The Girl In The Steelplast Mask

Posted on 10 Dec 2016 @ 1:19am by Ensign Miraj Derani & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm

2,805 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 12 - Recluse
Location: IKS Neg JoK - Deck 3, Interrogation Chamber
Timeline: MD 03 - 1700 hrs

[ON]

The dingy metallic door to a small chamber hissed open on Deck 3 and Miraj was pushed through the entrance into the small confines of a darkened room. In the middle was an uncomfortable-looking chair devoid of any form of cushioning or comfort, and instead had a series of steel restraints bound to the arm and leg rests. Two large Klingons followed her in and prodded the back of her shoulders to get her to move as they desired.

"Sit!" came the command from one of them. A small computer terminal attached to the side wall came to life with a red Klingon version of LCARS displayed on it.

Miraj couldn’t get any paler. But the chair made her heart stop. She didn’t want to get within ten feet of it, let alone sit down. Fear rooted her to the floor and she couldn’t move.

When she didn't immediately comply, a pair of large hands latched on to her upper arms with steel grips. One of the Klingons lifted her up off the ground, carried her to the chair, and deposited her in the seat with a hard thump. He pressed a hidden button near the side of the headrest which snapped the restraints in place around her appendages, locking her securely into place.

"Tell me your name and rank!" yelled the same Klingon who had first instructed her to move to the chair. He appeared to be the one in charge.

Sheer panic made her pull at the steel cuffs . They wouldn’t have moved for a buffed Klingon. Miraj didn’t do anything more than bruise her wrists. The ones around her ankles were looser, but not loose enough for her to escape. In her fear the Klingons question didn’t even register.

An audible crack suddenly echoed throughout the room as the Klingon's fist connected with the side of the ensign's face. Bright pink hair fanned across her face from the force of the impact. "I asked you a question," he repeated. Hopefully a healthy dose of tough love would snap her out of whatever apprehensions she might be having.

Pain blossomed all across her cheek bone and her head snapped to the side. After a moment of disorientation she looked up at him from between the hair across her face that she couldn't brush aside.
"Question?" she stuttered out, trying to recall what he had asked.

"I asked," he began with a narrowing of his eyes, "your name and rank. Do not make me repeat myself!" his voice boomed with deep bass.

"Miraj Derani," she replied, her voice trembling. "Ensign."

"Ensign of what?" he continued. His dark eyes played across her red collar but he was unable to discern her exact position or title. From his knowledge of Starfleet uniforms, he understood she most likely worked in the command department -- but doing exactly what, he had no idea. "What was your position? Who did you serve?"

She flinched away from him. "You saw my commanding officer. Before you murdered our ship." She wanted to glare at him, but was too intimidated to meet his eyes, and gave his shoes an angry look instead.

He listened to her words for a second while interpreting them. "You served the admiral...directly?" he asked for clarification. "And what is your position under her?" She must have been a senior officer of some sort but he couldn't make sense of her junior officer rank if she indeed occupied such a position. Maybe she was lying.

She knew she wasn't supposed to offer up anything more than her name, rank and serial number. But Klingons also weren't supposed to be attacking federation ships either. "I'm not supposed to tell you." she rushed out, tensing for whatever the consequences might be.

He leaned down and put his face close to Derani's. A few puffs of foul breath emanated from his mouth and seeped into her nostrils before he spoke. "Do not make me ask you again, Starfleet," he threatened.

She leaned away from the fetid breath, turning her face to get as far from the stinking cloud of halitosis as she could . She didn't want to tell him, but she feared the consequences, "I...I can’t," she stuttered.

"You will," he whispered menacingly to her. He nodded to the guard standing behind her. The sound of a device being configured could be briefly heard, and then suddenly a pain stick jabbed itself into the side of Derani's neck. The neurological stimulus device crackled and hissed as red sparks of energy seared into the ensign's body and burned her flesh.

She screamed, her body arching up under the touch of the pain-stick, pulling at the cuff on the chair until they left red bruised stripes around her wrists. she dropped back a moment breathing hard, tears pricking at her eyes. She looked at her interrogator, trying not to cry. "I'm just a pilot," she whispered.

Just a pilot, he repeated in his head. That sounded like the words of most prisoners who refused to reveal their true nature. He glanced to the computer monitor to the side which displayed a real-time readout of her vitals, including blood pressure, pulse, and neurological activity. Strangely, her readings were plausible for someone who was being truthful. Whether or not that truth was absolute of simply perception, however, was another story.

"So. You are the helm officer. Senior helm officer?" he interpreted with a small degree of satisfaction at the small bit of information he'd managed to deduce. "What was your mission? Why did you enter the nebula?"

It didn't make any sense. Surely it was obvious why they entered? "the distress beacon. Why else would we be here? You were using it to lure us in."

He took note of her answer and confused demeanour. He, himself, suddenly became confused, but only momentarily before he resumed his stoic and disinterested facial expression. "You came for the distress beacon, then?" That part of the question was rhetorical. "Who ordered you to respond to it? Which starbase? What admiral? What task force?" he continued with rapid-fire queries.

The questions barked at her just made it worse, not knowing which one to answer first, knowing she shouldn't answer any, knowing if she didn’t the Klingon with the pain stick was hovering behind to make her scream again. the constant throbbing from her rapidly bruising face was making it hard to concentrate. "We’re Starfleet. we go to any ship in distress. surely you know that, That’s what we're for!" It was the absolute truth, and didn't answer any of his questions.

"Who ordered you to answer the distress beacon?!" he repeated. The pain stick found its next mark, this time at the back of her neck beneath her pink hair and against her spine. A loud hiss and sparkle of red energy once again illuminated the interrogation chamber.

She jerked forward in the chair, trying to get away. The sudden forward motion left the restraints biting into her wrists, but she didn't feel it. All she was aware of was the pain that riddled her body, and made it hard to breath, like every muscle was tensing at the same time as taking a shower under an EPS conduit. "the admiral!" she screamed over the crackling buzz of what she was sure was her own skin burning. "Admiral Saalm!"

Admiral Saalm. Strange. "Who ordered this admiral to investigate the distress call? Which starbase, what outpost detected it? Who gave you your orders to respond?" The idea that it could have been an autonomous decision made on the fly by Galileo's own crew seemed foreign to him.

Blood was beading in a fine line around her wrists where the skin had broken at the edge of the restraints. She didn't notice, she was too busy trying to see where the Klingon with the pain stick had gone. "She doesn't need an order. None of us do." She rushed out the section of the regulations. She didn't want him to hurt her again.
"Starfleet General Order Eight: The request for emergency assistance from Federation citizenry or non-aligned persons demands unconditional priority from Starfleet personnel. Such personnel shall immediately respond to said request, postponing all other activities"

A slight tilt of his head and a small squint from both of his eyes realized he still didn't quite comprehend the meaning of her revelations. A different line of questioning quickly began. "...You detected the distress signal yourselves...from your starship and nowhere else?"

IT seemed a strange question, and had she been capable of thinking of anything but the pain stick, she might have questioned it, or found it significant, but the ache of her body took away all capacity for anything beyond avoiding more pain. "Yes from the ship. it was a million to one chance we even picked it up."

A momentary pause ensued during which the Klingon pondered this new information. It didn't take long before the questioning resumed. "How far? At what range did you detect the transmission?"

She found herself doing the math on pure reflex. calculating a course was just part of how she thought. Thirty Six hours at warp eight, then ninety seconds at half impulse made it about. "four point two light years." she realised, saying it out loud before she could stop herself.

"On what frequency?" he then asked. If he could match the distance and extrapolate the signal strength, then he could determine the point of origin for the detection.

She shrank away from him, fearing what he would do. "I don't know. I'm a pilot. I just fly. I'm sorry. Please don't hurt me."

He thought of another way he could extrapolate the data he needed from her, even if she was just a pilot. "Four point two light years..." he repeated to himself, reaching down to input the data into his PADD. Suddenly an idea surfaced. "What was your intercept bearing to the signal when you detected it?"

It had hit them at three hundred forty one point two mark minus four point six. The numbers came easy as breathing but to give it up would tell him their entire course, assuming he had a navigator who could add up without taking his shoes off. And giving fleet movements, even innocent ones, to the enemy was illegal.

He swiftly backhanded her jaw then grabbed her by the throat. His large hand engulfed her neck and windpipe as he started to squeeze his fingers tighter and tighter. "Answer me!" he yelled.

She couldn't pull away, the chair saw to that, her ankles twisting futilely in their restraints as she tried to back away and only succeeded in letting him pin her to the back of the chair. After a moment of his rough hands squeezing down on her she was gasping for air. her face was tingling with lack of oxygen, she could hear the blood rushing in her ears. Everything went fuzzy round the edges.

She wanted to keep the secret but she wanted to live more. She gasped the bearings out on short raspy breaths.

The hand released on her throat and gave her the ability to suddenly breathe again, although the red fingerprints on her neck still lingered. He input the bearings he's given her into his data pad then quickly calculated Galileo's position in space when it had changed course. The distance was remarkable for such a low band frequency -- any starship capable of detecting that type of weak transmission from so far away must have had advanced sensors he had never come across. Even a Nova-class, from the data the Klingon Empire had stolen about its design specifications, should not have been able to detect it unless it was much closer.

"Your sensors," he continued, "what type were they. Give me the specifications."

She wanted to wipe the dampness from her face but she couldn't. The choking had brought more tears to her eyes and she had to put up with them streaming down her already dirt stained face leaving their tracks behind and they dripped inside her collar. The multiple bruises stacked hurt on top of hurt and she wished she had the answers.

He slapped her again in the same place on her face. A large tuft of her pink hair was quickly snatched from behind to hold her head in place. The lead guard in front nodded to the one behind before he turned his attention back to Derani. "Answer me, creature. Or I will turn your brain to mush as I extract the information from your neural impulses."

The sound of mechanical clicking and configuration could he heard in the background. Unseen to the prisoner, a device had been procured and was being arranged to fit around her head.

The loud clicks and snaps of something behind her stabbed a new fear into her mind, and she had to fight to keep her breathing even and not hyperventilate. With the Klingon’s fist in her hair she couldn't look away, all she could do was watch him with wide terrified eyes. "Please. I don't know, I'm a pilot. I don't know the technical specs. All I know is it’s just the standard scientific upgrade. I swear I don't know. I promise it’s the truth!"

"A senior pilot who knows nothing about your starship's navigational sensors?" A booming laugh echoed across the confined walls of the dirty interrogation cell. "Do you take me for a fool?!"

The device was brought above Derani's head from behind and then slowly lowered onto her skull. It was crude by Federation standards and the epitome of Klingon engineering. With a series of clicks and hisses, the new extraction device was fitted tightly around the woman's head.

Two glowing neuro-stimulators on either side of her temple were pressed firmly against her flesh while the chin and head straps were secured. Down at the bottom of the device, against her upper neck, the collar snapped into place. Two protruding mechanical bulges on each side clamped against her vulnerable tissues, and with a command from the Klingon operator, suddenly activated.

Five-inch long needles pierced her neck from either side at a crippled targ's pace. They punctured her skin and ever so slowly began to dig deep through her neck muscles and tendons, until they finally found her spinal column. There, each needle slowly drilled itself into her body's nervous column and began to inject a synthesized chemical compound.

Miraj screamed, and screamed and screamed.

It wasn't just the pain of the needles and their contents, but the sheer claustrophobia of having something trapped around her head and neck. "Take it off! Take it off! Take it off! I'll tell you. just take it off! Please. Please!" her voice was horse from the screaming, but she kept begging. "Take it off, I'll tell you!"

He stood and watched her yell with a delightful satisfaction. Who could have predicted that the mere attaching of the device would prompt such a response before it had even begun to pry into her brainwave patterns. A slow and satisfied smile spread across the Klingon's lips.
"Tell me about your starship's sensor arrays. Then I will remove the device...if your answers are satisfactory."

She really didn't know. and she needed it to stop so badly. the pain just seemed to surround her and she couldn't think through it. "It’s no one system, its lots." she shouted. "depends on how we fly. Different for real space than warp space. Stop and I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Please." forget the details of Galileo’s sensors. At that moment she'd do or say anything to stop the burning running up and down her spine, that felt like it was chewing at her hands and feet. it was utter agony and she just wanted it to stop. "Please. Please!"

He motioned to the guard behind her to begin the probing procedure. The rear guard tapped several commands into his data pad to link it to the device before turning to the wall-mounted computer terminal where he could monitor her progress.

With a soft whine, the device activated and each of the probing sensors on either side of her temples glowed bright red. Concentrated floods of invisible energy penetrated into Derani's soft brain tissue and began to course through her neural synapses. The information extraction was now underway, and her chance to avoid it had come and gone.

Miraj couldn’t do anything but scream.

[OFF]

--

Ensign Miraj Derani
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

Klingon Guards
IKS Neg Jok
[PNPC Saalm]

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