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Post by Lady Ruliya on Aug 9, 2013 13:33:03 GMT
I figured I'd move one of my stories over to here, so it's easier for people to read on here xD Not that many people read it all on the 'Topia, but meh ;P I'm currently on like the 4th re-write of this (this being the first) so, a lot of stuff has changed I think it's okay to post it. As always, any feed back would be appreciated ^^ and I hope you enjoy it : )
Chapter One
Sophie stood and stared at the strange and faded poster again, this must have been about the thousandth time by now. It was mostly worn away, but she could still see patches of green at the bottom, and the lower body of what looked like –when she scrunched her eyes tight - a woman holding the hands of a child, only the child’s face could be seen, and it was smiling. Smiling at what? She always wondered, as she looked around she saw the same small fires that littered the street, the wandering people from over a dozen different races and the smog. Always there was smog on the ground, it covered everything, some days you could barely see, the black was so thick, but today was an okay day and the smog wasn’t too thick. She didn’t even need her breathing filter mask.
She carried a small lightweight pack with her, inside it were some small pieces of food, all that she could scrounge, and she had even gone late at night to beat the usual day time madness. Even without the smog cluttering up her vision she could barely see her way. If it wasn’t for the numerous lights shining down in every direction it would be as dark as the night itself.
She was surrounded on all sides by gigantic buildings of metal, but she never looked up, no one at the bottom ever did. She made her way through clustered and dirty streets to a rundown doorway at the side of a small open space. It was never wise to go into the larger open spaces between the more massive buildings, who knew what could fall on you out there. She pushed the door open and was hit with a cacophony of sounds: laughter, shouting, glasses smashing, knives being pulled, not even a single blaster shot and a dying scream made the place fall silent. It was all par for the course in The Broken Bottle, it was a medium sized bar, but had rooms to rent on the upper floors.
She had rented a small room at the back of the fourth floor, nothing much, a small bed, a single table with a lamp on it, a broken chair, and one small window looking out into the bleakness. But then she hadn’t expected much when she rented it. The owner hadn’t asked about how someone as scrawny as her had managed to find two-hundred credits, and she never said. It was a simple arrangement, credits up front for a week’s board in a room on the fourth floor, where all the rooms were small and shoddy.
She had made her way through the crowded bar area and down a small corridor leading to the lifts to the rooms. She calmly waited for the lift to arrive, and then entered it, exiting when it reached her floor. She walked down the full length of the corridor to a grey metal door with a card scanner on the wall next to it. She scanned the card the owner had given her, a light rang green above the door and the door whooshed open. As she entered she saw her little sister Susan asleep on the bed, she slept a lot these days, and when she wasn’t sleeping she was crying, sometimes out of grief over their parent’s murder and sometimes out of agony from the disease that ravaged her young body. Sophie had been looking after her little sister for four years now, ever since a group of thugs calling themselves a gang jumped their parents, while they were walking back to their modest little home. They had demanded protection money, but then again, what gang in the slums didn’t demand money off of everyone they saw? Sophie was twelve then, and was clutching Susan when she dove behind a dumpster as the lead member had kicked her father to the ground.
Sophie’s life had been shattered that night, everything she had known and loved had been taken from her, all except Susan, poor little Susan, she had always been frail, even from birth. The Smog Sickness affected most children born down in the slums, Sophie had been one of the lucky few who had been born completely unaffected. The sickness itself was unknown, and there was no cure, even in the Sun Walkers domain, but of course that was because no one up there was even affected by the smog, they were probably too self obsessed to even care that it existed at all.
Sophie placed the pack quietly on the table, taking out a small stack of credits. They didn’t have much left, so Sophie used them sparingly. She looked upon her little sister, walking slowly towards the bed which bore her sleeping little angel. She pulled the blanket back fully over her and kissed her on the forehead before quietly leaving the room and heading back down into the bar.
In the bar Sophie could get much more than a bit of meagre food and drink, she could get something very profitable indeed: information. The usual clientele were thugs, gang members or general drunkards, but they all talked. And sometimes what they talked about was worth something to someone. It wasn’t always safe but it was a good source of money for the pair. And if she was lucky there would be credits just lying around, or in badly concealed bags which could be liberated with the right amount of skill.
As she re-entered the bar she was hit once again with a hundred different voices in at least ten different languages. She’d managed to pick up a few basic languages from her time diving through different bars over the four years she’d been on the streets. She calmly walked up to the crowded bar and squeezed her way to the front.
After a few minutes of jostling from other people at the bar Sophie got served, she ordered a small cold drink, which she clutched with both hands as she made her way back into the less crowded table area. She eyed a pair of Orcs sat at a table near the far wall. Orcs weren’t particularly smart, but were pretty strong in a fight, you wouldn’t want to be facing off against a pair of them, especially this pair, they both had scars across their arms and torsos, they’d clearly been in plenty of fights down here, and they both worth black bands around their biceps. That marked them as members of the Blood Angels gang. She smoothly made her way through the groups of people over to the two Orcs, as she neared she noticed a large Garok standing with a large drink talking to some others of his race not too far from where the Orcs where sitting.
While it wasn’t odd to see many different types of beings on Nelbia, it was odd to Sophie that three Garok would be down in the surface sect, after all the Garok had an empire to rival the Felician Matriarchy, but then mercenaries, pirates, thugs and general scum did come from all types of backgrounds and worlds. If they were down here then it probably meant they were working on some job. It was also a well known fact that the Orcs hated the Garok, and from everything she’d heard the feeling was mutual.
Her plan to rob the Orcs hadn’t changed, but her methods suddenly had, she’d found an opportunity to make a killing and she knew exactly how to do it. Swiftly, but casually she wandered past the Garok party, as she did so she tripped over a table and barrelled into the lead Garok, which in turn led him to fall onto the Orcs table. As she landed, she rolled off of the Garok who was just now getting to his feet. It had happened so fast he wasn’t sure who had hit him and he angrily looked about the room. As his two companions helped him up the two Orcs started shouting at them and in turn they shouted back at the Orcs, soon weapons were raised and the conflict was beginning to draw in customers from other tables.
Sophie who was on the floor had hidden behind the fallen table, the lead Garok’s credit pouch nestled in her arms, and as she had surmised the Orcs had kept their credit chips openly on the table, for who would dare attempt to steal from two burly Orcs, especially two burly Orcs from the Blood Angels gang? Surely no one would have a death wish like that? She scooped up their scattered chips and placed them in her newly secured pouch. Then she rolled under and through a neighbouring table, its occupants already up and embroiled in the scuffle.
Bar fights were regular occurrences in any gang bar and the Broken Bottle just happened to be one of the busiest, probably due to its central position to many of the smaller and some of the larger gang hideouts. Despite most thugs carrying blasters of some kind, these types of bar fights usually ended up being a mass brawl of fists and knives and other melee weapons, and as such usually meant there was plenty of blood and appendages about afterwards. Something the Owner hated, but with which he had come to live with.
As shouts and insults were thrown back and forth Sophie made her way back to the bar, doing her best to avoid hurled chairs or weapons. As she made her way back through the throng at the bar she heard multiple blaster shots ring out, the bouncers had made their way inside to quell the bloodshed. Sophie secretly wondered if all of the Orcs and Garok had lived, or if some of them had been killed.
The owner eyed her suspiciously with all of his four eyes noting from which direction she had crawled her way from. She ordered the same again and once more clutched the drink tightly as she made her way back into the open areas of the bar. This time she took a big gulp of the black liquid inside the glass. It was a strong beverage, especially for one who didn’t drink too much. She spluttered a bit as it burnt its way down her oesophagus.
She walked the in the opposite direction to the other end of the bar, she wandered through wafts of smoke and found a small secluded table out of the way that was empty. She sat down and opened her ears. Many conversations were going on all around her, some in the galactic basic language, a language that had originated in The Great Empire. She had only heard wild stories of this Empire. They had come over two hundred years ago with vast armadas, so the legends had said, and they had proceeded to conquer all the civilisations in this side of the galaxy. The dark side of the galaxy however, far beyond the reaches of even the Garok Empire or the Felician Matriarchy dwelled dark demons, races so foul no living being would want to meet them, even in their most darkest of nightmares or so the legends had said, and that even this vast Empire from galaxies far beyond would not dare to go. Over the two hundred years it had become common for many of the species to speak this new galactic basic, even though The Great Empire had left control of each region to its conquered dominions. But everyone knew The Great Empire still controlled everything, from afar, its vast armadas were said to be out there conquering civilisations across the universe, even now.
It was to these conversations Sophie listened to the most, and one conversation in particular had caught her interest, it was being conversed by two native Nelbians and a Draven man, all humans like her. She struggled at first to listen to what they were saying over the louder more brusque languages spoken by some of the other races, but she did manage to overhear mention of The Great Empire, and snippets about science or a scientist specifically and something about disease? As she slowly drank her drink and listened very carefully she eventually gleaned the meaning of the conversation. They were discussing a possible cure that had been found for the Smog Sickness on Kaa’Rinn. Kaa’Rinn was a system deep in the Felician Matriarchies space, an Empirean scientist had been working on various diseases across the galaxy, and had apparently, so the rumour had it, found a cure for the one that had a stranglehold on her little sister Susan.
She desperately wanted to go over to the table and ask more questions about it, but she knew she couldn’t, they’d probably just tell her to go away and mind her own business, she couldn’t risk telling them about Susan, or who knew how they would react? Anyone found having the sickness was cast out, and outcast among the outcasts at the bottom. Some were even killed outright, to ‘put them out of their misery’. Some people thought they were doing the infected a kindness, saving them from a brutal end.
Instead she had calmly finished her drink and returned back up into her room, her mind awash with ideas, dangerous ideas. How could she get to this cure? How could she ascend to the starport high above the grand city? She needed answers, she needed options, but alas she had none and she knew it.
She wandered over to window and looked out, the smoke had gotten thicker since her trip out, looking down on the street she saw several people just going about their business, just like her she knew they were destined to live out pitiful lives here at the bottom of the pile, the wasted and forgotten.
A tear sprang from her eye and wound its way down her cheek, her head bowed and her body heaved as she started to cry openly, she turned around facing the room and dropped to the floor, wrapping herself up in her legs, her arms crossed tightly around them and she wept into her knees. She wept loudly at first but began to get quieter and quieter until at last she cried herself to sleep.
**
When Sophie awoke it was to a loud noise, a scream, someone was crying out in pain, it took a few moments for her sleep deprived brain to figure out where the noise was coming from, it was Susan, she was having another fit. Without thinking Sophie launched herself up from where she had sat and ran towards the bed, jumping on it and wrapping her arms around her sister.
Susan’s body convulsed as she kept screaming in pain, Sophie rolled with her sister and hushed her as best she could, and using soothing noises she also kept telling her that everything was going to be all right, it was going to be fine.
It broke Sophie’s heart every time her sister had an attack, and tears came back to her eyes. The pair lay together for five minutes before Susan stopped screaming, and her body began to loosen up. They didn’t get long to rest though, as mere moments later a loud banging was heard at the door, and she heard the owner’s voice bellowing through telling her to open the damn door.
Sophie stroked her sister’s hair as she got up off the bed, and pulled the blanket back over her before she went and opened the door. There stood in the doorway was the Owner a big overweight Mekordan his four eyes stared angrily down at her, his lower arms were crossed tightly across his belly and his upper arms were raised, almost as if he was going to crush her.
“What on the Rings of Sarnoth is going on in here?!” He demanded, his rough, brown, leathery face wobbled about as he yelled, and spittle flew from his mouth.
Sophie’s heart stopped for a moment before beginning to beat a thousand times a second, she backed off, fear fresh in her still slightly teary eyes, “No...Nothing sir, my s...sister just had a nightmare that’s all.”
His head looked up and over to the now soundless girl lying under the covers, “Just a nightmare huh? It sounded like she was being hacked to pieces! Her screams travelled all the way down the corridor.”
She looked quickly at the bed and then back to him, “But there’s no blood, you can see that, it was nothing sir, I swear!”
He grunted looking down at her, “Is that so? Well I’ve had plenty enough complaints about you girl!” His face scowled and his eyes bore deep into her, “And don’t think I didn’t see that mess you created downstairs!”
He took a step closer to her, his arms still looking menacing, she backed off a little again, “I’m sorry sir, I slipped, and I didn’t mean to fall into...”
She was cut off as he barged further into the room, something had taken his notice. Sophie could feel her heart pounding in her throat, what had he seen? What had caused him to now stare back at the bed towards...Sophie swung her head around, Susan had awoken to the noise and was looking bewilderedly towards them.
Sophie didn’t see the fist, but she felt it, the bones of his knuckles crushed hard into her cheek with such force she hit the floor and banged her head equally as hard against the ground, creating a gash across her temple.
“How dare you bring that infected brat into my premises!” he shouted, though through her daze she couldn’t understand his words, she looked up blood now pouring down the side of her face.
“No, please sir,” she begged him, her hands in the air trying to grab at his shirt, “we’re paid up for another two days, please...we’ll be gone after. We...We...just need...”
His hand came down again, this time grabbing her around her ragged jumper lifting her into the air, “I don’t care for your excuses, I want you out now!”
She could barely breathe with his big hands crushing against her, “Please, I beg you sir,” tears streamed down her face again, mixing with the warm blood, her eyes were tight and she could barely see his angry face, “Please.” She pleaded one last time.
He threw her back to the floor a disgusted look on his face, “Pack your bags and get that thing out of here! You got five minutes, and I’ll be back.”
Slowly getting to her feet she tried to wipe the tears from her eyes so she could see better, she wobbled over to her pack, still on the table and took out a small towel putting it to her head, trying to stem the blood.
Susan had stumbled out of the bed and walked over to Sophie and hugged her. Sophie’s heart tore again, poor Susan probably had no idea what had just gone on. Due to her illness Susan was always very quiet, she barely spoke to anyone who wasn't her sister, and she would often hide behind Sophie if anyone talked to her directly, or make herself hidden if there was confrontation like just then.
A small smile crept onto Sophie’s face, as he looked at Susan. She took out a small, barely working dermal regenerator she had found in a trash heap a few weeks ago, the find of the century. With the blood coagulated to a point Sophie turned on the device and waved it over the scar, not healing it fully but scabbing it over to stop the blood. Placing the towel and the regenerator back into her pack she placed her arms through the straps and but it on, she then bent down on one knee taking Susan up into her arms and holding her tightly.
Still a little woozy she walked, her head held high, over to the door and opened it. The owner stood there a mean look on his face, Sophie handed him the card to the door and began to walk down the corridor. The owner followed them all the way down to the bar. Walking through the bar they received many looks and jeers. Many insults and the odd glass were thrown at them though Sophie deftly managed to dodge all that came her way.
At the door Sophie kept walking and the owner shouted for them to never come back. A fresh tear fell from her face, she looked at Susan, a complete look of innocence on her young face. This caused another tear to fall and Sophie quickly ran down a small, quiet alleyway and collapsed to the ground crying again, hugging and holding Susan as tightly as she could, holding her head down to her chest to try and keep the smog away from her.
Sophie then did something she had never done before, something she had never seen anyone else do before either. Sophie, with tears in her eyes, woe in her heart, did the one thing no one ever did.
She looked up.
***
Sophie woke up dreary eyed and drowsy, sleeping out in the smog was never a good idea, but sadly last night she had no choice. That ignorant Fuck, how dare he? Just throw a small child onto the streets? As she woke up more fully she realised something was wrong, something was very wrong.
No, no, no, no, no, Susan was gone; she was no longer in her arms! Sophie dove up as fast as she could, “Susan!” she shouted out, “Suuusaaan!” She frantically looked about the alleyway, and couldn’t see her, her heart racing a fresh fear creeping up that she had lost her. She ran to the entrance and looked left, oh no, she wasn’t there, she looked right and...
She stumbled, using an arm to lean against the alleyway wall, and gently placing her other hand on her chest, breathing out a massive sigh of relief. Looking up down the street towards her sister, she noticed that Susan was just stood in the middle of a small square staring intently at the ground.
Slowly she walked over to him, her head tilted and her eyes searching the ground that her sister was looking down at, it just seemed like a normal spot, dirty ground with no vegetation like the entire surface inside the grand city.
“Susan,” she said softly leaning down and putting her arms around her, “don’t scare me like that.” She kissed her on the top of her head and then turned Susan around looking inquisitively into her little sister’s eyes, “what are you looking at?”
Looking down with Susan, Sophie noticed something stuck in the ground. It was made of a shiny metal, but she didn’t know what it was. She placed her hands tightly on it and pulled it up of out the ground. To her astonishment the object was rather large. She turned the cylindrical item about in her hands, she wasn’t sure what it was, or where it had come from. Confused as to its purpose she took off her pack and placed the object inside it, it was large and only just fit inside. She also picked out two pieces of food before placing the pack back on her back.
She took Susan’s hand and placed a one of the two chunks of bread into her hands. It was pretty stale but still edible enough, or so Sophie had hoped. Susan took it with a smile on her face and chomped on it happily enough. But when Sophie took a bite of hers and found it rather rough and tasteless. Looking at the hard brown lump of bread in her hand she sighed but knew she hadn’t had anything for a few days and needed to eat something, especially with her head still pounding from last night’s beating.
The dermal regenerator had helped heal the gash on her head, but she could feel a big nasty bruise forming on her right cheek. But she needed a bigger meal to help her heal better.
After Susan had happily munched all of her bread she took hold of Sophie’s hand and dragged her forwards. Sophie, having not eaten all of her bread, felt her stomach churn at the thought of finishing it and threw it away.
Sophie smiled though, anytime Susan was happy she was. She thought back to the poster she always stared at, that child had smiled too, though that poster was centuries old, back when Nelbia City was just a small colony. She could guess as to why he had been happy, but she really wondered why Susan was suddenly so happy. After everything that had transpired the night before, it boggled her mind. But as Susan broke free and ran in circles around her Sophie just burst out laughing.
She couldn’t believe she was laughing, but it somehow felt good. There was something whimsical in Susan’s running and laughing, and before she knew it Sophie found herself laughing loudly and running around after Susan.
But then it happened. As it inevitably would have done, the thing that always reminded Sophie why she hated this dredge of a world.
She realised that in their merriment they had been approached by three large, ugly looking thugs. They wore thick leather armour sets and all sported blasters, the apparent lead thug had a long sword hanging by his side. Frantically she grabbed Susan and held her tightly.
“Well, well, well boys, what do we have here?” the lead thug, a Travaellian laughed, his voice was thick and low, “a couple of scrags.”
The one on the left, a meaty, but not very bright Orc laughed, pointing his blaster directly at Susan, “This one looks mighty scared!”
“Yea, really scared,” the lead thug repeated, a huge grin on his face, as he moved towards them.
Sophie didn’t know what to do; she was shocked, her mind flashed back to the night of her parents death. That night her father had tried to stop them, and for that he got a boot to his face and a blaster bolt to his chest. She was suddenly overwhelmed by the memory of her mother’s screams, and her begging. They had done terrible things to her before they killed her; they had beaten her and raped her many times. She hadn’t seen it, but she had heard it, heard it all.
Suddenly a fury rose in her and she screamed at them, “Just leave us alone!”
The Travaellian laughed and shoved his face down near hers, “Bit of a mouth on her this one,” then he back handed her knocking her to the ground, “Already got a few scars scrag? Want some more do ya?”
Before he could kick her, a blaster shot rang out and the second Orc, who had up until then had been watching quietly, with some weird childish glee, suddenly collapsed to the ground, a smoking hold in his back.
The two remaining thugs swung round and fired their blasters wildly in the direction they thought the shot had come from, “come out you coward!” raged the lead thug, “you think you’re tough do ya? Huh? Come out and show yourself then!”
Sophie had frozen in her place, wrapping herself tightly around Susan as soon as the blaster shot rang out. Seeing that the thugs were now preoccupied she looked up and around, she caught the Travaellians face, the blood seemed to be draining from it. She followed his sight to what he was looking at. When her eyes fixed upon the new person, her mouth dropping as she sharply inhaled a large breath of air.
There stood with a large blaster rifle in his hands was a Garok, who had sleek black fur, large black horns protruding from the sides of his head. He wore an armless vest with a bandolier wrapped around his chest diagonally, and tight trousers down to his hooves. His face was full of anger, clearly the thugs had annoyed him, and greatly. He snorted and bellowed with a deep, gruff voice that scared Sophie down to her core. He said only one word ‘Leave’ and the remaining thugs ran away as fast as they could, leaving their fallen comrade behind.
Tentatively looking up she said in a quiet voice, “P...please sir,” she gulped, “I don’t know who you are but thank you.”
He looked down at her, and his face softened, but only slightly. He lowered his gun as she heard another voice. It was a silky female voice that seemed to entrance Sophie, “You shouldn’t be out here by yourselves.” Sophie couldn’t see who had spoken, for she remained in the shadows of a street off the square.
“Come Kad,” the silky voice said and the tall Garok turned around and disappeared into the shadows and then both of them were gone.
She was perplexed by that Garok. His fur was sleek and shiny, and his clothing looked new, wasn't ragged or dirty, none of was. Where had he come from? he certainly wasn't from the slums that was for sure, and that rifle he had it looked expensive, very expensive, something he might have gotten up with the Sun Walkers, but not from down here. That meant he was most likely from Off-World, and if he was an off worlder then why was he down in the dregs of Nelbia? Some kind of job maybe? But then, if it was a job, would he not of sent some lowly member of his crew to do the dirty work? Nothing about him seemed quite right to Sophie and it irked her.
But if some off worlders would come down to the slums, it meant that there could be a possibility for those of the slums to maybe, just maybe, work their way up to the starport at the top of the grand city, and that thought made her smile. It wasn’t until she felt Susan tugging on her jumper that she snapped back to the present. She was looking scared and was making almost a whimpering noise.
She knelt down and hugged her, “It’s okay Susie,” she comforted her, “just gimme a sec.” She jogged to the corpse of the Orc who had taken a rifle shot to the back. She checked him over and found a large amount of credits in a bag tied to his side. Also in the bag was some fresh food, smiling she untied to the bag and tied it to her own waist.
Standing up she turned and took a few steps forwards before she looked back and paused hesitantly before leaning down and picking up the fallen Orcs weapon. She turned the pistol over in her hands a few times, gauging it’s weight. She then gripped it tightly with both hands and then held it up and away, as if she was going to fire it. She closed one eye, and looked down the barrel with her other.
She took a deep breath and pressed down the trigger, a loud shout rang through the square and the recoil forced her to drop the blaster. She winced in the sudden pain in her wrist. But picked it back up again determined to get used to it, but now was not the time; she clipped it to her waist behind her new bag. If she was going to find a way to get off the planet she was going to need some form of defence, and now she had it. She could finally protect Susan like she always wanted to. She held her hands out and Susan smiled and ran to her, Sophie leaned down and picked her up. A look of resolve on her face she walked down the street her mysterious saviours had walked down.
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Post by Lady Ruliya on Aug 9, 2013 13:33:36 GMT
Chapter Two
It had taken Sophie and Susan four days to travel across half of the central city structures, crossing eight sectors. She had originally tried to follow the black Garok, but their track had gone cold pretty fast. It was then that she had decided to head to Tycho Sector. There it was rumoured to have a turbolift structure that went as far up as the Lower Worlds. The journey had been relatively easy, the smog levels had stayed low for their entire trip and when they needed to camp the areas she had found were pretty empty, and they stayed safe.
She had checked her money pouch for the first time since the excitement, when they had made it to Tycho Sector. She was pleasantly surprised that she had made just under seven-thousand credits. She couldn’t believe her luck of late. It was almost as if that single night had launched her into a good place. She had been smiling a lot more, and Susan also seemed happier too, and she hadn’t had a single attack since.
She had led Susan to a small rundown apartment block and found an empty one-roomed flat on the second floor. She passed several beings, none of which seemed to care that she was going to be a new neighbour, in fact most of them didn’t even look at her, which didn’t bother her. Being invisible was best in any case. The less attention she drew to herself and her sister the better.
The room was larger than the one she had rented at the Broken Bottle but only by half a room. There was a larger bed, one that would fit them both thankfully. There were also two tables and three chairs, none of which were broken. It was dirty and smelled something awful, but as abandoned places went, it was better than outside in the smog.
Night had fallen and Susan was asleep under the covers which turned out to not be that dirty, and they hadn’t smelled too bad. Not that she could have done anything about it had it been really terrible. Sophie sat at the larger of the two tables on a grey chair. She had the contents of her pack laid out on the table.
She had the money pouch, which for the first time in a long while was heaving. A small loaf of bread that wasn’t too stale, some hard biscuits, and two supplement packs which contained enough vitamins and minerals to keep up their health for one week. The dermal regenerator was all but used up now, if only she could get hold of a new power pack for it, her cheek still hurt but it had cleared up most of the bruising and her gash had healed nicely. There were the two breathing masks she had scrounged up in case the smog got too bad. She also had odd little bits and bats she had found and thought might come in handy, so far none of them had.
And then there was the long silver cylindrical object Susan had been staring at just before she had been attacked and saved by complete strangers. It was about forty centimetres in length, but no distinguishing marks. It looked just like a pipe, but it felt heavy, it wasn’t hollow either, and no matter what way she looked at it, there was nothing. However, it seemed to emanate...something, energy of some kind Sophie thought, though she had no way to check, and so far it had no adverse affect on either her or Susan.
Sighing she placed the object back onto the table and turned to look at her sister. She stared at her noting how she peacefully slept without a care in the world. What dreams floated about in her head? What bright things had she come up with? A smile crept on her face and she got up and tucked her in tighter.
She turned back to the table, looked at the pack and all the items and walked over and packed them all away. She put the pack back on and left the room. It took her a few minutes of tinkering to lock the door. Confident she would be able to re-open the door when she came back she exited the building.
As she walked the streets she could feel the smog descending quickly, and quickly rummaged through her pack taking out her breathing mask, affixing it to her face. She saw many different beings on her travel around the sector, but none of them barely looked at her, but just in case she kept a hand loosely on the handle of her blaster.
She searched the sector for almost two hours before she found the building she was after. It was one of the biggest bases to a structure she had ever seen. And there on the north facing wall were a pair of massive seppisteel doors. Above it were two large red lights and small turrets facing the area just in front of the doors. This was clearly the turbolift to the higher sectors. But there was no way that she could see that she would be able to bypass the security systems to access it.
She frowned and stood staring at the structure for a time, unaware that there was someone approaching her from behind. As so she was startled and swung around when she heard a voice.
“High aspirations for a scrag, don’t you think?” a slender Human woman dressed in tight black jeans and a black tank-top, walked around Sophie in a semi-circle, looking her up and down, “I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” she snapped at Sophie as she went for her blaster.
Sophie looked apprehensive, her eyes darting about to see if anyone else was about. The area was void of other beings, it seemed eerie. Even more so, after Sophie realised she hadn’t seen anyone else for about half an hour now.
“What do you want?” Sophie asked her, her lips quivering. She hadn’t failed to notice the armband denoting her allegiance to the Blood Angels. She gulped hard, maybe this was payback, maybe they’d know she had started that fight a few days back. Maybe both the Orcs had died. Without wanting to, she blinked, and in that split second the woman had seemingly flown from where she had stood to being right there in front of her face.
Sophie stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, and the woman just laughed at her. The woman moved towards her and Sophie winced, and it was a few moments before she realised the woman was holding out her hand, tentatively she reached her own hand out and clasped it with the strangers. With stunning ease the woman had lifted Sophie back to her feet.
“What I want,” she said, “Is for you to come with me.”
“Why?” she asked, feeling fear for the first time in a few days, a feeling she was really beginning to hate recently. She wasn’t sure if her heart could take anymore, “What do you want with me?”
“My name is Velonia,” the woman offered, trying to put her at ease, “I need you to come with me, you’re in grave danger.”
She was surprised, but found a little bit of courage, “Of course I’m in trouble... I’m always in trouble down here.”
Velonia smiled, “Well, it’s good you’ve figured that out, but unfortunately I haven’t time right now to explain things to you, so if you please.” She motioned for Sophie to follow her.
Sophie didn’t move, “I...I have to get my sister first,”
“We don’t have time for that,” Velonia said cruelly, “She’s got the sickness hasn’t she? She wouldn’t last long anyway.”
Sophie still didn’t move, “I’m not going anywhere without her.” She could see a look of frustration come over Velonia’s face.
Velonia growled and turned to face Sophie, but she saw a determination in her face, and knew she wouldn’t win this fight, “Fine!” she snapped, “Where is she? We really don’t have much time.”
***
A few hours later Sophie found herself in another small room, it was dark and had only a table and three chairs. Sophie sat on one, on the far side of the table, the other two chairs sat opposite her on the other side. Her face contorted with worry. The woman called Velonia had reluctantly taken Susan with her, but when they arrived at a hidden Blood Angels base they had split the two of them up. Velonia had promised that Susan wouldn’t be harmed, but someone needed to talk to her. She didn’t say who, or why it was so important.
In front of her was a glass of water, which she hadn’t touched and Sophie sat staring at the door. It was grey and she shuddered seeing scratch marks on it. She had nearly thrown up when she saw the blood stains at the back of the room. She was scared, and she knew that they knew she was. She knew they were keeping her waiting too, they had to be, so what did they want her for exactly, it couldn’t have been as important as Velonia had said. Otherwise she’d already be engaged in conversation by now. But if that was the case, and it wasn’t urgent then why did they want her?
Before she could ponder that question Velonia came in through the grey door, hopefully with answers. She was followed by a male Ultican, wearing blood red leather armour, with black spikes on the left shoulder pad. He was a large, menacing looking guy, but his face was actually one of concern. The pair sat down at the table on the two chairs facing Sophie.
The Ultican spoke first, “Well, I don’t think we actually caught your name,” he was smiling, which she guessed was supposed to out her at ease, but he still looked menacing to Sophie. When Sophie remained quiet he ventured his own name, “Well kid, my name is Sarnok. I’m going to have to ask you a few questions.”
The thing that really worried Sophie was that she had heard of gang ‘questionings’ especially those done by the Blood Angels. The large blood stains behind her and the damage to the door attested to that, so why by the Rings of Sarnoth were they being so...so nice to her?
When Sophie stayed quiet again he glanced at Velonia, it was clear to them that Sophie didn’t trust them, and wasn’t likely going to without some pushing.
“Look, I think it’s only fair to tell you that your sister had an attack a little while ago,” Velonia spoke apologetically and held her hands up when Sophie began to ask what happened, “We gave her some pain medication and sedated her, she’s fine.”
As Sophie began to look relieved Sarnok turned to her, “She has the sickness, it’s pretty bad. She’s not going to last very much longer, it would be better for you if you let us—“
“No!” Sophie shouted at them, “She’s my sister! She’s all I have left, you can’t, you just can’t.”
Sarnok was taken aback, “Your loyalty is commendable kid. But it’d be a kindness to ease her passing.”
“Sophie,” she said and when he looked quizzically at her, “That’s my name, its Sophie, and my sister is called Susan. Please sir,” she looked at the table, a tear welling in her eye, “After my parents were killed she is all I have left. I can’t leave her. I just can’t. I need her just as much as she needs me, so please, don’t tell me she would be better off dead, because I know she wouldn’t and I know I wouldn’t be either.”
Sarnok sighed and shook his head, “Okay Sophie, I think it’s time I told you why you’re here, in the headquarters of one of the most notorious gangs down here in the slums.”
Sophie nodded her head, “That’s good, because I’m hoping the fact you’re talking to me means you don’t want to kill me,” she gulped hard.
“No, no,” Velonia said with a little chuckle, “Quite the contrary, we actually have you here to try and save you.”
“Indeed, that’s why we need to know something,” Sarnok said, “The Garok and Elf who saved you from three petty thugs, what did they look like?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen an Elf before, she was hidden in the darkness of the side streets, but her voice was heavenly and magical,” Sophie said her eyes wide as she remembered the sound of her voice.
“And the Garok, did he have black fur?” Velonia asked.
“Yes,” she nodded, “Yes he did, and he was massive, the largest Garok I’ve ever seen. His fur was shiny, well kept and he had an expensive rifle, something that no one down here could ever afford. Maybe he got it up with the Sun Walkers?”
“Most likely off-world,” Sarnok told her.
“Kad,” Sophie said as if only half remembering the scene, “The woman’s voice, it, it called her Kad.”
“That’s him,” Velonia said shocked, “Could it be Sarnok? Could it of actually been them?”
He looked at her sternly, “It certainly sounds like it. It’s almost too much to hope for at this point. But you know what this means?” Velonia nodded back at him.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Sophie said sheepishly, pulling herself away from the table, “What’s does that mean for me?”
“Kad is the first mate to an Elf known as the Bloody Rose,” Sarnok began to explain, “They’re the galaxies most notorious pirates who have been operating, or so the legends of them say, for over eighty years in sectors across known space, from the darkest regions of the Garok’s Empire to the very edge of safe space. Some even believe they have ventured into the dark side of the galaxy, and returned to tell the tale of the dreaded Draconis.”
“I’ve heard of this Bloody Rose,” Sophie said, her face darkening, “Some terrible, terrible stories.”
“Well, let me tell you what others say about the Bloody Rose,” Sarnok said settling back in his chair. Readying himself he inhaled a deep breath, “An Elf from the homeworld of Brey’Vhala, they say she killed the entire Elfish Royal Family single handed, and stole a warship to escape, killing thousands of Elfish troops in doing so. Some tales tell of her defeating the entire fourth armada, but such are the exaggerations of a great legend.
“Now I don’t know about the entire royal family, but according to warrants that came out from the Elfish borders back when she did it eighty years ago, she was wanted for assassinating the King, a warrant that as far as anyone knows is still on the table. Apparently there’s no statute of limitations on assassinating a member of the elfish royal family. The thing is she used to be a royal guard back then too, which is what made it easy for her to strike in the king’s time of weakness. As the legends say, he was slain in his own bed, the poor bastard, and no one knows where the Queen was at the time. Not that it was ever much of a matter for debate, as she was never suspected to be a part of the assassination.
“No one knows what type of ship she stole to escape the homeworld however and no Elfish ship has ever been found outside elfish borders, be it just wreckage or a derelict hull. But a warship sounds like a stretch to most people, no matter how brilliant a warrior the Bloody Rose is. Although as a royal guard she would have had clearance to reach the royal shipyards, and from there she could have stolen a scout ship, a gunship or maybe even a corvette. No one knows how long it took for her to escape the Elfish armadas and make it out of Elfish space. But once she had made it clear of the border she made her way across Felician Matriarchy space and eventually making it into the Garok Empire. Here she landed on Vao Gai and met Kad. He became the first member of her pirate crew.
“And thus started a very long and infamous career stealing, killing and pillaging across Felician space. The Felician Matriarchy as you know is very large with many races within its boundaries, which makes perfect grounds for her to ply her trade, as it were. Eighty years may seem like a fair amount of time to me and you, but for an Elf? It’s nothing; I’ve heard tell they can live up to a thousand years, if not longer.”
Sophie had up until then just stared at him, not knowing what to say. This woman seemed to live up to her name. But if she was this evil murdering pirate, then why had she saved her? But then she realised it was actually the Garok who had fired the weapon, maybe she hadn’t intended for him to kill that Orc, she wanted to know more about this Garok, Kad, who had saved her.
“What about this Kad?” she asked hoping it wouldn’t be as bad, “what is he like?”
“Kad?” Sarnok leant forward placing his arms on the table, “Well, he’s been with the Bloody Rose for as long as she’s been the Bloody Rose. Some say he’s in exile from Vao Gai and the whole Garok Empire, though nobody knows why. He doesn’t do anything without the Bloody Rose’s express permission, or so I’ve heard. He’s fiercely loyal and very powerful, one hell of a shot too, or so I’ve heard.”
“I see,” Sophie said, “But I still don’t see what this has to do with me.”
“Ah well, “Velonia spoke up, “You see the Blood Angels were formed many years ago, and though the Bloody Rose has no official affiliation with us, we do work for her, in a way,” noticing the confusion spread across her face she explained, “Well, if we know that the Bloody Rose saved you, then it stands to reason to think that the Black Kings know about it too, and that has unfortunately put you on their radar, and that’s not good. For you, or us.”
“Indeed, the Black Kings was formed by a crime lord by the name of Viktor Klaas, a Human on the run from the Great Empire. He’s a mean piece of work and has always been jealous that the legend of the Bloody Rose is still greater than the path of terror and carnage he’s eked out in the last six years or so. Like even a lifetime of his type of shit would ever put him on top in this galaxy,” Sarnok told her, his face betraying a sense of uneasiness, “Viktor may think of this as an opportunity to one up the Bloody Rose. To capture, and probable torture and then kill a pair such as yourselves that had been personally saved by Kad and herself. Well, you can see where I’m going here I hope?”
Sophie did, oh god did she, it was bleak no matter what way she looked at it. Her face had drained and she was pale, nodding very slowly.
“Not to worry however,” Velonia seemed to sound hopeful, though Sophie didn’t know if she could trust her yet.
“How can you say that?” Sophie said quietly, “How could I not be worried? You’ve just told me a very viscous crime lord wants to make an example out of me and my sister!”
“Well, if only for reputations sake,” Sarnok said, “We’re going to get you to the Lower World and out of the reach of the common thugs and berserkers who would come after you down here. However, I think I can see why the Bloody Rose saved you, you have potential.”
“And what about my sister?” Sophie pleaded, “Please tell me you’re going to help both of us get up there.”
Sarnok sighed, “She will be a target just as you are, and while I would still caution to take her with you, I can see we will not change your mind. We’ll make preparations to have your sister taken with us.
“In fact, Velonia,” Sarnok turned to face her, “Take Sophie here to the room with her sister in it,” he turned back to face Sophie, “She’s still sleeping, and I think you’re going to need some sleep too. It’s going to take a few days to set this up, but we’ll let you know when it’s time to leave.”
Sophie nodded and got up walking over to Velonia, who had also stood up. Sarnok remained seated even after the pair had walked out of the room, and down the corridors of the Blood Angels base, to the room that housed her sister.
It had been a few hours after the meeting, at least Sophie assumed it was a meeting, it didn’t seem like an interrogation. When she arrived at the room Susan had been asleep, and so far hadn’t woken. She remembered them saying that she had been sedated, and Sophie wondered how long it would be before she woke up again. She seemed so peaceful lying there, so innocent and carefree. There had been food and drink awaiting her, and she had eaten a little bit and drank a full bottle of a soft drink. She had then slept, but it hadn’t lasted long. She just couldn’t sleep, there was too much hanging over her at the moment.
She paced up and down the room a few times, before stopping and looking again at Susan, her sweet little angel. She never fully took the greater world in, remaining naive and distant in a world full of death and disease. Criminals thrived down here, gangs fought and slaughtered each other on the streets all over the slums. And now, due to some random meeting of someone she had never known, she had been dragged into this never ending dark conflict.
She walked over to the bed and knelt down looking into Susan’s sleeping face, she smiled weakly while stroking her hair, “I am so, so sorry Susan,” her voice was quiet and fragile, “I never meant for this to happen. I know surviving as we did since mom and dad died was hard,” her voice cracked and tears welled in her eyes, “You never seemed upset though did you? You probably never knew this, but you got me through so many nights, just with that sweet smile of yours,” her head fell and the tears ran down her cheeks, “That innocence... I was always hoping to keep it in you, for we’re a pair me and you. Together we can do anything, right? As long as you’re happy, I’m happy. I will never let us part, and I swear I will get us off this rock.”
She cried loudly her head leant against the side of the bed, with her hand loosely on the bed, hanging next to Susan. She suddenly noticed something scrape against her hand, and she heard a very quiet voice, “I love you sis,”
Sophie’s head darted up to see Susan’s eyes open, and felt her hand in her own. Sophie closed her hand tightly around Susan’s and hugged her, tears still streaming down her face, “Oh I love you too Susan,” she kissed her head a few times holding her close, a precious package.
“We’ll be together forever won’t we?” came Susan’s voice from under her.
“Of course we will,” Sophie’s voice broke again, “forever and ever and ever,” she pulled back and looked directly into Susan’s eyes, her own were red and blurry, “I won’t let anyone take you away from me sweetheart, I promise you.”
She hugged Susan tightly, and didn’t let her go for the rest of the night, as she fell asleep comfortable in Sophie’s arms, and it wasn’t long until Sophie fell asleep herself.
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Post by Lady Ruliya on Aug 9, 2013 13:34:05 GMT
Chapter 3
Two days had passed when Velonia called upon Sophie and she found herself once more in that small blood stained room. This time however by the time Sarnok and Velonia arrived she had drunk half of her drink. She was wearing some new clothes that had been left for her and Susan the day before. The clothes were still slightly dirty, but weren’t ripped or torn in anyway, she assumed this was to make sure she wasn’t out of place in the Lower World above her.
“We’re all set to go Sophie,” Velonia said in the doorway as she walked in, “It should be relatively simple. We’ve been in touch with our members in the Lower World sectors and they have a safe house ready from when we arrive.”
Sophie stood up, “How is Susan?”
“She’s been sedated,” Sarnok told her as all three of them exited the room, “We felt it was an easier way to transport her, but don’t worry, she’ll be carried and looked after by some of our best members.”
As they walked down the corridor she could hear screams coming from some of the other rooms, “What’s going on in there?” Sophie asked a little scared.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” the large Ultican’s voice was low, “We’re just interrogating members of the Black Kings to figure out what they know. But don’t let it concern you. If they do try something we’ll be ready for them.”
By the time they had reached the outside of the Blood Angels headquarters there was sixteen people including herself and Susan. They had about nine miles to go to reach the turbolift structure. And Sophie had been reassured several times that they had gotten all the clearance they needed. Velonia had told her not to worry so much.
Sophie walked by the vehicle they were using to transport her sleeping sister, she had placed a hand upon the pod and Velonia stayed by her side. Sarnok was at the head of the group barking orders and it wasn’t long until the group split up, most of the bodyguard members had fanned out to tackle anything that might get in there way. Leaving Sarnok, Velonia and three others who were operating the vehicle that held Susan.
It took them three hours to make it to the turbolift structure, and although Sophie had heard screams and blaster fights along the way, nothing had hit them directly. As the group approached Sarnok tapped on a bad, and Sophie saw a force field deactivate around the doors. He then walked up to the doors and tapped more codes into a terminal by the side of them.
There was a worrying few moments where no one moved while the terminal authorized the codes. Suddenly the turrets activated and aimed themselves at Sarnok, who froze. Velonia took out her blaster, and Sophie noticed the other members did too. Sophie almost instinctively fumbled about with her own blaster, which she still kept tucked under the bag wrapped around her waist.
“I thought you said those codes were good Sarnok?” Velonia shouted to him.
“They are,” He shouted back trying to be reassuring, but still not moving, not even to reach for his own blaster, “Juts give it a moment.”
Sophie spun around as she heard blaster shots and shouts coming from behind them, Velonia and one of the other guys spun around as well. The situations began to get very, very tense.
“Wait for it,” Sarnok shouted, “Come on, come o—on,” he said under his breath looking at the terminal.
Velonia turned to Sophie, a dour look on her face, “We might be going to have to fight our way back to the base,”
But before they could do anything, the turbolift doors started to make clunking sounds as the outer doors unlocked themselves and wheeled loudly open. Sarnok quickly inputted the final set of codes on an inside terminal and the main turbolift doors quickly separated diagonally and then chunked open.
“Okay everyone,” Velonia said grabbing Sophie, “inside, quickly.”
Thankfully before Sophie realised it, they were all inside and the doors and closed. Then and only then everyone seemed to exhale loudly in relief. Velonia had had bent over and started laughing, and Sophie found that she too began to laugh.
“Now we wait,” Sarnok told the group, “we’re inside the turbolift but to get up to the Lower World it will take about thirty minutes. And then we’ll be meeting Lower World members of the Blood Angels. From their headquarters we can figure out where to go from there.”
“And how to hit back at the Black Kings,” Velonia said with much anger creeping into her voice, “You heard them attacking us, which I know we all figured they would, but they got close. And I feel like beating some Black Kings heads in!”
The other members were in agreement it seemed from their reactions, “Wait till we get to the base.” Sarnok laughed, “They’ll be time for revenge when these two are safe.”
Velonia tapped on a terminal on the left wall of the lift, turning on a monitor on the terminal. A few more taps and a woman’s face appeared on the monitor, “This is Velonia, come in.”
“We receive you Velonia,” came the reply, “Julia here, we are waiting for your arrival. Everything is set up on our end, although there seems to be no Black Kings activity thus far. Something which we are finding very odd.”
“We’ve just repelled an attack on our way here,” Sarnok informed her, “So keep an eye out up there, we’ll be arriving in approximately twenty minutes.”
“Understood Sir.” The woman said and the monitor blinked off again.
For the entire trip up to the Lower world drop off point Sophie stood touching the transport vehicle holding her sister, looking through the glass at her serene sleeping form, thankful that poor Susan wouldn’t experience any of the terrible things that had so far, or could possibly happen. It wasn’t long before the turbolift halted and the doors flung open, and stood waiting for them was a troupe of twenty beings, a few humans, some Garok, a Trevaellian and members of three other races.
They all stood with blasters at the ready, and were arranged in a defensive formation. Sarnok left the lift and spoke with the leader, the woman on the screen, she had striking red hair, the same as Velonia, and now that she looked closer, she noticed they look alike, they were sisters. It was then she realised why Velonia had, when many others may not have, agreed to go back and get Susan. For she too knew the bonds of sisterhood. What it meant to be two parts of the whole. She didn’t know if Velonia and her sister had been orphaned like they had, and she wasn’t sure exactly how she’d be able to broach the subject with her. Perhaps at a later time, when they reached this safe house they had set up for Sophie and Susan.
One of the first things Sophie noticed was the air; it seemed so fresh, and light. Looking about she found that she stood on a large open platform that stretched far and wide. Large structures still launched themselves up into the stratosphere all around her, but she found she could see things. It wasn’t pitch black up here, it seemed less, closed off, she didn’t feel as trapped. There was almost no smog up here, though there were patches in the central areas of the city during the high hours of the day. Sophie was brought to the front of the group as they set out minutes later. She was surrounded by Sarnok, Velonia’s sister and several other beings. Copying the rest of the squad she pulled out her blaster, holding it shakily in both of her hands as they ran ahead.
“To maximise our chances of getting you both safely to the safe house, we’re going to be splitting you up,” Sarnok said turning to her as they made their way across the platforms.
“What?” Sophie replied stopping, but feeling a hand dragging her forwards continued with the run.
“Don’t worry sweets,” Julia reassured her, “Your sister will be safe, much safer than you. It would seem from information taken from Black Kings operatives down in the slums, you are their main target.”
“We’re hoping by splitting you up,” Sarnok said, “We’ll draw out their main forces.”
“But what if we get overwhelmed?” she said, beginning to freak out.
“We have plenty of back up shadowing us sweets,” Julia patted her on the back, “We’ll be ready for them when they attack.”
Her heart beat three times as fast as it normal did when she was on the run, her eyes watched the other group, being led by Velonia herself disappear in the opposite direction to herself and those around her. In the back of her mind she couldn’t stop worrying, this was the first time they had been apart since their parent’s death, outside of Sophie’s control. She hoped against hope that this would not be the last time she ever saw her sister. She doubted if she could continue living herself if she found out if Susan had been killed, and she would never of forgiven Velonia or Sarnok. It was a great deal of trust they were expecting from her in such a short amount of time, and she still wasn’t sure if she could trust them. But right here, right now she had very little choice in the matter.
She was still in deep thought as she heard a high pitched whizzing noise fly over her head, and she instinctively dove to the ground, as did the rest of the squad.
“Incoming,” she heard Sarnok shout over a barrage of blaster fire.
She’d dove to the ground plenty of times, while on the run for the last four years, but this time it was different. This time she felt the cold hard steel beneath her hands, it felt so much different to the muddy, dirty ground she was used diving into down in the slums. As she looked up she could see people taking up positions behind anything they could find, and firing back. She screamed as her head turned and she saw a pool of blood on the steel near her, and lying in the pool of blood was a human, his eyes wide, a last small image of fear left in his now dead eyes.
She scrambled to a crouch picking up her blaster pistol and unsteadily holding it in the direction of the incoming fire. Though try as hard as she could she was just unable to pull the trigger. Then as if sensing her difficulty Julia had found her way over to Sophie and had grabbed her under the arm pulling her towards Sarnok and a few others, who were hiding behind a large post. She fired several shots as they strafed over.
“Comms from Velonia’s group say they haven’t been attacked, and are heading down a different route to the safe house now,” Sarnok shouted to Julia through the highly charged air.
“You hear that Sophie?” Julia shouted to her, “You’re sisters just fine.”
Calming a little at the news, she finally managed to pull the trigger, sadly the shot went wildly nowhere, more into the air then across the platform. Sarnok laid down covering fire as Julia dragged Sophie across the way and further down the platform away from the fighting.
As the two of them were running Sophie heard a large high pitched noise heading there way, she briefly looked around before hearing a large explosion. It was so loud it deafened her, the impact had to have been close, as it flung Sophie and Julia into the air. Everything seemed to Sophie to be moving very, very slowly. She couldn’t hear, and her vision was all blurry, but she definitely felt her impact with the ground. She landed heavily jarring her left shoulder and her head also hit the steel.
She reeled about on the ground for a few moments before rolling onto her back. Her eyes looked upwards, she saw blurry visions of grey. She could swear she heard voices shouting her name and other things, but they sounded distant and distorted, almost as if she was under water. It wasn’t long before her vision blackened and all sound seemed to quieten. It felt to Sophie as if she was falling, and she just couldn’t stop herself, no matter how much she wanted to, she kept falling. That was the last thing she remembered of that day.
**
When she finally awoke, she had no idea how much time had passed, or where she was. But she could feel the pain, her shoulder cried out in agony and her head was still throbbing. Her eyes still seemed a little blurry too.
She tried to concentrate on her surroundings but it was dark, and the air seemed stifled. Like it hadn’t been cycled for a long time, or at all. She tried to speak but found her mouth was too dry. The one thing she could figure out was that she was in a sitting position, and her arms seemed to be bound by a rough substance, a rope of some kind. Her legs too seemed similarly bound when she tried to move them.
As she struggled against her bonds she began to panic. If she was bound then it had to have meant she had been captured by those who were after her. She closed her eyes and began to cry. She hoped against hope that her sister had at least made it through alive.
Please, please, please she pleaded to the darkness, allow Susan to have made it. Oh gods, what is going to happen to me now? She buried her head into her knees and just cried.
Eventually she heard a door open in front of her, it seemed a fair distance from her position. Light poured in from the doorway and she tried to cry out to whoever was there, but found that she still could not speak. But she did hear the sound of a person, someone large, being thrown into the room with her. They landed with a sharp thud, and she heard jeers from her guards, before they closed the door and plunged the room back into darkness.
The mass on the floor didn’t move, or make a noise and Sophie thought he was probably unconscious. But he did reek, of sweat, and something else she couldn’t place. She decided to try and get some rest, and prey that they didn’t come for her any time soon.
She woke up a little time later by the whispered sound of her name. It came from a voice she recognised, one that she had been told to trust, one that had betrayed her, that had led her into this darkened room, aching and afraid. She now didn’t trust this voice, if she ever really did to begin with.
“Sarnok,” she whispered back, “where are we?”
“A Black Kings base from the looks of it,” he whispered back, his words were unsteady and his breathing was sporadic, he had most likely been tortured.
“Is...Is anyone else alive?” she ventured, her voice going really quiet.
“I can’t say for sure” Sarnok said, “There was only me and you when I woke up two days ago.”
“Two days?” Sophie recoiled at the sentence “How long have I been out for?”
“Four days, I think” he creased his brow in thought, not that Sophie could see.
Fear gripped her, and her thoughts fell again to her sister Susan, “Oh no... Do you know if they captured the other group? Is my sister okay?”
“Easy,” he warned her, “don’t use up your strength worrying, trust me you’re going to need it for when they come for you.”
“You bastard!” she shouted at him, “You got me into this mess, you said you were going to protect me, and now they’re going to kill me.”
“They won’t kill you,” he said, and he sounded certain.
“How do you know they won’t kill me?” she said confused, “you said they wanted to make an example out of me. To show that it was a mistake for the Bloody Rose to save me, that no one she protected would be safe.”
“Well that’s partially true I’m afraid. But it’s not the whole story.”
“And just what the hell do you mean by that?”
Before he could answer her, the door was thrown open and two guards entered.
“Look at that the sleeping bitch is finally up,” one of the guards said.
“Well get her up, and let’s go.” The other one told the first.
A guard walked over to her, kicking Sarnok as he did so and picked her up throwing her over his shoulder, the only way he could carry her as she was tied. As they exited the room the bright lights forced Sophie to squint, and she couldn’t see where she was being taken.
They took her down a long corridor and entered another room. The guard carrying her slung her to the ground, onto the injured shoulder and Sophie cried out in pain. For this she received a hard kick to the jaw and hear the guard tell her to ‘shut her mouth’. While she reeled from the pain the other guard cut her bonds and placed her into a silver steel chair. He then clamped her wrists and ankles to the chair. Laughing the two guards then exited the room, leaving her still squinting in lights that were far too bright to her now sensitive eyes. The chair felt cold, very cold, and she realised she was almost naked. Looking down at herself as best she could, and judging by what she felt she was in a pair of panties and a cropped top covering only her breasts.
Through the bright lights she noticed the walls were a light brown and there was a lot of silver equipment on silver trays about the room. Attached to the bright lights affixed on a silver shaft above her seemed to be even more instruments.
Fear quickly overtaking her she tried to squirm out of the clamps, but to no avail, all she ended up doing was injuring her wrists and jarring her shoulder again. She bit her lip to stifle a shout of pain. Unable to move Sophie just sat there, on the cold steel chair waiting. Dreading what was going to happen to her, there seemed to be many sharp objects in the room, it looked barbaric and brutal, there was almost no technology in the room that Sophie could see.
Sarnok was a big Ultican, and they were strong beings. She remembered how beat up and drained he looked, and she wondered what information they had taken from him. She closed her eyes and faced her head to the ceiling.
Sophie didn’t know how long she had been in the room when a voice came over a comm. System. He spoke slowly and precisely, and is voice sounded **. She did not like his voice. “Oaky,” the voice spoke, “Let us start off with a few simple questions shall we?”
“Where am I?” Sophie demanded. In answer to her question came pain, severe pain, her body tensed uncontrollably and she thrashed about. Fortunately it lasted only a few seconds.
“Whenever you speak out of turn,” came the voice, “Or when I get an answer I do not deem correct, or is not to my liking, you shall be punished. And punished in the form of fifty-thousand volts of electricity, these will be administered in three second bursts, but I can indubitably assure you that they can remain shocking you constantly, if I wish so.”
Sophie shook her head and opened her mouth to shout something, but quickly decided she didn’t want another dose of shock therapy. Suddenly it all made sense as to why she was almost naked and the chair was solid steel. It was so electricity could flow through conduits in the floor up through the metal chair directly into her. Her heart dropped, this was going to be the worst experience of her life.
“Good, It seems you learnt faster than the Ultican,” the voice was almost laughing, “So the simple questions? I assume you are now ready to answer them?
Sophie nodded slowly and the voice continued, “Good girl. What is your name, because I do find it rather trite having to call you by gender all the time.”
“Sophie,” she said eyes squinting trying to find where the sound was coming from.
“Good,” this seemed to be his favourite word, “Now tell me Sophie, how old are you?”
“I’m sixteen sir.”
“Good, good. And were you born here on Nelbia?”
“I was.”
“And your parents? I assume they are dead?” she nodded in answer to his question, “and when did they die Sophie?”
“Around four years ago,” her voice cracked with emotion, her mind flashed back to the scene and she closed her eyes.
“Do you have any siblings Sophie?” he asked
She hesitated for a second and said, “no.” And in answer she screamed as electricity surged through her body for a second time.
“Now now Sophie,” the voice sounded condescending, “there’s no reason to lie to me, we know you have been seen with a small child. How old is she?”
Sophie hesitated again, and for her hesitation was shocked once more, through clenched teeth and blinding pain she answered, “Sh...She’s e...eight sir. Eight years old.”
“Good,” there was joy in his voice this time, “See how much better we get along when you co-operate Sophie?”
“What do you want from me?” she asked, wincing expecting pain, but none came.
“That is an excellent question Sophie,” the voice replied, “A very excellent question. That is something you have no doubt been wondering for a little while now, hmm?
“Well Sophie, I’m going to ask you some more questions now. And I am going to assume you don’t know many answers, or don’t think you do. But With each subsequent shock, I think your memory may very well be jogged. You probably know much more than you think you do. And if you do not. Well, it will be amusing to me either way.”
Sophie squirmed in her chair, she was setting now under the bright lights, and the sweat was helping conduct the electricity causing her much more pain. Her lip was bleeding badly having bitten down hard on it when she was last shocked.
“The first real question Sophie,” the voice always seemed to be calm, different emotions flickered through as he took perverse pleasure in torturing her, as he probably took pleasure in torturing Sarnok and everyone else he’d likely ever tortured, “Is about the so called ‘Bloody Rose’. What do you know of her?”
Sophie sat confused a little, “Not a lot sir. Honestly, I was only told about her the other day. She’s some sort of famous pirate.”
“Yes, Pirate. She’s also a murderer, thief, con artist, crime lord. Oh she is so many things,” whoever it was seemed to love the sound of his own voice, “If one listens to all of the legends and myths. But in actual reality she is pirate. She sits on a ship and goes around stealing and killing as if she were on a sail boat thousands of years ago.
“Tell me though Sophie, what is she like, you’ve met her haven’t you?” it sounded to Sophie more like a statement than a question.
“No,” she squirmed in the Chair, “Yes, I don’t know. All I heard was a voi—“ she was hit again with a large shock.
“How about now? Are you sure now?” “I...I didn’t see her face,” tears fell from her terror stricken face, she desperately shouted, “I...Kad. I saw Kad, I definitely saw—“ again she was hit again and she screamed in agony, as this time the pain didn’t stop after a few seconds.
“I did not ask you about Kad, I asked if you had met his captain, the Bloody Rose,” the voice sounded displeased, “Did. You. Meet. Her?”
“Yes,” she screamed, “Yes!” and then the shocking stopped. She sat reeling in pain, panting heavily trying to breathe.
“What did she tell you Sophie?” his voice was back to being calm again, “What did she say to you?”
“Nothing,” Sophie was hit again with a prolonged attack, through harsh screams and body wretches she managed, “Nothing! I swear, she didn’t say anything to me. Please stop!”
The voice seemed satisfied with the her tormented screams and stopped the electricity.
Sophie’s vision was blurry through tears and sweat, her body convulsed slightly on its own, she could barely breathe and felt like she was about to throw up. She couldn’t take anymore, and it seemed that the voice had come to the same conclusion as the door swung open and the two guards entered. They unhooked her from the chair and took her back to the room they had brought her from.
As they had done with Sarnok they threw her limp, aching body into the room. She wasn’t sure if it was from the pain, the involuntary convulsions as she was being carried back or from just being thrown into the room, but as soon as she hit the floor she vomited. Unable to move her head slumped into the yellow and white mess. She tried rolling out of it, but only managed to get the sick in her short cropped hair.
And it was there, in the pool of her own sick, dull to the outside world from the pain which still wracked her young body, she passed out.
***
Sarnok woke her up a day later, he was unbound and was slowly giving her water from a white ceramic bowl, she felt one of his large hands supporting her head. She gulped down a few mouthfuls of water before he pulled it away. It tasted to her lips like the greatest liquid she had ever tasted.
He helped her into a sitting position and rested her against the far wall. He offered her some soup from a different bowl. Using a large wooden spoon, that had been provided with the bowls he brought the soup to her mouth. She only managed one gulp of the soup before weakly pushing his hand away.
“Easy kid,” Sarnok said placing the bowl on the ground, “You’ll need your strength.”
Her eyes were still only half open and she was still in pain and could barely speak, but she tried anyway slurring half of the words, “Why are they asking about... the Bloody Rose.”
“They asked you about her too then?” his face was badly bruised, and blood had dried over his right eye.
“They asked if she had said anything to me,” Sophie said weakly, “What do they want with me?”
Sarnok pulled back, “Its complicated Sophie, they think the Bloody Rose gave you something.”
“But she didn’t,” she said thinking desperately, “She didn’t give me anything. I didn’t even see her, she was shrouded by the darkness”
“You had nothing strange on you at the time?” Sarnok asked, his good eye narrowing, “Nothing Cylindrical in shape?”
“Wait,” Sophie’s mind swirled as she realised what they were after. She gasped loudly, “But... that was nothing, Susan found it, it was buried in the floor.”
“So you have no idea what it is?”
“No. What is it?”
“It’s a container. Inside it is a single isolinear data rod.”
“What’s on the data rod?”
“We don’t know. And neither do the Black Kings. That’s most likely why we’ve been captured alive.”
“But it was in my pack!” Sophie gasped again, “That means they have it already.”
“I’m afraid they don’t” Sarnok said, his voice going low.
“What do you mean?” Sophie was still weak and tried to move, but each time she did so, pain shot through her and she howled in pain through gritted teeth.
“We found the container when we first brought you to the Blood Angels base down in the slums,” Sarnok looked her in the eyes, “The reason we brought you and your sister up here was to move the container to one of our secure bases. To then eventually get it to the top of the grand city and off world.”
Sophie felt an anger rise in her, “You used me?” she wished she had the strength to scream and shout and at least be able to hit him, “You betrayed me. They were never after me were they? It was always that container?”
“Yea,” Sarnok no longer seemed to care about hurting out feelings, “We used the transport your sister was sleeping on to sneak the real container to the safe house.”
“You bastard,” Sophie, “You used me as a decoy? And what would have happened if they hadn’t taken the bait? You bastard! Susan is just a child, an innocent. I’ve had to do things...but her?” tears welled in her eyes, “My poor sister. If she’s been hurt or...or...I’ll fucking kill you.”
Sarnok sighed, “You’re right. But let’s face facts here Sophie, this isn’t the nicest planet in the sector. We found a way to get a valuable isolinear rod off the planet, and we took it. You, me, Velonia, were all disposable.”
Sophie was ready to rage, it didn’t matter that every nerve ending in her body was still screaming after her shock torture. But she just couldn’t find any words to argue with. After all he was right, what had she been thinking? She should never have trusted him, or Velonia, or any of them. She sat in a darkened room worrying about her sister now. She shook her head and tears away. They were probably going to torture her again. And for something she knew nothing about. Her mind wandered to dark places as she envisioned her death on that cold steel chair, in that evil brown room under the bright lights, never seeing the face of her tormentor.
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Post by Lady Ruliya on Aug 9, 2013 13:34:38 GMT
Chapter Four
Velonia was still standing in awe, even though the person stood right in front of her had been with them for several hours now. She had arrived at the base without warning and with two of her trusted allies.
“Is that the container you were after Ma’am” Velonia still spoke with admiration in her voice.
“Please, just call me Rose,” the woman’s voice was elegant and enrapturing, “And don’t you worry about that container any more. It’s out of your hands now and into mine where it belongs.”
She just couldn’t believe that the legend was here in the Lower Worlds Blood Angels base. She looked upon the beautiful visage of the Bloody Rose. She stood around five foot five inches tall, with dark brown hair down to just below her shoulders. She wore a long coat down to her ankles, the colour of crimson red with golden trims. She beheld her beauty for but a moment longer before her attention inevitably fell upon the jet black patch that covered her left eye, the edges of a scar protruding above and below the patch, the sole imperfection upon her perfect Elven body.
“Rose,” she gulped, “Is there anything else you need from us?”
“Yes, actually there is something,” Rose said turning to look at the door of a secluded room at the end of the hall, “Tell me what happened to the girl?.”
Velonia avoided Kad’s stare, “We’re not entirely sure Rose. My sister is still severely injured and one of only three to make it back from the decoy run.”
“You sacrificed the lives of your men, and an innocent girl,” Rose said turning to look back at Velonia, “Just to get the container to me?”
“The information stored on this isolinear data rod was worth it.” She said, standing her ground.
Rose narrowed her eyes as she looked at Velonia, “Are you trying to convince me, or yourself? Your sister may die, do you realise that?”
“Of course I do,” Velonia snapped, “But it was Sarnok’s plan, I had no choice in the matter.”
Rose looked at Kad but didn’t say anything. Velonia felt flushed and added, “Julia knew what she was getting herself into damn it!
The conversation was cut short by a loud scream emanating from the secluded room. Velonia was about to order someone to sedate her, but Rose stepped in and marched across the hall and stormed into the room. She stopped short seeing the heart wrenching scene in front of her.
The poor child was wrenching about on the bed, her screams of pain were soul shattering. Rose looked at the child for a few lingering moments, “out,” was all she said and when no one moved she added in a more harsh tone, “Leave me.”
The few that were in the room stood about unsure what to do, until Kad forced them out. He stood at the door and looked at Rose, who didn’t look back, and so he left and closed the door.
Once she was all alone she moved to the bed and leant over the child. She took off her coat, laying it on the floor. She took Susan into her arms and steadily rocked her. She stroked her hair just as Sophie used to do. Lifting Susan off the bed she held her tightly against herself. She cradled the child as she had her attack.
The woman known as the Bloody Rose, the woman who, according to the legends had killed thousands of individuals and wreaked havoc across Felician space for the last eighty years had a heart. The gentle rocking and quiet hushes relieved the symptoms a little and put Susan at ease. Her convulsions even eased. Rose lovingly held Susan and kept her safe during the ten minute ordeal.
Five minutes after the screams had stopped Kad rapped on the door. A quiet murmur from within signalled Kad’s entrance. He entered the room and closed the door behind him.
“You still miss your daughter don’t you?” he said solemnly, “Even after all these years?”
“A mother never loses her love for a child, nor does she forget how to take care of one” Rose had a tear in her eye, “Even though I know she is dead, I will always miss her.”
“What do you want to do about this Sophie?” he asked her.
“We have to save her,” Rose said quietly, still holding Sophie’s sister carefully in her arms.
Susan had fallen back asleep, she slept a lot. The sickness had over run her body and drained her of most of her energy.
“We have to make it to the highest levels of Nelbia tomorrow. We have to get back to the ship,” Kad told her, “We have a rendezvous we need to keep.”
“I know,” Rose said keeping her voice down, “send Velonia and Celestia into the room, I’ll need to inform them of my plans.”
“So you do have a plan then?” Kad asked, and when Rose nodded he left the room.
Rose walked slowly back to the bed, and lent down placing the sleeping child back underneath the covers. She tucked the child in and kissed her on the forehead. She picked up her coat from its heap on the floor and put it back on, composing herself as she did so. Four minutes later Kad re-entered the room, he had returned with Velonia and Celestia.
“Velonia, you’re going to send a rescue mission to get Sarnok and Sophie back,” Rose said waving off an incoming comment from Velonia, “Celestia, I’ll contact the Crimson Blade shortly and inform them to send Rakyel and Rak’Nor down to help you out in this task..”
“Rakyel won’t be happy about that,” Celestia said shaking her head, “In fact I’m sure she’ll love working down here.”
“She won’t have a choice,” Rose’s voice rose, “You’ll co-ordinate with Velonia and the Blood Angels down here, till the others get here. We owe it to that little girl in there to get her sister back.”
“I don’t understand though,” Velonia protested, “Why?”
Celestia patted Velonia on her back smiling, “Don’t try to dissuade her once she’s made her mind up.”
Kad shot her a warning glance and Celestia backed off holding her hands up, “We’re on a tight schedule, so just listen.” He said gruffly.
“Have a transport set up to transfer Susan to my ship,” Rose said sternly, “I’ll authorise everything with the upper sectors, to allow access for my people to come down, and me and Kad and the transport to return to the spaceport.”
Velonia reluctantly nodded, “Okay, it shouldn’t take longer than ten minutes to set up,” and with that she left the room, presumably to go and make preparations to have Susan moved.
That left Rose, Kad and Celestia alone in the room. Rose tapped a button on her left arm activating a holographic control panel. She accessed the communications system and opened a channel to her ship.
“Crimson Blade,” Rose said, “This is Bloody Rose.”
A few seconds passed before she received a reply, “Captain, it’s good to hear from you. How is everything down there?”
“Layttia, I need to speak to Rakyel,” Rose said.
“Just a minute captain,” Layttia replied, “I’ll patch you through to her.”
It was a few more seconds before she got another answer over the comm., “Captain, Rakyel here, what do you need?”
“Bad news I’m afraid,” Rose smiled, “I’m going to need you to grab Rak’Nor, you two are needed for a mission down here.”
There was an audible pause before she heard a frustrated low growl, “Of course captain,” Rakyel said through gritted teeth, “There’s nothing I’d love more than to go down there and get my fur dirty.”
“Pronto Rakyel,” Rose sniped, “I’ll send you the authorisation codes for the turbolifts shortly.”
“Understood Captain,” came the reply, “I’m sure Rak’Nor’s going to bring his largest axe to the party.”
The signal went dead and Rose turned to Celestia, “Okay Celestia. Wait for those two to get here before planning your rescue mission. Pump these guys into shape,” “You can count on me captain,” Celestia said leaving the room.
Rose and Kad remained in the room looking at each other, he sighed and she smiled weakly.
***
Rose was stood in a smaller, more private turbolift with Kad and a transport carrying the sleeping body of the little girl called Susan. Tallulah was leant against the back of the lift, a leg up against the wall. She had the silver container in her hands and she was looking at it intently. Kad just stood looking a little annoyed. They had entered the lift a short while ago, and had a few hours to go to reach the starport. The lift had several seats along one wall, thought they were currently being unused; they had plush purple cushioning for extra added comfort to all turbolift users. A mini replicator was also available for refreshments, if any turbolift users required them.
The information on the isolinear data rod was vital to someone. Rose wasn’t sure to whom it was vital to, but it had turned out to be a lot of trouble acquiring it. Very much so, that the death toll had risen to thirty-seven before fate had placed it into the innocent hands of a young woman called Sophie. She pondered the teenager and what her live had been like before she had found it. She told herself to ask if they ever met again.
The data rod was valuable to her self-appointed nemesis Viktor Klaas. She had never thought of Viktor as her nemesis, just another big man thinking he owns the galaxy, she had lived through many of them before, and she guessed she’d see many more to come. These loud and flashy ‘crime lords’ never lasted too long. They crumbled under themselves. She had lasted for as long as she had because she was more myth, more legend than a real tangible being who could be beaten or killed.
It was obvious to Rose that even though Viktor thought of himself as this big bad guy, there was someone somewhere pulling his strings. This data rod for example, whatever was on there, Viktor had gone to great lengths to keep it out of Rose’s hands, and it was for this very reason that rose had sought it out. Information you didn’t want your so called nemesis having? Well now, that had to be worth a lot.
But to Rose, it wasn’t worth an innocent girl’s life, not if it could be helped. Although there was a second reason as to why Rose had set up a rescue party. She saw potential in this girl; she could be moulded into a fine addition to her crew, her sister too. Though that poor child was ill, Rose knew she’d be better off world, with the chance of a cure somewhere, then left on this hell hole of a planet. She was far better off than she ever would be, even with Sophie, down in those slums. Rose could scarcely believe that she had to venture down there herself to get the container. Fate however, had other plans for the container and its new courier.
How long would it be, she wondered, before they figured out they had a fake container, and would they kill Sophie when they found out? It was all out of Rose’s hands now. But Raykel and Rak’Nor were fierce fighters; they’d definitely sort of the local Black King thugs and get Sarnok and Sophie back.
“The Crimson Blade is ready for departure as soon as we arrive on board,” Kad spoke, startling Rose out of her reverie. She noticed him pocketing his communications device.
She eyed him thoroughly, “And where is it we’re running to again?”
“Rose,” Kad said lightly.
Frustration played out on her face, “ugh, I know. We have to get to Acheron and de-code the data rod,” she moved away from the wall, the container held in her left hand, “But why does it feel like we’re running from a fight?”
“We’ll have plenty of fights getting to Acheron Prime,” Kad told her, “I’d be surprised if we don’t meet a small Black King fleet once they find out we have the real container and the real isolinear data rod.”
Rose stared at the transport carrying the sleeping child for a while before she spoke, “I can’t stop thinking about this Sophie. If silently entrusting the container to her was the best thing after all.”
Kad walked up behind her placing a firm hand upon her shoulder, “Perhaps,” he said quietly, “But then look in front of you, the ill child is now in your care, safe. She will undoubtedly live much longer on board the Crimson Blade then she would ever have lasted down in the slums.”
She placed her own hand upon his, feeling the thick fur. She closed her eyes letting her fingers feel his for a moment before she turned around to face him, “And what do we tell her when she awakes and finds that we abandoned her sister? What do we tell her if Raykel fails?”
“Rak’Nor will destroy the entire base most likely,” Kad laughed, “You know that war hungry Orc, always smashing things. And Raykel will keep him in order, mostly. They’ll lead the Blood Angels into the base and bust out our guys.”
“You’re probably right,” Rose sighed.
“You have that look,” Kad said looking down into her perfect face.
“Sometimes I hate being a legend.” She lamented
Kad looked a little confused, “Legend? And why is that exactly?”
“I strike fast and furiously from the darkness. Even the Crimson Blade has a cloaking device so as to go undetected,” Rose turned away from the transport placing the container on the transport and turned to face Kad, “Sometimes I wish I could forsake the hiding and fight myself.”
“As hard as this is to hear Rose,” Kad said sternly, “You know as well as I that this rescue mission is just an afterthought. A meaningless battle.”
“Not entirely, if we put enough weight behind a rescue mission, then we’ll have them thinking we’re trying to recover the real container and isolinear data rod.”
“That’s not what I meant Rose, and you know it.”
She lowered her head and let out a long sigh, “Yes, I know. I set my pawns into motion; I as the Queen sit back and let it happen because it’s below my attention.”
“If you make too much of a noise,” Kad said, “Then you know the agents from Brey’Vhala would track you down and drag you back to your homeworld.”
“You are the only one who knows the Truth Kad,” She looked deeply into his eyes, “The only one I’ve ever been able to truly trust.”
“You’re doing the right thing,” Kad told her, “Acheron Prime will be where we decide our next move.”
Rose didn’t say anything else; she just leant back against the wall and crossed her arms, deep in thought.
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Post by Lady Ruliya on Aug 9, 2013 13:35:03 GMT
Chapter Five
Sophie sat all alone in her cell, only it wasn’t a cell. There were no bars and the door wasn’t locked either. Though she didn’t dare to leave the room to check if there were any guards stood outside, or a security camera watching the door. It was just a plain room, brown floors and no windows. The room was dark as always, if the room had a light source it was never used. She was starting to get worried too. They hadn’t returned with Sarnok yet, and they had taken him hours ago. He was in a very bad way after numerous torture sessions and he didn’t speak much when he was last in the room with her.
She wasn’t in the mood with talking with him anyway. They hadn’t spoken much since he revealed their true plan for her and her sister. She was aching in every inch of her body; she was physically and emotionally drained. The questions they kept asking her were about the Bloody Rose and that container. They wanted to know if it had been open, or if it had been decrypted yet. Of course she had no idea, she didn’t know anything, and for her disobedience she was shocked, usually. The last time she had been locked in that evil room the guards had chained her to the usual steel chair and then stood by the door staring at her.
There were a couple of tenuous minutes before the door opened and she came face to face with her tormentor. He wore a long white lab coat and had large glasses; he looked the typical mad doctor. She would hear later that he was known as Doctor Mosska and had been brought by Viktor. He was infamous for his torture methods and his insane experimentations. No one would ever care if people from the slums went missing, and that made Nelbia the perfect place for his methods.
He had spoken to her like she was an animal, some dumb beast. He poked and prodded her at first gauging her reactions. Her eyes had been full of fear, she would have screamed and squirmed but he had injected her with some paralysing serum, she couldn’t move, but she could feel. Everything. The serum not only paralysed her but enhanced her nerve endings and pain receptors. He didn’t even ask her any questions the last time. He took out several different utensils, all of them sharp. He made incisions and cut her for several agonising hours. Small cuts and large slices.
She thought about Sarnok. He was bigger and older than her, he had always come back roughed up, and many times still bleeding in places. She was worried about him, even though she hated him after he used her. But she held some comfort that she wasn’t alone in this. And now she was. She could barely move, let alone think; she just laid there, tears running down her face. She was alone and scared and all she could do was wait for the evil to return.
*** “Doctor, I’m growing impatient,” said a shadowy figure on the good doctor’s terminal screen.
“Sir,” the doctor grovelled, “The girl is physically weak, she cannot take prolonged exposure to the shock torture.”
“Then find other methods that do work.”
“Physical violence seems to have little effect on her as well, even when using specific drugs to keep her conscious; she is too frail to get any real information out. And if I may.” He seemed to stop as if awaiting approval to continue.
The shadowy figure on the screen gave him it, “Go on Doctor?”
“I don’t think she actually knows anything. Just another pawn being used by the Bloody Rose.”
The shadowy figure seemed angry at the response, “And what about the other one? The Ultican? What did you drag out of his worthless hide?”
“Not as much as we were hoping sir,” the Doctor shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “He gave up no information about the whereabouts of the container and he err...”
“And he what doctor?” his voice was raised and the doctor flinched, “What did you do?”
“Unfortunately the Ultican did not survive our last interrogation-“ the doctor was cut off by a loud cry of rage.
“You are an incompetent fool!” the shadowy figure moved closer to the screen, though the outline could be seen to be pointing a finger towards the doctor, “If you weren’t useful in other aspects I would have you killed.”
“What of the girl?” he asked
“Dispose of her.” The shadowy figured seemed impatient, “In the quickest fashion possible.”
The screen went blank and the doctor slumped in his chair, holding hand to his brow, quickly, right. He could do that. Just incinerate her. And then hope their next catch had more information. But before he could figure something out a red light flashed above his door and sirens began blaring out. The base was under attack.
***
Celestia made her way through the corridors silently, blaster pistol in her hand, behind her where two members of the Blood angels. These were the advanced guard. They’d snuck their way past the security details when Rak’Nor and a whole squadron of attackers engaged the front of their base. They had made their way unhindered so far. They were taking the left side of the base as Rakyel took Velonia and two others were engaging Black King members in the right side of the base.
The base rocked with a massive explosion. Rak’Nor was being his usual brash self. The base was on full alert, doubly so now that he’d pulled out the heavy artillery. Celestia came upon D-Wing and had to duck under blaster fire. She threw herself at the wall, diving round the corner firing her pistol back. The two guys with her to up positions near the wall firing into the Black King members.
Celestia struck one of the Black Kings guards dead in the chest, he dropped and another member ran up to take his place. Her team mates hammered fire down the corridor as Celestia dove to cover halfway down the corridor. She rose up firing hitting two other members, leaving two left firing. One laid down covering fire as the other guy retreated. As he then attempted to retreat he got hit in the back falling flat on his face. Celestia waved her two companions down the corridor.
A few minutes later they found the cells, and Celestia made her way through the rooms. They were all empty aside one. When they came upon Sophie she was laid flat on the floor, staring up at the roof. Celestia ran over to her, dropping to her knees and holding her head up.
“Sophie?” Celestia said cupping her head in her hands, “Are you okay?”
Sophie didn’t answer with words, her mouth open and closed, and her eyes were only half open.
“Crap,” Celestia shook her head and signalled her two companions, “Help me get her up.”
One of the guys picked her up into his arms. The three of them left the room and made their way back along the corridors out of D-Wing. The base rocked three times in quick succession, Rak’Nor was clearing having a lot of fun. The ceiling shuddered and parts collapsed behind them.
Meanwhile Rakyel was caught in a massive fire fight at one end of a large hall. She had met up with some of the squad members from Rak’Nor’s frontal charge. The Black Kings were clustered into the left half of the back of the hall. The three explosions that rocked the base forced the Black Kings to retreat into the hall they now found themselves in.
Rakyel pushed the Blood Angels forwards, dual wielding Mk IV plasma pistols. Her feline agility saw her jumping from cover to cover firing every chance she could get. The Black Kings members were falling like dominos.
Velonia was shouting orders, blaster rifle in her hands picking off Black King members who ducked out of cover to fire back. She was moving forwards behind Rakyel, after a few minutes the drove the remaining Black King members out of the hall and down into the F-Wing.
Rakyel, Velonia and two Blood Angels members charged through two large steel doors, and down the corridor, killing Black King members as they went. The corridor turned into a large room, as they ran in they noticed something which stopped them in their tracks.
The room was silver, with large patches of red across the room. The patches were dried blood, and along the back wall there were five bodies shackled to the wall. The third one from the right was Sarnok. Velonia spotted him and gasped dropping to her knees as she shouted his name.
Rakyel strode over to his body and looked it over close up. His body was broken and there were cuts and bruises across his body. Looking at the other bodies she saw tell tale Red Angels markings, all of them had obviously been captured and tortured to death. But Sophie’s body wasn’t strung up with the rest of them; at least the two female bodies strung up to the left of Sarnok didn’t fit the description she was given of the young woman Sophie.
“Those bastards,” Velonia was shaking her head, “I’m going to kill them all.”
Rakyel turned back to look at her, “Trust me,” she said, “I think Rak’Nor has that one covered.”
A barrage of blaster fire out in the corridor caught their attention. The swung around, blasters held at the ready. A body flew through the steel doors a large axe buried in his torso. Rak’Nor burst through the doors, exerting himself, howling loudly in joy.
“Hah!” Rak’Nor leant down and picked the axe up out of the dead body of the Black King members. Looking up he saw Rakyel and nodded, “Ah Rakyel! How goes the fighting?”
She looked at him and smiled wildly, “kicking ass as usual,” she nodded her head backwards indicating the line of corpses.
Rak’Nor looked up, past her and sighed, “Poor bastards,” he looked over to Velonia and the other Blood Angels members. He could see the anger in their eyes, “The attacks have proceeded much better than anticipated. Also, we have rigged explosives across this place and they’re primed ready to destroy this base. Just say the word.”
“Pull your men out Rak’Nor and blow it,” Rakyel said looking indifferent. She noticed flashed of smiles from the two Blood Angels members.
“What about your friend Celestia?” Velonia asked, “Has she found and rescued Sophie yet?”
Rakyel looked at Rak’Nor and he shrugged, so she tapped a communicator device on her top, “Celestia, update?”
Celestia’s voice came in loud and clear, “We have the package and are making our way through heavy resistance you’d scared our way.”
“We’re blowing this place in ten,” Rakyel said plainly, “Can you make it out in time?”
The sound of heavy blaster fire came through the comm., “We’ll be out with plenty of time,” Celestia had to shout to be heard, “Meet you at the rendezvous point. Celestia out.”
“Okay, time to pull out then,” Rak’Nor said, and then he turned and left the room, with Velonia and the other two Blood Angels members.
Rakyel lingered in the room looking over at Sarnok. She’d seen plenty of torture victims, hell she’d tortured a fair few beings in her time. She hadn’t known this Ultican called Sarnok, but he looked like someone she would have gotten along with. She looked about the room, the blood, the horrible smell of rotting flesh. She hated the dirty work. She preferred remaining on the Crimson Blade. It was clean up there, nowhere for her fur to get filthy and sticky like it was getting at the moment in this attack. She looked at a large blood stain and spat. God she couldn’t wait to get back to the Blood Angels base and get cleaned up and wait for the Crimson Blade to return.
She left the room and within six minutes of running made it outside of the building. Rak’Nor was stood with a large grin on his face and a detonator in his hand.
“Is everyone out?” Rakyel walked up to him looking into his eyes. He nodded flashing his grin at her, “Good, blow it.”
His eyes lit up as he pressed the button. The sound was deafening, the entire platform they were on, rocked. Fireballs ripped through the air and shrapnel and wreckage rained down around them. Screams of pain could be heard from all over the place. Another series of explosions rocketed around the back end of the base. Cheers and whoops emanated from all of the Blood Angels, and Rak’Nor let out a loud roar.
The entire group moved out and headed to the rendezvous point. Once they reached there, they waited several hours but Celestia never arrived with Sophie. Rakyel, Rak’Nor and Velonia tried contacting them, but with no luck.
Rakyel looked at Rak’Nor and cursed in Felician, her native tongue, and shook her head. Rak’Nor looked around and dug his axe into the ground in a burst of anger. Velonia buried her head in her hands.
Damn.
Everyone thought it. They must have gotten caught in the explosion, or at least one of them, Rak’Nor seemed to have planted enough explosives to level the whole platform. And now it may very well have cost them the prize... and possibly Celestia, and Rak’Nor would have a hard time not beating himself up about that.
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Post by Lady Ruliya on Aug 9, 2013 13:35:43 GMT
((A small note here: Where there is a double asterix ** in the text it means that I hadn't yet come up with a name for a place, a person or thing. It was what I used as a holder. ))
Chapter 6
Ten minutes. Ten minutes was easy, it was easy when they brushed past the retreating Black Kings members. It was easy as they found a way out of B-Wing, all the way up to the point they ran into an unforeseen defensive measure. Celestia’s face had dropped and then it opened fire and so did one of her companions, who then took a shot to the chest and fell. The other guy holding Sophie ducked down placing her on the ground, and took up his blaster and the two of them had to fight hard to take down the drone defending the exit. The spider cannon drone was something primarily used by military outfits as offensive weapons. Yet here one was guarding a side entrance.
The fight was fierce, it had a shielding system and even the grenades Celestia had been carrying had been unable to break through. Concentrated blaster fire had no real affect either. But then, it hadn’t mattered for long. Explosions tore through the entire base. The whole thing shook and broke apart. The roof had collapsed onto of the spider cannon drone overloading its shield capacitors and a few grenades thrown in finished it off. And then more explosions ripped the base apart, as the Celestia and the guy carrying Sophie ran. But then a final shake, and roof collapse and her companion was down, and so was she. She moved with lightning speed and managed to jump on top of Sophie, covering her just as more roofing fell in on top of them.
The rubble had fortunately been fairly easy to push aside and get out of. Sophie was unconscious, but that was okay, it made it slightly easier to drag her up out of the rubble. Once free of the rubble, Celestia pick Sophie up into her arms and managed to carry her out of the, no levelled, base. She then managed to carry her a mile or so before dropping into a secluded section of the platform, surrounded by buildings.
Celestia sat in the alleyway exhausted, her back against a wall. She looked down at Sophie who was laid next to her; Celestia couldn’t believe she had had to drag her out from underneath fallen wreckage, how had they fallen behind? Why had they decided to blow the base up anyway? She just couldn’t think right then, her mind still reeling from the shock of it all. The guy that had been carrying Sophie had taken the brunt of the falling wreckage and had died, but his sacrifice had actually saved Sophie’s life, thought that was teetering at the moment. She still lay unconscious and was clearly suffering from her torture.
She had tried using her communicator to call Rakyel, but it had been damaged when the roof had fallen on her. She was pretty sure she couldn’t fix it. This was just perfect. She needed time to think, what to do next. How was she going to get Sophie to the rendezvous point? Although there’d probably be no point in that, Rakyel and Rak’Nor had probably taken the Blood Angels back to their base. The risk of the Black kings retaliating was pretty high right now.
By blowing up the base, instead of just minor damages and sneaking Sophie out, they had most likely started a gang war on the Lower World plates. Which meant Black king raiding parties would be searching soon. She had to get Sophie out of here, but to where? Her best bet was to attempt to get her to the Upper World, there Sophie would at least be safe from Black King retaliation, and then there was a good chance she’d be able to get her communicator fixed.
She shut her eyes and concentrated. Where was the nearest turbolift access point? The Black Kings main base, which now lay in ruins, had to have been built near a turbolift access point in order to get men and women down into the slums, and back up again. But where? She couldn’t scout at the moment, she couldn’t leave Sophie alone. Not at the moment, she would be defenceless if anyone came across her unconscious body.
She sighed and shook Sophie’s body. No reaction. She said her name loudly and shook her a bit more violently. Still nothing. Crap Celestia thought, god I hope you’re not too injured kid, I’m going to need your help. She gave it one more shot, saying her name loudly and rocking her again.
This time though, thankfully, Sophie moved, and she opened her eyes.
“Sophie?” Celestia said quietly, “Sweetie, can you understand me?”
Sophie shook her head, and let out a small gasp of pain. Celestia helped her into a sitting position, even though it seemed to really strain her. Sophie remained silent though for a few more minutes, and Celestia waited patiently.
“Where am I?” Sophie said at last.
“Well I can tell you where you aren’t” Celestia chuckled, “My name is Celestia, how are you holding up sweetie?”
It took a little while to get a response, but Celestia could tell she was become more aware, “In pain, so much pain.”
“Sorry sweetie,” Celestia said apologetically, “I’m going to need you to be brave and strong. We have to get out of here.”
“Who are you?” Sophie said letting her head slide to one side, trying to face her, “Sarnok lied to me. Can’t trust.”
“You can trust me,” Celestia tried to reassure her, “We came here to rescue you, and although it appears right now that it’s gone poorly, I guarantee to get you to a safe location.”
“How can I trust you?” Sophie said, strained and arching in pain as she struggled to her feet.
“Well, we don’t have much choice here,” Celestia said rising to her feet herself, “My friends kind of took out the base you were just being kept in.”
Sophie’s face dropped, “So what’s your plan?”
Celestia took Sophie’s arms, “We’re going to head to the Upper World, out of the Black Kings reach.”
“What happened to my sister?” Sophie asked suddenly remembering and worrying, “Where is she?”
Celestia held her tight, “Your sister’s safe, you don’t have to worry about her. Right now we have to worry about ourselves. I have an idea where to find a turbolift access point, and from there I have access codes to get us at least up to the Upper World.”
Sophie looked at her saviour, still drained, still in pain, but she nodded, “okay, okay. Let’s get to there then.”
“Excellent sweetie, come on.” Celestia supported Sophie, popping an arm over her shoulder and helping her walk.
***
Rose and Kad walked across the central hub of the Starport pushing the hovering transport carrying Susan forwards. The hub was packed with beings from all over the surrounding sectors. The Crimson Blade was docked at docking bay thirty-four. Their walk across the hub went unimpeded, but several eyes noted their passage.
The Black Kings had eyes even up in the Sun Walkers domain. But it didn’t matter, not at the moment. There was no way they could get to them here, or stop their ship from leaving; they’d have to figure out what their destination was. That would mean attempting to shadow their ship at high warp, not the easiest thing to do, especially since the rumours about the Crimson Blade was that it could disappear. If they turned out to be true and the ship had a cloaking device then they would lose the ship in orbit, and the Black King himself would be very disappointed, and that usually meant people would die.
Rose and Kad just strode past the security guard who was guarding the docking ring and then they went through a large gate and down a long arched corridor, coming out into a massive hanger bay. And there on its landing struts stood the Crimson Blade. She was a beautiful ship, by all stretches of the word. The vessel was a Felician ** class corvette. The ship had been stolen by Rose and Kad almost sixty years ago. The vessel had served Rose well throughout those sixty years, and would probably serve her another sixty years. The ship received regular overhauls, most usually in places like Nelbia’s Starport, in other words in dingy underworld havens. Over the many years the ship had received many upgrades too, due partially to Rose being an elf, and the fact that the elves were several decades ahead of Felicia and the Garok and other species in the galaxy, technologically speaking. She had overhauled the weapons systems; she had overhauled the shield generators, and added several items that weren’t standard issue on Felician vessels, even now sixty years after she had stolen it.
How they managed to steal a Felician military warship still lives in infamy, and something the venerable Felician Admiral **, still can’t live down. He has spent many years and a lot of resources in attempting to track down and catch the Bloody rose. He has yet to succeed, but he still tries.
And it wasn’t just mad Felician Admirals who had been tracking her to sixty years; she still had to contend with agents from Brey’Vhala wanting to drag her back to face execution for crimes committed. Not to mention every crime lord, or wannabe trying to make a name for themselves by taking down the most elusive, galaxy renowned pirate to ever have wreaked havoc in the ** Galaxy.
As they walked across the hanger Rose tapped on her holographic control console on her left arm, opened up a channel to the Crimson Blade, “It’s Rose, beam us onboard.”
The pair and the transport disappeared in a shimmering red haze. Onboard the Crimson Blade in the main transporter room another shimmering red haze appeared and within seconds the pair and the transport were safely onboard. Rose shot a smile to the transporter chief who was working the console, who smiled back.
Walking with Kad out of the transporter room Rose knew the transport carrying Susan would be moved to the med bay and looked after. And so within a few minutes the two of them arrived on the bridge. It was a large circular room with the captain’s chair placed in the centre on a heightened platform. The Conn was forward of the captain’s chair, a large semicircular console, usually manned by Rakyel, but currently had Layttia sat there. To the left the captain’s chair was the science console manned by Layttia’s twin sister Layla. The pair were also elves, elves rarely left the confines of their borders, and yet here sat a Felician ship with three of them. On the opposite side of the ship, to Rose’s right was the Ops station, which is the station Celestia usually manned. Kad sat down at a console to the right, next to the Captains seat; this was the place of the first officer, had they all been military personnel. Kad sat down just before Rose did in the captain’s chair. Behind the captains chair on a higher tier was a long oblong console. This is where Rak’Nor usually sat manning the main weapons station, which was on the left of the console, and on the right was the engineering station, which is where Layttia usually positioned herself, being the chief engineer. Rose realised some of her major players were not on the Crimson Blade right now, but she had full confidence in the others who were currently sat in the seats of those who were currently on planet.
Layttia turned around in her seat to face Rose, “All systems report ready, and we have docking clearance to take off captain.”
“Take us into orbit Layttia,” rose said sat up in the captain’s chair, “Nice and steady.”
The hanger bay filled with noise as steam shot out of ports just under the landing struts, reaction control thrusters lit up lifting the ship up off the deck of the hanger bay. The ships main engines rumbled and the thrusters pushed the ship backwards slowly. The huge hanger bays doors opened with a loud clunk and opened slowly. The doors opened fully as the back of the ship reached them, it then pulled itself out into the sun and continued to pick up speed before it was a few thousand meters from the hanger. The ship then halted and began to ascend vertically to begin with, after several hundred meters the bow lifted upwards and the thrusters went to full launching the ship forwards up into the atmosphere. The bow glowed orange as it reached terminal velocity as it travelled through Nelbia’s atmosphere to exit the planets gravitational pull and out into open space.
Rose gave the order to engage the cloaking device and the ship shimmered, like ripples dissipating an image in the water. Once fully cloaked rose gave the order to jump to warp. Though the ship could not be seen it suddenly rapidly increased speed till it hit terminal velocity to break the light speed barrier and jumped to warp.
The black kings scout ship that had shadowed them out of the atmosphere stopped in its tracks. At least they now knew for definite that the Bloody Rose had the use of a cloaking device. This helped them to understand a lot of the rumours about how the Bloody Rose was able to stay off the radar of most organisations, whether they be criminal or military. They wondered if the Bloody Rose had an actual base of operations hidden somewhere in a nearby sector. Not that it mattered to the Black King operatives right now. Right now they had the unfortunate task of informing the Black King himself, that the rumours were true, and that they had lost them.
The trip to Acheron Prime would take a fair while, and Rose pondered the planet they were heading to. Acheron Prime was the head of a coalition of independent systems. Acheron Prime itself started out as an Empirean Human Colony, and grew to such proportions it was granted independent status by the Empirean Universal Council, becoming the number one planet for information in the entire galaxy. The coalition is protected by a small fleet of private empirean ships, ensuring that larger empires cannot infringe upon the sovereign rights of Acheron Prime at its coalition planets.
Getting access into Acheron Primes borders would be the difficult part. Cloaking device or no, they wouldn’t be able to sneak past Acheron Primes Empirean sensor grids that covered their borders. Acheron Prime was still a day’s travel at maximum warp from Nelbia, so Rose had time yet to sort out the border patrols.
Comfortable that the ship had escaped Nelbia without being followed by any of the Black King scout ships that had been attempting to shadow them; she left the bridge and headed down to the med bay. The med bay was situated on deck three, and the double doors slid open as Rose approached. Entering she was greeted by her good friend Doctor Cecilia Rhea. She had been patching up Rose and her crew for twenty years now, a *race* who wore a typical long white lab coat and wore a blue top with light blue jeans. She wore glasses which emphasised her green eyes, and her face was framed by wavy brown hair which dropped to her shoulders.
“How’s the child?” Rose asked her looking over Doctor Rhea’s shoulder to the bed which held a sleeping Susan.
“Well, not good I’m afraid” Doctor Rhea shook her head, “She has the wonderful Smog sickness, courtesy of that blasted planet, and she’s in the final stages as far as I can tell.”
Rose stood next to the doctor, who turned to look at the child, “That bad is it?” Rose asked rhetorically, her eyes still on the sleeping child.
“Her organs are shutting down,” Doctor Rhea sighed, “At this stage I’m not sure there’s anything I can do aside keeping her comfortable.”
“Can’t you do anything else?” Rose sounded a little surprised, “We have some damn fine medical equipment on my ship.”
“Well, be that as it may Rose,” Doctor Rhea laughed slightly, “I just don’t know enough about the disease.”
“Well,” Rose said solemnly turning her head to look at her, and Doctor Rhea turned to face rose as well, “just do what you can for her.”
Just as Rose turned to walk out of the door, Doctor Rhea held onto Rose’s arm, “There is one thing.” She seemed reluctant to say what though.
Half turning Rose looked at her good friend, she could tell that Doctor Rhea really felt for this child, probably as much as she did. Doctor Rhea didn’t have any children, but she was a doctor first and foremost, she always had been. That’s why Rose had befriended her and eventually offered her a position on the Crimson Blade.
Rose waited patiently, as her friend looked at the floor, squirming internally unsure of herself. Eventually she let out a long sigh and looked Rose in the eyes, “I could try cryogenics.”
“Freeze her?” Rose said thinking, “That’s inherently not that bad, why do you look so worried?”
“Well, with the state she’s in at the moment,” Doctor Rhea said still looking grave, “She might not survive the freezing process. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a problem as we can just revive her after the unfreezing process.”
“But?” she lingered saying the word, her arms crossed, her head tilted.
“Well.” Doctor Rhea paused for a few seconds, trying to find the right words, “I know next to nothing about this disease, and in all honesty it would take a long time for me to find a cure, and short of a cure there is nothing I can do for her. And I’d hate to leave her in suspended animation for god knows how long. Especially if we recover her sister, I mean, what do you think she would say?”
“Nothing good,” Rose said quietly sighing, “We don’t have many options.” Her face dropped.
Doctor Rhea rubbed her hand gently up and down Rose’s arm, “I am sorry.” She said apologetically.
“I just hope then, that her sister is faring better with Celestia and Rakyel,” Rose said sighing again, looking back over to the sleeping Susan, “For her sake,” she added as she exited the med bay.
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Post by Lady Ruliya on Aug 9, 2013 13:36:10 GMT
Chapter 7
As it turned out, the way had been clear, Celestia and Sophie had ran into no Black King Members at all, granted when they had arrived at the turbolift access point that they had found, it had been covered in them. Fortunately where there was a main access shaft, there would be a private access shaft where the richer of the Lower Worlders would be able to move up into the Upper World.
It hadn’t been all that hard to find, and the access codes Celestia had, were still working and the turbolift door opened and Celestia helped Sophie inside and onto one of the plush purple seats. Celestia had actually hoped she would be able to take the lift all the way up to the Sun Walkers domain, but it kept flashing ‘Access Denied’ at her. Frustrated she had punched in the codes and set the thing going to the Upper World, which was, now that she thought about her, her original plan. But it would of been nice to have been given a break, but she had no such luck. Looking over to Sophie she guessed that this poor girl had been lacking in luck in the last few days. But at least now she was safely with Celestia, and there was no way she would let anything bad happen to her. Not now. Not on her watch.
While Sophie rested, Celestia messed with the turbolift console, attempting to access it’s communications array. Why she hadn’t thought of using the turbolift Comms system during the first two hours of its journey upwards she didn’t know. She had cursed herself for being so stupid. But then cursed herself for not being able to patch it through to the correct frequency she needed to contact Rakyel.
She was currently sat on a screen of static, but she had the front of the console off, and switching isolinear chips around and connect wires, trying to reroute the system around the security programs. After shocking herself cross connecting wires she cursed loudly. And then something happened. She heard a voice. She popped her heard up and around looking at Sophie, she was still asleep. And then she heard the voice again, it was insulting someone. She looked around, hearing it keep insulting someone. The voice was quiet and was breaking up at parts, and then it hit her. She had got audio, the picture was still static, but there was definitely audio. It wasn’t solid, but it was a start.
“Hello?” Celestia said, “Can you read me? Hello? Anyone there?”
No direct answer came, still only some curses and then she figured out what had happened. The signal and the voice, was hers. She lowered her head and sighed. Obviously, during the whole thing she had been broadcasting, the insults and curses she heard had been hers as she tried to get a signal out. Somewhere along the way her signal had apparently been bounced back, through some channel or other back to the terminal she was using.
Feeling defeated and frustrated she reassembled the console and sat on a chair beside Sophie. Rocking her head back against the seat she let out a long breath of air and placed her hands over her eyes, rubbing them with her palms. She then sat forward, her hands holding either side of her face, looking down at the turbolift floor. It was white, as was most of the turbolift, she noticed.
After a while of thinking she pulled her broken communicator out of her pocket and looked at it. It had been partially crushed when the roof had fallen on top of her, as she saved Sophie.
Wait a minute, Celestia thought, Sophie has to have a communicator! Argh but damn it, it would have been taken off of her back at the base.
They would just have to wait until the turbolift got to the Upper World, it should only take another hour and a half, plenty of time for Celestia to come up with a strategy.
About ten minutes of silence passed when Sophie woke up. She still felt weak, but some colour had returned to her cheeks. Celestia took it as a good sign, “How are you feeling Sophie?” she asked tentatively.
“Ugh, my head is still spinning,” Sophie replied, her voice sounded stronger at least, she wasn’t slurring this time, “what happened?”
“What do you remember?” Celestia said.
“Not much, that evil room,” Sophie spoke slowly as she tried her best to remember the things that had happened, she looked at Celestia carefully studying her face, “You, I remember you. In... in an alleyway somewhere? Your name is Celestia and we... we had to leave? Get to some place...safe?”
“That’s right,” Celestia said carefully, trying not to overload her, “The base you were held in was destroyed, I carried you out of the building. But before we got over run, I had to get you to a turbolift access point. Well,” she spread her arms wide, “We made it, you don’t need to worry about it at the moment.”
Sophie looked around taking in all the small circular room had to offer and relaxed in the chair, closing her eyes, “my body still aches.”
Celestia reached into a small pouch by her side and pulled out a hypo spray, she injected it into Sophie’s neck and she fully relaxed, “That feels much better,” she said, “how long does it last?”
“Should keep you pain free for a couple of hours at least,” Celestia told her, “and you still have a fair while to rest in here.”
Sophie smiled, “I guess I could trust you after all.”
“See sweetie?” Celestia smiled back at her, “we’re not all liars and fools.”
“I’m really grateful to you,” Sophie lowered her head, “I would be dead now without you,” she suddenly gasped, “What about Sarnok? Did you find him?”
Celestia shook her head, “No I’m afraid not, Rakyel and Velonia’s team might have done though.”
“There were more people in there to help rescue me?” Sophie asked surprised.
“Oh sure,” Celestia had a grin on her face, “Quite a lot of the Bloody Angels joined in on the attack. Rakyel is one sassy Felician and one brutal Orc by the name of Rak’Nor came down here with me.”
“Wait, do you mean that you’re not with the Blood Angels?” her mouth was agape in wonder, “but then, why did you save me?”
Celestia burst out laughing, “Seems you have a guardian angel sweetie. Rose ordered us to go after you.”
“Rose?” now her face was contorted with confusion, “Do you mean the Bloody Rose?”
“Hah, of course yeah. I always seem to forget that that’s what everyone else in this danged galaxy seems to call her.” Celestia said.
Then Sophie gasped loudly, “Oh no... What about my sister Susan? What happened to her?”
Celestia tilted her head, “The sick kid? Rose said she was going to transport her to the Crimson Blade,” when she got back a blank stare in response she explained, “Oh, the Crimson Blade is our ship. Don’t worry sweetie, you’re sisters in the safest place she can be right now, you don’t need to worry about her. It’s you we’re worrying about right now.”
Sophie looked extremely relieved, “So where does that mean she is now?”
“Probably off world by now, I would have thought,” Celestia said without really thinking, and she heard Sophie gasp again, “I told you not to worry about it, she’s safe.”
“It’s not that,” Sophie said, “I just, before this whole thing fell on top of me, I was wishing to be able to get her off planet. I heard there’s a cure, Susan, my sister, you see she has the Smog Sickness. But I overheard there was a cure on some Felician world, Kaa’Rinn, I think.”
“Whoa there sweetie,” Celestia said holding her hands up, “Slow down, don’t work yourself up, you still need your strength remember?”
“Oh right,” Sophie blushed, “right yea. But see. If she’s off planet, then we might be able to cure her. My dream would come true, and I’d be able to die happy.”
“Hey,” Celestia scolded playfully, “No talking about dying you hear me? Not after what you’ve just been through.”
The pair then rode the lift in silence for about half an hour before Sophie’s curiosity broke free and she turned to Celestia, “Can I ask you a question?” she asked shyly.
“Of course sweetie,” Celestia replied, “what is it you want to know?”
“Your name...” she started unable to find the next words.
“Hmm?” Celestia was curious as to the question now, “What about my name?”
“It’s sounds beautiful,” she said wistfully.
Celestia smiled back, “Well thank you sweetie. Sophie’s not a bad name either you know,” she winked playfully.
Sophie blushed, “Wow, really? I mean I’ve never minded it, but Celestia,” she halted mid sentence, then decided to ask anyway, “Where does it come from?”
“Celestia?” she said, “Well, it’s, that’s a good a good question actually.
Celestia took a moment to get her thoughts into alignment before she continued, “Well Celestia is a goddess among my people. A lot of them still believe she is the guiding force of the universe itself. You see back in ancient times for my people they believed that she created the universe and everything in it, a lot of races have their own supposed creation myths and their own deities attached to them. Celestia has been for a long time a common girls name among my people, because Celestia, if it ever had a gender, being an all powerful creation god or goddess, was female. I’ve noted a lot of races who have male creation gods.”
Sophie sat in amazement, “that all sounds so wonderful, down in the slums there were no talk of gods or goddesses, only the mire and muck that we lived in, and if there is a goddess, this Celestia, she clearly hates me.”
“Awwh sweetie,” Celestia rubbed an arm up her back, and held her hand, “You may think of it as bad luck, but look at it this way, if you hadn’t of followed the path you currently have been, your path wouldn’t of crossed with mine, and you wouldn’t now be heading for a better life. And your sister wouldn’t be in the care she is now.”
“Wow, you’re right,” Sophie smiled, everything suddenly seeming brighter, “I like the way you think about things,” she giggled, she actually giggled. She wasn’t sure the last time she had done that.
And Celestia giggled back, “Is there anything else you’re interested in? Considering we still have an hour of travel time left and I’m bored.”
“Actually, yeah,” Sophie said, “There’s plenty of things. Like the Bloody Rose, I heard she killed kings and lots of soldiers and has been chased all her life, but I met her once, well only kind of, and she saved me, well the Garok did, but he doesn’t do anything without her telling him too, or so I heard,”
“My my,” Celestia was now laughing pretty hard, “You certainly have heard a lot of things huh?”
“Yea,” Sophie blushed again, “but I have no idea what is true and what’s not.”
“Like any good legend,” Celestia began, “It’s mostly true, although extremely embellished and fantasised. Do you know much about Brey’Vhala? The homeworld of the Elves?”
Sophie shook her head, but her eyes looked intense, she was eating up all the information with great vigour and Celestia figured that Sophie might as well get to know as much as she can now, because it would be more than likely that she too would join Rose’s crew when they escaped the confines of Nelbia.
“Brey’Vhala is a fantastical world,” Celestia continued, “a great mass of technological cities whose spires reach to the very top of their world. Much like here in Nelbia City, only, across their entire planet. Long ago, many thousands of years past, the Elves were a very religious and magical race. An event of great significance happened, what that was no one outside of the elfish borders knows. They’re a pretty secretive race and they like to keep their secrets, many have died entering their borders and attempting to bring elfish secrets to the rest of the galaxy. But this event changed their entire world. They went from a religious society to one burning for knowledge about the wider universe and began their fast run to technological dominance.
“It’s very fortunate for the rest of us that the elves aren’t at all interested in conquering the rest of us, because their technology far outweighs that of the Felician’s or the Garok,” Celestia had to laugh at that, a powerful race who cared only for increasing their knowledge of the universe.
“It sounds like a beautiful place,” Sophie began, “But like Nelbia city what about the lowest levels of their cities?”
“Ah well now,” Celestia said, “there’s the thing, they’re so technologically advanced that their sky isn’t polluted at all, no smog and dirt and so the ground is as beautiful as it once was, and still holds vast gardens. Only so does the rest of their cities, massive arboretums exist all over Brey’Vhala, they are still very close to nature as a society. It’s funny, they’re the only race I know of who has an almost perfect balance between nature and technology. Even their large warships carry forests, or so I’ve heard. Like I say, Secrets.”
“Wow,” Sophie elongated the word and looked genuinely in awe of the world.
“Anyway,” Celestia said trying to get to the point she almost lost, “There is only one person alive that I know of, who knows the true story of how she fled her homeworld and ended up on Vao Gai, the homeworld of the Garok, and that is Kad.”
“Vao Gai?” Sophie said, “Can you tell me about there?”
“Well sure I can sweetie,” Celestia smiled, “Vao Gai is a harsh and cold world on the edge of their suns ecosphere zone-“
Wait,” Sophie jumped in, “Ecosphere? I’m sorry; I’m afraid down in the slums you’re not exactly taught a lot about the wider universe.”
“That’s okay, we still have plenty of time,” Celestia hugged her, “and it certainly helps pass the time to get you in the know. Okay so, the main celestial body of any star system is its sun. Suns come in a variety of sizes and colours, but that’s not important right now. There are three zones around a sun, the hot zone where the suns radiation and heat is too great for anything but barren rocks to inhabit, the cold zone which is basically from the end of the ecosphere out to the edge of a system. What we’re interested in you see is the ecosphere; it is here that the light and heat from a systems sun is good enough to allow for water pockets on a planet. And where there is water of course there is the possibility of life.
“Vao Gai, as I said, is at the edge of this ecosphere, so it’s at the limit of the sun’s heat and light range for a life bearing planet. This of course means it’s much colder than a planet like mine **, which sits comfortably about one AU from its sun,” noticing Sophie’s confused head tilt she explained further, “an Astronomical Unit of measurement – or AU – is approximately one-hundred and fifty thousand kilometres, the exact measurement isn’t necessary. Nelbia for example sits at one point four AU’s from its sun, Vao Gai in retrospect sits about 2 AU’s from its sun.”
Sophie nodded throughout it all, and seemed to understand everything that Celestia had said, “So it’s a cold world, I guess that’s why the Garok have such thick fur covering their bodies.”
“Exactly,” Celestia said, “Right, impromptu science lesson over, let’s get to Vao Gai. The planet is made up of three huge continents; most of the planets water is located in its huge polar regions. The planet also has a lot of seismic activity to keep the planet from entering a permanent Ice Age, so it’s very mountainous and there are lots of active volcanoes and geysers. The main population centres are built on these mountainous regions near the volcanic structures for the warmth. The level of Garok technology is unsurpassed when it comes to natural disaster prevention, for these types of disasters. Once they hit interstellar travel levels of technology they branched out, and generally colonize the more colder habitable planets.”
“You know so much,” Sophie said having full admiration for her new friend.
Celestia laughed again, “Well, these things are taught in schools, but I doubt in the lowest depths of this cess pool of a planet I doubt there was much use for schools.”
“No, not really,” Sophie said lowering her gaze, “Unless you count the streets as a class room and pain and death it’s lessons.”
“Well, you’re above that now,” Celestia tried to cheer her up, “And soon once we’re off this planet you can learn anything your heart desires, the Crimson Blade’s computer core is chock full of information about everything you could ever wish to know.”
Her plan had worked and Sophie was smiling again, it sounded wonderful to her. To be free of pain and misery, to be able to do anything she wanted to do because she didn’t have to worry about people trying to kill her or her sister in their sleep. And she no longer cared how the Bloody Rose became the Bloody Rose. For now she was day dreaming about all the planets in the sky. Dots of light that she had never behold before, never even imagined. Oh she had heard tales of the stars, the trillions of dots in the sky, but to have seen them with her own two eyes? Never before. Now her dreams were coming true.
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Post by Lady Ruliya on Aug 9, 2013 13:36:36 GMT
Chapter 8
Rakyel stood on a rampart surrounding the Blood Angels base down in the Lower World and she looked pretty damn annoyed, her ears were perked up and her tail was straight. She was glaring at Rak’Nor fairly intensely. Not only had they had no contact with Celestia within the past twenty-five hours, but the Black Kings had now launched an offensive. Two hours into the battle and there still seemed no end in sight.
Rak’Nor however was laughing maniacally; in his hands he held a Mk IV Ultican heavy phaser mini-gun. He also seemed to have an unending amount of clips for the damn thing too. He was stood down on the ground, surrounded by plenty of Blood Angel members, his heavy two hander axe strapped to his back seemingly having the time of his life.
Raykel hated him for this, and so she cursed all Orcs. She hadn’t had a chance to properly groom herself and her fur was getting knotty and all kinds of grimy. Still, she dual wielded her two plasma pistols and occasionally fired a barrage into the foray below. The odd blaster bolt might come close to her up on the rampart, but never anything dangerous for her.
She grimaced at his glee, his love for the battle. She fired a barrage down at an advancing group of Black Kings, she managed to fell three of the five, the other two scattered. Without turning she noticed a woman coming up behind her on the ramparts.
“How’s your sister doing?” Rakyel said with no real emotion.
“Julia?” Velonia said a little taken aback, “She’s fine, I didn’t think you cared?”
“I don’t,” she replied bluntly.
After a few awkward seconds she moved to look down upon the battle, “That friend of yours is seriously messing up those Black Kings huh?”
“Yea, don’t you just hate it?” Rakyel said a little disgust in her voice.
Velonia tilted her head, trying to figure her out, “What? You don’t like senseless, mindless killing?”
“Exactly,” Rakyel said, “Me? I’m an assassin by trade, damn fine pilot too, but that’s another story. Stealth and precision, that’s me. That’s why I was leading the team inside the base and not out with Rak’Nor fighting and blowing up the base!” she rose her voice and shouted the last six words off the ramparts, aimed at Rak’Nor, but of course he couldn’t hear her, not over the excessive sound of his mini gun.
“Open warfare,” Rakyel continued, “like what Rak’Nor has just brought down upon us, is not what I do. By the great Felicia I hate this planet!” she fired off a few more barrages in anger. Hitting plenty of Black King members. Velonia had to admit, she was an excellent marksman.
“Yea,” Velonia said suddenly disheartened, “I’m used to fighting a back alley fight. The gangs attack each other here and there, some bar room brawls. But this? Well, this is why I stayed in the slums.”
Rakyel turned to look at Velonia, and smiled, “Well well, a sensible girl, look at that.”
“You don’t have to look that surprised,” Velonia said lifting an eyebrow.
Rakyel turned back to look down at the fighting, Rak’Nor and the Blood Angels he was commanding had pushed most of the Black King members back, they were in a full retreat. But Rakyel knew they’d be back, and with heavier hardware most likely, “We can’t win this. You know that right?” she said steely.
“What do you mean?” Velonia said drawing her own pistol up and firing a few shots into the fray.
“Gang wars don’t end; they keep going,” Rakyel said, “They keep going, dragging the entire level into disarray and death. We need to pull out.”
“Pull out?” Velonia shouted shocked, “We can’t just leave, are you mad?”
Rakyel turned and shot Velonia a look that said she didn’t want to be messed with, “Look, I didn’t ask to be brought down here, I hate this shithole of a place. Rak’Nor may be having the time of his life but I’m not. I have a team member missing, and the ‘prize’ has also been lost. I’d rather move up and try and find my missing people, then sit here trading blaster fire for the next few weeks.”
Velonia stepped back, hearing the feline growl Rakyel was emitting. She was at a loss, she had no idea what to say at this point, her eyes looked away, Sarnok would know how to deal with this, she thought glumly. She knew Rakyel was right though. There was no clear fix to this, there was no actual end, there never had been. But then they’d never had a full out gang war. She figured that Rak’Nor would stay and help fight even if Rakyel bailed on them.
Velonia looked down and noticed Rak’Nor; he launched himself round and fired a salvo into a group of remaining Black King soldiers, “Rak’Nor will help us even if you go off searching for your team mate.”
“Rak’Nor?” she laughed, “Let me tell you a story about Rak’Nor. He was the leader of the most powerful tribe on the Orc colony on Varrog. He had a wife, three strong sons and was respected across the entire colony. Then one day a larger, stronger clan came. They’d heard of Rak’Nor’s prowess in battle and his respect from all. They came in a ** class battleship, when they were told that Rak’Nor wasn’t on the planet, they branded him a coward and launched an attack fleet of fighters and soldiers. But of course Rak’Nor was off planet at the time. He was visiting an old mentor on the Orc homeworld. When he was given the news he quickly returned to Varrog. But all he found there was the ruined remains of his clans town. His home was nothing but fire and rubble, his wife and his three sons were left for him, gutted and laid on the ground, it was a gruesome visage. A banner had been left as well. A banner of Drak’Mar.”
Velonia looked horrified, almost as if she had been unable to imagine what had taken place, but she knew that name, almost everyone did, “Drak’Mar? He’s the most powerful Orc in the galaxy isn’t he? Why would he bother with a small town Clan leader?”
“History most likely,” Rakyel said, her voice still sounding wholly indifferent, “A blood feud from ages past. But Rak’Nor has sworn he will take Drak’Mar’s head for what he did to his family. And so whenever he gets a chance to show off his prowess he goes mental and slays every enemy in sight. This he lifts up his renown, gains more honour. Until one day he will have enough renown to challenge Drak’Mar head on in a single fight to the death.”
“I’d heard Orc society was brutal,” Velonia said, “But I had no idea.”
“Our wonderful captain however saw a kindred spirit in Rak’Nor,” Rakyel said not really Caring about what she was saying, “And of course being a well known member of the Bloody Rose’s crew gave him tons of renown.”
“Okay,” Velonia said looking around, “I get that, but what does it have to do with our current situation?”
“Nelbia is a pretty backwater planet, well known for its underworld crime gangs and debauchery;” Rakyel said bluntly, “There’s not much of a name to make down here.”
“Unless you are the one to turn the tides and take one crime gang and make it the dominant one,” Velonia said smiling, a plan forming in her mind.” Rakyel let out a low growl; she was frustrated now, “Fine, you go talk to him about it. Me? I’m going to try and get in touch with Celestia.” And with that she stalked off the ramparts and back into the base.
Fifteen minutes later and a large group stood in the war room near the centre of the Blood Angels Lower World base. Rak’Nor stood with a large grin, his two hander axe in his hands, over one shoulder. Rakyel stood, her dual pistols holstered, stood against the left wall. Velonia stood with her sister Julia over the war table. On the table sat a map of the Tycho and Sima sectors of the Lower World. Several other members stood around the room.
Rakyel looked at the lot of them. Most of them will die she mused sadistically. A lot of eyes were on Rak’Nor, they all assumed he had the plans, that he knew what he was doing, that he would lead them to victory, and maybe he would. Maybe he wouldn’t. Rakyel didn’t particularly care right now. She had attempted, with no luck, to contact Celestia again. She was getting frustrated and angry. If Rak’Nor’s recklessness had gotten Celestia killed, she wasn’t sure what she’d do to him. But it would be bloody; there was no doubt at that. As an assassin she knew several long, slow and agonising ways to kill Orcs, even large ones such as Rak’Nor.
She shook her head, getting such thoughts out of her mind. He was still one of her team mates too. And if Celestia had been killed, he’d beat himself up about it far worse than she ever could.
But the feeling welled up inside her, she had to find Celestia, she was a close friend in arms, one who would look for Rakyel if she had fallen behind, “You know what? I don’t care,” Rakyel suddenly snapped, “You can stay here and play general if you want Sarnok but I’m going to find Celestia and the prize.”
All eyes were on Rakyel, even Rak’Nor’s. He seemed a little disheartened, “Why do you always talk of this human girl, Sophie as ‘the prize’?”
Rakyel was taken aback, she hadn’t thought he’d ask something like that, “Because,” she said slowly, emotion brimming on the edge, “If I think of her as a Human, then she has feelings, and hopes and dreams and all of that. If she’s just the prize, the point of the mission then...
She paused checking her surging emotions, but she was unable to and her anger spilled out, “then, when you go and blow the stupid base up killing everyone, then I won’t have to feel guilty and have to mourn for someone else, other than Celestia.”
Rak’Nor smashed a large fist onto the table, “Damn you! Do you think that I do not care about what happened?”
Rakyel’s tail was up, and her ears pricked, her fur standing on edge, “You were too eager, you blew it too early, and may very well have gotten them killed!”
“Ten minutes,” Rak’Nor stated, “Ten minutes, I waited every last second, besides!” he raged, “You gave the order to blow it!”
Rakyel froze; she had somehow forgotten that fact. At the time she was annoyed at being there, she just wanted the whole thing to disappear, so she had to order him to make it disappear. He was right; it was her fault, not his. Her face dropped. Crap.
The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Rak’Nor showed no signs of backing down, and although Rakyel had had the wind knocked out of her, she was still not backing down either, both held steadfast to their stances. They stared daggers into each other’s eyes, no one knew what was going to happen.
“Cut the crap you two!” Julia shouted slamming her own fist onto the desk. She had recovered, but not fully, she still sported bandages across her head and one eye. She also had bandages across her chest hidden underneath her clothing. She turned to Rakyel, “If you wanna leave, then leave. Just go, we don’t have time right now for this.”
Rakyel didn’t say or do anything for a good full minute, and neither did anyone else, they all waited to see what she would do. In the end she just through a hand as if brushing them all away and stalked out of the room. Though she stood at the door for a moment, “I’ll be in touch Rak’Nor.” And then she left.
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Post by Lady Ruliya on Aug 9, 2013 13:37:04 GMT
Chapter Nine
The Bloody Rose stood leaning back against her desk in the captain’s ready room, just off of the Crimson Blade’s bridge. She was staring at a large screen on the left wall. The room was small, but comfortable, a good place to rest while not on the bridge. She had spent years modifying it. Little things here and there, personal memento’s though few, were dotted about on shelves and one on her desk. These were mainly books, some were old and beaten, original texts from planets she’d visited. One of the major things she had upgraded, was the communication systems inside her ready room. From here should could contact almost anyone on a secure, encrypted channel. One that not many would be able to crack. And so she was using this modification right now.
On the screen was a human male, dressed in a white suite, his hair was short and black, and a little tussled. He wore a badge on his chest, it was showed a blue planet, with a red ring around it, and a gold plated A on the planet, Acheron Primes badge.
“Well this is a surprise Miss Rose,” He said in a very professional voice, “I most certainly never expected to hear from you again.”
“Telnair,” Rose said, “Where it not a matter of the upmost importance, I would have sought help elsewhere.”
“But,” Telnair said, “You need my help because you need Acheron Primes facilities, yes?”
Rose frowned, “Yes, I do.”
He smiled, “Your honesty is refreshing this time around.”
“I need some data decrypted...” she started and then left her words hanging in the air.
“And?” he mused, “What else do you need of me? After all, it’s not like you to go so quiet. ”
“It’s in a capsule.” She said.
“One of ours?” his surprise was obvious on his face, though he hid it fast, “Show me this capsule.”
Rose moved her arm across her desk outside the view of the monitor and picked up the capsule, then she placed it on the desk next to her, so he could see it plainly.
“Very interesting,” Telnair said intently spying the capsule, “Very interesting indeed.”
“I’d hoped you’d understand the urgency when you saw it,” she said wryly.
“That is a type twelve-B modified data capsule,” he was rubbing his chin in speculation, “No doubt with a series-four, twelve-eighty-A encrypted isolinear data rod.
“These are very rare outside of the Independent systems borders,” He said eyes narrowing, “How exactly did you come to be in possession of this capsule?”
“A courier from Dravel was supposed to be delivering it to me on the ** Station out near the Tykon Expanse,” Rose explained, “He made a stop off on Nelbia, I do not know why. It was there he failed to check in. And after a rough and tumble few days the capsule was relocated and brought back into my possession. After leaving Neblia’s orbit, we are now en-route to your borders. Hence the call.”
Telnair listened carefully, taking it all in, “Dravel you say? I do not believe we have ever sold a capsule to the Dravel system, especially after recent events.”
“Yea,” Rose said, “ figured it would have been a black market deal myself. But as several people were killed getting this to my courier, and then even more died while getting it out of the system. And then of course the courier himself was killed on Nelbia.”
“Many deaths usually mean something important,” Telnair understood her urgency now.
“To the best of my knowledge,” Rose added, “The so called Black King, aka Viktor Klaas, is also after this rod. It was his agents who killed my courier.”
“And any information that is on that rod would be better entrusted to your care?” he said shaking his head, knowing he didn’t have much of a choice at this point.
“Better the devil you know, right?” Rose said a hint of a smile on her face.
“I’ll need to make some arrangements,” Telnair said pressing a button and then disappearing from the screen as it went black.
Rose let out a long sigh and sat on the seat behind the desk. She tilted her head back and closed her eye. She silently remembered the events that took place.
A few minutes passed and Kad entered. He stood there, arms behind his back. She looked up at him from her seat, “You weren’t there when I first met Telnair, where you?” she asked him.
“No,” he said shaking his head.
She laughed getting up and walking over to a cabinet on the left of her desk, “well,” she said taking two glasses and placing them on the desk, one on her side, and one on his. She turned back and pulled out a decanter full of a reddish liquid, and she poured some into each glass, and placed the decanter on the desk as well. She also took a small packet and placed it on the desk next to her glass. She pulled a long thin cigarette out of the packet and placed it in her mouth. Inhaling deeply she lit the cigarette taking the smoke back into her lungs, as she sat back down into her chair. She noticed Kad was still standing, “sit down my friend, enjoy a drink and hear my tale.”
He shook his head, a smile on his face. He sat down and took a sip of the drink, a Valarn whiskey. It burnt his throat. He didn’t make a noise, but made himself comfortable.
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Post by MugiwaraBlair on Aug 9, 2013 22:40:40 GMT
Very good ^^
Also, is it more like science fantasy or you just used fantasy races as alien species ?
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Post by Lady Ruliya on Aug 9, 2013 23:40:05 GMT
I decided that I liked the idea of Elves and Orcs and well, the Garok are basically Taurens ;P I thought these are interesting races, why do the need to be confined to a fantasy setting?
I also have humanoid Dragon type beings called the Draconis, among others ^^
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Post by MugiwaraBlair on Aug 9, 2013 23:45:03 GMT
Nice
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Post by Lady Ruliya on Aug 10, 2013 0:06:48 GMT
What did you think? Any criticisms, idea's, things you loved, hated? ;P
I'll release my current version, maybe you can compare ;P
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Post by MugiwaraBlair on Aug 10, 2013 0:10:42 GMT
Can't think of any objective criticisms for now.
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Post by CosmicBehemoth on Oct 10, 2013 17:58:09 GMT
So I've gotten about half way through; sorry about taking this long, but I'm getting there.
Where to begin? Well, let me ask, do you plan on trying to get this published eventually?
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