RPlog:Krieg... to the Rescue?

Warning: graphic content. ISB are bastards. Etc.

Shael huddles against the wall of her tiny cell, her knees pulled up to her chest, and her arms wrapped around them. She shivers slightly due to the chill of the small room, her eyes squeezed closed against the throbbing lights. Unfortunately, she has nothing to use to plug her ears and block out the obnoxious sounds eminating from speakers hidden somewhere in the walls. She struggles for sleep, knowing she needs to conserve her energy, and hooping to escape the throbbing pain from the cuts and burns on her body. Sleep is, however, quite ellusive at the moment.

After what might feel like ten minutes to Shael but in reality was over an hour, a guard comes banging on her cell door yelling, "Get up wench, I thought I told you not to sit down. If I have to open this door the beatings will commence! Up!" Opening the door anyway he sees that she is trying to keep her eyes closed and so he laughs at her, throwing a bag at her. "Put that over your head, stand up and don't lean on my walls." He takes the lights and turns them off, but the sounds of children crying and women telling her that she can't get out never stops. The only light is from the door being open, but that soon would close, for him to come back later and check if she was complying or not.

Shael remains on the floor a few moments, squeezing her eyes more tightly for a few moments as tears well up behind them. No wonder Kyrin was such a mess. She didn't know how long she could take this, nor what would happen to her when she /couldn't/ take it any longer. Pushing herself up to her feet, she obediently places the bag over her head, ignoring the way the indignity of it wrenches at her heart. Shael was rarely one to obey. That they could make her do things like this and make her follow the commands rankled, deeply.

The Guard punches her in the stomach, but not enough for her to keel over as he grabs her wrists, putting cufflinks on and in front of her. Laughing he tears off the sleeves of the prisoner's garment they gave her, just a simple shirt and pants - no other garments at all. He then proceeds to turn her pants into shorts (nothing too short), then steps back and slams the door. "Stay there, and if you try to lean on my wall I'm going to re-open those wounds." She can hear him through the wall, but now the room was dark, sounds were going off, and she no longer could sit.

Shael's breath flies out her mouth in a startled cry at the unexpected and unseen punch. She stood! She put the damned bag on her head! She did what she was instructed, and still he hit her. Tears stream silently down her cheeks as she stands slightly crouched in the small space she was afforded, her shivering only increasing as the limited warmth given to her by the thin clothing she was wearing is quite effectively reduced. They can't keep up treating her like this for long... no one can stand it for long.

The point she thought about nobody taking this for long was quite wrong. People could for years upon years. Though in her situation, she was still in shock. So when the guard goes away for an hour, baging on her door and opening it at random intervals to check on her, she has no idea when it will end. At some point a cold bucket of water is thrown in on her, and this process of opening the door and making sure she was awake goes on for several more hours. At the end of this the guard comes back and tugs her out, instructing her to stand and put her back against the wall he was shoving her into. Then there is another wait, the sounds are different out here, there is warmth, the smell of food, and light - though she cannot see anything with the hood on.

Shael leans back against the wall gratefully, breathing in deeply the smell of the food. None of it is for her, she is quite certain, though her stomach doesn't know any better. It growls loudly in response to the stimuli. She's hungry, though that's really the least of the concerns bothering her right now. She would much rather sleep than eat at the moment.

The guard comes back to her, keeping her standing for another half hour and this time does not hit her but starts pulling her, dragging her along to another cell. Pushing her inside he undoes the cuffs and rips the bag off her head, another elbow to the gut. There's a small table in here with a glass of water on the table and he motions for her to drink, then the door slams behind him as he takes the cuffs and bag out. The room is dead quiet, all white, and bright white lights are on. Ten minutes pass, where the door opens again. This time, it isn't the guard that steps in but Marshal Inrokana, and it can be heard from the guards paying their respects to him. He steps in with his hands clasped behind his back and just looks at her, saying nothing.

She wasn't told to stay standing. That's as good as permission to sit in her book. (Since when does she need /permission/?!) She retrieves the glass from the table, and settles herself into a corner before drinking greedily at the water. When the glass is empty she sets it aside, letting her eyes fall shut as she attempts to find sleep. She's on the verge of dozing off when she hears the door slide open. Her eyes immediately pop open, and starts pushing herself to her feet before she can be dragged up bodily. She's about halfway to her feet when she realizes who it is that stands in the doorway. "Krieg," she breathes softly, the relief in her voice palpable. "Oh, by the Force, Krieg..." Tears spring to her eyes again as she allows herself to sink back to the floor. He won't let this continue. She knows it. He'll have a way out of this for her...

Moving his arms from behind his back to cross over his chest, Krieg draws in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Shaking his head and narrowing his eyes he looks at her, and it seems the ISB were doing the job well - though he also knew this was only the begining and there was a lot farther to go. Calmly he says to her in that neutral but commanding voice, "You will address me as Marshal while you are here C-1125." There's a pause before he adds, "I thought I told you a long time ago to stay out of trouble, as there are places and things that even I won't be able to get you out of? It seems you've done yourself in this time." Looking at her body he can see the wound on her side from blaster fire, and then there are a bunch of other lingering wounds from interrogation. "You do realize that while you are in here there is not much I can do. This is their territory, not mine. However, I will speak with the illustrious interrogator." Stepping around the room he takes a look at her crumpled form and adds. "Military service might set this straight for you." He ponders the thought, but while in here she was being punished as a rebel. A commander in the Imperial military did not associate with such as her. Which makes this interesting.

Her stomach experiences what is most definately not its first sudden lurch since she had first regained consciousness when Krieg addressed her by that horrible number, and she nods her head, mumbling in a subdued voice, "Yes, Marshal." His words, at first, only serve to crush her meager hopes, as it seems he will be unable to offer her any help. A hint of relief begins to return to her as he continues, though it is most certainly not as ideal as she would have liked. "Military service?" she asks softly. "I couldn't..." Fight against her friends? Serve the Empire? How could he ask that of her?

With another sign Krieg looks at her and knows that he is playing the role of being 'anything she wants him to be'. He steps back to the other side of the room before he asks her, "So then you should be able to tell me where all your friends are, so that we can let you go. That's the only other option I have for helping you out of this. It really is one or the other, and I hate to have to back you into this..." Resting his hands at his side he kneels in front of her and looks at her, "Shael, please, help me help you. I need something to take back to them to get you out of here, and they'll only take information or service. It's how they operate, and it's just a part of my job. Just like you do a job, I have mine."

"I don't know anything Kr- Marshal. I don't know anything. I'm nobody. I don't have anything to offer." That's definately stretching the truth, if not outright lying. But she's not going to betray the New Republic, and any assets they may still have on the ground. "Please don't let them do this to me... there has to be something else," she pleads, hugging her arms across her chest. There is no way out of this, is there?

Putting on hand to his head in a resigned way Krieg closes his eyes for a moment, then looks back to her resting his hands in his lap as he squats in front of her. "I'm afraid the powers that be have backed me into this one, and if I do anything else they are going to execute me. And to that I'm sure you know I'm not lying. Director Fleming scares even me." Though he was exaggerating the truth, she didn't know that. "I believe you don't know a lot, but they need to know something. Otherwise they are going to come back in here and I'm told they going to take you to the brink of death. I honestly don't have any power to stop that, they have their own chain of command that reports to Director Fleming." Of course, Fleming also reported to him but the different chain of command wasn't all untrue. "The freighter you were trying to leave in was shot down, I'm afraid. And there are people that want answers." Sighing one more time he looks at the time and says to her, "My time is up here, I'm afraid. Please, if you can help me I can get you out of here." He stands and looks at her, inwardly mad at himself in a certain remote part of his brain and heart, but the forefront told him she was clearly lying. If she didn't want to do it the nice way, he really couldn't help her. That left the hard way.

"Krieg..." Her voice breaks as she calls his name, tears starting to sneak out of the corners of her eyes. He was her best chance to get out of this... perhaps her only chance, and he was about to leace. "Please tell them I don't know anything. Please convince them! All they told me was when and where to meet. There were /kids/ in those crates. I couldn't just let them be shipped to Kessel! Please!" She wants food, and sleep, and warm clothes... and she /desperately/ wants to avoid that room with the cold metal table and the neat little drains on the floor.

With a final sigh Krieg looks back at her, a glint of empathy with her situation, but it may be even her mind making that up. "I am sorry Shael, I am supposed to be calling you C-1125. Though I will look in and see if I can't get you some food or drink in the meantime. And this situation you speak of with children in crates, I will look into as well, though it is going to take some time." Before he departs he adds, "Please don't tell me next time you don't know anything when you told them you orchestrated the raid." There's a final sigh and then he leaves, the door opening and a guard going in after he exits, roughing her up and beating her a few times, then putting the bag and cuffs back on, hauling her up to take her back to her cell.

Shael told them that in a misguided attempt to get them to stop hurting her. Surely that was not a concept that was new to them? She still fully intended to tell her interrogators anything /but/ the truth. The young and beleagured pilot curls up on her side, just in time to be hauled to her feet for a beating. She attempts, with limited success, to stiffle her cries, and limps along obediently as she is led back to her wholey inadequate cell.