NationStates Jolt Archive

From Piracy in the Pacific, Part XIV, Twenty Third Century Slave Raids

It would never be discovered quite at what point they’d arrived. The most likely idea seemed to be that they’d infiltrated a container ship coming into Honolulu and then stolen away in the night, to place their smaller web-gates in the countryside. What could be told was that it was the night of the 19th of December 2264 when they attacked, the run up to a major holiday. A time when the raiders imagined readiness, especially far from hostile borders, would be low, especially after recent crises. None could say how long the forces of what was later identified as the Tearing Shard had gathered, by the tens of thousands, hundreds, even.

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Far beyond what the Shard itself could accomplish, but to fulfil the designs of the Shard’s all powerful Archon, others had been gathered for the initial raid. The Archon wanted to destroy all that opposed him in the area in one terrible night, so that his designs could be fulfilled, and for this, many, many other Kabals had been gathered with the lure of slaves and slaughter.

The raiders were anarchists, on the whole. Each Dark Eldar cared only for themselves, and violence was the stock in trade. Individually, one was vulnerable to enslavement, so they banded together, and obeyed the most powerful among any particular gang, whom in turn owed fealty to lords of different ranks, whose influence and skill was sufficient to bring others under his sway diplomatically. Loyalty amongst the raiders existed only in as much as those who betrayed too often were viewed as untrustworthy. These lords directed the manufacture of arms and armaments, in order to take riches and defend one’s selves from others. Some, they protected, for skill in gross entertainments of drug and physic.

There was one other way the race worked together, utter, sneering disdain for other life. As much as their own kind were to be used, other life forms were below even them. Some said there were reasons, mythological ones, but many of the Eldar didn’t know what to think of that, and didn’t care for lofty thinking, they would far rather believe in their manifest right to make other races serve them, or suffer and die for their entertainment.

The Lord of the Shard had worked hard to plan his strike, and in so doing, he had equipped normally light raiders with expensive weapons that could pierce tanks and battleship hulls, and gathered great numbers of aircraft.

At one thirty three in the morning, a great smoke began to billow from the mountains on the island of Oahu, black, volcanic, and terrible, it was but a cover, and as it drifted, the inhabitants likely imagined that it was a natural threat that would be awaiting them, and that too, had been part of the design of the Lord of the Shard. For he had seen many human settlements, and knew that, unlike his own people, in times of trouble, their societies would band together, gather in holy places and prepared areas to evacuate. It would make them easier to gather.

At two fifty six, the Shard Lord gave his signal, to begin the harvest. As one, from a dozen sites shrouded in the smoke (though not the sources of it, the Shard Lord had predicted that the humans would investigate the seeming pre-eruption smoke) first dozens, then hundreds, and finally, thousands upon thousands of vehicles shot in never-ending parades, below the level of the smoke, though visible to

Their destinations were threefold, the primary target was the major naval harbour, their secondary destination, an air-field, and the third, the same.

The leaders, the Shard, came first. They came out of the smoke, shining figures in leering blue-white glows, with screaming faces and figures cavorting across chest plates and limbs, golden weapons spitting immensely sharp slivers of a hard brittle substance that lacerated flesh and dissolved into the flesh, releasing agonising, debilitating poisons.

Their armour was of a similar crystal, that in the day, reflected a bright blue, and at night, glowed from viens of internal fire, each one unique in its pattern, laid down by artisans whose role was to be predated by the militant caste, unless they could assemble a functioning weapon and take their place amongst it.

They were the most disciplined, and so, it was these capering, glow-in-the-dark figures that were assigned the most important military targets. They rode, as most of the aliens did, on flying constructs that moved without sound, low over the land, fighter-craft, terrifying to behold, and bombers, led the raids, but the heavy weapons of the ground forces followed up, their objective, to put out of use every sea ship, every aircraft, and every military vehicle.

But this was only a part of the Shard Lord’s plan. For even as these figures, supported by the diverse hues and colours of the other Eldar factions, attacked, hidden under artificial shrouds of night, a hundred vehicles shot eastward across the sea, invisible to sight, and radar, on secret, subtle missions.

[OOC note, no reference to the Pearl Harbour attack in WW2, or disrespect to those involved intended. It’s simply the most logical target, due to relative isolation, and importance.]

December, 19, 2264

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii — Californian Commonwealth.
The attack came early in the morning and those sitting on shore from Aiea, Honolulu, Pearl City or Waipahu couldn't believe what was happening. Some of those remembered stories told by their ancestors about the Japanese attack on this same location three hundred and twenty-three years earlier, for others the phrase 'those who forget history are doomed to repeat it' and no statement could be a better choice of words. However instead of a military operation intended to destroy the power and force projection of the Californian Pacific Fleet these marauders had come to disable them. As these marauders fanned out across the harbor the populace descended into pure chaos when the first shots were fired. Fires quickly burned sending dark black clouds of smoke into the sky blanketing the sky from view in parts of the island as members of law enforcement agencies made attempts to put out the fires and contain the hysteria.

Hilton Hotel. Honolulu, Hawaii — Californian Commonwealth.
CCNF Adm. Katherine Andrews sat at a hotel for the night comforted by the fact that she was able to book a room and sleep on a real bed for once after having been out at sea for fifteen months, after being back in port she was finally glad to be back on land and hoped she wouldn’t be sent out anytime soon. Her reverie was shattered when she looked out the window towards the harbor and seen blankets of smoke drifting out to sea, standing there in the window she couldn’t help but feel numbed as several small objects zipped through the air attacking the vessels moored in the harbor, while several personnel ran away from the ships and the objects as they playfully chased scared Air Force and Navy personnel around. She would never know the intentions of these marauders or that before the sun came up that a good number of these mostly women would be found missing.

Aralara watched the chaos below; it was beautiful. He soared above it all on the back of one of the raider vehicles. In the distance he could see the attack on the docks and airfields, and while that was exciting, he would rather be where he was. It was a long time since he’d even heard of a raid on this scale, and there were plenty of humans to go around; every raider carried about ten Eldar, but it could carry more humans, by the simple expedient of chaining them to the underside in discomfort. The Shard Lord was ambitious; the haul here, of both soldiers and civilians would be immense, enough to set him up as a serious power in the city. Perhaps Kasraedan himself would see the Shard Lord as a rival after this, though he would doubtless extract tribute.

That was of no interest to Aralara, he would not have to concern himself with either; His own squad were almost independent brokers, with an eye on their own power base. It wouldn’t propel him to such power, but if he brought enough humans, he would perhaps be able to broker entry into one of the more formidable Kabals, in a good position.

But first, he would need to stand out here; he directed his pilot towards a large, flat roved building, evidently some kind of residence of the elite. Conveniently, it had a landing pad, and as he hopped off, black armour glinting, darkened, powered blade at the ready, he deftly caught a chain with his foot, playing out a little way, adjustable manacles clattering on the ground; of course, if they didn’t get a full haul here, he would have to try somewhere else, but he had little doubt that this building contained many quality items of ‘merchandise.’

He led his squad off toward the doorway down into the building, with a grim smile. The first few floors were empty, much to his annoyance, its denizens appeared to be absent, but below that, they had much more success. It was a simple enough drill, Aralara sliced through the door lock of each room, one of his group kicked the door in, if the human mon-keigh were terrified by the armoured, armed figures, they were put under guard outside, if they tried to hide or fight, a single shot from a splinter rifle lashed out at them, sometimes killing, more often, glancing, wounding horrifically, the jagged, lacerating shot of the weapons containing potent, tormenting toxins that, while they maimed and tormented, did not kill; this all went flawlessly, one member of the squad being assigned to guard the healthy adults (they had no interest in stealing children or the elderly, it seemed) from each corridor. Aralara waited until they had taken two dozen humans – more than he could bring with them, before calling a halt.

It wasn’t quite flawless, though. One of the last rooms they’d come to had actually contained resistance; overconfident, the Eldar assigned to clear the room had walked in and each been shot in the neck, between the plates of their armour. Aralara hurled himself into the room, and struck the human – some fight would be amusing – with the butt of his sword, and then threw her into the wall, deftly chopping the human female’s sidearm in half as he did so, and pointing his bladed pistol between wide, fearful eyes; he considered shooting her for the insult, but that would only mean he would have to catch another. “Take this and put it with the others,” he said, in the harsh tongue of his people, and looked at the casualties, the still living one had been with him for twenty years, her name was Riella. He didn’t care about her injury – it was probably fatal, but rather, about recovering her arms and gear; he tasked one of the men to retrieve her armour and devices, along with her dead comrade, and walked into the corridor again to force his ‘cargo’ up to the roof.

On the roof, they forced their prisoners’ hands into shackles, and delayed, while the last of their group returned with the surplus; they had a few extra humans, even after they had filled their chains and pulled a couple on board and Aralara, deciding there was no space, simply left the unlucky trio of the most injured and thus least valuable humans behind, as the skiff rose into the air, pulling the humans from both sides under it by their wrists, dangling from heavy chains. Admiral Andrews was perhaps one of the lucky ones, as she had a very slight figure, thus the chains were less painful for her than others, but then, she would probably come to envy her injured countrymen Aralara had left.

Beyond simple expedience, and malice, there was another reason the Eldar let their captives dangle beneath their craft; protection. Few would fire at the skiff now, with its captives so prominently displayed. Throughout the city, similarly laden craft were rising, and flitting over the landscape. Though there would still be Eldar in the city for hours yet, less pragmatic and disciplined groups, eager to slake their thirst for violence, the main part of the raid was over; as swiftly as it had begun, it was over. Aralara’s casualties were high, but not atypical; of thousands of Eldar, scores were killed; many of them, by other Eldar, in bloodlust, or calculated assassination. Others were left, as Riella was, wounded but alive. Indeed, there were far more wounded Eldar than weapons or armour left behind; equipment was valuable, useless comrades were not. What did remain was armour remarkably similar to Kevlar in function, but that also worked against heat and blades, and seemed to be composed of a fine mesh unlike anything on earth. The crystals used as ammunition by the aliens’ guns were more interesting; they could be re-made into conventional bullets; that would penetrate ordinary body armour, and for good measure, poison the victim in the same variety of horrific ways the Eldar’s weapons did.

Of course, it would be some time; especially with the commander of the Pacific Fleet, and numerous other important regional officers and leaders, disappeared, before anyone discovered the true nature of the Shard Lord’s plan…

December 20, 2264

Hilton Hotel. Honolulu, Hawaii — Californian Commonwealth.
It had been hours since the marauders left, the cities surrounding the once peaceful harbor aglow with small pockets of fires still burning into the night. Riella sat alone in the room formerly occupied by Adm. Katherine Andrews still bleeding from the wound, she sat thankful that the bullet hadn't hit her carotid artery or jugular vein. She stayed in the room visibly pissed that she had been left to die when three Californian Marines entered the room, all armed with automatic rifles. She held her arms up in surrender as they checked to see she was unarmed, as they picked her up she could see that all three were women. One of the Marines, Sgt. Michaels gripped the mic on her headset and tapped the button holding it with her finger as she spoke into mic. "We have captured one of the hostiles, she has surrendered to us, she is wounded... not fatal from what we can see, no weapons on her." She waited until the response came. "Michaels, escort her to the infirmary, have her patched up and then bring her to Commander Kotani, she wants a private word with her." Sgt. Michaels nodded. "Alright." She looked over at the wounded elf and smiled. "Looks like you're lucky, you're going to be patched up, and then you're going to be interrogated. You should be thankful we got those orders, we would perferred to have said we found nothing and just killed you for all of the suffering you put all of us through."

Hours later Riella was sitting at a table, handcuffed to a metal ring protruding from the table while she was interrogated by Cmdr. Kotani. Through the course of the interrogation she didn't tell them anymore than the information asked and only enough to provide as little information as possible. Afterwards she was locked in a holding cell and left there until 'high up officials' could handle the matter.

The Port of Entry of The Dark City of Makharan was terrible to behold. Arriving after a long journey through some kind of bright luminescent blue tunnel, the new prisoners could see the dubious majesty of its gates, which seemed to defy gravity, by extending inwards from every directions. Strange, flying craft, far bigger than the skiff they swung under, moved this way and that, especially inspecting the incoming transports, as though they were some obscene customs patrol. The towers jutted every-which way, like they were crazy crystal growths set into the billowing blue-white mist that made everything look as though it were underwater, and at last, after the inspection, the skiffs surged into a narrow yet brilliant green abyss, which opened to reveal a perpetually red sky, and a conventional city. More baroque towers soared in every direction, walkways spanning between them, and vast floating vessels anchored at the tips of the mightiest. Above that abyss, before entering Makharan itself, they could see the remains of hundreds of people in cages and on wheels, an English inscription above them stating simply and gracelessly ‘There is no escape.’

Admiral Andrews was one of the luckiest, she was spared the ignominy of being auctioned, Aralara instead kept the attractive, socially important, human who had put up the most fight for his own ‘amusement.’ Others were not so lucky.

Kasraedan Mors, the unquestioned (for now) Grand Archon of Makharan had long ago decided that the widespread institution of chattel slavery was a social plague, lowering efficiency of industries by forcing them to make their workers an investment. He had used his vast funds to decree a universal scale for state purchase of the wretches brought in by raiding parties, from a vast central city auction house that rose like a canker from the base of Kasraedan’s tower, which stretched to the ceiling of the artificial space the city stood in, literally scraping the sky.

Those who went to that arena, if they were pretty, or amusing, they might be bought as private entertainers, that was amongst the best fates, if they were strong, then perhaps fighting arenas would take them, which was a fell fate, but not the worst. Otherwise, most of those who passed through the arena were simply branded with the symbol of the city, and unceremoniously ejected into the slums upon the grim, impervious red floor of the city. The Eldar did not, save for those who had fallen upon hard times (and reduced to slaves themselves, did not last long in the slums, either taken in by their former peers, or slain as revenge), live on the floor, that was left to humans, and other races, slaves of the city.

Such unfortunates built shelters, sometimes, but the close, confining heat of the city was enough that one did not need it, precipitation was rare but not unknown, and they could go for months without feeling rain. Such pools of water as there were, the Eldar deliberately poisoned with crippling, but not lethal, serums, at the bidding of the Grand Archon. To drink from that otherwise pure water, resulted in unceasing cramps for hours.

There was no way to grow food, in the city, for it had no soil, only its unyielding, otherworldly floor. Thus, to be ejected into the city was to become desperate. Other arenas existed, where the slaves of the city would willingly present themselves, for, not sale (instead, the proprietors charged for subscription or entry) but to simply be taken and given handouts of bread, and clean water, and similar staples, in exchange for thankless work, from which they could be dismissed in a moment, and victims of pitiless abuse, even death.

But the slums were worse; even there, Eldar came from time to time, to murder; there was no legal recourse for slaves of the city, and defence resulted in harsh collective punishment. Tribes of cannibals roamed the streets at night, willing to fall upon their own kind rather than abase themselves before the masters of the city, though where they were encountered by the ever-roaming patrols of flying, winged scourges, they were brutally suppressed.

Only children had the flimsiest legal protections, by the decree of the Grand Archon, who, knowing that large-scale raids were infrequent, was eager to keep human numbers up.

And yet, escape was even more unlikely. Cruel as the masters of the city were, those they cast out were worse, chameleonic, furious slaying mandrakes, abominable haemunculi and worse things besides, were bidden to hunt along the fringes of the city; fear of them keeping the population corralled.

Purchase of freedom from this nightmare was said to be impossible; no Eldar would pay a mon-keigh unless it were necessary, and the Grand Archon’s laws gave a bounty upon slaves with money upon them, including whatever monies the slave possessed, and a markup, which made it impossible to do business with even poor Eldar, for they could always make more money by simply handing in the one who tried to make a purchase from them. The only slim ray of hope for escape the long-term denizens of the city, who all spoke English, as the common language, as it was on Earth, relayed to newcomers was the rumour that from time to time, other Eldar, less cruel, could be found, or Dark Eldar persuaded to take slaves through the Port of Entry and sell them to such groups. The whispers said, from time to time, that colourfully clad Eldar, almost frivolous in nature, went through the city, graceful and lethal beyond compare, and that the masters of Makharan feared them so that even the edicts of Kasraedan were ignored at their word, and that none dared bar their path. Or that there existed white clad Eldar, whom alone of their kind, showed pity to the plight of the wretched and at times, bought them from the city. Few could say they had laid eyes upon this second group, and the first group were surely legendary, for none would confess to having seen them.

A more realistic hope was to be found by working dutifully in the hope of being transferred by the Eldar to an agricultural plantation; for even with hydroponics, growing food in Makharan was a losing proposition, and so it was imported from outposts under true skies.

For all this, there was some relief to be had, the slums at times, could be found to have primitive brewing – combustibles were as close as the slaves came to currency, to distil the publicly available water and free it from toxins that it could be fermented. Music, too, clung on, in small communal places, quietly, for fear of bringing down raiders, but nonetheless slim snatches of happiness held on.

Education, too, existed, the elder and more experienced slaves too old to work, sometimes exacting support in the form of food from the young in exchange for the accrued knowledge of generations of service.


Riella waited. She disliked speaking a slaves’ tongue, but she couldn’t afford to be tortured; while the torture would essentially be futile, she still intended to escape, and she would need to husband her strength in order to make the cross-country journey back to the web-portals.

Riella sat cuffed to the table for the next six hours, she was treated kindly and all efforts were made to let her know that no harm would come to her, regardless of what her and her cohorts had perpetrated upon them. She had been allowed to use the facilities from time to time and was periodically brought food and drink, with only one of her hands being cuffed to the table to aid in her ability to eat. She sat there at the table in a relaxed state from having eaten until she was full, two emptied plates sat there with plastic silverware discarded near the metal ring she was cuffed to.

Meanwhile, behind the mirrored glass of the interrogation room, Cmdr. Kotani looked at her through the glass and smiled. "For all of the information she gave us, she was intentionally vague enough about it. We still don't know who they are or even where they came from." Commander Kotani was staring through the glass at Riella when someone else spoke from behind her, smiling as she recognized a familiar voice, she turned around to confirm her suspicions to come face to face with the only Five-Star Admiral of the Californian Imperial Navy, Sandra M. Dévnostraéva. Sandra stepped past her and perched herself on the table mere inches from the glass. She smiled in her most mischievous manner. "No one knows where they come from. What I do know is that my mother told me tales of the Dark Eldar from when she lived on her homeworld of Aurecexia Prime. I can say thing though..." Sandra smiles looking through the mirrored glass into the interrogation room. "You wouldn't get anymore information from her than she would be willing to let on to... and whatever info you do get will be vague as all hell."

She turned to Commander Kotani and licked her lips. "I want you to have the prisoner released. Also, I need to borrow your office for a minut, have one of my aides bring up a change of clothes for her. I want her taken to your office to change into the clothing I have picked out for her. She will be coming with me as soon as she is finished dressing... she will be coming back to the mainland with me."