The Wall

Empty Spaces

Minutes spent in silent contemplation punctuated their evening of training on the abandoned planet, obstructed once Sale, with lenient suggestion rather than direct command, instructed them to return to the ship. Darkness soon overlaid the calming greenery and cool cyan of the lake, further motivating their need to return to the ship. Upon entering the ship, Sale, followed by Rocket, returned to the main deck, the former to properly return the ship to the outer atmosphere, the latter accompanying her in case of further instruction, which he promptly received.

"Alright, we've got a few hours before the time window, so it's time to some rest. There's not gonna be a second chance for this."

While the ship began to lift from the ground, she took in a deep inhale, holding her mouth shut so as to stifle a yawn. Her demeanor had grown notably more lax than when they'd first met.

"Have you done this before? Raiding these facilities?"

"Only when necessary."

"And has anyone tried to stop you?"

"These facilities have lots of automated defenses, but I can disable those using the ship's computer. Though there are still people that live at those labs that I gotta take care of. After that, though, any trackers Orgo-Corp uses are worthless against this ship, it automatically disrupts them."

"Alright... but what about law enforcement? What happens if someone outside of Orgo-Corp gets involved?" Rocket wasn't even certain there was any manner of universal galactic law enforcement, he was only familiar with Earthly customs, but the idea of lawlessness by necessity indicated law.

"They'll never call anyone. The moment any nonprivate entities become involved, the failure of their whole terraforming project goes public. It takes a lot to own a planet, even the worthless ones, and once the Nova Empire realizes they've essentially abandoned the purchased planets, they immediately get bought back, and their right to actually own planets probably gets stripped. So either they spend a whole lotta money to make the problem go away, or the High Evolutionary's pet project gets canned."

This invoked an obvious question, the potential for justice manifesting a slight warmth in Rocket's chest.

"So... once you escaped, why didn't you go to the law? Tell them what was happening at Counter-Earth? Or at least seek protection?"

Sale paused for a moment, her fingers unfurling one by one before tensing back into a tight fist, though her voice remained neutral.

"We-" she gestured to herself and him "-are property. The moment we contact the law, we get returned to Counter-Earth, and probably in chains for both theft and murder. We are technically wildlife, not citizens. Our... 'enhancements' are the property of Orgo-Corp. Not only that, but we'd fall under the classification of 'laboratory animals', which means Orgo-Corp is afforded special privilege towards our treatment."

Rocket was taken aback by the explanation. Such a misconstruction of justice seemed near impossible in any noncorrupt entity.

"That... that doesn't make any sense. You have the logs, you can prove we and everyone else at that facility is intelligent."

"Doesn't matter." Her tone grew short tempered.

"What do you mean it 'doesn't matter'?"

"I mean, the law is worthless to us."

"There's nobody we can talk to?"

"If there was, I would've done so by now." Her teeth gritted when not actively speaking, her patience wearing thin.

"So what then? Everyone's just corrupt? They just pretend not to notice the obvious difference between intelligent life and wild animals?"

Sale grew irate at these questions, her well versed answers and quick anger displaying a quite in depth understanding of this predicament. She turned towards Rocket, her teeth gritting behind her closed mouth for a moment before she spoke.