Angie flinched as the surgical knife pierced her skin for the third time. She felt the tweezers under the skin that pulled the tech out. She heard the tink of the tech hitting the metal bowl. The surgeon placed a path over and then she heard for the third time the hum of the small machine that would integrate the patch onto into her skin. So they were keeping her healthy for the transport. It wasn't a good sign, it meant that they wanted her in good shape to torture her further. Not that she was getting any reprieve now.

“Do they have any weapons in the town?” she said. A stick figure of a woman with a sharp chin, a tight skirt and an upturned nose. A typical Dorlec, Angie thought. She was accompanied by a person, she wasn't able to tell the gender, in a red robe with a hood that was pulled over their head. A seer, she imagined. She was determining if what Angie told her was true or not, she thought the monk must have been communicating right into the interrogator's mind. The surgeon finished off, packed their things and left the room, waiting at the door to be let out.

“Are there weapons?” she repeated. Angie lazily looked at her, despising everything about this woman.

“I’m being sent to Dorlec to be interrogated, correct?” the interrogator just looked at her down her sharp nose. “Seems strange that I have an interrogator in front of me, with a seer and I still, I need to be sent to Dorlec” The interrogator stewed, “It’s almost like they dont think that you are good enough?”

“You are under investigation for treason. Do you really think now is the time for a joke?”

“Whose joking?” Angie said looking at the seer, “Almost like it’s above your pay grade. Or maybe above that’s Sheppard’s pay grade. He seemed so pompous and in control, but perhaps he is more of an errand boy” She felt a searing pain in her mind like a hot spike being stabbed into it. She could really feel it without her tech now. It was now almost ancient, her tech, but it was still better than having your mind stabbed by a seer without any protection at all. She squirmed in her chair, and then the pain was released. She couldn't even collect herself to swear at the seer.

“Are there any weapons?”

“Can’t your seer tell you? They seem to have a good understanding of how to use their tech”

“Answer”

“I don’t know, but Lor Dimitri is a very resourceful man” she said panting after her brain had just been assaulted, “I never gave them anything, but I’ve also been gone a long time, who knows what my soldiers have done” The interrogator closed the datapad and stood up.

“Very well, sticks and stones then. We have nothing to fear. Your soldiers have been dead for hours” Angie felt the blow as she had said it. She had thought that this must have been the case, but she didn't want to give it any credibility, she didn't want to admit it to herself. They were shutting down an illegal operation, not one that was run by loyal soldiers in high circles, but by misfits, those that didn't fit in or that just got in the way. Expendable people. The interrogator and the Seer made their way out of the room, and Angie was left alone, with only her thoughts as wounding company. She had known when she came to this place that she would die a worthless death, with a forgotten life. She had thought though that she would have been able to stand for something in the end, like she had when she was young, when she was a soldier. What did she really expect though? She had volunteered for this position over two decades ago, to watch over an old mentor, because she knew that she had nothing. The war had been the only thing that had been present in her life and her old Captain was the only thing that she cared about. Her planet had been stripped, and her people lost. She never had a childhood to go back to. She had only ever had the war. When it ended, she followed her commanding officer. Like a good soldier. Even if it was to guard him in his prison.

She sat there for what must have been hours in the holding cell. Her thoughts racing with her life. She was not adding judgment, nor was she wallowing in regrets on decisions that she had made. She accepted what was happening to her, what had happened to her, and she supposed what was going to happen. This was life. She had been caught in it, not someone who was ever in control of what could have happened, but someone whose life was influenced by that of others, their wants and desires, she moved in their wake, at their behest. Now, they wanted information out of her. Information that she didn't really have. They wanted to know how she had sent the message off. She knew that she would eventually tell them, they had ways of getting her to tell them, they had people that could warp her mind to a point where her consciousness was gone and just the memories were left, they would then drive her mind to find that memory. It was simple for them. For those in control. She had posted a word, a single word on her old company's subnet page. A word that they would always use when there was trouble. A word that was used as a joke. ‘Muscrat’. She chuckled to herself. She didn't even know if anyone saw that page anymore, or who Lor thought was going to see it and come and save the kid. It had been twenty years since they would have last thought about Lor Dimitri, or Angela Lawrence.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

The door opened and two soldiers walked into the room, exo-suits and all. Angie didn't really pay attention as they placed a suit on her, unlocking her hands and feet only when needed. They shouldn't have worried, she wasn't going anywhere. She complied with everything that they said, and she drifted between them as they made their way to the gravity lifts. She didn't look around the Pillar as they went, she just kept her head down. Just placing her feet one after the other. They lowered down onto the ground of Gol, she felt them drag her a bit as they moved forward, not that she was protesting, but that she was not conscious of what was happening around her. It jolted her into looking around and she saw a combat unit readying themselves, receiving orders. Orders that would mean the death of Lor Dimitri and his boy, Meno. She watched the soldiers as they checked their gear, about twenty of them. It was overkill. It was the way of the Houses. Twenty men to kill an old man and a kid. She turned and saw the freighter, some two hundred meters away.

She thought of what she could have done differently. What she could have done that would have changed anything? Perhaps, if like they had planned, they could have gotten the boy off on a resupply ship. They had chosen not to on the last one because they didn't know the pilot, and Hellen was still alive. The boy never would have left anyway. He was too close to them, he was always going to see this end. Lor had mentioned that Angie should take the pilot out and steal the vessel. She had thought he was joking. It was so bold, such a risk. They would have been caught in moments. An old soldier well passed her expiry date and a kid who had never left his home town. She chuckled, how did you explain him?

They reached the ship and the cargo bay doors opened up. The room was sealed, it would be decontaminated once the door shut again.

“Take a seat, doors need to close and then I will begin” said the pilot over the comms.

One of the soldiers guided her by her arm to take a seat, he then sat next to her. She sat looking at the other. Fools, both of them, didn't even know what was really happening. Just complying with… The soldier who was standing in the cargo bay was suddenly struck by another guard who had come out of nowhere. The new guard wasn't wearing a black suit, it was blue. Angie just sat there as the soldier that was sitting next to her stood up, the newcomer quickly made his way over with excellent speed and delivered a flying front kick to him in the chest sending him across the room.

‘Collins?’ she thought, looking at the suit. No, he was too short. The blue uniformed guard moved again the the soldier that he had first hit who was getting back up again. He tried to punch him but the Dorlec soldier caught his arm and tried to fling him, the blue-suited guard was good though and repositioned himself. The soldier next to Angie tried to get up and move to assist his colleague. Angie made a decision, she lifted her arms and placed them around the guard's neck, using the handcuffs as a choker. The suits were built to withstand this type of thing though. She got up and placed her knee behind his back and pushed as hard as she could.

The doors of the ship were closing and she saw the other two still scuffling, the blue-suited guard doing everything in his power to stop the soldier from being able to reach his weapon. The soldier she had in a vice was trying to squirm away, she slackened her grip for just a moment so that he could move, and then kicked at the back of his leg, collapsing him, once again she placed her knee in his back and pulled. He went for his weapon on his side holster. Angie rolled them to the floor of the cargo bay, making sure that he would land on his pistol, which he did. She pulled with all of her might, only now remembering that she had just had her tech removed. If it came to a full fistfight, she would have no chance against them, they would be a minimum of three times stronger than her, and if they had new tech, it would probably be more. She needed help, she looked up and saw the blue suit guard deliver a heavy blow to the Dorlec soldier’s stomach, it collapsed him,

“His gun!” she screamed at him. The guard hurried and grabbed the gun away from the Dorlec that he was fighting, delivering an elbow straight across the helmet. Then the idiot threw the gun at her. She couldn't move her hands from around the guard's neck as the gun soared over her. She missed it completely, and the Dorlec now gaining composure, flung her over his shoulder. The ship rumbled with the shutting of the door and the soldier pulled his weapon and aimed it down at Angie. She had lost. Then the blue suit flashed above her and delivered a frightening right blow to the soldier holding a gun at her. A brilliant blue bolt of energy shot from the pistol but missed her helmet. The guard and the soldier went tumbling, and in a panic, she reached for the pistol that was previously thrown at her. She picked it up and moved to the Dorlec that her ally was now holding against the walls of the cargo bay, she pressed the pistol against the black armoured soldier, through the energy shield and shot. He went limp immediately. She looked at the blue-suited guard and something in her head clicked.

“Meno?” he didn't say anything but reached out to try and grab her, she pulled back and then only realised that he was trying to help her. She felt a hand on her shoulder plate and saw the Dorlec soldier, he pulled her back and flung her across the room, she hit the wall with enormous force and felt all of the wind knocked out of her. She tried to catch it and looked up to see that in the time that it had taken for the Dorlec soldier to throw her, it had given the guard enough time to get on top of him. He was delivering heavy blows to the Dorlec soldier who was trying to block but was unable to.

She slumped back against the cargo bay wall, her breath coming back to her. She watched as the Dorlec went limp, his helmet cracked from the blows. The familiar vibrations of decontamination started, and the usual itch emerged, but Angie didn't react, she just looked at him as he, like her slumped back and rested his back against the other side of the cargo bay. The jets of smoke filled the room, but she didn't remove her helmet, she just kept looking at him. It couldn't have been him.

“You two okay?” came a voice over the comms. Again, she didn't react. “I need you to take your helmets off to finish the decontamination” She couldn't see the guard anymore through the smoke and complied. She sat there wondering what was going to happen once the smoke cleared, and she saw who was under the helmet.

“Okay, you're all clear, both of you” came the voice over the comm. The smoke cleared and the guard was walking over to her, his helmet off, revealing the face of the late teen with rat-tailed hair and grey skin, he was walking over to her with a look of concern,

“Lawrence?”

“Meno,” she said, having never spoken to the boy before, but knowing him all his life. He held out a hand to her, she took it and he pulled her up. He smiled uncomfortably,

“Mr. Dimitri says hi”