Riding on a Pale Horse - Part One

Posted on Fri Mar 13th, 2020 @ 5:19am by Celeste Rockford

Mission: Mission 93: Home Grown Fear and Terror
Location: Arcadia Prison - Planet Barrinor
Timeline: 0200Hrs - July 1st, 2392

Arcadia Prison was a dismal place. It was a women's detention facility and the worst of the lot were sent there. Barrinor's penal system was more draconian than that of the Federation and it showed. The cells were tiny, dark, and closed off with bars. It made one feel like an animal in an archaic zoo.

The prison was divided into three sections. The first was for the general population. Thieves, swindlers, forgers, confidence artists, smugglers and the like were kept there.

The second section housed murderers, narcotics pushers, rapists, molesters, and those convicted of piracy were sent there. Fortunately for Barrinor, most crimes committed landed people in the first section of the prison. The third was the hardest population.

There was little to no chance of reforming this latter group. They were the criminally insane. Their psychoses ran so deep as to resist treatment. They were the "lifers".

Daisy Bremer had recently transferred to the guard detail of Arcadia's psych ward. She'd only been on the job for two weeks but she was already getting to get a grasp on which cases were the dangerous ones.

Take Harriet Spellman, for instance, she was a loon who kill you just as soon look at you. Sheria'thera was another hard case. The zhen had killed her entire family after performing some arcane mutilation rites. Adrianna Zen also made one stop and thank your deity of choice that she was safely incarcerated.

The worst of the bunch, though, was Annika Ryst. Ryst was utterly dispassionate about killing. It was how she made her living. What made her tricky was that she'd been psychologically conditioned to be a killer and that conditioning automatically resisted any attempts to alter it. If Ryst were unable to escape, or kill her counsellor, she would shut down into a nonresponsive state. It wasn't catatonia since she was able to recognise changes in her surroundings and become instantly aware. Ryst's augmented physique added to her lethality.

The psych ward differed from the regular floors. The inmates were contained behind forcefields instead of bars. This afforded an unrestricted view of the entire cell, floor to ceiling. Bremer strolled along, seeing the inmates behind their electrostatic screens. A few threw things at the field, just like always, and like always it was deflected. When she came to Ryst's cell she froze.

Ryst was missing! Bremer visually swept the room and there were no occupants. Procedure demanded that she call for back up. Being young, ambitious, and severely rattled, she ignored procedure, deactivated the screen and entered the cell. She almost had time to register her mistake.

Ryst had pushed in the panelling of her ceiling. She had done this by climbing up the walls, tiptoes and fingertips pressed against the opposing walls, and had laboriously created a niche that she could squeeze into. It had taken months of effort and planning. Bremer's arrival had only quickened her pace so that she could exploit the younger woman's inexperience.

Bremer had almost reached Ryst's bunk when Ryst dropped out of the sky. Bremer heard a muffled thump behind and began to turn but it wasn't fast enough. Ryst had landed on her feet, in a crouch, and she sprang forward like an uncoiled cat. Ryst slammed her fingers into Bremer's throat with ruthless force.

The younger woman gagged as her throat swelled. She was unable to cry out! Ryst never slowed. She brought her knee up into Bremer's stomach, doubling her over. The last of her air escaped Bremer's lips with frothy mix of saliva and blood.

Ryst leisurely came up behind Bremer's kneeling form. Taking the back of Bremer's head in one hand and her jaw in another, Ryst twisted with all of her might. The neck snapped with a loud crack and the body went slack.

Ryst lifted the body and placed it on the bed. Stripping Bremer of her navy blue jumpsuit and utility belt, Ryst followed this by stripping off her orange jumpsuit and clothed Bremer's corpse with it. Afterwards, she put the blue jumpsuit on. Bremer had been a large woman so the suit was actually too big for the more petite Ryst. She rolled the sleeves up to her elbows and her pant legs up once each. Next she strapped on the utility belt and stun baton.

Ryst covered Bremer's body with the bunk's blankets after placing a pillow under the corpse's knees. Ryst turned exited the cell. Activating the forcefield, she turned and strolled past the remaining cells. Most of the occupants were incoherent but a few were cognizant enough to realise that Ryst was escaping. She received cheers and well wishes as she passed.

Ryst reached the main door and came to a halt. The door was released by a biometric scan. Her reading would sound an alarm. She leaned up against the wall and waited for someone to come through the door.

One hour and nineteen minutes later, Dana Cousins opened the door. Eying Ryst, she asked, "Have you been here long?"

"Just got here." Ryst easily lied, "They're all quiet. Ryst seems to be sleeping in 113. The rest are in various states of catatonia."

Cousins snorted, "That's about right for this place." She took a closer look at Ryst, "Are you new here?"

"Just started today." Ryst eagerly smiled.

"You seem familiar." Cousins said and then shook her head, "You must get that a lot." the other woman backed away ever so slightly.

"The curse of being average." Ryst chuckled, "Am I done here?" she then smiled.

"The usual procedure is to check out with the main guard station." Cousins grinned, "And then you're free."

"Thank God." Ryst sighed, "It's going to take me a month to get used to working gamma shift."

"Hang in there." Cousins said encouragingly, "We've all been there. Let me get the door for you."

The door panel scanned Cousins and Ryst thanked her as she passed by. Now out in the main corridor, she proceeded to the main entrance of the facility. The main guard station stood in front of the doors to the outside world. Ryst brazenly walked past the station. She went unchallenged.

Once outside, she squinted in the light of the early morning sun. She fished a small transponder out of her belt and depressed its activation switch. Down the row of parked aircars, one fired up and its antigravs flared to life, bobbing the car into the air. Ryst went to the elevated car and opened the electronically locked door with the transponder. Climbing into the car, she activated the computer and requested positioning info. Discovering she was a mere two hundred kilometres away from Barrinor's capital, she instructed the autopilot to take her there and the car obediently began to fly in that direction.