Abyss Of Savagery

by Toby Neighbors

  “I’m taking this one to the torture room,” Dean said. “Go back for the second one and get it back to the cages where they were originally held. Keep it restrained—and I want the modified MSV in range to knock it out if it wakes up and causes trouble.”

  “We’ll see to it, Major,” Parker said.

  “As soon as you’re done here, I want that pipe or tentacle or whatever it is explored. We have to know what they were doing.”

  “I’m on it, sir,” Loggins said.

  “And don’t leave this area without rousing Sergeant Harper.”

  Dean picked up the wounded Pergantee and tossed it over his shoulder. The alien didn’t weigh much, and Dean had no trouble carrying it, but he couldn’t help but fear what might happen if it woke up. His hand remained on the grip of his Martin 3A defense pistol. If the little alien tried to infiltrate Dean’s mind, he would shoot it in the head. They could take no more chances with the devious aliens. They were a treasure trove of intelligence not just about the Kroll, but also the entire galaxy, and yet they were simply too dangerous to be allowed the freedom to be left to their own devices.

  The plan was to keep one of the aliens sedated at all times. A few spare medical monitors would be brought over from one of the captured EsDef ships and used to keep the wounded Pergantee unconscious. It was a risky plan since they didn’t know anything about the Pergantees’ anatomy or how their pharmaceuticals would effect them, but it was their best option. They would also keep remote-operated munitions close by just in case the aliens managed to get free. Dean wouldn’t risk them escaping again. If they resisted or tried to escape, he would terminate them without hesitation.

  Once he reached the room where the Pergantee had tortured the captured Recon Specialists, Dean breathed a little easier. He eased the unconscious alien onto one of the tables that was welded to the floor, and used Kevlar straps to secure the creature in place. He didn’t bother cutting off the plastic restraints. Nothing about the way the alien was strapped down to the table looked comfortable, but Dean didn’t care. He was much more concerned about the ship’s security. Once he had the alien strapped in place, he gave orders for the various monitors to be brought down to the room. An hour later, the Pergantee had cardiac leads measuring its heartbeat and a pulse/oxygen monitor ensuring that it was breathing as it should. They taped a nasal cannula to the alien’s thin slits and were prepared to add more Bemtex gas to the flow of oxygen it was receiving if it woke up. A med station had been set up just over a hundred feet from the torture room so that the creature could be monitored at all times.

  Loggins eventually showed up with more MSVs, which were placed around the room, and Dean had constant video surveillance of the Pergantee as well as updates from the medical monitors sent to his TCU.

  “That’s all we can do here,” Dean said. “Tell me what you’ve done with the other Pergantee.”

  “It’s in the cage,” Loggins said. “Captain Parker used the plastic restraints to bind its hands behind its back and its legs together at the ankles. I’ve got a modified MSV with the Bemtex gas just out of reach of the cage. I can roll it in and detonate the charge at a moment’s notice.”

  “You’ve got other MSVs monitoring the entire situation?”

  “Yes sir. Captain Parker had me set motion detection so we’ll know if the Pergantee moves. She also had me set up MSVs in the corridor east and west of the cage. We’ll know it if anyone goes near the area.”

  “Good thinking. How’s Sergeant Harper?”

  “Fine. She went looking for a shower and some chow.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Dean said. “I’ll send her back down as soon as she’s done to trade places with you.”

  “Thank you, Major. Oh, and I was supposed to tell you that Captain Parker ordered Sergeant Fennes to leave the maintenance drone down in the workshop. She wants to set up a communication device that can be used remotely to interrogate the Pergantee.”

  “If we can figure that out, it would be the best way to get the answers we need,” Dean said, mentally kicking himself for not thinking of that from the beginning. “Any idea how she plans to do it?”

  “No sir, and to be honest I’ve got my hands full keeping up with all the MSVs.”

  “I understand, Private. You’re doing excellent work. Stay on post here until Sergeant Harper relieves you. If you need anything at all, contact me on the platoon channel.”

  “Yes sir,” Loggins said.

  Dean patted the young specialist on the shoulder and went back up to the main passageway on the ring. He found his office in the communications center and dropped into his chair, letting the tension in his shoulders and neck relax a little before opening up a private channel on his comlink with each of the admirals. He needed to let them know the Pergantees were in custody before they came to a decision about Sergeant Tallgrass. Dean was determined to get some answers, and he wouldn’t hesitate to use any means necessary to find out exactly what happened when the Pergantees tried to escape.

  Chapter 29

  “The only thing I can figure would be to set up a simple yes-or-no station,” Parker said. “That way we can ask direct questions, and the Pergantee can answer by triggering the proper response.”

  “It’s not ideal, but it does sound effective,” Dean replied. They were alone in the comms center, trying to decide how to interrogate the Pergantee without risking the life or mind of another crew member. “I’ll be honest: the admirals want answers, but they’re nervous. We can’t trust the Pergantees, and they pose a threat to the ship and the mission. They wouldn’t be upset if we simply terminated the Grays right now.”

  “I wouldn’t be, either,” Parker said, “but I don’t like giving up on a problem.”

  “How much can we learn with yes or no answers?” Dean asked.

  “Given the right questions, I would say quite a lot,” Parker said. “Don’t dismiss the idea, Dean. We have an opportunity here.”

  “Okay, so set it up. But you’re running on fumes, Parker. You need to delegate and get some rest too. Let’s plan to start the interrogation in six hours.”

  She nodded, and the gesture seemed odd in full battle armor.

  “Oh, and one more thing—I’m officially assigning you to the Wolfpack platoon,” he said. “You’ll be my second in command. That’ll put you on our loop and platoon channel.”

  “I’m honored, Major,” she replied.

  “Like I said before, I need you, Parker. With Chavez injured and my responsibilities keeping me busy elsewhere, my platoon needs you. We’ve all worked together before, so you stepping into a command position should be pretty natural. You get some sleep, and my people will have your TCU dialed in when you wake up.”

  Six hours later, Dean was amazed at what the combination of his Fast Attack Specialists, the engineers, and Sergeant Fennes had put together. There was a vid screen set up just outside the Pergantee cage. A motion sensor with a simple gyroscope had been strapped onto the center of the alien’s head so that all it needed to do was turn its head side to side for no or nod up and down for yes. It was redundant since they could see the alien’s movements, but no one was certain that the Pergantee couldn’t manipulate the vid feed.

  They would have eyes on the alien at all times, and it would be able to hear them, but no one was anywhere near the Pergantee cage. The aliens had been rendered unconscious for nearly two hours by the blast in the tunnel, and the wounded alien was still sedated with small amounts of Bemtex piped into the nasal cannula. Dean was more than satisfied with the results they were getting. They were learning about the Pergantee anatomy simply by having the monitors keeping track of the wounded alien.

  “We’re ready,” Sergeant Fennes said. She had taken the lead in setting up the entire interrogation, from the equipment in the Pergantee cage to making sure the vid feed was accessible to all three Kroll ships.

  “Is everyone present?” Dean asked.

  “I have you on screen,” Matsumoto said.
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  “As do I,” Aviv added.

  “We read you loud and clear, Major,” Masterson said.

  “Alright, if you have questions you can ask them at any time. The Pergantee can hear you, but it can only see me. Let’s begin.”

  “This is Major Dean Blaze beginning the interrogation of the Pergantee prisoner, on the E.S.D.F. Bushido. I’ll be asking yes or no questions. You can respond yes by nodding your head up and down like this,” Dean demonstrated the head nod. The Pergantee was watching; its big black eyes were like bottomless pits of despair. “You can answer no by shaking your head from side to side like this.”

  Again Dean demonstrated the head shake. He couldn’t tell if the Pergantee was sad or angry as it glared at the vid screen from its prone position on the floor of the cage, but he didn’t really care what state the creature was in. He needed answers, and he needed to ensure that he was getting the truth.

  “Do you understand?” Dean asked.

  The alien didn’t respond, so Dean repeated the explanation and asked the question again. When the alien still didn’t answer, Dean looked to Sergeant Fennes.

  “Can it hear us?”

  “Yes, sir. I checked the connections myself. It can year you, I’m certain of that.”

  “It’s possible the Pergantee can’t understand spoken language,” Matsumoto said. “They are mental communicators.”

  “But we know they’ve monitored our planet from afar,” Parker said. “It’s hard to believe they don’t know what we’re saying.”

  “Show it the other Pergantee,” Masterson said. “Let it know the stakes it’s dealing with.”

  “Good idea,” Dean agreed.

  Sergeant Fennes tapped a few keys on the control station she had set up in Dean’s office, and the image on Dean’s vid screen split. On one side he saw the Pergantee they were interrogating, and on the other was a view of the wounded Pergantee who was being kept unconscious.

  “As you can see, we have both of you in custody,” Dean said. “The rest of your kind were terminated during your escape attempt. If you do not comply with our questioning, you are of no further use to us and will be terminated as well. Do you understand?”

  The alien hesitated for a moment and then nodded its head up and down.

  “Excellent,” Dean continued. “Have you been on this ship a long time?”

  Again the alien nodded.

  “Were you a prisoner?”

  The alien shook its head.

  “Did you take part in torturing humans?”

  No.

  “Did others of your kind torture humans on this ship?

  Yes.

  Dean felt a flicker of hope. The alien was answering honestly, as far as Dean could tell.

  “Did you communicate with the Kroll when they were in control of this ship?”

  Yes.

  “Can you communicate with them now?”

  No.

  “You constructed this ship for them?”

  This time the answer was obviously more complicated. The alien hesitated then alternated between yes and no.

  “You didn’t build the entire ship?”

  Yes.

  “But you oversaw the expansion as other ships were captured?”

  Yes.

  “Can you communicate at this time with others of your kind?”

  No.

  Admiral Masterson spoke up. “Can you control a human being with your extrasensory abilities?”

  No.

  “Can others of your kind?” Dean asked the follow-up.

  Yes.

  “Did one of your kind take control of Sergeant Tallgrass to facilitate your escape attempt?” Admiral Aviv asked.

  This time the Pergantee refused to answer. Dean repeated the question, but the alien just looked away from the monitor. All Dean had to do to block the alien from his conversation was to hit a single button on his keyboard. It froze the image of himself on the Pergantee’s vid screen and muted all sound.

  “It doesn’t want to admit to the crime,” Dean said. “Perhaps we could entice it by promising not to hold it accountable.”

  “But we are holding it accountable,” Aviv said. “The aliens will never leave this ship alive.”

  “Try a different line of questioning and come back to the issue of mind control,” Matsumoto said.

  Dean reactivated the communications channel and looked at the gray-skinned alien. There was something so inhuman about it, even though it possessed a similar bipedal body structure. It was the black eyes, Dean thought. They were sinister and compassionless.

  “Do you have an escape ship inside the Kroll vessel?” Dean asked.

  No, it replied, but Dean didn’t believe it.

  “Are you being honest with us?”

  Yes.

  “We will question your companion.” Dean said. “If your answers are not the same, we’ll know you are lying and terminate you both. Now, tell us the truth. Do you have a way off this vessel?”

  The Pergantee hesitated for a moment, its black eyes shifting over to the image of its unconscious companion, and then it nodded.

  “Is it in the tentacles at the bottom of the Kroll vessel?”

  Yes.

  “Is that where you were going when you tried to escape?”

  Yes.

  “And did you take control of one of us to aid in your escape?”

  No.

  “Did one of your companions?”

  The alien hesitated, then nodded its head. Dean sat back and muted the interrogation.

  “That was enlightening,” Masterson said.

  “We still don’t know if we can believe it,” Aviv said. “I won’t feel comfortable about any intelligence it shares until we question the other Pergantee.”

  “How much information can we get asking yes or no questions?” Masterson said. “I hate to see us lose such a valuable resource without getting the answers we need.”

  “It is too dangerous,” Matsumoto said. “We do not know that the Pergantees aren’t in communication with the Kroll. If we allow them to live, we could run right into an ambush and fail to accomplish the mission.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Dean said. “They didn’t warn the Kroll who were returning from Cymru, even though my platoon had taken control of the ring section and longships. Perhaps they really do need to be closer to communicate telepathically.”

  “But how close? Can we really know? I think it best to get what answers we can and terminate both aliens,” Matsumoto said.

  “I agree,” Aviv said. “Under different circumstances we could have gotten much more intelligence, but our mission is too important to risk, and with the EsDef brass set against us, we can’t send them to be studied by our interrogators.”

  “Get as much detail as you can, Major,” Masterson said. “We may not get another crack at this.”

  “What if we keep them sedated?” Parker said. “At least until we complete the mission. Once we’ve done that, perhaps risking a more thorough investigation would be worth the risk.”

  “Returning home with valuable intelligence would be a boon,” Aviv said.

  “It is a dangerous risk,” Matsumoto said.

  “Everything we’re doing is risky,” Masterson said. “Hell, we probably won’t survive the attack, but I hate to think of terminating an intelligent species who could advance our knowledge of the universe by leaps and bounds.”

  “I think this decision must be made by the mission commander,” Matsumoto said.

  Dean didn’t respond right away. He knew that by keeping the Pergantees, he was risking the lives of every person on the mission. Yet he also knew that terminating the aliens without fully interrogating them would be a terrible waste. They had an opportunity that the human race might never have again.

  “I’ll make that decision after we question the wounded Pergantee. You’ll have the entire interrogation available to view at your convenience on the task force network,” Dean assured them.


  “Excellent work, Captain Parker. Major, you have my thanks,” Matsumoto said with a short bow.

  The vid feeds from the other ships that Dean had pulled up on his alternate console screens went blank. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, then sat up straight again as he prepared to continue the interrogation. He would squeeze every last detail from the Pergantees before he was finished. If it lied to him or played games, he would put a flechette in the devious creature’s skull.

  Chapter 30

  “So Sergeant Tallgrass is innocent,” Esma said.

  She and Dean were walking together in the aviary. The chamber was so big that it almost felt like they were outdoors at dusk. The deck was covered with a spongy material that felt organic—almost like they were walking on loamy soil. The ceiling of the aviary was so high that it was lost to sight in the gloom high above them, and the only thing missing in Dean’s mind was a soft evening breeze.

  He walked with his TCU under his injured left arm. He couldn’t remove any other parts of his battle armor—not even the armored gauntlet that protected his hands, so their skin could’nt touch—but he enjoyed being near the beautiful O&A Captain nonetheless. Esmerelda Dante had an exotic complexion, with caramel-colored skin, large brown eyes, and delicate facial features that Dean considered the most beautiful he had ever seen. The fact that she was attracted to him as well was mind-blowing, but Dean didn’t want to ruin whatever good luck had led to their relationship. Perhaps she was attracted to the danger of his duty as a Recon Officer. Or maybe the near-death experiences they’d faced together on the E.S.D.F. Valkyrie had bonded them together. Whatever the reason, Dean still had trouble believing he was worthy of being Esma’s lover; yet they were together once again, and she still wanted to be by his side.

  “I think so,” Dean said. “The disciplinary committee hasn’t rendered a final decision. They may be waiting until we interrogate the wounded Pergantee, but I think the result will be the same.”