New Lork Old Problems

*The following is a historical record on the Lork Conflict, it is not known how accurate the representation is, as three corporations have a different view on the conflict

New Lork was a powder keg conflict. The kind of place that from its inception was bound to break out in open bloody murder. A desert world in the middle of three corporate territories. The idea was to create a sort of holiday destination where people could relax with looser rule enforcement on drug usage and prostitution. In retrospect it was obvious where the flaws were, but at the time it was considered a good idea.

The first open war took place three years into the provisional governments tenure on the planet. It was believed to be started by unionized casino workers who felt they were not being paid fairly. This has been disputed by historians claiming that this was instead a push by a corporation to control the entirety of the planet. Which corporation is again up for debate.

The war was thought to last no more than a year, lasted fifteen. By the time the conflict was over the entire planet's infrastructure was annihilated. The end came when the warring factions effectively gave up and left. New Lork now remains as a monument to corporate cooperation in the modern age.

Teenage Rebellion Taken Too Far

Deliah wasn't a mercenary out of desire. She had grown up in the corporate sector, a land of opportunity for middle managers to spend their days never really doing anything or seeing the results of any of their actions. Both of her parents were executives in a corporation and her sister was well on her way to being the accounting supervisor at the same place. Deliah didn't want to be a drone at an office. She wanted to see the world, which meant in the corporate sector signing up to be a mercenary.

It was surprisingly easy to get in as a licensed merc. Just a couple classes, physical registration, and then signing up with an outfit at a recruiter. Deliah chose a group that was bound for outer planetary duty, mainly to get away from her parents. She figured she'd do the mercenary thing for a couple years, and then settle down and be a corporate drone. Unfortunately the group she signed on with were on the rim when a war broke out, and the war lasted six years. By the time Deliah had finished her first tour, she was automatically signed up for another and could not stop it, nor would she want to, she had discovered she loved combat. And in the midst of that, she also discovered she was a shifter.

Deliah was not as strong as Rolando, her ability was only for short term shifts, but in the middle of combat it was a life saver. Unfortunately her ability also meant she couldn't hang around major commercial areas for long. Even in the corporate sector, shifters were listed as kill on sight dangerous absent a tracking chip being implanted in them. So she was a woman without a family, and without a future other than mercenary work, and in the middle of that she was still in a war on the rim.

So it was under all of this that Deliah found herself sitting in the ruins of a building one of the few remaining mercenaries in her company wondering if it was all worth it to rebel against her parents.

Sins of the Mother

Carut stared at the screen a little dumb founded. He figured that Therod would be bored by what looked like a crazy old woman, and then after a couple hours come back shamed and admit she was wrong. Now he was seeing reports that a woman named Deliah Cash had been arrested, but the physical description was more in line with Therod than whoever Deliah Cash was supposed to be. Carut wanted to hack in for more info, but was leery of the effort if only because it would look bad if it was a simple case of mistaken identity.

"Rolando, Rem get your asses up here." Carut was trying to formulate a plan, they could in theory just blast in there and get Therod back, but unlike the fake police they rescued Rem from, the real ones tended to be a lot less forgiving of breaking the law. On top of that maintaining their mercenary license required them to be mostly law abiding.

"What?" Rolando was the first one up to the office and his face told the story. He had gone from looking mildly upbeat to like he'd seen a ghost. Rem followed shortly after him and was surprised to see Rolando so stricken.

"I take it from that look, you know who Deliah Cash is?"

"Yes, but what I'm confused by is how she could be arrested."

"She wasn't, they've got Therod, but if you know who Cash is we'll just snag her and give her to the cops."

"Going to be a bit of a problem there Carut, Deliah is dead, she was my mom." Carut and Rem felt like Rolando did, taken back by everything that had taken place. And so Rolando told them a story about a mercenary named Deliah Cash, the best mother who never got to see her son live that long.

I Want to Cash Out

Therod cursed the luck. She had moved from one cell to another, and now she was being held as someone she wasn't. It was enough to make her scream at the situation. She almost suspected Carut had played a joke on her if not for the very real booking she had just gone through. The cell at the police station was a lot nicer, but she definitely felt a lot less safe there. Eventually after she'd been cooling her heels for a couple hours someone came and brought her to an interrogation room. It was the usual set up, table, chairs, sound proofing and a one way mirror, just like they did it in the military.

"Deliah Cash nice of you to show up again."

"I'm not Deliah Cash?" Therod seemed to think that was obvious, the two detectives did not seem to believe that.

"DNA match lines up, you look pretty good for pushing seventy, but medical procedures have hidden people's age before." Therod was completely confused now. She was searching any kind of previous record in her implant for Cash and was coming up with a very brief thing about a mercenary in the corporate sector believed to be an acquaintance of Trezlan Lorentino. Seeing his name there suddenly made her very angry.

"Cash was white, I'm black." It was the only thing she could think of based on the snippet she had.

"So you do know who you are. And yes you obviously got skin darkening done along with your other medical procedures. Ms. Cash, you're going away for a long time, I just want you to know that." The detective got up to leave.

"That's it, called me down here to claim I'm someone I'm not and then leave?"

"I just wanted to know what your defense would be, clearly insanity." Therod glared and both men left. Later she was taken back to her cell. With a sigh she realized she had to hope someone back at the office clued in things had gone wrong, which caused her to sigh again in the thought that none of them probably would.

Whoever Deliah Is, She's in Trouble

"I'm not Deliah?" It seemed to be the only thing Therod could say. Who Deliah was, or what she had to do with Therod was very confusing. The old lady had a moderately crazy look in her one functioning eye, the other one was scabbed over either from injury or illness Therod couldn't be sure. The old woman came down swinging her broken weapon in a way that made Therod really not feel safe.

"Of course you're Deliah, you took my eye, now its time for me to take everything about you." The old woman stuck the weapon through the bars and Therod jumped on it, she smashed it against the bars and the barrel broke. The old lady pulled the trigger anyway causing whatever round was in the chamber to explode in the breach wounding both women, though Therod looked like the old lady got the worse of it. She was wondering how easily the bars would dislodge when she heard boots tromping down and was surprised to see police. Especially that fast.

"Oh thank the gods this lady locked me up..."

"Deliah Cashe? You're under arrest." Therod thought maybe they meant the old lady, but it appeared they were talking to her.

"You've got to be kidding me." As they removed her from the cell and slapped the restraining shackles on, they did not appear to be kidding. Therod swore as they were dragging her off the old woman's corpse had a smile on her face.

Can't Ask For Help Out of Shame

Therod had been imprisoned for a couple hours. The lady that Carut had turned down had turned out to be as crazy as he had thought. When she had arrived at the ruined apartment building that the person had claimed to be her home Therod was hit with a stun gun and she awoke in a basement cell with a dish for water and a bucket which she assumed was to be used to go to the bathroom. So far there had been no demand, not even a question from her captor. She just got hit with a stun weapon and locked up in the crumbling building. It felt like she was missing a story here.

The worst part for Therod was not being able to ask for help. The very idea of contacting Carut and asking him or the rest of her squad to bail her out made her shiver. She had ignored his warning and now it had lead to her peril. No one to blame but herself, so in that regard she felt the only way out was her own guile. At its face the cell looked not too difficult to get out of. The bars were iron, but the building was falling apart, a good round of smashing into them would free her if given time, she just had to wait to see her captor to judge how much time she had left.

"Hello Deliah, been a long time." The old woman who came down wearing armor that was too tight and a weapon that looked prime for a misfire informed her, time to escape was already long past.

I'll Mark That In Things To Be Afraid Of

Rem had a look on his face Rolando did not like. It was a face he'd grown used to seeing when Rem had somehow tapped into Trezlan's thoughts and found out something awful. The last time Rem had it, his father was trapped in his own ship by his own robots. That made Rolando smile, but he knew his father would get out, and judging on Rem's smirk he had.

"He got free and he's back to building a battleship."

"Oh hi Rem, thanks I was having trouble sleeping at night, glad to see you brought me something new to fear."

"I just thought you'd want to know he's ok." Rem knew this not to be true. He'd only known Rolando a short time, but he knew the man did not like to know that his father was ok, or doing ill to the world. Optimally Trezlan imprisoned by robots was the best thing for the universe. Him being free and now once again working with the bots was bad for everyone.

"Rem, I kind of like you, but you know good gods damned well that's not what I wanted to know." Rem smiled and he walked off. Rolando was tempted to try the roping thing Rem had taught him on the man, but figured best to let it slide, for fear of what Therod would do when she got back from wherever she had gone. So instead he just fumed like his father was known to do when he was upset but felt he could do nothing about it.