Miranda stood up and tried to walk towards the open door. Her legs wobbled underneath her. She felt like she was falling, even though she could see her legs and the ground on which they stood. It made her head ache.
On the other side of the door was a short hallway littered with brightly colored boxes with large holes in weird places. Miranda watched as people darted in and out of the holes carrying papers and other things with them. An android sat behind the desk closest to Miranda. It beckoned her over.
“Miranda Farmer. Daughter of Micah and Mary Farmer. M district of the colonial planet Oreilly 13. You have been checked in,” it said in the same sickly sweet voice that had come out of the walls in the last room.
“Sure,” Miranda said. She didn’t know what they’d check, or how she could be outside without leaving the building. But it didn’t matter. After what she’d just gone through she didn’t feel like questioning what was happening now.
A man in a gray and yellow suit walked out of a purple box straight past Miranda and the droid with an oversized holo pad in his hands. He stopped right past them, then turned back to them. The man had a kind face, older, but nice. He reminded her of her father with this receding hairline and laugh lines around his eyes. She stopped to look at him.
“Miranda Farmer,” he said.
“Yes,” Miranda answered out of habit.
“Ryan Protocol,” the man said. He reached out his hand. He shook her hand, his fingers smooth and clammy in her rough tan ones. “Come this way, Ms. Farmer.” He headed back into the purple room. Miranda followed. The room was even tinier than the one with the three chairs. It held a desk and two chairs. The chairs and desk nearly touched. Miranda couldn’t help but think that everything in the room from the bright purple walls to the cramped furniture was too big and too small at the same time.
“Please have a sweet.” He took the lid off the candy bowl on his desk and offered it out to her. Inside was a rainbow of different colored sweets, each individually wrapped and ready to be sucked on.
She picked a red one hoping for pinkberry, but wasn’t too disappointed when it turned out to be april blossom.
“So, Ms. Farmer,” he started. “We have a bit of a problem.” She sucked on the sweet and listened. “You are seventeen and an orphan. Normally when a tragedy like yours occurs you would be relocated to your nearest family, or with a family that can use your skill set. Unfortunately, farmers are not a needed commodity. Nor do you, as a female, maintain any needed skills that are.”
He paused for breath. Miranda sucked harder on the candy. So cooking and cleaning and bread making and fire starting weren’t needed skills to this man in his box. The flavor of april blossom melted down to pure sugar on her tongue.
“You are also not old enough for marriage. Even if we awarded you to the state, which is not a likely scenario since you have a living sister still, yes?” He looked up from his paperwork and leveled his gaze on her. It wasn’t a harsh stare. More of a father to a problem child stare. Miranda nodded her head. He made a hand motion at her. As if she needed to say it aloud. Make it real.
“Yes,” she said, “Mary Farmer.”
“Hmm,” I see that she has been relocated to...” he stopped talking and scrolled through his paperwork, “a new terraform in the Galdec sector.” He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“That is problematic.”
“Problematic,” Miranda repeated. She felt like a pet parrot. So what if her sister had found a man? So what if the two of them had left world? Her new husband was a third son, never going to inherit, and Mary was a daughter. They were both farm raised. It made sense for the two of them to jump on the Relocationary Act of 3546. Most of Miranda’s friends were planning to do just that. First you had to find a willing partner.
“Yes, problematic.” He set his holo stack down and leaned back into his chair. “You see. Being that she is your closest family, she would be the ideal choice for guardianship. Sadly, her exact planet record is sealed. Even if we could send you, we wouldn’t know which exact planet to send you to. You have no other male relations within this system. No aunts or uncles on either side on the planet.”
“Or grandparents,” Miranda added. She was trying to be helpful.
“Or grandparents,” he agreed. “Both your father’s siblings are across the galaxy on other colonies and your mother was an only child. Her parents died in a raid before she was married.” He was not telling her anything she didn’t already know. Her family had been large because her parents chose to have multiple kids. It had never bothered her up until this moment that that was all the family she had.
“Legally we cannot send you offworld to anyone not of direct blood relation,” he continued. Miranda rolled what was left of the sweet across her tongue. The was developing an edge and would cut her if she wasn’t careful.
“In cases like this, you would become a ward of Oreilly 13, but you are too old. Wards have to be younger than sixteen years of age at the time of wardship. One year is not long enough to assign and place you. Since we have to give at least six months to your family to reach out and claim you, and so on.”
“So the question is, what to do with you?” he stated.
The words felt like a smack to her backside. Bad little orphan. It’s all your fault your whole family was killed by rebels and you became the state’s problem.
“What are my options?” Miranda asked. He’d just spent fifteen minutes outlining what she couldn’t do. He could at least be helpful and tell her what she could do.
“Well, we could issue you an emancipation statement. It would legally allow you the status of adulthood, for the purposes of employment and housing and such. But an emancipation statement doesn’t deter the fact that marriage is the only option for a farmer to stay in their profession. You would have to be put into a different work sector, but which one?”
Miranda kept still. She did not want to distract him. He was giving her valuable information and she wanted that to continue. He looked her over from head to toe evaluating her value.
“You're not a pushover. Are you a strong girl?” he asked.
“I can lift a bag of flour and carry it across the barn,” she said, thinking about heavy lifting exercises she’d done throughout the year. He scowled.
“And I can pick a bushel of monk fruit in an hour,” she added. It wasn’t really a sign of strength, but a bushel of monk fruit was a lot of heavy lifting over a long period of time, having to carry the bucket and all. He shook his head.
“Fine, fine. It is probably for the best,” he said. There was a long pause where he faced her strait on, looked her in the eyes, and sighed. “How do you feel about joining the military?
Chapter 6
Miranda stared at him, eyes wide. Her mouth moved to open. No words came to mind so she shut it closed. She opened it again, determined to answer the question.
“I guess I never have.” The words poured out of her.
“Wonderful!” he said. Ryan turned around in his swivel chair and pressed a couple of buttons on the wall. A panel slid open. He reached inside and pulled out a camouflage hat.
He put it on his head and swiveled back around to face her. Nothing else seemed to change. His face was more somber, if that was possible. He took back the candy bowl and replaced it with grapes. His smile was still sly. His badge now read Ryan Recruiter.
Miranda blinked. Had changing into a hat changed his name? The evidence was staring her in the face. Miranda sat there as Ryan now Recruiter typed furiously away at his vid screen.
“Well, it looks like everything is in order here. Just gotta hit this Signature button.” He turned the vid screen towards her. She made her mark on the line he indicated.
“There, almost done.” He pressed a button on the screen.
"Most Basic pickups happen every Tuesday. Today's Monday, so that would be tomorrow morning at 0845. Be at Launch Pad Bravo, Bay 6 for the Gagarin System." Turning back to his compute
r, he said, "Mysti, get our new recruit a uniform."
Something in the office went ‘ding.’ A piece of the wall opened up and a drawer presented itself.
Miranda was afraid to put her hands in the drawer. It might decide at that moment to slide back close taking her hands with it.
“It’s ok,” Ryan assured her.
“Please pick up your request,” said the helpful female voice.
‘That must be Mysti,’ Miranda thought as she reached in and picked up the clothes.
“Thank you,” said the voice as the drawer closed with a click. The wall looked unbroken. Miranda traced it with a finger. She felt no edge. Not even a break in the surface. She shivered.
“Beep beep,” Oscar said from her side. After all this time she’d forgotten that he was still there.
“Oh, Oscar. Oscar!” she said.
"I forgot to ask," Miranda said as she balanced all of her new gear on her lap. The pile consisted of a pair of boots stacked on top of a green pair of pants, with a shirt and vest tucked underneath them. A pair of black socks stuck out of the boots, which kept wanting to slide off the top of the pile. "Is it ok to bring my droid along? I mean, can new recruits have droids?" Miranda reached out to Oscar and pushed a series of buttons. Out popped his transit drawer. It was one of the few things she’d grabbed in her mad dash from the house. Her best dress, some undergarments, and the locket her mother had given her when she was twelve. She stuck the whole pile on top of everything else and hit the close button.
"Technically, you can bring one carry on from home. If the carry on itself is the droid then it would be allowed," Ryan said, adjusting his vid screen. "But mostly they're not something we get very often."
He barely paused before saying, “That's an interesting request for a new recruit. Do you have a droid in mind?” Oscar rolled out from under her skirt and beeped at him.
“This droid, Sir,” Miranda replied.
“Beep beep beep beep beeeeeep,” Oscar said indignantly.
“He's wondering why you haven't noticed him before,” she said.
Ryan scratched the top of his head.
“My apologies,” he said, but you could tell he didn’t really mean it.
“Beep beep be,” Oscar replied. Miranda stiffed a giggle.
“What did he say?” Ryan asked.
“Can’t you understand droid?” Miranda asked. All the members of her family could understand Oscar to some extent or another. Even if only she and mother could translate every word, her brothers always got the jist of what the droid communicated.
Ryan shook his head.
“He says, ‘Your apology is accepted,’” she answered, covering for what the droid had really said. Ryan could have Oscar taken away from her and she didn’t want that. The man’s nice demeanor could be hiding all kinds of cruelty. She did not want to get on his bad side any more than she already was.
“Beeeep,” said the little droid. Miranda crossed her arms and looked at him. ‘Don’t press your luck,’ she mouthed.
“Interesting,” Ryan said. “I need to mark that in your file.”
Miranda sighed. She felt like a damsel in distress being saved by her father. Only this man was nothing like her father, so maybe more of an eccentric uncle who she never wanted around. And that was not how she wanted to feel. She wanted to feel powerful, in control, happy even. But she didn't know, without her family, if that was possible. She took two big breaths and popped another grape into her mouth.
Miranda stayed in Mr. Ryan’s office for another hour filling out paperwork and setting up her emancipation records. Every time she opened her mouth to say something he would shove the grape bowl under her nose. She would eat one and her mouth would remain full while he filled in another form for her. Miranda had never had this much fruit in her life.
At the end of the hour he pressed a button on his holo pad, filing away all the extra documentation.
“You are free to go, Ms. Farmer,” he said shaking her hand one last time. She shook it back, not wanting to be rude, but not really understanding.
“Free to go where?” she asked. She was afraid of the answer being ‘nowhere.’ That there was no place in this world for her.
“The transport station is three blocks down on the right. Can’t miss it. Big banners of Ironsides up and down the building. Good day.” With those words he escorted her back the way she’d come; past the droid, back into the room with three chairs, saw her safely to one of the seats, and then stepped back out of the room.
Chapter 7
Before she knew it she was standing back outside in front of the building, staring up at its grandeur.
The sun was high in the sky. While the visit had taken only a few hours, to Miranda it had felt like days. But that was the nature of grand places. They stole your breath and your time, whether you wanted them to or not.
“He’d said that it was down the street on the left?” Miranda asked Oscar. The little droid had stayed safely tucked up under her skirt the entire time she’d been in the office. Now he was venturing out, if only to see the street.
“Beep beep boop,” Oscar said.
“You didn’t hear him?” Miranda repeated.
“Beeeep,” Oscar.
“Much help you are,” she said. She turned left and headed down the street. Nothing was as grand as the main city tower. The glass structure loomed miles above even the tallest of the town's other buildings. More sported two, many three stories. Their fronts were made to draw people into the shops. Food stalls, tailor shops, tech stores lined the street on either side. Large glass windows marked with the names of the business and what they did in gold and silver lettering. Pretty covers shaded potential customers from the rain or, on a day like today, the hot sun.
This one had a brick facade. That one wood. Still another chipped stone. It was all overwhelming and beautiful in a melting pot kind of way.
Miranda’s chest swelled with pride. Two generations ago this planet was uninhabitable waste of space rock. Now it was a thriving cog in the imperial wheel. The edge that kept the dark of space at bay. She was a part of that. Her family was a part of that. Her grandfather an original settler. Then might had their lives cut short. But the sacrifice was not in vain.
The street appeared to stretch on forever.
“You know, Oscar,” Miranda said, “I think we’ve gone too far.” The street had turned from merchant stalls to residential. “The transport office wouldn’t be here. We need to turn back.”
“Lost, little lamb?” called a voice from a nearby alley. Miranda watched as a man in a long black coat melted out of the alley’s shadow into existence on the pavement before her.
She backed up slowly, her face smiling.
“No, not lost,” she told him. She was so focused on smiling and walking backwards to get away from the oil man that she didn’t notice the giant until she ran right into him.
“Oh, I think you are,” said the man, the curve in his smile deepening. She turned to run and found a wall of flesh in front of her.
“Very lost indeed.”
That was the last thing she heard before a giant’s fist came down on her head and the world turned black.
She awoke to a stream of light hitting her eyes in a strange diamond pattern. Flashes against the back of her eyelids, then darkness, then more flashes. Something jostled her. She bumped her head into something as she tried to right herself. It felt hard, but not brick hard. More like wood.
Her hands were tied behind her back, making it hard to move. Even worse, she realized why the world looked like diamonds of light to her spinning head. Someone had put a burlap sack over her face and secured it with a rope at her neck. The fabric chafed. She would have a burn mark when they took the thing off. If they took the thing off.
“Oscar,” she whispered. “Oscar.” If her droid was still with her, then she’d be able to get herself out for this, but without him... She didn’t want to think about it. She’d heard horror stories ab
out girls going missing off town streets all throughout the galaxy. There were plenty of reasons to snatch a girl. All of them boiled down to brides. A man that couldn’t find a willing bride might pay for one on the black market so he could get his homestead.
If you were pretty enough they might drug you and sell you to a Creshi, but that was rare. Powerful men had no problem paying for second and third wives, or husbands. A small planet like Orielly 13 wouldn’t attract that kind of clientele. So most likely Miranda was headed to a marriage market.
If her father and brothers were here this would never have happened. There were laws against it. But here she was alone, no droid, and no way out.
Big hands picked her up from the cart and set her up on a platform of some kind.
A crowd roared in the distance. Even from beneath the mask she could hear them. This was no private auction they’d taken her to. This was a large affair, with at least a hundred or more men in need of a wife to claim their homestead. The smell of rotting hay and animal waste hit her nose. The burlap bag did little to hold back the stench. Barn. They had hijacked a barn. Probably a one-time use. Close enough out of the city to draw a crowd, but not far enough away to warrant a recurring visit. Smugglers couldn't be choosers, she guessed.
“Well,” she told herself as she waited for her turn at the block. “It could be worse. You could be going to your death.” The crowd roared again. She could hear it now. The deep canter of an auctioneer’s voice. It was so fast it blended in with the flashing light and the overwhelming animal stink.
“Great day for a wedding,” she told her captor. His big hands pushed her forward. She was going to live through this. She was going to live, she told herself.
Men might buy brides, but they knew better than to kill them. You lost your homestead if you lost your wife. Even if you had kids. Homesteads were held in both names. Even though it couldn’t be passed to a girl child, it would revert back to government land if your wife died before you had a married son. Even if you got remarried, you’d lose all the work you put into the place. You’d have to start new with a new homestead. Years of work lost.
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