Searching Part 6, Nothing until I see my friends

Posted on Tue Aug 6th, 2024 @ 1:01am by Captain Remy Johansen & Lieutenant JG Thivi

1,868 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Helping Brunel
Location: Earth, The Himalayas
Timeline: MD 14, Concurrent with Parts 2-4

Remy was brought into the facility blindfolded. She couldn't see anything, and was still groggy from whatever they had hit her with back at the city center, but she had enough sense about her to take a few deep breaths in through her nose to try to figure out where they might have taken her. There was a chill in the air, and it was clean, fresh. They weren't near trees or a city.

A door slammed solidly behind her. "Sit." Remy was pushed into a chair and bound tightly by her arms and ankles. The blindfold was cut away by the back, and blinding white light enveloped her entire field of vision at once. The room she was being held in was nearly pitch black, wall to wall, save a single bright white lamp shining down from above. Were it not for that, the entire space may as well have been a black void.

Standing in front of her was a ginger-haired human male in his mid thirties, dressed sharply in a dark suit and tie and suede shoes with a sleek pair of sunglasses covering his eyes. A suave bark of laughter ripped its way from his lips as he surveyed the helpless human before him.

"You and your lot were surprisingly easy to get hold of. And I thought Starfleet types liked to go more... incognito." He said, in a tone even smoother than fine silk. Somehow, there was barely any noise as he walked towards a comfortable-looking chair in the corner and dragged it over so that he faced Remy directly - any and all sound seemed to die in the air as quickly as it was produced. The man smiled as he sat down and faced her, a sickly sweet, kind smile. "We know everything, Captain. There is nothing you can hide from us. Let's start with what you're doing here, shall we."

Remy's eyes squinted and she turned her head away from the bright light. After being blindfolded the light wasn't just bright, it was painful.

"Why are you kidnapping Starfleet officers on Earth of all places. Not a very smart move. Where are my people? I need to know they are okay," Remy demanded.

"You're not in any position to make demands, sweetheart. In case you haven't noticed, which I'm sure you have, smart thering, you - I'm the one in total control here." The ginger-haired man replied smoothly. "But alright. I'll let you see your comrades. It warms my cold, dead heart, you know. Seeing that Starfleet types don't ever change." He fished around in one of his coat pockets and extracted a PADD. He swiped through it before turning it around for her to see. On screen was footage of the rest of the away team in their own respective chambers, battered and bruised, barely alive. Eirly in particular seemed to have a giant bloody welt across her forehead. All of it was expertly forged with artificial intelligence, of course, but she didn't need to know that.

Remy tried to study the images, but the lights were bright, and he didn't give her very long to look at them. Anger flashed across her eyes, but she kept her voice steady. "I don't know what you want, but you can get it from me. Let them go."

"I'll give you this assurance: they're alive. How long they stay that way depends on you, my dear." He said, once he'd let her have a good, long look. The PADD was switched off and placed in his pocket. "All you need to do is tell me what your purpose here is and they'll go with their lives." He flashed another suave smile.

"I'm here to try to save a boy," Remy responded. "Now let them go."

"A likely story. You think pulling on the heartstrings is gonna save you, huh." The man sighed, shook his head and stood up. From the inner pocket of his jacket he retrieved what seemed to be a baton-like object that glowed red as he switched it on. He pressed it to Remy's neck; immediately immense pain shot through the entire body, as if every fiber of her flesh had been set ablaze. "Agonizer stick. You'll be surprised what you can get when you twist the right arms in the right places." He spoke in her ear, in that very same silky smooth tone of voice. "She and you are gonna get more and more familiar the more you don't tell me the truth, darling. So tell me, properly this time, Captain. Why are you here?"

Remy writhed in agony, unable to move because of the restraints. "I'm telling you the truth. I'm here to try to save a boy. Kas is my pilot, and Eirly just came along to see if she could help. They don't know anything. Let them go and I will tell you whatever you want to know. About anything."

The dark-suited man let out a chuckle, long, slow and smooth as velvet on the ears. "And I'm the goddamn fairy godmother. Nah. That's not why you're here." He struck her with the agonizer baton again, sending yet another jolt of pain through her entire being. "Truth first, doll. Then I let your buddies go free. Pinky promise." He held out a hand with his pinky out, mimed hooking his finger through hers, and smiled.

Remy looked at the man in the eye and gritted her teeth. "I am not lying. He needs something that I can't get from Starfleet. I'm just trying to find something to help him."

"Really. Okay then." The man fished around in his jacket and pulled out what appeared to be a syringe filled with a dark liquid. "Cardassian truth serum. You won't mind if I used it, do you. If you're telling the truth then you shouldn't care about me using it, will you, doll?"

Remy looked at the syringe curiously and tested her restraints. "Who are you?" she asked. "Let my people go, and tell me where I am, and who I am talking to and I'll be more inclined to give you more information willingly," Remy said defiantly. "You know as well as I do that if I'm pissed off when you dose me with that, you still might not be able to get what you want out of me."

"You, my dear, are on Earth. Rest assured. As to me, call me an information gatherer. That's all. I'm sure you know very well indeed that what you're looking for is very, very secretive, of course..." The human man smiled. "However, my terms remain. Information first, freedom for your people after. Of course, if you won't give information then they won't be leaving - simple as that. What'll it be."

Remy rocked back in the chair and kicked against her restraints with enough support to make the the chair skid a centimeter or so. "You've already hurt my people. If you're willing to do that and use agonizer sticks then I have no reason to trust you. For all I know, you're a Syndicate operative... or Section 31. I don't really care to do business with either." Remy narrowed her eyes. She was starting to get angry.

"That's for me to know, and for you to not care about. You'll talk. Properly. It'll just take some time. And I consider myself a very, very patient man." The human man stood up, turned and simply walked to the exit. Once more, he made nearly no sound as he walked - the tapping of his shoes on the floor died as quickly as it was produced. "Talk soon, my dear. Rest assured your little buddies will be kept safe and secure while they're in our tender arms." Then he shut the door, enveloping Remy in a blackness so complete and all-consuming that she may as well have been floating in a soundless void.

Remy blinked a few times and took a few deep breaths. She'd somehow gotten herself into something crazy and on Earth of all places. Her best guess was that it was something that she and Kas had been into in the past. She chided herself for letting Eirly come along. She should have been more protective of her officer and left her behind.

Remy took a deep breath and tried her best to relax her muscles as much as possible so that she would be less likely to injure herself should anything go wrong. Realizing the camera was watching her, Remy wasn't going to get very far with the restraints in the middle of the room like this. She rocked her body, causing the chair and her to fall to the left so that she landed on her side. She let out a grunt - it didn't hurt as bad as she expected. She focused first on getting her left hand and leg free. Since they were on the ground, she had the cover of her own body. She doubled over in the chair and started working the arm restraint with her teeth, while simultaneously trying to see if her ankle restraints could be worked off of the bottom of the chain in a pinch.

---

Nila Corin, a Bajoran woman who had just left an attempted interview with Kas greeted Nathan as he was leaving Remy's cell. Noting the darkness in the room behind him, Nila was curious.

"Is the Captain giving you trouble?" she asked.

"More than I care to take care of." The human sighed and shook his head. "No matter. She can struggle all she wants. The room will get to her eventually. Near complete deadening of all sound and lack of visual stimuli - she'll be begging to get out after a day or two with no food or water or stimulation of any kind." He nodded at the door. "Coffee? We'll have quite some time before she coughs up the real reason why she's here."

"Perhaps if you tried some mechanism other than torture you'd be further along by now," Brandon's Betazed accent broke through the hallway. "I didn't realize that we were that kind of organization. The scientists are keeping this technology for the greater good, not to torture people who want to use it for the same."

"The young tactical officer with them doesn't know much about the technology. She does know that it's illegal, they are breaking Federation law to be here, and she's come along because of a sick child on board the Astrea and she feels responsible for making him ill. Something about food she made for the family," Brandon offered. "She was pretty up front even without the serum, though I did dose her to be sure. She's requested a meal."

"You lot are far too soft-hearted. You really think that's the reason why they're here?" Nathan sniffed. "There's something up. I sense it. But don't worry. The sensory deprivation will get her eventually. Come on. Let's bide our time. See what happens first."

Inside the room Remy's grit and perseverance had her close to freeing one hand when the door opened.

~TBC~

 

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