Syndicate's Pawns (14 page)

 

CHAPTER 25

MORWYN

We can come up with a training scenario and solution to a plethora of problems. Yet it is the unexpected ones that will really spell your downfall. Try not to act too surprised when they happen, and you might just survive them.

—­
Gengi Suun, Galasian Khan

20th of SSM–11 1445 A2E

T
he Pax Humanis military was one of the most well-­oiled and efficient superpowers. Officers of the Pax were given training to resist various interrogation techniques. During his days at the combat academies of Barathul, Morwyn had been injected with a variety of truth serums and chemical cocktails, the purpose of which was to harden his mind should he be captured and subjected to such tactics.

The feeling going through him right now was not a painful one, and were it not for the imminent threat posed to his ship and crew, Morwyn might have even enjoyed the heady trip that he was presently experiencing. He shook his head and pinched the webbing between his thumb and index finger. The pain was an anchor he could focus on in this present moment. If he gave in to the trip all would be lost.

And yet there was a part of him right now that wanted, no,
needed
, to answer Domiant's question. It was not a loyalty, and felt more like a form of enslavement. He shot Domiant a challenging look as he chewed his lip, fighting the urge to answer the questions he was being asked.

All of this seemed to entertain his tormentor. He merely smiled and clapped his hands in an applause dripping with mockery. “My dear captain, I commend you.”

He knelt down so that he was at eye level with Morwyn. “I don't want to play this game all night. Tell me, is the Ancient Human on your ship the sickly looking Thegran woman?”

Morwyn hoped that his shock did not play out on his face. How could Domiant have pieced all that together? “Yes.” Morwyn looked away from Domiant, ashamed that his will had so easily been broken.

Domiant patted him on the cheek. “Very good, Captain. You'll find that all of this is far easier when you stop struggling.”

“I hope the void claims your hateful soul.” Morwyn's curse was pure venom.

Domiant rose back up to his feet and looked to his sister Sopherim, who had silently watched the entirety of the exchange with her Kohbran companion.

“My dear captain, there is no other side or Great Beyond. I speak from experience, you see. I have died before.”

“Is there anything else we should know about this Human?” Sopherim asked, and immediately Morwyn felt the urge to tell her everything.

“She is with child.” Like before, he was unable to resist, and part of him was ashamed of this. Morwyn vowed to himself that if he made it out of this that he would make sure both Domiant and his crew of criminals faced justice for what they had done to him.

Domiant lit up. “Well, that
is
interesting.”

“She must still be somewhere on the ship,” said the Kohbran woman with the gecko eyes.

“Do you want me to track her down, brother?”

Domiant pursed his lips for a moment, deep in thought and processing all the new information he had just learned. Just as he was about to open his mouth to say something there was a sudden crackle of static from an old comm-­link that Domiant had clipped into his belt.

“What is it, Mikali?”

“We need your help on the bridge. The pilot has sealed us out and won't let us in,” a grating woman's voice explained. Morwyn thought he heard nervousness in her tone.

Domiant visibly winced in annoyance before looking to Morwyn and asking, “Does your main bridge have its own independent air supply?”

“Yes.” Domiant had been right; it was easier not to resist. “She won't let you in. And as long as the main bridge is sealed off, you won't ever have full control of my ship.”

This elicited a cocky sneer from Domiant. “You are mistaken, Captain. This is now MY ship and you are simply too stupid to realize it.”

Domiant pushed down on the speak button of his comm-­link. “You and Niko are to hold your positions. I will be there shortly to solve your little problem for you.”

“Will do, boss,” the woman named Mikali answered back. Morwyn held back a smile. He had the names of the Althena's crew. Not a major victory, but a small boon nonetheless.

For his part Domiant let out an exasperated sigh before speaking in Wolven to his sister, possibly believing that neither Morwyn nor the Kohbran would be able to understand them. He was mistaken. Morwyn had been given linguistic tutors in his youth, and while he was in no way fluent, he could easily understand and read Wolven, the second most widely used dialect in the cosmos after his native PaxCom.

“The Living Green loves to test my patience, sister.”

“Consider it all a challenge, brother. Either you will overcome it or be destroyed by it.” Sopherim replied.

“You have been most useful, Captain. Now I will need to go solve this little problem we are facing. In the meantime.” Domiant snapped his fingers rudely at the Kohbran. She looked to him awaiting her orders.

“Zanza, get into the Captain's mind, learn all the secrets he hasn't told us yet.” Domiant gave Morwyn a cruel look. “Your Paxist military was useless in resisting my manner of interrogation, Captain, and I can assure you that it will not fare any better against the mind of a Kohbran gene lector.”

Morwyn could not help but feel a pang of apprehension when he heard Domiant say this. Gene lectors were not a common foe, and one the Pax Humanis had precious little information about. Rumor had it they were capable of reading thoughts, and gleaning even the most deeply kept secrets. It was one of the main reasons as to why the Kohbran were typically shunned and reviled in the borders of Pax space.

For his part, Domiant seemed to savor the look of fear playing itself out on Morwyn's face. “Come, Sopherim, let us leave these two alone, that they may get more closely acquainted.”

Domiant walked away, with Sopherim at his side. He stopped before stepping out of the grav ring. “Zanza, once you are done with him, if it turns out that his mind is reduced to a gibbering mass, that would be most satisfactory.”

The Kohbran named Zanza did not break eye contact with Morwyn when she heard the order. “So shall it be.”

Satisfied with the answer, Domiant and Sopherim left Morwyn alone with Zanza. She placed her hand on Morwyn's chest and suddenly he felt as if his breath and hers were one and the same. Try as he might, Morwyn could not look away from her and he could now hear a new voice in his mind that was not his own.

He could hear the whisper of Zanza's voice echoing in his head. “It is useless to struggle against me. Your thoughts are now my own.” Sheer terror enveloped Morwyn as he felt invisible fingers in his mind, unraveling his inner self, piece by piece. Had he been able to, Morwyn would have screamed. Instead he suffered in silent agony as the world around him dimmed into darkness.

 

CHAPTER 26

DOMIANT

The trick with threats is not to deliver on them. Rather, it is to make the victim believe that you will deliver on them if they do not do as you say.

—­Jeno Colt, Argent Interrogator

20th
of SSM–11 1445 A2E

A
rriving at the bridge of the
Jinxed Thirteenth
, Domiant found it was all he could do not to verbally chew out both Niko and Mikali, who were standing in front of the bridge's main entrance. Off to the side, awaiting its next command, was Mikali's enslaved Machina puppet, Chord. The bridge was locked by a blast door, and it was obvious that no weapon was going to get through it without causing serious damage to the bridge itself. The
Jinxed Thirteenth
was, after all, a sturdy vessel.

He was infuriated with Niko, Mikali and Jerkol Loc. The incompetence of not being able to mention the tiny detail of the main bridge having its own air supply could have severely jeopardized the plan. As it stood, fortunately, this was a minor nuisance.

Niko banged a fist on the door as Domiant approached them. “Solid door, won't budge, and the bitch pilot on the other side won't let us in.”

“Not like we got any leverage we can use, boss,” Mikali added quickly.

Domiant stepped past both Niko and Mikali and held down the button to the bridge's intercom. “I am addressing the ship's pilot, correct?”

“You are not getting past those doors,” came a stubborn reply. The voice that spoke was modulated and electronic, almost like a Machina's. Unlike those abominations, though, this voice was rich with emotion.

“Infinite hump me sideways!” Mikali cursed before Domiant could even formulate a response.

“You just seem to be a source of bad news today, Mikali.” Domiant gave her a cold stare. “What is it now?”

“The armory airlock hatch was just opened, boss. Someone got off the ship,” Mikali explained.

“I was under the impression that everyone had been taken care of.”

“An impression shared by me as well,” Sopherim added as her hand clasped the hilt of Pax Slayer. An action that was not unnoticed by Mikali, who puffed up her chest in a false display of confidence.

“There was the sickly Thegran—­she made her way down to the lower levels. I figured the gas would—­”

Mikali's excuses were interrupted by a string of Domiant's curses in Wolven. “You stupid soulless waste of living flesh!” He took a moment to regain his composure then turned to face Sopherim.

“I need you to go see if there are any more unaccounted for pests that Mikali, in her baffling incompetence, might have forgotten to dispose of.” It was everything he could do not to order Sopherim to strangle Mikali.

As if reading his mind, Sopherim looked to Mikali then back to Domiant. “Consider it done, brother.” She turned on her heels and walked away. Domiant then faced Niko. “You step out of the ship, find whoever got out. If it was the sickly Thegran, you are to capture her and bring her to me unharmed.”

Niko cranked the safety release of his ultra-­carbine. “What if she ain't alone?”

“Feel free to use any excessive force you wish on her companions. I don't care, as long as she remains intact. If she is damaged you will have to deal with my mother—­are we clear on this?” Domiant could not read Niko's facial reaction beneath his crimson helmet. While the brute might have had little to no respect for Domiant, he was probably less than keen on finding his name inciting the darker graces of Ynarra Kuaro.

He merely nodded with a violent eagerness to his stance. “Won't harm a hair on her sick head. Can't vouch for any of her friends, though.”

“Good to hear. Now get going!” Niko walked away from Mikali and Domiant, a spring of joy in his step at the prospect of hurting someone. Well, he had not been hired for his skills as a diplomat, that was for certain.

With these two challenges being dealt with, Domiant could now focus on the problem at hand. He pressed down the button to the bridge intercom once more. When he spoke his voice was polite and calm. “Pilot, I commend you, like your captain, for your courage. But even you must realize that your cause is lost.”

“I can wait you out. From here I can still seal off the medical bay, thus securing the rest of the crew. You have no leverage,” came the pilot's reply.

“You are very much mistaken in that fact. Mikali, would you be so kind as to let the pilot have eyes and ears inside life-­support.” Mikali pushed a ­couple of buttons on her wrist guard.

“It's done, boss.”

“Now you might see both of your machinists in there. They can both hear me.” Domiant looked to Mikali's wrist gauntlet, now projecting a holographic image of the security feed. A Thegran man with a heavy red beard and an old Wolver woman were standing there with dazed looks on their faces.

“This is a message for the ship's machinists. I want you both to kill one another in the slowest way possible.” Domiant watched the feed as the two both visibly struggled to resist the order, but as it had been with Captain Morwyn, their efforts were in vain. The Thegran man grabbed the Wolver by the throat and started to strangle her while the Wolver grabbed a heavy wrench from her work belt and started hitting him in the head with it.

“Now if you let me in right now, I give you my word that I will let them both live. If you don't, I am going to let them kill each other and then I'm going to order Mikali to set fire to your life-­support and destroy your power core. Everyone on this vessel will perish without exception. Oh, you might survive this, but I will make it my mission to make sure that no one else does.” Domiant released the intercom button and waited.

On the video feed, Domiant could see the Wolver woman gasping for air as she continued striking her Thegran companion in the head. On the third strike, the doors to the main bridge slid open and Domiant could now see the pilot, a thin cloner woman, standing in its center, with various wires grafted into her desecrated body.

“Thank you, machinists, you may stop what you are doing and sit.” Upon hearing his words, both the machinists immediately stopped what they were doing and sat back down. Domiant stepped onto the bridge with Mikali and Chord in tow.

“The Infinite erode you both,” the clone pilot said.

“The Infinite erodes us all without exception, you stupid clone,” Domiant replied. Mikali fired a stun charge at the pilot, who went limp. As Mikali made her way to the bridge's consoles she was giddy with excitement.

“Boss, I can access their astro charts. Not to mention all the Patrol Intel we'll be able to glean.”

“Do what you have to, Mikali.” Domiant crossed his hands behind his back and savored his victory. His was the superior mind, his was the superior will, with his tools he had claimed his prize. The
Jinxed Thirteenth
was now the property of Domiant Kuaro Nem'Uldur.