My Kingdom Come book 1: The Saints We See

661 standard years after the signing of the Alliance treaty

Hathu crept slowly through the dark streets behind Walesa. He could hear Jaidev and Bakresh, moving quietly behind him.

There had been hours of debate on how they could get an emergency call through to the army. They talked about which gatehouse they should try to get to, and then how they could get into the gatehouse without the insurgents stopping them. They couldn’t come up with a plan that guaranteed them a call from the army. They came up with a harebrained scheme that had a fifty percent chance of working, on a good day.

Then Walesa had nearly handcuffed Hathu to the desk in the principle’s office when he had insisted that he would be on the team that went out to the guard house. He needed to know that the call had been made for himself.

Amid the uproar that ensued Arvah had stood up and screamed for them all to shut up. Everyone went quiet, Arvah never raised his voice. He usually just walked away from conflict. Arvah quickly wilted with everyone’s eyes on him. He sat down, his head bowed and his shoulders hunched and mumbled, ‘is it really necessary to hit one of the red emergency buttons’? It turned out Janish, the grocer, had kept an old communicator in his store that he used to contact suppliers so that he could put his orders in.

Tonight Hathu and the three others were going to find out if the communicator had been destroyed or not. If it still worked, they would make the call to the army.

They had to cross several streets that ran straight up to the end of town, giving them a view of the front of the prison all lit up in the night. They would pause in the shadows on one side of the street, peer up and down the street for any insurgents, then scurry to the other side.

Hathu stared at the prison waiting to cross one of the streets. His whole family was on the other side of those walls. He swallowed wondering how Deetha and her children were doing. He wondered how Gemma was.

He’d gone looking for Gemma, but she was gone along with the rest of his family when he had checked his house. Deetha’s house had been abandoned too. The most important things packed up and gone. Seeing her house half empty like that had made Hathu feel a deep sense of loss. As if Deetha had died rather than moved half a mile away.

They continued on in the snow, watching the shadows for enemies, passing dead bodies in the streets. They finally came to the store. The door was already broken. They had wrapped a wire around the door handle and then around a nail pounded into the doorframe. During the first few days after the prison break, Hathu had sent teams to break in and empty the store before the supplies were taken or destroyed by his father. The shelves were mostly bare now.

Hathu unwound the wire and opened the door. Walesa stepped in and checked to make sure no one else was inside.

“It’s clear.” She called softly.

Everyone else scurried inside. Hathu pulled the door shut and went to the back of the store where Walesa and Bakresh were trying the handle to Janish’s little office. Jaidev stayed in the front room watching for any unwelcome guests.

The office door was locked. Hathu’s heart lifted. Hopefully that meant the communicator hadn’t been detsroyed. He pulled out his electric light and switched it on.

Walesa smashed the door knob with the butt of her rifle and kicked the door open. Hathu stepped in, holding the electric light high. There on the desk was the communicator, in perfect condition. There was a collective breath of relief.

Bakresh shrugged the bag off his back and pulled out the portable battery they had brought to power the communicator. He plugged the communicator into the battery. Walesa sat at the desk and leaned her rifle against the wall.

“Wow, this is old fashioned.” She put on the set of headphones that was sitting on top of the communicator and turned it on. The lights popped to life. She adjusted some of the knobs frowning in concentration, and nodded to herself. She unplugged the headphones. A soft static sound came from the communicator.

“Everything seems to be working fine. Just remember, as soon as we start broadcasting, the prison will be able to find it, tune in and track it down to the store, if they’re listening. We only have ten minutes, tops, to get this message through.”

Hathu nodded. He pulled his datapad out of his pocket and brought up the number he’d written down. Every classroom in the school had old signs attached to prominent places on the wall with an an emergency number for the army written on them along with the planet designation number. He laid his datapad on the desk and Walesa dialed the emergency number into the communicator.

She glanced up at him. “You ready?” Hathu brought up the timer function on his datapad, dialed in ten minutes and nodded. Walesa pressed the send button.

The static changed to a soft pulsing tone. Hathu stared at the communicator willing the call to go through. Then a confused male voice spoke. “Army emergency communications…um, who’s calling?”

Hathu leaned forward. “This is planet Zeriz 752432, we’re a prison colony. There’s been a prison break, we are under attack from the prisoners.”

“Shit.” The mans voice said. “Another one?”

Hathu frowned. Another one? “Listen, I don’t have a lot of time.” Hathu spoke hurriedly. “The original prison break happened two months ago. Many of the prison guards, including the head guard, were part of the conspiracy. Most of the rest of the guards who weren’t involved were killed. We are mostly non-combatant women and children. We’ve been holding off the insurgents the best we can, but I don’t know how much longer we can keep them off.

“They’re trying to escape the planet. I think their ship is somewhere planetside. They were trying to use cargo shuttles to reach it. We destroyed those, but we’re due to receive a supply cargo in nine to fourteen days, if that comes in, they will escape. We need help as soon as possible.”

“Two months ago?” The voice said in surprise. “Shit. Hagena, get General Kahn on the line, now. Um, can you tell me what day exactly the prison break happned?”

“Zemt seventeenth.”

“Shit. Yours was the earliest then. Um…how did you get ahold of us?”

“We’re using an old communicator.” Hathu answered. “What do you mean, we were the earliest?”

“Well, there have been five other prison breaks. They seem to be related. They all happened within a few days of each other, they all had a similar M.O.. It’s really weird, they- oh, here’s the general.

“General Kahn, we have another prison break, this one has surviving resisters. The prison break happened on Zemt seventeenth, two days before any of the others. The boy on the line claims that the prisoners are trying to escape the planet on a ship.”

“Hello?” Another voice broke in. He spoke with brisk authority. “Who am I speaking with?”

“This is Hathu Fons.”

“Who’s in charge over there?”

Hathu looked at Walesa. She pointed at Hathu. “Me.”

There was a pause. “Is this a prank?” The voice asked coldly.

Hathu grit his teeth.

“This is sergeant Walesa Tre, I worked in the prison and I can assure you, sir, that this is not a prank. There has been a prison break and Hathu is in charge over here.”

There was another silence. Then the general spoke again. “I see a sergeant Walesa Tre is assigned to the penal colony on planet Zeriz 752432. Why is a child in charge over there?”

Walesa rolled her eyes. “Because if it wasn’t for him, we would all be dead, sir. He has the best mind for tactics over here. But that’s really besides the point. We are going to all be dead soon, if we don’t get help. We’re running low on supplies. We’ve been fortunate to keep ahead of the insurgents so far, but we’re mostly non-combatents, women and children.

“Major Nediz Fons, the head guard here at the prison, was in charge of the prison break. As Hathu said earlier, he is trying to move his people off planet. We have a small window of time to prevent that from happening.

“Also, sir, we need to get off this call as soon as possible. We will be traced and eliminated if we don’t get out of here soon.”

“Where is the ship they are trying to get to?” The general asked.

“We don’t know.” Hathu answered. “We just know they had cargo shuttles they were planning to use, now they are building rafts. We’ve destroyed two rafts so far, they started building another two rafts inside the prison, but they seem to have abandoned that. We think they are waiting to use the hauling ship that is due to land in nine to fourteen days. If they’ve been able to contact the hauler it’s possible that the ship could arrive here in six days.”

There was another silence. Then the general spoke again. “So far the other prison breaks haven’t had any escapes. They seem to just want to cause chaos and death. Hold tight, we’ll get there and take care of you as soon as possible. Where are you camped and where are the insurgents?”

“The insurgents are holed up in the prison.” Hathu answered. “We are at the school on the other side of town from the prison. But sir, I know for a fact that they are trying to escape the planet. Maybe the insurgents at the other prisons were waiting for f- Major Nediz to come get them with his ship. It sounds like our prison break was the earliest. I know they were planning on leaving the planet the same day they broke the prisoners out and they are still desperately trying to get somewhere.”

“Where is this supposed ship then?” The general asked in a condescending tone.

Hathu clenched his jaw and didn’t answer.

“Hold tight. We’re coming to save you.”