Moth and Scorpion
by AstroGirl
Scorpius found the prisoner... intriguing. Her energy signature was unlike any he had ever seen: not merely alien, but a complex amalgam of what appeared to be two entirely different alien types. Another hybrid, he'd deduced, correctly, as it happened, though the species she'd named -- "human," "cluster lizard" -- had meant nothing to him. In itself, this would have made her merely an interesting curiosity, but one which he would most likely not have had the leisure to investigate. The vehicle in which she had arrived, however, was another matter entirely: a marvel of bioengineering advanced enough to rival or surpass even the efforts of the legendary Builders of the Leviathans. And yet, this was no more than a small, short-range craft, clearly auxiliary to a much larger ship. Scorpius could barely imagine what the host vessel must be like, but he could easily imagine uses to which such technology might be put.
When questioned on the subject, however, the prisoner's answers had tended to the vague and evasive. She had offered little more than the vessel's name -- a single, meaningless syllable -- and an extravagant and implausible claim of its destructive power, doubtless intended as a deterrent against violence to her person. Sadly, she had seemed disinclined to trust him, despite attempts to win her cooperation. Whether this was a general habit based in bitter experience or some reaction to him personally, he had been unable to ascertain. In retrospect, perhaps he had made a misstep in forbidding her to fraternize with his officers, but he could see no viable alternative course. She had proved to be a disruptive influence among them. A Gammak Base cannot be run with a staff who are capable of thinking of nothing save recreation.
Regardless of its ultimate causes, the fact remained: he had reached the limits of friendly persuasion. The situation was made even more problematical by the strange, shifting nature of her energy signature, which left him unsure of his own ability to detect her falsehoods or her moods. Ultimately, there was little choice left to him if he wished to pry her secrets from her. It was time for the Aurora Chair.
He felt strangely regretful about this fact. He had, in fact, rather grown to like Xev.
He kept the first session short. A small calibration run was often useful, especially when dealing with an uncataloged species. Additionally, research had indicated that a brief first encounter with the Chair was frequently more effective in assuring subsequent cooperation than a more sustained and substantial probing. At some point, the physical and mental effects reached a point of diminishing return.
The initial results, while not especially informative, were interesting: Random, chaotic images which appeared to depict a world both dark and colorful, and almost wholly unfamiliar. Fragmentary glimpses of faces, several of which, confusingly, seemed to be the subject's own. Brief, contextless memories from which significance might or might not eventually emerge.
Scorpius made careful note of everything, of course, but it was the final image which truly captured his attention. A ship, massive in scale and utterly unfamiliar in design, floating in the midst of a field of debris that, a heartbeat earlier, had been a planet.
So. She had not been lying, after all.
He was forced to abandon the second session when his prisoner made a nearly-successful bid for escape.
It was a fascinating process to watch. Her aura surged and flickered, one of the two co-existing signatures flaring into dominance as she threw back her head and emitted a painful, high-pitched shriek that did not sound as if it could reasonably have come from a Sebaceanoid throat. The restraints, designed to hold any creature they could possibly be made to fit, stretched and tore as if they had been made of cheap cloth.
He lost two technicians and a guard before he was able to subdue her. It was most annoying.
He kept a supply of sedative drugs at hand thereafter, to be administered at the first sign of that particular disruption in her energy field. It worked effectively, but made for a number of frustratingly unproductive encounters.
Several times, she tried to seduce him. He found it somewhat disturbing how tempting the found the offer. Her entire body was awash with pheromones; his medical scientists had identified them easily, but being aware of their existence did not entirely serve to mitigate their effect. The gleam of challenging intelligence in her eyes was not helpful in that matter, either, nor was the throaty growl which seemed carefully calculated to appeal directly to the Scarran part of his brain.
On those sessions, he increased the extraction levels. As punishment, of course, for her arrogance in believing she could manipulate him.
He had difficulty relocating memories of the ship. She appeared to be attempting to protect them, whether because she wished to keep its weaponry from him or because, as she maintained, she feared for her companions, he still could not tell. Clearly, the weak-looking man her thoughts identified as "Stanley" was significant, but it was difficult to identify the source or the nature of his power. Her mind was strong, her will impressively stubborn, and all too frequently the Chair slid almost instantly away from the very areas he most desired to explore.
Often, it settled instead on memories of her childhood. A difficult, lonely time, it seemed, lived in isolation and degradation at the non-existent mercy of adults who regarded her as a broken tool, to be forced into useful shape or discarded.
When he came to understand this, he stopped the probing, for a time, and attempted to speak with her instead. He told her, in soft and measured words, the story of his own childhood, so similar in outline to her own. He described his desire to punish those who had treated him in that fashion, to protect those who had taken him in and recognized his worth. He offered her alliance, and an end to the unfortunate current hostility between them.
She simply looked at him, with tears streaking her face and something that might have been pity or disgust in her eyes. "You think everyone is like you. So crazy for revenge that it's all you can think about. But my parents, all the people who did those things to me... I don't care enough any more to want them dead. I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want to live."
After that, she made no more attempts to seduce him. He found it difficult to suppress a tiny feeling of regret.
He visited her cell between sessions, once. She opened her eyes to peer groggily up at him and said, "Kai?" He could see the disappointment on her face when she realized it was him.
After he left, the Stykera asked her the meaning of the name. Their resulting conversation, which Scorpius watched though the security system, was interesting but not especially illuminating.
When he questioned her on the subject later, all she would say was, "Kai will come for me."
He continued.
Xev's faith in this "Kai" quickly proved to be surprisingly well-founded; only a few solar days after this exchange Scorpius found himself regretting that he had not taken the time to probe into the subject further. Whatever process could enable a man to withstand every weapon a well-armed Peacekeeper base could wield against him and to slaughter dozens of highly trained soldiers unassisted would be nearly as useful as the planet-killing weapon possessed by Xev's ship. Although, Scorpius was compelled to admit, the latter's effects were even more impressive when seen close up than when viewed second-hand via the Aurora Chair. Despite his own careful precautions, he had barely escaped the moon's destruction himself. In the event of further encounters, he must be careful to revise his estimate of the weapon's effective radius upward.
The loss of the Gammak base, of course, was a significant setback, although he trusted not a permanent one. However, while he might have wished for a less destructive exit, he found that the prisoner's escape did not altogether displease him. He had not, if he were honest, experienced any great pleasure at keeping the woman in a cell. She belonged, as he did, free of the constricting captivity that had marked the cycles of her youth. Scorpius was content for her to have that, for a time. And then, when the neural chip had completed its function, she would return.
He was very much looking forward to seeing her again.