Chapter 02

Perhaps it would have been kinder if she had been shot like her squadmates. Perhaps it would have been kinder to be ripped apart in the vacuum of space, or to be vaporized by the heat of a beam cannon.

Prisoner number one-one-four-five opened her eye slowly, breaking through a crust of dried gore. She didn't have the strength to sit up.

"Get up," barked a harsh voice, and a boot thumped against 1145's stomach. The pain barely registered. Nothing registered, not until a bucket of ice-cold water was splashed over her, washing the gore and dried sweat and muck from her skin. She stirred to life slowly, groaning in pain.

"I said get up," the voice snapped again, and then a rough hand grasped 1145's wrist and hauled her up to something approximating a sitting position, where her single eye gave her a better lay of the land. the USF facilities were, as expected, barbaric. A cold, empty cell, the floor coated in a layer of dried blood and cold, murky water from the bucket.

One of her arms was bandaged, a few tubes plunging into her veins. One was a saline drip, the other a tube of sludgy brown nutrients. She didn't need to eat or drink, not here. Here, she could be held in indefinite stasis.

The guard knelt down in front of her. "You've got a visitor." Their face wasn't visible behind the slate of their facemask and visor. Their voice, too, was a low and androgynous growl. Nothing that indicated any humanity at all. Typical of the United Satellite Front's so-called 'security' forces.

She'd have nothing to spit but venom, if she had the strength to speak.

The guard lifted the prisoner's arms and clamped them over her head, binding her wrists together with cable and hauling her up to stand. The motion still hurt, no matter how many hours she had spent with her arms bound above her, her head drooped down, her bare feet barely able to touch the gore-slick floor. Her arms hurt.

"You'll behave for your visitor, won't you?" the guard reached out and snagged 1145's matted hair and yanked, pulling her face up to look into her eye. The bandage over her face hadn't been changed - it was crusted with blood and the skin beneath ached with infection. "Well?" the guard asked again.

1145 managed an irritated growl. She braced, unsurprised as she felt a hard fist slam against her stomach. She coughed and gasped for breath, spittle and blood dripping down her lips.

"Again," the guard said, their voice perfunctory, almost polite. "You'll behave?"

1145 didn't have it in her to withstand another blow. She gritted her teeth and did her best approximation of a nod, moving her head in the slightest downward arc.

"Good." The guard stepped back and knocked on the thick metal door of the cell, which swung open with a loud groan. 1145 recognized the visitor - the face she had seen through the window of the spaceport, moments before a bolt of metal broke her escape vehicle into splinters.

She looked different, here, with no helmet by her side. Her uniform was crisp and clean, long boots and white trousers under a clean tunic trimmed with gold hemming.

Something managed to click into place in the background of 1145's addled brain. She had fucked up. This wasn't some random civilian or spaceport employee she had taken captive. It was the voice she had heard on the radio. The voice she had heard in recorded speeches and closed-circuit television cameras, had listened to in briefings.

Prince Angeline, the heir to the Great Lunar House of Amalthea, stepped through the doorway and into the filthy cell.

Angeline stepped closer, cautious. "You know who I am, don't you?"

Another nod, or something approximating one.

"You're not an indepedent terrorist," Ange said, not phrasing it as a question. "You're an imperial soldier. Tell me, did they inform you that you would be abandoned, after your mission? Did you realize you were nothing but a disposable pawn?"

1145 growled, a low throaty groan all she was capable of.

"Of course not," Ange said. She took off her silk gloves and tucked them into her belt before stepping forwards again. Can't let the filth touch that precious, unstained white fabric. "I'm sorry to report that your comrades are dead. An unfortunate turn of events, but... It likely wouldn't have ended any other way."

The guard at her side stood back, hands folded in front of them.

Ange continued to talk as she stepped forward and touched the prisoner, her fingertips ghosting over bruises and welts. "You're a good pilot. You're good at keeping your mouth shut. I like that."

The prisoner moved, as if to attack, as if she were even capable of attacking, and Ange stepped back. "And you're a fighter," her voice was contemplative. "I like you." She stepped forwards again and reached up to touch the prisoner's chin and tip it up, to look at her face, to examine the cuts and bruises and the crusted bandages. "You had a name, once. A duty, even. But no longer. As per protocol, we've reported your execution with your squad. You, too, were gunned down in an escape attempt in the spaceport."

The guard behind her shifted. 1145 felt anger again, felt the hate building up and bestowing enough strength upon her to move, despite the bindings and aching joints and dried blood.

"I have no plans to force you to anything against your will," Ange said again. "But I have an offer for you."

The prisoner spat again, between the bars of her muzzle, and the glob of spittle hit its target. Prince Ange lifted her hand and calmly wiped the spit from her cheek. She moved forwards, then, clutching a fistful of the prisoner's hair and hauling her up. She slammed her head back against the wall and held it there, tipping her face in close.

"I didn't kill you. But I have given you the conditions to change my mind."

The prisoner, unable to keep her eyes open any longer slumped forwards, the pain in the back of her skull finally tugging out the last vestiges of her consciousness. As her vision spotted and faded to black, she felt the release of the prince's hand, the heavy pull of gravity slumping her head down.

"Wash her. Bring her something to eat."

And then the dark overtook Prisoner 1145.

Ange stood outside the cell, chewing the inside of her lip and scrolling through her data tablet. She sighed, closed it, and held it under one arm.

The prisoner wasn't looking better. She had been hosed down and all the muck and blood had been washed down the metal drain in the center of the cell. Her bandages had been changed into fresh, clean white. Nothing could make the bruises or lacerations look any better.

"I have to apologize for the behavior of my attendant," Ange said as she stepped inside .