Getting hoisted up onto the ship and dumped onto the deck was nauseating, but being dropped at the feet of a human who oozed power and command was even more distressing. Normally, if presented with a threat or challenger, Qellsala would not balk at a fight, but she had regained minimal muscle control and was plucked from her element and surrounded by foes. Those factors had her gut twisting into knots.

The human towering over her nudged her with the toe of their boot and she growled. It took every ounce of effort to force her head up to observe the person. They appeared female, with short brown hair slashed around the jawline and narrowed blue eyes. Qellsala did not know how humans identified their leaders, but this one seemed very much like a leader to her. The shiny rocks on her navy hued jacket reminded Qellsala of how some animals collected gems and shiny object to prove power or worth and she wondered if humans were like that.

“So this is our newest recruit,” the suspected leader commented.

Qellsala hissed in response. If that was what they wanted, they would be sorely disappointed. She would not fight in their war.

“Yes Ma’am,” one of the other humans agreed. “It’s a bit malnourished, but it put up a hell of a fight, so it should train up nicely.”

“I agree.” The female in front of her squatted down. She had a long, black plastic stick that she used to forcibly lift Qellsala’s chin. Qell jerked her chin away and snarled, then bowed her head and groaned. The effects of the darts were still strong in her system. Finesse movement was not available to her yet. “It has spunk, and I’m glad to see further evidence that the wild population isn’t thriving. Get it taken care of while the sedatives are still in effect. I’ll take a closer evaluation then.”

As two humans stepped towards her, Qellsala snarled again, but they did not slow. She set her jaw and grimaced, then took a breath and parted her lips to allow a higher lilt to flood her tone. She detested using her song against another sentient being. It was frowned upon, meant only for hunting, and it was only effective on a few individuals at a time and only so long as she maintained focus, which was why she could not use it to escape the barricade earlier. But here, she only needed to stall them long enough to push herself backwards off the edge of the boat.

But before more than a note spilled from her lips, the woman in front of her lunged. Qell knew it was the sedatives dulling her reflexes, but she was genuinely surprised by the human’s speed and strength as she grabbed Qellsala by the throat with both hands and hauled her up into the air. She slammed her down against the rails surrounding the ship so that her head was bowed backwards over it. Qell wheezed and her song died as her throat was constricted.

“That’s quite enough of that. You creatures are all omniphones, so I know you can understand me. Look down,” she commanded.

If Qell had been able to move any of her appendages, she would have torn free and ripped the human apart, but she could not move and she could not breathe, so she obeyed and cast her gaze down. Below was a second deck to the ship. If she had succeeded, she would have broken her body in the drop.

“Hell of a fall,” the human woman sneered. “Now I want you to listen very carefully. Siren song is completely forbidden upon this ship. If you attempt that ever again without explicit command, I’ll cut your tongue out, slit your vocal cords, and fill in that resonating chamber you possess for good measure. You won’t utter so much as a whimper ever again. Not that your song will do you much good regardless, all of my soldiers are armed with special hearing aids that alter the sound of it, rendering that ability completely useless. So no more singing, am I clear?”

The woman was squeezing harder now and Qell’s vision was clouding over, so she struggled and managed a nod. The woman released her and Qell could not catch herself so she collapsed with a heavy thud and clenched her jaw so they would not hear her cry out as her fin bent wrong.

“I’m glad we’ve reached an understanding. Get this creature out of my sight. I don’t want to see it again until it’s been properly processed.”

 

The trip down to be ‘processed’ involved being lifted by two humans while a third yanked on her hair to keep her head angled back away from the hands of their peers, and taken to a den with a shiny perch that she was stretched out on her belly atop of and held down while restraints were cuffed around her wrists and tail. She was starting to get some sensation back in her limbs and with the returning energy, she began to fight more. The restraints held firm, but she made sure that every human in the den knew how high the risks of injury were if they got in range of her teeth.

After a close call for one of them, the three backed off and left her lying there. In an effort not to consider how her children would be expecting her back at the den by now, she mulled over the word their leader had used. Omniphone. She understood the implication, but the word felt wrong. Mierne were capable of comprehending all the languages of creatures sentient enough to have one. It was because all languages had a root origin. But she could not speak all languages, only comprehend them. But the humans had known that, had learned too much about her people. How to capture them, how to evade their song, what they were capable of. It was worrying for the future of their offspring as humans grew more and more competent at dwindling their numbers and the prosperity of their territories.

Qellsala’s head jerked up sharply as a new human entered the space. This one was another female. She stood tall, with long blonde hair pulled up off her face and hazel eyes. Her hands were covered by clear gloves and she strode forward with a level of confidence that made Qell’s skin crawl and her back fin flare with unease.

“Is this the newest acquisistion?”

“Yes, Dr. Glendor.”

“And her temperment?”

“Aggressive, doctor.”

“It usually is. Well, I’ll give it forty-eight hours after we finish and she’ll mellow.”

“I dunno, Dr. Glendor, this one’s been particularly fiesty, I would say at least a week.”

“We’ll see. I only need one of you to assist, so…Mr. Jents, you stay, the rest of you are dismissed.”

Qell growled at them as they conversed around her and a few of the humans began to disperse from the den. The mierne told time differently than humans did, but she could grasp the basic concept of what they were talking about. She despised that they knew she could understand them and were so casually talking about taming her spirit in a very short period of time. She could not comprehend how this arrogant, careless species had managed to capture and contain so many of her kinfolk when a single miernes could be a devestating foe in a fair fight.

But this was not a fair fight, and all Qellsala could do was show her displeasure and strain against the metal cuffs holding her down. It was a pointless exercise. She was strong, but even at full strength she could not muscle her way through solid metal. Her claws might have been able to cut through given plenty of time and the movement to gain momentum, but they were useless in this situation where she had neither. Out of frustration, she curled her nails against the metal of the surface they had her on, and it produced a horrid screeching sound as her talons carved up tiny metal shreddings.

Both humans still left in the room winced along with Qell. She did not appreciate the sound, but she did appreciate that it bothered them too. It was almost enough to contemplate enduring the abuse on her sensitive ears once more.

“Alright, let’s get this fussy fish tended to before she becomes too much of a handful. Jents, I just need you to control the head. Can you manage?”

“Of course.”

Jents stepped forward and tangled his fingers in Qell’s hair. She grimaced as he yanked on the tendrils and put his strength into bowing her head by pulling hard on her scalp so that she was pinned against the table. She hissed furiously, but the man just pulled harder. Unless she wanted to scalp herself, she could not pull back.

She felt a hand on her spine. “It will hurt less if you don’t fuss. Don’t worry, we’ll make it quick.”

Qellsala grimaced and turned her head to the side so that her chin was not grinding into the hard metal surface anymore. But it also allowed the man holding her to pull until her cheek was flat and she could not lift her head at all. She watched as the female stretched out a long yellow tendril with black markings on it. She did not know their written language, so the symbols meant nothing to her, but the human dragged the tendril down the length of Qellsala’s body.

“One point seven five metres not counting the fin,” the doctor reported. “Just over two with it.”

“Is that on the larger scale for the females?” Jents inquired.

“It’s slightly above average, yes, but not by much. The males tend to be about one point nine to two metres in length from head to tail tip. The fin adds extra length, but given the variance in fin sizes, we tend to log both measurements separately. She’s an appropriate size for a female. A bit underweight though.”

Qell winced as the woman jabbed at her ribs. She flared her spinal fin and growled again. Now that she was more in control of her body, she felt the surge of energy as light bled through her scales, igniting them from deep red to the vivid oranges, reds, and yellows of fire. Bright red shot through the veins of her fins and her growl deepened to low in her chest.

“Oh! Well that certainly redefines the term firing, now doesn’t it? Yes, you’re very scary, but it will do you no good here, I’m afraid,” the woman remarked.

Qell hissed. Firing. Was that was humans called it? Her people always called it a plasma light. Something inside of them that lit up when they were angry or scared, made them stand out and appear more intimidating, while flooding their bodies with heightened senses and increased strength for a short time. It was to aid them in a fight or allow them to escape danger. The woman was right that it would not help her now, but it was instinctive. She could no more prevent her plasma from lighting up than she could stop her heart from beating.

But it should have been no surprise that these people were not warded off by the display. Instead, Dr. Glendor – Qell was pretty sure that is what the other humans had called her – stepped back up beside her with a small gun in her hand. It looked nothing like the dart guns they had used to paralyze her, but she knew that it was intended to do something similar, so she hissed and bucked as best she could as the woman pressed it to the back of her neck, near her shoulders.

“Easy,” Dr. Glendor muttered. “I suggest that you keep still. You wouldn’t want me to miss and wind up paralyzing you permanently, now would you.”

Qellsala froze. She was not certain that the human could actually do that, but she was not keen on finding out. Permanent paralysis would make it impossible for her to get back to Zazhiri and Colkal, and that was still her top priority. Regardless of whether it was a bluff or not, Qell’s hesitation was all the woman needed to line up and pull the trigger. A sharp click echoed from the gun and then a brief but sharp pain jabbed at Qellsala’s neck. She snarled again and her tail lashed on instinct at the attack to a vulnerable area. Her scales were normally protection enough, but the prick had come from between two scales, where it was possible to access the vulnerable flesh beneath.

“Chip in place,” Dr. Glendor announced. “Heart and pulse are elevated, but the readings are coming in fine. Waves are normal. Emotional reading is strong. This one hit a good place in the nerves. Fear, anger. Confusion. I’m not seeing anything abnormal for the situation…oh…well that’s interesting.”

“Something amiss, Dr. Glendor?”

“There’s nothing wrong, necessarily. Her fire levels…the output is only about forty percent at the moment.”

“Isn’t it a little bright to be at less than half?”

“Yes,” Dr. Glendor agreed. “It’s not the first I’ve seen, it just means that she has a stronger fire than some of the other sirens. Not the strongest that I’ve seen, though it is a pleasant surprise. I wonder what she looks like at a higher output. For now it’s probably best not to stress her out further, there’s no sense in draining her battery. Let me just check what the last serial number we assigned was…one four nine one…alright, one four nine two it is.”

With her head still pinned to one side, Qellsala could not see what the human woman was doing, but she could hear her rummaging through things. When she came back into view, she had yet another gun in hand. This one had a long pointy end and Qell hissed at her again. She was growing weary of humans jabbing at her.

For once, the human woman looked unnerved and she could smell the hesitation on her. “You have her, right? Because I really don’t feel like losing a hand today.”

“I’ve got her,” Jents agreed. He pulled harder on Qellsala’s hair until a whine slipped past her gritted teeth. Her scalp was burning from being held down this way.

The doctor leaned over her and placed a hand on Qellsala’s face, under her chin to crane her head up, and then placed the pointed end of the gun to her neck, just below her ear, where her scales melted away into skin. The gun began to buzz and Qell winced as her neck began to burn everywhere the woman dragged the tip. “Easy,” she murmured again. “Stay still. One. Four. Nine. Hey, easy.”

Qell was straining as best she could now, despite how it yanked at her hair. Whatever they were doing hurt and she wanted away from the terrible burning sensation.

Unfortunately, the humans clearly had no intention of allowing her to squirm away, because the man holding her hair tightened his grip and used his free hand to apply pressure to the base of her neck where it met her shoulders, pinning her down so that she could not move her head at all.

“Thank you, Jents. Two. Almost done, you’re doing fine. Be good just a little longer and…done.”

Qellsala’s chest was heaving by the time the woman finally pulled the instrument away. Her neck throbbed and she had fallen limp from sheer lack of energy. Fighting the way she was, after the frantic evasive swim and being darted and manhandled, and all the stress had piled onto one another and left her exhausted.

“Finally wearing out then, good.” The woman pressed a hand down on Qellsala’s back and Qell flinched at the contact. “You’re a proud species, but your pride will do you no good here. You’re just exhausting yourself for nothing and you’re going to need that strength later.”

Qell huffed and vented air sharply through her gills before sealing them again to create a loud snorting sound.

It merely made both humans chuckle. “Yeah, yeah, piss off, I hear you,” the female acknowledged. She walked around and bent over so that Qell could look her in the eyes. Qell narrowed hers and curled her lip at the woman. She hated the false smile plastered to the human’s face. Now, after all the forceful handling and the pain, now this woman wanted to be friends? She did not care for falsifiers like this one. “Unfortunately, I can’t do that. I’ve got a job to do and orders to follow, and like it or not, you don’t have a choice but to endure it.”

Qellsala growled at her again. The implication was not entirely wrong, but that did not mean that she had to just lie back and allow them to abuse her.

The woman clucked her tongue. “Do you believe differently? I hate to break it to you, but you’re not going anywhere until we let you down. And in the meantime, if I decide to amputate your fin, what exactly are you going to do to stop it?”

She struggled not to show it, but icy fear gripped Qell as the threat. She could barely move her tail from the way they had it pinned down. There was little she could do other than make their task less efficient, more messy.

“Don’t worry, your fin is staying where it is, but I think I’ve made my point, yes? All you can do is struggle, make my job a little harder, but you can’t stop it. So how about a deal? I know your people honour their word, it’s part of that pride of yours. I’m not your enemy. You’ve already identified who is in charge around here, who the target of your aggression is. And you’ll get your chance at a go at her. She’s given every one of you that boards this ship that opportunity. You’re going to want your strength for that. Now this can go one of two ways; we can continue to hold you down and you can struggle all you like and make our jobs a little more difficult, but we will still complete it. Or, you can agree to play nice for the next little while and just let us finish up. I won’t make this any harder on you and you can save your strength for the battle to come.”

Qell eyed her suspiciously. She was not ready to quit fighting, but she was tired. And she did not know what was in store for her for the rest of this session, but she was not in an ideal position to stop it. She also suspected that their leader would not give a single miernes an opportunity to attack without a strong means of guaranteeing her own safety and Qell did not know what that was. But she was desperate to return to her children and she would fight to the death to get back to them. Whatever tricks they had planned, she would overcome them because she had no other choice.

“Well, what’s it going to be? Are you going to play nice?” the woman prompted.

Qell hesitated. This felt like a trap and she did not care for it.

“I promise that no bodily harm will befall you before you leave this room. After, I can’t necessarily promise, but our deal only applies for in here anyway, so you don’t have to uphold your end past that either.”

Qell sighed once more and then awkwardly nodded her head as best she could. So long as the woman kept her promise, she felt no need to further exacerbate her situation. She would rather bide her time. When the man released his hold on her hair, Qellsala had to resist the urge to lunge at his retreating hand. She had made an agreement and as dishonorable as she found humans to be, she would not stoop to the same.

“Good girl,” Dr. Glendor praised.

Qell growled at her in response. She would not attack them, but that did not mean she would tolerate mockery either. She watched the woman press her lips together, but she did not say anything more. Instead, she placed a hand on Qell’s head and applied just enough pressure to force her to look down at the table. Then she proceeded to rub some sort of slimy liquid through Qell’s hair. At first, it was an unpleasant sensation that made Qellsala squirm, but as the woman worked it into her scalp, Qell began to relax. It actually felt rather good, and in her overexerted state, Qellsala closed her eyes and began to purr softly.

“Feels good, huh?” the woman asked. Her voice shattered the pleasantry of the situation and Qellsala vented sharply through her gills again. Her purring ceased. “It wasn’t going to last anyway,” the woman commented.

She had begun gathering Qell’s hair up into one large bunch and Qellsala heard the slicing sound before she felt the tug on her hair slack off. A heartbeat later, the severed locks of her hair fluttered down around her face. They were all so short that they barely fell to her eyes and over her ears.

She was so stunned that she faltered instead of reacting, and then she had the woman’s hand against her head again. “Stay very still,” the woman ordered. “I don’t want to nick your ears.” A noisy buzzing sound filled the space as a chilly metal piece was pressed to Qell’s skull and dragged up. Everywhere it touched, more pieces of hair fell away to flutter to the ground below.

True to her warning, the woman moved very carefully around Qellsala’s ears, even cupping them or pushing them out away from the buzzing blade. Qellsala was not sure how to feel through the experience. It was just hair, it would regrow, but she also loathed how content they were with defacing her. Her hands shook with distaste, but she could not bring herself to break the agreement she had bartered. Even if the woman was barely holding up her end.

Nearly all of her hair had been peeled away when a shot of pain raced up the back of Qellsala’s head and she hissed with surprise and discomfort.

“Oh, did I nick a scale? I did, that was an accident. Let me see…it didn’t break, you’re alright,” the human decided.

Qell grumbled at her and lashed her tailfins.

“Stay still,” the human reminded.

A moment later, she pulled away and the buzzing ceased. Qell slowly released the breath she had been holding. It felt strange to feel the air crawling languidly over the scales that ran up the nape of her neck and over her head, and even where they faded into skin at the crown of her brow felt alien. She did not care for it.

“You’re almost done, I promise,” the woman vowed. “Jents, if you would?”

“Got it,” the man replied.

Qell turned her head to see what he had. His voice had sounded strained and when she saw what he was holding, she thought she understood why. It was metal, with little blinking lights and shiny bits, but it looked almost skeletal. Like a spine, and ribs, if ribs were joined like long, bony fingers. Up near the top, it branched out into curved bits and Qellsala shivered. She did not know what it was, but it looked eerie.

She grimaced as the man carried it over and laid the chilly contraption over her back. When he adjusted it, it ran perfectly over the length of her spine and curled around her sides. It hugged around her ribs and waist, and over her shoulders. None of the ribbings touched on her underside, just squeezed in at her form. Then he pulled the final piece into place and it settled up her neck and over her head. Qell shivered at how close two of the pieces came to her eyes as it was pressed over her skull. It rounded her ears, but she could feel a little nub of sorts pressing in against the back of her ear canal on both sides. Whatever it was, she hated it.

Once the man backed off, the entire contraption beeped, then hissed and tightened further around her skin. It did not appear to be restricting her movement much, but it was also not going to be possible to pry off without peeling away her scales and flesh with how tightly it was gripping her.

“In place, Dr. Glendor,” the man reported.

“Alright, let’s take a look. Locked on, fully synced…that should do it,” she agreed. Then she stepped back forward and laid a hand on Qell’s shoulder. “Well…it’s over now.” There was genuine regret in the human’s tone that made Qell glance up at her. The woman shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

Those two words made Qellsala’s insides churn. The woman had not been sorry when she was stabbing into the back of Qell’s neck, or when she was burning into the side of it, or when the man had held her hair so tightly that her scalp still ached. She had not been sorry about balding her either. Compared to all of those, the contraption was uncomfortable, but it was not harming Qell. If that was what made the woman feel remorse…Qellsala gulped and tried to hide how her heart had begun to race. What had she just allowed them to put on her?