Chapter 1: Unchained
Lunar Maximum Security Incarceration Facility sat in its usual position on the barren moon of a gas giant in a forgettable solar system. It was a large facility, though there was very little traffic to and from it outside of prisoner transportation and the like. Even if a prisoner managed to escape their cell they had nowhere to go. It was the perfect place to house some of the most wanted criminals in the galaxy.
The hallways were quiet, the only sounds in them were footsteps of guards moving up and down them as they were tasked with retrieving several prisoners from their cells. Four of them moved down the wing which held some of the most notorious inmates. There they finally found who they were looking for, Callum Bowman, the gang lord that formed the feared Black Stars. He was now just another prisoner, there for almost six Earth years. For the most part he had kept to himself since his incarceration, he caused no problems and rarely spoke to anyone. Yet that didn't mean he was treated any better by those that imprisoned him in the lunar prison. He stood up from his seated position on the bed in his barren cell. It was identical to every other one, a bed, toilet, desk, chair and a sink. All of the furniture was nailed to the floor of course, so none of it could be used as weapons.
"Bowman? They really want this monster?" One of the guards asked, a human male, his head shaven, light stubble on his face. He wore the same uniform as all the others which was more akin to a soldier's armor than anything else. On his belt he had a stun baton, which one of his fellow guards had his hand near as the quartet stood in front of Callum's cell. They looked at him like a caged animal, as Callum stared back from behind the forcefield between them. He wore an identical orange jumpsuit to every other prisoner, his number on the back of it.
"Yep, orders from up top, they want him. Other inmates too, but the other guards have that handled. We just gotta get him and escort himm" One of the other guards confirmed as he clenched a holopad in one of his hands. "Come along nicely now, 2817. Keep your hands where they are and no sudden movements."
Then the forcefield went down on Callum's cell as two of the guards approached him, he offered no resistance as one of them grabbed his hands then handcuffed them tightly. Then with a gentle nudge he walked out of his cell, all four of the guards behind him. He walked past many of the other inmates' cells, several of them watched as he was escorted away. Some spoke out, though their words were stopped by glares from the guards following Callum.
The pirate king briefly wondered if the other prisoners figured he was on his walk of death, that when he finished his escort they'd inject him with all types of chemicals and end his life. That wasn't what was going on here, he would have been told ahead of time. He was their pet prisoner anyway, having him in their fancy lunar prison meant they could capture any criminal. He was no use to them dead, they could parade around the fact that they had successfully caught one of the most wanted men in the galaxy. Still he wondered what exactly this was. One of the guards peeped up as a message was sent to him through the communicator in his ear.
"We have to take a slight detour, they want us to clean him up. Make him look presentable." The guard said to the others, and Callum. His hair had grown long, an unkempt beard on his face. He stopped caring about that, he wondered if it annoyed his captors. A slight act of rebellion that nearly brought a smile to his face. He was turned down another hallway and into a room, there he was stuck on a chair as another man approached him with an electric razor. Callum was silent as he was shaven clean, then his hair trimmed to a short, neat affair. Bundles of brown hair rested on the floor before they were swept away, and he was lead out of the room by the guards.
"We're almost there." One of the guards said as the escort continued, they'd moved him through various hallways that all looked the same to the prisoner. They finally paused in front of another doorway, two guards standing on each side of it. After a brief chat between all of the guards, Callum was handed over to these two. From there he was nudged into the room. Inside was a long table, chairs were placed all around it, at the opposite end of the table sat three men. More guards were around the table, three on each side against the walls, each of them clenched shotguns. Guards in the prison didn't normally carry firearms, it tended to put the prisoners on edge. For whatever this meeting was, they didn't seem to care about that.
He recognized one of the men at the end of the table as the prison warden, Hardying? That was his name. He was a mean looking man, had an unsettling look about him. He'd heard stories about how the warden routinely beat prisoners to a pulp that went out of line for even the smallest offenses. He did not know either of two next to him, both wore business suits and stared at Callum as he was stuck into a chair at the side of the table opposite to the trio.
"Ah, 2817 is here. Now we wait for the others, they should be here shortly." Warden Hardying said with a smile. Callum didn't acknowledge the man with even a glance, he just looked at the floor. Underneath the table one of his fists clenched.