much earlier. I contracted a type of disease when I was young. It ate away half my face and both eyes. The facial tissue they could rebuild, but it was easier to just replace the eyes. Now we’d just regenerate the lot, but back then some things were hard to get right, like nerves, and my optic nerves were half gone.’
He gave a nod, apparently satisfied for once. ‘Are you ready to tell me about the virus now?’
‘Look, I’ve told you everything I know. I do archaeology, history, psychology. Social sciences. I know enough biology to understand some of what that virus did, but the woman who could have answered your questions was sitting beside me when you blew up the lab.’
He turned the control unit over in his hand, obviously contemplating her answer. ‘Unfortunately I believe you are telling the truth. We have what we managed to salvage from your computers. It will have to suffice.’ He took another box from a pocket, thumbed over it and spoke. ‘Have Crowthorn executed. His stupidity cost us more than we thought.’ Pushing the boxes back into his pockets, he turned to leave.
‘So what happens now?’ Ella asked quickly. ‘To me. What happens to me now?’
‘You will be taken to our Border Enforcement Station to await orders from High Command. I expect you will be tried and executed, but they may show leniency and commute that to slavery. You’d make an acceptable house slave.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, but he was already walking out the door.
Just before it closed, she heard the screams cut off suddenly. The Pinnacle did not waste time when it came to executions.
1.11.559 FSC.
Aside from the deliveries of food and drink, Ella was left entirely alone in her cell. That was fine by her. She had attempted, once, to engage one of her guards in conversation. Well, she had asked how long they would be travelling and he had activated her collar for a few seconds before walking out. She was a fast learner and there was no point in demonstrations of resistance, though she had no doubt that Aneka would have handled the situation differently. Of course, Aneka probably would not have been captured, and if she had, the collar would have done nothing to her, and she would have probably killed everyone on the ship within the first day…
Ella had come to the conclusion that her best chance was getting sentenced to slavery. There was some chance that she could escape at that point. With a gun in her hand, preferably two, she could do some damage. The Pinnacle people seemed strong, but she knew enough about unarmed combat that she could probably take one out before they could activate the collar, and then she would need to find weapons and a ship, and… Well, it was not exactly a great chance of escape, but it was a chance.
Her only other option was waiting to be rescued and, while Aneka and Winter could do some pretty amazing things, they would be looking for one woman in a vast expanse of space. No, Ella had to do something to help herself, even if her chances were slim.
Sealed away in her cell, she only became aware of their arrival at the Pinnacle station when her guard appeared at the door. ‘On your feet. We’re transferring you to a cell on the base.’ They were the first actual words he had said to her.
The ship outside the cell was almost as functional and grey as the cell itself. She was led down corridors to an airlock and then through into a similarly functional structure, which was presumably the interior of a space station, via some sort of docking gantry. The gantry served a secondary purpose: there was a gravity gradient as they moved down it and it allowed some adjustment. Ella felt the slight disorientation which suggested spin gravity was being used on the station, and she felt about half her normal weight by the time she was inside.
Her guard carried no weapons on him, but then he did not really need to. Ella had nowhere to go and she could be reduced to a screaming blob on the floor at a