CHAPTER 11
Author's Note: At this point, this story already garnered 100,000+ hits. Thank you thank you thank you for reading and keeping up with this story. I know updates are not always regular (my work and a certain chick anime gets in the way sometimes:) ) but I'll try not to disappoint. I hope you enjoy what you read as much I enjoy writing it.
The Cabin,
Burgton, Solaris VII,
Freedom Theater, Lyran Alliance
January 27, 3075
Scarlet didn't know how long she was out. Her head was still spinning when her senses started to pick up signals from her surroundings. Her ears captured faint sound, like somebody breathing on her face. Her eyes were still half closed, yet she could make something, in humanoid form, standing not far from her. Her nose picked up a stuffy smell she wasn't familiar of. She blinked her eyes a few times to get her full vision back, and when she did, she regretted it.
The humanoid form turned out to be a woman, one she had seen and was warned about by Major Fernandes. Her dark long hair reached her waist. Her dark blue eyes and sadistic smile exuded spite. She wore metal gauntlets in her hands, with sharp appendages clinking against each other, making an eerie reverberation inside the musky room. Scarlet's brain quickly pieced things together, scrambling all information she read on Fernandes' transputer. She remembered her as Commander Circe, the leader of the mercenary unit Redfield Renegades. A dangerous enemy of the Federated Suns.
"Have you awakened?" Circe croaked.
Adrenaline rushed through Scarlet's veins, making her fully awake. She accessed her situation, and her heart sunk when she found out she was in a tight spot. She was sitting stark naked on some kind of a structure in the middle of the room. Her hands were chained above her head. Her legs were stretched forward, and her ankles were shackled together. Her bare feet dangled loosely at the edge of the structure, her soles at the mercy of her captor.
Scarlet remembered reading Circe profile, about her penchant of torture and her interrogation method that left the victim screaming in agony. She could only assume that she was going to suffer a terrible beating. She had never been afraid of torture. She went through several RTI trainings when she was in the academy. But she had never faced someone with a reputation like Circe.
"What is…?!" Scarlet wriggled and pulled her arms against the chain to no avail.
"Welcome to 'The Cabin'," Circe chuckled lightly.
"The Cabin?" Scarlet writhed harder. She knew of the place, a safe haven for Capellan mercenaries in the outskirt of Solaris City. "Where is Mirabel? And the ISF agents?"
"What you call ISF agent is an ally to Redfield Renegades," Circe moved around. "After our plan comes to fruitition he will get his reward. You have fallen into his trap and we captured you."
"That is impossible! The ISF agent will not betray his own people!"
"There is no point denying the truth," Circe grabbed and squeezed Scarlet's jaw. "We are deep in Capellan boondocks. Nobody will come to your aid. We are going to be here for quite a while so just relax and try to enjoy yourself. Not that you have much choice in the matter anyway."
"Where is Mirabel? The one that was with me?"
"I didn't kill her, if that's what you're asking. I'm going to brainwash her to make her a member of Redfield Renegades." Circe opened her holoprojector, and the hologram of Mirabel with a smorgasbord of catheters coming in and out of her naked body appeared in the center of the room. She was awake; her eyes fluttered and twitched, and her arms and legs contracted as if resisting the process, but the shackles kept her in place.
"STOP!" Scarlet screamed. "Stop it! Let Mirabel go!"
"Stop whining," Circe grabbed Scarlet's jaw again. "There is something I want to ask you." She looked deep into Scarlet's eyes; her stare was both malevolent and mischievous. "Where is Major Fernandes?"
Somehow Scarlet knew Fernandes was who Circe was actually after. The 1st Federated Suns Armored Cavalry had crossed path with the Redfield Renegades several times in the past, and last year the Ryuken-go sent a lance of battlemech to assist the Cavalry on Mesartim. The mercenary didn't have answer to Fernandes' wild and unpredictable maneuvers, so she had to use Scarlet to get to Fernandes.
"I know you two have been screwing each other's brains out," Circe walked toward her bare feet. "Two lovebirds from opposite states. A Romeo-and-Juliet in the 31st Century." She grazed Scarlet's soles with her sharp fingers. Scarlet jerked her legs, but the chain kept her feet in place. "Does this remind you of his touch, Scarlet?" she teased her victim, her fingers flitting from the heels to the balls of the feet.
"W-Why do you need Fernandes?" Scarlet swallowed. Sweat beaded on her head, and not from the heat. She knew she had senstivie skin, but Circe's ministration was something else. She could feel it up to her spine, and it made her nervous.
Circe circled her and jabbed Scarlet's feet with her sharp fingers. "Tell me where he is!"
It was a nightmare came true as far as Scarlet concerned. Her head exploded with overloading sensation. Those RTI trainings went to the drain, and as much as she tried to keep her composure, she failed miserably. She screamed and twisted about.
"You have been injected with *something* to alter your sensation, courtesy of Capellan Maskirovka," Circe kept the pressure on Scarlet's feet. "Your pain receptors have been adjusted to maximum sensitivity." She retracted her fingers, giving Scarlet a moment to breathe, then pinched her pinky toes. Scarlet's head snapped back as she twitched violently, but she was going nowhere.
"Tell me!" Circe released her captive.
"I don't… know..." Scarlet breathed hard. Globules of sweat dripped from her chin.
Circe moved around before taking position at Scarlet's feet. Her eyes bled malice when she slapped the balls of Scarlet's feet. The sting fried Scarlet's brain. She howled, moving her head side to side, pulling on her chain to ease the pain. She hated to give in to Circe's demented pleasure, but she was not in control of her body anymore. She wished she could crawl out of her skin.
The gratification of the hapless suffering made Circe snicker. Scarlet was sweating bullets. Her lung burnt from all the screaming and panting. Her cheeks cramped with all the grimacing. Her tears streamed down her cheeks like rivers. And her toes spasmed from curling so hard.
"There is a Brian Cache in Outworlds Alliance," Circe moved to Scarlet's toes, teasing the delicate webbing in between, "one that holds Star League's jewels so precious it would alter the power balance of the Inner Sphere toward whoever finds it. Federated Suns are sending their mercenaries to find the location of the Brian Cache. Redfield Renegades are going to kill all the mercenary commanders in this operation. However, we finally found out the names of the 3 Davion commanders in charge of this operation. Two of them are already dead. But the last one…"
Scarlet summoned all remaining strength to keep from driven insane. "You mean…"
"If we capture Major Fernandes, we can find where the Brian Cache is located." Circe put her hands in her mouth. "Oops, maybe I spoke too much. Now you'll never tell me where Fernandes is."
"I don't know! I really don't know where he is!" Scarlet yelled, half pleading.
"Let's play a little game," Circe let out a sinister chuckle. "If you tell me where Major Fernandes is, I will free Mirabel. If you don't…" she stabbed Scarlet's big toe with her sharp appendage, "… both you and Mirabel will die."
Scarlet was losing her mind. At this point she would give everything to stop Circe from tormenting her. Except that she didn't have the thing that Circe wanted. She really didn't know where Major Fernandes was.
"I really… don't… know," she whimpered. "Please… save Mirabel's life."
"I see. Will you let me have some more fun?" Circe clicked her tongue, interlacing her gauntleted fingers, making a sick, eerie screeching metal screech. It was a call for something sinister, something not covered in any RTI sessions Scarlet enrolled as a student, or any RTI training known to man. Slimy tentacles descended from the ceiling. Scarlet could do little more than watch the tentacles glided around her naked body to zero in on her feet, certain the foul creature couldn't do worse than its master. The moment the cold wetness of the tentacles stroked across her soles, she feared the worst was yet to come.
"Where is Major Fernandes?" Circe hissed.
"Mirabel… let Mirabel go…" Scarlet shuddered and gasped laboriously.
"At the end of the day, you would wish you had told me," Circe grabbed Scarlet's hair, forcing the helpless woman to look into her eyes. "Let's double your sensitivity yet again."
Scarlet bit her lips as the frilly end of the tentacles started prodding the over-sensitized nerves of her feet.
Kobe,
Solaris City, Solaris VII,
Freedom Theater, Lyran Alliance,
January 28, 3075
Solaris was one of those worlds in Inner Sphere that was seemingly undisturbed by milleniums of war. The streets of Solaris City was red with blood not three years ago, when Solaris Defense Force teamed up with mechjocks to oust the Word of Blake from Solaris. A victory well earned. Yet none of those transpired in the city's front façade. It was as if nothing really happened in the past hundred years.
The neon lights on the streets of Kobe brought Drake dozens of parsecs away to his home. He could smell the overriped fruits and grilled meat from street vendors. He could hear the raucus music from street performers, both professional and mere flash mobs. He could see colors from stores and cars flashed before his eyes in overloading yet satisfying fashion. The tastes of home had never been better.
But everything was but a mirage, lost in a country ravaged by war.
As Drake reveled in the memory of home, three shadows approached him. They wore civilian clothes, but their hairstyle and their stances gave away their military background. They boxed Drake and bowed their heads, to which Drake reciprocated.
"Status report?" Drake muttered under his breath.
"We're in Stage 4," one of them replied. "We have chartered a Leopard dropship, ready to dust off at our whim. There's a little problem, though. The captain and the crews start to get antsy. They have to turn down some other jobs to wait for us. Their odometer keeps ticking, and we might not have the fund to cover that."
"Stall them a little bit more," Drake said firmly. "We need this transport. We can't botch this mission."
"When are we leaving, Sir?" another one asked.
"I don't know," Drake sighed. "The Ryuken-go is starting to trust me. If I rush, they'll suspect my ulterior motive and run away. I have to play it right. I want them to trust me. Then, and only then, I have access to their inventory. That being said…" he paused, gazing at the busy streets of Kobe, "… I have to fight in an arena for them tomorrow. I have to depose this Capellan mechwarrior… Amber Wang Chung… so the Ryuken-go will get some free battlemechs. This Amber Wang Chung of a mechjock is supposed to be a nightmare in the arena. If I do not make it tomorrow…" he turned around, "… you have to go on without me."
"That would be a little bit of a predicament, Sir," another one spoke up. "None of us is experienced to deal with this kind of situation."
"You're soldiers! Start acting as one!" Drake hissed. "You still have 10 hours to devise a contingency plan in case I die in the arena tomorrow. This place is crawling with battlemechs. There are ways to get them. Perhaps you should register yourselves as mechjocks."
"We all know we're not that good, Sir," one of them said.
"Well, then, start thinking," Drake humphed. "Like I said, you have 10 hours. And keep the Leopard waiting. We'll leave on short notice. Dismiss."
"Yes Sir," the trio gave Drake a short bow, then retreated to the dark place where they came from.
International Zone,
Solaris City, Solaris VII
Freedom Theater, Lyran Alliance
January 28, 3075
Vash knew he was pursuing the next step of his relationship with Risa, but when he saw the new member of the Ryuken-go, his blood bubbled with excitement. Strawberry hair that she curled into multiple loops under her nursing cap, small frame, big expressive eyes, warm youthful smile, and cheerful personality, all pointed to hours of explosive bedroom games and adventures. Vash had shared beds with a lot of women. He could tell that this new nurse - ironically reporting to Risa, the girl he tried to establish a serious relationship with - would be a great conquest, one that separated lavish meal from fast foods.
It might catapult his relationship with Risa to fiasco, but Vash just couldn't pass up the opportunity.
"Hi," Vash picked her up outside the dropship, as the new nurse was hauling her luggagges. "Moving in?"
"Uhm, yeah," the nurse rewarded his greeting with a wide smile. "My name is Joy. I just join the Ryuken-go as a field nurse. I guess this is the dropship for the Ryuken-go?"
"Field nurse, huh?" Vash extended his hand. "We need a lot of those, especially my unit. Tai-I Vash, Commanding Officer, Infantry. Welcome to Ryuken-go."
Joy extended her hand for a handshake, but dropped a few bags in the process. She scrambled for her bags, drawing light chuckle from Vash. "Ooh, I'm sorry, I'm clumsy," she giggled as she picked up her stuffs from the ramp. "I have trouble keeping my stuffs close. I'm always losing things. My friends always make fun of me."
"I won't make fun of you," Vash bent down and helped the overwhelmed nurse. "Here, I'll help you. Are there any more of these?"
"Uhm, yeah, a few more briefcases," Joy smiled sheepishly. "But they are still in my place. I was hoping I could set this in my new place first, then get the rest of them. As you can see… heh heh… I have a lot of 'carry-on' stuffs."
"Unfortunately the ship is not ready for you," Vash seized the opportunity. "We have a full flight. We always do. It'll take the crews a while to get something for a new member. But just so you know, the Ryuken-go is a military unit, not an expedition force. You may have to leave a few of these behind."
"Oh?" Joy cringed. She awkwardly looked at her luggages with a slight hint of panic.
"But in the mean time you can store your stuffs in my quarter. Rank has its privilege."
"But I have a lot of stuffs…"
"Just temporary until we can find a more permanent solution for you," Vash grabbed a few of Joy's bags.
"Thank you, you are very kind," Joy giggled again. Her cheeks turned pink. "Are you sure my stuffs would not mess up your quarter?"
"Nah, I don't mind," Vash grinned. "Let's get these to my quarter, and we'll get the rest of your stuffs after dinner."
"After dinner?" Joy stood dumbfounded.
"Yes, after dinner. Are you not hungry?"
"Oohh, ha ha…" Joy let out a soft laugh. Her face became redder. "I am kinda hungry. When Chief Risa accepted me to the Ryuken-go, I was so excited I packed up immediately. I have been packing, as you can see, because I have a lot of stuffs. I barely have meals. You can probably hear my stomach growling."
"All I hear is your voice," Vash replied. "So dinner, then?"
"Well, you don't have to do this. I mean, you barely know me…"
"I know enough."
"Well then, thank you, from the bottom of my heart," Joy smiled. "I am feeling welcomed already. But don't make this into a habbit. There's a lot of bad people out there. You know what they say about Solaris City? They are all true."
"Don't worry, I kill for a living. I know when I see bad guys. And you, you are definitely not." Vash hauled the bags toward the dropship. "So… you have a favorite place to eat?"
"I don't know… Lot's of good eats around here. My favorite is probably Brit's Diner. The food is great, and the servers are really nice. I am friend with one of them, Hyolee. She always gives me tips on specials and discounts of the day."
"Well then, Brit's Diner it is," Vash smiled as he set his plan in motion. "I can tell, this is going to be a good day."
