Wipe It Clean

June 8th, 2514
Detainment Center #061, Eridanus II
0532 Hours
"Hey."
"Huh?"
In his bunk in one of the barracks that made up the bleak detention center that housed several hundred captured Insurrectionists, Leon Oliver awoke to one of his fellow inmates, Sergeant Josh Vetroa, nudging him awake. "What's up?" Oliver flatly asked, his voice very low and slow with the aftereffects of sleep. "Something's going on. Get your stuff together." Vetroa responded, who himself was already dressed in his green flightsuit he had worn as a dropship gunner over a year before when he had been captured.
"I don't want to get the fuck up." Oliver muttered in response. "Let them drag me out." he continued.
"Dude, come on. We've got to-"
Vetroa was cut off by the roar of a dropship's engines just above the building housing the rebels. "What the hell?" Oliver muttered. "Do I have your attention now?" responded Vetroa. "Um...yeah." Oliver retorted, as he began to get out of his rack, still sluggishly moving as he went to don his uniform. "I swear to God, if this is nothing, I will make sure you don't sleep for a long time." he growled as he began to button up his jacket, still bearing the rank insignia of when he had been a noncommissioned officer in the Colonial Militia.
"So have you got any idea what's going on?" Oliver asked.
Vetroa never had a chance to answer. As he opened his mouth, a group of stern looking men and women, all dressed in featureless black uniforms, stomped into the barracks. "Get up you traitors!" one yelled, starting a cacophony of yelling from the personnel as they dragged rebels out of their beds and continued spewing insults at the prisoners.
As the personnel continued awakening the inmates, a loud and wet-sounding crack resounded through the building, followed soon after by a series of zaps, cracks, and pained screams. Through the commotion, Oliver saw the instigator, evidently a rebel by his unkempt appearance and non jet black uniform, being dragged out into the daylight, followed by one agent holding his nose.
"What the hell now?" Oliver said through gritted teeth to Vetroa, who was standing beside him. "Act natural. We might just survive this and get out alive. Some other rebels might rescue us." he responded. At the mention of "other rebels", Oliver remembered his girlfriend, Felicia Wells, who he had not seen since the two had been separated in 2513, after she had convinced him to surrender to the United Nations Space Command. He still was a bit remorseful he had allowed her to convince him to surrender rather than have his unit fight its way out. But he still loved her, nonetheless. 
Soon, Oliver's thoughts about Wells were rudely interrupted as a mean-looking man came up to him. "Turn around." the man commanded. "Fine, but only if you fuck me then, you goddamn Oonskie bastard." Oliver said as he obeyed the order, earning him a painful blow to the ribs. "Fucking damnit!" he cried out in pain. Before he knew it, Oliver felt the restraints clamp onto his wrists, and the hand of the agent on his collar, forcing him towards the door. Every time the agent loosened his grip, the sergeant dug his heels in, earning him a shove or another blow to his midsection.
As the two turned a corner, Oliver spotted his destination. On the landing pad, there was a Pelican, painted as if it were a regular UNSC naval aviation transport. Through the morning air, now much quieter with the wakeup of the prisoners over, the clanking of the boots of both parties on the stairs leading up to the pad echoed out across the grounds. 
Continuing towards the dropship, Oliver felt the grip of the agent loosen, and began to think of a way to escape. But before he could even begin to run, two more agents, one on each side, both with night vision goggles, seized hold of his arms and led him into the inky darkness of the dropship. Forcing him into a tiny, locker sized cage, Oliver felt the agents clamp him to a chair.
As one agent closed the mesh door to the cramped, locker-sized cell, the other pulled a blackout curtain over the door, leaving Oliver in complete darkness. Sitting in darkness, completely immobile, he began to sweat. Where was he going? Were they being moved off Eridanus II? The thought of never seeing his planet, let alone his friends and family, ever again, made him feel sick to his stomach.
Sitting in the blackness of his cell, Oliver could still hear the metallic clanking as, one by one, more prisoners were brought into the dropship, and the same process that was performed on him was done to them. After what seemed like an eternity of the same sounds over and over again, the dropship's personnel bay fell silent. The silence was soon broken by the whirring of hydraulics and the whine of engines.
Category:The Eridanus Runs Red