Dorsey Kwan sat huddled in the corner of her black walled cell. She didn’t know how long she’d been locked up, though she didn’t think it had been that long. Not more than a week. Her captors, whoever they were, knew how to keep a prisoner disoriented. She wasn’t fed on any regular schedule and it had thrown all her body’s needs off kilter.
The dim light that shone far overhead barely gave her enough room to see, but the brightness never faltered, except when they wanted her to wake up. Then the light blazed bright enough to sting her retinas even behind the safety of her eyelids. And they didn’t let her sleep long enough to rest. If she’d caught more than two hours at any given time, she would eat her left foot.
Pirates had snatched her on her latest shipping run. While her ship wasn’t much, she was classed to pull freighters across three star systems. Everything was clearly marked as Consortium goods, and pirates didn’t mess with the Consortium in her part of space. Which probably explained why they’d left her freight flying free and snatched her up.
She wasn’t Consortium goods and her employer wouldn’t bother coming for her.
It was times like these that Dorsey questioned her decision to leave Earth five years before. There’d been nothing for her there except a few casual friends. No job, no family, no future, but at least people didn’t get kidnapped by roving slavers while going about their daily business.
Her ears twitched at the sound of commotion down the hall. At least it sounded like a hall. They’d knocked Dorsey unconscious when they grabbed her and she’d woken up in this tiny cell. Her only glimpse of the world beyond was when her captors slid food and water in through a slot in the door.
Feet dragged and someone struggled, but it was all too distant for her to make out any words. Dorsey scampered over to the door and pressed her ear flush up against the food slot.
Even though she was pressed up close, the sound was getting further away. All she heard was struggling footsteps until a loud thump caused her to jump back. Footsteps pounded toward her cell, but the tell-tale sound of blaster shots echoed down the hall, and whoever was running fell with a heavy thump.
More footsteps followed slowly and Dorsey recognized these as belonging to the ship’s crew. There was a distinctive clip to the step as if they’d all received military training. As they dragged the body away she wished she had enough leverage to open the slot from the inside so that she could see what was going on. Even if there was no way to escape, she wanted to see her fellow prisoner.
No one deserved to be left alone to suffer in this place. And even if all she could offer him was a glance, that’s what she would give.
The sound didn’t fade completely away, but she could almost follow it around the edge of her cell and back to where it grew stronger once more. There must have been a hallway that ran on both sides of her, though she hadn’t realized it. After a little more commotion, she heard a door slide shut and the people who’d carried the prisoner walk away.
It was deathly quiet.
She hoped her fellow prisoner still lived. Anyone who fought against their captors was a friend in her book.
More time passed. Dorsey stood at one point and paced back and forth, but the cell was so narrow that she barely got two steps in before she needed to turn around. Walking along the very edge of the wall gave her the greatest distance, but she still felt like one of the caged jungle cats she’d seen in vids back home. She could stretch her arms way above her head and still not touch the ceiling, but she couldn’t even lay down and straighten her body out without touching the walls.
She had nothing but the clothes on her back to keep her warm. And those clothes were barely sufficient. Two of the pockets of her dark cargo pants had torn, leaving her skin exposed in tiny chunks. Her long sleeved top was great in a heat controlled cockpit or under a space suit. In the open air, goosebumps pebbled under the cotton-synth fibers.
At first she’d been glad that she’d resisted the newest styles that called for ultra-short hair, but Dorsey could feel the black strands all knotted together. It barely kept her neck warm and was going to hurt like hell to comb out when she got out of here.
Because she was getting out of here. She didn’t leave Earth to end up a slave.
A knock on the wall caught her attention and she froze in place. The hollow sound echoed through her cell, far louder than it could have actually been. She could barely breathe, afraid the noise would bring the guards.
They hadn’t done much too her yet, but she wasn’t about to confront them without a plan. That was suicide.
But there were no footsteps and she realized that the sound had come from the innermost corner of the room. Between the thick walls of the cell and what had to be a long hall outside, they probably couldn’t hear.
There was another knock and then three seconds later, a third.
The man they’d dragged away.
She didn’t know why she thought it was a man. Gender was hard to distinguish with a lot of the alien races. But she pushed that thought aside. However her fellow inmate identified didn’t matter. What mattered was that he might be alive.
Dorsey took one big step and tilted her ear up towards the small vent near the ceiling. She could just barely brush her fingers against it if she stood on her tiptoes, but it wasn’t even a hand span wide and it would never work as an escape route.
But that wasn’t why she studied it now. No, now she thought she could almost hear the labored sound of another being trying to breathe. She curled her fingers into a tight fist and rapped them against the wall first once, then a second time.
The wall knocked back.
“Are you okay?” she tried asking. If she could hear his breathing then maybe he could hear her. And just maybe she wouldn’t have to bust out of this place alone.