by Ryk Brown
Her rage was broken by the arrival of others, as Nathan and Jessica entered the observation room.
“Jalea, thank you for meeting us,” Nathan said. “I hope you don’t mind, but I thought we might need a translator.”
“Of course,” she said, her chin dipping slightly. “However, this one is Ybaran. And although young, he is old enough to have learned Angla in his youth.”
“Ybaran?” Jessica asked.
“A small system just outside of the Pentaurus cluster. It was conquered just recently by the Ta’Akar-maybe ten years ago. Before then, all children were taught Angla, just as I was. It was only after the Ta’Akar came and enforced the Doctrine of Origins that the use of Angla was discontinued on Ybara.”
“Then he can understand us?” Jessica asked.
“Most likely, yes, although he will not admit to such. To do so would be admitting doubt in his own faith.”
“I’m not following,” Nathan admitted.
“Ybarans, like those of any other Ta’Akar controlled world, are required to serve in the legions. The best and most devoted of them join the Ghatazhak-a specially trained group of elite warriors. They have been brain washed into believing that Caius is a God, and that all humanity comes from Takara, not Earth. They are fiercely loyal to Caius. Admitting that he understands Angla would be like denouncing his belief in the Doctrine of Origins, which would disqualify him from service in the Ghatazhak, bringing him great dishonor.”
“How do you think we should handle this?”
“He will not respond to questions. He might give you some simple answers meant to placate you and to feed his feeling of superiority. But he will offer no information of substance. To obtain such information will require more direct persuasion.”
Nathan had a pretty good idea of what she meant by that. And he wasn’t sure he was ready to go to that extent just yet. After all, being from Earth, they really had no quarrel with the Ta’Akar. Whatever skirmishes they had been involved in thus far could all be attributed to a galactic misunderstanding, stemming from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Let’s just start with conversation, shall we?” Nathan turned to Jessica and nodded. Jessica moved to the door and pressed the intercom button.
“Hands on the table!” she ordered through the wall-mounted intercom. The prisoner looked up, indicating that he heard her words, but made no movement indicating compliance.
“I said, hands on the table!”
Jalea leaned over to the intercom and shouted something into the intercom in her language-presumably the same thing that Jessica had just said. Reluctantly, the prisoner put both of his hands on the table in front of him.
Jessica turned a small dial on the control panel and flipped a switch. The prisoner felt his hands suddenly being held tightly against the table, as powerful magnets built into the tabletop secured his metal-clad wrists against its now magnetized service, thus rendering his hands immobile.
“All clear, Captain,” Jessica assured him.
Nathan unlocked the door and entered the room with Jalea and Jessica close behind, closing the door as she entered.
The prisoner’s eyes narrowed with hatred at the sight of Jalea. “Karuzari,” he seethed, as if describing something quite vile. A string of unintelligible words followed, to which Jalea responded in kind, although far more calmly.
“What did he say?” Nathan asked.
“He described a quite distasteful sexual act he was going to perform on me before killing me.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him he would require a bigger weapon.”
Nathan smiled. Again, it didn’t seem to matter where you were in the galaxy; people were people just the same. “Feel free to translate at will.”
“Why did you attack this ship?” Nathan began. Jalea immediately translated his question. The prisoner answered without hesitation.
“The Ta’Akar kill the Karuzari. You are with them, so we kill you,” Jalea translated, offering nowhere near the tone and inflection that had been used by the prisoner.
“Guilt by association,” Nathan muttered.
The prisoner continued his rant, each sentence becoming more enraged than the previous one.
“Because of your actions, you are doomed. You cannot help them,” Jalea continued to translate. “Soon the Karuzari scum will be exterminated, as will all who dare to help them.”
“I wouldn’t count on that just yet,” Jessica spouted off, unable to control herself.
Nathan, standing beside Jalea with his arms crossed, glanced at Jessica, one eyebrow shooting up in disapproval as he held up one hand, motioning her to control herself. “Easy, killer.” Nathan turned his gaze back to Jalea. “What if we told him where we’re from?” he suggested as he turned to his left and took a few casual steps forward, as if deep in contemplation. The steps took him just behind the prisoner’s periphery, where he could no longer see Nathan without taking his eyes off Jalea. Nathan turned slowly back to face Jalea. “What if we went ahead and admitted we’re from Earth?”
The prisoner’s eyes darted to his right, to look briefly at Nathan, then back again at Jalea to watch her response. The prisoner’s eyes had gotten a bit wider. Just as I suspected, Nathan thought. You’ve heard of Earth as well.
“But Captain,” Jessica protested, “You-”
Nathan held one hand up again, gesturing for Jessica to stop talking. He locked eyes with Jalea, winked, and said, “What harm could it do?”
“Nathan-” Jalea began to protest, purposefully using his first name. The prisoner’s eyes became even wider.
“Go ahead,” Nathan urged
Jessica had been watching Nathan’s eyes during the exchange, and witnessed the wink. She didn’t know what he was up to, but it was obvious that he had a plan. She only wished he had let her in on it before hand.
Jalea sighed. “As you wish, sir.” Jalea turned to the prisoner, and began speaking in low, calm, even melodic tones. It was as if she were reciting a passage from a book, a poem, or even a psalm. She circled the prisoner, from his right side, around behind him, and to his left, talking softly as she did so. The prisoner appeared disconcerted, growing ever more so with each lyrical phrase that rolled off Jalea’s tongue.
Despite his inability to understand the Ta’Akar language, Nathan had a feeling that what Jalea was saying to the prisoner was familiar-to both her and the prisoner-as his eyes continued to widen with a mixture of doubt and fear. More than once, Nathan heard reference to ‘Earth’, and each time it seemed to make the prisoner slightly more uncomfortable. Finally, her utterances came to an end with a slight pause, and then the word ‘Na-Tan’.
The prisoner objected, calmly at first, but soon his objections grew more pronounced. Jalea continued to preach to him, repeating the same phrases over and over. As his objections grew louder, so did Jalea’s. Within moments, they were shouting at one another.
Suddenly, Jalea’s preaching’s broke into Angla, still at full volume. “The Legend of Origins is no longer a legend! And soon all the people of Ta’Akar shall know the truth! That your king is a liar! That we are all from Earth!”
“No!” the prisoner protested yet again. Only this time it was also in Angla, and with tears streaming down his cheeks.
“This ship is the ship of legend! These people are the warriors of God! And this man is Na-Tan!”
“No!” the prisoner cried out, his words rising to the level of shouts, spit flying from his lips as he screamed. “It is not true! Caius is a God!”
Jalea’s voice raised with the prisoner’s, matching not only his volume but also his level of emotion. “Caius is only a fool pretending to be a God!”
“No! No! No!” the prisoner repeated at the top of his lungs. “Soon our new reactors will be available and our ships will be invincible! There will be no stopping the mighty Ta’Akar legions as we spread across the galaxy! Caius the Great shall rule supreme over all the stars in the sky!”
Suddenly, the soldier’s voice changed, his tone and volume dropping. His conviction had returned. He had convinced himself once again that his beliefs were all that mattered and that his cause was just. His voice became more sinister, more lascivious, as his eyes wandered up and down first Jalea’s and then Jessica’s bodies. His words became guttural, his tongue lashing out salaciously between them, over and over again, until finally he stood abruptly, screaming out another vile string of words at full volume.
Jalea lunged at him, her right fist driving hard into his throat, knocking him backwards. The force of the blow drove him back so hard, his magnetically locked wrist restraints pulled the metal table they were attached to back and on top of him. Jalea nimbly dodged the falling table, knocking Nathan out of her way as she circled around the fallen table and came down with another blow to the prisoner’s face. Surprisingly, despite repeated full-force blows to his face, the crazed man continued to spew lewd remarks at her at the top of his lungs, sprays of his own blood added to the spittle that flew from his mouth as he screamed. Jalea continued to strike him again and again, screaming out in rage with each blow.
Jessica jumped across the fallen table and grabbed Jalea by her hair, yanking her backwards and away from the prisoner. “Get her outta here!” she yelled at Nathan, who was grabbing at Jalea from behind to keep her from getting back on her feet to attack again.
The prisoner continued to scream, his curses now aimed at Jessica. She turned and looked down at him. “Fuck you,” she said as she planted her boot in his face, knocking him out cold. She turned and watched as Nathan dragged the now crying and screaming Jalea out the door. Satisfied that the situation was under control, she squatted down next to the unconscious prisoner’s head and checked his neck for a pulse. “Yeah, you’re still alive.” She reached up and tapped her comm-set earpiece once to activate it. “Medical Emergency in the brig. Man down.”
“What the fuck was that all about!” Jessica asked as she stepped into the observation room.
“I don’t know!” Nathan admitted. He too was stunned by what had happened. “I thought that if he spoke Angla, we could trick him-”
“And who the hell is Na-Tan!” Jessica interrupted. She looked at Jalea, who was pacing back and forth across the opposite end of the room, rage still blazing in her eyes. “I mean, Warriors of God?” Jessica asked. “What the fuck?!” Getting nothing more than an angry glance from Jalea, Jessica turned back to Nathan. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what she was doing?”
“I think she was trying to get him to doubt his beliefs,” Nathan tried to explain.
“How? By quoting scripture?”
“It’s what she said earlier, that the guy was Ybaran, that they all learned Angla when they were young. Angla was always taught by some kind of priests of the order.”
“What order?”
“I don’t know, like some kind of religion or something. It’s all based on the belief that they all originally came from Earth, and that the Earth befell a great evil. They believe that someday warriors from Earth will come and free them from their own evil.”
“Oh great!” Jessica exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “So what, now we’re the horsemen of the apocalypse?”
Suddenly, the hatch from the corridor swung open and two crewmen stepped in, followed by Doctor Chen.
“He’s in there,” Jessica said, stepping aside and pointing into the interrogation room.
The three of them rushed past them, Doctor Chen glancing at Nathan as she passed.
“It is all my fault,” Jalea admitted, having finally calmed down enough to speak rationally.
“You’re damned right it is,” Jessica told her.
“I was only trying to-”
“I don’t give a shit what you were trying to do,” Jessica interrupted. She was about to lose her temper as well, and at the moment, if she did so, it would be at Jalea. “You know what; you’d better just go,” she added, pointing to the exit.
Jalea looked confused. She looked to Nathan for support, but received only his incredulous stare.
“Now!” Jessica shouted. “Before I smack you around the same way you did him!”
For a moment, Jalea looked ashamed. But it was only for a moment, as she regained her usual indignant composure and walked calmly out of the room.
“Jess, It’s my fault-”
“Of course it’s your fault,” she said, cutting him off. “But more importantly, it’s your fuckin’ responsibility, Nathan.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t play the religion card so casually, or you might just start a holy war! And those kind of things can spin rapidly out of control.”
Nathan stared at the floor for a moment, trying to process all that had happened in the last few minutes. Finally, he spoke. “You’re right, I don’t know. Hell, Jess, I don’t know anything,” he admitted.
“Then next time, leave the interrogations to someone who has actually been trained to interrogate.”
Nathan looked at her.
“Yeah, that’s right. Me.” Jessica shook her head as she tapped in her security code to open the weapons locker, and pulled her side arm out of the locker, placing it into the holster on her gun belt.
“You’re right,” he said again, as he stepped back out of the way. Two crewmen carried the unconscious prisoner on a stretcher, moving past Nathan on their way through the small observation room.
Doctor Chen followed them out, stopping momentarily in front of Nathan. “You know, it’s not like I don’t already have enough patients to care for, sir.”
Before Nathan could say anything, the young doctor departed. Jessica followed them out, also pausing in front of Nathan. “Jalea’s a loose cannon,” she said, her eyes still looking at the exit. She turned her head and added, “You know that.” Nathan’s head nodded ever so slightly in reluctant agreement as Jessica turned her head back toward the door, exited, and followed the doctor and her team down the corridor.
Nathan turned and looked back through the open door into the interrogation room. The table was still on its side, the chair knocked across the room. There was blood splattered on the floor, as well as at least two bloody boot prints, presumably made by Jessica as she walked out of the room.
Nathan let out a long sigh. At that moment, he didn’t think being captain was all it was cracked up to be.
The prisoner was still unconscious and was being carried on a stretcher by two crewmen. A bio-monitoring harness was attached to his torso and fingers and was sending a constant stream of telemetry to a handheld wireless receiver carried by Doctor Chen, who studied it intermittently.
“What happened to him?” Doctor Chen asked as they continued down the corridor.
“He became violent,” Jessica answered calmly. She knew it was a lie, but the less everyone knew about what really happened in the brig, the better off they would all be. Jalea had crossed a line. It wasn’t one that Jessica herself wouldn’t have crossed, if necessary. But it wasn’t Jalea’s place to do so, nor was it Nathan’s, as far as she was concerned. The man was barely able to pull off being captain. Interrogation was definitely something best left to those properly trained. Maybe next time, he’ll be more cooperative, she thought.
“I see,” Doctor Chen answered, noticing the mag-cuffs still on the prisoner’s wrists. “Wasn’t he restrained?”
“Apparently not as well as we thought.”
“I’m afraid I need more details if I’m going to know what kind of injuries to look for-”
“It’d be best if you left it alone, Doc,” Jessica warned, cutting her off.
“Can you at least tell me where and with what he was struck?”
Jessica rolled her eyes and sighed. “Several blows to the face, and at least one to the neck. In the process he fell backwards and pulled the metal table down on top of him, onto his chest, I think.” Jessica knew that she was telling her a bit too much, but she needed this guy to survive so th
at she could interrogate him properly. She knew the head game that Jalea and the captain had been trying to play on him. It had even appeared to be working to some extent. And if used correctly, she might be able to parlay it into some useful intel.
“Is that all?” the doctor prodded. “His nose is badly broken.”
“There may have been a boot to the face,” Jessica admitted sheepishly. She was starting to think she might have gone a little too far with that one, and she did feel just a bit guilty. “Is he going to survive?”
“His vitals are stable for now. I’m mostly worried about possible brain and chest trauma,” she explained as they entered the medical section.
“Jess!” Enrique called out from down the corridor. He and another crewman, both carrying side arms and automatic close-quarters weapons came trotting down the corridor. “What’s going on?”
“Had to rough-up a prisoner,” she joked, hiding the guilt that had hit her a moment earlier. “Go and keep an eye on him,” she instructed the crewman.
“Yes, sir,” the crewman answered as he followed the doctor into the treatment area.
“Did you kick his ass?” Enrique said, a grin coming across his face. He had been in a firefight with this guy and his cohorts a few hours ago. Seeing the sole surviving prisoner injured and suffering didn’t bother him one bit.
“It wasn’t me. Except for the boot to his nose in the end.” Enrique gave her a quizzical look. “Jalea snapped and started pounding on him.”
“Really?” Enrique was more than a bit surprised.
“Yeah. She was trying to mess with his head. I guess she got to him, cuz next thing I knew he was screaming something ugly at her and she flat-knuckled him to the throat and then took him down and started pounding away on his face.”
“Damn!”
“Scary part is, it didn’t even phase the guy. He just kept screaming at her. It was my boot that finally shut him up.”
