Allandra Zel was not having a good week.<br/><br/>She had allowed herself to be talked into a trip to Zeltros with some of her friends, the better to relax and unwind and hopefully get laid a few times: her normal schedule didn't permit her much of a social life, to the great disappointment of her closest friends and family.  She had mounted a<em>pro forma</em>resistance to the very luxury of taking time out to do nothing practical before conceding the point, had even allowed her mother to take her shopping for some more festive outfits, and had resigned herself to the idea of having fun without worrying too much about the workload piliing up behind her.<br/><br/>Things had fallen apart almost at once.<br/><br/>The trip there, on board a luxury liner called the Girdle of Stars, had been fine, but she'd gotten separated from Rhee and Mossa at the spaceport.  The expected shuttle to their hotel didn't show, and when she finally decided on the risky business of a taxi, she chose the most reputable looking vehicle and driver.  He was a Rodian, but surprisingly friendly for one of that race, who easily swept her luggage into the cargo compartment and held the door for her, tipping his cap respectfully.   This put her at ease, so the stun gas that he released into the passenger compartment as he pulled into traffic rendered her senseless without giving her enough time to feel distressed.<br/><br/>Waking some time later to find herself a captive of some well-dressed, well-behaved, smoothly professional abductors.  They locked her in an admittedly luxurious room, fed her regularly, didn't threaten her with violence or trouble, and from little she could gather, were asking her parents for a sizable amount of credits in exchange for her safe return.  While they did not speak to her very much, and conceded little when they did, she surmised that they must have been working for a rival House: no doubt Mother was furious, and Father distraught.  But at the very least she was in little danger--they had taken her things, and locked her up, but she was not being beaten or worse, and the food was ample if not up to her preferred standards.  They wanted her alive and healthy.<br/><br/>Time, and boredom, wore on her.<br/><br/>One morning (was it morning?) she woke to the sound of shouting just outside her door...then a blaster shot!  And after that, something hit the door hard enough to dent it.  It slid partway open, and Allandra beheld a nightmare in a dark red cloak with a grinning white mask dragging one of her captors by the hair.  He was screaming, blood streaming from his mouth and nose, as the stranger dropped him roughly to the ground.  It focused attention on her for a moment, tilting its head to one side as if in thought, and then very deliberately picked up her captor's pistol.  Adjusting a setting, it shot her...!<br/><br/>Stun setting.  It had to have been on the stun setting.  She was still alive...but somewhere less pleasant.  Darkness surrounded her--she was blindfolded.  Her hands had been clapped in binders.  So had her feet.  It was colder here, wherever<em>here</em>was, and the chair to which she had been bound felt hard and uncomfortable.