Supermax 204: “Hard Site”
I woke up sitting in a chair, its metal surface cold against my skin of my naked back and buttocks. My arms were twisted behind me, and my hands were shackled to the chair back. My ankles were shackled to the chair’s legs, high enough so that my feet were off the floor. My whole body hurt.
“Look at me,” said a voice. Someone grabbed me by the hair, from behind, and yanked my head up.
I was in some kind of interview room. There was a metal table in front of me. The Vorta from the courtyard sat on the other side, his hands folded on the table top, with a faint look of disgust on his face. The door to the room was behind him. A Jem’Hadar stood behind him as well, in the corner, standing at attention, staring straight ahead, with his polaron rifle at the port.
“This has gone on long enough,” said the Vorta. Then he looked to my left. “Release him,” he said.
The hand let go of my hair and gave my head a shove.
“Where is Kalila bint Ibrahim?” said the Vorta.
I looked left. A Cardassian soldier was standing behind the chair. I turned back to face the Vorta. “Who?” I said.
The Cardassian hit me in the back of the head, open-handed. The Vorta’s expression didn’t change, but he sighed softly, then leaned forward a bit. “Where,” he said, “is Kalila bint Ibrahim?”
“I don’t know who that is,” I said.
“Where is she, Jaffar?” said the Vorta.
“My name is Gamal,” I said.
“Your name,” he said, “is Dawud ibn Jaffar al-Manari. You are a terrorist, and an enemy of the Dominion, like your wife. Where is she, Jaffar?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
The alien lifted its hands off the table, steepled its fingers, lowered its lips to the tips of its forefingers, and stared at me for a moment. Then it glanced to my left, nodded, and then turned its attention back to me.
The Cardassian moved around to face me, drew his disruptor pistol, and held it down by his thigh, shaking his wrist as if to loosen it. I looked up at him, from my chair, and he looked down at me, with a smirk on his face. He was going to enjoy this.
Across the table, the Vorta raised its head a bit, and said: “Where is Kalila bint Ibrahim?”
“I told you—I don’t know who that—”
The Cardassian whipped me across the face with his pistol. When I recovered, and looked up, he whipped me again, back-handed.
“Look at me,” said the Vorta.
I looked up at the Vorta, blinking away tears. He said, “Where is she, Jaffar?”
I glanced at the Cardassian, and saw that he’d shifted his grip on his weapon. Instead of holding it by the pistol grip, with his finger on the trigger, he was holding it by the frame, like it was a brick, or something. I looked back at the Vorta.
“My name is Gamal,” I said.
The Cardassian smashed me in the left eye with his weapon, once, twice. I shut my eyes tightly and sobbed from the pain.
“Look at me,” said the Vorta.
I opened my eyes, saw double, closed them and opened them again, trying to focus, and failing.
“No more games, human,” said the Vorta—both of them. I still couldn’t focus. The pain was agonizing. The Cardassian had fractured my eye socket.
The Vorta continued. “You have been sentenced to death,” he said. “Your only chance to save yourself is to tell me what I want to know.”
“Now,” he said. “I will ask you just one more time.”
I felt the muzzle of the Cardassian’s disruptor pistol press against the side of my head.
“Where,” said the Vorta, “is Kalila bint Ibrahim?”
***
New Palestine colony, the Demilitarized Zone. City of New Jerusalem.
I was in a safe-house in the Christian quarter when I got caught. The New Jerusalem Brigade had just pulled off a spectacular operation. We’d wired an empty old apartment building to implode, by attaching shaped charges to the support columns. Then we’d leaked false information about the Brigade Headquarters holding a meeting inside that building.
The enemy took the bait. At the moment the meeting was supposed to take place, they attacked. As we watched from a safe distance, a swarm of shuttles descended on that building, landed on its roof and the streets outside, and inserted a force of Jem’Hadar and Cardassian assault troops. Once they were inside, we blew the charges, and brought the whole structure down on top of them.
It was beautiful.
Before the dust had settled, we were gone—scattering all over the city. My wife and I split up. I promised to meet her at her cousin’s house, in the country, in a day or two. She kissed me goodbye, fiercely: then we both hurried away, to hide.
Like I said: I wound up in a safe-house in the Christian quarter—a secret room in a prostitute’s apartment. Her name was Rubi. I was just settling down for the night, in my hiding place, when I heard the noise—banging, male shouting, crashing, female screaming.
I sat there in the darkness and listened, trying to figure out what was happening. Did they know I was here? Or was it just a random door-to-door? Had Rubi sold me out? Would she give me up to save herself?
Finally, I heard a rough male voice on the other side of the wall. “You in there,” it said. “Come out with your hands up.”
I didn’t move. A fist banged on the wall. “We know you’re in there,” said the voice. “Come out with your hands up.”
I still didn’t move. No sense making it easy for them. Sooner or later, I figured, they’d get tired of waiting, send for explosives, and threaten to blast me out. Maybe I’d surrender then. Or maybe not.
I figured wrong. “Come out,” said the voice, “or we’ll kill the female.” Then, a woman cried out in pain—Rubi.
Shit! I thought.
“I’m going to count to three,” said the voice. “One…two…”
“All right!” I shouted.
Then I came out, with my hands up.
***
Sundancer Penal Colony, 61 Virginis II. Prison hulk USS Lilienthal, in orbit.
Pak started awake. What was that? he thought
The Markalian prisoner sat up and looked around. He was in his cell on Deck Six—a converted crew cabin. To his right, the stars were moving slowly past the porthole. To his left was Jaffar’s bed, and beyond that, the cell door.
Pak himself was in bed. He’d gone to bed when the lights went out—at 2300 hours. They were still out. What time was it?
Something had woken him up. Something was wrong. But—what?
Then, he noticed.
Jaffar’s bed was empty. The blanket and sheet were half-pulled off
“Jaffar?” he whispered.
No response.
Where was he?
The Markalian reached down, and pulled out the shank he kept hidden under his bed.
“Jaffar!” he hissed.
Still nothing.
Slowly, quietly, Pak pulled back the covers, turned to the left, put his feet on the deck, and stood up. With his shank ready in his right hand, he crept over to the foot of Jaffar’s bed.
There. The human was lying sprawled on the deck, between his bed and the cell door.
“Jaffar?”
Pak moved over, bent down over his human cellmate, and checked him for signs of life. Then he stood up, slipped his shank into his underpants, moved over to the celldoor and pounded on it with his fist.
“Officer!” he shouted. “Officer!”
***
New Palestine Colony. Al-Balat Detention Center, City of New Jerusalem.
Twenty-four hours.
That’s what they told us, in Starfleet Intelligence College. And that’s what I told recruits, in the New Palestine Maquis. In case of capture, say nothing for twenty-four hours. After that, you can say anything you want—anything that will make the pain stop. After twenty-four hours, you’ve done your duty.
You’ll talk, I told them. Don’t kid yourselves. The Cardassians can make anybody talk. But if you can hold out for just twenty-four hours, then what you know can’t hurt us—or help them. Give us that much time, and you can tell them everything. After twenty-four hours, it won’t matter any more.
I never thought I’d have to follow my own orders.
In a way, I was lucky. I hadn’t been betrayed. The Cardassians hadn’t even known I was there. They simply threw a cordon around the city’s Christian quarter, searched every building, and found my rat-hole with a tricorder. I told them my name was Gamal Abdul Masihiri.
They knew I was in the Maquis. But they didn’t know who I was, or what I’d done, or what I knew. So they put me in the back of a transport, took me to the nearest detention center, and processed me. When dawn came, I was sitting in the courtyard at the Al-Balat, under guard, with about a hundred other detainees, all naked, shivering in the cold night air.
The yard was divided in half by a force-field wall. We all sat on one side. The other side was empty, except for a guillotine: a head-chopping machine; one of the Dominion’s little innovations. There was a large rectangular box sitting beside it, and a circular tub in front of it.
I was tonguing a painful hole in my gums where they’d pulled out a tooth, and wondering what came next, when a Cardassian Gul marched out onto the empty half of the courtyard, followed by a Vorta. The two of them advanced up close to the force-field and stopped. The Vorta stood a deferential step behind the Cardassian’s right shoulder and looked at us curiously. There was no curiosity on the Cardassian’s face—only contempt.
“Prisoners!” he shouted. “You have all been found guilty of treason, and sentenced to death.”
There was a shocked silence. The Cardassian officer looked back over his shoulder. “Bring out the prisoner,” he said. A mixed party of Cardassian and Jem’Hadar guards entered the courtyard with a human prisoner, his hands tied behind his back. They marched him over to the guillotine.
The prisoner’s face was grey with fear. He was saying something. At first I couldn’t make it out, but once he got closer I could hear him. He was reciting the Shahada, over and over, again and again. “There is no God but Allah,” he said, “and Muhammad is his prophet. There is no God, but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. There is no God but Allah…”
The guards led the prisoner over to the machine: one of them cranked a handle that lifted the blade, and another lifted the collar that would hold his head in place; the others tilted up a board with leather belts attached. He tried to struggle at that point: “No!” he cried. “No! No! No!” But it was no use. They belted him to the board, and tilted it down.
He began to recite again—faster this time, frantic. “There is no God but Allah,” he said. The guards slid him forward until his head was under the blade. “And Muhammad is his prophet,” he said. One guard grabbed him by the ears while another lowered the collar and fixed it in place around his neck. “There is no God but Allah,” he said.
Then the blade fell, and his head came off. Blood began to pool on the ground, under the blade, as they unbelted his body from the tilting board. Then they tipped his body over into the coffin.
The gul pointed at the guillotine. “That,” he said, “is the fate that awaits you all. There is no escape. Your only chance is to cooperate with your interrogators. Those who provide us with valuable information will have their sentences commuted. Tell us what we want to know, and save yourselves. That is all.”
He nodded to the guards at the guillotine. “Continue,” he said. Then he strode out of the courtyard, followed by the Vorta, while another prisoner was brought in.
And another.
And another.
***
Sundancer Penal Colony, 61 Virginis II. Prison hulk USS Lilienthal, in orbit.
Jaffar lay on the biobed, in Sickbay, unconscious. The ship’s doctor stood on one side, scanning the prisoner with a medical tricorder and frowning. Captain Hardcastle stood on the other side of the bed, waiting. “Well?” she said.
Finally, the doctor shook his head in frustration, looked up at the readouts above the head of the bed, and closed his tricorder. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I’d say this man was in a coma. Except…”
“Except, what?” said the captain.
“Here,” said the doctor, pointing at the readouts. “His limbic system. The parts of the brain that support emotions and long-term memory. I’ve never seen readings like this before.”
There was an electronic chirp. “Chief Guzman to Captain Hardcastle.”
The captain tapped her combadge. “Go ahead, Chief.”
“Captain, I’ve completed my interrogation of Jaffar’s cellmate. He says he doesn’t know anything. He woke up, and found Jaffar lying on the deck. I’m pretty sure he’s telling the truth.”
The captain rubbed her eyes. “All right,” she said. “Thank you, Chief. Captain out.”
What the hell is going on here, she wondered.
***
New Palestine Colony. Al-Balat Detention Center, City of New Jerusalem.
I don’t know how they found out who I was. I must have left some DNA behind, somewhere, after an operation. They must have matched it to the samples they took when they processed me.
All I know for sure is that the guards came to my cell, grabbed me, hauled me away to an interrogation room, and started questioning me about the ambush at the abandoned apartment building, the day before. When I stuck to my story, they got angry.
They shackled my hands, in front of me, and forced me to it down, hugging my knees to my chest. They took a metal bar and passed it over my forearms and under my knees. Then they lifted me up, and put the bar on a rack, hanging me upside down. The parrot’s perch—an old Obsidian-Order favourite.
They kicked me with their boots and beat me with metal pipes. The pain was unbelievable. I screamed, and sobbed, and cried, but I wouldn’t talk. I kept thinking, twenty-four hours, twenty-four hours…
A Cardassian stood over me, screaming questions into my face. Who were my accomplices? Where were they? Confess! Confess!
I sobbed: “My name is Gamal Abdul…”
Then one of them hit me in the head. That’s when I blacked out, I think.
I woke up sitting in a chair, its metal surface cold against my skin of my naked back and buttocks. My arms were twisted behind me, and my hands were shackled to the chair back. My ankles were shackled to the chair’s legs, high enough so that my feet were off the floor. My whole body hurt.
“Look at me,” said a voice. Someone grabbed me by the hair, from behind, and yanked my head up.
I was in some kind of interview room. There was a metal table in front of me. The Vorta from the courtyard sat on the other side, his hands folded on the table top, with a faint look of disgust on his face. The door to the room was behind him. A Jem’Hadar stood behind him as well, in the corner, standing at attention, staring straight ahead, with his polaron rifle at the port.
“This has gone on long enough,” said the Vorta. Then he looked to my left. “Release him,” he said.
The hand let go of my hair and gave my head a shove.
“Where is Kalila bint Ibrahim?” said the Vorta.
I looked left. A Cardassian soldier was standing behind the chair. I turned back to face the Vorta. “Who?” I said.
The Cardassian hit me in the back of the head, open-handed. The Vorta’s expression didn’t change, but he sighed softly, then leaned forward a bit. “Where,” he said, “is Kalila bint Ibrahim?”
“I don’t know who that is,” I said.
“Where is she, Jaffar?” said the Vorta.
“My name is Gamal,” I said.
“Your name,” he said, “is Dawud ibn Jaffar al-Manari. You are a terrorist, and an enemy of the Dominion, like your wife. Where is she, Jaffar?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
The alien lifted its hands off the table, steepled its fingers, lowered its lips to the tips of its forefingers, and stared at me for a moment. Then it glanced to my left, nodded, and then turned its attention back to me.
The Cardassian moved around to face me, drew his disruptor pistol, and held it down by his thigh, shaking his wrist as if to loosen it. I looked up at him, from my chair, and he looked down at me, with a smirk on his face. He was going to enjoy this.
Across the table, the Vorta raised its head a bit, and said: “Where is Kalila bint Ibrahim?”
“I told you—I don’t know who that—”
The Cardassian whipped me across the face with his pistol. When I recovered, and looked up, he whipped me again, back-handed.
“Look at me,” said the Vorta.
I looked up at the Vorta, blinking away tears. He said, “Where is she, Jaffar?”
I glanced at the Cardassian, and saw that he’d shifted his grip on his weapon. Instead of holding it by the pistol grip, with his finger on the trigger, he was holding it by the frame, like it was a brick, or something. I looked back at the Vorta.
“My name is Gamal,” I said.
The Cardassian smashed me in the left eye with his weapon, once, twice. I shut my eyes tightly and sobbed from the pain.
“Look at me,” said the Vorta.
I opened my eyes, saw double, closed them and opened them again, trying to focus, and failing.
“No more games, human,” said the Vorta—both of them. I still couldn’t focus. The pain was agonizing. The Cardassian had fractured my eye socket.
The Vorta continued. “You have been sentenced to death,” he said. “Your only chance to save yourself is to tell me what I want to know.”
“Now,” he said. “I will ask you just one more time.”
I felt the muzzle of the Cardassian’s disruptor pistol press against the side of my head.
“Where,” said the Vorta, “is Kalila bint Ibrahim?”
***
New Palestine colony, the Demilitarized Zone. City of New Jerusalem.
I was in a safe-house in the Christian quarter when I got caught. The New Jerusalem Brigade had just pulled off a spectacular operation. We’d wired an empty old apartment building to implode, by attaching shaped charges to the support columns. Then we’d leaked false information about the Brigade Headquarters holding a meeting inside that building.
The enemy took the bait. At the moment the meeting was supposed to take place, they attacked. As we watched from a safe distance, a swarm of shuttles descended on that building, landed on its roof and the streets outside, and inserted a force of Jem’Hadar and Cardassian assault troops. Once they were inside, we blew the charges, and brought the whole structure down on top of them.
It was beautiful.
Before the dust had settled, we were gone—scattering all over the city. My wife and I split up. I promised to meet her at her cousin’s house, in the country, in a day or two. She kissed me goodbye, fiercely: then we both hurried away, to hide.
Like I said: I wound up in a safe-house in the Christian quarter—a secret room in a prostitute’s apartment. Her name was Rubi. I was just settling down for the night, in my hiding place, when I heard the noise—banging, male shouting, crashing, female screaming.
I sat there in the darkness and listened, trying to figure out what was happening. Did they know I was here? Or was it just a random door-to-door? Had Rubi sold me out? Would she give me up to save herself?
Finally, I heard a rough male voice on the other side of the wall. “You in there,” it said. “Come out with your hands up.”
I didn’t move. A fist banged on the wall. “We know you’re in there,” said the voice. “Come out with your hands up.”
I still didn’t move. No sense making it easy for them. Sooner or later, I figured, they’d get tired of waiting, send for explosives, and threaten to blast me out. Maybe I’d surrender then. Or maybe not.
I figured wrong. “Come out,” said the voice, “or we’ll kill the female.” Then, a woman cried out in pain—Rubi.
Shit! I thought.
“I’m going to count to three,” said the voice. “One…two…”
“All right!” I shouted.
Then I came out, with my hands up.
***
Sundancer Penal Colony, 61 Virginis II. Prison hulk USS Lilienthal, in orbit.
Pak started awake. What was that? he thought
The Markalian prisoner sat up and looked around. He was in his cell on Deck Six—a converted crew cabin. To his right, the stars were moving slowly past the porthole. To his left was Jaffar’s bed, and beyond that, the cell door.
Pak himself was in bed. He’d gone to bed when the lights went out—at 2300 hours. They were still out. What time was it?
Something had woken him up. Something was wrong. But—what?
Then, he noticed.
Jaffar’s bed was empty. The blanket and sheet were half-pulled off
“Jaffar?” he whispered.
No response.
Where was he?
The Markalian reached down, and pulled out the shank he kept hidden under his bed.
“Jaffar!” he hissed.
Still nothing.
Slowly, quietly, Pak pulled back the covers, turned to the left, put his feet on the deck, and stood up. With his shank ready in his right hand, he crept over to the foot of Jaffar’s bed.
There. The human was lying sprawled on the deck, between his bed and the cell door.
“Jaffar?”
Pak moved over, bent down over his human cellmate, and checked him for signs of life. Then he stood up, slipped his shank into his underpants, moved over to the celldoor and pounded on it with his fist.
“Officer!” he shouted. “Officer!”
***
New Palestine Colony. Al-Balat Detention Center, City of New Jerusalem.
Twenty-four hours.
That’s what they told us, in Starfleet Intelligence College. And that’s what I told recruits, in the New Palestine Maquis. In case of capture, say nothing for twenty-four hours. After that, you can say anything you want—anything that will make the pain stop. After twenty-four hours, you’ve done your duty.
You’ll talk, I told them. Don’t kid yourselves. The Cardassians can make anybody talk. But if you can hold out for just twenty-four hours, then what you know can’t hurt us—or help them. Give us that much time, and you can tell them everything. After twenty-four hours, it won’t matter any more.
I never thought I’d have to follow my own orders.
In a way, I was lucky. I hadn’t been betrayed. The Cardassians hadn’t even known I was there. They simply threw a cordon around the city’s Christian quarter, searched every building, and found my rat-hole with a tricorder. I told them my name was Gamal Abdul Masihiri.
They knew I was in the Maquis. But they didn’t know who I was, or what I’d done, or what I knew. So they put me in the back of a transport, took me to the nearest detention center, and processed me. When dawn came, I was sitting in the courtyard at the Al-Balat, under guard, with about a hundred other detainees, all naked, shivering in the cold night air.
The yard was divided in half by a force-field wall. We all sat on one side. The other side was empty, except for a guillotine: a head-chopping machine; one of the Dominion’s little innovations. There was a large rectangular box sitting beside it, and a circular tub in front of it.
I was tonguing a painful hole in my gums where they’d pulled out a tooth, and wondering what came next, when a Cardassian Gul marched out onto the empty half of the courtyard, followed by a Vorta. The two of them advanced up close to the force-field and stopped. The Vorta stood a deferential step behind the Cardassian’s right shoulder and looked at us curiously. There was no curiosity on the Cardassian’s face—only contempt.
“Prisoners!” he shouted. “You have all been found guilty of treason, and sentenced to death.”
There was a shocked silence. The Cardassian officer looked back over his shoulder. “Bring out the prisoner,” he said. A mixed party of Cardassian and Jem’Hadar guards entered the courtyard with a human prisoner, his hands tied behind his back. They marched him over to the guillotine.
The prisoner’s face was grey with fear. He was saying something. At first I couldn’t make it out, but once he got closer I could hear him. He was reciting the Shahada, over and over, again and again. “There is no God but Allah,” he said, “and Muhammad is his prophet. There is no God, but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. There is no God but Allah…”
The guards led the prisoner over to the machine: one of them cranked a handle that lifted the blade, and another lifted the collar that would hold his head in place; the others tilted up a board with leather belts attached. He tried to struggle at that point: “No!” he cried. “No! No! No!” But it was no use. They belted him to the board, and tilted it down.
He began to recite again—faster this time, frantic. “There is no God but Allah,” he said. The guards slid him forward until his head was under the blade. “And Muhammad is his prophet,” he said. One guard grabbed him by the ears while another lowered the collar and fixed it in place around his neck. “There is no God but Allah,” he said.
Then the blade fell, and his head came off. Blood began to pool on the ground, under the blade, as they unbelted his body from the tilting board. Then they tipped his body over into the coffin.
The gul pointed at the guillotine. “That,” he said, “is the fate that awaits you all. There is no escape. Your only chance is to cooperate with your interrogators. Those who provide us with valuable information will have their sentences commuted. Tell us what we want to know, and save yourselves. That is all.”
He nodded to the guards at the guillotine. “Continue,” he said. Then he strode out of the courtyard, followed by the Vorta, while another prisoner was brought in.
And another.
And another.
***
Sundancer Penal Colony, 61 Virginis II. Prison hulk USS Lilienthal, in orbit.
Jaffar lay on the biobed, in Sickbay, unconscious. The ship’s doctor stood on one side, scanning the prisoner with a medical tricorder and frowning. Captain Hardcastle stood on the other side of the bed, waiting. “Well?” she said.
Finally, the doctor shook his head in frustration, looked up at the readouts above the head of the bed, and closed his tricorder. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I’d say this man was in a coma. Except…”
“Except, what?” said the captain.
“Here,” said the doctor, pointing at the readouts. “His limbic system. The parts of the brain that support emotions and long-term memory. I’ve never seen readings like this before.”
There was an electronic chirp. “Chief Guzman to Captain Hardcastle.”
The captain tapped her combadge. “Go ahead, Chief.”
“Captain, I’ve completed my interrogation of Jaffar’s cellmate. He says he doesn’t know anything. He woke up, and found Jaffar lying on the deck. I’m pretty sure he’s telling the truth.”
The captain rubbed her eyes. “All right,” she said. “Thank you, Chief. Captain out.”
What the hell is going on here, she wondered.
***
New Palestine Colony. Al-Balat Detention Center, City of New Jerusalem.
I don’t know how they found out who I was. I must have left some DNA behind, somewhere, after an operation. They must have matched it to the samples they took when they processed me.
All I know for sure is that the guards came to my cell, grabbed me, hauled me away to an interrogation room, and started questioning me about the ambush at the abandoned apartment building, the day before. When I stuck to my story, they got angry.
They shackled my hands, in front of me, and forced me to it down, hugging my knees to my chest. They took a metal bar and passed it over my forearms and under my knees. Then they lifted me up, and put the bar on a rack, hanging me upside down. The parrot’s perch—an old Obsidian-Order favourite.
They kicked me with their boots and beat me with metal pipes. The pain was unbelievable. I screamed, and sobbed, and cried, but I wouldn’t talk. I kept thinking, twenty-four hours, twenty-four hours…
A Cardassian stood over me, screaming questions into my face. Who were my accomplices? Where were they? Confess! Confess!
I sobbed: “My name is Gamal Abdul…”
Then one of them hit me in the head. That’s when I blacked out, I think.
Last edited:
But I wrote all of this just this morning and afternoon, in a single creative burst.
