by Ryan Krauter
"Leave the most crucial prisoner of war we have in the care of a shadowy Fixer?" asked Cory, a little taken aback. "I mean, I guess I trust him, but that's pretty huge."
"He's not just any Fixer," Loren replied. "Like you said; if he agrees, we can make this work. If he doesn't want to do it, he'll tell us and we'll come up with something else."
Cory nodded, hoping Loren had read the man right.
Chapter Fifteen
At about the same time as Loren and Cory were discussing Garrett's trustworthiness, Enric Shae stalked the halls of the capitol police precinct. They'd responded to the call about the safehouse and had been the ones to retrieve Tana Starr. Escorted by a heavily armed squad of SAR troops sporting menacing scowls, the Priman agent had been brought in and left in the most secure cell the station had. As the chief staffer of Senator Dennix, privy to almost every bit of information the Confederation navy churned out, Shae had seen the dispatches about a prisoner retrieval request from a SAR officer and put the pieces together.
Tana Starr had been captured and subjected to a field interrogation. Her interrogator, a SAR operative by the name of Halley Pascal, had called in Starr's location and left to continue looking for Representative Velk and his captors to affect a rescue.
So here he sat; in the wake Velk's escape, nobody was taking anything for granted any more. Shae had to wait, endure several scans, and leave half his garments behind before being allowed into a divided interrogation room to talk to the Priman. He'd stated that he was under orders to see for himself that the Senator's valued aide was in fact a Priman. At least, that's what he'd told the guards.
He waited patiently for Starr to be escorted into the room, then chained to the desk. He guards left, and finally the two of them were alone.
"Tana," Enric began.
"Mr. Shae," she replied, her speech just a little garbled by the split lip and missing teeth Halley had claimed.
"I'm here for business. I have orders from the Commander that I was only instructed to give to you if you were captured. I learned a lot about him and your people while I was there for our 'negotiations'." He smiled, though it seemed phony to her; the kind that someone would show on their face as they told you something horrible. "I believe in what you're trying to do, Ms. Starr," he continued. "But the Commander is in a difficult position now with you captured." He leaned forward, voice dropping even though he'd supervised the officer who'd disabled the surveillance pickups in the room. "What do you remember about your interrogation?"
"Not too much," she replied honestly. "I fear I may have given them our plans for the Representative."
"Which were exactly?"
"For me to carry out," she replied with an edge to her voice, "not you."
Shae nodded, mildly irritated but determined to not show it. "We can't allow you to be used against the Senator. Right now, he's in a very precarious position. There are things your Commander needs Senator Dennix to do. He's gathered a good deal of power, but linking him to you will end all of that. What they have is probably not enough to take serious legal action, but it would be political death, which would lead to the same result. He has to stay in power; your Commander made that very clear. Under the right conditions, we can spin this to make it look like you duped him instead of him being a willing participant."
Starr just nodded, waiting for Shae to get to the point. He'd always been the chatty one.
"Right now, your interrogation is single-source. Halley Pascal might have some information, but we don't know how well she documented it. In any case, for it to be considered valid, they'd need to subject you to it again, administered and supervised by properly trained professionals. In addition, since you’re an enemy agent, they’ll look on your statements with doubt even though you were under the influence of a known and field-tested drug."
"Please," Starr broke in, "get to the point, Mr. Shae. You ramble like an Enkarran."
Enric Shae bristled, something that shouldn't have pleased Tana Starr as much as it did.
"Alright then," he finally conceded. "Your Commander has ordered you to take your own life in captivity here. If you are dead, you cannot be interrogated, testify against the Senator, or corroborate any claim Halley Pascal might make. We'll bring her in soon enough and I'll deal with her when the time is right as well."
Starr nodded. She swallowed once, digesting the order.
Shae gave her what he hoped seemed like a supportive smile and spoke a long string of code words; the Commander's verification codes along with his exact orders, as given to Enric Shae to repeat to Tana Starr if anything ever went wrong with her mission. Enric Shae had, for whatever reasons, Tana realized, completely earned the trust of his handlers during his visit to Priman space.
She wanted to object, demand her own rescue effort like she'd spearheaded for Velk, but knew there was no way it could happen, especially considering she probably had only hours before she was strapped to a table full of Halley's vile truth drug and singing everything she knew about the Priman infiltration of Confed's government. She realized that she'd be a hypocrite if she refused; mere hours ago, she was ready to write off Representative Velk and his whole rescue team as casualties of war, people who knew they could be called upon to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. She'd be a coward if she wasn't willing to accept that the same might be asked of her. She couldn't give up what she knew of the Priman invasion plan, and she couldn't allow herself to be used to oust Senator Dennix. He was the Primans' best chance of a low-bloodshed Confed defeat.
Instead of complaining or stalling, she simply nodded once, saying nothing. She looked at Shae, waiting for something else, but he had nothing. He pursed his lips as if about to say something, then changed his mind. Rather, he got up and walked to the door on his side of the room, giving her one last glance before passing through the door that the guard was holding open for him to pass through.
Tana Starr paced in her cell. It was sparse, devoid of ways to hurt herself. No sharp edges, electrical conduits or even laces in her footwear to wind together. She looked up at the ceiling and saw nothing. Above the door, though, there was a junction box of some sort. It was bolted to the wall with flush-mounted hardware, but the box protruded far enough to give purchase. One thing her captors had underestimated was her strength. It would have surprised any of the guards to watch her tear the sleeves and pant legs off her prison jumpsuit and tie them into a short length of woven rope.
Her face was an expressionless mask as she readied her homemade noose. As she thought about her face, she realized she was still in her human prosthetics. It saddened her to know she'd become so accustomed to them that even now, as the minutes counted down, she didn't think to rid herself of her disguise. Dealing with the mild pain of tearing the cosmetic alterations off instead of using her aerosol solvent, she ripped them off and flung them across the room and ran her hand over her face. Her real, Priman face.
She secured one end of the rope to the junction box and held the other end for a minute, knowing that she couldn't afford to waste any more time. They'd probably be back any minute now to begin preparations for another interrogation.
She completed her final assignment mere minutes before the guards returned for her.
Loren heard the entry chime and stiffened in his chair. He'd dragged one of the comfortable, shape-fitting lounge chairs to the front door and sat there with his SSK in his lap, waiting for Garrett to arrive. He got up and tapped the wall pad to bring up the security camera view just as Cory arrived with her own weapon drawn.
Garrett's businesslike facade stared impassively at the camera pickup, waiting on Loren to grant him entry. It was his own safehouse and he knew the codes, but Loren had seemed fairly jumpy so he'd rung the entry chime to give the Confed man warning.
The door slid silently open into the doorframe and Loren waved Garrett in with a smile. It felt like the first time in days Loren had allowed himself that luxury.
"Garrett, nice to see you," Loren sai
d as he switched the sidearm to his other hand so he could shake Garrett's with his right one. Cory repeated the gesture.
"If there's one thing I've learned about you, Loren," Garrett said with a guarded look, "it's that you are incapable of leading a boring life. Exciting is usually interesting, and I'm always curious about that."
"Well, have I got something interesting for you," Loren said, and motioned for Garrett to lead the way further into the condo. Loren was pleased to see Garrett's pace stutter as the man did a double-take upon seeing Velk secured to a chair in the dining area.
"Can I assume that's Representative Velk, former Commander of the Priman invasion?" said Garrett softly but in control.
"You can," Cory replied with a smirk.
"Do I want to know why he's in my safehouse and not in a Confed detention facility?"
"Depends on how much you want to implicate yourself," Web announced as he rounded the corner, a hot ready-made breakfast sandwich from Garrett's freezer in his hand.
"Assume I'm always ready and willing to hear everything," Garrett said with a straight face.
"First," Loren said seriously, "I need to know you can keep it quiet." He raised his hand as Garrett was about to object so that he could continue. "I know you have never let us down, but this is the entire Confederation we're talking about now, so at the risk of insulting you, I have to say it; you need to tell us you're with us on this."
Garrett seemed to wage some sort of internal dialogue, then spoke clearly. "You are clients as well as, let's say, acquaintances in very good standing. I will comply with whatever you ask as long as it doesn't involve my immediate death." He stared at Loren, daring him to say that the statement wasn't enough.
Loren gathered himself, trying to find a way to summarize everything that had happened in the last day into a few sentences. "Senator Dennix is in league with the Primans. We're not sure of the arrangement, but his aide Tana Starr was in fact Priman. She arranged Velk's rescue, but was going to kill him so he couldn't get back to Priman space and possibly encourage a more moderate view of the invasion among his people. Starr kidnapped him, we kidnapped him from her, and now we're here. We can't take him back to Confed because Dennix will find out and this will happen again. The whole government isn't corrupt-"
"We hope," Merritt interjected sourly.
"They're not all corrupt," Loren continued, unfazed by Merritt's comment, "but Dennix has a lot of friends. We can't let them get their hands on Velk again. We turned over Tana Starr to the local police but she needs to be protected as well. Without her, nobody can make much of a case against the Senator, and even with her it's circumstantial at best, a case of an enemy prisoner trying to implicate the de-facto leader of the Confederation. It wouldn't hold up, so right now we're laying low trying to figure out what the hell to do."
"Without his assistant, Tana Starr, you have no case?" Garrett asked guardedly.
"We barely have one now," Loren said, but something about Garrett's tone set of warnings in Loren's head. "What do you know?"
"I did some research on the way in last night," Garrett said as he dropped himself into a seat across from the gagged Velk, who just watched him intently. "I assumed there was something going on with Confed that you couldn't tell them about, so I scoured all my sources for anything interesting. Not long after she was placed in protective custody, Tana Starr committed suicide." He waited for the gasps and curse words to die down before continuing. "The last person to see her was Enric Shae. His reason for visiting, as filled out in the request log, was to appeal to her for a peaceful resolution considering that Confed and the Primans are supposedly on the verge of announcing some sort of treaty or agreement. He only spent a few minutes in there."
"I won't even ask how you know that," Loren muttered, and he realized it was becoming a trend that Garrett knew things about his own government that Loren had no idea about.
"The official word, of course," Garrett continued, "is that she probably didn't want to be captured, paraded around, interrogated, take your pick. But the conspiracy theorist in me sees how that melds perfectly with what you've just told me."
"Well," said Web glumly, "I guess we're doomed."
Loren looked at Garrett intently now. "You know what I'm going to ask," he said.
"You want me to babysit our conquering overlord here until you can find a place to dump him?"
"How long can you help for?" Loren asked, all business, the intensity in his eyes increasing with every minute.
"I can give you a couple days before I'll have to leave," Garrett replied. "You realize this is fairly ludicrous already?"
"Of course I do," Loren replied. "That's pretty much the standard these days." He paced around a bit, then turned back to Garrett. "Look, I have one card to play. Give me today to see if I can make something happen. If that doesn't pan out, I have nothing. We'll have to consider turning him over in that case, but that's a death sentence for him."
"One day?" Garrett said, one eyebrow rising high in doubt.
"I'll comm you tonight. But first, the four of us need to get back to Avenger before we're listed as AWOL, and that will put a real crimp on our plans to save the Confederation."
"I'll be waiting," Garrett said with a sigh, then saw them to the door.
He returned to the dining room table and aafter removing the gag from his mouth sat across from Velk, elbows on the table and chin in his hands. "I think it's safe to assume neither of us saw today going like this," he began. He pulled out a small stun pistol, about the size of a Pocket Derringer, and laid it on the table right in front of him. Velk was very securely bound- Garrett had checked that for himself- but he wasn't going to take chances. The former Priman Commander didn't need to know about the SDF Compact blaster that Garrett had in his back waistband, either. "Looks like we'll get to know each other for a while. How do I address you? Representative? Name only?"
Velk studied Garrett, trying to figure the human out. He seemed so straightforward, but that was often a mask for lies. However, he knew his adversary Loren Stone well, and if Loren considered this man a friend, perhaps he had the same noble qualities as the Confed soldier who'd caused him no end of trouble.
"You can call me Representative Velk, or just Representative," the Priman replied.
"She's what?!" Zek Dennix cried out in shock. Enric Shae just stood in front of the Senator's desk, trying to keep a straight face. The Senator was so emotional, reactionary. His swings were dangerous, something the Primans had tried to show him during his time with them. Oh, they'd tried their best to indoctrinate him on the wonders of Priman society and rule, and to be honest Shae couldn't entirely disagree with their point of view. But what he really wanted was the Senator's job. Dennix didn't deserve it and frankly wasn't suited to it. He'd bide his time for now as the faithful aide, but promises of being put in Dennix's place had been whispered to him while with the Primans, and Enric Shae thought that was a great idea.
"After I saw that Starr had been captured," Shae continued, "I went to the facility directly so I could see what had happened. She'd been interrogated by the SAR woman, Halley Pascal. She informed me that Ms. Pascal had adminstered some sort of truth serum and done a field interrogation, so I had to assume she'd spilled everything, sir."
Dennix was still trying to regain control of himself. "But what did you say? On whose authority did she kill herself?"
Shae did his damnedest to hold his smug smile in check. "I was given orders while in Priman space on what to do in certain situations," he started. "They are only concerned with keeping you in power, Senator. You are the link that will make this all happen; a Priman truce, no more bloodshed," he lied. There would be more blood required, blood that would be blamed on Senator Dennix when the Primans eventually removed him and demanded Enric Shae replace him as head of the Confederation in their stead. Everyone on the Governing Committee and the Senate in general would fall into line as he made the real calls after that; he'd learned quickly how the politica
l process worked. The politicians were adept at saving themselves; they'd realize what they needed to do, of that he was sure.
"And so you ordered her to kill herself?" Dennix continued.
Shae looked the Senator right in the eye. "Yes."
Dennix deflated a bit. She'd always been pain in his ass, a constant reminder that he was on a leash that was held by the conquering aliens. But they had just ordered one of their own to die to protect him. If there was ever any doubt that they owned him, it was gone like smoke in the wind.
"We need to get out ahead of this now," Shae continued. "They want us to move on with the second phase and start the transition."
Dennix just stared at the surface of his desk for a while, then nodded absently and stood up. "Let's go over to my work table," he said, indicating one of the large conference tables closer to the large doors leading to the outer office. "Starr and I had been working on my speech. You'll need to help me finish it." The Senator walked off in a daze, and Shae saw the beginning of his own era flash into existence.
Upon arriving back aboard Avenger, Loren had gone right to Captain Elco's quarters and warned him about what he was going to tell him. The captain got them two glasses of liquor and led them to a table in his day cabin, then had Loren tell him everything. Loren complied, from a recap of Velk's breakout, to hunting him down, Halley's interrogation of Starr, the revelations about Dennix, and his resultant captivity in an undisclosed location.
"Damn," Elco mumbled as he drained his glass. "You never do anything halfway, do you Loren?" He puffed up his cheeks as he thought for a while, then looked at his XO again. "You're taking years off my life, you know," he said, trying to show some good cheer at the situation. Loren only smiled.
"I suppose you have a plan?" Elco asked.
