Kuxpir Mothership Part Alpha, North Pole - Present - Tha'Aphriraoss

Tha'Aphriraoss, the Prime of Information, was losing her patience. She had spent the last three cycles personally overseeing the interrogation and information extraction from an An-Two that had yielded little in the way of actionable details. Aphriraoss had never bothered to learn the An’s name. After all, he was a mere Ixtwo on top of being an An. She, on the other hand, was an Ixthree, soon to be Ixfour. Kuxpir lived and died based on her work. This An was only alive because Aphriraoss needed answers regarding two vital recent events.

The first event concerned one of Aphriraoss’ late counterparts in the Ixthree: Tha’Tegridoll, Prime of Science. Tegridoll had been working on a new means to eradicate the human vermin without spoiling the rest of the planet in the process. Supposedly she was close to a breakthrough when an unforeseen, unrecoverable systems failure caused her orbital laboratory to pitch towards Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. Nearly all hands in the lab, including Tegridoll, remained behind to try and save their life’s work rather than escape. Only three Kuxpir made it out - Two Ixthree Fan, Tha’Zaggir and Tha’Varoks, plus the An-Two on Aphriraoss’ table.

Zaggir and Varoks were newly ascended Ixthree and had only been assigned to the lab four cycles previously. They passed Aphriraoss’ questioning with flying colors without any torture required. She fully believed they had nothing to do with the tragedy. As for the An-Two, his deposition checked out until Aphriraoss studied the event further.

Initially the incident had been written off as the result of improper maintenance thanks to the facility’s recovered black box. However, the more Aphriraoss dug into the box’s records on the supposed faulty control system the more things didn’t add up. There should have been a myriad of warnings and chances to repair or replace the control system before it sent the lab spiraling out of orbit. Short of gross negligence when it came to maintenance, Aphriraoss had concluded that someone had deliberately sabotaged Tegridoll’s lab. Mainly, the An-Two.

Before Aphriraoss’ agents could black bag the An-Two, the second event occurred. This time an Advanced Dominance Fighter prototype went missing during a test incursion into human airspace. The “milk run”, as humans may have called it, was supposed to prove the stealth capabilities of a new breed of Asmoor-Cores. Instead the prototype ended up being struck by lightning and destroyed without a trace. It was presumed lost until it showed up six cycles later during an aerial operation over Nebraska.

Aphriraoss did not have to devote much effort into finding out that the An-Two had led the team that prepared the prototype for its mission. He managed to avoid her agents for half a cycle before he ended up on her table. His suspended form writhed in the transparent cylinder as the agonizer glowed crimson and stimulated the pain centers of his brain directly. The agonizer was a wonderful tool in interrogations, capable of cycling through nerve clusters to prevent desensitization and not inflicting permanent bodily harm. The same could not be said of the lingering mental effects.

“You’re currently on setting seven, Aphriraoss said as she stopped in front of the An-Two. “No An has ever survived past setting nine. I’m told that what you’re feeling now is but a pinprick compared to what setting nine is like. At least for you An, anyways. Pain is an excellent motivator to keep your kind under control.”

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The An-Two didn’t reply. Instead, he merely glared back at Aphriraoss despite his eyes trying to bulge out of his skull and his tentacle hair spasming wildly. No yelling, no screaming, no moaning, nothing to give Aphriraoss the satisfaction of knowing her methods were getting to him. Loathe as she was to admit it (even in the safety of her own thoughts), the An-Two could teach some of Aphriraoss’ agents a thing or two about resisting torture.

“This is your penultimate chance. Tell me who you are working for and why you sabotaged both the orbital lab and the prototype,” demanded Aphriraoss as she stepped out from the darkness. The only light in the octagonal room came from the agonizer and a single spotlight high overhead. This meant Aphriraoss could move in and out of shadow at will to disorient her captive.

“I… work alone…” the An-Two managed to say. “I remain loyal… to the Supreme… Queen…”

“You would speak of loyalty?” Aphriraoss sent a mental command to the drones waiting in the wings. Three of them dragged out the deceased forms of the An-Two’s former co-workers, all An. “These three each singled you out as being the source for the abnormal orders to place an EMP device in the prototype’s cockpit. For all the talk of ‘An sticking together’ you fall over yourselves for the slightest chance of getting ahead. Though I will admit you are doing wonders to dispel that notion.”

The An-Two studied the dead best he could while grimacing and struggling against the pain of the agonizer. “They were… good technicians… they didn’t need… to die…”

“But they did!” replied Aphriraoss as she resumed her circling from the shadows. “They lost the privilege to live the moment they failed the verify the abnormal order. The fake Ixthree approval seal you gave them was laughable. Anyone would have seen past your shoddy work with even the slightest bit of study. And yet these three blindly trusted in you instead of doing their duty like typical An.”

To Aphriraoss’s surprise, the An-Two managed to laugh. It was more of a stunted, hissing chuckle that sounded like a deflating swim-bladder, but it was a chuckle all the same. “You speak… of duty as if you are a… shining example. No Prime of Information… has ever lived more than…two kilocycles… I wonder… how long you have…”

“Unlike my predecessors I take my job rather seriously.” Aphriraoss turned the dial up to eight. Now she was beginning to hear the sweet sounds of pain as the An-Two experienced exponentially elevating suffering. “Even if you think you can resist my methods in life, nothing will stop me from finding the answers I seek when I comb through your memory engrams. So one last, final chance. Why did you do it?”

The An-Two closed his eyes, twitching violently. “The Kuxpir seek to… suppress the humans like you did… the Children of Xe’Zerbelaolt. You think the An have forgotten… what you Fan did two myriacycles ago. But… we know… If we can… resist you like this… then the humans can beat you as well… They are our… greatest chance of breaking… the gruesome cycle…”

Furious at hearing the Children being mentioned, Aphriraoss ramped the agonizer up to maximum. The An-Two’s entire body clenched before going limp and unmoving. She confirmed his passing before turning off the agonizer and having the drones take him to the Prime of Medicine, Thi'Gezziyim. While Aphriraoss had claimed that extracting the An-Two’s memory engram would be trivial, she did not much care for Gezziyim and the political dance she would have to endure to interact with them.

Worst of all, Aphriraoss might have to owe Gezziyim a favor.