Read Aneka Jansen 7: Hope for Free Online

moment’s notice. They passed several other grey-clad men as she was walked through the corridors. None of them paid her any attention, which was possibly a good thing if the attitude continued into normal society. If the natives largely ignored slaves, then she would be largely ignored if she escaped and acted like she was just out on an errand or something.
    The new cell looked a lot like the old cell, but it belonged to a larger collection of them and there was no screaming to be heard in the corridor outside. The locks, Ella noticed, were electronic but required manual entry of a six-digit code, and each had a screen beside it which was presumably there to allow someone outside to see what was happening inside. She assumed that there was a security officer or AI watching the feeds as well. Her best bet still seemed to be slavery.
    As she sank onto the rock-hard bunk, Ella considered that: when slavery was your most favoured outcome, things had got really bad.
    ~~~
    A new guard, this one a blonde instead of a brunette, appeared at the door barely thirty minutes later, which was a little surprising after so much waiting on the ship.
    ‘On your feet, hold your hands out,’ he snapped.
    Getting up from the bed, Ella held her arms in front of her and he snapped a pair of thick, metal bracelets around her wrists. Then he grabbed her forearms and pushed her back against one of the walls, lifting her arms up and stretching them over her head. There were two solid clunks as magnets in the bracelets locked onto the metal wall.
    ‘What–’ Ella began.
    ‘Keep your mouth shut unless you’re spoken to.’ He stepped away from her to the doorway where he assumed an attention posture and waited.
    He was not kept waiting long. The new officer-type looked older than Ella’s interrogator, but he was, if anything, bigger and more muscular. His hair was grey but cut so short it was hard to tell, and he had a hard, almost shrunken face as though his skin had been sucked dry and was clinging to his skull. He nodded to the guard and then turned his attention to Ella, peering at her for a few seconds before speaking.
    ‘Captain Horton informs me that several formalities were skipped when you were arrested and in his zeal regarding your interrogation.’ So her interrogator had been the ship’s captain. ‘I am Lieutenant Colonel Detrow, the commanding officer of Border Enforcement Station three-nine-five. You have been identified as Narrows, Ella. Is that correct?’
    ‘Yes,’ Ella replied. She figured that saying the minimum was the best course of action at this point.
    Detrow nodded. ‘Ella Narrows, you have been indicted for crimes against Pinnacle Law, namely unlawful incursion into Pinnacle space, unlawful production of biological weapons, and conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, treason, and heresy. Evidence of your actions has been transmitted to Olympus for evaluation and sentencing. Sentence will be carried out in four days. Do you have any mitigating circumstances you wish to have considered?’
    Ella blinked. It was not exactly due process, but it was a process. ‘We didn’t know we were in Pinnacle space, we weren’t making a weapon, we were studying one, and we had no intention of using it. Ever.’
    ‘Duly noted.’ He turned back towards the door, speaking to the guard in passing. ‘Leave her on the wall for a few hours, Ensign. I can’t stand terrorists.’
    ‘Sir!’ the guard snapped, raising his hand to his brow in a very rigid salute.
    And a few seconds later, Ella was alone again, clamped to a wall by her wrists. She looked up as best she could at the bracelets. ‘If Aneka ever decides to speak to me again, I’m going to have to see if I can get some of these fabricated.’
    BSE-395, 4.11.559 FSC.
    Aside from the impending threat of death, it was a little like a holiday. With nothing else to do, she turned to all the books she had said she was going to read, had stored away on her implant’s memory,