Post by Eric Moreau on Jul 8, 2005 10:48:10 GMT -5
The Ties That Bind: Part 1
[/b][/u]Darkness…
A voice echoes in the distance, too faint to be heard, it fades away. The echo returns a short time later this time louder but still not enough to be heard before it fades away. It returns yet again even louder than the last as the voice can clearly be heard.
“Jayna…I’m sorry.”
Asani?[/i]
Jayna jerks up from her sleep sweat beads down her face, as she looks wild eyed around the room. Moonlight softly flows through the window above her bed illuminating the room slightly, but enough so that the room is not pitch black. She tosses the blankets covering her legs away and swings her feet off the bed and they land with a soft thud on the carpet of her bedroom. She had been experiencing the same dream every night for the past few weeks. Her sister who she had not seen in decades speaking to her from the impenetrable darkness, a disembodied voice calling to her from the void. Apologizing, it’s not her who needs to apologize, it’s me Jayna thought as she stood up and walked into her bathroom. She places her cupped hands under the faucet and water begins to spill out filling her hands, she splashes the water on her face and dries off with a nearby towel. Here I am enjoying a good life while Asani is somewhere out there working as a slave Jayna thought as she left the bathroom and headed into the kitchen passing through the living room who’s lights activate as she enters. Jayna had always felt guilty about abandoning the search for her sister. She and her sister Asani had been born to parents who had been slaves. Asani being the oldest was the first to be taken away once she came of age. Slave children who came of age were often put on the auction block.
Jayna remembered that day vividly, hired thugs had arrived one morning while the family was having breakfast and took Asani. Her father had protested but the thugs merely beat him as Jayna and her mother huddled in a corner crying. When Jayna had come of age she too was put on the auction block, but by then there was no one to cry for her. Her parents had died several years before. A sleazy man who had made her prostitute herself to his wealthy clients had bought her. She would probably still be there today if luck had not smiled her way. One of her master’s clients was an Imperial Navy defector and he was looking to sell information. The Imperial Navy of course had got wind of his plan and had been watching him for several months. They made their move on the defector in his hotel room just as Jayna had been getting ready to “entertain” the defector. The leader of the assault team was a man in his mid-forties named Sam Irons, his wife and daughter had recently been killed in a vehicle accident and he had plunged head first into his work to escape grieving. When he had seen Jayna, he had been reminded of his daughter and had decided that someone so young should not be wasting her life with prostitution. He had taken her with him, when the assault team had gotten to the extraction shuttle the pilot did not want to take off with Jayna inside. His orders had been clear, the assault team and the defector were to be extracted and no one else. Sam Irons had knocked the pilot out with one punch and flown the shuttle himself. He had gotten in a lot of trouble over his decision to bring Jayna along but he had survived the trouble mainly because the Imperial Navy brass knew that if you had an impossible special ops mission, Sam Irosns was your man who would pull it off and then some. He had proven this in over sixty missions.
Upon returning home, Sam had taken it upon himself to help out Jayna and guide her to a better life. He had treated her as his own daughter; outsiders who saw them thought that he had replaced his dead daughter much like you would a dead pet. Those who knew him however knew that he had only added a daughter not replaced one. He had a rough exterior but he has a good heart and his close friends might even say that Jayna had helped him come to terms with the death of his wife and daughter. With his backing she had applied for the Imperial Navy Academy and within two years she was an Imperial Navy Officer. Sam had gone on a few more missions before taking a promotion and the desk job that came with it. Now he was a retired Colonel and Jayna was the Captain of a cruiser. Her ship was on leave for the next two months, so she had returned home for some much needed downtime. Jayna took out a cup from the cupboard and positioned it underneath the spout of her water dispenser unit. She pushed a few buttons on the machine’s keypad making sure to select cold water and then pushed the execute button. The machine responded with a pleasant beep and began filling the cup. The stream of water from the spout stops as the cup nears its maximum capacity. Jayna takes the cup and brings it up to her mouth downing its contents. Her thirst now quenched she deposits the cup on a small conveyor belt built into the counter, the belt leading into an opening in the wall. As she leaves the kitchen, the conveyor belt senses the weight of the cup and springs to life moving the cup along until it disappears into the opening on it’s way to the autonomous washing unit that will clean the cup and return it to the cupboard.
Jayna walks into the living room and sits down on the sofa. She reaches over to the end table where the VideoCom unit sits and pushes the activation button. The VideoCom unit comes alive, it’s small screen displaying the Galaxy VideoCom logo.
“Dial Dad.” She says to the unit.
“Acknowledged, connecting…” came the female voice from the unit.
After a few seconds the screen of the unit flashes to the view from Sam Irons’ desk. He was reading something off a digital reader device. No doubt he was reading a military report of some kind, even this late at night. He barely ever slept and often boasted that he only needed three hours of sleep a night. He pushed the bookmark button on the digital reader and places it on his desk. He looks into the VideoCom device and scowls.
“You had that dream again?” Sam asks.
“Yes, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m scared they might take my command away from me if I can’t find a way to get some proper rest.” She replied.
“What did the therapist say?”
“Well he says that it is a manifestation of my guilt over abandoning the search for Asani. But I think that’s a load of crap, why know? These dreams started only a couple of weeks ago, I stopped searching for Asani years ago. Besides why would I have so much guilt? I tried looking for Asani but the trail ended in a dead end. There was no other way to go forward, I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”
“Perhaps subconscious guilt, built up over the years until it finally blew.” He said calmly.
“You sound like the therapist, are you getting soft in your old age?” Jayna replied with a smirk.
“Ha! I’ll have you know kiddo that I’m as tough…if not tougher now then I was twenty years ago.” He replied with a smile on his face.
“Whatever you say old man.”
“Old man, why just for that I’m not going to give you the present I got you.” He said feigning injury from being called an old man.
“What kind of present? The command of a brand new Titan?”
“I’ve got connections my dear, but not that many. No the present I have for you is in the form of information that should make those dreams go away. I’ve just received intel from an old friend that your sister’s slave ID was spotted in a bar on a frontier planet.” He replied.
“Really?! How reliable is this intel?”
“The Imperial Navy has been covertly monitoring establishments know to be frequented by slavers and slave hunters. They used high-tech scanning tools hidden in the walls and ceiling of the establishments. These devices scan everyone entering the place; they log and record images, slave tattoos and conversations. Not many people know about this program, but an old friend of mine is managing the operation. I had him keep a look out for your sister’s slave tattoo just in case she was spotted. As you would imagine, such a large-scale operation provides a lot of data. Which is why I only got the information today. It’s already several months old. I’ve called in a few favors and I’ve gotten a special ops team to go in and try to find her.”
“What planet is it?” Jayna asks.
“Don’t worry, I’m on it, there is no need for you to go there. It’s too dangerous.”
“You know me better than that. No way I’m letting someone else do this.”
“Yes, unfortunately I do which is why I’m sending you the coordinates…please be careful.”
“Thanks dad, you’re the best, love you.”
“I love you too.” He said and cut off the communication.
Various thoughts, plans and strategies ran through Jayna’s mind like a mental blitzkrieg. Her sister could still be alive and this time Jayna would leave no stone unturned and do what ever it took to re-unite with her long lost sister. She sprang up off the sofa and darted into her bedroom to get ready for the journey. She would have to rent a civilian craft she thought just as a chirping noise filled the room and the same female voice heard earlier form the VideoCom unit comes through a speaker mounted in the ceiling of the room.
“Incoming voice communication. Do you wish to accept?”
“Yes, patch it through.” She replied.
“Hello Full Captain Irons, this is Major Alfonso Rideca of the Androgene, I was told by Colonel Irons that you would be requiring a ride.”
Jayna smiled and replied. “I sure do.”
To be continued…..[/i]