Glinn Giria Palnin - Caught In-Between
d.finch
((Senate Room, Council Building, Maingard District, Witherington, Indre III))
Palnin’s repetitious line of questioning had become a litany of woes; the circling and back and forth had led her nowhere but to an impasse of simmered rage that bubbled dangerously near the rim of its pot. They hadn’t appreciated her bargaining with them at the start, hadn’t understood that if it had been any other Glinn, their predicaments would have been far grimmer and without the dignity that she had so graciously allowed them. And they were worse than the idiot troopers who worked for her, because of it.
Her three prisoners had been moved to different positions within the room, spinning around Palnin, disoriented by the blazing heat and bright lights shining upon them, and the continuous strain of their wrists held tightly against the hard metal of the plates that held them up. And she had enjoyed that, at least, having briefly regained her sense of power in a situation within which it had started to haemorrhage.
Nkai: Your people occupied my home for over twenty years, and you still have absolutely no idea who we are.
Sim: The difference is, we learned to stop doing that where we weren’t asked. You, however, not so much. You spread your vicious nonsense wherever you like.
Palnin: Quiet, vicious. ::Her voice projected toward ‘Kos:: Now let me ask you again. How many of your people are on the ground?
Sim: There’s more than three, but less than… a hundred.
A vein suddenly throbbed in her neck, threatening to rip a hole in it.
Palnin: ::growling:: How many!
Sim: WE DON’T KNOW! ::He gasped for breath.:: Look, we don’t know how many of us there are. Have you never heard of cells?
Palnin’s hands writhed irritably by her sides, squeezing the air between her palms as if it were each of their eyeballs.
Palnin: Then you will tell me what you do know, and you will make sure that it’s the truth, because if you don’t, ::she said, speaking to the man’s back through her teeth:: then I’m going to turn the heat up on that skull of yours and make a Zabu stew out of it, and—between you and I—I’ve started to work up a bit of an appetite.
The hybrid woman’s strangulated voice interjected;
E. Reynolds: You know we’re telling the truth. ::Her voice was a raw rasp.:: And you’re know we’re right. Wasting time with us only plays into your rival’s hands.
Palnin: Enough! You will give me answers.
Palnin’s body trembled with fury as she spun around and slammed a slender finger down hard against her remote, causing Erin’s plate to hum harder, and the lights above her to blaze hotter. Her pot had officially overflowed, and now all that remained of the previously cool and collected Glinn was a rhinoceros, ready to plough its sharp horn into the nearest thing it could find.
Her distaste for the quieter, more beautiful woman had caused her a grave lapse of judgement, revealing to the men, and also to herself, that she wasn't quite as clever as she proclaimed—so the ruse was over. The pretence was finished; her temperance stirred. If it hadn’t been obvious from her slowly diminishing laughter, losing its calculated grace and repose, or her increasing retorts spurred on by the smart captives, then it was obvious now, in every other way possible.
She was angry, and she was going to get something out of them, one way or another.
Sim: Response
E. Reynolds: We—::a sound hiccoughed out of her lungs; something which tried to be a laugh but sounded more like a sob::—we call that a failure of imagination.
Sim: Response
Palnin: You wretched—
Suddenly her voice was punctuated by a bone-shuddering bassy thump, and the lights of the senate room went out, followed by the plaintive dulling sounds of the machines powering down around her prisoners, and the distant and repeated thrum of electricity throughout the building doing the same room by room. All that remained was pitch blackness and confusion.
Her heart began to thudder inside her ribs, and her breathing slowed, as she stood there momentarily disoriented, unable to see herself, unable to see the Rodulan, the Betazoid or the Hybrid dangling around her in the darkness, if only for their pained squirming and breathing.
She moved with a careful swiftness toward the main doors to the room, as her bloodshot eyes began to regain some of their sight, hands feeling for the doorknob, until she heard a sound beyond it that caused her to freeze; the muffled shouts of her guards, the shrill and sharp sounds of weapons fire, and things being blown up.
A cold sweat crept onto her skin.
E.Reynolds/Sim/Nkai: Response
Palnin: It’s impossible, ::she snapped:: how could anyone have known you were here. This district was shelled into insignificance, made empty and powerless, why would anyone be here...::realising:: It’s impossible… ::her once writhing palms went balmy, as did her neck::
E.Reynolds/Sim/Nkai: Response
But before Palnin could say anything back, a muffled voice cried out from outside the doors.
Muffled voice: MOVE UP!
A whirring, almost susurrating sound suddenly and gently filled the air of the senate room, billowing a silk-like breeze through it, reaching the pinprick hairs on the back of Palnin’s neck. She turned around with narrowed eyes, and through that blanketing darkness floated three red dots, pushing out long lasers, one of which rested on the Glinn’s forehead.
Then it happened like lightning; those three dots roared into life, and began shooting at the main doors to the senate room with a terrifying vengeance, filling it with rods of sizzling light that soared past the hanging captives as they cried out, flashes of light streaming past their heads, chests and legs, hitting the door, and its frame, and the walls beside it, punching holes into them and sending shrapnel in all directions.
Palnin: NO!
Palnin had ducked, and was now on the floor screaming at the top of her lungs. It was a scene of absolute chaos and tyranny; whatever had happened on the outside of those doors, whoever had launched an attack in that corridor, had also triggered some sort of automated response system from inside the room, in the form of disruptor drones—and the beams were constant, and erratic, and there was nothing that she could do to stop them, other than hold her beautiful locks between her hands and scream with terror.
E. Reynolds/Sim/Nkai: Response
Glinn Giria Palnin,
Obsidian Order Expeditionary Force
Cardassian Union
As simmed by,
Ensign Doz Finch
Engineering Officer
C239809SH3