Round 11, Part Four [Terminal Connection v. Little Black Stray]

Little Black Stray
In a world where violent male offenders are sent to labor camps on the remote prison planet, one crew of hardened men finds something impossible: a young woman in tattered clothes, mute and frightened. A small group protect and feed her, keeping her out of sight of the guards and away from those who would use her mercilessly. As she gains in strength it seems that she has an agenda--and the truth of what she was doing on a world where no women stepped before might be a big enough secret to shatter the whole planet of forced labor.

Character Sketch: Kamra Judge
Relationship to Story: Protagonist / Antagonist / the stray

My father is the wealthiest man in the world. But, in a society where fortunes are measured on a galactic scale, he is small fries. He was presented with a golden ring once, but the moral price of reaching it was too great, and as he paused his partner took it without a moment's hesitation. He never grew to the heights his potential once allowed. instead, he grew bitter and insular while his old partner grew more powerful by the day.

If you measure by the standards of the Musselmen fixed worlders, and their scam famines, I guess we were pampered. I was educated, fed and wrapped in ridiculously expensive clothing. I was sent to private schools and associated with heiresses and rich bitches. I can barely stomach the thought of the desserts we ate, with thin gold spread on them, or bottles of champagne so expensive they could feed a family for a year, and we would break them on our bows as if they were novelty toys.

Before my abduction, I never knew about what it meant to be poor. My captors called me Baby Hearst. They flew me to XAE7809, and instead of putting me in fleet sleep, made me stay up and study oppression. At the tip of their weapons, I read world history. I never understood the past as a wealth struggle. I used to think about the losers as being in the place god put them, not that my own class had the boot to their neck the whole time. Meaning, of course, we had the power to lift it or apply pressure. Mostly, I think we pressured it just enough for no one to lose site of their masters.

I learned about the ways that my families fortune came about -- the hideous underworld connections, the royal attitude that can only work when backed by an army of hired help. Two years in space with four tough guy professors was grueling, but they were never took advantage of me. They schooled me, but they didn't abuse me. I came to know them all well. I came to empathize with their cause.

Once they trusted me, they taught me how to fight. I was always in shape, despite my friends penchants for surgery and indulgence. I took to their martial arts and leadership classes to heart, and before too long I could have commandeered the ship and had them turn around. If, that is, we had enough fuel and if they didn't have weapons that bio-imprint on their owners and can't be used by anyone else.

But they were better teachers than pilots, and the approach to XAE77809 was blown. We entered the atmosphere too fast, at too steep and angle and we nearly burnt up. I remember the flames flying past the cockpit windows, the nearly animal noise of the ships metal complaining against the stress. And then, I awoke. I was surrounded by prisoners. Tough men -- men who hadn't seen a woman in many years. It was hot -- over 100 degrees. I was still naked.

Lucky for them one of them stopped the rape before it started. I would have tore them to shreds. I kept my mouth shut, didn't say a word and tried to learn as much as possible about this new world that I fell upon. If god, or Marx, put me here, it was my job to fight my way out. If I could pass a little bit of my new found knowledge along the way, then more power to me. More power to justice.