Katie.Katastrophie

[Katie.Katastrophie]

*Name - Katie.Katastrophie
*Age - Approximately 24
*Sex - Female
*Ethnic Origin - Bretonian
*Appearance - Slender, medium height, long brown hair.
*Personality - Bubbly, flirty, humorous. Can be trigger happy, depending on mood. Dangerous when provoked.
*Criminal charges - Humiliating/embarrassing Naval officers of multiple houses (many, many counts). Kidnapping, assault, and killing officers of military and law. Smuggling contraband. Piracy. Theft.

--------------------------------------------------

Katie was born in Trafalgar base in New London. Her parents were both Junkers, who worked together on a single transport either mining scrap or delivering something they shouldn't have been.

She was only 5 when her parents took her with them on a trade run to New York.
Things were going smoothly until the transport jumped into the New York system. A police patrol intercepted them on the other side of the gate. Katie heard the com system open up on the bridge.
"I have orders to scan your hold. ... Hold it, drop the cargo. Easy now!"
Her father seemed to fly into a rage, he opened fire on the police ships and attempted to fly clear.
Katie could hear the police weapons slamming into the hull, the ship shaking violently. Her mother, in an act of panic, put Katie into one of the cargo crates with some food and water, an artificial photosynthesis unit, and sealed it.
Katie waited in the crate, tears streaming down her face. She could feel the ship come to a stop. then nothing. For what seemed like an eternity.

Suddenly, a huge explosion, her create flung about violently for a few seconds before total calm. Gravity had ceased, she was floating inside her crate. Drifting through space.
--------------------------------------------------

Two days past. Drifting in the dark silence. Only the soft hum of the photosynthesis unit to keep her company, and it's small red light. The last food ration. She hadn't slept, up to this point. Partly the fear of being alone, but mostly the discomfort. Nothing to rest on, no gravity to hold you steady in such a confined space. Tiredness was taking over, she closed her eyes.

She fell to what was suddenly the floor of the crate with a bump. Waking in a daze, she shifted herself up to some level of comfort in the cramped space, before her consciousness woke enough to realise that there was now a down and an up. She heard a hissing outside, and what seemed to be doors opening. She sat quietly, afraid of who might be out there. She could hear voices...

"Right then, lessee wha' we got 'ere" said one
"28 boxes by my count Dad, rest were too broken to be holdin' anythin'. I'll have a look in this one." said a second, much younger voice.
There was the familiar clunk of a crate lid being removed and dropped to the floor.
"Cor! Look at these! You think these are alien?" said the first voice.
"Looks that way, should go well on the collec'er's market." another lid drops to the floor, "An' I got Cardi in this one."
"Heh, me lad!" the first voice chuckled, "I knew 'twas the remains of a smugglin' ship! We've got us a windfall 'ere! Haha! Let's have a look in this one, you get that one."
Katie felt her crate move. The lid opened letting in blinding light, she closed her eyes, covering with her hands. She heard the younger man's voice... "Oh... hello."

--------------------------------------------------

"This had better be good!" barked deputy Arbiter Jack Crow of the Junker Congress as he marched into the little office on Rochester base, "I've had a long day, the last thing I needed was for you to call me all the way up to Roches... who's this?" he broke of in a much lighter, slightly surprised tone.
"This Sir" began the young Salvager, "is part of what we found of the remains of the smuggling ship reported destroyed by LPI at the California gate."
"Really?" said Jack. He looked at the little girl sat in the chair by the desk. After a few moments, his previous tone resumed "Well, really lad! You should know well enough that orphans don't require the attention of the Congress leadership. You can deal with her yourself."
"Well, yes Sir, in normal circumstances. But among the wreckage we also found this." He took a manifest tablet out of his pocket, turned it on and handed it to the deputy Arbiter. Jack read through it for a few moments, then raised an eyebrow. He took another look at the little girl, then back to the young Salvager.
"I see. Would you be willing to take care of her?"
"Me? Oh well Sir I'm very busy with..."
"Should I rephrase that question, Sal?"
"I'd be honored, Sir." he said, slightly unconvincingly.
"You have a copy of this manifest?" Asked Jack, putting it in his pocket anyway. Salvager nodded. "Well done." Jack walked with the gait of extreme importance out the door. "Well done that man"
Salvager sighed, and looked down at the little girl sat quietly in the chair.
"Well then. Katie wasn' it?"
The girl nodded.
"Seems you and I'll be gettin' to know each other over the next few days or so. If you ever talk that is. Come on, let's go get somethin' to eat."

--------------------------------------------------

...to be continued...

---

Out there are poor Outcast girls in desperate need! Please give just 10 million credits or whatever you can to the 'Katie wants a Battleship' fund today. Just pick up the comms and type "/givecash Katie.Katastrophie 10000000" now, thank you!