The Slave Warrior Read online

  “Ouch!” he yelled. “Stupid bitch. Why don’t you be more careful?”

  “I am so sorry, Your Excellency. Let me get a fresh bandage. But before I put on the bandage, let me add some of the surgical glue the auto-doc prescribed to encourage healing.”

  What the emperor did not know was Esther had exchanged the surgical glue for a common household glue, un-sanitized. She hoped it would seal the bacteria from his hands into the wound, causing it to grow faster.

  Three days later, the emperor began running a slight fever, but she did not tell anyone. If she could let it go for a few more days, pretending ignorance, maybe it would be too late to save him. By the fifth day after the surgery, the fever spiked to over 104 degrees and he began to hallucinate.

  Feigning hysterics, Ester called the major.

  “Major, you have to do something. The emperor has a high fever and I don’t know what to do. He refuses to let me call anyone. Now he is starting to hallucinate. The auto-doc thinks he has an infection. You know how dirty the emperor’s hands are. He must have touched the surgery site at some point. What do I do?”

  “I’ll call you back, Esther. Just stay put for now.”

  But Esther was pretty sure the emperor was dying, so she told the cyborg she had to go find some help for the emperor. She left the bunker, rushed to her apartment and replaced her T-chip with a forged set for a false identity and escaped Boston. She knew if the emperor died, she could be blamed for his death. Before she left, she sent a coded message to General Veracruz, telling him what was happening.

  In the meantime, the major called General Hawthorne and explained the situation. As they were talking on the vid-phone, they were interrupted with a message from the cyborg.

  “Emperor Priest is unresponsive. My circuits are breaking....” And the transmission ended.

  “Damn it!” the general said, “That means the emperor is dead. The cyborg’s circuits are tied directly to the emperor. If he dies, so does the cyborg. What do we do now? That place is like a fortress. We can’t get in to verify anything.”

  “Calm down, Jamil. Now is not the time to panic. Think about it. If the cyborg is no longer functioning, the only ones standing in our way to take over the empire are the two marines standing guard at the door. They probably do not have a clue what is going on. And Esther will be easy to dispose of. We could take over and claim the emperor died from complications from the surgery; which is the case. We could forge some papers saying he turned the leadership over to us before he had the surgery. What do you say, Jamil? Want to become co-emperors?”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Escape

  Brogan had been in the slave camp for ten years, just waiting for her chance to escape. All the women in the camp with her learned how to read and write and were now trained in basic defense and offensive strategies. They were physically a bit stronger but still emaciated.

  Sherriff Boldegard and his guards had become complacent. No one had tried to escape for years. What they failed to realize was the shackles around the women’s ankles and wrists were starting to rust from the high humidity of the bayou.

  Brogan noticed one day, when she was harvesting sweet potatoes, the pinion on the left wrist was loose. She waited until she returned to her hut and their work was done to examine it more closely. She smiled as she realized what she found.

  During the evening’s reading lesson, she casually asked the other women to carefully look at the pinions on their wrist and ankle manacles. Puzzled as to why she would ask them to do such a curious thing, one woman after the other began to shake their chains and twist the pinions.

  In some cases, as the women began to twist t pinions, they fell out of the shackles. The women looked up at Brogan in shock. She smiled.

  “I discovered this morning my shackles were rusting. I just wanted to see if mine were the only ones, and I was right; they are not.”

  The women began to excitedly murmur with each other. A quick shush from Mother Clea brought immediate quiet to the group. They could not afford to be overheard by the guards.

  “What do you have in mind, Slave Warrior?” she asked Brogan.

  “I’m thinking we need to carefully examine every person’s shackles to see how rusted they are and what it would take to break free. Secondly, we each must be very careful not to let any of the guards know how badly rusted the shackles are. So, do everything you can, ladies, to keep the shackles together. Use twigs if you must between the pin and the shackle to hold it in place. Once we know the conditions of everyone’s shackles, we can then figure out our next steps. Is that okay with everyone?”

  There were vigorous nods around the circle of women, their eyes bright with hope for the first time since their captures.

  Over the next several days, Brogan and Mother Clea examined each woman’s wrist and ankle manacles to determine how rusted they were. They carefully examined the chains fastened to the manacles. At the end of a week, the two met and compared their findings.

  “I think every single woman I examined has a chain on each wrist and ankle weak enough to break,” Mother Clea told Brogan. “While I was at it, I also did a physical exam of each woman since I have a pretty good idea of what your next step is: escape. Am I right, Slave Warrior?”

  “Can’t fool you, can I?” Brogan said with a grin. “I found the same thing.”

  “What’s your timetable?”

  “We have to think very carefully about how best to do this,” Brogan replied. “Although I’ve trained the women in defensive tactics, I’m hoping we can avoid getting into a fight when we try to escape.

  “I’m guessing you know the bayou better than just about anyone in the camp, Mother Clea. Is it possible to safely lead the women through the bayou in such a way as to prevent the guards from following us?”

  “No problem,” Mother Clea replied with a sly smile. “In fact, I can make sure if anyone tries to follow they will fall into one of several traps. I don’t think any of the guards know the bayou like I do.”

  About a week later, the rainy season hit: the perfect opportunity for their escape. It was too wet to harvest crops, so the women were confined to their huts. The guards hated the incessant rain and rarely poked their heads out of their shacks.

  At the beginning of what was supposed to be their usual reading lesson, Brogan told the women it was time for the escape. She found an old metal stake which she used to help the women break the chains on their manacles. Their numbers had dwindled to forty because of some recent deaths.

  “None of us has anything of value to take with us, so we will depend on Mother Clea to guide us through the bayou. Follow her directions exactly. Hold hands as we go. Do not stray from the path she sets, or you could end up in quicksand or worse. Don’t talk. I will be at the back of the line. If the guards find us, I will tell you if you need to fight. Okay? Any questions?”

  There were no questions. The women seemed to be in shock. They could not at first grasp the reality of their leaving. Many had been in the camp most of their lives, since being captured as young teenagers. But, thanks to the encouragement and self-sufficiency they learned during their reading lessons they were ready for the next chapter in their lives.

  Finally, one of the women spoke quietly. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I would rather die in the bayou than spend one more day as a slave. I’m ready to go.”

  There were murmurs of agreement. They all stood and held hands. Brogan couldn’t help but feel a bit teary-eyed at the strength of these incredible women. They endured so much. They had no idea what the next few hours, days or months would hold for them, but they were ready to face the unknown future.

  She took a shaky breath and nodded at Mother Clea, who stuck her head out of the hut. She looked around in the pitch-black night. The rain was pouring down in a solid sheet. She beckoned the women forward into the darkness. Holding hands, one-by-one, the women left the hut, with Brogan the last one out of the decrepit and nightmarish slave c
amp. She was determined to be a Slave Warrior no more. The women disappeared into the black bayou.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Marilyn L. Donnellan defines the modern Renaissance woman. An artist, writer, wife and mother, she also has a successful career as a nonprofit Chief Executive Officer, consultant, motivational speaker and trainer. She is the author of the science fiction series: The Book Liberators, and more than 60 books, guides, webinars and training modules on nonprofit management. Her fiction murder mystery, Give ‘til it Hurts, is based on her first-hand knowledge of domestic violence. Two Faces of Me is the story of her odyssey with Sophie Longhoofer, a character she often personifies in her motivational speaking. Donnellan has a BA degree in Human Resources Management and an MS degree in Administration.

  Connect with Marilyn Donnellan

  mldonnellanauthor@gmail. com

  www. mldonnellan.com

  www.amazon.com/author/mldonnellan

  http://facebook. com/mldonnellan

  Other Books by Donnellan

  Available at: www.amazon.com/author/mldonnellan

  Give ‘til it Hurts, ©2016, a murder mystery

  Nonprofit Management Simplified series, ©2017, CharityChannel Press

  Two Faces of Me, Halo Publishing International, ©2015, an auto-biography

  The Complete Guide to Church Management, © 2011, Xulon Publishing,

  Nonprofit Toolkit series, © 2018