Fanfiction Begins

Maeven Hall pulled her plasteel-cuffed hands away from the Core Enforcer holding her. His eyes flashed momentary pity at the council decision to exile her for moving refugees from Bastek to the rim of Core space where they could hide. She'd known she was as good as dead, but exile?

The word was that no one returned from the Sphere, that men and women who got sent out there didn't last long or didn't stay sane. It was true frontier.

She walked carefully down the elevated walk in front of the grey-clad officer. The bucket of rust they called a transport shuttle sat docked up ahead. She flipped her long, blond curls from her face once again because her hands were restrained. There was also the concern of how much movement Brutus back there would tolerate from his prisoner. She looked around Council Station wistfully. She'd grown up in the rim, but this place had become a home of sorts.

The Siren's Song sat docked on the other side of the bay. That made her eyes well up with unshed tears. That ship was her life. Now there it sat confiscated by the Core and shiny like a new credit chip.

The Marauder shuttle was squat and stank inside of oil and ore residue. It had obviously begun its' life as a mining tub. The guard affixed her cuffs to the hydro-railing system for transport and roughly belted her into the restraints at waist and hips.

She sat quietly trying not to think about her upcoming sentence and the life she left behind with Jax. He'd been so very angry. Gods, she couldn't think about him without a lump in her chest. Her shuttle ride took far too long for peace of mind.

Finally, the docking ring hissed as the Marauder pulled even with the bay. "Starbase 51", the tall guard announced with his face grim. He hit the controls and released her cuffs.

She walked out to a dark bay obviously on a station loaded with beat-up shuttles and a sign over the middle of the massive space that said "Processing". Her escort pointed that way as Maeven rubbed the stiffness from wrists and fingers.

"You're to get in line over there." He turned away.

"Do I need anything?" She asked it over the mass of conversation.

"The blessing of the Gods, little girl." He grimaced. "It's the only thing that could help you now."

Maeven cringed. Of course. She was an exile now. Nothing could be worse except death, she thought. At that moment a fancy cloaked cortisan strode by on the arm of a client. She revised her thought. Maybe that could be worse. Wordlessly, she watched the scantily clad woman and the grotesquely fat man walk away. She promised herself she would survive this and began to walk into her future as a core exile.