RECAP of Chapter 10:

Tyler and Kriger, an officer in engineering, conspire to get rid of Lorca, but Tyler doesn't do a good job of it this time either. Lorca talks down to him for a bit, then makes him do the grunt work for the spore project. Tyler goes to Culber to whine and they do drugs together. They talk about how the prime universe is evil because communism.

Meanwhile, Lorca tries to woo Zralisss by letting her beat him in a combat simulation. He's all out of chiefs of security after all, but it turns out, Zralisss isn't into that. Lorca continues to be out of chiefs of security.

The crew does crew things (Just re-read the last paragraph if in doubt, it's short. If I summarise it here, it'll be the same length.)

Chapter 12: Quick and Dirty

The conversation she had just come away from gnawed at the back of Julieta Rubau's head as she made her way through the dim, seemingly abandoned corridors to the captain's door.

"I don't like it," she said. "That's the best you've got for me?"

A shrug and a smile was her answer even before her two co-conspirators exchanged a look. "You don't have any of the expertise, you're a blunt tool," one said.

"Fuck you," she sneered but knew it was true. Most of this required expert technical knowledge and an ability to be subtle with the computers, none of which featured anywhere in her skillset.

"Look at it like this," the other said, a little more mildly to appease her. "At least he's fully human, easy on the eye and you'd probably get a good fuck out of it. I got none of that."

Hard to argue with that, either.

"Wait, you don't want to fuck him?"

She couldn't come up with a clever response before her co-conspirators exchanged a look, one of the chuckling. "You know that's not the important part of the plan, right?"

"Just saying, if he's into getting tied up, that'd make everything a lot easier."

"I'm not stupid," she snarled.

"Fine, just pack him up for delivery. I don't care how. Just don't kill him."

So that was the end of that part of the conversation. It irked her mostly because it was the tactically soundest way they could go about this. The Defiant was due to enter the Arc solar system soon and Lorca had retired to his cabin, probably so he would be at his best when they arrived. She kept mulling it over, though, Lorca had shown himself to be perceptive to manipulation attempts, there was a risk he would see right through her the moment she showed up at his doorstep and then the entire plan would backfire. Instead of him being oblivious and distracted he would be alert and aware something was brewing on his ship.

The alternative was he would just humiliate her again and throw her out. She couldn't quite decide if that was a preferable outcome or not. On a personal level, probably, on a conspiratorial level less so.

The door came into view along the bent, watched over by the kelpien's unblinking gaze. She stood with her back to the wall opposite the door. Given the position of her eyes, she would be seeing in both directions down the corridor, but the Captain's door itself would be hidden from her. Sucks to be a prey animal, Rubau thought sourly.

"I want to speak with the captain," Rubau said.

Irsa studied her for way too long, then made a gesture towards the door. "I apologise," Irsa said quietly. "I'm not a secretary, please speak to the captain directly."

Rubau looked back at her, frowning, but turned to the door, braced herself and waved at the sensor. It slid open with only a short delay, without the captain waiting right behind it.

Already caught on the back-foot, Rubau stepped inside, vaguely relieved the room was in comfortable twilight, not the glare Lorca sometimes surrounded himself with.

"Lieutenant Rubau," Lorca greeted her and she couldn't read in his tone. Pleased? Surprised? Annoyed? Could be any of these. Or all.

"Julieta," she corrected him. The door closed behind her.

Lorca lounged along the couch at the back of the room and had only turned his head towards her. He swung his legs around and got up, half a step in her direction. He chuckled to himself.

"I suppose you have something to add?" he said. Casually dressed, barefoot, it was difficult to figure out where in the sliding scale of captain talking to a subordinate they currently were.

He strode to a cabinet by the wall to retrieve a bottle and two tumblers of black glass. He studied the bottle, laces of gold along its length and a digital label hovering just above its surface.

"Remember this?" he asked, though it probably was rhetorical. "There was a crate of it on that cruise ship. The one with the kelpien meat."

The kelpien meat he'd jettisoned with an expression other people reserved for the execution of their nemesis. She did remember, she had been part of the boarding party.

"Portora Aurea," Lorca read. "Romulans making the best bourbon in the galaxy isn't something I saw coming. But I guess they know their liquor."

He poured generously and then stepped towards her, holding out one of the glasses.

She took the glass but only so she could hold on to it.

"I wouldn't know how to appreciate it," she said looking from his hand to his eyes.

He held her gaze for a moment, weighing her and her intentions then took a sip of his own.

She would be lying if she claimed she had never been attracted to Gabriel Lorca, but it was an aesthetic thing first and foremost. She had never met him up close, her brother had recruited her, like many others, to be one of the foot soldiers in a far greater war. She hadn't minded it then, just took what additional enjoyment she could get just from watching imperial propaganda and his own, more subtle talks to his followers. She had never, not even for the moment of a fleeting fantasy, thought of standing right in front of him like this. And, well, this one might be another man, but there were no differences she could see.

He said, "I do, humour me."

He must have known she would know better than to reach for him, perhaps it amused him, some small kick out of the power of it, but when he traced her jawline to tilt her head towards him, his touch was disturbingly gentle. His kiss was slow, heated sizzling with the romulan bourbon, leaving her breathless far quicker than it should have. The easiest way to play-pretend, of course, was to just not pretend and she temporarily didn't remember her ulterior motives, letting him coax her responses from her.

She finally did reach for him and he immediately broke away, leaving her too confused to catch up until he'd already secured the glass of bourbon in her hand before she could spill it all in her clumsy attempt to embrace him.

"If you don't want it, at least don't waste it," he said, notably amused at her reactions. A wash of anger over the minor humiliation had put a hot flush over her face, making her even angrier.

He put her untouched glass away on top of the cabinet but knocked back his own, clearly disregarding his earlier stance on the values of this particular drink.

She had enough sense to wait for the glasses to be out of his hands before she reached for him, gripped both his wrists to still his hands and lever herself up to kiss him again, with all her anger, forcefully, and delighted at how docilely he followed her lead.

She pulled them around, some haphazard dance across the room to where she vaguely remembered the bed was. She found his lower lip to bite and barely didn't let them both come up for air before it started to bleed.

At some point, she'd forgotten to keep a hold of him, because was making quick work of the clasps of her shirt. She retaliated by tucking at his already loose clothes to get at bare skin.

"Let's have some ground rules," he said, more composed than she would have liked at this point. "There is no promotion here. You want to leave, you leave. I want you to leave, you leave."

She was barely paying attention. They undressed themselves and each other with military efficiency, pulling off clothes to touch and claw at bared skin.

She liked the way he allowed himself to fall backwards on the bed. He came off it again immediately to sling an arm around her waist and bring her down on top of him.

Through some of the carnal haze, she remembered some distant objective and caught his wrists again. "I want to tie you up," she whispered.

Lorca laughed, arching his head into the pillow and exposing his neck even as he extricated his hands from her control, answer enough for her to stop pushing the idea.

Gloomily, Ferasini listened to the science officer outline the sensor readings from Arc. The Defiant was holding position less than an hour out from the planetary system, just outside where they would show up on a concerted scan even while fully cloaked.

Unlike Yemuro, Arc had put most of its focus on automation rather than manned patrols, especially when guarding the outer rim of the system. The planetary system itself was fairly bare, several distant gas giants, Arc itself and no other rocky planets.

A series of three large, artificial satellites housed one civilian and two military shipyards, their connection towers forming a triangle, itself on a solar orbit at the same distance as Arc. The place didn't have the best reputation. The military presence had gradually eroded as the borders of the Empire expanded away from it. It was a resource-poor area of the quadrant, known for recurring plasma storms and rogue asteroids. Naturally, it had attracted pirates and smugglers to build their hideouts. It was no Risa, of course, nothing nearly so powerful, but a place where trouble simmered constantly.

"There are five Draco-class heavy fighters permanently stationed on Arca Prima Station," the science officer said.

"Internal communications indicate two of them have been dry-docked for general maintenance," Zhang added.

The science officer nodded, "It means they will need at least three hours to be deployed, provided they are space-worthy."

"Are they?" Ferasini prompted while she viewed the specs of the Draco ships in the console of her armrest.

"I'm not sure, commander," Zhang said. "I'm just listening in on their comm chatter."

The Draco were built for fights within a planetary system, at a maximum speed of warp three they weren't going anywhere else fast. Small enough to be docked with a dreadnought, but massive enough to give any pirate ship a run for its money. Heavily armed and armoured, crewed by no more than twelve.

"Shock troops," Ferasini said aloud when she read that part of the description. That was their primary tactic. Knock a target out with their firepower, then drown them in shock troops, finishing the fight when it had barely just began. The ships used narrow-scatter mass transporter beams to put boots on the ground rapidly. There would be some loss in transit, the narrow-scatter beams were notoriously error-prone, but wastage didn't matter much with those numbers.

"Ten thousand," the science officer said. "Two thousand per ship."

Ferasini said nothing for a moment. "Where are the other three ships?"

She waited, outwardly patiently, while the information of the passive sensor sweep trickled in. When the time stretched, she tilted her head towards the officer.

"Uh," the officer said. "They are docked at Arca Prima and Arca Tertia."

"Not dry-docked?"

"No, tethered via umbilical."

"I don't hear anything specific about that," Zhang added. "But they should normally be deployed on patrol routes, not clustered in one place like this."

Ferasini allowed the chair to rotate towards the science station, allowing her to glance over Zhang briefly.

"Smells like a trap," Zhang muttered and Ferasini studied him for a moment.

"I agree, lieutenant," she said. "Let Lorca know we are here."

Julieta Rubau liked her sex quick and hard, she had no patience for slow, incremental dallying. Lorca, she had expected to be slow and demure, easy to tame once she got herself over him. Instead, he turned out to be a beast after her own heart. She would have gladly ridden him to completion, more than once at that, but she didn't mind when he wrapped his arms around her waist, first pulling her down over him, only to disengage, chuckling darkly. He flipped her around so fast it left her disoriented and so expertly she'll hate having to wrestle him. Head down into the pillows, she might as well be drowning. He put his body all over her, heated skin, clever fingers, an unrelenting hold from loosely wrapped pressure around her throat to blessed release and his hand flat between her shoulder blades, crushing and fucking her into the welcoming sheets.

He didn't linger afterwards, either, although she'd heard different stories. He pulled out and away from her, still panting, the mattress shivered with the tension still uncoiling from his limbs. His weight shifted away from her, not touching anymore, but she could still feel the echo of him.

The sheets and the mattress absorbed the fluids leaking from them, leaving the bed dry and comfortable, inviting her to linger until he inflamed senses had cooled down enough so she could trust them.

She turned her head, but the clock display on the table next to the bed was dark, leaving her in timeless limbo. She braced herself and said, "I didn't want a promotion."

She had never been good at pillow-talk, but she supposed it was exactly what she needed, considering that he didn't seem to be going to sleep.

His voice came from above her, dark and darkly amused.

"Did you get what you wanted, then?" he asked.

She took a breath and pulled herself around, sitting up to look at him. Lorca was watching her like a hawk, cross-legged on top of the sheet and not mellowed at all.

"You don't know what I want," she said, irritated at the way his attitude sand-blasted the slow beat of her gratification.

"Bridge to the Captain."

His attention snapped away from her, releasing her from his dissecting gaze and casually condescending demeanour. In a painful flash, she realised that nothing she had done so far was unexpected to him. He had chosen to play along only for his pleasure.

"Lorca here."

"We've arrived at Arc, currently holding position outside their sensor range."

She scrambled her legs under her as she got up and padded across the room. Her clothes and been scattered carelessly earlier, when the anticipation had still been untainted. She picked them up and shook them out irritably.

"Give me ten," Lorca said.

With her clothes in hand, she turned towards him. He hadn't moved and was watching her with something akin to hunger in his eyes, clearly contemplating what to do with her from here on out.

"Let's wrap this up," he said and a sliver of warmth had returned to his tone.

"Yeah," she agreed and hurriedly put her clothes on. He didn't look away from her as she did and it hurt not to search for his phaser she had dislodged from under the pillows earlier. She had no idea what it had gone after that, somewhere on the floor, she guessed, if she was lucky, it was behind or below the bed. So far, this was the only aspect which had gone according to plan and Rubau was fairly sure the only thing she was going to get out of it was a good fuck. Not that she'd complain, but it was strictly a bonus outcome.

Fully dressed, she strapped the weapons' belt to her thigh. She hesitated and Lorca didn't give her the second she needed to cover it. He must have seen it coming or his reflexes were just that good. The moment she heard him move, she fired on instinct, blindly, to where she remembered he had been.

A pillow hit her in the face, confusingly, and she let herself drop back to avoid the punch he would deliver right after it. It lessened the impact slightly and allowed her a brief, unobstructed view of his expression, teeth bared like an animal.

The second time, her aim was better, hitting his thigh and it buckled, taking his balance away. As he dropped, she fired a third shot at his back and he went limp on the floor.

Culber used the transporter to get to the captain's quarters, sparing himself the irritation of walking along shaking corridors in the company of the red alert sirens and their blood-red glare. As it were the first thing he did when he arrived was to tell the computer to silence the alarm.

The computer complied, but the silence, for a moment, was just as deafening.

He smiled at Irsa. Unlike most other people on the ship, Lorca adopting Irsa didn't bother him particularly. He had no use for domestic help on a spaceship like this and Lorca seemed to like the irritation his decision caused in the crew.

Speaking of Lorca, he lay unconscious on the floor in what wouldn't be a particularly comfortable position once he woke up and felt anything. The scenario wasn't difficult to guess at, something between a lover's spat and a ship-wide conspiracy. Just like always.

He crouched down next to Lorca with a sigh, regarding him unimpeded for a moment. Then he put the hypospray to the captain's neck to counteract the effects of the stun blast.

Lorca groaned and rolled to his back, squinting up at the doctor in momentary confusion before clarity returned, morphing into a scowl almost immediately. "Thanks, doc."

Culber gave him a grin and wink along the length of his body. "My pleasure," he assured him.

"Maybe it's not Tyler I owe a fuck to," Lorca said and got to his feet slowly, sorting out his limbs and steadying himself as the ship continued to rock.

"Now you're getting it! It's been months!" Culber exclaimed in only partially feigned frustration. "But let's not ruin a beautiful friendship, captain," Culber said and grinned, got up next to him to give him a pat on the shoulder. Professionally, Culber took the chance to look him over to make sure there were no injuries, but Lorca was a sight to behold, either way, no point in not enjoying it.

Lorca looked back at him pensively, unbothered but annoyed by something other than Culber's ogling. The effects of the stun blast had already evaporated and that discerning gaze was never something Culber ever particularly liked. He could never quite figure out what was going on in his head, damn alien that he was.

"In that case," Lorca said with the flash of a smile. "My friends call me Gabriel."

In a less tense setting than this, Culber would enjoy continuing the banter, but it would have to wait. Other moments would come. For now, Culber watched with somewhat morbid fascination as Lorca shifted his focus away from him and toward Lieutenant Rubau, who was still held securely by Irsa at the other end of the room. The moment Lorca laid eyes on her, his entire demeanour changed. Body still and controlled, to give the underlying fury more contrast. Culber was sure Lorca wasn't doing it consciously, not most of the time, Culber liked the thought the empire would tremble if he ever let himself realise the full power he could command. Amusingly, he already had done exactly that. Gabriel on the other hand, Culber thought with some relish, didn't enjoy hearing about it much.

Lorca stalked towards his captured prey. When he spoke, his voice was so low, it became a whisper, but the red alert siren would have yielded to it.

"Phaser set to stun?" Lorca said and paused, wet his lips.

Rubau squirmed in Irsa's grip, trying to get away from Irsa or him and didn't make any progress in either direction.

"You're our ticket home!" she snapped.

"'Our', huh?"

The shock rippled across her features. The trite line might have meant nothing, just a red herring to throw at him, the one he would expect anyway and swallow without much struggle, but the plural had been admission she should have known better than to make.

Lorca leaned forward ever so slightly. "Who?" he whispered at her.

Her first instinct was to pull back from him, but he was already too close and Irsa didn't let her have the leeway. So instead of getting away from him, she snarled and spat in his face. Lorca barely flinched, he slapped her, open-handed, hard enough to rock her in Irsa's grip.

For a moment afterwards, nothing happened and Culber would have killed to see Lorca's face, even if he knew him well enough to guess. This was not a response Lorca thought of himself he would have, especially towards a lover, however fleeting their connection had been. Culber expected to hear about it some time later if he got the good alcohol and Lorca slowed down enough to be nostalgic.

For now, Lorca's control didn't falter. He glanced at Irsa and said, "Take her to the brig."

Irsa dragged Rubau away, out into the corridor.

Lorca turned around, made eye contact with Culber, communicating something which didn't quite make it there. Culber only shrugged.

Lorca bared his teeth at nothing in particular, then said, "Lorca to the Bridge, what the fuck?"

"Ambush," Ferasini's voice came like ice-water through the channel. "We are surrounded by five Draco-class heavy fighters. We currently have no warp vector, so we'll be pinned for a few minutes. They've launched transporter harpoons into our shuttle bay and lower cargo holds, beaming over shock-troops. I've closed the bulkheads and de-pressed all non-occupied parts of the ship, they are stuck for now, but it'll only slow them down, not stop them."

As if on cue, another volley of impacts rattled the ship. The glasses on the cabinet clinked together as they edged towards a fall. Lorca snatched up the bottle and put it in the cabinet.

"Get us out of here as soon as you can," Lorca said.

"Got it," Ferasini said. "I'll hold the bridge until you get here."

"Don't worry," he said, just in case she needed the reassurance. "Lorca out."

"It's the Buran all over again," Lorca said, low and to himself. Some sort of subtly shudder went through his body as if he was collecting himself against the memories. It barely lasted long enough to be noticed, then Lorca went to his dresser.

Culber wandered over to the cabinet, where he'd spotted the full glass of the exclusive bourbon. He had one of these bottles stashed away, too but hadn't had a reason to break it open yet. He took the glass with him to the couch by the window and lounged there while he watched Lorca dress.

The combat dress had been designed to be put on quickly, smart-materials moulded themselves along skin and settle where they belonged without much fuss.

"Glad you aren't bothered," Lorca said.

"What do you want me to do? Panic? Like that's ever helped anyone."

"Shook troop tactics are brutal," Lorca said. "A massive waste of life, but they are very effective."

"'course, that's why we use them."

"We, now?"

Culber rolled his eyes. "You know exactly what I mean."

Lorca stayed serious. "No, I don't think I do."

The jacket closed up along his chest, encasing his torso in the dark, leathery material. He looked good like that, though, Culber found he didn't mind the lack of clothing either.

"I told you to be careful," Culber reminded him. "People wanting in your bed have ulterior motives." He aimed his finger at Lorca. "And you know it, too, it's not my fault you prefer to be naive about it. This one at least didn't try to kill you."

Lorca shook his head, flexed his shoulders to make the jacket settle better. "Rubau was just the side-show, maybe a distraction or even a rogue element."

He stopped halfway to the weapons' locker to spread out his hands in a gesture of exasperated helplessness. "What did I do wrong?"

Culber enjoyed the bourbon going down his throat. "That's complicated. I like it here but not everyone is going to. I've told you that, too. It's natural. And this Putaway project? It's not helping. A lot of people think you're going to ditch us. Fuck, I think you're going to ditch us. They've got to make plans for when that happens. Making up with the empire isn't a totally illogical idea."

"They're traitors. With him, with me. What idiot would take them back?"

"You're right," Culber agreed. "But not everyone's thinking that deeply about things."

Lorca considered it and looked like he wanted to continue arguing. The battering of phaser cannons stopped when the ship finally went to warp. Lorca shook his head silently, gaze briefly drawn to the view outside the window.

"Lorca to Bridge. Deploy fire teams of five to the hotspots. I want slow and methodical, they got people to spare, we don't. I'm not coming up. Find me some cover and get me into the thick of it, put some back up behind me."

"Lorca," Ferasini cut in. "Lieutenant Tyler has requested to be armed and join the defence."

"No, I'm not done with him."

"Indeed," Ferasini said, never bothering to hide her amusement. "We're ready."

"Hold," he said. "Lorca to Irsa."

"Yes, Captain."

"If Rubau is secure, I want you to lock yourself in with Doctor Sennai, protect her at all cost."

"Yes, Captain."

"Lorca to Zralisss."

She answered instantly. "Need some help?"

"Sounds like you're offering."

"I'm ready if you are."

"Bridge? Now I'm ready."

"Affirmative."

Culber raised the nearly empty glass at Lorca in salute. "If you don't mind, I'll just stay here until the ship's cleared."

"Save some of the Portora Aurea, I've barely gotten a taste," Lorca said, arched his head back and told the Bridge, "Energise."

Lorca and Zralisss materialised in a repair shop off the main cargo hold. A heavy workbench at the centre, the walls lined with shelves and tool storage, dimly lit by emergency lighting.

A fireteam of three had arrived just ahead of them. They were geared up, including goggles because they knew to expect Lorca to crank up the lights as high as possible. They had brought flashbangs, too, to make it worth it. They looked over Zralisss, but had their priorities on straight and didn't question the usefulness of an armed and armoured gorn on their side.

"Captain," the fire-team leader saluted sharply and earned a curt nod for her trouble. "Lieutenant Salkowski reporting for action, sir."

Lorca glanced over her and the squad. "This morning, a comrade of yours tried to kill me," he said. "Any of you have any such ambitions, remember you'll have to get the Defiant out of this shit on your own."

The fire team exchanged glances, but the goggles made their expressions hard to read, though, Lorca didn't even bother. Their choices were their own, always had been, and the consequences of these choices would be, too. That's all he ever had to offer them.

Salkowski shook her head vehemently, "Sir, you're going to give them hell and we'll be right there with you. That's all I got to say."

Her team muttered affirmatives, one of them saluted, while the other mirrored Lorca's nod.

"A'right," Lorca said, taking them in. "Let's prove it."

Lorca had the ops officer on the bridge rely the precise layout of the area beyond the door, the approximate number and location of the shock troopers, their armament and capabilities.

Although meant to be wasted, the shock troops weren't being stupid in their job. They had arrived in the cargo hold to find themselves stuck, so they had dug in behind the cargo containers while a small detachment went to work cutting through the wall.

Lorca's small team advanced silently from their cover and got in position. They had a momentary advantage, a short span of them in which they could snipe as many of the enemy as possible before the rush threatened to take them out.

The phaser carbine wasn't a sniper weapon, even at its most precise setting, but Lorca found he did like the idea of a little spray. Positioned on his belly on top of a crate, he aimed with the computer-enhanced scope. He watched them for a moment, memorising the rhythm of their slight movements and settled his finger on the trigger.

The first blast seared off the side of one trooper's head, the second punched through his companion's cheek, leaving a hole through his face. Lorca continued to pick them off, seconds stretching through his perception, giving him all the time he needed.

Two others of his fire team did the same, his first their signal. They dropped them like flies. Darkly, Lorca thought of how this was precisely their purpose. The disregard for life was so vile it knotted his throat closed. As more troopers fell away from his scope, he thought he probably would have made a decent terran after all. He didn't have time to let the thought sting.

Their seconds of surprise ticked down, and the troopers had gone into cover, those further back beginning to return fire, while the rest — true to purpose — began charging at them en masse. The tightly packed space of the cargo hold slowed their advance only slightly.

A fissure of flash-bangs opened up in their path, blinding white light drawing a curtain in front of their feet, buying another moment, for Lorca and his fire-team to ditch their burnt positions and find new ones.

Lorca and his fire team flanked the thick of the troopers from two sides, just when they broke through the barrier of light, their targets momentarily lost and their advance stuttered. They adapted their tactics, though, dispersed through the narrow passages between the crates like water. It didn't matter that many of them were picked off as they filed through, there were more behind them. Slowly, they gained space.

Lorca ordered the fire team to regroup further back, flanked by the flashbangs and their obscene glare. Lorca snarled at the ops officer, demanding the precise numbers left of their enemy.

"Only twenty per person," Zralisss laughed. "I'll do thirty. Someone want to make a bet?"

"No," Salkowski said roughly. "This is serious."

Zralisss' tail twitched and only Lorca, among them, was beginning to recognise the gesture as similar to a shrug. She did look at him, though, almost as if for confirmation.

Lorca gave her a vicious little smile. "You're on."

She broke cover in a smooth series of movements, colliding carelessly with the first row of troopers, just before they could overwhelm their position. Her armour took the first brunt of the impact, her size and natural strength mitigated the rest. The troopers weren't careful with the aim and in the semi-enclosed space of the cargo hold, they hit their own far too often. Shook troops weren't trained to manage dwindling resources, there were always meant to be more coming up behind them.

Lorca let Zralisss take that first impact, let her draw the attention and the ire of the troopers before he moved past his cover on the other side of the container, letting his carbine clear the path for him before the pile of bodies blocked the path.

Troopers came up behind him and Lorca threw himself around, battered the nearest trooper with the butt of the carbine, ducked and pulled the knife from his boot to stab it up into the throat of the next. He yanked the serrated blade free to a spray of blood. A trooper punched his side, knuckle daggers just barely punching through his armour to knick his skin. Barely hurt, though. The trooper got Lorca's elbow in the chest and a close-range blast of the carbine tearing open his stomach.

The small alley held no more enemies, so Lorca checked his gear, changed the carbine charge, wiped the blood off his dagger and stalked around the next corner, looking for more prey.

Rubau sat in the cell, the only occupied one in a brig oversized for the amount of use it had seen under Lorca's command. She could see an agoniser booth, empty and dark. She wondered if it had begun to collect dust yet or if the cleaning routines were still allowed to run.

Punishment, she thought, should least be engaging. This sitting around in a cell was already getting boring. She supposed a smarter person would take the chance to rest and recover. Lorca would come back at her with questions and it would be good to be at her best to deflect them. The ship had stopped rocking under fire a while back and she was fairly certain they had gone to warp, it was a decent guess that the trap had failed them and the ship was still under Lorca's command. Everything had failed, so at least it wasn't all her fault.

She reminisced for a little on her encounter with Lorca. Worth it? Probably not, overall. Still, a turn-on to remember, though. If fucking the real — or other, or whatever — Lorca would have been the same or different. They said this other universe was the perfect opposite of theirs, so maybe that one would have like to be bound to his bed. She clicked her tongue at the thought.

She must have been quite engrossed in her fantasies because she only noticed someone was walking towards her cell when he was almost already there.

One of her co-conspirators watched her through the energy field.

"Finally," she said as she got to her feet.

He tilted his head at her, still watching as she came to a halt in front of him.

After a moment of silence, he took a step to the side where the control panel was. She heard the tap of buttons, but when the barrier didn't drop a bad feeling began to make itself known in the pit of her stomach.

"Hey, let me out," she said. "What are you doing?"

She breathed in and suddenly swayed on her feet. She reached out for the wall to steady herself, but her strength was gone and she stumbled into it limply.

"Fuck you," she slurred.

"Lorca is a man with many secrets," her co-conspirator said conversationally. He looked over her state, then deactivated the barrier. She didn't have the strength, and barely the presence of mind, to struggle, as he slung one of her arms over his shoulder and dragged her from the cell.

"You'd think he's ripped out the wiring on the booths," he continued. "And he has, you'd have to start from scratch to get them functioning again. He hates them, you know, do you know why?"

She didn't know and she didn't care. He was dragging her towards one of the booths.

"Because he's terrified of them. He can't take it. What does that say about a warrior?"

With his free hand, he swiped his hand over the control console and the booth lit up, its door sliding open.

"And he knows what it says about him and he can't stand it."

He loaded her into the booth and she blinked slowly, comprehension viscously crawling through her awareness. A spike of adrenaline brought a little clarity as the door closed.

"This one still works. He's trying to harden himself to it. Not sure he's making much progress. Well, never mind that."

He smiled brightly at her. "Enjoy your stay."

The booth lit up, eagerly licking at her nerve endings and setting them on fire.

End of Chapter 11

Author's Note: I think for this and the previous chapter no notifications were send out. If the recap doesn't sound familiar, it's probably because you've skipped a chapter. I do post update notices on tumblr at glenarvonscribbles. I could do twitter for the same reason if you want me too. Other than that, I'm all out of ideas.