I fought that voice every day. But it wouldn't be denied. It was constant, implacable, just like the sounds of the mines themselves, the booming, the...
Explosions.
I was jolted awake by the noise. At first, I tried to convince myself it was just a mining accident – after all, they happened at N-7 with alarming frequency. The overseers didn't bother with the expense of safety measures and failsafes when it was far cheaper to let slaves die and replace them with new ones. So machines broke down and killed the workers operating them, or shafts full of natural gas went undetected and resulted in lethal blasts.
But no. These explosions sounded different to my trained ears. They were oddly rhythmic, preceded by a whistling screech from above, and the initial booms almost seemed to contain a throbbing undertone.
Space-to-surface bombardments and energy weapons.
“What's going on?” Gordon mumbled sleepily, raising his head from his hard cot a few rows away from mine.
“The mining colony is under attack,” I replied tersely.
“Good.” He rolled over, pulling the thin, scratchy blanket over his head and making a show of going back to sleep.
I jumped out of bed as some of the other slaves began to stir, my mind racing. The Pax Alliance didn't have many enemies – most of the worlds whose inhabitants opposed them had been integrated into the empire, enslaved, or exterminated. There was only one opponent of the Alliance organized enough to conduct an all-out assault on a mining camp like this one, at least according to the snippets of conversation I'd gleaned from casually eavesdropping on the guards and overseers.
The Hielsrane. A race of greedy and rapacious raiders who, from all accounts, were able to transform from scaled humanoids into massive reptilian beasts resembling the dragons of ancient Earther legend. They felt threatened by the continuous expansion of the Alliance and coveted the precious metals the Pax mined and hoarded.
And now they were here, guns blazing.
Another series of quantum plasma warheads struck the outer defenses of the compound, and the floor bucked and rolled beneath my feet. I lurched over to the console next to the door, keying in my overseer code to open it. I'd never even considered using this privilege to attempt escape. I knew there was no way for me to leave the planet. Not to mention the fact that the Vence would find me, erasing all the special treatment I'd earned through my loyalty and reducing me to the status of just another lowly slave again. All I'd done, all I'd sacrificed, would have been for nothing. I'd die starving and in chains.
And that's exactly what would occur if I sat back like Gordon and allowed the Hielsrane to overtake the camp. To the Pax, I was a valuable asset. To the Hielsrane, I'd be one more human slave to be abused and bartered, bought and sold and tormented to death.
I couldn't let that happen. This was a classic case of the devil I knew versus the devil I didn't, and I wasn't taking any chances.
What's more, I recognized this raid as yet another opportunity to distinguish myself. If I helped Gohak fight off the invaders, I might earn another promotion, more comfortable living conditions, privacy, a weapon of my own...maybe even a chance to return to Earth.
I ran down the corridor as metal plates and illumination fixtures rained down. The first platoons of armed defenders were running in the opposite direction, toward the area where the attackers' shuttles had touched down – skittering Vence, galloping Coovooans, hopping Mosets, all taking orders from Pax. It seemed like utter chaos to me, which shouldn't have been a surprise. The colony was equipped with defensive armaments, but to my knowledge, they'd never been used against anything more threatening than small packs of short-range corsair vessels.
I headed for the command center, banging on the armored doors. “Gohak! It's Natalie!”
There was a faint series of beeps as Gohak keyed the right code into the access panel, and the door slid open. Gohak peered out furtively, a blaster in his paw. “Get inside!” he hissed, his voice tinged with panic. “Now! Now!”
I stepped in and he shut the doors behind me quickly. “Have they reached the slave quarters?” he asked.
“Not yet, but if the guards can't fend them off, it's only a matter of time. And based on the way the other slaves were reacting to this assault, I'd say there's a better than average chance they'll use this distraction to revolt and escape. They might even join the raiding parties, thinking their chances are better with the Hielsrane than with us.”
As I told him this, my eyes were drawn to the bank of security screens lining the walls behind him. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The Hielsrane were even larger and more fearsome than I'd imagined – dragons, dozens of them, swooping and pouncing on the Pax and their allies, beating their massive bat wings and tearing them to pieces.
The floors were slick with at least five different colors of blood, like some obscene rainbow. The defenders were slipping and sliding in it, the energy discharges from their weapons missing their marks wildly and scorching the metal walls. If it hadn't been so terrifying, it might almost have been funny. Running a mining camp made these Pax brutes and torturers, perhaps, but not soldiers or warriors. When faced with the onslaught of the Hielsrane, they were helpless fodder, nothing more.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” Gohak repeated over and over again, like a mantra. “This is awful. Why? Why are they attacking us now? What are we going to do? If they overrun the camp, I'll lose my position! I'll be stripped of my rank by the Pax Alliance! I'll be exiled!”
I grabbed Gohak by his fuzzy shoulders, shaking him to make him snap out of it. “Listen to me:
