Zoey walked up to the council chambers in the Black Rock’s Sector Zero area, idly flashing her SX-Rank Military ID to the on duty guards. To them, it seemed like she was just there for military business, when in actuality, the commander was visiting for a different type of business. “Ladies, Gentlemen.” She greeted the few council members still in the building, setting her briefcase down on a desk, “I trust you have your payments for this month?” She asked with a sickly smile. Zoey watched as Clara, the council’s head, nodded bringing over an identical looking briefcase and setting it down, letting Zoey pop it open to count the money within it. “Wonderful.” She said, clipping it shut again and picking it up. “A pleasure doing business. Enjoy your product, only the finest. Oh, and I trust that case against my boys will be dropped?” She cooed. “A-Actually Zoey I don’t know if we can...” Clara said, with Zoey’s attitude quickly changing, narrowing her eyes. “And why not?” She asked, putting her hand back on her drug briefcase. “I-It’s a fairly big case, to just drop it will seem incredibly suspicious...” Zoey couldn’t help but scoff, “Should’ve thought about that before making the deal love.” She said, “Sort it out, or I stop supplying you.” She threatened, letting go of the drug supply before turning and leaving with the briefcase of Asteroid Union currency.
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Deamoa groaned, hiking up through one of the Dark Asteroid underground shafts, normally a simple hike, but no so much when she was helping carry some quite heavy tools. “This should have been done long ago......” She growled under her breath, stopping both to catch her breath and to let the engineers she was escorting catch up. “We tried to tell the Barrakels, but they always turned us away...” One of them protested, before Deamoa shushed them. “I know I know.” She assured them, “You never had a chance at making my parents listen. It took both me and Angel getting into a shouting match with them to get them to authorise this work. Even after the amount of fatalities.” She scoffed, “Oh the airlocks are fine they’re all just lazy. Oh they need to learn to fight those vermin off. Blah blah shut the fuck up.” She continued to vent, with the engineers glancing between each other. “Ms De... Jane.” One of them said, hesitating to use her actual name, “W-Were they always like that?” He asked, with Deamoa responding with a laugh. “Yep!” She said, bitterness seeping through her voice, “They were happy to work civilians to the bone, didn’t care about who died to get them what THEY demanded. They hate me because I chose to serve the people, not have them serve me.” She said, growling again as she picked her lot of the tools back up. “Fuck my parents. I hate them. They make me ashamed to carry the Barrakel name...”
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“Merci Monsieur.” Enya said to her final client of the night. She always liked this guy, if only because he walked her back to the club whenever he was her last. “Ve appreciate your continued patronage.” She said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek, “Bonne nuit monsieur.“ She wished him before heading inside, pulling out her payments for the night. She internally sighed to herself as she counted what she had, biting her lip. ”Merde...” She cursed under her breath, “Even less....” She said, taking a deep breath before heading up to her pimp’s office. “Monsieur?” She said as she knocked, “Luna, I have my payouts for ze night.” She said, hearing him tell her to enter, pushing the door open and closing it behind her, setting her money down on his desk to a suspicious look. “Where’s the rest Luna?” He asked her, with Enya gulping a little. “Z-Zhere is no rest monsieur. Zhat is all I got.” She told him, “I’ve had less clients recently...” He scoffed a bit, counting out some of the money before handing Enya some, with her heart dropping a little, “Umm. M-Monsieur? 20%?” She asked, already able to tell she didn’t have the right amount. Unfortunately for Enya, her question was answered with a slap over the face. “You’ll get your 20% when you start being worth a damn again!” He snapped to her, “Find some extra clients! Sell yourself more!” He demanded. Enya didn’t try to protest, simply giving a tiny, quick nod before scampering out of his office down to her room. Normally she’d take the time to wash herself and change into something more comfortable before going to sleep. But tonight, she dropped onto her bed. And cried.
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Louise finally arrived at her old ghetto, despite her now being a well known popstar, she couldn’t help but occasionally stop by and see how her old gang were doing, idly giving a wave to some of the stoners she passed as she met up with one of her friends. “Still got an excess ‘ey?” She said with a small laugh, “Spare some for me homes.” She teased, taking some of the drug that she was offered and smoking it. “That bitch still running shit? Good to know the Viper guys are still spineless.” She scoffed, following her friend, idly looking over a small map pinned up on a wall, “Looking at some real estate?” She laughed. “In a way.” He responded, “Yardz are a lil’ close for our liking, we want ‘em out of there.” Louise couldn’t help but smirk, knowing exactly where the discussion was going, “And the way to get ‘em out and get you guys in is to just shoot the place up?” She asked, seeing her friend return the smirk. “Good way to crash a sector’s value.” He said, “You down Lu?” She responded by picking up and quickly inspecting a rifle, before loading it, “Bitch you know it, gather up some of the boys and lets go get us some new places to crash.” She said, pulling her mask up. Even though she knew that it was very unlikely for there to be no civilians in their target, Louise couldn’t help but not care, she just wanted an excuse to cut loose and blast some shit. After all, no one would know it was her, and if someone did, they could always be bribed behind Shara’s back.
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(Something I’ve been wanting to toy with for a short while, a few smaller stories that look into how parts of the Asteroid Union are actually quite awful. A lot of the council board are in Zoey’s pocket thanks to her drug trade, allowing her to manipulate quite a lot of goings on in her favour, including getting cases and trials thrown out or being able to get away with planting false evidence against those who wrong her. The Barrakels do not care for the people of the Dark Asteroid or even Angel and Deamoa and are willing to let countless die for their benefit, ignoring trained engineers and allowing the surface airlocks to fall into disrepair, making surface mining operations even more dangerous. Enya works for a prostitution ring, a lifestyle that she basically has no way out of, even as her clients grow fewer and further between. & Louise is still all too happy to get involved in gang crime, putting innocents in the line of fire, while also being able to use the Diva’s funds to almost always get her off the hook.)