Aha, found the topic. Hurrah. Not a very big bit, but I'd hope things might get more interesting from now-on, rather than just lots of talking. :P
This isn't the full chapter, there's another bit I need to finish. Woo.
Edit: Argh, where'd by tabs go?
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Seven
It was the middle of the night. Jan had been deep in a dreamless, exhausted sleep, in the room he shared with three of the other younger fighters, after another of those days where he felt he was really earning his keep – he hadn’t stopped once since breakfast – when he was roused by a vigorous shaking. “Unh… what…?” he groaned, fumbling blindly for the light-switch beside the bed.
Better be good, he though, his brain feeling heavy and sluggish.
If they’ve woken me up for no reason… whoever it is…
“No, no light!” a voice hissed thinly out of the gloom, and an unseen hand batted his fingers from the switch. “It’s me, Lar. Don’ turn the light on, you’ll go give the game away.”
Jan squinted into the darkness, and after a few seconds concentration found he could see the faint reddish glow of the electronics and the nightvision behind the slig’s mask, which was reassuring – but only slightly. Behind the slig’s shorter form he could see two further faint orange-yellow spots, sufficiently high off the ground to equate to the eyes of a Glukkon. “Uhm… what’s going on?” he whispered, faintly.
“You wanted out, right?”
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Don’t tell me you changed yer mind,” that was the Glukkon’s voice – it wasn’t Parink’s drawl by a long shot, but lighter, younger. Jan guessed it must be this “Keff” he’d heard mentioned.
“Well, no…” Jan swung his feet over the edge of the mattress. “That is, yeah, I still want out. But…”
“But what?” Lar had already gone to the door – you could see the thin rind of sullen gingery light where the door had been pulled away from the frame.
“Well, what about Aura? She’s the important one to get out…” Jan snatched up his belt, the one which carried his side-knife and its sheath, and buckled it around his waist.
“Oh, don’t you worry, we’re fetching her next. We'd have got her first, but we needed the extra pair of hands, see?” Keff supplied, following on behind as the young mudokon joined the slig at the door.
It seemed to be a well-organised escape, so far, Jan noticed – they’d even gone so far as to oil the door-hinges, so it’d swing silently instead of giving that hideous scream of rusted metal, which naturally would wake everyone in the room and probably the rest of the corridor too. That is, it was well-organised so long as all went to plan; it didn’t seem they had any contingency plans for if things went awry. Which, predictably, they did, only halfway down the silent main corridor towards the West Wing.
They’d been making good time, down past the Gladiator accommodation and the canteens and weapons stores and what-have-you, and Keff was beginning to think that they might just be going to do it when there was a sudden tiny cold touch at the back of his neck, and he stiffened, immobile. “Uhm… lads…?” he asked, his voice thin and strangled, and the two others turned to look at him-
Standing behind the Glukkon, with a predatory look to his stance and his side-knife held firmly in his indomitable grasp – the tip of which was currently positioned level with a useful gap between the vertebrae of Keff’s spinal column - was Yaaren; he didn’t look angry, but there was a clear suspicion in his gold eyes.
“I don’t think I
want to know what it is you three think you’re up to this early in the morning,” he spoke softly, but there was a warning in his measured tones, “because I don’t really want to be incriminated in whatever it is. But I’d like some answers, and I’d like them fast.”
“Listen, mister Yaaren, sir…” Lar approached warily, coming around in a big arc and not really wanting to get closer than he absolutely had to. “We’re only trying to get the kids out. You know what Melox is tryin’ to do to the lass…”
Yaaren nodded just once, but lowered the knife a fraction. “You do of course recall that ‘the lass’ is the daughter of one of the
deserters you were sent out to try and find and capture,” he reminded him, darkly.
“I ain’t forgotten. And no, I don’ know why I should feel any desire to help the kids of deserters,” he admitted. “But we’re all brothers, right? An’ I don’ want our kind pushed no further down the ladder of citizenship wi’ lasses that get kicked about like chunks o’ meat for the lads to play with.”
For a while, silence reigned, as the Head Gladiator subjected to each of the three runaways to a long, unnerving scrutiny. Jan met his gaze with a lot more courage than he felt capable of, just waiting for Yaaren to turn nasty and cut all three down where they stood.
But he didn’t. Instead, Yaaren backed down, apparently satisfied they were legitimate. “All right,” he accepted, and there was an almost palpable relief from the other three. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” he warned, softly, sheathing his knife at his belt. “And if the four of you aren’t on a Flier in an hour, and this is all some sort of clever deception while you plot something else nefarious, I’ll kill the lot of you. I may not care much for Management here, but I don’t like being lied to. Right?”
“Right,” Keff bobbed his head so much Lar was afraid it’d fall off; the Glukkon might not share his brethren’s ideals but he
did share their foibles – and general lack of fitness and fighting ability. He’d have fallen very quickly against the Gladiator’s knife.
“Well, go on, piss off,” Yaaren shooed them down the corridor, grumpily. “An hour, remember? Or else you won’t get so far as pleading your case to Management.”