A Testimonial

[Junghalli]

The first thing I feel is something poking me in the stomach. It takes me a moment to realize it’s the tip of a heavy boot. I try to crawl in on myself, shivering as I feel the floor of my cell against my face. The concrete is filthy with grime and blood and various other dried fluids the origins of wish I do not wish to contemplate, but as long I’m asleep I can’t notice. I want to return to that pleasant oblivion where I’m not a prisoner lying on the floor of a bare cell, curled into a ball in a futile attempt to hold off the cutting chill that the air has in this part of the world, even in spring.

Perhaps the guard interprets my desire to block out the world as defiance, or more likely he is simply looking for an excuse to hit me. His boot meets my stomach with full force and the pain surges up my throat to escape as a barely audible gasp. I feel strong, meaty hands grab me and the icy air is suddenly thick with the headache-inducing close-up scents of sweat and human flesh. The guards pull me to my feet and I realize there is no point in resisting them. My bruised body screams in protest at the rough handling, but I refuse to disgrace myself with a cry or a groan. I remain silent as they march me out the door of my cell and down hallways and corridors. I wonder where I am being taken now. I had thought they had long since given up on beating any information out of me, and I can’t think of anything I could have done recently to merit punishment (although I suspect their hatred is so great that may not strictly be necessary).

I find that I am outside, in the open. The cold is much worse here, but it doesn’t stop the surge of joy I feel. It is the first time in weeks that I have tasted fresh air and had unbounded sky over my head and unbounded land around me. It fills me with a powerful, bracing sense of freedom, even though I am as much a prisoner as ever. I try to drink in all the details of the prison camp; the strutting guards, the grey barracks, the dull metal fence and the trees and white cloudy sky beyond. I know that now every moment that I can spend unconfined by walls, every glimpse of sky and ray of sunlight, is rare and precious. As the guards march me toward a building I try to cram in every nuance of every sight; all the dips and rises in the distant horizon and the scintillating patterns of exhaust from the tailpipe of an idling autosteamer. But there is far too much to see and far too little time to see it in. Within a few moments I am again surrounded by walls. The guards bring me to a small room with a table and two chairs. The room seems very light and airy to me, even though there is only a small barred window and the walls are made from blocks of heavy concrete, painted white. Perhaps it is simply a trick of the lighting. Or perhaps my mind isn’t working very well.

On the table is a bulky device that I recognize as a tape recorder. One of the chairs is empty, and on the other sits what I presume is to be my interrogator. She is obviously not an officer in the camp, and I wonder why my captors consider me worthy of such attention. It cannot be a good sign.

She does not strike me as an intimidating figure by any stretch of the imagination. Standing up she would come about up to my chest, and her body looks slim and breakable. She wears civilian clothes; a white shirt, baggy grey pants, and a matching jacket. Her hair is blonde, fading to white, and runs limply down her back. Her features are small and delicate and her eyes big and grey, but she has ample cheeks. She looks to me like she is perhaps in her fifties.

The guards push me into the chair and one of them cuffs one of my hands to the leg. The handcuff bites my wrist and I cannot keep myself from cringing. Taking note of my expression the guard pushes the jaws of the handcuff together, as if he thinks they should hurt more. They remain standing next to the door, cradling their rifles. I feel a certain pride that even in my weakened condition they consider me enough of a threat to merit two guards with automatic weapons.

I wait for my interrogator to say something, but clearly she has decided to leave the opening to me. The silence stretches for several moments. She does not fidget or show any other signs of impatience. Indeed, she seems quite willing to remain seated for days if need be.

“You-you are from the Krypteria?” My voice has a gravelly wheezing sound to it. The vocal cords are like a half-frozen engine, the parts moving with reluctance.

Her mouth curves up in a smile so controlled I cannot tell whether or not it holds any genuine emotion. “No. I’m not an intelligence agent, if that’s what you mean.”

“You aren’t Russian” I observe. Her English is flawless.

“No” she confirms. “I’m originally from the Wisconsin. That’s one of the United States.”

I feel at once intrigued and a little afraid. “You came all the way out? Why are you interrogating me? What could I possibly tell you that a thousand other JM’s couldn’t?”

“Because I wanted to show you this” she reaches into the pocket of her jacket and brings out a photograph, hands it to me. It shows a woman wearing old, raggedy clothing. She could be one of the thousands of refugees who fled before the Draka advance. But I then I see your face. I look at my interrogator, too shocked to say anything.

“I thought you would be an interesting… addition to my files” the woman explains.

“How could you possibly have known…?”

“May I introduce myself?” she extends a hand to me. I do not take it. After a few moments she continues. “I’m Karen Summers, and I’m a doctor of anthropology at NYU.”

“Anthropology?” I’m more confused than ever now. “What does that have to do with…?”

“Interviewing prisoners of war” she finishes for me. “I do work for the US government. They feel it would be prudent to create a… description of the-national character-if you will, of the Draka. So we can decide whether or not we’re faced with the same situation Rome was.”

“I’m totally confused. What do you mean, with the same situation Rome was?”

Again that little Mona Lisa smile. “You’ve heard of the Punic Wars?”

“I-think-it sounds familiar but I can’t remember exactly what it was about.”

“Well, you must have heard of Carthage.”

“Yes, Carthage was a city in North Africa that was conquered by Rome, right?”

“Right. But the Romans didn’t conquer Carthage: they destroyed it. Burned down the city and slaughtered its population. At some point the two cities had decided that the world just wasn’t big enough for the both of them. Sooner of later one of them was going to have to be taken off the map.”

“I don’t understand what this has to do…” she raised a hand, stalling me in midsentence.

“Tell me- What is you’re name anyway?”

“Evans” I told her, even though she must already know.

“You have a first name? I prefer first names, you can call me Karen.”

“Timothy. You can call me Tim or Timmy.” I don’t like being on a first name basis with this woman, but I see little point in petty obstruction.

“Timmy. I think I’ll call you that. I love it; it’s so horribly inappropriate for a homicidal, pillaging, raping world conqueror, don’t you think so?” I cannot tell whether she is being sincere or facetious. “Tell me Timmy, what would you do if the Draka lost the war?”

I see nothing wrong with answering her question. “The same thing I would do if we won. Get a job, hook up with-“

Again she stops me. For the first time I think I see a sincere expression on her face, and it is pity. “I think, Timmy, that you very much underestimate the-ah-ambition of the Allies. The stakes for the Draka in this war are much higher than you’re used to. If you loose badly-and it’s looking like that’s going to happen-you’re not looking at the loss of a few provinces. You’re looking at American GIs marching through Archona. Try to conceive of that Timmy, and everything that means. Imagine it. What will you do then?”

I try to imagine it and cannot. No, that’s not quite true. I can imagine it, but I don’t want to. My mind skitters away from it like a night insect away from a bright light. The path this woman has shown me leads to utter despair. I wonder if this isn’t some sort of devious mind game designed to weaken my will. Although for what purpose they would do this is beyond me. I have no knowledge that would make it worthwhile for them to go through all this trouble.

“I-that won’t happen. You’ll have to fight your way through the Draka-every man and woman-to do that.”

She leans forward toward me, looking me straight in the eye. “They showed me some of the war plans-and plans are being drawn up to do exactly that. They’re building hundreds of those new superbombs, one for every city in the Dominate. They’re going to burn the Dominate right down to the ground. And when that’s done the armies are going to come and hunt down every last Draka. We have the combined manpower of two continents to draw our soldiers from, we can do it. And there’s a great enthusiasm for that project in the Alliance, most people can’t wait to get on with it.” I can’t tell whether she shares this enthusiasm or not, as usual.

“Is this another way of trying to torture me?” I want to sound calm and resolved, but my voice betrays me, carrying a shrill tone of desperation and weakness.

Dr. Summers shakes her head. “No. America doesn’t torture it’s prisoners-“

At this I cannot restrain myself. Well, maybe I could but I don’t want to. “No, you get your Russian and German lackeys to do it for you!”

“Certainly.” I blink in dumb shock at her agreement. “I don’t have any illusions. We’re no less-ah-realistic than the Draka, we just don’t like the sight of blood. The reason the Draka are in the position they are in now is that they failed to realize this. You thought all our hand-wringing speeches were actually true, so you underestimated us. It’s good to see you actually seeing sense.”

I glance back at the Russian guards, momentarily wondering what they must make of this, but of course they have no English so they could not possibly have understood.

“To get back to what I was saying” she continues “my job is to give the Alliance an educated opinion on whether or not peaceful coexistence with the Draka is possible. To do that I do what all good anthropologists do when they have a living a culture to study. I study its artifacts, its literature, and-and then I go to people from that culture and ask them questions. After I have enough sets of answers-a couple of hundred is usually good, although for a society of millions of people like yours one should try for at least thousands but-ah-I don’t have all decade-I make my conclusions and then pass them on to my government, where they will be compared to those of hundreds of other researchers and maybe, just maybe, not be completely ignored.” She hands me the microphone of the tape recorder. “Here, you’ll need this.”

Editors notes: the present tense narration is only for Evan's conversation with Dr. Summer, which is the "present time" of the fanfic. Most of the story takes place in Evan's memories as he tells his story.
As with my previous Draka fanfic I leave it to Sheppard, Norseman etc. to decide whether or not this becomes part of the official story arc-for now think of it as a fanfic of a fanfic.