Free Beauty and the Fleet (Intergalactic Fairy Tales Book 2) by Robert McKay

scrabbling sound of boots scraping on concrete. "Why me?"
    "What's going on?" shouted Pickle from her cell on the end. "Gadget? What are they doing to Gadget?" She wouldn't be able to see anything from her vantage point. Only Hands and Torch would be able to see much of anything.
    "Don't tell them anything," said Torch urgently. "Stay strong."
    Pickle must have figured out what was happening because her shouts drowned the rest of them out. "When I get out of here, I'll cut all your heads off. No, that's too nice. There are much worse things. You'll beg me to die before I'm done with you!"
    Beatrix saw Hands' food tray bounce off the head of one of the guards as they passed his cell. "Just come back alive, whatever you have to do," he said quietly.
    It wasn't until Beatrix saw Gadget struggling between two burly guards that the situation became real for her. She grabbed the plastic fork off her tray and pressed her body as close to the bars as possible. When the guard closest to her passed by she lashed out and buried it in his bicep. The end snapped off, leaving her holding the bloody grey handle. It wasn't until the door closed that she realized the horrible shrieking in the prison was coming from her own throat.
    There was a lot of screaming and crying after Gadget was dragged away. The quiet that descended later was worse. It was too much to bear.
    The book was the only real distraction she had; she wasn't about to deny herself a way to avoid thinking about what was happening to Gadget. Even just holding the book helped. Eventually though, the image of Gadget's blood decorating a dreary grey wall would flash across her mind and only the crisp black and white pages could wipe her thoughts clean.
    When two guards dragged him back to his cell, Gadget hung limply between them, his eyes open and glassy. There were two livid red marks on his forehead, just above his eyes.
    Once the guards were gone, reports immediately passed from one cell to the next, giving news of Gadget. He wasn't responding to anyone. Beatrix's heart thudded loudly in her chest. She knew these days would come, but that didn't make it any easier.
    The marks on Gadget's forehead were very similar to those left behind when one of the symbionts was cut away. Her books on Colarian biology explained that the symbionts connected directly to the frontal lobe of the brain in those spots, allowing them access to the higher functions of the brain, such as reasoning and logic. It was thought by many scientists that it allowed the Colarian and their symbionts a method of communication since the symbionts had no discernible ears or mouths and the Colarians weren't prone to speech.
    They were probably trying to dig around in Gadget's brain to get a better understanding of how to defeat Nedra. The war had been going on for years without either side gaining a significant advantage over the other. Apparently they had grown tired of trying to simply outmaneuver the Crown Fleet. Now they wanted insider information. Beatrix hoped fervently that she and her friends were the only ones snared by the Hounds. If they had taken the Harbinger, the secrets the ship's commander held could bring Nedra to its knees.
    Beatrix shook her head to clear it of her paranoid supposition. The truth was that she didn't know anything for certain and that needed to change. Getting information out of the guards seemed about as likely as getting blood out of a stone. She doubted that when Gadget came to he would have much to offer, but she'd ask anyway. It would be good if she had some information of her own first. There was only one possible means of gathering information that she could think of and it sickened her stomach, but the thought of what they'd done to Gadget left her too aware of how helpless she was. She'd do anything to change that—even talk to the beast.
    She reached down and picked up A Dark Beauty. She grabbed her fresh tray off the floor and stared dubiously at the grey goo occupying