The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH04

Gralgiran stood before the Earther, seated on the other side of the table. He had accommodated her by providing a flat seat with straight

Gralgiran stood before the Earther, seated on the other side of the table. He had accommodated her by providing a flat seat with straight back. Jeremy had printed some in his early days living with him; until he’d gotten used to the bowl shape. The Psychologist sat to his right, at the table, her tablet on it, while he wore a lens so he could keep his hands behind his back.

“Name?” he asked. It wasn’t the first time she’d been asked since being captured, and based on previous responses, had an idea what to expect.

“How about, go fuck yourself?”

“You identify your species as Earther, correct, Miss Go Fuck Yourself?” The ‘miss’ had been advised by the Psychologist. An Earther term that related to the female to being in, or out, of a relationship.

She stared at him and took a second to get over the surprise. “Human, furball.”

“Human is a species-internal-reference.”

“Like I give a fuck what you people call me.”

“I call you by the name you told me is yours, Miss Go Fuck Yourself.”

She had to look up to glare at him. “Let me guess, you get off on looming over the poor little humans you capture.”

“I stand, because that is where a leader belongs. I’ve had other Earthers on my ship, and I did not feel a need to loom over them, Miss Go Fuck Yourself.”

“It’s Alison! It’s fucking Alison McMartin.”

Shorter than he’d liked, but she was an Earther, and he could deal with it for the duration. “Thank you, Miss Alison McMartin. Your species is being marked as Earther, as the Federation equivalent of what you refer to yourselves internally. Is that agreeable with you?”

“If I say no, what are you going to do about it? Tack on fur to me and call me a cat?”

“You do not meet any of the requirements to be accepted as a Kelsirian citizen. But if being an Earther is not something to desire, steps can be initiated to find a species willing to accept you as their.”

“You people are impossible,” she hissed.

“So you agree to being identified as an Earther, as the Federation equiva—”

“Of course I fucking agree.”

“Age?”

“You fucking serious?”

“Medical scan identify you, as per using Earther biology files, as being in your late thirties.”

“I’m thirty-three.” She glowered. “And you just made that up to get me to tell you.”

“No. When you were checked for injuries and treated, you were scanned. Because you are Earther, I was able to get permission to have medical use the information your species provided us when we were shepherding them within the Federation even if its truthfulness is now in doubt.”

It had found her to be in reasonable health for her species, taking into account pirates didn’t usually have the best diet, since they needed to make do with that they could steal, until they were able to reach one of the few stations willing to ignore what they were so they could sell what they’d stolen and buy supplies.

There were only three of them left at the edge of Kelsirian space, and only because knowing where the pirate had to go to resupply meant it was easier to keep track of them and remove those who were becoming too much of a problem.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have jurisdiction within other species’ borders and not all of them were as strict with what they’ll let their pirates get away with. Sharing a border with the Taournians made keeping track of those particularly difficult.

“How long have you been part of the pirate crew?”

She smirked. “Didn’t your scans tell you?”

The Psychologist moved a claw on her tablet, then ‘two, three years at most.’ Appeared before him. That was longer than he’d expected. He knew Earthers have been finding asylum within the Federation well before he found Jeremy, but for one to become a pirate so far back implied the Earthers had been better at hiding what they did than any of them thought. That, or they had let their criminals go with more ease than their citizens.

If she had been planted to cause them problem through the pirates, the Psychologist would have already picked up on it. Which meant he couldn’t use getting answers to those questions as meat to whet her appetite for freedom.

“When your crewmate expressed a desire to sell Technician Jeremy Bradshaw to the Earthers, you were against it.”

“Have you dealt when them?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then why the fuck do you even need to ask me why?”

“I understand why they would be at risk in that encounter. Nothing in the interactions we’re documented since you and the rest of the pirate crew indicate you care about what happens to them. With having been part of their crew for two years, that leads me to think the camaraderie that can be considered the one redeeming factor to pirates was never your intent. They were a means to an end.”

Her surprise at him mentioning the timeframe gave way to anger. “To get as far from that fucking border as I could, but those assholes just wouldn’t go anywhere else. ‘Our territory,’ they kept saying. Like we should be limiting ourselves to one patch of space when there is so much or it.”

They most likely intended it in the form of ‘not getting any further from the one station in the area that would take them in.’

“Why do you want to get away from your people?”

A silent glower.

Without a message from the Psychologist, he continued.

“Are Earthers purposely allowing their criminals to escape their territory and into ours?”

Silence again, but worried this time. She might not know. Worried she’d been allowed to leave, instead of doing so through her own cunning? The reason didn’t matter.

“Who do you want me to contact on Earth to arrange for your return to them?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“There are systems in place that even the Earther can’t casually ignore, since they are still seeking someone to shepherd them within the Federation. Family Law empowers you to reach out to a family member, have them petition your government to take you back. I can’t speak to how they will address your crimes, but—”

She laughed. A bitter and angry thing.

‘No family, or none that she considers as such.’ Appeared.

That complicated things. She’d already indicated she had no interest in being recognized as a different species.

“Captain, if I may?” the Psychologist said.

“Go ahead.”

“Alison, please look at me. While your fear is understandable, it will not help you at this time. Take a breath. Think of something soothing, an image or a sound, or a smell that brings you comfort. Good.” The Earther followed along with the Psychologist’s instructions. “Now. The situation you are in is not good, but it doesn’t have to become worse. The captain’s work, here, isn’t to make you suffer, but your situation is complicated.” She nodded to him.

“Alison McMartin. You are a pirate. The Federation has regulations in place that means that regardless of my people’s desire to make pirate operating within our territory suffer our punishments for the crimes, I need to deliver them to a Federation Station for them to be returned to their people so they can be prosecuted as per their rules. Earthers are not part of the Federation. And because you have committed the crime of piracy within Federation space, asking for asylum is not a possibility, even if persecution by your government led you to become a criminal. You are someone outside the Federations species. Unless you take steps for your government to repatriate you, you fall under the laws of the species in which territory you committed the crime you were caught doing. You were operating within Kelsirian territory. You fall under our laws. You do not want to suffer the punishment we administer to criminals of your caliber. I encourage you to reconsider making a plea to your government. I know that some of the things they do are not good. But it will not be worse than you going to an incarceration center.”

By the paling of her skin, he had at least managed to impart the danger of remaining under Kelsirian jurisdiction.

“You don’t have to make a decision now,” the Psychologist said. “But you will need to make one. You need to know that if you choose to ask one of the Federation species to me you theirs, their refusal will return you to us to be punished as our laws allow. This is not a system you can manipulate in the hopes of outplaying us. You get one chance. Either appeal to your government, select one of the Federation species and convince them to accept you, or be punished under our laws.”

“Would anyone want someone like me?”

Piracy was one of the worse crime someone could commit according to all, but one, species. And he implored Otimar Rorsheterik to grant the Psychologist the wisdom not to mention them. They would agree, he knew, but once the Earther disappeared within Taournian territory, he dreaded what they might do. He’d seen what Taournian pirates were willing to do to their captives when they were outside their territory. Would they have limits within theirs? Where there was no one to oversee their actions?

“We can provide you files on each species,” she said. “And you can study them. You may find one that would overlook the severity of your crimes if you can offer them something of worth in return. You have worth, Alison,” she said. “Regardless of what brought you here, of what you did. You have worth. Read through the files, look for a species that can see that. They will still punish you, but it will be nothing as severe as ours would be. We are not a gentle people, Alison, when we are angered.”

She stood, and it was enough to tell him this was as much as they could hope for. He called the hunter in to escort the prisoner to her cell.

“I wish you hadn’t offered the files for her to read.”

“She won’t ask her government. I can’t tell you why, but her fear of them runs too deep.”

“Could she hide that from you?” He didn’t know how strong of a Mentalist the Psychologist was, but he knew she was strong. He couldn’t prevent her from finding out information if she set herself to it, and he had training to resist interrogations.

“She doesn’t know why she’s afraid. As best as I can tell, it goes back to her childhood and has been trampled by time. Made into a formless cloud that covers any through about Earth she has.”

“I can’t remove the Taournians from those files.”

“And our files on them come with explicit warnings of the kind of people they are. If she decides on them, it will be fully informed.”

“Did you get anything that can mitigate her punishment? An Earther isn’t made for the incarceration centers.”

“I will send you my full report, but no, nothing I saw indicates that she was coerced at any stage of the decisions that led to the act of piracy she was captured for. She also doesn’t have any intelligence on what the Earther government does to those like your Heart.”

So he couldn’t offer her as a source of information.

“What are the chances one of the species would accept her?”

The ears folding back didn’t bode well. “Her life has been fighting the authorities, a desire to remove herself from anyone who could tell her how she was expected to live her life. It does not make her someone who can easily adjust to other’s way of thinking. She refused to warm to the rest of the crew she was part of, and there are no one more lawless than pirates. If she had gained control of them, she might have been able to grow closer, but as the lone Earther, unless she was willing to have sex with those with an interest in the exotic, she would never gain the leverage to achieve control. Even if she had considered that, she wouldn’t have done it. She is not xenophobic, but sex isn’t a tool for her.”

“It’s going to kill her,” he stated. “Hours after she’s dropped on that planet and she’s going to be dead. They are supposed to be so criminal learn there are worse thing than being a functioning part of our society, but all we end up doing is sending people there to die.”

“We are not a gentle people, Captain,” she told him in the same gentle tone she’d told the Earther, “especially when people go against our desires.”

Outline section 

The next morning, Gral and Leiha are in the interrogation room with the human pirate. Physically she doesn’t look strong, even taking into account the normal for females of the human species, but Gral still gets the feeling he’s in the same room as a dangerous animal. This woman has adapted, for better or worse, to the pirate lifestyle. That may make Gral’s task more difficult.(difference between humans who integrate within the federation and those who go rogue)

The questions are simple at first. Name. Age. Why did she leave human territory. Why did she choose to join a pirate crew. How long she’s been apart of this crew. Then comes the first big one: why did she fear her crew taking Jeremy to the human government? Decency not withstanding, it sounded as if she was as afraid for the crew as she was for herself or Jeremy?

That question doesn’t get a response, neither helpful nor snarky, but Leiha signals for Gral to continue so he does. The next question; why are humans not cooperating with the pursuit of pirates fleeing to their territory? Once again, no response, but even Gral can feel the tension. One final question then...

...what federation government does she want to petition for citizenship? This will provoke some confusion rather than apprehension, so Gral will explain that once her term is over, she’ll be released back to her native government to be integrated back into their population by whatever means their legal system has set up. As it stands for her right now, that would be the human government.

She panics at this, and it’s at this point that Leiha intervenes to calm her down. A decision might be made now, or might be postponed to give her time to think, but eventually she will be escorted back to her cell. With that, Gral will look to Leiha for her analysis.

Leiha says the human was uncertain and fearful. Whatever her withheld answer was, she isn’t sure if it is true herself, just conjecture of someone with a deep fear of the human government. She’s certain that the human believes the truth isn’t good, but there is a feeling of hyperbole on what those fears are... though given Leiha’s own exposure to what the human government is capable of, some worst fears might be under estimates.

Gral will thank Leiha, and of course asks that she writes up an official response for him to include to his report to the council. The pirates along human territory are almost starting to be as bad as Taournian, and any help they can give intelligence might prove critical.

Addition 

No Addition

This went more or less as the outline called for. And while the outline implies Alison ens up at the incarceration center I spent the time writing this chapter looking for a way to get her out of it