The Way Back (Champions of the Crystal Book 4)

Chapter 6.3

She listened through the door; the guard's breathing seemed slow and regular. She drew her stunner anyway and set it on the lowest power level as she eased the door open, then shot him so that he would not wake in the middle of her escape or check on her too soon. He slumped over—no, she thought as she looked more closely, this was a female Stanosian. So the guard had changed at some point. She hoped it was for the entire day and not for a short shift. But she had no way of knowing, so she must try to get back as soon as possible.

She headed for the deserted wing of the palace, where Emalicia's rooms and the old laboratory were. Her scanner showed that there was a way underground from there, leading down from the old laboratory. She didn't really want to go there, but it was better than trying to avoid everyone in the palace's inhabited section. She set her scanner to the frequency she and Lndor had set their suits' locator beacons to. His signal came through very faintly; he must be quite far underground. But at least she had a destination.

Should I have told Ford what I planned to do? No. It couldn't do him any good, and it might do a great deal of harm if Varla's more powerful than he realizes. I hope he's being careful.

But she couldn't do anything about that, she knew, so she decided to focus solely on her mission of the moment. Lndor had been free to roam about the whole time she had been with Ford, so hopefully he had a better idea of what was going on than she did. Well, I sure hope somebody does....

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Scotty had no way of telling time; no sunlight penetrated to them, and he'd left his watch aboard Khediva when he'd changed into his combat armor. But his stomach had been rumbling at him for several hours when they ran out of the stone they'd been constructing the supports out of. A few of the cross beams had been wood, but he knew it must be scarce on a planet like this, and other times they had to struggle to lift beams carved out of the dense brown rock overhead.

Scotty waited for another load to arrive, but it didn't. The digging team was getting past the point where he judged he needed to put the next support, so he went in search of a guard and did his best to get the point across.

What seemed a long time later, half a dozen slaves staggered into the mouth of the tunnel, carrying a mud brick beam. Scotty hoped it would be strong enough; it was certainly heavy. As they struggled to carry it down the rough tunnel, he suddenly had an idea.

He turned to watch the next group carry the next beam in and blinked in surprise at the sight of a humanoid among them. "Oh, my God," he groaned, and hurried forward to lend his strength to the faltering group.

"Aurora," he hissed under his breath, when they were past the guards at the tunnel mouth.
She did not respond to him, and a sickening pit opened in his stomach. Had Varla turned her into an amnesiac, like Mara, or something worse, like some of the other captives? He had to find out. When the beam reached its destination, he shoved one of his shoring assistants out with the beam-carrying group and pushed Aurora into one of the dimly lit corners of the digging area. The guards didn't notice; they never paid much attention to the work.

At the midday break, while the guards were talking among themselves, ignoring the exhausted captives, Toren joined him at Aurora's side. "Is this one of your friends?" Toren asked.

"Yes, or what's left of her," Scotty said grimly. He looked at her blank expression and said, "Aurora? Lady Aurora, it's me, Scotty Devon."

"I do not know that name," she murmured, regarding him with puzzlement. "Why do you disturb me?"

"How did you end up here?" Scotty asked.

"I...I do not know," Aurora said vaguely.

"Damn," Scotty swore.

"Who is she?" Toren asked.

"Lady Aurora nar Ruschar, chief attendant to the Guardian."

Toren let out a long sigh. "Once, perhaps. Now she is just another mindless automaton."

"No!" Scotty snarled. "Mara can help her. We just have to get her out of here."

"And how do you suggest we do that?"

Scotty looked at the tunnel ceiling. "I've got a plan. How much weight do you think you can carry?"

Toren followed his gaze to the last support beam. "You don't mean—but what would we do with it?"

"Knock out the guard dog tonight, while the guards are asleep," Scotty replied. "And any guards who get in our way, until we can steal some better weapons."

"She'll only slow us down," Toren warned.

"I'm not leaving her here," Scotty said, dangerously quiet.

"You're insane," Toren sighed, not for the first time. "But all right." He looked up and saw the guards beginning to go among the prisoners, urging them back to work, and quickly moved off so as not to be seen forming a group. Scotty started to do the same, but paused when two guards he hadn't seen before came over to Aurora purposefully and lifted her to her feet. He tried to stay close, worried about what they had in mind, as they pushed the Miahn toward the end of the tunnel being excavated. They gave her orders, gesticulating menacingly.

Scotty gathered they wanted her to indicate where the k'brith lay. Could she do that? Maybe. She had to be quite crystal sensitive to be Mara's chief attendant, and Toren had said that his partner could sense k'brith.

The guards' meaning finally seemed to get through to Aurora, and she walked hesitantly around, feeling the walls. Scotty frowned, perplexed, as she stopped where the water seepage was the greatest. Was she trying to fool the guards? Or did the k'brith really lay near—or worse, in—the water?

His heart sank as the guards gave new orders to dig in the direction Aurora indicated. Scotty glanced at Toren, who shrugged and mouthed, "Expendable."

Varla really is nuts. We're all gonna drown in the desert. What a way to go. I always thought I'd buy it in a crash.

He began to dig with the others, keeping a close watch on the guards' positions. If they did hit water, maybe during the distraction he could get his friends out to safety—and, perhaps, freedom.

Never give up, he thought, recalling a favorite saying of his last commanding officer. If the door's closed, go through the window. If the window's closed, go through the chimney. If the chimney's blocked, knock a hole in the wall. But don't just sit there like a dog and whine for someone to let you in.

Scotty made sure of Toren's position with the shoring team and then glanced over at Aurora, standing passively nearby. He wished he knew how long it would be before they broke through, and with what force the water would come through. And how it would affect the Stanosians. Though they looked reptilian, he doubted they were amphibious. He thought they resembled the sort of lizards who lived in the desert, not in swamps. In that case, they might not be able to deal with the water.

He wished he knew whether Aurora could swim—and if she could, would she remember how to do so in her current state? He tried to remember the last time he'd gone swimming, and couldn't. During his years back on Earth, he'd focused on the kinds of skills likely to be useful on his eventual return to Praxatillus, even toying with the idea of applying to the space program. He'd gone in for survival training, even done a special course in infiltration techniques, but he'd never thought one of the first things he'd be called on to do when he left Earth would be to dig a hole right into a very large aquifer.

With a grunt of amusement, he reflected that his sister was right: Praxatillus never demanded things you were prepared for.