Cell Mates

Posted on Tue May 24th, 2022 @ 10:20pm by Commander N'Garzi Zora & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & [DECEASED] Gil Silnan Tolbarr

Mission: Ares Ascending
Location: Rondac Planetary Installation
Timeline: Immediately prior to battle commencing.
2499 words - 5 OF Standard Post Measure

His face throbbing and his whole body aching, Silnan was only vaguely aware of the strong hands gripping his arms from beneath refrigeration gloves. The metallic gurgling sound filled his head like a painful thumping, and a door in front of him could be heard to slide open.

The sound of cloth scraping against metal reached Finn's ear, yet it seemed so far away as she struggled to wake back up. Was she being dragged somewhere? No. No, she wasn't moving. It was coming from somewhere else, but where? The question was answered as Finn heard the creaking of a metal door open and felt a weighted sack bump into her.

He felt as if he had fallen from a great precipice, and momentarily believed so, such was the effect of the pain on his perception. Landing on an odd surface, he took a moment to realise he had landed on a person. He drew in a painful breath as he gathered his balance a little on his knees, noticing the sound of some doors closing behind him.

"What the hell?" Finn rubbed her eyes and forcibly pushed her top half up from the ground into a sitting position. As the fog lifted, it became clear that what had been thrown into the dark metal cell wasn't just a weighted sack. "Mr.Tolbarr?" She whispered through the darkness.

"Loo-" he coughed a burning, painful cough in between heavy spasms in his chest, "ant-" , his upper body spasmed painfully with each attempt at more than the shallowest of breath - "Kee-", he rolled backwards, his back finding a wall with a burning shock. "-ting.". Silnan struggled against the dull aching across his face to open one eye, confirming the voice that he had recognised from their earlier work on the mysterious shuttle. He could feel his face was throbbing and was probably badly bruised; touching a hand to his face, which he struggled to control through the spasms, he felt thick sticky blood on his cheek and around his left eye.

"Are you ok? What happened?" Finn asked, noticing the blood that dripped from his face. She hoped it wasn't a major injury seeing as how she would be clueless to do anything about it. She leaned against a wall on the opposite side, wincing as her back made contact. Apparently, their captors weren't fans of gently placing anyone in a holding cell.

Coughing again, Silnan was at least grateful that coughs no longer brought with them fresh waves of blood. "Station" he managed through his laboured breaths, hampered by the spasms from the Breen prodding sticks. "Captured." he coughed again, beginning to feel a little more stable as he came around. "You?"

"I assume the same thing," Finn tilted her head in thought as she tried to recollect what happened. "I was in the jefferies tubes and someone hit me with something, knocking me out." She reached back to touch the spot where she'd been smacked, wincing as her fingers reached the sore spot. "I woke up for a minute in what looked like a control room and then they hit me with a sedative and that's all I remember until waking up in here."

"How - " Silnan spluttered, "how - how in, injured are you?". It was becoming a little less painful, but still quite difficult to speak due to the nerve spasms from the Breen device. He looked for the first time at his thigh, fortunately the disruptor seemed to have cauterised the wound, and he suspected most of the nerve endings had been burned away as to why the pain wasn't so bad. He looked up to receive Keating's response, but was interrupted by the doors sliding open and heavy, menacing footsteps clunking towards them.

The man entered, his footsteps were heavy but purposeful. He was flanked on either side of him by two Breen soldiers. He despised the Breen, they had been responsible for the downfall of Cardassia during the Dominion war and for this, he would never forgive them. However, right now they were allies again and he needed them and their brute force. If there was one thing that could be said about the helmeted soldiers, they were good at what they did.

The Cardassian stopped at the lip of the cell containment field and stared at the pathetic creatures within. One, a traitorous individual from his own race, the other a weakly human female. Normally she would be of no use to him but she turned out to be the chief engineer of the ship that threatened their entire plan, and so he needed information. "What is the Athena's mission in this sector?" He asked, his voice cold and commanding. Seeing the way her jaw set he knew that she wasn't going to give anything away, without some encouragement. "I promise you what we did to him," his eyes flicked to Torbarr, "is nothing compared to what we will do to you if you don't answer my questions."

"Finnley Keating the seventh, lieutenant, foxtrot lima seven four seven one zero two zero eight," Finn looked straight at the Cardassian and spouted out name, rank, and serial number just as she had been trained to do. Her jaw was set tight and defiance sparkled in her eyes. It would take more than a mere threat to sway her constitution.

The Cardassian didn't react straight away, instead he stared at the human trying to decide how easy it would be to break her. Extremely easy, he thought as he smirked. He nodded slightly to the Breen on his right. The Soldier pulled out the same instrument he used on Tolbarr earlier and pressed a few buttons on the side of the cell to remove the containment field, he went to step inside to grab the Cardassian again. The Soldier on the left trained his gun right at Finn's head. His helmet made a series of beeps and chirps and the Cardassian could have sworn it sounded like laughter. "You have one more chance girl."

"Oh, I'm sorry, maybe I need to enunciate better," Finn kept a straight face, keeping her eyes trained directly on the Cardassian interrogator. "Finn-ley Keat-ing. Lieutenant. Foxtrot lima. Seven, four, seven. One zero. Two zero. Eight. Did you get it that time?" She asked, clearly ready to play whatever game he wanted to throw her way. Duty and honor had been ingrained in her upbringing. They were the tenants she held on to more dearly than almost anything else. Did he really think a threat to her life would get her to talk? It would almost be a relief if they were going to skip any torture and just end it here. Either way, she had information that he clearly wanted which meant she was worth more to him alive than dead. At least, that's what she was gambling on.

Silnan looked pleadingly through his one good eye to Finnley. He was, technically, in the military; he had completed basic training and achieved a rank, though he was still in all reality just a scientist in a uniform, he wasn't prepared for this sort of situation mentally or physically. "Please..." he whimpered, "tell them...." he felt a single tear leave his good eye and roll hotly down his cheek as the Breen device pressed against his skin. He felt sick. A deep wave of nausea flooded him as he prepared for the device to activate again. Still spasming a little from the first assault, he tried his best to push backward away from the prodding forks and against the wall; the Breen guard responded with a swift flick upwards of the device, striking his chin. "Kee-ting...." he begged through a raspy whisper.

She should've seen it coming. Their captor had implied that she'd be the one to suffer not Tolbarr, but she should've known they always went for the 'friend' first. It was a ploy for sympathy, since no one wanted to be responsible for another's suffering, and it worked.

A horrible guilt filled Finn's conscience, but she did her best to push it down as she made a move she hoped would work in getting them to leave him alone. Finn looked at the Cardassian and chuckled. "Oh, so you're not even going to torture me? This is too easy. You think I care what you do to him? He's one of yours not mine." She said, referring to the fact that Tolbarr was also a Cardassian and not even in Starfleet. "Go ahead then, have at it," she waived her hand towards her cell mate before shrugging and leaning back against the wall as if she has no cares in the world. It wasn't how she truly felt, but with any luck she'd put on a good enough show.

The Cardassian stared at Finn and for a split second, he almost admired her tenacity, until he realised she was bluffing. Her body language was set, the way she held herself, it was all too careful, all too controlled. Someone who truly didn't care wouldn't be so...stiff. Even if he was wrong, it didn't matter, he didn't care if the traitor Cardassian died or not, he would get the answers he needed eventually. "How much more do you think he can take?" The man asked a slither of glee in his twisted voice. "How long before his feeble body crumbles?"

Finn took a moment to think through her next response. There was no way she'd tell him what he wanted. Not only would it go against everything she believed in, but as soon as he had what he was looking for, they were both as good as dead anyway. If she held to her bluff, there was a chance that their interrogator would give up on Tolbarr, hopefully before he died. If, on the other hand, she started to show sympathy it would just be more fuel to the fire. Then there was the third option. They weren't restrained, so if he did decide to go for her Cardassian friend again, she could attempt to interrupt before it went too far. There was the matter of the Breen weapon aimed at her head, but what did she have to lose at this point?

"I don't know. At least a few more strikes until his body gives in," Finn shrugged once more, desperately clinging to her act while somehow hoping that Mr.Tolbarr could telepathically hear her pleas for forgiveness. "I suppose at that point you'll have lost all of your bargaining chips, which will just make my job even easier than it's been so far. I really thought you Cardassians were supposed to be better at this," she added, pretending to be completely disgusted. "That must be why they stationed you here in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a couple of cheap bodyguards."

Closing his remaining operable eye, Silnan braced himself for the coming pain. Not even pain. A deep violating assault on every nerve through his body, each time he had been hit with the prong device he had almost felt every single nerve fibre burst into flames, crack and snap and burn slowly as if they had turned to smouldering embers. He couldn't face it anymore, and he also had nothing of any value to offer their captors, he knew very little and was of no resource other than as a coax for Keating. He began to sob, his mind broken than his body as he realised that nobody was coming to save him this time, and that Keating cared only for the Starfleet mission. "End it..." he rasped, waving an arm vaguely to the Cardassian interrogator, as if reaching for him for a quick ending. His arm still on fire from the previous encounter, he felt a firm grip on his wrist, definitely skin so it wasn't the Breen guards; he took a deep laboured breath in through damaged lungs he could feel were weakening, and waited for the coming dark.

Finn waited just a moment longer as their interrogator grabbed Silnan's arm until it became obvious that he either hadn't fallen for her act or truly didn't care. With one swift movement, she rose to her feet and lunged at the Breen holding the device against her fellow captor. "Leave him alone! If you want that information you go through me." She yelled, catching the Breen off guard and causing him to stumble. Not that it did much good as the other guard stepped in quickly, knocking Finn back to the ground with a heavy strike of his rifle to her chin.

As she wrestled with the second guard, unsuccessfully resisting his endeavor to pin her to the ground, Finn looked at the Cardassian in the doorway. "If you lay one more finger on him I swear to every deity in the universe I won't breathe a word of information to you." Her eyes were filled with a fiery rage. A fire that burned deep with resentment over their predicament and the fact that she was practically helpless in keeping them at bay.

The Cardassian man laughed, a loud roaring one that reverbed off the walls and echoed in the ears of all present, except maybe the Breen. "You do have fire in your belly, Lieutenant," he said, not trying to hide the admiration. She wouldn't be the first spirited captor he had broken and he doubted she would be the last. He considered her words carefully, but he knew he had to send her a clearer message, something she couldn't misunderstand. "If we hurt the vorkek you won't give us any information," he repeated, using the familiar Cardassian slur loud enough so Tolbarr would hear, "and if we do hurt him you also won't give us any information, so what am I to do?" He asked, a twinkle in his eye.

In one swift movement, the Cardassian man grabbed Tolbarr's arm again and drew his dagger with his other free hand. He made sure that Finn could see the decorative blade of Romulan design right before he sliced it through the air and right through the traitor's hand. His bloody stump fell as the traitor screamed in agony, rocking like a child on the cold, hard floor. The Cardassian's face twisted into a cruel smile, his eyes never leaving Finn's. He held the severed hand by the fingers and now he had no use for it, he threw it into the cell, landing at her feet. The Breen officers stepped out of the cell and reactivated the forcefield. "Your move Lieutenant! I'll leave you to ponder how you could have avoided all of this if not for your values to The Federation instead of the life you have sworn to protect."

The three of them backed out of the room and back into the shadows, the only thing visible was the glow of the Breen helmets until they too were gone.