Cavaras, Corti Directorate Core World
Goftk had never hoped that he wouldn’t drown. The entire concept of drowning had never seemed like it might happen to him, since the parts of Cavaras he lived in were not the parts that contained significant amounts of water unless you counted the decorative water fountains in the city’s park spaces.
It had been so much more reasonable to hope that he wouldn’t be attacked by Hunters, or to be struck in the street by a stray streetcab, or be assassinated by rival corporations. Compared to those real dangers, drowning seemed somehow pleasant.
It didn’t seem that way anymore. The blue-haired creature had called the process ‘water-boarding’, an innocuous sounding name at first. Goftk had scoffed at the threat, as he had scoffed at their demands to reveal all of his secrets.
The Chehnasho thug had threatened his life at first, but the blue-haired creature had denied her whatever justice she thought she would be getting, and for that Goftk had made the mistake of underestimating him. He had imagined that without the fear of death, there could be nothing to torture beyond simple pain.
The first ‘water-boarding’ had immediately freed him from his ignorance. He had expected their questions, but none had come. Just the sensation of drowning, over and over.
Then there had been the second time. Again, no questions. Goftk had heard his race, the Corti, called cruel, but they were merely practical to a fault. Just as he had heard the Hunters called cruel, and while that could be true they were primarily driven by hunter. But the blue-haired man looked upon Goftk with cold, implacable eyes even as he begged for his life and there was nothing in them but his singular purpose to cause pain.
The third time Goftk had begged them to ask their questions again. He had thrown aside his pride, along with any of his desires beyond not being repeatedly drowned.
And then they finally listened.
+++++
Askit had been watching the process of interrogation with extreme discomfort. He had never before witnessed acts of torture, but from what he had heard it was normally performed by cutting into people with knives or other extremely harmful methods, or at the very least by forcing them to watch such things being done to others they care about.
He had never imagined a method that contained all of the horror of those methods and none of the lasting injury. It hadn’t even taken (one hour) before Goftk had been begging for Adrian to stop.
The human had ignored Goftk’s pleading until he was satisfied, and had returned Goftk to the room they were keeping him in. The Corti businessman had been kept in there for a full day before Adrian had dragged him out, and Askit felt his discomfort grow.
But then the businessman had finally broken, had begun to offer them anything they wanted, and Adrian had stopped.
Then he had begun to ask the questions again.
“Who have you been paying in the Directorate?” Adrian had asked, and Goftk had answered with the list of every name who had accepted a bribe from Iridis Industries. The list was short, but Goftk had been eager to give up the information, and it contained the names of some of the most influential politicians in both the Directorate and the Dominion, as well as within the Celzi Alliance.
“What have you had them do?” Adrian had asked, and Goftk had answered with all of the things the company had pressured the politicians on its payroll into doing. Decisions intended to protract the war and win Iridis Industries its major weapons contracts.
“Who else is involved?” Adrian had asked, and again Goftk had provided every answer he could, ranging from the senior employees of his own company to those of others, from the officials who served their corrupt masters to the men who ensured that nothing got in their way.
Adrian had paused when Goftk had given the name ‘Cameron White’, and had looked to Gdugnir who had thus far been happy to watch the Corti businessman suffer. “That’s a human name. Tell us more about him.”
“Cameron White?” Goftk asked incredulously. “He’s just a hired killer, we have a man who uses him to take care of investigators who get too interested in our business.”
“He killed my husband,” Gdugnir replied coldly. “On your orders.”
The Corti businessman looked between the two of them with disdain. “I don’t deal with that sort of thing directly!” he protested. “And besides, Cameron White is a savage even amongst humans. Too unstable for my liking; he causes a lot of collateral damage and demands an exorbitant upkeep. Last I heard he was sent into Alliance space to sort out a problem we have there, in the hope that maybe they might take care of him for us.”
“How can I find him?” Gdugnir asked.
“All I know is that he was supposed to be finding some pirates who have been causing problems for the Alliance!” Goftk replied. “Call themselves the Zhadersil or-“
Adrian moved like a blue blur, faster than Askit had ever seen him move and with such genuine rage that Askit felt his stomach knot in cold dread. The human clamped a threatening hand on a terrified Goftk.
“What about the Zhadersil?” he demanded with such ferocity that Askit could see Goftk’s will to resist crumble in a surge of raw terror.
“They- They’re just pirates!” Goftk stammered out. “The human who used to lead them managed to convince the Dominion War Council to employ them to disrupt Alliance trade, and they’ve gotten very good at it! We had to put an end to them! Please, they were only pirates!”
Adrian leaned in close to the terrified Corti, and it looked to Askit as though he had intended to whisper. “I’m going to tell you a little secret, fuckhead,” he said, softly but with an edge that even made Askit fear for the Corti businessman’s life. “The Zhadersil pirates are my crew. You sent a deranged fucking human after my friends.”
He stepped back from the Corti businessman, letting the cringing little man enjoy some kind of slowly dawning horror that Askit didn’t understand, but he made a note to investigate.
“That’s impossible…” the Goftk answered hoarsely. “That human is dead! You’re supposed to be dead!”
Adrian sniffed, shrugging his shoulders like being told he was supposed to be dead was no great thing. “I got better.”
Gdugnir stepped in. “I want to follow this ‘Cameron White’. I will have my revenge.”
Adrian nodded. “Good thing I’m already packed.”
Date Point 2 Years 9 Months After Vancouver
Irbzrk Orbital Factory Main Station
Cameron White had been surprised by the mice. That didn’t often happen, and it was usually very amusing when it did. They would make some little plan, take some meaningless action that they’d have invested all of their hopes in, and then he would take it apart and crush it. Normally that occurred only shortly before the mice shared the fate of their plans.
That was not the case today. He had already been aware of the increased number of surveillance cameras traveling the streets – those had to have been the idea of the redhead who refused to come out of her freighter – and he had taken steps to ensure that he was never around when they were.
Then he had been given a stun gun of his own, along with every other militiaman, to use against the ‘dangerous human’ if they were to encounter him. Cameron White had used that weapon to hilarious effect in two of his ‘demonstrations’ since then. He hadn’t known how the weapons might work on the xenos and he had been very excited to try it out.
Turns out they just kill them, but the corpses twitch and spasm for minutes after.
The terror on the station had filled the air like humidity on a tropical coastline, and the xenos were close to breaking. Their sad excuse for a society was on the verge of breaking down and turning into a mob intent on driving the redhead and her group of mice from the station forever. Like everything else, that also was no longer the case today.
Today they really had surprised him.
They had at last discovered him, for a moment at least, and he had been forced to put down the whole of his militia group before they could react. He didn’t know why they’d attempted to arrest him instead of simply killing him by surprise, but that was their mistake.
Cameron White had been forced to withdraw, and that was a rare and exciting thing.
Now it was he who was playing the part of the prey, hunted by every militiaman, soldier or policeman in the entire station.
He wasn’t even sure how they’d figured it out, but he felt that he could attribute most of the blame to that cheeky redheaded bitch. She had somehow seen through his clever distractions and his schemes, proving herself more clever by far than he’d initially given her credit for.
She had only herself to blame for how violent it was about to get, but his mother had taught Cameron to always look for the silver lining. Today that silver lining was that Cameron no longer had to hold back.
“Oh…” he said with the greatest pleasure. “Today is a very good day.”
+++++
Jen stared at the map of the station. There were militia patrols everywhere now, but they were disappearing with an alarming regularity and reappearing in broken mounds of flesh. At first this had been mysterious, and then the psycho had allowed himself to be caught on camera. Whatever costume he had worn was now removed, and she could see him for the jug-headed bruiser he was. Every bit the stereotype of the psychotic English football fan, with an extra helping of psycho.
He had recorded his sick work, and he had dedicated it to her, and he had released it to the station. The mood on the station following that was not good, but at least it was directed at the man behind the killings. The public had a face to blame now, and they were as angry as they were terrified.
But they were also looking to Jen for the answers on stopping him, and her plans to do that had rather fallen through when the militia had completely cocked the whole thing up and allowed him to escape. They’d paid dearly for their error, as had everyone the madman had killed since.
They were also looking at her to take him on, thinking that there could be no great difference in strength between two Deathworlders. That was their ignorance, but it made them think of her as a coward – which she may well be – instead of considering other options.
“It’s time to consider the use of nerve-jam grenades,” Jen said to her few crewmen. “Do they have any on the station?”
“A few,” Trycrur replied. “But they’re not a military station.”
“They are dangerous to use,” Chir warned. “But you already know that, and I think that we really are we that desperate.”
“We’ve had luck narrowing down his position with (fifteen minute) reporting periods,” Zripob told them. “But it comes with a dreadfully high cost. What use are the stun guns if the men can’t hit him with them?”
“That is not my issue,” Trycrur rebuked. “I made the guns as requested, I cannot be expected to ensure everyone knows how to use them properly.”
“Nobody is blaming you, Trycrur” Jen assured her. “But I am interested in knowing if it would be possible to give them a wider spread with more distance?”
“Not without weighing the soldiers down with more power chambers,” Trycrur replied. “I was initially hoping to do something like that, but they simply can’t lift the guns.”
“I’m not sure we have time for that anyway,” Zripob said. “How long before he comes for us? He’s still toying with us.”
“You can’t be suggesting that we leave?” Chir asked. “He will butcher the people here without our help!”
“He’s doing that well enough with it!” Zripob retorted. “I don’t want to join them, is that so wrong?”
“What we need is some help from the military,” Chir said. “With proper anti-tank weapons and more than a handful of nerve-jam grenades. But the only ship that’s docked recently just came in, and it’s just a little passenger transport ship.”
“Poor bastards don’t know what they’re walking into,” Jen said sorrowfully. “I hope nothing happens to them while they’re here.”
Askit had been keeping a good eye on the human. Before interrogating Goftk he had seemed casual and friendly, almost carefree even when he was ramming a streetcab through a foyer.
Now he was focused like a blade. The contrast was as striking as it was terrifying, and neither he nor Gdugnir were willing to do anything that might cause him to turn his anger against them. They had left as soon as they possibly could after putting Goftk into ‘protective custody’ and paying a visit to Margarita.
Now at the very least Adrian had a plasma ball launcher to go with his ‘no fucks given’ attitude. Not something that Askit would ever want to be on the receiving end of.
And now they stepped off of Goftk’s generously loaned private transport onto a station full of hurried steps and furtive glances. The sense of fear here was thick in the air, and it even made Askit’s heartbeat quicken.
“What are we going to do?” he asked, hoping that Adrian would decide to answer.
“I’m going to go and end a man’s life,” Adrian said coldly. “Gdugnir will want to be there, but I want you to look into something for me.”
Askit swallowed, hoping the demand would not be too unreasonable. “What is it?”
“I want you to find out if some people are still alive,” Adrian said tersely. “Tell me right away if you find out they’re not.”
Askit didn’t ask why; he’d seen enough of how the human had treated Goftk for any delusions of human nobility to have disappeared along with Goftk’s dignity.
Askit did know one thing, though.
He knew that when Adrian found the man who was trying to kill his friends – and Askit didn’t doubt that he would – that man would have some very bad final moments.