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Gamma Hyperion 

Yellow dwarf with seven planets, one M-Class, in abnormal binary orbit with unknown spatial anomaly. Within Dominion sphere of influence; possible location for remote monitoring station and/or base of operations. M-Class planet, Gamma Hyperion II, has atmosphere high in magnetic interference that makes transporter use impossible. 

Orders from Starfleet Command to Steenburg, Bonnie, Captain USS Bedivere, Stardate 51832.4

You are hereby requested and required to proceed to Gamma Hyperion II, using all appropriate measures of subterfuge, there to assess for potential in the war effort. Bedivere to be equipped with cloaking device as per agreement with Romulan Empire. Return of USS Bedivere with relevant information paramount concern.

Commander Diane Chester volunteered to lead the away team. Of course she did. Bedivere was undermanned, and the ranks of her senior officers drastically thinned after the Battle of Betazed. She couldn’t stand the idea of any of the ones still standing in charge. Mr. Bena was  needed in Engineering if it all went to shit and the Jem’Hadar caught them with their pants down. Takahashi was going to be a fantastic officer—in a few months, when the greenness got shaken out of her. J’etris, the new Lieutenant in Security, seemed good at her job, but didn’t know her people yet. No. Chester was leading this one herself, because no one else was going to pull this off.

“Number One,” said Captain Steenburg, in the warm clean beige of her ready room, with her collection of orchids cluttering every available shelf, “you know there’s a good chance I won’t be able to fish you out if things go wrong.”

Chester remembered that moment very clearly, because it was the last memory she had, for a long time, of what home meant; Steenburg seeming very small at her desk, a birdlike woman with blond hair so pale it was almost white and large dark eyes, the traditional panels of embroidery on the walls behind her and the pampered orchids with their fat glossy leaves, and the way Steenburg looked at her with the same fear that was spurring Chester onward–the fear that had sat with both of them, since Commander Faisal’s death and Chester’s sudden promotion. The Bedivere was half-memorial already; the very fact Chester was standing here now, fast tracked through command by sheer bad luck, was a palpable source of dread in the little bright room.

Chester heard the undertone in her captain’s voice. Don’t make me lose two first officers in the same month. 

Chester saw it, and sympathized with it. She didn’t like leaving the ship to its own devices, the counterpoint echoing loud in her own head. Don’t make me lose two superior officers in the same month. 

 “Then you’d better send the person most likely to come back from it on their own,” she said softly. “I’ll do my best, Captain.”

“Good luck,” said Captain Steenburg. “Be careful.”

Of course, it went to hell.

Chester woke up with a pounding headache and her face smashed against something metal and hard. Turning over made her gut churn; there was something sticky on her forehead. When she went to touch it, she found that her hands were cuffed together in front of her. 

Concussion, she thought, staring at the plain gray metal floor. Concussion, and they got me. I am probably going to die. I am probably going to die horribly. 

The Dominion wasn’t known for humane treatment of prisoners. The first officer of a starship, captured well behind the lines? They were going to tear her to pieces before they shot her. She just hoped she could make that process as difficult for them as she could, for as long as she could. 

It was probably going to be a shorter time of resistance than she hoped. 

She closed her eyes, trying to piece the shattered bits of memory together. Running. Bringing up the rear. The shuttle ahead of them, her team diving for its safety, telling them to go, dammit–

Blow from behind, going down hard, phaser fire overhead and a scramble of hand to hand combat, a sudden awful realization that she was in the middle of their attackers, that the team couldn’t get to her, yelling for them to leave at the top of her lungs. Another blow—probably from the feel of her head, a concussion. Things are a little blank for a while, and then there’s the shuttle taking off against the clear blue sky, and the head of their attackers between her and it, not a Jem’Hadar, strange, and then a weapon in her face and oblivion. 

Her team got out. The Bedivere got out. She had to hang onto that, if nothing else. 

Unfortunately, having no one to be brave for brought the fear crawling up the back of her throat. There wasn’t much reason to pretend to be anything but scared shitless. Sooner or later the door of the cell would open, and then she was going to be nostalgic for this damned headache. 

And no one was coming for her. She had nothing to look forward to but pain and an ugly death.

That grim realization was punctuated by a sharp shock from the collar wrapped around her neck. She yelped, then groaned as it jarred her head. Then she reached up carefully; her fingers found no seam, but the next shock was a little milder. 

Not enough, she suspected, to cause tissue damage, but enough to tear someone’s nerves to shreds. She’d been right; she was already nostalgic for the headache being her worst problem. Further exploration of that found a bandage over her forehead. Seriously, a bandage on a head injury? Did they know nothing about humanoids?

Maybe she’d get to skip the interrogation, she thought, maybe they’d just shoot her. That would be a stroke of luck.

She curled up in the corner and resigned herself to steady misery.

Her head was feeling better, but the rest of her wasn’t. She took stock of her surroundings anyway. Small horrible cell. Blank wall across from it. Closed door. The humming of a ship underway. 

But none of it looked like Dominion technology. And the Dominion wouldn’t have let her rot for this long; they’d have interrogated and disposed of her by now. Come to think of it, their attackers on Gamma Hyperion II hadn’t been Jem’Hadar, but a motley collection of unfamiliar species. Which made her think she’d been grabbed by the locals, and would be forked over to the nearest Dominion outpost. 

“Temporary stay of execution,” she muttered, and winced at another small shock. They were irregular and of varying intensities, and so far she’d found it completely impossible to sleep through. Sleep deprivation. Well, that would help her interrogators. She wondered how long before sheer exhaustion made her pass out anyway.

Longer than she’d hoped. She’d fallen into a stupor when the door clanged open and a tall woman walked through the door—not of any species she knew, with ash-white skin, shaven head except for a long tail of hair at the crown. Right behind her came an individual of another unfamiliar species, enormous, four-armed, a head and neck rather like that of an Earth turtle, and a three-flanged scaly crest. 

Chester staggered to her feet. “I’d like an explanation,” she said. “Why have I been detained?”

It was pure bravado. She knew perfectly well why she’d been detained. She was an enemy officer captured behind the lines. But maybe—

She wasn’t expecting the newcomer to laugh. She wasn’t expecting them to turn to the woman and say, “Yes. This is Song Tulin.” She was especially not expecting to see currency change hands. 

“What the hell?” she started to say. She was pretty sure she wasn’t well known enough for the Dominion to pay for her capture, but whatever this was it spelled nothing good. 

“A pleasure doing business with you, Master Jedi,” said the woman. “She’s all yours.”

“Excuse me?” snapped Chester. Oh, ‘Master Jedi’ definitely did not spell anything better, not after money changed hands. Had she just stumbled into a bad holonovel? “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Master Jedi”—and that had better not be his damn name—leaned down in front of her. He withdrew a cylinder from his belt, and pressed a button. Chester stepped back as a bar of hissing blue light erupted from it. 

“Nice… laser stick?” she hazarded. “You must be very proud.”

“We haven’t met,” he said, with a horrible smile in which far, far too many big square teeth were evident for comfort. “I am Master Krell. All you need to know is that I do not like traitors. And you, Song Tulin, are a traitor. ”

Something too angry to be hope beat its way up Chester’s throat, and she heard her own disbelieving laugh. “My name is Commander Diane Chester, of the United Federation of Planets starship Bedivere,” she told him. “I am not Song Tulin.”

He stared at her. She stared back, willing this to be as simple as a case of mistaken identity. Whoever the original Song Tulin was, she hoped like hell she appreciated someone running inadvertent interference. 

That hope was dashed when Krell laughed at her. “Oh yes, do try to persuade the Council you’ve lost your memory, Tulin. They aren’t easily fooled.”

“That’s not my name,” Chester said evenly. Of course he didn’t believe her. Why should anything be simple? “Are the shocks necessary?”

“Guess the bounty hunters couldn’t spring for proper suppressors.” He turned his back on her, but she could see the side of his smirk. “Sounds like it’s uncomfortable. Too bad for you.”

“Suppressors for what?” 

That just made him laugh harder. She gritted her teeth and sat down, wincing at another crawl of charge. “This has the potential to be a very bad diplomatic incident,” she said. “Trust me, you do not want the report I’ll give to your superiors and mine at this juncture. Why the shocks, ‘Master Jedi’?”

His response was to open the cell, grab her by the cuffs, and yank her out of the cell, pushing her along ahead of him. Chester took stock of the situation; they’d bound her hands in front of her, which gave her some leeway. And he was behind her; if he wanted her alive, as his comment about a Council indicated, that seriously constrained his options. 

Also, he was a smug bastard. That was a pretty good advantage, as such things went. She looked around the grimy, cramped hallway of the ship. There, just ahead of them, what was clearly an escape pod. A few weeks in a pod wouldn’t be fun, but she was pretty sure she could improvise something to get the cuffs and collar off, then pick up something heading back to the Federation. 

It looked like the best option. 

She bolted for it, ducking and weaving in case he decided to shoot her anyway, and threw herself at the airlock–only to find herself abruptly running on air as something like a fist closed around her entire upper body and squeezed. Her shoulders contorted, her arms pressing bruisingly hard into her ribcage, like the world’s nastiest bear hug–she fought to breathe against the pressure, and then there was a tightness around her neck. She’d started to wonder if she’d really been right about him planning on keeping her alive when the clamp around her released, dropping her onto the hard deck and driving the air out of her again. She lay there, gasping, while he took his time walking up to her. 

“They didn’t tell me you were stupid, Tulin,” he said. 

She closed her eyes, wishing the smugness would choke him, see how he’d like it. 

“So you’re a psychic asshole,” she wheezed at the deck. “Good to know.”

For a moment, she wondered if he was going to kick her. He seemed like the type. But he just growled and picked her up bodily. 

If he thought he’d scared her out of fighting, he was dead wrong. She might still be gasping for breath, but she was angry now, and with that came a renewed certainty that he had a reason not to kill her—he could have, so very easily, and he hadn’t. He did, however, seem to be perfectly happy to do anything short of killing her, and at relatively minor provocation, too.

Which didn’t give her a whole lot of incentive to placate him. Whoever this Council was, they wanted her alive but probably didn’t much care about her condition, which boded ill for her continued survival. That left escape as her best option, regardless of psychic powers. 

Which meant it was time to make his life hell. 

She drew back a leg and slammed the toe of her boot into his midsection as hard as she could, at the same time writhing around to sink her teeth into the base of his nearest thumb. 

Krell roared and dropped her. She hit the ground and rolled–not well, with the cuffs, but better than last time–and popped up in a kneeling position. They were partway through an airlock, between the grimy ship of her previous captors and a much cleaner, newer one that probably belonged to her new ones. It looked bigger, probably more opportunity to hide. 

Krell was doubled over; she’d gotten something sensitive, it seemed. She staggered to her feet and scrambled to get out of his line of sight. She was still winded and bruised and her head was swimming but she used the adrenaline to push herself around the corner and into the new ship. 

Smelled better, seemed cleaner. She briefly entertained the idea this might belong to the local authorities, but it didn’t match anything she knew of that would be three days’ travel from Dominion space. The Dominion wouldn’t put up with anything that could build ships like this in their neighborhood, not unless it was being built for them. So it’d probably been stolen; this had to be some kind of warlord or pirate group. Orion Syndicate? Maybe—they were very organized outside Federation space. But they did prefer slightly subtler approaches these days. Better to operate on that assumption, however; it was the current worst case scenario. 

She estimated her chances of surviving once she met this ‘Council’ and revised them downward. 

She had to ditch the cuffs. She wanted to ditch the collar, but the cuffs were more obvious. She probably also needed to ditch her uniform, find something that wasn’t a great big, “I’m a Starfleet officer! Please shoot me!” sign. Then steal a shuttle. While staying two steps ahead of Giant Psychic Asshole Krell.

“Easy,” she muttered to herself, pressing herself up against a wall to catch her breath. “It’s just another Wednesday in Starfleet. Impossible escape from aliens with psychic powers. Can do this in my sleep.”

At least the universal translator was working on the signage. She made a few educated guesses, hoping she was heading to the shuttlebay. It was a really big ship. 

She didn’t hear the voices until it was too late. She rounded a corner and ran into a group of armored humanoids—identical armored humanoids. 

Starfleet officers were supposed to practice courtesy under all circumstances, but there was a time and a place. She shoved past them—one tried to grab her and she twisted to club him two-handed where shoulder met neck. He dropped, and she bolted.

Only to find Krell and more of the identical soldiers rounding the corner, Krell grinning like he’d known exactly where she’d be. She spun to head back the way she’d come, right back into the first group who all looked pretty pissed about their buddy; two of them already had what looked like phaser rifles raised. 

“Stun her!” she heard Krell roaring. “Shoot her already, you useless clones.”

Truly an inspiration to his men, she thought, and then the massed stun charges dropped her flat on her face in the middle of the corridor. 

Stun blasts here gave you just as much of a headache as the ones at home. Chester had no idea how long she’d been out, but it hadn’t done her sleep deprivation much good. Between the splitting headache from the stunner and the fading ache from the concussion, there was a pretty good argument to give escape attempts a rest for the time being. 

Aside from the whole possibility of being tortured to death, of course.

The other argument for escape was standing right outside of her cell, looking smug. 

She let her head rest back on the hard berth. “Don’t suppose you could tell me why I’ve been detained, could you? Maybe a little about who this Song Tulin is supposed to be, and what she’s supposed to have done?”

“Don’t waste my time,” he said. “And don’t try to escape again. You won’t like what happens.”

“I don’t like what’s happening now,” she said. “Can you at least tell me who I’m a prisoner of? Orion Syndicate? Cardassian splinter group? If I’m going to get shot, I think I ought to at least know who’s doing the shooting.”

He gave her a disgusted look. 

“You know, if I was lying, this would be a really stupid lie,” she went on. “If I was actually trying to get out of this, I’d probably tell you I was a double agent of some sort and that you were jeopardizing my mission, and that this Council of yours would blame you for undermining a highly sensitive operation.”

He looked smug. “It wouldn’t have worked.”

She realized there was no arguing with him. It might not even matter who he thought she was or wasn’t. She glared at the ceiling. “So you’re not going to tell me anything, because I already should know, and you’re not willing to entertain the possibility of me telling the truth even though you seem to have confidence you could have told if I was lying to you. There’s a flaw in your logic there, Mr. Krell.”

Krell didn’t seem appreciative. He turned to one of the identical soldiers guarding her cell. “No one is to speak to the prisoner,” he said. “Or interact with her in any way. She will evidently say anything in order to escape responsibility.”

And with that, he turned away. 

“Responsibility for what?” Chester called after him. No response. 

Ah, well. She hadn’t really expected one anyway. 

Over the next day or so, she got confirmation of what she’d already strongly suspected; Krell was not at all a nice person. She’d tried striking up conversations with her guards. Most didn’t respond. But one, his armor still completely unmarked, tilted his helmet as if he were looking sidelong at her and ventured, “We’re not supposed to talk to you.”

As conversational gambits went, she’d had better. But she gave him a smile anyway and said, “I don’t doubt it. But it’s pretty boring being a prisoner so dangerous that no one’s allowed to talk to me. I still don’t know what I’ve done. Look, let’s start over. My name is Diane Chester. I’m from a planet called Earth, and I’m an officer on a Federation starship. What’s your name?”

She’d been braced for his suspicion to increase, but it was still disappointing to see. “The Trade Federation?”

“No,” she said, wondering what the hell that was and more importantly, where the hell that was, and where the hell she could be that Trade Federation was more recognizable. “The United Federation of Planets. Does that ring any bells? I’m a Starfleet officer, of the USS Bedivere.”

“I’ve never heard of a United Federation of Planets,” he said hesitantly. “I definitely shouldn’t be talking to you.”

“I know,” she said. “And I appreciate it, even so.”

She did appreciate it, even though he clammed up after that and kept darting her worried looks for the rest of his shift.

It turned out he was right to be worried. 

“Can you tell me who’s arrested me?” she asked the next time he was on shift. “I should at least know that, shouldn’t I?”

He hesitated, the tilt of his helmet uncertain. “You don’t know?” he asked at last. 

“No,” she said. “I was picked up by bounty hunters. Everyone seems to know more than I do.”

He hesitated a little longer, then, quickly, “The Galactic Republic. But you should know that.”

Well, at least she had a name. “I didn’t. I’m not Song Tulin.”

He fell silent again as her mind scrambled. She had never heard of such an entity. Which mean they might be very deep into the Gamma Quadrant, somewhere the Dominion’s influence didn’t reach, or something even further out in unexplored space. “Can you tell me more about this Galactic Republic?”

“I shouldn’t be talking to you—” At that moment, the door slid open, and the man straightened to attention with a guilty start. 

It was Krell, expression thunderous. The guard shrank back with clear terror radiating off him. Chester stood, forced herself to take a step forward, but Krell’s attention was focused entirely on the unfortunate man. “You! Clone! You were given clear orders not to speak to the prisoner!”

Her guard made the mistake of apologizing. “I’m sorry sir! It won’t happen—”

Krell gestured, and the man flew off his feet and into a wall with a ugly thud. His helmet came off when he hit, the same face of every other one of the soldiers and blood already streaking down from his nose. White showed all the way around his eyes, clear terror as Krell advanced on him—he glanced at Chester and then away, very fast, the expression of a man who knew better than to look for help. 

She couldn’t stand it. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she shouted, hoping it would distract him. “Krell!”

“Give me one reason I should not have you executed for treason,” Krell said, advancing on him. It seemed very likely he’d do it himself.

“Stop!” Frantic to catch Krell’s attention, Chester threw herself against the containment field. (She later realized this had been incredibly stupid–some species felt anyone throwing themselves against a cell forcefield deserved to get fried). Fortunately, all it did was bounce her off, and she hammered on it with her bound fists. “Leave him alone, Krell. He’s not your problem here, I am.” 

It worked. He stopped. She couldn’t believe he’d stopped. The guard had curled up in a ball where he’d fallen, and she sincerely hoped that was because he’d decided his chances were better if he just stayed down. Krell turned to look at her, slowly. 

“Leave him alone,” she repeated. “It’s not his fault.”

One of the man’s comrades was helping him up, out of the way, darting a frightened look at Krell as he went. Chester turned her eyes back to Krell, deliberately, trying to keep his attention. “All he did was tell me not to talk to him. He was following your orders.” Not entirely true, but she hoped the edge of truth in it would be enough. 

He started walking toward her. It took everything she had to stay where she was. But no blow came, no massive crushing force hoisting her off her feet and it suddenly occurred to her that maybe, just maybe, she had some kind of leverage here she hadn’t identified. The very fact she’d witnessed it, maybe. 

“No one will believe you, Tulin,” he said, leaning in. Chester stayed where she was, not flinching at the murderous intent in his eyes–he very clearly wanted to kill her, despite whatever was restraining him. “Remember that.”

And with that, he left. 

Chester let herself step back and sit heavily on the hard cot. She rubbed a hand over her face, drew in a breath, let it out again long and slow, and then sat there and waited for the shaking to die down. 

The guards were very careful not to talk to her after that. She didn’t blame them one bit. But after an hour of the man’s replacement standing there, rigid, his back turned, she felt too guilty not to say something.

“Could you tell your colleague I’m sorry?” she asked. He shifted a little, turning his head very slightly to watch her, which was a lot more than she’d expected. “I didn’t realize I was putting him into that kind of danger. I had no right to ask him to take that kind of risk, and my ignorance in no way lessens his injuries. If you could let him know I apologized, it would mean a lot to me. But I understand if you can’t.”

He watched her another moment, and then inclined his head in the barest hint of a nod. 

At least that was something. She curled up as comfortably as she could and closed her eyes. If the brutality of what had just occurred was any indication of what Krell’s associates were like, she was going to need whatever wits she could scrape together from her sleep-deprived brain to survive her encounter with this ‘Council’.