McAfree was dragged screaming into the gardens. Then someone hit her with a stun gun and the world went black.

She woke up lying on her side. Her head throbbed. She quickly realized her wrists were tied together behind her back. Beautiful. She wormed her way into a sitting up position.

She was in a decent sized plasteel-walled room with a low ceiling and no windows. Probably underground, McAfree reasoned. There was only one exit and it was shut with a pseudo-wood door.

A man and a woman sat at a table up against the wall furthest from McAfree, playing cards. Another man paced nervously around the room. He noticed McAfree awaken.

McAfree was scared. Scared was good. Scared would give her energy. She could work with scared.

"She's up," said the man who was pacing to the others. They both stood and walked over.

"Hi there," said McAfree, brightly so as to mask her fear, "I'm Ensign Yoshiko McAfree of the Huxley Foundation Starship Armstrong. We come in peace although I'm not sure to what extent that applies to any of you anymore."

"Hi Yoshiko," said the man who had been playing cards. "I'm Gar. This is Delili," he indicated the woman, "and Azar," he indicated the man.

"Don't tell her our names!" Azar virtually shouted.

"Gar!" said, Delili, exasperated.

"It doesn't really matter at this point," said McAfree. "You're all dead either way."

"You don't scare me little girl," said Azar.

"I don't have to try and scare you, your Queen is a clone of Lieutenant Commander Mitzner. So you already know what's she's capable of," said McAfree, smiling conspiratorially. "Well now there's two of her and they are both, as we speak, trying to figure out what the most stylish way of killing you all is. Maybe, possibly, if you let me go before they figure out what it is they won't use it on you. Although you should hurry because they work fast."

"They won't find you," sneered Azar. "We have been planning this for a long time, waiting for the perfect opportunity. We have seen to every contingency. Your only hope of ever seeing freedom again is the Queen meeting our demands."

"This location is untraceable," added Delili.

"Sure, as far as you know. I noticed you're using non-ionized particle weapons," McAfree laughed. "That means your civilization's technology is pre-Reunification War. Let me tell you: you picked the wrong war to be pre-. I wouldn't count on any technological advantage you may think you have with your cute little baby meme cannons and your 50-year-old guns."

McAfree pushed her back against the wall. Using the wall she was able to climb to her feet with her hands still bound.

"So what's this all about anyway? What's so important you're going to all commit suicide by kidnapping me in front of Lieutenant-Commander Mitzner? Do you have some kind of manifesto I could peruse?"

"Actually we do have a manifesto..." began Gar.

McAfree laughed.

"She can't read it!" snapped Azar.

"Why not?" asked Delili. "Isn't the point to get people to read it?"

"Yeah how is knowing all the deep truths in the manifesto going to help me escape?" asked McAfree.

"See? She wants to escape. And she's mocking the manifesto!"

"She can't be expected to understand how important the manifesto is until she's been given the chance to read it," said Delili. "That's not fair."

"I can't wait to read it now," said McAfree. "This must be some manifesto."

"See now we're setting unrealistic expectations for the manifesto!" said Gar. "I'll get it right away so she can read it without it being built up any more."

Gar ran off like an excited puppy, and returned a minute later with a tablet. He presented it to McAfree with obvious pride. Her hands were still behind her back.

"Try to approach it with an open mind," he said. "It's our organization's first manifesto."

"Don't tell her that!" snapped Azar.

"No that's good," insisted Delili. "You want to only need one manifesto."

"Thanks!" said McAfree, pulling her hands from behind her back to take the tablet. The ropes holding her fell the the ground.

"How did you...?" sputtered Azar.

"You actually picked, statistically, one of the top 10 worst people in the galaxy to want to try and kidnap. Minimum top 100. I'm going to make this whole thing a real chore. Settle in."

She flipped on the tablet and started scrolling rapidly through the manifesto.

"Who is funding you people?" McAfree mused aloud, still reading.

"The citizens of Terra who yearn to breathe free!" proclaimed Azar, proudly.

"Calm down Emma Lazarus," said McAfree, not looking up.

"Who?" asked Azar.

McAfree blew a strand of hair out of her face.

"Periphery Hicks," she lamented.

McAfree continued to scroll through the tablet at a rapid pace.

"Hey slow down," said Gar. "Actually read it."

"I read fast," said McAfree. "And... done."

She reached the end of the document.

"That all seems pretty reasonable, typos aside. You just want rule of law, social mobility, and a free market? Is this literal or are those jacked up metaphors for something else?"

"What we want is simple human dignity! It is-"

"Yeah yeah," said McAfree, with a wave. "Got it. I figured that Queen was up to authoritarian something or other right from the start. I mean, who has a monarch? Gross."

She handed Gar back the tablet.

"Look you idiots shouldn't ransom me to the Queen. She's not going to give you any of what you're asking for. That's absurd. If she hasn't already she's going to over some kidnapped Ensign from a polity she doesn't even actually like. You know who you should ransom me back to? The Huxley Foundation. Get them to accept your stupid hick planet as a member world, and it's like their whole purpose in life right now to give member status to every backwater in the periphery so you got that covered, and boom you have all those basic freedoms you've decided to be such assholes over."

"We can't," said Delili. "As soon as your ship arrived in the system the Queen activated a planet-wide jamming net. We can't get a signal off the planet. Otherwise we'd have tried that already."

"Is that all?" asked McAfree. "Let me at it. I'll build a signal booster that will defeat any dumb low-tech jamming net you cro magnons have flint knapped together."

"We don't have the materials or equipment for something like that," said Azar.

"Pssh," said McAfree, with another dismissive wave. "You have no idea what you're talking about. There is a man who once single-handedly built an ansible using nothing but the surplus resources of a semi-cooperative medieval city-state. Do you know how I know this? I'm his apprentice. Give me the run of this place and let me pull some things apart and I'll make you your signal booster."

"Why should we trust you?" asked Azar.

"Well for one I don't kidnap people," said McAfree. "Never. Not even once. So it looks like I have a moral leg up on you already. Mr. Trustworthy over here, ready to lecture his kidnapping victim about trust."

"If she can actually do this we wouldn't have to deal with the Queen," said Gar.

"It's what we wanted from the start," added Delili.

"Alright alright," said Azar, waving his arms in anger. "Go talk to Hastoyar. If he approves who am I to object? But I'm watching you."

He pointed at McAfree, angrily.

"Naturally," replied McAfree, with a flick of her hair.

She swallowed hard.