Crineal Chronicles 1: In Hera's Service

by Raymond L Jennings

  “Going to hit me and then rape me, Sir?” she sneered at him.

  He pushed past her into the bedroom, pulled on his bath robe and then opened a panel in the wall she hadn’t even known was there. He placed his hand on the hatch behind the panel and spoke. “Crineal six eight seven nine three four delta two four.” She watched as his face was illuminated and before he opened the small hatch she saw a smear of blood on his thumb. He reached inside and pulled out an orange cuboid data crystal, then closed the hatch again and slid the panel shut. He reached the bedroom doorway and stood no more than six inches from her.

  “Sit. Down.” Crineal didn’t shout but he didn’t need to. His voice was edged in ice with ten years of command experience behind it. Between that and the look on his face, Cyndora didn’t argue. She moved to sit at the table. “Not. There.” He pointed at the easy chair in front of the entertainment unit. “There.” Each word was precisely bitten off. She wanted to protest but saw that his eyes were grey. Usually they were a grey-blue; when he was happy or teasing they seemed to turn a deep blue. She’d never seen them this color.

  “Now, I’m going to ask you a few questions. They are going to be blunt and you can be as crude as you like in return. Then I’m going to tell you about one of my battles and show you something. Then we’ll see.” Crineal’s stare fixed her to her seat, and she nodded wordlessly. “So you think the Empire is brutal. Did you know you were breaking the law by joining the rebels?”

  “Yes, but…,” his look froze the words in her throat.

  “And to which detention center were you sent?” he demanded coldly.

  Cyndora didn’t understand where he was going with this. “Birmingham High Security Unit.”

  He nodded. “And whilst you were there, you were stripped of your name, denied access to your family, beaten and raped,” Crineal stated almost brutally.

  To hear him admit so frankly what had happened to her gave her chills. He knew, and yet was still somehow defending what he did? “Yes, raped,” she said defiantly, trying not to give him any satisfaction in her admission, but something about how this was going was still wrong.

  “And then they sentenced you to a medium security prison. Which one?” He was calm now, but still absolute ice.

  “London Reclamation Security Three.” She shuddered, remembering the description of the place.

  “But you were offered this duty instead, at a reduced sentence?” She nodded again, still not sure where he was going.

  “And the indoctrination for this was more beatings, rape and sexual abuse.” It was more of a statement than a question.

  “YES,” she shouted out him. “Every day we had to perform, with the guards, with the other prisoners, with men and women, whatever they told us to do!!! Does that give you a thrill??” She was in tears and angry and confused and so many other emotions, she didn’t know what she was feeling.

  “And you saw other assistants already serving in the recreational area when you arrived.” Crineal was implacable.

  “Yes,” she sobbed, holding herself and shuddering.

  “And did the other prisoners seem particularly bruised or maltreated apart from the nature of their duties?” His look was piercing.

  “Yes, no… I guess not.” Thinking about it, the woman who had spoken to her intake when they first arrived in the dorm actually hadn’t seemed to be in distress.

  Crineal nodded and waited for a moment. “Do you know the name of a rebel prison colony where they hold Imperial captives? You don’t have to tell me the name of the place or where it is, just that you know of one.”

  Cyndora stared at him in total confusion at the sudden change in direction. He looked at her patiently, waiting for her answer. She couldn’t think. There had to be one because she’d heard that some of the rebel cells had captured Imperials. But for the life of her she couldn’t remember a name being mentioned. “I… I don’t know,” she eventually stammered.

  “How long were you part of a rebel cell?” The question appeared casual, but Cyndora felt it was all headed somewhere.

  “Three years,” Cyndora sniffled. Her nose felt blocked due to the crying.

  “And in three years, you never heard the name of any rebellion prison camp?” Crineal pressed.

  “No, I told you,” she answered, getting angry again in her confusion.

  “But you’d heard of Imperial prisons, even before you were captured.” Again, he made it sound like a statement rather than a question.

  “Of course,” she said scornfully. “Everyone’s heard about them.”

  “Do you know how many rebellion prison camps we’ve managed to track down or even just discover the name of?” Cyndora looked at him as if he were crazy. How would she know that? “The answer is none, not one. No records of a camp, nor any names, locations, code names, supplies, absolutely nothing. Seems pretty unlikely, doesn’t it?” The look he now gave her was mocking. “So that’s my questions. Now for my story.” Crineal pulled up a dining chair and sat in front of her, hunched forward so he could look her in the eyes. The anger was rapidly draining from Cyndora and being replaced by fear. She didn’t know what was coming, but she knew without a shred of doubt that she didn’t want to hear it.

  “It was my fifth year in the Space Corps and the squadron I was in was flying patrol out in the middle of nowhere. We had a scout flight with us and their sensors detected an odd formation of ships at extreme range. Two destroyers and a light cruiser. They looked to be of rebel configuration. My commander decided to shadow them whilst he called up a squadron of bombers and some boarding craft. His plan was to try and disable them and find out what they were doing out there. As he was a general, no one back at base was going to veto his play. So we followed along at extreme range until the bombers got there. None of us could figure it out. They seemed to have no fighter cover and for just these three to be on their own was more than odd.” Crineal paused, “Enjoying the story so far?”

  Cyndora was now getting scared and shook her head.

  “Don’t worry, it gets better. So, after tailing them for an hour and with still no clue what they are doing, our bomber support shows up. The fight is over pretty quick. The engines of one destroyer and the light cruiser were knocked out. The other destroyer took an unlucky hit, we think, and blew up… but maybe not. You’ll see why there is doubt. So, the two ships are drifting and the boarding crews go in. Next thing I know, the general is ordering his flight, which includes me, to board the cruiser with him. The rest of the squadron is ordered to stand off. So we land and immediately the ship has an odd feel. It’s rebel all right, but not a standard internal configuration. The marine major in charge of the boarding crew appears and takes the general to one side and talks quietly to him. The general looks more and more grim the longer the major goes on. Finally, the major stops. The general comes back to us and orders the two junior pilots to remain there, in the bay, and to talk to no one. As his aide, he orders me to follow him.” Crineal’s face looked entirely too haunted for Cyndora’s liking. “So the marine major leads us into the ship. We pass through maintenance sections and then living quarters and then into one area that appears to be a cell area. There aren’t many prisoners and most of them are dead, but still bleeding. There are only two prisoners left alive and they are incoherent. Then, just past the cell area, there are three large rooms that, at first, I thought were medical bays. There were tables and surgical instruments and medical display panels. Then I start noticing the oddities, like power tools… and some really obvious cameras situated around the room… and it’s starting to look less and less like a med bay. The major then leads us to the bridge where there is a record library and it’s about half full of data crystals. Some of the crystals are packaged in boxes and addressed for sending to various rebel high command posts. The boxes themselves are marked as ultra-secret and not to be opened by anyone but the named commanders. The crystals however had different designations.” He seemed to be forcing himself to continue the sto
ry now and Cyndora felt more scared than she had in ages. “The major had already viewed some of them and opted to leave the room. The general and I stood and watched through random samples of several crystals, both from packaged boxes and those lying loose. When we were done and I had recovered a little and cleaned myself up, the general handed me a crystal and told me not to show anyone else, but to keep it safe and use it to remember what we were fighting against, rather than fighting for.” Crineal held up the data crystal in front of her. “Every so often I’m tempted to destroy it, but when I pick it up I somehow find the courage to put it back in the safe because it reminds me of what I’m doing here.” Cyndora was now looking in abject terror at the object Crineal held. “I’ve never had the stomach to watch it again and I’ve never shown the contents to anyone else or even told them it exists. Now you’re going to watch it and I’m going to sit here with you.” Crineal’s voice made it sound like a death sentence and at this point she wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t be better off if he did shoot her.

  He placed the crystal in the entertainment unit and then moved to stand behind her, hands firmly on Cyndora’s shoulders, holding her in the chair. The crystal started playing, showing a naked young man strapped to a table in what looked like a med bay. She thought it must be the bay that Crineal had mentioned. There were multiple camera options as part of the display. Two men in plastic medical aprons then appeared and each took scalpels and proceeded to very carefully slice strips of skin from the man’s chest and stomach. The recording came complete with sound track. No one asked any questions, there was only screaming. Cyndora tried to put her hands over her ears to stop the screams but Crineal held her arms down. Once they had cut several strips each they poured something from a bottle into the wounds and the man screamed even louder and smoke or steam curled up from the wounds. Two hulking guards appeared and held the prisoner as the two torturers unstrapped him. The camera zoomed in to show that the table top was roughly corrugated and then panned back out again. The guards turned the feebly struggling prisoner over so that he was bent over the table, legs apart, feet secured to the floor and his bleeding chest on the corrugations. Once he was secured again the guards stepped back out of sight and one of the men in the aprons undressed, his erection painfully obvious. The other torturer picked up a scalpel as the naked one moved up behind the man. Cyndora squeezed her eyes shut, sobbing as the screams got louder. Crineal stood stony faced, holding her there. Occasionally her eyes came open and she caught glimpses of the scenes, men and women were involved as both victims and perpetrators. Eventually, she vomited at one scene involving a woman prisoner and Crineal finally let her go and she rushed to the bathroom.

  Chapter Seven

  Cyndora knelt curled up over the toilet sobbing hysterically. She was vaguely aware of the door opening and Crineal coming in and easing the bile splattered robe off her before shoving it in the recycler. Then he was kneeling beside her once more with a wet cloth, wiping her face before taking her in his arms and just holding her. She clung to him, crying incoherently. Cyndora had no idea how long they sat in the soiled bathroom but eventually, when she had calmed a little, Crineal picked her up and carried her to his bed. The door to the lounge was open but thankfully there was no sound coming from there anymore. Crineal disappeared into the bathroom and she could hear the sounds of him cleaning. Cyndora curled up on the bed clutching a pillow and crying into it. Crineal went through to the lounge, and then returned to sit in front of her on the bed, waiting, holding the crystal. Once the sobs became sniffles and she looked up at his face, he handed her a damp cloth with his free hand. She wiped her face gratefully with it and Crineal started to speak once more, his voice now soft and very sad.

  “There are over fifty hours of recordings on this crystal alone.” He held it up and she recoiled from it as if it were some piece of primal evil. She saw that Crineal’s face was as haggard as hers felt. “We recovered sixty-eight crystals in that ship. The two surviving prisoners were broken, their minds gone. We never got anything sensible out of them. Their ravings were hideous enough. Not one rebel survived the capture. They either died fighting or killed themselves. Now you see why we wondered about the other destroyer blowing up. The ships logs were wiped so we couldn’t find out anything about them, where they had been or were going. We were able to identify various rebels amongst the bodies of the crew and match the names of the commanders on the box labels to known senior rebel personnel, so we could confirm that it was a rebel operation. I get updated whenever Fleet Intel finds a few more pieces of the puzzle. As far as we can make out, you haven’t heard of any rebel prison camps because there aren’t any, there are just these ships. We don’t know how many. We’ve discovered two others we think, but they blew up before we could board them. There are no interrogations on these crystals, no questions, just torture. These are entertainment crystals. None of the rebel lower echelons, like yourself, seem to be aware of what is happening. We think that this is based in the senior levels of the rebel command, but how wide it goes, we don’t know,” he stopped and sat looking at her. “Do you think this is a fake?” Crineal held up the crystal again. “That I’m trying to fool you or someone was trying to fool me?”

  Cyndora shook her head and tried to form some words. “I….. I recog… nised…one…..one …of…the…torturers……,” she sobbed. “He… came…to give…us …a….talk…”

  Crineal stood up and moved to the wall behind her. She heard the panel slide open and Crineal giving the code to open the hatch. There was a small thunk and then the sound of the hatch and panel closing. She felt his weight on the bed behind her and she rolled over to throw her arms around him. Crineal returned her embrace and sat there gently rocking her, making soothing sounds. Finally, she looked up at him.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Why don’t you tell everybody?” her voice was still shaky.

  Crineal looked the saddest she could ever remember seeing him. “Who would believe us? If you had seen that on the news, you would have screamed ‘fake!’ The rebels would deny it; and you’d believe their denial, because the people you’re working for couldn’t possibly be that twisted… right? Everyone knows the Imperial news is just propaganda and lies.” He threw her words back at her and they stung her into tears once more. “I’ve never claimed that the Empire is a paragon of virtue, or even that it’s good, but I know it’s better than what is on that crystal. We treat prisoners badly, particularly rebel captives. I hate to think of how rebel prisoners would be treated if we told the Imperial security and armed forces what we had found. But think of the people in the Rec dorm. They don’t end up like those Imperial prisoners you saw. I’m sure the Imperial prisoners would trade their best day for a recreation assistant’s worst. And I’m still not saying that the rec assistants are treated as they should be. I am trying to fight for what I believe to be right and influence the internal politics of the Empire how I can, as is the general I told you about in my story. He was made a lord and is fighting to clean up the Imperial council, but it’s going to take time. And in that time I’m trying to do my best to eradicate the people who had that crystal made." He could feel her head nodding in agreement against his chest.

  Cyndora clung to him and then noticed the time on the bed panel display. “You’re going to be late for work,” she sniffled.

  Crineal shook his head. “No work for me today, it’s one of my down days,” he said gently.

  She took that in. “Oh… could you just hold me then? Please?”

  He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head softly. “Sure.”A little while later he could feel her start to fall asleep. He edged her further on to the bed until she was lying down and cuddled up across him. Crineal managed to palm the light switch to dim and lay there with Cyndora’s head resting on his chest and her arm over him. Finally, he started to doze, too.

  Crineal woke up to a loud scream and Cyndora sitting bolt upright in bed shaking.

  “Whu…?” he looked around t
he room to try and identify any threat and hit the lights. “Whatsup?” he mumbled.

  Cyndora was crying again. “It was a nightmare,” she sobbed “I kept seeing those people… ”

  Crineal nodded understandingly. “Ok, it’s ok.” He sat up and held Cyndora once more. “It’ll be ok. I had them too, after seeing it the first time. Shush.” Once she had quieted a little he got up and went through the door to the lounge. He came back a couple of minutes later with a glass of water and a pill.

  Cyndora looked up at the offered tablet and tried a weak smile. “Another aphrodisiac rape pill, huh?”

  Crineal smiled back at her a little and shook his head gently. “Too smart for me.”

  Reaching out with a shaky hand she took the proffered items and knocked back the tablet with some water. Cyndora sat there a moment, her arms wrapped around her knees, still holding the glass and then looked up at Crineal. “I’ve been…,” she stopped as he held his hand up.

  “You didn’t know, and you didn’t do it, either. I’ve never held what I know is going on against you.” He reached down and took the glass gently from her hand and stood there with it, watching her carefully. Her face looked a mess, her hair was all over the place, and, in general, she was a complete wreck. “I hate to say it, Hon, but I think you really need a shower.”

  Cyndora looked down at her pajamas in disgust. “Ergh…and you cuddled me like this? You must have a lot of bravery awards,” she sniffled.

  Crineal put the glass onto a shelf and palmed open the bathroom door before helping Cyndora up off the bed. He assisted her into the bathroom. “Just throw the pajamas out to me and I’ll stuff them in the recycler.”

  Cyndora let go of him and before he could even turn to leave she was stripping off her pajama bottoms and handing them to Crineal followed by her top and her panties. He turned away blushing a little as she stepped into the shower. The soiled nightwear was fed into the recycler and after a moment’s thought he did the same with the sheets from his bed. May as well finish up the cleaning duties, he thought and made a start on clearing up the mess in the lounge. The bathroom and bedroom doors were deliberately left open so that he could hear Cyndora if she needed anything. He was just about done when he heard her calling him. “Crin? I could use a couple of towels, please?”