Oh Mother, where art thou?

[Lorelii_Darksaint]

It's been said that breaking a mind takes a special touch. To do it well, you must know how to drive your victim to the brink of insanity, then bring them back slowly to lucidity, all the time indoctrinating them with the purpose of your cause. Extreme mental anguish was of the most effective ways to do this, but it was a time consuming form of torture which was an entirely different issue altogether...

Anderi knelt down as entered the security key into the mag-sealed container. Thankfully, this was the last pod he had to open, inspect, unload then reload, as he was nearing the end of his shift at the cargo facility. Things had been nice and quiet today, a nice change from the last week when he had opened a container and found it full of Black Market Munitions. The paperwork and subsequent interview with the Corporate Security had lasted well into the next shift. Diogo Island wasn't always a great place to be stationed, and being always under the scrutiny of OS&C Inspectors was a pain at times, but it kept him employed between other, more lucrative jobs.

The cargo pod opened with a thump and a hiss. The overpowering odor of LP Gas poured out the now open container like the waves of an invisible tsunami. He shook his head as he entered, and after a few minutes of checking off the items on his datapad the smell no longer bothered him too much. “What in the name of Pine's hairy... Bah, not going back to quarters on time tonight either...” Nestled near the rear of the container among other smaller crates was a restraint capsule with a stylized sun and orbiting planet logo just below the inspection port. Looking through transparisteel opening he could see the face of a red-haired woman's who's face had been scratched and bruised. “Hmm... doesn't look like she went in there easy, I wonder who she is...” he thought to himself while looking for a marker placard or other form of identification on the capsule. It didn't appear she was cryogenicly frozen or in some other suspended animation, but rather she was deep in some sort of induced coma. There were a series of electrodes placed around her head which looked like a technological halo which in turn came together over the shoulder and were wired to a device attached to her belt. As he watched, her face twisted up and she mouth opened to let out a soundless scream.

He quickly pulled his lock breaker from it's pouch on his belt and connected it to the container's mechanism, he whispered, “Someone went through a lot of trouble to have this done to you, but no one deserves that kind of suffering...” As he waited for the breaker to cycle, he heard footsteps approaching outside.

“You there...” On another world, or perhaps in a different time, the Customs Inspector might have been considered handsome in appearance, but his churlish manners, ill-fitting, poorly tailored and stained uniform downplayed any natural charisma he may have had. The voice of the officer was everything unpleasant all wrapped up in a not-so-nice package, it's sound was grating, condescending in tone and still completely soulless all at once.

As Anderi stepped outside the container and faced the Inspector. He smiled and tilted his head just a bit. “So... your lordship deems me worthy to be noticed. What can I do to you?” Long ago, someone had told him this particular facial expression was especially unsettling due to the way the scars contorted his face. The fact that the he was considerably taller and very possibly stronger than the Inspector and his escorts that had approached was not lost on any of them.

“By all means...” Anderi bowed as he moved out of the Inspectors way, “Might be a leaking valve on a capsule of LP near the back somewhere. Hope it doesn't get any worse or there could be an explosion that would make this bay unusable for years...” As he looked at the two escorts and he grinned again, they in turn clutched at their carbines as if they were talismans that would keep the large man at bay.

“Paugh, it reeks in there!” The Inspector gagged and backed out of the container as quickly as he had entered it. “I'm placing this container on quarantine until you find the the source of the leak and get it taken care of. I'll finish the inspection and clear the container for unloading once that's done. See to it... quickly.”

As the Inspector and his escorts hurried away, Anderi mocked a salute, “Yes sir, thank you sir, may I have some more, sir... bah, your mother has all the graces of a love-struck Nomad!” He turned and re-entered the container, and once again moved through the cargo pods to the restraint capsule, seeing by the lock breaker's indicators that it had done it's job. “Open, sez me.” He snicked at his own joke as he keyed the capsules latching mechanism. As it opened, the encased woman tensed up and let loose with another painful looking, yet silent scream.

He flicked his knife from it's wrist sheath and studied the device on her belt. The wire from electrodes around the woman's head entered the side of the device and there was a small digital readout with a series of blinking indicators on it's front. He figured the power supply was probably accessed through the back side and as he unclipped it from her belt, and briefly wondered about any sort of anti-tampering protection it might have. If there was, there was a good chance it would kill whoever it was attached to, but at least she was would be free of the object of her torture. He looked over the apparatus in his hand one more time, then jammed the knife into what he hoped was the battery pack of the unit. As it sparked and hissed in protest, the woman went into a seizure, only stopping once the light from the indicators faded. As it sparked one last time, she let out a small sigh followed by a low moan.

As he waited to see if the erst-while captive to recover and hopefully regain consciousness, Anderi looked her over. She was dressed in black with trousers tucked into her boots, and a short white camisole peeked out from behind a hide flight jacket. She opened her eyes, then shrank back into her prison as looked up at the large man and coughed, “If I'm going to die in this hole, you'd think it would be more tolerable in here...”

“There, there miss. No one here is out to kill you... yet.” He knelt down and gave the woman a small smile, “Names Anderi, looks like you got yourself in a bit of a bind. Who'd you end up on the wrong side of?”

She groggily sat up in the capsule and rubbed the back of her neck, “I remember a bunch of thugs jumping me as I was talking with an... acquaintance... where the flying heck am I and what am I doing in this crate?”

“I suppose we can trade a few questions. We're on Diogo Island, a resort of sorts on Curacao in the Cortez system. The good news is this supply station is not run by the military, bad news is it's run by Orbital Spa & Cruise.” Anderi grabbed her wrists and snapped on a pair of binders.

“Hey! What's that for?” Fully awake now, the woman struggled, trying to free herself from being re-imprisoned.

“Just a little insurance.” After the binders locked, he reached around and picked up his datapad, flipped it open, then began to tap some keys. “Now my question, who are you? Obviously, you are or were someone who needed to be taken out of circulation but still kept alive. Otherwise, whom ever put you in that restraining capsule wouldn't have taken the time to attach a neural nightmare device... nasty things, you know...”

The woman thought for a moment, “I can't remember exactly... but I seem to remember going by the name of Moleigh d... Moleigh Miltara.” She struggled against the binders again. “Now does this mean you'll let me out of these?”

“Umm...no, that's not going to happen, for now.” Anderi scowled at the datapad's readout. “I knew that logo looked familiar...” he mumbled. “So Moleigh, what's your connection to the Confederation of Unaligned Worlds? I thought they were wiped out in one of those edge worlds power struggles criminals seem to have every few years.”

Moleigh looked at the large man pleadingly, “It's like looking at myself through a fog... at times I can see myself talking to others I remember clearly, then the memory clouds over. I think I may have been part of the CoUW as a pilot... I do know I flew a Marauder class fighter before I was waylaid.”

“Well, we need some time to figure out exactly what you did and to whom, and why you were about to be shipped around the galaxy in a freight container.” He stood, and added, “Now you going to come quietly, or do I have to carry you?”

“Where you taking me?

Anderi was starting to loose his patience, “All you need to know is I have some friends that might be able to help. It will go better for you if you walk in under your own power than dumped on the floor like a sack of fertilizer.”

“And if I resist going?” Moleigh stared back at him attempting to get a read on him.

“Then I give you a shot of something to make you more compliant. So it's your choice... walking or drugged and dumped?”

“Fine... help me up.” She put on her best pout held up her bound wrists helplessly.

“You think I was born yesterday?” Anderi stepped back and flexed his hands in irritation. “Get up yourself, and be quick about it, the Inspectors will be back soon, and I want to be out of here.”

Moleigh struggled but after a few tries was able to get to her knees, then to her feet. “To your friends, then...”

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