Empress Fallen - Chapter 1 - Part 1

Chapter One:

Wrath And Tears

"Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid."

Invictus, W.E. Henley

i. Tumultus

Dawn broke over the horizon.

Needles of cautious light probed the layers of rock over the irate red planet. The golden fingers crept across the wasteland, stretching, feeling, sharing an intimate ritual with the rock. But they soon reached an alien formation, cold and glinting. So cold. The flat silver building rose like the head of a snake from a sea of blood. Utterly elusive, a facade over a hidden darkness. It was impossible to guess the true nature of that building, the hundreds and hundreds of metres of iron and steel stretching deep underground in an impenetrable metal tower right below it, the hundreds of thousands of prisoners it incarcerated, the dark tyranny that had excavated it . . . No.

All it was from the sky was a shard of coruscating silver, abandoned among the rocks. The broken tooth of some massive beast. These deceptions were scattered over the entire northern hemisphere of the planet, structures that hinted of life.

The prison glistened as though composed of ice, or perhaps frozen tears. And as the vast sky awakened, movement marred the stillness. It wasn't long before hunched silhouettes could be seen streaming out into the heat, small figures, dispersing in concentric patterns from the building. They converged at the bases of jagged crags and ridges, at the mouths of mighty rips in the ground. Soon there were hundreds of strange things glinting aggressively in the sun's rays, manned by the people, by the workers. They were monstrous contraptions that drilled into the rock, digging down towards the blood-red stones encased in the planet, towards the Arcanum.

This was the first shift of prisoners that would begin the day's mining, and thousands more were incarcerated within the vast complex. Deep inside the structure, people flooded into the eating halls, a rare atmosphere of anticipation searing through their minds like a contagion.

On the 147th level from the surface, in one of the innermost cells, a tall, golden-haired girl stood leaning against the window. These windows were small squares looking out onto the central core of the complex; its hollow, cylindrical heart. It was framed by a series of silver elevator tubes running up towards the surface. Just visible, so far above, a transparent oval in the ceiling of the building above ground permitted a fraction of light into the gloomy prison.

Aliya gazed through the window, lean and dirty arms crossed defiantly before her. If she squinted, she could just make out that mocking oval of light, hanging over the yawning tower so far above.

That hint of the surface.

Although, she thought, frowning, she had been told towers generally climbed up the sky. These ‘towers’ stretched into the earth. So, inverted towers. This deception was particularly infuriating considering the depth of this ‘tower’. With four hundred levels of cramped, dirty cells, their inverted tower rivalled the Empress Regnant’s skyscrapers on Caelum.

Aliya pressed her forehead to the window, closing her eyes. The cool surface sent ripples through her burning skin. Was there ever a respite from the heat on this infernal planet?

Hazy images rested behind her eyes of her time before her enslavement. Whispered illusions scurrying around her mind. Blurred shadows of half-remembered events hovering like wraiths just beyond her sight. It was as if that life had been painted in sly greys and illusive blues, if it had even existed at all. It was all utterly eclipsed by the fiery reds and browns of her days on Ignis. There was no one else like her. No one who claimed to be from a different world. But to pursue the matter would be to court death. She was alone.

‘Aliya?’ She tensed. His voice had induced this effect on her ever since the day on Nex Ridge, on the edge of the world.

‘You coming?’ The words crept through the air behind her. She didn’t move. He tried again.

‘Aliya, it’s Surplus day.’

She opened her eyes. Surplus day, the biannual event when food rations doubled as the Enforcers rotated, and the new Cohorts arrived. The extra food was a mere incentive to kick-start slave efficiency for the next mining season. The fresh Enforcers would instate their authority by ravaging those who could not maintain the faster pace, the heavier labour overwhelming them. It was no cause for complacency.

But there was more food.

She turned slowly. Malik smiled at her, reaching for her hand. She instinctively recoiled. He froze, smile dropping. A second hovered fleetingly between them before he shrugged and strolled from the room. She followed, a needle of sadness stinging her for an instant. But it had soon fled.

She followed him through the winding stone corridors, passing several sections of cells. The absence of Enforcers was immediately apparent, and a strange foreboding stole through her, but she tried to put it from her mind. They eventually turned a corner to a wall of metal. The elevator door hissed open and they stepped inside. Aliya tensed, closing her eyes, holding her breath as her stomach lurched. She desperately tried to retain her composure but it was like trying to hold back the sun from rising.

Her eyes flashed open, the walls tilting, closing round her.

A cold, metal tomb, deep underground. A silent, alien tomb.

She was vaguely aware she was sliding to the ground, when a hand clamped round her elbow. All of a sudden she was staring wildly into Malik’s intense, ochre eyes. His mouth was moving. She stared at it, frowning. His lips formed indiscernible shapes . . .

And then he was pulling her out into another stone corridor. A tall, arched one this time. She was abruptly aware of his arms clasped tightly around her, her face pressed into his chest, that familiar smell bringing her back. Her breathing slowed and she relaxed fractionally. But then she realised, shoving him away. Before he could turn, mask the reaction on his face, she saw the hurt there, his eyes over-shadowed by his dark hair. And as she looked at him, an image burst behind her eyes, ramming itself between them.

A screaming, red sun. Naked rock. Enforcers yelling, torture, the shaking in the earth. Swallowed, trapped. Malik. He was there. Always there. But leaving. Leaving? Enforcers yelling, and him leaving. And her trapped in the burning tomb until darkness.

She shoved past him, angry tears rising inside her. No. She would not succumb to such weakness. His betrayal had changed everything.

The Section Sigma eating hall abruptly opened out around them. It was packed. Enforcers stood on the raised stage near the ration stations, plasma rifles raised, metal clubs slamming down on the slaves trying to climb onto the platform. It was utter pandemonium.

Aliya spotted the ebony head of her closest friend, Sitara Kaur, sticking out of the seething mass several rows in. She plunged into the fray, Malik close on her heels.

‘What the hell is going on?’ she yelled into Sitara’s ear as she reached her, wincing as someone’s elbow rammed into the small of her back.

‘What?’ Sitara yelled back, pointing at her head with both hands and grimacing. Aliya repeated herself.

‘Surplus Day,’ Sitara began, gesturing violently with her hands as they were jostled about, ‘It’s cancelled. New enforcers. Double as many as usual. And no goddam food.’ Aliya stood in shock, a thick confusion stifling her mind. Malik appeared next to them.

‘Cancelled?’ he barked in outrage. Sitara gestured again towards the Enforcers just as they were shoved forwards, pressing against the people in front of them. The slaves had rushed onto the platform and the crowds surged. The hall was consumed by screams. They were surrounded by cries of agony, fear, anger.

Aliya grabbed Sitara’s arm and hauled her in the direction of the west wall. A tall bearded man cursed at them as they elbowed past him. He trapped Sitara’s boot under his for a tense second before the crowd carried him past. An elderly woman desperately twisted out of their way, dragging several wide-eyed children behind her.

Finally, Aliya broke out from the throng, pressing herself to one of the pillars of rock, breathing heavily. Her face was red, sweat clinging to her forehead. She longed to tear off the thick jacket. Sitara appeared a moment later clutching her winded stomach and yelling something.

They tried to spot Malik but he had been swept away. Aliya craned her neck. Several men had shouldered ration canisters and were throwing them carelessly onto the heads of the crowds, simultaneously fighting off the Enforcers that lunged at them. She registered for the first time the wailing alarms reverberating through the hall. One man collapsed suddenly as a towering Enforcer clubbed him on the back of the head. Blood pooled around his crumpled form. Another man’s jacket was half-ripped off and as he grappled with the Enforcer, another grabbed his neck from behind in a tight headlock. His body went limp and he rolled off the stage. That’s when they opened fire.

Aliya watched in horror as slave after slave was exterminated. Children too. The Enforcers leapt down into the crowds, shoving those at the front back with renewed ferocity. The side doors burst open and a fresh unit of red-suited Enforcers flooded through the archways into the chaos, like a wave of blood. They were coated in glinting black armour plating, giving them the disturbing appearance of tall, scarlet insects. New alarms cut into the air and clubs beat avenues through the masses.

Aliya glanced to the front again. A woman was scurrying to the spilt rations, a tiny dark-faced girl clutched behind her. She sifted through the silver packets, filling her arms and those of the gaunt child. They had almost made it off the side of the platform when a yell leapt up and an Enforcer threw himself in their path. He tore the rations from their grasp, knocking the woman to the floor. She clawed at his feet, trying to bite his ankle. The Enforcer kicked her roughly in the head and she collapsed, neck twisted at an impossible angle over the edge of the stage, quickly obscured by violent reds and waves of grey.

Aliya looked back to the woman’s daughter in horror. She was barely aware of what she was doing, choking on her own screams as she threw herself forwards, desperately scratching and clawing her way towards the front.

She was so far away, she would never reach the girl. White flashes seared behind her eyes as she thrashed, vaguely aware of her fists colliding with the people around her. Her vision blurred. The image burned in her mind of the Enforcer bringing his arm down again and again on the almost indiscernible form of the girl.

People pressed on her on all sides, pain shot up her left leg and she was knocked in the stomach yet again. Her hair was caught abruptly and she cried out. She could barely breathe, chest crushed from the front and back. The smell of hundreds of bodies suffocated her. She couldn’t separate a single voice or sound from the writhing tidal wave of noise. The heat in the room was unbearable. All her eyes registered was the pitching mass of grey but all she could see in her mind was that Enforcer’s club becoming redder and redder as it swept through the air.

The crowd was changing direction. She was pushed to the right, entering a corridor off the east of the hall. It was futile to resist. They accelerated slightly and Aliya found herself near the back. Only when something cold and hard struck her left shoulder did she realise they were being shepherded from the hall by Enforcers. She too strove to move farther from the back of the throng, mind reeling. It was several moments before she realised she was roughly pushing people aside. Like a coward.

They found themselves shoved into a large storage room, empty ration canisters rammed aside. As the metal door slid shut, Aliya glimpsed a red line of Enforcers stationing themselves outside and another crowd of slaves being driven onto the next chamber. She imagined it was the same throughout the complex. The crowds in the Sigma eating hall would have been broken apart, driven down every passage before being separated further into the high security cells, storage compartments, and mass holding rooms. Prisons within a prison.

Aliya limped over to a canister, sliding onto it in relief. She knew she had at least pulled a muscle, but the pain in her left leg was unbearable. Her entire body ached, and it was a different ache to the one following a mining shift. Her lip was bleeding.

But many had suffered far greater injury. She watched helplessly as a woman not far from her curled over her right arm, which was twisted unnaturally over her knees, clutching her black hair in one shaking fist.

Aliya leant her head back against the canister, refusing to waver under the pain, burying the panic deep down inside her out of reach. But it was still there. Festering. She had to stay conscious.