"Total Escape" - Part 11
Night falls over the camp.
S'Ondra sits in the corner of the room, legs pulled up to her chest and arms wrapped around them. The Princess's expression is stony, her eyes hard as she glares at H'Ro.
For his part, the young Venusian male is watching his new companion with a confused expression.
"How can I kill your parents?" he asks, for what is obviously not the first time. "I never meet them."
"It wasn't you 'you'. It was your family 'you'. You were probably only a few years old, then. If there was a you at all, back -" S'Ondra breaks off as H'Ro's expression merely becomes more confused, "Look, I already said it was complicated, and I don't want to talk about it anymore."
H'Ro considers this,
"No more talk and no more strangling?"
Despite herself, S'Ondra laughs.
"No more strangling." She agrees.
"Good." H'Ro rises up on his haunches, and peers out of the window, "Dark now. Time get food with no bad stuff. Not get body sick."
The Princess nods her agreement and gestures for him to lead on. H'Ro quickly boosts himself out of the window, then drops down into the shadows outside. S'Ondra follows, the camera lingering on her shapely legs as she swings them over the window sill.
H'Ro leads the way to the rear of the prisoners' barracks, where a few rather miserable-looking tufts of purple foliage can be seen. He digs in the dirt for a few seconds before retrieving what looks suspiciously like a beetroot with red splotches painted on it.
"Gunga fruit." He passes the object to S'Ondra, then digs up a second of his own before kicked dirt back into the hole, "Not look like much going on up top but plenty under the surface."
"A bit like Fury." S'Ondra muses, "The first half, anyway."
"Fury?"
"A friend. The one they caught."
H'Ro nods,
"Do you have many friends? Strong ones?"
"You'll be surprised that my friends can do." S'Ondra assures him, without actually answering his question.
"If they like you, I am sure they strong."
"Thank you." S'Ondra smiles, genuinely pleased with what is obviously a sincere comment. She clasps H'Ro's shoulder, "And you as well."
Her touch turns H'Ro slightly toward her, and the Princess is suddenly aware of how close the two of them are sitting, and how honest H'Ro's eyes are and how kissable his lips would be, and --
"Am I interrupting something, Princess?"
S'Ondra squawks and tries to pull away from H'Ro, but loses her balance and ends up sprawling inelegantly in the dirt.
"Archie!" she hisses, fixing the builder-bot's body with a glare as it emerges from under the barracks. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"
"Sorry, Princess." The robot cheerfully lies, "I didn't realise I was. I'm not using to being small and quiet."
"None of us are." The Princess assures him with obvious sincerity, "The sooner you're back to your old self, the better."
"I have located Captain Fury." Archie continues, apropos of nothing.
"Is he okay?" S'Ondra frets, then immediately plays it cool. "Because, we're going to need him to pilot the ship at some point."
"He appears well." Archie is oblivious. "Nonetheless, we should free him and the Doctor. We need to come up with a plan to rescue these people."
"Yes, you're right. I'll come with you." The Princess turns to H'Ro, "Wait here. We go to free friends, be more powerful."
The Venusian nods silently, and S'Ondra and Archie slip quietly across the camp toward the guard building.
As they scuttle from shadow to shadow, the robot whirrs thoughtfully,
"Who is that young man?"
"H'Ro?" S'Ondra nearly stumbles, "Oh … just another prisoner. No-one important."
On those words, we cut to Gustav, as he languishes in his cage. Suddenly, a shadow falls over him. He looks up to see H'Ro. The Venusian looms close to the bars, a heavy, jagged rock clutched in one hand.
"Are you the one they call the Doctor?" he hisses.