Starfish

35.2

"This is bullshit."

"I'm very sorry, Doctor Ma'atanoa," Birch gave her what he must have thought was a sympathetic look, but to Nina he looked like the back end of a red worm, "but I'm under orders to gather all personnel and transport them at least to the nearest Federation post. Please understand it's for your own safety as well as the safety of the natives."

"Yeah, well, I know what you can do with your orders." Spitting venom, Nina glared at the man through the thick glass of the holding cell she now shared with Doctor Fred Yang and Doctor Martin O'Connell. They stood against the back wall, Yang's arms crossed as he stared at the floor and O'Connell's hands wringing impotently at the hem of his soaked shirt. They'd all been rounded up and marched to the nearest civil office – an ancient stone block building that served as the Dreen analogue of a police station, complete with drunk tank – in the pouring rain and if it weren't for her seething Nina would be shivering. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave Birch her nastiest glare. "This isn't going to go over well at the university, you know. Our contracts are through their administration and they're not going to be happy that you showed up and kidnapped their visiting scientists."

Birch turned his stupid-looking flat military cap in his hands, mouth twisted into a tight frown. "Again, I had no say in the matter ma'am, I'm just following orders." Shaking out his hat and sprinkling a few drops of rain onto the cell glass, Birch slapped it on top of his buzz-cut and nodded to the humans. "I'll be back in the morning to escort you all to a shuttle – we've had some issues with the weather, I'm afraid. Gentlemen," he nodded to O'Connell and Yang, then turned on his heel with a military-perfect twirl and walked away, leaving Nina and the others to stew. 

Nina stared at the back of his head and willed it to burst open like an overripe lurefruit left in the sun, and snorting in disgust when it didn't. Birch disappeared around a corner and Nina slapped the glass angrily. "Fuck!"

"Doctor Ma'atanoa," Yang begged, "please don't make a scene, we're already in enough trouble."

Spinning, Nina found more venom to spit. "Oh come on Fred, you know what they're doing is wrong! Didn't you read the contract? Once we set foot on Dreenai they no longer had jurisdiction over us! Or did yours say something different from mine?"

"But this is an exceptional circumstance – they couldn't have planned for anything like this. They're just doing their best to keep us safe, let's just wait this out and see what happens." He spoke to her as gently as he would a child, but his tone only pissed her off more. Nina shot him a glare that might have melted the wall behind him, and possibly the wall behind that one as well. She wished it would, then she'd be able to walk out and go back to the apartment where she'd left a perfectly good mug of tea and one of those amazing rolls Ardus had made, stuffed with herbs and fruit. Nina turned her wrath on Martin O'Connell. 

"Why did you tell Birch where I was?"

"I didn't tell anything," Martin countered, having the gall to look offended. "Birch asked why you weren't in your apartment – where you're supposed to be, mind you – and I told him you'd been working with that big one on some project."

"Where I'm supposed to be is none of your business. And that 'big one' is my boss."

Martin lifted an eyebrow. "That so, eh? Could've fooled me."

Something hot welled up in Nina's chest, "I beg your pardon?"

"Don't play stupid with me, I've seen how you act around him – you think you are one of them, don't you? Wearing their clothes, eating their food, you think because you can talk like them and make friends that makes you what, some kind of honorary Dreen?"