Prison Planet (THE RIM CONFEDERACY Book 3) (26 page)

The mayor cleared his throat in the mic and the resulting snort on the huge stadium loudspeakers made everyone suddenly stop cold.

"Ladies and gentlemen, friends, citizens, and heads of state, it is my pleasure this evening to start off our 100th Anniversary Celebrations of no escapes from Halberd Prisons. So first, please help me by your applause to show our gratitude to the RIM and our Council for the 100th year in a row!" He smiled and began to clap and was joined almost instantly by the almost ten thousand celebration attendees, and the applause was long and sustained.

Tanner noted that even the convicts clapped a bit, though as he had imagined, not anywhere as much as the rest of the stadium. He also noticed that right in the front row about the middle of the grass seating, Tibah and some of her farm crew were seated, and they clapped as much as anyone else did too. He tried to catch her eye to acknowledge her, but she never looked over to his side of the stage. He saw they had brought along some fruits and vegetables to nosh on during the speeches, and that was probably a good idea seeing as the number of speakers was long.

The mayor went on and on but was done in a few more minutes and turned the microphone over to the admiral, who on behalf of the RIM Navy, wished all the attendees a good evening. The admiral turned the microphone over to the Max Island warden.

The warden smiled at the whole stadium, glanced in all the directions, and then pointed out the force field secure end zone that held the more than a thousand convicts of which he was the one in charge.

"What you see here is the total number of Max Island convicts that we currently have housed, other than the ones who are watching these ceremonies but are in our Sick Bay or in solitary confinement. But other than those few men, we are all here and we know, as does the rest of the RIM, that no one has ever escaped from Halberd—and that no one ever will!" This got him a huge crowd response as they yelled and screamed and the applause was loud.

"100 years of no escapes—and we will have 100 years more!" he yelled and received even louder yells and foot stomping in return.

Tanner saw someone in the big stands right in front of the stage start that wave business and the crowd followed suit.

So far,
Tanner thought,
all was about normal.

For the first time, he realized this would be his final RIM Navy duty—policing the celebrations, watching the clapping and the stands doing the wave, and the boring speeches from head of state after head of state.

Fitting
, he thought,
that my last duty is to be a babysitter for a prison planet ...

#

In the third row from the front of the stands, Nusayr sat with a few of his ex-Council of Nine crew and noted with some degree of satisfaction that, yes, the stadium appeared to be just about full of Celebration attendees. Ilias nodded at the huge scoreboard screen that faced them down at the opposite end of the playing field and nudged him.

"I never knew the warden had such long hand hair," he said and that brought smiles from the whole group around him.

On screen, the Max Island warden was talking about the responsibility of the management of such a huge enterprise as the penitentiary, and what that had meant to him over the past years, and how he and his trusted staff rose to the occasion day after day. And now with 100 years of success, it had come to pass that there had never been a successful escape. Not now, he emphasized, and not ever.

The only one who smiled was Nusayr and he did so unconsciously.

The speech by the warden went on and on. Then he gave the dais and microphone over to the mayor once again who introduced the Duke d'Avigdor, who rose to speak about the work that his grandfather had done more than those 100 years ago to help the RIM Council even countenance the idea of a communal prison planet. He went on and on about the work that was done and how that could be seen as one of the true building blocks of the Confederacy as it taught the members of the RIM how to work together, how to enable common causes, and yes, even how to share and pay for those common costs too.

"Seems like the Duke is more interested in costs than results," Razin said from the row behind them and Nusayr nodded too.

As head of state after head of state rose to speak, Nusayr was glad they had put up the speakers list on the side of the scoreboard screen. He noted that the Caliph was now sixth in line. He looked out onto the field to see that Tibah had his gaze, and he nodded twice to her.

She smiled back and he nudged Ilias who then nudged Shihah.

"Time—Godspeed and good luck," he said and watched as Ilias rose and moved across their row and began to make his way down to the prison guard who stood at the bottom of the stairs where a landing provided access to the area under the stands. Shihah, on the other hand, went the same way to the stairs but up them to find his quarry.

"Captain, could I please—sorry, I know how important these speeches are—get a trip to the washroom? I'm feeling like I'm going to be sick, Ma’am," he said and sounded like he really meant it.

Captain Terrance shrugged.

"Speeches are about as interesting as watching you maintenance guys work on machinery," she said but she did nod to him and indicated he was to go ahead down the aisle under the stands toward the back wall.

As they made their way, Shihah had gathered up Muri, a member of the maintenance team, by telling her that Ilias and the captain who had just disappeared down under the stands needed help with the power surge in the sub-station. Being a member of that team, she nodded and they both jogged down the stairs, around the landing, and into the aisle that traveled about thirty yards down toward the side wall of the stadium. Where this wall met the solid brick wall that separated the stadium from the power sub-station next door, there was no force field at all as there were public washrooms and food concessions. But to the right of the main aisle out to the stands lay a small enclosure with the access door to the sub-station. The area around them was empty of people as all the convicts were up above them watching the Celebration event.

It was toward that doorway that Ilias veered off and reached the edge of the entrance doorway before the captain could catch up with him.

"Ilias, this is not a—"

He gave her a short pass with the Needler he held in his right hand, and she spasmed and her back arched. He pushed her within the enclosure right up against the sub-station door. She gasped and reached for her own sidearm, but Shihah, who had caught up with them, stopped her still shaking arm and grabbed her stunner.

Muri was attempting to back away, but Ilias turned his Needler to point it at her.

"Not so fast, Muri. You are a part of this now. Get in here," he said as he pointed at the enclosure, and she moved in quickly.

"Before anyone here gets any ideas," Ilias said, "here is what you need to know. We are going into the sub-station, Captain will use her thumb to get us in, and once there, with Muri double-checking on what I do, we will turn off the power to the stadium—in fact, the whole town. Anyone who does not comply will get my Needler and you know what that can do if I turn it on you for more than five seconds—full cardiac arrest and a death that I hear is anything but pleasant."

He pushed the prison captain over to the access panel, held the Needler right up to her head, and watched as she slowly brought up a shaking hand and inserted her thumb onto the security pad. There were three chimes and the door slid open. They went in and the door slid closed behind them.

Moving quickly, Shihah stayed off to one side to cover the two hostages as they and Ilias moved across the big room that hummed with its power and yet was still cold with the conditioned air that blew from ceiling vents and kept the machinery cool.

Ilias moved directly to the big central transformer and eyed the large red lever.

"Muri, confirm what I know—and if you ever want to return to Hope, you'll be sure to be honest," he said and pointed at that lever.

"As soon as I yank that down,power to all of Andros—the whole city—goes off. Every single house and building and the stadium too lose their power, correct?"

She nodded but then held up a finger, and her red hair swung as her head nodded.

"Almost correct—except that I'd imagine that some buildings like hospitals and government and maybe even Police or Provost buildings may have their own generators that will go on automatically should power go out across the city. Maybe, as I really do not know, but you should think about that," she said.

Ilias looked at her.

"I might think that yes that too would be true. But we know—having serviced the stadium next door—that they have no such generators at all. Who would need to power a rugby game if the lights were to go off?"

"And correct me too, Muri—that this building, the sub-station, would remain powered no matter whether that lever is up or down, correct?"

She nodded.

"Yes, we all on the maintenance team were all informed of that too … that the station draws power directly that will be unaffected by the master breaker switch. But you know what else will happen too, do you not, Ilias?" she said and smiled at him.

"The force fields out in the stadium will also be powered off. There will be nothing at all between the convicts and the rest of the stands or the stage and the heads of state either …"

He smiled at her.

"Exactly," he said as he grabbed the big red lever and swung it down to break the circuit, and in the stadium, all the power went off at once.

CHAPTER TEN

The first thing Tanner noticed was that the loudspeakers, which had been busy broadcasting the speech by the Eran head of state, Nizami, who really needed little amplification to be heard at least in a room, went silent.

The Eran was still talking, but the loudspeakers were off, which was probably only an error. Maybe somebody had tripped over a cord or some such little thing, but then he noticed in front of the stage some of the seated people were pointing to the big scoreboard, and as he looked there too, he saw it was black.

No picture of the dais and the giant Eran who continued to speak and—

Tanner immediately looked back at the attendants in front of the stage who were all starting to stand up and look around, and he realized there was no blue glow between him and them.

“Power failure—and the force fields are off,” he said to himself. That thought made him cold inside as he turned quickly to his left to see the stands that held the convicts had also noticed. The convicts were now pouring down the stairs and out onto the field or under their stands in an effort to get away. He saw at least two of the prison guards were being pummeled by convicts and at least one more was down on the stairs being kicked and stomped on ... a full-scale riot was on.

Some were yelling that it was time for an escape that worked, others just yelled at their own heads of state, and cursing was rampant. No matter what they yelled, it appeared they were going to try to take over the stage and harm anyone there. Convicts were still convicts, no matter how theoretically benevolent their keepers were. He swore and knew this was major trouble.

“Damn,” he said and drew his Colt immediately. On his PDA, he punched in the emergency call for support and hoped that it would be both received and acted upon STAT.

He saw from the rear on stage, a brace of EliteGuards had appeared and were dragging the Lady St. August toward the back of the stage area. The rear admiral was trying to herd a group that included some heads of state and the Farm warden toward the rear of the stage too. He saw a Duchy lieutenant he recognized manhandling the Duke off the side of the stage as the center part and rear areas were full of milling heads of state.

Knowing help would come from the rear, Tanner moved slowly toward the center of the stage and was impeded by Nizami, the huge Eran, who tried to move off the stage by just stepping down from the four four-foot height. It wasn’t until Nizami fell that he realized the giant was in distress, having been needled by a convict. How had a convict gotten a Needler? he thought.

He moved two steps closer to the stage center and focused on the convict in front of the stage that held a Needler, albeit a small one, as he traced its ray across anyone on the stage he could reach. Other convicts were grabbing citizens, and Tanner knew the fracas was bad if the two crowds were at each other’s throats. Still others over on the far side of the stage were also tracing more Needler beams on heads of state, who went down en masse.

Needlers
, he thought,
where had they gotten arms?

Tanner knew there would be answers that would have to be given later, but at this point, he had a job to do, so he drew aim at the convict holding the needler on the giant. The Colt spoke once and the convict went down. As he did, Tanner got a clear look at the man he had just taken down and shockingly realized it was Nusayr, the Royal who was a convict here and Tibah's brother, and he was almost paralyzed with that thought. He was down and not moving—so move on, his Navy training told him.

The sound of the first gunshot, instead of chilling the furor at the front of the stage, seemed to stir things up even more. More heads of state were now jumping off the stage to try to find some hiding spots perhaps among the crowds of people and convicts. He heard the report of his XO's Colt too and realized the whole front of the stage was deadly for anyone still on stage.

Tanner moved back away from the stage's front edge as hands of convicts right up at the edge of the stage were trying to grab him. He moved back as he noted the giant Eran was being used by the convicts to jump up on the stage. From where he was, he suddenly felt a Needler ray touch his legs, and he went down too, crying out loudly.

The pain was strong as his calves and thigh muscles cramped up, and for almost twenty seconds, he was out of control of his body, thankful that it had been only a glancing touch. Falling on his right side allowed him to try to lie on his Colt so that the few hands that bothered with him couldn't find it. He was kicked a few times by someone who didn't know how to kick, yet the jolt to his kidneys was like a stabbing pain.