A/N: Hello everyone! I just wanted to say it's been so good to write again but I want to get back on track with a schedule as well. Going forward chapter posts will go up once a week. I'm going to try for Friday evenings but depending on my work load it may end up being early Saturdays or Sundays. That said, here we go 😊


Karfa carried her back onto the transport, Ray's head lolling on his shoulder as she fought to stay awake, to stay present in the here and now. She could not sink into catatonia, no matter how desperate she was to escape- some way, any way- the horrible sentence that had been laid upon her head.

Despite her best efforts the world seemed to draw away from her and then return in sickly swelling bursts, her thoughts spinning and fading away only to return to an almost painful sharpness.

Karfa hadn't needed to tell her he was pleased, that he was very much looking forward to doing everything he'd told the Emperor he'd do to her. She could feel it slathering his skin as if he were coated in a stinking sweat.

He said nothing more to her as he carried her back into the transport, locking her into place. She didn't know where they were going, and didn't try to probe to find out. What did specifics matter? She knew what would happen to her when she got there.

She wanted desperately to again reach out, find out where Parry and the others were. Parry had heard her for a moment, in that cramped container where she and the other two had been stowed; Ray was sure of that. If she could find Parry again, give her a message, perhaps the resistance would be able to get to Ray, get her out before Karfa could make good on his promise of a live vivisection- but she dared not even try. Who was to say that if she attempted such a thing Karfa could not follow her thoughts- follow her- right to Parry? He'd realize that she and the others hadn't been killed, that this Elie Kaan was part of the Kilrathi resistance. She'd paint an arrow right to them.

He seemed content at the moment not to try and break through the doors to her mind again, but the mood could strike him at any time to do so. If he put any real effort into it, he'd shatter through that think and pitiable barrier with little effort. When that happened, her knowledge of Parry, Jon, and Diane's survival and rescue at the hands of the resistance would be his for the plucking.

She had to think, had to work the problem in her mind, to figure some way to get away from Karfa- or, failing that, to kill herself before she could compromise Parry and the others with her weakness. She still did not want to die, but if she had to, she would pick death before she betrayed Parry, even involuntarily. She would certainly pick almost any other kind of death than the one he had planned for her.

She had to think, but could not. She'd had only those few real sips of water since Karfa had taken her from the cell. She'd had no food in longer than she could recall. She was weak, starving, exhausted, and her terror had only served to make her more so.

Have to think, can't think. Must. Can't.

Her body betrayed her and she fell into a sleep that was more like a stupor. Trapped by her restraints in a seated position she slumped forward, head hanging, the world vanishing for a time.

Consciousness fought to return after a hazy amount of time, and she realized she was being carried again. The faint sting of antiseptic came to her and almost violently her consciousness rebelled, careening her back into sleep- back into hiding- before she could prevent it.

When she woke the next time, she was alone in a narrow, windowless room, laid upon something that was barely a thin blanket on the hard concrete. A barred door stood at the other end of the room, the shimmer there showing it was sealed with energy much as the Prince's cell had been back in the Houston brig. Save that point, the cell back on Houston had been palatial compared to this one. Her entire body screamed and ached at her as she managed to sit up, the hard floor having done none of her joints any favors. Save the blanket and a cursory lavatory, there was nothing else at all within the cell.

Her weakness seemed to have draped over her in a weighted cloak. Her dry lips were cracked and she faintly tasted blood when her tongue brushed over them. She realized that the crude little wooden prosthetic had been taken away, Karfa denying her of even that poor luxury. The only thing that seemed improved was her clothing. As she'd slept, someone had stripped off the tattered uniform, cleaned her, and dressed her in a rough garment that looked as if it had started life as a sack of some description, and felt made of something similar to cheviot. As near as she could tell she was naked underneath.

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to move, to leverage enough to get into a sitting position in the corner. She looked desultorily at the lav; it seemed a joke of some kind. With no food and so little water in her system for days she doubted she'd ever have enough waste to use it.

She had no idea the hour or day. Her body wanted to doze again but she fought it with more success this time. It did not seem like Karfa or the other one, the one that had flown the transport, were anywhere nearby, but she did not go hunting for them. She did not want to alert them that she was conscious, to bring their attention to her if they were occupied elsewhere. She did not know if the other man was like she and Karfa were, but she suspected not.

Escape. She had to escape. If not this cell, then at the very least the fate that Karfa had planned for her. She could rush the bars, but they would only shock her into unconsciousness. Karfa would make sure that the voltage wasn't enough to kill. Her eyes fell from there to the cinderblock walls. If she managed to get up enough speed, would she be able to hit the wall with her head hard enough to break her neck, or shatter her skull?

She let out a faint, bitter laugh that sounded more like an old hinge creak than a human voice. That was ambitious. Even if she had the energy to get up to her one leg, she could not run; could not manage anywhere near the proper speed in so short a space she would need to even raise a bruise, let alone break something important.

The lav was useless as a tool, affixed to the wall and with only a handful of chemicals to neutralize waste. She could not drown in it, and drinking the chemicals would only make her vomit.

The blanket?

She eyed the tatty little length of cloth she had been laying on a moment, before her thin and shaking fingers caught hold of the edge and pulled it into her grip. It was thin, but the length was nearly right. If she could twist it and get it tied around her neck, she may have just enough strength to pull it tightly enough to cut off her air. She'd pass out quickly, and provided her captors did not look in on her soon, she'd likely be dead before they could interfere.

Fumbling more than a few times as her hands trembled, she began to painstakingly twist the cloth, keeping one end gripped between her bare toes so it would not unspin. She had only gotten about a third of it haphazardly coiled when she heard footsteps, felt Karfa's presence. As quickly as she was able, she let the makeshift rope unravel and spread the blanket flat again, then scooted her ass and sat on it just as Karfa appeared in the door. He looked well-fed and well-rested, turning off the energy field and unfastening the cell door as he beamed in at her. "I was hoping you'd be awake," he said. Ray edged herself up, sliding her foot beneath her as he got the cell door open.

He laughed as she lunged for him, and Ray could not blame him. The lunge had been little better than a clumsy fall in his direction, her hands fumbling over his legs as she sought purchase, accomplishing nothing more than tearing one of her fingernails on the cloth of his uniform. Reaching down he took her by the back of her neck as he might a disobedient Kilrathi cub and lifted her one handed to her foot.

"Save your strength, little Mouse," he said. "It is already going to be easy to break you. I would much prefer it if you offered at least a small challenge."

He spun her, wrapping one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulders until she was pinned against his chest and belly, her foot dangling a foot or so off the ground. Thus, he carried her out of the cell and into the corridor. Swinging her foot she tried to kick back at him, but the few times her heel managed to catch him there was so little force behind it that his stride didn't even falter.

He took her into another room, and there half set, half dropped her into a hard chair near a metal table. He shoved the chair forward as she nearly pitched right out of it again, and her hands slapped into the table to catch herself.

Karfa slapped his own hand down on her wrist. With little meat on them to pad the motion, she felt the bones in her arm grate as he pressed down onto the table, looming over to speak in her ear once again.

"Behave yourself, little Mouse, or you will get no cheese."

She couldn't help the whine that escaped her clenched lips as the burning pain in her arm grew, and she hated herself for it. He ground the heel of his hand down harder on her wrist to drive home his point, then released her as the door opened a second time. Ray smelled the food instantly and it felt as though her stomach was trying to escape to get to it all on its own.

The man who had accompanied Karfa to the prison cell and then piloted the transport was here again. In his hands he carried a platter with several small slices of what looked like meat upon it, and a mug of something. The plate was set in front of her and her hand snatched, with as much mind of its own as her stomach. She had a handful of the sliced meat nearly to her mouth before she could exert her will over her body parts enough to bring it to a trembling halt. Fingers shaking more wildly than ever, she forced them apart, forced herself to release her hold. The slices spilled down onto the table and her lap.

"You can do this with a full belly, Mouse, or you can do it with an empty one and an IV in your arm, but either way, it's going to be done," Karfa tsked as he looked at the mess she'd made. She glared at him as best she could, wrapping the betraying hand in the other one and clenching both to her chest. He smiled at her, then looked at his companion.

"IV it is then. Bring it."

The other one slipped out again and Karfa moved to the other side of the small table. Reaching out, he caught the plate and pulled it toward himself. He began to eat, and as he took a healthy swig from the mug she felt her trembling strengthen, and gripped her hands together even tighter.

Water dribbled from his chin as he set the mug back on the table with a hearty, satisfied sound.

In her thin, sandpapered voice she said, "Why do you call me Mouse?"

"You tell me," he said, and a few more slices of meat disappeared behind his lips. She knew that he meant her to reach out to his mind to find the answer but she didn't have to. Her dry tongue scrubbed her lips again a moment before she lifted her eyes from his mouth and fixed his gaze.

"Because you are stupid enough to think calling me Mouse to your 'Cat' is clever," she said.

His nostrils flared and one sharp canine was revealed as he sneered. "Watch yourself, Ape."

"Or you'll dissect me alive?" she asked, and let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob. "I don't think you have much to threaten me with here, do you?"

The force of his blast to her mind was both startling and unexpected. She saw it coming only a moment before it hit and it tore through the thin doors of her psyche as a bullet might through cloth. She reeled, both physically and mentally. The chair she was in rocked with the force of it, and she spilled back, hitting the floor with a painful crash.

Karfa rose to his feet, slapping the table aside. The plate crashed into the wall and dropped with a clatter, the mug clanging loudly was water splashed. A step and he yanked her up again. This time his hand was around her throat, cutting off her wind as he started to throttle her.

Then, just as fast as the attack had started, it was over. Air gasped back into her lungs as he released her and let her fall to the floor.

"That was good, little Mouse," he said, grabbing the table and righting it again. "You nearly had me. You can peek inside, can't you?"

She caught her breath, yet another of those rusted sounds escaping her. Even she didn't know if it was truly a laugh or an expression of her despair. "I don't have to look inside your mind to see your ego," she said at last. "It is bigger than this room. No one can miss it."

"That won't work again, Mouse," he said warningly. "The only way you are going to die is under my knife, alive and aware of every cut, I swear this to you."

The other one came in again. If seeing her crumpled on the floor surprised him, he gave no sign. Karfa set her chair upright again and then scooped her up, dropping her once more into its seat, and grabbing her arm. He ground her wrist just as hard into the table this time as he had the first, allowing his compatriot to insert the IV needle. He did not release her after the IV was set, but his companion moved his chair over so that Karfa could sit down. He looked into Ray's eyes, and though her head ached and her ears were ringing, she forced herself to look back.

"I did not want to be so violent with you," he said low, a sigh dancing on the edge of his voice. "Creatures such as you and I, we should be above such considerations."

She said nothing. She had no weapons left. He'd broken her defenses and she could feel it was going to take time and energy she didn't have to put them right again. She was, as he had mentioned once of himself, 'wide open'. He had already proven he could kick in her doors, and not even those were there to stop him now from strolling right on in and seeing everything of her there was to see at a glance.

Strolling right on in…

A glimmer of a thought came to her then, and as it began to clarify she quickly hid it away again, dragging another thought up into the fore of her mind quickly. If she no longer had doors to keep him out, perhaps taking advantage of his ego in other ways might keep those things she wanted to protect safe.

She put her mind deliberately to Parry- not that she was still alive, not that her death had been a ruse- but rather to the memory of her kneeling chained in that chamber in the Muhs OhDann. She remembered Chiv and his malice and that wicked baton. She remembered Parry's screams of agony and forced herself to pull that image in particular into bright focus.

Ray's nostrils flared as she remembered how that chamber had smelled- thick with sweat and iron and blood. Chiv was at the height of his torturous frustration, all but roaring his questions at the human woman. Parry had literally bit her lip, her teeth sinking deep, to keep from answering and Chiv let fly, cracking her across the face with his baton.

Ray remembered in stereoscopic sound the impact of the baton on Parry's grimy cheek. The way her head whipped to the side, blood flying in an arc from the blow. She remembered how she had felt there, disembodied and watching this cruelty- unable to help, unable to flee and leave Parry alone to this. She felt Parry's pain and grief and her own burned within her. She let it rise, let it fill her.

The IV had not been in long enough to allow her tears but her chest ached and burned and her throat closed under the memory of it. She pulled in all of the anger and helplessness and the pain. She swelled with it. She gave him what he wanted and her soul burned with it.

She didn't notice that Karfa had released her hand. That she was once again curled on the ground, her hands wound around her head and her fingers clenched in her hair. The pinch of the IV needle now trapped and grinding in the crook of her elbow was lost in the emotional pain she surrounded herself in, filled herself in. That crack of the baton. Parry's bruised and exhausted face. Those raining drops of blood as perfect and beautiful as distant planets in the dark.

Distantly, so distantly, she heard Karfa speaking.

"So, you were able to see her," he said, pleased.

The crack. The bruises. The eyes that had almost given up. Her grief, her pain. That blood.

"She will give us even more justice for Her Grace than I dreamed," Karfa said at the far end of the galaxy. "I thought them only close friends but no…there is so much more here. She was able to see the Angel's torture on the Muhs OhDann though she herself lay four star systems away on the brink of death. Take her back to her cell for now. I must make preparations for our next session. Now that I have broken her it should be easy. I am eager to see what our biological samples will reveal when it comes time to slice up that brain. And Retov, take a look over her cell again. Be absolutely sure that there is nothing in there with which she can kill herself. Apes do not have the same civilized thoughts about suicide as we do, and the Kilrathi people cannot be robbed of their vengeance."

The crack. The bruises. The eyes. Grief. Pain. I'm so sorry I couldn't get to you. I'm so sorry you died-

Ray vaguely felt Retov removing the IV, then lifting and carrying her. She held on to the memory, consumed in it, until after she felt Karfa fade away from her mind. When Retov lay her back down in her cell, she stayed curled, her face hidden by the arms still wound around her head. Her heaving, shuddering breaths made her heart race and her chest ache. Retov paused a moment as he looked over the cell, and then she felt the blanket slide from beneath her. She slowly let the horrible memory fall back and focused on the Cat.

He took the blanket with him as he left the cell. He also took something else with him, something he did not intend.

Curled on the hard floor in the dark and hidden behind her arms, Ray smiled.