THE PRICE OF FREEDOM,
Part Six: "The Hole In The Ground"
By Bill K.
A shadow appeared on an outcropping of rocks along the base of the Ravenheim mountain range beneath the Cloud City. It was a diffuse shadow, for there was little light in the shallow fog. The shadow grew and to a passerby might suggest a bizarre horned creature of some menace. The scraping of feet on the gritty terrain by the mountain warned of the approach of the being that threw the shadow. Were anything there to see the shadow, it might at that point flee in precaution.
And it would miss the sight of a slight girl of fifteen with shoulder length black tresses, a sailor fuku of violet and white, and a glaive half again as tall as she was. The girl navigated the terrain, hugging the base of the mountains cautiously as her perpetually sad eyes darted left and right. She was such a slight thing that the casual observer would wonder if she could make it to her destination without collapsing from fatigue. She seemed so weak and small, save for the gleaming blade she carried as if it were an extension of her hand.
It had been a harrowing journey so far for Sailor Saturn. She feared discovery at any moment. The hidden dangers this place might possess, the ones Sailor Venus and Sailor Mercury warned them about, preyed on her mind, refusing to be shunted completely to the back. But they were all overwhelmed by the gnawing fear that she would find her Michiru-mama, but find her too late.
A noise caught Sailor Saturn's ear. A sense she couldn't name shouted a warning. Something was following her. The girl took two more steps, then whirled and crouched into a battle position, her glaive extended and ready to take deadly toll on any enemy.
Sailor Pallas smiled at her.
"Oh," Saturn sighed in relief. "It's you. Are the others with you?"
Pallas shook her head.
"You're alone? Why did you follow me?"
"Because Pallas thought you might need help finding your mommy," Pallas chirped. "And Pallas didn't want you to get into trouble. Miss Venus Ma'am and Miss Jupiter Ma'am always warn us not to wander off on our own, especially when we're on a mission."
Saturn nodded and turned to continue on. Pallas followed her.
"I know I'm disobeying," Saturn explained. "I wanted to wait for them - - but they were taking so long. I-I'm just afraid," and Saturn's explanation died out. She peeked back at Pallas.
"You need to find your mommy soon," Pallas nodded, understanding in her own child-like way. "How do you know where to find her? Are you talking to your mommy with your thoughts?" Pallas asked.
"No. I just - - know she's here - - and that she's in trouble. It's got me worried sick."
"We'll find her," Pallas offered. They walked on. "You really liked your mommy, didn't you."
"She was great to me," Saturn smiled wistfully. "She and Haruka-papa - - they took me in when - - well, it's complicated. But they loved me like I was their own." Saturn sniffed and wiped a tear. "I really miss them, even though I haven't been separated from them as long as they have from me. And if they're in trouble, I've got to help them. And if it means I get kicked out of the palace for disobeying, well so be it."
"The Queen wouldn't kick you out," Pallas said. "She's a very nice lady. Pallas sometimes wishes she was Pallas's mommy."
Turning past an outcropping, Saturn spotted a small squadron of guards in black uniforms similar to the ones who confronted the senshi earlier. They and several women in slave chains and collars were clustered around the mouth of what looked like a mine. She pulled back, holding Pallas back with her hand.
"Bad ladies," Pallas whispered, peeking over a rock at them.
"We have to get past them," Saturn told her. "I think Michiru-mama is in that mine."
"Are we going to fight them?"
"I wish there was another way," mused Saturn. "I don't want to risk a confrontation that could summon more guards."
"Ohhh! Pallas knows!" Pallas gasped quickly. "Pallas can knock the bad ladies out from here, Miss Saturn Ma'am."
"You can? How?"
"Pallas will show you," Pallas said, smiling proudly. "Beautiful Incantation!"
As she spoke her power phrase, Sailor Pallas pointed to a rock on the ground. Using her senshi telekinesis, Pallas lifted the rock up in the air. It hovered between the two girls.
"Pallas used to do this with magic billiard balls," the girl proclaimed, "but this will work, too."
Mimicking holding a pool cue, Pallas struck the rock and sent it flying. The rock whizzed through the group, to their immediate astonishment, and struck a structure resembling a shed. The rock ricocheted back, striking one guard in the forehead and knocking her down. The rock caromed over to the mine entrance, deflected back and felled a second guard. The rock bounced up, struck a third in the face, banked off of her jaw and slammed into the fourth, putting her down.
"Yay!" Pallas cheered, jumping up and down. "It still works!"
"Shh!" Saturn chided her. "That was very good, but we don't want to attract any attention to ourselves. Come on, let's get inside the mine before someone spots us."
Pallas nodded. Together, the pair stole across the short open area to the mouth of the mineshaft. Cautiously the two peered into the mine.
"Pallas doesn't like the looks of this," Pallas said.
"You don't have to come if you don't want to," Saturn told her. "Thank you for all the help you gave me." She turned to venture into the shaft, then stopped and turned back to Pallas. "I - - I'll see you in class."
"Pallas will come," Pallas said, though it was obvious she wasn't enamored of the idea. "Pallas said she'd help you find your mommy and she will."
"Thank you," Saturn squeaked. Then, glaive at the ready, she ventured into the dimly lit mineshaft, Sailor Pallas huddled behind her.
The pair skittered down the shaft, deeper into the mountain, until they came to an elevator. Sailor Saturn cautiously peered down the elevator shaft. Sailor Pallas peeked over the edge behind her.
"I guess the main part of the mine is below ground," Saturn judged. She took a moment and concentrated. "Michiru-mama's down there." Saturn began looking for a way down the shaft.
"Can't we just use the elevator?" Pallas asked, having sensed Saturn's unspoken reluctance.
"It would attract attention," Saturn said. "I want to avoid that if I can." She turned to Pallas. "Pallas, could you lower us both down the elevator shaft with your telekinesis?"
"Pallas doesn't know," the girl replied doubtfully. "She's never lifted anything that heavy before. She might drop us and then we'd fall and get hurt."
"Come on, Pallas," Saturn said encouragingly. "We're the two smallest senshi in the whole group. We can't be that heavy. Why I'm only thirty-eight and a half kilos (eighty-five pounds)."
Pallas looked down. "Pallas is sorry. She doesn't think she can do it."
Saturn wracked her brain for another solution while Pallas watched uneasily.
"Well I'm a telekinetic, too - - a little," Saturn proposed. "You think maybe you could tap into some of my power? I mean, you're a lot more experienced at doing this kind of stuff than I am. I can barely lift a ruler. But Sensei says I've got the potential for lots more."
"Pallas has never tried anything like that."
"Well, maybe your telepathy can connect our centers of power."
Doubt still haunted the girl's face. "Pallas will try. But please don't be mad at her if she can't do it."
"Deal," Saturn smiled and grasped Pallas by the hand.
Pallas closed her eyes. Almost immediately Saturn could feel a buzzing just below the skin of the hand she held Pallas with. There was something in the back of her mind, floating along the base of her skull with just enough presence to be noticed but not identified. She wanted to jump, but kept still. It was probably Pallas searching for her place of power. Saturn prayed it would be enough to help. Her place of power had been adept at healing, but had yet to prove very useful at something more tangible. It was a wild and capricious beast locked within her and seemed dedicated to tantalizing her with possibilities and then snatching them away.
"Oh!" Pallas gasped, drawing a look from Saturn. "Beautiful Incantation."
An invisible hand cupped underneath Saturn and Pallas. Gently the two girls were lifted up into the air. They floated into the elevator shaft and down, calmly lowering into the dark abyss. Saturn kept a tight grip on Pallas' hand so the connection wouldn't break. She figured Pallas was doing all the work, but Pallas believed they were both helping and whatever maintained the illusion was what Saturn would do.
The roof of the elevator car appeared below them. Saturn was prepared to land on it, but the hand calmly swept them out of the shaft and set them down a few feet away. Pallas opened her eyes and looked up at Saturn with awe.
"What is it?" Saturn asked.
"Miss Saturn Ma'am," Pallas whispered in stunned amazement. "Pallas thought only the Queen and the Princess had a center that powerful."
Saturn gaped at Sailor Pallas. She had to be wrong. It must have been adrenaline and her desire to find her Michiru-Mama boosting her PKE power. Pallas was just mistaken. There was no way she was as powerful as Queen Serenity or Usa.
Shaking herself, Saturn eased them back into the shadows of a small alcove and looked around. Farther up the tunnel, women in chains dressed in rags were chipping away at the walls of rock with absurdly heavy tools that resembled picks. They were dirty and worn, straining with muscles pushed past fatigue to lift their picks and strike the rock. The tools were clearly designed to be heavy so the prisoners couldn't raise them high enough to sever chains or menace a guard. All they could do was peck away at the walls, listlessly tossing ore into a mine car, until they were called to halt - - or until they dropped.
"What is this place?" Pallas whispered.
Saturn didn't answer. She was busy noticing that each woman in chains had another like characteristic besides gender: green hair. Urgency flooded through her tiny body and she was about to bolt forward. Only a shadow cast by a lantern stopped her. That shadow belonged to an angry-looking guard who came into view. The woman strutted along at a leisurely pace, brandishing a stun club, observing the mine slaves as they worked. Now and then she'd give a quick jolt to one who wasn't working as fast as the guard thought she should. The guard wore a mask in addition to her uniform. It made Saturn wonder if there were harmful gasses down here or if it just protected the guard from inhaling dust from the ore.
When the guard turned down a connecting tunnel, Saturn silently signaled Pallas and the pair eased down the other tunnel. None of the slaves acknowledged their presence. They only worked like mindless drones. Further into the tunnel they found more of the same. Dehumanized wretches forced to work hard long hours in this sunless enclosure with no hope. Saturn began to flash back to the images in her dream. Just thinking about it made her skin crawl.
"Please don't be afraid, Miss Saturn Ma'am," Pallas said suddenly. "It was just a dream."
Resisting the urge to question how she knew that, Saturn delved on into the tunnel. Michiru's aura seemed to surround them, but Saturn couldn't see her. Was she here? Had Saturn somehow been wrong?
"Miss Saturn Ma'am!" Pallas hissed in alarm.
Saturn looked to where the girl pointed. One of the slaves had collapsed onto the floor. Looking at the unmoving form for a few seconds, Saturn noticed the woman wasn't breathing. Was she dead? Had she worked until she died? And how could her fellow slaves just continue to work around her body? Saturn felt her throat closing up. Nervously she pressed on.
"Do you sense anything, Pallas?" Saturn asked, talking to assuage her growing doubt and to forget the horror she'd just witnessed. "It seems like she's here, but I just can't seem to find any trace of . . .!"
Saturn stopped so suddenly that Pallas bumped into her. The violet senshi turned to her right. A mine slave was listlessly pecking at the rock with her pick. She was dirty and worn like the others. Her body was thin, desiccated by overwork and deprivation. Her green hair was stringy and matted to her face and hollow eyes stared out without seeing. The only difference between her and the hundreds of other unfortunates in this mine were the tattered gloves she wore that had once been white and the remnants of a green sailor kerchief that stubbornly clung to her shoulders.
"Michiru-mama?" Saturn tried to ask, but her voice faltered in the middle.
The wretch stopped. Her head slowly turned. Vacant eyes gazed up at the girl.
"M-Michiru-mama," Saturn gasped. She fell to her knees by the wreck, taking the filthy woman in her arms. At once tears overflowed and spilled down Saturn's soft cheeks.
"Hu - - taru?" the slave whispered.
As quickly as her tears began, they ended. Galvanized into action, Sailor Saturn looked around for cover. The footsteps of a guard could be heard.
"Michiru-mama, get up," Saturn pleaded, trying to pull the woman who had once been Sailor Neptune to her feet. "Please, we have to go! We have to get you out of here! Please get up!"
Michiru looked at her; if she was able to comprehend what Saturn asked, she lacked the strength to comply. Saturn and Pallas lifted the woman to her feet with some difficulty, only to see her legs sag under the weight of her own body. Michiru flopped against them and only Saturn holding her up kept her from sinking back to the ground.
And the guard drew closer.
Dragging Michiru along the ground, Saturn and Pallas got her to cover behind a depression in the tunnel wall. The pair flattened themselves and Michiru against the wall, hoping they wouldn't be spotted. The scuff of the guard's boots against the ground grew closer and closer. Noticing Pallas begin to quake, Saturn silently folded her hand over her companion's mouth so a whimper wouldn't betray them. If forced, she would fight - - but Serenity avoided conflict whenever she could and Saturn knew it was an ideal worth living up to.
"Hey!" they heard the guard call and as one their hearts thudded to a stop. "Give me a hand here!"
"What have you got?" another voice echoed down the tunnel.
"Another body. Give me a hand with it, will you?"
"Stinking, worthless," muttered the other voice. "I can't wait to get rotated topside."
"Yeah." Suddenly there was the spit of a stun club. "What are you looking at? Get to work!"
As Saturn and Pallas tried to will their breathing to silence, they heard the dead slave's body being dragged off. Tense moments followed as they both strained to hear anything besides the dull impact of pick with rock. Finally they were both sure the guards were gone. Saturn relaxed her grip on Pallas' mouth.
"Can your mommy make it back to the elevator?" Pallas asked quietly.
"No," sobbed Saturn. "She's too weak. Oh Mama, what did they do to you?"
"Maybe we can carry her?"
"She's too heavy for us. We barely got her back here."
As Pallas watched, Saturn wiped her nose on her glove. The girl noticed her partner seemed to reach a decision.
"What are you going to do?" Pallas asked.
"Heal her," Saturn replied. "As much as I can. Maybe we'll have a better shot to get away that way." She turned to Pallas. "While I'm doing that, I'm pretty much going to be defenseless. I need you to guard our backs while I'm healing her. Can you do that, Pallas?"
Pallas nodded. "Pallas will do all she can. Pallas will be a good senshi and you and Vesta and the Queen and everybody will be ever so proud of her. Pallas promises."
"Thanks," Saturn smiled. Then she set to work.
Kneeling down next to the prone Sailor Neptune, Sailor Saturn tried to will herself to calm. It was difficult. Seeing Neptune in this awful state was almost more than she could bear. Part of her wanted to curl up and cry. Part of her wanted to slice every guard in this hole in the ground into ribbons and dance in their blood in vengeance.
That was the part that scared her - - the part she called her 'Mistress 9' part - - the part she faced down at times like this with the words and actions of Queen Serenity. Thinking of Queen Serenity always helped her find peace and calm and it worked again. She sought out her place of power and connected with it. Once the connection was made, Saturn reached out to Sailor Neptune with her hands. She touched the thin, hard muscle of her upper left arm.
Instantly Saturn felt like she was being pulled down a drain. Sailor Neptune was so bereft of spirit and will as well as physical energy she unconsciously acted like a dry sponge in water. Saturn had to will her healing energy to flow from her in moderation or Neptune threatened to suck her dry.
In exchange for the healing energy Saturn poured into her adoptive mother, the girl received the woman's ills. Pain swept through Saturn's frail body. She felt the gnawing fatigue, the barren hunger, and the ache of muscles and joints pushed past their breaking point. She felt too the separation Michiru felt, from the advancing of the spirit she felt when she practiced her arts, from friends and lovers, from even the nourishment of the light of the sun. She felt herself sinking down in a quicksand bog of despair brought on by torture, physical labor without break and the severance of her link with the one person above all else that gave her hope and the will to live. Saturn felt like her heart would burst at any moment just from the sheer overwhelming agony of it all.
But she didn't shy away. She had more to give and her Michiru-mama needed it.
Sailor Pallas watched the proceedings with both sympathy and wonderment. Saturn's power was a power she had never witnessed. The stress and cruelty that were so visible on the older woman's face began to gradually fall away. There was a faint glow to the woman's skin now, a glow of reinvigoration that perhaps only an adept such as Pallas could see. At the same time, Pallas could sense some of the anguish Sailor Saturn was enduring. It hurt like the pain she remembered going through at ten at the orphanage at Sao Paolo. Back then she always ate candy whenever she could find it and refused to brush her teeth so as not to cover up the wonderful aftertaste. And one day her tooth began to hurt and she had to have it filled. It hurt like that and Pallas felt sorry, sorry for them both.
A noise alerted Sailor Pallas to danger. She turned and saw the shadows of an approaching guard on the tunnel wall.
"Miss Saturn ma'am!" she whispered urgently. "There's a bad lady coming!" But Saturn was lost in healing and didn't hear her. Pallas bit her lower lip. "All right. Pallas will protect you." And the blue senshi stood straight and defiant, guarding the others with her body.
The guard threw her light that way and illuminated the defiant form of Sailor Pallas.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "What are you doing here?"
"You go away!" Pallas shouted. "Pallas won't let you hurt her friends!"
The guard advanced on Pallas. Her stun club was out and ready to use.
"You stay back!" Pallas demanded. "Stay back or Pallas will make you!"
"You can't be that stupid," sneered the guard. She saw Sailor Pallas' mouth scrunch up into a frown.
"Beautiful Incantation!" shouted Pallas.
With a wave of her hand, rock and ore swept up from the floor of the tunnel and began relentlessly pummeling the guard. Taken by surprise, the woman fell into a defensive crouch and retreated several steps until the assault died away.
"Pallas warned you," Sailor Pallas said.
The guard pressed a button on her belt that set off an alarm around the mine. In moments four other women in guard uniforms joined her.
"What's this?" one asked.
"Some sort of intruder. Watch out. She had weird powers."
The five guards advanced on Pallas. They formed a looming wall over the small senshi and Pallas concluded another rock assault wouldn't be as effective.
"Beautiful Incantation!" she yelled, gesturing with both hands.
An invisible wall shot out, slamming into the five guards with the impact of a battering ram. The quintet was bowled over, sent sprawling into working slaves and an ore car. When one would rise to charge, Pallas would knock her down with a gesture-controlled mental force. Again and again she knocked them down, but again and again they would rise up. Pallas began to wonder how long it would take before they retreated. She was beginning to tire.
If only Vesta were here.
A small, round metallic object, almost like one of her old magic balls, landed at her feet. Pallas looked down, momentarily distracted. Then the ball exploded with a powerful localized concussive force. Sailor Pallas was thrown backward into the wall, battered and temporarily blinded, then sank into unconsciousness. The guards approached cautiously.
"I think she's down," one said.
"Get a collar on her," ordered another.
"Hey, there are two more over here!" a third guard said, pointing out Neptune and Saturn.
Saturn dimly felt the stun club jam into her left shoulder. An electric shock passed through her body, numbing her and throwing her consciousness into a black abyss. She keeled over at the foot of the guard who stunned her.
"Traitor," sneered the guard.
Continued in chapter 7
Part Six: "The Hole In The Ground"
By Bill K.
A shadow appeared on an outcropping of rocks along the base of the Ravenheim mountain range beneath the Cloud City. It was a diffuse shadow, for there was little light in the shallow fog. The shadow grew and to a passerby might suggest a bizarre horned creature of some menace. The scraping of feet on the gritty terrain by the mountain warned of the approach of the being that threw the shadow. Were anything there to see the shadow, it might at that point flee in precaution.
And it would miss the sight of a slight girl of fifteen with shoulder length black tresses, a sailor fuku of violet and white, and a glaive half again as tall as she was. The girl navigated the terrain, hugging the base of the mountains cautiously as her perpetually sad eyes darted left and right. She was such a slight thing that the casual observer would wonder if she could make it to her destination without collapsing from fatigue. She seemed so weak and small, save for the gleaming blade she carried as if it were an extension of her hand.
It had been a harrowing journey so far for Sailor Saturn. She feared discovery at any moment. The hidden dangers this place might possess, the ones Sailor Venus and Sailor Mercury warned them about, preyed on her mind, refusing to be shunted completely to the back. But they were all overwhelmed by the gnawing fear that she would find her Michiru-mama, but find her too late.
A noise caught Sailor Saturn's ear. A sense she couldn't name shouted a warning. Something was following her. The girl took two more steps, then whirled and crouched into a battle position, her glaive extended and ready to take deadly toll on any enemy.
Sailor Pallas smiled at her.
"Oh," Saturn sighed in relief. "It's you. Are the others with you?"
Pallas shook her head.
"You're alone? Why did you follow me?"
"Because Pallas thought you might need help finding your mommy," Pallas chirped. "And Pallas didn't want you to get into trouble. Miss Venus Ma'am and Miss Jupiter Ma'am always warn us not to wander off on our own, especially when we're on a mission."
Saturn nodded and turned to continue on. Pallas followed her.
"I know I'm disobeying," Saturn explained. "I wanted to wait for them - - but they were taking so long. I-I'm just afraid," and Saturn's explanation died out. She peeked back at Pallas.
"You need to find your mommy soon," Pallas nodded, understanding in her own child-like way. "How do you know where to find her? Are you talking to your mommy with your thoughts?" Pallas asked.
"No. I just - - know she's here - - and that she's in trouble. It's got me worried sick."
"We'll find her," Pallas offered. They walked on. "You really liked your mommy, didn't you."
"She was great to me," Saturn smiled wistfully. "She and Haruka-papa - - they took me in when - - well, it's complicated. But they loved me like I was their own." Saturn sniffed and wiped a tear. "I really miss them, even though I haven't been separated from them as long as they have from me. And if they're in trouble, I've got to help them. And if it means I get kicked out of the palace for disobeying, well so be it."
"The Queen wouldn't kick you out," Pallas said. "She's a very nice lady. Pallas sometimes wishes she was Pallas's mommy."
Turning past an outcropping, Saturn spotted a small squadron of guards in black uniforms similar to the ones who confronted the senshi earlier. They and several women in slave chains and collars were clustered around the mouth of what looked like a mine. She pulled back, holding Pallas back with her hand.
"Bad ladies," Pallas whispered, peeking over a rock at them.
"We have to get past them," Saturn told her. "I think Michiru-mama is in that mine."
"Are we going to fight them?"
"I wish there was another way," mused Saturn. "I don't want to risk a confrontation that could summon more guards."
"Ohhh! Pallas knows!" Pallas gasped quickly. "Pallas can knock the bad ladies out from here, Miss Saturn Ma'am."
"You can? How?"
"Pallas will show you," Pallas said, smiling proudly. "Beautiful Incantation!"
As she spoke her power phrase, Sailor Pallas pointed to a rock on the ground. Using her senshi telekinesis, Pallas lifted the rock up in the air. It hovered between the two girls.
"Pallas used to do this with magic billiard balls," the girl proclaimed, "but this will work, too."
Mimicking holding a pool cue, Pallas struck the rock and sent it flying. The rock whizzed through the group, to their immediate astonishment, and struck a structure resembling a shed. The rock ricocheted back, striking one guard in the forehead and knocking her down. The rock caromed over to the mine entrance, deflected back and felled a second guard. The rock bounced up, struck a third in the face, banked off of her jaw and slammed into the fourth, putting her down.
"Yay!" Pallas cheered, jumping up and down. "It still works!"
"Shh!" Saturn chided her. "That was very good, but we don't want to attract any attention to ourselves. Come on, let's get inside the mine before someone spots us."
Pallas nodded. Together, the pair stole across the short open area to the mouth of the mineshaft. Cautiously the two peered into the mine.
"Pallas doesn't like the looks of this," Pallas said.
"You don't have to come if you don't want to," Saturn told her. "Thank you for all the help you gave me." She turned to venture into the shaft, then stopped and turned back to Pallas. "I - - I'll see you in class."
"Pallas will come," Pallas said, though it was obvious she wasn't enamored of the idea. "Pallas said she'd help you find your mommy and she will."
"Thank you," Saturn squeaked. Then, glaive at the ready, she ventured into the dimly lit mineshaft, Sailor Pallas huddled behind her.
The pair skittered down the shaft, deeper into the mountain, until they came to an elevator. Sailor Saturn cautiously peered down the elevator shaft. Sailor Pallas peeked over the edge behind her.
"I guess the main part of the mine is below ground," Saturn judged. She took a moment and concentrated. "Michiru-mama's down there." Saturn began looking for a way down the shaft.
"Can't we just use the elevator?" Pallas asked, having sensed Saturn's unspoken reluctance.
"It would attract attention," Saturn said. "I want to avoid that if I can." She turned to Pallas. "Pallas, could you lower us both down the elevator shaft with your telekinesis?"
"Pallas doesn't know," the girl replied doubtfully. "She's never lifted anything that heavy before. She might drop us and then we'd fall and get hurt."
"Come on, Pallas," Saturn said encouragingly. "We're the two smallest senshi in the whole group. We can't be that heavy. Why I'm only thirty-eight and a half kilos (eighty-five pounds)."
Pallas looked down. "Pallas is sorry. She doesn't think she can do it."
Saturn wracked her brain for another solution while Pallas watched uneasily.
"Well I'm a telekinetic, too - - a little," Saturn proposed. "You think maybe you could tap into some of my power? I mean, you're a lot more experienced at doing this kind of stuff than I am. I can barely lift a ruler. But Sensei says I've got the potential for lots more."
"Pallas has never tried anything like that."
"Well, maybe your telepathy can connect our centers of power."
Doubt still haunted the girl's face. "Pallas will try. But please don't be mad at her if she can't do it."
"Deal," Saturn smiled and grasped Pallas by the hand.
Pallas closed her eyes. Almost immediately Saturn could feel a buzzing just below the skin of the hand she held Pallas with. There was something in the back of her mind, floating along the base of her skull with just enough presence to be noticed but not identified. She wanted to jump, but kept still. It was probably Pallas searching for her place of power. Saturn prayed it would be enough to help. Her place of power had been adept at healing, but had yet to prove very useful at something more tangible. It was a wild and capricious beast locked within her and seemed dedicated to tantalizing her with possibilities and then snatching them away.
"Oh!" Pallas gasped, drawing a look from Saturn. "Beautiful Incantation."
An invisible hand cupped underneath Saturn and Pallas. Gently the two girls were lifted up into the air. They floated into the elevator shaft and down, calmly lowering into the dark abyss. Saturn kept a tight grip on Pallas' hand so the connection wouldn't break. She figured Pallas was doing all the work, but Pallas believed they were both helping and whatever maintained the illusion was what Saturn would do.
The roof of the elevator car appeared below them. Saturn was prepared to land on it, but the hand calmly swept them out of the shaft and set them down a few feet away. Pallas opened her eyes and looked up at Saturn with awe.
"What is it?" Saturn asked.
"Miss Saturn Ma'am," Pallas whispered in stunned amazement. "Pallas thought only the Queen and the Princess had a center that powerful."
Saturn gaped at Sailor Pallas. She had to be wrong. It must have been adrenaline and her desire to find her Michiru-Mama boosting her PKE power. Pallas was just mistaken. There was no way she was as powerful as Queen Serenity or Usa.
Shaking herself, Saturn eased them back into the shadows of a small alcove and looked around. Farther up the tunnel, women in chains dressed in rags were chipping away at the walls of rock with absurdly heavy tools that resembled picks. They were dirty and worn, straining with muscles pushed past fatigue to lift their picks and strike the rock. The tools were clearly designed to be heavy so the prisoners couldn't raise them high enough to sever chains or menace a guard. All they could do was peck away at the walls, listlessly tossing ore into a mine car, until they were called to halt - - or until they dropped.
"What is this place?" Pallas whispered.
Saturn didn't answer. She was busy noticing that each woman in chains had another like characteristic besides gender: green hair. Urgency flooded through her tiny body and she was about to bolt forward. Only a shadow cast by a lantern stopped her. That shadow belonged to an angry-looking guard who came into view. The woman strutted along at a leisurely pace, brandishing a stun club, observing the mine slaves as they worked. Now and then she'd give a quick jolt to one who wasn't working as fast as the guard thought she should. The guard wore a mask in addition to her uniform. It made Saturn wonder if there were harmful gasses down here or if it just protected the guard from inhaling dust from the ore.
When the guard turned down a connecting tunnel, Saturn silently signaled Pallas and the pair eased down the other tunnel. None of the slaves acknowledged their presence. They only worked like mindless drones. Further into the tunnel they found more of the same. Dehumanized wretches forced to work hard long hours in this sunless enclosure with no hope. Saturn began to flash back to the images in her dream. Just thinking about it made her skin crawl.
"Please don't be afraid, Miss Saturn Ma'am," Pallas said suddenly. "It was just a dream."
Resisting the urge to question how she knew that, Saturn delved on into the tunnel. Michiru's aura seemed to surround them, but Saturn couldn't see her. Was she here? Had Saturn somehow been wrong?
"Miss Saturn Ma'am!" Pallas hissed in alarm.
Saturn looked to where the girl pointed. One of the slaves had collapsed onto the floor. Looking at the unmoving form for a few seconds, Saturn noticed the woman wasn't breathing. Was she dead? Had she worked until she died? And how could her fellow slaves just continue to work around her body? Saturn felt her throat closing up. Nervously she pressed on.
"Do you sense anything, Pallas?" Saturn asked, talking to assuage her growing doubt and to forget the horror she'd just witnessed. "It seems like she's here, but I just can't seem to find any trace of . . .!"
Saturn stopped so suddenly that Pallas bumped into her. The violet senshi turned to her right. A mine slave was listlessly pecking at the rock with her pick. She was dirty and worn like the others. Her body was thin, desiccated by overwork and deprivation. Her green hair was stringy and matted to her face and hollow eyes stared out without seeing. The only difference between her and the hundreds of other unfortunates in this mine were the tattered gloves she wore that had once been white and the remnants of a green sailor kerchief that stubbornly clung to her shoulders.
"Michiru-mama?" Saturn tried to ask, but her voice faltered in the middle.
The wretch stopped. Her head slowly turned. Vacant eyes gazed up at the girl.
"M-Michiru-mama," Saturn gasped. She fell to her knees by the wreck, taking the filthy woman in her arms. At once tears overflowed and spilled down Saturn's soft cheeks.
"Hu - - taru?" the slave whispered.
As quickly as her tears began, they ended. Galvanized into action, Sailor Saturn looked around for cover. The footsteps of a guard could be heard.
"Michiru-mama, get up," Saturn pleaded, trying to pull the woman who had once been Sailor Neptune to her feet. "Please, we have to go! We have to get you out of here! Please get up!"
Michiru looked at her; if she was able to comprehend what Saturn asked, she lacked the strength to comply. Saturn and Pallas lifted the woman to her feet with some difficulty, only to see her legs sag under the weight of her own body. Michiru flopped against them and only Saturn holding her up kept her from sinking back to the ground.
And the guard drew closer.
Dragging Michiru along the ground, Saturn and Pallas got her to cover behind a depression in the tunnel wall. The pair flattened themselves and Michiru against the wall, hoping they wouldn't be spotted. The scuff of the guard's boots against the ground grew closer and closer. Noticing Pallas begin to quake, Saturn silently folded her hand over her companion's mouth so a whimper wouldn't betray them. If forced, she would fight - - but Serenity avoided conflict whenever she could and Saturn knew it was an ideal worth living up to.
"Hey!" they heard the guard call and as one their hearts thudded to a stop. "Give me a hand here!"
"What have you got?" another voice echoed down the tunnel.
"Another body. Give me a hand with it, will you?"
"Stinking, worthless," muttered the other voice. "I can't wait to get rotated topside."
"Yeah." Suddenly there was the spit of a stun club. "What are you looking at? Get to work!"
As Saturn and Pallas tried to will their breathing to silence, they heard the dead slave's body being dragged off. Tense moments followed as they both strained to hear anything besides the dull impact of pick with rock. Finally they were both sure the guards were gone. Saturn relaxed her grip on Pallas' mouth.
"Can your mommy make it back to the elevator?" Pallas asked quietly.
"No," sobbed Saturn. "She's too weak. Oh Mama, what did they do to you?"
"Maybe we can carry her?"
"She's too heavy for us. We barely got her back here."
As Pallas watched, Saturn wiped her nose on her glove. The girl noticed her partner seemed to reach a decision.
"What are you going to do?" Pallas asked.
"Heal her," Saturn replied. "As much as I can. Maybe we'll have a better shot to get away that way." She turned to Pallas. "While I'm doing that, I'm pretty much going to be defenseless. I need you to guard our backs while I'm healing her. Can you do that, Pallas?"
Pallas nodded. "Pallas will do all she can. Pallas will be a good senshi and you and Vesta and the Queen and everybody will be ever so proud of her. Pallas promises."
"Thanks," Saturn smiled. Then she set to work.
Kneeling down next to the prone Sailor Neptune, Sailor Saturn tried to will herself to calm. It was difficult. Seeing Neptune in this awful state was almost more than she could bear. Part of her wanted to curl up and cry. Part of her wanted to slice every guard in this hole in the ground into ribbons and dance in their blood in vengeance.
That was the part that scared her - - the part she called her 'Mistress 9' part - - the part she faced down at times like this with the words and actions of Queen Serenity. Thinking of Queen Serenity always helped her find peace and calm and it worked again. She sought out her place of power and connected with it. Once the connection was made, Saturn reached out to Sailor Neptune with her hands. She touched the thin, hard muscle of her upper left arm.
Instantly Saturn felt like she was being pulled down a drain. Sailor Neptune was so bereft of spirit and will as well as physical energy she unconsciously acted like a dry sponge in water. Saturn had to will her healing energy to flow from her in moderation or Neptune threatened to suck her dry.
In exchange for the healing energy Saturn poured into her adoptive mother, the girl received the woman's ills. Pain swept through Saturn's frail body. She felt the gnawing fatigue, the barren hunger, and the ache of muscles and joints pushed past their breaking point. She felt too the separation Michiru felt, from the advancing of the spirit she felt when she practiced her arts, from friends and lovers, from even the nourishment of the light of the sun. She felt herself sinking down in a quicksand bog of despair brought on by torture, physical labor without break and the severance of her link with the one person above all else that gave her hope and the will to live. Saturn felt like her heart would burst at any moment just from the sheer overwhelming agony of it all.
But she didn't shy away. She had more to give and her Michiru-mama needed it.
Sailor Pallas watched the proceedings with both sympathy and wonderment. Saturn's power was a power she had never witnessed. The stress and cruelty that were so visible on the older woman's face began to gradually fall away. There was a faint glow to the woman's skin now, a glow of reinvigoration that perhaps only an adept such as Pallas could see. At the same time, Pallas could sense some of the anguish Sailor Saturn was enduring. It hurt like the pain she remembered going through at ten at the orphanage at Sao Paolo. Back then she always ate candy whenever she could find it and refused to brush her teeth so as not to cover up the wonderful aftertaste. And one day her tooth began to hurt and she had to have it filled. It hurt like that and Pallas felt sorry, sorry for them both.
A noise alerted Sailor Pallas to danger. She turned and saw the shadows of an approaching guard on the tunnel wall.
"Miss Saturn ma'am!" she whispered urgently. "There's a bad lady coming!" But Saturn was lost in healing and didn't hear her. Pallas bit her lower lip. "All right. Pallas will protect you." And the blue senshi stood straight and defiant, guarding the others with her body.
The guard threw her light that way and illuminated the defiant form of Sailor Pallas.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "What are you doing here?"
"You go away!" Pallas shouted. "Pallas won't let you hurt her friends!"
The guard advanced on Pallas. Her stun club was out and ready to use.
"You stay back!" Pallas demanded. "Stay back or Pallas will make you!"
"You can't be that stupid," sneered the guard. She saw Sailor Pallas' mouth scrunch up into a frown.
"Beautiful Incantation!" shouted Pallas.
With a wave of her hand, rock and ore swept up from the floor of the tunnel and began relentlessly pummeling the guard. Taken by surprise, the woman fell into a defensive crouch and retreated several steps until the assault died away.
"Pallas warned you," Sailor Pallas said.
The guard pressed a button on her belt that set off an alarm around the mine. In moments four other women in guard uniforms joined her.
"What's this?" one asked.
"Some sort of intruder. Watch out. She had weird powers."
The five guards advanced on Pallas. They formed a looming wall over the small senshi and Pallas concluded another rock assault wouldn't be as effective.
"Beautiful Incantation!" she yelled, gesturing with both hands.
An invisible wall shot out, slamming into the five guards with the impact of a battering ram. The quintet was bowled over, sent sprawling into working slaves and an ore car. When one would rise to charge, Pallas would knock her down with a gesture-controlled mental force. Again and again she knocked them down, but again and again they would rise up. Pallas began to wonder how long it would take before they retreated. She was beginning to tire.
If only Vesta were here.
A small, round metallic object, almost like one of her old magic balls, landed at her feet. Pallas looked down, momentarily distracted. Then the ball exploded with a powerful localized concussive force. Sailor Pallas was thrown backward into the wall, battered and temporarily blinded, then sank into unconsciousness. The guards approached cautiously.
"I think she's down," one said.
"Get a collar on her," ordered another.
"Hey, there are two more over here!" a third guard said, pointing out Neptune and Saturn.
Saturn dimly felt the stun club jam into her left shoulder. An electric shock passed through her body, numbing her and throwing her consciousness into a black abyss. She keeled over at the foot of the guard who stunned her.
"Traitor," sneered the guard.
Continued in chapter 7