Personal Log: Turkana IV in the News

Posted on Mon 16th Apr, 2018 @ 11:50pm by Lieutenant Damion Ildaran

628 words; about a 3 minute read

Well, I've just been bloody gut-punched. Home is in the news.

Except it's not really like home; more like a skewed version of it, if you ask me.

It seems a 16 year-old girl disappeared from her home in one of the outlying settlements, a place called Anndaic. She was off looking to get high on cordafin, and the usual thing happened that happens on Turkana if you are out by yourself, pharmaceutically impaired, and being careless among dangerous people. She's dead now, and a mercy to her, for I doubt she knew any in life.

For reasons that baffle me, this 1. Made the Federation News Service at all. 2. Was investigated(!) Who the bloody hell ever investigates any crime committed on my planet? Unless maybe this Nissaa Zin was the daughter of a faction leader? But if she were, she'd live in the City, where she could be protected, not out in the middle of nowhere. And 3. Has incited the ire of a group of female rebels. Why this particular murder and not the thousands of identical horrific murders that have happened before it to equally innocent young people should arouse anyone's undue outrage at this late date confuses me.

And it pisses me off. I fair want to knock my fist through a wall.

First off, these rebels are acting like it only ever happens to them--at least that is what the news report seems to imply--which is why I consider the report odd. It makes me wonder if the reporter actually ever spoke to anyone from Turkana. Anyone from home with half a brain knows that what really marks a person out as a target to a rape gang or a drug gang is if they look like easy prey. Both men and women are attacked, but the reporting and the rebel group seem to feel it's just women.

Right. You let me drop some male Feddie news reporter down there. He wouldn't last half an hour. Most of those lads wouldn't know how to defend themselves if their lives depended on it, for their lives never have. The Federation is a very comfortable, complacent place. No one has to fight to survive in it.

What I want to know is, what caused this one girl's murder to be investigated--by whom?--and why is the FNS nosing into it? Turkana broke away from the Federation thirty some-odd years ago. The factions don't want contact.

*sigh*

All right, obviously the rebel group got a signal out. Maybe they're the ones who investigated the girl's death. Maybe someone among them cares about her. It'd make sense, and they're the only ones who would bother. They're playing a dangerous game, though, because the Coalition and Alliance leaders will hunt them down and they will want blood--and the weapons cache.

I hope my family stays well out of this.

If these rebels have the intelligence to solicit support from men, as well, their revolution could go somewhere; otherwise, it will just be jeered at. I don't know a single person, save the highest faction leaders, who likes life on Turkana IV as it now is. Enough people are sick and tired of life there that there's a chance for betterment once a spark is lit. Apparently, it's been lit among these rebels. We'll see how far it goes.

I don't know if I should hope for revolution or not. I'm terrified to. It could go so badly, either way. Most revolutions simply replace one gang of cutthroats with another equally bad group. I cannot say my faith is incited--yet. I wanted to bring peace to my planet, but it doesn't have to be me; it just has to be peace.

 

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