Aldrifg walked the warbird's corridors as if a nightmare engulfed her. She followed the soldiers' pace, feeling the points of their guns behind her. No one spoke. The Tal Shiar agents did not threaten anymore and the security officers did not taunt or menace them after they subdued. They were all grimly silent. She had learnt the vessel's name, Rhian'Unnr, and she had been told it was admiral Ajeya's flagship. She was feeling depressed. Still, nobody had explained them why they were been arrested and why they were supposed to be traitors.
The crew members they passed by looked at them with unhidden contempt. Inwardly, she stared at them. She wondered how her life could have changed so dramatically. She was supposed to be safe in the Tal Shiar as long as she followed orders, and she had always followed them. The military was supposed to be afraid of the Tal Shiar too; they were supposed to recoil and comply at the sight of their insignia.
But the Rhian'Unnr's crew was not scared. They defied them openly even if their thoughts were left unspoken. Their disdainful stares said what words did not, and their treatment.
They were in the detention area and the soldiers made them stop at one of the cells' threshold. There was only a force field separating the brig from the central area the guards occupied. Aldrift knew it was more than enough. It was probably set high enough to seriously injure the prisoner who dared to touch it, but not high enough to kill them, just as the Tal Shiar did.
She would have gone in by herself, but one of the guards roughly shoved her inside, hitting her with his rifle's butt. She fell to the floor and raised her eyes to met colonel Coltan's. The guards had already activated the force field again and all her fellow crewmembers were huddled together inside the cell.
She hurried to get up. "Colonel Coltan! Sir!" She stood at attention. The other agents were doing the same. Aldrifg's spirits rose at the sight of her commanding officer. She thought for an instant that with his presence everything would be solved out. But the man did not react to any of them. Aldrifg took on his eyes once more; they looked forward, fixed on some point far away, and they were inexpressive and vacant.
Aldrifg shuddered, and changed her stance to a parade rest; it was obvious the colonel was not going to address them back. She wondered if he had noticed them. The cryptographer was bolder and neared him. He was seated at the floor, his back resting on the wall. She knelt by his side and touched him; when he did not react either, she shook him. "Colonel? Sir? Can you hear me?"
The three security guards turned sharply against their military counterparts and shouted angrily at them. You! What have you done?" They spat at them the worst expeliatives they knew as once more threatened them and their families with torture and dead.
Their menaces and curses hardly penetrated Alfrifg's head; she watched as the non-commissioned officer also neared the colonel and tried to talk with him. His jacket and his boots were missing, but he was still wearing the rest of his uniform. He seemed untouched. But then, she knew the Tal Shiar had many interrogation techniques that left no apparent damage while they were no less harmful. She grimly realized the fleet could use them too.
She also turned towards the door. She could tell now that some of the soldiers were uneasy but they did not waver and remained at their posts doing their best to ignore the threats issued towards them. Her eyes hardly focused on them, though. She looked further away, to the two other rooms that made up the security area apart from the cells. Her mind reminded her what they were: the interrogation room, it whispered to her as she swept her gaze over it, and the one for executions. They also were closed by force fields and she could see part of the interior.
Her heart sank, and she slumped her shoulders in defeat. There was a crewman cleaning the execution room. Her eyes stayed transfixed there for a minute, watching him in shock. The two agents had stopped trying to make the colonel react; he seemed to be in a catatonic state and was not coming back. They sat by his side, furious but defeated. Her fellow engineers looked gloomly at her; they were also extremely distressed. They sat discouraged too, and one of them asked despairingly, "But what's going on? What's going to happen to us? I don't understand."
There were many things Aldrifg did not understand, but there were others she understood very well. She still stared at the uniformed man as he mopped the room. She recalled the new names she had learnt: admiral Ajeya, commander Raghnill; they were the superior officers in the Rhian'Unnr. If she were a noble-born, or if she belonged to a powerful family, she could call a feud against them and someone in her family would avenge her. If she were important, she could expect some justice, some retribution for what was to come. But she was just a poor commoner and a lowly junior officer nobody cared about. Nobody would ever help her. She sat at the floor with her comrades and fought the urge to cry her despair.