The Phoenix Colony

Fox, Britney, and Raylene walked into the area where Reva was. "This should do for tonight." says Fox, "We shouldn't all go the sleep at the same time. One of us should stay up and keep watch, just in case one of those mass-murderes decides they want to take our shelter by force." She looks over at Britney and says "Me and Brit are probably the only ones here that have combat training. I'll keep watch for the first half of the night and Brit can keep watch the second half."

 

Smith kept searching and thought nothing of the question. "If they send one then two to three weeks is the quickest we can exspect one to show up." He said, he had already snatched up two blankets and three pillows from the tangle of dead, all blood stained. The smell would wash off, and the living needed them more. "Just between you and me don't get your hopes up. Did you know that it costs the goverenment less money to replace a transport and crew than it does to support the criminals that they are transporting. In other words some politician is getting a bonus when this news gets out." He said not really angry at the government. It wasn't really their fault that they had some many prisoners was it? He found a small metal knife in a prisoners belt and snatched it up. "Grab as much as you can carry it'll be worse in here tomorrow."

 

Reva was quietly relieved but felt guilty, too.

"That's probably good," she told Fox, "I can defend myself but I think 'combat' is a little out of my league."

She glanced uneasily at the guns Fox had and walked around the perimeter of the room, dragging out the cushion from a chair. It tore against jagged metal but at least it was somewhat useable.

"Did anyone find food yet?"

 

Ben had been gone for about half an hour, shirt off, hair a mess, trying to find enough good sticks to prop the steel up over the fire. He saw others out in the woods, convicts, scavenging what they could, gathering up and buckling down, getting ready to whether the coming storm. When he returned, bundle of small trees in his arms, 8 long, 5 foot sticks, 4 of which were in a rough Y shape, he quickly got to work. Propping one end of the steel plank at a time with the flat sticks and reinforcing with the Y sticks. After about 10 more minutes he managed to get it fairly stable over the fire and his chair, which he dragged closer to it, trying to get as much heat as possible. Without his jacket things were getting a bit chilly as the storm approached fast. Ben quickly pulled on his clothes, tie and all, and slumped back into his chair, yawning, bags under his eyes, and said, "Chrys, watch me, I need some ****ing sleep." before finally blacking out. Just as his eyes closed the lightest of the raindrops began to fall, making a rhythmic tapping sound on the steel, makeshift roof.

 

Fox sat down, and leaned against the wall. She thinks to herself, "Lonan, what would you do in this situation. Lets see, I have a guard and two convicts to work with. I think I need to know more about them before I can guess what there limits are."

Fox notices that Reva keeps nervously eyeing her gun. "Relax, I don't shoot allies." says Fox, "So Reva, why were you arrested?"

 

Allen found another blanket, along with a small set of files. It was amazing what prisoners could get their hands on, they might as well not be locked up for all the good it did sometimes. Those files were the good kind, each tooth was tipped with a diamond-polymer compound. They were the kind that could cut through a prisoner tether. It looked like the guy had almost made it too, there was a tether on the ground that was almost completely filed through. Of course it had still taken the guy a week to do it. He slipped them into his pocket.

"I guarentee they're coming after us. Don't you know who you had on board? I saw Xare Alrich and Juan Mercado. Pasha Raskolnikov is the guy who helped Ben skin that deer, then there's that guy who was chained up next to me in the cell. I don't know who he was, but he had a sense screen on. He can't be someone they're going to just let go. Do you know what happened?"

 

Reva couldn't help chuckling. She dropped her head, staring at the floor a she thought, hands on hips.

"Why was I arrested?" She asked Fox, "Or why was I in the Threat Tank in chains with you?"

She shook her head at herself and went on.

"Never mind, I'll tell you both. First time I was arrested," Reva said, ticking it off on her index finger, "was when a client died on my massage table."

The terror of that moment came back to her, the bafflement, the trapped feeling as she was cuffed and...

She shook it off, "Second time," she said ticking it off on her middle finger, "was when another client died on my table. I had nothing to do with either death and the coroner couldn't explain it. But it looked bad and I ended up in prison for a long, long time."

She sighed, hesitated, and finally ticked off the third point, "Third and final act, a woman jumped me in prison. She said I had taken her Cosmo magazine which was stupid. I don't even read Cosmo."

Reva crossed her arms and shuffled her feet, falling silent. She shrugged uncomfortably.

"I had been boxing in the gym for a workout. Speed bag, mostly, but another con had been giving me some tips and helping me train. It passed the time."

She sidestepped the end of the story and looked at Fox.

"So what did you do?"

 

"Not really I just ship them and sign them over at the stop before turning around and heading home." Smith said and then looked down. "Time to start heading back." He said and made his way slowly back to the hallway. "What are you in for anyways?" He asked as an after thought as they started their slow decent.

 

Chrys listened to the sound of rain, the one comfort that would go everywhere she happened to be.

She nibbled on one of the venison flanks, missing the taste of beef. She'd never eaten meat that wasn't raised to die.

The sleeping form that was Ben was a lot less imposing then when she had met him. But her thoughts were dragged back to Chad, she had a nagging feeling that she ha met him before this whole incident, but she couldn't quitepinn where...

 

The rain began to tap on the metal above the two men's heads. In the distance, a peal of thunder rumbled. Juan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Does it hurt?" asked Harold.

"Oh course."

"Why did you do it?"

Juan coughed. "Damn bones. Once they crack the splinters get into the meat. I did it for the same reason I cried. You have to understand people. WHen I cried Joey thought I was weak. When I cut off my wrist, the rest of the cons backed off but Joey's dense. All he could think of was the crying. That's why I was able to get so close to him and break his nose. He still thinks I'm weak and that's why - in the end - I'm going to kill him."

The mobster nodded. "Except for eating people, you remind me of the Godfather."

Juan picked his teeth. "There was a time when I was a god."

 

I ran a drug ring, when the police caught up with me there was a struggle and some cops got killed. Nobody really wanted it, it just happened."

Allen picked up a couple of the loose tethers on the way out, they were heavy, but they might come in handy at some point.

"Is the main computer in the back section? We might be able to find out what happened from it. Can you think of any machinery that might have survived the crash that would be useful?"

Allen shifted his bundle and held out a hand, offering to take some of the stuff Smith was carrying, he would probably appreciate it, what with his head and everything.

"Here, let me take that. By the way, I saw a piece of bulkhead that would make a good shelter, but we'll need the others to bring it back."

 

Fox thinks about the question for a little bit. "I'm second in command of a resistance group called the Warriors of Ares. We're the ones that blew up the White House, which of course caused the death of the man that was in charge of North America and assassinated quite a few officials." says Fox as she remembers the day the White House blew up.

She stood there next to Lonan. As she stood there watching the end result of Lonan's plan she said to him "You really are the one that will free North America from those goverment bastards." He looked at her, smiled and said "One can only hope."

She snaps back to reality and says "We also took out a bunch of military bases. Hell, before getting arrested I had a one million dollar bounty on my head. One day the goverment managed to ambush me and a group of my comrades while we were on a mission. Since I was the one they wanted the most, I told the others to run away, while I stayed behind to hold them off. I took down four of those goverment f***ers, before they could shot me with their stun guns."

 

Joseph stared off at the dark clouds that seemed to have gathered in the area. It had begun to rain. Is it safe?[ he wondered. The cool drops felt safe enough...refreshing even, considering he hadn't had anything to eat or drink since before the ship crashed. He decided he would take what he could get.

He made his way back to the wreck where most of the people seemed to have gathered. Without bothering anyone, and doing his best to avoid as much attention as he could, Joseph took shelter under some broken metal on the ship.

 

Smith looked up at the control room. "Should be a tool kit with nuts, bolts, and renches. All the emergency kits would have been up front which ended up somewhere else." He said and handed some of his load to Allen. "We can comback for the tool kit tomorrow, it won't do us much good though, no hammers or screws." Then he started down towards the entrence.

 

Kepping guard over Ben, Chrys realized that they had actually lost somebody, what ever happened to Brandon?

He was clearly an asset, and she didn't think they should be losing assets at a time such as this.

 

The other women look at Raylene, waiting for her response as to why she was arrested. She hadn't talked about since the trial. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes and bit her lip to fight them back.

"I killed the man my father forced me to marry. He was 42 and I was 13. My children are....God knows where. I just couldn't take the abuse anymore." A tear leaked from her eye. "I STABBED THAT MOTHER F***ER WITH MY BUTCHER KNIFE AND CUT OUT HIS HEART!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. Her face hot and red. Tears of anger now instead of sadness srung from a well deep inside and she wept. "Then some peice of bullsh*t guard tried to rape me a few months back and I kicked the s**t out of him and he died too." She hugged her right shoulder trying to rub out the pain, sinking onto the floor and curling up under a sheet.

 

Derek felt a raindrop on his nose, and looked up to see storm clouds approaching. He continued to sit againt the hull of the ship opposite the groups of people congregating, taking another drag from his current cigarette. After counting, he discovered that he had 23 left.

His stomach rumbled. "I'm f**king starving," he groaned, getting up and walking around to the other side of the ship, looking for someone to talk to.

 

Reva was quiet for a minute after Raylene's outburst. Then she tucked the sheet around the woman and glanced at Fox.

"I'll find some food." She said.

 

Harold looked down the hull of the ship. People were hungry ... some where even starving. Maybe Juan was right. But who would have poisoned the rations and why?

 

Britney's new profile.

Name: Britney Watts

Type of character: Guard

Gender: Female

Age: 24

Appearance: 5'8". Long blonde hair, green eyes. Wearing the guard uniform, which helps to hide her moderately attractive form.

Vocation/Skills: She knows martial arts and she was trained to use weapons when she became a guard.

Results of Genetic Alteration: She can create and control fire. However, it can get out of hand when she becomes angry.

Personality: Somewhat tomboyish. Has the ability to laugh at herself without feeling insecure about most things.

Background: She comes from a long line of soldiers because of this she never heard anything bad about the goverment while growing up. She is still a bit naive when it comes to what the goverment does. She grew up in a small rural town. She was always a bit of a tomboy, she tried out for the football team as a kid and made it up until high school. She hung out with mostly guys. Being friends with the popular crowd, she got into drugs but quit when she joined the police. She continued her career path for awhile before becoming a guard.

 

Fox looks at Raylene and says "Those bastards got what was coming to them, you did the right thing. I'm going to go to the entrance and stand guard. Brit, keep an eye on her while I'm gone."

Britney says "Ok." and goes over to Raylene. She hugs Raylene, making sure it is a loose hug so she doesn't hurt her shoulder. "Don't worry, Fox, Reva and I won't let anyone hurt you while we're here." says Britney.

 

Joseph lost count of exactly how long he had been laying under the twisted metal. An hour? Perhaps more... His stomach was still grumbling. It was almost painful. The food they had was poisoned. It was complete nonsense...as far as Joseph was concerned, no one was doing anything about the situation. It was like...everyone was happy about being free. They seemed oblivious to the fact that they were all stranded on a nameless planet probably somewhere in uncharted space.

Joseph looked off towards the mountains. The peaks were still snowy white. It seemed like winter had just ended here. It was still cold. It would get colder each night. There had to be people of some kind somewhere on this planet...somewhere. Joseph pushed himself off the ground and went to stand int he open so that people could see and hear him.

"So what?" he said as he looked around at all of them. "We're just going to set up camp here?"

 

"We're just going to set up camp here?"

Harold looked at the convict standing out in the rain. "Hey you! You got a better idea?"

 

"Hey you! You got a better idea?"

Joseph eyed the man. Probably another one who thought the government would come after them.

"Yeah...We explore...find a more hospitable and permanent place. Or do you think someone is coming after us? We don't even know if there is food around here...where are we gonna get the water? I say we go across the mountains."

 

Harold thought about it and turned to Juan. "Where are we going to get water from?"

The blind man was snoring.

"Juan?"

He didn't stir. Harold called back to the convict. "Well we can't move now, can we? Come on, get out of the rain."