He looked at her for a while. “Perhaps there is, but it’s a long shot.”
“Tell me.”
“What do I get out of it?”
“Well, Mr. Raknod, let me put it this way: I’m really tired. I’ve been shot at more times than I care to count, beaten and impaled, and that’s just in the last twenty-four hours. I came here in good faith, hoping to make an arrangement of some sort. But now that you’ve told me you may know a way out of Hellstar, I’ll do whatever it takes to get this information. Whether or not this meeting stays courteous or even pleasant is entirely up to you.”
“Droxians. They’re nothing if not consistent. Alright, I’ll let you know for a price.”
“And that would be?”
“Five million credits.”
“You must be out of your mind.”
“I need to get out of this dump. At first I liked it here. It’s secure. Only crazy people try to operate crime on this planet. But it’s also so damn boring. I’ve already put the house up for sale, but I need another five million to buy a cruise ship. I’d like to end my days among the stars.”
“There’s no way I can afford this sum.”
“What can you afford?”
“I was thinking about two hundred pounds of quadrinium, whatever it goes for these days.”
“That’s barely one hundred and fifty Ks. I’m sorry, but that won’t do.”
“What about your life?”
“You’ve left your weapons outside, remember?”
“Trust me when I tell you I don’t need them.”
“And while I’m sure that’s true, you’re no threat to me in my house. I suggest you don’t test me on this.”
Ryonna was losing patience. She didn’t have time for this. Perhaps Alix was right and she would need to resort to physical violence to achieve her goal.
“I assure you, no matter what security you have here, I could kill you before you had the time to say ‘oops.’”
The man stared at Ryonna. “Looks like we both need to decide what our next move will be. One word from me and you could be vaporized. On the other hand, your eyes are telling me that if that doesn’t work, today might be my last day.”
“Why don’t we do each other a favor, then, and let this encounter remain courteous?”
“I wish things were so simple, but you see, I don’t have very long to live. I’ve been diagnosed with a very rare genetic disease. It’s incurable, and while I only have a few months left, I’d rather it was months rather than minutes.”
“Then clearly it’s not worth taking the risk.”
“Yet I’m fairly certain my security system will dispatch you.”
“Why are you telling me all this? Why did you let me in, for that matter?”
“I’ve lived a pretty uninteresting life. Coming here was clearly a mistake since nothing happens on this damn planet. But being exposed to the worse scum of the universe on Hellstar didn’t really encourage me to live on the edge. I’ve had my fair share of close encounters on Hellstar. That’s why I agreed to work with that scumbag boss of yours.”
“If you’re talking about Grolax, you’ve got me all wrong. I used to work for him out of desperation in the past, but I have no love for the man; besides, he drew his last breath just a few hours ago.”
“Grolax is dead?”
“Yeah, disintegrated by hyper-travel spacing.”
The man started laughing.
“I’m glad you find this funny. I’m sorry, Hens, but I need to get going, so we’ll need to come to an arrangement, and soon.”
“Grolax was a son of a bitch. I never liked him.”
“Why did you work with him?”
“Didn’t I make that clear already? I’m not the courageous type, you see. After nearly being killed on Hellstar, I decided that helping him smuggle things in the prison could help me be more secure there.”
“Why not just quit and find another occupation?”
“Do I have to spell it out? I’m a coward, but a very careful one. I look back at my life and see only a series of really bad decisions, accompanied by some even worse ones.”
“I suggest you make the right call today.”
“Part of me wants to help you, but part of me wants off this hellhole of a planet.”
“My home is not a hellhole, but I can understand that it ain’t to everyone’s taste. I can get you off Droxia.”
“I have more than enough money to take the next transport off Droxia. I really need to travel in style, on a safe, armed-to-the-teeth vessel, and that costs money.”
Ryonna empathized with the man, but she didn’t have time to lose.
“Look, it seems to me that . . .”
Then she realized she hadn’t had any vision when she first met him. Something was off. What the hell did that mean? Her power of foresight didn’t work on other Droxians but, besides Chase, she had never met anyone else that didn’t trigger a vision of their death. Could he be Droxian?
“What is it?”
She couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong, but her instincts told her to proceed carefully.
“Nothing . . . never mind. Look, I really need that info, but I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
“Neither do I,” said Hens, and then he touched a control on his wrist watch.
That was when everything went wrong. The lights went out, and a huge charge of electricity ran through Ryonna’s body. Before she could do anything about it, she lost consciousness.
C H A P T E R
VIII
Pain radiated through Ryonna’s body. Her eyelids were heavy, and she had to force her eyes open.
What happened?
It took a while for her eyes to adapt to the room and for her brain to remember where she was and what she had been doing. Then it hit her. A jolt of adrenaline made her aware of her surroundings. She was at Hens Raknod’s house. She was being held vertically by four hovering devices that held her limbs away from her body. She tried moving her arms closer but they didn’t budge.
“Ah, you’re awake. I prefer it that way,” said a voice on her left.
Hens was standing near a table on which many blades of all sizes and shapes were laid. Then she saw blood on the floor beneath her.
A torture chamber? How ironic, thought Ryonna. For once she had tried to get information without using force, and she had been captured by someone who actually enjoyed torture. The place smelled foul.
“What is this? Why am I being restrained?”
“It’s been a while since I’ve had the opportunity to do this.”
“And what is this exactly?”
“You could call it a hobby.”
“You’re sick!”
“I’ve been told before, usually by people who didn’t have much time left to live.”
“You do realize I’m gonna kill you!”
“I think you have our positions reversed. This is a soundproof room, so feel free to cry for help if it tickles your fancy. Though I can see in your eyes that you’re not really afraid.”
“I’m not.”
“You should be. What comes next isn’t going to be pleasant.”
Ryonna had no doubts about that, but she didn’t intend to let herself be butchered by this sack of shit. She tried to move all her muscles at once but was rewarded with electric shocks.
“There’s no escaping these bonds. They’re my own design. You see, the more you struggle the more pain you receive.”
“Tell me how to escape Hellstar!”
“You’re in no position to bargain, but seeing that you won’t talk to a soul after I’m done with you, I guess I could tell you how to escape.”
Yes, do that, you creep!
“I’m listening.”
“Hellstar is mostly guarded by automated sentries and drones. There are a few guards around, but most of it is automated. Machines are so much more reliable than living beings. I once feared that if I was caught smuggling contraband for Grolax, I could end up a p
risoner there, so I made sure I could get my hands on a powerful explosive to blast the main doors open if my station there changed.”
“So you hid a bomb?”
“It’s not that simple,” said Hens, picking up a dented blade from the table and approaching Ryonna. “You see, because everything is checked with double and sometimes triple layers of security, I simply replaced a piece inside the decontamination chamber. It’s a room that every new prisoner has to pass through. I hid some military grade quadrinium in there. It’s a small enough quantity, but it’s very, very dense. If I ever got sent there, I would recover that piece and manufacture a bomb to escape.”
“Where is it and how would I get it?”
“I don’t think you need to trouble your soul with that right now. You should make peace with yourself, as your life will end soon.”
“You’re a coward. Why are you so afraid of telling me?”
“I’m not afraid. There’s nothing you can do to survive our little session here.”
“Then there’s no reason not to tell me. I bet it’s an ingenious idea. Why not share it with me?”
Ryonna hoped that by flattering the madman’s ego, he would perhaps tell her the details.
“It is ingenious.”
There we go.
“You see, since every system is checked, I needed to hide it in plain sight. I replaced a pin in the decontamination chamber’s gas-diffusing engine.”
“But you had to make sure you could get it out without any tools, right?”
“Exactly, and there lies the brilliant part. All it takes is for someone to clog the gas nozzles. That will initiate a buildup of pressure within the engine and it will expel the quadrinium pin.”
“That’s a great design.”
“You think I don’t know what you’re doing? You’re trying to flatter me so I give you as many details as needed. You still think you’ll survive this.”
“Well, one can only hope.”
“You’re wasting your time. It wouldn’t work anyway. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Just before I retired, we were asked to add a mandatory object scan after the decontamination procedure, so the scan would pick up the quadrinium now.”
“I’m sure you would have found a way to bypass that problem.”
“Perhaps.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
Hens came near Ryonna and looked into her eyes. He slashed her forearm with the dented blade. It was extremely painful, although it wasn’t a deep cut. Ryonna didn’t give him the pleasure of reacting to the pain.
“Impressive. But you’re not the first that thought they could resist the pain. Which reminds me, would you like to meet previous occupants of this room? I like to keep souvenirs.”
I need to get the hell out of these restraints and fast.
“Sure. Show me your . . . What do I call it? Collection?”
Hens smiled as he dropped the blade back on the table and activated a control nearby. Part of the wall opposite Ryonna slid open. What she saw made her stomach turn. She was not easily disgusted but she didn’t expect that. Lined up in a neat row were jars filled with heads suspended in liquid. Their eyes were locked in an expression of either fear, tremendous pain or both. There were at least twenty of them, mostly Droxian, some humanoid; there was even a synthetic’s head, the only one with its eyes closed.
“Looks like the synthetic didn’t give you an expression to remember him by.”
“That’s because they can disable their pain receptors, whereas you cannot.”
“You won’t get the satisfaction of any expression from me.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Before you do, though, why don’t you show me your real face?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re also using a holo-suit. I know you’re not Brin.”
“Interesting. What am I then?”
“You’re Droxian, though I’m disgusted by your lack of honor. You’re a disgrace to your race.”
“Perhaps it is all of you who are disgraceful, you and your stupid honor!”
I must have hit a nerve.
Ryonna looked at her binding devices more closely. They suffered from the same flaw as cuffs: they held her hands and feet tightly, but if she broke her own bones, she could perhaps get free from one of them. Her left hand, she decided.
“You’re pathetic. Grab your next blade, you piece of shit. The sooner we’re done here the better.”
“I like to take my time. It’s more enjoyable that way.”
“So you get off on torturing others?”
“I bet you’ve done your fair share of torturing. I got that from our previous talk, when you threatened me. I could see it in your eyes.”
“Yeah, ’cause you’re a Droxian. So show yourself!”
Hens reached for a control in his black jacket and his entire appearance changed as the hologram vanished to reveal a very old Droxian with almost no hair, a few scars on his face and rotten teeth.
“I get why you need to hide from others.”
This pissed him off. He took a sharp blade and thrust it into her abdomen, not far from where she had been impaled a few hours ago. The pain radiated around the wound and up to her neck. She could have stayed silent but decided to use the jolt of pain to misdirect her butcher. She grimaced, and clenched and ground her teeth. She let escape a moan, just as she snapped her left wrist.
“I see what you’re trying to do, Ryonna. You think that if you insult me I will kill you faster.”
“It seems to be working.”
“Perhaps I overreacted this time. I won’t be fooled twice.”
“You’re an old pervert and a sicko!”
“I know. But there’s no changing who I am, so better embrace it. Thank you so much for coming inside tonight. It’s been months since I had so much fun.”
“I understand why you thought you might end up in Hellstar. You know how sick you really are. But Droxian security is pretty good; so are our police. So I guess you haven’t had many opportunities to kill here.”
“That’s true, and it’s why I want to get out of here. I need to get to a planet where I can appease my inner demons more frequently.”
“You’re lucky you weren’t discovered here.”
“I was careful, making sure those I took had no family; rejects of society.”
“I have family.”
“Yes, but you are also being hunted. That makes your disappearance a non-issue.”
“You could cash the bounty. Surely it would go a long way towards acquiring your ship.”
“You’re only worth a measly hundred Ks. I will get much more pleasure from gutting you little by little. And you’re not bad to look at. Perhaps I will have some other fun before or after I satisfy my primal urge.”
Ryonna felt sick. She had zero tolerance for rapists, but perhaps she could exploit this situation.
“Sure thing. It’s been a while since I had a good shag. Get these restraints off and you can have your fun with me. I give you my word.”
“You think I’m stupid? You’d kill me instantly.”
“Look, old man, I WILL kill you.”
“I must admire your combativeness, but it’s already too late for you. Now, onto more fun things. I can always fuck you once you’re dead. Seems a safer approach.”
“You’re disgusting!” She spat in his face.
“Let’s deal with this mouth of yours first, then. Nothing permanent, but it’s starting to distract me from my fun.”
Ryonna would have to act soon. The moment he turned to get his next torture instrument, she slid her broken wrist through the tight opening. The pain was tremendous, and it would be difficult to use it to inflict much damage, but the old man was frail. She didn’t need to inflict much damage to take him out.
He returned and started fondling her. “These are nice breasts, really tight.”
“Look in my eyes, old creep, if
you have the balls.”
Hens stared into her eyes. “Perhaps I should do something about that look of yours.” He applied pressure with a scalpel to the skin under her right eye.
Ryonna acted. She slid the rest of her wrist through the restraining device and hit it against her own rib cage, trying to snap it back into place. The pain was nearly unbearable and the result limited, but it gave her enough grasp to grab the scalpel from the man’s hand. She then clocked him with her elbow and he went down like a log, making a satisfying thud as his elderly head impacted with the floor.
She tried using the scalpel to free her second hand. She would have a hard time getting her feet free with both wrists broken or damaged. She managed to open a panel on the hovering device, revealing internal circuitry. She was no engineer, but she had cracked enough locks and doors to know the basics. When she heard Hens moaning and slowly regaining consciousness, she hurried and cut into the circuitry. She hoped a short circuit would release the clamp restraining her right hand.
Sparks flew and the device made a noise, but it didn’t open the restraints. However, the device no longer exerted the same amount of force. It still required a strong effort to move her right hand, but it would now move somewhat.
Hens started to get back to his feet.
Dammit, I’m not ready yet!
She had to get rid of him. The moment he stood she swung the scalpel at his face, but he saw it coming, dodged the weak attack and grabbed her left hand. He took the scalpel away from her and thrust it into her right bicep. With the pain went her chance for escape.
“You bitch!”
In a desperate effort she swung her head as much as she could and head-butted him. He took three steps back and put his hand on his head. When he looked at his hand he saw blood.
“You’re going to pay for that in some exquisitely painful way, I promise you that!”
He went to a nearby cabinet and removed a blaster. He fiddled with it and aimed at her chest.
“Look at you! You’re gonna kill me now? I thought you liked to take your time.”
“Oh yes, but I can’t have you unrestrained. This should put you to sleep so I can make sure you—”
The door to the room exploded and Hens was thrown to the ground.
Ryonna's Trials: Novella 1 (Universe in Flames Book 20) Page 6