Ion 417: Raiju (2 page)

I remembered the feel of that leathery skin. It had been many years since they had started wearing the suits, but I remembered. I hated that feel because it always came with being dragged or carried off to the laboratory for my own time under their examinations and testing. I was close enough to nearly bump my face into his faceplate as he looked down on me.

I could see that sneer as he tensed to overpower my grip and dumped the tray anyway. Let him sneer; I knew what was coming next and that sneer would be on his face for the rest of his short life. All ten seconds of it. It wasn't that I needed ten seconds either. Something in me thrilled to the prospect of watching him dance as I returned twenty years under his care. I felt the surge of power as it coursed through me, and out through my hands - those hands that gripped his nice leathery, conductive hide.

The tray clattered to the floor with a dull ringing sound, forgotten in the moment of his gurgling last breath. I held his gaze, feeling the shudders as the medium-sized jolt caused every muscle in his body to twitch uncontrollably. I held that gaze until those slitted eyes rolled up and backward behind the dual lids. I hadn't been close enough to see that before. I knew from reading about them that they had dual lids, but had never seen them.

I let gravity claim its right to his body as I released the jolt feeding into him. His thud didn't have that same dull ring that the tray had, but it was satisfying anyway. It sounded more final. A fine trail of smoke drifted up from the open wrists of his useless suit to tickle my throat, and bring on my own spasming cough. Ughh, I never imagined the smell of fried lizard would be so bad. I had to step away from him to regain my breath, and that was nearly my undoing.

Either the thud of his body dropping to the floor or my coughing drew the interest of his two companions waiting outside the door. I'd known that they were there. That was the reason I'd held back what I could from Sneering Tooth. Catching one of the Selstlaks being careless was a gift that had only come twice in the years since they had begun wearing the suits. The first time it happened I hadn't been ready nor had a plan. There was no chance that even two of them would be careless at the same time, let alone all three. They always traveled in threes.

As I had suspected, the other two were fully suited when they came into the doorway. I was still hacking up the last vestiges of the cough as I mustered up every ounce of energy I could into the most massive burst I'd ever done. With an arm pointed at each of them, I fed that energy down to my hands, and let it bridge the gap between us. One bolt hit a chest, and the other in his neck. The force of energy bore right though those suits to find the lizard beneath the plastic. I hadn't been sure I could pull off that splitting, but it worked better than I'd hoped. I put every pinch they'd done; every claw poke, kick, backhand, trip, and all the other things they seemed to delight in getting away with as they took me to the lab, into that split bolt.

Squinty had pulled his comm free of the belt, and nearly managed to key it before his clenching muscles crushed the device. Broken Fang merely shuddered under the assault. I collapsed exhausted as the last bit of energy drained out. I'd held that burst as long as I could. From the looks of the smoke filling their helmets, I'd done it. Their suited bodies fell to the floor with a double thud that sounded deafening in the stillness.

There hadn't been the opportunity to be choosy about my timing, but luckily a glance down the passageway in both directions revealed nothing but emptiness. In all the times they had led, dragged, or carried me to that laboratory, I'd never once seen another being in those passageways. I knew that there were others, both being held for study and preparation as I was, and workers in the labs. There were at least eighteen Selstlaks too; correction, fifteen.

I dragged the bodies inside the door just in case anybody came along. Now there was no turning back, not that I wanted to. Broken Fang was the leader, and carried that all-important access disk that opened doors like mine and the lab's. I yanked the cord free from where it hung about his neck, and lifted the disk out of the breast pocket. The edge of it had caught part of my bolt and melted slightly as the bolt tore through the suit. I searched Squinty as well, and found a similar disk hanging from his neck; the cord melted into the mess at his throat. That disk wasn't going anywhere unless I dragged the entire two-meter tall lizard with me. Unless... Five minutes later I had chewed through the melted cord.

I sat down on Squinty to rest a few minutes, and regain my energy. There was a lot more that stood between me and actually getting away; I needed every bit I could build up. When I felt the wonderful tickle of energy strong enough to arc between my fingers, I stood once more. Two steps later I was driving every scrap of that into the data terminal. I had broken the security on that years ago, and had used it to gain the knowledge for planning my escape. I only hoped that bolt was strong enough to blow away the traces of my searches.

The door slid shut with the oh-so-familiar whoosh - the door that was boldly labeled on this side with the carefully stenciled letters reading 'Project 417' and 'Compartment 10-N'. The first time I'd seen that, and known that they were symbols with meaning, was shortly after I had learned to read Indigal. I mistook the lettering to mean that it was my name. I gave myself the name of Ion. Project 417 was how they referred to me between themselves; I was never spoken to, or even acknowledged when I spoke.

The devastated bodies were inside, and I was one step closer to freedom. The surprise visit with my meal hadn't let me prepare my thinking. I took a moment to pull the image of the passageway map to mind, and orient myself. I had run this part through my head countless times, but actually doing it was completely different. I didn't spend much time savoring my first victory before taking off at a run for the food lockers. There was no way of knowing how long I would have before someone noticed my absence. By the routine it should be another twelve hours before I was called again to the laboratory, but they had shifted timing previously. The faster I departed the better my chances were.

I ran past two cross passages, into an area that I had never been in before. Suddenly nothing looked right. My mental map said that I was right on course for going a third of a rotation to find the access tubes to the upper floors, but still I had to back track to find the turn I should have seen the first time around. The map only indicated one, but I stood facing a triple tube. Before I could decide which one to take, a trio of Indigal rounded the corner, heading right for the spot where I stood.

I should have jumped into one of the tubes at random, and escaped. I thought of that a split second after I flattened myself against the wall. Once again luck favored me, and they walked past without a single glance at the strange green girl plastered to the grey walls. They were so engrossed in arguing amongst themselves about an experiment that had gone horribly wrong, that they didn't even pay heed to which tube they stepped into. I guess a yellowish-green girl playing wall ornament on the bare grey walls just wasn't odd enough to be noticed. I wasn't going to take any chances, and stepped rapidly into the one on the left. Wherever they were heading was not where I wanted to be.

In a moment I was staring at a stenciled F on the wall opposite the tube. This was not the floor that held the food locker. Six more bounces through the tubes brought me to the K level, which was where I had been trying to reach. Now it was four passageways toward the rim, and a left turn to find myself standing outside the door with Squinty's disk in hand. I had only watched them open two doors with these things - the door to my cage, and the lab. I held my breath as the disk slid into the slot. The moment of truth had arrived. It just had to work.

I shoved the disk into the slot, just as I had seen Sneering Tooth do it, and the indicator flashed yellow. It scrolled a message that I had used up all of my ration quota for today. What?! The disk slid back out, and dropped to the floor. One more chance - I slid Broken Fang's disk into the slot. The machine actually growled at me as though it thought the disk tasted bad. It refused to even pull it in all the way before flashing at me to remove the obstruction. There was still a bit sticking out of the slot that let me pull the partially melted disk back out.

Now what? I'd left Sneering Tooth's disk back in the room. Why didn't I think to grab that? Maybe, just maybe; I nibbled at the disk, trying to bite off the rough edge. It tasted terrible. I slid the disk into the slot once more, cringing at the growling it continued to emit. It paused and hesitated a few times, but eventually went in all the way. It flashed green and the door whooshed open. More growling came from the machine as it tried to spit the disk back out. It finally came out far enough for me to grab just as the door was starting to close. I yanked the disk free, and jumped through.

Inside the locker was completely different than I had imagined. There was a stack of the simple metal trays, like the one laying on the floor in my room. I didn't need the trays, or else I would have rolled Sneering Tooth off of that one. What I needed was food. Before me stood row upon row of shelves with small packages resting on them - thousands of packages all with labels for things I'd never heard of before. Nowhere did I see stacks of the greenish-brown wafers such as Sneering Tooth had dumped on my floor. I double checked the door; it did say Food Storage Locker. This had to be food then.

A small rolling cart was parked against the wall bearing a few trays with similar packages on them. That settled it then. I ran down the rows of shelves grabbing arm-loads of those packages to dump onto the cart. A few hundred of them fit before there was no more room. I was twenty-one minutes into my escape according to the mental counting rolling through my head. It was time to go before somebody came looking in here. Out the door, I turn right for two cross passages before going up one more level to the docking bays. This time I had the feel for those tubes.

Not a single person was around when I shoved the cart into the glass walled passageway that curved around the docking area. This was the first time in my life that I had seen glass anywhere. Even when Teyrn Elon watched them testing me, it was through imagers. He had quit coming to watch in person about the time that I first started creating tiny arcs.

A little to the right was the first docking port where... Hunter Number One, The Gozku, was not there. My heart skipped several beats about then. After cracking through the security codes for my console, I'd done more than just look at the other prisoners. I had studied the manuals for that ship a dozen times in preparation for this moment, and it wasn't here! But there was Hunter Number Two visible further to the right. It was nearly identical to Gozku, so I should be able to handle it without too much trouble.

The image in the terminal was what it must have looked like new. Now it bore the scorches and pockmarks of a lot of use. I didn't care what it looked like so long as it was gone in a few minutes with me on board. The plan running through my head was repeating the steps listed in the instructions for disengaging the docking lock, and starting up the engines as I shoved the cart along at a full run. A handful of the food packages toppled to the floor as I skidded to a halt at the access panel.

I slid the disk into the slot, dancing from foot to foot in my nervousness. The access card disk pulled the same routine of teasing me by hesitating to enter that slot. I wanted to scream, but I didn't know who might be listening. Instead of the slight hissing and door sliding out of the way, it let out a very angry sounding beep and flashed bright red before spitting the disk back out of the slot. It felt just like Sneering Tooth had gotten one last kick to my belly. This was his last torture, to keep me here when escape lay just on the other side of a door. I could see it too! There was no way I was going to let this be the end. I tossed the fallen packages back on the cart and shoved it back the way I'd come, even faster than before. I could see the corvette ahead. I had read the book for this one also, but it had more control seats. It was meant for a crew of three.

Where the hunter had looked a little used, this ship looked used, abused, and perhaps had a history of running into things. This time I slowed to a walk before stopping the cart, and managed to keep the packages in place. I held the disk up before me, and mentally wished it to work. If willing something had any effect, I would be inside in ten seconds. It had to work. My other option was the shuttles, and they were in the second docking bay which was conveniently on the other side of the orbital lab. If I had to cross that kilometer, I was done for. I sucked a deep breath and jammed the disk into the slot.

Once again it tried that dance of hesitating, and I rammed my palm into it. The disk slid in without further argument. Getting the disk in was one thing; getting it to work was another. It bleeped the angry beep and stayed red. Mentally I screamed. Angry as I was, luck still favored me. I really wasn't thinking anything other than destruction as I let a bright arc tear a hole in the middle of the locking controls. It clicked and the blue light lit as the door slid open. Even though the corvette hadn't been my first choice, it opened where the hunter hadn't. I couldn't afford to be too choosy about what I was escaping in. Anything that would get me out of Teyrn Elon's grasp looked good to me. I'd as soon jump out an airlock than spend another day in that room.

I grabbed the packages off of the cart by the armload, and just throwing them as far as they would go down the ship's passageway. A quick count as I was throwing them said just over two hundred, not nearly enough for the estimated six month trip. High drive was fast, but it still took time to cross the light years. I kicked the last of the packages into the open hatch and spun the cart around for a mad dash back to the food locker.

After I had broken through the security on that data terminal in my room I had found many things that all pointed to one conclusion; I needed to escape. I had started without the least idea of where I was, or what it would take to escape. The more information I dredged out of that little terminal, the better my plan became. When I'd discovered that my mother had come from Terra, Sol, I finally had a destination to reach. The nav charts had shown the Sol system to be about six months out from this orbital lab by high drive; that meant that if these were indeed food that I could eat, then I would need much more of it. Thinking it over for a minute, I realized that yes, I could make it back to that food locker for more of these packages; I had to. I certainly didn't want to starve on the way.