In the Belly of the Beast

Posted on Sun Aug 27th, 2023 @ 10:09pm by Lieutenant JG Jaya Maera Garlake & Lieutenant Colonel Storr Garlake
Edited on on Sun Aug 27th, 2023 @ 10:12pm

Mission: Season 1 Interlude II (E5.5)
Location: Unknown
Timeline: ID 6

When Jaya's eyes finally fluttered open, they immediately winced at the harsh cone of bright light shining down on her. It was only when she tried to move that she found herself restrained.

"The fe-male is awake," said a dusky voice. The drawling inflection on "female" suggested a subhuman connotation of sorts. And, if Jaya wasn't mistaken, it was distinctly Klingon.

"Storr?" she managed to croak out. There was no sense pretending to be asleep. If he was nearby, she needed to know.

Sounds began swimming in his ears as his vision returned in a blur. Storr felt like he was waking from at least a week of drug-induced sleep. Low voices muttered as pain around his wrists, and a cottonmouth made themselves known.

"Ja..." he began before coughing to wet his throat and starting again. "Jaya? Jaya!"

He didn't hear a reply but was given a strike against his left jaw for his efforts; stars flew across his no longer stabilizing vision and pain surged across his face. The Afrikaner grunted and flexed his head back to its spot after collecting himself from the punch.

"That's no way to treat a guest," he said, slightly slurred. He hoped it would buy some sort of reply in order to figure out just where the fok he was and why they had him. And, more importantly, where his pregnant bride was.

"Shaddup," said another voice, presumably belonging to the one who'd struck him. "Boss wants you softened up, but was none too specific as to how. Keep runnin' your mouth, and we might get creative."

"Where are we?" Jaya asked. "What have you done?"

A slap across her face took the spit out of her mouth. A short shriek followed.

"The man said to shut up," said the deeper Klingon voice. "You are going to die, but do not make me hurt you before then."

While her face burned and her neck stiffened from the strike, Jaya's thoughts about who would do such a thing reeled into a scattered starburst of pain that scrambled her thinking.

Storr heard a muffled cry and instinctively knew it was his Deltan.

"Hurt her, and creativity will be the least of your problems." The words were no sooner out of his mouth before another blow landed on the opposite cheek, his head reeling to the left as the new pain commingled with its receding cousin. The Commandant spit out blood onto the floor. Getting beat to within an inch of his life would not save Jaya. Looking down, his ankles were cuffed to the legs of his chair, and pulling at his wrists, he ascertained it was some sort of metallic cuff as well; there was some play, but not much. "Why am I here? What could I possibly mean to your boss? And where's my wife?"

Then everything went black.

"You mean nothing," said a familiar voice, "and yet you took everything."

Jaya would know that voice anywhere. "Stelio Kontos? What are you doing here?"

After the name was declared, the overhead lights came on and illuminated the room. The walls and ceiling were tiled while the floor had a rough nonslip texture. Floor drains ran laterally along each side with a large circular one in the recessed center. Clearly, this environment was designed with water in mind.

"Serendipity," said Kontos. "After a long string of unfortunate injustice, the Universe saw fit to deliver comeuppance into my hand." He curled his palm into a fist clenched so tight it quivered in the air. "I was taking a sabbatical on Risa, looking at my new direction in life, when I saw the two of you strutting along the boardwalk without a care in the world as if you had not just destroyed my career for a second time." He grinned a death's head smile that didn't touch his eyes. "All it took was to cross reference known criminals connected to anti-piracy operations involving your despicable husband." The word spewed from the man's lips like vomit. "It was no trouble at all to find these gentlemen, professional purveyors of violence whose desire for vengeance allowed for a very agreeable discount on their services."

An Andorian walked into the room, one eye covered in a patch which left his remaining eye glowering with rage.

"You already know Kihrab Th'ethirer," Kontos said with an extended hand. "He will be getting reacquainted with Mr. Garlake while you and I..." Kontos let out a malicious chuckle. "... watch."

Jaya looked at Storr in horror, wondering what they were going to do.

The back of his skull throbbed like a whore's heart; he bit out a curse and moved his hand to inspect the damage – except that it didn't move. Something was restraining his arms. His legs, too, were immobilized, as he noticed when he tried to get up. To get up... so he was lying prone. The greasy rag was unceremoniously tugged from Storr's face, and he tried to blink away the lingering, stinging chemical cloud from his eyes. As his vision returned, a different room than the one before greeted him as a large, dingy, low-lit, steel-paneled space dimly came into view. The air was heavy with wet, uncirculated air, and large droplets covered every flat horizontal and vertical surface. He nearly gagged from the stench of mildew.

"Velcome back," a large, muscled Germanic man said with a perverse grin, Storr's hasty blindfold in his right hand. He dropped the rag onto what looked like a medical tray covered in all sorts of perverse instruments, dulled and rusting despite their likely stainless manufacture. Garlake attempted to look further over his own body, but his head snapped back, a strap pressed against his forehead. He tried to wrench his arms free, but he felt cold, narrow bands of metal dig into his flesh. He grimaced in pain as he battered at the handcuffs but stopped before they could saw in too deep and draw blood. The cold, unyielding table beneath him and similar straps around his ankles told him that he was not going anywhere anytime soon.

"I suggest you keep your strength. This will not be a short process." the man said with a chuckle, his right-hand opening and flying across Storr's right cheek with a *crack*. The Commandant saw stars.

Blinking the stars and water from his eyes away, his gaze moved up to what looked like some sort of observation booth that met with a catwalk spreading out into the darkness. It was well-lit inside, and he could see at least one standing and a seated one, though a mighty slap, this time across his left cheek, kept him from being able to identify either through the tears.

Jaya let out a gasp but she otherwise forced herself not to react. These men were sadistic performers. It would take a fine line to keep from provoking them into true violence through stoicism and enticing them to give into their bloodlust by pleading. Whatever was happening, she girded herself up from within. She had to be strong. For Storr's sake, she must be.

Blow after blow from above landed on Garlake's stomach, face, ribs, thighs, and sides. Bile built up in the back of his mouth as his breath was knocked from him multiple times and he wheezed for air. Blood trickled from his nose and down his face though mostly back into his throat, making him choke and retch out the metallic flem for fear of drowning in his own fluids. His ears rang and pulsed to the tune of his rapidly beating heart. Consciousness flitted at the edge of his vision.

"Jaeger hasn't had that much of a workout for a long time," a new voice said as Jaeger approached the table and jimmied with some levers before it lurched and slowly brought Storr to an upright position. "I asked him to soften you up a bit, and I'm impressed you both made it as far as you did." The Afrikaner could see that the German was breathing heavily and had bloody rags over his knuckles, where none were before. The bliksem was smiling. The new face was smiling too. Sadists.

An Andorian wearing an eyepatch leered at Storr as he leaned against the instrument-laden table. "I'm glad I could be here today, though it's unfortunate my brother couldn't. Murderer."

Storr's mind reeled. Who was this man? Who was his brother? While Garlake did not revel in killing, he had ended many a life in his time as a Marine, so it was not an earth-shattering surprise that there would be those displeased with his work.

"Murderer?"

Allowing herself to open her mouth for the first time, Jaya pressed the question. Dialogue could be risky, but at least it was a reprieve from the senseless beating that had been inflicted.

"Oh, please." Kontos let out an exasperated scoff. "Storr Garlake is a professional weapon. Name one thing he has done more than murder?"

Jaya looked at Kontos square in the eye. "Me."

Their monogamous matrimony had been the first domino in the chain of events that had ruined his life. Kontos glared at Jaya who returned his stare with a cocky, challenging stare of her own that was no less mocking for the swelling of her lip. His hand flew back on reflex, but instinct kept it from striking her at first. But situational awareness being what it was, Kontos drew his hand back even further and let loose with a broad slap that left an imprint on Jaya's cheek and sent her flying against her restraints.

"I've wanted to do that for so long," Kontos seethed.

Storr made to protest, but the smell of burnt hair and charred skin singed his nostrils as excruciating pain flared from his jaw and scalp, a red-hot bar in one of the Andorian's hands and a dull rasp in the other.

"You're sick!" Jaya shouted as they beat and branded Storr again and again. "Small, sick, and pathetic! Torturing a man who can't fight back? I thought that was beneath even you, Stelio, but I was apparently wrong."

"Keep talking," Kontos said. "You'll eventually figure out that the both of you are already dead. We're just... processing your still-living remains."

The overhead speaker echoed back and forth across the space. "Boss, we got a problem. You better get up here and see this."

"What now?!" Kontos asked.

His merc crew ignored him as they followed the Andorian with the eyepatch out of the room.

"That doesn't sound good," Jaya pressed, nearly taunting in her tone. "Not sure how you got mixed up with this crowd, Stelio, but do you really think they'll let you live once they're done here?"

Kontos stared at the door, wondering what was going on and why they had ignored him. "Shut up," he said without looking back at her.

"Whatever you promised to pay them isn't enough to cover whatever complication has them so worried," Jaya went on. "You're no fighter. Let us up. We can help you, but we only have one shot."

"I said SHUT UP!" Kontos drew his hand back as if to strike her again, but her words gave him pause. Maybe she was persuading him, maybe she wasn't, but Jaya knew she had to do something. Storr was falling into burn shock from the insidious torture they had inflicted on him.

"Once the element of surprise is gone, then our chances are almost nil." Jaya turned insistent, putting every ounce of her will into the emphasis of her words. "Let us go and just maybe we'll get out of here."

For once, Kontos actually looked conflicted. He hated Jaya Maera more than he had ever hated anyone, and that hatred extended toward everyone she loved. But she made a compelling argument.

Before he could respond, though, the mercenaries came back. "Playtime's over," said Kihrab the Andorian leader. "This is now a hostage situation."

"What do you mean?" Kontos looked more uncertain than ever. The situation had gotten so far away from him that he was beginning to lose his nerve altogether.

"I mean that we're about to unwanted guests," said Kihrab. Pointing at Storr and Jaya, he added, "And those two just got promoted to meat shields."

"Unwanted guests?" Kontos repeated. "Who?"

"Would you stop repeating every damn thing I say and make yourself useful?!" The Andorian glowered at him with his good eye, clearly considering a similar promotion for Kontos. "Help Ka'Da truss them up and get them hauled somewhere defensible. This space is too open. The rest of us will be setting up defenses."

"Fine." He didn't like being spoken to like that from the hired help, but Kontos wasn't really in a place to argue. The course was set and he would have to see it through. "Come on," he barked at Ka'Da in attempts to regain any semblance to authority in the situation.

The Klingon growled at him in warning.

Jaya let out a gulp and steadied herself. Help was on the way. That much was obvious. But they were still very much in harm's way. This was going to get darker before it could ever get brighter.