Harder Better Faster Stronger II

Posted on 01 Jun 2013 @ 11:43pm by

2,103 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo: LTjg Maenad Panne's quarters
Timeline: MD10 0630

ON:

"Which would be you," Maenad told him, still eying him. She struggled a bit with her arms, shifting her shoulders. It felt like she might break something flailing her arms that way; she was more hesitant to do what Liyar said this time, but she knew he was right when he said he wouldn't tell her to do something that might hurt her.

"Not always," Liyar brushed his thumb against her chin. "Relax. You can feel the power in your muscles and bones. You can move and generate force through that movement. This is where your strength comes from. That," he said, lifting her arms once again and guiding them down in the maneuver once more before stepping back, "and your level of confidence and trust in yourself. Lean over so that you present the hard edge of your tailbone to your hands. Then in the same motion as earlier bring your hands down over your tailbone, shoulders out." He'd already shown her once. He looked at her expectantly, but patiently waited for her to make her escape.

She stepped back, making sure she had enough room. She looked at him once, licked her lips, then, quickly, she bent over and brought her arms down hard against the small of of her back. The bindings dug further into her skin, and the plastic scraped against the bone. She hissed inward through clenched teeth as the sting went up through her elbows and biceps, and she closed her eyes, then felt the snap of the lock and felt her wrists go limp and swing around to the front of her. Surprised, she raised her hands to eye level and studied her bruised wrists, then looked at Liyar expectantly. She smiled, shaking her head. "That hurt," she told him.

"Indeed. I wanted you to learn how to effectively do this in a normal situation. The majority of practice with this is done with tape over the wrists to prevent chafing. Here," he lifted her hands up and gently applied the dermal regenerator he'd picked out of his kit. He turned her hands over and the raw skin smoothed over until it blended in seamlessly with the skin around it. "Good as new," he murmured, looking down at her enigmatically.

Maenad flexed her hands and turned her wrists over, then thanked him with a pleasant smile.

He collected the zip ties from the ground and threw them aside in the box, picking out the ion restraints next. They looked like a simple black pair of handcuffs, made of hard shiny plastic, but each had an LCARS system embedded. "These are the next level of restraint, used by military forces all over the Alpha quadrant, in medical settings, prison settings and by Starfleet. Most modern spacefaring vessels have at least one pair aboard, they are the standard handcuff. You will be pleased to know that this should not hurt. These are composed of the same material as our isotropic restraint system in sickbay. These will immobilize your arms and hands, which will prevent movement without constricting blood flow or causing nerve damage." Liyar took the ion restraints and snapped the first over his wrist and then the other. He lifted his arms which had become stiff and board-like. "As you can see I have little to no range of motion, I cannot bend my elbows or move my fingers very well." He then abruptly sat down and used the blunt edge of his motionless fingertips to pry off one of his socks. He wiggled his toes toward her almost playfully and directed her to watch what he was doing with the LCARS panel. "You see here, this screen is fully accessible in case of prisoner distress. Go here, and then here. This creates an error in the system that fools it into restarting. Then, you slide the bar here all the way down with your foot, and then," he did so and his elbows bent, and his fingers moved again. "This releases the ion field. Then," he stood, and inched his fingers out over the screen, "you can use your freed fingers to access the system's LCARS controls. Once the ion field is released these simply become a pair of handcuffs, which have an internal locking mechanism keyed in by a single control on his panel here." He lifted it up to show her, then with little ceremony, razed the edge of his finger against the screen and the ion cuffs popped off. "Keep in mind that this should only be done if you have time and opportunity. If someone is marching you down a hallway, it is unfeasible to use your feet to disengage the ion field. But if you are left alone for a period of time, you can easily escape these."

Maenad sat cross-legged opposite him. Carefully, she watched him - impressed with how much he knew about self-defence. To look at him, she never would have guessed it.

He took her hands once more, placing the cuffs over her hands and resetting the system to normal. This time there was no pain, only an extreme, impossible to break tension against her arms which prevented them from moving. She could move them up or down from her shoulders, but her elbows and fingers were locked. "You remember the steps I showed you. Sit down. Use your hand to remove your footwear." He looked to her bare feet. "If you were wearing it," he amended, "then initiate the opposing queries in the access screen," he directed her.

"I don't like this," she admitted. The inhibitors in these cuffs made her less at ease than the plastic ties, even though the other ones were painful. She didn't like not having control over her body.

"If you wish me to release you, you only need to say so. My intent here is not to alarm you," Liyar assured her, meeting her eyes. "But I believe that you can use what you have learned to escape for yourself. These are important skillsets to learn, as these are highly common methods of restraint. Most captors or criminals are not interested in harming their targets, only in subduing them. To know how to escape from submissive restraint is to possess another tool that will bring you closer to freedom."

Maenad laughed under her breath. "No, it's all right," she said. But if Liyar weren't here and she was alone, in a cell, with people who wanted to hurt her, she might have been mentally and physically unable. She hoped to never find out. Maenad unfolded her long legs out in front of her, toes up. She leaned forward, feeling the muscles pull in her back from lack of use, and hooked her fingers onto the part of the cuffs, like Liyar had shown her. Her toes deactivated the ion field and, with the benefit of having long piano-fingers, she easily accessed the computer and unlocked herself. "Ta-da," she let the cuffs fall to the floor and smiled. She leaned forward on her hands and kissed him on the cheek before falling back into sitting cross-legged.

"Good," Liyar nodded encouragingly. His cheek tingled where she had kissed him and he resisted the urge to touch the area as an afterthought. Instead he focused on the last item in the box. "For this next one I will ask that you apply the restraint to me. In a typical scenario, the person being restrained is lowered to their knees or into a sitting position. To apply the GAR system in a standing position is extremely dangerous as there is no way for the prisoner to break their own fall." He held out the gravity-assisted restraints, which were blue with white etchings carved into the sides. He gave her the restraints and then held out his wrists with his palms facing up and hands together in fists in front of him. "How these are applied is crucial in escaping them. If they are applied wrong, you will be unable to escape them. To escape these involves a large degree of chance and reliance on the fact that your captors may not be smart enough to anticipate counter tactical measures. You want to put these around my wrists and then turn them on. They will be keyed to the appropriate level."

Maenad kneeled in front of him, sitting back on her haunches. She took the gravity-assisted restraints, which looked like a bulky set of handcuffs, and gently locked them over his wrists after cautiously taking his forearms between her fingers. She had never heard of GARs, and was curious to know how they worked. On other hand, it saddened her to know that people had countless ways of restraining each other, and not for good - always for bad. Once they were secure, she gave him a nervous smile, then settled back, hands on her lap.

As soon as she applied the system and turned it on, Liyar went almost completely limp, falling forward effortlessly into her arms. Rather than crush her under his weight, he settled against her like a rag doll. He blinked up at her reassuringly and for all intents and purposes he seemed to be completely immobilized, save for the odd twitches and jerks of his muscles as if he were attempting to escape or struggle. He would tense up, then relax, then tense up, then relax. His fingers slowly bent and moved.

Maenad gasped when Liyar fell into her, but she caught him by thrusting her arms under his armpits. She was wide-eyed and scared that he had died or had somehow become seriously injured. It was like he'd just had a stroke or a heart attack, dying instantly. "Liyar," she yelled, trying to get him to move, her voice shaking with worry.

I am here, gently wafted through her mind. I cannot use my voice. And I do not expect you to endure this, merely to observe. It is an important demonstration. Watch my body. I am gradually creating a threshold in the device that will allow me the necessary movement to slip out of the cuffs, by slowly increasing the gravity field. Do you recall how I presented my hands to you? With my fists bunched up very tightly, that made my hands much bigger. An amateur would assume that I was being complacent. When- in reality- he had been distracting her by speaking mentally, offering notes and instructions, his voice much different than his severe physical voice. After about ten minutes the cuffs dropped to the floor and he rolled over on his back, presenting his hands to her and moving his fingers. "-in reality," he spoke again, "I was giving them my best chance to slip out from the restraints. Keeping yourself limp and relaxed in the restraint will ensure that they do not tighten or create a higher gravity field. You want to move slowly and carefully to avoid triggering the reduction system. This is why these are the most difficult to escape from." He slowly sat up and breathed in calmly.

"Don't ever do that again," she angrily scolded him. "And why do you have these?" She picked up the GARs and looked at them with pointed disgust.

"I do not own them," Liyar answered her. "I possess the V'Shar replicator patterns. The GAR. It is a technology created on Vulcan for psychiatric care, and it has since been adopted by Starfleet and various civilian agencies for its efficiency and relative safety. Beyond, of course, making certain a person's position is not threatening to their health. It changes a person's gravity and weight distribution by using a gravitational forcefield on the body. It can merely make a person weaker than average, or it can completely immobilize them. This is the most difficult and- I would venture- frightening type of restraint you would encounter in an average criminal scenario. Fortunately, they are rare outside of clinical settings."

Maenad exhaled through her nostrils. "Are we done?" she asked, giving him a humoured smile.

Liyar reached over and squeezed her hands. "If you wish to be. There are a few more instances that I would like to show you, but they do not require a simulated restraint. I do not intend to force you to continue if you are uncomfortable."

"No, I was only asking," she told him. "What's next?"

OFF:

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer, SSC
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Liyar
Diplomatic Officer, VDF/SDD
USS Galileo

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