A Matter Of Time

Posted on 26 Jul 2012 @ 10:46pm by Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Coleman & General ('aj) D'Grath Son Of N'Vor (KIA)
Edited on on 26 Jul 2012 @ 11:23pm

2,327 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: IKS Na'vi - Holding Cell #2
Timeline: MD 08 - 1930 hrs

Previously, on The Price of Command...

The ethics debate with the Klingon was pointless, and had deteriorated into a circular argument. With nothing left to say, Lirha waited in suspended horror as she watched in slow motion what was about to happen. Her green eyes met the Bolian's gold ones, and her facial expressions twisted into sorrow and deep sadness. "...I'm so sorry..." she whispered to him with defeat, in a barely audible voice, then looked towards the floor in shame as the inevitable finally occurred.

The look on her face was stoic, the action mechanical and slow. Tearing back the man's head with her left the blade slit viciously from side to side. He let out a wimpier that gave way as the blue blood spilled and bubbled. His body fell limp and K'Nara looked up disgusted that the woman couldn't look him in the eye, "How many more people are you going to kill before I get my answer?" With that she left, leaving the body and the woman to consider her position.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Evelyn walked down the Klingon corridor, feeling a variety of emotions. She knew what was coming in the room she entered but wasn't unfamiliar to the acts of torture. As soon as she entered the room, her Klingon guards wasted no time lifting her bounded hands up over her head, latching the metallic handcuffs to a hook on the ceiling. The two guards left her standing there, and she waited for her torturer to arrive.

The Federation had, for as long as the General could remember, been a treacherous and devious ally - willing to go to any length to ensure that their power was left unrivalled and unparallelled in the quadrant, something which any good Klingon would fight to prevent. There was no honour in developing secret weapons in hidden starbases to strike at your opposition without any warning....for the good of the Empire, they had to be stopped.

As the thick metallic doors parted in front of him with a loud clunking noise, D'Grath could see his next challenge. A pitiful looking woman, it was hard to believe that she was a member of the famed El Aurian species - D'Grath hoped, for his transporter officer's sake at least, that he had been brought the right prisoner.
Taking a few steps into the room, and allowing the doors to close behind him, the ageing Klingon looked at the restrained prisoner, knowing that with just a flick of his wrist, he could probably snap her neck....but that was not the point. Not yet at least.

"Lieutenant Coleman....service number IL-104-0221....USS Galileo....I am General D'Grath....and now that we know each other....you will be telling me all I wish to know....or this is going to get very....unpleasant....for you at least."

Evelyn looked at the General, especially his forehead ridges. "D'Grath, Son of N'Vor...House of Tokar, as anyone ever mention that you look almost exactly like your grandfather?"

The famed lifespans of the El Aurian's seemed to be living up it's reputation. D'Grath was aware that they could live for several centuries, if not longer, the so called 'race of listeners'...it was a shame the Empire had never subjugated them - with such a talent, they could have been a valuable asset to his Intelligence services.

"Yes. They have." He replied, with very little time for small talk. It was neither the time nor the place to quibble over tiny things, miniscule things, when compared with the glory of the Empire, and protecting it against any forces that might stand in it's way.

"I am not here to play games with you El Aurian......I want to know where your ship is hiding....and everything about that weapon that is stored in your little brain...you can either tell me....or I will find out for myself....the choice is yours."

Evelyn nodded, a memory of a Klingon child holding a wooden Bat'leth flashed in her mind, "Right, I apologize. As far as the Galileo's location, I am unsure at this point as I am..." she gestured upward to her bounded hands, "as I am currently detained and to be honest, I wasn't really paying attention on our present course. I was actually about to reroute the helm control to my station and open a spatial flexure to get away from you guys. Personally I'd rather fight besides a Klingon, then against them."

The general did little as he absorbed the information being given to him, so far it seemed, it was not to be disproved...an officer should be focused on their duties and not just the spurious information around them...no matter, he would find out whether or not she was lying by the end of the interrogation.

"Very well....then I'm sure you can provide me with your vessel's transponder codes....as a fellow Intelligence officer, I'm well aware you would know that information...."

Evelyn tilted her head to the side, wishing she could scratch an inch on the side of her head. Her eyes though were never taken off D'Grath's. "You know I cannot do that, I will not betray my comrades no more then you'll betray yours. Say what you want about the Federation or Starfleet, but I care about my honor. I will tell you the truth though. Project Sienna is not a weapon."

Engraged, the Klingon bore his fanged teeth in reply to her statement. The fact that the Starfleet officer continued to try and tell him something that he already knew was false would have usually been enough to make him snap her neck. But for now at least, he would let her live.

"Your Federation lies mean nothing to me....the weapon is a danger to the interests of the Empire, and I will not stand idly by whilst you secretly plot our destruction! I will give you one last chance to give me the transponder codes or I will take them by force!"

"Maybe you should just kill me now, because telling you Sienna is a weapon is a lie. It is a new propulsion system that civilian scientists have spent years of their lives developing. I've seen the research and it is not promising. I think they are moving too fast, there are too many variables that their matrix isn't even addressing." Evelyn shook her head, sighing. "You know I knew this was going to happen..."

The self-righteousness of the El Aurian's was something that D'Grath had always hated. Permanently assuming that because they had lived for so long they knew everything about everything....at least with this one however, he might get the chance to prove otherwise.

Breaking his usually calm demeanour, the General raised his forearm and brought the back of his fist to bear down on his prisoner's face, hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to cause her to lapse into unconsciousness.

"qem'OH!" He called out to some unseen officer who had obviously been instructed to listen carefully to the needs of his superiors. After a few moments, the doors to the cell opened again, and another figure entered, staying in this shadows but only in the room long enough to pass the General his weapon of choice.

"This....is a Klingon pain-stick...something I'm sure you're well acquainted with...now I ask you again...give me the transponder codes to the Galileo, or I promise you, I will give you an experience that you will remember for the rest of your long...long life."

When she was struck she didn't make a sound, to say it didn't hurt would be lying. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth, she couldn't taste any blood. When the guard entered her eyes focused on the pain-stick. Suddenly visions flashed through her mind, and she straightened herself up. "You need to change the setting on that." She told him giving a head nod towards the General's weapon, "anything below setting 9 will just tickle. I suggest you start with setting 14."

"Your insolence will be your undoing Federation...." The general replied with a scowl and another bearing of fangs. He would take great delight in removing the woman's tongue if not for the fact that she would need it to supply him with the transponder codes for her insignificant little ship, with a very significant cargo.
That said; he wasn't about ready to ignore perfectly good information on his torture victim....it seemed she had been subjected to this device before, so much the better. It seemed he would finally get a chance to try out it's maximum setting.

"I warn you....I have many more methods at my disposal if something as...crude..as this does not work....now....give me the codes!" He shouted out as he jabbed the device into her ribs, just below her breast, hoping to find enough nerve endings to suitably stimulate her pain response. He would break her, it was just a matter of time...

Evelyn wanted to cry out as he activated the pain-stick, but to do so would give D'Grath satisfaction, and that would be worse than the pain. Her head thrown back, her eyes shut tight, her mouth cringed. Evelyn endured his first assault. When the stick was removed and the pain quickly fading, Evelyn panted, glaring at D'Garth; "What codes?"

"P'taQ!" The General glared down at her, watching in satisfaction as her mouth gave away the slightest hint of discomfort. For so many years he had operated within the intelligence services, and wasn't about to allow himself to be defeated by one insolent Lieutenant. Raising the stick again, he reapplied it, this time to a different spot on Coleman's chest, not wanting her to get too accustomed to the pain being in only one place.
That was a little trick he had learned from his interrogation of a Vulcan...too much pain in one area, and a disciplined mind can simply block it out...keep the stimulus moving, and they have no chance.

"The transponder codes to your pathetic little ship so that I may take what I want and blow her out of the sky! Tell me what you know!"

Her legs almost buckled, but because of her restraints, was able to recover. She panted as he pulled the device away from her chest. "I know..." she licked her dry lips, breathing heavily. "I knew the moment the Federation negotiated away any chance for the Klingon Empire to gain territory from the Cardassian Union things were going to spiral towards war. I knew the Council passed the resolution of Condemnation over the Empire's actions against the Gorn and Romulans that our alliance will be over. The Federation treated the Khitomer Accords as it was a leash and that the Empire was her dog. Now the leash is broken and you see the faces of naive Starfleet officers questioning why we're in this situation. Look at us!" she groaned, "I told you the truth about Sienna, but because it's not what you want to hear you continue this session of ours. You want this to be a weapon, that way there is honor in hunting down a mere science ship."

Jamming the stick into her stomach once more, D'Grath would have usually broken the neck of anyone who had insulted his honour, and the honour of the Empire in such a way. Starfleet had always looked down on the Empire for being such a warlike organisation, devoted to the way of the warrior instead of the way of peace and diplomacy - weak concepts that had no place in the universe.
If necessary, he would turn this woman into a shell of her former self, break her mind, her body and her spirit if necessary, but he would get what he wanted.

"This is your last chance El Aurian - give me what I want, or I promise, you will not survive the rest of the day! That ship and it's secrets will belong to the Empire, no matter what methods I have to resort to!"

Evelyn looked up at D'Grath, "I'm over 200 years old...I've experienced more horrors than you can possibly imagine..." She breathed heavily, "I understand you're anger though... you're 72 years old and only a General, serving under a female...now even when torturing me, you're not getting what you want...I forgive you, General D'Grath, Son of N'Vor."

"Forgiveness?? From Starfleet?!" The General let out a belly-rumbling laugh as he thought on the words of his prisoner. "Only" a General - he was in command of the Empire's entire Intelligence resource, he was the longest servicing officer in the post, and had presided over one of the safest periods of Klingon history, thanks to the work of his operatives.

"I do not need your forgiveness...just your words...." Plunging the stick deep into her stomach again, he allowed the setting to drift towards it's maximum, and leaving it there perhaps a little longer than the designer's may have originally intended.

"I will return in one hour....I suggest you reconsider your position...or our surgeon's will simply extract the information for me....and feed your...shell....to the targs!"

Dropping the stick on the floor where he stood, the General turned on his heels and headed back into the shadows, and out of the door, leaving the Lieutenant alone, for now at least.

As soon as she heard the metallic door close, Eve let herself dangle by her restraints, she was tired, her body was weakening. Evelyn closed her eyes, trying to ignore the pain, and focus on surviving a little longer.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

Lt. (JG) Evelyn Coleman
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

General D'Grath, Son of N'Vor
Head of Klingon Intelligence
NPC'd by Jonathan Holliday

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