“That’s old news,” she lied.
“The data was never recovered. But they had already made several forays into the Unknown Sectors.” He pointed a thick finger at her. “We think you might be able to shed some light on its whereabouts.”
Naero shook her head and looked him right in the eye. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said, “but you know more about all of that than I do.”
Kattryll shrugged and began swiping the mirrored surface of the wood again. “No matter. Before we’re done, I’ll be entirely certain about what you know...and what you don’t know.”
Naero swallowed dry before she spoke again. “I might be tougher than you think.”
A weak laugh erupted from Kattryll. “I sure hope so, kid,” He yawned again. “That might make it a little interesting–for a while at least. But I doubt it. A lot of my subjects babble some shit like that at first. But I’ve been doing this for a very long time, and I’ve broken down just about anything with a brain.
“In reality, everyone cracks when the pain gets too bad.”
He looked up and stared right through her with his cold, lifeless eyes. “You aren’t any different, kid. Just meat, bone, and nerves.”
Kattryll smiled in a most unpleasant way.
This individual is an enemy. He intends to harm us. Activate my defensive protocols so that we may eliminate him as a threat.
Shhh…I wish I could. Be quiet, Om. Let’s listen to what he has to say and try to pump him for as much info as he’s willing to blurt out.
Strategy acceptable. Defensive protocols still offline. This is not acceptable.
Kattryll chuckled slightly. “When the time comes, little girl, you’ll tell me anything you even think I might want to know.”
He turned the soft white cloth over, and methodically continued to rub.
23
“So,” Naero said, “if you’re just going to kill me anyway, why should I tell you anything?”
She looked him right in the eye.
Kattryll didn’t even blink. His eyes like dead fish eyes.
“You’ll talk,” he said. “You all talk, even if it’s just to end it. A lot of you beg me to end it. Sometimes I do–if I feel like it.” He yawned. “It all depends. Sheesh, I should get some sleep before we get started.” He snorted like a hog. “You aren’t going anywhere–you can wait a few more hours.”
“You don’t seem exactly enthused about torturing me.”
“Not really.” He paused to apply some more of the oil onto the white cloth from an exotic-looking green glass bottle. “A fairly standard operation. But I like to start a new subject when I’m feeling fresh. Don’t normally like to be disturbed.”
He glared at her for a bare instant. “They woke me up for you. You’re supposed to be a rush job.”
Naero put her hands behind her back. “Then I would think your employers would want me broken quickly.”
Kattryll smiled wearily. “They’ll wait. They know I’ll get results. That’s why they gave you to me.” He sighed again, nodded to himself, and put the cloth away. “We’ll begin in earnest, tomorrow morning. I’ll give you the rest of tonight to dwell on that.”
“What a way to start the day.”
“I’m glad you have a sense of humor about all of this.” He looked her up and down and grinned in a most unpleasant way. “We’ll get to know each other quite intimately. Your friends will be part of this too. We’ll check on them from time to time so that you can watch them suffer. So that they can beg you to end their agony. They’re really of no practical use to us, except as another way to get to you.”
Naero laughed and took in his scent. Even through the tang of the oil, he smelled of cologne and soap and something more.
He probably bathed twice each day, but he couldn’t wash off the stench. His body odor was still rank–he smelled of pain and death, as if he’d been steeped in them for decades. His very flesh stained with the misery of others.
“Look you bloated pig,” she told him. “It’s pretty plain that you’re going to squeeze us dry and gut what’s left. Why should I make anything easy for you? Go ahead and kill us and get it over with.”
“And spoil the minor distraction you’ll provide? I think not.”
It was the fat man’s turn to truly laugh.
His clothing rustled in a strange way as he chortled. “You really think that this is all about you, little girl? Shit. You aren’t worth the energy it would take me to smear you across the floor. We’ll get what we want from you; I just want to enjoy it in some small way.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
He clenched his meaty fists suddenly. “Don’t feign ignorance; I despise ignorance.”
“I’d like to hear you say it.”
“The Corps. Of course. Despite what some of them say, there isn’t a one of them that wouldn’t dump their populations into their suns to gain the technological edge of a few thousand generations over the rest.”
“And somehow you think I have it? The Kexxian Data Matrix? Boy, did you back the wrong ship in this race. If I had all of this tek data, would I be busting my hump as crew in a family fleet? Hell no. I’d be queen of the universe by now.”
The fat man stared at her in an odd way. “What are you looking at?” she asked
He will attempt to access our data. Not allowed. Eliminate him.
Kattryll stood up and came closer. “I’m not usually so aroused, but I find your empty bravado rather charming...in a pathetic kind of way. Some might even find you quite attractive and alluring, in a waifish, childlike mode. I could bring myself to enjoy raping you a few times, and not just to humiliate you–though there’s that also. I find it better to do so before the interrogation breaks you down too much and ruins those cute, childlike tendencies you still possess.”
“In your dreams, fat boy. I’d have to be restrained, unconscious, or dead.”
“I prefer my prey alive.” He turned away from her. “Take your pick on the other two.”
“You Corps honchos really think you can get away with whatever you want, don’t you?”
He shook his head. “We’ve been getting away with it for centuries my dear. The masters can’t resist dallying among the slave girls and boys, and why the hell should they? It’s one of the darker and more enjoyable perks of human nature. At least for the masters.
“And I’m far from being a honcho. I have a rather wide range in my area of expertise, and I’m paid very well, but I’m still little more than a glorified errand boy.”
She almost laughed again at “wide range,” but that was too easy.
What is too easy?
Study my memories on humor and insults, Om. Then pay attention while I get a rise out of this jerk. If I get him angry, he might let something slip.
Pursue current strategy with the jerk.
“Look, you putrid heap of talking dung. Do what you’re gonna do. You can kill me, but you still won’t ever defeat me, or my people.”
He turned on her, leaning toward her over his ancient desk. “You strutting spacks. Too dense and too stubborn to see that your days are numbered. I’ve broken lots of your aberrant kind, during the wars. You’d be surprised how much your people told me, once I went to work on their families, their old people, their kids. They couldn’t handle watching that. Family’s so important to you freaks.”
Naero grimaced and blinked. “And we still fought you Corps lackeys to the death every time you took us on. We beat you.”
Kattryll reclined and looked up into the soaring darkness above him. “All my life, I’ve had a gift for backing the winning team, kid. The Corporate entity is eternal, irresistible–the perfect concept–as long as there are lackeys, as you say, with greed and ambition enough to power it. As long as there’s one of you who will betray a trillion others to get a leg up.”
“Make me vomit. You believe that spew? The sooner we fry every Corps brain like you, the better. And you say I’m pathetic.”
&nbs
p; “Face facts, little girl. Corporate structure is conquering known space and beyond. Nothing has endured against it or threatens to replace it. Spacers are an aberration that won’t survive for more than a few centuries. Look at the empires the Corps have crushed, the races they’ve wiped out or absorbed. Kill Corps associates or leaders, and more are eager to rush into the breach. Like the regenerating heads of hydra. People die, but the Corps are eternal. They’ll go on forever. You back the winners, kid.”
Naero smiled her half smile. “The galaxy has enough skutbrains and pukkheads like you running around murdering and enslaving everything and everyone to the everlasting glory of the Corporate Order. Spacers know what freedom is every time they leave one of your festering mudballs behind.”
Lexicon. What is a mudball?
Om, I’m working here.
Kattryll sat back further in his gel chair and grinned. “Well, Triax has a few advantages. They know how to detect the Matrix and access it. Now they just need the files. Perhaps you will be more of a challenge than I thought,” he said. “I might enjoy you in any number of ways.”
Naero snorted. “My luck you’re probably impotent.”
Kattryll scowled. “You haven’t figured it out yet, have you? This isn’t a personal thing; it’s business–my business.”
Naero spat on his desk directly in front of him. His eyes popped.
“You bloated bastard, it’s personal to me,” she said. “Fuck you, you rotting skutbag. You’ve been torturing and butchering people so long you don’t even care about anything anymore. You’re bored with it. I don’t know what’s more sickening.”
She’d gotten to him. He glared through her again. “You will find it unwise to insult me.”
“Who the hell cares? You’re going to do your job anyway. Haisha, maybe you don’t even have a prick to do me with, just a useless little nub of skin that piss dribbles out of.”
He snarled at her in a sudden outburst of rage. “You will beg to satisfy my whims.”
“Ooh, touchy, touchy. Nubs.”
“Get out of my sight, you annoying little gash. Silence her.”
The bots fired their stunbolts on command.
Naero got out a chuckle before she hit the floor.
Om inquired. Is our strategy working?
24
Spacer’s never stayed stunned very long by anyone’s standards, and Naero revived faster than most. Her mind started working before her body could respond.
Tarim checked her over when they dumped her back into their holding cell. He felt her pulse and looked for any injuries.
This one is not a jerk…not an enemy. You think of him as a friend, a fellow prisoner. We should not eliminate him.
No. Don’t harm any of my friends. Don’t eliminate anyone without my permission.
Our defense is primary. I will not always be able to comply.
Then Tarim knelt over her, praying quietly until she awoke fully and started to move. He and Gallan had put on their coveralls at some point.
Gallan was pretending to be asleep again.
“You’re...you’re alive?” Tarim said. “Thank God Almighty. When those meks threw you back in, I th-thought maybe you were dead.”
Naero shook her head. “It’ll take more than that.”
Except for thirst, hunger, and a stun headache, she felt like a million creds.
“You had this goofy smile on your face.”
She half-smiled again. “Yeah. Just like that.”
Lexicon. What is goofy?
“I’m okay,” she said “They bring us any food? Drink?”
Tarim shook his head and tried to smile. “They haven’t brought anything yet. It’s just like rationing onboard the mining transports.”
“Great.” She could smell her friends.
Hell. She could smell herself.
Lexicon. What is stink?
They all needed to get clean. She guessed there were no mist showers on this pleasure cruise either. “Maybe I shouldn’t have pissed off old nubs so much.”
Is a nub an extremely minuscule, ineffective, and impotent penis?
Bingo, Om.
Gallan suddenly sat up suddenly, smiling. “What’d you do now, N?”
Tarim jumped. “God bless it! Don’t do that. I never know if you people are sleeping or awake. You guy’s are so damn creepy.”
Gallan laughed and clapped Tarim on the shoulder. “That’s the idea.”
Lexicon. Accessing creepy.
Briefly, quietly, Naero summarized what happened with Kattryll.
Gallan laughed until he couldn’t stay upright.
Tarim paled and looked very worried.
He sat down, hugged his scrawny legs close to himself, and buried his face in his knees, shaking his head.
“Th-they’re gonna k-k-kill us for sure. Help me, Jesus. I’m worth less than nothing to these vile monsters. This is worse than the mines. At least there you had some chance at staying alive if they didn’t single you out for something.”
“Live with it,” Naero told him. “Unless we can find a way to get out of here, it’s gonna happen, just as soon as they think we’re of no further use to them.”
Gallan reached over and shook the lander’s arm. “Spacers have a saying: See the truth of things for what they are and move under your own power.”
“These bastards are our enemies,” Naero said. “Look at what they did to you and your family. Your people.”
“Rain. Mom and Dad. Everyone I knew,” Tarim said, hugging his knees and looking over his elbows, his eyes burning.
His face flushed scarlet; he clenched his bony fists. “Damn these evil fiends to hell.”
What is a fiend? Is it like a jerk, only incrementally worse? What and where is this hell?
Hell’s a bad place to be, Om. Like the place we’re in right now.
Very well. Then we should escape and get out of hell. Slang. Get the hell out of here.
Exactly. I’m working on it. We need a plan, and we need an opportunity. But it looks pretty bad right now.
“Don’t give them the satisfaction of showing fear,” Gallan said to Tarim. “Piss in their faces and laugh. How many times can they kill you?”
Lexicon: pissing is urination, correct? I cannot piss.
Tarim shuddered, his mouth tight. He leaned his head back onto his folded arms, sniffed, swallowed hard, and was silent for a time.
Naero stood up again and stretched, unfurling her wings behind her back and–
She gaped. Neither Gallan or Tarim made any notice of her new creased, bat-like wings.
Great. Another hallucination.
Om, are you causing this? Are these hallucinations your doing?
Continuing attempts to activate defensive protocols ineffective. Attempts to interface with our mind and form activate your imagination in unusual ways. We are both doing this. You are wishing you could escape our current hell. You wish you could fly away. The delusion of wings is a manifestation of your desires. I cannot control them or what form they take.
Tarim finally looked up, his face impassive. “Okay, so what’s the plan then? How are we going to get out of here?”
Naero shrugged and lay back, staring up at the ceiling, folding her imaginary wings under her. “I have no idea. Better get some sleep for now.”
Tarim gaped and threw up his hands. “Sleep? They’re going to torture and kill us tomorrow and you want me to sleep?”
Gallan stretched out again and sighed. “Not much else we can do. We still have a few hours before morning. Have to keep our strength up.”
Tarim’s mouth still hung open. Naero reached up and pushed it closed.
“They’ll make a mistake,” she whispered to him. “Just be ready to move when they do. Follow our lead. If nothing else, do as much damage to them as you can before you go down. I wish I had something better to offer you, but that’s about it.”
Tarim nodded, still looking somewhat wide-eyed and pale. “Just like the mines,” h
e said. “There isn’t a way out, no matter how bad you want one.” He went back to praying, something about committing his soul into someone’s hands.
Before she drifted off to sleep, Naero reached over, and gently patted him on the back.
He was crying and shaking so hard he could barely control himself. Poor kid. He’d been through a lot, and was about to go through even more.
*
A handful of hours later, nine security bots arrived to seize them and take them away. All three prisoners still hungry and thirsty.
Their hosts made no effort to offer them anything.
They did not bother to ask. Their hands were secured in front of them.
The adjoining interrogation room lit up, looking more like a medical lab. Naero watched as Gallan and Tarim were secured on medbeds.
Naero’s three guards led her out of the chamber for another happy visit with Kattryll.
“What’s going to happen to my friends?” she said. She could smell Tarim’s fear.
“They will be interrogated,” the lead bot answered, its soothing AI voice a mockery.
“But they don’t know anything.”
“The director believes in being thorough. You may discuss the matter with him.”
The doors snapped shut behind her. She didn’t even get to say goodbye.
Her three bot escort gained clearance to a secured mover that took them somewhere else in the ship. Naero could only guess.
They stopped.
“Error. Incorrect destination,” the lead bot remarked.
The doors snapped opened.
A large blur ripped into the three bots.
Naero dropped to the floor.
Unknown force attacking security drones, Om howled.. Defensive protocols still offline. Unacceptable.
She caught the flash of twin, blazing green disruptor blades that arced through armor and vital systems.
In less than a second, all three sec-bots lay all about Naero in pieces, busted up and oozing fluids.
Sparks flew from the pieces internally.
Spacer Clans Adventure 1: Naero's Run Page 17
