“Frankly all we need from you is…” I blinked because, as far as I could think, all we needed to know was who in my fleet had the balls to pull strings for him from the shadows, not that we couldn’t follow an electronic data and not that he needed to know any of that, “you know what? Strike that. We don’t actually need anything from you at all.” I said, leaning back in my chair.
“You don’t need anything from me?” he said seemingly nonplussed.
“Of course,” I said happily, “I mean sure it might save us some time if you cooperated but since your information isn’t of critical importance, I can just wait for the Sundered ’experimental brain jack team.”
“Brain jack team?” Nerium’s pupils shrunk to pinpoints with alarm.
“Yeah, it’s amazing what they can do after installing a little hardware in that wetware,” I said with a rapturous sigh, “oh they can’t actually search your brain for information and they only have a 90% survival rate, but in essence all they do is ‘stimulate’ certain regions of your brain that are involved with memory when they ask you questions and then actively record the results. It’s tech from beyond the rim of known space that they’ve adapted for their own internal use, being a genetically uplifted race, so while it’s a little clunky and it might take some time to get to the parts we want—seeing as how you are a human subject and not an uplift—they believe that with the right chemical cocktail thrown into the mix we’ll get to what we want...eventually.”
“That’s inhuman and a violation of the conventions on war and the treatment of prisoners!” he exclaimed, his voice frosty.
“Yes, but isn’t that the beauty? Since you continue to claim that you are in fact not a Parliamentary Agent, that means you’re just a simple traitor and a mutineer. The restriction on how you treat your own internal populations falls in a different classification from those conventions,” I said with satisfaction, “and besides, who's going to care or, if caring, even notice the state your body was in when we throw it out the airlock?” I asked pointedly.
“So you’re a torturer as well as a gods-forsaken tyrant,” Nerium said mouth a tight line across his face.
“Oh no, my advisers assure me torture doesn’t work so that’s right out. Put a real dent in my plans,” I hastened to assure him solicitously, “which is why we’ll instead be pumping you so full of happy juice that you won’t notice so much as a stiff neck or a needle-poke. Everyone I talk with assures me that torture is straight out and doesn’t really work anyway, not unless you’re looking to get rich via banking information which you can actually verify unlike when some agent falsely accuses one of your people to cause dissent in the ranks, but you see that’s where the direct neural hookup comes in. I mean, why beat a confession out of you when we can just go inside and extract the information over the course of several weeks, months or even years?” I asked rhetorically. “It's painless to you, it’s not something we’d consider time-sensitive on our side, and if you die during this completely painless process well…” I shrugged, “wouldn’t that just be carrying out the sentence for your mutiny anyways?”
“You’re a psychopath. Do you think perhaps that runs in the family? Any paranoids, conspiracy theorists, or mad dog killers in the family line perhaps?” asked Nerium.
“I think you’re surprisingly calm considering your ‘supposed’ background and situation you find yourself in,” I drawled, ignoring the dig against my family. What had the Montagne name given me except persecution and pain, or the House, my so-called family, anything other than scorn, pity and neglect before finally sending me off to the MSP on an assignment no one else wanted. Was this the family line I was supposed to be offended for?
“I’m just wondering if you think insanity runs in the genes or if you consider yourself an exception to the rule,” Nerium deadpanned.
I cocked my head at him, “Why do you want me to kill you so badly?”
“No man wants to die,” Shrub demurred.
“And yet here you are, insulting my family while trying—and failing—to provoke me,” I said.
“If you’re as good as dead anyways you might as well spit in the eye of your oppressors, yeah?” Nerium said stoutly.
“What have you got to lose?” I agreed. “Although it’s hard to call me the oppressor when you’re the one that decided to start murdering people.”
“You plan to kill me, yes?” the prisoner cocked his head.
“And here I thought you were attempting to cooperate in the hopes of clemency or, at least, continued usefulness,” I shot back, “this hardly seems to be in line with such a plan.”
“What can I say,” the prisoner said with a mocking smile, “maybe I’m not as smart as I like to think?”
“Obviously...I mean, you are stuck in here,” I grinned.
“You would know more about being in and out of prison than me, Admiral,” he shot back.
“Oh, I’m wounded,” I mimed as if I’d just been hit to the chest.
“You laugh and mock but you’ve spent more time restrained and in prison than I have. It’s all over the news, that’s just a fact even if you don’t want to admit it,” he pointed out.
“Oh, I’m denying nothing but I do find it interesting how you said ‘restrained and in prison’, almost as if you’ve more experience in prisons than I do, just from the other side of the bars,” I shot back.
“Only the most devolved of societies use bars,” scoffed Nerium.
“I note that isn’t a denial,” I said, one corner of my mouth turning up derisively, “so what is it like to switch roles from the one on the outside looking in?”
“Why don’t you tell me since I’m now the one locked up and restrained and you’re the one who put me there,” he said.
“Point of fact, I didn’t put you anywhere. I didn’t even know you existed at all. So imagine my surprise when I come down to the brig to interview a few prisoner to relieve my boredom and find you in here—with your file under a restriction so tight that not even I could access it without help. You must have some pretty powerful friends in my fleet in order to do that,” I drawled, “friends that I’m understandably interested in speaking with.”
When he didn’t say anything, I turned to D’Argeant.
“Send for Primarch Glue and inform him I require himself and one of his top cybernetic tech teams here as soon as he can reasonably arrive,” I instructed.
D’Argeant hesitated before lifting his arm and speaking into his com-piece, issuing the necessary orders. He looked back up at me. “The Primarch is on the way,” he reported, his eyes reflecting his doubts.
I nodded, my eyes remaining on Mr. Shrub. “Last chance,” I said, standing up and turning to leave the room, “we know what you are and thus what you’ve done. We won’t hesitate. As soon as I walk through that door it's a countdown until the Primarch arrives and the uplifts start monkeying with your brain.”
I was almost to the door when the Shrub finally sighed. “You know it wasn’t supposed to go this way,” he said with a sigh.
“Oh. What way is that?” I asked and stopped moving toward the door, but I didn’t yet turn around. He didn’t say anything. “Cat got your tongue? We’ll know it all anyway, it just might take a while. Do you honestly know anything time-sensitive enough to risk what they’re going to do with you?”
“And here I thought all you royals prided yourselves on being honorable and upright until the end. I guess there really is a reason the Montagne line continued to lead while everyone else stupid enough to believe your lies followed you on bended knee,” the Prisoner said, his voice changing from that of slightly shady shuttle pilot to something else—something vastly more interesting.
I smoothly turned and sat back down in the chair. “We 'royals,' as you call us, are just doing the best job we can for our people,” I said lightly. “If that means we have to make a few sacrifices when it comes to our ability to sleep well at night then that’s a small price.” The number of people I’d killed,
or had ordered killed, to protect the people of Capria and the rest of this Sector when our fleet’s clashed just kept going up but it was necessary. Our blood, our bodies, and our warships stood in exchange for their ability to sleep safely at night without some fool Imperial’s jackbooted foot resting on their heads.
As for lying, murderous, scum like Nerium Shrub? I couldn’t care less that he’d rotted in a cell for the past several months after the fourth battle for Easy Haven. I cared even less if he thought I was some kind of evil royalist incarnate because I dared to threatened him with cybernetic implants—implants that, as far as I was aware, didn’t even exist. My call for Glue and a cyber tech team was just a bluff. As far as I was concerned, a little mental agony was the least this murderer deserved and if it helped open his lips I was willing to offer even more unsubstantiated horrors to keep his voice well lubricated.
“You say that but I can see that somewhere deep down inside you think you’re better than me. You all think you’re better than the rest of us,” Shrub said scornfully.
“I wasn’t the one trying to kill my supervisor so I could smuggle top secret data off an Imperial ship. Somehow I don’t think you intended to turn that data over to me to try and advance your career,” I observed sardonically.
“No. You just plan to torture your way to the information you want, if you don’t get your way, just like a good little royalist prince,” Shrub sneered.
“So what, as long as it works?” I cocked my head. Again I still had no intention of torturing the man in any way except mentally. Which, as far as I was concerned, he deserved. I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over instilling a little terror into a man up for espionage and attempted murder during the middle of a fleet action. Not when either charge put him up for execution.
“Better a good, clean kill than a torturer any day. Isn’t that what your own side says? Honor over everything, even the betrayal of your own species?” he demanded.
“Come again?” I said mentally replaying that last line he’d just spoke. “Are you somehow implying I’m in league with, what, aliens?”
I laughed mockingly.
Shrub looked at me scornfully. “Your feeble attempts to play the straight man are as useless as tits on a boar since I already know the truth you want to hide. So unless you’re broadcasting this interrogation fleet wide there’s no reason to keep up the deception. No one’s here except you, me and your ‘royal’ armsmen,” he said.
“You’re really that much of a bigot?” I asked, realization dawning even as I kicked myself for being slow. “I mean I make no bones about the fact I’ve been using uplifts, droids, former pirates, and anyone else I can lay my hands on to fight for this Sector.”
“A thinly-disguised veil of truth to hide the real truth,” Shrub shrugged, “but then, you’re the royal and this is exactly why we will always be there to check your power and stop you. Your lot may not give a damn about the people of Capria but we do and we’ll do anything—whatever it takes—to keep her safe and keep her free.”
“I don’t see how the Tyrant of Cold space allying himself with a handful of uplifts or droids threatens the people of Capria. Maybe Tracto and the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet but the home world should be safe. After all they’ve not only disavowed me but tried to kill me on multiple different occasions,” I said stiffly.
Shrub rolled his eyes. “Still you try and hide it but I’ve already said there’s no need for these games, your Highness,” his voice was mocking, “everyone in this room already knows the truth—or they blasted well should, you malignant tumor on the heart of the body politic! Admittedly your openly using the droids makes things harder. Harder to protect our people from our own royals, perhaps, but at the same time easier to conceal the rot that cuts right to the center of Capria and threatens to destroyer her!”
“Meaning me? Or are you talking about the Royal Family now?” I said, rolling my eyes. “Because I have news for you: I’ve had nothing to do with Capria for several years now.”
“Meaning you! The royal family are just a bunch of willing stooges with varying levels of knowledge; you’re the direct and immediate threat to our planet, not the rest of those corrupted and dissipated perverts and pleasure seekers,” he said angrily.
“Perverts and pleasure seekers? Please don’t hold back, tell me what you really think,” I said seriously.
“One thing I’ve always wondered: why do you do it? Are you brainwashed from birth or do you actually believe that taking us back to that hell is somehow better for humanity?” Shrub asked seriously.
“That you think that a bunch of...what did you call us, 'perverts and pleasure seekers,' could bring ‘humanity’ back to any sort of hell—except maybe a puritanical one that involved a little too much wine women and song—is laughable,” I chortled.
“Laugh it up, fuzz ball!” shouted Shrub. “We know all about the One Bloodline, the Three For One Society, and House Montagne’s plans. Droids? You think we’re fools? Your precious family isn’t the only one who knows the truth!”
I blinked, drawing back with shock. I hadn’t at all been expecting his paranoid ravings to suddenly start touching on far too many things close to home.
Is there really a conspiracy out there? I had to ask myself and, in response ,I immediately found it far too easy to believe that in fact there was one. Moreover, I was sure and certain House Montagne and the rest of the royal family would do whatever they thought benefited themselves at the time and blast the consequences.
“The royal family may have hidden its treason against humanity so deeply and so well that you think no one would ever find out, but we know,” Shrub said and my brow wrinkled.
“Stop speaking in riddles,” I snapped, “just what do you think the royal family has done that makes you hate us so much? What’s worse than droids and uplifts?” Genocide perhaps? I silently guessed. Or something else equally appalling? Saint Murphy knows I wouldn’t put much past my long-deceased relatives.
“Not every one of our founders fell head over heels into King Larry’s treason. Some of us kept silent to protect our people from a galaxy gone mad while still working tirelessly from the shadows to free us and shut you down,” Shrub declared, “and we—Parliament and its agents—are their natural descendants.”
“Yes. Yes. 'Royals bad, your shadowy conspiracy good,' yada yada. Does that about cover it?” I mimed. yawning while desperately hoping to gather more information.
“Shut up. you blasted AI servant,” roared Shrub. only to be interrupted when Sean D’Argeant slammed him face-first into the table.
“Beating up on an unarmed, chained man, armsman?” growled Shrub. “I didn’t expect anything else.”
“Have some respect when you speak with his highness,” D’Argeant growled back.
“You’re a big man, Chief,” sneered Shrub, earning him another face-first meeting with the table.
I lifted a hand, “That’s enough, Armsman.”
D’Argeant took a deep breath and then nodded.
“Highness,” he said stepping back.
“If we could continue without the name calling, please,” I said, despite the outbreak of sudden violence in front of me.
Shrub’s lip curled. “It may be nothing to you, given your family background, but I can assure you Parliament is not so understanding or forgiving. Every agent sworn to Parliament is sworn to not just stop you, but to conceal the truth from the rest of the galaxy in order to save our home world from your kind,” he said.
“Save it from what? Make it clear and stop raving about royals and calling us names,” I snapped, finally losing my cool. “Earlier you said something about a Three for One society? Calling me an AI servant won’t work on me because I am not member.”
“Name calling…” he trailed off looking surprised and then he looked at me scornfully, “you mean you're really trying to pretend you don’t know?”
“Know what?” I shot back.
“You really don’t know. Not a
member? Prince Jason, you were born a member! It seems like all you have are half truths and a few clues,” he threw his head back and laughed long and loud. “Oh, this is rich.”
“Care to share the joke? Because at this point anything would be preferable to your nearly insane ravings,” I said coldly.
“You honestly don’t know that the Royal Family is descended from a genetically-engineered human line?” he asked.
I froze, the glib response on the tip of my tongue dying stillborn. “What does genetic engineering have to do with anything. It’s not illegal,” I said.
“It is when your ancestor—or in your specific case, Clone—was an AI infiltration model. Your progenitor was Larry One, the very man that founded his own royal dynasty on our home world not long after the AI’s fell,” Shrub said, still laughing.
“AI designed…,” I shook my head in instinctive rejection. “You’re lying,” I said my face hardening.
“Larry One. King Larry. The One Bloodline. Any of that ring a bell,” Shrub snickered, “oh, this is too rich. You really didn’t know that you are a 99% match with the founding father of our home world? Hahahahahahahha!”
“You smear not just the royal house but our entire world with your slander and pack of lies,” shouted D’Argeant.
“I’m telling you nothing but the gods' honest truth! Run a genetic test and you’ll find that all but three of our male ‘King’s’ have less than a 0.3 percent genetic variance match with Larry One, the 'savior of our people',” Shrub’s face twisted into an ugly expression. “Your ancestor was an infiltration model who led our people to the promised land like sheep to the slaughter. Did you ever wonder why our world mysteriously never got hit by the AI’s, allowing us to take in more and more refugees, while all around us worlds were being smashed and raided?”
“We fought off the AI’s after we came to a new world far from-” I started parroting the official histories.
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