Emma's Heart (Brides of Theron 3) (22 page)

Lars groaned when he was released from the chains. His
arms instantly fell to his sides as if they were heavily weighted, and his shoulders were sore from being stretched out for so long.  Both of his wrists had grown numb with the tightness of the cuff, but now the blood was quickly returning to his fingers and it felt like hundreds of tiny little needle pricks were sticking him all at once.

The satisfaction of having his arms released didn’t last for long though. Before he and Zirlo were led out of the cell, the soldier
s had placed metal binding bands on their wrists and ankles. The bands around his ankles were hindering him from walking as fast as the soldiers would have liked him to, so he was shoved really hard a few times in the back to encourage him to quicken his pace. Lars followed behind Zirlo who was actually talking to a couple of the soldiers. The old fool was making small talk with their captors!

“
Where am I headed to this time?” Zirlo questioned the soldier standing next to Lars who happened to be the one that had spoken to them first when they were in the cell.

“The
Emperor wants the both of you in quadrant six,” the soldier replied casually, it was as if he and Zirlo were old friends.

“That’s good. I like quadrant six. Lot’s to
do to keep you busy there.” Lars was amazed that Zirlo was acting as if it were a natural thing to be working for the Drylons. Maybe he was brainwashed or something. There was no way that he could figure, that a former high ranking commander of the Theron civilization, such as Zirlo, would roll over and take orders from the Drylons so calmly and without questioning their motives.

Lars and Zirlo were marched through several long tunnels that
twisted and turned, sometimes bringing them through areas that were almost in complete darkness. It was extremely hard for Lars to walk with the ankle bands and this made the walk seem even longer. The group rounded a bend in the current tunnel they were in and came to a halt in front of a large steel door. The soldier, who had been speaking with Zirlo, stepped forward and unlocked the door, pushing it forward to reveal a dimly lit cave.

“Step through,” the soldier addressed the two prisoners. Zirlo moved first with Lars following close behin
d. “Stop,” the soldier said, as he then proceeded to unlock the binding bands.

“You know where to go, Zirlo. Take your new worker with you,” the soldier addressed Zirlo one last time then stepped back through the opening of the steel door. The sound of the metal door slamming shut echoed
off the walls in the small opening.

“Where the hell are we?” Lars looked around the area
then back at Zirlo.

Zirlo turned and started to walk down the small opening, “This is quadrant six. Come on follow me and I will show you where we work and sleep.” The sound of their feet was muffled by the
thin layer of dirt that they walked upon and dust was kicked up into the air from under each footstep. There were several areas within the tunnel that both men needed to stoop in order not to knock their heads on the low ceiling. The men walked for several minutes in silence until the sounds of hammering could be heard coming from further down the tunnel.

“What is mined here in quadrant six?” Lars asked.

“Gold,” Zirlo replied.

The tunnel finally opened up into an extremely large cavern that stretched
out as far as Lars eyes could see. He stopped and surveyed the area in utter amazement. There was an incredibly large population of workers in the cavern. Lars could see Theron men and women, Pernmocks, a few Drylons and several other races.  They were all working to provide the Emperor with his precious gold to further his ambitions. Scaffolding lined the walls, and sometimes it was as high as one of the trees on Theron. The size of the work at hand was immense.

“The
Emperor appears to be very busy,” Lars commented.

“That’s an understatement. He has been pushing us as hard as he possibly can. That’s why I was in the cell. I told one of the guards that one of the women had been injured
, and that I was going to take her to the medic. Needless to say, he refused to let me go, and I ended up punching him in the face.  Then, I was thrown into that damn cell.” Zirlo walked until he came to a group of workers that was sitting, eating their mid-day meal.

“Ah Zirlo, you have returned to us. The
Emperor must have been feeling generous,” the Pernmock worker spoke to Zirlo as if he had known him for a long time.

“It is good to see you
too, my friend. This is our new worker, Lars, a fellow Theron warrior. Lars this is Danuwee. He’s been here as long as I have.”

“Greetings Lars, It’
s nice to meet you. Come sit and join us for the mid-day meal.” Danuwee handed Lars a bowl of stew. It didn’t smell that bad and he was hungry. It was much better than the food they had had offered him when he was in the dungeon.  What he ate there had been nothing better than cold slop. He ate the bowl of warm stew in silence as the rest of the group around him began to question Zirlo. He hadn’t been paying much attention to the conversation until one word, in particular, drew his attention. Escape.

****

Hours later, after his hard laboring shift to mine for gold was over, Lars was once again sitting within the circle of workers. The conversation was kept low so that no one outside the circle could hear what was being said.

“How are our plans coming
along?” Zirlo asked the group as a whole.

Danuwee spoke first.
“Everything is continuing as usually. Hator was able to get a message to the other quadrants through a few of the women.”

“Excellent,” Zirlo commented.

“Could someone please tell me what’s going on?” Lars was quickly becoming irritated with the coded conversation that was going on around him. Something was definitely up with this group, but he wasn’t exactly sure what it could be.

“Are you going to trust the
new man already, Zirlo?” Hator questioned the obvious leader of the group. “He might run to tell the Drylons everything to save his own ass.”

“He
’s a Theron warrior and I trust him.” He looked directly at Lars with his big purple eyes and said to him directly, “But, I want you to know this warrior. If you betray any of us in any kind of a way, someone here in the mining camp will kill you.  It will look like a simple accident. Believe me when I say that, there are many, many people here who wouldn’t think twice about taking you or anyone else out of the picture. Is that understood, warrior?” Zirlo maintained his unrelenting gaze at Lars who was sitting few feet away as he waited for an answer.

Lars had no doubt in his mind that the old commander or anyone in hi
s group would fulfill the threat of death if he betrayed them. But, first he needed to find out what the hell was going on. “I promise, I will not betray you in any way. Are you planning some kind of an escape?”

“We have been planning an escape for about three months now
, but it has been very difficult to arrange. Our biggest problem of late, is finding a way to get off the planet before they even know we are missing. All we really need is for one ship to leave the planet and get away safely to bring help back with them. We have been trying to befriend a couple of the guards, but that is not going exactly the way we would like it. Every time we get one of the guards on our side, they seem to disappear and we never see them again. If we are to succeed, we need to have someone on the inside helping us.” Zirlo explained to Lars the situation with the plan of escape. Getting hold of a ship was their main obstacle to overcome and was seemingly the hardest thing to do.

“Are we ever taken out into the opening where a ship lands?” Lars needed information.

Danuwee answered. “Periodically during the day, the guards escort a group of us outside in order to dispose of the excess rock that we have mined through and have no use for. We use the large rail cars to haul out the rocks to the pit where they are dumped, cart by cart. One of the pits is near to a landing pad that normally has two to three ships on it. These ships are used to shuttle the guards back and forth from their living quarters.  Sometimes they are used to bring in new prisoners.”

“
About how many men can fit into one ship?” Lars’ mind was in gear now.  He was actively thinking of a way to get hold of one of the ships. Once he was brought up to speed on all the little details of the area including the guards’ schedule, it probably wouldn’t be too hard for him to disable one of the ships. He had managed quite easily to do the same thing on the mother ship when he took Zeb’s mate off of the ship. His plan then had gone off without a flaw until Hano had betrayed him at the last minute. He definitely needed to make sure that the Therons never learned about his betrayal to their race, especially Zirlo.

“Do you have something in mind?” Hator asked the new comer.

“I think I can help with your plan, but like you said, we will definitely need someone on the inside. I might be able to help get that going, too. Once that is done, I shouldn’t have any problem disabling the ship. I just need to be able to close enough to one to access the computer onboard.” Lars had the attention of the entire group now. All eyes were turned towards him as he spoke. “I spent my career on the mother ship fixing and maintaining the various ships on board.  I pretty much know everything there is to know about them. It shouldn’t be very hard to do the same to a Drylon ship.”

A loud static noise crackled through the air the
n a voice boomed through cavern. “Prisoners, you have fifteen minutes to lights out!”

“We will have to continue this conversation tomorrow.” Zirlo stood up to leave the circle but Lars stopped him with his question.

“Why do we have to stop?”

“When lights out is announced
, it’s best to follow the instructions of the guard if you know what’s good for you. Any prisoner found wandering after lights out is taken away permanently, never to be seen again. Come with me. I will show you where your bed will be. I advise you that if you want to be part of this plan, you need to follow every instruction and rule dished out to you by the Drylon soldiers, or you won’t last a week.” Zirlo turned and walked off in the direction of the beds.

Lars followed close behind and took the bed that Zirlo pointed out to him. He lay down on top of the raggedy blanket and stared at the low ce
iling. It wasn’t very long after he had laid down that the cavern was plunged into darkness. Small glowing lights dotted the walls of the caverns, but they didn’t give off enough light to be able to move around the area efficiently.

If there was a way out of this dump,
he sure as hell going to find it. It might take him some time, maybe even months to work everything out, but he was confident enough to know that he would succeed at escaping this labor camp. For now though, he would just bide his time and follow orders, a first for him. His life was on the line now.

A week after arriving on Theron, Emma was still have some difficulty adjusting to her new life. She hadn’t seen Laura since the leaving the ship and was becoming quite lonely when Brylon had to report for work. She had tried to cook a couple of times, but only succeeded in making a very large mess in the kitchen, which caused Brylon to tease her when he came home.

She played with her three rewas
, but most times they just played by themselves or darted outside whenever one of the doors was left open. Brylon had left early that morning to report to the mother ship in order to oversee the repairs that were in process, but before he had left, he had told her that one of the females, Dr. Zane’s mate to be exact, wanted to have some kind of meeting with all the Earth females at the base later this afternoon. He told her that he would return for her so that she could attend this meeting. She had tried to ask Brylon what the meeting was about, but he said he didn’t have a clue.

As promised, Brylon returned hours later to escort her to the base. Once at the base he directed her to a room that was used as a conference or meeting room. Inside
the room only a few other Earth females had shown up so far. She didn’t know any of these women so, feeling like the outsider, she went to sit in the back of the room. One by one all the other women came in. Each one of them was escorted by their mates.

When she had been on the ship that first day, she hadn’t paid any attention to anyone else in the holding room. The only female she knew
well was Laura, and she still hadn’t made it in yet. Emma sat in her corner of the room and waited patiently, looking over at each woman. The opening of the door drew her attention in that direction. She recognized the warrior that walked into the room.  He was the commander, Zeb. He was holding hands with one of the females that she hadn’t met yet but she knew she had seen her before. He stopped when she pulled on his hand then leaned down and placed a kiss on her lips. Emma saw how the woman smiled up at the commander then nudged him back out the door. The woman turned and looked around the room and spied Emma staring at her.

The wo
man started walking in her direction. Emma shifted her eyes so that she wouldn’t appear to be spying, but the harm had already been done.