Omake: Cait
"Would be nice if that's true?" A young woman sighed as she finished her book. She looked around in her bedroom and found nothing that depicted her girly... Just some broken doll that her father fished out of a trashcan on her eight birthday...
She heard tales of the Imperium from the east... Where she could be someone, if she worked hard for it... Somebody better than this life... All she ever known was her abusive parents that beat her day and night, A father a drunkard that beat her everyday and her mother a whore, selling her body for caps every night for them to survive... She even wonder if she was their child...
"Just eighteen, a few more days, I will be set free from this hell..." She muttered.
They promised her that as soon she is eighteen... They will let her free...
But not in a way she expected...
On the night before her birthday...
She dreams of a cake baked by her mother and her father gave her a turkey like in those books she read before the bombs fell, living in a house that is clean and tidy... She wear an decent dress... Clean and proper...
"Happy birthday, Dear Cait... Happy birthday dear Cait..." Both of them smiling...
"Cait, Make a wish..." Both of them smiling.
As she about to blow the candles.
"I wished that the day like this would be tomorrow.."
She woke up with a shock collar around her neck and was dragged out of her bed...
"Why Pa!?" She screamed
"Just business... One less mouth to feed." He gruffly said.
Her father dragged her down from her bedroom and found a stranger talking to her mom.
"How much she cost?" Her mother ignored the scream of her daughter as she is stuffed into a cage.
The man looked at her, scanning as if she was a goods.
"Around 500 caps, and her virginity is still intact yes... Take it or leave it, the Imperium is cracking down on slave trade and this is all I have for that lass over there." He tossed a bag of caps to her mother.
"Mom... Please... Let me out!" Cait screamed from the slave cage..
But in her shocking moments is what her mother spoke.
"Well then lass, happy 18th birthday, I am no longer obligated to be your mother. The money will keep us fed for a couple of months." She slammed the door leaving the young daughter in the slave caravan...
For a month, she felt her world is crashing down... She got abused by her parents... And sold for a handful of caps...
She met several women just like her... Some even more broken than she was... She was treated less than human... Fed muddy water and maggot bread or Rad roach soup... She learn some trades to keep her alive...
There was a man that she was interested.
One of them was a preacher of the Imperial Religion... That the slaves often listen to.
She listen to the man that preach that the God Emperor will save them... "Be vigilant and you will be saved." The preacher spoke everytime the slavers is not bothering them... She wished in her heart that she would be saved...
"Father... Will I be saved from this hell?" Cait spoke to the preacher one day.
He looked wise and old... But his eyes looked radiant as if it was alive, he touched the head of Cait and spoke gently.
"My child... He have plans for all of us... The Golden Emperor will send his herald and his 19 sons to free us... Just keep your faith alive...You were the best listener among the people here." He smiled...
Perhaps it was the one time she had someone that is called family... Until the day she never knew would come....
He taught her how to dress wounds and learn the Imperium beliefs.... Her mind is curious on the fable nation in the east as the man spoke of rising skyscrapers and flying cars...
"Aye, is that a bunch of Bollocks? I mean the imperium already sail across the stars?"
"I do not lie, my child... They achieve much more than the wasteland lords and raiders could ever dreamed of."
As they travel towards the north... The slavers grew tired of the man drivel of faith, decided to put a bullet on the elderly man.
Cait watched helplessly as he calmly gave her his Aquila... It was made of tin and well received over the years.
"Father.... No...you..." She clutch to his tattered robes.
"My child... My time is up... I see the God Emperor watching over you... I have done my duty..." He patted her head as he went to the entrance of the Cage.
The slavers guards dragged the man over the ground...
"Preacher... If your god emperor is so real, make him come and deliver you from our grasp." One of them mocked the peacher.
"I have no need of materialistic things... I already seen the heavens that he bestowed upon me and I will find myself in the halls of my ancestors. He will saved my soul from the demons in both the spirit and the living."
"Any more last words Bastard? Before I spill your head out?" One of them held a pistol on the temple of the preacher head.
"I pray to the faithful be saved... And be delivered from the heretics... My duty here is done." His eyes closed.
Cait heard the gunshot... For the first time, she wept for someone other than herself... A father figure that is lost in the journey to the north. She clutch the aquila and she prayed... Perhaps for the first time... That the god he believed in will saved her.
One night, changed her life forever...
She was just sleeping with the female slaves when she heard yelling from her captors.
"The imperium is here! Get the rest of the men to drive them off and if we failed, we will kill the goods!" The slave master yelled.
Most of them huddled in a group... Fearful what comes next...
Humming, Explosions, Gunfire and screams was heard outside from the slave cages....
Her eyes closed as she fearful of what comes into the door is the slavers willing to kill them all.
There was hushed sounds outside..
Each second made her fear what comes next, she kept a shard of a broken glass to defend herself...
The door opened and revealing armoured soldiers with flashlights flooded the cage. Her eyes as she saw the aquila on their uniforms.
"Yes, We got the slavers heading to Minnesota, We have several slaves in the cargo... 12 men and 9 women... And we got the ledgers of their filth, uploading it to the Network, Roger that high command." The man that seem to be their leader spoke to some being unseen to them.
"Are we saved?" One of the slaves asked.
The man smiled.
"Yes, you are free, and we will take you to safety. Come outside." The man pointed the outside.
Cait and the slaves went out and met with lights that flooded towards them.
She looked around and saw there is a army that saved them.
"Please, Let me go, I have caps, Women! Anything I don't want to die!"
"Save your dribble in the afterlife scum. May the God Emperor sort you wretches in hell."
The slavers were dragged to a makeshift pit and burned with a flamer. Their screams somehow felt comforting to the people that was saved.
Several two legged machines passed by and one of them stopped.
"Oi, ya wanker! Ya busted me Sentinel for that stunt! Them slavers managed to get a missile lock on my legs!" One of the driver of the two legged machine yelled out at the man as he pointed to the bent legs.
"At least we free the civilians, the cogboys will patch it up soon." He laughed.
Cait and the slave went to a medic that inoculated her with vaccines and directed to a food truck..
She stared at the bowl of porridge laced with bacon, salt and clear water...
How long did she even ate properly... Her stomach protested her that she devoured the meal... But... As she took the first bite... She wept... Warm meal for so long...
She laid down in a room that have a Aquila memorabilia...
"Father... Thank you..."
The next thing she knew was she transfer to a facility that rehabilitate the slaves... And she found these... Psykers that were told that they looked into the heart and minds of the slaves... Those who were cruel were transferred elsewhere...
In there she worked and given working experience by some tradesman that were freed like them..
She could learn carpentry, wiring or even own a business if she wanted to...
"Name?" A man at the recruiting office asked Cait.
"Cait, Sir."
"Let me clarify, Seems here that you signed up as a Medical Corp, is that true?"
"Aye, Managed to patch people wounds when I was a slave."
"I see... You read the terms yes?"
"Aye, I can handle it, being in the military will grant you citizenship."
"Seems you read the fine print, Glad to have you aboard Cait."
She signed up in the military and ended up in the medical corps.
For three years of her life, she went from the commonwealth to Europe... Seeing new sights and healing people.
She was already finished her tour and ended up as a citizen of the imperium..
She found a man in Texas man, he worked in the Air force... Got married and had a daughter... She looked at the adorable eyes of her child as her husband family treated her as their own and helped her raised her kid properly... She vowed that she would not make her daughter life like her own... That she doted on her too much..
One day she had a dream that her life was much more different than she had before... A life of pain and misery... Where she drowned herself in chemicals. Working in a cage fight for some ghoul... And she went to her old home with a shotgun and killed her parents...
She often woke up sweating
She earn enough in her life, had a loving family, a Decent husband...
But she wanted to find some closure to her life...
Something that haunted her...
"Don't worry... I will be there for you" her husband comforted her as he held her hand.
She returned to her home with her husband where she was raised, only to find out her home is demolish and being rebuilt as a apartment, she asked around on the fate of her parents by some locals gave her account...
Her father messed with a soldier in the imperium in his drunken rage and he was shot and hung in the streets.
Her mother who was heartbroken, turned to Jet Addiction and overdosed herself to death...
She found where the graves of where her dead parents are... No... Not a grave, but a place where the town folk tossed the dead raiders and criminals to incinerate their bodies...
She stood in front of the pit...
"Ya know, ya gave me a shitty life, ya tossed me away and I came back stronger... I suppose I would like to thank ya sorry ass, for giving me a better life than what I been through when I was living with you." She spat on the pit as she left the town she was born in.
When she had the time... She visited the preacher that spoke to her in the slave cage.
The Imperium managed to get the corpse and sanctify it and he was a well known wandering priests that preached the Imperium religion after the bombs dropped.
She stood inside the mausoleum that housed the deceased preacher's in America and she looked at the Coffin that housed his body.
"Father... It's been a while... remember on that day when we first met? When I was a naive lass that got sold by my parents? I did almost gave up on life, knowing what would happen to me... But you where there to keep my faith alive... I wished I could have turn back the clock... But I know that you would have lambasted me to move forward... Thank you... I wished I would've brought my daughter along... But she is at school... Perhaps when I have free time... I will have the whole family visit to this place" she smiled bitterly as she left the mausoleum.. in the corner of her eyes she saw a familiar figure waving at her....
"Take care my child... May the Golden Emperor light your way..." A voice whisper to her.
But as she turned around.... There was no one there.