Prologue:
There Are Limits
Inspired by the new Bioware MMO set in the Star Wars universe. I own none of the characters, obviously.
*
Ensign Peters was dead. When Sulmad had threatened to go to his superior, he'd gone for his blaster. Fool or not, slow or not, ally (allegedly) or not you pulled a blaster on the smuggler, you died. Shooting to wound was for the holos. His weapons were overpowered anyway.
The offer to let him run the minefield in exchange for a share of the take from betting if he survived was bad. The fact that they made the same offer to refugees was worse. The fact that they didn't discriminate by age was horrifying. The fact that the withheld the supplies that were supposed to feed the refugees so they'd have to run if they and their families wanted to eat was over the line.
Sulmad's line wasn't drawn the same place as most people. It couldn't be if he was going to survive as a free spacer. Especially now that his ship had been stolen. But there were lines, even for him. He wasn't Sith. Still, he would have been satisfied if they'd shut down their operation. And he surely would have been satisfied if their superiors had done it for him. But he'd made a mistake, thinking that Peters would back down. Ensign Ta had more sense. For all the good it had done the Republic officer.
With Peters dead and Ta's blaster on the floor where she'd carefully dropped it along with her belt, the other 'troops' hadn't had her sense, but between his blaster and the refugees' rage, they'd died to the last. Ta wasn't so lucky.
The beautiful black officer was naked. Or mostly. Her uniform hadn't been removed, so much as it had been shredded by human muscle and nail and fury. You'd have thought the fact that there were families all together would limit what they would do. You'd be wrong. The children were kept far away, of course, lest one try the course to save their parent the risk, but fear for those children, anger over their hunger...
The women were the worst. Their wrath was terrible and untempered (mostly) by lust, fear, or cultural programming. Ta would already be dead if not for them. They swarmed around the woman, directing their husbands, sons, fathers and brothers in their tormenters violation. Sulmad could have stopped it. But he remembered the look on the skeletal face of a child and he could not bring himself to deny them their vengeance, though neither would he participate, or even, as Ta screamed briefly, before a cock was shoved into her mouth, a woman held it open with the spoon from the soldier's multitool as other repositioned her so another man could take a shot at her, now well lubricated, ass.
The betters, unarmed, were suffering as well, if there was less of a mill surrounding them. Sulmad ignored it, merely grateful that they hadn't followed the common practice on his homeworld on taking their children with them to see the bloodsports they were betting on. Then he would have had to interfere. Though maybe then, he wouldn't have had too, because they wouldn't have been able to.
He glanced back at Ta. A woman was whipping her breasts with the belt the soldier had dropped. They would have been able to.
A shrug at human nature emerged from his peasant soul and he helped himself to the credits in their account. They'd do the refugees no good. Unlike the supplies. He amble in that direction, thinking that they should probably get those distributed. Fairly. Unless they wanted an even worse riot. That violence could turn on each other just as easily as it had on their tormenter. Rage not being the most sensible of emotions.
Sulmad was not the only one with that idea. After chasing off a very large would-be thief, he settled down at the console to see what all they had in the roomy and now unsecured supply tent. Once in the system, he checked to make sure that no one was scheduled to arrive for a while. The only reason the scam had worked so long was that the outpost was remote, but it never paid to be incautious. With that done, he set about doing calculations based on how many people were in the camp and what was in the tent. Much of the supplies had been sold. Probably why the supply run drivers hadn't talked.
The person to arrive wasn't a thief. Not as she walked right in without any attempt at concealment and was completely unarmed. Older than him, almost forty, she had the look of a woman who'd once been fairly well fed, but the prolonged hunger hadn't left her skin hanging, so she couldn't have been particularly heavy. She still had a double handful of breast, ah, he noted the slight dampness of her vest, she was still breast-feeding. That explained everything, as the mothers and children had first call on the food. Brown skin and almond eyes suggested she wasn't from Ord Mantel, but she wore the outfit of a port worker, though the usually tight clothing was just a hair loose on her frame.
She extended a well muscled arm, as her vest left her arms bare he could see that she was a strong woman, even if he hadn't watched her break a trooper's neck with her bare hands earlier. He shook it, wondering which of them would win if she tried the old game of squeezing. She didn't try. "Ming Fe. You can call me Ming, everyone does." She introduced herself straightforwardly. The top of her head barely came up to his shoulder, but her eyes seemed to look right through him. It wasn't a good feeling for a man with plenty to hide.
"Sulmad." He said in a tone that didn't invite inquiry into his surname. "What can I do for you Ming?" The tone vanished as he continued, being replaced with his usual, talking to a beautiful woman voice.
"Same as you, I expect. We need to get these supplies sorted out, or that's going to get even messier." She said, distaste for the actions outside clear in her voice.
