Other Gray's writing collection

[GraySkyl]

Just a place for me to collect stuff I've written, so people who think about RPing with me have a place to see my writing style :-)

Prologue – A murderous telegram​

This day had been exhausting, as usual. Primrose Foxglove, a person about 1,70m tall, wearing a slightly scuffed padded vest and having some of this newfangled chewing gum in their mouth, left the editorial office of the “Redwick Post”-newspaper.

This day, as already mentioned, had been another bust. Primrose had such high hopes of being an investigative reporter, asking the hard-hitting questions. Reality, though, apparently had different plans. All of the other writers and reporters always threw around accusations of them being “too naïve” or “too trusting” and, worst of all, “too immature”. It’s not like Primrose was open to criticism, in fact, all she wanted to do was better.
Their colleagues, however, seemed to enjoy making them feel dumb by creating false leads and sending them on wild goose chases. That definitely wouldn’t make her a better journalist. It hadn’t even been a year, and they already were disillusioned with the life of a reporter; most days frustrated was all she was.

Those were the kind of thoughts that accompanied Primrose on their way home. Walking through the streets of this small town had been stimulating to their imagination, before they actually started working for this newspaper. She always thought about all the things she could find out and investigate as a journalist, whenever she took a stroll. Now, everything seemed so deeply disenchanted in a matter of speaking.
This day had definitely been their low point. Nothing to do but sit down in the dusty archive and sort old newspapers, day in and day out. It had been weeks, since she was allowed to actually do some reporting – and even then, it had been only three sentences about a travelling circus that would be coming to town. Not exactly riveting stuff. She seriously started to think about if it would even be worth it continuing this “career”; not that you could exactly call it that.

She had finally arrived at the door of the house where she lived. Just as they wanted to take out their keys, a small messenger boy came along and asked if their name was “Primrose Foxglove”. It was clear that this kid couldn’t read and had probably been muttering their name under his breath the whole way over. She nodded and the boy gave her a telegram. Primrose quickly took a few coins out of her pocket and let the kid take them. Before they could even ask, who it was from, the messenger was already heading down the street, running as fast as humanely possible, considering the short legs.

“Whatever”, Primrose thought and finally opened the door and entered the house. They had to climb quite a few stairs before arriving at their small flat. She let herself fall into a chair and took out the telegram.
They didn’t really expect for anything to come from this telegram, but they were way too curious, to just throw it away, even after the disappointing day they had.

“Unexplained murders in London –(STOP)- many have been killed –(STOP)- the constables don’t know what to do –(STOP)- the dead look dreadful”

Was this another one of her colleagues’ false leads? Another prank to ridicule them? Probably. Then again, would they take it so far as to send a telegram to her home? This could be a real chance to get the scoop on something big. Additionally, why would they lure them to London of all places.

Still, probably another hoax. In all likelyhood, it would be best to just burn the telegram and forget about it. Why endure another round of humiliation?

Yet, Primrose didn’t burn it, not even throw it away just to get rid of it. No, the telegram stayed not only in their home, but in the pocket of their vest. This decision, would mark the start of the adventure of her lifetime.

 

[GraySkyl]

Chameleon​

They say that crime doesn’t pay – Mercury knew better, of course. On the contrary, crime did pay immensely, especially if you didn’t have morals to go with it. That was always the thing that held them back from retiring early. A smuggler with a certain set of morals usually wasn’t on top of the food chain. While others were thriving in these times of conflict and outright war all over the galaxy, they needed to do more and more due diligence on potential clients. It wasn’t unusual that governments tried to hire smugglers, saboteurs and even assassins – all the ‘vermin of the galaxy’ as they usually called them in their speeches – in secret these days.
Mercury would rather be shot dead than to be paid to even lift a finger for this kind of government. This was a stupid business move no doubt and got them into more trouble than necessary.

They walked into the cockpit and looked at the nav-systems – still about 30 minutes until the ship would exit light-speed. Mercury lay back in the pilot’s seat, eyes closed, only to have a small four-legged creature jump onto their lap. They opened their eyes and looked at the face of Sirup, their orange cat with a white belly. Sirup was seen by most as a sort of living anachronism – cats and dogs being a mere distant memory for most – while Mercury just considered this small ball of energy as cute. They did, however, think about renaming Sirup to Anachronism but it felt a bit mean to them. Mercury sometimes thought about if this animal realized that she sat on highly illegal goods. Did she recognize that only a metre beneath the floor of the cockpit were crates and crates of explosives?

Mercury had a rough idea of what those weapons would be used for by the rebels that paid for the delivery. The planet “A6I-2UARAI-r”, also known as Tuara, erupted into rebellion only a few months ago, when two villages were “cleared” – the official phrase – to make room for a new military camp. There soon were rumours about people who didn’t want to leave voluntarily and hadn’t been seen since. Resentment started to grow in the population until the “Slither-valley incident” or “Slither-valley massacre” – depending on if you’re asking the government or rebels -, when four people from the nearest town were killed in a shootout.
The valley was named Slither-valley was named for the way it “slithers” through two mountain ranges, just like a snake would. It had been a river a few millennia ago, before it dried out, but the characteristic look stayed. This valley had been a popular hunting ground for the people living there, before the military arrived to build the fort. The four killed people either just wanted to go on a hunting trip, if you believe the rebels, or were trying to sabotage the fort and kill the military personnel, if you believe the official reports. While the rebels question why four people would go to take on a whole fort of highly armed soldiers, the army pointed towards the fact that all four individuals were leaders of the demonstrations against the building of the fort in their town. This part was indeed true, but there hadn’t been any violence during the protests, they only demanded the release of those who didn’t want to leave their homes.
No matter the true intentions of the four, their deaths ignited the powder keg so to speak and sparked the first fights between rebels and the army. The town was levelled in less than 6 hours, but miraculously most of the inhabitants made it out alive. Nevertheless, this was, rightfully as most people would contend, seen as a war crime and did nothing to stop the fighting.
As retaliation the rebels attacked with IEDs and even some homemade chemical weapons. They surprised army patrols and took them hostage, trying to force the army to abandon the planet. This only increased the frequency and intensity of army attacks until it eventually led to the all-out war that had taken over almost the whole planet to this day. There were some “demilitarized zones” in the south, but even those weren’t really safe for civilians.

This was the situation that was awaiting Mercury at their destination. They would technically be committing a war crime themselves in only a few minutes time. The declared load of their small freighter was medical supplies. It had stopped being unusual for private freighters to deliver those supplies a few years ago, after the first of the many current wars in the galaxy had started and officials started to get more and more suspicious of those kinds of transports. Mercury hoped it would work one last time today.