Gunmetal Dark
By Angelina Vansen

RATING: NC-17 for nastiness towards another.
CODES: J/7 Uber
SUMMARY: After finally contacting MIA #223939 (Seven of Nine) in the Network, Kaine Sigg's (Janeway) connection was discovered. But start from the beginning if you want it to make sense.

10.

Kaine was back in Colonel Filer's office, and this time, the soldiers were taking no chances.

Six of them had dragged her from her bed without so much as dressing her. She had been hauled down the corridor to the Colonel's office and cuffed to the hard wooden chair in the underwear she had slept in.

The very chair, she realised with horror, that Timon had died in.

One of the soldiers slapped a piece of locking tape over her port. No possibility of her t-syncing now.

The room was a highly charged hive of activity. The soldiers guarded her closely, weapons drawn.

There were a couple of scientists, too; thin-faced men with typical Citizen features. They both had comsets which they consulted and then frowned at. No one spoke. Everyone looked tense.

Then the door opened and Colonel Filer marched in. She looked less than immaculate, Kaine thought. Her hair was messy and her face was puffy from sleep. Her uniform looked like she had donned it in a hurry, too; the jacket was unbuttoned and the crisp white shirt was missing beneath.

She scanned the room, dark eyes falling unforgivingly on Kaine.

"Report," she said to the scientists.

The two men rushed to her side like frightened dogs, showing her their comsets and telling her what they had found. Kaine could hear little of the conversation, but enough to know they had detected her presence in their computer with relative ease. Her faulty Augbrain must have been leaking data somewhere.

"How did she do this?" Kaine heard the Colonel demand.

One of the scientists scurried to the desk and picked up the nanokit they had found in the bed with her. He gave it to the Colonel.

"She stole this from my lab?" the Colonel barked. She did not wait from an answer from the scientists, however. She stormed over to Kaine in three quick strides and smacked the doctor's cheek, hard.

"You stole this from my lab?!" Filer roared, centimetres from her face.

Kaine's head, still fuzzy from her bad t-sync, reverberated with the blow. Her cheek stung; belatedly she realised the Colonel had still been holding the nanokit when she hit her. Its sharp corner had drawn blood.

She did not reply. She doubted that any reply she gave would appease the Colonel.

"What did she do?" Filer demanded to the rest of the room, turning abruptly from Kaine. "I need to know everything."

The two scientists scurried back to her side, showing her data on comsets, talking in hushed, urgent voices. No doubt they were explaining exactly what she had done inside Truestar B; how she had gotten in, how she had hidden herself, where she had gone while she was connected.

They would know she had been out into the wider Network, but had they been able to track her once she was logged in to Tenkatech?

"That was when we noticed the errant maintenance thread," she heard one of the scientists say proudly.

Colonel Filer nodded, tight-lipped. She wasn't looking at the comset presented to her, though. Not really listening to the man speaking to her. She was looking at Kaine, her dark eyes narrow. Deadly.

"Colonel, we need to shut down Truestar B," one of them told her.

Filer shook her head. "Not yet."

"But Colonel!"

"We'll find out," the Colonel insisted.

She pushed between the two scientists and came back to her prisoner, eyes never wavering from their lock on Kaine's. She stood right over her, toe to toe, leaning forward with her arms resting on the arms of the chair Kaine was tied to. Her glossy brown hair brushed Kaine's face and her pupils were dilated. Aroused.

"Do you think we're that backward?" she whispered huskily.

She twisted her head over her shoulder and addressed the two scientists. "You can go," she told them. They scurried out quickly. Grateful. They knew, Kaine thought. They knew this was going to get ugly.

Now there was just Kaine, Colonel Filer and her soldiers.

Silence fell. Utter silence. Kaine realised that every one of the soldiers surrounding her was holding his breath.

She looked into the black depths of Colonel Filer's eyes, just centimetres from hers. She was desperate to see some vestige of humanity, some small sign that she wasn't about to die.

There was nothing to reassure her. The Colonel's eyes were a pitiless abyss; unflinching, unblinking.

"Who was there?" the Colonel whispered intimately.

Kaine let out a long, trembling breath. "Nobody."

Colonel Filer shook her head. "Who was it?" she asked again.

"It's the middle of the night. No one's t-syncing now."

"Tell me who it was."

Kaine shook her head defiantly. "My connection wasn't strong enough. It was useless."

"It was strong enough to get you out of my computer and into the Network, wasn't it."

"I couldn't connect to anything while I was there."

"You connected to your Personal Office."

"No, I tried. I tried and I failed."

"You were there almost thirty minutes."

"I wasn't. I wasn't in."

"Who did you speak to?"

"Nobody!"

The Colonel took hold of Kaine's chin in the palm of her hand. "Lying to me is not going to make this better for you, Doctor," she whispered.

"I'm not lying."

"Tell me who it was," the Colonel continued as if Kaine had not spoken. "In your office, my scientists saw two signals. Two threads. Tell me who it was."

Kaine swallowed. Shook her head. "I don't know. I tried to connect and I couldn't. If there was someone else there, I couldn't see them."

The Colonel stood up. Licked her lips; looked at her soldiers. Nodded to one of them.

Kaine felt a crack to the back of her head. Heard it first, a sharp smack followed by a grunt of pain from her own mouth.

Pain welled up like a blade across her scalp as blood rushed in; she gasped at its severity. Her head swam, hot, prickling red behind her eyes.

Colonel Filer was there, her face right against Kaine's face, her eyes pushing into hers, two dark blades she could not escape.

"You don't want me to carry on," she threatened in a soft voice. "You won't feel human by the time I'm finished with you, Kaine."

The first time the Colonel had addressed her by her given name, and somehow, that was the most frightening thing of all.

Kaine panted, waited for the throbbing in her head to subside. It hurt so much, shockingly bad. She couldn't focus, couldn't think.

"I ... I didn't talk to anyone," she moaned. Trying to sound strong.

She closed her eyes in anticipation of another blow. She wasn't disappointed. This one hit her above the ear, jolting her sideways in her seat. She heard herself cry out.

She couldn't tell Colonel Filer who she had met. She couldn't. If they shut down Truestar B, she could not be traced and her last hope would be gone.

Blood. She felt blood; her own! It flowed warm and wet on her ear and neck. She was bleeding!

She breathed hard and tried to think of the woman she had met inside the Network. Mia. She needed to think of Mia, hope that she would trace her, tell Alvaro what was happening.

Black dots swam before her eyes, everything sounded tinny and distant. She thought she was losing consciousness.

Colonel Filer took hold of her by the hair, pulling her drooping head upwards and pressed against her, nose to nose.

"Where are you going?" she whispered gently. A voice of ice in a world that was fading away. "You're not going anywhere yet, Kaine ..."

She had something in her hand, a long insulated plastic stick.

Kaine knew what that was. She had used one before many times; it was a Tidi stick, used for testing cybernetic pathways laid down in the body. Isolating connection problems and highlighting damaged components.

"What ... what is that for?" she groaned to the Colonel.

"It's going to hurt you," the Colonel replied dreamily.

"But ..."

"I've modified it," she continued with barely a breath. "I think you'll be impressed. I'm quite inventive too, when I need to be."

"No," Kaine groaned desperately.

"I thought you'd appreciate it, Doctor. When the scientific spirit takes you, you have to pursue it. Never mind the consequences, right?"

She moved behind Kaine's chair, peeling off the locking tape on her Mainstem port.

"After all," she continued in a cold, cold voice. "It's not your job to worry about the bad things your invention does, is it."

The tape fluttered to the floor and Colonel Filer jammed the Tidi stick into her port.

White pain. Total white, everywhere her body was modified, flaring down her spine and through her limbs. She couldn't see, couldn't think. Her brain sat in a white-hot cradle of agony, her ports felt like they would burn off her skin. Her skin itself was trying to crawl off her bones.

Somewhere, a million miles away in the physical world, she heard herself scream.

Then Colonel Filer removed the stick and she was free. Gasping. Choking. Eyes rolling back in her head.

"Who was there?" Colonel Filer hissed her face. "Who was it?"

Kaine moaned; she couldn't have spoken if she wanted to.

"All right," said Colonel Filer, and jabbed the stick into her port again.

She wasn't ready and she bit into her tongue as the white hot flare roared through her body once more. Blood in her mouth, metallic and sweet.

It was too much, far too much. She would die from the pain, go insane from it; she had never imagined anything so mind-bendingly awful. She screamed and writhed and begged for it to stop.

Just when she thought she would pass out, just as she felt the welcome tug of oblivion, Colonel Filer pulled the Tidi stick away again. She was practised at this, very skilled.

"Do I have to shut my computer down?" she pressed.

Kaine slumped in the chair, gasping and almost blind. Lights danced before her eyes and her ears rang. She fought her weak, agonised muscles; she needed to give an answer. Any answer. Anything to keep the stick out of her port.

"Please ..." she panted, spluttering the blood from her bitten tongue across her lap. "Wait ..."

"Time is very important, Kaine," the Colonel reminded her. She moved towards her with the stick again.

"No, please!" Kaine pleaded, her mouth working on fear alone. She could not take another round.

Colonel Filer lowered the Tidi stick. "Do I have to shut my computer down?" she repeated.

"I ... I spoke to a woman," she gasped. She couldn't take it again. She couldn't. Anything but that.

"What woman?"

"I don't know. I don't know her. She was looking for me, I think she's a soldier."

Colonel Filer wrinkled her brow. "One of yours or one of ours?"

"Ours. Tenkatech's. I think. I told you, my Augbrain ... my connection was so bad I couldn't ..."

"What did you say to her?" the Colonel interrupted.

"I tried to ask her ... I wanted her to contact someone."

"Who?"

"Alvaro. The base. Timon's second-in-command."

Colonel Filer stared at her, saying nothing.

"She didn't understand. Don't think she could see me, she probably thought I was insane. I couldn't make her understand."

Colonel Filer's jaw set, her mouth tight, her eyes tightening into steely spots of intensity. She raised the Tidi stick with a murderous expression.

"No!" Kaine cried. "I told you, I swear!"

"It's going to take me months to reset that computer," Filer hissed. She jammed the end into Kaine's port once again.

Kaine screamed, white bolts of lightning searing down her spine. She jerked in her seat, limbs feeling like they were on fire. It was the worst round yet; it went on and on until she no longer had the strength to scream.

Colonel Filer pulled the stick away and turned to one of her soldiers. "Tell Los to shut Truestar B down," she spat. "Tell him to work on a reboot with all new codes."

Kaine closed her eyes, finding it difficult to care. She had just destroyed her only chance of escape but right now all that mattered was not having that Tidi stick in her port ever again.

The soldier left the room quickly; he was obviously grateful to get out of here.

The Colonel paced, restless. Back and forth between the walls of her office.

Kaine did not look at her. She no longer had the energy. Blood dripped relentlessly from the wound on the side of her head and a pool had formed on the tiles beneath her. It trickled thickly towards the drain in the centre.

Eventually Colonel Filer stopped pacing and put the Tidi stick down on her desk. She seemed calmer, though her eyes looked wild. Livid. One side of her hair stuck out madly.

She went slowly to her drinks cabinet, her pace measured and thoughtful. She took that same dark bottle of alcohol out and poured herself a large measure.

She leaned back against her desk and regarded Kaine from across the room. Fixing her with that tiger-eyed stare.

"You're quite a prize, you know that?" she said. She picked up her glass and took a sip.

Kaine shrugged wearily.

"Yes," the Colonel purred, long and low. "Quite a prize. Too much for me to resist, especially when I find you right on my doorstep."

Filer stopped, thinking. Swirling the alcohol in her crystal-cut glass.

"Too much time on my hands I guess," she mused. "Not enough action in this part of the world. I like combat. I'm used to it. This ... waiting around, relying on scientists ... there's too much time to think."

Her brow furrowed and Kaine thought she looked very far away. Very far indeed. Her strong, well-cut features looked soft and vulnerable for a moment.

"I think that everyone knows someone who is Missing In Action," she sighed. "And when you find out ... when you get to my level and you find out what Tenkatech does to people ..."

She went around her desk and slid open a drawer, that same faraway look on her face. She took out a comset, switched it on.

She stared at it for a long moment before approaching Kaine with it, showing her a picture displayed on the dull, functional screen.

"My brother," she said huskily. "Kins Filer, Missing In Action."

Kaine tried to focus on the picture, though her vision was behaving erratically. It showed a young man with a fresh, handsome face. She saw a resemblance to the Colonel; the same jawline, the same eye colour.

"He's Three Stars too," the Colonel told her. "He disappeared during a mission out in the desert, out near those mysterious airbases Tenkatech have set up out there."

Kaine shook her head, she knew nothing of airbases in the desert, Tenkatech or not.

It didn't seem to matter to Colonel Filer. She was lost in her own reminisences.

"I think those airbases are set up to implement Project MIA," she continued. "I haven't seen much data, but there are labs there. Ships, too; big troop carriers. I think that's where they do it." The Colonel swallowed deeply. "If they caught him there ..."

Kaine licked her lips. "You think he's in a Softsuit," she surmised.

A flash of anger in the Colonel's eyes, something blazing. Perhaps she shouldn't have stated it so boldly, Kaine thought. She thought fearfully of the Tidi stick.

"I hope not," the Colonel said coldly, as if she would hold Kaine personally responsible if he was.

Kaine kept quiet.

"When Truestar hacked into your base last month," the Colonel continued, "and I found out you were there ..."

A slow smile spread across the Colonel's face. Spiteful. Wolfish. Hungry.

"I just couldn't resist," she breathed. "Oh Kaine ..."

It was the sigh of a lover, the sigh of a devotee. Not even Timon had whispered her name so gently in the throes of passion.

Colonel Filer reached out to cup Kaine's bloody face, her fingertips stroking her cheek.

"And you made it so easy. Twice a week, a motel in Ghow with your General. So easy."

There was a double meaning to that last sentence that made Kaine squirm uncomfortably. She looked at the floor by the Colonel's boots, not trusting herself to react at all.

Luckily, she didn't have to.

The door behind the Colonel buzzed. Buzzed again. Someone wanted entry. Urgently.

The Colonel let her hand drop from Kaine's face impatiently, and went to the desk to see who it was on the security monitor. Her brow furrowed for a second, and she pressed a button.

The door burst open and a woman came in. Dressed in Citizen uniform, but small for a soldier. Short. Spiky hair which protruded from under her cap. The woman looked at Kaine, looked at the Colonel. Back again.

The Colonel herself seemed a little uncomfortable, which was odd.

"Sergeant Shar," she barked. "What is it?"

The woman straightened, seemingly remembering she was a soldier. "An APC," she said. "Tenkatech ..."

"What?!" barked Filer. "Where?"

"Above," Shar said, pointing directly at the ceiling. "Right above us."

"What ... what's it doing?"

Shar shook her head. "Nothing. It's just stopped."

"How many of them? How many troops?"

Shar shook her head again. "It's empty," she said.

Colonel Filer's face went white. She took a slow breath, set her jaw. She turned to Kaine, eyes deep black in her head. Full of hate. Full of rage.

"You ..." she hissed, but never completed it. She seized the Tidi stick and charged, closing the gap in three huge strides, arm drawn back. She lashed Kaine across the face with it. Everyone in the room winced.

Kaine cried out; blood flooded into her mouth, cheek cut on the inside by her own teeth. The pain was hot, throbbing. She was sure that the Colonel had just shattered her cheekbone.

The Colonel marched away from her, barking orders at Sergeant Shar, brandishing the Tidi stick like a riding crop.

"Initiate a full alert," she demanded. "I want a full complement in the hangar in three minutes. There's only one way into this place, so when that elevator starts moving I want to be ready."

"Yes, Colonel," agreed Shar, breathless.

"Do it, Sergeant," Filer nodded. "Make me proud."

Shar smiled, a small, tight smile. "Yes, Colonel," she repeated, softer than before. She snapped to attention, her back straight, and turned smartly to the soldiers guarding Kaine. "You heard the Colonel!" she barked. "Move!"

A singular snap of boots on tile, and they began to file out. The last one, however, was stopped in his tracks by Colonel Filer.

"Flau," the Colonel's eyes were on Kaine as she addressed her soldier. "Take the Doctor to the Sluice," she said. Her voice was pure, utter ice.

The Sluice? What the hell was the Sluice? Somewhere they were planning to hide her while the battle raged?

The soldier tightened his jaw and swallowed. "Yes, Colonel," he nodded. He didn't look as though he relished the order.

Nonetheless, he complied. He untied Kaine's hands and pulled her to her feet.

"Come on," he told her, almost rueful underneath the aggression.

He pushed her in the back and she started walking, bare feet on cold tiles. She felt dizzy and nauseous; doubtless she was concussed. Blood still dripped copiously from the wound on the side of her head.

"It won't take long," the Colonel whispered into her ear. "It's raining."

What did that mean? Why would rain make a difference to the outcome of the battle?

Outside in the corridor, everything was busy. A klaxon blared. Soldiers with guns lined both walls, checking weapons and equipment. They all wore armour, helmets and breastplates. They all looked nervous. No one looked at the small, bleeding woman being led between them.

Flau led Kaine to the back of the complex, to a place where the walls looked rough and neglected. Covered with cracked, dirty white tiles, this was once part of a much older bunker, predating the current conflict.

It was far away from anything that was used by Colonel Filer's troops. Even the klaxon sounded distant.

Kaine and Flau rounded a corner and entered a room at the end. It was tiled, bare, and lit by a single bulb set high on the wall.

The air tasted of minerals and the sound of rushing water filled the room. Kaine quickly realised why.

A hole had been knocked in the floor in one corner, and below them, presumably in some sort of cave system, a river ran. Flau nudged her towards the hole.

Suddenly, it all came together in Kaine's battered head. The Sluice? She was going into that hole!

"Are you crazy?!" she demanded of Flau. "I can't swim!"

"I think that's the point," he said coldly.

She gaped at Flau in disbelief. She wasn't being hidden until the conflict was over; she was going in that hole to drown like a rat!

"No!" she gasped. Holding out a hand to him as if it might stop him from approaching.

Flau shrugged. "Colonel's orders," he said matter of factly. "Sorry."

"What about the Softsuit?" she asked desperately. "I can help you, I can be useful to you ..."

He shook his head. "Guess not," he said.

Far off in the distance, Kaine heard gunfire begin. So did Flau; he looked twitchy, probably anxious to get where the action was.

Kaine looked around desperately for some way to escape. He was distracted by thoughts of the battle right now, if she could just get past him ...

She relaxed her shoulders, and turned towards the hole as if meekly submitting. She waited, held her breath until she heard him step towards her. Then she darted quickly to her left, spinning on her toes to dodge his lunge.

She almost made it, running for the door at full pelt, but he was a big man and he had a long reach. He snatched her by the hair and pulled her back to him, back to the hole with a snarl.

She fought him with all her strength, kicked and scratched and hit him. She was not going down there without the fight of her life.

Flau picked her off her feet without batting an eyelid, dangling her over the edge of the hole by the back of her vest. Their eyes locked and he cocked his head to one side regretfully. Then he dropped her.

As she fell, she actually caught the edge of the hole, one hand catching a purchase on the broken tiles. She scrabbled madly to get another handhold, the sound of rushing water right below her.

But the tile was wet and slippery, hanging at an angle. Her fingers lost their grip, trying to hold her weight. With a terrified scream, Kaine plummeted into the Sluice.

Darkness. Icy water. She plunged feet first into the river and did not stop falling until she hit rocks at the bottom. The cold was shocking, icy knives stabbing through her, taking the breath from her body almost immediately.

Instinct took over and she kicked her legs, fighting madly for the surface. She bobbed up, gasping for air, chest hurting with the sheer cold of the water.

Struggling against the current, she flailed, and managed to catch a handhold on one of the cave's walls before she was pulled under for a second time. She clung to it, panting and trembling, the ghostly white of her wet skin illuminated in the half-light.

Light from the hole above, from Colonel Filer's bunker, but also in the distance too, filtering down into the caves from above. Daylight. It must be dawn outside.

Now that her eyes were adjusting, Kaine could make out the sluice gate, designed to slow the river down, making it easier to get water to the farms. It blocked her path, clogged with rubbish. She was well and truly trapped.

She desperately looked around, wondering what she could possibly do now. Miserably, she understood what Colonel Filer had meant about the rain. Water trickled down all the walls, droplets spattered in from every orifice. This cave was filling up quickly, and there was no escape.

Any thoughts she had of getting back up the way she had fallen in evaporated quickly. Looking up at the hole, she saw that Flau had pulled something across it, a grate. Even if she could fight the current long enough to position herself beneath it, she would be trapped.

The reality of her situation was clear. This is where she would die.

It wouldn't take long. Already the water had submerged the rocky outcrop she was clinging to and it was rising steadily. It splashed her chin and mouth, and the undercurrents tried to pull her away from the relative safety of the wall.

Her body was numb. The cold sapped her strength, dulled her mind. The world above her, the world she had fallen from, seemed very far away.

She tried to focus herself, keep positive. The bunker was under attack. Mia, the woman she had met in the Network, had acted on her pleas for help. She had clearly found Alvaro, and Alvaro had traced her. He was here, looking for her. Looking for Timon. If she could just hang on ...

She lost her grip on the rock with a cry, and was pulled towards the sluice gate by the current. She clawed frantically, hands slipping over smooth, waterworn rock, desperate for a handhold. She was swept several metres before she found another purchase higher up on the rocky wall, clinging to it with fingertips alone, gasping and terrified.

She had never been a water person. Growing up in a city scraperblock had left her with little taste for sporting pursuits; even from a young age her interests had revolved around technology.

It seemed inevitable. She would lose her grip and be pulled into the sluice. She would be pinned against the gate, trapped as the water rose. She would drown there, among the garbage from the world above, the plastic sheeting and the cardboard boxes.

She focused on her fingertips, forcing strength into them through will alone. She could do this. She could hold on until they found her.

The water rose around her chin and she closed her eyes and steeled her will.


NOW CONTINUED IN CHAPTER ELEVEN ...


Email your feedback here

Return to the Uber Index

Go to the Main Index