Chapter 18
Two guards in smooth black armor, faces unseen behind blast shields, freed his bonds and hauled him to his feet. They sprayed him clean with more cold high-pressure water. Cleaning done, they roughly shoved a small towel into his trembling hands and dragged him from the room. His level of concern rose when they didn't seem to be taking precautions against him seeing anything or being seen. He could tell he was on a ship of some sort. The guards brought him to a stop in front of a hatch. The door opened to reveal a simple standard-issue crew quarter. They shoved him inside and sealed the hatch behind him. Though he knew it would be locked, he still tried.
Not bothering with the towel, Jaisen rushed to the small computer panel above a small utilitarian desk attached to the far wall. He swiped his hand over the panel, and surprisingly, it opened up to the home screen. Thankfully, the last tenant didn't set a password or security feature. He quickly accessed the coms screen and composed a short message to an address associated with his friend.
To: 19.119.61.796.73.06.06
Body: It's me. Get her to safety. I don't know where I am. In govt custody. On a ship. Interrogated. You owe me big time.
Jaisen encrypted the message with his personal key and hit send. He anxiously waited for the confirmation that the message made it to the quantum net. Just when he thought the message failed, the confirmation icon flashed next to the series of numbers that represented Riordan’s secure account. He quickly cleared his message and erased the recent files cache. When the guards opened the door a few minutes later, he was thirstily guzzling water from the small faucet installed over the sink next to the compact toilet. One guard stayed by the door while the other set a small box on the bed. The guard stared at Jaisen for a moment, his expression unreadable behind the tinted face plate before turning and exiting the room.
Jaisen carefully opened the box to reveal a standard-issue jumpsuit and an R-TEM, a ready-to-eat meal. The seal on the heavy purple bag was broken. Setting aside the jumpsuit, he dumped the contents of the R-TEM on the bed. The candy treat and trading card were missing. Assholes! It seemed like he barely closed his eyes when the door to his cell opened. He startled awake.
"Good morning! You slept well, I hope?" Mareion Shepherd asked. Jaisen got a better look at his captor. Typical Citizen female. Brown eyes, olive skin, and dark blonde hair neatly parted in the middle and pulled back into a military precise bun. She was of average height and slim in build. You had to look close to notice she was older than she first appeared.
"This is the part where you take away the small kindness you have shown me as another way to assert your complete control and dominance of my person, right? You'll take me back to the white room, the metal chair, and shock me a few more hundred times till I'm a drooling mess, again?"
"Well, I was going to...," she started.
"Wait, this is day two," he said, jumping to his feet. "This is the day where you strap me to a table and pour water over a cloth pressed against my face until I start talking or almost drown. Or is today the day that you hang me upside down in a sleep sack with a few hundred pounds of ice and beat me with pipes until I lose consciousness?"
"As I was saying, I was going to invite you to breakfast with me in the officer's mess. Before we progress to the next phase, of course," She offered with an almost genuine smile.
Shepherd led Jaisen along the cramped corridors and around countless turns to the officer's mess. The officer's mess consisted of several round tables surrounded by chairs with an order window built into the far wall where you place your order and receive your meal. Shepherd seated them next to a large view screen showing a low-G soccer match between the reigning champions and a lower-rated team.
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"How do you like your omelet? Dorian? Paradisian? Plain?" Shepherd asked, gesturing toward the order window.
"Uh, Dorian, side of protein strips, mashed karshin roots, Kaffe black, please."
He slowly rolled his stiff shoulders, feeling the soreness to remind himself of the tortures the previous day held. Part of him felt like he was in a poorly written holo-drama. Jaisen watched the game with slight disinterest while a trio of fresh-faced Leftenants in black uniforms with gray trim vehemently argued the merits of various players. The black uniforms indicated combat arms. ‘I’m not on a support ship,’ he idly thought. Jaisen started as Shepherd set a tray of food in front of him.
"Here you go!" she said, settling down in front of her own tray. "I have one of the finest chefs in the fleet on my ship, one of the few privileges of command. He's not much compared to Jung Neo or Gino De 'Angelis, but he's pretty decent," Shepherd daintily cut into her omelet, filled with sauteed shallots, cheese, and pinkish purple mushrooms.
Jaisen chewed the end off a protein strip. "This is real bacon!" he exclaimed.
"Officer's mess," she said with a wave of her hand. "None of that uncultured slop they serve in the crew mess. That came from a real animal."
Jaisen ate as his companion watched the view-screen for a few minutes.
“I hate sports. There's no point. I mean, I understand the competitive urge, but is it really a competition if no one dies? They play for money, too much if you ask me. Can you imagine how much better they’d play if their lives depended on the outcome?" Shepherd leaned to address the Leftenants. "Can we switch over to a news feed, please?" The Leftenants fell silent, executing her request.
A male Citizen anchor with smartly parted hair and expertly applied makeup appeared, droning on about the economy in his well-trained, accent-less voice. Shepherd watched raptly for a few moments, sipping black kaffe between bites. A female anchor followed, and a breaking news banner appeared along the bottom of the screen.
“Authorities have no new leads in the destructive separatist attack on Vesta station in the Besitera system nearly forty-eight hours ago. With over four thousand dead and hundreds more injured, it's the most devastating separatist attack since the Insurrection nearly a century ago."
The screen cut to a three-dimensional line model of the station.
"Here is what we know so far. At approximately 11 am Galactic standard time on the 20th, alleged members of the 'Sons of the Confederacy' boarded the station under the guise of delivering cargo. They proceeded to infiltrate the station planting explosives in key areas. It is believed that security interrupted one of the saboteurs near a life support substation, and their explosives detonated prematurely. According to witness reports, most of the remaining separatists escaped to their ship during a running firefight with station security. At this point, distress alerts were transmitted, and law enforcement ships were dispatched from Besitera Prime. Allegedly, one of the saboteurs, tentatively identified as Atticus Riordan, was delayed in his mission of targeting the station's orbital engines. Likely fearing discovery or maybe to gain hostages, he fought his way through security forces to the docking arm. He loaded his ship with hostages and left, but not before turning his ship's weapons on the station to guarantee its demise. Unfortunately, during the confusion, he successfully posed as a good Samaritan by transferring most of the hostages to rescue ships, though it is believed he kept at least two. Warning, the following footage may not be suitable for younger or sensitive viewers. Please set your preferences accordingly."
Jaisen sat with his mouth agape, fork hovering halfway between his tray and his mouth. The video clips clearly showed Riordan, wearing his usual brown cargo pants, gray pilot's vest, and black shirt, firing a rifle at a group of armed men, labeled on screen as off-duty security. The next video clip showed Riordan herding women and children down the docking arm and into his ship. The last clip, with a byline identifying the feed from a security drone over 100 kilometers from the station, showed a ship firing at the station, the Passive Swindler.
"What the frek?" he whispered.
The feed cut back to the anchorwoman. "Authorities are asking for your help in locating this fugitive and his associates. More information, including a complete list of survivors, can be found on our Quantum Net feed. Now, onto Steval with sports."
Jaisen stared at his plate. Shepherd let a few moments pass before speaking.
“Your wife’s name isn’t on the list. I checked. I’m sorry.”
“I… I'd like to go back to my room, now," Jaisen stammered, a tone filling his head, muffling everything else. ‘This is a dream, a bad dream,’ he thought.