Unknown Flint Mountain Range

August 15, 2558

Vasili and the new arrivals gaped at the sight before them.

Dark mountains loomed in the distance, adding more misery to the everlasting gray sky above. Beaches lined the sides with obsidian stones all worn smooth. The water slicked as the waves passed over the blackness, making them ever more slippery. The sea behind them was just as bleak and gray, just as colorless as the clouds behind them.

The human misery was what really ate at the back of Suvorov's mind. The figures all on the mountain coast moved like programmed drones. There were so many that it seemed to be that the entire hill was crawling, like scavengers over a carcass. Not one person that was working was identifiable. Although he believed that most were men, it was impossible to tell because of the used looks of their wasted condition.

There had to be nearly one and half thousand forced to work on the slopes.

Water cannons sat at the base, manned by some of the smaller workers. The water was fed from the ocean, streams sluiced away at the soil, which flooded down into a drain, where even more workers had dirty buckets scooping out mud and sending it to the processing facility. The slope became like quicksand. Vasili was horrified as the entire slide came down, an enormous slab of mud. Workers alongside dove out of the way and others caught in the flow were dragged to the bottom. Some of them rose quickly, returning to their work, others were slower and two of them didn't get up. They were soon buried alive. Nobody paused from their work.

Up above, apart from the clouds was camo netting that was held by metal poles, which prevented anyone looking up above down into their secret operation.

Near the beaches in hollowed out metal areas were massive vats that the long mechanical sluice boxes formed a chain at. Thin smoke coiled from the vents at the top, indicating that whatever final process of what they needed doing would require heat of some sort.

A laser fence prevented any of the workers from trying to leave. The sharp and hot barrier would instantly slice through flesh and some armor. Behind were three stripped down ghost attack vehicles and a couple of shadow transports. The pathway that led down further from the parked vehicles was to a purple Covenant dome shaped building.

There were other large structures nearby, on the other side of the beach were old liners, some so badly beaten that it was astounding that they had made the journey. Once white or vivid in color were now smeared with filth and rubble that gave them a pathetic dull air to them.

Vasili realized that they were dormitories for the workers. He had to correct himself as he thought of it, they weren't workers, but slaves, mining in the most intolerable conditions that were possible. Whoever ran this large of a thing was definitely a greedy person.

He could only think of one thing that could meet a greed that would never be satisfied: Gold.

The gold was likely hidden in the mountains, which would be dislodged by the hydrokinetic pressure in the water cannons. The muddy remains would then be fed into the sluice boxes and then through a large shaking process to settle the gold at the bottom, which would be sucked into a tube and then through another set of sluice links for further processing. The final process was to remove the rest of the waste by mercury, the only known substance that would draw the metal. The mercury would then be removed, leaving pure gold.

Surrounding the entire site, all wearing armor splattered with mud and dirt, were armed skirmishers. All of them carried weapons varying from the plasma rifle to the ubiquitous carbine that fired radioactive projectiles. Alongside their weapons, were the cruel tools of clubs and energy cutlasses. The harsh screeches of the skirmishers patrolling sounded like horror movie music.

He and the others that had came from Kirup were formed into a line and led into the large purple building. Unlike the outside and the beached ships, the interior was heated by a plasma power plant. Suvorov shivered, trying to enjoy the heat as best he could before going out to the harsh cold again, for good. An armored pirate put a glowing green chain around his neck that was marked with some symbols which were then noted by another guard on his datapad. They were then taken to the closest shipwreck and assigned cabins, all of the conditioning of the air removed.

Their cabin had seven men, adding them all in a room designed for two. The plumbing was out, evidenced by the stench that emanated further down the hall. The blankets he was given were dirty and the mattresses were darkened by black mold. Since the workers had no place to dry, they all collapsed into their beds, drenched in crap.

Then he was shown where he would be having his meals. His guard prodded him in line where each man in front had grabbed a bowl that had specks of hard particles that resembled plastic. At the end, a wounded worker used a spoon to scoop some long grains of what looked like rice into his bowl. He then moved to then next man who used a ladle to spoon in a thick liquid that must have been tinted yellow at the top. Suvorov had gotten a mix of the yellow and the real color of the slop, gray. He finally had found a place to eat the crap when one guard came up to him.

"Get up!" The skirmisher snarled, aiming his carbine at Vasili. He knew that he had to preserve his strength, so he tilted his head back and downed the rank paste and whatever else trying his best not to choke on the thing that scratched the back of his throat.

"Next meal after work!" The skirmisher guard continued, leading them outside the hall. Vasili forced his own bile back down, but even then, he wouldn't be able to get more food until his eight or more hour shift was done. He would later learn that the skirmishers would drag a couple of their old dropships and grab whatever they could find using nets in the ocean and gathering seals in the mountains nearby. Anything and everything they had was then liquefied, the alien grain was grown by a group of skirmishers further down the coast.

Since he and the group were new and they had scattered cabins, he was with a bunch that had likely arrived before he had. He managed to get a word with them, albeit in the dark since there was no power at all. All light came naturally, so that workers had to whisper in the dark. Suvorov had already gotten a warning from one of his cabinmates that anyone heard talking by the guards had an energy cutlass shoved into them and then detonated, so instead the workers whispered quietly.

"How long have you been here?" He spoke to no one in particular in Russian.

"Since the beginning of time." A voice came back from below him.

"No seriously, how long?"

"Me? Three months. This mine however had been in operation for years."

"So has anyone attempted to escape?"

"Where are we going to go?" Another answered, "Swimming is not an option, the water is too cold and the dropships they use are all guarded. Of course we can climb the mountains, but their armory has Covenant sniper rifles and we're easy targets going slow up the mountain. Even if you manage to get past the guards, which nobody has done so far, you wouldn't last two days out there."

Vasili drew in a harsh breath, fully aware on the situation.

"They all completely own us." A third man said, "It must be our destiny to work and then die in misery. All the original men that I came here with, eight months ago are now gone. The typical life expectancy of someone here is less than six months and longer if you're lucky. You're free to ramble on with your fantasies of escape and heroism, unfortunately death is the only way you'll be out of this."

He held back on telling them who he really was. From the conditions of the slaves when he was working his first day, it didn't seem like there was an informant that Fel had placed, however the idea was still there that one of the workers could expose him in turn for an extra serving of food or maybe a temporary heater. He wanted to give these poor souls at least an ounce of hope, but it went against his training. However, he remained optimistic that Trip would get to him eventually, smiling faintly as he managed to touch the back of his head where his neural implants and transmitter were located.

It was the third day of work when Vasili finally realized that rescue may be days away or even longer. Hacking was now louder and two of his cabin mates were now diagnosed with disease. He had started off better than most because of his physique and his body being used to a pleasant sleep schedule and actual food. By the end of the fourth day, three of the men, the sick ones included were dead.

On the fourth day, Vasili noticed an area of where some workers were unloading a pile of corpses into the side of the water. The workers' ethnicity was varying, but many were eastern European.

"I was forced to do that too." Vitaly, one of Vasili's bunkmates said. "Those who didn't survive, we had to dump out. I was forced to dump my older brother and best friend too."

"So nobody has wind of this?"

Vitaly shook his head, he was very thin, being the one who told him that he had been there three months. He was only thirty and likely was an attractive man before he left, but looked so much older and the work had taken so many tolls out of him. "I don't think so, we're too far away from any major city on Flint for someone to notice us."

Flint, so at least he knew where he was. The two things in his mind still rang strong, that Aegis had no idea where he was and that this godforsaken slave camp was going to be the place of his death.

I hope Vasili can hold out! Both he and Trip have unfinished business. Thanks for reading and reviewing everyone, you give my writing purpose.