-8-
FOUR YEARS, FIVE MONTHS AGO WHEN COOK WAS STILL LORD HIGH ADMIRAL AND MADDOX HAD JUST DEFEATED THE DRAEGARS:
Captain Josef Becker loved his work. He was good at it, maybe even the best if you counted results—not the broken mutilated bodies and the shattered minds, but the information he extracted from the incorrigibles, the so-called impossible cases.
It only made sense then that he ended up on Jarnevon, the Bosk Homeworld. Well, he was in orbit over the rocky hell-world in one of the special project ships of Star Watch Intelligence. The corvette belonged to the Wet Works Division. The WWD had begun acting even more independently and willfully since Brigadier O’Hara had gone searching for Professor Ludendorff in the Tau Ceti System.
Apparently, Bosks had gotten ahold of O’Hara and screwed with her mind but good. Maddox had discovered that during a mission dealing with Builder nexuses in Imperial Swarm territory. Later, Admiral Piedmont arrived at Jarnevon with a Star Watch fleet. The Bosks were unreasonable concerning Piedmont’s demands. Thus, the admiral let the heavies bombard the stubborn bastards from orbit. Space Marines had landed after a day of it and begun putting bewildered Bosks into internment camps. The Intelligence teams started combing the camps, hunting for Bosks with data relating to Lord Drakos, New Men and Methuselah Man Strand, not necessarily in that order.
Becker had arrived after five weeks of intense effort. By then, the regular Intelligence teams had collected hundreds of incorrigibles, the tough guys and girls who refused to break.
That was all right, though. Becker loved his work. He was good at it. One of the reasons he excelled was his imagination. Some people could absorb beatings like you wouldn’t believe. Some couldn’t care less if you removed a finger or four. Some resisted hypnotic suggestion or truth serum with astonishing ease. It was often a matter of figuring out what bothered the bastards. It could be the strangest thing, and that’s where Becker’s imagination excelled.
The point wasn’t the cruelty or sadism that Becker inflicted on the—hey, wait a minute. He worked over tough, often evil people. There were no daises in the bunch. And the Bosks—they took the cake. These were some of the hardest sons of bitches that Becker had ever met. He never wanted to be alone with any of them in a dark alley at night.
Anyway, the seduction of Josef Becker started as he sat in a cubicle before a computer screen. He was small and pallid, with narrow shoulders. He had thin dark hair, dark eyes and a black uniform. For being such a small sadist, he was quite the handsome devil. He had an engaging smile, as well. The ladies loved the smile, although they seldom saw it. Usually, the tough, evil guys saw it as they were breaking, and they were seldom in the proper frame of mind to appreciate the smile’s sincerity.
Becker was at the computer console doing his homework. While fieldwork was the rage for novelists and historians, most of the real Intelligence progress came from the grind of reading, correlating and using data—facts, in other words. It was boring and often mind-numbing. But if you were the best, you did the little things better than anyone else did, and you did them longer, too.
Becker’s bloodshot eyes darted back and forth as he speed-read. Part of his genius came from his high IQ. Let no one kid themselves on the importance of intellect concerning a wonderful imagination and sheer smarts. Another part of his genius came from the passion for what he did.
Becker was small and physically weak. He’d been that way as a kid growing up in an East London slum. It meant he’d been beaten up a lot if he went outside. He’d fought back, as he’d read somewhere that bullies respected those who resisted. In his case, it turned out to be dead wrong. The bullies loved it when he fought back, maybe because he was such a pathetic weakling. Still, the fighting back had helped in one key area. Becker’s will had hardened instead of shrinking and disappearing.
In high school, he took up wrestling, routinely having his ass handed to him by faster, stronger and more clever wrestlers. To remedy this, he went to the gym and lifted. His results were poor. So, he stole supplements from the stores, as his family lacked the credits to buy them. The hard work and endless bottles of supplements finally paid off—not in bulging muscles. He was the wrong body type for that. He was small, and had the leanest whip-corded muscles anyone had ever seen. He still wasn’t that strong, but he’d become agile and coordinated, and had developed a burning desire to whomp on bigger, stronger people, men or women, it didn’t matter to him. He’d taken his licks. Now, it was his turn. And since he’d read like crazy since childhood, he knew that his best chance for that was by joining Star Watch Intelligence. As he’d particularly enjoyed military history, he knew a ton about secret police like the Gestapo, the KGB and spy agencies like Mossad and the CIA.
Star Watch Intelligence had a squeaky-clean image. But like any organization devoting itself to undercover work, the truth was different.
As Becker sat in the cubicle aboard the special project WWD corvette, he read about Hekkus Laja. The Bosk was like the Draegars Maddox had faced in that Hekkus was a brilliant mind technician, possibly with a direct connection to Methuselah Man Strand. But Hekkus was also huge and muscularly powerful like the Captain Nard that Maddox had defeated when he’d annihilated the Bernard Shaw Q-ship.
Becker leaned forward. This was interesting. Hekkus Laja had refused to speak during any interrogation. Although the Bosk had said and done nothing, the interrogators uniformly developed headaches, sometimes vomiting right there. A few had gone back to Earth, ailing and withering.
Hmm…Becker scrolled up, up. Here it was.
Fifth Regiment Space Marines had found Hekkus in a deep mine near the Eastern Settlement at the mountainous rim of the Dar-Rimes Desert. Hekkus had been unconscious, found lying amongst rubble. An orbital strike must have knocked him unconscious as it shook the deep cavern.
Becker sat back as he fingered his chin. Would the Space Marines have been able to bring Hekkus in if he’d been conscious?
Becker went back to scrolling and reading.
He desperately wanted to find the gold-mine subject that would propel him to greater things. He was a captain yearning for higher rank. He might be small, might be relatively weak, but this East London lad had the highest of ambitions, certain he had what it took to achieve anything he set his hand to.
Three hours and fifty-two minutes later, Becker sat back, groaning as he stretched his lower back.
He needed to interview Hekkus Laja. That would mean he needed to send for Lieutenant Larick, a 300-pound Neptunian wrestler, the best bodyguard Becker had ever found. The two of them worked well together.
As Becker stood, rubbing his thin fingers, he envisioned this as being the most important interrogation in the Jarnevon Operation.
He couldn’t know it, but Becker was in for the surprise of his life.
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Becker did his homework. He knew about the special abilities of some Spacers to manipulate neural relays in people’s heads. That wasn’t common knowledge even among the top Intelligence staffers, but Becker had found it prudent in life to cheat, to find those extra sources so he always knew more than anyone else did on the important subjects.
Becker had long ago learned to hack into Captain Maddox’s after-action reports as given to the Iron Lady. The reports were edifying and startling, and it gave Becker a thrill to “put one over” on the so-called di-far.
It was strange, but Becker both admired and hated Maddox.
In any case, the point today was that every battlesuited MP handling Hekkus Laja had a working jammer in his suit blocking all signals. That would include, hopefully, any mental signals that Hekkus could generate.
It wasn’t that Becker knew for sure Hekkus could do the same thing as some Spacers did with mechanical implements surgically embedded in their bodies. It simply seemed like the logical answer. Hekkus must have done something to his interrogators to cause headaches and vomiting binges. Since Becker did not believe in mystical answers, the man must have used a scie
ntific process.
Becker had also outfitted the interrogation chamber with working jammers as backup and as protection for himself.
He waited outside the chamber as Larick and his men prepped the Bosk, shackling him to an upright medical board, attaching electrodes to his body and test-shocking him. Afterward, Larick would administer a nerve stimulant through hypo-spray. The stimulant heightened a subject’s sensation of pain, making a pinch, say, feel as if someone used a drill to rip down to the bone.
As he waited, Becker adjusted his uniform and mentally prepared himself to face a hardened adversary. He lived for these kinds of meetings.
Finally, a red light flashed over the hatch.
Becker half-smiled in anticipation, wiped it away and opened the hatch. The chamber had a foul stench, but Becker was used to that. Pain had an adverse effect on some individuals so that—well, never mind.
The battlesuited MPs had departed the chamber, waiting outside, watching through two-way mirrors. Larick was with them. The man had standing orders to fire through the glass to kill the subject if Becker was in any danger and time was an issue.
The pallid Intelligence captain had learned to trust Larick’s impeccable judgment when it came to physical conflicts or dangers. The Neptunian wrestler had the best instincts, as he was a natural and highly trained bully.
The chamber seemed cramped with the bulky jamming equipment, pain inducers, recorders and upright medical bed. Hekkus Laja was a giant of a Bosk, more impressive in person than in vids.
He was fully strapped down on the medical board, held upright and quite naked with a hundred electrodes attached. He was immensely muscular, indicating excellent genetics, massive steroid use and hard hours of lifting. Hekkus had darker skin than most Bosks and was quite bald. Normally, at this stage in an interrogation, Becker would see the upright hair from the shocks slowly lying down. It was the Bosk’s face that amazed him, though. Hekkus had hard flat planes to his face and dark burning eyes. They admitted no pain or discomfort, only contempt. He also had a black tattoo of a dagger on his broad forehead. That one was different from other Bosk dagger tattoos, in that the blade was hooked.
Becker stared into the burning eyes and felt a moment of discomfort. That startled him. His head swayed back and he blinked rapidly. For a moment, fear knifed through his heart.
Becker turned aside, striding to a jamming panel. He studied it, tapping here, there, running a quick diagnostic. The jammer was working at full capacity.
Becker frowned, rubbed his chin and closed his eyes. Did he feel a headache? No. Did he feel any nausea? No.
Breathing deeply through his nostrils, Becker opened his eyes and mentally settled himself. He turned, moving confidently to the sole chair in the room. He sat, crossed his legs and picked up a computer slate attached by wire to the central pain stimulator. Other wires snaked from the stimulator to the electrodes taped all over Hekkus’s massive frame. Becker regarded the prisoner once more, but avoided looking directly into the dark eyes.
“Hekkus Laja, you are here because of crimes against the Commonwealth of Planets. Your people have knowingly supported Methuselah Man Strand in undercover operations that have spanned…”
Becker blinked several times as he felt a force burning against his mind. His eyes flicked up as he peered into Hekkus’s staring orbs.
There was a slight shock in his mind, the stirring of a headache and a touch of nausea. Becker clamped down on it as he narrowed his eyes.
“I see,” he said. With a swift motion, he tapped his slate.
The pain stimulator sent a pulse to an electrode. Hekkus’s body flinched, but the contempt on his features remained.
Worse, the pressure against Becker’s mind increased.
“I don’t think so,” the captain said quietly, tapping the slate again.
Hekkus began to writhe upon the upright board, the pain stimulations increasing. Finally, the huge Bosk closed his eyes as if weary.
The pressure departed from Becker’s mind, as did the growing sense of nausea.
“So…” Becker said. He tapped the slate again, and the pain stimulation ceased.
Hekkus opened his eyes, and calculation had replaced the contempt.
“I can do this all day,” Becker said. “Can you?”
Hekkus cocked his head. It was unseemly, as the prisoner should be howling for mercy at this point with the pain-heightener tingling through his nerve endings. The agony that had surged through Hekkus—many hardened soldiers would have wept like scorned women already, begging him to stop.
What was the source of Hekkus’s unnatural strength?
“Do you really wish to know?” Hekkus asked in a grating voice.
“What?” Becker said, the Bosk’s question catching him by surprise.
“You seek power, yes?”
“Now, see here—” Becker said, stopping himself. It wouldn’t do to complain to the prisoner. He had to reassert control of the situation.
“You do not understand anything,” Hekkus said in his grating voice. “But I sense an abnormal drive in you. In that, you are a giant among pygmies.”
“Do you wish to die howling in agony?”
“I was going to live forever. Do you have any conception of what that means?”
Becker sat up, uncrossing his legs. Who was Hekkus Laja? The way the Bosk spoke… Had he accidently stumbled onto something more? Was this the golden subject that would propel him to the heights of power?
“He lied to me,” Hekkus said. “But I won’t lie to you. What you seek lies deep in the cavern where the Marines found me. I did not think there was one like you here. The scope of your thoughts…how could a weakling like you have become so mentally powerful? It is a mystery to me.”
“What are you babbling about?”
Hekkus snorted. “I grow weary of this, as I tire from blanking out the pain. I thought—” The giant of a Bosk shook his head. “You are a clever little midget, a cautious one, too. Perhaps if I had followed your path—”
As Hekkus abruptly stopped speaking, he turned his head as the contempt welled back onto his face.
Becker raised a threatening hand over the slate. “Listen to me carefully. You’d better start making sense. Otherwise, I’ll make you scream for mercy until you’ve lost your voice. I don’t think you’ll like that.”
Hekkus regarded him with a sneer. “You’ll never hurt me again, although I could fry your mind if I wished. I won’t, as I perceive—”
The giant raised his gaze toward the ceiling, and he shouted unintelligible words filled with transcendent power.
Becker watched transfixed, with his mouth open in amazement at the performance.
Suddenly, heavy battlesuit fire shattered the two-way mirror. The slugs tore into Hekkus Laja’s frame, shredding skin, muscles, fat and bones and splashing blood everywhere as the slugs smashed the medical board into smithereens.
Several drops of blood flew through the air and splattered onto Becker’s pristine uniform.
One of Lieutenant Larick’s battlesuited gloves reached out and shoved the other MP’s firing rifle down, but it was too late. Hekkus Laja was dead, slain by a Star Watch Intelligence military policeman.
It was the craziest thing that Becker had ever witnessed, and it was the preparation for an uncanny journey.
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Several weeks passed as Becker interrogated more incorrigibles, breaking all of them. Yet through it all, the incident with Hekkus Laja kept preying on his mind.
Interestingly, Corporal Hans Fowler shot himself a day after murdering the prisoner. Fowler hadn’t been able to explain what had happened to him. He’d thought the Bosk had broken free. That was what he’d seen, anyway. Thus, he fired before the Bosk could slay Captain Becker. When shown a video of the actual incident, Fowler had shaken his head in dismay.
“But I saw…I saw him break free. I’m not lying, sir. You have to believe me,” Fowler said with pleading eyes.
Becker had
not believed, sending for a psychologist in order to figure out why Fowler would lie. Fowler had shot himself before she could question him, though. He hadn’t left a suicide note, either. His file hadn’t said anything about suicidal tendencies, and Star Watch Intelligence rigorously tested for that.
You can bet that Becker had them do an autopsy on Hekkus Laja. The surgeons found nothing like a Spacer battery and circuit inside the corpse. The brain, though, was denser than it should be. There were no new organs in it, but the pituitary gland was three times its normal size.
Why would the brain weigh so much more than average? And what was with the huge pituitary gland?
Becker faced an Intelligence HQ inquisitor over the incident. The man went over the recording of the event in exquisitely painful detail. One would think the inquisitor would have asked about Hekkus’s revelation about the cavern, but Becker had already altered the file, scrubbing that from the interrogation. Becker had also shown Hekkus supposedly making the usual blustering statements in the altered, doctored file—threats against Star Watch, himself, that sort of thing.
Why Becker had doctored the file, he couldn’t say. He thought about that the next few weeks, realizing he’d taken a huge risk that could have ended his career in Star Watch.
Well, the doctoring had worked. That was the important thing. No use belaboring it now.
As Becker lay in his cot at night, he went over the Hekkus Interrogation word by word. He did it so much that he was finding it harder to get enough sleep. He wondered if Hekkus had done something to him, preventing him from sleeping enough. And why would he—Becker—consider going down to the cavern? Why was it starting to become an obsession with him? It was a horrible, stupid and completely dangerous idea. He wanted no part of it.
Still…why had Corporal Fowler shot Hekkus and then committed suicide the next day? The only answer that made sense was that the Bosk had willed both events to happen. Was that magic?
The Lost Intelligence (Lost Starship Series Book 12) Page 9