Fields of Orange

[Lexi]

Chapter 1

Luciana Soto was born an only-child to Dr. Camila Maria Soto, product of a brief yet common romantic affair; a cardamine smuggler promising fortune and commitment only to leave Miss Soto on Malta with child... a far more uncommon occurrence.

"He'll come back one day, you know" she often said, regaling Luciana (or more affectionately, Lucy) with tales of space-battles and speedy chases before bedtimes, during outings into the fields and occasionally at the dinner table. Camila worked as a psychiatrist on Malta and often found herself dealing with the smugglers and tradesmen ravaged by intergalactic nightmares. Her father's absence wore on Lucy; she rejected her mother's desires for her to become a Doctor, showing interest instead in the mechanical instead. Lucy first began helping to fix common household appliances but with a dream to one day be involved in ship construction... maybe she'd even meet her father one day!

"He had blue eyes, yes yes, the finest shade of brown you'd ever seen... eyes like the orange of the fields, girl!". It wasn't pleasant to see her like that, clutching on to strands of memories so contorted and disfigured they were not even reminiscent of the fling that they once resembled... Camila danced with sanity, her delusions committing her to the asylum, "THERE HE IS!" she would shout, almost daily, grabbing almost anything (one time, she refused to release a lamp from her grasp) and proclaiming her undying love. What a cruel twist of fate for Luciana's mother to be gradually lulled into the same insanity that her patients suffered. No-one could ever tell Lucy why her mother cracked, maybe it was the stress of the job or perhaps a poor diet lacking in vitamins or maybe, just maybe, it was the fields of orange...

He never did come back.

After her mother passed away Lucy didn't fancy becoming an engineer any more, it didn't have the appeal to compete with her calling: becoming a freelancer. With basic knowledge in mechanics, Lucy figured she could probably sell odd bits of technological tat here and there, right? Or perhaps she could follow in her father's footsteps and join up with a cardamine smuggling gang... she didn't have to be perfect or rich or famous, she just had to survive... yes. . . survive.

Chapter 2

It was kinder folk from the Crimson Cross who first took Luciana in; or at least tolerated her presence during trade runs. Frequently on longer excursions into space they would speak to Lucy of the Gods and her inappropriate attraction to wealth. "You say money will bring you true happiness, no? Ah! Such foolishness in one so young!" It was occasionally taxing for Lucy, to explain her stance on their faith but their investments and training were invaluable, so she endured. Like her father before her, Lucy began smuggling Cardamine and black-market munitions from Malta to all over the Sirius Sector taking her precious free time to investigate various phenomena: black holes, neutron stars and binary star systems were amongst her favourites... though she had developed a common dislike for the volatile gas fields from her time crossing space in the Border Systems.

Once, Lucy had her cargo scanned by a member of Rheinland security... only her wit could keep her alive. Posing as a travelling saleswoman she managed to survive... though she may have to bring along more "cleaning product" to convince the force on her next visit.