Chapter 41: Tale 4, Ch 7: The Prophet Fights

Zel jumped up from the examination table and struck the physician across the head. He went down hard, knocking over several pieces of machinery in a clatter. As the guards drew their guns, Zel dove to the floor and kicked out the feet of the first and rose to connect with the second’s jaw. As he stood face to face with the other, Zel quickly grabbed and unsheathed his sword to knock away the guards’ shots and send a shock of energy at them. They flew back into the wall, one leaving a bloody mark on a cabinet and the other bouncing off the door.

Zel turned to the only conscious man, the one he’d kicked down, and picked him up.

“No, please, don’t kill me!” the guard said, trembling, “It was Krin, he killed you. I didn’t even want the sword, honest!”

“You really have no clue about Prophets, do you?” Zel asked, his strength fully returned after the Dead Rest. “Now where’s Silen?”

“The incendiary room.”

“She’s about to be killed?” Zel asked with only a hint of anger, more than he usually ever showed.

“Please, it wasn’t my idea. And she might not be there yet. You could go there, you know, leave me—”

“Where is it?” Zel helding the fear-frozen man with neither force nor power.

“Basement level three, room A in the south corridor,” the man said, staring at Zel’s sword.

“Thank you. And remember that the Sevens Prophets are here to help, not hurt. However, this might hurt a little,” Zel said as he sheathed his sword.

The guard had a sudden confused look before Zel punched him.

Zel took the guard’s key and headed out of the medical room at a dead run. The corridor had that damp feel a basement in a government facility had, common no matter what planet he was on. He didn’t have time to encounter any guards or sneak around. So he did what any man locked in the basement of a prison would do: he blew up the power connection.

A buzzing alarm made two tones and then went silent as the lights went black. A few seconds later the backup lights bathed the huge generator room in a dim, red glow. Zel didn’t know how long the emergency batteries would last, nor where to shut them down. But at least the cameras would be off.

Zel exited the basement and went through a maintenance tunnel. Edging his way through it, he followed the crude diagrams on the walls made for mechanics to follow. The incendiary room wasn’t that far away.

Zel pressed on through the darkness, shouts and heavy feet sounding from the floors above as he hurriedly went. The tunnel ended with a door, barely lit with a tiny red light. Zel crept up to it and listened in on the other side.

“…and he’s going nuts about it!” a man said on the other side.

“At least we’ll be done with this once and for all tomorrow,” another remarked.

“Round up the Cawns and kill ‘em. It’s the first good thing Segrich’s done all year!” the first man noted.

“Should have done it yesterday, though. With them all gathered together like that it would have been easier.”

“Eh, we tried sort of.”

“What, to kill them all?”

“No, more to scare them, so it’d be easier to round ‘em up later. But that Prophet got in the way.”

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“Yeah, good thing we killed him tonight.”

There was a pause as Zel tried to hold back from bursting through the door.

“Tonight?” one of the guards asked.

“Yeah, guy tried to break into the prison. I just heard Jan talking about it. She said she shot him. Anyway, the Cawns will be gone soon so everything’s fine. Blasted Prophet probably knocked the lights out before he died, that’s what’s annoying,” the other said.

“I thought he was killed at the gathering this afternoon.”

“Really? Well, either way, he’s dead now for sure.”

Zel couldn’t take it any longer. He opened the door onto two men lounging and drinking coffee. They froze at the sight of him. Zel did not look angry, nor did he show any sign of trying to intimidate them. The two men were scared out of their minds, though, as Zel calmly pulled a chair out and sat next to them.

“Continue,” he said with a cold, emotionless stare.

The two men seemed ready to jump out of their skins, but had no clue what to do.

“How will they round up the Cawns?” Zel asked.

The men didn’t move. So Zel pulled the pommel of his sword down on the first’s head. The man collapsed like a rag doll. Calmly, Zel repeated, “How will they kill the Cawns?”

“Relocation,” the remaining man squeaked.

Zel raised his eyebrows.

“He’s saying that the only way to peace is to separate us,” the man explained. “There’s a place, down south at the edge of the continent where Segrich’s gonna force all the Cawns to move to. He’s already got buildings made. Only, after a couple months he’ll gas the place.”

Zel took two moments to think on this. It all made sense.

“He says…” the man continued after Zel didn’t tell him to stop. “He says that no minor race would refuse relocation because he’ll say he’s letting them be free away from us, free to live without oppression.”

Using politics to commit genocide. It raked Zel to the core. In one fluid motion, Zel stood, knocked the man unconscious, and ran out of the break room and down the corridor.

There was a security checkpoint not far from there. A guard stood by the arched metal detector and held out her hand to stop Zel. Not used to people disobeying her, the guard didn’t realize Zel was a threat till the Prophet had her pinned against a wall. She grunted as Zel snarled at her, “Where’s the incendiary room?”

“You’re that Prophet,” the woman said, struggling vainly.

“Where is it?”

“Let me go you freak. I’m not a quivering Haman!”

“One last chance,” Zel said, and tightened his grip around the woman’s collar and edged his sword closer to her throat.

“You won’t make it,” she choked. “They should be burning the Cawns by now. They’re not worth saving and—”

“The power’s out. They can’t start the burners. Where is it?”

“Hah,” the woman said, trying to laugh but stopping as her untouched skin neared Zel’s blade. “The burners don’t need power. They just need fuel.” Zel inched his blade further and the woman slammed her head further into the wall. “The big locked door to the left, two halls down. But—” Zel punched the woman in the forehead and ran on, slicing through the metal detector on his way.

Zel could feel his sweat running down his face as he sprinted through the corridors. He dispatched a few guards, oblivious to the man charging full tilt at them. Blood now on his face, Zel felt a fear deeper than his suppressed anger that he might be too late. Just as he thought he heard a faint explosion of fire, he turned a corner and saw Mandrin standing and talking to a guard with an automatic rifle.

The guard raised his gun and fired as Zel charged him, deflecting every shot. Zel deflected a bullet into the guard’s leg and he went down with a cry. Mandrin, realizing he had no chance there, gave a shout and jumped into the incendiary room right as Zel reached the guard, knocking him out with a swift pommel to the chin. Zel turned to the metal door as it cranked shut.

Zel pounded on the thick metal and looked through the window at Mandrin, who shouted at the few guards and workers in the room. The last of the Cawns were being put inside a round chamber. To Zel’s horror, Mandrin shoved the last few in and closed the chamber’s thick, rounded hatch. Zel slashed at the door with his sword and jammed the golden blade into the bolt, finally wrenching open the lock as he heard a faint pop, pop of the burners preparing to fire.

Zel burst through the door and immediately dove to the floor as shots rang through right where he’d been. As he hit the deck, he turned and in a whirling motion sent a shockwave around the whole room. All the inhabitants fell to the tiles, and Zel dove on the three armed men who’d fired at him. Coming down on one’s throat with his blade, he rose with a motion that sliced open the other’s side and swung down across the chest of the last as he turned to see two workers fleeing. He sent a shockwave toward them and one fell across the room, flailing over a desk, and the last flew into the door, closing it on himself with a crunch of metal on bone.

Zel turned to Mandrin and stopped in mid leap. The now bleeding man stood panting with his hand on a small lever, attached at the end of a line of heat indicators. Zel didn’t have to see the large red sign above it to know it was the burner fires.

“That’s enough, Prophet,” Mandrin said.