Saben groaned. He remembered something. What was it? It was hovering just on the edge of his consciousness. There was a flash of something else.
The cold steel of the restraints bolted to his wrist snapped him back into focus. He was strapped to a platform. Numerous small devices hung off to the side, including needles and small saws. The restraints were strapped tightly around his wrists, waist, neck, thighs and his feet were slapped into tight stirrups that cupped them in a cold metallic embrace. He wore his Starfleet uniform, damp with his sweat.
He remembered what it was he trying to focus on.
"Saben Trax, Captain, USS Thunderchild, United Federation of Planets, Service Number 44AA9885."
"Yes, Captain Trax, I've heard this tale before." the cold voice drifted in the darkness of the room. His bed was bathed in a sharp white light, the rest of the room was dark. At best, he could make out some shapes moving in the darkness but otherwise it was as if he were alone, save for the voice.
The speaker stepped into view again. He looked so young, black hair kept in a short crew cut and a nose that looked as if he may have been in a brawl in his youth, slightly pushed to the side, otherwise a young handsome face. His intense brown eyes regarded Saben with sympathy.
"I am trying to save you, Captain. This troublesome tendency of yours to repeat information that I can discern by reading your identity chit is hardly what I am looking for."
"Saben Trax, Captain, USS Thunderchild, United Federation of Planets, Service Number 44AA9885." He replied more forcefully now, putting more emphasis on each word. He stared hard at the young man dressed in black.
"Perhaps we did not make ourselves clear earlier, hmmm?" the young man gestured with a finger and one of the small attachments suddenly came to life, it buzzed like a drill and slowly swung over to his arm. Saben's eyes widened and he stared at it.
"Pain is such a terrible thing to have to endure." The drill bit into his flesh and he threw back his head against the metal frame of the bed and screamed. There was no blood, only pain. He could feel it, tearing through his flesh but his uniform remained untouched.
"The phase needle is just one of the many implements I have at my disposal. There are more…invasive methods I could apply. Perhaps you would like to have a look at your insides, Captain? There are drugs I can give you that would keep you awake and completely lucid even as I slowly extracted your intestines and handed them to you."
Saben's screams stopped as the needle buzzed back away from his arm. The young man leaned in closer.
"You do want to talk don't you?" He touched his forehead. His skin was dry and cool, Saben's hot and damp with perspiration. Saben began to nod and stopped himself suddenly. Something within him wanted to respond to the young man, wanted to tell him everything but he grit his teeth and centered himself.
"Why endure this?" He asked seriously.
"Saben..., Trax,.. Captain.., USS Thunderchild.., United.. Federation.. of.. Planets, Service… Number.. 44AA9885." Saben replied, ignoring the dimming of his sight.
"I can take so much from you, Captain. Not just your sight."
Saben found himself plunged in darkness. He struggled vainly. He could not see and it panicked him. He had never liked darkness, ever since his father lost his sight in an engineering accident he had been afraid of blindness. To live in a world of darkness was greater than any pain.
"I know about your father." The young man whispered in his ear. "I can give you back your sight with but a thought." Suddenly Saben could see again. The young man hovered over him, face impassive like that of a surgeon. "There is nothing to gain from suffering any more Captain. I am trying to spare you the agony that will undoubtedly come if you continue to deny me."
The young man pursed his lips for a moment and nodded to himself.
"I can imagine that you are trying to be strong for the sake of your crew. But I must tell you that they have all spoken, they were all quite malleable to our will. Why remain strong if they have refused to be as resolute as you?"
"Liar." Saben spat through dry cracked lips.
The young man smiled. It was as if Saben's response was precisely what he had been waiting for.
"Captain, allow me to adjust this table slightly." The young man moved his hand gently along the top of the table, he did not touch any controls but the table suddenly slipped down and pivoted, putting Saben in a semi-standing position. A hologram fluttered into being. He recognized the face. Security chief Lehman was hesitantly looking up at the imager.
"You killed my men." He accused, eyes locked on the unseen observer in impotent anger. He was in a similar table, strapped down.
"They resisted the Empire, their fate was sealed the moment they took up arms against us." The voice was not the young man's it was a woman's voice and Saben recognized it as the voice of the woman who had stormed onto his bridge.
"They surrendered to you in engineering and you gunned them down in cold blood you heartless-!" Ben shouted.
"Let us begin." She said emotionlessly.
The hologram fluttered, obviously an edit and then Ben seemed to be unconscious on the table. A woman's hand drifted into view and touched a control on the table. A small needle jabbed Ben in the thigh and he awoke suddenly as if he had been slapped, his eyes wide with fear and breathing hard like a jackhammer.
"Stop!" he shouted.
"I haven't begun, yet, Mr. Lehman. I was just awakening you for the next step in the interrogation. You remember these, don't you?" Two large saw like devices sprung out at chest level and hovered menacingly over Ben. His eyes betrayed absolute terror. "Our medical droids had trouble keeping you alive last time because of the lack of adrenaline you had in your system, but with the new drugs we've administered that should not be a problem….would you like me to begin now? Perhaps this time we will simply explore the nerve endings before plunging right in, hmmm?"
"Stop it! Stop! This is inhuman!"
"No, Mr. Lehman. Inhuman is the next stage of the interrogation. This is simply the preliminaries." The voice replied coolly. Ben's eyes widened as far as they could, nearly bulging as the soft whine began and the blades slowly descended towards him.
"Stop please, I'll tell you what you want to know but stop it!" He screamed with an agonizing mix of utter despair and shame.
The blades stopped an inch from his flesh.
"That wasn't so hard, now was it, Mr. Lehman? Let us discuss the tactical layout of your starship's security grids. Leave no detail out because I will know."
Ben nodded and his head fell back against the metal frame of the bed in utter defeat.
"Turn it off." Saben asked.
Ben started to sob softly and the camera focused on his tormented face.
"Turn it off!" Saben shouted.
"As you wish." the hologram shimmered and disappeared. The young man turned to regard Saben neutrally.
"You broke him down, tortured him. What are you people, animals? Humans don't do this to each other."
The young man looked genuinely surprised for a moment.
"Your crew all clung to that notion until we started being inhuman as you put it. We are very much human and we will get what we want, Captain. This is my last plea to you, save yourself. The agony that I have in store for you will make your security chief's pain insignificant. There is no hope, there is no way you can stand against us. Your communications officer was a member of a race you know as Beta Zeds. He tried to shut his mind away using psionic trickery." The young man smiled coldly. "I disabused him of the notion that his psionic talents were any match for the dark side of the Force. Unfortunately his mind could not stand the stress of my probes and he is no longer…sentient, I believe the term is."
"You took Lieutenant Wood's mind?" Saben gasped in shock and revulsion.
"Took is a difficult word, I prefer the term tear. I tore it out from him. He has been executed as a mercy. I do not think your crew would want to see the twitching, drooling mess that remained of that young man."
"Monster." Saben spat.
"Why this loyalty, Captain? You are defending an institution that routinely discards its citizens as if they were nothing more than spare parts. I believe that you had a war with a race known as Cardasians. To seal the peace, your government sacrificed hundreds of thousands of colonists and the worlds they called home. The colonists that refused to leave their homes were summarily expelled from your peace loving empire and left to the mercies of your enemies." The young man leaned in closer, anger in his eyes. "Then when the colonists, no longer your citizens actually started winning their insurrection against your former enemy, your government cravenly began to assist the Cardasians in hunting them down, opposing their bid for life and freedom, despite the fact that you knew they were supplying their own colonists with weapons….shameful really. To give up territory for peace is unthinkable in the New Order. You see, Captain, in my galaxy, the Empire actually PROTECTS its citizens. We do not barter away their worlds and their lives because we fear any more bloodshed in battle. We do battle and die for the citizens of the Empire because it is expected of us."
Saben stared in shock, where had he gotten such detailed information in such a short time?
"I would have very much liked to have met these Maquis, they must have had such steel, passion, but then again, they conveniently all died in the war against the Dominion. I do believe that they requested assistance from your government and again were ignored. Is there no shame?" the young man asked pointedly.
"I don't have to explain myself or the Federation to the likes of you!" Saben replied bitterly.
The young man looked down at him and his smile was one of ice.
"Won't or can't, Captain. I wonder which one it is." The young man paused and sighed softly.
"Tell me what I wish to know." His voice had a strange quality to it, and again Saben nearly responded, as if he wanted to reply to please him, but again he reigned himself in and grit his teeth.
He locked eyes with the young man.
"Saben Trax, Captain, USS Thunderchild, United Federation of Planets, Service Number 44AA9885." He stated stonily.
The young man remained frozen in place for a moment, blinked, then nodded. He turned away and suddenly a strange floating globe drifted into view. It was spehreical, black and a single red eye regarded everything with a detached calm. He also noted the gruesome attachments along the body of the sphere - Sharp, wicked attachments.
"Break him. Break his body, do with it what you will, but break him physically. Once he is broken I will come for his mind…spare him no pain, the only authorized drugs are the ones to keep him awake and lucid." He ordered. The droid slowly floated towards Saben.
"Oh, and one more thing Captain." The young man raised his hand and made a cutting motion. A curtain of darkness dropped across his vision. Saben struggled then he heard the buzzing of the vibroblades.
The buzz became a hiss as it touched flesh and then there was only the pain and the darkness.