ACT 01

PLANET CORONUS, EPSILON ERIDANI

STAR SYSTEM. MAY 22, 2789.

The bright summer suns cast a fiery glow over Filton High School. Miranda Reigns stepped out from the semi-shade awning, handcuffed escorted by two police officers. It was the last day of boarding school, and she watched with bitter envy as fellow students merrily trampled through the courtyard on their way home.

          Neither the passing students nor her captors said a word, and so far Miranda hadn't made any effort to escape. Unlike her teachers, each police officer was brusque and heavy set like a bull. Some gave the scene fleeting glances; some shook their heads in exasperation, but no one stopped or rubbernecked the event.

          Miranda once promised herself to never admit that the ones who hurt her the most were those who ignored. You see, no one really wants to be friends with the school delinquent, but that was the least of her problems.

          Minutes ago, when metro's finest barged into the girls bathroom, Taser guns sparking, they weren't surprised to find a burgundy-haired, scrawny girl curled into a ball in the dank corner smoking marijuana.

          Miranda said nothing to the officers. In fact, she even offered them the clear bag she prepared for the contraband earlier that morning with the tender, loving care of a mother. The officers were upon her in moments. They cuffed her and marched her out the bathroom.

          Situation normal: all f***ed up.

          Miranda kept her head down as the officers escorted her from the school grounds. Outside the plaza, a pair of police cruisers were waiting for them. It was in the heart of summer on the colony-world, and the heat of three suns wavered off the vehicles' hoods in great waves.

          Miranda saw Principal McDermott speaking to the officers in the second cruiser. He frantically explained that there was no need for the school board to evaluate the safety of his school. At the same time, the officers explained to him that this was the third time they came for the same disturbance for the same person. They argued that campus police, and by extension, McDermott himself wasn't doing his job.

          Miranda's greatest pleasure came when she saw the people who made her life hard—teachers, cops, step parents—got torn down, and when "what went up," came crashing down. Seeing McDermott plea for his livelihood should've set her smiling, but this time he saw her passing behind him.

           Principal McDermott was a husky, rotund man. He had a bald pate polished to such a sheen that, if directly stared at in the colony-world's stars, mirrored a blinding glare. He whirled about with a sudden violence and glowered at her.

          McDermott was normally a calm, understanding man. In her first year of boarding school, when two boys had to haul her to the nurse's office, blood leaking from her broken nose like a faucet after a fist fight she started in class, he sat down with her and offered counseling.

          A week later, when she was subsequently beaten unconscious by a gang of females on her way to the dormitory, he took the time to visit her in the clinic. Because of this, and the fact he was a Principal, she and the officers expected him to keep his rationale.

          But McDermott was livid.

          In the span he took to cross the three steps between himself and Miranda, the officers simply had no time to reach for their Tasers. His meaty hand closed about her scrawny bicep like a vice grip. He effortlessly ripped Miranda from the two officers escorting her.

          The cruiser's hood and Miranda's back met at speed. She bounced four, even five meters in the air, before she crashed back down onto the thin metal plate and rolled face-fist into paved road.

          At first she was dazed, screaming in pained confusion, but the second impact of the engine block stunned her into silence. McDermott thundered after her like an enraged bull in wide, leaping strides, spittle flying from his lips. "You ungrateful little pig!"

          The officers gave the Principal no warning. Tasers flashed out, electrodes dug into McDermott's back, and in rapid succession, electricity blasted through is body.

          The hulking brute dropped like a stone. He bellowed, loud and long. The officers subdue him for twelve full seconds, relenting only when they were certain he had no strength left in him.

          The officers weren't gentle. They cuffed McDermott and strung arresting cables that stayed both arms to his torso for good measure. They threw his limp form into the first cruiser.

          A cold leaden palm dropped on Miranda's shoulder, rolled her from the cruiser's front bumper. The cruisers pulled out to Stoke Gifford road a moment later.

          She had a tenet, this girl: If you f**k up, people will always scold you...so why not just go all the way? Illegal possession of a controlled substance, more jail time, a lost scholarship and every final exam flunked.

          A fine conclusion, she thought. How could it possibly get worse?

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Click to View Author Guidance

So this is more of a drama piece than an alien-blasting-space-marine epic. Try to focus on the main character's internal struggles.

updated Aug 21 by Ayane1289