They marched us into the barracks and lined us up one by one. Each of us had to walk up to a black, grimy wall and stick our wrist into a hole in it. It felt like we'd stumbled into some horror movie where the main character dies at the end without question. I didn't want that kind of ending.
When my turn came, I hesitated. Did I really want to stick my hand into that thing, not knowing what was waiting for me? But the guard standing beside me, watching the whole process, made his point clear — he raised his baton.
I shoved my wrist into the hole and yanked it back almost instantly. A searing pain wrapped around my arm. Pulling my hand out, I looked at it and saw a steel bracelet with numbers engraved on it.
May 26, 4372
Subject 6589
My number told me everything. More than six thousand people had been or were still here. How many lives broken? How many souls buried and forgotten? How many families torn apart? So much pain in those digits. So much vengeance.
I wiped my wrist with my other hand. Blood began to seep from the edges of the bracelet — scarlet like the morning sunrise. My blood. I froze for a few seconds until someone shoved me from behind, snapping me back. They pushed me forward, and I walked. Entering the main hall of the barracks, the stench hit me immediately. Sweat, blood, waste, filth.
I grimaced. Raymond saw it. He chuckled and walked over.
"Get used to it, kid. This is your life now. Till the end," he said, slapping my shoulder. "Come on."
"We'll see about that," I smirked and followed him through the crowd of workers and prisoners.
They were all battered and filthy. Especially the workers who had just come back from the mines. But what struck me most wasn't the dirt, the scars, or the torn clothes. It was that almost all of them were missing a limb — most often an arm. Later I found out why. The mines were crawling with dangerous insects and other nasty creatures. They bit the workers, their limbs swelled up, and the only cure was amputation.
I pushed deeper into the crowd, apologizing, asking people to let me through, but I couldn't keep up with old Raymond. I started yelling at him to slow down — I'd lost sight of him. Then I saw him. He was standing by a window with a bunch of others, all of them silent. I came up behind him and tugged his sleeve.
"I lost you…" I started, but he cut me off.
"Shhh. Look," he said, nodding upward.
I stepped beside him and looked. Below us stretched a massive concrete field dotted with ships — mostly military transports bringing personnel to the planet. But that wasn't what had drawn the crowd. Their eyes were locked on something else. A ship as big as our Thunderer, maybe bigger.
It descended onto the airfield with a deafening, merciless roar. It was so huge and powerful that the ground trembled like an earthquake. The ship was long and triangular, with spikes jutting from its edges, its hull painted gray with black scorch marks. In that instant, I understood. A ship that size had no business landing on a planet unless it was…
"It's on fire!" someone by the window shouted.
"Did they shoot it down?" another voice asked. "Who?"
It really was burning. Covered in explosions and gaping holes, it barely managed to land, snapping a couple of its landing struts. Immediately, swarms of repair drones and teams of mechanics and medics rushed toward it. We could have watched it all, figured out what really happened, but our shouts and questions drew the guards' attention. They scattered us, shoving us toward our bunks.
We went where they told us. Fighter jets and drones screamed overhead, soldiers ran past, military trucks rumbled by. Soon we noticed that the perimeter fence was guarded by three times as many soldiers as before. They'd reinforced the checkpoints and added new watchtowers. They were afraid we'd try to escape during the chaos of the landing. The ship itself was visible from everywhere — even when we walked behind hills and mountains, its upper hull still caught the sun. Its presence crushed us.
Our bunks were somewhere else — underground, to be precise. Inside a mountain. They'd built a bunker there, a fortress carved into the rock. Easier to control us. Easier to store us, as sick as that sounds.
Just before we entered the mountain, I looked back. I saw almost the entire base where we were supposed to exist. I saw sad faces and pain. I saw exhausted soldiers with hollow eyes and dirty hands, their uniforms stained. I saw warehouses and vehicle depots, half of them swallowed by sand and storms, turned into piles of rusted metal. But the main thing I saw was a lie. The lie that the enemy was stronger than us.
I stood there for a few more seconds until Raymond called out to me. I snapped out of it and went to him. Stepping into the bunker, the world went dark. We stood in an empty hall with high ceilings. Doors loomed ahead, and the ones behind us began to close. The last sliver of light that had been touching the crowd vanished. Darkness. A few seconds of dead silence, broken only by the shuffle of feet. They herded us like cattle.
Then the noise started. The frustrated, broken murmurs of lost people grew into chaos, an endless roar — until suddenly, everyone fell silent. Massive floodlights flickered on, aimed at us. The light hit the center and scattered to the sides, leaving the corners in shadow. Then two enormous holograms appeared on the walls. Static crackled, voices garbled. The connection struggled under the weight of all that rock. Then it locked in, and we saw the image.
An old man. Gray hair. A dark green uniform covered in medals and orders. He stood in front of a holographic star map, officers rushing around him, jotting down notes. His face was a roadmap of wrinkles and scars. His cheeks and brows were peeling.
"I greet you," he began. "This is the former governor of the Star of David speaking."
The Star of David. That was the name of this place. This prison.
"I appreciate your visit and hope your presence here will be more than satisfactory. I also hope you have been provided with everything you need for your continued existence and that you are ready to begin work." He was mocking us.
"Old bastard," Raymond hissed.
"Each of you will be assigned to a group and divided into barracks. Each group will perform its own duties. Groups are not to interact with one another," he continued. "Any violations will be suppressed by the security forces and military personnel. Have a pleasant stay," he said finally, and smiled.
Probably a recording. That old fuck had too much dignity for this shit. How I figured that out? I'll tell you later.
Back to the story.
The holograms flickered off at the same time, and massive steel doors began to grind open in front of us. "0-2" was painted on the left side. The screech of metal on metal made me want to cover my ears. Clearly, no one had oiled these giants in years. As we got closer, I could see thick rust caked on the enormous gears that drove them. That's what made that horrible sound.
When the doors finally yawned open, the screech stopped. Then speakers in the corners barked orders for us to form lines and move into the next sector, where we would receive equipment and clothing. They also handed out rations — food and water. Something to work for.
I thought the line would move as fast as it had formed. I was wrong. I stood with Raymond for almost an hour, maybe more. My already aching, blistered legs screamed for rest, but the line didn't care. Twenty more minutes passed, and I started to feel like I couldn't stand anymore. I began to fall. Raymond saw it and grabbed my shoulders just before my knees hit the ground. I felt like shit.
"Whoa, easy, Kyle. You okay?" he asked, steadying me, helping me find my footing.
"Yeah, yeah. I just…" I started, but a guard patrolling the rows to prevent trouble cut me off.
"You got a problem?" he yelled, jerking his head toward us.
"No, sir," I answered and gave him a weak smile.
The guard spat on the floor in front of me and muttered, "Animal." He wanted to humiliate me, to make my already miserable situation worse. Lucky for me, I didn't give a damn. Not really.
All this time, Raymond — or Ray, as he told me to call him — kept me steady, helped me walk. Even with his help, my legs still hummed like rails under a speeding train, always worried about its cargo, desperate to deliver it fast. Eventually, our line made it into the next sector.
Rows of tables waited for us, piled with electric drills, pickaxes, bags, and rations. We had to walk past each table in turn and take what was ours. That's what we did. Ray stood behind me. When my turn came, he had to let go so I could pick up my gear. The drill was impossibly heavy. The soldier handing them out noticed and smirked.
"You'll get used to it, scum," he said, then barked for the next person.
I dragged the drill to the second table — the one with the bags of clothes. Grabbing a bag and my ration, I stepped aside and waited for Ray so we could go do whatever they wanted us to do.
Hours passed before we reached the quarry. Other workers were waiting there, ready for us to take their places so they could finally rest and gather strength for the next day. That was the real killer — not the exhaustion or the pain, but the routine. The endless, grinding repetition that ate them from the inside. They all knew they were helpless. That was what destroyed them. We could fall into the same trap.
When we got closer, I looked at them. Even now, I remember almost every face. Their clothes, their scars, the blood dripping from their hands, the tremor in their bodies, the fear in their eyes. I remember the feeling — like I could see right through them, because I was looking at myself. I knew I would become one of them. But I also knew that if I stayed here too long, if I let myself get trapped, I might never get back. And I had to get back.
I had to escape. Get revenge. Carry out my final orders. Avenge Maron. Avenge all of us. Avenge the Legion.
With that in my head, I decided to act. Not yet. First, I needed to learn the prison. Figure out how things worked. What came and went, and when. How many guards were armed, how many weren't. Where I could survive and where I couldn't.
I would get all that information the hard way — through brutal, endless work. I had to blend in. Be indistinguishable from all the others. Just like they taught us in the Legion.
So I worked. Day after day. We were replaced by other workers — men just like us, just as poor. Things stayed stable for a few days, nothing major. The guards sometimes beat the ones who didn't meet their quotas. Four people died from their injuries. Another twenty or so from disease.
But then one day, everything changed. The people started to riot.
I was in the mine with Ray when it happened. We'd worked our asses off to meet our quota early so we could go rest. We were waiting for the next shift to relieve us. They never came. We got nervous. Two guys from our group went to the guard post to find out what was going on. When they came back, they told us…
"He's gone," one of them said.
"What do you mean, 'he's gone'?" Ray asked, his voice tense.
"Empty. Just a radio in the booth. No sign anyone was ever there," the second one answered with a heavy accent.
"What the hell is going on?" Ray yelled and headed toward the checkpoint. I followed.
We scrambled over rocks and slid through mud, falling and climbing, ripping our hands open on the stone — the same stone we'd been pounding for hours, digging for ore.
The booth was empty. No sign of the guard. We didn't stick around. We pushed on toward the exit. As we climbed, we heard shouts, gunfire, even explosions. The first blast shook the ceiling over our heads, raining down dust and gravel. We dropped to the ground and looked around.
"Well, shit," Ray spat. I'd learn over the next few days that he had a way with words.
We crouched and ran to the door. Only one of our twelve knew anything about locks. He darted to the control panel, punched something in, and the door slid open. Big mistake.
Bullets and shrapnel tore through the opening. One of our guys took a round to the neck. He fell, writhing in the mud. I remember it. Him squirming, clutching his throat as blood sprayed onto the dirt, turning it not brown or black but burgundy — the color of the emeralds we'd been mining. Maybe that kid was just as precious as those stones. Maybe.
We all hit the ground, afraid to lift our heads. But Ray thought different. He didn't know the kid was already dead. And he got this stupid, suicidal idea — to go save him. He raised his head a little, spotted the shooter, and crawled toward the body. I saw it too late.
"Raymond! Stop!" I shouted, grabbing for his leg, but he was already gone.
Bullets and rocks flew around us like birds in an open sky, riding a cold wind.
"Damn it," I spat into the already wet mud.
I crawled after him.
Luckily, the kid wasn't far. I got to Ray fast. I pulled up beside him and saw him holding the kid's head in one hand, the other pressed over his eyes.
"Come on! He's gone! You can't help him!" I shouted over the gunfire.
"But… he…" Ray stammered.
"Move," I said.
He snapped out of it and started crawling back.
I was about to follow, but something made me stop for a second and look at the kid. He couldn't have been older than eighteen. Brown eyes. Brown hair.
I heard a sound behind me. I turned. A soldier stood over me in blood-soaked armor, rifle aimed at my face. I didn't even have time to flinch before the stock of his weapon slammed into my head.
Everything went dark. The only thing I remember from that moment was the ringing in my ears.
Darkness swallowed me again. I'd been in its grip so many times. I hope this one isn't the last.