Star Force: Deceit (SF34)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  The Word operative swung the other guard around and into the firing line, with him being dropped just as easily, never having a chance to draw his pistol. The first man released the attendant, who also caught a plasma lance to the chest as the other men came through the sensor tunnel, all of them setting it off, then they passed out weapons and body armor to the first two men who made them disappear inside their loose clothing before the six walked out into the city drawing a few startled scares and screams, but once they split up and got into the pedestrian flow they quickly disappeared amongst the masses, using a small scanning device to locate the reflectivity tag within the city.

  Agent woke up in his bed…not a prison bed, but his bed back in his apartment on Tyr. He blinked his eyes, not seeming to get them fully open. He was groggy, and he found the sensation familiar. As his mind began to process more and kick off some of the sleep drunkenness faster than his eyes, he remembered going through this before and wondered why he wasn’t sleeping right.

  Still unable to get his vision completely clear he sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed, hoping that would wake him up further but it did not. Resigning to work himself out of his stupor he stood up and went about his morning routine of shaving, showering, and receiving a delivery at 8:32 on the spot. He went to the door, now freshly dressed in a blan set of civilian clothes, and accepted the warm breakfast packet with a smile and tipped the delivery man.

  He locked the apartment door behind him and went back into his small dining area and sat down on the half table sticking out of the wall just below a vid screen that held daily news broadcasts, but his eyes were so bleary that he couldn’t make them out, not that he cared anyway. He opened the box and felt the steam rise up from a plateful of eggs, two pieces of toast, and five strips of synthetic bacon, given that Brazil didn’t allow the sale of meat, taking after Star Force’s protocol like a whimpering pup following its mother around.

  There was a disposable fork in the box and he set to eating the eggs as he reached for his sunglasses that he’d left on the table. He slid them on and the genetic recognition software confirmed his identity and activated the built in HUD and wireless receiver that allowed him to tap into The Word’s private information net.

  He blinked his eyes again, trying to make out the data that popped up but only got a few words…then seeing those his mind seemed to wake up a bit and more text flowed, along with several data graphs that he’d been looking at the other day. As he ate he ran through a list of projects he’d been keeping tabs on, finding no new updates.

  That was strange, he remembered, because he was supposed to have gotten word back from Operative Alpha 32 last night. Even if he got delayed he should have logged in early this morning.

  Agent’s eyes flashed over to the news vids, wondering if his kidnapping attempt had been unsuccessful. Even if he’d been killed, word of that sort of thing usually made the news, and he could think of no other reason why he wouldn’t have reported in.

  Then something in his mind clicked, and he checked the updates feed again, finding not one new piece of information.

  He pulled his sunglasses off and looked directly at the video screen…finding himself unable to make out anything other than a wibbly wobbly picture that had no detail, only a familiar sound and images, such as the news desk. Agent focused hard on it, then just as he was about to realize it wasn’t real he blacked out, returning to a dreamless rest as Nathan removed his fingers from the man’s forehead.

  He sighed, standing up from the head of the cell bunk and walking back out past where the containment shield usually would emit. It was shut off at the moment, but Nathan tagged it back on as soon as he was on the other side, then checked the wall clock, seeing that he had 3 more minutes until it was time to wake him and start the interrogation cycle all over again, meaning he wasn’t going to have a chance to run another mental simulation.

  He’d gotten fairly proficient at it, not just because of the experience he was gaining working on Agent and the other Word prisoners, but because he was becoming familiar with the way this man’s mind worked. Normal interrogation methods had been almost completely ineffective on him. He wouldn’t respond to deal making, logic, intimidation, lying, flattery, insults, or any of the other mind games Star Force typically employed to gleam information out of prisoners.

  Unlike unsavory intelligence agencies, Star Force didn’t rely on torturing prisoners to gain information, rather both Star Force security and the Archons relied on mechanical and eyes-on reconnaissance to gather data, with anything gained from prisoners being extra, and usually suspect. They could trust their own eyes and sensors, but what an individual chose to tell them was not so easy to swallow if they couldn’t confirm it, which was why the information they were getting from the rest of The Word operatives and associates was being treated as leads rather than facts.

  That said, the Archons did employ a few physical prods where the security division didn’t, one of which was self-imposed sleep deprivation. Recently the Archons had been keeping Agent awake round the clock, with them taking shifts talking with or to him…though aside from Nathan he rarely spoke to any of them. When he would begin to nod off they’d poke him or shake his shoulders, nothing violent, but just enough to keep him awake until he agreed to ‘earn’ his sleep by doing workouts.

  2 miles a day at sub 8:00 pace got him 6 hours of sleep, which David had been running him through, both as guard and pace keeper when he took him over to the track, which other Archons and personnel were simultaneously using. Agent had found that odd, but given that David never got more than a few meters away from him at any time there was no real security issue to deal with. What could have been mistaken for sloppiness actually worked to reinforce Star Force’s dominance over The Word, for it became clear that neither David nor anyone else on the track was concerned about the skinny stick that was waddling around the track at pedestrian pace.

  That almost seemed to embarrass Agent, but if he wanted to sleep he had to do the workouts, so once a day he’d go over to the track with David and get his 8 laps in, then shower in the Star Force locker rooms nearby before being brought over to the interrogation/conference rooms for another round of questions/lectures by varying individuals. He’d have to stay awake despite the powerful urge to nap until they were finished, with his meals brought in, then he’d get to go back to his cell and sleep…only to be woke up before he was truly rested, meaning he was carrying some lingering fatigue with him, something the Archons were intimately acquainted with.

  That fatigue had loosened his mind, if not his lips. No longer was there a solid wall of resistance within the man’s conscious thoughts. It was sagging a bit, having to compete with his wobbly head…and if he refused to run the workouts he’d be even worse off being sleep deprived, so either way it was working on him in a way Agent had not anticipated.

  Actually, Nathan had learned that Agent had undergone resistance training to interrogation, including sleep deprivation, which was why the man wanted to avoid it at all costs, knowing how it would affect his mental state. Star Force would never subject someone to it unless they had an out, but in this case the out was working more against Agent than he realized, all because the man had never done much physical training before and his mind was being inundated with new sensations and stresses, along with his body, whose hamstrings, back, and shins were quite sore.

  Nathan found that amusing, but it also tied up more mental power that Agent couldn’t use to hold his mind clenched up. During interrogation sessions he was still hard to read, but there were a few slivers of memories that he and the other Archons had pulled in response to questions, mainly due to the fact that his normally quick reacting mind had slowed due to his lingering fatigue and there were reactive thoughts breaking through into the Archons’ psionic range for a second or two before he could lock them down.

  Using those tidbits Nathan had begun constructing mental simulations and feeding them to Agent as he woke up from
one of his 6 hour stints…but he didn’t let him fully return to consciousness. He kept him in a semi-dream state where he could access his mind, but not enough for the man’s senses to interfere with the fiction he was feeding him. In the beginning the simulations hadn’t lasted long before Agent saw through them, but each time Nathan gathered more information and used it in later sessions, making a more complete scenario that kept the man inundated with normalcy for a longer period of time.

  It also helped that after the workouts Agent was butt tired, so when he went to sleep he released all his mental walls and was truly out of it until he woke up. By keeping him from reaching that point Nathan had access to his surface thoughts without any resistance until he started to suspect something, such as when the news vids were unreadable. That had been necessary, for when Nathan had replayed old versions from the man’s memory he caught on pretty quick, and newer ones that Nathan had watched couldn’t be projected with enough clarity, given that the Archon’s skills in this department were still limited.

  He could only project a small range of images, so he had to use Agent’s own memories and allow him to draw on them while the Archon changed small things.

  When the clock reached the completion of Agent’s 6 hours, down to the second, Nathan hit the buzzer that woke the man up in a start, with the sudden shock shaking off any remainder of the ‘dream’ he’d just gone through, though Nathan doubted any of it had remained after how deep he’d sunk the man back into unconsciousness…though it didn’t hurt to be thorough.

  “Wakey, wakey,” he said with a smile as Agent reached up and put a hand on his forehead as he sat up, clearly feeling the effects of continuous days of training. His body probably needed 10-12 hours of sleep to adjust to the stresses, so only 6 was leaving him fried even when he woke…though not sleep deprived, for his eyes cleared quickly enough and he got his feet back under him and stood up, waiting for Nathan to lower the shield.

  He glanced at the clock as Nathan removed the energy barrier. “Punctual as always.”

  “Workout time,” Nathan said, motioning him forward. Agent sighed and followed him out and down the row of cell blocks, each of which had a wall and door separating them from the hallway so the prisoners couldn’t see or hear each other, keeping with Star Force’s prisoner isolation policy.

  Nathan escorted him out of the security station and into the city where he handed him over to David, who then took him through the semi-crowded streets over to the track, almost daring him to try and escape.

  When they came back Nathan was waiting in the interrogation room, having his own breakfast tray at one end of the table and Agent’s opposite his…with the Archon’s being stacked up three times as high with foodstuffs.

  “What’d you finish in today?” he asked as Agent walked over and sat down without preamble.

  “15:57,” he said, looking at his tray, then at Nathan’s. “I must admit, I am beginning to understand your affinity for sugar,” he revealed, taking a bite into an iced muffin.

  “Finally making some progress,” Nathan smiled as if he was a buddy rather than an enemy, chewing into a long sugar stick.

  “Are you Archons always this sore?”

  “No.”

  “Then it appears I must adapt further,” he said, taking a small swig of water while Nathan gulped his, having gotten his own morning workout in before his ‘dream’ session with Agent.

  “I’ll swap you training advice for Word secrets,” he offered.

  “I’m not that sore.”

  “Yet,” Nathan smirked before sinking his teeth into a long donut, twitching halfway through the bite as his earpiece chirped, though only loud enough that he could hear it. That was odd, because they weren’t supposed to be disturbed during interrogation sessions.

  All the smirk disappeared out of his face as he stood up, dropping the donut in his hand back onto the tray and quickly chewing what was in his mouth.

  Agent noticed, and Nathan’s smirk seemed to migrate its way over to his face, though he didn’t say anything, but he did lock eyes with the Archon.

  Nathan frowned even deeper as he telepathically sensed minds nearby moving about in an agitated state, with one disappearing entirely.

  He stepped over to a shelf and grabbed a set of handcuffs, then ran over to the end of the table and pulled Agent out of his chair, binding his hands behind him.

  “You could at least let me finish breakfast,” he said sarcastically, but offered no resistance.

  “Stay put,” Nathan said, shoving him back down into his chair before running out the door.

  9

  When David dropped off Agent he didn’t stick around, instead leaving the security station and heading towards the city’s small Archon sanctum to get his own workouts in before coming back and working on some of the lower level operatives. He’d been making progress with some of them, and two had already cracked, accepting deals in exchange for information. Altogether the bits and pieces of mostly unconfirmed intel were painting a picture of The Word’s operations on Tyr, but the most valuable bits were coming from Agent, due almost entirely to Nathan’s efforts.

  They knew this Agent hadn’t been the only one operating on Tyr, but rather one of three. This one’s ‘name’ was number 7. He was responsible for operations within the city’s populace, rather than the Word’s infrastructure. He’d been recruited at least 30 years ago, and had done some very basic fitness training to increase his longevity…but more so in recent years as The Word tried to ascertain the source of Star Force personnel’s longevity, though they still didn’t fully buy the training angle.

  Nathan had uncovered more than two dozen operations The Word had previously conducted, or were in the process of conducting when the Tyr operation began, giving Green Team some leads that David had the others tracking down, leaving only him, Nathan, Lio, and Axe to lead the interrogations, though they had the support of the local security force and the scattering of Archons assigned to the city.

  David was 50 meters out from the security station when a group of Regulars came rushing out behind him, running towards the nearest elevator…with one of them flagging him down and lagging behind as the first few disappeared into an open car.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, running over to them.

  “The spaceport has been compromised. More than 100 enemy troops have broken through and are working their way to city control.”

  “Who?” David asked as the next five armored security guards claimed the next car, leaving four times that number waiting in line.

  “Don’t know. They’re wearing armor we don’t recognize.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” David said, having heard enough and sprinting off through the pedestrian crowd that so far hadn’t been told there was an invasion underway. As he wove his way between the clusters of people enroute to the Archon armory where he’d stashed his armor and weapons he tapped his earpiece and filled in the other three members of Green Team on what was happening.

  As he was doing that and the bulk of the security station’s forces were deploying, along with troops from multiple stations across the city as well as the small defense garrison, the six Word operatives emerged from the crowd and slipped in the front doors of the station, pulling out their weapons at the last moment and gunning down the lone guard that remained along with two attendants before scrambling inside and fighting through those personnel in the building that responded to the weaponsfire, enroute to the reflectivity marker in Agent’s body that had been exposed when the time-sensitive blocking chemical had run its course.

  Nathan ran out into the hallway that stretched the length of the interrogation rooms, or rather the rooms that had been repurposed to handle that function. He kept a lock on Agent’s mind to insure that he did in fact stay put all the while sensing a beehive of activity a couple levels below him near the stairwell. One of the minds disappeared, meaning they either dropped into a very, very deep unconsciousness and the output of their mental pro
cesses dipped below his detection range, or all mental activity ceased, meaning someone had just died.

  Ahead of him an armored Regular stepped out of a side room and headed towards the stairs ahead of Nathan and the Archon let him go ahead, given that he was both unarmed and unarmored. When they got down to the level below them two lances of plasma fire shot past the Regular, with a third hitting him in the shoulder of his dirty white armor as he fired back with his stinger pistol.

  Nathan tracked the nearby minds and sent Fornax blasts into each of them in sequence, knocking them off balance and allowing the Regular to close range while he waited on the stairs out of the firing line. He felt the minds intermix and clicked on his Pefbar while maintaining the Fornax blasts so he could see through the wall as the Regular engaged the men hand to hand, using their own bodies to block the firing lines of the others as he took another plasma hit to his armor.

  Wobbling as they were, two of the attackers charged forward and used their mass to try and tackle the Regular, but the longtime veteran smacked one aside and held the other at bay, punching into his chest and knocking him backwards, but the man came away with his stinger pistol, leaving the Regular only his armored body to fight with.

  Wisely the Regular stepped forward and grabbed one of the enemy’s dropped plasma pistols and shot the nearest operative as Nathan disabled him again. The man took a nearly pointblank hit to the chest and the Regular twisted to the side to shoot another one jumping for him…then the first man who’d been shot got back up and dove onto the Regular, knocking him and his compatriot down.