Into the Light

Another scream followed the first. Louder and throatier than all the previous ones.

Captain William Trent shut his eyes. He was well aware that doing so wouldn't somehow magically stop the screams. It wouldn't help him forget why Second Lieutenant Pikkins was screaming either. But shutting them helped him focus on the more critical task at hand.

Escape.

He turned to the three other soldiers confined in the same cage as him. Each of them had their lips pressed tightly and wore a grimace on their rugged, beaten faces. They knew they would be next. The Tectans would pick them out one by one, and torture them until they broke. Until they spoke.

That was the reality of being captured by the enemy. Trent would be deluding himself to think otherwise. It was exactly why he needed a plan. It was why he needed to escape.

"Freya," Trent called, only sparing the briefest glance at his redheaded lieutenant as he took her name. And despite bearing a face just as worn and gaunt as the rest of theirs, when her sunken green eyes met his brown ones, they hardened with determination. Determination he knew his sharpest pair of eyes had never lost.

"Captain," she responded, sitting a little straighter on the grimy floor of their cage.

"Ten ticks." Trent kept his voice as low as possible, it wasn't hard to be covert when Pikkins was screaming his lungs out just beyond the door. He made a point to look away from his lieutenant as his said this. Yet through the corner of his eyes, he saw that these two words had invoked the other two soldiers to jerk their heads in his direction.

It didn't matter how cryptic his instructions were, they would always know. The Tectans had made their biggest mistake lumping the four of them in the same prison.

Together, they were invincible.

The youngest member of his team waited exactly ten seconds before he stood up, and all eyes inside and outside their cage shifted to him instead. The young, black Officer Cadet calmly made his way to the bars and rapped the greenish metal with his bare hands.

Clank! Clank! Clank!

The two Tectans standing in the dimly lit hallway that separated their cage from the only way out glanced at each other. Trent couldn't see their expressions, all Tectans had the same grey gas mask and Safesuit on. It was ridiculous superstition. Evolution had already taken care of the toxins in the world-or at least how the human body interacted with them. Regardless, it made observing their expressions and reading their pasty lips virtually impossible.

Trent didn't move his body very much, sudden movements always made the Tectan savages jumpy. He didn't take his eyes off the young Axel rapping the cage bars either, and judging by Freya's sudden desire to squat, neither did she.

One of the two masked soldiers pointed a sleek rifle at Trent, and a red dot shimmered square on the captain's chest. The Tectan then jerked his head sideways, an obvious indication to get his partner to go while he stood in the supposed safety of distance.

Trent narrowed his eyes but looked away. If these idiots thought he was the threat just because he was the captain, they were in for a surprise. But it wasn't why he had narrowed his eyes. The weapon was familiar, too familiar. The Tectans were savage little insurgents that hadn't accepted the new way of the world, the Absolute Rule. They didn't have the resources to purchase weapons like that. Not legally at least.

Clank! Clank! Clank!

Axel continued pounding his fists on the cage as the Tectan walked over to him. It took Trent a lot of effort not to smile as the savage approached his youngest soldier with a giant baton in hand and a small sidearm visible on his hip.

The captain's eyes flickered to Freya, still squatting, and then to the enemy raising their baton at Axel. Trent's ward had already begun to raise his hand before the strike came down, but not to defend himself. The young soldier caught the blow and tried his hardest to yank the weapon away from the Tectan.

Click!

The Tectan in the distance shifted his aim to Axel instead.

Trent stood up and the red dot moved back towards him, only this time it wasn't on his chest. He raised his hands to throw a facade of submission, slowly sitting back down.

Bang!

Trent spun to the rookie, a knot forming in his stomach as he was unsure who had fired the gun.

Bang!

Freya lowered a gun and the two masked savages dropped to the floor, leaving a trail of bright red blood as their limp bodies skidded to a halt.

Trent turned to his lieutenant. Of course it was her. Freya had taken advantage of the chaos and nicked the idiot's sidearm. Rookie mistakes like these were why the savages were nothing more than little pests before the Absolute Rule.

Despite the exhaustion they still bore, every member of his team had lost the creases on their forehead. Axel was rummaging through the Tectan's pockets while Freya stood guard over him, gun in hand. Trent turned his attention to the only silent member of their team, their medic, Dex.

"Doing okay?" he asked, searching his second lieutenant's face as he walked towards them.

The soldier's shadowed face met Trent's before they shrugged, "Let's just make sure Pikkins survives," they said quietly, tugging at a pale green beanie on their head, "or all this bloodshed will have been for nothing."

Trent extended an arm, which Dex clasped firmly and got back to their feet. He offered the medic a small but firm pat on the back, it was all he could do in the circumstances. There was no guarantee that Pikkins would pull through in one piece after the torture they had put him through ... the torture he was still going through.

"We ... have a problem," Axel announced, running a hand over his bristly head. That action coupled with his decision to refuse eye contact with Trent meant a problem. A bad one.

"Other one's got the keys." Freya grimaced, yet unlike Axel, she looked Trent straight in the eye.

Dex laughed, a long humourless laugh that echoed throughout the dark, empty halls.

Trent ignored this. There had always been a fifty per cent chance that it wouldn't work their way. He let out a sigh, running a hand over his own fauxhawk. It wasn't the end of the world just yet.

"Captain?" Freya tapped her foot impatiently, "Did you hear-"

"I heard you," Trent snapped, "I'm thinking!" He turned back to the lifeless body and looked instead at the green bars of their cage, "Strip them," he decided finally, "the locks are mechanical, we just need something to break it-a chisel, a knife, a piece of their mask-anything!" Trent looked back at the single camera above the exit, like a mindless eye perched on a branch. It wouldn't be long before reinforcements arrived. "Quickly!" he added.

Axel obediently began to go through the Tectan's pockets. But his lieutenant squatted a short distance away. With a loud grunt, Freya strained, stretching an arm out of the bars. Her fingers grazed over the forgotten baton that must have rolled out of the Tectan's hands, not quite reaching it.

Dex let out a snort almost instantly, "This is comical," they declared with an animated laugh, and they made his way to the lieutenant, "move Pixie." And with very little difficulty, Dex extended their own arm out of the bars and grabbed the baton.

"Gorilla arms," Freya muttered with an eye roll.

"Pixie," Dex retorted with about as much enthusiasm and they gently tapped the baton on her cropped red hair.

Trent pinched the bridge of his nose. He had learned a long time ago to not interfere when Dex and Freya were at each other's throats. The two of them grew up in the same allotment after all, and adding to the fact that they were still quite young, they bickered like siblings all day long.

A loud SNAP echoed in the hall.

Almost automatically, all heads jerked towards Axel-the source of the sound. Freya's gun cocked with an equally loud click as she pointed it in the young soldier's direction.

But there was no one there. Instead a high-pitched creak sounded as the door to their cage wobbled open.

"I got it, Captain!" Axel turned to him, beaming wide and puffing his chest out a little. A pair of knives had been wedged inside the mechanical lock, apparently splitting it open.

Trent chuckled, "Look at you, rookie!" He patted Axel on the back as the group made their way to the second soldier.

Trent bent down to collect the ammunition, no one else would have done so. He was their captain, and so the Absolute Rule established that the impartial allocation of all acquired assets was his responsibility.

He paused as he held the rifle, taking a mental note of the serial number before he handed the weapon to Freya. Trent then gave the sidearm to Axel next. He drew the final weapon from the dead Tectan's body, a knife, and turned to Dex,

"Knife or gun?" Trent asked his medic, raising the seven-inch dagger up so Dex could have a good look at it.

"Knife."

Trent handed Dex the dagger and then extended a hand towards Freya, "Sidearm," he commanded.

It was handed to him almost instantly, nozzle down.

Trent checked the clip to count the remaining bullets before turning to the rest of his team. No one was smiling anymore.

"Ready?" he asked, more out of habit. They would never say no. And right enough, he got three firm nods as Pikkins let out another terrifying shriek from beyond the door.

Trent stood up and made his way to the door. He raised three fingers ...

Two ...

One.