he was dealing her. But she kept her eyes averted, even when one of his filthy hands took her chin in his hands and tipped her face upwards. “And cat eyes, too!” he said in amusement, the stench of alcohol fumes reeking from his breath as he moved his face down towards her. “Erinol will love you, little one.”
She forced herself to remain passive and pliant, keeping a vacant expression in her eyes, her fists clenching at her sides. But as soon as the soldier dropped his hand and moved on, she shuddered almost imperceptibly in revulsion.
Damn, but she hated what she was doing. However, the Resistance was depending on her. They realized years ago that this would be the best way to breach the castle undetected. Erinol’s chauvinism was going to bring about his downfall and the end of Zarkon’s hold on this planet. Arrogant fool that he was, he thought that the slave women were too weak, too inconsequential, and too stupid to merit heavy guarding as they entered his stronghold.
The two guards Erinol had sent to escort the new batch of slave women were not only uncouth, they were also too inept, too sotted with wine and too busy flirting with the other women nearer the front of their line to notice if one of the women in the rear should slip away.
The woman in green did so as soon as the line of slaves passed a shadowed corner where she could hide. As soon as she was safe in the shadows, she pressed herself against the wall, scarcely daring to breathe, until she could no longer hear the footsteps of the others echoing in the hallway. Finally allowing herself a sigh of relief, she relaxed against the wall and pulled out a folded piece of paper she had secreted inside one of the cups of her top.
It was a map of the main castle that one of the defecting soldiers had given her, showing her the shortest, least guarded way to the communications room.
She made her way to the designated place as quickly and as stealthily as she could, shaking her head disgustedly at the lack of security that was hardly making her job a challenge. In many ways, it was a good sign that Erinol was not posting too many guards around his castle – it meant that he was secure and did not consider the growing Resistance movement a threat to his power.
If all went well, the foppish fool would not know what had hit him.
There were but two sentinels standing in front of the door to the communications room. Taking a deep breath, she emerged from the shadows, smiling coyly at the guards through her veil, her hips moving enticingly.
“Well, well, what have we here?” one of the guards leered at her, dropping his rifle on the ground to reach out for her. “Are you lost, little one? Need Jethro to help you find your way to the others?”
The other guard laughed, stepping towards her. “Don’t be a fool, Jethro – this little lady won’t settle for one like you before she goes for someone as good as me,” he boasted with a superior grin. “Isn’t that so?” he asked her with a leer of his own.
She stepped closer to the second soldier, holding out her arms to him. From the corner of her eye, she saw that the other soldier had stepped closer to her as well, and she continued to smile silently, biding her time.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” the first soldier asked petulantly as he stepped closer. “Won’t you tell us which one of us you will have first?”
She cleared her throat and lowered her lashes coyly. “To be perfectly honest,” she began huskily, holding the mesmerized gazes of both men, her smile sticky sweet. “I’d rather eat dirt than be touched by any of you.”
With that her white arms flashed out and she hit both men behind their necks with the blade of her hand. Both slumped down onto the floor, unconscious. Taking the discarded rifle from the floor and setting it to stun, she shot both of the soldiers with it to make sure that they would not bother her while she was about her work. Stepping daintily over their prone bodies, she entered the communications room.
Thankfully enough, there was no one in the room – not a surprise since
none of the slave ships from Doom were due to arrive any time soon. Making
her way quickly towards the communications console, she prayed that it
was a model that she knew how to operate – it would save her the time.
After a few seconds of familiarizing herself with the knobs and buttons
on the panel, she switched the transmitter to a highly classified channel.
Taking a deep breath, she began punching in a sting of numbers and letters
that came to her easily even after ten years, hoping against hope that
someone from the receiving end of the transmission was there to receive
her desperate message.
Light years away at Galaxy Garrison Headquarters, a puzzled technician was shell-shocked by the rapid string of letters and numbers that were appearing on his console, evidently coming through a highly classified channel that had not been in use for almost a decade or so. He frowned in an even deeper bewilderment as the coordinates of the source lit up on the screen.
It was a mayday signal coming from Aidel, a planet just on the outskirts of the Near Universe, a strategically unimportant slave planet under the control of Planet Doom. The Galaxy Alliance had no forces there, as far as he knew. If so, who was it sending this mayday message, using a channel only known to a scanty number of people given a special security code access unique to each person?
The technician fed the first string of data into the computer to call up the identity of the person sending the message. In a matter of seconds, the information he requested came up on the screen, causing his eyes to widen with almost comical disbelief. Still shaking his head in incredulity, he picked up his communicator.
“The Office of the Galaxy Garrison Intelligence Department, please.
It’s an emergency – someone appears to have accessed some very highly classified
security codes. Get someone over to the main communications room – one
of you have to see this to believe it.”