Prison Pit

Alice Abernathy (Aimo)

Alice was born 21/1068 on Maggie's Nipples, a Comsentient world in the Beyond sector. Balkanized and turbulent, her mountainous homeworld was a constant source of tickets for mercenary companies, and one such brought a then-young mercenary soldier named Buggér Kowalski to Maggie's Nipples. R&R was fairly sparse in the domes protecting the locals from the acidic atmosphere, and although the planetary laws were fairly rigid the young natives tended to find ways to enjoy themselves with the fascinating offworlders who passed so briefly through, some never to leave.

Moira Abernathy was a dish by anyone's standards, several years older than the young marine, and having taken a fancy to his heavy shoulders and battered countenance she wasted no time in decoying him away from his drinking buddies for rather more personal pleasures. She always told Alice that she was Buggér's first woman, although she had only her intuition and his reactions to support this. In the way of such liaisons, it was over in a night and the soldier off-world, never to return, by the time Moira realized she had acquired a rather permanent souvenir of his visit.

Alice grew up a rather wild brat, inheriting her father's nordic colouration and powerful frame. Her path was never in much doubt, and on her 18th birthday she presented herself at the Imperial Marine recruitment station in Pearl City and enlisted in the infantry. Her first term was a fairly mundane mixture of training and garrison duty, but she worked hard and excelled, finding herself promoted to Lance Sergeant at the end of her first hitch. Re-upping was a forgone conclusion, and she pulled a few strings to get herself assigned to an active duty role for a change.

The first year she was suppressing rebels on a dusty planet somewhere on the edge of Aslan space when she was shot in the chest, her first serious injury in the service. The corps put her through a regrowth berth but the time spent floating switch-off aggravated her, and she began to think about doing something to prevent it happening again. On her return to duty in 1091 she flung herself back into the fray, earning an MCG and another promotion in a battle on a Highport. The next year, though, saw her back chasing guerrillas and wounded again.

Her doggedness paid off in 1095 though, when as soon as she re-upped for her third hitch she was sent to Commando school and transferred to the fighting elite of the Imperium, the Marine Commando. Proud at having followed in her father's footsteps, she whetted her lips at the thought of more action - and was immediately posted off to OCS instead. Being an officer changed everything. Instead of working with a close team of fellow dawgs, she found herself expected to plan major operations, and though she was good at it she didn't much like it. She hated the ceremony and etiquette that went with officer status and frequently fell out with her 'brother officers' - and not just the ones trying to get into her pants.

Nonetheless, her superiors saw in her someone who was perhaps suited for her job not least because she didn't want it, and piled on the training, posting her to staff and command college. She was wounded again in another raid, reinforcing her desire for better protection. Then she found herself back on the little dustball fighting Aslan again - and this time expected to plan the hopeless 'battles' and responsible for their outcome. Over the years her savings had accumulated, and now she decided it was time to act. Pulling some strings, she managed to get herself posted to Intelligence School, and picked up some of the shadier skills used by the military. Quietly following up some of the contacts she'd made, she tracked down a back-street cybersurgeon named Coelho Dordio and persuaded him to implant skinweave armour in her dermal layer.

Although replacement of body parts with prosthetics is not uncommon in the Imperium, it carries a slight social stigma, much more so if done voluntarily. In some parts of the Marine Corps, this is especially true. Unfortunately for Alice, her instructors at the Intelligence School had encountered this sort of thing before and had trackers on all the contacts their students came into contact with. Alice was cornered and arrested with the aid of stun gas and tried for espionage.

The officers she'd offended earlier in her career now scented the chance of revenge, and when her trial came up she found she faced around twice the charges she'd expected, many completely fabricated. Convicted of all of them, she was dishonourably discharged, stripped of her rank, and sentenced to life on Odegra.

Most of the cons on Odgera are male, and the appearance of a slim blonde knockout looked like payday to many of them. Several made the mistake of trying to lean on or pressure her, but after the first few went to the infirmary the rest left her alone. She served nearly four years without further trouble, her enormous strength making her popular with the other cons for the amount of the work she could do. However, new cons arrived regularly, and one day in mid-1106 a new boy named Clemens Christmann showed up. Stupider than the average, Christmann pressed his suit forcibly, trying to waylay and rape her in one of the prison's gloomier corridors. In the resulting fight, Christman was killed, and Alice had one ear almost completely ripped off. Nurse Biggs sewed it back up, but at the time of the disaster Alice was still in some pain, as well as having the prospect of a month in solitary ahead of her.