MacMasters had finished the entire process in less than three minutes.
The final stop for the guilty was outprocessing, and then their journey through the Gruj’s little slice of hell would end where it started, back at the loading dock. There DocSec guards would ram the guilty into the back of black trucks, some for McNair State Prison and an appointment with the DocSec firing squad, some for the living death of the Hell system’s mass driver mines, most for the hard labor camps scattered the length and breadth of the three settled planets of the Hammer Worlds.
Michael shivered again. Hartspring had told him he was to be treated like any other DocSec prisoner. It was his misfortune to know in cold, clinical detail what that meant.
The door banged open, and a marine stuck his head in. “The APC is here, corp,” he said.
“Get the escort lined up,” Haditha said. “On your feet, Helfort. Let’s go.”
Michael’s journey down into the hell they called the Gruj had started.
Wednesday, October 20, 2404, UD
Level B holding cell, the Gruj, McNair, Commitment
The cold had seeped deep into his body. He was chilled right down the bone. For hours his body had been racked by uncontrollable shivering. Hypothermia, Michael thought. If this goes on much longer, I’m going to die.
Michael sat with his head back, eyes looking up at the single recessed light in the ceiling, leaning against the ceramcrete wall, at the point where he did not have the energy to care anymore. After days of relentless interrogation and physical abuse, his reserves of courage, of resilience, of self-belief, had run dry. He had nothing left to absorb the appalling shocks that life dished out. He was empty. He did not care. He had nothing left to care about. He was just a number in orange DocSec coveralls waiting to die.
He laughed softly, a laugh that mocked his obsessive determination to hunt down and kill Hartspring.
The cell door banged opened, swinging back into the wall with a crash. Michael did not even look up, unable to summon the slightest interest in the man standing in the opening.
“On your feet, 775,” the DocSec trooper said.
With an effort, Michael dragged himself upright.
“Outside!”
Michael stumbled after the man and into a bleak, harshly lit ceramcrete corridor. It reeked of chlorine. The Hammers used tons of the stuff to scour the blood and shit out of the cells. Two troopers waited for him. They took him by the upper arms and set off. Michael forced the men to take his weight. His feet dragged, one last tiny act of defiance.
If it bothered the troopers, they didn’t let it show. After a bewildering succession of turns and two elevator rides, Michael was manhandled into a small room and thrown into a chair; his arms and legs were secured to small rings. Job done, the troopers left, the door slamming behind them. Michael looked around, confused. He wondered what this place was. Unlike the interrogation rooms he’d been in over the last few days, this one was warm, softly lit, its floor not bare ceramcrete but carpeted. And the table was timber, not scuffed and scarred metal like all the rest.
He was left on his own for a long time. The minutes dragged past, but Michael was content to sit there to thaw out. The warmth soaked the chill out of his bones until his head fell back and he drifted into sleep.
A smack to the back of the head jerked him awake. “What the fuck?” Michael mumbled.
It was Hartspring. “Wake up, you sack of shit,” he said, his riding crop stabbing at Michael’s chest.
“What do you want now?” Michael muttered.
“You have a visitor, Helfort. And I’m warning you: Be polite, or by Kraa I’ll make you wish you were dead. Understood?”
Michael glared at Hartspring. His silence earned him a savage slash across the back from the man’s riding crop. “One day,” Michael hissed, “I’ll make you eat that fucking thing.”
Hartspring sniffed. “I don’t think so,” he said with a disdainful sneer.
The door opened. Michael sat up; he could not help himself. “I’ll be damned,” he whispered as he saw who it was.
“So, Colonel Hartspring,” Jeremiah Polk said as he walked in, “this is the young man who has given me so much trouble.”
“Yes, sir.”
Michael stared up into Polk’s face. It was a hard face, lined and drawn, the eyes hard too, a deep brown, almost black. They glittered in the harsh light.
Polk nodded. “Not very impressive,” he said. “He’s much smaller than I expected. So, Helfort, I hope the colonel’s treating you well.”
Anger flared. “This is the Gruj,” Michael snapped, “so that’s got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever-”
Hartspring’s hand shot out. It locked itself around Michael’s throat and choked him into silence. “I won’t tell you again, boy,” he snarled. “Mind your manners.”
“It’s all right,” Polk said with an expansive wave. “Let him babble on. It won’t change anything.”
“Yes, sir,” Hartspring said, letting go of Michael’s throat.
“I am disappointed, though,” Polk went on, talking over Michael’s choking fight to get air down his bruised windpipe.
“You are, Chief Councillor?”
“Yes. I was rather hoping you would have caught that woman of his as well. What was her name?”
“Anna Cheung Helfort, sir.”
“Yes, her. I would have enjoyed seeing the pair of them die together. So romantic-”
“You slimy son of a bitch!” Michael shouted. He hurled himself forward, arms flailing in a fruitless attempt to get free of their restraints. “I’ll fucking kill you.”
Polk laughed. “I don’t think so.” He turned to Hartspring. “Your prosecutor is taking his time,” he said.
“We need to take the time to get this right, sir. The trial is scheduled to start a week from tomorrow.”
“Humph!” Polk snorted. “It’s all taking too long, but I’ll defer to you on this one. Who’s the investigating tribune?”
“Kostakidis, sir, Marek Kostakidis.”
Polk frowned. “I don’t know him. He’s solid?”
“As a rock, sir. He was one of the tribunes who dealt with the MARFOR 8 mutineers.”
“Kostakidis … Ah, yes, I remember him now. Seemed very efficient.”
“He is, sir. But more important, he’s very precise. There’ll be no mistakes.”
“Good. We have-”
“Hey!” Michael said. “I’m still here, assholes.”
This time Hartspring did not hold back. The riding crop was raised high before slicing down, a vicious slash that laid Michael’s cheek open, blood pouring down hot into his orange coverall.
“Now look what you’ve done, Colonel,” Polk said. His voice displayed no emotion whatsoever. “You seem to have spoiled that pretty face of his.”
“My apologies, Chief Councillor,” Hartspring said. He wiped the blood from the crop and stepped back. “It won’t happen again.”
“Really? That’s a shame. I rather enjoyed watching you do that.” Polk put his face close to Michael’s. “You do know,” he said, “that I’ve told the colonel that he can do what he likes with you once the trial’s over? Yes, I think you do.” He turned back to Hartspring, wagging a finger in mock rebuke. “But you must not let him die, Colonel Hartspring … well, not until I say you can.”
“Oh, don’t worry, sir. He’ll wish he was dead, but we’ll make sure he hangs on. I’ve instructed my best interrogator to keep Helfort alive for three weeks at least.”
“I like the sound of that. And the film crew?”
“Briefed and ready to go. I think you’ll enjoy my daily reports.”
“Oh, I will.”
Michael had had enough. “So how’s the war going, Polk?” he said. “Not well last time I checked. The NRA won’t give you the three weeks Colonel Asswipe here-”
Another savage slash from the riding crop cut Michael short, but this time he expected it, twisting his head down and to one sid
e to take the blow on his head. The pain was excruciating; the crop opened a cut deep into his scalp that send blood pouring down his neck. But it was worth it, Michael thought, staring from pain-filled eyes up into Polk’s face, worth it to see the fear on the chief councillor’s face.
“Well, well, well,” Michael said, forcing a smile through the pain, “so it’s not going well, then. Maybe you’re the one who’ll be looking at a firing squad-”
Michael was still focused on Polk when Hartspring’s fist slammed into the side of his face, the blow so powerful that he blacked out for a second.
“I don’t care about how the little bastard looks, not anymore,” Polk said to Hartspring. “I want you to hurt him. Make him scream, Colonel. Just don’t kill him. I want him in court next week, unmarked and on his feet.”
Hartspring smiled. “Yes, sir,” he said. “It’ll be my pleasure.”
• • •
Twelve hours later, Hartspring followed two DocSec troopers as they dragged the bloodied wreck that was Michael Helfort into the Gruj’s sick bay. They dumped him on the floor.
“You!” Hartspring barked at the duty medic, snapping the man out of a half doze and onto his feet. “This man is a Class A prisoner. I want him fixed up now, and if he needs to go to the hospital, then organize it. Just let me know before you move him so I can organize security.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you two,” he said to the two troopers. “You do not let Helfort out of your sight. Understood?’
“Yes, sir,” the pair chorused.
“Good. I want an update in an hour.”
Wednesday, October 27, 2404, UD
High-security ward, McNair Memorial Hospital, Commitment
Michael was bored rigid.
Even the prospect of appearing in front of Investigating Tribune Marek Kostakidis was not enough to get him excited. In fact, he was looking forward to it in a strange way. It would be a change from the tedium of being locked in a secure cell inside a secure ward with nothing to do and nobody to talk to. It also would give him a chance to say his bit, even though he knew full well he would not be given more than a minute or two, if that, to say anything.
The trial would be a farce. That much was not in doubt. The attorney appointed by the tribunal to defend him had handed him the brief of evidence only the day before. The meeting that followed had been a complete crock, and the attorney not much better. Over and over, he had refused to respond when Michael had pointed out inconsistencies in the evidence, saying only that the brief had been prepared by DocSec, was accurate, and could not be questioned.
Michael had never met a man so spineless. A jellyfish would have been more useful.
He pushed himself upright and swung his feet out of the bed before standing up, doing his best to ignore the protests from his abused body. Thanks to the best medical care the Hammers had to offer-as good as anything the Federated Worlds could provide-he was well on the way to recovery, his system still loaded with nanobots busy repairing the damage Hartspring’s interrogators had inflicted over the course of those terrible hours of unremitting punishment.
Michael stood swaying until the light-headedness had passed. He slipped on his plasfiber half boots before forcing his body into its regular routine of pacing out the few meters his cell afforded him, stopping every few circuits to do squats and push-ups. It was a huge effort, but he forced himself to move, relieved to feel his muscles loosening in response to the exercise, the pain that had wracked his frame the first few days now reduced to a mass of dull aches.
An hour later, his body had made it clear that enough was enough. Five more minutes, he told himself, and then he would stop. For the umpteenth time, he reached the wall and turned, but as he did, the floor shivered, a fleeting tremor that was gone almost before he realized what was happening. An instant later, the air filled with a heavy rumble that rolled on and on. Puzzled, Michael stopped, his head swinging from side to side as he tried to work out what the noise was and where it was coming from. It was an impossible task with the heavy plasglass windows and the thick ceramcrete walls robbing the sound of all life. There was a short pause; then the noise returned, louder, and this time it did not stop, building into an irregular thudding that shook Michael’s cell.
His mind raced. Only one thing made that noise: high explosive and tons of it. It had been almost two weeks since Hartspring’s men had captured him; could the NRA have broken through the Hammer’s defensive line along the Oxus River since then? They must have; why would the NRA be using its precious air assets over McNair if they hadn’t?
Without any warning, the door banged open. “Stand back!” the DocSec sergeant in charge of Michael’s security detail barked. Lojenga was the man’s name. Like every other DocSec trooper Michael had ever met, he was a brutal psychopath who was way too fond of using his baton and stun pistol.
Michael did as he was told, and Hartspring appeared. The colonel looked down his nose at Michael for a good minute. He made Michael feel like he was a piece of dog shit on the sole of one of his mirror-polished boots. Finally he nodded. “He’ll do,” he said, turning to Lojenga. “Talk to-”
“Wait, Colonel,” Michael said. “I’ll do for what?”
Hartspring’s lips thinned to bloodless slashes. “Did I speak to you?” he hissed.
“I don’t give a shit whether you did or not,” Michael snapped. He stepped back as Lojenga unholstered his stun pistol. “What will I do for?”
Hartspring waved Lojenga away. “Your trial starts tomorrow,” he said.
“No way. The doctor said I couldn’t be moved for at least another three days.”
“The doctor?” Hartspring smiled. “You think I care what the doctor says? Now shut your damned mouth or I’ll let the sergeant’s stun pistol finish this conversation.” He turned to Lojenga. “Have him ready to move out in ten minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wrists flexicuffed to leg restraints, Michael watched Hartspring’s second armored personnel carrier reverse up to the hospital’s prisoner transfer dock. He wasn’t bored anymore; the opposite, in fact. His heart pounded as he contemplated his return to the Gruj and the start of his trial the next day.
It was the beginning of the end. He knew that. After all the humiliation and embarrassment he had heaped on Chief Councillor Polk and the Hammers, they would finish him this time. Their determination was obvious; an APC blocking the access ramp to the transfer dock was just the start. Outside, in the harsh glare of massed floodlights, waited four all-terrain vehicles, cannon- and missile-armed, their crews dressed in full combat gear and carrying assault rifles. Beyond them were two more APCs. Decoys, Michael supposed, and probably packed with yet more marines.
It would take an entire NRA battalion to get him free of the Hammers.
Hartspring was taking nothing for granted. His briefing over, he was walking the line of vehicles to have a final word with each of the commanders. Michael could understand the man’s obsessive attention to detail. If Hartspring let Michael get away, Chief Councillor Polk would tear his heart out with his bare hands.
Hartspring took a final look around; he nodded and walked back where Michael waited. “Mount up,” he shouted, waving a hand. “Sergeant Lojenga! What the hell are you waiting for? Get that bloody man into my APC!”
“Sir!”
Lojenga pushed Michael down the ramp to the waiting vehicle. Too hard. Unable to move his feet fast enough, Michael stumbled a few halting steps before gravity took over, dragging him down in an awkward, twisting fall that his flexicuffed hands could not break. His body crashed into the ceramcrete dock, tumbled down the ramp, and came to a stop at Hartspring’s feet, newly healed injuries screaming in protest.
“You bastards,” Michael hissed through clenched teeth.
Hartspring ignored him. He pulled out his pistol and stepped over Michael. In a single fluid movement, he ran up the ramp, put the pistol to Lojenga’s head, and pulled the trigger. The shot echoed around
the transfer dock, a flat crack that faded into the silence.
The DocSec sergeant stood for a while, eyes wide open in shocked surprise. With a sigh, he crumpled to the ground at Hartspring’s feet. “You always were a useless turd, Sergeant Lojenga,” Hartspring said. He spit on the black-jumpsuited body and stood back. “You! Rajith, Craxi!” His finger stabbed out at two DocSec troopers. “Get that bloody man on his feet and into the APC. Move!”
The two men sprinted down the ramp. They dragged Michael to his feet and bundled him into the APC, and none too carefully. They ignored Michael’s protests and followed him in. It was hot; the air smelled of hydraulic fluid, burned gun oil, and spent ammunition and was filled with the muted chatter of radio circuits. The interior was cluttered with weapons racks, storage boxes, comm equipment, and workstations. The marine operators looked like they’d much rather be somewhere else; the glances they threw at the two troopers were loaded with contempt.
The men pushed him into a crash seat and strapped him in, securing his arms and legs to small rings on the bulkhead and the floor, the restraints pulled so cruelly tight that he could barely move. “Thanks so much, you pair of DocSec dipshits,” Michael muttered.
One of the troopers put his face close to Michael’s. “Enjoy the ride, you Fed cocksucker. Where you’re goi-”
With all the force he could muster, Michael smashed his forehead into the bridge of the man’s nose. The blow hit with a terrible crunching thud that sent the man howling back across the cramped compartment with his hands to his face and into one the marines, who pushed him to the deck with a curse. The man sat whimpering, blood spurting scarlet from between his fingers.
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