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Natalcya Katla
Astropolitan Front
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Posted - 2008.06.08 14:52:00 -
[1]
It wasn't a strange sound that tipped him off, or a movement in the corner of his eye. Nor was it a smell that didn't belong, or some unfamiliar pattern in the soft breeze from the air recyclers. There were no creaks from rusty hinges, no rattle from dusty fans, no dirt on the floor, and that was what made the hairs stand up at the back of his neck. Before he could act on his instinct, though, he had closed the door behind him - and the first unfamiliar sound, that of an automated lock, confirmed his suspicions.
Sarii looked around, slowly, his breath catching in his throat and a knot of fear tightening in his stomach. The hallway was empty and silent, the old furniture casting static shadows on the floor in the dim light of the roof lamp. Nobody jumped out from the shadows or from around the corners. Nothing moved behind the ventilation filters except the fans. Nothing was there that didn't belong there, but two pairs of shoes were gone from their usual place in the corner. Sarii walked over to the wardrobe, slowly, and opened it. The overcoats were gone, too.
Pulling his handgun, Sarii walked farther into the hallway and made a right turn down the corridor. He realized that he was, in all likelihood, walking deeper into the trap, but he had to be sure. Holding his breath, he flung the first door open and looked down the barrel of his gun at a dark bedroom. There was nobody waiting there. The bed was neatly made. The pictures were still in their familiar places on the walls, and his proudest trophy, a heavy, gold-plated ID tag taken from the corpse of a Blood Raider captain, still hung on display in its crystal case. Nothing was missing, except his wife.
Heart pounding in his chest, Sarii walked quickly across the floor and stopped by the other door in the room. This time he hesitated before pushing it open, desperate hope warring against icy dread in his stomach. Those feelings dulled, however slightly, as his daughter Sasami's room proved to be as empty and as tidy as he room he was standing in.
Sarii stood for a long moment in the doorway, trying to get his thoughts in order. Whoever it was that took Tyra and Sasami, they had at least, so it seemed, taken them alive. The perpetrators were still in the apartment, he was certain, and before long they would stop waiting for him to stumble through the right door into their laps, and come after him. He needed answers, but he also needed to escape this trap, and to do that, he needed backup.
As he brought his hand up to activate his subdermal FTL commlink, Sarii allowed himself a moment of speculation on the identity of the perpetrators. Could it be Sanshas or Blood Raiders, choosing him because of his connections to profiled capsuleer rivals to set an example? He doubted it - security was tight in this area against any sign of Sansha activity, and although there might be Sani Sabik hidden among those Ammatar with the power to arrange something like this, it would be likelier for them to set a more blatant and grisly example than what had been done here.
A more believable theory would be that it was station police or regional police. That would still make for a tricky situation, and the thought of the possibility that his wife and daughter could be condemned into slavery made his stomach turn. Even so, Sarii had influential and affluent friends who would know which palms to grease. Once he had all the answers, he'd get them back. He had to.
With a slight hum reverberating through his jawbone, Sarii's subdermal comms came to life. His jaw was already mid-through the movements employed to navigate the comms menu when a recorded message suddenly cut through:
"This is an automated message. Your FTL communications service has been terminated. Please visit your nearest Communications Relay Committee office as soon as possible to discuss renewal terms for this service. Have a nice day."
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Natalcya Katla
Astropolitan Front
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Posted - 2008.06.08 14:58:00 -
[2]
Sarii blinked, not believing his own ears. As the full meaning of the words hit him, he felt as though he was drowning. Struggling to breathe, he leaned against the doorframe, the hand holding the gun hanging limply down by his side. When he heard the footsteps behind him, he didn't turn. He made no attempt to resist when the Mancatcher drones pried the gun from his grip and secured his hands behind his back with electromagnetic cuffs.
"I am placing you under arrest, according to DED Directive S-114, regarding accessories to organized crime. A list of your rights has been transferred to your neurocomputer and is available for your perusal. Please, mr. Vaanteimo. Come." A woman's voice - no, a girl's. There was a tingle as a slight electric current ran through the cuffs. It had not been a question.
She was alone, Sarii noted as he let himself be shepherded back through the corridor and into the living room. As far as he could see, she had to be under twenty years of age, very unusual for someone of her kind. Still, the cut and color of her uniform was unmistakable, as were the star and jagged circle sewn on her shoulder, and the black-and-silver ribbons on her sleeves identifying her as a SARO officer.
"Sit down." Sarii did as he was told, slumping down in a reclining chair by the table. The table was empty, except for a stack of documents - brouchures, it seemewd. The cuffs chafed on his hands behind his back, and he shifted into a more forward-leaned position as the girl sat down opposite him. She looked over at him with a surprisingly sympathetic smile, and for the first time, it struck Sarii that if the setting had been different, he'd have considered her cute. The impression was eroded by the somber uniform, however, and by the insectoid Peacekeeper drone perched on her shoulder.
"I'll get right down to business, mr. Vaanteimo." The girl's voice was friendly too, almost fond. "We have compelling evidence of your involvement with the Angel Cartel. We know you have regular transactions with their representatives, including universal contraband articles, and we know all about your dealings with capsuleer outlaws. You are in deep trouble. We have enough on you to put you away for life, if we wanted. But - it would take time, and resources, and after the incident in Yulai last week, we're on an even tighter budget than usual, and we'd like to process all our cases as quickly as possible, things being as they are."
The girl leaned forward, still with an easy smile, and spread the documents out with a hand. They were indeed brochures, Sarii saw, depicting various correctional facilities.
"I have been authorized by my superiors to offer you a deal. We have compiled a list of some of your most aggravating offenses. If you sign guilty to them all, not only will you get away with a sentence of only twenty years - you will also be given the opportunity to choose which facility you'll serve your sentence in, from among these options presented here. If you prove to be very cooperative, you might even be allowed to share a cell with your wife. You are welcome to talk it over with your lawyer, but I assure you, it's a deal only a fool would throw away."
Sarii tore his gaze up, away from the deceptively bright and jovial images on the prison brochures and back to the girl. There was a big lump in his throat, and he had to swallow several times before he could speak. "And my daughter?"
The officer leaned back. "Your daughter....will be given a good home. You'll have no reason to worry."
Sarii grit his teeth and edged forward in the chair. Another tingle around his wrists warned him to stop moving. The Peacekeeper drone hunched low on the officer's shoulder, ready to spring. "Where? With whom?"
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Natalcya Katla
Astropolitan Front
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Posted - 2008.06.08 15:02:00 -
[3]
The officer shook her head slightly, as calm as ever. "Getting yourself worked up isn't going to do your family or yourself any good, mr. Vaanteimo. Now. This is not information we are obliged to give you, and usually, we wouldn't. However, in your case, I've been authorized to make an exception. Consider yourself lucky - and your daughter, too."
She leaned forward again, pushing another leaflet across the table and spreading it out for Sarii to see. The paper-thin screens of the leaflet showed video clips of uniformed children going about their routines in what seemed like an expensive boarding school. "This institution has expressed an interest in taking in your daughter. It's an education facility for children, funded by a capsuleer corporation. Astropolitan Front. I don't know if you're familiar with them."
Sarii nodded slowly. He recognized the name, and this all sounded horribly wrong. He wasn't a big fish by any measure, and still the DED had clearly gone out of their way to reel him in, here. SARO waiting for him in his own home, his choice of prisons if he cooperated, that Katla woman's people already calling dibs on his child. He was being used, that much was clear, but for what?
"You're asking me to sign away my child. How can you ask me that? Don't I have the right to at least choose who to hand over the custody to?"
The officer shook her head. "In cases where the parents are involved in organized crime, the DED has the legal right to step in and reassign the custody of the child as the situation warrants. We don't want children to grow up learning a life of crime, after all. And this institution is of excellent quality. Good funding, good tutors, a safe and stable social environment. Like I said, you won't have to worry."
Sarii felt himself turning sick. Through gritted teeth, he said: "I want to speak to a lawyer."
The officer sighed and nodded. "That is your right. However, I feel I should inform you that we are looking to close a lot of cases these days, and similar deals have and will be offered to many other detainees. It's a first-come, first-served situation, and the best facilities are going to be filled up first. These institutions don't have unlimited capacity, after all. In a worst-case scenario, you could end up having to serve your time in a planetside penal colony on Reschard V, while your daughter is placed in a state-run Ammatar orphanage. You have to consider what implications that would carry for a child of mixed Civire and Thukker descent."
"Damn you!" Sarii was on his feet in the blink of an eye. The electric current shot through his body, making his muscles contort violently, and the Peacekeeper drone was in the air, spraying his face with something that made his eyes feel like they were burning out of their sockets. Sarii fell heavily to the floor, gasping for air and groaning in pain.
The officer sighed again. Sarii could hear how she shuffled the leaflets back in the stack they had been in and picked them up. "I guess we have our answer. I will take you down to our station office. From there you will be transferred to one of our regional stations, where a lawyer will be waiting for you and from where you can make your three appointed FTL calls. Do you need help getting..."
"Wait!" Sarii's voice was slurred - his tongue didn't seem to be working properly. Struggling, he got up on his knees, and with some extra effort, he managed to get back in the chair. He sat still for a few seconds, his chest heaving for air. "Wait."
The officer sat back down. He couldn't be sure through the blurry haze obscuring his vision, but it seemed to him that she was smiling.
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Natalcya Katla
Astropolitan Front
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Posted - 2008.06.08 15:05:00 -
[4]
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Natalcya Katla was studying her image in the mirror when the news ticked in on her neurocomputer. The reconstructive nanosurgery had gone well, and only a vague red line now showed where the kick to her face had driven her teeth through her upper lip. The ugly bruises were nothing more now than a faint yellow hue on the left side of her face, and her front teeth had been re-laquered, which had left them slightly whiter than the rest.
She digested the news calmly, taking note of all the names of the people and locations involved to make sure that the instructions had been followed correctly. She then turned to the mirror again for a final scrutiny.
At last convinced that everything was in order on both ends, she turned away from the mirror and walked down the corridor towards her office. Once inside, she walked over to her desk and looked at the little doll hanging suspended in a thread from the ceiling above it. It was a doll of an angel, wings spread in flight. She reached out, cradling the doll in her hands, and stroked one of the wings with a finger, carefully. Then she took hold of one of the feathers between her thumb and forefinger, and pulled.
As she sat down in her chair, watching the feather glide slowly to the floor in the weak gravity, Katla allowed herself a smile of satisfaction.
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Kai Zion
The Zion Accounts
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Posted - 2008.06.08 15:53:00 -
[5]
Shudders
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Kyoko Sakoda
Ghost Festival
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Posted - 2008.06.08 17:05:00 -
[6]
Rabble rabble. 
Ghost Festival is recruiting. |
Silver Night
Naqam
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Posted - 2008.06.08 22:54:00 -
[7]
S'right, put all the damn angels away
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The Clown Man.
GLS Mr. State
Caldari Patriot.
Sansha's Nation Supporter
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Verone
Veto Corp
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Posted - 2008.06.09 14:54:00 -
[8]
 Awesome...
\o/ EON FICTION WRITER OF THE YEAR! \o/
>>> THE LIFE OF AN OUTLAW <<< |
Vieve Tisserand
Strix Armaments and Defence
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Posted - 2008.06.12 19:28:00 -
[9]
A belated wow for a rather cool and elegant way to screw someone over viscerally. |
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