by PJ Strebor
“Throw him in with the other prisoners,” Reinhardt said. “Let his pain work on him. I will conduct the next interrogation.”
“Ah, sir, Commander Schmidt gave me orders to –”
“Are you so stupid that you don’t know when to shut up?”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
***
The hatch to the cell opened and a body dropped onto the deck. The Athenian prisoners had all had a taste of Pruessen hospitality, but this latest arrival looked to have been trampled on by a herd of enraged buffalos.
Lieutenant Moe Okuma nudged Heng and together they pulled the limp form over to the wall. The cell’s bright lights, kept on around the clock, showed a bloody swollen face barely recognizable as human.
“He’s not one of ours,” Heng whispered. “So who the hell is he?”
“Doc, we’ve got another patient for you,” Moe said.
Doctor Bryant shuffled over and held a finger to the newcomer’s neck.
“Steady pulse, he’ll live.” He sat back and caught the full brunt of Moe’s disapproval. “What do you want me to do? I have nothing to treat him with and the square heads won’t allow me access to their infirmary.”
“Do something,” Moe pleaded.
The doctor found a cloth, not covered in blood, took some of their precious water allowance and started cleaning his wounds. With each stroke more of the face appeared. His one good eye fluttered open, blinking as if trying to focus.
He tried to speak but only a croak sounded. Moe put her ear to his torn mouth.
“You just can’t keep out of trouble, can you, Mary Anne.”
With the room being monitored, she barely resisted laughing. She whispered into his ear.
“Call me that again and I’ll kick your ass.”
“Take a number.”
This time a tiny chuckle seeped out.
He tried to sit up, wincing at the pain.
“Doc?”
After a quick, and painful examination the doctor said, “Busted ribs, lacerated chest and possible internal bruising. Could have a concussion as well. I wouldn’t try to move if I were you.”
Naturally Nathan ignored him and, with Moe’s help, slowly pushed himself to a sitting position, wincing as his back propped against the wall. He whispered to Moe. She smiled.
“He says thanks for the obvious, you fucking witch doctor.”
“Yeah, like I said, he’ll live.”
Nathan’s good eye tracked to the sensor sitting above the hatch. “Audio and visual?”
“Yep.” They continued to talk in whispers.
“What happened?” Nathan asked.
“An extension of their energy dampening technology. Plus, a Captain who thinks regs don’t apply to ass-kissing toadies.”
Nathan said nothing in reply, shifting his body with tiny, painful increments, seeking a position that would hurt less.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Moe asked.
“I’m the rescue party.”
Again, Moe had to smother a laugh.
“What’s the time?” She could barely make out Nathan’s badly slurred words.
“No idea. Why?”
His eye stared at her for far too long. “Did you hear the pulsar shot?”
“What? Ah, yeah,” Moe said. Again the intense look, this time with the unmistakable hint of fear. “It was about an hour ago.” She lowered her voice even more. “How long?”
His eye flashed to the surveillance sensor then back to her. A short shake of the head.
Soon then. They won’t allow a monitor to be stripped of her secrets.
Moe could imagine a squadron of monitors sitting in orbit, preparing to send the research base back to the ice age.
“I guess we’d better leave soon,” she whispered.
Nathan smiled, his torn lips oozing blood. His eye fluttered then closed, his head falling against her shoulder. Alarmed, she checked his pulse, then breathed a sigh of relief.
***
Nathan awoke as rough hands grabbed him, hauling him painfully to his feet. His right eye had partially closed and he tried to force it open.
“Take it easy with him,” Moe yelled. “What are you trying to do? Kill him?”
The sound of a hard backhand and Moe landing heavily onto the deck.
Back to the interrogation room, back to the restraints, back to the pain.
He’d stopped testing the restraints. Half moon clasps held rigidly in place by locking pins. The restraints held his wrists so tightly they cut off circulation. He made another careful examination of the room. No security sensors had been installed during his absence.
Nathan readied himself for the next round of torture, with deep, deep breathing, clearing his mind, preparing for the agony to come. It’s nothing, it doesn’t matter. It’s nothing, it doesn’t matter.
The hatch opened. A new tormentor, older than the other. He carried a black leather case. Full of torture implements? Nathan bit back a shudder and braced himself.
The newcomer opened the case and rummaged around inside it. Nathan’s eye blurred obscuring what the Pruessen did next. Uncertainty - that truly scared him. It’s nothing, it doesn’t matter.
A mild whirring sound. Nathan blinked his good eye open. The Pruessen held a scanner, running it over him from head to toe. He examined the readouts before returning it to his bag.
“Fucking animals,” he mumbled, then reached into his cases. “This will sting.”
As the cloth came close to his eye, Nathan turned his head, fighting the inevitable.
The Pruessen sighed. “If you don’t want to cooperate, I can get people in here to hold you still.”
Nathan sent a blistering one-eyed glare at his interrogator. There was no fighting it. He held still. May as well get it over with.
The cloth was soaked in some kind of chemical, the antiseptic scent familiar to Nathan. It stung, then the area treated felt better.
“Who are you?” Nathan asked.
“Doctor Jahn, base physician. And you?”
“Hans.” There seemed little point in holding out any longer. Soon he’d be dead. The thought annoyed him. No, damn you, there’s always a chance, always another way.
The doctor continued to treat his wounds but Nathan had no idea why. After ten minutes his left eye opened, still blurry but open. The facial swelling diminished and although his ribs still hurt they felt much better. After cleaning the knife wounds to his chest he covered the area with a soft dressing.
“How are you feeling?” Doctor Jahn asked.
“Better. Why are you treating me?”
“Because, young man, I’m a doctor not a thug. Besides, Captain Reinhard ordered it. Pity he won’t let me treat the other prisoners.”
Captain Reinhard, the officer who stopped Jaeger from taking my eye. The no nonsense Captain who’ll conduct the next interrogation.
The thought of the Captain caused Nathan’s Prep to ache. Jaeger, as the doctor pointed out, was a simple thug, albeit with sadistic tendencies. He considered the Captain to be more measured, more pragmatic, in true Pruessen style, and Nathan strongly suspected, far more dangerous.
Jahn placed a cup to his lips and Nathan drank the water as if it were his last. He giggled internally. Stop it. The doctor packed his case and prepared to leave. He stared at Nathan.
“Hans, if that’s your real name, if I were you I would answer the Captain’s questions. If you do, with some luck, you might live a little longer.”
“Thanks for the advice, doctor. Once again, why give counsel to someone who could be an enemy of the empire?”
“I’m a doctor, you’re my patient.” He shrugged and turned to leave.
The hatch opened. Captain Reinhardt stepped inside, his blue eyes locking onto his prisoner. Nathan averted his eyes.
“How is he, doc?”
“I’ve stopped the internal hemorrhaging and patched him back together as best as I can. He needs time in the infirmary.”
“So no plague
then?”
The doctor pulled a sour face. Reinhardt nodded.
“Did he say anything?”
“Nothing of consequence.”
Reinhardt eyed him menacingly for a moment then nodded curtly. The doctor left. The Captain pulled a chair over, placed it directly in front of Nathan and sat.
Nathan kept staring at the floor. From his brief glimpse of the Captain there was something about him that –
“Very well, let’s set the ground rules,” Reinhardt said. “I will ask you questions, you will answer. If I like the answer, you will live. If I don’t, you will die. Questions?”
“No third option?”
“Hmm. It’s good that you have a sense of humor. You’ll need it. Now, first question. What is your name?”
“Hans Schmidt.”
“There, that wasn’t so hard was it? Now, to save my voice just tell me your story.”
Nathan had time to concoct a story. An unlikely story, but something at least.
“I’m an independent trader. My ship hit the edge of a Hylon Rift. I managed to work around it but not before it knocked out my nav-com. I corrected my heading to where I should egress, by dead reckoning.”
“Dead reckoning?”
Nathan resisted the urge to look up. “Yeah, I’ve done it before. Anyway I egressed, expecting to find nothing but clear space, to recharge my buffers and make repairs. Instead I popped into the middle of your orbital shooting gallery. I tried to come about but it was too late. My ship got shot up so badly I had no choice but to land.”
“On a plague planet?” The Captain sounded amused, in a lethal kind of way.
“I didn’t know this was Saint Joan, until I dropped into atmosphere. I recognized the emerald mountains from images I’d seen as a kid. So anyway, I thought, set down, make repairs and head on out. That didn’t work out. My reactor went critical and I had to punch out. My escape pod came down about forty clicks west of here. I saw your base on the way down and headed this way.”
Nathan wondered if his lying skills, honed whilst a child slave of the empire, would work on this kind of man.
“We’ve conducted a full sweep of this base and all we’ve found is an unconscious petty officer trussed up in a storage locker. Where’s your V suit?”
“It was useless to me, so I dropped into a disposal chute.”
“And your plans?”
“Kinda making them up as I go along,” Nathan said. “Ah, borrow a ship and get out of here? Something along those lines.”
Nathan found the Captain’s silence to be more unnerving than his words.
“An independent trader you say?”
Nathan nodded.
“Trading in what?”
“Aw, you know Captain, whatever people need.”
“You’re a freebooter.”
“Entrepreneur, Captain,” Nathan said. “A simple businessman. Buy small, sell large. You know how it goes.”
“Your story has more holes in it than Pilbaran cheese. Why should I believe you?”
“The truth’s the only story I’ve got.”
“Do you have a record?”
Nathan could only hope that their database was as incomplete as everything else in this facility.
“Nothing cap’in. All just misunderstandings. I’m no crim, cap’n, just an honest trader.”
Reinhardt chuckled in a way that caused Nathan’s Prep to flare.
“So, this ship of yours? Any other crew?”
“Nope,” Nathan said, “I’m sole owner and proprietor. At least I was.”
“So, let’s see if I’ve got this right. You just happened to bump into a hylon rift. With all of space to egress into you popped into the middle of our defense grid. And miraculously, you just happened to be wearing a V suit and made your way here. It balks at the percentages.”
“All right, cap’n you’ve got me. I avoided that death trap in orbit, landed, took a stroll into your base just for the hell of it.” He snorted. “Why else would I be here? This isn’t exactly how I expected my day to turn out, you know.”
The silence continued for a time before the Captain stood and placed the chair against the wall. Nathan glanced up to see him standing there, a silent sentinel with the power of life and death in his hands.
“You tell quite an imaginative story, Hans. But I have one core problem.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t believe you. I know people, spent my whole life studying them, and I know when someone’s lying to me. And when people lie to me it makes me very angry.”
Reinhardt pulled his sidearm and pointed at Nathan’s head. Nathan heard the metallic click as the Captain set the weapon to kill setting.
“I will have your truth or I will have your life. Your choice. I will count to three. One.”
Nathan stared at him. This kind of man did not waste his time with bluffs. He would die by this man’s hand.
“Two.”
Could he be the one? The one whose name he stumbled across when he had level one security access. He knew this man. Or at least he knew the man he used to be.
“Three.” His finger tightened on the trigger.
“Chameleon, omega, case black,” Nathan blurted. He hoped he’d recalled the activation code correctly.
Reinhardt’s face distorted in pain, his pistol clattered to the deck, he gripped his head with both hands. The Captain groaned and fell to his knees, his chest heaving under the assault of some terrible burden. Finally the attack passed. He retrieved his weapon and wiped tears from his cheeks.
“How did you get my activation codes? Who the hell are you? Rescue party I suppose.”
Nathan grinned. “You don’t remember me, do you, sir?”
“Answer my questions. We don’t have much time.”
“Very well. Spotiswood, Nathan Telford and yes, I’m the rescue party.”
“How the hell did you, ahh, never mind.” He examined Nathan’s battered face for long seconds. “Yes, I do know you. My final year at the academy, you were that plebe who couldn’t keep his big mouth shut.”
“Nothing wrong with your memory,” Nathan said. “You saved my neck so many times when Jardine and his crew were trying to get me kicked out.”
“Yeah, you’re welcome. Pity I didn’t cover myself as well. Otherwise …”
A life that could have been but wasn’t, Nathan mused.
“We all knew it was a fit-up, sir. You’d never violate the honor code. That prick Jardine set the whole thing in motion. I got posted to his mother’s ship. You can guess how well that’s worked out.”
“Yeah, great,” Reinhardt said. “Now what’s your plan?”
“Easy. Free the prisoners, retrieve the monitor and leave.”
Nathan motioned to his restraints. His smile faded as the former academy brigade Captain froze in place.
“Sir?”
“I can’t. My whole purpose, the reason I sacrificed a normal life, is to this job. Collect any and all intell on future Pruessen plans. If I release you they’ll know who did it. Cover blown, game over.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Nathan thought about it for a long moment.
“When you turn back into Mister Hyde, how much of this will you remember?”
“It depends on how important it is. There are always traces, lingering afterthoughts, like vague day dreams, unless the intell is vitally important. Why?”
“Is there a way you can cover yourself and still give me a chance?”
Reinhardt shook his head, walked away and stood staring at the wall.
“Nothing comes before the mission. I’m sorry.”
Nathan wanted to scream at him, ‘we’re all going to die,’ but couldn’t take the chance that one of those supposed afterthoughts could embed itself into Reinhardt’s subconscious. He also desperately needed to know the time.
The Pruessen Captain walked to the hatch and paused. “Dammit.” He strode back and reached for the restraints.
“Yo
u want a chance?” He pulled the pin from the left-hand restraint and placed it two positions down. “That’s your chance.” He grabbed Nathan’s shoulder. “Good luck.”
“And to you.”
At the hatch he turned back. “If you somehow manage to get out of here remember this. In thirty seconds I’ll turn back into Reinhardt. If I see you again I’ll kill you.”
“You’ll try.”
A darting smile and he left.
“Right, now to get out of here.” Nathan felt movement in his left wrist restraint. Not much, but some. He tried pulling his hand free. It gave a small amount but nowhere near enough. Nathan paused and thought about it before making his decision. “Shit.” He started to hyperventilate and seized the collar of his shirt between his teeth. It’s nothing, it doesn’t matter.
A few more deep breaths and he pulled his hand hard up against the half moon restraint. The hard metal clasp would not break, but brittle bone would. It’s nothing, it doesn’t matter. Blood seeped from his hand but he kept pulling. The pain grew but he knew it would get much worse. It’s nothing, it doesn’t matter. Although he tucked his left thumb under his palm it still remained as the prominent blockage point. With his hand hard up against the cold metal restraint, he bit into the collar and yanked.
The sound of splintering bone competed with his muffled scream as the hand slipped from the restraint. He kept his teeth set as waves of agony crashed over him. It’s nothing, it doesn’t – “Oh, shut the fuck up.”
The initial stabbing pain subsided to a steadier, more consistent throbbing glow of hot agony. Although he didn’t want to, he looked at his hand. Blood, flesh and white bone tearing through the skin. “Fuck that hurt,” he hissed.
The thumb was useless, the bone shattered. He flexed his fingers and pain answered. The whole hand throbbed with intensity, but part of it functioned. He looped his middle finger through the ring that held the locking pin on his right restraint and pulled. Pain sear through his hand and up his arm but he kept pulling. A scream welled up but he bit it back and kept pulling. “Come on you fucking piece of, ahhhh.”
Nathan fell back in his chair the pin still hooked around his finger. His vision began to fade and he fought the urge to pass out. He waited for the blinding misery to subside to mere agony then pulled his good right hand free. In seconds the leg restraints snapped open. Stepping unsteadily from the chair he held his ear to the hatch. He heard nothing and sensed no immediate danger. No guard had been posted when they’d brought him in and his sense of danger said that condition remained so.
