by A P Heath
He hissed the words, delivering the last as if it were a curse.
“Maybe you’d be happier if I just wasn’t around.”
Her eyes were wide. He could see panic there, but beneath it was still the loathing she bore him. Her hand whipped up, taking him across the cheek in a stinging slap that snapped his head to the side and left his ears ringing.
“You will not speak to me in that manner.” She growled the words at him. Martius turned his head back slowly, a dark smile upon his lips.
He chuckled dryly.
“I know no other way mother,” He replied, lifting his hand to his already reddening cheek.
“So I guess it’s best I simply don’t speak to you at all.”
Martius turned away from her, back towards the now open door. The grooms stood motionless, their professionalism
preventing them from seeing or hearing any of the brief exchange.
Martius patted the nearest on his epaulette as he passed.
“Thank you my good man.” He muttered before stumbling past and out into the darkness of the night.
SIX
“…were on rest.” Iasa finished his sentence for him. Her comm link went silent and Hornwood waited for her to continue. The silence was too long for his comfort.
“Commander?” He tried to raise her but there was no response. “Commander!”
Nothing.
Hornwood was standing behind the main comms station in the bridge. He’d been there throughout the entire exchange with Iasa, leaning over the shoulder of the comms officer, Officer Green, to see for himself the unit indicators flashing on her screen. Lit up in thin lines before them was a full schematic of the station.
Hornwood knew the view could be adjusted by level of detail to show pipes, conduits, electrical interfaces and even temperature variances between levels.
He’d had her pare it right back to the basic schematic to better see the positions of the other unit members without distraction.
Every comm link had the ability to display its location, like a beacon, provided it had been integrated with the local system. As tech specialist, Hornwood’s first task had been to configure the integration with the stations management and control systems upon their arrival.
The system was monitored continuously in shifts by the two comms officers aboard, but Iasa hadn’t been content with that alone.
For the last eight months Hornwood and Ipsis had been on opposite rotation to the bridge, ensuring one of them was on hand to oversee the stations resident officers at all times.
As standing duties went it was by no means the worst he’d ever had. Green was pleasant enough, if somewhat lacking in the conversation department.
That had struck him as ironic. After all, she was a comms officer, surely that meant she was used to the prospect of talking to other people.
For this station though, a comms officer who didn’t want to talk much seemed appropriate.
In the time Hornwood had spent with her they had received a sum total of four inbound transmissions; one every other month.
Each time one came in Green would examine the information it held then move to the stations databanks on the far side of the bridge and tap in a few lines of code. After only a few moments she would return to her station and repeat the code lines. That appeared to be it.
Hornwood didn’t know what information she received or what she was sending and he didn’t ask. His job was not to know what she was doing; he was simply here to protect her and the rest of the meagre band of residents as they got on with whatever it was they were tasked with doing.
She was young, Hornwood judged her age at around fourteen by the Martian calendar; mid-twenties if you went by the old Earth format, as many Deorum citizens were wont to do.
She was slim and small, her hair dark and her eyes green. Over the months Hornwood had dedicated more than a few private moments to imagining what it would be like to strip her out of the loose, unflattering fatigues she and the other non-medical personnel always seemed to wear, to see if the body beneath matched up with his vivid imaginings.
Despite both the professional distance he was trained to maintain and Green’s reticence to utter more than a few quiet words at a time, Hornwood found he had developed quite an affection for the young comms officer.
There was something pleasantly gentle about her. Gentleness was something Hornwood hadn’t seen much of during his life.
A typical upbringing in the Deorum was a hard enough journey and his had been even more so. He’d been born aboard a station like this and had reached his seventh year before even steeping foot on the surface of Luna.
His time at the Academy had been almost a home away from home, so used was he to deprivation in all its forms.
The marines had been a challenge to be relished for a time, but even the difficulties that life posed were soon no more than an
accepted part of his daily grind.
Then the LSS had beckoned; the most elite of the elite, undertaking the dirtiest and darkest tasks the Deorum could find to offer. Hornwood had found his perfect fit.
On the screen in front of Officer Green now the three comm links he’d already asked her to pull up were still flashing. All three were on the stations fourth level, not an unusual occurrence given they were currently on a rest cycle and that level held what passed for leisure amenities on this tired old bucket.
What was odd was that all three were together. Not just in the same room, but huddled against one wall. It was hard to be sure from the schematic view, but Hornwood’s first thought when he saw the comm links flashing over each other was that they must be so close as to practically be on top of one another.
“Pull up Commander Finsa’s comm.” He said to Green. “Pull them all up.” He corrected a second later. The young officer tapped the interface in mute compliance and in a moment another seven little lights started to flash.
Hornwood could see them all clearly. His own flashed steadily in the bridge while those of Blist and Elba were showing on levels six and eight. Bonner, Cross and Diagno were all in the substation levels beneath the tertiary loading bay. Iasa’s comm link showed her positioned directly outside the main entrance to the trans-shaft on level four.
“Commander please respond.” He tried again, the words forming on his lips in his frustration. Still there was nothing from her.
Hornwood opened his comm link to the rest of the unit. With Iasa and Trishan unresponsive the command fell to him.
“All units receive,” He started, the orders coming to him more through reflex than conscious thought, “Finsa, Trishan, Janner and Ipsis all unresponsive. Blist, Elba, get the techs on your levels to the primary loading bay then move up to level four. Full sweep and report. Be weapons ready.”
He took a breath before continuing, already receiving acceptances through Blist and Elba’s comm links.
“Bonner, Cross, Diagno, your levels should be clear of techs, but I need a full sweep up to sub level ten. Eyes open people!”
He left the unit link open as he turned Officer Green in her chair, spinning her to face him. Her eyes were wide, she couldn’t have heard any of the exchange, the comm links working internally as they did, but Hornwood’s urgent demand and subsequent body language was clearly enough to let her know something was not right.
“S.E.P.” He stated. Green simply stared at him blankly. He shook her shoulders and tried again, “Standard Evac Procedure, what is it on this bucket?”
She continued to stare for a moment before screwing her eyes up and blinking them open again.
“It’s…it’s er…,” She stammered slightly and then regained a little of her composure.
“The S.E.P. requires me to send out a targeted distress alert.” She confirmed with confidence returning to her voice.
“All databanks must be downloaded to the comms substation and set to destruct.”
Her tone had become flat, her eyes glazed as if reading from some internal script.
>
“The trans-terminal shutters must be closed at both bridge and substation terminals and lock down sequence initiated to prevent reopening. Upon completion the substation will detach and return to Central Command.” Hornwood raised a hand to stop her.
Since issuing the units orders the flashing beacons on her screen had started moving and it had taken a moment to realise that Iasa’s was moving too. It was making its way slowly back along the main corridor on level four, towards the simulation ring.
Hornwood kept his eyes on the screen as he directed his comm link to Blist.
“Status update.” Blist’s response was immediate.
“Comms Officer Juno and Medi-tech Franklyn are secured in the primary loading bay. All other levels in this section are clear so we’re heading up to four now. ETA three minutes.”
“Finsa’s moving, but she’s still not responding to comms.”
“Make it quicker.” Hornwood sent back.
He watched the screen as the icons denoting Elba and Blist moved towards the external link stare on level five.
“We’re going as quick as we can,” Blist replied, “The trans’ jammed so we’ve been forced to take the alternate route.” Hornwood didn’t bother to respond further. He could track their progress on Green’s screen.
He turned his attention back to the comms officer, who stood watching him silently.
“What next?”
“After separation of the substation all personnel are required to muster in the primary loading bay for evacuation.”
She continued, “If the primary loading bay is compromised personnel should make for the evacuation pods on level six.”
She paused and Hornwood saw the hesitance in her eyes.
“What else?” He asked her, trying to keep his tone gentle.
“If the station is compromised and neither option of evacuation is available…we have specific orders.”
Hornwood had a feeling he knew what she was going to say but he urged her to continue. His unit had received a very specific order as part of their mission briefing.
“If the station is compromised and you can’t evacuate, what are your orders?”
Green looked him directly in the eye for the first time since starting her relay of the procedure.
“Initiate full station decompression to prevent capture.”
There was fear in her eyes.
Hornwood turned away from her and back to the schematic.
“Yeah,” he said quietly, “Those were my orders too.”
He bit his lip, wondering at the strangeness of the situation unfolding around him.
“Close the trans-terminal shutters and be ready for a swift exit.” He told her, pushing aside the thought that soon he might have to issue orders that would leave them all floating lifeless in the void of space.
SEVEN
Natasha In’Tuen watched the body of Aitkin Cassini buck and thrash against its restraints through the viewing pane of the torturer’s room. The pane made up an entire wall of her office.
It was not a large office, only three metres along the longest wall and slightly less on the shorter side, but the floor to ceiling display of Aitkin Cassini’s torment made it appear as if he were in the very next room, instead of hidden somewhere, possibly hundreds of thousands of kilometres away.
Her view of the room was similar to that of the figure in the chair. The light illuminated him in great detail, but only him.
She could adjust the angle of her viewing pane to rotate a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees either vertically or horizontally, but even with this the remainder of the cell was just shadow.
Her role in this endeavour was a simple one; watch and record all that happened within the small room on the other side of the viewing pane.
It had been four hours so far and her notes were filled with details of the ways in which pain had been inflicted upon the body of Aitkin Cassini. There was little conversation to record and each part was interspersed with the annotation, ‘The subject has been set in an unconscious state to allow the surgeon apparatus to work.’
Her notes would continue to describe Aitkin being roused by a boost of stimulants to combat the anesthesia that had put him to sleep, often only a few minutes beforehand.
The practice of playing with a subject’s sleep patterns was an old but effective one.
Although Aitkin Cassini had only been in the room for four hours, to him it would seem much longer. The cycle employed by the Fathers was an efficient and effective one.
First they would describe the information they were seeking, although the Fathers only ever referred to this as ‘the Truth’, then they would explain the role of the surgeon apparatus. It was a piece of medical equipment all but the most backward of outworlders would be familiar with.
A surgeon apparatus could knit flesh and bone in minutes. It could repair damaged organs and create new cells from a sample of the patient it was working on.
Any subject undergoing the Fathers search for the ‘Truth’ would be told in great detail about the workings of this machine. When they were cut their blood would be collected in the runnels of the chair in which they sat and cycled through the surgeon apparatus and back into their body through a process of targeted osmosis.
They would not be told about the chemical additions however; the anesthesia to put them to sleep whilst the surgeon apparatus did its grisly work and the stimulants to wake them again once it had finished.
They would be told this to assure they understood their torture could be unending. As long as a Father didn’t outright kill his subject, the interjection of the surgeon apparatus would allow his patient to be put back together, no matter how severe the damage, in order for the Father to start all over again.
The subject would be made to understand there would be no release, no rest nor respite. Not until they gave up the ‘Truth’ they were hiding.
It was a powerful message and Natasha had heard tell of captives who had broken before a Father had laid so much as a finger against their skin.
That was another thing that Natasha had never quite managed to adjust to; the Fathers referred to what she would call victims as ‘subjects’ or sometimes ‘patients’. It was odd. What she saw happening through the viewing pane and what she’d watched so many times in the past was clearly torture.
The word for someone undergoing torture, to her mind, was definitely ‘victim’.
“But no,” the Fathers said, “One can only be a victim if the trials they undergo are unjust. We Fathers are searching for the Truth and such a search cannot be deemed anything but necessary, nay obligatory. We are obliged to find the Truth and those who try to hide it from us are the unjust ones.”
They even had a terrible joke, as far as she knew it was as old as the Fatherhood itself. Worse than its poor taste, worse even
than its general lack of actual mirth, was the solemn and serious way it was delivered, “We call them patients because that is what the search for Truth requires; patience.”
The ‘patients’ were never told of the waking/sleep cycle though. Once in the chair all a subject would know was the light, the pain and the questions a Father put to them.
They would receive no sustenance, no water or food and no understanding of their surroundings. The cycle of sleeping and waking was an integral part of the breaking process.
Aitkin himself had gone through it several times already and if he was able to think through the pain, by now he would believe he had gone without food or water for at least three days.
There were no indicators of time passing within the cell and he had no way of knowing that his periods of sleep lasted only a matter of minutes at a time.
The power of the mind on the body is strong and even though he would be kept hydrated by the surgeon apparatus, his mind would tell his body it was dying from dehydration.
Natasha had seen men and women beg for water within an hour of their first waking. Aitkin was yet to beg for anything. She c
ast an eye over the notes she had made to confirm his words so far. All he had given was his name and rank. He had given it over and over, nothing more, but Natasha knew the Father would break him eventually. When that happened Aitkin Cassini’s ‘Truth’ would spill out of him and she would be ready to record every detail.
On the viewing pane the figure of Aitkin Cassini was limp and still. The surgeon apparatus was already working to repair his damaged flesh while his mind floated in the blankness of the anesthesia.
As she watched the machine finished its ministrations and retreated in silence into the blackness of the room’s far corners. Aitkin’s body lurched against his restraints and his eyes opened wide as he gasped into consciousness.
Natasha refreshed her note slate and concentrated on the viewing pane as the Father stepped towards the light, ready to continue his questions.
EIGHT
Rig watched the meat as it turned slowly on the small spit.
The flames beneath it crackled as the fat dripped onto them and the smell that rose to meet his senses set his mouth to watering.
The rats had been fat, well fed on the garbage that gathered at the dumps, waiting to be incinerated for power and heat.
The incinerators were a good example of the way things worked on Mars.
On the surface they ate like kings and queens, never wanting for anything, never having to try. What they discarded ended up here, deep in the tunnels below the surface where the incinerators gobbled it greedily, pumping their thick smoke into the vent shafts to make its way to the gaping maw of Olympus Mons.
He’d been told that from the surface it gave the volcanic mount the appearance of being active. A rage filled fiery beast just waiting for its chance to erupt and drown the filthy masses of the surface in righteous flames and burning retribution.
At least, that was what Philp always said.
Rig didn’t know anything about all that. He’d never been to the surface and truth be told he wasn’t sure what a volcano was.