“Well, that’s a reasonable enough argument,” I said with a sigh, struggling to my feet. “But you wanna explain how we’re going to do that with all of our hands behind our back?”
“Fair enough.”
There was a slight buzz and then I felt a sort of magnetic pulse rush through the room. A second later, all our shackles fell, and for the first time in days, we were unchained.
I rubbed at the tender skin of my wrist, hardly believing that my restraints were gone. The flesh that was under the bonds was definitely not happy, with some of it being rubbed raw while other parts were bruised and rashy. I had a feeling that would take some good antibiotics to heal, but the commander probably wasn’t interested in giving any to us.
They gave us maybe a minute to lather up before I heard the spout fire up again. I barely had enough time to put my hands over my eyes and turn my back before we were blasted with the stinging spray.
It hurt just as much as last time, but it was far less shocking. In a way, it almost felt nice to be clean, but I could think of a whole lot more relaxing way to scrub up.
The spray lasted longer than last time, scouring us until there wasn’t a sud on any of our bodies, and then it finally shut off. The four of us stood there, shivering, until more vents opened in the ceiling and warm air started blowing down onto us. It almost made me laugh, the absurdity of it all. It was one thing to torture us with cold blasts of water and stinging spray, but it was another entirely to blow dry us after the ordeal.
But that was exactly what they did, and about five minutes later, we were all fluffy-haired and mostly dry.
“Put your restraints back on, inmates,” the commander’s voice came over the comms. He sounded almost amused; he probably enjoyed making a fool of us from his perspective.
We did as he asked, but the advantage of us doing it was that we all put the cuffs on in front of our body. They lit up as soon as they touched our skin, then tightened around our wrists until they were almost too tight.
Almost.
Then the door opened and a soldier stepped in, gun pointed at us, and gestured for us to exit.
We did, of course, and trudged out only slightly damp. But once we were out, they didn’t lead us back the way we came. No, instead we were being shuffled toward another entirely new part of the ship.
What could be going on? We certainly didn’t need any more showering, but it wasn’t like the commander or any of his crew was going to explain. So, we all marched along, observing as much as we could, until we were in a landing room, full of chairs and harnesses.
“Sit down,” one of the soldiers ordered.
We complied, each going to a different seat and allowing the soldiers to strap us in. I felt the slightest bubble of hope in my stomach. If we were in a landing bay, that meant we had to be at Earth. And being at Earth meant our surroundings were definitely going to change. But for the worse or for the better? I supposed there was no way of knowing.
Once we were all properly secured, the soldiers settled themselves. The commander wasn’t present, but I was guessing that he wasn’t going to go through the landing with his underlings. The perks of being a high-ranking military member in an illegal coup.
The rumbling started up soon after, interrupting my thoughts. Their entering the atmosphere was far smoother than that of our warship, but I didn’t know if that was because the ship was smaller, or if their technology had progressed that much since we had left. I supposed I would never know, but I decided not to think about that. This couldn’t be the end of us. I refused to believe it.
But whether I believed it or not, the one thing I noticed was that Mimi was conspicuously absent. That was less than ideal. But where on Earth could they have her? While the ship was bigger than a fighter, or a small-team fighter vessel, it was definitely a fraction of the size of our warship. I couldn’t imagine them having a secondary brig or cleansing area.
The rumbling and shaking was starting to end, but a quick movement from Eske caught my eye. I glanced over to her, to see her gently sweeping her foot around. I didn’t know what she was doing for a moment, until I realized that—with her limited vision—she was feeling out for where the soldiers were.
Oh. Her feet were free. Even with her hands restrained, Eske was more than capable of kicking some serious behind. But I was worried her movement might draw attention. She needed a distraction, just to be safe.
But what could I do? I certainly didn’t have any amazing martial art skills to call upon or great skills with people. So, I just started coughing.
Well, perhaps hacking was a more accurate term. I really gave it my everything, pretending like I was hawking a loogy, and I felt all of the soldiers looking at me with either concern or disgust.
But that was all Eske needed. She flipped her leg up from her seat, her shin slamming into the head of the soldier next to her. In one fluid motion, she unbuckled herself from the harness and rolled forward, diving into another soldier with both feet slamming into his chest.
Suddenly, the landing room erupted in chaos. The three of us unbuckled ourselves as well, throwing ourselves into the fray.
And by throwing ourselves into the fray, I mean we focused on the two soldiers that weren’t grappling with Eske, trying to grab their guns and prevent anyone from being blastered in the face.
Of course, there was entering the atmosphere to worry about. Just when the soldier I was dealing with seemed to get the upper hand, a particularly hard jolt rocked the entire cabin, sending us all slamming into the wall.
When the ship settled, we were all tangled in each other, and it was a hot mess as the struggle picked up again. Somehow, in the tussle, the soldier had gotten the upper hand on me and was pressing the length of his blaster against my throat. I could hardly breathe, and I pushed up against him with all my might, but he didn’t even budge until a booted foot slammed into his temple.
He fell to the side and I sent a quick, grateful look to Eske. She had no time to return it, however, already turning to deal with the remaining soldiers.
There was more rattling and more rolling, slamming us into the ceiling or sliding us across the floor, but somehow—blind and bound—Eske managed to take down all of the soldiers while we, uh, kinda helped. A little. By the time the ship settled, we were riffling through the soldier’s pockets, trying to find some sort of key or card to get out of there.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Eske murmured, standing to the side. I saw a bruise blooming on her cheek, but she didn’t even seem to notice. I had long since grown used to her hazy eyes traveling around at will, but I couldn’t help but notice that their wandering seemed much more frantic than usual.
“I’m impressed,” Ciangi said from beside me, before pulling out a thin security card from the soldier she was feeling up. “Even after six months of peace, you still got it.”
“I suppose teaching the children everyday has really helped me.” She sighed lightly. “I miss them, actually.”
“I do too,” I said, grabbing the blaster from one of the guards and taking the security card as Ciangi handed it to me. “So, let’s make sure we get back to them.”
These corrupted officials wanted a coup? Well, I would give them a coup. One way or another, we were turning this ship around.
I slid the card into the door, ready to charge out and make sure we seized the element of surprise. But as soon as the entrance slid open, I was immediately faced with a half dozen or so more soldiers, all of their guns drawn.
“Well, sh—”
I never got the word out. An arc of energy shot out of their weapons and I was thrown back into the far wall. With a disappointed sigh, I felt myself slip under.
So much for that idea.
7
Processing
It turned out that the commander and his crew didn’t like prisoner uprisings. They also didn’t like that four members of their crew had been beaten to a nice pulp. Who knew?
While I couldn’t say
exactly what happened after I lost consciousness, I did know what happened once I awoke strapped to a gurney-like thing, unable to move my arms, legs, or any of my body. They had us bolted down mercilessly, and all of my limbs were tingling from the tightness of the bonds.
I had missed the part where we exited the ship, waking up in the back of a transport craft with a dozen or so soldiers sitting all around us, weapons pointed at our little tables.
I tried to move my neck what little I could, seeing if I could find Mimi among our number, but I could only really catch a glimpse of Eske to one side and Bahn to the other. None of us were talking, and I didn’t know if that was because I was the only one conscious or because we were all equally defeated by the current situation. Had they all been knocked out like me? Or had they been apprehended more peacefully than me? And what had they shot me with? It wasn’t electricity, but it wasn’t a light beam either. If anything, it had seemed like some sort of concussive force.
While it was unpleasant, it let me know that they needed me—or us—alive and couldn’t risk mortal injury. Which, while it didn’t seem most important at the moment, gave me a certain sense of comfort to know that for now I wasn’t expendable.
The hover-craft we were in finally stopped, and the soldiers all stood, their glares intense. The door at the end of the cabin slid open, and for a moment, I was blinded by the light. When my eyes finally did adjust, I saw we were in some sort of hangar bay. It was different from the one where we had hijacked the warship, with brighter lights and far fewer ships. As we were rolled out, I noticed the ceilings were lower, and the room wasn’t nearly as large.
They rolled us down the walkway, and we hit ground none too gently. I didn’t expect much from the soldiers considering how peeved they were at us, but I also didn’t expect the jostling to be so disconcerting. But I guessed how tightly we were strapped down was amplifying every move we made.
We continued rolling, moving out of the bay and into an overly bright hallway. We passed by several doors, and I saw soldiers stationed at each one.
At least these guys offered a little variation. There were both male and female soldiers, with uniforms indicating different ranks and jobs. Their weapons were decidedly different too. Were the soldiers on the ship specially outfitted to deal with us? That was…interesting.
After going down the hall a bit, we turned abruptly to the left, and they wheeled us into a room with a chair in the center and a table full of equipment next to it.
But as we turned, my eyes caught several more soldiers moving something past the door. It was a large container with what looked like several shield emitters on top, and I could see some sort of smoky figure within the liquid.
“Mimi?” I asked.
But the door slammed shut and my view was cut off before I could see any more detail. But I was sure that the container held Mimi. There was no other answer that made sense! I needed to know where they were taking her, but I very much doubted that they planned on telling me anything.
Perhaps I should just focus on the room that we were in now, because the soldiers were moving, arranging our beds into a neat little line.
“Ready for processing,” the soldier said, pressing a button to the comms.
“Affirmative. Sending personnel now.”
And then we just…waited.
A few minutes passed by, and then a few more, and then two more workers in scrubs with aprons over them came in.
“We were called down for processing?” the smaller of them said, a female, but that was about all I could see of her considering her head was completely covered by a hairnet and part of her face was obscured by a silicone medical mask.
“Yes. These four. They’re hostile.”
“Who, me?” Ciangi countered, and I could practically hear her batting her eyes at them. “I’m far too cute to be hostile.”
The worker gave her a look before walking over to the table.
“Alright, put one of them in the chair and we’ll get this started.”
“Get what started, exactly?” I asked, feeling more than a bit apprehensive.
But no one answered me. Instead, they wheeled my gurney over to the chair, one of them reaching below me to press something that turned my horizontal bed completely vertical. Then they pressed something else that released all of my bonds at once and suddenly, I was toppling forward, my limbs solidly asleep.
The soldiers caught me, which surprised me a bit. I had definitely expected them to let me smack into the hard floor like a sack of potatoes. Together, they maneuvered me into the chair, then closed more bonds around my torso, wrists, and ankles.
The shackles definitely stung against my raw skin, which was even angrier at all the different restraints I’d been stuck in since my capture. I was pretty sure we were all going to have scarring when we got out.
Assuming we got out.
I shook my head, trying to get that idea out. I couldn’t afford to be pessimistic. I had to believe that we would make it through no matter what. But it was hard to remain positive when they were pulling my hair-tie from my low ponytail.
“What are you doing?” I asked, jerking violently away from their touch. I didn’t like the sensation of people interacting with my hair. It made my skin crawl and set me on edge. Even cutting it myself often agitated me, which was why I had let it grow so long in the first place.
“Calm down, inmate. You’re being processed.”
I saw them pick up a reverberating blade with a bag attached to it to catch the fallout. I knew what that was for and my whole body went cold.
“Get away from me!” I ordered, jerking against my restraints. The whole world was starting to get…prickly, and I just needed to get away.
Several beeps sounded from above my head and the closest of the masked workers cursed. “What’s going on? This isn’t a usual reaction.”
The other one pulled something up on their data-log. “Ah, it says he’s got some sensory issues. We’ll need to sedate him.”
“Or you could just stop what you’re doing!” I heard Ciangi cry from her bed. “You’re really gonna torture a blind woman, a neuro-divergent janitor, and a couple of eggheads? Just a couple of winners, aren’t ya?”
“Relax,” one of them told me, bringing an injector up to my arm. Before I could wrap my mind around what was happening, they pressed it to my arm and I was slipping off into oblivion.
I wasn’t out for long, or at least it didn’t seem like long. My mouth wasn’t nearly as dry as it usually was after an extended bought of unconsciousness. Also…it was probably a bit sad that I had been knocked out often enough to know that.
But when I came to, I was in a cell not too different from the one I had been captured and put into nearly a year ago.
“Ugh, this is the worst case of déjà vu I’ve ever had,” I said, picking myself up off the floor.
My entire body hurt, and my head was hazy, but I managed to get upright without falling over. Blinking, I took inventory of myself, noting that I was no longer cuffed or shackled or any other form of restrained. That was a relief. And it seemed that my wrists and ankles had been appropriately cleaned and bandaged.
I stretched, feeling my body snap, crackle, and pop, but when I reached up toward my head, I realized something was horribly amiss.
That was when my memories came rushing back to me and my entire organ system lurched. My hair! My hair!
Instead of long, long tresses that made me feel like an ancient Viking, or Celt warrior, I was buzzed completely bald. The sensation of smooth scalp was uncomfortable, and I found myself wanting to spiral again.
I tried to breathe deeply, looking around for anything that might help my mind stop hyper-fixating on the change and let myself focus on what mattered. I was pretty much in a big, empty box, with nothing but three walls and a forcefield around me.
“Hey there, Higgens, you okay?”
I looked toward the sound of the voice to see blue eyes staring from the cell across
the hall from me. I looked at them dumbly, my brain trying to figure out who they were, before I realized it was Ciangi.
“They cut your hair…” I murmured, unsure of what emotion was even in my voice. While she wasn’t buzzed completely bald like me, her hair was about one knuckle-joint in length and had turned into a soft halo of mini curls around her head.
“They cut all of our hair, buddy. Are you okay?”
I took a minute to think about it. A lot had gone wrong in a very short amount of time and my mind was trying to catch up. I knew there was a whole lot worse that could have happened, but this seemed pretty terrible.
I looked to Ciangi again and noticed something else different about her. “On your neck. Is that a bruise?” I squinted, trying to see more clearly, but she was too far away and there were two blue-hued shields between us.
“It’s not a bruise, actually. I got to watch them lay one on you and it’s a sort of an electromagnetic tattoo. They just slapped it on all of us like cattle.”
I reached up to my own neck, and I did find that there was an unusually smooth spot, like it had been shaved of my natural body hair and glossed over. “What on Earth is the point of all this?”
“Well, the hair, I would guess demoralization. It’s been proven that altering someone’s hair against their will is a way to exercise control and reshape identities. It shows the victim that their body is not their own.
“As for the tattoo, I’m sure that same demoralization plays a part in it, making us feel more like property. But if I had to put money on it, I would guess that they have a specific electromagnetic isotope in them to allow them to track us, on the off chance that we should escape.”
I… I couldn’t believe it. We really had been branded like cattle, and even if we did get out, they would know wherever we were. There would be no hiding, even if we left the mimic’s planet.
Mimic Betrayed (Space Shifter Chronicles Book 6) Page 5
