Loosing is fun: The story dump thread (Aka the R.R.Martin thread)

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Accessing Maltese National Database

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Isabel Santillian
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Welcome, Isabel.

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Entry One

I can't believe he actually did it. The loco bastard actually did it. He threw me out, after everything I've done, the ungrateful-

[The log degenerated into a rapid-fire stream of curses. When Isabel recovered her speech, she was a few degrees calmer. 'Calmer,' of course, was still a long way from relaxed. Her fury was simply steaming, rather than boiling over.]

Want to know how it happened? Too bad. I'm telling you anyway. You opened this file, you can have the whole sad story for all I care. Just swing by and visit my grave when you're done. If there's any luck in this crazy universe, I might even end up back on Malta. That'd be nice. As long as it's nowhere near him.

Jonas, the man who used to be my father. I'll be ashes in the sky long before I call him that again. An insignificant overweight little maggot that likes to pretend he's worthy to be called Maltese. He's not even worthy of being called a human being. Human beings at least have the decency to act like they care about their family, instead of throwing them to the wolves in a ship that buckles in a light rain. You can tell him I said that.

Jonas is a joke, and everyone but him can see it. He likes to think of himself as one of the Great Dons.

[She laughed, a dry mocking noise that ricocheted off the hangar's bare walls.]

He's nothing. Real familias muscled him out of nearly all his plantations before I was born. Plantations he didn't have the guts to hang on to. He's been living on a single shrinking patch of land for decades now, and dragging the rest of us down with him. But I did what I could to help. I worked hard, I practically ran the plantation while he sat around playing power games with the Dons, making deals based on supplies of cardamine he knew he didn't have.

So, when the Dons come knocking, guess who has to pay the debt?

Rather than lose that damn plantation of his, or my useless brother, he signs me over to the familias. Shoves me in an old Dagger and promises that I'll pay his debts off. The damn thing doesn't even have fuel for the escape pod. It's insane. Loco.

But it's a way out.

The famalias have locked me out of Maltese space until I can pay that debt off. Fifty million credits. I've heard stories about what happens out there in house space. Warships, pirate-hunters. Spirits, help me.

I'll head for Liberty. Apparently the Rogues have some stations out there, and more importantly, a steady supply of cardamine. I've barely got enough here to last a week. I'll have to find some more before too long. I might die out there, but I will not shrivel up and fade away like an animal.

And, if I come back, Jonas is mine. I'll burn his pitiful plantation to the ground, ideally with him in it. A little warmth's more than he deserves.

If I don't make it, you've got this log. You know what happened. Make things right.

I leave tomorrow morning.

Isabel Santillian

Entry Ends

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May you live in interesting times.
| Sarah McFarlen | Jane Hartman |