Awakening The Warriors by S E Gilchrist Page A

have to escape, all of us. Does anyone have any ideas?” Gripping the wall, I rose to my feet. Hard to believe only six months ago, I was doing the fifty-hour work-week thing, living for my career as a geologist working for a major mining company, content with my single existence in Adelaide. And then little Sooty, the cat I’d had since childhood, passed away, leaving me restless. Thirty-three years old and my ordinary life laid out before me in a boring sameness. No family apart from a stepbrother I rarely visited. When I heard about the third wave of colonists heading for a new earth, something stirred, awakened deep inside me.
    So I volunteered. My belongings placed into storage, my medicals passed, the next thing I knew I was walking onto a spaceship. Whatever had possessed me? Sheesh . I still wasn’t sure what I was looking for but whatever it was, I doubted I’d ever find it now.
    For the United Earth Corporation had no idea we were bound for a life of slavery and imprisonment. A few weeks into our journey we were handed over to what I learned were Elite Guards. Three of us, Margaret, another woman called Claire, and I had been separated from the others from Earth, and incarcerated in this hell-hole on a planet called Olman, smack bang in the middle of the Besa System.
    Say again? All I knew was we were galaxies from home and stuck in the middle of some stupid war that had nothing to do with us. Over and over I wondered why they had separated us. Where had they taken the other colonists? Were they also imprisoned? Or were they dead?
    â€œI will not make any trouble.” Ana, a Jurian female whined. Her three yellow eyes goggled at me like car headlights at night. “They may punish us.”
    â€œSo, we just sit here and wait. For what?” I snorted, threw my hands in the air and paced to the other side of the room. “No-one is going to rescue us. We’re on our own here.”
    Relia joined me. “The context of your last words I do not understand but I know I do not wish to die yet.”
    â€œYou think they’re going to kill us?” When Margaret whimpered and covered her mouth with her hand, I bit my tongue at my thoughtless words.
    â€œWorse.” Relia glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the other cell.
    â€œExperiments,” breathed Ana. Her sallow complexion whitened, making her face look like a mound of week-old dough. “There has been speech on the airways such matters are conducted under orders of the Supreme Leader.”
    â€œSupreme psycho more like it,” I muttered under my breath before I leaned closer to Relia and added, “The others who were here before, do you think that’s what happened to them?”
    Eyes shadowed, Relia inclined her head.
    â€œI guess that makes sense. If they were going to kill us, they would have done it by now.” There was no way I intended to voice the suspicions stewing in my mind. “How many guards do you think come down here to pound on the Darkons?”
    â€œErrrr,” Relia mumbled. Eventually she held up eight fingers, then shrugged.
    â€œSay seven or nine of them. Not sure we’d be able to overpower that many soldiers given only a few of us have any fighting skills. What about a weapon?” I cast my eyes about the bare room. Apart from a bench bolted to the side of one wall, there was little else. “Everyone look for something we can use as a weapon.”
    â€œWhy?” said Ana, shaking her fist at me. “You will get us killed.”
    â€œAna is correct. If we were soldiers…” Relia stopped, her mouth dropped open.
    I sucked in a breath. “Yes! You’ve thought of something, haven’t you?”
    She looked at me, her face blank, and I couldn’t interpret the expression in her eyes. Goosebumps prickled down my spine.
    â€œThe Darkons are warriors of great repute,” she said. “I have heard some have been awakened.