The Dead Zone chapter 08

The door opened and two guards strode in. Max backed away from them and Cait stood up from the bed as one man covered the door and watched Cait as the other took Max by the arm and pulled her towards the door.

“What’s going on, where are you taking me?” She protested. Cait took a couple of steps towards the door but realised she was useless in this situation and stood helplessly as the guard watching her stood between her and Max as she was taken away. Max struggled but was unable to resist the guard’s strength. She shot Cait one last pleading look as she was removed from the room, then they were gone. It was all over in seconds. Cait collapsed onto the bed laying on her side as she reflected on her incapacity and vulnerability, and the fact that they’d probably be coming for her next.

—–

A few hours later, at Cait’s best guess, the door opened again and Max was shoved roughly into the room where she sprawled unceremoniously onto the carpet. Cait jolted awake, having drifted off to sleep at some point and stood up, dropping to her knees on the carpet beside the other woman.

Max was sobbing, curled up on her side with her face in her hands. Her clothing was torn, hanging off her in shreds, and her hair was a mess.

“Max, what happened, talk to me.” Cait pleaded, unable to comfort or reach out to her.

“What do you think?” Max challenged, his face distraught as she looked up at Cait. Cait saw her nose was bloodied and she had a black eye. There was also bruises forming around her throat, and she hesitated to guess where else.

“Oh Max… I’m so sorry.” Cait said weakly. “I wish I could help.”

“I know.” Max said shakily once she had begun to calm down. “I know if you could you would.” She slowly sat up on the carpet, looking down at herself. The waistband of her shorts was ripped and the material was torn halfway down the leg so they were hanging off her. Her shirt was ripped down the middle and aside from drops of blood from her nosebleed, appeared to have several white crusty stains. Cait had no illusion as to what the substance was.

“He assaulted you.” Cait said flatly, anger and sadness in her voice.

“He?” Max trembled as she choked off another sob. “They. I don’t even know how many.” She slowly rose to her feet holding the torn side of her shorts together, and Cait followed.

“I wish there was something I could do.” Cait said apologetically.

“I know, Cait.” Max said firmly as she rubbed her eyes with the back of her arm. “But there’s nothing. I’m going to take a shower.”

With a shrug of resignation Max released her shorts and let them fall to the floor, peeling off her shirt gingerly. As she walked to the bathroom Cait could see bruises cross crossing her back as through she’d been beaten with a stick, and felt sick in the pit of her stomach. Cait followed her into the bathroom as Max turned on the water and stood under the hot stream letting it drench her hair and cascade down her body. Cait was overwhelmed with guilt that it had been Max taken and not her, that she had done nothing to stop it, that she couldn’t even reach out and comfort the closest thing she had to a friend in this hostile space. Max looked over to her.

“Can you…” she paused, seeming to self correct “…come in here? So I can hold you?”

Cait nodded. She stepped closer to Max and Max peeled off her shirt then helped her slide out of her shorts until they were standing nude together. Max gave Cait’s body a once over visually before stepping back to make room for her under the water. She slowly soaped herself and Cait up and scrubbed a lather into both of their skin, running her hands over Cait and into her various crevices with almost clinical efficiency. When she was satisfied that they were both soapy enough she simply held Cait close by putting her arms around her neck and rested her head on her shoulder. Cait suspected Max was likely crying again but if she was, she did so silently. Cait was unsure how to reciprocate. With what little remained of her arms her attempt at a return hug resulted in her slightly squishing Max’s chest.

“They’re watching us.” Max whispered into Cait’s ear after a long silence. “Montague told me. They have cameras and microphones everywhere. They hear everything. Maybe even this, but I hope the water covers it.”

Cait took a moment to process that. They had definitely seen their earlier sexual interaction, it was probably what had prompted them to take Max and rape her. They were probably watching them shower together right now. Cait would be more horrified if she was surprised to learn it, but she wasn’t. On top of that, there was precious little she could do about it. She said nothing as Max continued.

“He’s going to question you next. He said that being unhelpful would be punished.” Max shivered despite the heat of the water. “I tried… but I don’t know anything useful…”

Max trailed off. Cait understood that. He’d questioned her, about who knew what. And when Max hadn’t been able to answer his questions he’d thrown her to the wolves. There was no way to win… and Cait was next.

“My suggestion…” Max continued “…is offer yourself to him. If you can’t tell him what he wants to know, tell him you’ll do whatever you want, as long as he doesn’t hurt you. You might even get your arms back.”

“What about you?” Cait asked under the guise of a gentle kiss on the cheek.

“It’s too late for me.” Max said bluntly. Cait wasn’t sure what she meant by that but was afraid to ask.

“When is he going to come for me?” Cait asked.

“I don’t know. What difference does it make?” Max asked sadly.

Cait hesitated then let out a long sigh.

“I guess it doesn’t make a difference. We don’t have any options, do we?” Cait paused then asked: “Did you find out anything about the other prisoners? My crewmate? The Aspire crew?”

“No one told me anything.” Max shook her head, burying her face in the crook of Cait’s neck. “I didn’t really get to ask many questions.”

Max gradually eased out of the hug then started using her hands to redirect water all over Cait’s body to remove the soap. Apparently their confidential conversation had ended, presumably because it would be hard to keep up whatever ruse Max had attempted. Cait reflected on what she had learned from her conversation with Max as she was led out of the shower and Max helped her dry off: not a lot, but maybe something to help her dealing with Montague. Whatever the cost, though, she couldn’t let on her connection with the Fleet. The pirates might assume that Fleet would be searching for them, but they wouldn’t know, and would be oblivious to the timeframes. Whatever it took, Cait had to stall for time, even if it was weeks. She could do this.

She watched Max as she knelt to hold out a fresh pair of shorts for Cait to step into. Unlike her own baggy shorts the standard issue here seemed to be snug spandexy material that hugged her skin and every contour of her body. As well as being larger in the chest her ass was rounder than Max’s despite having similar waists, and she wondered if the clothing was one-size-fits-most or they had delivered clothes to the room than would fit her better. Then Max helped her pull on a fresh top, this time a snug fitting singlet not unlike the one she had arrived in. Max took a moment to adjust Cait’s breasts so they sat properly under the form-hugging garment, then with a sad but well meaning friendly smile turned away to attend to drying and dressing herself. Cait sat on the edge of her bed, her mind racing. Then, just as Max was pulling on her top, the door opened again and the two guards from before stepped in. Max took a few steps back, trying to shrink into the corner of the room, as the second guard put down a tray of food.

“Dinner.” The lead guard said in Max’s direction with a leer before turning to Cait. “You’re coming with us.”

So this was Cait’s moment of truth then. Trying to resolve herself she cast one last glance to Max then stood and walked over to the guards who led her from the room and locked the door behind them. She remained silent as they led her along the corridors, treating it as a mental exercise to remember the directions should she need to find her way in the future. Eventually they stopped in front of a door. To call it unmarked would be a misnomer, it clearly bore a name painted on at one point but had since been haphazardly scraped off. Cait was fifty percent certain the name’s title had been ‘Doctor’, and wondered if this had been a research station before pirates had occupied it. The guards opened the door and led her inside, where Montague sat at a desk which had been made up with a dining set. There were no candled, as the presence of a naked flame would have been a senseless waste of oxygen, but there was a table setting of paper flowers and Montague had dimmed the lights in some kind of ironic nod to romance.

“Welcome, Cait.” Montague said as the guards led her to the chair opposite Montague and pushed her into it. Her attention was grabbed by the plate of food in front of her, rehydrated vegetables and what seemed to be actual meat of some kind – some of the best she’d seen in months, and the only food she’d seen in, at a guess, nearly twenty four hours. She could feel a knot in her stomach, though the metal utensils flanking the plate cruelly mocked her lack of hands.

“Montague.” Cait said, in a soft, low voice, seething with anger.

“Please, call me Douglas.” Montague said, as he poured what appeared to be wine from a carafe into a plastic wine glass and pushed it over to her.

“I’d prefer to not.” Cait responded.

“I’m sorry if we got off on the wrong foot Cait, I truly am. But we’re both just doing our jobs. Playing our parts. There are ways to make all of this so much easier.”

“You took my arms, you son of a bitch.”

“An engineering accident took your arms, Cait.” Montague said, stabbing his finger at a datapad on the table next to him that she assumed contained the Chariot’s computer files which included her personnel profile. She hoped that he had not recovered the erased logs of her conversation with her father.

“Ok, you’ve read my file.” Cait prompted, trying to see if he’d divulge anything else he knew.

“Your file. Nichols’ file. Your cargo manifest. Flight logs. Everything.” Montague said. “Including the fact that mere minutes before you entered the Dead Zone, you adjusted your ship’s heading from the prescribed route, to swing you in our direction, even though the new route was not optimal for Jupiter’s current orbit.”

Cait felt her stomach turn and mouth go dry. Montague knew. He knew she was here looking for the Aspire, that she must have suspected something. There was no way to hide that. But maybe she could spin it. Max’s warning, her suggestion about cooperating, echoed in her mind.

“Why would that be, Cait?” Montague prompted.

“We adjusted heading after receiving a transmission.” Cait began, trying to disguise her slightly halted explanation as trying to be precise about details as she tried to occlude the truth. “Our boss shot us a last minute data packet that indicated Aspire was late. Starlanes knew he had a Chariot headed across the dead zone and wanted us to sweep for signs of distress.”

“Funny, I didn’t find any such data packet.” Montague said.

“Chariot Freight uses a standard secure crypt protocol for all priority-alpha transmissions. They self-purge after reading.” Cait bullshitted. “If he was pressed for time, he probably encoded it with that protocol by mistake.”

“Chariot sends these secure self purging top secret messages often?” Montague queried, incredulousness creeping into his voice.

“Not really, it’s something built into the military spec surplus comms equipment he bought on the cheap when retrofitting the Chariots for haulage. It’s good gear for its age, but it has its quirks.” That was a half truth at least. The comms gear was military surplus but the encoding protocol didn’t exist. She’d come up with something to cover that lie later, if they examined the equipment to check.

Montague leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingertips together as he assessed Cait thoughtfully.

“Can I please have my arms back.” Cait said, trying to change the subject and not to make it sound like she was begging. “I’m sorry for hitting you, but I’m not self-sufficient without them.”

Montague turned in his chair and stood up, pacing to one side of the room to the other, then opened a case sitting on a side table.

“I don’t buy your story Cait.” Montague said, lifting her prosthetic arms out of the case. He set down the right arm, balancing on its end and walk around to her left side. “But I don’t believe in needless cruelty. I hope this compels you to be more cooperative moving forward.”

He placed the arm up to her stump, aligning the clamps with the sockets grafted into her skin. They automatically magnetised together and with a little mental focus Cait was able to re-engage with the prosthetic. It locked into place and sealed against her skin. A jolt of pain ran through her left side as her nervous system received and compensated for the feedback. It was painful but not excruciatingly so like Montague’s impromptu removal had been. She slowly flexed her arm, testing its responsiveness. She felt a tears well in her eyes and hurriedly blinked them away.

“Thank you.” She said in a hoarse whisper.

“Don’t make me regret it.” Montague walked back around the table and retook his seat, framing his plate of food with his hands.

“Well, this meal isn’t going to eat itself.” He picked up his utensils and began to eat his food. Cait likewise took up her fork and carefully shovelled food into her mouth, trying to eat slowly so as not to unsettle her stomach after her long fast, and also let the meal drag on as long as possible while she thought of more ways she could subtly interrogate Montague or get her other arm back.

“What are your objectives out here?” Cait asked mildly as she let the first half of her meal settle in her stomach, expecting Montague to evade the question.

“We’re an independent group made up of people who want to break away from the colonies.” Montague said simply between bites. “We are in the early stages, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

“So you’re rebels? Against what? Human civilization is largely at peace.”

“There are wars brewing, Cait. Mars is the new balance of power in the galaxy and the Martian colonies will realise it soon enough. When the hammer falls those on Jupiter will be reliant on Mars in order to live. They will be forced to turn against Earth.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“We aren’t.” Montague shrugged. “But there are rumblings. It might be five years away. Might be twenty. That’s why we’re starting now.”

“What will you do?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss our intentions. Suffice to say, we do not intend to be stuck on either side of the wall.”

“So you’re founding some independent nation?”

“I suppose we will declare sovereignty at some point.” Montague shrugged.

“How will you protect your position? You’re jacking liners for supplies, you know the Fleet will be looking for you.”

“The station is almost entirely self-sufficient and will be capable of sustaining double it’s current population for years. As for the Fleet, they won’t touch us.”

“Why?”

“Because we have the ultimate deterrent.”

“Nukes?” Cait said in disbelief.

“Bigger than that.”

Cait shook her head, confused. She wasn’t really up to date with superweapon development..

“Cait, your lack of imagination surprises me. I’m talking about extinction level event asteroids being propelled at extreme speed and precision.”

“Mass drivers? That tech is theoretical.”

“Is it?” Montague mused as he leaned back in his chair and sipped his wine.

Cait’s mind raced. She knew that the tech was something that had been explored but development was abandoned. How would this band of rebels on some makeshift outpost have gained possession of something that dangerous? Then it clicked – the Aspire. Her father knew that the technology was being sent via the Aspire to Jupiter – but why? The pieces began to fall into place. If there was mass driver technology aboard the Aspire then the Fleet was arming Jupiter for the upcoming conflict, the one Montague had told her about. Montague was watching her with amusement as he watched the wheels spinning in her head. She faltered for words, not wanting to give away how much she knew.

“The Aspire?” she croaked.

“The Aspire was carrying what, at first glance, appeared to be technology for a next generation of stardrive, a mass generator that would allow ships to propel themselves with artificial gravitation fields. Possibly a precursor to the fabled warp drive. But in its current form it’s not viable for high speed space travel. Maybe a few more years. But it does allow the propulsion of massive objects.”

“So the technology exists?” Cait asked, her fascination with technology slightly overtaking her other concerns.

“We’re still working on it. We aren’t there yet. But it’s extremely viable.” Montague admitted, almost disappointed. Cait sat back in her chair realising she had been on the edge of her seat. Then she remembered where she was, and her predicament.

“Why tell me all this?” Cait asked.

“Because, Cait, we expect you to join us.” Montague said, as if surprised she even asked the question.

“What?” Cait asked incredulously.

“You’re a talented navigator, excellent math and physics skill, critical thinking ability, a talent for technology and the sciences. You could be an asset to our team.”

“You’re criminals!” Cait protested.

“History is written by the victors, Cait. Many great empires were founded based on acts of criminal rebellion; they just don’t frame it that way in school.”

“You could use that argument to justify any atrocity.”

“That doesn’t make it less true. History will decide. Did you ask yourself why Earth was shipping mass driver technology to Jupiter?”

Cait’s hesitant pause betrayed that she had.

“Earth knows what we know. Conflict is coming. Whose side would you be on?” Montague waved his hand dismissively “Don’t answer that, I’ll give you time to think about it. Unfortunately, our time here is at an end. Valdes, please escort Ms. Avery back to her suite, and have her leftovers delivered in case she’s still hungry.”

“What?” Cait asked, caught off guard.

“I have other things to attend to Cait, and while you are pleasant company I can’t sit around all night chatting.”

“I thought…” Cait hesitated, remembering Max’s warning to her. She had not expected dinner and a debate about revolution.

“Thought what?” Montague asked bemusedly.

“Nothing.” She glanced at her other arm sitting upright on Montague’s side table.

“Another time, Cait. Think about my offer.”

—-

Cait returned to her room, the man named Valdes giving her an unnecessary shove through the door, then passed her a container carried to him by another man that contained her uneaten food, before locking the door. She looked around the room feeling confused, disoriented. Max was sitting up from her bed, looking at her.

“What happened?” Max queried.

“I… I don’t know.” Cait said.

“Did you…”

“We just talked. And had dinner. And then he sent me back.”

“He didn’t… try anything?” Max narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “And just gave you your arm back?”

“Yes. I mean no. I mean… he didn’t touch me. He wants me to join them.”

“You didn’t!” Max said, her bruised face the definition of shock.

“No. He just told me to think about it and sent me back.”

“Well that’s great for you.” Max said, flopping down on the bed and facing the wall.

“Max.”

“Enjoy your leftovers.”

“Max, I didn’t ask for any of this!” Cait put down the container and walked over to Max’s bed and tried to sit down on the edge to talk to her, but Max sat up and lashed out, viciously backhanding her across the face. Cait recoiled from the blow, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks in shame.

“Get away from me.” Max said, her voice cold.

“I’m sorry.” Cait whispered.

“I’m sure you are.” Max growled, then lay back down.

Resigned, Cait stood up and returned to her own bed, shutting off the lights and lying awake in the dark to think about everything that had happened.

---