Page 70 of Clan and Command

Piras’s voice, distorted and higher pitched than his normal tone, emitted loud enough for the stunned bystanders to hear.“But the Basma won’t believe I’m truly with him if I leave. He wants me here.”Then Kila’s too-recognizable growl:“Maf’s got Laro, doesn’t he? You handed it over, exactly as you said you would.”

Diwal ordered it off as cries broke out from the onlookers. Over the senior officer’s shoulder, Piras saw momentary sympathy on Tranis’s face before his expression also hardened into the expected outrage. A little distance farther back, Hobato’s face stayed cold and unreachable…as it should be.

“Where is your sanctimonious indignation now, Admiral? Your sharp tongue? Nothing to say?” Diwal snarled.

“Plenty to say,” Piras smirked, feeling every inch the defiant renegade. “Starting with, fuck you and your hoaxed recording. I told you I was the wrong man to fuck with. You’ll learn that soon enough.”

“I think it’s you who will be the one receiving the lessons.” Diwal jerked his head at his men. “Get this piece of treasonous garbage into interrogation.”

This time Piras’s temper impressed no one, not with him bound in hovercuffs. He swore revenge on every one of them as the guards shoved him roughly towards the conveyance that would take him back to the security wing. He managed to keep his balance just to piss them off more. He sneered and insulted their attempts to knock him down. They finally cuffed his ankles too and floated him to their destination.

He was frightened at what was to come. Such was the nature of spy work, however, and the one way out now was straight through. Such knowledge kept the fear from being little more than an irritant. Steady and determined, Piras vowed he would play his part to the hilt until he was broken or had escaped.

In the security wing, Diwal’s squad shoved Piras into an interrogation room. He felt stirrings of relief to see nothing in the brightly-lit room but a metal table and a chair. There was a rank undertone to the air, vestiges of old sweat perhaps, but nothing to alarm the casual observer. It was what was known as a ‘soft’ interrogation room. Only verbal abuse would be dealt out as long as Piras proved reluctant to answer questions. The physical stuff, if it was to happen, would occur elsewhere.

He was set to float a few inches off the ground in front of the desk. One of the guards said, “Transfer hovercuff controls to Ranking Squad Commander Diwal.”

“Thank you, Burif. Wrist cuffs, raise straight over prisoner’s head. Lower prisoner two inches. Ankle cuffs, disengage.”

The cuffs obeyed, the ones on his ankles springing open to be reclaimed by their owner. Piras was left dangling from the wrist cuffs. They stretched him so that he was forced to either balance painfully on his tiptoes or cope with the dreadful strain of his body weight pulling against his arms and shoulders.

His heart picked up speed. As far as Piras knew, soft interrogations rarely started with any physical discomfort. But with all the dead on Laro and Diwal knowing for a fact Piras had a part in that, he could be in real trouble right away.

Diwal paced around him like a restless, caged animal. “Laro Station. Why?”

Piras snorted, as if he had nothing to fear. “I have nothing to say to you. I demand an objective representative of the Justice Tribunal—”

Diwal went nose to nose with him. His scream was downright rabid. “You demand nothing! You will be lucky to walk out of this room in one piece, Piras.”

The rest of the security contingent snarled, but not at Diwal. When the senior officer backed off, Piras saw that their fury was for him alone. If their superior decided to beat the fuck out of the admiral, they would go along with it. Hell, they’d probably join in.

He refused to quail before the awful truth. Had he been in their position, convinced that he faced a true traitor, he’d have supported them. Nevertheless, he still hoped to keep his hide more or less intact. And maybe he could also keep these worthy men from losing their jobs and being court martialed for not following the rules.

He pointed out, “You know the law. Physical methods are only to be used after all other methods have been exhausted.”

Diwal laughed. “Oh? And who is going to worry if a traitor has been tortured? If he’s been denied his due process? No one said anything about what we did to Banrid, I assure you that. We had a great deal of fun with him, and he didn’t do half the damage you have.”

Piras refused to believe Banrid had been tortured. Gossip had gone around that he’d given a confession almost immediately, claiming he’d been blackmailed into compliance by the Basma like so many others. Diwal was trying to scare Piras with false claims. That assurance kept Piras silent.

Diwal grinned, as if he’d seen a moment of weakness from his prisoner. His pacing grew faster, his movements jerkier. “Even if someone kicks up a fuss about extreme interrogation techniques, who’s going to believe anything a lying killer like you says? If there is no evidence of torture, who will hear a word you say, you fucking murderer?”

His fangs were down. It might have been a scare tactic, but Piras knew the signs of a Nobek winding up for deadly work. Hadn’t he spent sixteen years with one of the most dangerous of the breed? Watched Lidon destroy with brutality when lethal force was called for? Diwal had that same aspect of bloodthirstiness. He wasn’t bluffing.

Piras had badly misjudged the security head. Or perhaps he hadn’t – this Diwal was a far cry from the one he’d met that morning. This version of the man had all the signs of someone who was closing in on losing control, of a warrior going mad from fury…or grief.

Horror dawning, Piras said, “You lost someone on Laro Station.”

Diwal’s vicious grin made it appear as if he would take a bite out of Piras at any second. “Look around you, shithead. Look into each and every face in this room. Each man here, personally picked by me to take you into custody, had a family member or clanmate on that station.”

Piras obeyed, but not to placate Diwal. He knew there was nothing he could have done to appease his captor at that point. He looked into the faces of the other Nobeks surrounding him because he owed them that much. He had sentenced their loved ones to death, and his obligation to recognizing their losses could not be ignored.

Diwal’s tendons stood out from his muscled arms and corded neck as Piras studied each livid face with mute hopelessness. “That’s right. You owe each one of us a debt of blood. The debt of your life. Oh, we won’t kill you, but you’ll wish we had. And before we’re done, you’ll tell us every fucking name of every fucking co-conspirator in the hopes that we will kill you and end your suffering.”

The security team’s burning stares condemned Piras as surely as he had condemned the men of Laro. Despite Diwal’s claim, he was as good as dead. Maybe they didn’t know it yet, but he did.

Perhaps a couple of them thought they would only hurt him. They most likely thought they would stop in time to keep him alive to face a traitor’s painful execution. Piras knew they wouldn’t, however. Not with the fury and pain they bore. They wouldn’t be able to halt the torture once it had begun.

Diwal ripped Piras’s one-piece uniform open from throat to groin, yanking it down to the swell of his hips. He sneered at the Dramok’s naked torso. “Not a mark on you, is there? Nothing to mar that long, perfect body. But that will soon be remedied. We’ll mark you and then have the medic whose father you killed on Laro heal you. And then we’ll mark you some more. Over and over and over and over.”

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