Prison Planet

In the small bar room the patrons were chatting, drinking and playing at the poker tables in the dim light. Tom, A young man in a white shirt and short black hair stood behind the cashier window, scanning the room. A boy walked in, followed by a man in a brown leather jacket and goggles dangling beneath his chin. The boys name was Vincent. He was 12 years old. Tom watched them approach, nodding to Vincent. The man approached the desk.

“How many chips you need” Tom asked
“Just enough for solitaire” The man replied.
That was code for “white powder”. That’s what everyone called it.  It gave a rush that felt like really great sex. It was also extremely addictive and something that the military were very strongly opposed to. A soldier addicted to powder doesn't last too long in the field  ,drifting through space on a ship, unable to get a fix. Selling to a soldier was a bad idea. It brought trouble. 

The camp lay surrounded by miles of sand and mountain. The buildings were poor. People lived in tents or shanties. There was also the bar at the centre of town.  Nobody owned property in the camp. That wasn't a rule, but everyone knew you didn't survive long on your own. Drugs were the main item of trade here.

Tom handed the man a roll of poker chips.The man slipped Tom some cash and quickly left the bar. Almost immediately, several men in uniform marched down the steps into the bar and stood on either side of the entrance. They were followed by two more soldiers and an offical looking man in an overcoat.  The official looking man made his way through the bar spoke to one of the poker dealers who then turned and pointed to Tom. Tom felt his chest tighten.Without skipping a beat he ducked down and quickly removed several rolls of poker chips from the cashier drawer, the blue ones at he back, the special ones. The bar had quieted slightly.  The offical approached Tom.

“Are you Tom,” the man asks
“Yes”
“You run this place?”
“No I jus work here” Tom replies
Mr. Bingham owned he bar. His office was upstairs.
“Step outside please”
“Is something wrong?”
The man made a signal and two of soldiers kicked the door of the booth. One of the men grabed Tom and puts him in Handcuffs while another pulled out the cashier drawer and upturned its contents. Poker chips fell to the floor in a heap. The officer walked in, stepping over the chips. The bar was silent. Worried faces were looking to the exit where the soldiers were standing with their automatic rifles.

One of the soldiers patted down Tom and removed the blue poker chips tucked in his waist .
The soldier quickly found the powder hidden inside the chips..

The punishment for selling white powder was having one finger from either hand removed. It marked you as a criminal…but that’s not the worst part. After that they take you on board to serve in the field. Nobody willingly enlists to be a soldier. You’re forced into service whether you like it or not but lawbreakers are given harsher positions. Scouts, suicide bombers, Minesweepers (without metal detectors) or sniper bait.

A line was formed in the Centre of the camp. Twenty-seven people. A soldier stood at the front of the line holding a pair of pliers.Beside him was bucket and a chair. The children were not spared in this brutality. Tom was somewhere near the back.  He would have to watch the others before it was his turn.

The line began to move and the first prisoner sat down.Now Tom could hear screams of pain as the pliers cut through skin and bone. It seemed to take two snips on each finger, the soldier strained before each cut, it was obviously difficult to cut through bone. Tom hoped the man wouldn’t loose too much strength by his turn. Looking around he could no see Mr. Bingham, the bar owner. Perhaps he had heard the noise below, or seen the soldiers and escaped. Lucky Bastard Tom thought.
Soon, bloody fingers were pilling up in bucket by the chair. There were only three men in front of Tom now. The injured prisoners were waiting nearby, guarded by several soldiers in an ATV. The man with the pliers wiped his brow. His shirt was spotted with dark blood.  Tom thought he smelled piss.

The soldier motioned the next man forward,then his head exploded. Tom heard the shot but couldn’t tell where it came from. The men in the ATV took cover with their backs to the vehicle. There was another shot and one of the soldiers shook from the impact. He clutched his throat. Blood pooled between his fingers in rivets. The remaining soldiers retreated towards the bar but not before a second man was hit twice in the leg and chest as he ran.

The prisoner’s began to run too and Tom ran with them. Figures appeared now in the hills surrounding he camp and Tom understood who the shooters were. The gang that supplied the powder. Tom had never seen them personally. Maybe Mr. Bingham had managed to warn them about the soldiers and they had come to protect their investment.

Ahead of him the other prisoners were already climbing the sloping hills surrounding the camp. He could see them stumbling up the steep sandy hills still clutching their mutilated hands to their chests and falling on their knees. Climbing over the terrain here was hard enough even with all your fingers. There was Desert and mountain that went on for miles and all over there were chasms that opened into impossibly deep blackness.

Tom spotted a small figure kneeling in the sand in front of the hill.  It was Vincent. He was holding his bleeding hands in front of him.
“Grab my shoulders” he said, stooping so the boy could climb onto his back.
They started to climb. Below Tom could make out the gang members taking cover behind some rocks. Two jeeps approached and headed in different directions. One headed towards the camp to join the fight and the other advanced towards Tom and the escaping prisoners.

Tom climbed faster but it was difficult carrying the boy and Tom sliped and they both rolled down the sand a few feet. The soldiers opened fire. The man closest to the top let out a yell and put his hand to where the bullet hit. He fell and rolled down the hill until his body eventually came to rest and stopped moving. Bullets continued to hit the ground around Tom and Vincent and more bodies rolled down the sandy slope.
Another prisoner lay in cover a few feet from Tom. Their eyes met for a moment. Vincent was making his way up the slope again but Tom was watching the soldiers below. They were assembling some kind of mounted weapon.

There was a whirring sound and suddenly the  ground exploded around them as the mounted machine gun tore it to pieces. As the dust settled Tom could see the man opposite him was now lying face down, unmoving.  The whirring sound bean again and Tom braces himself. Any moment he might feel a bullet tear into his skull and eviscerate his brain. They whizzed past and hit the ground like soft punches.  Then there was silence. He didn’t’ move not even to check on Vincent.  He heard a faint rattle for a moment and then again a little closer.

He determines it as the sound of the soldiers climbing the hill. Soon it would all be over he thought. They will find him and shoot him in the back. The sound of sand shifting under boots was so close now that Tom wondered why the soldier hasn’t spotted him yet. Tom could bear it no longer and opened his eyes so they were just slits. A few feet away he could see the boots and ankles of a soldier stumbling over the hill, walking right past him. Were he to turn a little to his right he would spot Tom. Where was Vincent? he wondered  “Alright that’s enough,” a voice shouted from below.

The soldiers were leaving and Tom realized he had survived. He would wait now for a while until they had left. He was tempted to look over the rock he lay behind to get a look but he didn’t want to risk being spotted.

It was quiet now. He could hear the wind blowing. The sun was hot and made him want to take his shirt off but he decided not to risk too much movement just yet. Twenty minutes past or maybe it was ten. Tom didn’t know. He peeked above the rock and saw the coast was clear below. He could see the ATV in the distance back at the camp. It looked like the soldiers had won the battle.
There was still the risk of being spotted if they had decided to monitor the hills from the camp. It was still two hours before the sun would go down. Tom decided to take his chances and make it over the hill. There was no sign of Vincent.  Tom crawled on his elbows and knees, sticking to the rocks as best he could.

No jeeps followed him, no snipers tried to shoot him. He had made it over the hill alive. Ahead of him lay miles and miles of desert, deep chasms…and nothing on the horizon.