Lockdown - 20 by Alexander Shaw

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Maybe he wanted to be with his own people.

Tenzanin moved to the cupboard unit and pulled out a large bag of Ragnorian Pasta. He sighed and shook his head. Fair enough for Davan being with the people he wants to see, Tenzanin mused, but I'm stuck here with a firefight starter.

--/+31 minutes/--
--/Level 12-159 Ecodome/--

This place smelled like trees. Grass, trees, tranquillity and open space. Davan found it strange that such a place would be here, on the veritable hellhole that was Neutral 3. Ecodome took up two sections on two levels, making it the fourth largest multi section on the section. It was paid for by the Ragnorian government embassy on the station, subsidised by the few Tayans that actually lived here. Davan had noticed a sheer lack of Tayans on this station, it turns out that the few of them all lived down here, inside Ecodome. And he couldn't blame them.

The entrance was a piece of technological genius. A series of steps that were gradually becoming less horizontal, until they reached full vertical, each with an individually manipulated gravity field. It was strange watching a man walking onto a staircase, turning even further into the horizontal with every step. But that's because Ecodome was laid out flat on the inner bulkheads of the station, not in stacks, like the rest of it. Once inside, Davan was struck dumb. He hadn't seen this sort of forestry and natural beauty since he'd left the Homeworld of Tay.

He walked down onto the forest floor, finding the tent where most visitors chose to leave their shoes. Davan kneeled down, pulling his combat boots free. He sighed as he did so, feeling freer than he had done so in longer than he had realised was possible. When his bare feet made contact with the grass and dirt, he almost shed a tear. He bowed at the Ragnorian monk who was minding the footwear collection. The monk bowed back, then Davan moved out into the artificial sunlight, out into the forest that smelled so much like home.

--/+0 minutes 0 seconds/--
--/Level 12-120 Montoya's Dojo/--

Torn was sweating, sweating heavily. He hadn't worked out this hard in years, and that was just the warm up that the efficient martial arts instructor. He was wearing an reasonably well-fitting keikogi, trying his hardest not to look too out of place. It was a beginners class, two dozen or so people like him, not all that fit, not one over twenty five and all of them here for a different reason. But things were just getting started. There was another hour of workout before they even moved onto holding one of the training weapons.

Torn found that he was beginning to enjoy the feeling of tired muscles, of the slight lack of oxygen to his body. He was feeling good, all of his issues were pushed to the back of his mind, Yuni, his abilities, the whole theft mess, all of it was gone for now. He smiled at the other members of the group that were near him and they smiled back. It seemed that he had a natural aptitude for this that he hadn't realised. It must be his Nethrek heritage, he considered.