by Terry Mixon
The pirate that they’d captured on the bridge of the tanker lay on the only table inside the compartment itself. Based on its design, he didn’t think the table was meant for surgical procedures. It was too short for anyone to actually lie on, because their lower legs drooped toward the floor.
Corporal Jimenez stood beside the table, her hand sitting next to the pirate’s head. The tall woman had taken her helmet and gloves off and set them nearby, allowing her long black hair to hang down her back.
Brad couldn’t imagine how much a pain in the ass it was to stuff that back into a helmet, but that wasn’t his problem. If Saburo didn’t mind, he didn’t.
“Talk to me,” he said as he examined the pirate.
The sheet covering the man was stained in blood. Based on the fact that some of it was fresh, he assumed the bastard was still leaking.
“We stopped as much of the bleeding as we could, sir, but he’s still losing something internally. His organs are beginning to shut down. He was semiconscious a minute ago, and I expect that he’s probably going to wake up again before he passes. I could probably make certain of that by giving him a stimulant, but it would hasten his death.”
Her distaste at the idea was obvious to anyone with eyes.
With all the doctors Brad had met over the last few years, he understood why. Healers wanted to save lives, not make people die faster. Corporal Jimenez might not be a doctor in the strictest sense but was obviously cut from the same mold.
“I happen to have some experience with administering stimulants,” Falcone said. “Where are they?”
The corporal pointed toward an open medical pack sitting on a counter. “They’re in the bag, ma’am.”
“Why don’t you go see to your other patients?” Brad asked. “We can handle this from here.”
He figured he might as well take the load of what they were about to do completely off the woman’s shoulders. She was a good trooper and he didn’t want to cause her needless pain.
Falcone rummaged through the pack after Jimenez departed and pulled out a vial and injector. She eyeballed the patient and drew some of the clear liquid before putting the vial away.
She pulled the bloodstained sheet down enough to expose the man’s neck. “Based on experience, we’re not going to have long. Don’t beat around the bush. Three minutes is about all we can hope for.”
Brad was somewhat skeptical that they’d get any useful information from the man. “He has to know he’s dying. He’s not going to talk, except perhaps to gloat.”
“That, my young friend, is defeatism,” she said reprovingly. “We may be able to convince him that he’s going to survive. I suggest you lead with that. Ready?”
“Me? You’ve got a lot more experience at this sort of thing than I do.”
“I’ll chip in,” she said as she injected the stimulant into the man’s neck. “It’s been my experience that these Cadre types respond better to men than women. He might just try to dominate me, whereas he’ll argue with you. As I said, time is short.”
Brad let that sink in while he waited for the stimulant to take hold. The Cadre did have women in their ranks, but they weren’t exactly known for gender equality. He supposed that Falcone could be right.
They’d find out shortly.
The powerful stimulant brought the dying man back to awareness in less than thirty seconds. The man’s breath wheezed wetly in his throat as he struggled for air. His gaze initially settled on Falcone, and despite his condition, he still managed to sneer.
“You’ll get…nothing from…me.”
“We’ll see about that,” Brad said as he leaned forward in a manner meant to intimidate the man. “I am Commodore Brad Madrid of the Vikings Mercenary Company. Sadly for you, I must inform you that even though your injuries are severe, we expect you to make a complete recovery. Well, completely enough so that you can answer every question I have”
“Is that…so?” the man asked, his eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard…of you. Fuck off.”
The man ground his teeth and glared at Brad.
“We’ve already captured…” Brad started, but stopped abruptly when the man started foaming from the mouth. “Holy crap!”
Falcone swore something significantly more pungent and tried to pry the man’s mouth open. He resisted and began shaking uncontrollably.
“Poison!” Falcone said, stepping back. “Dammit.”
They watched the Cadre officer die. Once he’d stopped moving, she tossed the empty injector onto the counter next to the pack.
“I can’t believe I just saw that,” she muttered. “Something right out of a clichéd old vid. He had a hollow tooth filled with poison. Probably cyanide. Who does that kind of thing?”
Brad crossed his arms and stared at the dead pirate. “I suppose we can assume that he knew something they didn’t want anyone to learn and he was dedicated enough to commit suicide. That’s new. I wonder if this is a new tactic or just something we’ve never had the opportunity to observe before.”
She shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out when we jump whoever is meeting this tanker. We need to examine every other person on this ship. If they have hollow teeth, I don’t want them to have an opportunity to use them.”
“We can try,” Brad said with a nod. “Other than the other man in critical condition, everyone else could’ve already used one. We’ll hope for the best, but I think the bastards got us again.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
A search of the prisoners and bodies revealed two others with false teeth containing what Brad assumed was poison. One of the men had been located in Engineering and the other deep in the bowels of the tanker. Both had been killed in the fighting.
Whatever deep knowledge the Cadre had wanted kept to themselves was gone. They’d question the other prisoners, but the odds of getting the critical information he’d hoped for had probably died with the man on the table.
With only seven survivors, three of whom were in critical condition, the interrogations they now planned probably weren’t going to reveal any deep, dark secrets, but you didn’t know until you started asking questions.
Falcone took a tour of the tanker and selected the galley as the best place to question the prisoners. Unfortunately, a number of crewmen had chosen the galley to make their final stand. It smelled of death and blood.
While the scents weren’t exactly unknown to Brad, he’d delayed the start of the interrogations and ordered several of his troopers to perform basic cleanup tasks before they started.
Once the corpses had been removed and their blood washed away, he picked a table near the bulkhead, and the two of them placed their tablets on the chipped plastic surface. Two troopers in armor stood inside the hatch leading to the corridor, and two more stood behind Brad and Falcone.
When one added in the two guards who would escort every prisoner, he believed that would be enough intimidation to keep them in line. Of course, these were hard-core Cadre pirates. They knew what their ultimate fate would almost certainly be.
“Before we get started,” Brad said, “I want to get one thing straight in my mind. Are you going to make an example out of any of these people to try and get the others to cooperate? If so, I don’t want my people executing prisoners, no matter how much I believe they need to eventually be executed. That would be disastrous to their morale.”
Falcone shook her head. “If I thought one of these people had critical information that I needed in a hurry, you bet your ass I’d do that. Frankly, I doubt any of the survivors know anything about who they were meeting.
“Judging by the false teeth, only the captain, executive officer, and chief engineer were deeply enough into the Cadre to know anything truly important. I’m hoping to get things the prisoners picked up that they didn’t realize was important, or important things that their superiors inadvertently allowed them to see.”
“And exactly how do you intend to get them to cooperate? Promise them their lives in exchange for life in p
rison without mentioning the mines on Mercury?”
Two years before, she’d made that kind of deal with another Cadre prisoner. Brad wondered if the woman was still alive.
“It worked last time,” Falcone said with a grin. “Details are important in contract negotiations. If you want something, you have to fight for it and have something worth bargaining with to get some favorable clauses.”
Brad knew that very well. Of course, the details he negotiated on behalf of the Vikings rarely had such potentially lethal loopholes as the mines of Mercury. The mercenaries risked death every time they went into the field, but a good negotiator made certain they had a good idea of what they were getting into.
“Do we start with the guy from the computer room or save him for last?” Brad asked.
“Let’s start with him,” Falcone said after a few seconds of thought. “We’re not going to tell any of the other prisoners what was discussed with those that came before or after, so it doesn’t really matter. I’m curious to see what he has to say for himself.”
Brad glanced over his shoulder and nodded to one of the troopers standing behind him.
Adrian Orlosky, a huge bear of a man, nodded his understanding and raised his wrist-comp to his lips, murmuring softly.
A few minutes later, the hatch leading into the compartment opened and two troopers frog-marched the prisoner in to stand in front of the table. The man had the beginnings of a black eye.
Brad shifted his gaze to the most senior of the troopers escorting the prisoner. “Did he give you any trouble?”
“Nothing we couldn’t handle, sir,” the woman said. “The prisoner seemed to think that he had a chance to make a break for it. We corrected his misunderstanding.”
That was probably exactly what had happened, but Brad made a mental note to tag Saburo about it. He knew his combat team commander would make certain that was all it had been.
Brad shifted his gaze back to the prisoner. “It seems we meet again. Are you still confident that I’m not going to get what I’m looking for?”
To his credit, the man didn’t wilt under Brad’s stare. “I said it then and I’ll say it now. You won’t get anything from me.”
“At least you have the courage of your convictions,” Brad granted the man. “Allow me to introduce my associate. This is Agent Kate Falcone of the Commonwealth Investigative Agency. She believes—and our previous history together confirms her confidence in the matter—that she can get what we want from you.
“The process is never pretty and often fatal to those who disappoint her. As a mercenary commander, I dislike the sausage-making process, but my hands are legally tied. When it comes to dealing with Cadre prisoners, she has the authority to decide your fate. I suggest you keep that firmly in mind during the next few minutes, as it might just save your life.”
Falcone leaned forward and smiled like a shark. “For the record, I never kill anyone that doesn’t thoroughly deserve it. It’s already clear to me that you work for the Cadre. That, my friend, means a death sentence. The only thing we’re negotiating at this point is whether I carry it out here or send you somewhere else to go through the formalities first.
“If you can’t give me something worth my time, we can go directly to the nearest airlock and carry out the sentence. Five minutes and you’re floating in vacuum, strangling to death on your own blood.”
Her smile widened. “I’m told that that’s a very ugly way to die. That in and of itself makes it incredibly appropriate for Cadre scum like you. So, go ahead. Tell me that you don’t have anything worth my time and we’ll get you out of here pronto. I have other prisoners to question and I haven’t had lunch yet.”
The man was obviously having some kind of inner struggle. Unlike the fatally injured prisoner in the infirmary—the captain, they’d guessed—Brad wasn’t certain this guy had the conviction to go to the grave with his mouth closed.
Falcone allowed the silence to drag on for about twenty seconds before she nodded and stood. “Very well. Troopers, you know where to take this man.”
“Wait!” the man said, resisting the mercenaries as they started to turn him around. “I have some information that I’m willing to give you in exchange for my life.”
“Why didn’t you just start with that?” Falcone asked as she sat back down. “I’m always willing to make a good-faith effort with someone that’s willing to cooperate.
“Let me warn you, though, that you’re going to have to have some decent information, or all you’ll be buying yourself is more time in a cell waiting for someone else to kill you.”
Brad sat forward when the man nodded. “Let’s start with something simple, shall we? What’s your name and what do you do on board this ship?”
“My name is Rory Zacharias and I’m the navigator aboard Sidhe.” The man slumped in the mercenaries’ grasp as he spoke, his defiance visibly leaking away.
“Why were you wiping the computer when we captured you, Mr. Zacharias?” Brad continued in a reasonable tone. “What information were you hoping to deny us?
“The captain ordered me to dump the computer. We already had programs built into it, so that wasn’t much of a problem, though I still can’t believe how little warning we had. I only finished just before the shooting started. I never had a chance to get my hands on the backup data.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s the first part of what I have to offer. In the computer room, on a shelf under the desk, are our backup disks for previous trips. I wasn’t supposed to keep them, but there should’ve been plenty of time to get rid of them.”
Brad smiled coolly. “Sometimes luck is bad, both in us sneaking up on you and because we’ve already found them, so they don’t count.
“We’ve identified the asteroid you were going toward and determined that it’s the same one you went to on your previous trip. Interesting how you go to a single destination twice before changing. Why not change every time?”
“You’ll have to ask the captain,” the man said with a shrug. “That’s above my pay grade.”
“Sadly for you, he is no longer with us,” Falcone said as she leaned back in her seat. “I hope you have more than that to offer. You’ll be disappointed at how this deal goes if you don’t.”
“Who were you meeting?” Brad asked. “And who have you met in the past on these missions?”
The prisoner looked uncomfortable. “The captain always shut off the scanners when we arrived on station. No one was allowed to see exactly who we docked with. It was a security measure because they’re not sure they can trust everyone on the crew.”
“I see. So, you don’t actually have anything else of value to us? Agent Falcone?”
“Just wait a second, dammit,” the man said peevishly. “I’ve already told you that I’m going to tell you what I know. It’ll go faster if you’d stop threatening me and give me time to actually tell you.”
Bemused, Brad nodded. “By all means, then. Please continue.”
“I can’t tell you exactly who we were meeting, but I’ve overheard the captain talking with them during the refueling operations. Just snippets, as he usually stays on the bridge alone during refueling operations. These people don’t talk like regular pirates.”
With a look of vague interest, Falcone gestured for the man to continue. “If you had to guess, what kind of person or persons have you been dealing with?”
“It’s like out of one of those vids about Fleet. They’re all professional-like. ‘Come to heading seven three niner and hold station’ kind of stuff. Everything they say is short and sweet, and they keep using words in a way that makes me think of those vids.”
Brad glanced at Falcone. They knew they were dealing with ships that Fleet had lost. Was it much of a stretch to expect that those vessels had ex-Fleet personnel on board? Someone with knowledge of how those carriers worked had to be guiding the drones. That just wasn’t the kind of skills a pirate had.
“How many of these runs have you made?”
Falcone asked. “When was the first one that you participated in?”
“It’s all in the discs,” the man said with a shrug. “Eight? Maybe nine? Long enough that they were starting to trust me. The captain said he wanted to talk to me after this mission about moving up to a higher level of trust. Guess that ain’t gonna happen.”
“I’m afraid not,” Brad said. “If you can’t tell us anything about the ships or people you’re meeting, what about Draco Limited? Someone there has to know what you’re doing. Does it go all the way to the top, or is there someone specific that you work for?”
The man shook his head and smiled wryly. “As much as those people at Blackhawk Station go on and on about the pirate attack two years ago, they’re deaf, dumb, and blind. Every single one of the management types at Draco are members of the Cadre. Every single ship they have—even the ones doing the milk runs—are commanded by Cadre members. All the senior officers on board: captain, exec, and chief engineer.
“They moved into the offices of the place the Cadre cleaned out two years ago, and no one had a clue. It just blows my mind.”
That news didn’t surprise Brad all that much. He’d suspected that Draco was a wholly-owned Cadre subsidiary.
“That is useful information,” Brad said, “but I think you have more to add. If you were being considered for more trust, then you’ve seen things. You know things. This is your chance to trot it out. Sell us now or off you go.”
The man seemed to consider something for a moment and then sighed. “I didn’t really see anybody’s faces, but I had to deliver something to the captain and heard the new Cadre leader talking for a little bit before the captain muted whatever he was listening to and turned the monitor. You know, the Phoenix.”
Falcone leaned forward. “You’re sure that it was the Phoenix? It could’ve been anybody.”
The man shrugged slightly. “It sure sounded like the dude was claiming that he ran the Cadre. So far as I know, only the Phoenix has the balls to make that claim.”
