by G. P. Eliot
“If I can convince the Jackal that this whole thing was an act of deep espionage on my part, to get closer to the Captain and the Message, then he might spare me…” she said. She was surprised at how easily it was to say those words.
But even Commander Lory Cox wasn’t sure if she was that good.
“It’s a long shot, Lory…” Steed was shaking his head.
“It’s the only way we’re going to get the Captain back.” She pointed out.
“Destination reached!” Serrano called from the science console. He had collapsed the code-sphere of the Message down to the size of a child’s toy. It looked just like one of the blue-green holo-worlds that Lory remembered playing with as a child.
“Get the Message hidden!” Lory pointed out, just as the Dalida erupted from space, and back into orbit around the research planet X3-2e.
“Sensors on,” Steed called as he hurried back to his desk. “I’m picking up a large Union-registered vessel…”
“On screen,” Lory stood in the middle of the Bridge, her hands balled into fists on her hips.
There appeared, still far away, the pointed accusation of the Pequod. Already, she saw it starting to lift its nose up in their direction as its own sensors had doubtless picked up their arrival.
“Open a channel. Broad frequency,” Lory stated. She knew that she had to act quickly, before the Pequod decided to target them.
“Warning! Weapons Lock Detected.”
Which it’s already done, apparently! Lory growled in frustration. There was no way that they would survive a direct attack from the Union light destroyer. Not again. And even though their repair drones had the best part of an hour or two to work–their hull was still severely compromised.
“Union light destroyer Pequod, this is the liberated generation ship the Dalida, Commander Lory Cox speaking,” she called out. One of the benefits of being an expert infiltrator is that she knew all about how to sound professional.
There was silence from the screen.
Oh no! Was the Jackal just going to blow them out of the sky anyway?
“Liberated is an interesting choice of words, Commander Cox…” the modulated, almost electronic voice of the Jackal appeared over their intercom, and, a moment later the image of the man himself, standing on the deck of his ship, hands clasped together. “Ah, Commander Cox, what a pleasure to call you that again…” the Jackal said, although his tone was dead flat. Lory remembered a time when he used to call her that on board that very ship, as she had masqueraded as a Union agent.
“Shields down please, Dalida. And prepare to be boarded.” All niceties were gone now, and the Jackal dropped his fists to his side.
“Cortez?” Lory said over her private channel.
“Jump engines are up and running, and ready to launch…” the man’s voice returned from engineering, pregnant with worry,
“We can’t do that I’m afraid, sir,” Lory said. She thought that adding the ‘sir’ was a nice touch–a bully like the Jackal would probably appreciate it.
“A shame. Are you sure that you want our negotiations to be over at this point?” the Jackal said, and the image of him on the Bridge of the Pequod suddenly zoomed out, to show that standing next to him was a metal chair–and sitting on that chair was the battered, bruised, and still bleeding form of their Captain.
Hank! Lory’s heart leapt. He looked terrible. Worse than terrible in fact, the man was slumped forward–as much as he could with his wrist’s magnet-locked to the arm rests, that was.
“Come now, Captain, say hello to your old colleagues…” the Jackal grabbed a prosthetic handful of the man’s hair and yanked his head back up to show the Pequod’s view screen.
Lory heard the Professor gasp beside her, and Steed emit a low growl of hatred. The Captain was barely recognizable anymore. His face was swollen in places it shouldn’t be, and his nose was horrifically squashed. Blood dribbled from a split lip, and one eye had disappeared into a rounded mess of red tissue.
“Not such a pretty boy now, huh?” the Jackal grinned. “We’ve even laced his blood with a nano-virus, meaning that every heartbeat sends pain bouncing around his entire body. Ingenious what they can do these days, isn’t it?” the Jackal said.
But Lory knew that as terrible as the Captain looked–there was actually a benefit to him being in this crippled state. He must have really annoyed them to put him through this. A hostage in his state could no longer retain the information inside his own head, let alone retrieve something valuable for his oppressors.
“The crew of the Dalida have agreed to transmit the Message to the nearest top-secret Confederate listening post if they do not get their Captain back. In one piece, if you please,” Lory said sternly.
“You can’t possibly have decoded it yet,” the Jackal frowned. “It took the best Union minds years to even get as far as they did!”
“But all the Confederacy will have to do is keep working at it, just like the Union has been doing,” Lory countered.
“Then I see no other option but to—” the Jackal nodded to one of his Wolverine operatives off-camera.
On the tactical holo-displays, there was a massive spike of energy from the Pequod’s Orbital Laser.
“Commander…” Madigan growled from where he stood.
“We have a counter offer for you!” Lory said quickly, as a bead of sweat started to track down the side of her forehead. “No one on board this side of the screen particularly wants to die–and I am sure that you don’t want to return to your Union superiors empty handed,” she said.
The Jackal said nothing as the energy spike continued to rise. How long does it take for an Orbital Laser to reach full capacity? Lory wondered. She didn’t know. But she bet that she didn’t have long.
“My crew and I are willing to offer a solution to this predicament,” she spoke quickly. “We have agreed that we will not transmit the Message if they have their Captain back…”
“You aren’t offering me much incentive, Commander…” the Jackal raised one eyebrow. Beside him, the form of Hank groaned and shifted painfully in his seat.
“And in return, we have decided that I and this captured officer will be returned to you…” Lory took a deep breath. There. That was it. All her cards on the table. But would the Jackal take the bait?
The Jackal froze, looking sternly at his opposite number for a moment, before the screen abruptly went dark.
“What happened!?” the Professor was saying. “Why did they do that? Does he know that it’s a—?”
“They’ve halted their weapons systems,” Steed broke in. “The Pequod’s Orbital Laser is still armed, but they have halted the firing mechanism…”
Lory watched the silent and stilled dagger of the light destroyer on the view screen. It looked about as friendly as a shark. “They’re thinking our offer over,” she said.
“And if they refuse?” the Professor asked.
“Then the first we know of it will be the Dalida being blown into a million fragments,” Lory muttered under her breath.
“Doctor Vaas?” the Jackal spun on his heel to confront the man in the white-suited overalls who stood at the ready. The Union Doctor was older than all the others in the room, with sparse hair and a small head. In his hands he held a long chrome cylinder contraption, ending in small prongs and needles.
Idly, the Jackal wondered why this man hadn’t undergone the elective gene therapy that was ubiquitous across all of Union society these days.
I wouldn’t have to look at his balding, scabby head then, the Jackal inwardly sighed. But the killer already knew the answer. It was probably the same reason why he himself hadn’t–all of his elite Wolverines had an almost puritanical belief about the principles of the human body. They were a cadre of misfits and outsiders in many ways.
And that is what makes us the best agents the Union has, he thought proudly. But now the best assassins under the stars had a problem–he had a problem.
“The subject ha
sn’t told us anything yet.” The Jackal said flatly. It was an accusation. There was always someone to blame, he had discovered in his long and successful career.
“Yes, uh…” Doctor Vaas blinked several times. “Mr. Snider has proved to be quite remarkably resilient. Partly, it has to be said, due to his own Marine training–but I would also hazard that there are pre-disposed psychological factors at play,” Vaas made a small shrugging motion. “Should I conclude the experiment?” he moved forward with the cylindrical device.
As much as the Jackal wanted to say yes–he shook his head tartly. Although, it would have been humorous to see the effects of the neuro-atomizer, he mused. The device that Doctor Vaas himself had perfected through many months of live trials, would have slowly destroyed all of Hank Snider’s nerve endings, starting from the extremities and working their way back towards his brain. It would have been excruciatingly painful, eventually leading to the man’s death.
And to the Jackal, the process is quite often hilarious, as well.
“Have you seen a copy of the Commander Cox’s and Operative Ryan Meadhan’s medical reports?” the Jackal said with a sigh. He so hated it when he couldn’t inject a little fun into his day.
“Yes to the Operative, the Union has extensive biomedical records on him, tracking his progress through the Psy. Int. process,” Vaas nodded quickly. Even a man of his position was eager to please the Union’s most trusted killer.
“And Commander Cox?” the Jackal said pointedly.
“A slightly different case. When she infiltrated the Union military forces, she of course had to undergo all of the prescribed medical procedures and examinations–but we have no way of knowing whether she planted those records, and falsified her results,” Vaas said.
The Jackal reached up with his shiny prosthetic hand and, very carefully and very selectively, pinched the bridge of his own nose.
Vaas swallowed nervously, and several of the Wolverines at their command consoles shared looks with each other. Their boss was getting irate. He didn’t show it very often, but small actions like this indicated that he was about to explode into full, terrifying rage.
“And what,” the Jackal said slowly and very, very carefully, “is your prognosis that the Operative and the Commander will succumb to interrogation where you failed with Captain Snider?”
Although the Doctor had played no active part in the ‘questioning’ process–as he had thought before; the Jackal knew that his day went better when he had someone to blame.
“I, uh…” the man blinked, and his hand quickly shuffled into one of his lab coat pockets to produce a small data pad, using his thumb to access the available material.
“Well the Operative will certainly succumb,” Vaas nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, his heart rate and cortisol levels are all indicative of…”
“And the Commander?” the Jackal said. The nearest Wolverine took a small, involuntarily step backwards.
The Jackal could see the doubt and hesitation scroll through the man’s eyes as he blinked and re-checked the data that the Union had on Lory Cox. The thing was, the Jackal knew that there was no way Vaas could promise him success. But he wanted Vaas to promise anyway.
That way, our good Doctor will be so terrified of what I might do to him if he fails, the Jackal thought, that he would have plenty of incentive NOT to fail!.
“Yes, of course, Commander-sir. You can have complete faith in my procedure,” Vaas jumped into a rather sloppy salute.
There we go! The Jackal smiled. “Good man. Get the Interrogation Suite ready for two new occupants.” The commanding officer of the Pequod turned back to the view screen, with its magnified image of the Dalida sitting forty kilometers away.
“Open a channel.” The Jackal snapped.
20
“Are you ready, Commander?” whispered the Professor as he hovered in front of her.
Lory looked at the silver and crystal circlet held in his hands, with its long wires stretching out to a humming box on the floor by his feet. Alan’s hands shook–and it wasn’t just the actions of the shuttle that they were in.
“Not really,” Lory said heavily, her eyes moving from the circlet device up to the Professor and back again.
The Jackal had agreed to the transfer of hostages, and right now, somewhere a few kilometers away, there was another shuttle heading for them, presumably containing the Captain.
“I have visuals,” Steed announced, and, although Lory didn’t turn to see–she could well imagine the small black box with the Union insignia sweeping towards them.
“Scan for the Captain’s bio-signature,” Lory said automatically. She wondered if it would be the last command that she would give, because after this—
“I’m reading his signature! Loud and clear!” Steed said, for there was an excited chime from the console as well.
“You see–nothing can keep a good man down!” said the second Ida admiringly.
Lory swallowed nervously. She was glad that the Captain would be there, of course–but would she even recognize him? Beside her Ryan groaned, slowly waking up from the sedatives that the Professor had administered to him just recently.
“Wha-? Where am I? Lory?” he coughed and blinked his big, baby-blue eyes. He didn’t look like a traitor, Lory thought. But then again, that was what probably made him such an excellent one, wasn’t it?
“Ryan,” Lory greeted him, her voice tight. It still hurt to think of every way that he had betrayed her, betrayed the Shimmering Path–had betrayed everyone.
She saw Ryan register the fact that his hands, elbows and ankles were all tied together. And that he was on a shuttle, going somewhere. She saw the quick calculation that he made before raising his face again. “Lory–you can’t believe them!” the young man said desperately. Lory wasn’t sure who ‘they’ were that he was referring to–her friends? Or the Union? Or the Shimmering Path–or all of the above?
“You have to believe me, Lory–they made me do it! I can be useful to you! I can—” he was saying quickly.
But Lory had already seen his look of calculation. She didn’t believe a word that he could ever say, ever again. “Do it, Professor,” she said.
“As you wish, Commander,” Serrano raised the crystal and wire circlet device and wrapped it around Ryan’s struggling temples and forehead.
“What are you doing?! Hey! Get that thing off me!” Ryan was shouting as the Professor stepped back.
“Do it, Serrano,” she repeated more sternly, seeing the man hesitate. But the tone in Lory’s voice was undeniable, and the Professor was reaching down to flip a switch on the floor unit.
Suddenly, Ryan’s eyes opened wide and the crystals pulsed with an interior glow. Lory watched him in horror, seeing his pupils dilate.
“Okay…Filtering the working memory from short-term and long-term…” The Professor was hunkered over the unit, looking at what appeared to be two tiny control sticks to ‘navigate’ as he looked at a screen that was a mess of green, red and blue.
“Isolating all neural activity relating to the Message…” Lory watched as Alan tapped in a few lines of code into the screen, and for parts of the sea of color to suddenly stand out in neon purple.
The man paused. “This is an experimental Union procedure, Commander…”Alan looked over his shoulder at her. In front of them, Ryan was stock still and looking transfixed at blank space.
Lory nodded, and Alan Serrano tapped on the unit once again, for all the strange red patterns to suddenly disappear. “Deleted.”
In that same instant, Ryan’s eyes closed, and his head fell forward.
“Wait–is he…dead?” Lory gasped. Maybe this was a bad idea after all.
“Approaching rendezvous point,” Steed called. “Forward shields at maximum.”
“No, merely sleeping,” Serrano checked the device screen and then corroborated the results by checking Ryan’s pulse and breathing. “It’s an automatic reaction to sudden shock–the mind shuts the body down,
while it tries to figure out what has happened to it.”
“But is there a chance that the memories will–I don’t know–grow back?” Lory said warily.
“Not according to the device parameters,” Serrano frowned, and tapped on his lower lip. “But as I say, it is experimental…”
It would have to do, Lory nodded. “Okay, me next. Same procedure.”
The Professor looked even more alarmed than he did about performing an illegal operation on Ryan, but time was fast running out as their shuttle hurtled towards the Union shuttle. He unclasped the circlet of crystal and wires, and instead placed it on the head of Commander Lory Cox.
