by James Edward
“Billy, how goes your day?”
“Fine, John. What’s up?”
“I am concerned that the Conrad Group is making inroads into our financial base. We have tried various methods to get information out of that system, all to no avail. I think it is time to up the ante on them. Either start trading with Ursa or at least open up the system so we can get in and start getting control.”
“Hmmm, a dangerous way to go, John. You know how sensitive the government is now. We don’t want to be perceived as being high-handed,” Billy said.
“Yeah, I know, but there is a way. I suggest that we expropriate the tank farms that they are using in Omicron 2 and Sempter. That will cut off their monetary supply if they lose the tank farms. We can then take them over and use them as a bargaining chip to get in system. We can use the nonpayment of taxes by a nonaligned world dodge again,” John stated.
“Okay, plausible. Send me the paperwork and an application. I will start the ball rolling by briefing the ministers involved. It will take about two weeks for these old fossils to move on that applications, so the sooner the better,” Billy said.
“You will get it tomorrow.” John rang off.
Agency Park, an incongruous name for a place of death and misery. This was the political prison building. Anyone that the PRC wanted to deal with was brought here. Under excruciating pain, torture, and various other methods, information was extracted from the victim, and the victims were either killed or shipped to the prison planet, never to be heard from again. The investigators were evil psychopaths without a moral code. On top of that, they were rewarded for success, and deaths were just shrugged off. No one was allowed to check on the detainees, nor was there a judicial process for them. If they did confess, they were cleaned up and under special cameras confessed again for public consumption, then sentenced and removed. No one that entered Agency Park ever came out again.
Nester Copeland considered his sideways promotion as just that, a promotion. He was now completely out of the public eye, which was good, as his debauched madness was slowly taking over his soul. He really enjoyed the horrendous things that he did to the detainees. His specialization was, of course, with the females. The more pain and humiliation, the more powerful he felt. There were some political enemies that he enjoyed toying with until they died, but the girls and women were his ultimate pleasure. He relished the screams, cries, and begging that he got while he applied his perversions to their bodies while toying with their minds. Sometimes he was startled by the look of gratitude as the light in their eyes died out and their souls were released to be free of the broken, abused hulk that was once a vibrant woman. But there was another in the next cell, so he would forget that broken body so he could start on a fresh one. He sighed. Life was good.
Dan Marsden looked hard at his life. For years he had been a political crony for the PRC, and now in a secret conference he had been earmarked for a planetary governorship. Oh he wanted that position with every fiber in his being. It was a test as well, and he knew that. To be a governor, you needed a certain level of ruthlessness, and they were testing him to see if he had what it took to be that ruthless.
His problem was that he was married to Sinclair, a beautiful woman but not very ambitious or very smart, or so he thought. He had tried hard to get her to see the possibilities of teaming up with the PRC, but she was loyal to the AGW and of course that doddering old fart, her uncle, Admiral Weatherfew. She wouldn’t even come with him to this system and help develop his political career. She was just a midlevel cyber clerk, and she was holding his appointment back. If you couldn’t control your wife, how could you control the planet? That was what the PRC was asking. The PRC wanted successful people, and for that, he had to rid himself of the past. He shrugged. There was really never any love, and he’d married her because he thought that Weatherfew would be a stepping-stone for better jobs and positions. Now he had to dump her. If he was seen as soft, then the PRC would pass him over, so a hard, ruthless statement was required. Almost a year ago, he had an investigator watch her for a few days and had pictures of her having dinner with a Charles Redone, an ex-governor of Wolf 5 before they decided to opt out of the empire. He could use that as a reason to have her removed now. Redone was in charge of Conrad on Cappa Tauri, and they were in disfavor. Perhaps he could use this as a launch pad to have the Sinclair millstone removed from his neck. He would let the special investigators pick her up as a person that might be passing on information to Conrad through Redone. They could do what they wanted with her, but he figured that she would be sent to Agency Park for interrogations. He had heard that they were quite thorough there and that the confession rate was almost 100 percent. He imagined that she would be processed and shipped to a prison planet and out of his hair forever. He would show the leaders that he had the ruthlessness that was required by having his wife removed, and he would be more of an asset as a governor. A win-win.
He started typing on his tablet. A quick message to his investigator, and they could forward it onto the Special Investigations Branch in Cappa for processing. Sinclair should be gone in a week or so. That was so easy, and he felt absolutely nothing to the fact that he had just sentenced his wife to death by torture, sexual debauchery, humiliation, and pain. I wonder what’s to eat today, he thought.
Sinclair was busy working in the cyber department. She had set up many secret programs to invade the system when the PRC took over. She had changed, falsified, and diverted programs, material, and records to protect many people. She was completely oblivious to the investigation starting to surround her. It was going to be nice to have a relaxing dinner with her uncle, and he could update her as to what was Ray was doing.
The special investigation committee investigator looked at the file in front of him. It was a weak file with only moderate concerns, but the higher-ups were pushing this, so he would soon pass it over to that despot, Nestor. There was a flag on it saying that this one was a relative of the admiralty, so he decided to look into this a little further. Calling his controller, he asked if the order was to go ahead right now or when Weatherfew was removed in a couple of months. The chain of command moved slowly and usually with no one taking direct responsibility for their actions. It took another week before the reply came back to wait until Weatherfew was removed and arrest her at the same time. They could both go to Agency Park and reside there. There was an order in place to have Weatherfew arrested in about a month. By that time, no one would be in position to oppose the PRC from direct takeover of all government functions. The special investigator filed the order in the to-do file and went back to reading other more serious reports. Sinclair had for the moment dodged a bullet.
In deep space, Olaf sat in his chair on the bridge. All of his senior officers were there with him. They were there to discuss their decision to head for Conrad and defect from the Fleet. It was really hard for them to abandon the Fleet that they had sworn to protect, but the last communication from Fugs had made it very plain that the Fleet wasn’t interested in coming to their aid and had exiled them to a slow death by starvation.
“Well is the die cast then?” Olaf asked them.
“We are in agreement, Captain,” said the XO. “Give the order to proceed to Conrad Base.”
“So be it,” he replied. “Helm, the course is laid in. Go to maximum hyper speed as soon as we go through this system’s gate.”
Within ten hours, the Raptor was streaking toward Conrad Base. It would take a month to arrive.
CHAPTER 12
Some fast action required
RAY, BEV, LYDIA, AND EARLY were sitting around the table at the cafeteria enjoying some idle time when all their implants thrummed.
“Ship coming through the gate, sirs. They claim they are Viking and the heavy cruiser Raptor. They are pinging a code word of Barbarossa. Came call from Guard One. Instructions please.”
“Put the pickets on alert and bring your
shields to strength. Welcome the Viking and request a parking orbit beside the main warehouse. We will scan his ship for trackers and other listening devices before bringing them in closer. Have tugs and scanner units brought up to their position,” Ray responded. “Invite the Viking and his XO to visit the Nerve Center and put a shuttle at their disposal.”
“Roger that,” came the reply.
An hour later, Ray with his XO welcomed Olaf and his XO into the boardroom. “Welcome, Captain Trogsen. I believe that this is your XO, Lady Darla Song. This is my XO, Lydia Goodfellow. Would you all like to sit? Can we supply you with any refreshments?”
“It is nice to be here. It has been a long and arduous journey for us, one that as far as most of us are concerned has supplied us with a safe haven but not a happy ending,” Olaf said as he sat down. “I don’t know if you are aware of the circumstance of our journey, but suffice to say that the Fleet has abandoned us to a fate of starvation and death. Until that time, we were loyal to the Fleet.”
“As of now,” Ray said, “we are aware that the Fleet is stripping the loyal officers off of their ships and sending them to Doust for internment and re-education. Their families have being rounded up and sent to reeducation camps in the countryside. This is where the PRC has control of the planetary government. These are all sad times, but here we are still trying for normalcy. The Raptor will be refitted right away, and your crew will remain intact. There will be offers to some of these people as we can use experienced people in certain categories. Olaf, you are a brilliant strategist and tactician, so I would really like you to join us at the board. If the heavy is needed for action, you will be at the helm, but in the meantime, your brain is better here so we can pick it. Both of you will have lots of opportunities for sizing up what you want and what needs to be done. Your crew is invited to enjoy some R&R at Darcy, our residential planetoid.”
“What refitting does the Raptor need?” Lady Song asked. “We had a pretty complete upgrade just five months ago.”
“You had a Fleet refit, Lady Song. This will be a Conrad refit. You probably didn’t realize, but while you were docking the Raptor, you were shadowed by two cruisers and two destroyers. If you had fired on them, let’s just say they are armored enough to take a direct hit by everything except a Tiger missile. That one would create damage, but the ships would still be operable and able to fight. We want to bring the Raptor up to the same level,” Lydia said.
“Wow, we never saw a thing. I would like to see the technology of that,” Lady Song said.
“You will be given all the info that you need, and we can arrange to visit the R&D planetoid of Pandora. We can also take you up to see the only solar forge in the galaxy at the moment. There are many places and interesting experiments on going—one of the reasons we would like your input and those of you crew. All info and general questions will be available to you once you have residences,” Ray said.
It was only four weeks later. Sitting at his desk, Ray sighed. He did more paperwork now than ever before, but he had a staff that was well experienced at keeping things together for him. Every once in a while, he felt overwhelmed. Things were starting to move faster and faster. The government was on the verge of collapsing. The Fleet was in disarray with reports trickling in of mutinies and desertions. The Raptor was in refit, and the crew was enjoying R&R. Ray got a call from the Nerve Center, just a quick buzz on his implant stating that Sinking Ship had been activated. Ray felt the color drain from his face as the implications of those two words sank in. Weatherfew must have been arrested. He immediately sent a flash priority to Charles Redone and all Conrad employees around the empire to escape and evacuate. His biggest fear was for Sinclair. She was either under arrest too or on her own. He went to the Nerve Center and sent a flash priority to the cloaked ship orbiting Cappa Tauri to extract everyone that they could, especially Weatherfew and Sinclair.
Admiral Weatherfew had been sitting at his desk when the soldiers arrived. These weren’t his two marine guards that had been on station but a squad of ground personnel. As they entered the room, Weatherfew activated the beacon. The squad commander entered the room and glared at Weatherfew.
“Admiral Weatherfew, you are under arrest for sedition, brokering with non-empire forces, abetting in the loss of Fleet ships, interference in daily Fleet matters, and further crimes against the empire. You will not at this time be given counsel, nor are you to be confined to this base. You are not allowed to talk to anyone, nor are you allowed contact the judge advocate until all charges have been duly filed. Please stand and turn around with your hands behind your back.”
“Ah, so now comes the final struggle of the sinking ship,” Weatherfew said as he stood and turned around. “Gentlemen, it is a sad day when a vibrant empire has crumbled so low.”
For his trouble, all he got was the cuffs tightened on his wrists and a “Shut up, old man.” They escorted him to the waiting vehicle that was in the basement, away from prying eyes, and drove out of the building, destination Agency Park.
In the Cappa Tauri information building, five troopers rode the elevator to the twentieth floor. Exiting, they talked to the floor security, who looked up a name and then pointed to the area where there were ten or so cubicles. They marched down until they found the name on the opening of the cubicle, and two men entered. They grabbed the woman sitting there imputing figures and stood her up. As one man pinned her arms and applied cuffs, the other pulled open the paper he had and read aloud.
“Sinclair Marsden, you are charged with supplying information to the Raiders and Freebooters. You will come with us,” he said.
“I want to know where I am going so that I can arrange counsel,” Sinclair said as they spun her around to march out the door.
The officer backhanded her across the face and snarled to her to shut up. In the van, she learned that she was being driven to Agency Park. She felt her soul scream.
Agency Park was busy that day. The PRC had rounded up thirty people that they considered enemies and had had them all sent to Agency Park for interrogation. Nestor was busy processing so many internees. The fat and old one would be sent down to be broken by his interrogators. The women would all be checked first to see if any tasty morsels were in the sweep. The rest would be entertainment for a while before shipping them to the brothels on Last Run or some other pirate planet. The morsels were his to play with, and a fresh crop of screams awaited him … so delightful.
He couldn’t believe his eyes as he read that the great Admiral Weatherfew was a guest—and his niece was there too. This was going to be fun. He knew that Weatherfew had some secrets, and he would beat some of them out of him, but having him watch while he worked on his niece would get a lot more information out of them. But first they would have to be softened up.
Weatherfew could not believe the extent of cruelty that these investigators could put a man through. He hurt from head to toe. He had endured the soles of his feet being beaten, hanging helpless as they beat him. They would work up a sweat and then take a break; while taking that break, it allowed enough time for his body to stiffen and become raw, the numbness gone. Then they would start all over again. So much pain, but even with that, he could hear the screams from the other detainees.
Sinclair stood in her small, filthy cell. To sit down anywhere would mean sitting in someone else’s feces or vomit. She heard the door being unlocked, and an evil-looking man entered.
“Ah, Mrs. Marsden. I am Nestor Copeland, and I am the curator of this museum.” He laughed at his own joke. “Did you know that your husband turned you in? No? Well he did. You are a liability to his ascension for a governorship, so he has requested that you disappear. Such a nice man to think of you like that. What did he call you? Let’s see, ah here it is. A millstone. Well someone’s millstone is my pleasure. If you will come with me, we can get started with the evening’s activity.”
Sinclair had far passed pain or mi
sery and barely hovered on sanity as the lash once again fell across her naked back. She was hanging naked by her wrists, her legs tied apart as she swung back and forth from the force of the leather lash that was slowly destroying the skin on her back, buttocks, and legs. Blood was pooling at her feet as the lash fell again, making a wet smacking sound. Sinclair only knew the red flare of agony now; she had been whipped for over an hour.
Nestor wiped the sweat off his brow. He had worked hard on this one and had been rewarded with the screams and cries. But now he was tired, and she hung there unconscious. He would take his pleasure with her when she woke up. “Leave her there. She can hang around until I get back.” He laughed and strolled out the door.
Special section Ghost squad arrived at Agency Park. As expected, the guards were lax and inattentive, and they died as easily as they guarded. First squad moved up to the administration offices and plugged in a system download chip into the mainframe. The others of First went around destroying communication equipment and anything that could be used as a weapon. Second squad made their way down into the bowels of the prison. On each level, they silently and efficiently dispatched anyone that walked freely. They made their way into the lowest level, opening cells and moving people out to the surface of the prison. As they opened the cells, they found Admiral Weatherfew’s badly beaten body lying on the cement floor.
“He’s breathing.”
“Okay. Red One, take him up to the top. He is our objective.”
“Check the last interrogation room.” They opened the door to see a badly beaten, naked woman bent over and strapped to a sawhorse. One man was at her head, and one was behind her; they were busy applying electrodes to her body. Already they had burned out a set on various parts of her body, so new electrodes attached to different place were required to get the screaming responses that they were looking for. They were so engrossed with their tormenting that they didn’t realize that the Ghost squad had entered the room.