The Street Survivors (The Guild Wars Book 12) by Ian Malone (great books of all time TXT) 📕

prison yard with the others. After they’d been assembled, the group was herded to the terminus platform, where another train car, piloted by a Caroon, waited to take them away.

The ride through the tunnel back up to the mine didn’t take long, roughly five minutes. Once there, Taylor was herded off the train car and escorted with six other aliens toward the crane he’d spotted before his meeting with Akoya. As before, the area around the tall, skeletal machine was bustling with activity. There were Duplato working the draglines, elSha running supplies, and Altar working maintenance. Taylor also spotted a series of conveyors near the mouth of the pit, which led to a loading dock area lined with trucks about 20 yards to Taylor’s right. Riding on their belts were the crates he’d seen in the other trucks before. At roughly five feet wide and deep by four feet tall, the bins were built mostly of steel with large metal hinges and horizontal vents along the lids.

What are you carrying?

A loud crash came from behind, sending a chorus of panicked screams swelling through the cave.

“Back it down, now!” someone yelled.

Taylor whirled on his heels as multiple aliens fled the crane site, while a trio of Duplato fought frantically to corral whatever payload was secured to the other end of the draglines.

“Back it down, or you’ll blow out the power system!” the alien screamed.

The Duplato manning the crane’s controls worked furiously at his console as grinding metal gears and hissing hydraulics shrieked in distress over the sudden torque on the cables.

A horde of KzSha swarmed into view as, little by little, the frantic operator got control over the situation. Shortly thereafter, silence filled the chamber, followed by a collective sigh of relief.

“Exciting times, ain’t it?” a familiar voice quipped.

Taylor turned to find Paul Torrio staring at him, hands on his hips and sporting a fresh bandage on his forehead.

“Definitely not my usual mornin’ routine, that’s for sure,” Taylor said. “You look surprised to see me.”

“Yes and no,” Torrio said. “The others and I took bets after we got back to our cage on whether you were dead or alive. Most of my guys took the former, obviously.”

“’But not you,” Taylor surmised.

“Nope.” Torrio pocketed his hands in his frayed trousers. “It don’t take a rocket scientist to see our fat bastard slave master back in the director’s shack has a special breed of hate in his heart for you. Why that is, nobody knows. What I do know is, whatever his plans for you are, I’d wager credits to cupcakes it’s gonna take a while.”

Taylor cocked his head. “You sound pretty happy about that.”

The colonel’s grimy expression flattened. “Let’s be clear on something, Van Zant. You and me got our issues. That’s a fact. Even still, I wouldn’t wish this existence on anybody, even you. I may be a dick, but I ain’t a fargin monster.”

Taylor shrugged. “Fair enough.”

A pair of KzSha guards marched toward the men with stinger tails up. “You two. Back to work. Now!”

Torrio heaved a sigh. “Thanks for comin’ to the show, folks. Right this way.”

Taylor trailed the River Hawks’ CO through a crowed of elSha, then across the main yard to a cluster of small buildings on the far side wall. They looked like little huts the size of walk-in closets. Beyond that, though, Taylor couldn’t tell much else about them. “So what’s our job here? Security of some kind?”

“Ha!” Torrio guffawed. “You wish we were that lucky.”

Taylor followed the other human to the backside of one of the huts. There, Torrio knelt down and pulled a pair of release handles on each side of a rectangular hatch just above the ground. An audible clack ensued as the latches released and a stream of valve air preceded the ejection of a tub into the open.

“Holy—” Taylor lunged aside, bile in his throat, as the vile odor of methane, putrescine, and gods only knew what else saturated his nostrils.

“Congratulations, my friend.” Torrio grinned. “You’ve officially gone from the penthouse to the outhouse. Welcome to the sanitation crew.”

Taylor glared past his arm into the tub as a small, slender log floated topside in the raunchiest caldron of foulness even his darkest nightmares couldn’t have conjured.

“Let’s get to it,” Torrio said.

The two went about their business, ejecting the waste tub from each bathroom hut and evacuating its contents into a mobile incinerator before moving on to the next one. After about an hour, Taylor rose to his feet, needing a break as another truck convoy departed the loading zone, bound for the surface.

“Have you seen Frank and the others?” Taylor asked, stretching his back.

“The bird is fine,” Torrio said. “He and the rest of your team were brought back to my confinement area when we were separated after the meeting with Akoya. They’re all fine, save for maybe Bowyer.”

Taylor lowered his head. “How bad is it?”

“Bad,” Torrio said. “Real bad. In all the time I served in Jack’s unit, I’ve never seen him like this. The old fart won’t speak. He won’t face anyone. He won’t eat. He just sits there, hunkered down in the corner of the cage, glaring at everybody who dares come near him.” The colonel paused to grab a towel from the incinerator cart and wipe his hands. “Hell, Van Zant, I can’t say as I blame him. Our issues with each other notwithstanding, I respected those guys, ya know? I mean, let’s face it. Blackjack Bowyer and Mississippi Stan? Their partnership is practically a fargin legend in our business. I can’t fathom what it’d be like to fight next to somebody that long, only to see it end the way it did back at Akoya’s office.” He winced and shook his head. “Bad things, man. Bad things.”

A colossal boom rocked the cave as