FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Marty coughed, then sneezed when that action sent more dust in the air. A moment later he jumped to his feet an looked around, eyes wild. Only after that did he realize he wasn't buried under rocks. Not only that, but the cavern hadn't been filled by the cave-in the explosion caused.

Some of the lights had survived, high on the ceiling away from the destruction; and in their blinking illumination he could see a mountain of rubble centered on what was left the lift's shaft.

Marty chuckled. Being shoved aside by everyone bigger and stronger than him had just saved his life. This had to be a first. Unfortunately, now he was trapped. He might be able to scrounge a few weeks worth of food from what people had hidden, but after that? It would be a slow death by hunger.

Marty shuddered, and considered throwing himself down a chasm instead. He wouldn't be the first to do it, give into the despair being in this place for so long brought on.

Maybe, he thought. Maybe he'd do that, but not before exhausting every other option. The first thing to do was to see if he could climb the mountain of rock to the unbroken part of the shaft.

That was slow going. He'd never been athletic; his mind had always been what he kept sharp. Still, there were plenty of handholds, and he knew to move cautiously to avoid causing an avalanche.

He didn't know how long it took, but he did make it to the top, where rocks filled the shaft. He cursed; that was the only way out, with it blocked, he was really trapped. He tried to squeeze in the largest spaces between rocks and the shaft's wall, but they were still too small.

He cursed again, and stump his foot down, giving into the anger. He was being childish he thought, just as the rocks under him began to shift.

With a scream he reached for something, anything to grab on to and keep from tumbling down with the rocks he'd dislodged. His hand grabbed onto a bar, and then all he could do was hold on as he dangled in the air, rocks falling next to him.

The rockfall went on for minutes, and when it finally ended, his arm was sore from grasping the bar keeping him from falling to his death, and all the rocks that scraped it. He grabbed the bar with his other hand and looked down.

A dozen feet, that was how much space separated him from the top of the rocks. He could probably drop that and be okay. It would be the tumble down the side of it that would hurt. But down wasn't where he wanted to go.

He looked up and saw the light. The door was still open. They'd said that everyone there was dead so he wouldn't have to worry about that. Tristan and whoever Alex was might be a problem, but they might have left already.

But first he had to make it up there. The light was dim, just enough to let him see that he was holding onto the rung of a ladder attached to the side of the shaft. He felt up and there was another one. He grabbed it and With a groan he pulled himself. He felt for the next one, found it, pulled and then had to hook his arm around it to take a rest. The rung bit into the inside of his elbow, but his muscle were in too much pain for him to care.

Once he was high enough to use his feet, it would be easier. It would be like climbing a ladder then. He looked up. Climbing it how many hundreds of feet?

Before he got discouraged he forced himself to continue. Three more rungs and he was able to put his feet on the bottom one. He took a breather again.

"When I get out of here, I'm starting an exercise regiment." His voice echoed in the shaft and he clung to the rung in fear that more rocks would fall.

Some dust did, but that was all.

The climb was easier after that, but he was shaking when he finally stepped out into the control room. He leaned against the opening, bent over to catch his breath, and the room stank.

Once his breathing slowed he straightened and opened his eyes, and the sight had him turn around and bent over the shaft to throw up.

He wiped his mouth and fought to keep control over his stomach as he turned back to the room. The floor was covered with goo. Red, varying shades of pink and pink and brown. It had flowed out of clothing. That goo had been people.

He felt like he was going to throw up again, but clamped down on it. He carefully stepped through the goo, feeling revulsion as the squishing sound his steps made as he headed for the door. He'd known Tristan was a monster, but to do this to the guards? That took a special kind of depravity.

Once in the corridor he spent a minute wiping his feet and fighting not to throw up again. Then he hurried to the landing bay, to his freedom.

He stopped in the entrance, his hopes crumbling. The two ships that had been mentioned were destroyed, burning. Why? Why had that alien done that? Marty hadn't done anything to him, he'd helped him. The least he could have done was leave him one to escape this place.

He looked at the wreckage. Even if he knew how, he wouldn't be able to repair them, the alien had destroyed the propulsion system and the cockpit on both of them.

He was trapped. He looked at the open hangar door. If not in this prison, on this planet. It wasn't like he could walk out there and start a new life. There were only more rocks out there. All the life had been stripped out of this planet centuries before.

He opened one of the lockers and found boxes of nutrient packets. At least he wouldn't die of hunger. He ate a few of them, and in the middle of it realized that at some point, there would be a supply ship.

Hope surged. All he had to do was last until then, he'd be able to get out of here. And it came crashing down. Only they'd take him to another prison. They wouldn't just take his words that he was one of the guards and had survived. They'd scan him and they'd know he was one of the prisoners.

Maybe he'd have something on one of them, Marty had the goods on a lot of people, but it was a big universe, with a lot more people in it than those he'd investigated. No, the odds were they'd be strangers to him. And that meant he couldn't be here when that ship arrived.

He could hide outside, they wouldn't bother scanning the planet, but would they take whatever food was left? Leaving him to die of hunger again?

He cursed. He'd escaped the prison, only to remain trapped. With the ships destroyed, he couldn't even call for help. He paused. Those couldn't be the only comm system here. The control room had to have its own.

He turned to head back, then stopped. He had to clean that floor first. He wasn't stepping into that again if he could help it.

He went through eight lockers before finding an old cleaning machine. He looked for the controls, but all he found was the activation switch, and it didn't go looking for dirt to clean. It just stood there, making sounds.

Marty resigned himself to having to go back to the room to clean it. He pushed the machine there, and heard sounds coming from the shaft. No, voices.

No, no, no. Marty rushed to the lift, forgetting what was on the floor and almost losing his footing, then almost sliding through the opening. He caught himself on the frame with a foot dangling over empty space.

Excited voices came from below. He could see forms climbing. Other's had survived? How?

That wasn't important. If they made it to him, they'd beat him and take what they could. They might even call their own rescue and leave him behind.

He wasn't letting anyone shove him aside again.

He grabbed one of the guns off the floor and wiped the goo off before aiming it down the shaft and firing. He hit someone and they screamed, falling down.

"There's a guard left!" someone yelled.

"That's right," Marty yelled back. "I'm a guard, so get back down there."

"The whole place's destroyed! We need to get out."

"You think I care? You're criminals, you deserve to be down there. So get back or I'm going to shoot you." He fired a few times for good measure.

With yells they scrambled down. Someone lost their grip, or was pushed, and fell. With this group Marty figure either was possible.

He realized he was covered with goo and threw up again.

Yells of disgust came from below and Marty smiled.

He did his best not think of what the goo had been and took the weapons and clothing out to the corridor. He'd need one to keep the prisoners down, and once cleaned he could wear the other. It would be nice to have real clothing again.

Then he set to cleaning the control room.

* * * * *

Marty welded the wire in place and he heard the board come to life. He smiled. A week and he'd gotten this working. Not bad considering the damage that had been done to it during the firefight. Clearly Tristan's partner had brought a small contingent of merc to so thoroughly shoot up this place while killing the guards.

He stood and dusted his uniform. It wasn't one he'd pulled out of the room, those had been unsalvageable, but once the ships wreckage had stopped burning, he'd gone through them and found clothing, some of which almost fit him. He'd cut the arms and legs to size and had looked presentable.

He eyed the guns he kept by the lift's door, but that had been quiet for the last few days. There couldn't be that many people left alive down there now.

He tapped a few commands and smiled as the communication system activated. Yes, he was almost out of here. All he had to do was get someone to come pick him up. And he knew exactly who to call.

He contacted him directly, there was no point in going through subordinates when he'd have no choice but take this call.

The man who appeared on the screen hadn't changed in all the years Marty had been here. Blond hair cut short, blond goatee trimmed to a point. The man thought it made him look dignified, but Marty just thought it looked silly.

"Hello Oliver, how is it going."

"Who are you? And how did you get this node?"

Marty smiled. "Come on Oli, you have to remember me, we did plenty of business together. It's Martin, Martin Asinsky."

The man's eyes narrowed. "Asinsky? I was told you were in prison. Dropped down a hold so deep you'd never get out."

Marty smiled. "I got out. Of the hole at least. Now I need you to send a ship to take me off this planet."

"No."

"Come on, Oli--"

"Don't call me that."

"Fine, Oliver. You know you have to do what I say. If you don't I have some recordings of you killing a certain person I'm going to release. How would your constituents feel about their planetary representative being a murderer?"

The man fumed for a moment then leaned back in his chair. "Here's what I'm going to do Asinsky. I'm going to say no again. I'm not helping you."

"Oli," Marty threatened.

"Go ahead. Release it."

"I will do it, you know I will."

"Yes, you would. If you had it. But you don't. When you were arrested, all your information caches were found and destroyed. I know that because like you I have dirt on people. And one of them was involved in your arrest. I made sure nothing you had would ever see the light. And on top of that, if you had access to those resources, you'd also have access to the millions of Dovians you forced me to pay to keep you quiet. If you had that, you wouldn't bother calling me. You'd have hired mercs to get you out."

The connection went dark.

Marty cursed. He hadn't known his caches were gone. Unlike what Oliver thought, he didn't have access to them because this system was too damn old to let him access them. Same with where he'd hidden his money.

He went through the other men he'd blackmailed, with the same results. Somehow, they'd all found out about his arrest and the destruction of the evidence he had on them. He even had to resort to contacting the women he had dirt on. He'd never blacked mailed any of them, it felt wrong to blackmail a woman, it was like blackmailing his mother, but it had been impossible not to come across stuff on them while looking for things on their husbands, lovers or sons. And being who he was, he had kept them.

It didn't help. They laughed at him. And it was like it was his mother mocking him.

He had no one else to contact. Mercs would come, if he could pay them, but he had nothing of value anymore. His money was gone, his information didn't exist anymore, and it wasn't like he'd learned anything here that mercs would consider valuable.

He paused.

No, he was wrong. He had learned something. He knew Tristan was out there, and he knew there was one person who would pay dearly for that information. Now all he had to do was convince her to come here to get the information.

And if there was one thing Marty was good at, it was convincing people.