Penal Legionnaire. By Jim King Chapter One Petre Ember kept his head down so no one could see him looking around, the Enforcers didn’t like people looking around. They called it snooping and it got you a shock stick somewhere painful. So he kept his head down just like the other crims sitting on the benches. But he looked around anyway. “Syn zheleznodorozhnogo vokzala shlyukha” he muttered to himself. Every Enforcer station in the city looked the same, had the same smell, the same greasy plastic benches, the same criminals and the same blank faced thugs wearing Enforcer armour. Probably every station on the planet looked the same, probably every station on every planet. “What was that, what did you say?” The man seated to his left whispered. “Nothing, just cursing my luck was all.” Petre spoke this time in standard, or at least what passed for standard in the slums and hab blocks of this city. Petre glanced at the man who had spoken, no not a man, little more than a boy, fourteen or fifteen maybe. Not old enough to shave that was for certain. The boy looked terrified, his eyes looking from side to side, his hands tightly clasped in his lap. “What did they get you for kid?” Petre didn’t care, it was just something to pass the time and if the Enforcers came over it was the kid talking so it was the kid who would get a shock stick in the guts. “I took some food packs from the resource centre. They were ours, my dad is a citizen, he should get food packs twice a week. They said they didn’t have enough for everyone so they were closing up but they had plenty. I took what they owed us, I had the family ration vouchers, the food packs were mine to take, legit and all. It wasn’t theft but they called the Enforcers on me.” Petre grunted. The kid would learn sooner or later. The scum that ran the food allocation points always cheated a few people every day and sold the packs on the black market. The trick was to get to know them, do them a few deals, so it didn’t happen to you. Course doing a few deals sometimes meant buying the same ‘spare’ food packs and selling them on to criminal types with no ration books or people rich enough to afford extra rations. The kid was old enough to know better. Unless, hadn’t there been something on the news. That was it. Refugees, a couple of transport ships loaded with thousands of refugees, running away from some problems on the frontier. Something about an invasion or plague or some such. The kid would learn, or the gangs would kill him and his family, or he would hit twenty and the system would have him. Twenty points, below that and you are a petty crim, hit twenty and its automatic major criminal and reassignment to penal servitude somewhere. This last two weeks there were all sorts of rumours doing the rounds. The twenties that cleaned the streets from dawn till dusk had gone, all except a few old farts. Rumour was all of the twenties that were fit had been shipped off somewhere, just a few juvies and elderly left. Come to think of it maybe the stories of an invasion were right, the most aggressive of the twenties were assigned to military service and shipped off to some shit hole to die in the mud but they only took the violent ones. Now just about every penal was vanishing. “Yebat moyu mat.” Petre swore under his breath. He was in for stolen mechanical parts. Just possession, he hadn’t jacked them, he was just refurbishing them for the gang that stole them. Theft was three points if it was petty stuff which this was, handling was two points. He was sitting on sixteen and another two would put him close, another month and the five points he got for aggravated assault would expire and he’d be a lot safer. He better keep his nose clean for the next month, eighteen points was way too close to penal when you could get a point for looking at an Enforcer in a way he, she or it found aggressive and then be given another point for littering as you bled out on the walkway. Specially if all the penals were being taken off somewhere. He was a mechanic, a damn good one vehicle tech, not some penal legion cannon fodder. There was movement to the right, an Enforcer had gestured and the man at the end of the bench had stood up and walked through the doorway into the judges room. That was justice round here unless you had the credits or the power to be someone special. Arrested, sentenced and out the door on the same day. Walking if you were lucking, crawling or carried if they didn’t like the look of you. The woman to Petres right slid her backside along the bench to the end, she was next. He was after that. After no more than a minute the Enforcer standing guard by the door gestured to the woman and opened the door. Odd that, the man hadn’t come out. In fact as Petre thought about it half the people going in hadn’t come out again. The woman vanished from sight, the door slid shut and Petre slid to his right, the touch plastic bench worn smooth by thousands of people doing just the same thing. Less than a minute later the door opened and the woman came out, she looked, shocked, terrified, both at the same time. Close to tears. Bad sign, she had the look of the women that plied their trade on sub level 14, joy girls most called them. A hard life, safer than the gangs but still it bred tough women, something that would push a joy girl to tears was bad. The Enforcer waved at Petre, his blank mirror face helmet barely moving. He stood up, keeping his face down, didn’t want to give the thug the idea he was being disrespectful or anything. Not this close to twenty. Head down, meek, admit the crime, two points, walk out. The door slide shut behind Petre and a screen on the far wall lit up with scrolling text, he caught his name and details then up came his current record and a big flashing number. Sixteen, not got me yet bastards, won’t get me now. Head down, meek, admit the crime, walk out. The computer voice listed his crime. “Possession of stolen property, class three, mechanical parts, value less than ten thousand credits. How do you plead?” Head down, not a threat, just some pleb from the hab block, take the points and walk out. “Er I’m real sorry, I didn’t know they was stolen.” “How do you plead?” “Well I guess I’m guilty but I’m real sorry. I wouldn’t have touched them if. . .” Petre lifted his head a little so he could see the wall screen. The computer said something but Petre didn’t hear it; he was staring at the screen in shock. Big block letters had come up. Guilty, handling stolen property. Four points. The Number on the left side of the screen was flashing now and it said twenty. “NO, its two points. TWO POINTS! That’s wrong, I’m not twenty, it was a class three crime, two points. TWO POINTS!” The screen didn’t change. A door on the far side of the room slid open and a pair of Enforcers in riot armour stepped in, both lifted shock sticks, the tips sparking with what looked like well above standard charge. “NO, TWO POINTS, IT’S A MISTAKE,” One of the Enforcers pointed at Petre and then at the open door. No this was wrong, a computer error, he wasn’t a twenty, he wasn’t a penal, he had to get out, he had to run. Petre half turned and started to step toward the door he had come in by when the first shock stick hit his kidneys and a near lethal charge went from his back up his spine to his head. The world went white and for just a second there was unbearable agony then darkness. # Petre woke to find his whole body ached, he had a circle of real pain across his lower back where the shock stick had hit and he had a drum pounding above and behind his nose. His eyes managed to focus after a few seconds and he found he was sitting on some sort of form fitting plastic chair, arm rests, a high back and a four strap harness which was tight across his chest. There were people either side, men and women, most conscious and looking around though a few had their heads down and looked unconscious. Petre lifted his head and groaned as the muscles in his neck cramped from long hours in an unnatural position. “You alive them Rus?” The woman strapped into the chair on his right spoke. Petre grunted then caught her accent, the soft sound of the western blocks that still kept much of the Spanish their ancestors had spoken when they first colonised the world. “How do you know, you called me Rus?” Now he had spoken his accent gave him away but unless he had been talking in his sleep the woman shouldn’t have known him. “Your tats, Cyrillic, old school Russian, only place they still do that is the sub levels under the capital, no one lives down there but the gangs and the Russians. So it was easy.” Petre looked down and realised he was wearing some sort of form fitting shirt with a wide deep neck, the tops of the tattoos that covered his chest and shoulders were clearly visible. “I’m Sofia, Sofia Albrecca.” “Petre.” The woman started to speak again when a burst of noise came from ahead of them and Petre looked forward for the first time. He was seated in what looked like the third row, two people to his left, one to his right, across a narrow isle and other row of five seats. A quick glanced revealed eight or ten more rows behind him. The floor was bare metal plate, the plastic roof was curved at the sides and flat overhead. He didn’t have the money to fly by passenger transport but this sure looked like the inside of one from the TriD shows. There were flat screens on the wall in front of the first rows, one each side of some sort of closed hatch. Both screens had lit up and were giving off some sort of pay attention chime then the chime stopped and the screens changed to show the head and shoulders of a grizzled man, his face weathered by age and hard living. Three parallel scars ran from the top left of his bald head down his forehead, across his nose and down to his right cheek. One scar went right across the eye which was a lighter brown than the other eye. Wrinkles, lines one ear lobe gone, some sort of puckered round scar just visible where his thickly muscled neck met his left shoulder. He was wearing the same sort of fitted shirt everyone in the cabin wore though his was a dark blue colour not the grey that the convicts wore. When he spoke his voice was rough, a deep grumble but with a slight hint a machine, either a translator or some implant in his neck changing the sound of his words. “Welcome to the Republic armed forces, penal legion. Some of you scum will have stories about how you’re innocent or it’s all a fucking mistake. I don’t give a shit. You are here, you will serve and you will most likely die. If some of you actually manage to survive your five years without fucking up your points will have expired automatically and you get to go back into the world again. Some of you are sitting there scratching the backs of your heads. Don’t bother. The neural implants are anchored to the spine and the skull, it would take explosives to get them loose and that means blowing your stupid fucking heads off. Refuse to obey orders and the implants will fry your brains, try to escape and the implants will fry your brains, attack an instructor or officer and the implants will fry your brains, run away like a coward and the implants will fry your brains. In fact if you worthless sacks of shit fuck up in any way the implants will fry your brains. You hear me?” A few people answered and the man on the screen glared at them. “Pathetic. Well you’ll be pleased to know you won’t be doing any of that Sir yes sir stuff because real soldiers do that, marines do that. You scum are not real soldiers and you sure as fuck ain’t marines. You listen to what I say, you don’t hear me give an order that’s the same as refusing an order so pay attention or die. You are on an transport shuttle about to land at the Jeseril penal legion processing centre. Its dark side on the outer moon so don’t press any buttons or open any doors unless told to. Once the shuttle docks you will remain seated until an instructor tells you to move. DO NOT unbuckle, do not stand up or move around. Do what you are told when you are told and nothing else. You will be processed, undergo primary implantation and skill downloads over the next week then you will be on your way to the outer colonies. Do not fuck up and you may just live to come home in five years. Fuck up and you will die. Understand?” More people responded this time. The screen went back to white then turned off. Someone at the back of the shuttle started shouting and a few others joined in. “It’s a mistake, I wasn’t twenty, too many points, it’s all wrong, a mistake.” Others jeered and booed and shouted the whiners down before everyone became silent as the whole shuttle shook and juddered. “Retro burn, slowing down for landing.” Petre glanced at the woman who had spoken, “You know of this how?” Sofia’s face broke into a wry smile before returning to its calm emotionless expression, “I get around.” Petre grunted then gasped as he was pushed into the restraint harness by a three gee deceleration, it cut off just as suddenly and everyone on the shuttle was pushed back into the seats. Almost everyone, Petre didn’t miss the fact that his new friend had braced herself for the deceleration and was the only person in sight who hadn’t been rocked backward when it stopped. Petre sat up in his chair and started to look around again. “Don’t, there will be another retro bun in a second to match the landing pad.” Petre tucked himself back into the chair and counted slowly, at seventeen the shuttle shook again as the retros kicked in then faded away. A few seconds later a thump came from somewhere below everyone’s feet and the whine of the ships plasma drives faded into silence. From somewhere at the back of the cabin came a loud hiss and a slight breeze swept backwards. Petre felt it as it moved the hairs on his face then noticed something was wrong, he drew a deep breath but somehow it didn’t seem as deep as it should have been. He filled his lungs a second time. “Stop that.” He turned his head to look at Sofia and let out his breath. “The base is on 80% atmo pressure, you’ll get used to it after a while.” Petre stared at her, “You know a shit lot about all of this Spanish, how is it that you know?” She looked at him and for a second laughed before returning to her basic expression. “I told you Rus, I get around.” Then she paused as a thought occurred to her. “I’m not a spy Rus, I spent a few years as a soldier is all. Didn’t like it, went my own way afterwards.” Petre grunted, he sure wasn’t going to trust her, by the old faith he barely trusted his sainted mother but his thought that she was a spy went to lurk in some dark corner of his mind out of the way. For the present anyway. “You were told to stay in your seats filth!” The crackle of a shock stick was hidden by a loud high pitched scream. “Anyone else want to stand up?” There was a few seconds where the cabin was completely silent save for the sobbing of a man somewhere at the back. “Right, this row and this row only. Open your straps, stand up and file to the hatch. THIS ROW ONLY, fuck me you lot are stupid. YOU, slap the big red button on your chest. Satans spawn you lot are worse than useless. Satan must be cursing me to send you to me for training. THIS ROW ONLY fuck wits. BIG RED BUTTON!” It took a while but row by row the shuttle was emptied until the training instructor reached Petres row. For the first time the Russian got a good look at the man, he was short, barely one sixty but solid built, muscles bulged under his military skinsuit, his left hand which was holding a charged shock stick looked scared or maybe burnt by something that left the skin crinkled and marked. “All right this row and this row only hit the big red button, stand up, file aft and through the hatch.” The entire row did as ordered and started to shuffle between the seats to the isle, Petre stepped past the man and turned to walk up the aisle toward the open hatch he could now see at the back of the cabin when the instructor spoke just behind him. “I know you from somewhere?” Petre started to turn then quickly carried on walking as Sofia answered. “No entiendo senor, No entiendo.” The man grunted but said nothing else and Sofia’s brisk footsteps began to echo from the deck plates just behind Petre as he walked. Another instructor stood by the hatch, a ready shock stick in his right hand, this one was taller, almost Petres one eighty five but not as heavy set though, Petre was a slab of meat at the best of times. The Instructor watched them carefully as they walked past him and through the hatch which led into a small cluttered airlock, the sides were covered with empty racks and hooks, the ceiling was a mass of thick cables and pipes in what looked like random colours. The far hatch was open and led to a grey plastic tube that sloped up to another open hatch. Another airlock, this one was much larger but looked much the same, lockers, shelves and racks, the ceiling hidden behind pipes and cables. This one looked more used though, paint chiped or worn away, smears of grease, oil or some other unknowable fluids stained the deck plates in patches. There was also a smell, faint but rank, the stink of humans locked up in a box for years on end. Sweat and blood and rot soaked into the plastic forever. Beyond the airlock was a large room, empty of furniture but the walls were lined with lockers and some sort of racks. It was half full of penals that had disembarked earlier, milling around and waiting their turn to be called forward and be scanned by a pair of instructors in the same dark blue ship suits that the ones on the ship wore. Each person was called forward and subject to a fairly intensive bio scan using hand held scanners, one of the instructors then spoke to the person and pointed them at one of the two doors out of the room. This one was to the left, the far door was guarded by another pair only these were in armoured shipsuits and held some sort of energy carbines in a relaxed grip. Petre joined the crowd and stood watching what was going on for a while. The people around him were a mixed batch, a lot of them were clearly gangers though judging by the facial tats and the way they clustered into seperate groups there were at least three separate gangs represented. Others were petty crims, a few mid level types that were clearly too soft to survive this. A joy girl, a couple of spacers from the tramp ships and one elderly bloke with white hair and beard who looked like everyone’s favourite uncle. “Peter Ember. Yo wakey wakey.” Petre turned at the sound of his name and saw that the pair with the scanners were looking at him. He walked across to them. “Its Petre, petre.” “Ember, P.E.T.E.R. Penal servitude, non violent. Says here you’re a tech, mechanical engineer, maintenance and repairs. That the case?” “Yes, I am damn good mechanic and engineer of vehicles.” The instructor with the pad made some notes while the other one ran a complex scanning wand from Petres head down to his toes then along to his fingers on both hands. Both instructors glanced at the display then the one with the pad made some more notes, “Through that door Ember.” Petre looked at the door, shrugged and walked across the room toward it. He was doomed, nothing to do but walk to his fate and not give the Bez Ottsa Skuiny Deti the satisfaction. |