Dark Hunter's resolution.

Chapter 29: Out of Hell, into the Labyrinth.

11th January 2902

Fetal'ra system, Planet Ras'hana, Ral'craz prison.

Predictably, news of the war hardly ever trickled down into the scorched, cell block lined hellhole that was Ral'craz prison. When it did come however, it was met with intent hearing, the prisoners were eager to hear about the outside world they were sealed away from.

Sheltering under a small rock formation, Alex was sat beside Razid and Moko'tel, the Arabic human sitting beneath the shade to protect from the harsh sunlight, and Moko'tel nearby, his mandibles flexing as he exhaled from the heat. The Predator's sweat glands were not enough to ventilate the heat from his repto-mammal body, and panting was an involuntary effect of the 130 degree heat.

They had recently heard interesting news from the war. First, that the Dreadnoughts had been pulled back, no longer attacking homeworlds, their weaknesses somewhat exposed, and were now being used as flagships in large scale, less one sided space battles and UIP border planetary assaults,

Second, and most importantly, the Resurgent Decepticons had captured Konurich station entirely. To isolate the Decepticons, the Alliance had cut off FTL transit routes to the interstellar capital station, hoping to starve them out. They didn't count on the Decepticons establishing an energon manufacturing plant on the station, and now the Decepticons had an isolated, but strong fortress deep in Alliance territory.

This was a spark of hope for some prisoners, even many UIP members being desperate enough to trust those labelled again as Decepticons. In the past 2 weeks there had been 7 escape attempts, with 3 of them failing to scale the cliff face around the quarry pit rim, falling to their deaths in the 1.5 G gravity. The other 4 were either captured in the day as they escaped by guards and returned after a harsh beating, or in 2 cases, escaped at night, and not found until the next day, dead from dehydration, or a predator attack.

This was a key clue for Alex to begin devising an actual escape plan.

He and the four others, Razid, Kae'tano, Moko'tel and Je'rol had combined their knowledge of the prison so far, including escape attempts from the other four. Climbing the quarry rim was the first challenge, with the second challenge being escaping into the jungle, the only usable escape route, without being caught by guards.

The third challenge was hardest, as the jungle was full of predators, dangerous plants and deadly diseases and fungi. All this was added on top of any other obstacles such as navigating or finding food if too much time was taken.

The first 2 challenges were the easiest, as they all noticed that escapes were more successful in those stages when they were done by physically able races, and/or done at night, when the watch towers seemed to be less alert.

Trouble was, the jungle was more dangerous at night. So naturally, but with no less difficulty, a compromise was devised. And as the best candidate for a successful escape attempt with him being fresh, and having cyborg enhancements, Alex volunteered. Or rather, he was volunteered by everyone but himself.

It was a concern to the human that Je'rol showed some capability of damaging even metallic wiring and light armour with his mouth. And he would choose disease and jungle threats over being eaten by a fellow sapient any day. It was just another reason for wanting to get out of the prison quarry.

Sneaking away, Alex silently crossed the quarry pit, his eyes accustomed to the darkness cast by the 400 metre tall surrounding rock walls of the quarry pit. It was the middle of the planet's night cycle, and the prison was silent, the watch towers all but dark.

He had agreed with Razid, Je'rol, Kae'tano and Moko'tel to go at night, when it was the best chance to escape, and risk the jungle for a few hours until daylight. From what he gathered, the spaceport town a few dozen miles away was situated along a river, and that same town was downstream along the river running through the jungle.

It was simple, find the river, and use it to reach the town. And with just enough dark matter, Alex could either threaten his way out, or disguise himself if need be.

Reaching the side of the quarry pit, Alex estimated the slope, putting it at just below vertical. In that case, it meant he would not fall all the way down if he lost his grip, he'd simply roll at high speed and lose his clothes, chip his metallic limbs and fatally skin his torso and head if he fell.

There was total blackness, except for the stars in the sky, and Alex could only barely see the cliff face he had to climb. He recalled his days back in the Frosian military academy, where one gruelling test involved a cliff climb exercise. Of course, back then there were emergency hover drones to catch anyone who fell.

Blindly, he grabbed the cliff face before him, and gripped, his metal claws digging into the rock wall. Slowly and deliberately, Alex began to climb. As a former quarry, the rock walls were very steep and smooth, and all a rest would constitute would be a stop in climbing.

Still, a few metres were down in a minute, only between 300 and 400 metres of near vertical cliff to climb.

Down below, the other four prisoners were busy preparing for the next stage of the plan.

Put simply, once Alex was up, he was to act as bait, or distract the guards with some event or display, and cause chaos to erupt. In that chaos, there would be an inspired riot, in which the other four would climb out of the pit, presumably among others with a similar idea of escape.

With their own small brand of dark matter shared, Je'rol and Moko'tel would use it to disguise themselves as they climbed, as both were considered the most dangerous of the four collaborators. Razid and Kae'tano would escape undisguised, but they were more skilled climbers than the other 2 anyway.

At the base, Je'rol mused to himself: "What exactly would the signal for us to start a riot be?"

"It was uncertain, but Alex said it would be something big, something that would draw the guards to it in the masses." Said Razid.

"He'll start a forest fire." Moko'tel said.

All the other three looked at the Predator, asking: "What!? He might risk killing us if he does that!"

"Yes, but I told him to do it. There are plants that are highly flammable, and a forest fire would definitely draw the guards in. On one of my escape attempts, I made it over the edge of the cliff, and I was in the forest for about 3 hours before I was caught and placed back in here. I had experimented with making a small fire to try and start a larger one to distract them anyway, when I saw that fluids carried by many plants on this world are flammable, a form of flammable digestive enzyme, or a flammable defensive fluid. He starts a fire, provided he's well clear of it, and he will keep the guards distracted easily."

"And why didn't you do it when you tried to escape that time?" Asked Kae'tano, his eye ridge twitching in a questioning manner.

"I told you, I was caught before I could find an area suitable. The whole forest is like a minefield of acidic and/or highly flammable bombs, and a wrong choice of starting a fire could cause yourself harm." Moko'tel explained, losing his patience somewhat.

Looking up, Razid saw the cliff's top rim, presumably to which Alex should be a third of the way up by now. Looking back, Razid said: "This escape now seems more suicidal. Perhaps we should just stay down here?"

Je'rol had enough, and said simply: "No, we're getting out, that cyborg human's not leaving us down here. Besides, it will only go to ruin if he picks a wrong spot in the forest."

Looking up, Moko'tel says: "He still needs to get up and over the ridge first."

After 20 minutes, Alex was near the top, his shoulders aching slightly from the effort, despite finding numerous small ledges to sit on for brief intervals before continuing. He may have had mechanical arms, but he still felt some strain from them. The 1.5 G gravity was not a helping matter, and had delayed his climb.

But his troubles were yet to come, and he knew that very well.

Looking back, Alex knew that the planet's sun was due to rise in roughly 4 hours, so the search towers around the rest of the quarry rim were alert. They would spot anyone escaping, and Alex's dark matter was not enough to cloak himself, not even one side of himself.

But it was enough to coat his exposed skin.

Looking at the last 10 metres, Alex prepared to climb and run, not knowing what was over the edge.

On the opposite side of the rim, an automated drone watched the crater rim with infra red scanners. Scanning the opposite side of the quarry 600 metres away, the drone zoomed in on a faint heat source. Magnifying the target, it recognized not the heat of the body, but the prison uniform. Alex's dark matter had concealed his body heat on his climb, but the cameras spotted him the moment he climbed over the top.

Alarms blared, and searchlights erupted into the night, as Alex tore off from the crater rim, running maniacally towards the jungle's edge.

As the guards began to head around the crater, Alex had entered the jungle.

All around him twisted vines and alien trees and ferns surrounded him. Alex frantically searched and searched for specific plant types, ripping off his prison uniform sleeves, exposing his mechanical upper arms.

Leaping over a fallen, rotting log, Alex picked up a pair of snapped off branches from the ground, the wood feeling surprisingly smooth in his mechanical grip. Taking a ripped sleeve each time, he wrapped the sleeves around the end of a stick each, making a makeshift torch.

Hearing the distant sounds of guards approaching, Alex finished up and took off into the jungle.

Here, Alex felt a rush of memories of skills he had learnt in his time among the Omaticaya, learning how to hear the forest, how to sense the surroundings and be alert to any changes. He ran like wind, quietly, ducking and weaving to slip through obstacles with minimal disturbance.

As he dashed past a tree, Alex backstepped, almost yelling in triumph as he saw the plant he was looking for. A pitcher plant of sorts, the pitcher plant roughly 7 feet tall, surrounded by numerous colourful leaves extending 4 feet from the plant and nearly 2 feet wide. Cautious, having been told by Moko'tel of the basic initial signs from this plant, Alex picked up a small twig, and carefully jabbed at one of the colourful leaves.

Almost immediately, the plant leaf had the twig trapped, closing around it like a Venus fly trap as the twig was adhesively stuck to the leaf. Then, the leaf itself began to curl in towards the main pitcher plant, the twig wrapped firmly in its grasp.

The twig was hung into the top of the pitcher, where the leaf unfurled, the twig dropping inside. Now Alex saw a basic of how this plant operated.

The jungle soil was starved, as the larger trees fought for minerals, so this plant had evolved to use minerals as a backup. Its main diet was small animals, insect sized or even small creatures the size of Alex's hands. The pitcher plant was a well of digestive acids from which nothing escaped.

And as Moko'tel had told Alex from his brief escape, those same digestive fluids were also highly flammable.

Taking both long sticks together side by side, Alex dipped the sleeve wrapped ends inside the pitcher, the leaves unresponsive. Dipping them into the pool of digestive juices, Alex began to pull back. Resistance built, and Alex pulled the sticks out, yanking them free of inward curling spikes within the plant.

It was then the plant revealed an unknown defence.

As Alex yanked the sticks free, the plant had opened a valve of sorts, a mechanism to attack any prey that attempted to escape after freeing itself from the pitcher, or a would be attacker. The dead body would either eventually be grabbed by one of the leaves, or used as bait to lure in other, scavenging creatures for food.

Unable to respond, Alex was too late to dodge the small, generally aimed stream of digestive acid. Normally aimed for the eyes, the stream was somehow poorly aimed, and missed the eyes. Alex gagged slightly as he felt the stream spray into his mouth, wetting his lips and gums slightly, some of it even tricking down his throat, choking as he had inhaled a small bit in surprise.

Stumbling away, yet not feeling any toxic effects, merely a watery taste, Alex dismissed the strange projectile, and set about using his hands as a form of knife and flint, scratching his digits to get sparks. After a few tries, he had a technique, and put the first torch down to his fingers as he scratched them together.

The torch began to flare to life, and immediately Alex brought the second torch to his other, lighting that one also. As the area lit up, Alex saw he had stumbled into a perfect trap for animals, and a perfect starting point for his fire.

The area was surrounded by multiple pitcher plants like the one he had just milked for flammable acid, and he saw other plants that Moko'tel recommended, including giant pods, filled with a flammable, light gas to help them air travel across plant to spread seeds when released, similar to a Pandoran plant, minus the flight travel.

A minefield of plant bombs in a way.

Alex felt his throat growing scratchy, dismissing it as anticipation, and with all his strength, he threw the torches in different directions, setting fire to ferns at the base of the ground, and the tree bases.

Running away, Alex knocked a pitcher plant around, spilling some flammable acid onto the ground beside it. He wanted a trail of flammable liquid to lead to one plant at least, as one catching fire would start the rest.

Darting off into the night, Alex heard the guards yelling to head for the fire, guessing that's where he was.

As he ran, Alex felt his throat growing scratchier, and his lips began to chafe, and burn. Immediately he knew something was wrong, and he thought back. His thoughts hit on the plant, the acid it spit onto him, his lips, his inside mouth.

Down his throat, and into his windpipe.

Running from the growing fire, Alex grew more and more desperate, biting back a scream of panic as the acid worked itself slowly on his throat. He desperately thought about how he might fix this problem, but he had acid in a place where it was not easily washed out.

Bursting into a clearing, a small, unseen animal scurrying into the undergrowth, Alex began to cough, gagging as he felt what seemed to him as a burning throat infection.

The yells of the distant guards suddenly became more alarmed, as some distant roars of flames and even a few small explosions sounded.

But the growing forest fire and detonating plants a few hundred metres away were insignificant to the human. He finally began to exhale in panic, and he knew it was getting worse, as his voice started to crack, and his mouth emitted a harsh, scratchier version of his moderately pitched voice. His lips began to burn, and his mouth was on fire.

Raw survival instincts flowed through Alex, as the unusual situation became worse inside his body. Growing desperate, Alex heard running water, and tore off, grunting and gagging as he ran, pain growing gradually, urging him to hurry.

He spotted the noise's source, a small stream, flowing on the jungle floor, about a foot deep. In the better part of his mind, Alex knew he could follow this stream to reach the river he sought to locate the spaceport town.

But his more desperate thoughts turned to the water itself, and what he had to risk if he wanted to not be digested from the inside of his own throat and trachea.

Getting on all fours, Alex struggled to level his breathing, crying out slightly from the pain, and thrust his head underwater. He waited a few seconds, and as the pain in his throat grew with the working acid, he saw no other way to wash the acid out.

With his head submerged in the stream, and while fighting his better instincts, Alex inhaled.

Further away, the fire raged, the plants igniting left and right, some detonating like grenades as the flammable juices inside caught fire.

Guards began to slightly abandon thoughts of catching the escapees, now not just a lone human, and were diverting attention to stopping the forest fire. The roar of the flames echoed and shone in the very early morning darkness.

Among the flames, a select few dashed through the chaos, the flames their cover from the guards.

Je'rol bounded through the forest, his claws catching on branches and roots, propelling him faster. Behind him, Razid ran in pursuit, panting from the effort and heat. The Sril'sask stopped briefly, checking his bearings, smelling for the faintest of human odours among the jungle.

Just as he caught a faint whiff, the flames trickled into a plant pod group nearby.

The pods caught fire, bursting open explosively, burning digestive fluid spraying all around. Je'rol was jumping away, his right flank burning, peppered with burning acid, as he found Alex's scent.

Behind him, Razid yelled in pain, with some of the acid having spilt on his lower left arm, outstretched by instinct to protect from the small plant pod explosions. Glancing around desperately, he yelled to Je'rol: "We must find Alex, and the river! We can wash these fluids off there!"

Feeling his flank getting more and more painful, Je'rol grunted a reply, and took off through the jungle brush, towards a human scent. Razid trailed behind, resisting the urge to rub the acid burn on his lower left arm, as it may spread the acid. The Arabic man saw a faint stumble appearing in Je'rol's running, and hoped that they could wash this acid off soon.

In another part of the jungle, Moko'tel and Kae'tano dashed through the undergrowth, being chased by a pair of armed guards.

Behind them, a falling tree blocked the path between them and the guards, the fiery splinters flying upwards in the raging fire. All around them heat rose, as the guards shouted to retreat.

A cracking sound above them was what alerted them.

Kae'tano looked up, and leapt out of the way of the falling branch, the fiery wood crashing to the floor beside him. Moko'tel cried out in alarm, his mandibles wide in surprise. Above him, another branch fell.

The branch smashed onto the Predator's head, rolling off and down his body as Moko'tel fell backwards from the impact, stunned.

Over the roar of the flames, Kae'tano rushed to Moko'tel's aid. The Predator was more useful alive than dead. Rushing over, Kae'tano grabbed the burning branch, having settled on Moko'tel's legs. The male Predator was still dazed, and with a great amount of pain, Kae'tano gripped the log and shoved it off the Predator's legs.

Hands burning, Kae'tano grabbed Moko'tel, pulling him to his feet, yelling as they stumbled through the forest, Kae'tano ignoring his burning hands and the heat around them: "Stay awake Predator!"

A few stray bullets sounded in the forest, as guards blindly fired into the blazing inferno. A scream was heard over the fire, the result of a stray shot.

Finally, a clearing emerged, and Kae'tano rushed to it, Moko'tel still half supported on his shoulder.

Bursting out, Kae'tano yelled in triumph, the glimmering river before them a gorgeous sight to behold. Bending over, the fire still raging a few metres behind them, Kae'tano splashed water onto Moko'tel's face, reawakening the Predator with a shock.

Immediately, Moko'tel numbly clutched his head, staring back at the fiery forest, and the river, with great confusion. Some blood seeped slightly from Moko'tel's forehead, and his legs began to burn.

Shoving Moko'tel into the river to soak his burns, Kae'tano became alert, as a segment of river edge further downstream rustled with disturbed, not yet burning foliage.

Je'rol and Razid burst from the rainforest, barely acknowledging the river before they all but leapt into it.

Between the Human/Sril'sask pair, another human roughly stumbled out, collapsing with a drawn out, rasping cough as he spotted the river, kneeling down instantly to submerge his head.

Seeing they all had somehow made it out in one piece, Kae'tano wracked his brain over the next stage of their makeshift escape plan as the others soaked their wounds.

2 hours later, and Kae'tano had taken the initiative in leading the four downstream, following the river banks, avoiding the jungle. They all were still suffering to some degree from their acid related, or in Moko'tel's case, concussion and burn related injuries.

Je'rol and Razid, having washed off any acid, carried Moko'tel, slinging him over Je'rol's back, as the concussion was too risky to have Moko'tel walk. Alex trailed a few feet behind, hacking slightly and coughing, his mouth enflamed and burning slightly along with his throat and windpipe.

The damage had been done, and Je'rol had suffered scarring to his right flank and thigh, but was otherwise fine. Razid had suffered marginally less, the acid scarring his skin only on his lower left arm, albeit it had turned his semi dark skin a mottled, sickly reddish colour. All of them still stung.

Alex had suffered badly, the acid damaging his throat and mouth tissue, and seeping down his windpipe. By his coughing and exhaling, the damage was worse than expected in an unusual way. Alex's voice had become raspy, less discernable, as the acid had dissolved his vocal chords themselves slightly, before he voluntarily near drowned himself to wash it out repeatedly.

It would seem that despite the setbacks, all 5 had escaped, but now faced another challenge. They were still trapped on the planet itself, and the only way off was from the spaceport colony. Unfortunately, more setbacks would make their journey more perilous, and literally place them in deeper trouble than when they were in the prison quarry.

Looking out, Kae'tano saw the distant searchlights from the aircraft scanning the forest in the distance, blockading the river route and parallel rainforest as safe routes. Between themselves and the colony was 9 miles of terrain now doggedly watched by quarry prison security and the colony security forces.

Climbing down, Kae'tano leapt to the rainforest floor, summarizing: "The direct route's not an option, we'll be caught for sure, even if you were all Alliance races."

"So that's it then, we're stuck in the forest, exposed to who knows how many diseases and creatures we've never seen. We were better off back in the quarry." Commented Razid, failing to see any light in the situation at hand. Beside him, Alex scowled, nodding in agreement as he drank from the stream. The upside was that there was no shortage of drinking water, as long as one ignored the risks of water borne diseases. Je'rol scratched the dirt with his toe claws, gazing around at the ground, tree roots and ferns. He asked in a bored tone: "What exactly is this colony's place on this world?"

Moko'tel answered: "Aside from housing guards of the Alliance's toughest prison? It's a mining colony, the quarry prison is a disused site. Its all done through tunnels in the mountains now."

"How do you know this?" Croaked Alex, his words just discernable over his rasping voice. As the human succumbed to a new bout of light coughing, Moko'tel said: "I paid attention to the guards talking, which led to one of my escape failures. I hung around too long and was caught."

Kae'tano sat in thought, his memories going back to previous dealings in his life. He recalled life on his home plant, in a built up Kro'nogri spaceport city on one of his race's earliest settled systems, where between 15 and 20 years ago he ran a smuggling ring for the city's criminal syndicates illegal weapons market. He had organized using the sewer tunnel network, with camera blinding EMP weapons, to ship weapons under cover from the police.

He asked Moko'tel: "Those mining tunnels? Are they a network stretching around the colony?" Moko'tel nodded in confirmation, which led to Kae'tano saying: "Then that's how we'll get into the colony, we'll sneak through those tunnels, using disused tunnels if we can."

It was a vague plan, but more than they had a mere few hours ago.

Two hours later, having ducked past one patrol and sticking to sections of thick, stiflingly hot undergrowth, the five escapees arrived at the base of the mountain range. The morning sun had begun to heat up the jungle already, helping mask any basic body heat signatures of the five.

The mountains stretched like a horseshoe shape, encircling the colony, the prison quarry a dozen miles south of the colony, and the mountains occupying the west and north rims of the colony, and stretching in a straight line to the east.

At the opening to the jungle, Razid saw a mine tunnel opening, leading them to it. A few miles away, the aircraft still searched the jungle, the daylight now illuminating the jungle environment and the mountain side.

Reaching the tunnel mouth, the escapees gazed into the tunnel. The tunnel was disused, shut down. A pair of signs marked the entrance, saying: Protected species habitat. More worryingly was the second sign: High level animal hazard. Level 4 security access required.

Looking down into the dark tunnel, Alex was adamant, and said as clearly as he could muster with his ruined vocal chords: "No."

"It's the only way to get to the colony without getting caught." Moko'tel said.

Scowling, Alex nodded, as the sight of a passing search aircraft alerted them to an approaching patrol.

Descending into the dark tunnel, Moko'tel pulled out some sticks, and with Alex scratching his metal claws together, sparked them alight into torches. Handing one to Kae'tano and one to Razid, and keeping a third fro himself, Moko'tel led them further down into the dark tunnel, winding and descending, until the entrance mouth's light disappeared.

Really long delay, exams again, and busy with a new job, and a writer's block.

I profusely apologize to my readers. Please review, and constructive criticism is welcome.