She shivered. Why’s it so cold in here? she thought as she opened her eyes and tried rolling out of bed. Probably just the temp regulator deciding to quit again, and after I told the Cap’n it needed replacin’… As her feet hit cold stone, however, she suddenly realized that she wasn’t in her bunk.

Kaylee tried to shake the sleep from her system and looked around the tiny space she was in. The walls were made of smooth black stone, and there was no hint of a door. The floor was made of the same substance, and it felt to her like some type of solid marble. There was a small wooden table, and a chair, and the bed she sat on was a great four-poster—one like she imagined in some fancy Core bedroom. She got up, adjusting the bulk of her weight to her feet, and slowly began tracing the walls for some sign of an exit. There wasn’t one she could easily find.

What was more troublesome were the silver bands around her wrists. Kaylee didn’t remember putting them on, and they were on just tight enough that she couldn’t pry them off with her fingers. There had to be an internal lock on the inch-wide bands that kept them on.

The fog finally evaporated from behind her eyes and she took a look at what she was wearing. Not her usual nightgown or one of the last floral dresses that still fit her—no, she found herself in an almost transparent, white gauzy gown that just came to her knees. The garment was incredibly thin—thin enough to allow the cold to seep right through the cloth and into her chilled form.

Kaylee sat down in the chair, glad to have something solid to sit on, and tried to remember what had happened before she woke up in here. She absent-mindedly ran her hand over her abdomen as she recalled going to the parts dealer on Elgin, hoping to find a new catalyzer and maybe a used temp regulator. She remembered the dealer, a jovial man named Thomas, directing her to the used parts shelves and tried to set her up with some new capacitors along with her purchases. She remembered leav