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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Planet Odysseus

Bellerophon System

Free Worlds Alliance

January 13, 2553


The hood came off Mollie Ramsay’s head.

Bright lights stung her eyes as Alaimo dangled the hood in front of her. They hadn’t removed the sound-dampening mask over her mouth and nose, and with her wrists and ankles cuffed to a chair bolted to the floor, all she could do was glare at him.

“Glad we’re all here.”

Alaimo dropped the hood into her lap. He stood with her in the cone of merciless light pouring down from overhead. Its brilliance made the blackness beyond him even more impenetrable. He wore fatigue pants and boots, and a tight sleeveless shirt that wasn’t standard Federation issue showed off his bulky physique as he smiled at her, then looked at someone behind her.

“Volkov, get the holos going.”

“Sir,” the other man acknowledged, and she heard more people shuffling in the darkness where she couldn’t see.

“Good, good.”

Alaimo wagged two fingers in the air in front of him and Ramsay, and dozens of holo displays appeared. Each showed a person bound to a chair, just like Ramsay, although she was the only one who was gagged. She recognized several faces as trusted and respected individuals active in Odyssian society.

She couldn’t begin to identify all of them, but those she did recognize had all been appointed leaders of evacuation centers.

“Before we get started…” Alaimo said. He set the edge of his hand close to Ramsay’s neck, and despite herself, she flinched slightly. The bruises from his earlier touch were still raw and throbbing. “I’m going to give you the choice to end this little exercise at any moment. All you have to do is—”

He pulled a silver spoon from his pocket. From the handle’s intricate designs, she recognized it as part of the Ithaca House formal silver. He reached down and slipped the spoon into the fingers of her right hand.

“When you’re ready to tell me where to find President Xeneas, just drop the spoon, and everything stops.” Alaimo raised a finger. “But if you drop it and don’t tell me where to find him immediately,” he tapped the tip of her nose playfully, “you won’t like what happens. After all, I have plenty of potential informants. I can afford to turn a few of them into…teaching examples for people who waste my time.”

Ramsay tightened her grip on the spoon.

“Drone,” Alaimo said.

He took a step away from Ramsay’s chair, and a camera drone swooped in to hover a few feet in front of him. The red LED beside the lens lit, and his holo projection appeared in every prisoner’s individual feed.

“Good evening,” he said cheerfully. “I’m General—I’m sorry; I’m Governor Alaimo now, aren’t I? I do tend to forget some of the details, I’m afraid! Well, no matter. What’s important is that all of you have been in recent contact with President Xeneas and that I—” he put a hand on his chest “—am a humanist, fundamentally. Unfortunately, altruist though I may be, it’s my responsibility to end this rebellion. And while my ships have total control of the orbitals and I can end not just the rebellion but this entire planet with a single transmission, what I’d really prefer is to keep this world producing for the good of the Federation. And yet, people are being so unreasonable. In fact, while I’ve already eliminated every evacuation center—all of them received ample warning to vacate, of course—to convince the populace to return to productive labor, I’m afraid there are already reports of organized attacks on my forces.”

He put his hands on his hips.

“I’m afraid that’s unacceptable, and that’s what brings me to the point of our little meeting today. President Xeneas is directing this insurgency, which means he’s responsible not just for these ongoing attacks on the Expeditionary Force, but also for the enormous casualties the Navy suffered on our arrival. I will have Xeneas, and I will end this illegal resistance. The problem, of course, is that I don’t know where to find him. But I’m confident that at least one of you does. So where is he? Tell me now.”

He paused, watching the holos as the prisoners reacted. There was no sound from their cells, but AI transcription recorded and displayed their responses in a text crawl across each display, and Ramsay noted a number of expletives and a few creative invitations to Alaimo to engage in impossible anatomical acts.

“Nothing?” Alaimo asked whimsically. “Fine by me. The spinner, please.”

He held out a hand, and Volkov placed an object in his palm. It looked like something from a child’s game: a small plastic circle with an arrow and numbers printed around its edge. Alaimo flicked one end of the arrow, and it spun several times before slowing to a stop.

“Thirty percent power,” he said cheerfully, looking up at the holos, and smiled.

The prisoners screamed, jerking at their cuffed wrists and ankles as electricity slammed through them. Somehow, the inability to actually hear their screams made it even worse for Ramsay. They writhed in all those dozens of holos while the agony lashed through them, and then, abruptly, the torture stopped. They slammed back into their chairs, and a part of Ramsay’s mind realized it had lasted no more than a handful of seconds. She knew that, but watching so many people screaming like some silent chorus of the damned made it seem like an eternity.

Alaimo smiled brightly, then looked down at her and glanced at the spoon.

“Timer,” he said. “One minute.”

He traced a circle over one shoulder and a countdown projected from the drone. It appeared in each of the holos, and Alaimo smiled even more brightly.

“Tell me where to find Xeneas,” he said, clapping his hands in time with the words like a child reciting a nursery rhyme.

Some of the prisoners continued to curse at him, and he shrugged.

“Let me have Major Perkins up here,” he said, and held out the spinner as a man in light powered armor jogged up to him. The newcomer spun the needle, and Alaimo chuckled.

“Oooh, fifty percent. That’s gonna sting!”

He hummed gently to himself while the time display ticked downward. The last few seconds trickled away. It reached zero…and people began screaming again.

Ramsay cried out, twisting from side to side in her chair, fighting to get loose, and one projection flashed red as the prisoner in it slumped forward in his own chair.

“Whoops! Got a cardiac arrest already.” Alaimo snapped his fingers while the others continued to scream. “Get medics into room twenty-four and stabilize that one. He’ll continue as soon as he’s conscious again.”

The shocks stopped—finally—and Alaimo tapped a foot on the floor.

“Where’s Xeneas?” he asked more loudly. “All this stops as soon as you tell me where he is.”

Ramsay shouted as loudly as she could—loudly enough to finally catch his attention. He waggled two fingers together and the drone stopped projecting him into the prisoners’ cells.

“Something to tell me?” He cocked his head to one side. “Drop the spoon. Otherwise, this doesn’t stop.”

She shook her head, and he shrugged.

“Volkov, get me…Colonel Jurayev.”

A woman in simple fatigues walked into the light. He held out the disc, and she spun the arrow.

“Mmmmm.” Alaimo frowned at the number and shook his head. “Only ten percent. I’d hate for the subjects to think this is getting easier. As soon as some resistance builds, they—”

Jurayev grabbed the pointer and shifted it slightly.

“Now, there’s the kind of gumption I like to see!” Alaimo said enthusiastically. “Sixty-five percent, if you please, Volkov.”

Ramsay squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her head. Shutting out the images’ silent shrieks. It didn’t help. She still knew they were there, knew what was happening…and that the agony of so many who’d tried to save innocent lives would never leave her, no matter how little time she had left herself.

“Two more cardiac events.” Alaimo tsked. “I expected better out of such hardy Fringer types. Well, onward and upward! I believe you’re up next, Captain Yildiz.”

He held the spinner out to his side nonchalantly, his attention on the many holo projections, and Ramsay’s eyes opened, almost against her will, as a tall, broad shouldered man with bristle-cut dark blond hair and a strong nose walked up to Alaimo. He, too, wore fatigues, and he moved stiffly, his hands balled at his sides.

Alaimo rattled the spinner at him, and his nostrils flared.

“Sir, I believe—”

“Hold that thought, Captain,” Alaimo interrupted as the text crawl on one holo flashed brightly. “Sound, Volkov!”

“I’ll talk! I’ll talk!” The voice was raw, hoarse, and Alaimo pointed at the interrogation subject. He swiped his finger toward the middle of the projection, and the image enlarged to display an elderly man. His gray hair was a wet mop and his lips were deathly pale against his dark skin.

“P-please. I’ll…I’ll tell you everything I know. Just don’t shock me again,” he whimpered.

Alaimo tapped the upper right corner of the man’s projection and the display edge went green.

“Talk,” the general said, peering closely at the screen while background data on the man scrolled across his face.

“I…I know where one of Xeneas’s people is. She works for him—works in Ithaca House. She must know where he is! That’s it. That’s all I know!” Mucus and spittle blew from his mouth as he spoke.

“Yildiz, this is your target,” Alaimo said without looking directly at the captain. He tapped on his forearm screen, and light broke across the prisoner a few seconds later as the door to his cell opened. “If he’s leading us to a dry hole, let me know ASAP. He’ll have some work to catch up on.”

“Sir, there’s no way we can corroborate any information he gives us,” Yildiz said. “It’s just as likely he’ll direct my company into a trap as—”

“You’ll verify it.” Alaimo shooed him away. “Get armored up and get your people aboard the ready transports. We’ll transmit the target packet to you before you can even get to the flight line. Happy hunting! Bring in everyone you can. Alive, since I can’t make a corpse talk.”

“Moving, Sir,” Yildiz said through a tight jaw.

The captain jogged away, and Alaimo stuck his fingers into the broken prisoner’s holo. He flicked it to the side, and the other displays rearranged themselves to fill in the gap.

“That’s enough of a break,” he said. “Volkov, repeat the last motivation.”

Ramsay tried screaming, rocking her chair from side to side, and Alaimo glanced at her.

“Something to add?” he said. “No? That’s…unfortunate. But never mind! You may not want to talk to me, but all of them know something, Madame Governor. So I suppose the interrogation continues until they think up something to tell me or they—Damn it, medics to cell thirty-seven.”

Ramsay tightened her convulsive grip on the spoon. She knew absolutely nothing that might lead Alaimo to Xeneas, but he would never believe that. She knew that. Just as she knew that if she tried to lie, it would doom all of the prisoners to slow, violent death.

All she could do was pray the others broke before they died.



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