Interrogation 2

“So,” you ask, “why am I still alive?”

She’s sitting at the little table outside your cell doing paperwork again. The Liberation has more paperwork than you ever suspected. “We disabled your mech’s countermeasures,” she says, not looking up. “About an hour before you spotted us, in fact.”

“That’s not what I meant—WAIT, an hour!? But I spotted you barely an hour into the patrol!”

“Yes,” she finally looks at you, smiling, “your command/control system is full of holes, dear.”

That’s a vital piece of intel, for whenever you manage to escape. Hopefully she can’t see that thought on your face. She probably can—if she can’t just read if off your implants.

“Well, um. I meant. What do you want from me?”

“Aside from the obvious?”

You break eye contact. Stare at your cell’s open door instead. At least you didn’t look down, this time; you’re not hungry enough to ask give in again. Not yet.

“T-there are easier ways to, uh,” you don’t know why you’re being so bashful. It’s just sex, coerced and nonconsensual as it is. “I mean. If that’s all you want.”

“Mmm, maybe I have morals?” She shakes her head. “You’re an enemy combatant, dear! And your bunch kill us whenever they can get their hands on us. What’s the thing they say, ’no civilians in the Liberation’? Something like that.”

“I-I never,” it’s true. You never got a chance. “I wouldn’t have …”

“You would have. Maybe you’d have been reluctant, but half your training is about obeying the hierarchy. A general tells you it’s a military target, are you going to object?”

She’s right, of course, but you don’t answer. You won’t give her the satisfaction.

“Hell,” she continues after a long pause, “you haven’t even tried to escape. The implied hierarchy of the prison cell and the warden is stronger than whatever convictions you thought you had. You couldn’t even starve yourself properly!”

“W-what do you mean? If I tried to get out you’d just …”

“I mean, yes,” she allows, “I would. But you haven’t even tried. I never even had to lock your cell’s door. Or those chains.”

“… what?”

“Try it,” she says, smiling. You are suddenly very, very aware that her handgun isn’t in its holster.

She could stop you with a thought, of course. You’re not sure how deep her control of your cybernetics actually is, but she’s perfectly capable of fucking with your motor systems. But the chains click open with just a bit of force, and she just watches as you creep out of your cell, pausing for a long time just inside the door. Expecting your cybernetics to stop you with a flood of pain, like they would in an Empire prison.

Nothing stops you.

It’s strange, standing in front of her. Upright. So much taller than her, when you’re not on your knees. Her handgun is hanging from a hook on the wall, right outside your door. You could grab it, flick the safety, and fire in one smooth motion. Point blank; you wouldn’t even have to aim.

It would be easy.

Probably she’d stop you—probably she’s already written something into your cybernetics that would stop you—but at least you’d have tried, right? At least she’d know that you’re loyal to the Empire. You’d know.

Standing up in front of her—looming over her, really—feels wrong, though. It’s much more comfortable to be on your knees. A more proper height, for a prisoner before their warden. And her skirt’s worn-leather scent is so warm and reassuring, so it would be a shame not to rest your head there, just for a moment. You’re not giving in, of course, just …

Just what?

Her fingers against your scalp ruin whatever justification was brewing in your struggling brain. Kneading, stroking, lingering on that sensitive place just behind your ear. Somehow more intimate than when she’s grabbed your head before, to show you how to move or to encourage you as you labored to please her—not because you wanted to please her, of course! So that she’d let you eat. Only ever for the reward. Of course.

“Wow,” she murmurs, almost too quiet for you to hear, “they really did a number on you, huh? Just a dog desperate for a new master …”

Eventually she loses interest in you, which is just as well. You need time to put your thoughts back together, half-collapsed on the floor, leaning against her legs. Clinging to her. Waiting for everything to make sense again.

“Should I go back to my cell?” You eventually ask.

“Mhmm, if you want to. Anyway, do you know any words that rhyme with ‘persimmon’?”

“Um,” you blink, “women?”

“Already used that one. Damn, I’m going to have to start from scratch again …”

“D-does the Liberation make you write paperwork in verse?”

“What?” She scoffs, “No! This isn’t paperwork! Half the reason I joined was to get away from the damn stuff, your empire is drowning in it.”

It might be the first genuine reaction you’ve gotten out of her since you were captured.

“W-what is it, then?”

“Poetry. Don’t they still have that in the empire?”

“O-of course we do! It’s patriotic. It tells us what we should be!”

“Not this kind of poetry.”