There were certain things she just hadn't anticipated when she signed up for Starfleet.
Okay, so the cabin with the stars 'going the wrong way' had maybe been a bit of a girly thing, but heck, she'd never even considered signing up for deep space exploration when she enrolled in the Academy. There were plenty of opportunities for a comm. officer nearer to home, and – especially in the first few months – there had been times when she'd inwardly cursed herself for allowing Jonathan Archer to talk her into signing on aboard Enterprise.
Trouble was, he'd always had a persuasive tongue. In more than one way. Their brief liaison had been a passionate one, but it had been brought to an end by the conflicting pressures of their careers; Jon had always been a flyboy, his gaze set on the stars and on the fulfilment of his father's dream, while she saw herself one day occupying a post as Professor of Xenolinguistics at the Academy. That there was to date no such post troubled her not at all. The expansion into the galaxy virtually guaranteed the proliferation of alien languages that would have to be mastered and taught, and her unique skill-set placed her in prime position as a candidate when the Starfleet Brass decided that such a professorship was required. Jon, of course, was well aware of that ambition. How cunningly and ruthlessly he'd deployed the lure of being the first human to speak Klingon, an upward step in that career path she'd mapped out for herself!
And this was where she'd ended up: in a prison cell with the walking rule book that was Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, waiting to provide 'entertainment' for the baying crowd she could now hear quite clearly beyond the thick stone walls.
She wouldn't have described herself as being overly imaginative, but it was far too easy to conjure up a fair number of unpleasant alternatives that providing 'entertainment' might involve. She was conscious that her mouth was completely dry and her stomach felt hollow.
Jon would be doing everything possible to find them. Flyboy and dreamer as he had been and to some extent still was, his loyalty to his crew was unquestionable.
But would he – could he – find them in time now?
As the first scrape of metal in a distant lock heralded the arrival of the guards, Hoshi swallowed convulsively. She had an overwhelming urge to grab for her companion's hand for comfort, but clenched her hands into fists instead; he probably thought she was feeble as it was, after that time when she'd been unable to stop herself from screeching at the sight of alien corpses hung up like slaughtered pigs in their own vessel.
She had conflicting feelings regarding Malcolm Reed. Sometimes it seemed as though almost against his will, a glimpse of a surprisingly attractive personality peeped from behind that anally-retentive Starfleet security officer. If only he'd had the capacity to relax, to appear human, she'd occasionally felt as though she might even have been able to like him. As it was, however, how could you possibly like anyone so awkward and unbending?
Didn't the man feel any fear? He was standing completely still, seeming almost relaxed, but for the tilt of his head that told her he was listening intently.
Jon would have known instinctively what to say. Something – anything – that would have been better than this mute, tense silence while heavy booted feet advanced up the corridor.
The boot-falls stopped just short of their cell. There was the grinding squeal of a padlock disengaging, and shouting. The sounds of a struggle. One person – she thought there must be only one, for a voice began to bellow imprecations from the cell as the padlock ground shut again – was dragged away by two of the boot-wearers.
Prisoners in pairs. One pair was being split up. There had to be a reason for that, and it probably wasn't good.
Reed, it seemed, had followed her train of thought. Silently he took hold of her arm and pulled her behind him, backing into the nearest corner.
In another life she'd have resented him for it.
The rest of the boots had resumed their march up the corridor. Another cell door opened. The voice this time was familiar. Aioxiya, they'd said their name was.
Presumably 'the other' was dragged out. Aioxiya's voice rose, guttural with fear and rage, till they started to choke and wheeze. The cell door closed again. Another prisoner was taken outside...
...To what fate?
There was a little silence. Silence, that is, except for the cries of the separated prisoners left alone in the cells, so broken and desperate she could hardly make out one word in fifty.
Then the silence was broken. Boots were advancing.
They're coming. She knew it. Completely without her will, a small sound broke from her lips: an animal whimper, as she shrank back fruitlessly against the cold stone.
A hand shot back and closed on her wrist. It was steady and warm.
"Chin up, Hoshi." It was the most human thing she'd ever heard him say.
Then they were there. Seven armored, gray, hulking things, humanoid but with helmets that had black glazed panels where their eyes should be.
The panels turned to the inside of the cell. An armored fist thrust a key into the padlock.
The door opened with a shriek like a curse. Then Malcolm stepped forward, his hands raised to show he intended no resistance. "Please. We are Starfleet–"
Light flashed from a hand-held weapon. His body was flung backwards and a little to one side, crashed into the wall and fell motionless at its foot.
She should go to him, but her brain wouldn't make her do it. Thought was subsumed into blind instinct, and instinct had her tearing at the wall till her nails broke, trying to dig her way through it.
Only when they finally had a secure hold of her did thought and training return. She craned her head to see him, to make sure he was still alive; she screamed his name, and he didn't move.
He was dead, and she was going to be 'entertainment'.
She struggled like a wildcat, though their grip on her wrists and ankles was so hard it was painful. She howled abuse at them in everything from Klingon to Catalan as they carried her up the corridor.
Low, acid lemon sunlight bit briefly at her eyes, then disappeared again as she was carried into another building. Another cell. A bare rough table, on to which she was flung. She got one leg free and kicked out with it, landing blows that did nothing much except jar her joints savagely as her heel landed on rough gray armor.
It couldn't last. They captured her ankle again and wrenched her leg down. She gritted her teeth, waiting for torture, for rape….
Thick sticky liquid was slapped from a pail on to her belly, spread roughly up and down her torso. Then she was lifted up and deposited carelessly to one side, where another prisoner was sprawled, their woolen tunic rank with blood just as hers now was, their thin, bony face pallid with fear.
She'd been the third. There was no sign of the other.
"Aioxiya," she said, as her captors marched out of the cell without a backward glance. A guess. The other prisoner's amber eyes widened, and a soft wailing noise came from the small mouth.
Time passed, perhaps an hour. She tried a few times to communicate, but the alien made no response, and her attempts seemed merely to make it even more wretched. She searched the cell for food or water, for by now she was very thirsty, but there was nothing. The heat was lessening, but it was still humid. The wool was scratchy against her skin.
Malcolm was dead.
There were thin high slit-windows here too. On one side they allowed the glimpse of a darkening sky, but the other was black with the shadow of a wall like the end of existence. The wall beyond which the voices were, and she could hear them now, an entity in their own right.
There was a voice, blaring through some kind of loudspeaker system. The echoes and the poor quality of the amplification distorted the sound so much she could hardly distinguish one word from another, but there was no mistaking the intent: whipping up excitement into frenzy, ready for the 'entertainment'.
She was a Starfleet officer. She tried to remember that, to use it to bolster her waning courage. Whatever was coming, and it wasn't going to be good, she'd face it – deal with it.
Alone.
All for the sake of a damned experiment.
She tried to tell herself that it wouldn't be allowed to play out till its end, that surely nothing sentient could be so cruel. But surely those were 'sentient' creatures out there, laughing and shouting in anticipation of the horrors to come. 'Sentient' wasn't the same as 'civilized' – even back on Enterprise she'd seen proof of that, when the true nature of some of the beings they'd come out to meet and supposedly befriend was revealed in all its ugliness.
Enterprise would come. Jon would rescue her. She believed that, because not believing it left her in a world she couldn't bear to contemplate.
She went on telling herself that while the voices from beyond the wall rose in a crescendo of excitement and at a guess, someone or something died.
She didn't even stop when the guards came back and Aioxiya was taken from the room and she was left alone. Once again the excitement mounted, and this time it went on a little longer, crashing against her hearing in waves of horror. But it was never going to last, and presently a drawn-out groan of satisfaction signified that once again the audience had been suitably 'entertained'.
She was too paralysed with dread to pray. She still believed, but that was because Jon's luck had never yet failed him, and because, at the core of things, she still couldn't accept that she was really going to die for the sake of an experiment.
When they came for her, time seemed to slow down. It took forever for the door to open, for them to come in and cross the room towards her.
She was thirsty. It was a monstrous injustice for them to let her die without even giving her a drink of water.
The rage at this injustice broke her paralysis. She hurled herself at them.
It was wasted effort, of course. She achieved nothing but bruising her fists and knees against their cold grayness, and even in that strange, slowed time consciousness it was hardly any time at all before she was a pinioned prisoner.
He was dead, but she still gasped his name as she was dragged from the room. Jon had hired him, Jon had trusted him to keep them all safe! The door of the cell block was opposite, across a narrow, dirty passageway. It was shut. She gave up on the dignity of a Starfleet officer and screamed "Malcolm! Help me!" but he was dead, and there was only the startled chatter of a couple of small, mottled brown birds that had been pecking at something on the floor a couple of meters away but took flight at the sudden noise.
The guards dragged her through a gate in the wall. It opened on near-blackness and a stench of feces and fear, but they seemed able to see perfectly well, and hauled her along a bewildering series of dark corridors.
Finally, double doors were thrust open and bright light broke over them all. With it came the sound, a wall of it that smote her sensitive hearing as though the sky had fallen in. Heat, too: a dry, desert heat radiated by the sand underfoot, baked beneath the glaring sun all day and now beating it out into the cooling evening air.
Struggle as she might and did, they carried her to a post at one side of the arena and tied her there with ropes. Their movements were those of men who have carried out the duty so often they hardly perceive the prisoner as any more meaningful than the block to which he or she or they are tied.
Having secured her, they walked away. Above the wall that now reared some six meters or so above her head, rank on rank of stone tiers were filled with spectators, and she felt the unbearable weight of their greedy, speculative gaze. The air was heavy with the smell of the cooked food being handed out so that customers wouldn't need to leave their seats and miss any of the fun below.
"Jon," she panted, gazing up into the cloudless sky. He was out there somewhere, searching for her. He'd find her. He had to find her in time!
But instead, the door opposite her opened.