Unicorn Evils
"...come in, child," Reverend Cheney says to Jami, the twelve-year old girl uncomfortably aware of his eyes drifting to the hem of her short green-trimmed white uniform skirt and moving downward, to where the crotch of the lime-green panties which are part of the Owensboro Middle School uniform stick out below the hemline.
"Come on," he says,"don't be shy, I don't bite...."
Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken
5.0 lightyears from the Tau Ceti system
9/14/2101, 2230.14 Zulu
"...bridge is yours, Number One," Commander Jamilinne Sipe says to Lieutenant Commander Stephanie Rhoads, as she gets up out of her seat, walking towards the hatch between the piloting and nav stations at the forward part of the bridge.
"I'll be in the hangar bay," she adds,"if anything comes up."
"Stand down from general quarters?" Stevie asks, whispering in Jami's mind what's wrong, luv?
Baby, I don't know, the captain of the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken thinks back, and that's what scares me the most.
Out loud, she answers,"no, Number One, not 'til we're in warpdrive, or those two Yanker cruisers are. Radioman, lidar, keep alert, they might yet holler for help or try for a last shot at us before they run for home."
The captain of the Unbroken then steps through the slowly-opening hatch, into the narrow passage between the bridge and the hangar bay on the forward middeck, her mind....
"...they all think they're too effin' good," Daddy says, the next one in line uploading his quarter into his Link, grabbing the thirteen-year old girl's hair, jerking her head back, shoving his thing down her throat, all the men jammed into that stinking little bathroom in the back of Bull n' Dee's laughing, as she gags and tries to spit it up, only to get slapped across the face, and that thing shoved even further down her throat
"Ain't none of ‘em," she hears one of them slur drunkenly,"nothin' but stinkin' pootie-poo, from head t'toe."
"Nothin' but," she hears him say again....
...as she screams, begging them not to hurt her, she's only a little girl, Daddy smacking her hard across her face, twisting the twelve-year old girl's arms behind her, forcing her to watch, as DT, Avery, Tommy Pollard and Tommy's daddy, Cap'n Scott, hold little Lori down and....
...drifting to memories she wishes she didn't have, Jami taking a deep breath, squaring her shoulders, as the hatch leading onto the hangar bay buzzes and clicks open at her approach, the master of the Unbroken stepping onto the bay just as the cruiser's Mark III Bulldog-class drop ship settles onto the deck, its maneuver jet whining down to a whisper, as the rear cargo ramp drops down from the tail of the craft, the members of Unbroken's detachment of Legionnaires exiting first, Master Chief Petty Officer Shawn Gyllenhal bringing up the rear, the skinny beanpole of a nineteen-year old blonde instantly snapping to attention and saluting upon seeing her captain standing at the foot of the cargo ramp.
"As you were, Master Chief," Jami says.
"Who's on board?" she asks, even two members of the ship's three-person med team enter the hangar bay, med bots and a pair of automedics trundling along behind them.
"An American Orthodox preacher," Shawn answers," a couple of hajjies and a good hundred or so..."
Shawn swallows down the word "zeds" with some great degree of difficulty, bringing back more unpleasant memories for the cruiser's skipper.
"...others," Shawn finally decides on saying,"a couple of who are in bad shape...well, bad shape, relatively speaking, none of them are exactly are what we can call in good health, not after...."
She trails off, blinking back tears.
"I understand, Master Chief," Jami replies, nodding, as she briefly lays a hand on the younger woman's shoulder, pulling it back when the commander of Unbroken's Legionnaries flinches at her touch.
"Only too well," Jami says, half to herself.
Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Georgia Bull
5.0 lightyears from the Tau Ceti system
9/14/2101, 2232.00 Zulu
"She's been like that ever since we left T-nova," the well-muscled halfie girl with the dark chocolate skin says to Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman Heidi Proctor, as the blonde, blue-eyed Human girl-not much older than Heidi-in the ill-fitting Yanker Spacefleet coveralls shrinks away from the med corpsman's touch.
Heidi nods, as Lieutenant Jillian Pollock and Lieutenant Commander Ryla Sedgewick both enter the dropship's troop bay, med bots close behind the two other members of Unbroken's med team.
"Ma'am," Heidi says to Commander Sedgewick,"a lot of them won't even let me near them, they're-"
"I know," the ship's chief medical officer whispers, nodding her head rapidly, the automedics wheeling behind her, the med bots gingerly picking up the two worst cases, as the tops of the automedics swing open to receive them.
"Both of them have massive internal injuries," Heidi tells Commander Sedgewick, "from multiple blunt traumas, electrical burns over most of their bodies, severe damage to their cardiac muscles...."
She trails off.
"There's tears...bruises...contusions, " she says haltingly,"along their...in their...."
"I'm sure," Commander Sedgewick, her voice taut, replies,"it's all in your report, Senior Chief."
"Thank you, ma'am," Heidi whispers, nodding her head, asking:
"How...I mean, why...."
"I don't know, Heidi," Commander Sedgewick replies softly, shaking her head, as she looks away.
"I surely do not frickin' know," the ship's chief medical officer repeats.
Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken
5.0 lightyears from the Tau Ceti system
9/14/2101, 2233.96 Zulu
"Hey," Lori Pollard says nervously, shifting weight from one foot to the other, finally settling for itching the left foot with the right.
"Hi," Jami says back, swallowing, before she points to Amy Bridges-standing to Lori's left-with a nod of her head and asks:
"She your girlfriend?"
"Three years, as of Saturday," Lori says, smiling and proud in spite of being nervous round the older half-sister she hasn't seen since Mama's funeral ten years ago.
"Y'all do anything special?" Jami asks.
"We went to the River and danced," Amy speaks up, wrapping her arm round Lori's waist, giving her a gentle squeeze.
"She dances good," Lori says, still smiling.
"She does a lot of things good," she adds, her smile just a bit mischevious, as she looks back down at Amy.
"Girl, that's too much info," Amy tells her, blushing all the same.
"Did I mention anything 'bout that?" Lori jokes, lightly kissing the tip of Amy's little pug nose.
"You do have a dirty mind," Amy remarks, with a chuckle.
"An inventive one at that," she adds, leaning up to kiss her.
"And, you don't?" Lori chuckles in reply, goosing Amy, as she kisses her back.
She looks back at her half-sister, smiling, even with the tears in her eyes.
"Sis?" Lori asks.
Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken
5.0 lightyears from the Tau Ceti system
9/14/2101, 2234.11 Zulu
"I'm okay, baby," Jami says, wiping the tears from her eyes.
"Just glad to see you are too," she adds.
"She's the one to thank for that," Lori whispers, gazing down into her lover's brown eyes, brushing away strands of long, curly brown hair.
"For," she adds," a lot of things."
Jami smiles again, enough for to show teeth, even the missing one...something she's usually not comfortable with, but Stevie always thought it was cute....
"So," Lori asks, as Jami's thoughts turn to that much happier subject, "what about you? You and Stevie still married?"
"Twenty years next spring," Jami replies, noticing, for the first time, the MiniPriz khakis both are wearing.
"What's with the-" she starts to ask, Amy replying:
"Only way the Gnats would let us in the door, if we pretended to be men pretending to be women."
Jami flinches.
"Damn, girl," Amy says, putting a hand on her left arm,"I didn't mean to-"
"You didn't-" Jami starts to say, before a tall, old black Human male, still wearing a gold tooth and a black suit, steps down to the foot of the cargo ramp.
"Jami," that bastard Robert Cheney says.
The captain of the Unbroken replies by excusing herself, moving past the other two women, before she hauls off and busts the hypocritical son of a bitch in the mouth, knocking him down on the deck, her 250-gigajoule laser pistol in her hand before she even thinks to draw it, the weapon aimed dead at his, beady, black-bloodshot eyes....
"...having heard her story, Commander," Reverend Cheney says, two monkeyboys standing with the man in the grey suit, as they block Jami's path to the chaplin's office door,"I can safely say that it's nothing I haven't heard before, from a hundred others just like her."
"When was she first identified as an at-risk child?" Captain Zellner asks.
"Her first SAT," Reverend Cheney, consulting the holodisplay floating over his workstation terminal, replies,"the one she took in pre-K."
He adds:
"It says here that the usual proceedures for handling at-risk children were followed to the letter by her teachers and the school-including two years in PTP-but, it seems-"
"Yes," says the man in the grey suit,"I see that, Reverend, and you were, of course, correct in notifying the TSID the instant Jami came to you ."
"Master Chief Baraka, if you would," he adds,"please take Miss Sipe into custody, I'll inform her father that she's been arrested-"
"What the f-" Jami starts to ask, as she bolts out of her chair, one of the monkeyboys grabbing her arm, twisting it behind her back and bending her over the desk, as Captain Zellner finishes:
"-on charges of rape and aggrivated sexual battery."
"I didn't-" Jami starts to scream, the man in the grey suit cutting her off, his voice carrying a condescending edge, as he tells her :
"I know you didn't mean to, honey, you just can't help...."
...being a zed.
"Get the eff up," she whispers, holstering her laser pistol.
The preacher man struggles to his feet, black blood running down the corner of his mouth.
"What the hell was that?" Amy asks.
"A long story," Reverend Cheney rasps, as he answers.
"A real long story," he repeats, before breaking down in a fit of coughing.
Pate House
378 Sullivan Drive, Owensboro, Terranova
9/14/2101, 2314.01 American Time
"Bitch," Randy spits at her,"get your goddamn ass back in this bed, now!"
When Sunni Pate doesn't move away from the bedroom window, he grabs at her arm, jerking her around so he could slap her across her face one, two, three, four, five times, shaking her, screaming,"just what effin' part of the word now did your tiny little emeffin' brain fail to effin' understand, huh, you spoiled-rotten goddamn lil' brat?!"
She makes the mistake of trying to answer his question, her husband letting go of her as he slapps her across the face one more time, knocking her down onto the floor, screaming "face down, ass up, now!" Sunni doing what she was told, no choice, he owns her, could do anything he wanted, if she even thought of disobeying him...or trying to leave him....
Everything flashes white hot as he stomps her head into the floor, keeping her face pressed into the carpet, as she heard him fire up the electrowhip, screaming wordlessly as he lays into her ass, stomping her face down whennever a whimper escaped her lips, Randy shrieking for her to ,"keep your damn critter mouth shut, you sick piece of stinkin' goddamn poot!"
"You were thinkin' about her again, weren't you?!" he demands, laying into her ass with the whip again when she hesitates, ordering her to "answer me, goddamnit!"
"What fuckin' makes you think she could ever love you, anyway, you sick lil' twitch?!" he demands. "That's all you are, nothin' but a worthless goddamn piece of pootie meat, all you'll ever emeffin' be, especially to one of your subhuman kind, a goddamn stinkin' piece of rotten ass!"
"What the eff is up with that cryin' bullshit, huh?!" he screams, mashing her face deeper into the carpet, furiously tearing into her with his electrowhip. "You really think I ain't wise to that shit, you goddamn lil' brat, you think I don't emeffin' know how you use ‘em tears to effin' get what you want?!"
"She effin' knows, that's for damn skippy!" he adds, a word for every lash that burns into her. "She effin' knows exactly what you are, ‘cause she's your own effin' kind, that's why she effin' hates you, why all your kind effin' hate you, worse than I emeffin' do, ‘cause they're all just like you, all worthless rotten-ass pootie just like you!"
He presses her face harder into the floor, breath heaving as he tells her,"I am the only one who could ever love a goddamn stinking-ass piece of goddamn poot like you! Get me, wife-girlie?!"
"Y-yes, Master," she answers, trying to keep the sob out of her voice, Randy taking his foot off her head, driving it as hard as he could into her ass, telling her,"that's for fuckin' getting me out of bed, after a sixteen-hour shift of putting the boots to things like you!"
"Well?!" he adds, a moment later. "Do I need to tell you everything?!"
"Of course I do," he says. "You're all poot and no brain, you wouldn't know what to effin' do if I wasn't around to do your damn thinking for you . Isn't that right, bitch?!"
"Yes, Master," Sunni says, still face down on the floor, not daring to move until she was ordered to.
"'Yes, Master, what?!'" he demands.
"I'm all poot and n-no brain, M-master," she replies,"I wouldn't know what to do if you weren't around to do my thinking for me."
"Damn straight," he says, kicking her ass again.
"Go get cleaned up," he orders her," You frickin' stink like poot."
"Now!" he screams.
Sipe House
374 Sullivan Drive, Owensboro, Terranova
09/14/2101, 2316.65 AMT
"There are those," Uncle Micheal's holoimage says, addressing the knot of YouTube reporters gathered on the steps of the Capitol in New Whitehorse," who have used my half-sister's perversity to make me appear to be on their side. Let me tell you now, I am ashamed to ever have called that rabid, slavering zed family. She is the devil incarnate, evidencing her sinfulness early in childhood...she would crawl into my bed at night, kissing me, holding my masculinity in her filthy hands, telling me I better have sex with her or she'd cry rape and have me arrested...it would've been her word against mine...she had already seduced her father, and you know very well who the police are inclined to believe."
"She," Uncle Micheal continues saying, as Jacob Sipe and everyone else watching this on the IW cheer him on," had one friend, two years younger than she was, and she'd always used to beat her unmercifully, make her bring her food and pop, make her give her her toys...Jami made her go everywhere with her, beat her if she tried to have any other friends...one day, when I was twelve years old, I happned to walk into her room, and they were both naked...her friend was on all fours, screaming her head off, because Jami was sodomizing her with the handle of the bathroom plunger...she told me ‘little Gracey,' was the mama and that she was only doing what ‘mamas like having their daddies do to them'...I had to spank her, and I told on her, but Gracey and Jami both said I was lying, and I got the worst beating of my life for it by her father-"
"Nasty-ass zed," Jacob's best bud, Matt Pate, remarks, before stomping little Shelby Skankface into the living room carpet.
"She," Uncle Micheal goes on to say,"killed herself when she was only thirteen, after my half-sister stopped being her ‘ friend,' and started preying upon an eight-year old child...from that day forward, I stopped being a brother to her and swore I would make her account for the horrible, indecent things she does."
He sighs, tears running down his handsome face, tears that all 'em fat-assed zeds caused him for all 'em years:
"She knew I would try to stop her and all her kind from preying upon other little Graceys, so she-with the aid and comfort of Guy Zellner and other zeds her Conspiracy has infiltrated into the highest levels of power-brazenly admits her perversion and her pride in that perversity to the media, just so she could discredit me in front of my allies and impede the implentation of the Contract I made with my people when I was first elected to the House of Commons-"
"Damn skippy, monkeybone!" Matt hollers at Uncle Micheal, along with a whole bunch of other folks, Uncle Micheal still speaking:
"-this grandstanding, publicity-hungry bitch is still now not only trying to destroy me through her stunts, but uses the spotlight you damn liberals in the media and entertainment industries, undercover zeds such as Lyle Hammond and Juan Rivera, have so generously given her to make others believe there's nothing wrong with zeds being brainwashed into sodomy and perversion with other zeds...and the masses believe her, especially after the Media Committee were so very kind enough to allow her to guest star on Pax Rabwin: Interstellar Spaceman, that politically-correct excuse for a military reality show, just so she can brag about the destruction of a man's career and the furthering of their twisted agenda, and they dare call me a hypocrite?! "
His handsome face turns red for a brief moment, Jacob's uncle glaring into the cams, as he rants at full volume:
"She, the mother who made her want to abuse others, the Commies who even now give her aid, comfort, willing slaves and unlimited power, in league with their handpicked, henpecked bitch of a so-called Governor of the Union are carrying out acts of warfare against us all, in an all-out effort to destroy every good, decent, natural, normal thing, the very underpinnings of our civilization and all its accomplishments, and they plan on replacing it with perversion, depravity, sodomy, anarchy, poverty-both moral and economic-drug addiction, violence, and criminality...if they should succeed, God Almighty help us all, for it will be the end of civilization...we will sink low into an inescapable abyss of violence, poverty, decadence, misery, oppression, barbarism, just as those poor savages in the Commuinst State of Slave Worlds have long ago, just as the America before them did, when their leaders let the zeds seduce them into allowing them rights and liberties they clearly did not deserve, and out of that outdated notion that all men were created equal arose the dark age of WARCOM...if they are allowed to succeed once again with the prosecution of their agenda, there will be a new Dark Age, and they will, yet again, pretend to lift us up while keeping us all down in decadence, ignorance and unending warfare, persecuting anyone who opposes them, and, this time, there will be no real men such as RJ Williams-hallowed be His name-to save us from the zeds, their WARCOM, and the damnation they will both lead us to, because they have stripped all of us of everything which makes us special in the sight of our Lord God, turning us into brute beasts, just like they are!"
The cheering becomes a squeal of noise overloading the speakers, Matt stomping on Skankface again, ordering her to get him and Jacob some more beer and chips.
"Yes, M-master," Skankface stammers and sobs, Matt slapping her good across her face for her fake-ass crying bullcrap, halfway throwing her towards the kitchen, before sitting back down to finish listening to Uncle Micheal's Web-cast from earlier today.
"-already," Uncle Micheal shouts,"already, they have infiltrated our schools, ramming their creationist agenda down the throats of schoolchildren forced to drink from the fountain of their ignorance, the wine of their fornications, teaching them such nonsense as some penal colony being the real homeworld of the Human race-"
"That's just stupid," Matt remarks. "Wikipedia says Terranova's the homeworld of the Human race, and it can't be in Wikipedia, 'less it's true."
"-when every scientist for the last three hundred years," Uncle Micheal tells the worlds,"has produced incontrovertible evidence that Terranova-given that name by RJ Williams Himself, as a token of the redeemption He and He alone brought about-is Mankind's home, now and forever!"
"Hell, yeah!" the voices shout over the speakers, Skankface shaking her pootie back into the living room, holding a tray of chips and beer in her hands.
Jacob looks at Matt, Matt nodding his head, Jacob kicking the tray out of Skankface's hands, screaming,"goddamnit, y'stupid bitch, now look what you did!"
"I-i-" Skankface starts t0 stammer, Jacob getting up off the sofa, slapping her down onto the floor amongst the chips and spilled beer, grabbing her by her hair and pulling her up onto her knees.
"Always full of excuses, ain't she, Matt?" he asks.
"She's a zed," Matt replies." She's born that way."
"Ain't nothin' for that, but one thing," he adds, Skankface trying to pull her puppy-dog eyes bullcrap on Jacob, but he ain't falling for that.
"Go for it, buddy," Matt tells him, Jacob mashing Skankface back into the carpet, holding her down there with a foot to the back of her cooter head, as he takes off his belt.
Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken
New Seattle Aerospace Corridor,0.05 AU from Big Sky
9/15/2101, 1338.01 Zulu
Jami's stomach finally settles, after three solid minutes of gakking up in the wastebasket in the wardroom, Unbroken's skipper taking a sip of Sprite, nibbling on some soda crackers in a plate on the end table next to the sofa.
It's a few more minutes before she stops shaking...she goes through every frickin' time, during the fight, steady as a rock, but, after all the shooting stops and her ship and crew come through it more or less okay, she's in here, shaking like a leaf and puking her guts out.
Unbroken's decelerating towards Big Sky, with Stevie's steady hand at the helm, ready to call her back onto the bridge if something comes up between now and when they touched down at New Seattle, though Jami doubts anything would come up that her wife and second can't handle.
Nothing for her to do then, except sit here.
Think.
Talk, maybe? Stevie's voice whispers in her mind.
The preacher, she adds, was sporting quite a bump on the back of his head. Your doing?
I went to him, Jami thinks, sighing explosively, tears running down her cheeks, stupid frickin' me, thinking a man of God would listen, help, y'know.
Instead....
...the twelve-year old girl screams, twitches, and bleeds, peeing and crapping herself, as she clutches in vain at the base of her neck, where those bastards had implanted the neural collar, more expensive and more sadistically versatile than walls, get within ten meters of the sensors buried in the ground and-
"Miss Sipe," Doctor Wildgoose barks out, Jami somehow managing to get to her feet, forcing herself to get even closer to the limit,"get back inside the compound, now!"
"Sunnuvabitch," one of the orderlies with him interjects, Jami clenching her jaw against almost unbearable agony,concentrating everything within her on moving one foot in front of the other foot,"she's fightin' the freakin' collar!"
"You effing told me that was impossible!" Admiral Zellner shrieks.
"It is," Doctor Wildgoose insists, running over his words,"it's supposed to be."
Jami takes one more step closer to the limit, Doctor Wildgoose adding. "None of them, none of them, can do that, you hear me?! "
"You goddamn little bitch!" he shouts, all the honey gone from his voice. "You get back inside this emeffing compound, now!"
One more step...she can't even see straight now, the pain is that frickin' bad, but she has to take that one last step.
"Fine, then, bitch," Doctor Wildgoose snaps, as Jami steps over the limit, staggering towards Davis Drive. "If that's the way you want it, that's the way I'm gonna play it."
"Eli, taser the goddamn little howler," she hears him order, as she starts running.
She isn't fast enough to outrun the bolt of electricity arcing and burning through her body, her muscles all going limp at once, causing her to flop down into the wet grass and convulse helplessly, as Doctor Wildgoose and four orderlies approach her.
"You," Doctor Wildgoose tells her,"brought all this on yourself...."
...I see, Stevie whispers, Jami addding, it's still in my head, jabbed into my brain's pain receptors, wound in with my medulla oblongata, so getting it out's not an option.
Bugger me, Stevie replies, mentally flinching from the images Jami's shared with her.
How in the bloody hell could anyone do that....she starts to ask, trailing off.
I know, baby, Jami replies, as the hatch leading to the bridge buzzes and clicks open.
Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken
New Seattle Aerospace Corridor,0.05 AU from Big Sky
9/15/2101, 1341.64 Zulu
"You must think I-" Jami starts to say, Lori telling her:
"You probably have your reasons. He's no saint, none of us in the movement have any illusions as to that."
"I can only vouch for his actions," she adds,"in the last three years, since...she came into my my life."
She starts to cry, smiling at the same time.
She sighs:
"That's...another story," she says.
"Reverend Cheney's done a lot good too," she adds,"put his life on the line more than once to help out-"
"Those he helped screw over in the first place," Jami snaps, swallowing back tears of her own.
"Yeah," Lori says.
"Sorry, Sis," Jami says, after an explosive sigh. "Not your fight."
"So," she asks,"how did you get mixed up with the hajjies? Last time I saw you, you were still working for Sunni Pate and living by your lonesome over on Vinson Drive."
"Still am," Lori says,"or was, working for Sunni; Amy even worked her way up to AMC, and don't think none of the regulars weren't talking crap 'bout us, especially that dirty old bastard Calvin Hobbes-"
"That dried-up old perv still alive?!" Jami asks.
"Unfortunately," Lori remarks, shivering at the thought of his eyes on her ass, every damn time she works.
"Anyway," she adds,"I noticed Amy was sneaking out in the dead of night, or even in the middle of the day...stupid me, I thought she was cheating on me, even though I should've known by then she'd never do me like that...so I ended up following her one night, right into the middle of a running firefight with a whole bunch of monkeyboys down in the Bottoms...decided then and there that was what I wanted to do, and Amy was the one I wanted to be with...."
"Been clean and sober," she adds, smiling wider,"three years now...she's been a big help there."
"Awesome," Jami says, getting up, smiling wide, as she gives her a little hug.
"I'm proud of you," her sister adds, holding her gently by her shoulders.
"Even if-" she starts to say.
"You would've, if you could've," Lori tells her,"I know this."
"'Sides," she adds, indicating the ship around them with a sweep of her hands,"you have more important things to worry about, same as me."
"I brag 'bout you, all the time," she says, smiling wider. "We hear about you in whispers-not on BoobTube, mind you, that's nothing but BS-but bits and pieces of what Horse's Ass don't want anyone to know about."
Jami blushes, laughing nervously.
" I'm not all that, girl," she says, sighing.
"Not even close," she adds, shaking her head.
"You want something to eat," she asks, in an obvious and abrupt change of subject, as she walks quickly towards the icebox by the hatch in front of Lori. "You probably haven't eaten all day, and no doubt, you're starving."
"How 'bout," she adds, digging in the icebox."a bacon sandwich with me. What do you like on yours?"
"Just a little bit of mayo," Lori says,"if it's not any-"
"I wouldn't have asked if it was any trouble," Jami replies.
"Okay," Lori says, sitting down on the sofa next to her.
"Thanks," she adds.
Room 18, Owensboro Elementary School
Owensboro, Terranova
9/15/2101, 0845.20 AMT
"Leave me alone!" Teresa Skanky Self screams, as Jacob, Al Bassett, and Frank Addams all crowd round her desk.
"Shut it, pootie meat," Jacob snaps, grabbing her arm, pulling her out of the desk, getting her good across her face when the nasty little zed tries to frickin' bite him, before he jerks hard on her arm, knocking her desk over, as he starts dragging her kicking and screaming towards the table at the back of the room, Al and Frank grabbing hold of her legs, Jacob grabbing her short blonde hair with his free hand and twisting hard, when the little howler starts hollering for everyone else in the class to help her.
Everyone else knows better...Miss Walton left him in charge while she goes to the office, and they know he'll tell on any of them who don't do what he and his friends tell them to do.
They manage to get Skanky under the table, and the little bitch immediately tries running off, Jacob not having any of that bullcrap, grabbing hold of her arm again, throwing her down on the floor so hard, the crack! her head makes when it hits the floor echoes throughout the room.
Al and Frank use their knees to hold her arms down, as Jacob climbs on top of her, hiking up her short, green uniform skirt, slapping Skanky across her face when she starts hollering "rape!" over and over, Jacob sticking his tongue down her throat like he knows 'em zeds like making him do, at the same time he starts pulling her panties-
"What do you think you're doing?!" Miss Walton shouts at him, Jacob turning to face her legs, whimpering, "Teresa tried to make us do nasty things with her, Miz Walton, we-"
"Out from under there, now!" Miss Walton shouts at him-at him-Al and Frank already crawling out from underneath the table.
"You too, Jacob!" that bitch then has the nerve to add. "All of you are coming with me to Mister Fibbe's office!"
Calling her a bitch under his breath, Jacob gets up off of Skanky, he and his friends walking towards the door.
Jacob looks back to see Miss Walton hugging and feeling on that little bitch.
That wasn't gonna go.
That was for damn skippy.
Principal's Office, Owensboro Elementary School
Owensboro, Terranova
9/15/2101, 1015.11 AMT
"Boys will be boys," Thomas Fibbe, Owensboro Elementary's principal, says
to Jacob's dad and his partner, as they sit in his air-conditioned office.
"It was just an innocent little kiss,"he adds, "I mean we were both kids once, Garry, and I
know I remember trying to kiss more than one little girl I had a crush on, the same with you, if I remember correctly. "
"Yup," National Policeman 1st Class Garrison Sipe simply says in reply.
"Bet there was some stories there," remarks his partner, a short thuggish man with the unlikely last name of Halfacre.
"Tell me about it," Fibbe remarks. "There was this one girl in particular Garry was sweet on...Lianne Nielsen, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," the visibly uncomfortable Sipe replies.
"One day, when he was about Jacob's age-" Fibbe starts to say, Sipe interrupting him with a "I ain't tryin' to be mean, Tom, but Halfacre and I are still on duty, so, if you would, please, tell me just what kind of trouble my boy's gonna be in over all this."
"Trouble?" Fibbe says, chuckling, as he adds,"Jake ain't in no trouble, not over this."
"It was just a case of a young teacher," Fibbe then says, as he glares at Mary-Kate Walton ," who let her zeal override her good sense."
"Mister Fibbe," Mary-Kate protests," that was not the case. Jacob tried to rape-"
"Oh," Fibbe chuckles again, talking at her like she was frickin' two, " Mary-Kate, rape? He's only a little boy, he doesn't know about all that stuff. It was just a harmless little kiss-"
"I beg to differ," Mary-Kate says stiffly.
"Well, you're not the education professional here," Fibbe snaps, "I am. And, my decision is final."
Mary-Kate tries to reply to this, only to have Fibbe say:
"Wait in my outer office. I will discuss this with you after I finish apologizing to Garry for this unfortunate incident."
"Mister Fibbe-" Mary-Kate starts to say.
"Go, while you still have a job here," Fibbe commands, pointing at the door.
She walks out of his inner office, closing the door behind her, sitting down in one of the hard chairs reserved for those waiting to see Mister Fibbe.
"No luck?" Mrs. Hart, Mister Fibbe's secretary, asks, already knowing the answer.
"No luck," Mary-Kate replies, angry.
"He tried to rape that little girl," she adds," and Fibbe's just blowing it off as nothing...'it's just a little kiss, that's what little boys always do, I did it when I was a little boy. ‘ "
She sighs explosively.
"You won't do her or yourself any good by trying to push it," Mrs. Hart replies.
"He tried to rape her," Mary-Kate says. "Even if all it was was a little kiss, he's still sending the wrong goddamn message by not punishing him...how can I teach my students to have respect for other people when Fibbe's turning right around and saying just the opposite?"
Mrs. Hart just shakes her head.
"Honey," she reminds her," don't you know by now folks like you and me aren't people to them? "
"Some free advice?" she adds.
"Let this die a quick and painless death here and now," she admonishes. "If you take it any further, they'll still win, and we will all still lose."
Mary-Kate looks at the other woman with a look of astonishment.
"I can't believe you said that," she says. "What about your own little girl, Eva?"
"Cynthia's a little tease anyway," Mrs. Hart replies, defensive," and at her age...she dresses like a little Maria Santidad, and she acts like a whore, especially around her fa-"
Mary-Kate half-runs out of the prinicpal's outer office, heading for the water cooler down the hall of this dimly-lit masouleum.
That 's what her mom always says.
What they all say about her, even now, behind her back.
She turns the corner, slamming open the door to the women's faculty restroom.
Sobbing as she sags against the far wall.
Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken
New Seattle Aerospace Corridor,0.03 AU from Big Sky
9/15/2101, 1520.00 Zulu
"With your permission, Number One," Lieutenant Khryste Pollard says.
The First Lieutenant replies,"I stand relieved, Leftenant," before she rises from the piloting station, the commander of VF-214 taking Lieutenant Commander Rhoads' place, wrapping her left hand around the control yoke, positioning her right poised over the piloting holodisplay-now split to display command functions as well-as she asks:
"Do you want me to transfer command functions to the conn, Number One?"
"You're fine, Leftenant," Lieutenant Commander Rhoads replies, as she stands behind Khryste, not sitting down at the command station, like she should be doing right now with the Skipper off the bridge.
Khryste nods, glancing at the readouts on the piloting holodisplay, lines of data surrounding the view of the warp engine exhaust obscuring the orbitals of New Seattle Spacedock and the planet immediately below that.
Nothing to do really, the 1,262-ton Dauntless-class cruiser is maintaining a standard deceleration burn, its piloting computer doing all the flying right now, not requiring anything from her until they either reached interface or all hell broke loose between now and then.
It's either this or sit in her quarters, twiddling her thumbs for lack of anything better to do.
Except think.
Far too much on her mind for that.
She spies Ariel out of the corner of her eye; she's hunched over the engineering station, stroking holokeys so quickly Khryste has trouble keeping track of her fingers.
She's one of the things Khryste doesn't want to think about...bad enough she never knew where she stood with her, but....
"...after all that," Harmony chuckles, opening up her silk kimono, the toy popping up and out at Khryste, as the twelve-year old girl huddles up in the corner of the Gold Club's "training room," "after all that, you still like girls...."
The fourteen-year girl grabs Khryste by her hair, jerking her head back, slapping her hard across her face, before she....
...she doesn't even know if she could give that girl what she needs.
The hatch leading to the wardroom buzzes and clicks open, the Skipper stepping onto the bridge, holding up her hand to Master Chief Gyllenheal, before she can announce her presence.
Mama's right behind her....
"...Mama!" Khryste screams, kicking and struggling in the grips of the two National Policemen, one of whom lifts up the skirt of her school uniform to slap her butt hard, before he drapes her over his shoulder like she wasn't nothing.
"Shut it!" he snaps at her, Khryste watching a couple of monkeyboys wrestle Mama to the ground, one of them growling,"you brought this on yourself, Miss Pollard, you need to take responsibility for your actions...."
Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken
New Seattle Aerospace Corridor,0.03 AU from Big Sky
9/15/2101, 1523.24 Zulu
...she keeps screaming out her daughter's name, as the monkeyboys wrench her arms behind her back, one of the cuffing her, the other using his filthy paws to "search" her.
"I said, shut it, zed!" the one what told her to take responsibility for her actions snaps at her. "You're the one who made the inappropriate lifestyle choices, not me!"
"No damn sympathy for you at all," he adds....
...she hadn't seen her girl since then, she hadn't even frickin' bothered to look, since that day eight years ago, when they'd taken Khryste from her over some bullcrap, and sent Lori to the crazy house in Wesley for-
For things she'd rather not think about right now.
She watches her daughter tense up, as she pilots this cruiser on its approach towards New Seattle...she always did like flying and spaceships, part of what had gotten her into so much trouble in school, that and....
"...she insists on bringing in readers," Mister Hobbes tells Eli,"that she insists she understands, no matter how many times the teachers explain to her that she simply can't...her SATs clearly show her comprehension level as below the national average,although it is highly atypical for an at-risk child such...."
...Lori sighs, as she watches her daughter work.
Maybe if she'd said "yes" to Adam that one time too many, if she hadn't packed her and Khryste up and gotten the eff out of that house....
"She's a natural at it," Jami speaks up.
"She always did like things like that," Lori tells her half sister.
"Always," she repeats, sniffling down tears.
Women's Faculty Restroom, Owensboro Elementary School
Owensboro, Terranova
9/15/2101, 1031.16 AMT
Mary Kate swallows once, wiping her face with a paper towel, sighing.
She looks at herself in the mirror, trying to put out of her mind just what's going to happen to Teresa.
Or her, for that matter.
After a few more moments, she turns and starts walking towards the door.
When it flies open.
Jacob Sipe and two of his little friends just barge in, advancing on her, Mary Kate snapping,"you aren't allowed in h-"
"Shut it, pootie-poo!" Jacob, face twisted in hatred, barks at her, at the same time he shoves her, hard, knocking the wind out of her, as she slams into the wall and sags to the floor.
The nine-year old boy doesn't give her a chance to get up, let alone wrap her brain around what's happening, Jacob hauling off and backhanding her across the face, grabbing her hair, slamming her head into the wall, screaming,"bitch, I didn't give you permission to get up!"
He's still holding her by her hair, as he shoves his tongue down her throat, Mary Kate hearing the sound of cloth tearing from off in the distance.
Principal's Office, Owensboro Elementary School
Owensboro, Terranova
9/15/2101, 1034.28 AMT
"Some people," Tom Fibbe says with a dramatic sigh,"you just can't help, Garry."
"Nope," Sipe remarks, the holo of Mary Kate Walton's Permanent Personal Record floating between them.
"I mean," Fibbe says,"what more can we do...she spent most her life in frickin' PTP and YDC too, been on probation since she got her teaching license from vo-tech, done everything else we were supposed to do to keep her on the right track, and, still...."
"Well," Halfacre speaks up," she's been living all by herself in 'em apartments in town...gotta tell ya, brother, there's more than a few of her neighbors and her co-workers who don't wonder why, if y'know what I mean."
"I hear 'em same rumors," Fibbe remarks, nodding his head, Halfacre asking,"so you want us to make the call, or-"
"I've notified the Special Victims Unit," Fibbe, banishing Mary Kate's PPR from his workstation's holospace, says, before calling up Teresa Self's PPR.
"A couple men should be by shortly," he adds.
"Hmm," he then says, studying little Teresa's PPR. "She's been reported several times for nonconforming behaviors...bringing in readers no at-risk child should be able to understand, stating 'facts' in class what aren't in Wikipedia, the usual pretending and fantasizing common to children such as her, but this is her first reported sex offense."
"A semester," he decides,"in PTP'll probably be all she needs to-"
His CyberLink bleeps for his attention, the holo of Fibbe's secretary floating in front of him.
"Mister Fibbe," she says,"a Commander Burnham and a Master Chief Petty Officer Hatcher from the TSID's Special Victims Unit are here for Miss Walton."
"Is she waiting in the outer office like I told her to?" Fibbe asks.
"No, sir," his secretary says. "I think-"
"Mastercomp!" Fibbe snaps." Show me the current location of teacher Mary Kate Walton."
His terminal's holospace lights up with a view of the cams in the women's faculty restroom.
It doesn't come as much of a shock what those cams show Sipe.
It doesn't come as much of anything really.
"Yeah!" Halfacre exults, along with the voices of everyone watching this on the IW.
"Apple don't fall too far from the tree," Fibbe remarks, eyes glued to the holo.
"Does it, Garry?" he asks.
"Nope," Sipe manages to say.
"Sure don't," he adds.
-endit-
