Life there quickly settled into a routine of utter boredom, as they were left alone for what seemed like days. The room had no natural light and the artificial light was maintained at the same intensity all the time. Feeding times became the only interruption to the day, and the only way to structure them.
The only major interruption was when privates Peterson and Xi conspired to destroy one of the cameras dotted around the cell. Xi climbing on Petersons shoulders, grabbing hold of the mount and swinging on it until it came off the wall. Before the pieces had even hit the ground, a large group of wardens burst into the cell. Pushing their way through any prisoners in their way, by use of batons and rifle butts they quickly isolated the two men, dragged them to the centre of the room and ordered the rest to watch while they beat the pair of them to within an inch of their lives.
Unlike when they were captured there was no medical attention provided to the two and they were dragged, whimpering, to a pair of racks and strapped in. Permission was given to feed, water and clean the two men, but it was emphasised, very forcibly, that anyone who released them, splinted their broken bones, or eased their pain in any way would suffer at least as badly.
To emphasise this Colonel Quansah was ordered to pick one of the female prisoners, selecting Mihaela Gheata, who then suffered the same fate as Peterson and Xi. Although she was allowed to be medically treated by her fellow humans before being locked in a set of stocks. She was only in there for a few hours, however, before a group of elves came in and took her away.
As is the way with humans a power struggle began to determine who was going to be in charge. Colonel Quansah argued that as prisoners of war he should be in charge, Governor Micklewhite was of the opinion that the military served the civilian government, and as head of the government he was in charge. The rest tended to side with one or the other.
To Zahra neither party was really a great solution: Quansah had allowed the fort to be practically undefended during the raid, but Micklewhite was a friend of her father. As such she concentrated on her platoon and finding ways to keep them in good physical shape.
Working on the theory that there was three meals a day then they had been there eight days when this initial calm gave way to the storm of their ongoing lives. Firstly private Gheata was returned to them totally healed, while Peterson and Xi were released from the stocks. Unlike Gheata they were in a terrible state suffering from multiple broken bones each. With no medical treatment during that period their bones had started to set in whatever random configuration they were left in. There was also no way for the human medics to fix this for them, as they lacked even basic medical equipment let alone the advanced tools required to re-break and reset them correctly.
Along with these positive events came the negative, the reason they had been taken in the first place.
The cell door opened and a large group of elves came in firing stun rifles into the crowd, causing panic amongst the humans and forcing them to the far corner of the room. With the humans corralled away from their stunned compatriots another group of gaolers came in and removed ten of the stunned prisoners. Once the ten were removed one of the guards addressed the rest of them.
"Every day we will come and collect ten of you. You will either have them ready for us, or we will take them like this. When we are done with them we will return them."
Pointing to the remainder of the stunned prisoners laying on the floor, he continued.
"They will recover, but will feel like shit for the next few days. The same will apply to any others we have to stun to get our due."
Pointing to Colonel Quansah, he continued.
"You are the senior military beast, you are in charge of this herd and you will designate the ten each day. Any day you fail to do that, you will be one of the ten we select."
With that the elves withdrew and left the humans to wonder what had happened to the others.
Quansah was quick to take charge. With a look of victory towards their former governor he ordered the soldiers to fall in by platoon. Once they were lined up he used the surviving battalion command, company command (except the commanders themselves), dignitaries, and their aides to balance out the gaps for the troops that were left on the planet and designating new commanders for the two platoons had lost theirs. Though he didn't assign the governor to fill a gap. This effectively left the humans in twenty groups each of about twenty two.
"There are twenty platoons here, in two companies. On alternate days each company will be responsible for providing the requested volunteers. Each time it is a company's turn each platoon will designate one person for the role. If a platoon doesn't pick a volunteer then the company commander will select the person for them, or go in their place
"Platoon commanders make note of your replacements. Replacements: Make note of what platoon you are in.
"QUIET!" He yelled to quell the muttering and shouts from the troops.
"We should resist."
"We don't sell out our own."
"We won't do it!"
"SILENCE!" he reiterated.
"We don't have a choice. Until we work put an escape plan we have go along. They have all the cards here.
"The senior command will concentrate on working out the escape plan. As it stands resisting will only cause more casualties." Colonel Quansah countered, pointing to the still suffering men who had been stunned earlier.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
The muttering slowly subsided, petering out after ten minutes or so, as the men ran out of arguments while Quansah stood there, silently, facing them, refusing to even acknowledge the complaints.
Fifteen minutes after silence was restored Quansah decided the situation was deescalated enough, for his safety, and stood his people down.
During this time Zahra had kept quiet, though the looks she gave her commander was neither friendly nor respectful.
Afterwards she welcomed her new 'recruits' and did her best to calm her people down, though with limited success, as she had no promises to make. Except that she would be the first of their platoon to go.
"Ma'am." Sergeant Mantle addressed her.
"You can't nominate yourself to go through whatever that is." He added pointing to the exit that today's victims had been dragged through. "You need to stay with the platoon, and lead them. "
"I can, and I must, Sergeant. " She replied, in little more than a whisper. "These are my people and I cannot ask them to do something I'm not prepared to do myself.
"Also it gives each of you two more days before your turn. And while there is very little I can do for you in here, I can at least do that.
"Plus they don't need me while they have you. Even I know you're the real backbone of the platoon." She added with a smile.
"If this is some sort of penance to make up for what your father did, you don't need to. We know you're not him, and we know that most of the casualties those bastards suffered are because you made us go on parade armed. If the other platoon commanders had the same forethought we might actually have won."
"It wouldn't have been much of a victory, even of we did win. The casualty rates would have been catastrophic." She countered.
"A sole survivor, walking free on New Geneva, with over a hundred dead Blood Elves amongst the wreckage would have been a victory, Ma'am.
"Certainly compared to this. " He added. "Where none of us will see home again."
"Don't give up just yet, Sergeant. There's no fat ladies warming up their vocal chords just yet.
"Look after them, while I'm gone."
The next day. Well three meals later, which probably constituted a day. The door opened and the bloodied bodies of nine of the ten prisoners shuffled their way back into the room.
Zahra was embarrassed to realise she had no idea who the missing person was. The ten had just been a blur during the chaos of the assault. All she knew was that none of her platoon had been taken so the missing man or woman, wasn't one of hers.
"D Company. Seeing as you have Colonel Wellson's offspring in your midst, you can provide the first batch of volunteers. F Company the next day.
"Men and women who are chosen, show these monsters the type of courage, gallantry and honour that the people of Cestus possess, and that they can only aspire to."
Zahra was not sure if that was intended as a morale boost for his people, or an attempt to embarrass the elves. Either way she doubted that it had much effect, if any.
As eight of the other nine platoon commanders nominated their victims, either voluntary, coerced or forced, Zahra made her way to the front, where she stood next to the impassive rock that was Lieutenant Joe Andrews.
Seeing that there were two officers amongst them the other eight victims seemed to gain a bit of inner strength Five of those eight, Zahra noted, had only been added to their respective platoons the day before, three of them being civilians.
The ten of them were escorted out of the room. Just before turning left outside the door, Zahra looked to the right and saw the corridor ended in a dead end with obvious gun ports in it. Opposite their door was a similar one that she surmised led to a room much like theirs.
The corridor they were led down was like a flattened cylinder, perfectly straight and about three metres wide and two tall.. Breaking out of their cell would lead the prisoners to have to run a gauntlet of murderous fire from behind, with absolutely no cover to protect them. It was also better lit than their prison, no doubt for better target acquisition.
After walking beyond the end of their cage the passageway narrowed to just one metre before opening out into another large room, three times the height of theirs, with what looked like a pill box in the middle. Any mass escape would be funnelled through the choke point of the narrowing corridor into any guns in that guard post.
Along the outside of this room, over three levels were various cells, with clear sliding doors that allowed the guards to watch the prisoners all the time. Behind these doors were representatives of all the races humanity had encountered as well as a number Zahra was sure they had yet to meet. She could see Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Centaurs and, oddly enough, elves along with insectoids, other humanoids amongst others. Even some that looked like trees. Most of them looked like they were wearing a very bulky full face crash helmet with a solid visor, attached to the ceiling by cables. And all were stark naked and had their hands tied above their heads.
There were three other corridors off this room, equally spaced, all perfectly straight and looking like they also widened from one to three metres as they went. Probably leading to yet more cells. And all sealed of by a clear grid that looked like it was there to delay any attempted escapees, while allowing the guards to shoot through them. Any escape attempt would likely be easily contained.
The other thing Zahra noted was that it was totally, eerily quiet. Apart from the noise made by their party this room was totally silent. A silence that added to their sense of trepidation.
As the last of their party entered the main room a clear portcullis slid down from the ceiling to block off the corridor they had come down. The spaces in the structure, coupled with having absolutely no cover on the other side would mean that anyone attempting to break through it would be slaughtered by the guards in the central pill box.
Lance Corporal Mueller started to say something to one of the guards, only to be quieted by a jab to the ribs with one of the prods carried by the elves. Mueller instantly collapsed unconscious.
Zahra was led to one of the empty cells and pushed inside. The cell seemed to be cubic with each dimension being about three metres. The floor sloped down to a drain in the middle of the floor. Apart from two cables hanging down from the centre of the ceiling, over the drain, there was a number of lockers against the far wall, and a small shelf.
"Strip." She was commanded.
Hoping there was a good reason for this she complied, folding her clothes up and putting them on the shelf. The elf that escorted her stood her over the drain in the centre of the room, then opened one of the lockers and selected a helmet, which he placed over her head, inserting a soft gum shield in her mouth before chaining her hands up to one of the cables hanging from the ceiling.
Connecting the helmet to the other cable. "Sweet dreams." He sneered. Adding "If you need anything just scream." With a snicker at his own joke he closed the visor, locking it in place and reducing her world to a totally silent, pitch black nothingness.