Be forwarned, this chapter is especially unpleasant.
Chapter 14: Lion's Den
Torrent's perspective
In retrospect, maybe I should have died.
I must have said that to myself a hundred times in that room. It some miniscule segment of humour that reassured an even smaller part f my brain that this wasn't really happening.
You know, they actually told us to die in the academy. I could still hear the words of Captain Haley Bauer, speaking. Don't jump if you're anywhere near a Kilrathi cap ship. Trust me on that, the cats won't think twice about using you for target practice. If you're lucky. The Kilrathi have no code of conduct for the treatment of prisoners, to them we're a lesser species, a waste of skin. Prisoners are just a convenient source of labour, a scratching post or a main course. Mark my words, you're better off dead then in the Cat's claws.
Captain Bauer wasn't a pilot. All she knew was what she'd read in Intel reports. In short,she didn't know a fucking thing. She didn't know how it felt when yours was one of three remaining ships out of an original wing of 17. She didn't know what it felt like to have four enemy fighters firing at you at once. She didn't know how it felt to be so close to death that the only thing you could think of was how to survive.
And I very much doubt she knew what a 'light spear' felt like.
My legs felt weak with the three searing stab wounds they'd endured. Every time I failed to be forthcoming with an answer, the interrogator stabbed me. It felt, well, amazingly enough it felt like getting stabbed with a boiling hot spear.
So far he'd asked me three questions.
For a while after he'd retracted the spear, he just stared at me. I imagine there was a look of sick pleasure on his face. I didn't much want to find out, besides, lifting my head took more effort then I was willing to give.
So instead I watched as blood trickled slowly from the torn flesh in my legs, staining my flight suit and running down onto my boots. Uttering whatever nonsense my terrified mind could come up with.
There wasn't too much blood; the heat seemed to weld shut the wounds, at least slightly. I'm no doctor; I'm not sure what was happening. I just knew that there wasn't as much blood as I'd expect.
When he used the spear on me the first time; well, it was worse the first time. I'll say that much. Each time he used it, I found it more bearable to look at.
I don't especially want to be telling you any of this. I heard it helps, maybe it will.
"I will ask you again human," Roared a voice from above me, "Why does your carrier group approach the Vorghath? Even you must know you have no hope in a battle. What cowardly trick have they planned?"
For as long as I felt was safe I ignored him. When I finally opened my mouth, the first things to leave it were pained coughs. Breathing was hard enough in that fucking room. The hot, clammy air seemed to lodge itself at the back of my throat rather then go into my lungs. It took a lot of energy to breathe, and I wasn't sure it was worth trying.
I instantly switched my focus to the Kilrathi's question. I wasn't ready to indulge that other train of thought yet.
"Listen, I'm just a first lieutenant, they don't tell us anything." I stopped, took in a few more difficult lungfulls of clammy air and dreamt up a few more lines of deception, "I go where I'm told and I shoot at what I'm told. I don't have enough seniority to be let in on the grand plans."
My eyes sprang to the spear, all that mattered in that moment was whether he was going to use it.
Again, for a long while, or what seemed like a long while nothing happened. I'm guessing the furball was trying to decide if I was telling the truth of not. Maybe I was more convincing then I thought.
Maybe it wasn't too implausible, from what I understood, the Kilrathi didn't place a great deal of importance on mere minions. They were just tools, tools that could be replaced if need be. Their earlier suicide attack on the Hermes proved…
Don't think of the Hermes.
I quickly changed my train of thought before anything I couldn't let myself see sprung up. I wasn't quick enough. Unbidden, an image of Fool's spontaneous jig on a table in the rec room several months ago when a bagpipe solo was playing quietly in the background sprang to mind.
As if on cue, tears emerged behind my eyelids. I blinked heavily, forcing them to stay where they were. I wouldn't give this furry shit ball the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
Fool was gone, The Hermes was gone, everything I remembered, everything I had done belonged to a woman who had died a few hours earlier when a Kilrathi tractor beam impacted with her ejection seat. I was dead, and all I needed was to wait this out and then, one way or another, I would make it official. I had no intention of becoming a slave, to do so would be a betrayal of the Confederation and a life worse then death. I don't expect it would take too much to get one of the guards at a POW camp to kill me. From the way Cobra made it sound when she was still onboard the… Anyway, they kill POWs simply to relieve boredom.
I couldn't do anything now. My legs were two dead weights, my arms were chained to the ceiling and the thing in front of me seemed in no great hurry to kill me.
I switched my attention back to the spear; it was still sitting motionless in the Cat's hand. Glowing dully to indicate it was activated. I stared at it for a few more seconds before he spoke again.
"Do they tell you terran?" It was hard to make out anything this guy was saying, his words were virtually indistinguishable from growls, "That your kind is losing this war? On all sides we see nothing but scarred apes running from our glorious hunters."
I said nothing.
"Are you typical of terrans ape? Are all the pilots of your species pitiful cowards who would sooner leap from a doomed fighter then accept your death with honour, as a warrior should? I seem to always be called to interrogate some…"
It was about at this point when I realised that silence was a form of subservience, as much as I didn't want a fourth stab wound, and as much as tempting it was to push myself as far into my mind as I could and shut out the world around me, a stronger part of me screamed, Keep fighting, you're a warrior, no matter what this piece of shit says, prove that, now.
I drew a few ragged breaths and lifted my head slightly. I still couldn't meet his eyes, but that was mainly because they were so high up. It was painful enough just keeping my head upright.
"Do you want to know what I've seen out there?" I croaked.
He remained silent. The spear still didn't move.
"You can talk all you want about your glorious hunters, but I've seen no shortage of your kind ejecting when things get too hot. I've seen them retreat too, resort to the same cowardly strikes you curse at us for. You're nothing but a bunch of honourless hypocrites, and you know? When it comes to combat, out there in space, you're just like us."
A low growl came from above, and the spear twitched in the Cat's hand. He didn't use it though, and I wasn't finished. Anger was fuelling my vocal cords.
"Your fucking Empire is a disease." I was starting to sound more coherent now, "You strike out at whatever you see to fulfil your collective bloodthirsty wet dream. Tell me, what perverted view of honour justifies genocide, murdering civilians, this?"
If Z'ratmak were in this position, God forbid, he'd probably say the exact same thing. He'd often tell me and anyone who'd listen about how he was one of the few 'true Kilrathi' left. He was one who still upheld the old values of honour that his race once embraced, but which had been abandoned as time went on. He was as disgusted with the atrocities committed by his empire as most humans were.
At this point, at far as I was concerned, he wasn't Kilrathi, he was something far better.
The growl grew louder. My eyes forced themselves closed and I waited for the searing hiss of the spear impacting on my skin.
But it didn't happen.
After my mind worked through the panic and realised this, my eyes slowly crept open.
The spear had stopped glowing; it hung in the Cat's hand, pointing at the floor. I swatted aside a brief splinter of hope; I couldn't let that affect me now. He'd probably just grown tired of it after all; maybe he wanted to use his claws now.
I forced my head up a few more centimetres, only to be met with a sharp pain in my neck that sent it falling back to its resting position and my line of vision back to the smooth floor.
"It is not our race who has misinterpreted honour." He replied, "It is our destiny, gifted to us by Sivar to rule the stars, it is our rightful place. If your race wished to avoid our wrath you should have stayed in your rightful place, the trees of your home world."
He started laughing then. It was a ghastly sound; he sounded more like he was choking.
I forced a smile and brought my head up again to make sure he saw it.
"If we don't destroy you," I said slowly "Then another species will. Sooner or later the Empire will fall. Every empire dies, there are no exceptions."
"Only the weak die." He responded confidently.
"You consider humanity to be weak, correct?"
"Humans are a weak, clawless species." This proud assertion was accompanied by a triumphant sounding purr.
"And yet we're still alive. This war has gone on for decades, try as you might, you can't defeat us. What does that prove? Except that you're incompetent maybe? Inept?"
The spear fell to the floor with a loud 'clank'. The two feline legs I could see before me began to walk towards me. I tried to step back and my legs promptly gave out from under me, the chains kept me upright, (almost pulling my arms off in the process.)
Two hands closed around my lower arms and pulled me up into a standing position. Once the Kilrathi was satisfied that I wasn't going to fall over, he released his vice like grip, and rested one claw on the side of my head.
"Do you think I have not heard these words before human?" His voice was almost soft, "I have heard these meaningless insults and proclamations from countless shamed prisoners clinging to meaningless defiance. Your opinions are unimportant, as are your threats. I believe you know how poorly your race fares in this war. I believe you know how close defeat is, and I believe you know why your carrier advances on our command ship. So I will ask you once more, why does it challenge a ship which will swat it aside with ease?"
Abruptly, what pride and anger I'd been able to scrounge from the argument died, and the grim reality returned. As did a number of mental images that I didn't want to see. Try as I might I couldn't banish thoughts of home, the Hermes, any of it.
Was there a way I could turn this situation to my advantage? Could I mislead them with some convincing piece of misinformation? Make the Hermes' job easier. Maybe if I…
He pushed the claw into my head as I was in mid thought.
At first I didn't feel anything. All I could focus on was the sickening sound of my skin being torn. Bile started to rise in my throat.
Maybe I could use that. I thought distantly.
He started to drag the claw down the side of my face; I could feel it scraping against my skull as well as ripping through the flesh.
I could keep myself from screaming, barely, but I couldn't stop the many pained whimpers that came one after the other as the claw traced its way down my face. Tears began to push their way free from behind my clenched eyelids, mingling with the blood that was appearing in the wake of the claw.
There was a sharp hiss on the far side of the small room. With the sound, he hastily pulled the claw from me. From what I could feel he'd cut a swath from the end of my forehead to the side of my mouth. I could feel air hovering into and around the wound. The blood poured down the side of my head, some of it crept into my mouth.
A series of short, quiet growls sounded above me. They sounded different from the one's I'd heard before. It took me a few seconds for my seemingly shocked brain to register the presence of a second Kilrathi in the room. He didn't seem to be paying me any heed, thankfully.
After the two had exchanged a few words in Kilrathi, the newcomer turned and left the room. I groaned as the door slid shut behind him. Leaving my interrogator behind to carry out his duties with undivided attention.
"It seems you are fortunate terran. It seems that additional prey is required on the newly retaken leisure planet in this sector. (I'd later find out he meant the jungle world in the Gimlie system.) You are to receive medical treatment and be taken there to be hunted down by whichever Kilrathi noble wishes to dispose of you." He paused, I'm guessing it was for dramatic effect, "But before that, you are to witness to the destruction of your carrier, and your base on the second planet."
This time, I didn't fight the small stab of hope. It wasn't much, but maybe, just maybe, I'd get to watch as the Hermes obliterated the H'varkann. When compared to that, death in the jungles didn't seem as bad.
But nothing was guaranteed, I might end up watching the Hermes die. Along with Fool, Adish, everyone.
From that point on, I closed my eyes and tried very hard not to think.
To be continued