Rura Penthe #23"
By: Samantha Carter, Security Officer, [RNPC]

Stardate: 58205.08 1330

It was quiet on the bridge. Sam watched her tactical console, not much happened an occasional glitch but it was nothing out of the ordinary. From the viewscreen she watched the stars pass by. It wouldn’t take long before they reached Rura Penthe.

She wondered how her family was and were they were. Knowing them they would probably be in some dreadful place. The last place she had been with her parents was New Paris, her parents were assigned there to see if there could be established a society where people could be free, healthy and happy, where the arts would flourish, where love would grow and hate wither.

Unfortunate this had not been the case. New Paris was controlled by ganglords, who held power by the strength of their bodies, numbers, their fighting skills or their control over food and drug supplies.

Not even the Maqui could control them, there was no government, no security yet her parents were convinced they could make a difference. Sam sighed as she remembered that dreadful day she had gone out to play even though her mother had warned her about the gangs, but as all youngsters do Sam did not listen. Her parents did love her and her sister very much but they were so pre-occupied with their own work that they did not give many guidance, nor kept an eye out for danger.

It had been on a Wednesday night Sam remembered so vividly, she was on her way home as she had been spotted by one of the rape gangs and she was only too aware that this time they would not give up their pursuit. The one and only time they had caught her, she had been barely twelve. That time, they had used her for their own amusement, then laughed at her and let her go. She was too young and too skinny.

“We’re trowin’ ya back, gel. Grow up and get some bazooms!. Then it’ll be worth it, you ‘ll get nice clothe and lotsa pretties and plenty o’joy dust t’keep ya happy.

It was then when Sam learned to fight. Sam was determined to become strong and skilled. She turned her shock and fear into anger, her anger into determination. But determination was one ting, training was another. She could not go to her parents and ever ask about it or even tell that she had been molested. This was something she had to sort out her self.

At the place where she used to live there was an small narrow alley, this became her training ground. She could only do this in the early morning if her parents were still a sleep. Sam had a weapon an old knife she had found and made some targets out of old cargo containers. But then again there was a day that another gang had seen her practising, at that time the knife did her little good. Perhaps her eagerness had made her careless, inattentive to the movements from the early mornings.

The knife was wrenched out our her hand by a laughing man who used it to force her to submit. They had tied a hood over her head, so she could not see to fight, could not bite, could not see what was happening as she nearly suffocated while they took their turns at her. And then when it was over, the leader pulled the hood off and scornfully tossed her knife down beside her, knowing she was too weak and terrified to use it. They warned her that they would kill her and her family if she would ever tell anybody about what had happened.

Sam had learned from that experience. Sam thought her self to throw the knife, to kill from a distance. Within weeks she could hit a fixed target every time, and more and more often she skewered the rats she aimed at, even when they scurried in the dimness. It was then that Sam learned to love knives, the swiftness of a kill, the razor sharp edges.

Her mother knew that something had happened but Sam could not bring it up to tell her, not even her sister. So Sam grew up being a tomboy, never worn a dress, always cutting her hair short. Trying desperately to hide her femininity.

Suddenly Sam’s memory got interrupted by a small bleep on her console, she ran a diagnostic and smiled it was nothing. She turned her gaze back at the view screen and watch the stars pass by.