The cargo transport rolled through the wide service corridors without hesitation, although to Brackett they all looked the same. After a time, the vehicle slowed to a stop by a wide, opaque window. One of the guards hopped off the car and rapped on the glass. It slid open almost immediately. The guard exchanged incomprehensible words with another Nilbog inside the window, who quickly handed over a pair of collars.
The guard handed them up to his cronies, who snapped them around the necks of their prisoners, then slid a compartment on each collar open to reveal a semi-sphere attached by a thin cable. The guard placed the semi-sphere onto the prisoner's ear.
The Nilbog guard looked them over appraisingly. "You understand my words now?"
Brackett shared a look of surprise with Ginsberg. "Yes!"
"Many tongues get spoken here," the guard told them, "makes the translation devices necessary."
Brackett narrowed his eyes and nodded slowly. "Yeah, now I can tell you that I'm Captain Bradley Brackett of the Galactic Patrol Force. As a peace officer of the Allied Worlds, I demand to know what's going on here!"
The Nilbog guards chuckled with cruelty. "We take you to the Wor-osh," the guard replied. "He will give you what answers he thinks you need. He has no fear of you, or you’re Allied Worlds, nor even the Skro! He rules this moon still, despite the cowardice of others who abandoned this sector to you and your Allied Worlds!" He struck Brackett with his rifle, turned to the driver and barked, "Drive on!"
###
The cargo transport rolled along seemingly endless, disorientingly similar, corridors. At long last, it slowed to a stop at a doorway. One guard jumped down from the vehicle and pressed a button on a small keypad in the wall beside the door. Before long, the door opened to reveal a husky young Nilbog with sharp features. "What is it?" he demanded.
"We have come to see the Wor-osh," the guardsman declared. "We have two more warriors for his games, but they managed to kill one of my men, and one of them was wounded."
The Nilbog in the doorway narrowed his eyes and stepped out, closing the door behind him with a touch of the keypad. "My P'Trohg is not to be disturbed at present," he said in a gravelly voice, "I will deal with this in his stead. Show me." The guard waved towards the cargo transport and the official sneered. "Oh. You-mans!"
"Not just humans," Brackett spat back, "Galactic Patrol officers! I don't know who you are, but you're in it deep, mister!"
The official grinned a predatory grin. "I will tell you who I am, you-man," he gloated, "and what our plans are for you both…"
The Nilbog sub-chief clenched his fists and stared at the prisoners. “I am Jol’bur, sired by Gom’jol. His bravery and cunning has made him the Wor-osh of this moon, and he continues to rule here despite the insurrection of the Allied Worlds!” he declared with a contemptuous sneer. “When your feeble forces are eventually driven away by Nilboggi fighters, it is my sire who shall rule this sector, for he bravely remained when others did flee! Then all will know his greatness!”
As one, the five Nilbog guards and the driver of the small cargo transport each pounded one fist to their chests and bowed their head in solemn salute.
Brackett frowned at the surrounding aliens with uncertainty. “So what are you going to do with us?” he asked, as he nodded down at Ginsberg, who still clutched at his wounded shoulder.
Jol’bur’s sneer transformed into a predatory grin. “You will amuse the Wor-osh while he awaits his greatness.” Then he turned to the guards and barked, “Take them to whichever pit has room for them. There they may wait to face the challenges.”
“My Lord,” one guard replied as he gestured toward Ginsberg with his rifle, “what of this one? He took a Nilbog life in battle and was shot during the capture.”
Jol’bur stepped toward the vehicle and looked down on the man with a critical eye. “Take him to dome three.” The guard, tight-lipped, stared coldly in response until Jol’bur exclaimed, “You have your orders! Be off!”
With a reluctant acknowledgement, the guard climbed aboard the cargo transport and it continued down the corridor. Brackett guessed they were sticking to the service corridors since what few people they passed appeared to be technicians of some sort. Brackett noticed that he and Ginsberg were only a minor interest to the Nilboggi they passed, which gave him an uneasy feeling.
Before long, the transport came to another stop by a wide door. Three of the guards climbed down and pulled Brackett from the vehicle. One Nilbog pressed a button and the door slid open to reveal an empty shaft. Brackett jumped away from the pit, but was quickly seized by a pair of guards. He stomped on one guard’s foot, then slammed his elbow into the other’s stomach. They both released him, and he turned and sprinted down the corridor.
Ginsberg shouted, “Brad, watch out!”
But it was too late. The stun beam hit him square in the back. His entire body went numb and he crumpled to the floor in a heap. The guards seized him once again, dragged him back to the opening.
With his rifle, one guard picked up Brackett’s chin so he could look into the human’s face. “I think you will make for good amusement,” he chuckled without humor. The two guards dragged Brackett to the lip of the empty shaft and unceremoniously dropped him in.
Brackett fell, slammed against one wall, then another before landing on something surprisingly soft. Desperately, he tried to move enough to look at his new surroundings from the place where he’d landed.
Above him, a female voice said, “Greetings, Captain. Welcome to the pits.”
Brackett, still suffering from the affects of the stun-ray, could not look up to see the woman who had addressed him. He did feel her hand, though, as she grabbed him by the arm and rolled him over.
She was human, with short dark hair in a regulation cut and a stern expression on her thin face. He’d never seen her before, but easily recognized her Galactic Patrol uniform and sergeant’s insignia. She was also wearing a translation collar.
She pulled him to a sitting position by the wall. “Please forgive my not saluting right away,” she said as she curtly raised her hand to her temple. “I’m Sergeant Velma Sorenson, assigned to the Lancelot under Captain Beex.”
Brackett’s eyes flashed and he tried to ask a thousand questions. Only a dull moan escaped his lips.
“Don’t try to talk,” Sorenson told him as she hastily examined him for injuries. “They must have got you with a stun ray. You could be paralyzed for up to an hour, depending on how high they had it set.”
Brackett let loose a groan of exasperation.
Sorenson chuckled without humor. “Don’t worry. Aside from that, you seem to be all right.” She sat beside him and looked him over. “Actually, I’m rather pleased to see you. Captain Beex and I had been sent to Daruuk to taxi Professor Tholgrum back to DSO-25. On our return, we picked up a broken distress signal. Turned out to be a Nilbog trap.” Sorenson glanced up at Brackett, then quickly looked away as though embarrassed. “I suppose you know what I’m talking about; the other prisoners I’ve spoken with have similar stories.”
Brackett managed to wobble his head a little, and forced out a meager, “Uh-huh.”
With a deep breath, she collected herself and turned her attention back to him. “The Nilbog leader is supposed to be an accomplished veteran named Gom-jol. I’ve never heard of him before, but his subjects and underlings all kowtow to him as though he were something great. At his order, the Nilboggi kidnap passersby and dump us here, where they make us fight in an arena for their own perverse amusement. They claim that any prisoner who survives enough ‘challenges’ will be set free, but I haven’t seen anyone get out without being carried out.” A bitter sneer, which she directed at the floor, marred her features.
Though he couldn’t turn his head yet, Brackett’s eyes swiveled in their sockets as he took stock of the poorly-lit cell. It was set up dormitory style with twenty-six berths set in the walls, each large enough to accommodate someone of human-size. Scattered throughout the cell were a dozen other ragged, grungy prisoners of various foreign races, most of whom were unfamiliar to Brackett. He spotted Professor Tholgrum sitting in one corner, his long pod-like head hanging low, but there were no other humans, and worse still, no other Galactic Patrol uniforms.
With a herculean effort, Brackett turned to face Sergeant Sorenson. With titanic stubbornness and determination, he forced out the words, “Wuh…wuh… where…Buh…Beex?”
Sorenson cast her eyes downward and gave a heavy sigh before responding. “Sir, I’m sorry to report that Captain Beex fell in the arena two days ago while protecting the Professor. He never even had a chance to try his plan.”
Brackett raised one eyebrow. “Wuh…what…p-plan?”
The numbness slowly waned from Brackett’s body. He stretched his muscles experimentally, driving away the affects of the stun ray as the Sergeant answered his question.
“Yes, Captain Beex had a plan, but it will be of little use to us,” Sorenson told him. “You see, Beex was an amphibious Salentian, a race that evolved from some froglike creature. He had the natural ability to climb up sheer surfaces, and his plan involved scaling the walls of the arena and forcing his way into the air ducts, then finding his way to a control room to release all of the prisoners so as to revolt against the Nilbogs.” She slumped against the wall beside him. “It wasn’t much of a plan, and inspired only a small hope. But it is entirely useless to us, now that he’s dead.”
Brackett looked over at the opening in the ceiling. “What about the pit that the Nilbogs threw us down?”
Sorenson glanced up. “He tried that first,” she admitted, “but couldn’t get the doors to open.”
Brackett nodded with understanding and looked around the cell once more. He spied a pair of thick metal doors at the far end. “Where do those doors go?”
“Out to the arena,” Sorenson answered glumly.
Brackett pondered for a fast moment. “How about when they feed us, maybe we can break out then?”
The Sergeant shook her head. “They lower trays of food down the pit on a platform. Any extra weight causes it to fold, dropping everything back down here.”
With a grunt, Brackett forced himself to his feet. He stood there a moment, clutching a nearby bunk for support, until the numbness completely abandoned him. With the convenient excuse of stretching his legs, Brackett circled the cell. His sharp eyes scrutinized the thick walls that closed him in. More than once, he tested the strength of a metal panel, pushing and pulling with all the might he muster, but to no avail.
“It’s really no use, you know, my boy,” the shrill voice said to him.
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