Runners: Escape Prison World or Die (Empire of Time Series) by John Argo

Page 15.

Kion and Piri spent a chilly night sheltered in the canyon. They slept fitfully, shivering and cowering. The deep shadows of the wash still flickered for a time with secondary flashes as the merks hunted them. Half the night, overhead, zig-zagged bounty hunter disks with their darting search beams and whirring skimmer engines. The other half of the night, the merks rested someplace safely over the horizon, so the hunt could start afresh with first light.

Kion dreamed fitfully of Anet and Anetena, on the porch of their home. In his dreams, he was fastened to a tree along the lane leading to his house. His wife and daughter walked past, and he called out to them, but they laughed and conversed between each other. They failed to see him. But he was glad they went up the walkway, amid roses and a white fence, and closed the door safely. He was glad to be home. He remained tied to the tree as night came.

Still in dreams, Kion was in some eerie forest place on Manaul 5. Terror crawled in his gut as he saw a mask floating in the periphery of his vision. A medicine man, a shaman, of some primitive people, maybe ghosts of the people who might have lived here a million years ago when this desert continent was green. He heard Piri cry in his own dreams, but could not see him. But he sensed somehow that spirit men, shamans, dressed in shaggy cloaks and wearing horned fur hats, abducted the struggling mess cook. Were they Fith, from the jungles thousands of miles away? Kion tried to reach out after him, but his arms were tied, and he could not help the struggling man.

A scream awoke Kion. He started upright. Acid adrenalin poured through the rack of his bones, seeping through his guts and ripping sleep away. "What?"

"Sorry," Piri said nearby, "I was having horrible nightmares." He put his head down to seek a little more sleep.

Kion looked around the ghostly canyon, still wrapped in night. "Me too." Usually his dreams of Anet and Anetena were pleasant. This one had been full of terror—almost like a legendary Kaarrk mind peel, though he'd never experienced the real thing. Couldn't be, because even if there were such a thing, it wasn't clear they could find and enter one's mind from a distance.

Faint wind whistled low among the boulders. One of the moons was up, peering its faint, blood-red light over the high cliffs. Kion listened intently, but heard no whirring merk skimmers. He drifted back into an exhausted, hungry, thirsty numbness that passed for sleep. He must get every second of rest he could…

Minutes later, it seemed, the canyon glowed with morning light. A blue morning sky shed the last purple of sunrise, as the yellow sun wheeled up overhead and started to bake this slice of Manaul once again. "Jac," Kion said. "Piri! You there?"

The spookery of those dreams remained in his bones, as if something truly had changed during the dark of night.

For a moment, there was silence. Worried, Kion sat bolt upright. "Piri!"

The other man raised his shaven head. His eyes were still closed as he sat upright. "What?"

"We've got to start running again, or they'll use us for sport."

As the morning sun shone down into the canyon, its protective shade melted away, except under overhangs. Kion and Piri crept up a cleft in the cliff face for a look.

"We're gonna die today," said the sweating mess sergeant as he viewed two gray-green skimmers prowled the desert only two kliks away toward the sun. He seemed more beaten than he'd been last night. Paradoxically, he seemed stronger as well. Maybe even the broken sleep of last night had taken away most of his terror and fatigue.

From the safety of their position, Kion eyeballed two skimmers above, about a klik away. "Only two of the bastards prowling at this early hour," Kion said. Piri, too, watched the skimmers while biting his lips and contemplating death today.

"What are they waiting for?" Kion scanned the desert around them.

Slowly, achingly, Kion and Piri started back down the arroyo or wash. Its dry, stony bed coursed zig-zag through the abyss of the canyon. "Come on," Kion said. "Good flat running ground down there."

Piri lingered a moment, licking his lips and staring with haunted eyes at the ominously drifting skimmers

"Which is worse," Kion said, "getting fried by their beams, or being taken back to Aerag-15 for another couple years of be starved, beaten, and breaking rocks rain or shine?"

"Yeah, you're right. We've got nothing left to lose."

"One good thing though," Kion said.

"Yeah?" Piri's expression said: Tell me something to cheer me up.

"This is an old wash. Maybe it still gets rain once in a while. But the best part is that, by the laws of gravity, it has to lead down to water. If we're lucky, at least a decent puddle."

"I'd give anything for a splash of water." Piri's face was coated with dust, and his eyes looked mournful. His face bore an expression of such ancient, total sadness that Kion was startled.

What had happened during the night to make such a change? Kion felt something in his bones, ominous and gnawing, but he wrote it off as the memory of a terrible dream.

"Then let's go," Kion urged.

They climbed down and started running. Kion felt stiff from crouching too long, but Piri held his own. Kion wondered if the shock and depression of their situation were propelling the other man to squeeze out frantic energy.

A kill packet whined in and exploded in the sand, sending up stingers of hot sand.

"They got our number!" Piri said.

"Of course they're on us. Pick it up! Let's hit the road, Jac."

As an officer, his training compelled him to lead. As a combat veteran just hoping to get home in one piece some day, he wasn't much for pulling rank. As the saying went in the Treaty Marches armed forces, incoming don’t salute. A bullet was a bullet was a bullet, with a mind of its own—a great equalizer. Didn't care who or what it took out. Rank and grade were no object. Loudmouths and posers equally popped. Best to keep one's mouth shut and eyes to one's self. A good NCO could lead better than many officers. A good field commander understood how fighters naturally bonded under combat conditions. The system channelled human nature rather than fought it, in the hands of a wise leader. The military could just as well achieve its notorious SNAFU (situation normal – all fouled up) condition in the hands of incompetent leaders—and there were many of them, some trained in remote university programs, others raised beyond their level of competence from the ranks. This mess sergeant was a born follower—that had been Kion's judgment after half a minute on the run with him. Which was okay, as long as every player sang his proper few bars in the chorus. So far, so good with Piri.

"I'm with you, boss."

The half dozen or so humanian merks staffing each skimmer were flying on instruments. Of those, three or four were simply gunmen along for the ride. The pilots flew mostly blind and frustrated as hell, except what their spotters could glean in the top and bottom observation bubbles on each disk.

Thank you for reading. If you love it, tell your friends. Please post a favorable review at Amazon, Good Reads, and other online resources. If you want to thank the author, you may also buy a copy for the low price of a cup of coffee. It's called Read-a-Latte: similar (or lower) price as a latte at your favorite coffeeshop, but the book lasts forever while the beverage is quickly gone. Thank you (JTC).

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