Mav watched the inmates starting to gather in the open area below, but he didn’t get up from his seat on the upper level. The circular formation indicated another brawl in the making, and that was hardly noteworthy. He enjoyed a good fight every now and then though, liked to watch from an elevated view if the fighters were talented. But his fellow prisoners went after each other several times daily, and usually it was one-sided. Wasn’t worth watching, unless it was one of his guys delivering it, and then only to make sure they did the job right.
This one seemed likely to be more of the same, just two angry men laying fists into each other for want of a better target. He could see the two now, at the center of the circle, watching each other as the heat from the surrounding crowd grew. The first he recognized, a Kval that everyone just called King on account of his size and authority within the palajak cartel. That blue behemoth’s brain is so torn up by the stuff that he’s basically an animal, Mav thought. Not that he considered that much of a step down from the rest of them. But King was a talented fighter, which made Mav hopeful enough for a good bout that he leaned forward to get a better look at the competition.
He didn’t know the other one, which normally wouldn’t have been much of a surprise. On his block alone, there were several hundred permanent inmates, so he didn’t expect to know them all. But this other fighter, a human, was every bit the Kval’s equal in size and strength, and seemed thoroughly unfazed by the amount of posturing King was doing. Now this, Mav thought, could be a good one. He stood up and moved to the railing.
Finally, King had enough of posturing and moved forward aggressively, winding up a flashy, elongated punch. Well before he could follow through, his human opponent had snapped off two quick right-handed jabs to the center of his forehead, leaving King momentarily stunned. This impressed Mav immediately, because that spot was relatively soft on a Kval, but would likely break your fingers if attempted against another human. That meant experience and knowledge, which were useful qualities in a place like this.
The jabs were followed up by several aggressive shots to the chin and face, substantial blows, but not enough to bring King down. The Kval shook off his daze and replied with a series of less showy, more effective blows, striking at whatever his opponent didn’t cover with a block. A few were dodged, but enough landed to cause him to stagger, which let King follow up with a heavy boot to his midsection, sending him sprawling backwards. The manic blue beast advanced towards his prey, but was cut short by the alarm bells.
A half dozen guards in combat armor swept into the room, moving towards the combatants, and the crowd quickly dispersed. The human was wise enough to stay down, and only earned a few solid kicks for his trouble. King, ever enraged, wasn’t done fighting yet. It took three of the guards to finally bring him down, stun batons beating down around his head and neck. Eventually he was still, presumably unconscious. Mav sighed, disappointed, and returned to his seat.
Mav stood in the corner of the yard that afternoon, leaning against the wall in a spot where it provided a bit of shade from the blistering sun. On either side of him stood two men of menacing demeanor, arms crossed tightly to indicate just how unwelcoming they were. Every little bit helped, in Mav’s estimation, because humans were outnumbered pretty severely within this prison camp. He had always assumed this was intentional, an added punishment for his status within the White Star. The feds liked to play games like that while keeping up the appearance of justice.
But he had stayed alive because of muscle like the two standing in front of him now, because it wasn’t worth going through them to get to him. It wasn’t a bad deal for them either; not all of them were locked away forever, and Mav’s blessing could set them up when they got out. But even with the protection he had, there was always room for new members within the prison, for greater control over the current situation. That thought was what made him smile a bit to himself when he saw the muscled fighter from earlier approaching.
The two men stepped out of the shadow of the wall and into the sunlight, sizing him up, implicitly threatening a fight if he kept going. He stopped, and tilted his head slightly to see over one of their shoulders. “You Mav?” Mav didn’t reply, but that was answer enough.
“Just got here. I’m supposed to find you. Message from the outside.”
Mav scoffed. “I’m sure. Let’s hear it.”
The man looked at Mav’s two guards for a moment, and then back at him. “The days are getting awfully long lately, don’tcha think?”
Mav stood up straight. That was one of the highest level code phrases the White Star used, a sure sign that one of his few superiors was finally feeding him some real information. “Let him through.”
The two stepped aside, allowing the oversized man through. He was an even more imposing figure up close, but Mav didn’t let it concern him. In that moment, he was only good news. He ushered him over to the corner.
“Well, what is it? What’s the news?”
The man looked at the two bodyguards, then back at Mav. “Can they hear us?” Neither of them made a motion like they had heard, which he took as enough reassurance. “I’m here to get you out.”
Even as much as he had practiced aloofness, Mav couldn’t help but be a bit giddy at the words. When he was first sent here, he had thought it was a sure thing that his bosses would pull the strings and get him out, as a reward for his loyalty. But after a year without word, he had begun to doubt. There were many things that could have happened, after all, power struggles within the White Star, plus the general difficulty of trying to break someone out. And there were those that hadn’t agreed with the project, with everything that his plan had entailed, the dangerous information he had accumulated. But now his work was rewarded. He’d be back on top.
He laughed a little, despite himself, unable to handle the surprise. “That’s… finally. So, so, so when? When are we doing this? What do I need to do?”
“Two days. Everything is taken care of. Be in the mess hall at lunch, sit at the table in the far corner, nearest to the kitchen. The guard posted there is one of ours, but don’t talk to him, or you’ll mess this whole thing up.”
Mav listened intently, trying to memorize all of the details as quickly as he could, knowing he was unlikely to hear the plan repeated.
“Now, for this to work, I’m gonna have to stab you, it’s gotta be a real wound or they won’t take you to the infirmary. It won’t kill you, but it ain’t gonna tickle either.”
Mav nodded his understanding. It wasn’t something he was looking forward to; he had been stabbed before, back in his younger days, and the memory was still vivid. But it was worth it if it meant getting out of this place.
“One you’re in the infirmary, another one of our guys will meet you. He’ll get you outside the main facility. I’ll meet up with you there, and then we’ll catch our ride out.”
“How… how are you going to make it out?” Mav asked, overwhelmed by the moment.
“Second incident in a week, they’ll take me straight to the hole. Don’t worry about it from there.”
Mav laughed, the noise escaping his throat before he could even process it. His sense of surprise was turning to elation as it dawned on him how carefully planned this operation was. This son of a bitch knew what he was doing the whole time, he thought to himself.
“What… what’s your name, son?”
The big man seemed a bit uncomfortable at the question, as though he had expected to pull off the whole thing without using a name. “Just call me Nesti.”
Mav reached up and patted him firmly on the shoulder. “You’re going to live like a king for this, kid, you hear me? I’m gonna bring you to the top, the very top, understand?”
Nesti broke eye contact with him, but otherwise didn’t react much. Mav understood this moment well; promises like this were made regularly and not followed up on it. But he meant every word, because this bear of a man was someone he needed around. He could think of a lot of uses for a walking tank that could also handle a plan. And if he could pull this whole thing off, Mav would owe him, not on paper, but as a matter of honor. The ignoring of such debts had felled more than one aspiring hierarch, and he didn’t plan to join them.
“Remember, day after tomorrow, in the corner by the kitchen.” Nesti started to leave, then quickly turned back. “Don’t talk to anyone.”
Mav sat at the corner table and waited. The sounds of the nearby kitchen mixed with the raucous din of the open mess hall, creating a tense, chaotic symphony that only compounded his anxiety. The previous two days had been agony. With the possibility of freedom so close in front of him, the dangers that surrounded him seemed that much more unsettling, and the possibility of something going catastrophically wrong during their escape had trailed behind him like a shadow. He slept poorly the first night, snatching a few moments here and there. The second, he had barely bothered to close his eyes.
He was trying to avoid looking over at the nearest guard, the one he suspected Nesti had meant. It wouldn’t have been unusual for him to look, but the situation was adding to his paranoia, and he didn’t want to be responsible for accidentally tipping off someone else. Mav had tried to size the guard up anyway when he first entered, stealing glances like an unsubtle teenager, but hadn’t been able to glean any useful information from it. He looked like all the other guards, another stoic face barely visible beneath his polished black helmet.
Down the bench from him, two others sat at the same table. They were young still, and had only just joined with the White Star after being thrown in here, but Mav knew they could follow orders, and that’s what was needed today. He had told them to keep their normal positions, but not to intervene against any human that approached him. They didn’t ask any follow-up questions, which he liked. He glanced over at them a few times, but they kept their eyes on the room, as the job required.
Normally, Mav choked down the disgusting manufactured food they were given. He didn’t have much of a choice; if you didn’t keep up your intake, a particularly hard day of work could kill you on its own. But today he just stared at the dark brown semi-solid nutrient solution and felt every second pass like a long slow cut across his back. He felt old. Decades ago, he was the first to sign up for this type of plan, but with the shield of youth removed, he felt exposed in a way he couldn’t remember, a way that made him question his life.
It was an internal doubt that Mav might have firmly latched onto, were it not for the heavy weight of Nesti’s hand on his shoulder. It felt to him, for an instant, like the titan was offering him some needed comfort. But Nesti just wanted to keep him still so he didn’t hit anything vital.
The blade slipped effortlessly into the left side of Mav’s abdomen, bringing with it the searing memories of his previous encounter with the business end of an assassin’s knife. He yelled without thinking about it, cursing and reaching for his side. It wasn’t part of the plan, but it worked to their advantage, as it drew the immediate attention of the nearby guard, who was already in the process of rushing over by the time Nesti stepped back. Nesti left the blade in, since removing it would increase the risk of Mav bleeding out. He raised up his right leg for a kick, deliberately timed to not reach the wounded man before the guard crashed into him, stun baton already drawn. Nesti went down after the first hit sent shock waves throughout his body.
A guard was standing over Mav now, though he couldn’t tell if it was the right one or not. It worried him a bit, but the pain was too distracting. As a youth, he had turned on the man who stabbed him and thrown him from the nearby balcony, cursing at him the whole time he fell. But now there was no surge of strength, just intense weariness. He could see other guards coming in, pushing inmates aside, sparking new confrontations. Turning his head to the side, he could make out the shape of Nesti on the ground, offering no further resistance.
Suddenly they were lifting him, sending new ripples of pain as the blade nicked new bits of tissue while it moved about. They were clumsy about it, caring little about the comfort of prisoners, but despite the pain, he was safe. The weapon had been carefully placed. Still, the blood loss was making him intensely dizzy, and the light passing overhead as they carried him down the hallway added to his nausea.
A different voice pierced through the indistinct sounds of the guards that were carrying him. All he could make out distinctly was the word “Here”, which didn’t help much, but at once his escort stopped moving. He started to turn his head to see what was happening, but was met by another sharp pain in his shoulder. The prick of the needle was quickly replaced with the cold tingle of injected medicine, and in the next moment, he was unconscious.
Mav awoke suddenly, chest pounding, gasping for air as though he had been drowned. The room was bright, but empty save for a small scattering of medical equipment and the one man in a lab coat standing beside his bed. He reached for his side instinctively, feeling for the spot where the knife had been, and finding only packed-in gauze. There was no pain, only a numb tingle that pervaded his body. He breathed heavily, eyes wide, aggressively brushing strands of gray hair from his face.
“Relax, I gave you a stimulant to pull you out. They only left because they think you’re sedated.”
The man in the lab coat was fairly young, but had a solid determined face that seemed unfazed by the agitated, recently stabbed crime boss sitting in front of him. Processing that information calmed Mav down considerably. This had to be the one who was getting him out.
“Is it time?” Mav asked, trying to slow his breathing and potentially bring down his heart rate.
The doctor nodded. Mav swung his legs off the table, and gingerly touched each foot to the floor, testing his weight. Despite the intense awareness brought on by the stimulant, he was still only just recovering from the sedative, and his legs were not as stable as he hoped.
“I disabled the tracker while you were out, so it shouldn’t alert anyone. Here, put this on.”
He tossed Mav a pair of scrubs and a similar coat with an ID badge, which he quickly put on, adjusting it to his frame as best he could. He looked himself over, not entirely satisfied. It didn’t seem like much of a disguise. He might look like another doctor at a glance, but he couldn’t imagine it would hold up on closer inspection.
“What’s the plan?”
The man glanced up at the clock display on the wall, then shook his head. “We’re running out of time, just follow me.”
The doctor turned towards the side door, which led away from the main prisoner quarters and towards the exterior of the structure. Mav followed after him as quickly as he could with the cold numbness still present in his lower legs. He didn’t like not being told what the plan was, but he didn’t have any better options.
The hallway was empty, which helped. The doctor was walking quickly, although not quite sprinting, just in case someone happened to see them. Mav did his best to keep up, but wasn’t nearly as fast, even ignoring his unstable legs. But the stimulant kept him going, enough so that he was practically running without realizing it. Despite it being a necessary part of the plan, he wished they hadn’t given it to him. The pounding in his chest made him wonder if his heart could even handle it.
Ahead, the doctor took one last glance down the hallway and abruptly turned into a small room. Mav sped up more to reach him, ducking inside and quickly closing the door behind him. To his dismay, it appeared to just be a storage closet, a few small shelves holding what looked like cleaning liquids, and leftover bags of the polymer concrete used in the prison’s construction. The doctor stood in the middle of the room, holding a small comm device in his hand, saying nothing. Mav hunched over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
“Do it.”
He lifted his head in response, seeing the doctor turn away from the wall opposite the door, ducking his head slightly as he did. Mav had a fleeting moment to consider why he was doing this, but didn’t reach a conclusion. In the next moment, the wall exploded.
The concussive force hit him immediately, forcing him to grab at a nearby shelf to avoid being knocked off his feet entirely. All he could hear at first was the hollow reverberation, but as the sound returned, it was replaced by the blaring screech of alarms. Searing red sunlight was streaming into the room now, filtered by the gradually settling dust leftover from the destruction of the wall. As he tried to pull himself back to a standing position, an unmistakable imposing shape became visible in the newly opened entrance to the room.
The doctor yelled several things at Nesti, but all Mav could hear was “Grab him!” That was apparently enough, because a few seconds later, the giant was hoisting Mav over his shoulder, despite the older man’s feeble protest. Nesti’s shoulder blade hit firmly in the spot where the knife had, sending sharp daggers throughout Mav’s abdomen. He tried to look around, to reassess the situation, but Nesti was already moving, and the combination of the smoke and the sunlight left him unable to fully see his surroundings.
Mav could tell they were outside though, the blistering heat on his skin attested to that, and the alarms were getting more distant with each stride that his carrier took. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the mix of unpleasant sensations hitting him from every direction, and instead focused only on what he could hear. There were more voices now, all yelling, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying over that loud… was that a drive core?
The heat was suddenly replaced by a rush of cold air, and all at once Mav found himself landing hard on the metal floor. The sounds of the outside were cut off with a satisfying hush, and he opened his eyes again to see the cargo door of the ship sealing shut behind him. He closed his eyes again and laughed to himself, rolling to his other side. They were out.
Inertia and acceleration jerked him about as the ship lifted off and broke out of the atmosphere, but he didn’t mind. It felt then like the gentle rocking of his mother, and he let himself be rolled side to side on the cold metal grating without trying to fight it. Then it stopped, and all he could feel was the vibrations from boots on the floor nearby. He pulled himself to a sitting position, overjoyed, and took the situation in.
There were five of them besides himself. Nesti and the doctor stood on one side of the group, talking to the other three about something, he couldn’t tell what. And the other three… The blood drained from his face, and the swell of nausea returned. The other three were Kval. This was not a White Star ship.
He might have hoped that they would remain distracted, giving him a few precious moments to come up with a plan. But the possibility never arose, because just as he was having the realization, the others were turning to face him.
“Secure him,” one of them ordered, and the others began advancing on him. Mav couldn’t muster the will to protest, this crushing blow having combined with exhaustion to finally break the last of his strength. Instead, he sat in place, feebly trying to comprehend what had happened.
“But you… How? Why?”
One of the Kval laughed and put a hard boot to his chest, knocking him back against the closed bay door. He slid down to the floor and was still.
“You really thought they were coming back for you? No chance. But hey, don’t worry, we’ve got you now, and you can tell us all about that project you were working on. Maybe where you were storing it.”
Mav said nothing, could muster up no words of defiance, and only felt the rush of despair. The Kval standing over him shrugged.
“That’s fine, we’ve got plenty of time.”
“The info isn’t part of my deal,” Nesti interrupted. He was leaning against the wall, looking away towards the front of the ship. “Have your boss send my money and then drop me off at the nearest station.”
“Fine, but you’ll miss all the fun.” The others joined in the laugh, gathering around Mav’s slumped form. He looked past them at Nesti, who wouldn’t turn around and meet his gaze. Finally, left with no better options, he laid his head back against the cargo door and closed his eyes.