DISCLAIMERS: This has the potential to be very sad. Beware of the usual suspects as well; violence, sexual situations, poor grammar, foul language, and flawed characters.

COWARD

by Phair

Part 2

The electric cane struck her across the ass and the man grasping her shoulder shouted the count as twenty. The blow was entirely excessive. Rory stopped struggling on the tenth hit. She gave up with an audible sob. She was beaten. The shear number of guards trying to move her from her cell to the launch area were overwhelming enough but added to that were the combined handicaps of the hood blocking her vision and breathing and the heavy chains secured around her throat, belly, wrists, and ankles. There was no way for her alone to delay never mind stop her punishment.

The guards carried her now limp body down twists and turns of endless corridors. She half expected her head to be used as a battering ram again as they rounded each corner. Rory forced herself to take deep breaths in an effort to calm her rising panic. A death sentence would have been a relief. It would have released her from a troubled existence but the extended life sentence in exile was the worst kind of cruelty she could imagine. A solitary tear slipped from her eye at the shear horror of it.

"Sir, the prisoner is ready for transfer, sir." A voice near her head announced with clipped military precision.

"Proceed," Colonel McShane's nasal voiced command followed.

Rory was set on her feet but was quickly knocked to her knees. A strong pair of arms grabbed her from behind and held firm.

"Easy now, girl," a familiar voice mumbled near her ear.

The hood was removed without a warning. Rory blinked quickly against the glare of the landing site lights. After two months in the dark of solitary, even a candle's flame would have stung. The brilliant bulbs blinded her behind a veil of tears.

"How 'bout a pair of sun glasses," she quipped as she whipped her head side to side in a futile effort to escape the stinging pain.

"Lieutenant," McShane all but purred, "what are your orders?"

"The prisoner has been sentenced to exile for life plus three days to the penal colony of T298: New Earth. The court has deemed her a coward and she must bare the mark of her crime."

McShane chuckled as he gave the order, "Then see to it, man."

Rory blinked rapidly trying to clear her vision. She could make out the shape of the Lieutenant standing near the portable commander's center punching code. When he turned toward her with the glowing laser branding iron in his hand, Rory began to struggle again.

"Major, easy now," the soft, familiar voice whispered in her ear. "I can't help you out of this, girl. But, I'll hold onto you while they commit this sin against you. There's no shame in it. No shame in crying, when you're in a comrades arms."

It was Fred holding her. She was sure of it. Rory turned to look over her shoulder but her face was forced away. Her neck was exposed for the laser. She barely had time to swallow before it touched her. It burned like flames across her skin. The agony was unimaginable. She screamed and screamed. The pain was so great it robbed her of consciousness.

"You sleep now, girl. You rest up. And, you live for those three hundred years. Make yourself a life on whatever God forsaken rock they leave you on," Fred mumbled as he buried his face into Rory's shoulder while her bound body thrashed wildly about in pain.

McShane shook his head and asked, "Lieutenant, do you think her body is just reacting to the trauma or do you think it really hurts?"

"Trust me, sir, it hurts. The brand only takes thirty half seconds to apply but the burning sensation lasts for days," the Lieutenant explained. "A repatriated prisoner once told me it was like having his hand held over an open flame until the skin blackened. And, he knew for sure. Both things had been done to him."

"Good," McShane smiled.

* * *

She watched from the bottom step as her little man smiled. He recognized her. He knew she was home. He raised his fists in the air; way up over his head. For one small moment in time, he was the center of the universe. He was the center of her universe. And then, BANG!

Rory woke with a shudder in the steel walled room. She sat up and quickly blinked the sleep from her eyes trying to assess her current situation. The cell contained no window or time piece. The walls' seamless lines did not even betray the door opening. The haunting silence seemed to only be enhanced by a faint hum which Rory assumed was the distant rumble of large engines. No other sound penetrated her cell.

"Space craft," she muttered as she stretched her bones. "They got me loaded on the damn thing before I even woke up."

She wasn't surprised to find herself naked. Apparently, her jailers did not want her to kill herself during the transport.

"I wonder how they'll feel when I kill myself on the gang way getting off this tub," her smirked quickly died on her lips as her solitary voice echoed in the empty chamber. "Oh boy."

A nagging itch began to pester her while she tried to plot her own demise. She fingered the burn on her neck absently.

"The gang way's the best chance I'll have to end this before it begins," she spoke aloud and shivered slightly at the echo. "If I can keep my head together until then."

Her neck was itchy. It was painfully itchy. Rory tried to shake off the growing discomfort. However, even fully awake, she found it hard to keep her hand away from the wound.

"Damn it!" She cursed herself as she enjoyed the scratching of her nails across the healing flesh. "Last thing I need is to break the skin and get an infection."

It was then she recognized the feel of tortured skin. It was the cause of the itch. Rory let her fingers trace the wound. "COWARD." She was convicted and branded. Marked by the government she spent her life protecting.

The same government that murdered her husband and son. The government that allowed weaklings like McShane to plot the deaths of his own soldiers to increase public support on an unending war. The government that sentenced her to more than life on a distant planet.

"Bastards."

It was no more than a whisper. Her voice echoed across the room. The emptiness chilled and stilled her. Alone. All alone.

* * *

Rory guessed she had nodded off after making three hundred complete circles of the parameter of the cell. She remembered sinking to her knees and curling in a ball. Then there was nothing.

"Must have fallen asleep," she decided aloud.

After the echo, she nodded agreement.

It was then a glint caught her eye. A bowl sat against the opposite wall. Rory was certain it had not been there during her walk. She quickly scooted over to examine it.

"Field rations? Is that the best we can do?" Rory actually laughed at the familiar paste in the bowl. "Six months of this and I'll be stir crazy."

The words were out and echoed before she could stop them. She knew the trip was a six month journey. Still, knowing it and saying it were two different matters. She was worried about the risks to her mental health from six months without human contact. Rory knew she needed all her skills to endure. Her previous two months in solitary had taught her some important lessons on preserving her sanity.

"Okay, I need to track time," she announce to her food. "So, a small portion of this…, breakfast," she wasn't really certain which meal the bowl represented but decided to start at the beginning, "will be sacrificed to calendar making."

Rory took the bowl and walked five paces toward the opposite wall. She removed a small handful of the food and rolled it into a ball. Kneeing down, she put the ball of food on the floor.

"Breakfast, day one!" Rory happily proclaimed and the echo shared her enthusiasm.

* * *

"Happy anniversary to me, happy anniversary to me, happy anniversary dear me," Rory swayed in time as she held the last long note, "happy hundred days anniversary to me!"

She shouted hurray as she planted the hundredth ball of breakfast food on the floor.

"Excuse us," a deep voice interrupted her celebration.

Rory dropped her bowl of food and rushed to the corner of the cell she usually slept in. She folded herself into a fetal position. Her heart was pounding wildly in her chest. While the voice was not human, the language was clearly her own. For some reason, after months of silence, familiar words spoken by another voice terrified her beyond her present ability to reason.

"Please don't be alarmed. We did say, excuse us. We would like to converse."

"Who?" Rory managed to croak.

"We are Varicants. We are your keepers. We are taking you to…,"

"Hell!" Rory sobbed and buried her face behind her knees.

"No," the voice sounded confused. "We are transporting you to a penal colony on T298: New Earth…,"

"Right, Hell," Rory shouted back.

"No, the penal colony is called…,"

"Look, I'm in my own Hell here and I don't expect New Earth to be better than this so…,"

"Conditions on T298 are nothing like this. The weather is extremely severe. Daily temperatures climb into the low 100's while the night's fall well below zero. It is barely fit for human life. The work prisoners are required to complete is labor intensive and mentally unfulfilling."

"Like I said, Hell," Rory started to rock back and forth.

"We are growing concerned by your behavior. The food ritual you perform at meals and your current arguments about your present and future locations are alarming."

"So?" Rory asked.

"We wish to know if you are well."

Rory started to laugh. She laughed until there were tears streaming down her face. And then she wept bitterly.

"This too is an unexpected and most disconcerting response."

"Thought you guys were suppose to be super smart or something. Don't you know, people need to be with other people. Isolation leads to madness," Rory snorted a laugh as her thoughts began to run free, "and madness leads to isolation. So boys, it's six or one half dozen or, maybe, the other! We got both the cart and the horse but why did that chicken cross the road into the frying pan? And, don't get me started on that lazy assed cow and the spoon. But, the moon is still alright by me."

Rory wiped her tears and got to her feet. She was feeling a surge of energy.

"I think I'll miss the moon the most. The penal colony's below the surface, right? So no more moon and stars for me. Hey, wait just a dawg gone minute! How do I know you guys are for real? Maybe I'm deluding you…, no, that's not how I say it. Maybe I'm hallucinating, that's it, that's how I say it, good one Rory!" She praised herself as she started to pace.

"You are becoming most troubling to us."

"Really? Well, I think you jerks have troubled me from the get go. Think of it as reciprocity. Prick Pro Queer! You're a jerk, I'm a jerk, we're all jerks but the question that really matters most is," Rory smiled broadly, "whose the biggest jerk off of all of them?"

"You make no sense."

Rory yawned. She was feeling unusually tired. If her mind had been clearer then she would have realized the air in her cell had changed. Instead, she sat down hard on her butt.

"Ouch! I gotta take a nap boys. Can't keep my eyes open," Rory fell over in a dead sleep with the last word.

TBC

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