Last year, 16-year-old Nissaa Zin left her home in the Turkana IV town of Anndaic for the last time.
Investigators believe she was looking for cordafin – a stimulant that induces euphoria when smoked but is toxic at concentrated levels in the body. The cheap drug has ravaged out-of-touch colony worlds, where Starfleet rarely visits. But for some, it’s the last refuge of happiness when there’s no food and no security to be found.
Nissaa was too poor to afford the amount that would have been necessary to hurt herself. But she died nonetheless – when she arrived at the dealer’s home, she was force-fed depressants, raped, and murdered. Her body was dumped in a nearby river.
The details of the crime sparked rare political action on Turkana IV, where decades of neglect by the United Federation of Planets have left the planet’s inhabitants in a seemingly unending gang-led civil war. Hundreds of women, some from towns many miles away – many of whom are gang-affiliated by choice or not – risked their own lives to shut down the trash-packed streets in Anndaic, holding signs with slogans like “Not one more” and “Machismo kills.”
For a full day, the small town’s hovels and and slums were filled not with the sounds of gunfire, but the frustrated shouts of women pushed to the brink.
The brutal murder of Zin has become a planet-wide symbol for the horrific violence suffered by women on Turkana IV, and has galvanized a movement that’s shaking the planet’s settlements to the core.
“They’re not just killing us,” says Lara Ryen, a marcher, “they’re torturing, destroying, and obliterating our bodies. They kill each other on the streets, and then kill us behind closed doors. And we’re not going to take it anymore.”
Following protests of Nissaa Zin’s deaths, a collective of women organized seemingly out of nowhere to overrun Cequen Station – a town bordering Anndaic – and establish a base of operations, forming a new faction among the region’s powerful gangs.
Details remain in short supply, as few off-worlders are equipped to make face-to-face contact on Turkana IV, where violence has resumed after the march. This news network has made contact with the women of Cequen Station from orbit, and determined that they have already secured ample supplies and weapons to hold their current location for at least the near future.
The focus now seems to be on helping to smuggle endangered women into Cequen Station, and building an army that could possibly turn the tide of the war.
Federation representatives were asked for comment numerous times during the compilation of this story, but no replies were received.
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