Empress Fallen (Through Darkness Book I)

Chapter One: Wrath and Tears: Part 2

ii. Advena

Aliya shifted restlessly, the song of the dying imprisoning her mind. She was starting to shiver. Two men limped past her, hauling another younger man between them. They laid him gently across two canisters as they tried unsuccessfully to revive him. The suffering was everywhere.

And there was no sign of Sitara or Malik.

She shrugged the heavy jacket off her shoulders. All slaves wore the same. The heavy, high-necked jackets had a folded overlap that fastened at the right shoulder, made of an itchy, coarse material. Up on the surface, they made the heat almost unbearable as the merciless sun watched their labour, the great silver drills roaring with a sadistic mockery. Beneath the jackets were grey, long-sleeved vests that laced up to the neck with black cords, equally uncomfortable and difficult to keep clean as they were only supplied with two or three a month. And the black boots had thick soles for the harsh rock, leading to permanent blisters, cloying sweat, and hardened skin.

Aliya hugged her knees weakly, eyes flicking round the vast room. Emergency lights pulsed along the perimeter, transforming each gaunt figure into a ghostly apparition. There must have been four hundred slaves packed into the area, most, the inhabitants of level Sigma:2. Most, wounded badly. The hostile stench of blood was everywhere, crouching in the sweaty air like a pride of Ignian Leech Jackals, reeking of death.

Lost. Perhaps that was the feeling? It was one she had been exposed to all her life. She had not been born on Ignis. That much she knew. And that set her apart, the cold fact that had always isolated her. They were subtle differences, yes. But this subtlety did not escape her notice. Her skin was lighter. She was taller. Her hair was paler. Her eyes were not brown, but a frosty grey. And she had never quite adopted the jagged, Ignian accent. She had been abandoned, that much she knew ... Yes. An orphan. All she had were the objects safely hidden in the bag under her cell bed, and the shuddering memories that so eluded her.

Frightened. Another feeling. Up until that very morning she had never witnessed a revolt. Nineteen years enslaved on the irate, searing world, and she had never seen such united fury claim the minds of the people. There was always unrest around the quarterly ritual of the sacrifice to the Blood Lake, when one slave was selected supposedly at random, and executed on the surface altar beneath the full moons. But this was something entirely different. A revolution. Surely that was what it had been?

There were forgotten legends of a resistance from the days when Ignis was first colonised almost two millennia ago. The human race was new to the system, following the thousand year odyssey across the galaxy. The odyssey. It was a thing she had only heard about in stories, in forbidden rumours.

The stories of that forgotten home ... Earth.

It had been an escape, a desperate flight in the face of extinction. The Civil War between the Western Empire and the Eastern Alliance had raged for centuries. But it all suddenly ended with the induction of the supernova that consumed Earth, the blue and green planet where humanity had been born.

The discovery of antimatter. The most dangerous and fateful in human history. It had secured their destiny. But it had not been the Empire's discovery. No, it had been that of the Eastern Alliance, and it annihilated them. The several million left alive endured the odyssey under the Empire's oppression, and when they finally reached their new home, it seemed they were to be left alone, struggling for survival on the three smallest planets. And they prevailed.

But it would not last. The pretence of freedom had shattered. A mere one and a half centuries later, the invaders came. They came in search of the Empire's Arcanum ore with huge drilling machines and great weapons. Thousands were murdered as the Validian Army created the Enforcer factions from their Imperial Cohorts, enslaving the countless millions into a regime of hatred and corruption.