THE PRICE OF FREEDOM,
Part Seven: "The Captives of Ravenheim"
By Bill K.
They saw it together. In the corner of the room, wearing the chains and costume of a harem slave, was a lanky frame and a shock of short blonde hair. Mars heard Serenity gasp in alarm even as she realized the truth.
"Haruka!" Serenity cried out. Instantly she was at the woman's side, kneeling next to her.
But Haruka turned away and hid her face.
"D-Don't look at me," the woman whispered in shame. And at that moment Serenity wished she had no eyes.
"Haruka!" Serenity sobbed, nearly in tears as she clutched the chained woman's shoulders. "Haruka, it's me! Your little Dumpling!" She tried to turn Haruka's shoulders so the woman would face her, but Haruka resisted.
"What did they do to you?" Mars whispered in shock.
"Please," Haruka choked out, tears burning tracks down her cheeks as she cringed in Serenity's grasp. "Please go away! I don't want you to see me like this!"
Serenity released her and Haruka folded up into a little ball, crying bitterly. Serenity and Mars exchanged horrified glances, both helpless to know what to do next.
"Let's get those chains off of her," Mars said, her voice hoarse with emotion.
"No!" Haruka cried fearfully. "No, don't take my chains! It's not allowed! They'll punish us all!"
"Stop it!" fumed Mars. "You're not a slave! You're a senshi! That means something!"
Serenity stopped Mars with a hand on her arm. Mars glared at Serenity, but found herself calming in the face of the queen's charitable countenance.
"Haruka," Serenity whispered, gently rubbing the woman's shoulders, "I don't know what happened to you since we last saw each other. Obviously it's something terrible. I can try to help you if you'd like. I won't force you. You're not a slave and you can say 'no'. But we have to leave this place first." Haruka began shaking her head. "I won't take any arguments about that. Haruka, you don't belong here. You don't belong in these chains. Please, let me take you away from . . ."
"Mom!" Sailor Moon hissed across the room. "They've been monitoring us!"
Serenity and Sailor Mars turned to see Ceres growing algae on a small lens embedded in the ceiling in the corner of the room.
"We need to go, Serenity," Mars told her.
"You're right," Serenity replied sadly.
When Haruka refused to budge, Serenity simply levitated the chained woman into the air and carried her across the room. Mars guarded her flank. Sailor Moon and Sailor Ceres burst into the hall ahead of them, ready to take on any opposition.
A guard squadron stood at the end of the hall. The moment Ceres and Sailor Moon stepped out into the hall, a guard fired a long, cylindrical weapon. Two shells ejected and when they reached a set proximity to their targets ejected weighted netting. The nets each snared Ceres and Sailor Moon, the weights at the end wrapping the netting around their bodies and throwing them to the floor. When Serenity and Mars entered the hall, two more shells were fired at them.
However, Serenity stopped them in mid-flight with a wave of her hand. While she held Haruka aloft, the queen swatted the shells down with her free hand.
"Surrender in the name of Queen Desiree!" yelled the squad captain, another black-haired woman.
"I don't wish to fight you," Serenity replied. "But this woman is one of my people. We are leaving and I am taking her with me."
"So she means that much to you?" the captain asked.
Instantly Haruka started shrieking in pain. Serenity and Mars whirled to look. They saw the blue glow around her collar had intensified. It had the look of an electric arc now. That and Haruka's rigid body language told them a painful electric shock was passing through her body.
"Stop it!" wailed Serenity. "You'll hurt her!"
"Then surrender," replied the captain.
Serenity hesitated, torn between her desire to free her friend and her desire not to see her hurt.
"Perhaps enough haven't suffered for your actions," the captain said.
Then the weights on the netting holding Sailor Moon and Sailor Ceres took on the same blue glow. Both girls began to scream in pain as electricity seized their young bodies.
"USA!" Serenity shrieked. She tried to remove the netting, but it resisted her influence. Panic-stricken, Queen Serenity turned back to the squad captain, appealing unsuccessfully for mercy from the cold, hardened woman.
Mars saw Serenity's reaction and recognized it all too well. She didn't have to be psychic to know what her queen was thinking. Simple experience told her everything. And before Serenity could act, Mars acted.
"Divine Combustion!" Mars snarled.
Everything combustible on the members of the squadron began to ignite, from leather belts and boots to cloth uniforms, from the netting inside the shells to in some cases hair and eyebrows. Instant panic ensued as each member of the squadron from the captain on down realized she was on fire. Weapons clattered to the floor as they frantically tried to stamp and pat out their burning clothes and accessories.
"Mars," Serenity gasped, unnerved by what she saw.
"Don't start!" snapped Mars. "Just get the kids loose and let's get hnnnnngh!"
To Serenity's horror, Mars pitched forward onto her face and began convulsing. Two metal prongs stuck out of her back. Glancing behind them, Serenity saw another squad of guards had flanked them. Just then the tip of an energy gun pressed to the queen's temple.
"You people have impressive powers," the captain of the first squad hissed. Serenity could see she had singed eyebrows and a cold look in her eye. "But I don't think even you can stop an energy blaster at this range. And even if you can, I doubt your companions could endure another charge. Want to find out?"
Serenity closed her eyes. "No," she said.
"GET THEM ALL COLLARED!" the captain snapped.
Members of the second squad hurried to obey as Serenity let Haruka softly drop to the floor. The woman cringed against the wall as Serenity felt one of the metal collars snap around her neck. She watched Sailor Moon, Sailor Mars and Sailor Ceres suffer the same fate. Once the collars were affixed, wrist and ankle shackles were attached to them all.
"Please don't hurt them," Serenity pleaded softly. Her reply was the tip of the blaster digging into her temple again.
"DO-NOT-SPEAK-UNTIL-YOU-ARE-ASKED-A-QUESTION," warned the captain. Serenity lapsed into silence. "Get them on their feet! The Queen is going to want to see them!"
As energy weapon fire exploded against the rock formation behind her, Sailor Venus crawled off on all fours. Her hope was to get out from the place she was pinned down in without running into more guards or having someone sneak up on her in this vulnerable position. After scrabbling across the ground for several meters, she came to a second line of rock formations that were past the mine entrance. She looked around for indications of what would be the best direction to go in. Venus wanted to move toward the mine and catch up with Sailor Vesta, but couldn't see any means of doing it without risking a new attack.
Then she caught sight of something to her left. Two women were crouched next to a rock formation, gesturing to her. They were both dressed in tatters, much like the prisoner Serenity had earlier freed. Venus cast a furtive glance behind her. The energy fire was slowing. They'd be advancing on her last known position soon. Trusting her instincts, Venus turned left and scrambled over to the others. When she got there, she found one of the women was the prisoner Serenity had freed.
"Please hurry!" the other woman said. She was an older woman, but still thin and malnourished like her younger companion. "We can get you to a safe haven. But we must go now!"
"But I've got friends in the mine," Venus protested.
"Then they are lost to you!" the older woman told her. "We must go!"
"But," Venus began. The two women refused to wait. They scrambled off and if Venus chose not to follow, it was her misfortune. Venus chose to follow.
The trio came up to a large rock resting against the foot of the mountain range about half a kilometer from the mine entrance. The two strangers pressed their arms and backs against the rock and together shoved it aside. Behind it was the mouth of a cave. The two strangers went inside and Venus reluctantly followed.
"What is this place?" Venus asked them as the trio walked down the dimly lit cavern.
"The only free place on the surface of Ravenheim," the older woman proclaimed.
They entered a larger portion of the cave. Inside were about a dozen other women, all tattered, dirty and thin. They looked up at Venus with hollow eyes, their arms crossed over their ill-clad chests. Venus noticed every woman had green hair.
"You were the one Serenity freed earlier, aren't you?" Venus turned and asked the younger woman. She shrank back, cowering before Venus, her eyes seeking the floor.
"Y-Yes, Mistress," she mumbled fearfully.
"Veda," the older woman said. "She is not your mistress. You are a free woman now." Veda nodded meekly. "You must forgive her. Though her collar is gone, the years of training and violence she has experienced remain. It's the same with all of them." The woman stood between Veda and Venus. "I am Kamural.
You are one of the ones who freed Veda?"
Venus nodded. "Sailor Venus."
"Where do you come from, stranger?"
"Another place - - called Earth."
"I know not this place. Is it far?"
"Pretty much," grinned Venus. "It's a different world. We traveled through space to get here because two of our people are on this world."
The others murmured in low tones.
"Beings from another world?" Kamural wondered aloud. "Is such a thing possible? I thought the only other world was the cloud city."
"It's not only possible, it is," Venus said. "Do you remember a ship, a metal craft that maybe flew through the air? And maybe it crashed?"
"There have been several incidents such as you say," Kamural nodded. "Queen Desiree has a weapon in the cloud city - - I have only heard stories of it, but I have seen the bright flash it makes. And after the flash, a flying craft as you say will fall to the ground."
"What happened to them?"
"The Royal Guards are quickly there. I have seen them take people out of these crafts. Some are women - - some are different. They are people, but not women."
"Probably men," mused Venus. "You've never seen a man before?"
"What is 'man'?" Kamural asked.
"You don't have men on this world? God, this is Hell!" Venus shook herself. "What happens to the people?"
"The 'not-women' are killed. The women, if they have exotic hair, are taken to the queen. If not, they go to the mine."
"This mine - - is it some sort of prison camp, or forced labor camp or what? And do all the prisoners have green hair like you?"
"Yes," Kamural said bitterly, pushing a strand of her own green hair away. "There are two races on Ravenheim: those of black hair and those of green hair. Once, when I was a girl younger than Veda, the green-hairs lived in the Cloud City. We created art and song, we built tremendous spires into the heavens. It is said that the pillars on which the Cloud City rests upon were built by my people long ago."
"What happened?" Venus asked.
"Tantalla," Kamural said with naked loathing. "Tantalla was a black hair. She discovered a new use for corbite. It gave power to her machines and through her machines she gained control of the cloud city. My kind was forced to the planet's surface. But she needed more corbite to power her machines and hold her power. And she was brilliant and evil enough to devise the collar."
"What does this collar do?" Venus asked, absorbed in the story.
"Deadens the will to resist," Kamural told her. "If the collar is locked upon you, you are prisoner until freed."
"It controls the mind?"
"No. You can still think. But it is hard for you to act. You want to break free. You want to fight, but it is hard. Any resistance you make is feeble." Kamural cast a glance at the others. "That is why they starve and torture us until we are broken. Then we are cast down into the mines to dig more corbite until we die." Venus looked quite unsettled by that information. "You need not worry about suffering that fate, Sailor Venus. With your golden hair, you would not become a mine slave."
"Oh?"
"Tantalla's machines sent an energy wave that changed some of each race. Before, hair was either black or green. Now there are those with yellow or brown. Tantalla's daughter, Desiree - - she rules the cloud city now - - is attracted to these other colors while green repels her. Those of such exotic beauty as yours become slaves of the queen's harem or are given to her inner circle."
"My two friends," Venus interjected. "They may have - - fallen from the sky after one of the flashes from the cloud city. Maybe you saw them? One had yellowish hair, like mine, but shorter. The other had green hair."
"If they were captured," Kamural said, "your gold-haired friend is in cloud city, perhaps in the queen's own harem. Your green-haired friend is in the mine - - if she still lives."
"Then I've got to get her out," Venus proclaimed. "If you're willing, I could use your help."
"I have no weapons to fight with, save my brain and my hands," Kamural shook her head. "It is all I have been able to do to rescue one or two of my people per season and keep us out of the hands of the Royal Guards. I give them shelter and try to undo years of torture. It is all I have been able to manage for fifteen summers - - to keep the flame of resistance alive until the evil spawn of the hated Tantalla and her kind can be driven from our rightful home." She saw Venus was disappointed with this response. "I will shelter you if you wish to stay. I have nothing else to offer you."
"I understand," Venus nodded. "Do you know of another way into the mine?"
Kamural shook her head.
"OK," Venus nodded and turned to go.
"Sailor Venus, do not venture into the mine," pleaded Kamural. "Only death or slavery awaits you."
"Can't do that," Venus grinned. "That's what being a senshi is all about."
Before she could go, Veda suddenly reached out and snatched her hand. The girl bowed, pressing her forehead to the back of Venus' hand.
"Mistress!" she said desperately. Then her boldness dissipated. "Thank you." She released the hand, but continued to kneel.
"You want to thank me?" Venus grinned. "Buy my next album."
And then she was gone up the tunnel toward the light.
The green-haired mine slave pressed up against the wall in fear. She watched the four guards lock collars onto the strange child-like girl with blue hair and the other young, strangely dressed girl that seemed of their own race. She prayed to deities that she no longer recalled that the guards didn't punish her for being with them. She could remember so few things anymore, but the bite of the shock club was quite a clear memory.
At the same time, there was something familiar about their garb. The white blouses, the matching skirts and bows, the colorful kerchief on their shoulders buzzed at the back of her brain. She reached up absently and felt the tattered green kerchief on her own shoulders. And the young waif with black hair - - what had she called her - - Hu-taru? Why did she seem so familiar? Why did she recall that name when she couldn't even recall her own anymore? And there was another name - - Hu-ruka - - and they all seemed to go together. Why? Why couldn't she remember?
Manacles locked around the waif's delicate wrists. They were going to kill her. No black hair dared aid a green hair. The punishment was always death. Didn't she know that? Why take such a risk for someone as worthless as her, the slave wondered. She passed her grubby hand absently over her stringy locks. She knew why, somewhere in the vacant space her brain used to inhabit. It was the same reason she'd known the waif's name. It was the same reason the waif had hugged her and it felt so familiar and so right. This Hu-taru was important - - she didn't know why, but the waif was important.
Two guards grasped Sailor Saturn by the arms and hoisted her limp form up off the ground. They were going to carry her off. They were going to kill her.
"NUHH!" grunted the mine slave that had once been Michiru Kaioh. She lunged up at them, grabbing at the elbow of the nearest guard. The guard's response was quick and brutal. The shock club jammed into Michiru's chest and the charge flung her back against the shaft wall.
"Keep your filthy hands off me!" roared the guard, brandishing the club.
"You want another one? Do you?" Michiru's hands went up over her face, trying feebly to ward off another blow. "Stinking green hair!"
"Let's go," her partner said. "The queen will want to see these two."
"Yeah," the guard nodded. "I hope I get to see this traitor executed."
"NUHH!" Michiru sobbed. She couldn't remember what, but she sensed she was about to lose another precious thing in her life.
As the four guards turned to go, Saturn and Pallas in their grasp, they saw an amazing sight. From almost out of nowhere, something began to elongate out until it took the shape of a polar bear up on its hind legs. Since polar bears didn't exist on Ravenheim, they didn't know what it was - - aside from the fact that it was huge and looming over them. A paw lashed out and one of the guards hit the floor, blood gushing from claw-marks raked across her face.
Training clicked into action for the guards and they drew shock clubs. Energy blasters were prohibited in the mine for safety reasons. One of the guards lashed out with the shock club, but just as suddenly as it appeared the polar bear was gone. Only one of the three guards had managed to follow the motion of the transformation and looked at a white mouse on the ground. The mouse didn't stay a mouse long, though, transforming into a goat and savagely butting the guard back into the wall. She struck her head against the rock and sank down.
The remaining guards swung their clubs again, but again the goat disappeared into a smaller animal, this time a bird flitting around the ceiling of the shaft. Once more the change was short-lived. The bird became a scorpion, dropping down onto a guard's face and stinging her in the cheek. Whirling away from the pain, the guard flung the scorpion to the ground and it changed into Sailor Vesta. While the stung guard screamed in pain and toppled to the ground, Vesta remained splayed on the ground near her, dizzy and panting. The remaining guard advanced on her, the shock club up and ready to taste the young senshi's flesh.
Continued in chapter 8
Part Seven: "The Captives of Ravenheim"
By Bill K.
They saw it together. In the corner of the room, wearing the chains and costume of a harem slave, was a lanky frame and a shock of short blonde hair. Mars heard Serenity gasp in alarm even as she realized the truth.
"Haruka!" Serenity cried out. Instantly she was at the woman's side, kneeling next to her.
But Haruka turned away and hid her face.
"D-Don't look at me," the woman whispered in shame. And at that moment Serenity wished she had no eyes.
"Haruka!" Serenity sobbed, nearly in tears as she clutched the chained woman's shoulders. "Haruka, it's me! Your little Dumpling!" She tried to turn Haruka's shoulders so the woman would face her, but Haruka resisted.
"What did they do to you?" Mars whispered in shock.
"Please," Haruka choked out, tears burning tracks down her cheeks as she cringed in Serenity's grasp. "Please go away! I don't want you to see me like this!"
Serenity released her and Haruka folded up into a little ball, crying bitterly. Serenity and Mars exchanged horrified glances, both helpless to know what to do next.
"Let's get those chains off of her," Mars said, her voice hoarse with emotion.
"No!" Haruka cried fearfully. "No, don't take my chains! It's not allowed! They'll punish us all!"
"Stop it!" fumed Mars. "You're not a slave! You're a senshi! That means something!"
Serenity stopped Mars with a hand on her arm. Mars glared at Serenity, but found herself calming in the face of the queen's charitable countenance.
"Haruka," Serenity whispered, gently rubbing the woman's shoulders, "I don't know what happened to you since we last saw each other. Obviously it's something terrible. I can try to help you if you'd like. I won't force you. You're not a slave and you can say 'no'. But we have to leave this place first." Haruka began shaking her head. "I won't take any arguments about that. Haruka, you don't belong here. You don't belong in these chains. Please, let me take you away from . . ."
"Mom!" Sailor Moon hissed across the room. "They've been monitoring us!"
Serenity and Sailor Mars turned to see Ceres growing algae on a small lens embedded in the ceiling in the corner of the room.
"We need to go, Serenity," Mars told her.
"You're right," Serenity replied sadly.
When Haruka refused to budge, Serenity simply levitated the chained woman into the air and carried her across the room. Mars guarded her flank. Sailor Moon and Sailor Ceres burst into the hall ahead of them, ready to take on any opposition.
A guard squadron stood at the end of the hall. The moment Ceres and Sailor Moon stepped out into the hall, a guard fired a long, cylindrical weapon. Two shells ejected and when they reached a set proximity to their targets ejected weighted netting. The nets each snared Ceres and Sailor Moon, the weights at the end wrapping the netting around their bodies and throwing them to the floor. When Serenity and Mars entered the hall, two more shells were fired at them.
However, Serenity stopped them in mid-flight with a wave of her hand. While she held Haruka aloft, the queen swatted the shells down with her free hand.
"Surrender in the name of Queen Desiree!" yelled the squad captain, another black-haired woman.
"I don't wish to fight you," Serenity replied. "But this woman is one of my people. We are leaving and I am taking her with me."
"So she means that much to you?" the captain asked.
Instantly Haruka started shrieking in pain. Serenity and Mars whirled to look. They saw the blue glow around her collar had intensified. It had the look of an electric arc now. That and Haruka's rigid body language told them a painful electric shock was passing through her body.
"Stop it!" wailed Serenity. "You'll hurt her!"
"Then surrender," replied the captain.
Serenity hesitated, torn between her desire to free her friend and her desire not to see her hurt.
"Perhaps enough haven't suffered for your actions," the captain said.
Then the weights on the netting holding Sailor Moon and Sailor Ceres took on the same blue glow. Both girls began to scream in pain as electricity seized their young bodies.
"USA!" Serenity shrieked. She tried to remove the netting, but it resisted her influence. Panic-stricken, Queen Serenity turned back to the squad captain, appealing unsuccessfully for mercy from the cold, hardened woman.
Mars saw Serenity's reaction and recognized it all too well. She didn't have to be psychic to know what her queen was thinking. Simple experience told her everything. And before Serenity could act, Mars acted.
"Divine Combustion!" Mars snarled.
Everything combustible on the members of the squadron began to ignite, from leather belts and boots to cloth uniforms, from the netting inside the shells to in some cases hair and eyebrows. Instant panic ensued as each member of the squadron from the captain on down realized she was on fire. Weapons clattered to the floor as they frantically tried to stamp and pat out their burning clothes and accessories.
"Mars," Serenity gasped, unnerved by what she saw.
"Don't start!" snapped Mars. "Just get the kids loose and let's get hnnnnngh!"
To Serenity's horror, Mars pitched forward onto her face and began convulsing. Two metal prongs stuck out of her back. Glancing behind them, Serenity saw another squad of guards had flanked them. Just then the tip of an energy gun pressed to the queen's temple.
"You people have impressive powers," the captain of the first squad hissed. Serenity could see she had singed eyebrows and a cold look in her eye. "But I don't think even you can stop an energy blaster at this range. And even if you can, I doubt your companions could endure another charge. Want to find out?"
Serenity closed her eyes. "No," she said.
"GET THEM ALL COLLARED!" the captain snapped.
Members of the second squad hurried to obey as Serenity let Haruka softly drop to the floor. The woman cringed against the wall as Serenity felt one of the metal collars snap around her neck. She watched Sailor Moon, Sailor Mars and Sailor Ceres suffer the same fate. Once the collars were affixed, wrist and ankle shackles were attached to them all.
"Please don't hurt them," Serenity pleaded softly. Her reply was the tip of the blaster digging into her temple again.
"DO-NOT-SPEAK-UNTIL-YOU-ARE-ASKED-A-QUESTION," warned the captain. Serenity lapsed into silence. "Get them on their feet! The Queen is going to want to see them!"
As energy weapon fire exploded against the rock formation behind her, Sailor Venus crawled off on all fours. Her hope was to get out from the place she was pinned down in without running into more guards or having someone sneak up on her in this vulnerable position. After scrabbling across the ground for several meters, she came to a second line of rock formations that were past the mine entrance. She looked around for indications of what would be the best direction to go in. Venus wanted to move toward the mine and catch up with Sailor Vesta, but couldn't see any means of doing it without risking a new attack.
Then she caught sight of something to her left. Two women were crouched next to a rock formation, gesturing to her. They were both dressed in tatters, much like the prisoner Serenity had earlier freed. Venus cast a furtive glance behind her. The energy fire was slowing. They'd be advancing on her last known position soon. Trusting her instincts, Venus turned left and scrambled over to the others. When she got there, she found one of the women was the prisoner Serenity had freed.
"Please hurry!" the other woman said. She was an older woman, but still thin and malnourished like her younger companion. "We can get you to a safe haven. But we must go now!"
"But I've got friends in the mine," Venus protested.
"Then they are lost to you!" the older woman told her. "We must go!"
"But," Venus began. The two women refused to wait. They scrambled off and if Venus chose not to follow, it was her misfortune. Venus chose to follow.
The trio came up to a large rock resting against the foot of the mountain range about half a kilometer from the mine entrance. The two strangers pressed their arms and backs against the rock and together shoved it aside. Behind it was the mouth of a cave. The two strangers went inside and Venus reluctantly followed.
"What is this place?" Venus asked them as the trio walked down the dimly lit cavern.
"The only free place on the surface of Ravenheim," the older woman proclaimed.
They entered a larger portion of the cave. Inside were about a dozen other women, all tattered, dirty and thin. They looked up at Venus with hollow eyes, their arms crossed over their ill-clad chests. Venus noticed every woman had green hair.
"You were the one Serenity freed earlier, aren't you?" Venus turned and asked the younger woman. She shrank back, cowering before Venus, her eyes seeking the floor.
"Y-Yes, Mistress," she mumbled fearfully.
"Veda," the older woman said. "She is not your mistress. You are a free woman now." Veda nodded meekly. "You must forgive her. Though her collar is gone, the years of training and violence she has experienced remain. It's the same with all of them." The woman stood between Veda and Venus. "I am Kamural.
You are one of the ones who freed Veda?"
Venus nodded. "Sailor Venus."
"Where do you come from, stranger?"
"Another place - - called Earth."
"I know not this place. Is it far?"
"Pretty much," grinned Venus. "It's a different world. We traveled through space to get here because two of our people are on this world."
The others murmured in low tones.
"Beings from another world?" Kamural wondered aloud. "Is such a thing possible? I thought the only other world was the cloud city."
"It's not only possible, it is," Venus said. "Do you remember a ship, a metal craft that maybe flew through the air? And maybe it crashed?"
"There have been several incidents such as you say," Kamural nodded. "Queen Desiree has a weapon in the cloud city - - I have only heard stories of it, but I have seen the bright flash it makes. And after the flash, a flying craft as you say will fall to the ground."
"What happened to them?"
"The Royal Guards are quickly there. I have seen them take people out of these crafts. Some are women - - some are different. They are people, but not women."
"Probably men," mused Venus. "You've never seen a man before?"
"What is 'man'?" Kamural asked.
"You don't have men on this world? God, this is Hell!" Venus shook herself. "What happens to the people?"
"The 'not-women' are killed. The women, if they have exotic hair, are taken to the queen. If not, they go to the mine."
"This mine - - is it some sort of prison camp, or forced labor camp or what? And do all the prisoners have green hair like you?"
"Yes," Kamural said bitterly, pushing a strand of her own green hair away. "There are two races on Ravenheim: those of black hair and those of green hair. Once, when I was a girl younger than Veda, the green-hairs lived in the Cloud City. We created art and song, we built tremendous spires into the heavens. It is said that the pillars on which the Cloud City rests upon were built by my people long ago."
"What happened?" Venus asked.
"Tantalla," Kamural said with naked loathing. "Tantalla was a black hair. She discovered a new use for corbite. It gave power to her machines and through her machines she gained control of the cloud city. My kind was forced to the planet's surface. But she needed more corbite to power her machines and hold her power. And she was brilliant and evil enough to devise the collar."
"What does this collar do?" Venus asked, absorbed in the story.
"Deadens the will to resist," Kamural told her. "If the collar is locked upon you, you are prisoner until freed."
"It controls the mind?"
"No. You can still think. But it is hard for you to act. You want to break free. You want to fight, but it is hard. Any resistance you make is feeble." Kamural cast a glance at the others. "That is why they starve and torture us until we are broken. Then we are cast down into the mines to dig more corbite until we die." Venus looked quite unsettled by that information. "You need not worry about suffering that fate, Sailor Venus. With your golden hair, you would not become a mine slave."
"Oh?"
"Tantalla's machines sent an energy wave that changed some of each race. Before, hair was either black or green. Now there are those with yellow or brown. Tantalla's daughter, Desiree - - she rules the cloud city now - - is attracted to these other colors while green repels her. Those of such exotic beauty as yours become slaves of the queen's harem or are given to her inner circle."
"My two friends," Venus interjected. "They may have - - fallen from the sky after one of the flashes from the cloud city. Maybe you saw them? One had yellowish hair, like mine, but shorter. The other had green hair."
"If they were captured," Kamural said, "your gold-haired friend is in cloud city, perhaps in the queen's own harem. Your green-haired friend is in the mine - - if she still lives."
"Then I've got to get her out," Venus proclaimed. "If you're willing, I could use your help."
"I have no weapons to fight with, save my brain and my hands," Kamural shook her head. "It is all I have been able to do to rescue one or two of my people per season and keep us out of the hands of the Royal Guards. I give them shelter and try to undo years of torture. It is all I have been able to manage for fifteen summers - - to keep the flame of resistance alive until the evil spawn of the hated Tantalla and her kind can be driven from our rightful home." She saw Venus was disappointed with this response. "I will shelter you if you wish to stay. I have nothing else to offer you."
"I understand," Venus nodded. "Do you know of another way into the mine?"
Kamural shook her head.
"OK," Venus nodded and turned to go.
"Sailor Venus, do not venture into the mine," pleaded Kamural. "Only death or slavery awaits you."
"Can't do that," Venus grinned. "That's what being a senshi is all about."
Before she could go, Veda suddenly reached out and snatched her hand. The girl bowed, pressing her forehead to the back of Venus' hand.
"Mistress!" she said desperately. Then her boldness dissipated. "Thank you." She released the hand, but continued to kneel.
"You want to thank me?" Venus grinned. "Buy my next album."
And then she was gone up the tunnel toward the light.
The green-haired mine slave pressed up against the wall in fear. She watched the four guards lock collars onto the strange child-like girl with blue hair and the other young, strangely dressed girl that seemed of their own race. She prayed to deities that she no longer recalled that the guards didn't punish her for being with them. She could remember so few things anymore, but the bite of the shock club was quite a clear memory.
At the same time, there was something familiar about their garb. The white blouses, the matching skirts and bows, the colorful kerchief on their shoulders buzzed at the back of her brain. She reached up absently and felt the tattered green kerchief on her own shoulders. And the young waif with black hair - - what had she called her - - Hu-taru? Why did she seem so familiar? Why did she recall that name when she couldn't even recall her own anymore? And there was another name - - Hu-ruka - - and they all seemed to go together. Why? Why couldn't she remember?
Manacles locked around the waif's delicate wrists. They were going to kill her. No black hair dared aid a green hair. The punishment was always death. Didn't she know that? Why take such a risk for someone as worthless as her, the slave wondered. She passed her grubby hand absently over her stringy locks. She knew why, somewhere in the vacant space her brain used to inhabit. It was the same reason she'd known the waif's name. It was the same reason the waif had hugged her and it felt so familiar and so right. This Hu-taru was important - - she didn't know why, but the waif was important.
Two guards grasped Sailor Saturn by the arms and hoisted her limp form up off the ground. They were going to carry her off. They were going to kill her.
"NUHH!" grunted the mine slave that had once been Michiru Kaioh. She lunged up at them, grabbing at the elbow of the nearest guard. The guard's response was quick and brutal. The shock club jammed into Michiru's chest and the charge flung her back against the shaft wall.
"Keep your filthy hands off me!" roared the guard, brandishing the club.
"You want another one? Do you?" Michiru's hands went up over her face, trying feebly to ward off another blow. "Stinking green hair!"
"Let's go," her partner said. "The queen will want to see these two."
"Yeah," the guard nodded. "I hope I get to see this traitor executed."
"NUHH!" Michiru sobbed. She couldn't remember what, but she sensed she was about to lose another precious thing in her life.
As the four guards turned to go, Saturn and Pallas in their grasp, they saw an amazing sight. From almost out of nowhere, something began to elongate out until it took the shape of a polar bear up on its hind legs. Since polar bears didn't exist on Ravenheim, they didn't know what it was - - aside from the fact that it was huge and looming over them. A paw lashed out and one of the guards hit the floor, blood gushing from claw-marks raked across her face.
Training clicked into action for the guards and they drew shock clubs. Energy blasters were prohibited in the mine for safety reasons. One of the guards lashed out with the shock club, but just as suddenly as it appeared the polar bear was gone. Only one of the three guards had managed to follow the motion of the transformation and looked at a white mouse on the ground. The mouse didn't stay a mouse long, though, transforming into a goat and savagely butting the guard back into the wall. She struck her head against the rock and sank down.
The remaining guards swung their clubs again, but again the goat disappeared into a smaller animal, this time a bird flitting around the ceiling of the shaft. Once more the change was short-lived. The bird became a scorpion, dropping down onto a guard's face and stinging her in the cheek. Whirling away from the pain, the guard flung the scorpion to the ground and it changed into Sailor Vesta. While the stung guard screamed in pain and toppled to the ground, Vesta remained splayed on the ground near her, dizzy and panting. The remaining guard advanced on her, the shock club up and ready to taste the young senshi's flesh.
Continued in chapter 8