I woke up, and instantly regretted it. My crew jumper was wringing wet and I was soaked to the skin. I lay there on the hard plexisteel floor shivering and wondering what in seven hells happened. My head was next to the waste portal and the smell of sick was nearly overpowering. I tried to sit up, which was a mistake. My head was about to split open from the pain and I swear I could feel cerebral spinal fluid leaking out my ears and nose. I managed to push myself upright and lean my aching head on the ice cold plexisteel wall. My hair was sticking to my face. I tried to push the strands away from my eyes but my hair was hard, crusty, and nearly immovable. Chunks of some squishy substance came off in my hand and the smell…
Ugh.
“You are alive, then?”
I squinted up at the speaker. A tall Avonry perched on the only available bunk. Its voice was shrill, even through the vocoder it wore. It preened its feathers and appeared to lose interest in me when I didn’t reply. Somewhere, a clanging started and got louder as it came nearer. It took me a second…a long second to figure out what I was hearing. Metal on metal, growing more echoing and pronounced. The Avonry moved back and as far away from me as possible. The noise became unbearably loud and I put my hands over my ears, grimacing in pain. In my haze I looked up and a uniformed figure appeared. The figure was using something to hit the metal bars in front of me.
“Oyyeh! Princess! Time to get up, shatovahf!
A blast of ice cold water splashed over me, soaking me again. I cursed and sputtered. The Avonry squawked and flapped itself spreading feathers everywhere. I coughed until my throat felt like a blazing pyre. Bleerily, I watched as the hazy figure opened the metal bars. The Avonry squawked and backed up into the corner of the cell. The gendarme stood over me, then reached down and yanked me to my feet.
“Come on. Some folks want a word with you.”
The uniformed gendarme threw me face first into the ‘fresher. “You stink. Get cleaned up. You’ve got 3 chronos.” He marched out of the room and I tried to re-orient myself. I found the soap and tried to clean my hair as best I could. I was spraying off the collect grime on my coveralls when the gendarme reappeared. He threw a towel and a clean, unmarked ship coveralls at me.
“Move!”
He turned and stomped back out of the ‘fresher and I took advantage of the towel and suit. I rolled my soiled one up, in a vague hope it could be recycled. It bore the name of my ship, well, one of its aliases anyway. Mister charming in a uniform showed up with my pack three chronos later. He shoved it at me, and I dug around in the bottom for an ampule of painkiller.
siriusmoonlight 