Altered Trajectory: Strays
May. 24th, 2009 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalJust another random scenelet. This is one I've had in my head for a while now.
Rufus and Hazel were just exiting the exiting the station's bar when the sound of a commotion approaching them from spinward caused them to both pause turn in that direction. A young human woman with a shaved head, a handcuff dangling from one wrist, was sprinting along the concourse, screaming and sobbing incoherently as two constables pounded after her. Half-blinded from her tears, she plowed straight into Hazel, sending them both tumbling to the ground.
"Oi! Watch it, you little pup!" Hazel cried out as the girl landed on top of her.
"Pleaseohplease! Yougottahelpme! Please, please, PLEASE!" the girl sobbed, as the constables caught up with her. One grabbed her dangling cuff and used it to yank the girl's arm up behind her back, making her cry out in pain.
"Here now, what's this?" Rufus demanded, the other constable grabbed the girl's other wrist and forced her face down on the ground. As the girl was turned over, he caught glimpse of a silver cyberglider port just behind her left ear.
"Not your concern, sir" the first constable said, as he forced the girl's free wrist into the open cuff and locked it. "Unless you want to file charges for assault."
"I didn't do anything wrong! I was just hungry!" the girl cried.
"You are under arrest for vagrancy, shoplifting, and now with additional charges of resisting arrest and unlawful flight from authority," the second constable said, pulling her to her feet.
"What are you going to do with her?" Hazel asked, dusting herself off and checking the chrome of her artificial leg for scratches.
"Either she pays up, or she goes on the auction web for forced indenture," the first constable said.
"I already told you, I don't have any money!"
"The child must have parents, surely," Rufus said. The girl looked in bad shape, her face dirty and stained with tears, her head covered in a light fuzz and cuts. He guessed her fashion statement had to have been self inflicted.
"I can't afford to make an FTL call to reach them, or my Aunt Vonnie!" the girl said, starting to sob again.
"Shouldn't worry too much about that," the first constable said. "A cyberglider is a pretty rare thing to pop up on the auction web. Your fine will be paid off right quick."
"How much of a fine?" Rufus asked.
The constable looked over he and Hazel's somewhat ratty merc pilot uniforms. "More than you'll likely be able to pay. The judge will set it to the limit, seeing she's a cyber glider and all."
"Oh, I don't know. He's full of surprises," Hazel said.
* * *
Two hours later the girl, who's name turned out to be Gwendolyn Freeman, sat between Rufus and Hazel in a burger bar, wolfing down her second vat protein cheezeburger. She wore an electronic cuff locked to her wrist marking her as indentured to Rufus, by virtue of his winning the very quick auction that had taken place once the judge had determined that she didn't have the means to pay her fines herself. It seemed the prudent thing to him to leave it on her, at least until he could be sure she'd be able to get home safely on her own.
"Thank you again for this," Gwen said, in between bites. "I hadn't eaten for four days."
"Not a worry," Hazel said. "Ru's got a habit of picking up lost strays."
"We'll get you cleaned up and on the next liner back your home," Rufus said. "Are you from Earth or one of the colonies?"
Gwen swallowed down hard, her face contorting in fear. "I can't go back home!"
"Why not? Or was it your parents you ran away from in the first place?" he asked.
"No, my parents are cool. It's just that they work for a terraforming company. They won't be back home for months, so me and my brother Kevin live with my Aunt Vonnie. She and my Uncle Barry are okay, it's my Uncle Erwin and cousin Leeza that got me in this mess."
Rufus' ears perked up. "Uncle Irwin and cousin Leeza? They wouldn't be Admiral and Commander Blake respectively, would they?"
Gwen stared at him, still looking fearful and almost ready to bolt, cuff or not. "Yeah, do you know them?"
"I met Blake the Younger when she was still a captain. The impression she made was less than charming."
"Leeza was all right until a couple of months ago. Then something happened and she got kicked back to commander's rank. She wasn't real happy about that, but it was all classified, so no one told me anything." She made a face. "Uncle Irwin has always been kind of a prick though."
"How did you end up here though? Aren't you a bit young to have a Cyber Glider implant installed?" Hazel asked.
Gwen took a long sip on her soda and said, "I'm a pretty good programmer, and I scored high on my cyber gliding aptitude tests. But Aunt Vonnie was dead set against me getting an implant installed. Not without my parents' permission anyway. Uncle Irwin would argue with them about it, telling them if I got an age waiver to join up into the Navy that I could cyber glide for them. Y'know, base system security, that sort of thing. It sounded sorta interesting, and it wasn't like I'd be stuck on a battlecruiser or anything."
Rufus, who had been in the Vulpine military long enough to realize the difference between a recruiter's pitch and the actual assignment a newly minted officer was likely to get, held his tongue and let the girl continue.
"Then something happened about four months back. Leeza came home to Vonnie's looking steamed, with her rank cut. She told me that I needed to stop dilly-dallying and decide what I wanted to do with my life. Vonnie told her to stop pushing and to get out if she couldn't be civil. I... I wasn't sure what to do. Cyber gliding looked fun, at least in the recruiting vids."
"What happened?" he asked.
"Leeza said... she said if I agreed to get the implant, she and Uncle Irwin would pay for everything and I wouldn't have to join the Navy. I figured if I didn't, I could just join Cyber-Cor and write my own ticket."
"Wild guess. They lied," Hazel said with a snort.
"I got the implant installed and the next thing I know Uncle Irwin was there in the recovery center with some guy from Earth Alliance Security, saying they wanted me to head to Newspring to go tearing through the Vulpine government nets. They told me the paperwork I'd signed when I'd entered hospital authorized them to induct me into Alliance Security, whether I wanted to be or not!"
"How did you get away?" Rufus asked.
"They dragged me to Luna Station, but they didn't put me in jail or anything, just set a guard on my quarters." She smiled slightly. "I managed to disconnect some wiring from the room's computer and hook it into my glider implant. After that I just had to cut my own orders to transfer me off Luna Station and onto the next outgoing transport. That's how I ended up here."
"Goddess bless you, girl! From what I know of Cyber Gliding you could have fried your brain trying a stunt like that!" Hazel exclaimed.
Gwen blushed. "Yeah, I figured that out later. But hey, it worked."
"There's no one quite so brave as a youth who doesn't know what she's doing," Rufus observed. "Well, I'm very glad you were able to get away at least, and gladder still that we were able to rescue you from what was likely to be an unpleasant fate. I just wish I knew what to do with you."
"We could send her to Vulpine Prime," Hazel said. "Our government would be interested to learn that Earth was trying to spy on them."
Rufus shook his head. "Not an option right now. We can't leave young Miss Freeman here alone and unprotected, while she waits for a liner to arrive that's heading towards Vulpine Prime. No doubt Admiral Blake and his minions are even now on her trail to reel her back home."
"Well it's not like we can take her with us." Hazel paused, looked at Rufus' face and repeated more firmly, "We can not take her with us, Rufus."
"Oh, please! I can't go back home! I don't want to be alone right now!"
"Hazel, it's only sensible. What's more safe than an armed warship?"
"I can think of lots of places. Anyway, the captain won't allow it."
"Oh, I'm sure she will. We're supposed to be scruffy mercs anyway. It makes perfect sense for me to purchase the contract of an indentured servant to wait on me." He didn't add the obvious fact that it would be better to have Gwendolyn aboard so they could pick her brain on what else she might have overheard about the admiral's plans.
"Please!" Gwen begged. "I promise I'll try not to make any trouble."
"This is such a bad idea," Hazel groused. She ended up paying for the girl's meal anyway, and helping recover her meager traveling goods from the police station's impound.
Rufus and Hazel were just exiting the exiting the station's bar when the sound of a commotion approaching them from spinward caused them to both pause turn in that direction. A young human woman with a shaved head, a handcuff dangling from one wrist, was sprinting along the concourse, screaming and sobbing incoherently as two constables pounded after her. Half-blinded from her tears, she plowed straight into Hazel, sending them both tumbling to the ground.
"Oi! Watch it, you little pup!" Hazel cried out as the girl landed on top of her.
"Pleaseohplease! Yougottahelpme! Please, please, PLEASE!" the girl sobbed, as the constables caught up with her. One grabbed her dangling cuff and used it to yank the girl's arm up behind her back, making her cry out in pain.
"Here now, what's this?" Rufus demanded, the other constable grabbed the girl's other wrist and forced her face down on the ground. As the girl was turned over, he caught glimpse of a silver cyberglider port just behind her left ear.
"Not your concern, sir" the first constable said, as he forced the girl's free wrist into the open cuff and locked it. "Unless you want to file charges for assault."
"I didn't do anything wrong! I was just hungry!" the girl cried.
"You are under arrest for vagrancy, shoplifting, and now with additional charges of resisting arrest and unlawful flight from authority," the second constable said, pulling her to her feet.
"What are you going to do with her?" Hazel asked, dusting herself off and checking the chrome of her artificial leg for scratches.
"Either she pays up, or she goes on the auction web for forced indenture," the first constable said.
"I already told you, I don't have any money!"
"The child must have parents, surely," Rufus said. The girl looked in bad shape, her face dirty and stained with tears, her head covered in a light fuzz and cuts. He guessed her fashion statement had to have been self inflicted.
"I can't afford to make an FTL call to reach them, or my Aunt Vonnie!" the girl said, starting to sob again.
"Shouldn't worry too much about that," the first constable said. "A cyberglider is a pretty rare thing to pop up on the auction web. Your fine will be paid off right quick."
"How much of a fine?" Rufus asked.
The constable looked over he and Hazel's somewhat ratty merc pilot uniforms. "More than you'll likely be able to pay. The judge will set it to the limit, seeing she's a cyber glider and all."
"Oh, I don't know. He's full of surprises," Hazel said.
* * *
Two hours later the girl, who's name turned out to be Gwendolyn Freeman, sat between Rufus and Hazel in a burger bar, wolfing down her second vat protein cheezeburger. She wore an electronic cuff locked to her wrist marking her as indentured to Rufus, by virtue of his winning the very quick auction that had taken place once the judge had determined that she didn't have the means to pay her fines herself. It seemed the prudent thing to him to leave it on her, at least until he could be sure she'd be able to get home safely on her own.
"Thank you again for this," Gwen said, in between bites. "I hadn't eaten for four days."
"Not a worry," Hazel said. "Ru's got a habit of picking up lost strays."
"We'll get you cleaned up and on the next liner back your home," Rufus said. "Are you from Earth or one of the colonies?"
Gwen swallowed down hard, her face contorting in fear. "I can't go back home!"
"Why not? Or was it your parents you ran away from in the first place?" he asked.
"No, my parents are cool. It's just that they work for a terraforming company. They won't be back home for months, so me and my brother Kevin live with my Aunt Vonnie. She and my Uncle Barry are okay, it's my Uncle Erwin and cousin Leeza that got me in this mess."
Rufus' ears perked up. "Uncle Irwin and cousin Leeza? They wouldn't be Admiral and Commander Blake respectively, would they?"
Gwen stared at him, still looking fearful and almost ready to bolt, cuff or not. "Yeah, do you know them?"
"I met Blake the Younger when she was still a captain. The impression she made was less than charming."
"Leeza was all right until a couple of months ago. Then something happened and she got kicked back to commander's rank. She wasn't real happy about that, but it was all classified, so no one told me anything." She made a face. "Uncle Irwin has always been kind of a prick though."
"How did you end up here though? Aren't you a bit young to have a Cyber Glider implant installed?" Hazel asked.
Gwen took a long sip on her soda and said, "I'm a pretty good programmer, and I scored high on my cyber gliding aptitude tests. But Aunt Vonnie was dead set against me getting an implant installed. Not without my parents' permission anyway. Uncle Irwin would argue with them about it, telling them if I got an age waiver to join up into the Navy that I could cyber glide for them. Y'know, base system security, that sort of thing. It sounded sorta interesting, and it wasn't like I'd be stuck on a battlecruiser or anything."
Rufus, who had been in the Vulpine military long enough to realize the difference between a recruiter's pitch and the actual assignment a newly minted officer was likely to get, held his tongue and let the girl continue.
"Then something happened about four months back. Leeza came home to Vonnie's looking steamed, with her rank cut. She told me that I needed to stop dilly-dallying and decide what I wanted to do with my life. Vonnie told her to stop pushing and to get out if she couldn't be civil. I... I wasn't sure what to do. Cyber gliding looked fun, at least in the recruiting vids."
"What happened?" he asked.
"Leeza said... she said if I agreed to get the implant, she and Uncle Irwin would pay for everything and I wouldn't have to join the Navy. I figured if I didn't, I could just join Cyber-Cor and write my own ticket."
"Wild guess. They lied," Hazel said with a snort.
"I got the implant installed and the next thing I know Uncle Irwin was there in the recovery center with some guy from Earth Alliance Security, saying they wanted me to head to Newspring to go tearing through the Vulpine government nets. They told me the paperwork I'd signed when I'd entered hospital authorized them to induct me into Alliance Security, whether I wanted to be or not!"
"How did you get away?" Rufus asked.
"They dragged me to Luna Station, but they didn't put me in jail or anything, just set a guard on my quarters." She smiled slightly. "I managed to disconnect some wiring from the room's computer and hook it into my glider implant. After that I just had to cut my own orders to transfer me off Luna Station and onto the next outgoing transport. That's how I ended up here."
"Goddess bless you, girl! From what I know of Cyber Gliding you could have fried your brain trying a stunt like that!" Hazel exclaimed.
Gwen blushed. "Yeah, I figured that out later. But hey, it worked."
"There's no one quite so brave as a youth who doesn't know what she's doing," Rufus observed. "Well, I'm very glad you were able to get away at least, and gladder still that we were able to rescue you from what was likely to be an unpleasant fate. I just wish I knew what to do with you."
"We could send her to Vulpine Prime," Hazel said. "Our government would be interested to learn that Earth was trying to spy on them."
Rufus shook his head. "Not an option right now. We can't leave young Miss Freeman here alone and unprotected, while she waits for a liner to arrive that's heading towards Vulpine Prime. No doubt Admiral Blake and his minions are even now on her trail to reel her back home."
"Well it's not like we can take her with us." Hazel paused, looked at Rufus' face and repeated more firmly, "We can not take her with us, Rufus."
"Oh, please! I can't go back home! I don't want to be alone right now!"
"Hazel, it's only sensible. What's more safe than an armed warship?"
"I can think of lots of places. Anyway, the captain won't allow it."
"Oh, I'm sure she will. We're supposed to be scruffy mercs anyway. It makes perfect sense for me to purchase the contract of an indentured servant to wait on me." He didn't add the obvious fact that it would be better to have Gwendolyn aboard so they could pick her brain on what else she might have overheard about the admiral's plans.
"Please!" Gwen begged. "I promise I'll try not to make any trouble."
"This is such a bad idea," Hazel groused. She ended up paying for the girl's meal anyway, and helping recover her meager traveling goods from the police station's impound.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-24 08:50 pm (UTC)famous last words
no subject
Date: 2009-05-24 10:22 pm (UTC)Hmm. I really ought to get to work on one of the ideas bouncing around my head.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-26 12:44 am (UTC)And Gwen does try. It's not her fault she's got evil relatives.
Actually it's mine, at least for Leeza. She's stuck with Uncle Erwin in the canon stories too...
no subject
Date: 2009-05-26 08:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-26 09:41 am (UTC)NOBLE
Counts: Major landowners and members of the ruling council.
Viscounts: Sons and daughters of same.
Lords: Lower nobility, sworn to a viscount and allowed to own land.
MILITARY
Not technically a caste, they stand between the nobles and the commoners, in the same manner the Barrayaran military does in LMB's novels. A commoner who becomes a respected officer can marry up into a noble family if they're fortunate.
COMMONER
Everyone else. Their major point is that they can't own land. Which one supposes is less of a worry if said commoner is just renting the building that his multi-billion credit corporation is housed in, but there you go. :)
There's also a lot of stuff about the head females in noble families having permission to grant or refuse marriage or reproduction rights to their younger kin, but you should check the Vulpine entry in the almanac for that.
Nice one :)
Date: 2009-06-19 08:44 pm (UTC)Aww, nice... poor, poor Gwen... *comforts her*
I am sure she will be essential for the further plots of this story saving their butts on several occations...
Well, I am sure I dislike in this universe as well...
...hopefully Auntie Vonnie will get whispers of what they did to poor Gwen...
...and hopefully then erwin and leeza get their reprimands from her...
And I just found a typo or two:
- is it on purpose or why did you change erwin to irwin?
- [quote]Rufus and Hazel were just exiting the exiting the station's bar when the sound of a commotion approaching them from spinward caused them to both pause and turn in that direction.[/quote]
"exiting the" is doubled here...
and "and" is missing further on
- and the tag should read grace of god not gracc of god
mjkj