[USS Tempest] "NK 218-447"

  • From: Elizabeth Bethell <ejbethell@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: usstempest@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:41:55 +0000

NK 218-447

Sergeant Aisling Reynam


Warning: This log contains scenes of extreme violence and torture.


The room was dark and cold, the concrete damp beneath her cheek as she slowly clawed back to consciousness. Her head felt as if someone had slammed it with a door over and over. As she sat up, deafening realisation hit of exactly where she was and for the first time she was afraid.

"Another Xenexian," a sneer in the darkness. "Eyes like mine, I should pluck them out for their insolence."

Aisling held her breath, willing stillness into her shaking limbs.

"But perhaps not. It's a fine thing to know that one's victims can still look upon their own mutilated bodies."

Movement in the darkness out to her right. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the sound. Footsteps paced around her, more than one set too. They could tell where she was, she knew that. But she could only just make out their positions. It was far too rough an estimate to do something about it.

"What do you want?" she asked simply, her voice even and strong.

"Pain." The answer was illustrated as rough hands wrapped through her hair and yanked her to her feet and a searing bright light blinded her.

As her eyes adjusted very slowly, Aisling could see the Vorta sat behind a wide desk, his hands clasped in front of him, a smirk on his face. A phaser and a series of long thin needles were set up before him. To the left of the table was a heavy rope with a set of shackles attached to them hung from the roof.

"Sergeant Aisling Reynam, serial number NK 218-447," she said. Her eyes fixed on a spot to the right of the Vorta and they stayed there. Those rough hands that had lifted her up dragged her to the table and forced her into the only seat there.

"I didn't ask you a question," the Vorta chuckled. Taking the phaser and one of the skewers, he aimed it at the metal and blasted it, the needle heating up to whiteness. "Now... a little taster before I really do ask a question." With a nod of the Vorta's head, one of his Jem'Hadar grabbed her right hand and laid it flat on the desktop. Placing the needle very close to her hand, he left it there for a second so she could feel the heat.

"Sergeant Aisling Reynam, serial number NK 218-447." Her eyes were drawn down to what he was doing and she felt the lump in her stomach at the absolute knowledge of what he intended.

Slowly, almost lovingly, the Vorta inserted the skewer deep under the first of Aisling's fingernails. Her scream pierced the room, echoing around him. Then he yanked it back out with a snarl. "Now... where have the prisoners been taken?"

"Sergeant Aisling Reynam, serial number NK 218-447," she gasped, tears of pain forming in her eyes. Struggling against the impossibly strong hands of the Jem'Hadar, she tried to move her hand away but it was futile.

"Wrong answer." The Vorta heated the needle again, placing the hot metal against the back of her hand.

Aisling could feel the hairs crackle and scorch. Choosing to relax completely, she awaited the pain but it didn't come. The metal cooled right down against her skin. Opening her eyes, she didn't even see it until a second hot skewer was thrust beneath the nail of her middle finger. White, screaming pain erupted from her hand and she screamed again, not even hearing it above the ringing echo of the pain.

The Vorta sighed sadly. "I don't enjoy this, you know," he said, the gleeful gleam in his eyes belying his words. "I just want you to tell me the truth. Where have they all gone?"

In a hollow but clear voice, she said, "Sergeant Aisling Reynam, serial number NK 218-447."

The needles continued, one finger after the next of both hands. When it was clear that this wasn't working, the Vorta snarled. "Stubborn! That other Xenexian was the same. Hours of electricity, as fun as it was, and he would say nothing."

She couldn't help it, her eyes twitched in a flinch for Cassiel and she gasped. It was more the sound than anything that alerted him and he chuckled.

"Pretty eyes," he mused. "I should have plucked those out. Do you know where I put the electrodes?" At Aisling's slight shake of her head, he leaned forward. "One between his legs on his sack, one on each nipple, under his arms and in his ears. The sound he made..." he sighed, "A scream like that is like what Humans call a fine wine. I have it recorded, if you wish to hear it."

"No," she whispered, "thank you."

"Oh, but I think you do." Grinning insanely, the Vorta tapped at the controls of a console by the side of him.

Out of the room's huge speaker system, an inhuman scream erupted. Aisling wished that she couldn't but in the depths of its pain, she could hear Cassiel's voice. She knew, without doubt, it belonged to him.

"And now I have yours to go along with it." The Vorta stood up slowly and stretched. "A matched pair, if I'm not wrong. When we get him back, the pair of you can scream together. The music will be pure harmony."

In a snarl, she said, "You're never getting him back!"

The snap of his fingers was loud in the silence. The Jem'Hadar pulled her to her feet again and yanked her over to the shackles. Dragging her arms behind her back, they tied her to the rope. The Vorta sauntered over and ran a hand over her cheek. "You have very soft skin for a Marine, Sergeat Aisling Reynam. I don't see what all you Alpha Quadranters see in physical attraction, though. That creature, prisoner 1201977, would have been a wreck when he left here. Why fall for something that broken?"

"Sergeant Aisling Reynam, serial number NK 218-447." Flat eyes stared at nothing as she was winched upwards, hot, tearing pain exploding across her shoulders and down her arms. But it was nothing compared to that scream. It echoed in her head, knowing who it came from, knowing what they did to him, and made her feel sick.

Once she was a good twenty feet off the ground, the Jem'Hadar on the winch was given a signal and he let it go. A moment of weightlessness was followed by a sense of plummeting. Then it stopped and she screamed her loudest, feeling the bones in her shoulders crunch and break. Ligaments tore, muscles snapped and one of her shoulders popped out of its socket.

"Sergeant Aisling Reynam, serial number NK 218-447," she screamed at the top of her lungs. "By Xenex, Sergeant Aisling Reynam, serial number NK 218-447!"

Twice more they winched her up and let her drop, the damage she felt each time making her retch. But each time she called out the same words: "Sergeant Aisling Reynam, serial number NK 218-447." Finally, they let her drop completely, untied her and left. Clearly, she knew nothing and what she did know she wouldn't tell them. As an after thought, the Vorta clicked on Cassiel's scream in a loop so it played continuously

Tentatively, with tears streaming down her face, she managed to pull her arms around in front of her. Curling into a very tight ball around her damaged limbs, Aisling cried herself through the pain, her love's pain mirroring her own.

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