Several conveyor belts flowed into the room dropping bundles into bins. From what he could see from the distance, those bundles included clothing, shoes, personal electronic devices such as shavers and hair dryers as well as other household-type items.
Human workers examined the bundles, discarding some but distributing most to work stations where the items were repaired. At those work stations labored bipedal humanoids with big puffy cheeks, wiry hair, and whiskers of a sort.
Chaktaw slaves.
Still unseen, Trevor returned to the hall and said to Nina, "No deals, no bull shit. You tell me right now, whose Earth is this? The Chaktaw’s?"
She did not hesitate. "Yes. It’s their Earth. Our mission was to wipe them out."
Trevor stepped back to the balcony again. The guard there leaned against a post in an effort to remain vertical while he drifted closer to a nap.
As he glanced over the balcony, he saw a sight he had seen too often on his home world. Sweat shops and industrial slave camps had been critical components of survival for the invading Grand Army of the Hivvan Republic on his Earth. Even the most conservative of guesses pointed to tens of thousands of his people starved or worked to death in such places since the invasion.
For the first time, Trevor Stone felt pity for a non-human creature.
He knew the Chaktaw — the Vikings- from his Earth, having fought them-no, slaughtered them-at Five Armies. While he did not regret murdering those invaders, he saw them now in a different light. This was their Earth. Their home. Nina and the men of Thebes had no more right to invade and conquer here than the Chaktaw or the Hivvans or the Duass did on his home world.
"What are you doing you ass?" one of the guards berated a slave. "I said repair this shit, not take it apart. You dumb or something?"
The Chaktaw to whom the guard spoke actually looked familiar to Trevor, albeit with more bruises and scrapes on his face. It was the Chaktaw prisoner taken from the strip-mall-like outpost they had raided, the prisoner who could speak man's language.
"You stupid…you still here… you die I think. Fromm come for you."
Wham! A back hand from the guard sent the prisoner to the floor.
Nina joined him on the balcony. Thanks to the constant drone of machines and the continual shouts from below, the drowsy sentry did not hear them converse.
She pointed to what resembled a massive pipe affixed to the wall with an opening cut in the side. The slaves placed boxes inside that pipe.
"That’s a cargo tube," she said. "There's a platform in there that could take us to the freight elevators for the roof."
Trevor went quiet for several seconds, his eyes alternating between the tube and the prisoners and the guards. Finally he told her, "Okay. I’m taking that prisoner with me. That one who was talking."
She gasped, caught herself, and said, "No, we don’t know who to trust in there. And the Chaktaw will kill you and me if given the chance."
"Shut up. Either I’m taking the two of you with me or I’m taking just him."
Major Forest opened her mouth to protest but he did not wait to listen. Instead, he walked over to the napping guard and shouted, "Hey, wake up, soldier!"
The guard jerked straight and swung around.
Nina hustled to Trevor’s side, her hands primed to reach for her twin pistols.
"Who are you?" The sentry retorted but took notice of the woman's rank.
"I’m the guy in charge around here. Or don’t you keep up with current events?"
Trevor did not wait for the confused guard to collect his wits, hoping that news of power shifts and rumors of a returned Emperor would, at least, result in inaction. So instead of explaining, he descended a latter set in the balcony floor, calling up, "You fall asleep like that again on watch and you’ll be down here sewing shoes with the rest of the scum, hear me?"
Two dozen Chaktaw prisoners worked in the large chamber although half remained in holding pens behind jail-cell bars. The other half worked at long tables cluttered with greasy machine parts, torn fabrics, disassembled devices, and dull tools.
In addition to the one on the balcony, four guards walked the floor armed with whips and clubs. However, it was not the sentries that worried Major Forest. She tapped Trevor's shoulder and pointed to a security camera overseeing the area.
"You need to make this quick," she whispered.
He saw her meaning and nodded in understanding.
Two of the guards approached. They wore black tunics and not battle armor. One waved at Nina's holsters and barked, "No guns on the floor."
Trevor barked even louder, "I give the orders here. Take a close look. Know who I am?"
The guard did take a close look. His eyes widened.
"Should I shoot him?" Nina played the game as best she could with a broken spirit.
"I’m the man in charge and I’m here for that worthless shit, the one I pulled off the battlefield up north. The one who can speak our language."
"That thing? It’s scheduled for Intel. I can’t release it without orders."
A loud buzz cut through the sound of tapping hammers and rolling conveyors. That buzz came from a phone which one of the guards moved to answer.
Trevor said, "Listen, asshole, my name is Trevor Stone and if that don’t mean something to you you’re in a heap of trouble."
The guard stumbled, "Shit, I recognize your face now. I heard the rumors but-"
"Stop them!" The guard who answered the phone shouted.
Before he could react, Trevor booted his foot into the first watchman's testicles. At the same time, Nina drew her pistols and pointed them at the second guard standing in front of them. That man raised his hands and backed away.
The prisoners and the remaining humans on the floor shouted and cried out and ducked for cover while the drowsy sentry in the balcony cocked his weapon and took aim.
Stone pushed aside the slave drivers and grabbed hold of the talking-Chaktaw's arm. At that same moment, the guard on the balcony decided to fire, his bullets ricocheting off the work table and turning the prisoners into a scrambling mass of chaos.
"Come with me."
"I no come with you. You dead."
Trevor did not wait for an answer. No matter how defiant his words, the Chaktaw had been beaten and starved and therefore could not resist being dragged toward the cargo tube.
Nina fired her pistols, chasing off the guards at ground level but unable to match the fire power from above. She threw her shoulder into Trevor, pushing him toward the opening and shouted, "Get in!"
Trevor forced the Chaktaw inside, falling on a wheeled metal cart lined with bins and straps for securing packages sitting atop tracks in a tube about the size of a small oil pipe. Nina dove in with bullets following close behind.
She then turned around and braved assault rifle rounds in order to reach outside the tube and push a big switch. A sharp electronic buzz followed, and then the tube went black as the access port closed. The cart automatically began its journey, rolling forward first slow then fast and then faster.
"Keep your heads down," she said although they did not need to be told; the tight confines of the tube forced them to remain in a prone position for the journey. "Probably take a minute or two," she added in a loud voice to be heard over the sound of squeaking wheels.
"What trick this?" The Chaktaw said in the dark.
"No trick. Just be quiet until we are clear," Trevor answered.
After several minutes of travel through the lightless tunnel, the cargo sled slowed and brakes engaged causing sparks to erupt between the wheels and track. At last, the top of the pipe disappeared and the cart rolled to a halt in a large room made of gray-colored concrete.
Several of the cargo tubes leading in from different parts of the facility came to a collective stop a few paces from a set of large elevator doors. Another wall offered a bulkhead that, no doubt, led to the rest of the complex. Certainly Director Jakob Snowe and a squad of his best friends would soon come through that door.