2 An Unexpected Escape

"...They will come for me, Ires, you will see." Allenguan promised. "And we'll take you with us. We are both going to get out of here."

Iromeas nodded in silent agreement, though he did not share in the other boy's confidence. Four stark riftanit walls surrounded them. The ship was moving, taking them to an unknown fate. Even if this young rebel's friends managed to find out where they were, Iromeas doubted that they would get here in time to save them.

Iromeas wondered if it would have been better to have died in the disposal facility, instead. At least, there was not much pain there. As bad as the facility care-holder had been, he followed procedure and most disposed died in forced sleep. Dying as subjects of unsanctioned experiments conducted by the Imperial doctor, who had acquisitioned them, would be much worse. The screams occasionally coming down the corridor from the lab proved it, causing a chill to run across his body and make hair stand on edge.

It had been hours since that Imperial's soldiers left the two boys in this cell. No one had come for them, yet, but Iromeas feared it wouldn't be long, now, before they found out exactly what that Imperial researcher wanted them for.

Both boys started when the doors of their containment suddenly swooshed open. With in-drawn breath, they waited and stared at the empty space behind the door. Then, Allenguan jumped to his feet and rushed to the door with one movement, and carefully peeked outside. He turned to Iromeas with excited disbelief.

"There is no one there." He said. "Come on!" He waived and took off. Iromeas hesitated for only a moment, then jumped up and ran to catch up to the other boy.

They ran along the short, narrow, low-ceilinged corridor and paused only to cautiously peer into other small cells, which also stood open. There were four rooms, and they were all empty. Some had a few discarded items of clothing left behind. Iromeas stared at the child's small, red scarf crumpled on the ground and wondered if the reason they were all empty was because he and Al were the last living subjects left. Wouldn't that be the reason why that Imperial Doctor came to their facility? To restock his Ethsarn subjects?

At the end of the short passage, the boys paused and carefully looked around the edge into the lab. They saw a room full of unknown to Iromeas equipment and four unmoving forms on the floor. There was an opened cage not far from a table.

"Impers." Allenguan pointed out the obvious, looking at the imperial uniforms on the bodies and then walked to one of them and kneeled to feel his neck for carotid pulse.

"Still alive… Just knocked out." Allenguan concluded. "Wonder what happened in here?" He said, looking around curiously. His question had echoed Iromeas' uneasy thoughts.

"Look." Allenguan said quietly and pointed. Both boys stared at an open vent. A bent, torn cover lay before it on the ground.

While Iromeas looked at it, Allenguan hurriedly crossed to another open door of a room adjacent to the lab and peered inside. He glanced back at Iromeas with regret and then turned to look back again.

"Ethsarns. Mind-stripped." He commented with chagrin. Iromeas came and stood beside him, looking at five naked figures sitting slumped on the ground, four men and a woman. They sat in their own filth and did not react, staring with blank eyes, unreasoning and unfeeling.

Distant shouts and the sound of running feet coming up to the door on the opposite end of the corridor claimed both boys' attention. They stared in direction of the noise and then exchanged anxious looks.

"I don't think that door is going to hold them long." Ires noted dryly. Allenguan hastily looked around the room and his gaze fell on the yawning, narrow passage of the damaged vent. Following the direction of his gaze, Ires allowed his face to express the misgiving he felt.

"…Something got them." Ires commented, glancing from the bodies, to the open cage, to the torn vent. "And, I think it went down there..."

Behind them, something banged against the metal door at the end of the corridor, on the other side. There was a piercing metal screech, which made both boys gasp with unpleasant foreboding in their hearts. It was not going to be long before the Imperial soldiers of researcher's team broke through the seal.

"I think I'd rather take my chances there than with the Imps." Allenguan declared with decisive expression. Catching Iromeas hesitating, looking back at the five, mindless figures in the cell, the younger rebel boy's face twisted with angry regret.

"They're gone, Ires. We cannot help them." He said sharply and headed to the vent. Without another word, Iromeas followed him. With Allenguan leading the way, on all fours, both boys crawled into the dark passage.

Only moments later, gray uniformed soldiers burst through the corridor door and ran into the lab. They started checking the fallen figures for life-signs. One of the fallen, a man in his late twenties, groaned and sat up. It was the same tall, athletic man with arrogant face, who had come to the Ethsarn disposal and donor facility sixteen hours ago. His assistants also started stirring and sitting up, groggy.

"What happened, Doctor Azerick?" The sergeant in charge demanded, looking around tensely, with his weapon grasped ready in his hands.

"That bloody beast escaped, that's what. In there." The doctor said grumpily and glared at the ventilation system entrance. The sergeant in charge frowned. The men were too large to fit through, unless they crawled on their bellies, which would certainly put them at a disadvantage within the air-duct maze with smaller, faster targets.

"How? I thought you had him secure." The sergeant frowned.

"I thought so, too." The doctor grumbled. "It pretended to be dumber than it was. Formed a damn mental link with one of the stronger subjects. Very unexpected."

"We can gas the ducts." The security officer stated. "Stun anything alive in there."

"Trith?" The scientist verified. The officer nodded to confirm. The scientist winced and shook his head slightly.

"No. Trith gas forms pools of variable concentrations. It could kill him. Do you want to know the charge for unsanctioned destruction of property marked clearance level 6?" The Imperial researcher held a significant look on the man.

"Damn. That high..." The security officer muttered, stunned.

"Don't worry about it for now. There's no way out from there." The scientist nodded at the vent. "Just get the systems online. When we get back to port, we'll flush him out. Even if we have to take this ship apart, piece by piece!"

Those were the last intelligible words the two boys heard, as they continued to crawl away into the bowels of the ship...