I spent a few days getting into the rhythm of the place. Get up. Go chip away at the rocks. Put it in the carts. The carts go away. At some point later they send us home. We eat once, sleep for a couple hours. Get up. Do it all over again.
Standard.
My fellow inmates were a hodgepodge of creatures. Many of whom were gnome like. Small statured. Weak. Easy to overpower. Used to cramped places such as ships in constant need of repairs. You know, the kind that break down then get picked up by slavers. Everyone wore the same course sackcloth-like rags of a uniform. With so little light it was hard to tell what color they actually were. Some drab neutral color. Depended on the level of gloom.
The guards were the most patient creatures I ever seen. I suppose it was fitting that snakes would be used to play oversight. Cold blooded. Uncaring. Can sit in one spot without blinking for as long as necessary.
As far as forced labor camps went, it was run well, I must say. No communication with each other while at work, or with the guards. No windows in the huts. Once we were in the huts, then the guards would depart. It was unknown as to where they went. If they went anywhere. No one dared to peek out the door. I couldn’t even tell you if the doors were unlocked once we were inside.
“What is this stuff anyway?” I asked Jalad, showing him my hands. They were covered in the black soot from the fruit of our labors.
“As I understand,” he frowned, “it is used in solar arrays.”
I couldn’t help but drop my arms in disappointment. They’re still at that, devouring whole planets when there are much better ways. Quixotic, but I suspect they know that. It’s more likely a matter of the money than the efficacy.
Wait a tick.
If it’s for the solar farms, we may not be far from my ship. A ray of hope. Assuming it isn’t permanently welded to the piece of shit that nearly killed me. The universe gets a little smaller every day.
We were going about our normal routine of cleaning and eating. Most of the others were silent, or stuck to their own little cliques. On the whole, they were submissive to the matter. Easy prey, small and weak, caught in the fish nets. Too scared to speak up and ask questions. At first I presumed that Jalad was their sergeant at arms. The top dog in the cell block. He turned out to be an outlier of the typical worker bee in the hive.
He was security for a delivery company. The ship was boarded unexpected by imperial forces one day. The crew was accused of smuggling contraband to the emperor’s enemies. He didn’t know what was on the manifest, let alone what was in the crates. All he knew was it was an ordinary drop. Later, he would remember that it was to a subcontractor to the imperial forces. The order was to a growing competitor of Zalud. With the shipment seized and the crew disappeared, the competitor was likely bankrupted or at the least blacklisted out of doing business anywhere near the galaxy. Means he was ripe for sedition as a result of their treachery.
“Where does all the material go?” I asked him.
He was rearranging his footlocker when I asked. Standing, he looked at the corner to think a moment.
“Farther into the mine,” he said at last. “I think.”
“You think?”
“There are no tracks out here.”
Thinking about it, he was right. Nor was there a plant or any other obvious facilities. That meant there was another way out.
“Who takes them where they go?”
“There’s a conveyor. Yeah,” he realized. “I remember seeing it once. It takes the carts away into a tunnel. Couldn’t tell you what happens to it from there.”
“Want to help me find out?”
Jalad waved his fishy hands and head at me.
“I may not want to be here. But that doesn’t mean I’m trying to get myself killed.”
I moved closer to him, looking at the rest of the bay. No one seemed to pay much attention to our conversation. Still, all it took was one snitch to end up on a spit.
“You’re going to die here anyway.”
He tried to turn away from me.
I didn’t let him. With his weird fishy skin in my hands, I held his head close to mine. I told him earnestly, looking into those weird fishy eyes, “That is all that awaits you. Someday. Somehow. Whether if it’s out of punishment or they decide this mine is no longer viable. You.” I poked him in his weird fishy chest. “And everyone else.” I waved a hand at the room. “Will be liquidated. Just as much as they didn’t give a shit about you when they brought you here. They will not give a shit about burying us all in the mine.”
“Do you think the guards would go that far?”
“I’ve seen far more sympathetic creatures go further. If I had seen a glimmer in life in one of those fuckers, I’d at least be trying to bribe them. I don’t think that is an option here.”
“You’ve done this before.” He brightened a little at the realization. Hope. Faith. Faith in me.
Excellent. Excellent. I will have my army and sail for France yet.
“But how could a caring being,” he began to sadden, “kill so many others?”
Big guy was a bit of a softy. Hopefully that doesn’t get me killed.
I scratched my head, debating if I should answer honestly.
“People are easily misguided. Especially en masse. They can be lead to do quite terrible things in the name of righteousness or fear. Fear of losing what little they have, of being seen as something other than a part of the mainstream.”
“But how do they justify it?”
“What they see as the greater good,” I said quietly. It was a sad truth. “For the quote unquote virtuous, every despicable means is considered acceptable because they believe their cause is the right cause. To those following orders, they will say they were just following orders and had no other choice.”
“You must have a lot of experience with this.”
“I’ve read a history book or two.”
J-fish nodded vigorously, smiling from gill to gill at me.
“What do you need me to do?”
“I need you to start a riot.”
His face went slack.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Not just yet,” I told him. “We need to find that other way out first. But we will need everyone, at least in this pod, to be on board. Once the fire is lit, it will spread.”
“But what will we burn.”
“Figure of speech.” Sigh.
Jalad had done the work of telling the others that we would be trying to get to the front of the line the next day. He hadn’t yet told them the entire treacherous plan. That would come in time. Too much too fast, someone was apt to panic and tattle.