Rayet wasn't entirely sure how long she spent in the cell. She wasn't sure if the mealtimes were sporadic in order to throw her off from being able to count the days, or if she was just miscounting the time she was spending in the cell between each meal and water that was delivered, or if something else was causing her to be almost completely unaware of how long she had been in the cell before someone had come to retrieve her. But she had counted the mealtimes anyways. They felt like they were always roughly thirty hours apart, which meant that after four days, she needed to add one more day to her count.
She absolutely hated the fact, however, that there was nothing to do in her cell. No way of occupying her time. So by and large, she spent most of her time asleep, laying on the floor of her cell, and during the time that she wasn't asleep and couldn't manage to be found by sleep; she would stare at the ceiling and think. About many things. She would think about her Cell in the Cascades, wondering if they were still alive and kicking, if the shelter back in Seattle was still fine, or if it had been occupied by the Martians under the pretense of 'keeping the armistice peace', or if something else had happened to it. Maybe it was simply abandoned and left to rot as those survivors scattered to the winds to try and find survival better on their own. Part of her really hoped that the third thought wasn't the case. Surviving the winter would be that much easier in a group, rather than by themselves. That's how it always had been during this war — survival had been better assured when in a group. And part of Rayet missed having such a group. She missed the familiarity of her Cell, and how they operated together.
When she ran out of thoughts to think about her Cell, she would think about her home — or at least the closest thing she could call to her home. Shinawara. There was something comforting in thoughts of home, despite the feelings of dread and panic that would threaten to creep into her throat whenever she would think about it. There was familiarity in thinking about home, about her father. But no matter what she did; the threat of being overcome with distress at the thought of what happened there would hover at the corner of her mind. Requiring her to think about something else. She couldn't find thoughts — so instead she would sleep.
On day fourteen, she had been asleep when the door to her cell opened, and she had snapped awake at the sudden noise. She looked over at the cell door, to her right, and watched the legs of three men enter the cell. She looked up at the first one, who was closest to her — and realized that he held a pair of cuffs, and a stern look across his face. She groggily stood up, sleep still hanging in the corner of her eyes and in her muscles. She extended her wrists for the man to shackle, and once he did, he turned around, giving a motion to follow him. There were no words exchanged, but all parties knew what was communicated perfectly anyways. Rayet scowled, but followed — once again flanked by the two other soldiers, bearing rifles.
They didn't walk through the landing castle the same way; turning right instead of left, left instead of right — until they made it to their destination. A door stood open, waiting for them, and Rayet grinned inwardly and suppressed a chuckle when she realized that it wasn't a stateroom like before, but more closely to a stereotypical interrogation chamber like she had seen on TV shows back on Earth. She was led to the far side of the table that was present in the room, and was motioned to sit down. She sat.
The soldier left the room, not unshackling Rayet, and closing the door behind him. It slid shut with a gentle hiss, and it left Rayet alone in the room while she waited for whatever was to happen, to happen. She figured she'd be interrogated, but by whom, and about what? She didn't have much of an idea outside of maybe the location of where her cell was operating out of. But by now, she wouldn't have any idea — if they realized that she'd been kidnapped, they would've immediately scrambled for a new location to operate out of. Probably not even in Seattle anymore. She was sure that the leader of the Cell wasn't stupid enough to stay in the same place when one of their members got kidnapped.
She didn't bother counting the time, but by the time the interrogation room's door opened again, her back and rear had started to ache from sitting on the metal chair for so long. She didn't stand up when she saw it was Slaine Troyard standing in the doorway of the room, she didn't feel much hatred or contempt towards him at all, really. She felt a strange type of calmness looking at him, although one part of her, in the back of her mind wondered what it would've been like to plunge that knife into his throat all those days ago.
His face carried no discernible emotion, and instead, quietly sat in the seat opposite her at the table. After a moment, the door behind him slid shut with another hiss, and it was only then that he said anything at all.
"Apologies for the less-than-courteous behavior, Miss Areash."
This did get a chuckle out of Rayet; "So all I had to do to get the prisoner treatment was try and kill you."
Slaine tilts his head in acknowledgment. "What would you be willing to give up about your resistance cell, without any form of enhanced interrogation?"
"Nice euphemism, asshole. And nothing. There's no reason to give them up, so I'm not going to do it. Besides, once they realized I was kidnapped — they wouldn't bother sticking around the same place." Rayet sneered. Setting her hands on the table between them, still cuffed.
If the swearing caught Slaine off guard, he didn't show it. He smiled instead. "Which is a fair assessment. However, I would still like to know what you are willing to give. And if that's nothing, then I'm sorry to hear that too."
"So what now, gonna torture me for info?"
"There's no need."
"No need?" Rayet practically scoffs. Part of her wonders if she wasn't the only prisoner from the resistance cell here, maybe there were others who were captured? Had someone ratted them out? "Why not?"
Slaine reaches into a pocket on his uniform, and pulls out a device with a screen, no bigger than a smartphone, and taps a command into it before setting it on the table, facing Rayet. She leans to look at its screen. A recording from a gun-camera of one of Slaine's soldiers no doubt. There is no sound. Presumably having been muted due to the noise that a firing firearm makes. She watches the video, as the wielder of the firearm is in a gunfight, firing at a tree-line that Rayet doesn't recognize, but the trees still look like the same ones in the Cascade mountains that she's used to seeing. So presumably its in the same place. As she watches the feed as the owner runs from one point of cover to the next; she catches a glimpse of the valley. The one that she recognized from the satellite map. The map where she was supposed to pincer-attack the forces she had been trailing, and that the rest of the cell had been leading into the trap. Without her ranged support, the idea of getting into a one-sided gunfight retreating uphill sounded like hell to Rayet.
She watched further, watching the gunman shoot a burst into the tree-line of the valley's hill, distantly, in the treeline, it looked like someone had fallen, but through the resolution of the gun camera Rayet couldn't tell. The gunman moved up at this point, moving in towards the tree-line.
When Rayet saw the first body, she couldn't watch anymore. She realized all too quickly what this video was supposed to be — torture in its own right. It wasn't a gunfight, so much as it was a massacre. A recorded massacre, playing out to prove a point.
After she watched an innumerate body sprawl out against the forest floor, she finally had words to express what she felt in her chest — empty. These had been people she had lived alongside, fought alongside, been injured alongside, and now, she was simply being shown a video of them being massacred by the superior training of the Martian ground troops.
Before she could open her mouth; Slaine had words for her.
"You seem awfully distressed for a Martian, watching Martians kill Terrans."
"They're— They were," There's subtle emphasis on that word, "the closest things I had to friends. If not brothers in arms."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Slaine responds, almost instinctively.
There's a kind of rage in Rayet's chest that she hadn't ever felt before — one that feels akin to the one where she had leapt across the table at Slaine all those days prior. But this one was easier to keep in check. "Are you? Or are you just saying it because that's what normal people say when someone loses friends? Murderer." Rayet scoffs, yet in that scoff there is enough emotion to weigh down whole empires. The feelings of having genuinely lost people who meant something to her.
Slaine shrugs at this; "It felt like the appropriate thing to say, if not the kind thing." There's a pause at this, almost like Slaine is remembering the real reason why he had her fetched and brought before him, even if this was in an interrogation room — "How many members were in your cell?"
Rayet blinks at this, and her face forms into a form that could only be described as incredulous at the fact that she's being asked such a thing, now of all times. "Why should I tell you?"
Slaine sighs, "Because, if nothing else, I am trying to keep the peace—"
"Your soldiers are still out there, killing and raiding sanctuaries—!"
Now it's Slaine's turn to cut Rayet off; "They're not my soldiers. My soldiers, and the ones allied to me, are the ones trying to keep the peace. The ones trying to prevent people from breaking the armistice… Like you and yours had done."
Rayet does notice the way that he's formulated his words — the way he uses the past tense. "So what, you're going around to all the other Martian castles, knocking politely and asking them kindly to stop shooting up civilian locations?" She scoffs again, "Don't make me laugh, milord."
Slaine doesn't react to the snide usage of his rank and title against him. If anything, he seems amused by the way that Rayet constantly picks at him, in an attempt to get him to react in any way to what she thinks about him. Which would piss Rayet off if she wasn't already blisteringly angry at him.
"In a manner of speaking, yes, more or less. There are ways of talking when talking isn't sufficient. And the Armistice doesn't say anything about infighting among the Martians." Slaine smiles despite himself, and the snide comments coming from Rayet.
"Why capture me, not anyone else from the cell?" Rayet asks, almost uncomfortably. Her words feeling more short, more distancing than she means them to be.
"You were the last one of the cell. They had reported that they were being tracked, and so I let them bait you into fighting them. I had originally ordered them to capture you unharmed, but alas…" Slaine motions to her shoulder, where she had been shot, as if a form of apology came from his action.
"Why keep me around then?"
"I want you to testify that the Terrans aren't guilt-free when it comes to having broken the armistice. That you deliberately broke the armistice by engaging with Martian soldiers, despite knowing that a ceasefire was in place."
"But your side started—"
Slaine raises his hand to quell her, and some compulsion from deep within her leads Rayet to be silenced. "It doesn't matter what 'my side' did or didn't do, I will not have the rule of law be broken down to merely 'he started it'. Besides, those who were acting out of accordance with the Armistice, will be dealt with when the time comes. The Emperor himself has assured me of this."
"So you're buddy-buddy with the Emperor too, huh?"
"Not quite, but I do admit I am in a favorable position with his highness, despite my initial station in his Empire." Slaine smiles, almost inwardly, but some expression of pride in himself manages to sneak its way onto his face.
"So, all-in-all, you retrieved me from my cell, just to gloat, ask me a few questions, and now you're going to send me back to my cell until god-knows-when?" Rayet summarized.
"Once again, not quite." Slaine makes a motion to the room's hidden computer, which releases the restraints on Rayet's wrists, which drop to the floor with a clatter of metal. "In respect for what you've done in protecting the Princess of Vers, I'm granting you some clemency during your time aboard this Landing Castle."
Rayet snorts, and rubs her wrists, which had begun to ache from being locked in that uncomfortable position for so long. "So what, you're letting me roam free through your castle?" She glares at him, the daggers that her eyes throw slightly softened; "What makes you think it's a good idea to have a 'rebel' roam free on your castle?"
Slaine simply smiles; "If you do something that's not in accordance with my wishes, my soldiers will shoot you. And if that doesn't deter you, they'll shoot you dead." He stands and straightens out his uniform as he does. "Besides, you're one of the few people who had protected the Princess of Vers during her stay aboard that Terran airship, did you not?"
Part of Rayet's mind twitches at this — clearly, he has no idea about what she'd really done to the Princess aboard the Deucalion, and why she was in prison to begin with. "How'd you learn about that?"
"There's at least some free exchange of information, Miss 'Sniper Girl' Areash. I have my ways of learning things that not many other people do." He turns to leave the interrogation room, the door sliding open as he stands in the door-frame. He stops to say something, before closing his mouth again, and leaves the doorway, the door remaining open as Rayet watches him go. Part of her wants to shout after him, berating him for making such a stupid decision in letting her roam the landing castle freely; but another part of her doesn't mind the change in scenery at all. After all, she was getting quite bored just laying around her cell all day and night.
She rubs her wrists a little more, before standing to leave.
Marce has trouble working when someone's pacing nearby, and isn't really thinking out-loud either. Simply walking back and forth at the foot of the bed of his patient, not saying anything, the only sounds of the room being the beeping and chirping of the machines hooked up to the young Inaho, who is still in bed, no real change between his situation aboard the Luna-2 hospital station, and here, aboard the Deucalion II. However, that doesn't mean there's any less work for Marce to do, even while his patient is unresponsive. But it doesn't detract from the distraction that is the Lieutenant Marito, pacing at the foot of Inaho's bed.
Marito on the other hand, hasn't even seemed to really notice that he's started pacing, merely having been trapped in thought, and fidgeting with what looks to Marce like old-fashioned dog-tags, belonging to someone whose name he cannot make out due to the constant rubbing of Marito's thumb against the ridges of the tag.
After a while of work, and finally, despite the distractions, finishing his tasks in this room, Marce stands up to leave, clipboard in hand, and reaches for the cart that he had ferried into the room, which had contained a plethora of medical supplies that he had used to swap the various things hooked up to Inaho, including the IV bag.
"Where are you going?" The nearly gruff voice of Lieutenant Marito asks.
Marce sighs, surprised that Marito has picked now out of all times, to ask where he's going, despite having been in the room for nearly an hour now, working in the silence of Marito's pacing and the chirping of the medical machines. "I've got more work to do, Lieutenant. This is a military ship, and I've got additional patients to look after, not just Ensign Kaizuka here."
"Okay… But that doesn't answer where you're going."
Marce, exasperated, responds; "Back to the nurses' station, to resupply this cart, dispose of the old supplies, and then probably to the next room over, to take care of another patient who also is in need of my attention."
Marito, looks troubled for a moment, and in that moment, Marce decides that it's his time to leave the room, to get on with his day, and to work with a patient whose room isn't occupied by a pacing Lieutenant.
"What do you think about our situation, Marce?" Marito practically blurts, and Marce stops in his tracks, his feet anchored to the deck, before turning back to look at the Lieutenant, who is noticeably now, getting on Marce's nerves.
"Which one, Lieutenant?" There's a slight venom to Marce's words, indicative there of the annoyance that he has with the fact that the Lieutenant keeps asking these things, and just in general, has been getting on Marce's nerves. "There's a few situations that we're in. We're both aboard the Deucalion II, we're both Terrans, we're both waiting for the outcome of this Armistice."
"The Armistice, I mean." Marito waves almost dismissively at the other options; "It's not like anything is going to come of it, without the Princess of Vers showing up again."
"Yes, she's still missing. What about it?" Marce asks, leaning on the cart as Marito talks.
"It just means that there's something up. That it feels almost like we're somehow being baited into this whole thing."
"You think we're being baited into a continued war, based on a feeling?" Marce suppresses a scoff.
"It would make more sense that someone on the Martian side still wants this war to continue, and is hiding the Princess, rather than the Princess just having gone missing during the raid on Saazbaum's castle back in Russia."
Marce turns to look at the Lieutenant, "Well, yeah, it would — considering your team was the one that never found her."
"And who is it more likely to have found her, and ascended to power because of it?"
"I'm… Not sure what you're getting at, Lieutenant." Marce sighs, once again.
"The Terran-turned-Martian-Count. Lord Troyard." Marito explains, almost exasperated.
"Was he even aboard the Castle that landed on UFE headquarters?"
"Dunno, he was previously a low-level servant, but UFE doesn't know where he was stationed, or who he was serving, just that he was." Marito shrugs.
"But you're saying that he somehow leveraged knowledge about where the Princess really is, to somehow get his station?" Marce, for all his exasperation about this conversation, begins to feel like he's starting to understand where the Lieutenant is going with this whole line of thinking. "Even so, how would we - 'we' being the UFE - go about proving that. We have no idea where the Vers Princess even is. She's been missing since the attack in Russia."
"That's just the thing— She couldn't possibly be hiding out on one of the Landing Castles. The Martians would know almost right away, and we know she's still alive, because the Deucalion's Aldnoah drive is still working, isn't it?"
"Well… Not really? Its in a state of dormancy — not on or off. At least that's how they explained it to me."
"Close enough. Not being on, but not being off is still a state of being operable." Marito explains; "That means, at the minimum, she's still alive somewhere. And probably in a coma, or something like it — like Inaho is."
"That's… Wild speculation, Lieutenant. And doesn't really give us an idea of where the Princess is, despite all your proof to the contrary."
"That's just it — because I have no proof, that's proof in of itself. She wasn't aboard the Castle as we patrolled it after it fell on Headquarters, but she also wasn't on any of the other landing castles either. And you'd think that if she was on Mars, they'd have some way of figuring that out too. So where does that leave us?"
Marce realizes where this line of thinking is going; "…The entirety of Planet Earth."