All My Sins Remembered (9 page)

“Unfortunately, your Marine friends were killed.  I’m afraid we were a little too-“ The officer’s smooth voice cut off as the door to the room slid open, and another man stepped in.

“Do you know anything yet?” The new man asked.  Tasha
's eyes strained to see behind the light trained on her face, to see the room’s new occupant, but only saw a faint outline in the shadows.

“I asked not to be interrupted!   I will inform you the moment I learn anything!” her interrogator angrily replied.

“The security of our mission takes precedence.” The new man said.

“The Rejai Empire is far away. I-“ The interrogator broke off, and then sighed
, realizing he may have given some tidbit of information away inadvertently. “Well that’s it then.  We are done for the day.”  With that, Tasha felt her bonds slacken as they came off, and hands roughly picking her up by her arms and escorting her away.  She wasn’t sure how long it had been.  Likely, it had been mere hours since being knocked unconscious by the powered armor, but the interrogators lost no time in trying to quickly force intel out of her.  It was the most painful experience of her life, and she knew it was not going to end soon.  Having a sudden bout of nausea, Tasha stumbled, only to be roughly held up under her arms and dragged down the corridor.  She weakly tried to regain her feet, but she lacked the strength, and instead just limply allowed the soldiers to drag her on, and dump her unceremoniously on the floor of her cell in the ship’s brig, just down the hall.

She lay there quietly, enjoying the feel of the cool metal on her body, ignoring the fact that some blood from her lip was marring it.  She didn’t care.  She just wanted to die.  Maybe if she just closed her eyes, and held her breath…but no.  She was not that kind of person.  She could not just give up.

From a long distance away, or at least it seemed like it came from a distance away, came a tap, tap, tapping sound.  With a soft groan, Tasha tried to ignore it, but the tapping continued, insistent.  Pushing herself to hands and knees, she crawled stiffly towards the sound.  It came from the pipe that came from the wall and was attached to a sink in her cell.  Finally reaching the wall, Tasha lowered herself back to the floor, and wrapped a hand around the pipe, muffling the sound.

“Hello!” Hearing a voice
caused Tasha to stir, and eventually brought her out of her near comatose state.  She tried to focus on the voice, and realized it was coming from somewhere above her.  Slowly, she forced her eyes open, and looked around, spotting a vent near the ceiling. 
Of course.  It had to be near the ceiling
, she thought.  With a stifled groan, she steadied herself with a hand on the wall as she slowly and wearily climbed to her feet.  Once on her feet, she stood on tiptoes and cocked her head.

“Hello, can anyone hear me?” The voice sounded as if someone were speaking into a tin can as it echoed through the vent.  Clearing her voice, Tasha tried to respond.

“
Privyet
.” Tasha said, her voice weak and raspy from thirst.  A chuckle could be heard echoing through the vent, a deep rumble of a voice that sparked recognition somewhere in Tasha’s brain.

“I should’ve known it would have been you,
Altihkova.  What is your physical condition?”  Tasha started to reply in Russian, her exhaustion making her forget to speak English.

“English, girl!  I can only speak a smattering of Russian.”  The rumbling voice demanded.  Stopping to reorganize her thoughts, Tasha began again, slowly.

“Mostly cuts and bruises, but maybe cracked rib or two.  Punctures to body, but bleeding stopped and no organs or arteries injured.” Tasha replied.  Her English was horribly broken and her Russian accent thick, being too exhausted to put the speak properly.

From the vent, the voice replied, “Well hang in there.  We’ll figure out how to make our exit sooner or later, and if not, well…Talons never leave their own behind.”  Tasha finally recognized the voice, as distorted as it was. 
It was Commander Schultz in the cell next to her.

“We leave together.” Tasha mumbled in reply. 
Then, her strength at an end, she collapsed to the floor, and passed out.  Tasha did not hear Nathan’s ragged chuckle.

The Choyo looked a little strange in terms of design. 
When viewed from above, it was reminiscent of the skull, spine, and ribs of a human.  The skull portion of the ship was where the bridge was located, on the top deck, and the command quarters could be found one deck below.  The spine served as the ship’s main support beam than ran from stem to stern.  Inside of the spine ran a wide corridor that facilitated the quick movement of personnel, cargo, and equipment.  Elevator shafts ran vertically down the ribs, which curved down from the spine.  On the ribs could be found several giant latches into which the ship’s modules could be connected, and airlocks on the modules lined up with airlocks built into the ship’s ribs, creating a safety system in which damaged modules could be sealed off, or even jettisoned in an emergency.

When used for carrying troops, the troops that were unfortunate enough to be transported by this particular class of troop transport were referred to as ‘sardines in a can,’ because they were rather unceremoniously packed into the troop transport modules as tightly as possible.  Recently, other modules had been engineered for this ship, to allow it to perform other purposes, such as a command, control, and communications module, a manufacturing module, or even a scientific research module.  Commander Schultz had taken his team towards the front portion of the ship, the skull, and entered through an emergency hatch there on the lower deck.

Now Rejaian Special Ops were guarding maintenance men as they welded the emergency hatch shut, and additional guards were placed at the entrance to both of the walkways that extended from the dock to the Choyo’s airlocks.  Though the guards were watchful, none thought to look up.  From high above the docks, Hawke, Raijan, and the two remaining fire teams descended on plasma jets, fired by their powered armor’s primary jetpack as they dropped.

“Target rapidly approaching.  Preparing breaching blast.” The onboard system dryly observed, a disembodied voice in Hawke’s ear.  Hawke’s body tensed
in preparation of what came next as a lifetime of training and experience took over.  Hot dropping on a ship in a boarding operation was always rough, especially when not in zero G.  The Jet pack would cut of momentarily while it built up a charge to emit a massive burst of plasma that would burn a hole right through the double hull of the ship in question, while the armor’s stabilizing thrusters maneuvered him through the hole to land on the deck inside.

The jet pack’s plasma jets cut off, and Hawke heard the familiar whine as it
prepared its boarding blast while his rate of descent temporarily increased in a free fall.  Just before he was to land on the hull of the ship, Hawke was pushed firmly down in his armor’s boots by g-forces as the jet pack let out a thunderous roar.  The ship’s hull turned instantly white hot, and then fell inward on itself as it was melted to slag.  Hawke’s stabilizers kicked in, jerking him a little backwards as they guided him through the breach, and then worked to cushion his landing.  The landings were always rough.  With a bone-jarring crash Hawke landed on the deck.  Though his armor absorbed most of the impact, he still felt a pain shoot up his legs and into his hips.  All down the hull, Hawke could see his Marines landing as alarm klaxons screamed at them throughout the ship.  There were eight of them, along with Raijan and himself.  They had landed in the central corridor that made up the ship’s ‘backbone’.

“Fire
team B, with me.” Raijan commanded as he led the way aft, towards the engines.  The fire team moved quickly to catch up, moving past Second Lieutenant Kemai to take point.  Hawke watched them as they moved towards the engine room, their primary objective.

“Team
C, on me.” Hawke said less formally.  On his HUD, he pulled up a schematic of the ship, with the mission overlay superimposed on it.  He knew every one of his Marines were doing the same thing.  It was one of the things they drilled into you in boot camp: always be aware of your situation.  Hawke wasn’t sure where the brig was, but that was his goal.  He had a couple possible locations highlighted on the schematic projected on his HUD.  Designating them as nav point alpha, and nav point beta, he projected those nav points to his fire team.

“Corporal Stewie, assign your point man and rear guard.  Let’s get moving.” Hawke ordered.  Corporal Stewie was a rather young Corporal, only having been in the Talon Marine Corps for about two years, but he had a quick mind and was very good at small squad tactics.  Hawke knew he had to get to the brig as soon as possible before Raijan and his team completed their objectives.  After that, it would be too late.

“Movement to the rear.” One of the Marines reported.  Hawke glanced at the mini map on his HUD and saw three red dots appear, projecting the visual contact.

“If it moves, kill it.” Hawke ordered.

“If it moves, kill it. Aye-aye.” The Marine replied.  A micro second later the hallway echoed with the brief whine of a weapon spooling up, followed by a loud ‘brrrrrp’ sound as the Marine’s primary weapon unleashed a storm of slugs down the corridor.

Several hundred years ago on ancient earth, a weapon called the 30mm GAU-8 Gatling-type cannon was mounted on a particularly vicious close air support aircraft, capable of firing up to 70 rounds a second.  Back when the Gadari Republic Marine Corps were still in the design stages of their powered armor, someone had the bright idea of mounting a potent, modernized version of this weapon as its primary weapon.  The GAU-4X rail Cannon
had a series of eight barrels extending about thirty centimeters that spun in a circle, cycling from firing a slug to loading it from the ammo feed built into their packs, which carried so many rounds of ammunition that most marines did not really worry about running dry.  Capable of firing and improved rate of 100 rounds a second, the GAU-4X rail cannon had three settings, low velocity for shipboard operations, high velocity for general purpose, and an incendiary setting switched ammo types from inert, oval-shaped metal slugs typically fired by rail guns to slugs designed to explode on impact – useful for disabling or even destroying light and medium armored targets.  With its self-stabilizing gun mounting, as well as having built in stabilizers for their powered armor, Marines could fire these with a high degree of accuracy while on the move.

“Alright, let’s go bring our family home.” Hawke growled.

***

Bright lights greeted Tasha as she clawed her way back to consciousness, and a cup was at her lips, pouring sweet, cool water down the desert of her throat.  Instinctively, she tried grabbing the cup, only to find that her arms were bound to the arms of the chair she was sitting in.  She noted that she could see out of both eyes now.  The swelling must’ve gone down, or perhaps they treated her while she was unconscious.  From the lights shining in her eyes, she could only guess that she was back in the interrogation room, a guess that was confirmed when her eyes drifted up to land on the face of her interrogator.  He was expressionless as he held the cup to her lips.

“Back from the dead, I see.” Her interrogator observed.  His was a dry, emotionless voice given to merely stating facts.  Your eyes are green.  You are a brunette.  You are a woman.  Tasha said nothing, but rather chose to discretely test her bonds.  At first she despaired, but felt a surge of exultation that she carefully hid as the bindings on her right leg gave a little.  Having drunk the cup of water dry, her interrogator set it aside.

“Now, shall we begin again?”  The interrogator asked rhetorically.  Tasha hated him.  He showed cruelty of
a kind that scared her.  Until now, he had used a friendly voice, but this time his expression had been blank.  He neither liked nor disliked his interrogations.  It was as if no passion burned in the heart of him.  He seemed inhuman.  Discretely, Tasha worked at the loosened binding on her ankle, ignoring the fresh blood coursing down her ankle and inside her combat boot.

“Who do you work for?”  Her Interrogator asked.  Tasha said nothing, but instead met her interrogators eyes, the only act of defiance she could provide, tied as she was.  Her interrogator sighed, and the first sign of frustration glimmered in his eyes.  With a sudden move, his hand lashed out, and Tasha’s head snapped back as he landed a backhanded blow that crushed her cheek against her teeth.  She could not stop a faint cry as
more blood coursed over her teeth and into her mouth.  She swallowed, but could do nothing else.  Subtlety, she flexed her leg muscle against her loosening binding and felt it give way a bit more.  Almost there!

“Do not defy me!  It is you who has dishonored yourself by being captured, not I who has captured you.” He said as he placed a hand over each of her arms
which were tied to the arms of the chair and leaned into her face.  Tasha spit at him, blood and saliva spraying the man’s face and shoulders, making him flinch.  His face darkened in anger, the first real sign of emotion she had seen from the man, as he lashed out again with cat-like quickness, hitting her much harder this time.  The blow rocked Tasha’s head to the side, and sent her chair back on its hind legs briefly before landing back on all fours.  Just like that, her interrogator’s anger was gone.  His expression was once again blank.  He stood beyond reach as he took a white cloth from his pants pocket and wiped his face.  The bindings on her leg gave way suddenly, causing her to jerk, which got her interrogator’s attention.

“I see.” Her interrogator said in sudden understanding. “You hoped I would be so angry that I would not notice.”  A ghost of a smile shadowed across the man’s lips as he bent forward, arms reaching downwards towards the bindings that she had just freed herself from so that he could tie her back up again.

With a primal scream born of desperation, Tasha mustered all of her remaining strength and flung herself backwards in the chair, snapping her foot up to connect solidly with her interrogator’s chin.  His head was flung backwards as if it were on a hinge, and there was a loud snapping sound as his jaw broke.  Unconscious, his eyes glazed over, and he landed in a heap on the metal floor with a dull thud.  Tasha continued to tip over in her chair, and landed with a crash.  Caught by surprise, the guards stared at her in what she guessed was shock, though their faceplates on their helmets obscured their expressions.  Just as one took a step towards her, the entire room shook, and from somewhere up above, Tasha heard a series of muffled explosions.   Tasha gave the guards a bloody, sinister grin.  They hesitated a moment, seeming to be torn between dealing with Tasha, or finding out what was going on, but the latter won out as both guards ran out the door leaving Tasha bound to a chair, laying on the floor.  She couldn’t help but laugh at her predicament.  It was either that, or cry.

***

The Explosions shook the ship, waking Nathan up with a start.  For a moment he was disoriented, but then he grunted as he struggled to sit up.  He gasped with pain as the medical brace around his ribs tried to equalize the pressure on his broken ribs.  His interrogators seemed to have taken some kind of perverse pleasure in using a rod and carefully placed blows to break a rib for every time he refused to answer a question.  They ran out of ribs. Twice.

Thanks to modern medical technology, they were able to use
DNA regenerators to knit the bones together in a matter of about an hour.  After the second time, however, they reasoned that perhaps the extreme pain of simply putting on a medical brace around his ribs would make him talk eventually.  It was a battlefield dressing used by medics that automatically adjusted its pressure to keep the ribs from puncturing anything vital while allowing the wearer to regain a measure of mobility until they could be regenerated.  Some forms of torture involved setting the brace to tighten in small increments until unbroken ribs snapped, and began slowly impaling internal organs, often resulting in death should no answers be forthcoming.  Fortunately, the Rejaians didn’t use such tactics.  They were too civilized, or so they claimed.

Nathan forced himself up, and then leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath.  His breaths came in shallow gasps, each one knifing through his torso bringing with it a fresh wave of pain.  Focusing on slowing his breathing, and forcing himself to take slightly deeper breaths, the pain eased a little, though not a lot.  Then he grimaced as the ship shook again, accompanied by a loud explosion.  He wondered briefly what Hawke was thinking, carrying out a full scale attack on the Choyo.  He knew it had to be Hawke, because no one else was crazy enough to do it.

Down the hall, Nathan heard the door to the ship’s brig open, and men yelling in the hallway outside.  Then there was the familiar sound of a GAU-4X being fired that Nathan easily recognized, punctuated by muffled screams in the distance.  He heard the loud ‘thump, thump, thump’ of powered armor drawing near.  Shuffling to the door and peeking through the small slot in the cell door that served as the window, he saw a man in Powered Armor painted in a digital urban color scheme, displaying the familiar Talon Company crest on its chest.  On its shoulder were painted the double golden bars signifying the rank of colonel in the Marine Corps.  Nathan weakly yelled, catching the man’s attention.

“Get back!” Hawke yelled, moving to the door.  Nathan quickly retreated across the room just as the door buckled inward from an immense blow.  After two more blows, the door’s sturdy bolts finally gave away with the dying shriek of metal against metal, and the door flung wide on bent hinges.

“Are you okay?” Hawke said.  His faceplate flipped up and back, revealing a sweating Hawke, who looked none too happy. Nathan grunted and shook his head, unable to speak, much less breathe very well.  Taking one look at his best friend, Hawke spoke into his helmet's mic.