Star Trek Discovery: Danger Zone

Chapter Four

As near as Keyla could tell, their holding cell was just a modified storage unit. Still, having been designed to keep its contents intact even in the end of intra-atmosphere freefall, it did the job just fine. Just four strong walls and a heavy door with a deadbolt. On the other side of it were two Noviani soldiers. Owosekun was on her hands and knees inspecting the seam around the doorjamb.

"Hinges," she said at last and with a sour expression.

"Low-technology. Just our luck," Osnullus said from her perch on some empty supply crates. "No panel to rewire or short-circuit."

"You know low-tech," Keyla said to Joann. "How do we get out of here?"

Owosekun's eyes narrowed. "How am I supposed to know? The door is locked. So unless one of you has a hidden phaser or portable torch..."

"You grew up on Luna-Seven," Keyla said exasperatedly. "You have to know how to pick the lock or something! Use two pieces of wires? Wiggle them vigorously?"

"Do you see a lock? I don't. There's nothing to pick."

"You must have had some experiences growing up like this one," Keyla noticed her voice was close to whining now and corrected. "What did you do?"

"Keyla, Luna-Seven was a luddite colony, not a Russian gulag. We didn't lock people in cargo containers very often."

Keyla swore and kicked at the wall. All it did was make her foot hurt.

"Maybe there's a seam someplace," Osnullus said tentatively. "A weak spot?"

No," Keyla said, determinedly, a plan crystalizing in her mind. "There's only one thing that's going to get us out of here." She looked at her three compatriots.

"Sex."

The other three looked at one another with befuddled expressions.

"Like with each other, or..." Nilsson asked.

"No," Keyla snapped. "We need to...wait, what? Never mind..."

Nilsson looked at Osnullus and shrugged.

"I mean, sex is what is going to get the soldiers to open that door and let their guards down long enough for us to overpower them and take their weapons. Sex." She gave the group a confident wink. "Or at least the promise of it. Because if there is one universal constant, it's that men think with a certain part of their anatomy. And we are going to use that."

They stared at her.

"That fact, not the body part," she clarified.

"Are you completely insane?" Owosekun asked. "No, it's a serious question: Are you, right now, here in this cargo container, having a complete psychological break from reality? Is that happening to you right now? Because that's the only explanation I can think of what such a cockamamie plan."

"Cockamamie?" Osnullus asked.

"Absurd," Nilsson clarified. "Ridiculous, hare-brained, idiotically-stupid--"

"Enough!" Keyla cut her off. "It's a time-tested plan. Oldest one in the book, and there's a reason for that: it always works."

"Does it, though," Owosekun asked skeptically, "I feel like it's one of those things that only ever happens in films and novels."

"Oh, it'll work," Keyla said confidently, throwing back her shoulders, thrusting out her chest. "Trust me, I'll have Thing One and Thing Two eating out of my hand in five minutes flat. That's when you all make your move."

"Wait," Owosekun said, holding up a palm. "You are going to...why you?"

"Because I'm the most sexually-attractive of the three of us," she said slowly. The group was obviously more shaken by their ordeal than she'd originally noticed, given the way they were missing obvious facts like this.