[ WP ] Story about legal drama set in space

`` They killed them.'' 
 
 Camilla rubbed the back of her neck where her collar chafed. `` Legally, Ruuf...'' 
 
 The alien slammed a grey tentacle into the table hard enough to leave suckermarks on the glass top. `` *Fuck* legally! Those Pales enslaved us and then they kill us. They just keep doing it. Again and again.'' 
 
 This was just another night on the *Magna Carta*, the terribly named ship that functioned as a law firm whenever a disaster happened on one world or another. Many of the industrial colonies had no need for anything other than a contract office and a Justice in good times; it was cheaper for the lawyers to be mobile. 
 
 `` And then they make us clean up our own dead,'' noted Jackson from the corner, sipping at his scotch with one hand and running the other through his grey hair. Only the slight blue tint of his skin under the florescent lights hinted that he was n't fully human. 
 
 Ruuf wanted to knock the mountain of paperwork off the table. But they'd been working all night. Working to defend the corporation whose actions had led to the death of another three people. Miners this time. Last case it had been roughnecks drilling for the gas the Pales only called Dust. And the case before that had been a civilian shuttle crash. 
 
 Each time the *Magna Carta* set course, it was always towards death. Workplace accidents. Negligence, usually. Sometimes it was rebellions, although they were not a criminally focused ship. 
 
 `` I'm done. I ca n't do this any more.'' Ruuf felt dry. Like he had n't touched water in years. 
 
 `` You signed a contract.'' Camilla was always the detached one, even though she was the youngest and newest. She had cut her teeth articling in criminal courts and it seemed to have quickly desensitized her. It had made her accustomed to death, at least, and the things that death was preferable to. 
 
 `` My great-great-grandparents signed a contract! Putting me in the position where I thought... I do n't know, that they'd treat their housepets better than their field animals!'' 
 
 Jackson snorted. `` Dumb thing to think.'' 
 
 Camilla rose, striding to the bar to pour herself a glass of vodka. Her hands were steady despite the old scars on them. `` You know you ca n't really leave.'' 
 
 `` Manual labour is better than this. It's honest.'' 
 
 `` You believe that? Mining their resources? Cleaning their buildings? That does n't serve their purpose any more than this does? Just because you do n't have to think about it?'' 
 
 He slumped into the chair. He could not stop staring at his tentacle. The thing that set him so apart from everything else in this office. He was the only Aquen besides one of the females who worked at the lunch counter. 
 
 He was tired of feeling dry. He was tired of everyone laughing at the way he spoke and acted. He was tired of seven years of expensive school never making up for the fact that he had been raised on a traditional rural planet and he would never walk or talk or think like them. 
 
 He wanted his family. He wanted the ocean. 
 
 `` I... I just want to go home.'' 
 
 The human female drank deeply. `` The Pales made that planet for you. Not for free. You have a debt to pay off.'' 
 
 `` I fucking *know*. You're human, you can survive anywhere. What do you know about debt?'' 
 
 Camilla set her glass down and with her prim and proper motions unbutoned her shirt despite Jackson's initial protests. She wore a camisole underneath, of course, but as she shed the dress blouse her full neck was visible hidden only by the metal collar. 
 
 Her tattoo extended past her collar bone. The average Aquren had two lines, the species debt indicator and whatever the individual had taken on. Most humans had a thick record, of course, but not like this. 
 
 `` Tabernac,'' swore Jackson. `` I did n't know...'' 
 
 `` That I was born on Earth? It's not something one likes to admit to, is it?'' Just as primly she put the shirt back on, but did not re-tuck or button it. `` We were the last ones off. I was five. At that point they could charge whatever they liked for a ticket, and you could either pay it... or burn.'' 
 
 Ruuf tried to swallow his pity and regain his indignation. `` Many chose to burn.'' 
 
 `` Most of my family did. My father did not. My sister was under his debt, but the Pale age of contract consent is five. My first lesson in contract law.'' She took another deep drink. `` I... I'm from the ocean, too. So you know. Before... Before it boiled.'' 
 
 `` Tabernac, Wilson, are you fucking crying?'' 
 
 The young woman whipped her head away from the partial human, but now Ruuf could see the single drop of moisture cutting through her pale makeup. 
 
 Ruuf took a tissue from the desk and extended a tentacle towards her. 
 
 Camilla took it without acknowledgement, dabbed away the lone traitor, and then crumbled it and tossed it into the waste disintegration unit. She then finished her drink in a single swig without a trace of a grimace. 
 
 `` Leave, Ruuf. If you ca n't do this case, leave. Sweep floors. Drill Dust. Pretend you're less of a slave than those of us closer to the end of the leash. Just get the fuck out of my sight.'' 
 
 `` Fuck you. Fuck you and your saline tears. We are helping to deprive slaves of their debt clearance so we can clear a portion of our own. We're holding the whips for them.'' 
 
 `` You heard me. They built you a nice little water park, go home to it. And it is home for you. You were born there. And Jackson, your grandmother was a Siine, the Pales even saved your planet. But the Capital is the only home I get. My monthly payments are the only constant in my life. And I have no choice.'' 
 
 Ruuf rose. He snatched the empty glass from her hand and shattered it against the wall. Both corporation property. 
 
 `` You could have burnt. We should have burnt.'' 
 
 Jackson, ever the orator, sighed from the corner. `` You ca n't fight them. You never can.'' 
 
 `` Why? Because their paper contracts put steel collars on us? Because they do n't expect one of the hundreds of races they bought and sold to ever resist?'' 
 
 Camilla was already back at the bar. `` Because contracts and debt are their religion. And we're their offerings. Burnt or otherwise. They'll charge you thirty credits for that glass. If not more.'' 
 
 This was too much for him. He left. He had no idea what he would do or how he would survive, let alone rid himself of his tattoos of debt or his collar, but he knew he was no longer a lawyer. He was no longer a Citizen of the Pale Corporation. And he could no longer live without the waves. 
 
 As the tentacled being stormed out of the office, Camilla only arched an eyebrow. Part of her wished she could follow him. The other part reminded her that the first layer of her tattoo, a strip no larger than an old screen's pixel, would be removed at the end of the month. 
 
 It would make her collar no lighter. It would make her conscience no cleaner. It would not unboil her ocean. But it was a start. 
 
 

