Private In Their Voices

[Mercy]

The message was brief, desperate, and without explanation.

Her parents’ faces flickered across the grainy holo, voices overlapping in urgency:

“Liin. Please, we’re in danger. You must come quickly. We don’t know how long we can hold out.”

Then the feed cut to black... only to restart a moment later, repeating in a loop.

–––

Days later, the trail brought her to a warehouse on the edge of New Cov, a planet she had left behind a long time ago.

It was a cavernous space, vast enough that footsteps vanished into echoes. Iron pillars rose into shadow, their surfaces streaked with rust and damp. Pipes hissed overhead, dripping into shallow puddles that spread across the floor, scattering the sickly flicker of weak overhead lamps.

At the heart of the emptiness sat a lone holo-projector. Its feed glowed and shimmered in the dark, replaying the same desperate loop she had first received.

The recording stuttered, then began again.

Behind her, the doors sealed shut with a hiss of hydraulics and the heavy thud of locks sliding into place.

The vast room fell quiet.

The trap had sprung.

Liin Terallo

 

[Liin Terallo]

It had been some time since I had heard from my parents. After the Covie government was removed and exiled when New Cov was taken over; I had thought that my parents had fled or gone underground like I did. There was a certain protocol to follow and I was doing just that. I knew that contact would be made ones the proper steps were taken. Yet when I saw their message; my heart sank. There was fear in their eyes. The kind that no child should see from their parents. They needed me and so I had to go.

Days later I was on New Cov in one of the older domes. It made sense that they would hide there away from the capital. Two of my security detail came with me, dressed plainly yet still armed. In my mind I was certain that they just needed to be taken out of New Cov. Afterall the planet is not yet at war and I have heard of no reports of a rebellion.

The warehouse smelled as any abandoned building would. It was large and derelict. I thought that I could hear their voices fainlty in the dark. "Mother? Father?" My voice echoed in the chamber as I quickened my pace. But it was not them that I had seen. Instead it was but another holo-projector.

This is not right. I could feel it.

The grinding of metal on metal confirmed my suspicions, as did the hiss of the hydrolics. It did not take long for my two guards to rush towards the doors. One kept the barrel of his blaster outward; peering through the darkness while the other searched the walls for a mechanism to open it up again. I remained where I was near the holo-projector so that the guards could see me clearly.

"Where are you two?" I whispered under my breath, knowing that the answer would come soon enough.

Tag: Mercy