The cell is about four metres by six. In one corner, there is a foam mattress; in the opposite corner, some very basic sanitary facilities. The temperature is constant and warm, the light in the ceiling is never extinguished.
In one wall, there is a door which never opens. Opposite it is a hatch, which at irregular intervals does open, dispensing water and basic rations packs. I won't starve, I guess. The intervals at which the meals are delivered vary widely - that, and the constant light, seems a deliberate attempt to disorientate me, to confuse my sense of time.
*/*187 hours 36 minutes 14 seconds since transportation*/*
That sort of thing doesn't work too well on someone with Borg implants. I'm keeping that fact to myself, though, since I might need every advantage I can get.
Not that there's anyone to tell. I haven't seen a living soul since I was brought here. I didn't even get a look at them at the start - as soon as the transporter beam faded out, I was hit with enough heavy stun to fell an elephant. And when I woke up, I was in this cell.
Someone took my uniform - all I'm wearing is a grey-brown coverall, a bit too big for me, and the collar. The collar is pretty much standard Orion slaver gear, but that doesn't really give me any clues. I guess it can deliver a punishing neural shock any time someone feels like giving me one, and I'd further guess that it contains enough explosives to take my head off if I try to remove it. I'm not in any great hurry to verify either of those guesses, mind.
There are few clues to where I might be. Something about the metallic sterility of the cell says "spaceship" to me, but I could be completely wrong, of course. The air is recirculated, a completely standard mixture you'd find on any oxygen-breathers' starship. The gravity setting - if it's artificial - is about two per cent higher than Earth standard. The temperature is consistently warm....
The worst thing, I think, is the silence. Sometimes I sing or mutter to myself, just for the sake of breaking it... but the metal walls give my voice an odd, forlorn echo, and I soon stop. Two of Twelve is no help - the imprisonment is stressing me, and when I'm stressed, she subsides into low-level muttering and the occasional pop-up statistic. Not that I'm anxious to have a conversation with my Borg half, anyway.
Except... even Two of Twelve would be someone to talk to. The quiet is really starting to get on my nerves.
---
It's a little while later when the door finally opens. I'm lying on the mattress, but I jump up at that.
The guy standing in the doorway is an Orion */*species 2021*/*. Might have expected that, though of course he could just have been hired by whoever's taken me. He is half naked, bald, and must weigh nearly two hundred kilos. OK, he's the first person I've seen in more than a week, but he's still not exactly a pretty sight.
"About time," I say. "The noise and the crowds around here are getting terrible, do you know that?"
He just grunts, and touches a jewelled wristband. White-hot pulsing fire blasts out of the collar and along my nerves. I grit my teeth hard and don't scream. It isn't easy.
"I bet you say that to all the girls," I gasp, when the shock abates.
That earns me another zapping. I decide, purely of my own volition you understand, to curl up and lie down on the floor for a while. Our relationship is not going to go anywhere if he keeps doing that.
He lumbers into the cell and stands over me. This is where the holo-vid hero would jump up and punch him heroically on the jaw before making a dash for freedom. I'm sort of more concerned with not throwing up. Anyway, I can't reach his jaw, and something tells me his groin is armoured.
"The Matron," he says, "orders your presence." He grabs a fold or two of the loose coverall and yanks me to my feet. His voice is exactly what you'd expect, deep and gravelly and sounds like he's got about the same IQ as the deck plating.
"Matron, huh?" I say. "Sounds good, I could use some medical attention." I was hoping his hands were too full for him to reach the button. Guess what? I was wrong.
So it is a shaking, shambling Ronnie who gets hustled along interminable bleak corridors with a big Orion thug's hand on the back of her neck. I can't tell very much from my surroundings; there are no distinguishing marks, no bits of decoration that give me important cultural clues, or anything of that sort. Not that I'm looking too closely, I'm more worried about stopping my head from falling off. I am not in a good way, here.
The Orion shoves me through another door, and this time I get cultural clues in plenty; scents, sounds, exotic carpets underfoot and silk hangings in the air, all the unmistakeable tart's-boudoir vibe of a high-ranking Orion's quarters. The Matron is sitting on a sort of throne thing, looking poised and elegant, or at least as elegant as you can when you're only wearing a tiara, a spangly bikini, and a few square centimetres of gauze. The big guy lets go of my coveralls, and I decide that falling over is much easier than staying standing up. The carpet is much more comfortable than the mattress in the cell.
"You might be more comfortable in a chair," says the Matron. Her voice, too, is what you might expect, low and musical with just a hint of command in that suggestion. I think about picking myself up, but decide not to. I'm already cutting an unimpressive figure, I might as well lie down while I do it.
There is a brief respite, and then the big guy hauls me up and drops me into a chair. I'm not so sure she's right, actually, this one feels like it's been stuffed with live tribbles and they're trying to get out. Or maybe that's just my jangled nerves.
"You will find things go a great deal better for you if you cooperate," says the Matron. "You're a senior Starfleet officer, you didn't reach that position by being unintelligent. I suggest you use your intelligence."
"Grau, Veronika," I mutter, "Vice Admiral, niner seven dash theta dash seven seven six oh five."
"Please," says the Matron. "You are not a prisoner of war, don't bore me with that rigmarole."
"Glad to hear it," I croak. "OK, when am I going home?"
"You are not," says the Matron, "a prisoner of war." A fine distinction, there. I'd kind of worked that out already, though. "You are, though, in my custody. A matter of... a private endeavour on my House's part. And you will remain in my custody until... well, until my ends are accomplished." She smiles a dazzling smile. I can almost feel her mood-altering pheromones at work. "It need not be unpleasant."
Standard bad-cop, good-cop routine. The big guy to hit my nervous system with the stick, and Madame Smarmy here to dangle the carrot. Textbook stuff. Problem is, they know that I know this routine, and I know that they know.... My abused brain gives up rambling off into a string of pronouns. "What's it all about, anyway?" I ask tiredly.
She looks very pleased. "A step towards intelligent cooperation," she says. "Very good. What do you know of the Siohonin?"
"The who?"
Her smile disappears like it's been switched off. "Oh, dear," she says. "I had hoped we could avoid these tiresome preliminaries." She nods at the big guy. What happens next, I don't enjoy at all.
When I've stopped quivering, she asks again. "What do you know of the Siohonin?"
"I don't," I protest. "I've never even heard of it, them, whatever. Seriously."
"They have heard of you," she says. "Try again." Big guy does his stuff. Somewhere along the line, I slide off the chair and wind up lying on the floor again.
"The Siohonin," she says. "The intelligent species native to the Dolsulca system."
I try to marshal my spinning thoughts, which isn't easy at the best of times, and this is emphatically not the best of times. "I don't know them," I say. "Seriously. Two of Twelve can't even give me a Borg species number for them." Have you ever had a Borg shrug and look shamefaced inside your head? Believe me, it feels weird.
"Let us suppose," the Matron says, "that I believe you. For the moment. Put her back in the chair," she tells the big guy. He hauls me up and dumps me down. I lean back and contemplate the ceiling swirling overhead.
"My contacts in General Ssurt's organization," the Matron says, "obtained details of his contract for me. Very little of importance happens in Imperial space without my being aware of it." She holds up a datapad, and I manage to focus on it. "This is the sum that was to be paid to Ssurt, in exchange for your safe delivery."
"Wow," I say. "With money like that, you could afford clothes." It's not a clever thing to say. She makes a miffed gesture at the big guy, and bad things happen to little Ronnie for a while.
"The offer is tempting," the Matron says, when I'm back in the chair again. I'm sweating all over her upholstery, and I hope it leaves a stain. Best I can do, for the moment. "However, I am also intrigued. So great a sum... it seems the Siohonin want you desperately. This leads me to wonder why." She stands over me and smiles down. "I could simply hand you straight over to them... but I would hate to sell you too cheaply."
I can't think of a witty riposte that won't get my nervous system fried, so I shut up.
"Also," the Matron continues, "there are other sets of intriguing possibilities. If you are taken to the Siohonin, you may be in a position to act as... our agent among them. It would certainly be interesting to have your impressions of their military capabilities - if you are in a position to learn them. And, who knows? Once this affair with the Siohonin is finished... perhaps you will even survive it. In which case, you could become an equally highly placed agent within Starfleet. That would be valuable."
"I... don't... think...." I'm slurring. That's a bad sign.
"You would have to be brought around to... our way of thinking, yes," says the Matron. There is not even a trace of pleasantness in her smile, now. "You know us, Vice Admiral Grau. You know our methods. You know that - in the end - that will happen. Why even attempt to resist it?"
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