Star Trek: Starbase 777 - disused-torture-facility

Here was the CEO! They were here to dismantle some old torture equipment. They hated it in here, it made them a bit antsy and they didn’t like all the torture stuff. They grew up Commonwealth, and they weren’t a fan of torture in general.

[D] After wandering around with Elwyn, Alizati was ready to return to work. He had dropped the Furberus off at his quarters before heading to the disused torture facility to begin work on dismantling the torture devices and creating a useable space. The android stepped into the room, unfazed by whatever 'weird' vibes were present in the room. "Jolan tru," He waved to the CEO, immediately recognising the Caitian. "I am here to assist with preparing this room to be used for things that are not torture."

They smiled. The Caitian had a reputation of being warm, friendly, and patient. Very different from their Prime counterpart. Mirror C’Sara never went feral. C’Sara waved back of course. “And it’s a good thing, too. The repairs lab needs more space anyway.”

The warm greeting from his superior officer was something Alizati still needed to get used to. He was not a newbie in the Commonwealth, but old habits and attitudes from the Empire were hard to get rid of. Violence was at the forefront of his mind, not towards others but mostly in worst case scenarios. Like-- was he going to get stabbed? Did the other people hate androids? All those things. Alizati just stared at C'Sara, no blinking or breathing of course, just a blank emotionless stare. "Yes, I am also looking forward to this space being used for less... Violent purposes. The Terrans did not do much to clean it up," Alizati walked over to a console and began clicking away to see what sort of things the Terrans had programmed in the room. "I do not believe we are acquainted, I am Lieutenant Commander Alizati tr'Kota, I recognise you from the roster, Chief engineer?"

Meanwhile, C’Sara was investigating the equipment. They had a screwdriver and some other tools with them to take stuff apart. They found a lot of painsticks. Typical Terrans. “C’Sara Castel, chief engineer! I recognize you from the roster as well.”

Alizati nodded slowly, watching as C'Sara inspected some of the left over equipment. Of course the Terrans took the 'coolest' torture equipment, but anything that was small or too large to transport remained. "It is nice to meet you," Alizati said to the engineering chief. Dark eyes surveyed the room for a couple seconds before his attention shifted back down to his console. 'Recognise you from the roster', so that meant C'Sara knew he was an android? "I defected from the Empire only recently, I am willing to provide assistance with any of the equipment here although I think it may be best if we dismantled everything and recycled the materials?"

“That’s a good plan. Then all this awful stuff can go to use for something good.” C’Sara knew Alizati was an android. They didn’t care, however. He was another diligent crew member to them.

"Painsticks, one of the terrans favoured methods of torture," Alizati said as he looked towards a wall that was literally covered in painsticks. Yeah, not a pretty sight, but the terrans set out to make the facility as discomforting as possible. He did not show any emotion or even discomfort at anything in the room. It all felt... Oddly familiar. "I have never understood the use of torture to get desired results as it merely creates unhappy officers. Torture did not stop my predecessor from attempts at defecting and obviously it did nothing to an android who could simply turn off his pain receptors in such an event.* "I heard they also have... Hmm, truth serums? I am looking at the inventory list here, it seems there are more devices in hidden storage compartments, but naturally it doesn't say where they are."

“Yeah, I never understood torture either. The Terran Empire must be run by a bunch of sadists.” C’Sara took no pleasure in hurting another living being. They never hurt anyone if they could help it.

"It would then not surprise you at all that a lot of my colleagues wondered what it would be like to use some of these devices on myself," Alizati walkedover to the wall with the painsticks and began to examine one of them. There was a tiny spark when he touched the end of it, but Alizati was quick to disable it. "Contrary to what people think about artificial life forms, we do in fact feel pain just like our organic counterparts. We also feel sadness and loneliness," As Alizati said those words, his mind expression went completely blank as he stared off into space for a good minute or two. He remembered how lonely it was on the shuttle without Sorn, without the Furberus, so lonely. "Anyway," Alizati was quick to come to his senses again. "Some of this equipment is still active, we should probably power it down before we move it. Do we have any carts around to transport it somewhere safe? I would not want to try and transporter beam these out."

“I wouldn’t think anything else. Rest assured I would not like to inflict pain on you as I would not like to inflict it on any of my other staff. But it makes me hate the Terrans for how they treat people.” At Alizati’s question, they wheeled a cart over. They took a painstick and quickly disabled it and put it in the cart. “I just want to take a sledgehammer to some of this stuff, you know?”

"Thank you," Alizati said to C'Sara saying they would never inflict pain on him. That should have been a given, but when Alizati was a Terran Empire officer not too long ago well... That couldn't be guaranteed. He looked at the cart and placed the powered down painstick onto it. "I wonder what would have happened if the Terran Empire spent as much time researching ways to explore the stars and make friends with other species as they did ways to inflict pain on others," It was a bit of a far off dream to think Imperial Starfleet could ever stop their violence and just try to coexist peacefully with other races. "Commander... May I ask where you come from? You can read on my file that I used to be an engineer in the Terran Empire. One of the many androids they created as... Machines of war."

“I hate the fact you think I’m nice because I do the bare minimum of treating you like a person. But yes, the Terrans could do so much good if they weren’t busy being brutes.” Actually, C’Sara was done resisting the impulse to not destroy the painsticks. They powered one down, grabbed a hammer, and whacked it until it broke. “I’ve always lived in the Commonwealth. My parents defected with me and two of their friends. The Terran Empire killed my parents not long after. So I was raised in the Commonwealth by their friends. I count myself lucky I wasn’t truly exposed to Terran brutality until I was older.”

"... That is unfortunately not the norm for the galaxy," Alizati said with a sigh as he loaded the rest of the painsticks onto the trolly and began to grab one of the weird bear-trap looking devices. It looked like a pair of giant sharp teeth. Super dangerous, but at least it was deactivated and the only danger it posed was being unusually heavy. "You were lucky indeed. I wish I could have grown up in peace," Alizati gave another sigh as he loaded up the sharp teeth and a couple more items onto the trolly. "I do not think we can fit all the torture devices onto this trolly. I can take this load to main engineering to recycle what we have."

“I have to grab some tools from there anyway. We should start dismantling some of the bigger stuff. Even though I just want to grind this shit into tiny pieces myself, we should put the material to good use instead.” They grabbed one of the trolley handles, ready to head off.