The room that I woke up in was a cubed version of the pod I stayed in on board the Screnac.
Smooth, dark grey walls with edges and corners surrounded me.
The cushioned patch upon which I had been sleeping was only a little longer and wider than my body, taking up half of the floor space.
Another quarter was taken up with a hygiene stall that looked very much as though I was going to need to squat if I needed the loo.
The final quarter was simply space and was occupied by a small plate with two cubes and a cup of water.
In the wall of this quarter, opposite the cushioned section, was an octagonal window the size of a large face.
My stomach yawned with hunger.  I ignored it.
Pushing myself into a sitting position proved to be a bit of an effort, however no more so than trying to rise after a truly good night’s sleep.  I do not think that I had slept that well in a very long time.
It took me a moment to realize that my vision was still only limited to my right eye.  My glasses, however, had been on a narrow ledge between the hygiene stall and where I was lying.
Blinking a few times brought my attention to the fact that my synthetic eye was not just inactive, it was missing.  My initial thought was that I had only been unconscious for a short while and it had not charged yet, however the fact that it was gone meant that I had no measure of how long I had been there.
I tried tapping on my arm and then on the wall when I failed to bring up any console.  Nothing appeared.
Culpin had warned me about the dampeners; a selection of frequencies that were emitted to block nanotechnology and disrupt telekinetic energy.
As I was reminded, I assessed the condition of the internal flow of energy.
It felt sluggish, moving as though a small amount of jelly mixture had been added, not enough to actually set, just enough to slow it down a little.
Knowing full well that I was likely to be under surveillance made it difficult to test out how restrained I had become.
I lifted the plate from the ground and made it look as though I were examining the cubes.  Holding it directly on the palm of my hand, I moved it up by barely a millimetre.
It took next to no concentration or effort to do.
Whatever strength they had their suppressors set to, was clearly calibrated to the strongest known beings with telekinesis, which were a few hundred times weaker than my own.
However I did nothing to reveal myself.
If I had wanted to, I could have forced my way out of the cell, shielded myself from any incoming projectiles, incapacitated my captors and completed the task for which I had become captured with supposed ease.
Except for the fact that, beyond the cell, there was little that I actually knew about the ship that I was on.
If my guess was right, I was on board the Venanth-Nepha the same ship that had “rescued” humanity and demanded their gratitude with contracts.
The captain was an alive by the name of Nesutten Naroc.  His first-mate was a pink called Hoeji Ruro.
Together they commanded a crew of bounty hunters who were tasked with the capture and transportation of criminals across the galaxy.  Considered freelance, they were renowned for their ruthless tactics and merciless attitudes.  Their infamy grew from their ability to skirt around the laws of the Community and thulai.  Although countless inquests and investigations went launched against them, they were always acquitted.
Their intellect was what made them dangerous.
I would never consider myself a dim-witted person, however confrontation never failed to render me weakened when I needed to rely upon my own intelligence, in a pinch, I would be no match for them.
I sat down on the cushioned strip, crossing my legs so that I could be mistaken for meditating.
I extended the energy towards the door first; exploring how it operated and how much force would be needed to open it.  The structure was strong and firm, built to contain the strongest of beings.  It would take a real push, pressure applied at several points and a lot of it, however it would break.
It would be a heroically stupid move.
Lining the ceiling and the walls of the corridor were numerous open tubes and vents.
If escape were achieved, the captors could simply flood the space with gas to render their captive unconscious or compliant.
Breaking out of the cell would be pointless if I had no way of protecting myself against a gas attack.  I could shield myself against almost any kind of projectile, given sufficient warning, even laser, plasma and electric.  I could probably keep a gas away using some sort of energy rotation, like a fan, or a solid bubble, however at some point I would be bound to reach and obstacle and need to split my focus or drain the energy enough to let some through.
It was far too risky.
I would have to wait.
They would come to get me.
I was sure of it.
If Bernard had been right, I had been targeted specifically.  Which meant whoever was after me, or at least their top flunky, would want to have a face to face chat.
My stomach groaned again.
Not wanting to eat the cubes based on the suspicion that they might contain sedative became a redundant thought as I noticed the mouth of another pipe in the ceiling of my cell.  If they wanted me to sleep, they would not need to trick me into consuming it.  The possibility became that they could do anything to me; suppress the energy more, make me compliant, blur my judgement…  However, if they had wanted to do any of that, they would have done so before I awoke.
I nibbled the corner of one of the cubes and waited.
Nothing.
I sipped the water and waited.
More nothing.
I all but inhaled the rest in one breath.
Other than almost choking, nothing happened and my stomach stopped groaning.
At a loss for something to do until someone came to get me, I figured I would do some yoga.  Doing any kind of combat training would have felt more natural yet my captors may not have been aware of the extent of my self-defense and I did not want to tip them off.
In my past life, whenever the fitness bug took a bite, my go-to exercise would include a twenty minute yoga routine courtesy of an app.  For twenty minutes before showering and getting dressed on the mornings when I did not have to get to work before midday, I would work my way through a twenty minute session.  When I was living in my second to last home I had the view that was provided by being on the second floor of a building at the top of a hill overlooking the space between one town and the next.  In the flat that I shared with Amelia I would find a picturesque video on YouTube using Xbox Live and gaze at that.
The grey walls of the cell were not what anyone would call relaxing to look at, so I closed my eyes and went to my calm place.
On the northern shore of the Beauly Firth, in Scotland, there was a caravan site where my family would take as many trips as we could.
Next to the site was a small jetty that stretched out onto the Firth (a jetty is a small pier, that one was made of wood).  At the tip of it, you would find yourself almost a tenth of a way across the water when the tide was in.
On a still day, the water would look like a mirror reflecting the clouds and birds.
On a fresh day, mist coated the water like a woolen blanket.
On a sunny day, the light danced over the swells of the waves.
On a windy day, the jetty would bob up and down as though it were agreeing with the bluster.
In my mind, I was stood at the end on a still, partially sunny day.  In my ears were the sounds of the osprey, red kites and kestrels, as well as the occasional swoosh as a car drove alone the coastal road.  The scent of salt and seaweed surrounded me and the breeze tousled my hair.
The smoothness of the floor was at odds with my memory of the wooden planks that were worn smooth, yet prone to splinters from decades of use.  The cushioning was firm enough that it supported each position that required balance.
As my body relaxed into the third pose, the name of which eluded me, I focused inwards on any emotions that were not my own.
I quickly located Bernard.  His metabolism had burned through whatever knocked us out faster than average.  He was awake and he was nervous, not scared, simply filled with apprehension over what would come next.  The most prominent issue that we had discussed, before falling into this trap, had been how he should react if they figured out that he had a pregnant partner that they likely knew the location of.
He had told me that he would keep his words to himself, “I won’t take any deal,” his voice was certain yet his heart was less sure, “we’re going to find her anyway, so there’s no point in letting them use it against me.”  For all that he did not like me any more, he at least respected my abilities, or guilt, enough to trust that I would be successful.
Ascertaining his specific position on board a ship, of which I had only seen blueprints and schematics, was made tricky due to the fact that I had no idea of where I was.
Whilst I was trying to make an educated guess, I noticed a few other emotions, most of which were boredom and frustration.
The were still some humans on board.
Whoever they were, wherever they were, it was impossible to tell precisely how many they numbered.  I guessed somewhere in between five and ten.
A little removed from Bernard’s position, all of them were at least several levels away from where I was trapped.
The feeling of uselessness built quickly.
I managed to exert a thin stream of energy which was released into the empty space of the cell.  It took a fair amount of focus to disperse it without moving anything.
All of the waiting was beginning to get to me.  With no way of keeping track of time, I simply whiled away the lals with stretches.  Each set should have taken twenty minutes which would be more or less the same in lals therefore, with the possibility that I had forgotten a move or two, an auxe would have time for approximately six sessions.

It was during the resting portion of the ninth time through that a voice finally appeared.
“Laura MacPhaid.”
My eyes snapped open as I pulled myself into a sitting position.
At the window to the corridor was the face of a tharat.  It was smaller and narrower than Orthus’s familiar visage with reddish-green skin.  With an unreadable expression she began to speak, “my name is Nanis, you’re going to be coming with me.”  She held an object up to the glass, “you know what this is?”
I had seen many law enforcement officers carrying a baton like the one she was showing me.  They held a contingent of plasma energy and could be used to stun or kill a target, either on contact or at a distance of up to about fifty metres.
Plasma was not an easy thing to defend myself against; the appropriate energy shield would all but wipe out even my energy reserves..  Solid things I could shield against, lasers could be distorted and electrical energy I could redirect, to an extent.  All of that was entirely reliant of me having at least a few moments warning, the closer the range of the attack, the more difficult it was to deal with.
That baton was bad news.
Unless I could disarm her, I would be completely at her mercy.
Then again, even if I did disarm her, there was still the gas plus goodness knows how many other baton welding beings between me and my target.
For the time being, I would behave like a perfect captive and do exactly as I was told.
By the time I was on my feet the door had opened.
With her back planted firmly against the far wall of the corridor, Nanis had her weapon pointed directly at me.  She was being overly cautious, treating me as though I might be as capable as I was pretending not to be.
“After you,” she nodded her head towards the left, voice impassive, “I’ll be a few steps behind you and you know what’ll happen if you misstep.”
Again I nodded.
The air outside of the cell was exactly the same as inside, however I suddenly found it more difficult to breathe.
Anxiety was clawing at my chest.  It was telling me that the cell was safe, nothing would happen in there, the further away from it we got, the more dangerous it became.  At the end of my relocation would be something unpleasant to deal with; a situation or person that would be set up in my captor’s favour.  Something which I would likely be facing alone.
I thought of all the people who would do better, who would be chatting away to Nanis, asking investigative questions and offering sassy comments as event unfolded.
An image of Jennifer raising an eyebrow and giving an all-right-then wobble to her head as she left the cell forced me to suppress a giggle.
Along the corridor beyond my cell were nine other cells, which meant that I was in the ship’s equivalent of a holding cell.
Having gotten a better idea of whereabouts I was, gave me a better idea of where the others probably were; an area similar to a prison’s general population, an area where the inmates were kept together, separated by race and how dangerous they were.  If Bernard were down there, it was likely that the rest of the beings from the Piti were being held there as well.
Realigning my focus to my own location, I was introduced to the rest of the ship.
Beyond the door to the next section, the floor revealed what was outside.
Stars as far as the eye could see.
Or, at least that’s how the view began.
As we walked, another star came into view, so close that we must have been in orbit around it.
We stopped to wait for the next door to open and I was able to see the movement.
Seeing the blueprints for the ship had little prepared me for actually being on board.
The corridor that were walking along was part of a continuous loop that twice encircled a central hub that extended one third ahead and two behind.
From a distance, from two different angles, it looked like a dragonfly.
The corridors, which held various crew and confinement areas, rotated around the ship, the force of which was enhanced to generate its own gravity.
We reached one of the lifts to take us to the core within a few lals.  The full length of the corridor was almost two miles long, fortunately the cell I had been placed in was fairly close to one of them.
The door slid open to reveal two huge, rather intimidating pinks, one with dark grey feathers, the other a dull orange, both scowling down at me.
“In you go,” Nanis barely gave me time to hesitate.
I stepped as smoothly as the tremor in my legs would let me, stopping in the centre of the capsule.
Stepping in after me, she nodded to one of the pinks, “whenever you’re ready.”
The pink shrouded in grey directed her attention to the control panel, using her telekinesis to select our destination.
We began to descend.