Ed was getting more and more annoyed. His captors were remaining elusive in their identity. He’d tried pushing out with his DOVI but found the cell to be heavily shielded and a snow field of white noise was the only result. The rather unsanitary toilet in the opposite corner of the cell to his cot stank, although after a few hours he’d got used to it. Every few hours a bowl of lumpy soup of indeterminate content slid through a narrow hatch at the base of the door. It was cold, greenish, tasted vaguely of boiled swede and the lumpy bits were tough and resembled boiled mutton.
He lay on the floor once, to see if he could identify his kidnappers through the hatch, but all he saw was an empty corridor, a gloved hand and a pair of black military-style boots.
He was beginning to lose track of time too. His watch was probably still on his bedside table, but judging by the number of meals it had been a couple of days or so.
They came for him without warning while he was dozing. Two stocky humanoids in dark military-style overalls swept into the cell, grabbed him up from the cot and frogmarched him out the cell and down the corridor. He pretended to be a bit dozy and let them take his weight as they half walked, half dragged him through the ship. In reality he was watching everything closely.
The first thing he noticed was their skin was scaled and dark, and they had large eyes, which explained the dim unlit interior. Their faces, however, were difficult to pigeonhole. The nearest he could get was like an armadillo crossed with a Klingon and seemingly just as grumpy.
‘Who are you and where are you taking me?’ he asked, turning his head and addressing the alien on his left.
He or it barked back in a series of clicks and hisses that his internal translator immediately recognised as Klatt.
‘The prisoner will remain silent,’ was the translation.
They’re Klatt, he thought, so this is what they look like.
He was a little happier now he knew who they were, but it still didn’t explain what exactly he’d done to merit them going to all this trouble on his behalf.
An airlock approached and he got a bit nervous as they stopped and opened the inner door, but he breathed a sigh of relief when they entered with him and cycled the lock. The outer door opened to reveal a narrow ribbed tube that flexed as they walked and he quickly realised he was being transferred to another ship while still in space.
The airlock at the other side was of a different design and looked newer. He tried his DOVI again, only to get a punch in the side of his head.
‘Use that again and you’ll be in an airlock alone,’ came the translation from the guard who’d struck him.
How the hell did they know? he thought.
This ship, as they entered and turned right, was indeed newer. It was still as gloomy and the gravity just as high, but not quite as high as on Dasos, Ed estimated.
The forced march continued through the new ship that he reasoned was considerably larger than the last one. An escalator took them up many decks, spitting them out directly onto what seemed to be the bridge. The guards stiffened as they entered and dragged Ed’s arms behind his back, placing restraints on his wrists.
‘Stand there and don’t move,’ one of the guards clicked and hissed in his ear.
Ed observed a circular room roughly twenty metres across with around forty crew on three levels all standing facing inwards to a raised platform in the centre. This contained an opaque shimmering field, tubular in shape and stretching from the floor of the platform up to the ceiling.
The crew seemed to be paying him no attention at all, but it was hard to tell where they were looking through the blackness of their eyes.
‘Good morning, Mr Virr,’ said a deep voice in English, seemingly coming from everywhere.
Ed gazed around the room, but could find no evidence of who was speaking.
‘Hello there,’ said Ed, almost cheerfully. ‘Don’t be a stranger, I won’t bite.’
‘Ahh,’ said the voice. ‘More of that smug insolence, Mr Virr.’
The opaque shield dissipated to reveal another Klatt, this one sitting inside a circular console. He spun his seat around and faced Ed.
‘It’s Captain Virr to you, and your name is…?’
‘Captain Groxl, your accuser.’
Groxl smiled a smile that reminded Ed of a snarling wolf.
‘I’ve waited a long time for this,’ Groxl continued.
‘And just what are you accusing me of?’ Ed asked. ‘I’ve never met a Klatt before, so I believe you almost certainly have the wrong man.’
‘Oh, we’ve met before, Virr,’ Groxl sneered. ‘It might have been a trivial moment for you, but the consequences included not just my humiliation and demotion from admiral back to captain, but also one of the most obscene insults ever to the Klatt Navy and the entire Klatt Empire.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Ed demanded, shaking his head.
‘Three years ago, my Fonias class cruiser KNS Vixtyon approached your little ship in system C-29641/AT, as I believe your GDA friends like to call it. You attacked us, which resulted in the death of one of my crew and the ensuing complete loss of the vessel. Is your memory returning now, Mr Virr?’
Ed did indeed remember the short exchange and hadn’t thought about it since.
‘I seem to remember it was your own weapon system that damaged your ship,’ Ed replied, hopefully.
‘So we thought at the time,’ said Groxl. ‘But evidence soon came to light that it was you manipulating our then unshielded systems with that mind control thing you have – a DOVI, I believe you call it.’
How the fuck did they find out about that? he thought.
‘I think you’re mistaken,’ said Ed. ‘There’s no such thing,’ he added, keeping his expression as neutral as he could.
‘Is that so?’ Groxl hissed, a malevolent grin spreading across his face as he reached across to depress a button on his console.
Ed collapsed in sudden agony, his head becoming an instant sphere of pain. He shrieked out loud and writhed around on the floor until Groxl touched the button again and the acute agony disappeared as abruptly as it had come.
Ed sat back up, sweat dripping off his face, and glanced nervously at Groxl.
‘You are on the way to Zee-Klatt III, the Klatt home world,’ said Groxl, ‘where you will be tried for your crimes against the Klatt Empire. Even if your life is spared, you will be spending the rest of your sad existence in one of our hard labour work camps.’
Groxl waved one of his hands towards the elevator.
‘Take the criminal away and if he tries to use that DOVI thing again – space him,’ Groxl sneered as he disappeared behind the opaque shield once again.
Ed felt himself roughly picked up and dragged back towards the elevator.