The door creaked. She looked up. She saw the shadows of two bulky men step through the door. Between them, they carried a third, his feet scraping the flood, his head hunched over, his body almost lifeless. In the darkness, she couldn’t make out his features, but she knew who it was. She heard him grunt as they dropped him on the floor. They left as quickly as they’d arrived, and the room was dark and quiet once more.

“Jace?” 

“Is that you Ayala?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Chief Petty Officer Shafir replied as she felt her way through the darkness towards his voice. Her hand found his, and she squeezed it tightly. It felt reassuring just to touch someone she knew and trusted. “How’re you holding up buddy?”

“Not good, Ayala. Not good,” Lieutenant Morgan replied shakily. He pulled himself closer, close enough he could just barely make out her face through the darkness. “How are you?” 

“Surviving,” Chief Shafir answered in a tone devoid of emotion. As Morgan looked at her, he saw little more than a ghost. Her eyes were dark and cold, almost lifeless.

“I… I saw Commander Drake.”

“You what?” asked Chief Shafir. “That’s impossible.” Commander Drake was stationed aboard the USS Polaris, and they’d left him over Nasera when they skipped town on the USS Serenity. It made no sense for him to be here, nor that he would involve himself with something like this.

“No, I’m telling you, the JAG officer that’s investigating us, he’s here,” Lieutenant Morgan insisted with a look of desperation in his eyes. “He interrogated me and asked all sorts of questions about what we did on Nasera and what we’re up to now.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Chief Shafir shook her head. “Even if somehow he’s here, he’d never condone this. Robert Drake does not believe there is ever a situation that justifies compromising the lofty ideals of the Federation.” His rigid interpretation of the law was exactly the reason he was investigating them for their actions on Nasera. The ivory tower idealist did not subscribe to the premise that the ends justified the means. “You’ve got to be mistaken. It’s been a rough… however long it’s been.” Time had lost all meaning in captivity.

“Why does everyone keep telling me I’m crazy…” Lieutenant Morgan began to say, but he stopped short as Chief Shafir raised her right hand directly in front of his face, close enough he could see in the dim lighting. What he saw shocked him, a stub where once her index finger had been. “Wait… What happened to your finger Ayala? Did they… did they do that to you?”

“Mhmmm,” Shafir nodded. “Some pretty amateur shit, all things considered.” Such brutish tactics would not break her. She’d seen far worse in the past.

For Lieutenant Morgan though, as he stared at Ayala’s hand and listened to her talk, his own memories began flooding back. He relived the agony of a thousand fire ants biting at him under his skin, and he felt the excruciating pain of a smelting pot poured over his shoulders. Drake had told him that it didn’t happen, that it was all in his head, but Ayala was missing a finger. That wasn’t made up. He began to choke up. Had it all been real? Had he been played?

Senior Shafir noticed the panic and guilt on the lieutenant’s face. “Jace, what did you tell him?” While she knew Lieutenant Morgan was a skilled operator, she also knew he was young and had likely never faced anything like this before.

“Nothing,” Lieutenant Morgan replied defensively. “Or not much… I mean what could I tell him? I have no fucking idea what the fuck is going on!” He put his head in his hands as replayed the conversation. It was the duty of a prisoner to never give up one’s team. Had he said something to compromise them? He didn’t think he had, but he wasn’t really sure. He could barely remember that conversation, and he had no idea what was real or not anymore. “Did you give them anything Ayala?”

“Besides my finger and some heartburn, not a thing,” Shafir laughed darkly. “You see, what they don’t seem to understand is you cannot break what is already broken. I know the truth, Jace.”

“And what is the truth?”

“That one day we will be nothing more than stardust blowing in the wind,” Shafir replied coldly. “The only question is how much time passes before that day comes.”

Somehow, that didn’t make Lieutenant Morgan feel any better. Whether it was the drugs or the ordeal he’d just endured, he began sobbing uncontrollably. “This has been horrible,” he cried, uncontrolled emotion taking over. “Is this what we put that Vorta through?”

“Who gives a shit?” Chief Shafir countered. She certainly didn’t. That creature had killed almost a thousand of their fellow officers, and many times that number of innocent civilians. “If you guys made him suffer like this, then you all deserve a medal for letting him feel a fraction of the pain he wrought.”

But Lieutenant Morgan wasn’t so sure. Not after what he’d just lived through. What would come next? Would someone walk in and shoot them in the head, just like they had done to the Vorta? “What are we going to do, Ayala?”

“For now, all we can do is resist, endure and survive,” she replied. “And hope.” She knew that Commander Lewis would not rest until he found them. He did not leave his men behind. But he’d better do it quick. Otherwise, they’d be stardust sooner rather than later.