Chapter 5: The Inquisition:
"What can we do?" Paris asked. Tuvok opened his mouth but at that moment the door to their cell opened. A man dressed in dark clothing and a massive black cloak entered, flanked by two servitors with large guns attached to their arms.
"You," he pointed at Tuvok, "will come with me."
"I will not," he replied. The man then motioned to his combat servitors.
"If you do not I will kill everyone in this room," he said. Tuvok looked into the mans' eyes and saw that he was completely serious.
"Very well," he said. He got to his feet and fallowed the man down many corridors and a lift before they reached a door with an I symbol with two horizontal bars in the middle.
"What does this symbol represent?"
"Unimaginable pain and the ability to destroy an entire planet. That is the symbol of the Inquisition," the man replied. He pressed his palm against a panel and the door opened. Inside was a cot, a computer and an array of what looked like crude surgical equipment. The man had Tuvok take a seat in a chair/examination table. He then bound his wrists and ankles.
"What do you intend to do to me?"
"Nothing if you tell me what I want to know. I want you vessels' security command codes and tactical data."
"I will not cooperate," Tuvok replied.
"Oh I can assure you that you will. First allow me to introduce myself. I am Inquisitor Malaki of the Ordo Xenos. I specialize in extracting information from aliens."
"I will not cooperate," Tuvok repeated. The Inquisitor did not reply. Instead he began attaching wires and inserting needles.
"The machine you are bound to is known as an excruciator. It can enduce unimaginable pain."
"My people do not experience pain as you do."
"Now now, I'm sure that in time we will find your pain threshold. After all, I spend over a month a prisoner of a Dark Eldar Homunculus. It is from him I learned to hate aliens as I do. You cannot imagine the agony I endured. By blood burned, my flesh charred, my very bones were swept with agony. Every breath took me to a new plane of agony. Even today the pain sometimes returns. But my faith in the Emperor was strong, and I endured the pain, and eventually escaped. Ever since then I have strived to ensure mankind's destined domination of the galaxy. But for that to happen, every xeno must die. Now, let us begin," he said as he activated the excruciator.
Drugs pumped into Tuvok, stimulating his pain centers. He used the meditation techniques he had learned and blocked it out.
"You were serious. Not many can bear this level of pain without screaming. Let us see if your mind can match your will," he said as he removed his hood. His face was one of a man who had seen things dark beyond imagining. His eyes were a steel gray. He peered into Tuvok's mind and found strong mental defenses. "Your mind is strong, but mine is stronger." The interrogation had now become a battle of wills. Tuvok had trained for decades to resist intrusions into his mind, but the Inquisitor had been alive for two over two centuries, most of that had been as an agent of the Inquisition. During his time with the Dark Eldar he had leaned to focus his mind on a single task, and now that task was breaking the alien scum that was before him. He pushed and pushed until he forced his way into Tuvok's mind.
Tuvok closed his eyes and retreated deep into the fortress of his mind. The Inquisitor followed. He found himself in a long corridor. Doors lined the sides. He began walking. He knew most of the doors were mental traps, but he had encountered minds much worse than this one. His psychic senses led him to the true end. Two massively thick doors greeted him. Behind one he could feel seething emotions, raw and powerful. He realized that the Xeno must repress his darker emotions. The other door exuded a calm, centered feeling. He knew that door concealed the information he sought. Suddenly, a ghostly image of Tuvok appeared in front of him.
"You will not get through my defenses," he said. "I suggest you leave my mind at once."
"I think you are mistaken. I have entered minds far more powerful and much darker than yours. Now open this door or I will do it myself." Tuvok said nothing.
"Very well," Malaki said. He began chanting the catechism of hate and pounded on the door. He landed blow after blow. He poured his hatred into every blow. All the anger and despair he had felt during his confinement he poured into his fists. Finally, a dent began to appear. He kept up the assault. Tuvok was astonished. Never had he encountered someone with such strength of mind. With one final massive blow, Malaki tore the door open. Within he found a room made of filing cabinets. These were Tuvok's memories. He began sifting through them. He learned everything about Tuvok. His childhood, his academy days, his service on Voyager. Finally he found what he had been searching for. Tuvok's memories of the time he'd spent at Tactical. Picking up a folder, he read about Voyager's tactical systems. When he had finished, he left the room and walked up to the second door. The one that held back Tuvok's darker side. He began pounding it open.
"Please, do not open that door," Tuvok said as his specter appeared again.
"Why not? You cannot truly be pure if you have repressed darkness like I am sensing here." The door parted much easier than the other one. Inside Malaki found another Tuvok, but this one had the look of a Khornate cultist about him.
"Why do you intrude here?"
"I was curious of what Tuvok feared about himself."
"You should never have come here. Behold what you should not know." Malaki found himself seeing the darkest aspects of Tuvok's nature. Se saw senseless murder, pointless anger, and bottomless hate. He didn't even blink.
"I am not impressed," he replied, getting a curious glance from both Tuvoks. "Allow me to show you my own mind," he said.
Tuvok found himself drawn into the Inquisitors mind, a place of steel faith and loyalty. Then it turned dark. Makali showed him the foes he had faced, the things he had seen. Tuvok saw the nightmarish faces of Daemons, the gaping maws of Tyranids, the brutisheyes of Orks, and the light and dark Eldar. He lived the torment the Inquisitor had gone through at the hands of the Homunculus. And he didn't merely see, he felt also. He felt the auras of the daemons, the agony of arcane surgery, the relentless hunger of the hive mind, and the brutish minds of the Orks. He saw entire planets put to the torch on a word. Billions dying in seconds. He felt the psychic echoes of their deaths just as the Inquisitor had. When the final echo had faded, Tuvok found himself back in the cell he had been taken from. Janeway and Chakotay were standing over him.
"He's coming around," Chakotay said.
"Are you all right?" Janeway asked. "You were muttering in your sleep. You seemed to be having a nightmare."
"Not a nightmare Captain. The Inquisitor interrogated me."
"I bet he was mad when he couldn't get anything out of you," Paris remarked. Tuvok looked away.
"He broke into my mind. I have never seen someone with such mental strength. He broke through all my defenses. When he had the information he needed, he took me into his own mind. What I saw there Captain, no one should have to see. That man has cosigned entire planets to destruction. He has the blood of tens of billions on his hands." No one spoke. Finally Janeway broke the silence.
"Can you show me?" She asked.
"Yes, but you should not even consider it Captain. If you were to see what I saw, your mind might be permanently damaged."
"I understand, but I have to know what the worlds outside this place are like. Please, old friend."
"Very well Captain," Tuvok said a moment later. He and Janeway began a mind meld. Tuvok placed his hands of Janeways' temples. "Your mind to my mind, your thoughts to my thoughts." They slipped into a deep trance. There Janeway saw what the Inquisitor had shown Tuvok. When Tuvok broke the meld, Janeway was breathing hard and her brow was sweat stained.
"My god," she said. Just as she was leaning down to rest, the door opened again. Inquisitor Malaki had returned. He pointed to Seven.
"Come with me."
What do you think? In the next chapter Malaki will interrogate Seven of Nine. Also, Tuvok's escape plan will be revealed. Tune in when the next chapter comes up.
ENTILZA