- RP Date
- YE 45.5
- RP Location
- Mining Site A-2, Forge, UX-13
For a long, drawn out moment, silence ruled the quarry as the warning klaxon ended its clarion call. Then, the moment ended as a mighty explosion shook the ground underfoot, the shockwave of the detonation sending a cloud of dust and detritus blasting across the unwashed bodies of the slaves waiting for the overseer’s to send them in to work the newly exposed rock face.
The slaves took about every form a sentient could take within the Kagami Galaxy, a genetically-diverse melting pot of the individuals unfortunate enough to find themselves sold into slavery. As the dust cloud finally settled enough to allow a minimum of visibility the overseers, at some hidden signal, began to crack their electro-whips. The slaves, knowing the cost of defiance, began trudging forward with tools held ready.
All except for one slave, whose short feathered body and mix of porcine and avian features marked them as a Phod, had obviously been pushed beyond the limits of forced cooperation. With a fevered cry of “Freya, Witness Me!”, the slave whipped around and with all the strength left in his body, launched the maul it had been dragging over its head. The heavy-headed hammer, although not designed or weighted to serve as a projectile weapon, still flew hard and true.
The Overseer, whose armour and helmet precluded identifying them more beyond merely ‘humanoid’, had been too distracted by watching a newly-arrived three metre tall kodian for signs of non-compliance to notice the actions of the diminutive Phod. An unfortunate ignorance that lasted until some kind of instinctual sense of danger drew their attention, just in time to receive the business end of the maul as it smashed into and through their helmet, driving shards of metal and plastic composite deep through the nasal cavity and into the brain beyond.
While many species of humanoid might have been able to shrug off such trauma, this Overseer was not one of such. So, even as ruined shards of helmet joined a spray of hot-red blood blasting away from their face, their body complied with the laws of momentum and began falling backward. The Phod, who had charged after their weapon, collided with the Overseer’s body and hastened its journey to the ground. The small being was still smashing its fists into the ruined head of the dead body when the other Overseer’s reacted.
As the electro-lashes, all dialled up to their maximum setting, began falling upon the rage-driven Phod, the throng of slaves ground to a halt. Those that had been broken the most by time or beatings, kept their gaze firmly upon the ground, awaiting the Overseers to drive them forward once more. Those who were newer and still harboured thoughts of freedom or fighting back, watched as the Phod was beaten and flayed before them, hands squeezed into fists held tightly at their side as they trembled with impotent rage.
None of them, however, dared to move to aid the diminutive Phod whose terminal act of violence had earned him a painful, drawn-out death. Even now, a pair of Overseers began dragging the tortured slave away and all knew he would spend the last hours of his life swinging in one of the gibbet-like cages as he was slowly baked to death by the heat from the foundry he would be dangled above.
Within moments, the Overseers had the work crews on the move again. Less than a minute later, the first sounds of heavy hammers smashing against rocks filled the air. The heavy cadence would be joined by the metallic thunk as the smashed up rocks were dropped into heavy carts ready to carry their load to the ever-burning foundry.
One man lost himself in the slow and steady, repetitive action of swinging the heavy maul as he smashed large rocks into big rocks and big rocks into smaller rocks. He had lost count of how many days he had been stuck in this hell - his first attempt at scratching a mark for each new day into the wall beside his bunk had come to nothing, the guards having simply erased his efforts once found during an inspection while the slaves were out working. After the beating that had been his reward, he had held no desire to be caught again.
As the repetitive nature of his work lulled his mind, he couldn’t help but lament at just how badly his circumstances had changed. Only a short time before, he had had a name - the first thing they stole from you as a slave - and a ship that he had Captained between the stars, slowly earning his fortune. He’d still have been out there, charting his own course, had he not made the horrendous mistake of trusting the wrong person.
~~~ Several weeks earlier ~~~
Hieronymus Nero was the Captain of the Freedom of the Skies, an old Ge-F6-1A Geshrinari Shipyards Light Freighter that he also happened to be the owner of. For ten years he’d been running small cargo as an independent trader, carefully modernising his ship and investing his profits back into his own operation. In all that time of running low-volume but high-value luxury goods, Captain Nero had managed to keep one step ahead of conmen, pirates and all manner of ne'er-do-wells who sought to separate him from his hard-earned gains.
He had, over time, assembled a small crew that the Captain knew he could trust to have his back in just the same way as Hieronymus had theirs. They had grown together until they formed a family that, although not formed on blood-relations, was just as tight-knit and loyal to its members as any other. Why, only three months earlier the crew had come together to witness the marriage of two of their number. Of course, one thing led to another and the ship’s engineer had found herself with child. Not wanting to risk the unborn babe, the couple had left the ship to take up residence with the father’s family.
Of course, that left the Freedom in a bit of a quandary as an engineer was not an optional member of crew they could work the ship without. Fortunately, just when Captain Nero was getting desperate, an old friend put him in contact with a young but talented engineer looking for work. In his desperation, Hieronymus did not vet the new potential hire as deeply as he should have done. Not that there was any sign of any sort of perfidy from the new engineer - in fact, they seemed to fit right into the Freedom’s family.
The first sign that something had gone wrong was, upon landing at a frontier colony that was a regular stop on their trading loop, that nobody came to greet the ship. Captain Nero had been stopping there every few months for almost three years now and without fail would always be greeted by several locals attempting to corral the children who would eagerly come running to check out the Freedom. This time, nobody.
As he stood there at the base of the cargo ramp, hand reaching for the Zen Armaments .45 calibre pistol that he kept holstered on his left hip whenever he left his ship, Captain Nero froze. The distinctive click of a hammer being cocked, when combined with the solid press of hard metal against his lower back told Hieronymus that whoever held that gun had him cold.
“Ah, ah, ah, Captain. Let’s be seein’ those hands now.” Came the smug voice of the engineer from behind him. Knowing his best choice was to stall for time until one of the crew came to investigate, Captain Nero complied and raised his hands skyward. “I’ll be takin’ that iron now.” He could feel as his pistol was removed from the holster and heard it clatter as it was thrown up onto the cargo ramp. Hieronymus felt a small flare of victory, knowing that his assailant had just given one of his crew the chance to assist him. A train of thought he was swiftly abused of.
“Now, you might be expectin’ a rescue right about now, but you see, the crew be sleepin’ off a sudden case of the vapours.” The traitorous engineer snickered at this. “Turns out, adding a little something to the Freedom’s air was enough to turn the crew compliant for just long enough.” Again the smug voice sounded and, now panicked, Captain Nero made to turn and lunge at the engineer. With an almighty crack, he was rewarded with pain lancing from the back of his head as the engineer pistol-whipped him.
Unbalanced and suddenly dizzy, Hieronymus spun to the floor. He lifted a hand to the back of his head, feeling moisture and agony at the touch. When he pulled his hand away, it was now stained red with his own blood. He blinked, trying to understand why he was bleeding and on the floor. Captain Nero knew that he was missing something important, but it was suddenly so hard to think. He thought he could hear someone shouting, maybe his crew were in trouble?
He groaned, several pairs of boots appearing from the darkness now filling his sight. The last thing he heard before the darkness dragged him into blissful unconsciousness was a meaty whack and someone snarling about ‘not damaging the merchandise’.
~~~ Three days later ~~~
Although he had had flashes of lucidity and consciousness, Hieronymus finally came back to the land of the living. It took several long seconds before his memories caught up and he started. Which is when he discovered the chains binding him to the seat he was sat in. After staring dumbly at the restraints, Captain Nero finally thought to look around. He found himself inside a shuttle and he was not alone. From what he could see, there were a couple of dozen others of various species, all similarly bound to their seats.
Turning to his neighbour, he asked. “What’s going on?” The dark skinned woman shook her head, her eyes flaring in some kind of silent, fearful warning. Of what he wasn’t sure.
“Shut it, meat!” Came a growl from his other side, followed swiftly by agonising pain that flared from where a rod of some sort had been jabbed into his gut. Hieronymous was not proud of the fact that he screamed, but the agony! “First lesson!” The voice sounded as the rod was pulled away several seconds later. “You are all property now, slaves. You have no name. You have no family. You have no future but that which we give you. You do as you’re told, when you’re told. Non-compliance will be punished.” The unfiltered glee in the voice was an obvious sign that the speaker was looking forward to such.
Hieronymous sat there, the muscles in his abdomen still twitching and clenching painfully. At that moment, the last thing he wanted to do was trigger another punishment. By the time the shuttle had touched down several minutes later, Captain Nero had recovered enough to glare at the heavyset humanoid who stood opposite the slaves at the top of the access ramp. The shuttle settled, the sound of the engine’s winding down as the cargo doors began to open.
“My name is Overseer Brunt. Welcome to hell, meat!” As if to underline his words, the cargo ramp fell the ground with a solid thump and a wave of hot, acrid air blasted into the shuttle interior.
~~~ The present ~~~
Hieronymus snarled to himself, although he was careful to keep his face expressionless lest he feel the agony of the electro-whips once more. Oh, his story was not done, not by a long shot. He didn’t know how, or when, but Captain Nero would not only survive this place, but he would claw his way out of hell and damn Overseer Brunt and anyone else who got in his way. Somewhere out there he had a crew to rescue, a ship to reclaim and a traitorous engineer that Hieronymus would take great pleasure in repaying with interest for every indignity and pain that had been suffered because of them.
The slaves took about every form a sentient could take within the Kagami Galaxy, a genetically-diverse melting pot of the individuals unfortunate enough to find themselves sold into slavery. As the dust cloud finally settled enough to allow a minimum of visibility the overseers, at some hidden signal, began to crack their electro-whips. The slaves, knowing the cost of defiance, began trudging forward with tools held ready.
All except for one slave, whose short feathered body and mix of porcine and avian features marked them as a Phod, had obviously been pushed beyond the limits of forced cooperation. With a fevered cry of “Freya, Witness Me!”, the slave whipped around and with all the strength left in his body, launched the maul it had been dragging over its head. The heavy-headed hammer, although not designed or weighted to serve as a projectile weapon, still flew hard and true.
The Overseer, whose armour and helmet precluded identifying them more beyond merely ‘humanoid’, had been too distracted by watching a newly-arrived three metre tall kodian for signs of non-compliance to notice the actions of the diminutive Phod. An unfortunate ignorance that lasted until some kind of instinctual sense of danger drew their attention, just in time to receive the business end of the maul as it smashed into and through their helmet, driving shards of metal and plastic composite deep through the nasal cavity and into the brain beyond.
While many species of humanoid might have been able to shrug off such trauma, this Overseer was not one of such. So, even as ruined shards of helmet joined a spray of hot-red blood blasting away from their face, their body complied with the laws of momentum and began falling backward. The Phod, who had charged after their weapon, collided with the Overseer’s body and hastened its journey to the ground. The small being was still smashing its fists into the ruined head of the dead body when the other Overseer’s reacted.
As the electro-lashes, all dialled up to their maximum setting, began falling upon the rage-driven Phod, the throng of slaves ground to a halt. Those that had been broken the most by time or beatings, kept their gaze firmly upon the ground, awaiting the Overseers to drive them forward once more. Those who were newer and still harboured thoughts of freedom or fighting back, watched as the Phod was beaten and flayed before them, hands squeezed into fists held tightly at their side as they trembled with impotent rage.
None of them, however, dared to move to aid the diminutive Phod whose terminal act of violence had earned him a painful, drawn-out death. Even now, a pair of Overseers began dragging the tortured slave away and all knew he would spend the last hours of his life swinging in one of the gibbet-like cages as he was slowly baked to death by the heat from the foundry he would be dangled above.
Within moments, the Overseers had the work crews on the move again. Less than a minute later, the first sounds of heavy hammers smashing against rocks filled the air. The heavy cadence would be joined by the metallic thunk as the smashed up rocks were dropped into heavy carts ready to carry their load to the ever-burning foundry.
One man lost himself in the slow and steady, repetitive action of swinging the heavy maul as he smashed large rocks into big rocks and big rocks into smaller rocks. He had lost count of how many days he had been stuck in this hell - his first attempt at scratching a mark for each new day into the wall beside his bunk had come to nothing, the guards having simply erased his efforts once found during an inspection while the slaves were out working. After the beating that had been his reward, he had held no desire to be caught again.
As the repetitive nature of his work lulled his mind, he couldn’t help but lament at just how badly his circumstances had changed. Only a short time before, he had had a name - the first thing they stole from you as a slave - and a ship that he had Captained between the stars, slowly earning his fortune. He’d still have been out there, charting his own course, had he not made the horrendous mistake of trusting the wrong person.
~~~ Several weeks earlier ~~~
Hieronymus Nero was the Captain of the Freedom of the Skies, an old Ge-F6-1A Geshrinari Shipyards Light Freighter that he also happened to be the owner of. For ten years he’d been running small cargo as an independent trader, carefully modernising his ship and investing his profits back into his own operation. In all that time of running low-volume but high-value luxury goods, Captain Nero had managed to keep one step ahead of conmen, pirates and all manner of ne'er-do-wells who sought to separate him from his hard-earned gains.
He had, over time, assembled a small crew that the Captain knew he could trust to have his back in just the same way as Hieronymus had theirs. They had grown together until they formed a family that, although not formed on blood-relations, was just as tight-knit and loyal to its members as any other. Why, only three months earlier the crew had come together to witness the marriage of two of their number. Of course, one thing led to another and the ship’s engineer had found herself with child. Not wanting to risk the unborn babe, the couple had left the ship to take up residence with the father’s family.
Of course, that left the Freedom in a bit of a quandary as an engineer was not an optional member of crew they could work the ship without. Fortunately, just when Captain Nero was getting desperate, an old friend put him in contact with a young but talented engineer looking for work. In his desperation, Hieronymus did not vet the new potential hire as deeply as he should have done. Not that there was any sign of any sort of perfidy from the new engineer - in fact, they seemed to fit right into the Freedom’s family.
The first sign that something had gone wrong was, upon landing at a frontier colony that was a regular stop on their trading loop, that nobody came to greet the ship. Captain Nero had been stopping there every few months for almost three years now and without fail would always be greeted by several locals attempting to corral the children who would eagerly come running to check out the Freedom. This time, nobody.
As he stood there at the base of the cargo ramp, hand reaching for the Zen Armaments .45 calibre pistol that he kept holstered on his left hip whenever he left his ship, Captain Nero froze. The distinctive click of a hammer being cocked, when combined with the solid press of hard metal against his lower back told Hieronymus that whoever held that gun had him cold.
“Ah, ah, ah, Captain. Let’s be seein’ those hands now.” Came the smug voice of the engineer from behind him. Knowing his best choice was to stall for time until one of the crew came to investigate, Captain Nero complied and raised his hands skyward. “I’ll be takin’ that iron now.” He could feel as his pistol was removed from the holster and heard it clatter as it was thrown up onto the cargo ramp. Hieronymus felt a small flare of victory, knowing that his assailant had just given one of his crew the chance to assist him. A train of thought he was swiftly abused of.
“Now, you might be expectin’ a rescue right about now, but you see, the crew be sleepin’ off a sudden case of the vapours.” The traitorous engineer snickered at this. “Turns out, adding a little something to the Freedom’s air was enough to turn the crew compliant for just long enough.” Again the smug voice sounded and, now panicked, Captain Nero made to turn and lunge at the engineer. With an almighty crack, he was rewarded with pain lancing from the back of his head as the engineer pistol-whipped him.
Unbalanced and suddenly dizzy, Hieronymus spun to the floor. He lifted a hand to the back of his head, feeling moisture and agony at the touch. When he pulled his hand away, it was now stained red with his own blood. He blinked, trying to understand why he was bleeding and on the floor. Captain Nero knew that he was missing something important, but it was suddenly so hard to think. He thought he could hear someone shouting, maybe his crew were in trouble?
He groaned, several pairs of boots appearing from the darkness now filling his sight. The last thing he heard before the darkness dragged him into blissful unconsciousness was a meaty whack and someone snarling about ‘not damaging the merchandise’.
~~~ Three days later ~~~
Although he had had flashes of lucidity and consciousness, Hieronymus finally came back to the land of the living. It took several long seconds before his memories caught up and he started. Which is when he discovered the chains binding him to the seat he was sat in. After staring dumbly at the restraints, Captain Nero finally thought to look around. He found himself inside a shuttle and he was not alone. From what he could see, there were a couple of dozen others of various species, all similarly bound to their seats.
Turning to his neighbour, he asked. “What’s going on?” The dark skinned woman shook her head, her eyes flaring in some kind of silent, fearful warning. Of what he wasn’t sure.
“Shut it, meat!” Came a growl from his other side, followed swiftly by agonising pain that flared from where a rod of some sort had been jabbed into his gut. Hieronymous was not proud of the fact that he screamed, but the agony! “First lesson!” The voice sounded as the rod was pulled away several seconds later. “You are all property now, slaves. You have no name. You have no family. You have no future but that which we give you. You do as you’re told, when you’re told. Non-compliance will be punished.” The unfiltered glee in the voice was an obvious sign that the speaker was looking forward to such.
Hieronymous sat there, the muscles in his abdomen still twitching and clenching painfully. At that moment, the last thing he wanted to do was trigger another punishment. By the time the shuttle had touched down several minutes later, Captain Nero had recovered enough to glare at the heavyset humanoid who stood opposite the slaves at the top of the access ramp. The shuttle settled, the sound of the engine’s winding down as the cargo doors began to open.
“My name is Overseer Brunt. Welcome to hell, meat!” As if to underline his words, the cargo ramp fell the ground with a solid thump and a wave of hot, acrid air blasted into the shuttle interior.
~~~ The present ~~~
Hieronymus snarled to himself, although he was careful to keep his face expressionless lest he feel the agony of the electro-whips once more. Oh, his story was not done, not by a long shot. He didn’t know how, or when, but Captain Nero would not only survive this place, but he would claw his way out of hell and damn Overseer Brunt and anyone else who got in his way. Somewhere out there he had a crew to rescue, a ship to reclaim and a traitorous engineer that Hieronymus would take great pleasure in repaying with interest for every indignity and pain that had been suffered because of them.
