When the crew of The Elizabeth Warren arrived in 2170, they were here to
pick up a few of their friends. They had no intention of taking on any
passengers. They also didn’t intend to stay here very long, but it took some
time for them to find who they were looking for. After she lost her wife and
daughter’s mother due to complications from giving birth, Saga Einarsson hid
away from the world, and raised little Étude pretty much on her own. While
the crew was conducting their search, some people’s patience were running
thin. They missed the boat when the salmon battalion was here, but they
would be damned if they were going to let the same thing happen again. The
battalion came through a series of portals, which only worked for them. The
Warren, on the other hand, was a different story. It could hold anyone. The
only question was how many? Well, a lot more than it looked like it could.
Saga was able to stay hidden for so long, because she had help from a woman
named Annora Ubiña. Annora could create pocket dimensions. These had limited
breadth, but they did allow a given space to be extended, to increase its
capacity. These pockets required her own internal power to keep them up and
running, but they would add some extra room, and the issue with that was
that the people of Durus knew about her. Now they felt there was no reason
they couldn’t all go with. Well, as stated, Annora’s pockets could only be
so large. It was just kind of an arbitrary limitation, and though they were
much smaller when she was younger, she wasn’t nearly powerful enough to fit
everyone who wanted to go back to Earth, not in the timeframe that they
needed.
Some weren’t happy with being told no, so they got together, and formed a
faction of those who would stop at nothing to return home, or to Earth for
the first time. They called themselves passengers. One good thing was
that the unity the salmon battalion was sent to create seemed to have
worked. The passengers were composed of Earthans, Durune,
paramounts, and regular humans; a healthy mix of all of them. The
issue was that some of them were violent, or at least willing to threaten
people’s lives to get what they wanted. They knew that two of the crew
members didn’t exist in the timestream all the time. They only lived for one
day every year, which meant that the Warren could only depart once per year,
and if they missed their window, they would just have to wait. This gave the
group time to prepare and coordinate. They attacked the crew all at once,
even though they were all spread out, and tried to take them hostage. This
didn’t work, as the crew carried with them emergency teleporters, which
would deliver them directly back to the ship. They weren’t the only
teleporters, though. One in particular was on the group’s side, and used his
power to abduct poor little Étude, right in front of her mother. So they had
hostages on both sides; some in the ship, and one outside of it, and there
was no simple way to save everyone. It came to a stalemate, which lasted for
the rest of the day, and therefore through the closing of the window. The
group didn’t want to back down, and Annora couldn’t simply decide to make
space for them, even if she wanted. She didn’t want that, though, because of
how nasty the passengers were being. The fact that there wasn’t
enough room on the ship to accommodate everyone who wanted to go wasn’t the
point. It wouldn’t change, regardless of how the group handled it. But had
they asked nicely, at least they could have started this process in good
faith. Now the crew was just pissed, as was Annora, and it was a very long
time before they could reach an agreement. And that agreement did not
include anyone who was directly involved in the attack. They couldn’t be
rewarded, and most of them were ultimately arrested for their part. As
terrible as the whole ordeal was, it was a good lesson for the Durune to
learn. Violence would no longer be tolerated, in any form. New laws were
passed to prevent something like this happening again.
No comments :
Post a Comment