Three: Ironic

I was a lifer. Imprisoned for embezzling close to a billion from several Sydney and Melbourne companies. And I never really fought it, even if I never really did it. I knew I couldn’t fight the charges because I couldn’t fight the people framing me. So I decided to adjust my expectations, and went to the high-security facility that the Republic put up.

But I was a good lifer. And, because of good behavior, I became eligible several years later for parole (apparently being sentenced to life imprisonment doesn’t exclude the possibility of parole). And when I was up for parole the first time, lo and behold, my parole was approved.

I suppose my story in the media had made the rounds and the people felt sympathetic to my plight. No one really believed I was guilty anyway.

But, the carrier I was on that was on the way back to Earth (which also carried the police escort that was currently after me) had a big engine failure mid-flight. And instead of a soft landing somewhere in New York, We found ourselves crash-landing in this forgotten corner of the galaxy.

No one survived except me and the officers after me, but instead of pulling together for mutual protection and benefit, the lead officer, Lieutenant Whatsisface, decided to keep me locked up while they went about finding what went wrong and what needed to be done.

But I didn’t wait that. I grabbed what I could and ran away.

So that’s how I went from upstanding citizen to convict to parolee to escaped fugitive.

I had tried reasoning with these officers but these were not exactly the best thinkers around – they were indoctrinated (read “brainwashed”) to like an inch of their lives, leaving no room for any free thought at all anymore. All they knew was that they were after a “dangerous fugitive” that must be “brought to justice” and be made to “face the authorities.”

A parking meter had more smarts than these human automatons.

If we only made it to Earth…