Episode 2 -- The Abyss

 

A general captures Jon and Hawk, convinced that they are intruders. As the two men are tortured, it becomes readily apparent that the general is sliding into insanity as he later orders their executions. 

~*~*~*~*~

Jon sat in the empty main room, staring at nothing in particular. Their recent adventure with General Briggs preyed on his mind.

So many times, he'd had to send members of his team into dangerous situations in pairs or in threes. Since there were only five of them, it was logistically impossible to deal with every emergency with a full crew. This one had definitely been a situation that required all five of them.

But Briggs caught him and Hawk and tortured them.

Capture and torture was a distinct possibility every time they left the base, only they expected such results from the biomech troopers and the Overunits, not other resistance fighters. If all five of them had gone, the chances of any of them being captured would have gone down considerably.

But what if the opposite were true? What if they had all been captured and tortured?

If Briggs had done to Pilot what he had done to him...

He quickly put that thought out of his mind. He was the captain of a resistance cell. He worried about all his people, not just one. He did not want the image of Pilot in pain, being tortured for information clouding his thinking.

Still...

There was a narrow-minded, hateful conviction in Briggs that Jon had seen too many times. It was that certainty that he was right despite all facts to the contrary, that he was justified in his actions no matter how wrong his actions were. He would have been a deadly Overunit if he had been a member of the Dread Youth.

That brought his thoughts back to Jennifer. Once, she had mentioned that the caretakers would threaten the children with Soaron. That was cruel. If the caretakers were as ruthless and uncaring as Briggs was, then Jon had a better understanding of Jennifer's childhood.

"They're back," Hawk announced as he almost jogged into the main room. "I don't think they found anything or Scout would have been much more enthusiastic when he called in."

Jon smiled at that. Recon was often a thankless and nonproductive task. The more time passed, the less there was to find on recon missions. He had considered cutting back on the number of recons to conserve on fuel, but it was still too early to make that decision. As long as there were people out there scrounging to survive, he'd keep up the missions.

Voices echoed down the corridor, and Jon could just make out the words.

"But how did you do that?" Scout asked.

"I didn't do anything out of the ordinary," Jennifer told him. "The cadet was running toward me, and I had to fight back."

"He was Tank's size!" was Scout's protest.

"And what's that saying of Hawk's? The bigger they are, the harder they fall?"

Tank's slight laugh followed.

Then, Jon saw Scout helping a limping Jennifer into the main room. They all looked like they had been in a fight, but her clothes were a little torn and she was a bit bruised. Other than that, she was ... fine?

"Do I want to know?" he asked them as he helped Scout get Jennifer down the stairs.

"It's nothing, Captain," Jennifer told him. "We ran into a patrol who wanted to fight. We fought. They ran. We won."

"If it's nothing, then why are you limping?" he led her to the main console and let her sit down.

Tank placed a few data disks into the reader on the console and started uploading the information. "One of the cadets was a very large fellow, about my size. He charged Pilot's position, and she put him down after a scuffle."

"Scuffle?" Hawk couldn't believe his ears. "That was more than a scuffle if it was someone Tank's size." He took Jennifer's hand and saw the wounds on the back. "Sharp instrument, kid?"

"Did I ever mention I was top of my class in hand-to-hand combat when I was in the Dread Youth?" she smiled up at him.

Hawk just stared back at her.

Jennifer sighed. "Okay, he had a knife, we fought, and I disarmed him. He got away during the explosion."

"Explosion?" Jon asked. What were they not telling him?

"Mine," Scout answered. "I set off a few grenades to distract the patrol while we regrouped. Some of the buildings in the area couldn't take the concussion of the blast and some walls came tumbling down."

"Walls?" Hawk looked over at Jon. "I don't think we're getting the full story here yet."

"Neither do I, Matt." Jon looked back at his three teammates. "What else happened?"

Tank cleared his throat. "Part of the wall fell on Pilot and pinned her to the ground. We got the rocks off her, ran back to the jumpship and flew out. We didn't find anything else on the recon in sector 7."

Hawk and Jon looked at each other. The nonchalant way they gave the report meant that much more happened; only they didn't want to talk about it. Yet.

Unfortunately for them, a team captain needed to know all the relevant details.

"And?"

"And?" Scout repeated.

"And what else happened?"

Both Scout and Tank stammered their words a bit, and finally Jennifer said, "I knew the Overunit on the patrol. He wasn't very happy to see me, and he's the one who ordered the cadet who was Tank's size to attack me."

~*~*~*~*~

It wasn't a new occurrence in their lives. Before the team decided unanimously to ask Jennifer to join them, they knew they ran the risk of crossing paths with Dread soldiers who knew her and would harbor a personal grudge for anyone who betrayed the Machine. They were aware that it could cause an unwanted situation in a battle. It had happened before. Once, they were helping relocate some villagers when they were ambushed by a small patrol of Dread Youth. Jennifer had been acquainted with the Youth Leader, a man named Reynolds. She had tried reasoning with him, tried convincing him that Dread lied. It still ended up in a gunfight with the Power team covering for the villagers as they made their escape. Jennifer had taken point in the battle, putting herself in grave danger to protect the rest of the team from being singled out by Reynolds. She had taken several hits until her power suit powered down, leaving her vulnerable but buying the others time to get the villagers clear.

It had been a rather nasty fight after that.

Jon, Tank and Scout rushed in to cover Hawk as he flew Pilot out of the area. Jon had never been as scared as he was at that moment when he saw her suit shut down and Reynolds running toward her, gun in hand, aiming at her, but he was amazed at her selflessness and courage.

Later on, she said nothing was hurt but her pride, but Jon could tell she wasn't being completely truthful. She wasn't seriously hurt, but she had some painful bruises and sore muscles for days after that. It was the first time she'd been hurt that badly while working with them, and it was also another instance whereby Jon learned a little of her past.

One of the many litanies the Dread Youth learned was that pain was a feeling, feelings were emotions, and emotions meant you were weak. Imperfect. Not of the Machine. Dread Youth did not show pain. They did not show fear. It took some time for Jennifer to understand that it was okay to let someone know when she was hurting, to give into the pain, that a stoic exterior was so... inhuman. Now, if she was hurt, she didn't keep it a secret. She didn't act as if pain were nothing. True, she would still ignore it in order to complete the mission, but not like before.

Again, Jon sat at Mentor 's console. In the quiet of the night, his mind went back to Briggs. Had they all been there for that adventure, if Jennifer had been captured and tortured -- Jon had long suspected that she was tougher than the rest of them and would have undoubtedly angered the general by not showing that torture hurt. What Briggs would have done then...

"You're up late," he heard her say.

Jon turned around and watched Jennifer limp down the stairs. He stood quickly and offered her a hand, but she just shook her head and managed on her own. He did help her to the chair.

"Couldn't sleep," he told her.

"Briggs?"

Jon nodded his head. "He had really lost contact with reality. It was as if he didn't realize time had passed and that the world he knew didn't exist anymore."

Jennifer leaned back and thought for a moment. "That happened to some soldiers who volunteered to join instead of being raised in the Dread Youth. Once the training units realized what was happening to them, they just disappeared. We never found out where they were taken or what happened to them. The only explanation we were given was that they weren't strong enough to serve the Machine."

Another brief glance into Jennifer's childhood. Soldiers would just disappear if they didn't behave in a certain way? Digitized? Killed? Made to work as slaves in Dread's foundries? That helped explain how she chose to escape from the Dread Youth, to play dead after a battle and then run into the wilderness, choosing possible death from dehydration and exposure rather than spend one more day in the lie that was her life.

It was another clue to strength of the woman herself, and the more Jon learned, the more he wanted to know.

"So why are you awake?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Couldn't sleep," she told him.

"Leg hurts?"

"A bit," she readily agreed.

Jon grinned. Once, she would never have admitted that much. He reached out and pressed a button on the console, and a chessboard appeared on the monitor. "How about a game? Maybe it'll take our minds off today's events."

The End