The Slave World (34) - the final chapter!

(34): Rage against the dying of the light

With the first gunshot the field in the New Forest erupted into chaos. Andromedus was dead, just like that and he never saw it coming. To their credit the Goreans reacted quickly. One man snapped the safety off his weapon and sprayed semi-automatic fire in the rough direction of the rifle shot. As he did so another man screamed and was flung backwards as a second rifle shot shattered his right shoulder.

“Run!” screamed Adam to me as he tried and failed to lift himself from the ground.

“I'm not leaving you!” I cried as I tried to take his weight against my shoulder.

“Mark will cover you! Just run!” And then Adam used the last of his strength to push me away. I stumbled on the wet ground and heard more gunfire erupting around the heathland as Goreans fired blindly, not knowing whether they faced one sniper or dozens. I should have run, I should have run to the tree line, trusting in Mark to pick off anyone trying to stop me, but I couldn't leave Adam. It was irrational of me I know.

One of the Goreans ignited a smoke grenade and flung it towards the direction of the rifle shots. Thick coils of smoke began to spread and disperse around us, making it more difficult for Mark to select precise targets.

I coughed as I breathed in a lungful of smoke from the grenade. A second one was thrown and detonated, dispersing even more coloured smoke. A bullet seemed to ricochet from the hull of the silver ship and now every Kur agent in the field was opening fire at the line of trees that stood twenty yards away from the landing position. The landing zone was actually a perfect field of fire, offering cover for Mark and an open space to shoot into. An abrupt scream to my left signalled that Mark had claimed another body.

Gunfire on semi-automatic is deafening if you’re surrounded by it. The noise combined with the smoke and my own surge of adrenalin made me lose focus. I reached for Adam’s hand but he struck it away and shouted angrily at me again. “Run, Caitlin! I can’t make it! Don't be fucking stupid!”

I was wasting precious time, I know I was, but I also knew that I had fallen in love with this man who had been my friend for several years, and I could not, would not leave him to die in a wet field in the New Forest now that I knew our future should be spent together. But then the choice was taken out of my hands as I felt a hand seize me by my hair. I screamed and flailed around with my hands, clawing at the man’s face as he twisted me off balance. I drew blood with my nails and managed to strike a weak off balance blow but I was then thrown to my belly and kicked in the head. I lay there dazed as I felt my hands pulled roughly behind my back. Again I was being braceleted. I struggled and swore but received a palm strike to my temple for my troubles. Now I really was delirious as I felt the steel cuffs lock around my wrists once more. I felt myself being hoisted to a kneeling position as the man then took hold of my steel collar and dragged me towards the ramp of the silver ship, choking the breath from my body as he pulled.

A fresh burst of adrenalin overcame my semi-concussion and I flailed with my legs, trying desperately to wrap them around something that might help me slow the man as he tried to drag me along the ground. Thick coils of coloured smoke obscured Mark’s line of sight to me but I heard rifle shots snapping past to strike the hull again. And then there was an ear splitting blast somewhere to my left as a flash bang went off. For a brief second there was a blinding flash of light, a concussive bang and I saw the field eerily illuminated in a strobe-like effect. And then my ears were ringing and it was semi-dark again. One of the Kurii men had fired his gun at the night sight generators, knocking out most of the eerie red light that illuminated the field. But he hadn’t taken out the last two spot lamps before a rifle bullet hit him smack in the chest.

In the brief moment of strobe daylight from the flash bang I had seen Adam painfully crawling towards me, but he was too injured to do anything to help. He was calling out to Mark, desperately shouting for his friend to save me. 'Don’t let them take her', he shouted, oblivious to his own safety. I saw a Kurrian raise his side arm and fire at Adam. The shots missed thanks again to the smoke and then Mark, wherever he was concealed, began to direct rifle shots at the man with the semi-automatic. He ducked down and Adam was momentarily safe again.

Throughout all of this I was being dragged relentlessly towards the open hatch of the silver ship. I dug my heels hard into the wet ground and applied the full weight of my body in resistance to the man as he dragged me by my collar. I dug my braceleted hands into the ground, clutching at the soil in the forlorn hope that I might snag a deep root and hold onto it. Maybe I did slow my movement, but not nearly enough. The Kurrians were retreating back towards the open hatch, firing forwards with enough firepower to make Mark take care. But then I saw movement through the thick coils of smoke that drifted with the wind to my left. The Kurrians saw it too and opened fire with hand guns but as quickly as the smoke revealed the running figure of Mark, it closed up again as the wind changed and he was gone. Mark was coming though. He was using the Kurrian smoke grenades as cover for his advance. I think he had discarded the rifle and now had a pistol in his right hand. There were three loud bangs from the right and one of the men close to me went down, shot twice in the chest.

I called out to Mark, shouting his name over and over again so he knew my position. I was so close to the hatch now, so close to the loading ramp.

And then the smoke cleared briefly for Adam to see me. The anguish in his face was palpable as he saw me about to be taken inside the star ship.

“You stay alive, Caitlin! You submit, do you hear? You be strong, you survive... You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I WILL find you! No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I WILL find you, Caitlin. I promise!”

I recognised the words of course. They were the words from the Last of the Mohicans, when Daniel Day Lewis delivered that impassioned speech to Cora, knowing she was about to be captured – the words that had such a profound effect on me as a young teenage girl. The words that I had described to Adam that morning when we ate breakfast together. The words that Adam had chosen in order to give me hope. Tears ran down my cheeks as I nodded.

How could I not love this man?

I was on the lower ramp now, being hauled up, the collar choking me as the Kurrian gripped it with his left hand while simultaneously firing a pistol out into the dense smoke ahead of him, aiming randomly at a target he couldn't see. The ramp was metal grilled and tightly spaced and it felt rough against my buttocks and back as I was hauled up it a foot at a time. I dug the fingers of my chained hands in between the narrow spaces of the metal grille and held on for dear life. But when the pressure on my throat from the choke collar proved too much and I couldn’t breathe, my fingers slipped and I was hauled up another couple of feet. I screamed Mark’s name again so he knew I was part way up the ramp, and thought I saw a figure briefly silhouetted in the smoke as gun shots rang out again over my head towards the doorway.

“Fucking bitch of a kajira!” swore the Kurrian as he clubbed at my head with the butt of his pistol. The blow rendered me senseless again for a few moments as I was hauled two thirds of the way up the ramp. Two of the Kurrians guarded the bottom of the ramp firing indiscriminately into the smoke. The constant staccato bursts of gun fire and the accompanying muzzle flashes added to a pounding headache I now felt.

And then I was dragged over the threshold, my upper body inside the silver ship. Now I screamed even louder, for I knew once I was inside the hull and the doors slammed shut I would be lost. I felt the man pull me to my feet as he fumbled and ejected a spent clip from his pistol. He had to let go of me momentarily to slap a fresh clip into the gun, and as soon as he did that I ran back out the hatch.

“Stop that fucking kajira!” was all he managed to say before three shots from Mark punched his body backwards. One of the two remaining men guarding the ramp swatted me with his gun barrel and I fell back, my face bloodied. Another man, one of the crew inside the silver ship, emerged from the hatch and seized me by my hair. As the men below emptied their guns into the swirling smoke the crewman dragged me back through the hatch.

The two gunmen now fell back, retreating up the ramp as they continued to lay down suppressive fire ahead of themselves. I was raised to my feet once more as the gunmen broke and ran for the cover of the interior. As soon as they were inside with me the crewman thumped a button beside the door which closed the doorway. I screamed and threw myself directly at him, biting into his neck with my teeth. I bit deep like an animal and suddenly the man was flailing around and screaming, “get this fucking kajira off me!” Again I was clubbed on the head with a butt of a gun, and I had to release my bite hold. The injured crewman threw me hard against the interior hull, but in doing so he had thrown me close to the hatch controls. I thumped the button with my shoulder and was rewarded by the doorway springing open again.

“Close that fucking hatch!”

But before anyone could, a grenade was thrown into the open space. It landed with a metallic clunk bounced once and then exploded, filling the cramped space with tear gas. We were all choking now, blinded, retching, and I felt myself grabbed by the hair and pulled as gun shots came through the open doorway. The man ran at full speed, dragging me along the floor towards an interior bulkhead door.

The man dragging and choking me by the back of my collar was the only man who made it through the interior door alive. My last glimpse of Mark was a dim figure wearing a breathing mask and shrouded in clouds of tear gas as he gunned down the other Gorean. The man holding me threw me across the floor as he closed and locked the internal door. I then felt him kick me hard in the ribs. He was swearing at me too but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I could however make out where I was and that was in the cargo hold. Rows of plexi-glass capsules housed in recessed alcoves lined both of the long walls. Two crew members were in the process of finalising the cryogenic settings as they gazed at the injured gunman.

“What is happening?” said one of the crewmen.

“It’s a bloodbath. We’re under attack. Andromedus is dead and possibly most of the men in the field outside. There must be dozens of men firing on us.” He kicked me again. “This bitch is going to suffer. Give me a whip.”

“There are no whips in here,” said the crewman.

“Fuck.” He simply kicked me again and this time I think I felt a rib break.

“Stop that,” said the crewman. “She’s valuable cargo. What have you done to her?”

I could feel blood in my hair oozing out from a scalp wound. God knows what the rest of me looked like after all the kicks and punches and blows from pistol butts that I’d endured.

“Nothing more than she deserved. Put her in a capsule and launch this ship. We’ve been boarded.”

“Boarded?” The crewman looked alarmed.

“Yes, but whoever is out there is confined to the loading bay. They can’t breach this door. Once we’re in deep space we’ll purge the ship's air supply. Either that or dock alongside Helios and let the Kurii eat him.”

The crewman nodded. Men unlocked the slave bracelets on my wrists prior to being placed in a capsule as the senior crewman moved to an intercom and ordered an emergency evac protocol. “Put that kajira in a suspension tube,” he said as he finished communicating with the cabin.

I sprang suddenly to my feet and ran to the far side of the room where there was another door but it was locked. I ignored the blinding pain in my head, the blurred vision and the pain in my legs and ribs as I picked up a large wrench easily two feet long and began to smack it into an important looking control panel. I don’t know what damage I did if any, but the men were on me quickly enough, pulling me back, pulling the wrench from my hands. I spat and swore and clawed at the face of one of them as he took hold of my body. My nails found an eye socket and I was rewarded by a shrill scream as I dug in deep, swearing some more, kicking out with my legs at another man who approached. He punched me hard in the stomach and I lost my grip on the eye socket, but my fingers felt sticky now. Another punch hit me hard in the face. I tasted more blood but I kicked out again. Another punch and I felt my upper front teeth break and then I was thrown across the floor as I heard screams from the man I’d gouged at. I was close to the suspension capsules and I saw rows of women lying upright in the tubes at a forty five degree angle, among them a naked Rebecca Miles and Kassa dressed in a modest chemise. They all seemed asleep. And then the men came at me together. I crouched, unable to stand and I howled at them as they dragged me by my arms, my feet pushing back as they dragged me inexorably to an open cylinder.

“Let's just shoot the bitch,” cried the man with the bleeding eye.

“Shut up,” said the other crewman. “Do you want to tell Kerwin that we had to kill a valuable girl because the three of us couldn’t overpower her?”

“No,” said the half blinded man. He seemed afraid of the name.

And then I felt a strange lurching sensation and I realised with a start that the ship was moving. We were lifting up and after a second or two the feeling stabilised. I could hear no roar of engines or thrum of rotors but we were moving. Somehow I sensed that. We were leaving the flat scrubland of the New Forest behind and rising rapidly away from Earth.

“Stop fighting us, you bitch!” screamed one of the two men holding me as the half blinded man clutched his injured face.

“Fuck you!” I screamed and bit at his arm. I tore at his arm with what was left of my teeth and felt my head pulled back again by a hand in my hair. Yard by yard I was pulled, beaten and punched until I reached the open cylinder. I screamed Mark’s name, not knowing whether he could hear me in the loading bay on the other side of the inner bulkhead. And even if he could hear me, what could he do? I snapped with my teeth at thin air and threw myself backwards and forwards in their combined grip until my back was forced down inside the capsule. Even then I continued to fight, using every last drop of adrenalin I had in me.

“Just get in the fucking capsule, slut!” swore one of the two men who had forced my body into the tube. But I was keeping my arms and legs free of the capsule, meaning they couldn’t close it until I was completely inside. They were finding it nearly impossible to seize all four of my limbs simultaneously, force them into the open cylinder and then close it quickly enough before I could thrust a leg out again.

“Will someone get a fucking sedative for this slut!”

“To hell with this,” screamed the man with one bleeding eye. He drew and cocked a hand gun. “I’m going to kill the fucking bitch. I don’t care what Kerwin thinks. Get out of the way.”

“Put the gun down,” shouted the other crewman as he let go of me. That was enough for me to swing an arm and a leg out of the tube as the third man tried in vain to get my whole body inside. A shot rang out and hit the inside of the cylinder inches from where my head lay.

“Put that fucking gun away!” swore the second crewman as he pulled his own gun out.

“Don't tell me what to do!” shouted the one eyed man. Moments later there were two more shots and the crewman who had pulled his own gun was flung backwards, shot dead by the one eyed man. Immediately in response the remaining Kurrian drew his own side arm and shot the one eyed man four times in quick succession. I sprang from the cylinder and launched myself at the remaining Gorean, punching his face repeatedly with the palm of my hand and knocking the pistol from his grip.

Despite my frenzied attack he threw me across the floor. I skidded to a halt against one of the cylinders, spitting blood as he picked up the discarded spanner wrench and came at me. I threw myself across the floor, reaching for one of the dropped guns but felt the wrench smack me in the side of my body before I could reach the weapon.

Now he pounded me mercilessly with his fists until I lay there beaten and bloodied. He kicked the pistols aside and dragged me back to the cylinder, leaving a trail of blood in my wake. I had no strength left to resist him and so I was thrust body and limbs into the cylinder and with a hiss of compressed gas felt the cylinder case close shut around me. The vertical tube then tilted up forty five degrees until it was able to slide into a recess like the others. I sobbed, slapping at the clear plexiglass with the palms of my hands. I was on my way to Gor. I struck as hard as I could but my strength and consciousness was already fading. Some odourless gas was no doubt being introduced inside this glass prison.

My body began to succumb to the gas and my hands, wet with blood, slipped slowly down the sides of the glass. I pressed my forehead to the surface of the tube, weeping, for I had come so close.

My eyelids felt so heavy. So very heavy,

No! I had to stay awake! I stabbed my broken nails into the flesh of my hands trying to sharpen myself with pain, but it was no good. Slowly my eyelids closed like immovable shutters. I felt light headed with a sense of blissful euphoria.

And then nothing seemed to matter any more.

Seconds later I was gone.

And across the vastness of space an infinitesimally small speck of silver dust sailed silently down the black corridor towards the far side of the sun...

The end of The Slave World, but not necessarily the end for Caitlin Ambrose and her friends...