[Transcript excerpt from G.S. Guidestar engineer's union briefing for freshly accessioned crew members, approx. 14:30 January 16 2966, Guidestar local reference, 166 years post-launch. Speaking party is Jyoti Nirmala, at that time the shop steward and occupational safety evaluator representing third-shift life support maintenance, and a notable organizer in the early stages of covert anti-Command action before its cohesion into an organized movement. The Captain was present at this briefing, though neither she nor Nirmala were aware of her status at this point. Content warnings: verbal description of torture, Command Staff crimes against humanity, bodily injury and death.]

I'm afraid this is going to be one of the more difficult parts of the current situation to bring you up to speed on. The Command Staff's favored interrogation method for engineers, the title you now hold, is the excimer chamber. They use it because we know what it means. It used to be part of the photolithography facilities, but when the steppers broke down, they seized the whole section of the ship for their own use. This was used for curing photoresist, or something like that—not my knowledge area, and everyone who knew how that worked is long gone. Anyway.

If you fuck up bad enough, and you get caught, and they think you know something they want to know, Command will take your clothes, tie you to the chair, seal the door, watch you through the window, and talk to you on the intercom. Most of the time, workers crack after a while under the lights, just from the glow and the smell. We've all got that fear response; ozone means free radiation, corona discharge, or unshielded sunlight, right? All deadly hazard, or signals of hazards. Makes an engineer's hair stand on end. And we all know what that color of light means, even if we can't feel it. VUV airglow and visible secondary lines, perfectly safe unless you touch it thanks to air absorption, but not something you're ever supposed to see.

Some folks can grit their teeth through that; usually it's the hard ones, the engine workers, the reactrices with more lesions than fingers who eat heavy-ion for breakfast. They crack when they hear the vacuum pumps kick on, feel their ears pop.

We've never heard back from the people who were strong enough not to push the stop button, or who pushed it and didn't tell them what they wanted to hear, but they release the videos on the intranet, "in the interest of transparency and due process." The yelling gets quieter and quieter, but you can't see much visible change under the monochromatic light, until the...

[Intake of breath. Sixteen second pause. Someone shifts in their seat.]

Excuse me. The mirrored chamber gets darker and darker as they pump the air out. You'd think the lights are going out, but there's still light in the chamber, and... and then the whole thing glows a dim greenish white from the fluorescence of their eyes and teeth. You can always see the teeth. They always try to scream.

[Pause.]

This is why we are fighting.