"I am losing my mind, I am losing my mind... this is all a bad dream, I'm going to wake up with a gorgeous red-head in my arms and- OW! WILL YOU STOP THAT ALREADY!"
"You really are annoying me, Klivian. If you'd simply tell me what you are doing here on Terra, I might be so inclined to let you free," she walked around him, her riding crop tracing the muscles of his bare-back before *crack* down it came once more.
Michael Vartan cried out as the sharp pain bit into his left shoulderblade, the small whip on the end of the crop loosed, tearing into the skin rather than just beating against it. "I don't know who the hell you're talking about lady, I'm Michael Vartan. Say it with me, it's not that hard a na- GAH! QUIT IT!"
"I don't want to," she laughed, walking around the man once more.
The blonde actor was tied to a simple chain hanging from the ceiling of his cell. This was the third time the woman had come into the room demanding information - and each time the chain was pulled so that he had no choice but to stand on the balls of his feet, his heels unable to touch the ground.
And every time she asked the same questions. What are you doing here? Are there others besides you and Janson? Oh, and his personal favourite....
"What have you done with the missing pieces of the shield?"
"What the hell kinda shield you're talking about? Crowe used one in a movie once, that's ALL I know!"
"Don't play stupid with me."
"I'm not!" Vartan's blue eyes blazed with injustice. "What, are you some kind of demented fangirl?"
"There you go again, Klivian. I promise you your cover has been blown. Really, haven't you figured it out by now?"
Ah, here we go with that caress with the riding crop thing again. Vartan flinched as it slowly made its way across his back, tracing the muscles on his chest, then his abdomen... then lower.
"Oh great, you're one of those BDSM nuts, aren't you? Listen, I'm sure we can work something out here."
"Oh but you don't realise it do you? I have everything worked out just fine, Klivian - and..." she stepped closer, glaring at him. "Neither you, nor your wingmate, nor anyone in the New Republic can stop me."
"Right right... I'll play along... uhm.... safeword. Don't you people have a safeword?"
"You only have to answer my questions, Klivian."
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU'RE TALKING ABO- AAAGH!!!" This time it wasn't a simple hit from the riding crop. This was new. The woman had pulled out some sort of whip which she flicked at him.
It was pain, excrutiating pain. Searingly it wrapped around him, slicing through his skin, leaving a bleeding line from his sternum, beneath his right pectoral, and down around his back.
*crack!* and he cried out again in pain as another slice appeared across his back.
And on it went.... and on... "Please... stop," he begged after only a few minutes. He had no training in this sort of thing. He was an ACTOR, not a soldier, though he'd been dressed as one when he was taken.
"The missing pieces, Klivian."
"I don't know," he almost whimpered. "I promise I have no idea what you-" and another scream tore itself from his throat.
"I'm begining to lose my patience," She snarled, raising her riding crop and forcing his chin up to look at her.
"So am I...." his voice was beginning to get raw. "Why don't you just be a good lady and let me go, I won't even tell the cops on you," he tried to smile, but ended up coughing in stead.
"Pathetic. Just goes to show how pitiful your New Republic is..." she laughed sharply. "A few lashes with a whip-"
"Seven."
"And you're already bargaining." She shook her head and grinned. "This... will be fun."
A moment later... the screaming recommenced.
The sound of his friend screaming in the cell across from him turned his blood cold. Earlier, when it had been himself screaming, memories had crashed in on him as though a dam had broken.
"I'd just like to say, I've never been on a spaceship before, so today's been kind of weird for me. But I've got a toast. To George Lucas. May he never offer me a bloody job on Star Wars, because I've seen it's just too bloody dangerous!" he recalled his drunken speech of so long ago.
"And once more I'm caught up in it all. Bloody hell."