Chapter 22

The group began to fall into a routine living in the caves. Rose and Aaron took turns going to work early everyday so that they could do the group's laundry before the other workers arrived. They were also figuring out other things they could make for meals and had added soup, something that passed for fried rice and oatmeal with honey to their repertoire.

After 14 days in the mines, Rose had managed by buy everyone their own soap, towel, and razor and (unknown to the rest) had a total of 70 tokens saved up, so Aaron could buy materials for tools.

As the group was eating their evening meal of bread and soup, Jack began complaining about mining aquanda. "Even in its raw state the stuff is so hard that I can hardly break enough of it off each day to make my asinine quota!"

"Jack! That's it! I've been so stupid!" Aaron exclaimed.

"What?" He said as everyone looked at her expectantly.

"Aquanda is one of the hardest elements I know! The cave wall we're going to try to break out of is a metamorphosis granite called gneiss. It's basically a slurry of various types of rock, ore, granite and so forth that were melted together under extreme pressure..."

"ACK! Air! What's so important about this 'nice' rock?"

She smiled her patient smile that she saved for Jack when he didn't want details.

"Jack, aquanda is much harder than the gneiss that the wall of the cave is made of. Now I know the punishment for stealing is severe, but to get out of here we need shards of aquanda that we can use to make hatchet and chisel type tools with. We can use the longer side pieces from the bucketRose smashed a couple weeks ago, as the handles."

"I don't know, Aaron, trying to get some aquanda shards out of the mine is dangerous." Jack warned.

Aaron thought for awhile. "Have you noticed that the fire chondrite and aquanda have a similar appearance?"

"Yeah,...so?"

"What if you said you wanted to increase your production and so you were not going to come home for lunch but were just going to heat your lunch at the work site with some fire chondrite you brought from home. You show the fire rocks to your boss when you first arrive so you aren't accused of stealing them. At lunch time you light the rocks, heat your soup, put out the fire and gather up the rocks. At some point you switch them for aquanda leaving the chondrite in its place."

"It is very risky." Luce stated. "I will do it."

"Are you sure."

"I am."

Aaron opened the bag of fire chondrite and searched through the rocks looking for ones the size and shape she would need for tools and then handed them to Luce.

"Try to find pieces similar in size and shape to these." She said.

Luce nodded and put them in the cargo pockets of his pants that he would wear the next day.

"To make this believable you'll have to take the cook pot and the tripod so you can heat up your soup." Aaron said.

"And if your cover story is that you want to increase your quota then you are actually going to have to do it." Jack added.

"I understand. I will be successful."


The next day Luce successfully smuggled half a dozen shards of aquanda out of the mine. Since Aaron could easily tell the difference between the aquanda and the fire chondrite they hid the aquanda in the bag of fire stones.

Rose went to the concession area alone that evening and went right to the booth where Rican was working. She told the woman that Jack's bootlaces had broken and asked where she could get something to replace them. Rican directed her to the leather smith who sold her several pairs of long leather laces. Next she went to the cutlery vendor and purchased a sturdy handled knife that did not have a serrated blade. One thatAaron could use to fashion handles for her tools out of the slats that had been the sides of the wooden bucket she smashed.

Since she wasn't going to have to buy tools with the 70 tokens she had saved up, Rose purchased a small, three legged wooden stool so the person on watch would not have to sit on the cold, hard floor. She was also able to purchase small feather pillows for each member of the team. It took every token she had to buy these luxuries but she was actually feeling quite happy and believed her aquanda tools would get them out of the caves.


Five days later, Rose and Theta were returning to their compartment after their daily showers in the laundry when Theta was suddenly hit by the blast from a modified weapon. He crumpled to the floor in pain.

"Theta!" Rose yelled and instinctively bent down to help him. She heard a low, wicked chuckle and looked up to see Dace step out from behind another passageway. He had the weapon pointed at her.

"Yellow Hair, I want that sample from you now." he said in a sinister voice.

"Go to hell!" She said as she pulled herself up to her full height.

"I want to make sure your amator gets to watch this!" he said with an evil grin.

He leaned his weapon against the wall, well out of Rose's reach, and with one swift motion grabbed her by the shoulders. He powerfully slammed her back against the wall, nearly knocking the wind out of her with the force. Then he looked over his shoulder to make sure Theta could see everything that he was going to do to her. Theta was on his knees in pain and still unable to move or speak.

Dace thrust his hips up against Rose's body and began kissing her. She pinched her lips together tightly and tried to turn her head to the side but that did not deter him. She closed her eyes in an attempt to block out the sight of him. "Get off me!" She yelled.

His hands began roaming her body. He violently pulled her t-shirt out from the waistband of her pants. She thought she was going to throw up just from his stench. He slid his hands under her shirt. She tried to wrestle away from him but he had her firmly pinned to the wall with his body. When she tried to free her arms to strike him, Dace grabbed her hands and pinned them to the wall, her arms over her head. Theta, still unable to move, found his voice. "NO!" he croaked.

In one deft movement Dace grabbed his weapon, walked over and kicked Theta in the stomach. Rose lunged at him and managed to plant a firm blow in his solar plexus before he shot her with the weapon and then for good measure shot Theta again.

Dace stood patiently waiting until both of them were sufficiently recovered as to know what was going on, but still unable to prevent it. Theta, crouched in pain on his knees, watched in silent horror as Dace advanced on Rose. She too, was on her knees, unable to move or speak. Dace ran a finger down the side of her face, down her collar bone, and across her breasts.

Dace then kneeled in front of her who was still paralyzed from the blast. He looked over his shoulder at Theta and said "How does it feel to know another man is going to have his way with your woman while you can do nothing but watch?"

"Leave her alone, you bastard!" Theta managed to utter in an angry, hoarse whisper.

Dace smiled. Still on his knees in front of Rose, he began to unbutton his pants.

Suddenly, Dava, Rose and Aaron's boss from the laundry, swung at his head with one of the wooden oars used to stir the dirty clothes. Using the oar like it was a baseball bat she connected with his head as if it were a piƱata. Dace fell to the floor and was out cold.

Dava reached down and helped Rose up and then instructed her "use your towel to tie his hands behind his back."

Rose looked at her, awestruck, and then did as she was told. While she was tying Dace's hands, Dava went to help Theta. Once he was able to stand again she said "We must take Dace to the prostitutes. They will take care of him."

"Dava, why did you help us? You'll get in a lot of trouble..."

Dava put her hand up to stop Rose from saying more. "Several years ago Dace wanted me the same way he wants you now. He killed my amator so that I would have to go live with and work with the prostitutes. Dace did horrible, unspeakable things to me, and I know he would do the same to you."

Theta and Rose exchanged glances and Theta moved closer to Rose in a subconsciously protective fashion. Dava pulled up the bottom of her long blue skirt and showed them scars on her ankles where she had obviously been shackled. "I do not want you to know what else he did to me."

"How did you escape from him?" Rose asked.

"Eventually he tired of me and I was able to get a job in the laundry. Now I am merely paying him back for all the evil he did to me. I still have friends among the prostitutes and they have friends among the guards. Dace is despised by many people. The prostitutes will have no trouble finding guards who will ...make him disappear forever. Now hurry, we must make sure no one sees us take him to the prostitutes."

Theta, Rose, and Dava drug the unconscious Dace to the compartments where the prostitutes lived and worked. Dava found the friend she was looking for and told Rose and Theta to get back to work, she would talk to her friend in private and everything would be taken care of.

Without any words being spoken between them, Theta and Rose quickly headed back to work, still feeling the effects of Dace's attack on them.


That night at the evening meal, Rose and Theta said nothing about the encounter they had with Dace earlier that day. They thought it was safer for the rest of the group not to have the knowledge that they had helped make him disappear.

Instead Rose asked if the aquanda tools were ready to be put to use, which they were. After the dishes had been washed Aaron went behind the screen in the toilet area and retrieved the tools she had constructed.

"I thought the safest place to keep these would be in the toilet area. They won't be readily visible and I doubt that the guards would ever search there." She showed them the six tools with wooden handles that could be used as hammers and chisels.

"The biggest problem we have now," she continued "is making sure no one sees us or hears the chipping and chiseling of the cave wall."

"I've come up with a work schedule." Jack said. "We will work in teams of two, one keeping watch while the other works and you can switch off as you become tired. We'll start working every night one hour after lights out and quit one hour before reveille. That will give us 6 hours each night."

"I bought 2 new blankets today when I went shopping so we can use two of the old blankets to muffle the sound as we work. When I get more tokens I'll buy more blankets." Rose said.

It was decided that Rose and Aaron would take the first 3 hour shift working on the cave wall each night and Theta and Jack would take the 2nd shift. Luce would rotate so that every 5th day one of them would get a full night's sleep.

Before Rose and Aaron left the compartment, Theta pulled Rose aside "Are you ok?" He asked referring to the attack by Dace earlier that day.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Good actually. I know we don't have to worry about Dace anymore."

Theta studied her for a moment then pulled her into a hug. He knew they had survived a very close call that afternoon and he was relieved to have her there with him, intact.

At 10:30 that night Rose and Aaron headed out of the compartment with 2 buckets filled with tools and the sonic screwdriver, 2 of the old blankets and one torch. When they arrived at their work sight, Aaron showed Rose the weakest areas of the rock and where he needed to begin working.

The work space was very small and they barely fit into it at the same time. When Aaron was ready to begin work Rose went down to the fresh water spring to keep watch. After an hour and a half she went back up the narrow cavern and took Aaron's place while she went down to keep watch at the springs.

When their 3 hour shift was up, they silently slipped back into their compartment and sent Theta and Jack out to continue the work.