Lavender & Ice

27. Meeting The Premier

"Do not fear, answer us truthfully." Lord Thala said in an attempt to calm Ashima's worries.  

As they kept staring at her, she eventually spoke. "They..." Thala nodded in reassurance and she continued quietly. "During the journey here." She exhaled slowly.

"And what led to these injuries?"

She studied their faces but they were unreadable. She drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I..." she shook her head slightly, taking in a deep breath.

"Here, have some tea." Thala poured some hot liquid from a thermos-like pitcher on the table into one of the empty mugs, holding it out toward Ashima.

Not wanting to offend the woman, she took it and smelled of the contents. before looking up to the woman with uncertainty. "Th-thank you." She whispered. Ashima's fear was almost crippling. Would they be as offended as Joreth was if she didn't drink it? Would they punish her like Zein? She stared at the liquid in her cup.

"So." Lord Japheth said, trying a new tactic in order to move things along. "You can speak our language?"

"Ye... yes." Ashima lifted a hand behind her ear. "Translation device."

"And you are a space traveler?" Thala asked.

Ashima nodded. "This... " she drew in a slow breath before releasing it slowly and hesitantly continuing. "This was my first mission."

"Oh?" Japheth asked.

She nodded.

"And what was this mission?"

"My planet..." Ashima glanced at each person, they each looked impassive. But at least they didn't look angry or full of hatred. So she continued. "My planet is fairly new at space travel to other planets. In fact, this mission was to be our first ever visit to the second known inhabited planet. We'd only ever been to the first. She frowned at the memory of how that ended.

"You didn't make it there." Thala stated.

Ashima looked at her before shaking her head. "No." She looked down at her hands in her lap. "Our ship malfunctioned, something went wrong. We had only just realized we were way off course when explosions started throughout the trip. Only those of us who happened to be near escape pods made it out in time." 

She looked up and gasped as a thought suddenly occurred to her. "Have you found any other humans on your planet? Anyone else like me?" She scooted to the edge of her seat and winced at the movement. "Did anyone else survive?" She looked at each of the three premier's faces but they remained emotionless.

"I'm sorry, but no. We haven't." Japheth said solemnly. "Not that we are aware of."

Ashima nodded and closed her eyes before wiping away a rogue tear and taking a shaky breath.

"What was your position on the ship?" Ashima looked at Sir Rolph, hearing his deep voice for the first time. She found it comforting for some reason, perhaps because it reminded her of the actor James Earl Jones from those old movies her grandfather liked to watch.

"I specialized in navigation." She pressed her lips into a line before drawing in a deep breath. "I am one of the team who failed my crew. Maybe if we had realized our navigational equipment was malfunctioning sooner..." her voice broke and she looked away as her lip quivered.

"Did you know of Domu before you landed here?" Japheth asked.

She nodded as she drew in a deep breath, attempting to compose herself before looking. "Not much. The Aerulians had told us of your planet, it was slightly closer to them than the one we were traveling to. They said you weren't interested in relations with outside species so they suggested we travel elsewhere. So that's what we planned to do. That's pretty much it."

"How did you come to be here, then?" Thala asked.

"When we realized our navigation equipment and some other sensors were all malfunctioning, there was no time to assess the errors and figure out where we'd traveled to before the explosions started. When we got the announcement to abandon the ship, I happened to be walking in a hallway by myself. I jumped in the nearest available escape pod."

She rubbed her hands along her temples, trying to keep her headache at bay. Thankfully it was much better after the tonic Teluq had given her. "The final blast from the ship pushed my pod quite a distance, I would imagine. The pod's equipment must have been working perfectly. They are programmed to find the nearest inhabited planet or space ship and travel there on autopilot, unless manually told otherwise. From where I was, that planet was Domu."

Ashima watched as the three Premiers each looked at each other as if having a private conversation.

"And once your pod arrived?" Rolph asked.

Ashima spent the next half hour describing her pod's arrival on the planet, the fall down the mountain, the lake, and her rescue.

When she was describing waking up in the medical tent, she closed her eyes as a sudden wave of dizziness hit her. She rubbed her thumb and forefinger across her eyebrows. "I apologize, I am feeling unwell."

"We return to our original topic." Thala spoke. "Tell us Ashima, about your injuries. And then we will take a break to allow you rest."

"I...umm..." Ashima looked at Thala for a moment before looking at the other two as well. Not that she'd describe them as the most friendly group, but they hadn't harmed her at all so far. "I was...questioned... thoroughly during the trip from the camp to here." She looked away and folded her arms around herself.

"Did you resist going with the officers or answering questions?" Japheth asked.

Ashima looked up at him. She didn't know if it was from the pain taking up too much of her brain's capacity to consider consequences, but her courage suddenly found its way back into her spine. She drew in a deep breath and as she spoke her voice grew more confident. "I had no chance to resist. I was dragged from the tent without so much as a word of introduction and literally thrown in a wagon. During the journey I was poked and prodded and ridiculed by these soldiers all during the day so that I could not rest, and at night..."

She exhaled a deep breath as her chin quivered. "I willingly answered the questions asked of me, just as I have today. Over and over and over. But it did not matter. He did not care if I was cooperative or not, it made no difference to him." She looked away before continuing a moment later. "I wasn't able to wake up when we got here because my body could not take anymore. On top of the beatings, I had barely slept for several days, and I was dehydrated from being given the absolute bare minimum of nourishment."

She wiped tears from her face as she drew in a shaky breath and looked at each of the three leaders in front of her as she spoke. "I didn't come to your planet on purpose. I have no ill will or devious plans towards your people. I simply wished to live." Her last words came out broken and she released a small sob. As the tears came more freely, she closed her eyes, drew in a breath and clamped her hands together when she realized they were shaking.

"Let's take a break." Japheth said, standing. Rolph walked to the door and murmured something to the guards outside.

Moments later Teluq and Dran entered the room, Dran reaching to assist Ashima to stand. They made their way back to the small room down the hall, where Ashima practically collapsed on the small bed and was asleep before the two lavender natives left the room.