Chapter Text
“Come on, is that all you’ve got?”
“Mariner! What the hell are you doing?”
“What? It’s not like they can understand much of what we’re saying yet, anyway. Stupid, useless universal—AH!” She cuts off with a sharp yelp when one of the aliens jabs the charged prod into her ribcage again. “Seriously, guys, you’re gonna have to step it up. I bet those things work a lot better on you, what with the whole being wet squids thing. Probably conducts the energy better.”
“They’re more like octopi; they’ve got four leg tentacles and four arm tentacles, so…eight…”
“Boims, do I look like I care right now?”
He doesn’t even care, but at least it’s a distraction—something else to think about when they jab her again, longer this time, and she screams. She’s still glaring at them, because of course she is, but she’s still screaming, and Boimler still feels like something’s locking a vice grip around his stomach every time he has to hear it. The force field between them keeping him in their cell and her out there with them doesn’t help at all. It doesn’t muffle anything.
It was just supposed to be a routine second contact with the land humanoids on this planet—supposedly the only sentient life on this world. Typical Cerritos fare for the first time in a while. Taking a shuttle down with sensitive equipment while the bridge crew did the political schmoozing…
Kind of funny the first time he and Mariner crashed a shuttle due to sudden, unexpected phenomena it was in a desert, and this time it was over an ocean, but hopefully there would be time to actually see the humor later.
Needless to say, waking up in what looked like a slightly more low-tech brig cell with a view over a previously unknown underwater society had not been on the schedule for today.
“I can’t believe the first contact ship didn’t scan the oceans,” Mariner ranted, as soon as she’d gotten a good look out the porthole. “Everybody knows you’ve got to scan the oceans!”
Their cell is less than half of a round pressurized chamber. Instead of a door, a recess on the far side has an opening in the floor that leads straight into the water. The aliens come and go from there, pulling themselves effortlessly up through the hole or diving into it when they leave. Their language seems to be a lot of clicking and trilling, which is definitely different than Earth octopi. Boimler is pretty sure those don’t really make noises. Though the aliens do have beaks and large eyes like some octopi.
Regardless, the universal translator in their communicators hasn’t figured out the language yet. They have no idea how far down the chamber they’re being held in is, and no way to ask. They only know they’re not getting a signal to their communicators and that any hint of sunlight seems far, far away. Outside the one small porthole, a city made of a combination of chambers and pressurized buildings like this and other structures open to the water stretches as far as they can see, lit by both artificial power and bioluminescent plants.
The harsh electrical buzzing dies down again, only to be replaced by loud, angry-sounding screeching and clicking from the alien towering over Mariner. The things are already on average maybe half a meter taller than the average human when they’re on dry ground and doing their equivalent of walking on four of their tentacles, but right now they also have her forced down, sitting on the ledge or bench that rings most of the chamber. She’s held that way by the shackles around her wrists that are built into the wall above her head, and another restraint across her chest holding her to the wall at her back.
“Dude!” Mariner yells. “I. Can’t. Understand. You.”
The alien goes off again, brandishing the prod in its tentacle menacingly, but this time the clicking, trilling, and screeches are interrupted by an actual translated word or two.
“...when…come?”
Boimler pulls in a surprised breath, and Mariner glances over at him briefly, eyebrows up, before she answers.
“What?” she says. “Is that what you’re worried about? Nobody else is coming! We come in peace and shit, okay? I mean, you’re pushing it with the torture, but we’re not invaders.”
More of what seems to be the equivalent of shouting for these aliens, and it jabs her again.
“Oh, come on!” Mariner gasps.
Boimler’s hands clench at his sides. Either they didn't understand her answer, or they don’t believe her, but the result is the same. Several more long minutes of getting nowhere and Mariner shouting, or growling while trying not to.
Several more long minutes of them hurting her, and Boimler feeling sick because he can’t do anything about it.
Mariner kicks at them when they release her and drag her back toward the cell in just the sort of way he would have expected—the same way she did when they grabbed her in the first place. Maybe with a little less energy than the first time, but with no less anger. She almost trips when they open a section of the force field to shove her back into the cell.
Boimler braces a hand on her shoulder to steady her, and they both glare at the aliens until they’ve all dived through the hole on the other side of the chamber, leaving the humans alone.
He swallows when they’re gone, looking Mariner up and down and reaching for one of her bloody wrists. Small, evenly-spaced puncture wounds mark both of them all the way around.
“Are you okay? Why do those things even have spikes…?”
Mariner shrugs, rolling her shoulders and making a face at her wrists. She doesn’t seem to mind him holding onto one. “I mean, they’re designed for tentacles that taper down to a point; I guess it makes sense to keep them in there.”
“Yeah,” Boimler grumbles.
“It’s fine; nothing a dermal regenerator won’t fix.”
“Does that mean I have to like it?”
“Don’t worry; I’m gonna keep all the fun for myself.”
Boimler glares at her now, finally releasing her arm. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am, Boims. I may not be the senior officer here, but it’s not my first rodeo. I’ve got to have some kind of seniority for that.”
“You think telling me you’ve been tortured before is going to make me feel better about letting it happen again?”
“I mean…no?” She shrugs and crosses to the small sink to wash the blood from her wrists. “It doesn’t matter; that’s what’s happening.”
“I am not letting you do that! How would you even do that? We can’t even talk to them!”
“Believe me; there’s always a way. Piss ‘em off, taunt them, never let them know they’re getting to you…granted, that’s kind of how I handle anything, but you get it.”
“That just sounds like a really good way to make them want to hurt you.”
“That’s the point.”
So they won’t hurt anybody else, or in this case, him, she means. She says it so casually, as if that will distract from what she’s really saying. He doesn’t know whether to be touched or feel patronized. Knowing Mariner, he should probably feel a little of both.
Or maybe that’s what he would have thought a year or two ago. Now all Boimler can think is that she must think she deserves it, or that she must think it’s her job for some stupid reason.
“It’s fine; I can handle it,” she says into the silence.
That’s not what I’m worried about, he thinks.
“And I couldn’t?” he says instead. Maybe because he knows Mariner would be the last person to admit that maybe her own insecurities have something to do with her behavior.
Well…she’s better in that department than she used to be. The way she seemed not to be angry when she came back from Starbase 80 and her break from Starfleet seem to have proved that, but they’re both stressed right now and it isn’t the time to push it.
“That is not what I said,” Mariner counters. “Anyway, any luck with that panel?”
Boimler sighs. He can’t think of another response right now, so he goes along with her change of subject for the moment. “Like I could work on it with them in here?”
“Right…”
The wall panel they’ve managed to pry open is under the wide hammock that stretches across one curved side of the cell. It’s an interesting choice for a cell, for sure, but maybe it’s a more natural sleeping option for an octopus-like alien stuck in a dry space than something like a bed. In any case, the shadow of the oversized hammock hides their work.
“Mariner, if we’re anywhere near as far down as it looks like we are, it’s not going to help if we get the cell open. We’d never make it to the surface even if we weren’t crushed the second we tried to dive out.”
“If we were that far down wouldn’t the pressure in here needed to keep that hole open be enough to crush us already?”
“Not if there’s a calibrated permeable force field over the opening too to manage the pressure on both sides and only let them through or some other kind of…Look, I don’t know, but I know it’s not something we can risk.”
Mariner huffs and drops onto the bench that stretches across the other half of the curved cell wall that isn’t taken up by the hammock and sink. “What if I didn’t mind that risk? If I could get close enough to the surface I could probably get past whatever’s jamming our comms.”
“Before you drowned?” Boimler retorts. “No! I’m not letting you do that either!”
“You’re doing a whole lot of pretending like you have any say over what I do.”
“Mariner…!”
He wants to say something else, but he doesn’t know what, and before he can figure it out, his throat closes on him anyway.
Is she really that determined to put herself in danger?
He looks away and swallows past it quickly, but Mariner must have seen it. Seconds later, she’s beside him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Whoa, hey…sorry, that came out…bad,” Mariner says.
Boimler nods absently, accepting the apology. Mariner waits for him to say something after that, which he didn’t expect, but he appreciates. He doesn’t let the opening go to waste.
“However we get out of here, we do it together. Okay?”
Mariner nods and squeezes his shoulder. “Okay.”
She doesn’t say anything about the other argument, and he doesn’t either. He suggests she take the hammock and get some rest, which she agrees to, meaning she must be more worn out than she was letting on. She rolls into it and is out almost immediately.
Boimler pulls open the flap on his jacket and rests on the bench, keeping an eye out and being careful not to fall asleep himself. The stretched fabric of the hammock, designed for the octopus like aliens, is big enough for probably two average humans or more. Mariner looks so small curled in the middle of it.
He doesn’t feel even a little guilty about not waking her up when the aliens come back. He doesn’t know if it's just been a little while or if it’s been hours at that point, but if she’s exhausted enough not to wake up on her own, she doesn’t need to be letting them take her again anyway.
At least, he hopes she’ll accept that argument later. Right now, as they pull him from the cell and shove him toward the wall of restraints, he’s more worried about what’s about to happen.
When the shackles close around his wrists and the spikes begin to dig in, he almost wishes he hadn’t already rolled up his sleeves. It wasn’t even that it was that much too warm in here, but there was no dress code while being captured and, just maybe, rolling them up that way like Mariner usually kept hers made him feel just a little more brave.
So he doesn’t regret that, either. Besides, even if the fabric would have protected him for a little while, it wouldn't do to have the fibers embedded in the small wounds he’ll inevitably end up with anyway. Too much infection risk, right?
Mariner would be telling him he’s thinking too much right now, he’s sure of it. He’s already breathing faster as they fasten a strap over his chest, and he hopes their physiology is different enough that they don’t know what that means.
“Boimler, what the hell!”
Shit. His whole last name. She’s awake, and she’s using his whole last name. She never uses his whole name anymore.
“Mariner, i-it’s fine…” It comes out less confident than he really would have liked.
Mariner launches herself out of the hammock and charges the forcefield. “It is not fine! This is not even a little bit fine!”
Indignation at the double standard gives him back some of the confidence he was going for originally. “How do you think I felt!”
She ignores him, pounding on the forcefield. “Hey! Squid-faces! What do you think you’re doing? Who told you you could touch him!”
“Mariner, shut up!”
They’re trying to grab his ankles; why are they trying to grab his ankles?
“I’ll deal with you later, Bradward!”
The aliens force his feet down on the floor, his legs flush against the front of the bench, and that’s when he remembers there are more shackles down there, also equipped with those small spikes on the inside. So much for keeping fabric out of wounds. They don’t seem to care as they close them firmly around his ankles over the ends of his pants.
“Ow…”
At least the tops of his boots will help support the metal around his ankles; maybe those won’t be so bad. Dammit, his shoulders are already burning from subconsciously holding his arms up on his own, though, to keep the spikes around his wrists from digging in.
This is going to be bad, isn’t it?
Boimler’s not sure if he means to meet Mariner’s eyes finally, but he does, swallowing as he looks up from his feet. They didn’t restrain her feet last time. Something else is definitely up, and from the look on her face, she doesn’t like it either.
She picks up banging on the forcefield again, and somehow that just confirms it.
“Hey!” Mariner yells. But there’s not much else she can say. They can’t understand her anyway.
Boimler looks at the aliens towering over him, and he doesn’t know what their faces are supposed to look like, but he’s almost certain they’re scowling at him.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” he says, because he has to try. “We’re just explorers. W-we’re here to help.”
One of them holds up something that looks suspiciously like a large hammer or shaped rock tool. Whatever it is, it looks heavy, and they’re hovering with it over one of his legs.
“No one else is coming! You’re not in danger!” It feels like his heart is pounding in his throat, and whatever he thought being in Starfleet would be like, it wasn’t this.
Mariner is still shouting, but she’s definitely found her words again. “If you fucking hurt him, I’ll fucking rip your—!”
“Don’t listen to her—"
"Don't tell them not to listen to me!"
"She’s just mad. We’re-we’re peaceful! I promise, w-we—you don’t have to—wait, hey—!”