Blind Man's Bluff (CW: Mild mutilation)

Posted on Fri Jul 17th, 2026 @ 4:21pm by Lonian Royal Sovereignty & Commander Rin

Mission: Season 6: Episode 7: Crossroads of Destiny
Location: Niea IV : Detention Centre
Timeline: MD4 - immediately after arrests
2833 words - 5.7 OF Standard Post Measure

Once the cuffs were secure, the guards hauled any prisoners who were on the ground to their feet and began guiding them into the centre. The ones who were struggling remained behind as guards fought to keep them under control.

On the other side of a set of doors was what looked like an intake office. A couple of consoles were positioned by half-walled cubbies. Another prisoner, a Lonian who happened to be arrested just before the Elysium crew, was led into one of those cubbies. Only his shoulders and head were visible over the wall. Shortly after he stopped in the middle of the cubby space, a transporter beam engulfed him for a couple seconds before his clothing was replaced with a grey shirt and grey pants. He was then led through a set of doors that hissed firmly shut behind them.

The guards had Rin stop at one of the cubbies so they could search her for weapons. The communicator was confiscated and disabled, and any personal items were put into a storage container. They then moved her toward the cubby, where a transporter pad circle could be seen on the ground. "Stand on the pad," the guard ordered.

Rin put up no resistance. She had no belongings of note, so she was unconcerned about anything being lost in the shuffle. Nor did did she have a problem stepping onto the pad. She understood the psychological purpose of the clothing change: to reinforce that she was not in control, that she was now part of their system, that her situation would be dictated by them, not her. Truth be told, she preferred prison gray to the breezy thing she had been wearing at the beach. Easier to move in and warmer too, now that she wasn't in the sun.

She kept her gaze off the faces of the guards. The Lonians took eye contact as a challenge or unwanted scrutiny. Let them think her complacent.

The transporter beam briefly activated, swapping her attire, and once it was complete the guard approached her. He reached a hand up toward her face, intending to grab the implant by her eye.

Rin stepped back and turned her face away, out of the guard's reach. No longer compliant, she braced her feet expecting a fight. Her hands stayed low. Less chance of them thinking she's about to actively jump them But she looked the guard dead in the eye.

"That's attached to my face, asshole." She didn't even sound particularly mad. Agitated, yes, but mostly she sounded like she had just objectively concluded the guy was an asshole.

Misk, the guard, narrowed his eyes at the prisoner and stepped forward, maintaining that uncomfortable proximity. The cubby didn't provide much in the way of escape anyways, as the only options were to get past the guard or try to jump over the side barriers. "Technology is not permitted. It must be removed."

"Do you demand that other prisoners remove their eyes?" Rin asked. She didn't flinch as Misk moved.

She paused a moment, slightly softening her stance. "I get it. You have a rule. No technology. And I am a mass of fibers, electrical signals, and chemicals, all wrapped around an endo-skeleton. I have conduits pumping nutrients throughout my body so that it functions optimally. My senses directly connect to my brain, which is capable of processing immense amount of input at once."

Another pause.

"And the same goes for you. Everything I just described. So, are you planning on dismembering me?"

For the briefest of moments, Misk's brow furrowed slightly, but he quickly recovered. By the way she spoke, it sounded like it would be difficult, and potentially a problem, to remove. Or maybe their translators were broken and were converting her tongue into gibberish. Or maybe she was speaking gibberish. "You don't need eyes to answer questions," he shot back. "If it can't be removed, it will be disabled."

"How do you suggest doing that?" Rin asked. It was an honest question. She didn't like the idea of being blind in one eye, but there were worse options. But these people also had no idea of her tech, which was both a benefit and a drawback. They were, at least in part, blustering.

"What does it do?" Another guard, Halei, spoke up. The three pips on her collar suggested that she had some control over this particular room.

"It's. My. Eye," Rin said slowly, as if spelling it out for a child. "It lets me see. That's what eyes do."

Not appreciating the sass, Halei pulled her taser. At the same time, she grabbed Rin's restraints by the metal bar in the middle to control her hands as she pushed the conductive poles of the taser into Rin's side.

By the time Rin realized what was happening, it was too late. The jolt was significantly stronger than she expected, and far more painful than a phaser on stun.

Halei and Misk then wrestled their prisoner to the ground with a heavy thump. Misk worked to control Rin's arms, and once she was sufficiently pinned, Halei touched the taser to the implant and gave it a thorough jolt.

It felt like someone had just driven a spike through Rin's eye into her brain. Her body curled up as much as it could under the control of her captors. Her diagnostics confirmed they had just inflicted a considerable amount of damage. The left eye was no longer receiving or delivering data. Everything to her left had vanished from sight. The right eye wasn’t doing great, leaving the world out of focus, but it would probably regenerate relatively quickly. There were less critical systems damaged as well.

Admittedly, ‘taser to the face’ was not one of the possible options she had foreseen. But it was still better than them trying to pry the hardware off her skull.

So…maiming was apparently not off the table. Noted.

They weren’t looking for cooperation. They were looking for complacency. Clearly, no one had explained to them that sometimes the carrot was better than the stick. Which suggested they might not actually be interested in any answers the prisoners might provide.

Noted.

This was no longer an arrest. It was not delicate diplomacy. This was kidnapping, and crew had no responsibility to cooperate with kidnappers.

When Halei was content that the implant had been disabled, she pulled the taser away. Misk then switched his grip so he could haul the prisoner back up.

Rin took a moment to get her bearings as they pulled her to her feet. She also let her right eye unfocus - which it was having difficulty anyway - to help play up the sudden disability.

"Move!" another guard barked, shoving her from behind.

"Then someone's going to have to guide me," Rin replied, stumbling. Her voice mostly calm but with a more than frustrated edge to it. She hated dealing with idiots. It made people more manipulatable, yes, but it also felt very much like she was being dragged down to their level only to be beaten by their experience.

"You just destroyed my occular interface. What did you think was going to happen?"

Frustratingly, the prisoner had a point. Misk grabbed Rin's arm, his irritation translating into an excessively tight grip, and he jerked her forward. He would have much preferred the other two, because one was more docile and the other was unconscious.

Misk brought Rin over to another guard, who was sitting at a desk with possibly the most bored expression possible on her face. She barely offered an acknowledging glance as she asked, "name and species."

"Commander Rin, assigned to Starfleet vessel USS Elysium. Species is xB," Rin professionally replied. She suspected this was going to descend into name, rank, serial number, but she was going to let this play out a bit. She wasn't a prisoner of war, after all. This was still technically a civilian matter.

There was a pause as the guard typed, though her expression was mildly offended by the audacity to actually do work. "Age."

"59 Federation standard years." Which was, of course, a worthless number to the Lonians. But the woman had a form to fill.

Another pause as the guard typed, giving no indication she even cared to acknowledge the response. "And you were read your arresting rights?"

"At no point was I read rights," Rin replied.

At that, the receptionist guard, Laeru, looked up, but she didn’t look at Rin. Instead, a condescending raise of the brow went to Misk. "Seriously? Why are you Collectors so good at wasting my time?"

'Collectors' was the nickname given to those who made the arrests, be it during night raids or like how they just apprehended these prisoners. Misk glared at Laeru before conceding, grudgingly. He turned his head slightly toward Rin. "You have protection against self-incrimination, a right to due process, and a right to the fundamental preservation of life. You will be given an opportunity to make your case against the charges on record."

Rin nodded to Misk, then returned her attention to Laeru. "Considering I have been blinded despite full cooperation, I have some question as to your definition of 'fundamental preservation of life.' But, if those just listed as the correct rights, I acknowledge they have been read, although I would like it noted they have only been read at this moment."

Laeru's shoulders shifted with an unhurried breath. "You're still alive, aren't you?" She typed something on her console before gesturing to her left, toward a station that had yet another guard waiting. This one had an open silver vest that stopped about mid-thigh. Her posture suggested she may be in a more passive role. "The medic will take a blood sample to identify allergens and ensure your nutritional needs are met, then you'll be taken to holding."

"I will not comply."

The response was all but instinctual. While her remaining nanites could not assimilate a person, she couldn't guarantee what someone might unlock poking at them, particularly when they weren't even aware of their origins. There were plenty of examples in the Milky Way of what happens when overly zealous scientists tried reverse engineering, reprogramming, or repurposing Borg tech. The discovery of Two disproved her assumption that she was the only source of Borg tech in Circinus, but they did not seem to be common knowledge. If someone got hold of Borg tech, it wasn't going to be from her.

"I have no allergies, and I am confident you can meet my nutritional requirements. I will not give up a part of myself."

Which was a pointless argument. They had already needlessly damaged her visual components. They certainly weren't concerned with allergies and nutritional needs.

But there was no way she was going to fight her way out. This scenario was no different than when they were first arrested: even if she got past the people in this room, she would need to get past all of the people in the next room, and the next room, and....

She needed to talk her way out. She needed to convince them this was a terrible idea. Terrible for them. It needed to be a threat, a promise of immediate repercussions, not a problem they could just hand off to someone else.

And then Rin...chuckled.

Her gaze was still unfocused, with her head pointed slightly downward. She wasn't a threat. She was clearly under their full control.

"You know what?" Rin said, smiling at some private joke. "I'm done. I'm done reasoning with you. I'm done protecting you."

She laughed again, holding out her cuffed hands. "Whatever happens next is on you. Go ahead. Take your sample. And if you manage to not kill everyone in this room - including me, there will be no winners here - and manage to get it back to your lab, take a look at it under a microscope, think really hard about it, and destroy the sample." She shrugged. "Or don't. I no longer care."

Misk expected to have to force the prisoner to comply again, but the presence of laughter stopped him before he could do anything. The way she suddenly gave in and showed compliance, or at least the appearance of compliance, sketched him out. It even caught Laeru's attention far more effectively than anything else that had been said thus far. "Are you saying... your blood is dangerous?" Misk asked with caution.

Rin considered her next move. She did not want to be so much of a threat they decided to just dispose of her, although their concern about her blood might give them pause. She had also stated she was done debating with them. Returning to the debate might undermine her whole charade.

"You haven't believed anything else I've said," Rin said with a shrug. "This could have been a very straightforward arrest. I did not resist. But here we are, so your move. Take your sample or don't. This is on you."

For several long seconds, everything seemed to stop as Misk, Laeru, and the medic had an unspoken conversation to decide how to proceed. It was bizarre enough that Halei returned. "What now," she asked Misk, annoyance in her tone. When the guard explained what the prisoner had said, she turned to Rin. Maybe xB stood for 'expect bitchiness,' which seemed better suited as a descriptor than the name of a species. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the woman closely, vaguely aware that the woman's unfocused gaze meant that visual posturing had less of an effect. She turned her attention back to Misk, "do it. If she's telling the truth... well, it makes any future decisions simple."

For not the first time, Rin wondered if her translator was malfunctioning.

Swallowing his uncertainty, Misk nodded before taking ahold of Rin's arm and bringing her to the medic. He didn't like the idea of possibly being killed by someone's blood, but orders were orders. He only hoped it would be quick.

The medic watched them approach as she readied a hypospray. She hesitated, giving Misk a look that silently asked if he was sure, before a stern look from Halei made her oblige. She pressed the device to Rin's shoulder.

Rin winced, as if fearful what was coming next. Of course, there was nothing more than a slight hiss of the hypospray. She let out a sigh of relief. "Lucky day. Little bastards haven't determined you're a threat yet. You should hurry."

The medic didn't need to be told twice. Holding the sample as if it could explode at any moment, she put it into a carrying case before turning to the transporter, then hesitated, as if considering how stable the sample was, and changed her mind to walk the sample out of the intake section for analysis.

Misk slowly released a breath when he saw that he was still... well, alive. Ready to be rid of this prisoner, he pulled Rin's arm again, following the same path the medic took. The next room was a series of small cells, each enough for one person to stand. He guided her to one and pushed her in. "Someone will come get you for questioning," he informed while erecting the forcefield.

Misk had just turned to leave when the medic hurried down the hall toward them. She handed a datapad to Misk as she whispered.

Misk wheeled about to face his prisoner, holding up the pad. "You will explain this."

"You're going to have to be a little more specific, on account of me being unable to see."

"What is in this blood sample?"

"Oh, those are tiny robots that want to take over your brain," Rin said almost casually. "But you weren't going to believe that. I didn't choose to carry them. It was put upon me. And I warned you. Repeatedly. All you had to do was leave them inside me, but you had forms to fill and procedures to follow. And now they're running around outside of me, and that's when they cause trouble. So I really hope you have appropriate quarantine procedures, and will you please destroy the damn sample if you haven't already? I have nothing to gain from that request. Choices have consequences. Make yours."

Misk was, frankly, creeped out by the tiny moving things the initial scan found in her blood. This went beyond procedural, if... whatever they were managed to get into a guard or another prisoner, Sama would be pissed. The last thing she wanted to hear was an outbreak of some unknown alien pathogen in her detention centre. "Fine," he huffed, returning the datapad to the medic. "We got what we needed. Destroy it."

Rin gained some relief from his words. But they posed another troublesome question. What were they needing, and why did they think they had acquired it?