by A P Heath
She felt embarrassed by his question, singling her out from the others. She nodded mutely.
“Good,” he continued, “We’ve only got one level to go, but with the terminal out of action that means hiking our way to the link stair.”
Masj lifted his head, “Why do we need the link stair?” He asked.
Hornwood took a breath before responding.
“The Peregrine is out of action,” there was a gasp from the old doctor, “so we have to use the evac pods on the next level down.”
Oliver drew a breath and the old doctor looked like he was about to feint. Emelia knew the reason for their surprise and fear; the evac pods wouldn’t take them back to Luna, they were surface landing life boats only and Luna was too far a distance for their support functions to maintain. That left only one other destination…
“Buckle up people,” Hornwood said, drawing his pistol from its holster and raising it alongside his face, “We’re taking a little trip to Earth.”
THIRTY-TWO
Mylus Vant watched the blood start to trickle from the tip of Aitkin’s left forefinger.
His patient grunted at the touch of his blade, the sound quickly rising in pitch as Mylus traced it down the length of the finger to the top of Aitkin’s palm.
Mylus always marvelled at the efficiency of the pain delivered through the manipulation of a patient’s fingers. He’d seen men and women who’d undergone all manner of excruciating practices with barely tight lips, break and beg to give up their Truth after just one or two fingers had been peeled of their skin.
It was a tactic widely used by The Fathers and often would be one of the first things to happen to a new patient. Mylus however, preferred to leave it until well into his sessions.
He would work his way around the meat of a body, inflicting terrible pain with his precise, burning cuts until the subject felt like there could be no worse torment.
Then Mylus would start work on their fingers and his patient would understand the pain they had suffered thus far was simply an overture, a taster of the pure unadulterated agony that he could inflict upon them. Mylus always found it to have a tremendously powerful effect.
He had been working on Aitkin Cassini’s Truth for nearly five hours and he couldn’t help but find a growing admiration for the man. Aitkin had stuck rigidly to his lie. He had yet to falter or utter a word outside his initial admission of name and rank. He had, of course, screamed.
He had screamed a great deal, but there had been no curses, no begging for mercy or attempts to strike deals.
Aitkin had not even threatened Mylus’ life, something that he found the majority of his patients would resort to, generally before they became aware of where they were and in whose hands their life rested. That was usually the point at which the begging started.
Mylus had watched the face of his latest subject closely when he delivered that piece of news.
There had been little movement, the muscles carefully controlled, despite the obvious exhaustion.
The eyes though; Aitkin’s eyes had spoken volumes to Mylus as the realisation of his situation sunk in. Aitkin knew now that there would be no way out but to give up his Truth and Mylus had decided the time was ripe to break his mental barriers with the deluge of pain that could only be provided by the delicate flaying of his fingers.
The first incision was complete and the blood flowed hot and red down Aitkin’s hand as Mylus carefully negotiated the blade around the joint. He moved his blade to the tip of the finger again and pressed gently, beginning the second cut that would eventually join the first where the finger and palm came together.
Aitkin was a strong subject, but the rising pain was already forcing whimpers from his cracked lips. As Mylus’ blade passed the first joint Aitkin flinched as the pain spiked suddenly.
He cried out, still not a word but from the way the sound cut off, Mylus knew without looking that his patient had bitten down on his own tongue to stop from screaming something more than the words he’s already given up.
Mylus could feel the frame of the chair shaking with the shudders of the body it held. Were it not for the restraints he had no doubt Aitkin would be thrashing wildly in his torment. As it was all he could do was strain against the grip of the chair and bellow his pain into the light that shone down on him from above.
Mylus completed his second cut. The finger was ringed with the deep red line where his blade had parted the skin. He paused for a moment, leaving Aitkin’s terror to build over what would come next.
“What is your name?” He asked, his voice rasping through the grill at the top of his mechanical mouth. Aitkin panted, trying to breathe more deeply and calm himself enough to speak.
“Aitkin…” He gasped between shuddering breaths, “…Cas…Cassini…”
“Very good.” Mylus replied, his voice a strange metallic
purring.
“And what is your rank Aitkin Cassini?”
He took Aitkin’s damaged finger between his own forefinger and thumb and pressed as he asked the question. Aitkin made a noise somewhere between a roar and a scream. It turned fully as Mylus applied more pressure.
“If you lie to me again Aitkin Cassini,” He spoke calmly as he lessened the pressure and allowed Aitkin to subside, “I will be forced to take the flesh from your finger.”
Mylus had been crouched to Aitkin’s left with his head on a level with the hand upon which he worked, but now he stood and leaned in close to Aitkin’s face.
“If I do this Aitkin Cassini, the pain will be pain as you have never imagined.”
It was not a threat, but a promise and one Mylus had uttered on many occasions. Aitkin’s head was held fast by the restraints of the chair, allowing him no movement, but his eyes turned in their sockets to look sidelong at Mylus. For a moment he thought the threat might be enough, but his admiration for this man before him grew as Aitkin took a long deep breath and without looking away, forced the same words as before from his mouth.
“Captain. Second Company,”
Mylus sighed gently and used the tip of his knife to raise the separated strip of flesh at the top of Aitkin’s finger.
“Deorum mar…”
Aitkin’s words became a strangled cry rising to a terrible roar of agony, his body shaking in his restraints and his muscles bunching impotently as Mylus slowly peeled the skin from the length of his forefinger.
As the strip of wet, blood covered flesh came away Aitkin’s scream began to form words. His pain was so all consuming they were grunted out and even Mylus’ well -trained ear could not decipher them.
He dropped the grisly morsel to the floor where it landed with a sickening wet little slap.
“Was there something else you wished to say to me Aitkin
Cassini?” He asked gently.
Mylus leaned close and drew the blade of his knife across Aitkin’s abdomen, opening him from hip to hip.
Aitkin’s eyes were closed and his body was slumped, as much as the chair would allow, but Mylus could see the pain of the open wound rippling through him. He tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth his body lurched and he vomited bile and blood down his scarred chest and into the bloody chasm that his midriff had become. Mylus waited patiently as Aitkin coughed feebly and tried to spit, attempting to rid his mouth of the acidic taste, red bubbles forming at the corners of his mouth.
After a few moments he repeated his question.
“You have something more to say?”
Aitkin’s eyes were still closed, his breathing shallow, “I…I am…” He voice trailed off.
Blood was pouring from his hand, his open stomach and running down the leg supports of the chair. It formed a pool underneath him, reaching out to touch Mylus’ cloth covered feet.
He leaned in close, waving a dismiss signal to the surgeon apparatus that had begun to hum in the darkened corner of the room.
He knew Aitkin was on the verge of breaking, of giving up his Truth and he could not have the
surgeon put him down for treatment yet.
Aitkin’s voice had barely been a whisper. “You are…?” He prompted.
There was a pause in Aitkin’s breathing and for a moment Mylus thought he may have pushed his patient too far.
It was known to happen, the shock of the continuous, appalling treatment the body underwent sometimes pushed a subject straight through their mental barriers and continued on to shut them down totally, without even affording a Father the chance to find their Truth.
Sometimes the mind simply gave up. Mylus had come to
expect more from Aitkin Cassini though. The man showed a rare gift for hiding his Truth that Mylus had not personally seen in his previous patients.
The pain was there, it wasn’t that Aitkin could shut himself off from it, but somehow he was keeping it from breaking the barriers of his mind. Mylus knew his techniques were effective, extremely so.
He knew that sooner or later the punishment the body took would seep into the mind and pollute the thoughts therein.
The focus would move from thoughts of escape, once the impossibility of such a thing was made clear, through the resilience against speaking out and into the fear of the edge of his blade. When his patients reached that point, when they were consumed by the terror of what he would do next, that was when their mind was vulnerable and Mylus could push them past their breaking point and reveal their Truth.
Aitkin was still missing the fear. He felt the pain, he screamed and moaned and raged in his restraints, but he wouldn’t beg. He didn’t plead or cajole or threaten. He was yet even to flinch at the touch of Mylus’ delicate blade and that alone marked him out as special.
Something in Aitkin was interrupting the usual routine. Something was keeping his mind separated from the torment of his body.
There was an unpleasant familiarity in Aitkin’s reaction; it was how a Father would respond. The Fatherhood went to great lengths to find those members of the human race whose mental makeup was not considered ‘normal’ by the rest of humanity.
A new initiate would be rigorously conditioned to accentuate the traits the Fatherhood needed in its Fathers; a lack of conscience, obsessive drive to achieve their goal and a willingness to take any measure to reach it.
From everything Mylus read of Aitkin prior to their meeting, he would have assumed the man was nothing more than ordinary.
Admittedly he would need a certain level of skill and resilience
to earn his place in the exclusive ranks of the Deorum
Marines, but Mylus had met and broken such men before with ease.
He was finding a growing fascination with his latest subject. There was an enigma there which needed to be unraveled. Aitkin hadn’t finished his stuttering sentence so Mylus prompted him again, “You are what Aitkin Cassini?”
Aitkin looked straight ahead, unblinking, almost trance-like. His lips parted with the ghost of a smile
“I am unbroken.” His eyes closed.
There is a myth amongst the men and women of the Six Companies. They say that once a man was taken into the Halls of Mercy, where the Fathers undertake their unique and grisly business, but did not give them his Truth.
This alone, Natasha In’Tuen knew was not as rare as might be thought. It was a fact of the work the Fathers undertook that not every patient survived the process. Such losses were expected and even after the Truth had been found some subjects just could not recover from the ordeal they had endured.
Some were so broken there was little to nothing left of who they had been before entering the Halls of Mercy and some would die at the hands of an overzealous Father, who failed to bring the surgeon apparatus to bear in a timely enough manner. But this man was said to be different.
It was said he went into the Halls of his own volition; searching to prove he had no Truth to hide. It was said that when his Father looked into his eyes he saw nothing but the honesty of a pure soul in their depths and that he wept to see such a thing.
Some stories went on to say this man was not tested or touched in anyway, that the Old Father himself saw the open Truth in him and gave up his position willingly. They said that this man was now the Old Father and his Truth was the base all patients were measured against.
Other stories told of how this man was tortured physically and mentally by the Fathers. That he spent longer in the Halls than
any before him or since and that no matter what they did, the Fathers could not find any hidden Truth in him to bring into the light.
These stories spoke of how he was released with the Old Fathers blessing and was still alive even today; bearing the scars of his torments at the hands of the Fatherhood, but unbroken by their hands.
Some said he had risen to the highest ranks of the Deorum while others argued he had designed Jupiter’s Halo, the enormous ringed station that encircled the mighty planet, built some five-hundred years ago. Some even said he had returned to Earth, immune to the Plague that riddled the dead planet and intent on finding a way to destroy the disease so one day humankind could return to their birth place.
Natasha had heard all these stories and many other variants. Despite the conflicting details and exaggerations, one thing was always agreed upon; before he left the Halls of Mercy, the Old Father had bestowed upon him a name of honour; Unbroken.
Natasha watched Aitkin Cassini through the viewing pane, his life blood pooling beneath him faster than the surgeon apparatus could retrieve it.
He had uttered the word before his eyes closed and his body slumped limply in the restraining chair. Perhaps he thought his was an act of defiance that would add a weight of meaning to his death.
Perhaps he simply knew his time was done and he was glorying in giving nothing to the Fatherhood but his name and rank.
It saddened her to think he had been trying to hold himself to such an example. It might just be the Unbroken had really existed but even if that were the case, it had to have been hundreds of years ago and who could say now how much of the stories were true, if any at all.
Aitkin’s body was silent, still, lifeless.
Broken of mind or not, his physical strength was spent. His breathing had shallowed and stopped, his heartbeat slowed to a halt. Natasha saw confirmation of her suspicions on the medi
readout in the bottom corner of the viewing pane. All vital signs had ceased. Aitkin Cassini was dead.
Mylus would have received the same information inside the cell and she could see the disappointment in his body language.
He’d been leaning in close when the life fled from his subject and although he had yet to move away, his head was bowed low in a moment of silent reflection.
Natasha looked down at the session notes she had been taking. They would need to be tidied somewhat before she could file them within her official report.
A noise from the viewing pane pulled her attention back to it. Someone had spoken a word.
“Mylus.”
Her first assumption was that the Father had said it, speaking his own name as some sort of chastisement, but the tone was wrong and what she saw in the view of the cell blew the assumption from her mind and filled it with urgent questions.
The medi readout still showed no signs of life, but there, illuminated in the centre of the small room was a tableau that chilled her; Mylus had raised his head to stare at his subject and Aitkin Cassini, eyes wide open and just a few inches away from Mylus’ face, was staring right back.
THIRTY-THREE
“It will be done Lord Admiral.”
Aitkin felt a sickness twist in his stomach. He would not disobey a direct order, but the thought of leaving their dead to float endlessly in the void, denied the ceremony of burial they had rightly earned, hurt him deeply.
He knew he would be remembered as the one who left his marines behind. It wouldn’t matter the order was given, he would be the one who had left them.
He opened his comm to Johs’ squad.
Four were below with the sergeant, four mor
e held the corridor and loading bay. For the remaining marines around him he would have preferred to speak with his voice, but doing so would cause them to hear him twice, out loud and inside their heads. His dual voices would be out of sync by the tiniest of margins, but it would be enough to make the experience unpleasant for all involved. He was about to give them orders they never expected to hear and little though it was, he felt he owed them anything he could do to avoid increasing their discomfort.
“The Lord Admiral has ordered us to complete the evacuation of all able marines,” He started, looking into the eyes of the squad members around him.
“This mission is now in full retreat, we are the only squad remaining at full combat strength.”
He could see the impact of his unspoken words as they reached the minds of those around him.
They’re waiting for me to order them into the reactor. To retrieve our dead and head for the Peregrines.
Aitkin knew the words he sent them next would meet with disbelief.
How do I tell them? How do I tell him?
“And we have been tasked with destruction of this facility without delay. Sergeant Johs, return to my position.” He added.
Johs would be the hardest. The sergeant was honorable,
strong in his belief in the Deorum, but Aitkin was about to order him to leave his own sister’s body to the cold of space. He wanted to believe Johs would follow the order as a marine, but suspected he might fight it as a brother.
Aitkin heard steps behind him and turned to see Cooper, one of the marines he’d sent down with Johs, cresting the top of the engineering stairwell.
They must have still been making their way down.
He guessed Johs had turned and herded his marines back up the stairs at Aitkin’s first mention of the Lord Admiral’s orders. He would be eager to get into the reactor chamber and find his sister.
Sure enough, after Cooper came Garanth and then Johs. His expression was set with purpose. He was ready to fight his way through whatever this strange enemy had left to get to her. Aitkin felt his heart fall, heavy with sadness for his friend’s loss.
