Silent Treatment
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Arcadia # 4820 | |
| — Hostile Encounters — | |
| |
| year | 344 CE (2407) |
| posted | October 27 2007 |
| previous | Silence of the Lambs |
| next | Things Happen to Humanists... Earther. |
Responding to "Silence of the Lambs"
[Starbase 514]
Oilia Nefrindi sat in a small cell. There were Bartokians all around him; he couldn't tell how many exactly. Rough guess... twenty? Thirty? It was hard to say. He wasn't sure how many were in worse shape than he was. Of course, that would have been difficult.
He had been in this cell for the better part of a week. Over the course of that week, he had been beaten repeatedly. Denied sleep. Given just enough food and water to survive. Harassed constantly. Degraded by the human captors. If Nistrin (the Bartokian version of Hell) truly existed, it had to be a lot like this.
As if to prove a point, two human guards opened the door to the cell. They tossed in his cellmate: Vinke Duboila. He was from Bartok III. A shopkeeper. He had been passing through, just like Oilia. And like him, he had absolutely no idea why he was here. Why he was being detained.
Oilia rose slowly. He was still pretty tender from his last go-round with the guards. He helped Vinke over to the bunk in the cell. Vinke sat, grimacing in agony. Oilia brought over a cup with some water. It wasn't much, but a little beat nothing. Vinke drank slowly.
"Bad?"
"Same as usual."
"Anything serious?"
"Can't tell. I may have broken a bone... I'm not certain."
Oilia was no medic. But even he knew that a body could only handle so much abuse. He wondered if any of the Bartokians here had died. He dared not attempt to ask. If you spoke louder than a whisper, a guard promptly appeared... and what was done to you afterwards wasn't pleasant, to say the very least. The man in the cell next to Oilia and Vinke learned that lesson the hard way.
"Why are we still here?" Oilia couldn't understand. The Bartokian Supreme Council wouldn't stand for this. Not having its citizens detained and tortured. The strangest part was, for the life of him, Oilia had no idea why they were being detained. Or questioned, for that matter. There was no logic to it. It made no sense.
Vinke shook his head, groaning as he did. "Don't know. I overheard one of the guards... said something about we would be shipped back in a couple of days. Maybe."
"Maybe? Why wouldn't we?"
Vinke looked over. "Would you beat, torture, and detain several citizens of a planet... and then just send them back?"
A cold chill ran down Oilia's back. Vinke made perfect sense. When this group returned to Bartok, they would surely tell everyone who would listen about what happened. Would the Bartokians be willing to go to war with the Federation? That was difficult to say. But one thing was certain: Nobody would take the stories lightly. Something would be done about it. Unless Vinke was correct. And then... none of them would ever see home again.
▷ continued ◁
