It was almost impossible, but Garet ran faster. He turned away from the gruesome sight behind him and pumped his legs faster, flying towards the light that beckoned him from the end of the corridor.
Then he was out, the rest of the fleeing crowd still well behind him. His eyes wild, his hair rumpled and mussed, he frantically looked from side to side. Out of the corner of his eye, he barely registered the butt of the pulse rifle as it slammed into his temple.
The world was all white around the edges when Garet came to. His head swam, and he could feel the bruise on the left side of his face before he touched it. He felt sick, and the walls around him wouldn't stop spinning. Then his eyes adjusted for a moment, and he saw he was in a moving APC, red light vaguely illuminating the interior.
Garet coughed, tried to sit up, then a hand pushed him back down roughly. He hit his head on a bulkhead, so when the man leaned over Garet's face, the world was swimming again. "Lunatic," the man spat as he adjust the helmet resting on his head. Then he picked up his pulse rifle again, and slammed it into Garet's head again.
Garet was vaguely aware of movement when he awoke again, then he realized that it was just his concussion. His mouth was cotton dry, and when he coughed, it hurt the back of his throat. He reached up and gently probed his face. It was bad. The bruise covered his forehead and the whole left side of his head. His left temple felt crusty and he realized it was dry blood.
Then he looked around. The room was nearly pitch-black, the only light coming from a port hole in the center of one of the walls. A door was opposite the window, put in only had a thin slot in it. He was on a prison ship, heading for a mining world, by his best guess. Or maybe just another prison facility somewhere. If he was lucky, he hoped it was the mining world. He would die quickly that way.
He looked down at himself, and realized that he was no longer wearing his robes. quickly, he tried to cover up his naked body, quickly sweeping his hands around the floor for any article of clothing. Then his hands fell on a bundle that lay behind them. It was his robes.
"So, we're close," Garet thought, "if they already brought me out of hypersleep." Funny, though, Garet couldn't remember his trial or anything. Probably was unconscious through the whole thing. He quickly put on his robes and slowly made his way to the view port, steadying himself on the bulkhead wall.
The stars flickered as the view port automatically filtered out the sudden flares in light. It was an impressive sight, all the stars surrounding and outlining planets twice the size of the ship he was traveling on. Then Garet leaned forward a bit to see around to the front of the ship. The planet in front of him was massive. It dwarfed the ship easily a hundred times. It was a rust red color, with minimal cloud cover, and that being at the poles. The ship was heading right for it. This obviously would be Garet's new home.
Six hours later, there was a rattling outside his door and the thin food delivery slot slid open. The thin beam of light blinded Garet for a moment, but he heard a tray being passed through the slot. Then the slot closed again, and again Garet was in the dark. He shuffled forward and grabbed up the tray, hungry from not having eaten in what felt like months.
The food was cold and disgusting, but Garet ate it all in five minutes and was still hungry. He used what seemed to be cornbread to wipe up the remainder's of the cold mush, and crammed the bread into his mouth, swallowing it in two bites. When he was done, he placed the tray before the slot, rather loudly in order to get the guards attention, and stood waiting.
Garet heard footsteps outside his cell, and a huffing as the guard (many pounds over-weight, by the noise he was making) stepped up. He called through the door "All right Looney, slide the tray through, then step back."
Then the slot opened, Garet did what he said, and before he could say a word, the tray was grabbed up, the slot was slammed shut and the sounds of the guard waddling away faded into the distance.
Three days later, just as Garet thought he was going to go stir crazy, their was a pounding on his door. "Stand away from the door!" Garet did and it opened, and something metal rattled to the floor at his feet. "Put on those shackles!" The guard outside the door barked, his massive form just waiting for Garet to disobey him.
Garet shuffled forward, reached under his robes, and latched on the shackles, then stood upright again and latched them onto his wrists. "Come on!" The guard said, beckoning Garet forward.
Stepping out of the dark cell, Garet was forced to save his eyes from the bright corridor lights by staring at his feet as he was shoved forward down the corridor. His robes swished softly in time with his footsteps as he stared at the passing floor below him. He started to hear more sounds of activity as he walked along, and dared once to glance up.
The guard behind him lashed out, smacking him hard in the back of his head. "Keep yours eyes on the ground, Looney!" He barked. Garet grimaced at the hit, but immediately directed his attention to the floor. Then he noticed the other feet around his. The guard let him look up.
He stood in a long line of prisoners, standing inside what looked like an airlock. Garet could just barely see outside one of the view ports. A strong wind stirred up the red sand of the planet before him. They had made planet fall. Then someone shoved him from the side and began to snikker softly.
The man was big, his prison clothes ripped off at the shoulders to reveal massive muscles. Tattoos wound there way down the right side of his face, and he sneered evilly at Garet, chuckling and staring. Then Garet noticed that others were doing the same.
The guard behind him, laughing softly, leaned forward to Garet's ear. "My advice, once you get out of the ship, find a stick, and find one fast. The boys here tend to not like fresh-meat." He slapped Garet on the back, not in a friendly way, and walked on down the line, his fat gut hanging slightly out of his ill-fitting uniform. He stopped every once in a while to make his presence known to some of the rowdier inmates, generally just trying to tick them off, trying to get them to start something.
He reached the front and turned to face the line of inmates. Garet was close to the front, so he had no trouble hearing what was said. "welcome to your new home! Otherwise known as hell. Find a spot, build a home and start mining. You get one transmitter, and if one of ya'll decides to break it, you all suffer, cause we won't come to get ya. Your weekly quota will be filled, and if it's not, again, you will all suffer. Well boys," he drawled, triggering the hatch release, "welcome to hell!!"
Slowly, they plodded forward, the hundred or so prisoners each stopping at the hatch to have their shackles removed. The big man next to Garet started humming some inane tune , never letting his gaze off of Garet. Then Garet was at the door.
With a metallic click, Garet's shackles fell off. Then the big man grabbed him and roughly shoved him out into the new world. Garet tried to turn and grab on to something, but he tripped over the edge of his robes, and fell onto his back in the red sand.
He spit out some of the sand that had managed to wind his way into his mouth, then noticed all the sand now trapped within the various folds of his robes. The man leaned over him and spit onto the ground at Garet's feet. "Where's the freaking guard?!" Garet thought as he starred back into the man's eyes.
The guard was leaning against the hatch, watching the scene with an amused look in his eyes, his riot stick hanging unused at his waist. He was not going to help any. Garet was on his own. Then the big man snapped back into his immediate attention.
"Well ain't you all pretty in them robes," He snickered at his own joke. Garet didn't think it was funny.
"Brother, I don't make fun of you religion. Don't make fun of mine," he muttered, scooping sand out of the back of his hood.
"What was that, freshmeat? Your a religious man, are ya? Well, tell you what, Father, I'm not religious myself. So don't be offended if I still I think that your God is a crock," he spat, his sneer now growing even larger.
Garet looked up, directly into the big man eyes. "Brother, you haven't met my god."
"Oh," the big man mocked, "and you've seen yours?"
"O yea of little faith," Garet said, "be glad that you'll never see my god."
Then Garet rolled out from in front of the big man and stood up, wiping red dust from his back side. Turning, Garet felt the big man starring into his back as he walked slowly towards the front of the crowd.
It must have been 100 degrees under the hot sun out on the sand, and Garet felt the effects. He started to stumble over his own feet, seeing strange mirages in front of him. The prisoners had been walking all day, grumbling and whining behind Garet, who now was at the very front. No one had tried to run off, for that would just be sentencing themselves to a quicker death. To survive, they would need to stay together.
Garet didn't think so, though, for he had other plans. "If anything, these men and would only hold me back," he thought as he slowly plodded on. He planned as soon as the sun had set, to find a way to break from the group. No one would care about him, anyway. They all thought he was a freak by now, thanks to the big man from earlier.
Garet paused to turn around for a moment, to look out and see their progress if they had made, if any at all. He could have swore he was dreaming. He had to be dreaming, for he saw his dream in front of him.
The red sand in front of him stretched endlessly into the horizon, finally broken in its smooth progress by a massive brown moon hanging just halfway up in the sky. Wind stirred up gritty clouds of red sand and ruffled Garet's jet black hair. Before him, the line of prisoners stretched out for a mile behind him, hundreds of men walking slowly behind Garet. Garet even saw them wearing robes, even though he knew that they were not.
Everything was right. "except were are the monsters," he mumbled to himself, "were are the... aliens?" Even as he said that, the stirring sand behind him gave him pause. They rose up out of the red like biblical demons, the red sand sliding freely off their black carapaces. Their hisses filled the air, strange cries uttering out of their spiked maws. They were all around the prisoners, yet no one noticed them yet. Garet began to pray softly as he dropped to his knees, hands clasped in front of his chest.
The men closest behind Garet suddenly noticed the massive aliens crouched in the red sand in front of them. They screamed. Then they died. The closest of the aliens sprang forward, leaping into the air and landing between the two frightened prisoners. Hissing wildly, it reached forward and grabbed one of the men by the head, pulling it forward to meet it's onrushing inner jaws. Red blood splattered the already red sand.
Still screaming, the second prison rushed forward and tried to grab the alien's tail. He stopped screaming a minute later when he found the tail suddenly impaling him through the chest. As more blood fell to the sand, the alien swung its tail around in front of it, and placing both taloned hands on the man, ripped him in half at the waist. With a sickening thud, the two halves fell to the blood soaked sand.
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17 day?! Hey man, I hate to rain on your parade, but we ain't going to last 17 hours!(Go Home)
