Prisoner Escape

[Red Thunder]

"Hell, I don't know." Kim's offer to examine his burn was outright ignored. "Worst case, we either burn to death or suffocate going up, we plummet to our deaths going down, or we're crushed to death trying to make a decision. I'm not a fan of the options.


"So I'll make my own. This boat carry any explosive ordinance on this level? I could make us a door..."


He felt it before he heard it. The floor began rumbling severely, and a noise like fingernails on chalkboard filled the air, drowning out much else.


"Shit!" Sean screamed, trying to be heard over the ruckus. "Can't go up! Where's your door? We need out now!"

 

[redletalis]

"This way!" Kim was already running away from the smoke. She reached a tiny door at the end of the corridor, it almost blended in perfectly with the wall. It took a hard push to get it to open. The corridor beyond was small, full of pipes and fallen beams, but it was free of smoke for now. Kim led the way, under and over and between fallen beams, often having to take off the backpack in order to get through. Five minutes later they were out in another corridor and she headed straight for another panel in the wall, forcing it open.


Thick, black smoke welled out and she jumped back and started coughing.


"Fuck! The door -cough- the door is traight ahead -cough- two metres at the most. We're both going to have to -cough- push at it to open it." Her throat felt like it was burning from the smoke and the coughing. She didn't think that they had much time left and all the doors that led to the outside hull of the ship were especially difficult to open to keep them from falling off in space. They just had to go for it and hope for the best. "Ready?"

 

[Red Thunder]

If Kim had had trouble getting through the mess of an obstacle course, Sean had found it nearly impossible. Sizable biceps might be great for knocking in an army grunt's teeth, but they were something of a hindrance in shimmying through tight places. He had gotten through, to be sure, but it had been a near thing: he was covered in bruises, and small cuts and tears littered his clothing. But he nodded to her in acknowledgement, not wanting to inhale any more of the black stuff on the air than necessary.


Holding their breath tightly, they sprinted forward through the haze, keeping as low as they could without sacrificing too much speed to do so. Finally they made the door. Cranking down on the release handle, Sean gave a shove. To no effect. Even together it didn't budge. Panic began to well up in his stomach. But suddenly he reached behind him, pulling his impromptu knife from where he'd stuffed it. With a grunt, partially from the effort and partially in response to a cry from his brain for air, Sean shoved the piece of metal into the latch, causing it to remain in the open position.


He turned to Kim, slapping her on the arm to get her attention. All not wanting to risk his lungs, he began motioning at her. First he pointed to both of them, then farther back down the hall a few feet, then again to the pair. Finally, black dots starting to appear in his vision, he pointed at the door and punched the palm of his hand, wincing a bit at the pain as he did. Hoping to the old gods she understood him but not really having time to wait for an acknowledgement, Sean ran forward and impacted the door with his shoulder.

 

[redletalis]

She did. She understood perfectly. She was only half a step behind him and throwing herself at the door with the wild abandon of someone who was doing everything they could in order to survive. The first time didn't work since they had been just a little bit off beat with each other, and she tugged at his sleeve, pulling him back for a second try and holding on to his sleeve to make sure that they didn't make the same mistake again. There would be no third attempt.


Kim held up three fingers in the gloom. Then folded first one. It was followed by the second one. One last look to make sure that Sean was ready and Kim folded the third finger down and ran at the door and threw herself at it once more, angling her shoulder to hit first. The impact was jarring, the metal was actually heating up as the fire started to consume the ship all around them, and for a moment Kim was terrified that it wouldn't work.


But suddenly the door gave away with a groan and a snap, and they were flying out into nothingness.


There was no time nor any air left in her lungs to scream, but her stomach jumped into her throat in the brief second they were airborne. And then they hit water.

 

[Red Thunder]

Kick off your boots to swim better was his first thought, and instinct was already guiding him to do so. Idiot! You need those! The rational part of his mind finally took over, and his boots stayed on his feet. Lungs screamed for pure air, absent of smoke or water. But they'd have to do with what they could get. Doing his best to keep his head above water with the extra weight on his back, Sean spared a glance at the ship, seeing its exterior for the first time. He'd been right in his evaluation of her: ill-cared for, the paint that hadn't melted or evaporated off from the heat within was spotty, and craftsmanship was very poor. Smoke poured from any opening it could find, as if fleeing from the very inferno that had created it. The cabin and the nose upon which it had sat were caved into what was left of he main body, pulled inexorably down by gravity as the fire aggravated the structural damage the initial fall had caused.


Just as he felt gravity threatening to pull him into the black depths beneath his feet. Kicking and stroking as well as he could despite the pain in his shoulder where he'd hit the door, Sean began making his way for the nearest bit of land he could see. It was only a few yards away, but the extra weight and the weary muscles made it fell much longer. Finally the ex-con pulled himself into the rocky shore and stood up shakily. He was immediately glad he hadn't abandoned his boots. Even through his thick soles the stone edges made themselves uncomfortably known. He looked back toward the water.


"Oi!" Lungs finally free of impure air, he took a deep breath and shouted. "Kim! The hell are you? Don't tell me your dumb ass can't swim!"


A worried expression crossed his face. Sean might hate what she stood for, but the broad was the one carrying the tools, the radio, and most of the food. He didn't want her to have lost all that to a watery grave.

 

[redletalis]

Kim had been a bit more lucky, she had landed closer to another spit of land and it took her surprisingly little time to get to despite the very heavy pack on her back. It helped that she very soon could touch bottom with her feet and walk out of the water. She was surrounded by thick reed-like plants that loomed five metres in the air at the very least. Dropping her pack next to her, she collapsed into a seated position and took a few previous moments to simply sit there in the mud catching her breath and clearing her lungs of the smoke she had swallowed.


Her entire body ached, suddenly letting her know exactly how little it appreciate being abused like this and please not to repeat it anytime soon, thank you. She could see the smoke from the ship rising up above the reeds, and beyond that an oddly pink sky. It wasn't a sunset or sunrise pink, it was just pink. And a little bit of orange-yellow in the direction of the sun. She had never seen a sky like that before.


"Funny, that's what I was about to say!" she called back when she heard Sean, and got to her feet with a groan. She pushed the reeds out of her way, stepping into the water until it reached her thighs. It took her that long before she could see out from the reeds and spot Sean. "You okay?" she called. "How's the hand? You want to come over here or should I come over there? We seem to be queally far enough from the shore."


She couldn't help but feel a small spark of gladness that Sean had survived the fall. It would have been twice as difficult doing this if he hadn't been there.

 

[Red Thunder]

His tone took on a wry and slightly bemused quality.


"Aren't you the soldier? Shouldn't you be giving me orders?"


Sean looked about, actually seeing the alien planet they'd been forced onto for the first time. His head shook in amazement as he extracted one of his remaining cigarettes and lit it, absent-mindedly thankful that the designers of this lighter had made it water proof. The reeds that had originally obstructed Kim's view of him seemed to blanket the rocky shore he stood on, stretching from her muddy shore to poke through the stones of his embankment. Frowning, he examined their positions a little more carefully. It looked like they'd hit the water in a very small bay, and they had each made landfall on opposite sides of it. It would be a fifteen minute walk for each to meet around at the apex. One of them could always swim, of course, but his instinct was telling him that such an activity would be very risky. And he was inclined to agree. Raising his voice again, he shouted back.


"Meet in the middle! You see that boulder off to your right and my left, about halfway around the shoreline? That's our rendezvous point!"


It wouldn't be hard to spot. The stone, or it was stone as well as he could guess at this distance, was a full twenty feet high. Large cracks seemed to cover its dull black surface, and two large round bumps could be seen about halfway up. Without waiting, Sean stalked off, wishing he still had his impromptu knife on him. On an alien world, who knew what kind of life lurked in the reeds? And, too, he'd bet all his smokes some of the convicts had escaped. And not all of them were as nice as he was.

 

[redletalis]

"Right now I figure I'm not military, but just another survivor! Meet you there!" Kim called back. She made her way back to her backpack, stretched a bit and then swung it up and around and onto her back. God, the thing weighed a tonne! Next came the satchel she had picked up, and then she was on her way through the reeds. She had to take a detour around a fallen tree at one point. The trunk was enormous, bigger than a redwood that she had once seen pictures of, and it cost her almost five minutes before she was around. After that she stuck to the dry ground. Not that her clothing would dry in this damp, humid atmosphere, but who knew what creatures lived in the water?


She got to the rendezvous point and then simply stopped to stare. Behind the boulder was, well, it looked like a giant freaking mushroom. The size of a small house and with grass and turf and bushes - and was that even a sapling?! - growing out of the top of it, the underside was a pale blue colour. That glowed faintly. Yeah. Glowed.


"Alright, that's the weirdest thing I've ever seen." Kim hadn't even read about something like this, let alone actually seen it. Phosphorescent plants and even creatures weren't uncommon on certain planets, but to see something this big was rare.

 

[Red Thunder]

Apart from the uncertain footing afforded by the loose and shifting rocks beneath his feet, the going was reasonably smooth. His hand was already starting to feel better. The burn gel likely employed painkillers. That aggressively pink sky was going funny things to his brain, though. It wasn't right. Every other new rock he'd landed on for whatever mission the Underground had sent him on had blue skies. Blue! Really, mad god thought pink skies was a good idea when they came up with this place? Sean took a long pull on his smoke stick as he walked and contemplated the strangeness of this world. He couldn't see Kim anymore. She'd likely reached the rendezvous before him, which meant his estimation of time had been off. Thankfully he wasn't more than seventy or eighty meters away. Shaking his head, the man kicked at a fair sized rock in order to send it skittering among its brothers. Of all the weird-ass backwards places to crash, we-


A grip, vise-like in its persistence, caught hold of his shoe, and he looked down. Much like the boulder he'd sent Kim to, this rock was covered in cracks and had two bumps close to one edge. Now that he was closer, the cracks looked a great deal like the outline of scales. The toe of his boot was stuck solidly to the stone, and was in fact partially obscured by it. The hell, he mused, and reached down to pull at it.


Suddenly the two bumps on the rock seemed to roll around, and Sean found himself staring into a pair of neon green compound eyes. The rock obscuring his boot toe seemed to lift, revealing a set of razor sharp yellow teeth. He jumped in surprise, or as well as he could with the creature gripping his footwear like it was. No matter how he shook his foot, the creature wouldn't let go. In his head he thanked the military outfitters for the steel toe that had just saved a good bit of his flesh. Frowning in frustration, he called out to Kim.


"Oi! I've a bit of an issue! Could sure use a pry bar or a hammer or something!"

 

[redletalis]

The mushroom was almost hypnotic in its oddness. The cap looked so innocious, and the blue underneath was soothing. It was good to see the blue since the sky wasn't blue. Calming to know that somewhere there was blue. She could bet on that if she lay down underneath that mushroom and stared up at the blue there would even be tiny clouds floating around. That actually sounded like a good idea. Sean would be here soon enough, why stay standing and wait for him? Why not relax? She damn well deserved it after the crash landing!


Sean's shout brought her out of it and Kim - kneeling right at the edge of the mushroom's reach - scrambled back from the giant thing. Her pack lay next to the boulder and she had no idea when she had actually left it there. Or when she had moved towards the mushroom. Shaking her head to dispell some last bit of dizziness she hurriedly pulled the backpack on again and jogged away and towards Sean's voice.


"If you see any glowing giant mushrooms, then stay away from them!" she called out to him. A minute later she rounded another one of those enormous tree trunks and found Sean. And the rock. With glowing green eyes. Kim picked up a big, sturdy branch and hit the rock with it as hard as she possibly could - there was no way she was wasting precious tools on this thing unless she absolutely had to.


"So far everything dangeorus on this planet seems to glow neon for some reason!" she grunted when the branch simply broke in two. Throwing the pieces away she instead found a rock, made sure that it wasn't another creature, lifted it and then dropped it on the creature while trying to calculate exactly where Sean's foot was.

 

[Red Thunder]

The rock was evidently a lot better a hammer than the branch. It struck the creature with an audible crunch. A cry burst from its mouth as his jaws snapped open, and Sean immediately yanked his boot free.


"Thanks for that," he remarked, grimacing at the bright orange juices that leaked out from the black rock-like carapace. "That's what I hate about alien planets. You never know what kind of damnable life crawls on its surface."

 

[redletalis]

Kim left the rock right where it had landed, poked the creature with her boot to be certain that it was dead, and then took a few steps away just in case while brushing her hands off. "Giant hypnotic mushrooms and rocks that aren't rocks can't be all we'll find here on this planet. There's bound to be more. We'll have to be incredibly careful, perhaps even team up with more people if we can't handle it on our own."


She looked around. They were surrounded by towering tree trunks, vines, brush, ferns and there was no way of knowing which way to go in order to get somewhere high. She might be able to make a crude compass but not even that would help much because they had no map and no idea where to go. They needed to pick a direction and stick to it, not wasting energy on second guessing themselves.


"Heads left, tails right?" she asked and pulled out a small round chip from her pocket. It was used as a way to register for meals in the dispenser masquerading as a canteen, but it would do since the sides were different. Besides, there was no more dispenser anyway to use it on.

 

[Red Thunder]

"Sure. Why the hell not."


The chip flashed in the air as it spun up and then down, falling only to be deftly caught in her hand. Opening it up, it revealed their direction: left, toward that bright orange sun. Sean glanced that way, incredulity and resignation on his face.


"Good as anyway, I guess. Let's find you a high point."


He set off, carefully picking his way among the jumble of jagged stones.

 

[redletalis]

She flickered the coin and it went up and up, spinning like crazy before it fell back into her hand and revealed heads. Putting it back into her pocket, Kim hitched the backpack higher up and then followed Sean. She kept a slight distance between them so that if one of them got into trouble then the other would hopefully be free to help. Or run away. She couldn't deny that possibility as much as she wanted to.


Kim pushed aside leaves that were almost the same size as her, looking for Sean and quickening her stride to keep up with him. Getting lost right now - well, they were already lost, but lost from each other - was a really bad idea. He had all the medical supplies while she had the equipment and most of the food. Perhaps they would have to redistribute things once they made a stop and she felt that she could trust him a bit more.


"So," she said after a while in silence, "why do you hate the military so much anyway?"

 

[Red Thunder]

The moment of broken silence ended as abruptly as it had started, and Sean didn't immediately answer her question. Indeed he went so long without answering or even acknowledging her inquiry that the idea might occur to Kim that he'd not heard her question at all. But after a few minutes he spoke, gaze focused hard on their path.


"I don't guess you've ever had children, Kim," he said matter of factly. Any undertones of sarcasm or anger was gone, at least toward her. "Bet you've never been married, either. You look like a career soldier. Let's just say that I'd found someone very precious to me. And then she gave me a little one, a little redheaded girl.


"It's hard, damn hard, to have a blessing like that yanked out from under you. It's inspiration of the worst kind. I mean, I don't even care anymore why the navy fire bombed Tidwell." Bitterness had started to creep into the man's voice as he spoke of his family, and his voice was now thick with it. "Maybe the reports were true: maybe the port city had been infected with some incurable disease or some shit. It doesn't matter. They took my family's lives; I'll take as many soldiers down with me as I can."


He ended abruptly, and the silence that rushed to fill the void was broken only by the crunch of dirt beneath their feet and the swish of leaves being pushed aside.

 

[redletalis]

"I know it probably doesn't count for much coming from me, but I am sorry to hear that." Kim replied, her voice quiet. Sean was right, she had never been married nor had children so she had no idea how that would feel. She had been practically at the other side of known space when the Tidwell incident took place, so she knew nothing about it apart from the official reports. She had, however, lost friends during battles and she knew how bad that felt. Losing family had to have been ten times worse.


That kind of also killed the conversation for a good long while on Kim's side as the two of them made their way through the alien jungle. With plants bigger than they were, giant glowing mushrooms occasionally showing up and all the roots and possible rock-creatures that they had to avoid - and who knew what else that they simply hadn't noticed yet! - it was rather slow going.


"It's getting darker." Kim spoke up and looked around them. "We should try to find a campsite. Up high should be better than on the ground if we can. On most planets it's better to be off the ground as far as I know. At least we don't have to worry about food or water for a good while yet. What about that tree over there? The way those branches are splaying out from the centre should have made a relatively safe cradle and it seems big enough for two people." She pointed at the tree in question.

 

[Red Thunder]

Her question broke him from his bitter memory, and Sean looked up to follow her gesture. He nodded.


"Good a place as any. Though it'd be just our luck that it's some kind of tree-creature that eats us in our sleep." Shrugging, he approached the flora in question. "Whatever. Top of the tree it is. You, uh, you got climbing tools or something? This bastard is kinda tall, and it's definitely too fat to climb the usual 'hug it to death' way."

 

[redletalis]

"I have rope and tools." Kim replied as she took off the satchel and then let the backpack slide to the ground. Gathering the rope and the hammer she fashioned a crude grappling hook out of it. It was make-do, but it would hopefully hold for one of them to get up there. Stepping back and making sure that Sean was out of the way she started swinging it and throwing it at the tree, and it took four times before the hammer finally hooked on something and wouldn't pull out no matter how much she tugged.


"I'll go first since I'm lighter." She didn't give Sean much time to reply, really, and quickly pulled herself up. It was higher than it had seemed, and it took longer than expected before she was up and surveying their chosen spot. Scampering over the edge and to safety Kim had a moment of fright when she couldn't see Sean and the backpack at first, and she feared that he had taken the tools and left. But there he was and there was her backpack, and she could relax.


"It looks really good up here. No suspicious holes or glowing things as far as I can see! It'll be tight but it's better than nothing!" She called down to him as she worked to better fasten the rope around a proper branch rather than simply trusting to the hammer to stay there. She threw the rope over another branch going horizontally and let it drop."Send up the packs first!"

 

[Red Thunder]

He cast a distrustful eye up at the soldier. What was this, a trust exercise: she left the supplies with him while she climbed up, and now he was to just give the packs to her and trust that she didn't leave him to the nocturnal wildlife? Just because I bared my heart to you a little doesn't mean I trust you, lady. But their situation was still fragile, and in such circumstance as they had found themselves, having a teammate was fairly invaluable. If only to use as bait while escaping from something, if nothing else. So he did as she instructed and tied the pack straps to to the rope and gave it a tug to let her know it was ready. Sean watched the packs rise slowly into the air, eyes narrow with suspicion. Here's where we find out.


"Don't you leave me down here, Kim!"

 

[redletalis]

"No fear! Just got to untie this thing-" she broke off with a curse when the rope proved more stubborn than expected. A few more tugs and she packs were free and she put hers to one side and his to another. They would serve as dividers between them, add another layer of safety almost even if it was mostly illusionary. It was the best she could do, but at least she still had the gun. "Damn, you're good at knots! Alright, there we go! You think you can handle the climb with that hand?!"


She tood on the edge and threw the rope down to Sean and watched his reaction. If he needed help climbing then she would do her best. He may be bigger and heaver than her, but it would be possible. Difficult, but possible. Her eyes flickered around their surroundings, but all she saw was various shades of green, the vague glows from the giant mushrooms and nothing else that moved. The entire forest was surprisingly quiet, and it was almost enough to freak her out.


"If this was on a familiar planet I'd say that something big and bad was coming this way." Kim grumbled.

 

[Red Thunder]

The rope suddenly went taut, and grunting and huffing below indicated that Sean was ascending it. Finally the straw yellow top of his head appeared, followed by his seemingly perpetually grumpy face. As he grabbed the trunk to finish pulling himself up, he glanced at her with a touch of exasperation.


"Then maybe let's keep our voices down. Isn't that a brilliant idea, Miss Military?"


With a final grunt, he sat on a nearby branch. It was a touch shakier than he would have liked, but that was to be expected. The tree had a vaguely palm tree-like look to it, in his mind, and those Terran trees usually didn't have very stable branches. He glanced at the packs, tossed in such a way as to create clear distinctions. So she seemed to anticipate his continued distrust. Understandable. But it showed she was sympathetic, a refreshing change from the other soldiers he'd interacted with. Sean nodded to them.


"So, what," he addressed Kim quietly. "We keep to ourselves for now? Or did you wanna divide up the supplies?"

 

[redletalis]

Kim rolled her eyes at his remark even as she coiled the rope up into a neat pile between them. The other end of the rope remained tied around the tree in case they needed a quick way down before morning came. Once that was done she sank down next to her pack and sighed, tiredly rubbing her face as she thought about his suggestion. One one hand it would be a good idea to keep the equipment separate - she was less likely to leave knowing that he had most of the medic packs, and he was less likely to leave knowing that she had all the equipment necessary for surviving long enough to send out an SOS. On the other hand if they lost each other or either of their packs then they were screwed twice over and none of this would have been worth anything. Besides, all those tools were damn heavy to slog around all day long over rough terrain and it really would help to divide that load.


In the end she had to go with the second option and trust him.


"Alright, let's divvy it up so that in case we get separated or lose a backpack we won't be totally helpless." Kim pulled her backpack towards her and opened it. It was a mess but no food or water packs had burst so she counted herself lucky. She did her best in dividing the tools so that she could still make a radio transmitter even if they did lose one backpack, but it was really difficult. The radiotransmitter she left at the bottom of her backpack, still wrapped up in her spacesuit. The solar panel, however, she handed over to Sean. "You keep this since you found- I've been meaning to ask, exactly where did you find that thing? There were no solar panels supposed to be in use on the ship. I'm the only mechanic, I know what was and wasn't supposed to be on board."

 

[Red Thunder]

Sean looked up from his two piles of medical supplies. If his expression was much indication, he didn't seem to much care why the device was on the ship. He accepted the power unit and placed it on the ground beside with him with a shrug.


"How the hell should I know how it got onboard, or even why? I was locked in a cage, if you recall.


"But where I found it is a bit easier a question to answer. One of your soldiers had it clutched in one hand, his head having been crushed by a slab of ceiling."


Thoughtfully he picked up the solar panel power unit, closely examining it for the first time.


"Funny thing was," the man said, distracted, "I could swear I smelled thermite, even over all the other shit in the air- Hello."


A metal door had swung free, and a display could now be seen. Most of it seemed to be powered down, as if on standby, but a small green light shone out brightly from just above the words, "Charged". Understanding bled into his face, and Sean set the device down very slowly.


"And I imagine I can tell you why this was onboard: seems someone wanted that boat to have a new hole in it. This would have done it. Two pounds, I'm guessing, of thermite super charged with who knows how many days of solar energy?" He nodded, confident in his assessment. "That would have done it."

 

[redletalis]

She watched him examine the solar panel, frowning at the information. That was... she couldn't... the thought that someone of her team had brought something like that on board without telling anyone was disquieting. It was difficult to believe. Perhaps they had simply found it and someone else had brought it aboard? But who else could have done it? Everyone and everything was checked twice, and all prisoners had been checked three times just in case! A soldier could have brought it aboard right before take-off, though, half the team had been late because of something or other.


"Fucking hell." Kim breathed, eyes widening. They had been running through a burning ship with that?! With thermite?! They could have blown themselves up along with everything else!


She came closer to look at the panel. Leaning in closer Kim frowned and then pointed a moment later. "Here. We can remove the thermite from here, I think I can open it with the tools we have without setting it off. We might have use for it later on. I think we can transport it in one of the food or water packs, they are made to keep things stable and not let in any air when they're sealed off. Less chance of us accidentally blowing ourselves up. We'll need something to act as a funnel, preferrably as airtight as possible since we have no idea how volatile this particular batch is. If it was mixed with other chemicals we could be either safe or screwed."

 

[Red Thunder]

"You kidding me?"


Sean swatted her hand away. He had an impatient look on his face as he bent forward to examine the device without actually touching it.


"This thing is held together with adhesive, bonding tape, and spit. In other words, Miss Military, this damned thing is a jerry-rigged job. Which means..."


He drew out the final syllable, considering as he examined the box.


"Which means this one's on me. You might have the knowledge of the actual science of it, but no one knows how to build or pull apart a piece of half-assed mess like me." His gaze drifted to the stack of tools beside Kim. "So, and I'm gonna need you to trust me here, but I need me something akin to a blow torch."


Sean smirked, and a gleam shone in his eye. There was nothing he loved better than the adrenaline rush that came from working with high explosives.