Whispers in the Dark

Posted on Thu Jun 30th, 2011 @ 1:21pm by Lieutenant Commander Aral Aix & Captain Nathan Cowell MD & Lieutenant Xylia Lischka & Lieutenant Xishaal Idrani & Petty Officer 2nd Class Eldon Solus

Mission: Too Close for Comfort...
Location: Containment Facility, Archadia III
Timeline: Following 'These things just happen...'

The away team had been forcibly relocated to a secure location in the basement of a government building.

Aral Aix's hands were tied above his head as two of the arresting Archadian officers cut away his garments and confiscated his personal belongings. Aral watched as each device was carefully catalogued and placed in a small metal box. He was helpless and in a small room, alone except for his two tormentors.

One of the officers cut away his trousers. "What do you know- the spots do go all the way down." Aral said nothing.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably no more than five minutes, the officers dressed Aix in a standard prison uniform and cut him loose. He was eventually deposited in a large poorly lit room where the Commodore stood, similarly attired, pacing the length of the room. The two officers were alone and unarmed. The room was unfurnished except for a pile of sleeping mats in one corner and what looked like a toilet and small privacy screen in the other.

"Sir." Aix acknowledged the Commodore. Starfleet protocol stated that when captured the first duty of an officer is to effect his escape. However it was too early to show their hand, Aral was unsure if they were being observed.

"Spots..." Nathan nodded to the Trill, but otherwise said nothing.


Eventually Schenk, Solus and Lischka were deposited in the cell, all wearing the drab prison uniform.

Ensign Schenk groaned as he found himself in the cell after his strip search; it wasn't the treatment that had caused him to groan, but all the lost technology that he had had with him upon their capture. It had all happened so fast that it almost seemed planned by the very people that they were there to help. Taking stock of his surroundings, it was obvious there was nothing available to use other than their intelligence and a hope that their captors hadn't taken that into account as well.

"Oh good... most of the gang's here..." Nathan grumbled, hoping that he wouldn't see Idrani among the group. When everyone found themselves a comfortable spot to occupy, Commodore Cowell began their impromptu meeting.

Spotting the Commodore in the same uniform as himself and the others, Marc sighed. This wasn't going to go over well and he knew that he couldn't very well go telling all the things that he had done in the city before their capture. "Commodore. Were you hurt, Sir?"

"Not particularly... blame it on being old and fragile," Doc Cowell shrugged it off. "So, funny thing happened to me today... Seems I'm getting framed for orchestrating the killing of the First Minister and all of her flunkies in that building. As I'm sure you're all well aware... unless the guards aren't talking much... that you're all being framed as accomplices to the fact, and the penalty will likely be death, should we ever get to have a trial. I've been assured that we won't, we'll just be killed off when the dust settles," the old man said before clapping his hands and rubbing them together, "Anyone manage to hide anything up their asses that will spring us from the joint?"

The looks on everyone's faces told him they had not spirited anything away in an inappropriate location... which was disappointing to say the least.

"Ok... no hidden weapons... how about ideas? Anyone got one of those?" the Commodore asked.

Before anyone could answer there was a noise at the far end of the room and Nathan was there on the double, the others followed at a couple of paces. Aix recognised the two guards who had stripped him. They deposited another prisoner in the room, it was Idrani.

"We might as well keep them together." The husky voice of one of the guards spoke. The Andorian wore the same prison uniform as the others, although her bright blue skin was uneven in colour - she had obviously put up more resistance than the others.

Aral's heart sank at the sight of her, but obviously the Commodore had a bright idea. "Hold on a minute there ladies." He was addressing himself to the guards.

"Yes?" The largest of the pair answered, her voice was deep.

"How about we cut a deal?" The old man's eyes sparkled with mischief.

"Unlikely." She replied. "You have nothing to offer..."

The Commodore raised an eyebrow. "How about a night with this strapping young man?" The Commodore pointed at Aix, "As you know the spots go all the way down." Aral felt like a cross between a prostitute and a prize on a game show.

The guard just snorted, she may have been amused. "He's not my type."

"You want Shrek?" The Commodore asked, gesturing to the Intelligence Officer with his right thumb. The woman just snorted again and made to close the door.

"Face it sir, that trick just won't work here." Aral remarked.

"Damn... and I thought I brought all the eye candy, too..." Nathan grumbled.

"What about information?" Marc said as he watched the two female guards prepare to leave. He counted on the fact that the Commodore would most likely put him under the bus and back up a few times at the mere suggestion of his comment. He cast a sly glance at the Old Man. "By the way, if it weren't for me, those Klingons would have won."

"I don't think that will work..." Nathan sighed, following where the Ensign was going, "They don't seem to care much for us, and likely we'd just end up beating the shit out of one another for their amusement..."

The Ensign sighed and backed off. "You're right. Besides, I don't want you hitting me like you hit those lobster-headed freaks." Still, every muscle in his body tensed and he studied the two female guards, just waiting for an opening if they got froggy.

One of the guards was intrigued. "You... Shrek... you people have such silly names... keep talking."

Lieutenant Lischka opened her eyes with a groan, bringing a hand up to her bloodied temple. One she could see through fine, but the other, she was nearly blind in because blood had run into it. She was, after all, a feisty one, but not when she was rendered unconscious. Slowly, the woman pushed herself to a sitting position, trying to shake the haze from her mind. This whole mess pissed her off. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that something was going to happen, but she had no idea what that something was until now. "Commodore... you keep offering men to them. Perhaps... they don't swing that way."

Consciousness came slowly to the Andorian, she tasted blood in her mouth, hers and another as she slowly became aware of her condition. Her antennae picked up the unique bio-electrical energy that the individual crew gave off. One in particular stood out from the rest and was unmistakeably that of Commodore Cowell. The voices of the rest of the team slowly came into focus as she began to try to make sense of what had transpired.

They were in a room, a cell to be exact and judging by the level of palpable tension and the increase heart rates....their situation was not good. "...Commander?...." She asked just as a wave of pain spiked through her consciousness "...Where are we?" she asked.

Aral had been kneeling by the Andorian attempting to attend her semi-conscious form had been dumped onto the hard floor. "An Archadian prison cell... somewhere in the city." He replied as tenderly as he could. Andorians were notoriously prickly and he hardly knew this one. "I'm going to check for broken bones okay." Aral replied, trying to remember if he'd covered Andorians as part of his Academy basic first aid course. Using his fingertips Aral gently traced the Andorian's ribcage and pelvis. She winced in pain as he passed over three of her ribs. "Fractured." Aral pronounced. He made to check her breathing fearing she had a punctured lung.

The sounds of someone in pain, no matter how slight, were loud enough for Doc Cowell to hear. He turned his attention on the Andorian being examined by their Chief Scientist, and could tell just by looking that he wasn't sure where his hands needed to go to find out what was wrong. With an exasperated sigh, Nathan trudged over to the two and gave the back of Lt. Commander Aix' head a resounding slap.

"If you don't know what you're doing, don't fuck with it. Now watch how this shit is done..." Doc Cowell said, kneeling down to get a better vantage point.

Nathan's fingers moved over the Andorian's frame as if they knew more about her body than even she did. He glided over the rib cage, though his touch didn't draw a sound from the woman. He continued his sweep until she'd been given a complete and somewhat intimate once over, which was something he doubted the Trill could get away with.

"Only one of the ribs is fractured, the rest of them are just bruised. You also have a concussion and I think you might have bitten your tongue. About the best I can do is put some pressure on the rib to keep it from moving too much and let nature do what nature does," Cowell said, suddenly pulling his shirt off. The fact that Nathan looked, from the neck down, like a man a third his age was not altogether unusual. He'd stayed in very good shape over the years. What was likely disturbing was that he had no concept of being half dressed in front of both his crew and captors. The Commodore balled the bulk of the clothing in a tidy ball and placed it against the ribs, tying off the rest of it around her. She was just petite enough... or Nathan was just large enough, that the shirt fit around and was able to be tied off.

"There, just try not to get your ass beat again today," Nathan remarked.

Xylia looked at the two guards, then glanced over to Schenk. There had to be something that could be done to get them out of this mess, but what it was, she didn't know at the present moment. She wiped the blood away from her head with the back of her hand and smeared it over the drab prison uniform she was currently wearing. This situation wasn't right. The Lieutenant wasn't supposed to be on this side of the fence. She was normally the one who was tossing people into the brig.

With a sigh, she moved over to the Ensign and settled down next to him, keeping a watchful eye on the two guards outside the cell. If she could get to them, that would be all there was to it. Speaking quietly to where he was the only one able to hear her. "I don't know about you, but just sitting here isn't working for me. No one else seems to be doing anything about out present situation, and it's really starting to piss me off. Now, what are we going to do about it?"

"Dance naked while singing bad songs from the twenty-first century?" Marc joked as he looked at his former ACOS boss. He admired her and wanted to help her just as much as he wanted off the planet. "Something royally stinks here, Lieutenant." He eyed the guards and smiled at one of them. "I've declined my offer to talk, but if you came over and gave me a hummer, I might say something."

Fighting back a smirk, Xylia knew the guards wouldn't like that comment, but she could actually care less given the current circumstances. What she didn't understand was why they were sitting on their asses like a bunch of idiots when there were at least four of them still capable of fighting. Four to two... the odds were in their favor despite the Archadian lesbians having weapons. The time to act was now, and the more time that passed, the more pissed the Austrian woman was became.

The wheels in her head started to turn. They could easily overpower the two guards disgracing the small team with their presence. Lischka leaned back against the wall and sneakily studied the two guards, looking to see where their weapons were placed, weak spots... there was nothing she wasn't looking for. She was trained to get out of situations like this. All she needed was the go ahead from Cowell. Turning her attention to the old man, she watched him. Xylia could do what she wanted at the present moment. As far as she was concerned, rank flew out the window the moment they were captured, stripped and tossed into their current domicile.

Marc watched the Lieutenant, the Commodore treating the blue-skinned bitch, and the two bulls guarding the door. If they responded, it would be in anger to his taunt. If they didn't, he was prepared to launch a full scale frontal assault on them, and not in a way that a lady would like. Then again, he doubted if either of them were or had ever been considered ladies. He looked back at the Lieutenant and knew that he belonged in Security with her regardless of how the Commodore felt and that after this mission, he would request a transfer back. Just seeing her in that state of readiness made him eager for action instead of dealing with assholes and reading old intelligence reports.

Nathan drew himself up to his full height and turned to the rest of the group, which was gathered in a loose congregation on the floor. The looks on their faces was rather plain; none of them were happy with things and none of them were eager to wait it out. It was going to be a long night for all of them...