Redemption Earth

Cages

The colony Liberation is a scant 7 human habitats located in the middle of a jungle with only one landing pad, windmill generator, and farm among them. A supply shuttle flies in.

In a cluttered garage, Alex pauses as just before tapping the button to clock out of her workstation. She is tapping away at her phone. Sariel waltzes in the room still wearing his uniform. He sees her looking down and taps on her shoulder.

"Hey, I'm walking you home."

"What for," she asks looking up to finally press the button.

"We need to talk about your special friend."

Alex's fellow mechanics give them mischievous looks.

She mumbles, "Special?... Oh, I'm working on it."

"Are you?"

"Yes."

They both put on biohazard suits and enter the airlock chamber. Sariel rubs the back of his head. The bacteria are eradicated from their form until they are more than 99.99% clean. He leans over and whispers quietly in her ear. The door to the outside opens, and they step onto fungus ridden dirt into the clearing that surrounds the colony.

She yells, "You can't just," she lowers her voice and hisses quietly, "can't just tell them Sariel."

The door closes behind them.

"We have no idea what we're doing. The biologists stand a better chance of taking care of it."

"I doubt she asked me to take her out of there to end up in some study."

"We can't keep it in our habitat. Alex, it's for the best. Liberation's medics have dealt with other similar animals."

"What about the reparations for breaking code?"

He stops walking and to stare her right in the eye, "What about it?"

"As you should know entering the colony with the use of a fraudulent identity is jail time and deportation. While disrupting wildlife is..."

"Just tell them the truth. It was an emergency situation."

"You didn't even let me tell you what the punishment was. Besides by my estimates, she will be out by next week. I have a small task force garbage drones looking out for another nest."

"Did you steal stuff from the colony? Also, we didn't even know the first one existed till you stumbled right in it."

"No, of course not I made my own from all the stuff we scrap and you've underestimated how much data I was able to collect from that encounter."

"They moved up our habitat inspection to tomorrow's section at 6."

"What? Why?"

"Probably because you've managed to burn the rice so bad it hurt our air quality."

"Now isn't the time for a joke."

"It's because we had to report the damage to our heater and I couldn't explain your pet broke it."

Alex presses her lips together thinking.

"If you don't want to tell them yourself you don't have to but, it would sound better coming from you."

"I can come up with a plan for this," she starts muttering to herself, "Maybe I could keep her outside... but there is no way to keep her in one area..."

Sariel's looks up to one of Munkar's suns in frustration. It's so distant the star seems only as bright as a full moon. He puts his hand on Alex's shoulder, "You don't owe this creature anything. Sometimes it's better to just give in."