Scott Alten Raiders of Trog Pt. 02

Chapter 3

Once the mercenaries exited the saloon through the same door they had entered through, the bartender nodded to the group of men that had helped to shield Scott Alten from the intruders. One then took a sidestep to tap him on the shoulder.

The girl that Commander Alten had been kissing kept her eyes closed, melting against this man who had just gotten a bit too friendly in his efforts to hide them both from the mercenaries.

"Don't try to leave yet Commander. They linger out there just to see if the one they searched for might not follow them out."

With a sigh, Scott took a light grasp of Jolan's arm and led her to the table they had vacated just a few minutes before. She followed him without a sound, too bewildered to think through the meaning of all that had just occurred.

'Scott Alten just kissed me! The hero of my abduction and rescue actually KISSED ME!

'I've fantasized about you, Mr. Alten, since that day you rescued me. I want to tell you! I want you to know! Tell you it's not a gratitude fantasy or a humble thank you! I want you!

'The forever kind of want where two people make a life together, take care of one another, grow old together, raise kids together.'

"Wouldn't you know I'd have to transport to a whole 'nuther galaxy to find the only man I'll ever want to marry?'

"Well, Commander, since we're stuck here for a while, tell me more of your ability to see into the future, or life on Trog, or your life before Trog, or something else entirely!"

"Sure." Scott let his mind drift to memories he'd rather not travel, how cold the buildings were where they were kept, both temperature and atmosphere. An environment devised to discourage any thought of attempt to escape or even befriend another prisoner.

The guard towers always right there staring over your shouder, daring all imprisoned there to just TRY to escape or cause trouble.

The bright lights at each end of long dark corridors leading to quarters with rows of metal cots.

"The captured citizens from Sinat filled an entire pod... eight pods housed prisoners, fenced us in... all beyond nothing more than a vast barren landscape. Step outside your pod, would be a long dark corridor with a bright light at each end. Step outside of that, you'd barely glimpse the metal wires penning us in, that far out, they were.

"This is where I found a Trog error, possible, I thought, to maneuver around. They worked to fill one pod at a time. Each pod was big enough to hold hundreds, even a few thousand captives. It allowed all of my group to remain together. Friendships and loyalties already formed before capture were easy to keep fluid inside the fence.

"Most prisons keep past comrades apart." Scott paused to move their table over a couple of feet so more interest patrons could get close enough to hear.

"We planned two different escapes. For either one to succeed would depend on an uprising. We needed a diversion, draw attention away from the actual activity of mass escape.

"Somehow, they found out about the second one before it happened and those who were named as planners or instigators were executed. The first riot had the best success, most prisoners participating, able to inflict injuries bad enough that it severely decimated the Generals ranks, but they found others, kidnapped their own citizens! Pressed them into serving in Grandma Rae's army."

Jolan interrupted, struck by the pain she had caught as he told of the failed riot. "The first was your best chance but failed. The second failed before it could happen which hints betrayal. What happened with this second attempt?"

"I honestly don't know. We planned it out, everyone knew what to do, armed themselves, started an argument in the food line which quickly escalated into a full-blown battle.

"Instead of prisoner against guards it unfolded to prisoner against prisoner. Fighting against ourselves! Hell! The Trogs just stood high above the prison yard safe in their guard towers and watched us destroy each other. There was a third riot but that one did not involve any of our people."

The bartender brought another round of drinks and a bowl of Thorn- nuts, one food that is easily gathered on Trog. "Try them before you turn up your nose." The bartender told Jolan. "You need to eat something, Missy, if you plan to finish my special spiked lemonade!"

With obvious caution and ghost of a smile, Jolan daintily picked one nut from the bowl, set it against the tip of her tongue.

"No. That will never do. To get a good taste you gotta pop the whole thing at once. Show her, Commander!"

Scott Alten picked up a handful with the hint of a frown at the bartender. "Once I start eating them, Hazan, I can't stop!"

Deciding she liked the taste of this one nut she too grabbed a good fistful of the small nuts. Before popping them into her mouth she summed up what had been told so far.

"The first riot was a surprise to everybody and most successful. Second, foiled by betrayal. You said Grandma Rae came down hard, punished everyone."

"She had unlimited resources; we had only what we could scrounge up inside our fenced boundaries. Each effort provided Grandma Rae an excuse to punish. Once the Generals were eliminated, killed in the rioting or executed by the prisoners afterward..."

Scott's tone deepened, showed those who listened how angry he still was about what had happened that night.

"She began to kill all those she deemed as instigators, plus one step more. She sold the friends of everyone involved. Our Pod... well... my group from Sinat... lost 2 leaders and 30 friends. Before that we'd held our own, always managed to escape a heavy population loss."

Scott Alten took another fist of Thorn-nuts; Jolan and several men around them sighed or groaned, impatient to hear the end, listening with jaws open and eyes wide.

"The Generals ran that Siberian gulag... excuse me... PODS OF TREBAN...! Men who raped our women. The more that I, or my men, tried to protect them from those rough attentions, the Generals punished our women, made the gangrapes worse than if we had simply stood by and allowed them to abuse at their own whim and will.

"When their FUN with our women was finally finished, they'd start on us, a reign of terror that ate at all of our mental stability and physical strength.

"That often lasted months, eventually would come to an abrupt end... but only because our bodies were needed to carry out one of the Generals devious and cruel schemes.

"Five months ago, the remaining 14 men of my old patrol joined 11 more from our Pod and quietly, we plotted a fourth escape.

"This time, to ensure success, we kept the number of those involved to a manageable number, added 38 women to our 11 men. All people whom we knew for absolute certain would not sneak even one word of what was planned to the Generals.

"This time demanded success or we'd all be massacred, made to endure a horrible death by slow torture. This time, all went well. Our plan worked well, wildly beyond anything we could have imagined.

"It may not have ended that well if Grandma Rae hadn't gotten greedy. She pulled three-quarters of the Generals gulag troops away from Treban to beef up armies for other invasion games and captures.

"This last riot destroyed Treban. In the bloody burning ruins were the dead bodies of the five Generals that had taken sadistic glee in torturing our men and raping our women.

"Among the dead was forty-five warriors of Korobe, plus twenty traitors, those who had sabotaged our second attempt at escape. We were slow to realize, but we had just completed the only successful escape from Treban and Grandma Rae's favorite Generals. Cream of her crop!"

After an appreciative silence, Scott Alten added dryly, "We had just completed the only escape from a prison reputed to be inescapable... and an embarrassment for Grandma Rae.

"Most Trogans considered out escape a miracle. I admit it was a mild success but through errors made by our captors. Otherwise, it would have been a whole different story and this day wouldn't be happening. Not as it is, anyway. There were consequences.

"The generals and Trogan Warrior caste consider us outlaws. Our escape cost our side too. A good portion of capable leadership abilities: five men, three women, the only proven ranks of leadership, besides me, that the Raiders had.

"Now, and over the last five months, I'd give anything to have their expertise gathering food, medicine and weapons. I've had to hone my skills finding shelter big enough to house all of us, keep us close together, easily summoned at times we are sure to be attacked.

"Grandma Rae won't allow the destruction of Treban to go without reprisal, dishing out much worse than what was done to her. Necessity worked in our favor, drawing out the hidden talents of those who escaped with me."

Though both Jolan and Scott knew it was probably safe to leave this primitive tavern, both knew the story had more to go and that it must be told so history might be written and retold through generations to come.

"In combat, I noticed the combative skills of men and women had suddenly come natural and accurate but lacked disciplined boundaries. Guidance was needed so not one ounce of energy or strength or even weapons or ammunition would be wasted.

"I began to watch for abilities of leadership. Three men stepped up, helped solve touchy problems with novel solutions. Our brains fed off each other producing ideas, modifications, even new inventions.

Some were things we learned from the castes of Trog. Others came from communing with animals and oracles, those able to see visions from the future. We were branching out, developing defenses and organization, taking risks.

We learned trust each other. Enough to rely on each other while trusting the individual instincts and expertise that made each of us an unique creation of this vast universe.

"The first months of freedom were not easy. At the end of each day, the three men I had come to rely on most would sit down and analyze all that occurred, talk until we found a solution to every problem encountered that day. That process made us stronger; created strong bonds between us that will bind us forever.

"We roamed for weeks seeking a location to settle down we built a sense of community, always kept an eye out for place easy to fortify, something the Trog landscape would help us hide and protect."

"This valley?" When Scott nodded, Jolan blushed. 'Why does he do this to me?' She tried to erase the puppy-face grin off her face, regained her composure to ask, "You mentioned three men who helped settle this camp..."

"Yes. Swen Fadiman. Weapons guy. His responsibility to make every comfortable with the weapons we use and accuracy. You will see a lot of him once you join our troop.

"Mike Eggenbury. In charge of insulating our settlement from attack. He has built a network of natural and manmade defenses throughout the valley.

"Todd Hammerrick. Multi-skilled. He teaches hand-to-hand combat, oversaw the digging of a well and all construction."

"This valley hideaway is half-a-day's journey to all of our wants. The hills surrounding support an abundance of game. Fresh water bubbles up from a small spring just three ahns to the south. For weapons, bandages or medicine we trade through a merchant camp... I'm sure you've visited it yourself?"

Jolan nodded. "It reminds me of the rendezvous of Earth's old west frontier days. Are those three men officers of the Raiders?"

"Each one of us are capable of taking charge but always defer to the one leading any particular situation, falling to the role of senior advisors. If it was a larger settlement that arrangement would never work. Right now, it does. And, I have a cousin, Paul Alten, very good at the wheeling and dealing. He barters for most of what is needed, pays Trog currency or gold for the rest."

"Commander. I hate to interrupt but Dusk has crept in. Shadow lays heavy across the valley. We'd like to flank you and this young lady here... out the front entrance and into the main camp."

Scott sent a flirtatious grin toward the girl. "Shall we take them up on their offer?"

Remembering the ice cold blue eyes with the golden twinkles, she nodded shyly, kept her eyes cast down so he wouldn't read or sense the tumult of her heart.

'It's a walk home, Jolan. Home. Don't read anything into it.' But as Scott took her arm to help her up and toward the exit, came an argument she couldn't talk down. 'He's about your age. If there wasn't a chance would he have spent the afternoon telling a story that you could get from anyone in this settlement?

With a heart beating fast, thumping her chest, she accepted his arm, boldly walked out of the cave-like tavern into the fading light of the best day she'd ever lived.