This chapter is rated M for violence. If you are uncomfortable with that please stop now.
Petrus Arricnak, wearing a viperous smile, holds out both his hands as if to say 'look at me, I'm just a harmless old man, fatherly, trustworthy.' Gregor barely suppresses the urge to shoot him. Arricnak drops his hands when Gregor doesn't move but keeps smiling. He also stays exactly where he is, right up by the back wall of the room. It saves his life. If he moves even a millimeter closer Gregor knows that there is nothing in the Universe that will stop him killing the man.
"Please, Gregor. Calm down. I mean you no harm. None of us do, really."
"Then why do this? Why like this?"
"Why did we conceal our motives from you, you mean?"
Gregor nods once.
"Because you are clandestine, Mandalorian agent sent to scout us out. Probably to sabotage us. Filthy Separatists." Mutters Mrs. Lenko, venomously.
Gregor doesn't remember moving, has no conscious thought to do so. But suddenly the back of his hand connects with Mrs. Lenko's jaw so hard her head snaps to one side. She staggers and falls to her knees with a gasp. There's blood trickling from her mouth.
Arricnak springs forward. Gregor draws the hold-out blaster on him. The old man freezes.
"Gregor, please!" he says.
"You see Petrus, an animal. Like I said." Mrs. Lenko hisses through bruised lips.
"Shut up bitch." Gregor doesn't recognize his voice. It's dead and flat. "You say another word and I'll kill you."
Arricnak blinks, shocked. Gregor feels a sick, grimace that's almost a smile crawl over his face.
"So explain yourself old man. Tell me why you need me, before I get fed up and do you both."
"We...I know you aren't a Separatist agent." Arricnak says, hurriedly. Mrs. Lenko hisses in surprise or disbelief. Gregor half considers shooting in the leg just to make a point. He refrains, for the moment. Arricnak barrels on.
"You're a clone. An intelligence operative. I imagine you're here looking for the leak in our proto-type plans due to the failures from last year. We're on the same side Gregor."
"How." Gregor has to take a moment to compose himself before he can force the rest of the sentence out, "How do you know that? You think very carefully and you tell me, exactly."
Mrs. Lenko is edging towards the door. She probably thinks she'll be able to throw it open, get help from the rabble outside. Gregor turns and kicks her neatly in the leg, hitting her femoral artery. She gasps and faints. He turns back to Arricnak.
"Talk." He orders, voice lifelessly calm. Arricnak swallows, audibly.
"I...I've been to Coruscant. Several times. I...I know the head of Republic Security. He...he mentioned that there was still a leak after...after we turned Ennis, the old director in. For...for selling plans to the Separatists. I've been looking into it, with help from COMPOR. Marla told me you were a Mandalorian, a proper one, a mercenary. She said she'd seen you talking to one in armor, that you had armor yourself in the apartment. I...I investigated and...the minute I saw the image Hui sent me I knew you were a clone."
"So Hui knows too?"
"No! No. I didn't tell him why I wanted that image. I didn't tell anyone else. I didn't want to compromise your mission. I...we are loyal to the Republic."
"So you knew, all along what I was doing but you did nothing to help. So what do want now?"
"I am helping you. Right now. We are moving against Livvet. He's the leak, him and Tansha Kawit, the assistant that worked for us before your agent came."
"My agent? Thena?"
"Yes...is she actually your-"
"None of your feking business mate. What do you mean moving?"
"A squad of COMPOR operatives is raiding the offices and Livvet's apartment, tonight. If they aren't done already. They'll have him for you, you can interrogate him and no one will ever have to know the army was involved at all. We are loyal, you see."
"Raiding? What about Parmenna?"
"Par-the BlasTech representative?"
"Haar'chak you don't know about her do you? Feking amateur, vigilante osik. Yes, Parmenna's the Sep contact. I've been trailing her for weeks to confirm. I was going to let her get one more drop, of those new plans that Livvet is supposed to be lifting tonight. I was ready to move on her and the rest of the network. Now you've gone off half-charged and she's gonna run, you kriffing fool. "
"I...I had no ide-"
"Shut it. When did you say that larisbrained raid of yours was going off?"
"Now, probably already happened actually."
"Shabla osik. What were their orders?"
"Orders?"
"The raiders, damn you. What were they told to do?"
"Sw-sweep up everyone in the office and apartment. Livvet and Kawit."
"Everyone or just those too?"
"Ev-everyone."
Gregor actually feels the blood drain out of his face. His veins go icy with adrenaline. Every hair on his body stands up as he realizes what everyone means in context.
"Where are they taking them?"
"What? I?"
Gregor grabs the old man and strikes him across the face with the butt of the blaster. Arricnak coughs and looks bewildered.
"I don't know. I don't know where they're being taken. I was to be informed after they arrived. Then I would bring you."
"Change of plan. Find them. Now."
"Wh-why?"
"Because your thugs have my wife along with Livvet."
"How?"
"She was working late with him, assembling the plans."
"Why?"
"Because I asked her to, to keep an eye on him."
It wasn't quite true. Really it had been Thena's idea to stay. But that doesn't matter. He should have known. Should have never let her be in that situation in the first place. Now he has to get her out before those fools do anything to hurt her.
Arricnak goes grey as he looks into Gregor's face.
"I-I'll find them."
"You had better. And, Deputy Director Arricnak, if Thena's been injured, if she's even frightened by the time I see her there is nothing in this universe or any other that will save you from me. I will burn Mer-Son to the ground and sow the soil of this planet with salt. And then I will kill you myself, slowly."
The old man is shaking; tears leaking from his faded blue eyes. He nods wildly. Gregor stares at him for a moment longer.
"Com me when you have her. And give me your keys."
"My k-keys?"
"For your speeder. I need it."
The other man doesn't move. Gregor reaches into his trouser pocket and extracts the keys himself.
"Wh-where are y-you going?" Arricnak stammers in a querulous, boy's voice. Gregor pauses, hand on the door knob.
"To finish the mission. I'm getting Parmenna before she vanishes. Because I am a soldier of the Republic."
Even as he yanks the door open and stalks through the crowd he feels black despair freezing his heart. No one stops him or calls out to him. They spring back like magnets faced with an identical, polar charge. He finds the speeder quickly, the only high end model visible, and drives north; twisting the hoop in his ear until he catches the frequency of the tracker he installed in Parmenna's speeder four days ago. Keying up his secondary com to project a visual of the signal on the windshield, he sees that she's heading north, fast. He opens up on the throttle and follows.
He watches the road but doesn't see it. He doesn't run through the possible scenarios that may unfold when he catches up with Parmenna. He's on autopilot; full commando mode. His brain is screaming through nightmare scenarios of Thena shot by a careless blaster bolt, stabbed by Livvet when he realizes he's cornered. He sees Thena dead a thousand ways as he frantically holds down the panic button on his secure comlink. But he keeps driving north, because he's still too much a clone, because he accepted the mission. He's got to complete it, even if it costs him the every piece of humanity he's found for himself.
Livvet is sobbing quietly. They are alone in the back of the rocking industrial speeder, he and Thena. When the band of humans in dark fatigues burst into the office he had been all outraged shock; demanding their names, the nature of their business, threatening them with his connections. All useless. They'd been thrown down, roughly searched, had their hands plastoid-cuffed behind their backs, and had bags of some stinking, dark material thrown over their heads. On the way into the speeder she had heard them punching and kicking Livvet. For some reason they haven't hit her at all yet.
The three men, or was it four, are in the passenger compartment now and all of Livvet's fury is gone. Thena wishes he'd stop crying. The sound, coupled with the smell of the bag; like old vomit, is more unsettling than the kidnapping. But she doesn't say anything to the man. She can't say anything. For some reason, from the instant she caught sight of that first black clad male kicking in the office door she's been unable to force herself to speak.
It's shock, certainly and desperate fear. If she's been taken what does that mean for Gregor? Is he still free? Will he realize she's gone and come looking? Or is he dead in a gutter somewhere on the east side of the city? She refuses to entertain that idea. It makes her dizzy, makes the stench of the last person who wore this bag unbearably worse. Instead she focuses on her one, desperately bleak ray of hope.
Just before the kidnappers grabbed her she managed to smash her secure com under the chair leg. Gregor told her that in case of emergency she was to destroy it. As soon as she did it would trigger a signal to the Nulls that the op was compromised. When he'd said it she heard, or thought she heard, an implication in his words. That a compromised op would mean several heavily armed clones at least as well trained as Gregor riding to their rescue. She hopes she's right. She hopes she can hold out long enough for them to find her.
The speeder lurches to a stop, throwing both of them to the floor. Livvet lands on top of her, crushing the air out of her lungs. He makes no effort even to roll off. The rear doors are yanked open seconds later and they're dragged out. The building the kidnappers take them into echoes slightly but seemed less cavernous and less drafty than an industrial space would have been. The floor feels smooth, almost slick under her thing work shoes, polished maybe. Every few meters they pass voids of sound; places where their footsteps suddenly seem quieter for a stride or two. They stop suddenly at one of these voids and Thena hears the metallic clatter of old fashioned keys in a lock. Doors, the voids are doors, she realizes as they're shoved forward into the room.
She is forced into a chair and the plastoid cuffs are switched out for electromag restraints that keep her hands behind her and locked against the metal of the chair. Someone pulls the bag off her head. They're in something that looked very much like a primary school classroom. There are no desks though, no cubbies or coat racks or flimsi artwork. But the worn red-brown carpet is eerily similar to what Thena remembers of her school days, dirtier certainly but comparable. There's even a sturdy old vid screen of the type she remembers her teachers using to write or illustrate lessons in front of her. In her fear-drunk state Thena finds herself peering at it, searching for the palimpsest ghosts of old phrases and equations that were always just visible on the model from her school days.
A human male in the ubiquitous black fatigues of the kidnappers steps in front of the screen.
"Hello Director Livvet." He bows ironically toward the man. "Dilute scum." He says in the same politely calm voice, with a nod toward Thena.
"My name is Uthull." The man continues. "I have several questions that I am going to need your aid to answer."
Livvet gulps but makes no other noise. Loathsome as she generally finds him, Thena is a little bit proud of him for pulling himself together. Uthull raises his thick, gingery eyebrows momentarily. Livvet remains silent. Uthull shrugs; his ditch-water colored eyes impassive.
"First question," he says softly. "How long have you been working for the Separatists?"
"I-I don't." Livvet gibbers, thickly.
Uthull turns his dead eyes to Thena.
"Filth?"
Anger frees her voice.
"I don't."
Uthull sighs.
"Fine. We'll come back to that. Next question. Who recruited you to work for the Separatists?"
"No one!" Screams Livvet. "I don't work for them. What are doing? You have the wrong man. Let me go!"
Uthull ignores his outburst and looks at Thena.
"What he said." She answers.
Uthull nods to someone behind her. A heavy hand slams into her cheek. The chair goes over with the force of it. She lands hard, her left shoulder absorbing much of the shock. She grits her teeth and refuses to cry out.
"Don't get mouthy filth." Uthull says pleasantly. "Next question. Who is in your network?"
Livvet is about to start crying again. From where she lies Thena can see his legs quivering in fear. His trousers are wet. There is a small puddle forming under his chair.
"No network." Livvet blubbers. "There's no network. I work for Mer-Son Industries. There is no network."
Uthull pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. He does not ask Thena the question.
"Alright. Look, I'll make this simpler." He nods again and Thena hears boots stomping across the carpet. The door opens and stays open. Moments later the boots are back. There is a third person between them, another prisoner. Thena cranes her neck to see who it is.
The red headed woman, the old assistant, stands between the pair of burly goons. There is blood crusted around her nose. It seems broken. Both of her eyes are black. She is very pale and limping badly. Judging by the way she curls forward, even while standing, Thena thinks she must have been beaten around the midsection, probably there's internal bleeding. They must have taken her earlier in the day; had her for hours.
Livvet gasps and begins to whimper. Uthull ignores him for a moment and walks to Thena. He bends down and lifts her chair upright with little effort. He leans close.
"I'll start with you, give you a chance to make amends for being smart. You know this woman, filth?"
Rage blinds her for a moment, white and searing. She spits in his leering face. Uthull blinks, stands up, cracks his neck, and backhands her. The chair rises off the ground and flies into Livvets as it falls. Somewhere above her she hears Uthull's voice.
"We'll come back to that one. Your turn pretty boy. Pick him up lads. I want him to be able to see properly."
Thena's floating somewhere at the edge of unconsciousness, fighting the tide pulling her down. Uthull's a monster, probably has cyber-muscle enhancements or he's on Roidents. The cheek bone he struck feels spongy. She's laying next to the puddle of Livvet's piss. Some of it's soaking into her hair. The smell makes her want to vomit.
Livvet's babbling something above her. The sound is cut off by the crack of a slug-thrower. Livvet starts to scream. The red head falls limply to the floor in front of Thena. No, the red head's body falls to the floor. the back part of her skull is gone, shot away by the slug-thrower. Her blood soaks into the carpet; exactly matching the color. For some reason there's a tiny smile on her ravaged face. Thena feels herself trying to smile back. It seems rude not. Her cheek hurts and won't move right though.
"Something funny, filth?" Comes Uthull's voice.
Boots appear in front of her, obstructing her view of the red head's corpse. Someone reaches down and disengages the restraints. Not thinking, scared past all reason, Thena launches herself in the air. She tackles the man who freed her hands around the knees. He falls hard, wheezing as the breath is knocked from him. She leaps up onto his chest, straddling him, digging her thumbs into his eyes. The man screams and claws at her but she holds on, digs in harder. Suddenly her back seizes up and she falls forward, hit by a badly aimed stun-shot. A hand grabs her by the hair and drags her off the bloody-eyed kidnapper. He's gurgling and clutching at his face.
"See to him." Uthull snaps, twisting his hand in her hair. He begins to drag Thena out of the room. Her legs won't respond, no matter how she tries to force them to.
"Sagac, help me here." Uthull orders. "Terrett, you get Ag to the med-droid. We'll give pretty boy some time with his girlfriend, neh? See if it makes him more amenable."
Thena blacks out as the red-haired kidnapper heaves her over his shoulder. She comes to as they descend a dark metal stair case that rings like rusty bells with each boot fall. At the bottom of the stairs they pass under a thick fire proof barrier-gate. It hangs from the ceiling like a portcullis. The hall the enter is badly lit, lights every few meters and thick, cold darkness between. The walls are covered with shiny, white tiles. There are drains along the center of the permacrete floor.
Feeling is starting to return to her legs. Her feet tingle with neuralgic shocks. The bald kidnapper, Sagac, opens a door toward the end of the hallway. Uthull ducks inside; strangely careful not to smack any part of her into the door frame. Her hips are hurting now. She wiggles her toes discreetly in her shoes as Uthull swings her around his back, cradling her.
She sees the alloy table, lit blue from below and edged with silvery, diagnostic sensor arrays. There are straps along the edge as well. Her spine still isn't functioning properly, she can barely squirm as Uthull lowers her gently to the chilled surface. She hears the other man leave the room; door sliding shut behind him.
"Top of the line Neuro-Muscular scanner, capable of working at an atomic level. Got it from the Cloners."
Uthull begins strapping her legs down as he speaks.
"This is a custom job. Usually there's an analgesic dispenser that connects either to the spine or as an inhaler. We won't be needing that."
He's strapping her hips and waist to the table now. But the effects of the stunner have worn off, she can move her fingers freely. He turns away from her a moment to adjust something on a panel just out of her eye line. There's a tray of medical equipment next to the table, serrated scalpels and hooked forceps and half a dozen more bladed, nightmare tools. Just looking at them kicks her heart rate into overdrive.
Carefully, she reaches for the tray. Her fingers can just touch one of the knives. She wiggles it off, slicing her palm in the process. She turns the scalpel carefully so the handle rests in her palm, blade against her wrist. Just in time, she slides it under her forearm just as Uthull turns around.
"I've been wanting to test this beauty out." He continues "I've seen it used in some of the facilities they've got on Sentax-2. Fascinating. This'll flay flesh from bone without even breaking the skin, tear through your brain so that you can't help but tell a man anything he wants to know. Puts those black robed wizards to shame it does."
He gently brushes her hair back from her temples and slips a loop around her skull, tightening it fussily.
"But...they say I'm not to use it on citizens, or humans at all in spite of all of my protests."
He smiles down at her and reaches for the last set of straps, the ones that will restrain her hands.
"You're not either one of those things though, are you?"
She forces herself up, viciously tearing her abdominal muscles to do so. The head strap rips free. Clumps of her hair come off with it. Swinging the scalpel wildly, she catches Uthull across the chest, opening a rent in his shirt and a fast welling cut along his bicep. He grunts in surprise and lashes out, faster than a human should be able to. Even as she buries the blade in his side his thick fingers close around her throat. She pushes the blade deeper, his fingers tighten. He chuckles and squeezes harder. Her vision swims red, then grey as her lungs burn.
She gasps, suddenly able to breathe, only to have the air in her lungs knocked loose as Uthull hammers her into the table. His grabs her throat again, choking her into submission as he fumbles the straps around her upper body. She refuses to give up, bucking and thrashing as hard as she can, using nothing but adrenaline and terror to fuel her oxygen starved muscles.
Uthull lets go of her throat to pull the scalpel out of his side. Thena surges up, trying to slither free of the restraints. Uthull raises the scalpel and stabs it through the meat of her lower arm, just above her wrist and into the table beneath. Thena shrieks. The pain staggers her, freezes her into shocked, momentary stillness. It's enough, Uthull hits a button on the consol. The straps tighten, binding her into immobility.
Panting, Uthull reaches for the head restraint again, sliding it back on and cinching it tight. Thena convulses as the neuro-leads crackle to life, pulsing against the bare, bleeding spots of her scalp.
"You'll pay for that, filth." Uthull said sweetly. "I'll tear you apart from the inside out until you beg me for death."
She can't move anymore, can't even struggle against the restraints. She can only glare impotently, trying desperately to hide her sick dread, stealing his satisfaction by not letting him see only her anger. Uthull smiles down at her.
"First though, let's get you out of these old things."
He reaches for a pair of shears on the tray and began to cut her blouse open. He yanked the strips off of her and does the same for her skirt and bra. Grinning revoltingly he reaches for her panties. The door slides open.
"Hey boss?" Uthull straightens, annoyed.
"Is there a good feking reason for you to be in her Sagac, because if there isn't..."
"Com for you boss. From our contact here."
"Who? Arricnak?"
"Yes sir. Says it's urgent. Says we missed someone."
"Sith's Teeth, kriffing provincials." He hurls the shears across the room.
"I'll take it upstairs."
Sagac nods and steps into the corridor. He leave the door open. Uthull pauses halfway to it and turns around. Taking two steps back into the room he leans down and kisses Thena tenderly on the forehead.
"I'll be back soon, darling. Don't you worry."
She spits at him again. He dodges it, then spits back into her face. The door hisses shut behind him and Thena can't stop the stuttering wail that's been clawing at the back of her throat from breaking free. She gasps and wishes desperately for the ability to cry, if only to wash the bastard's saliva off her face. Other than her dry, useless sobbing the only sound in the room is the slow drip of blood from her arm.
