“We will keep hurting you until you give up the answers,” the woman said. Her voice was softer now, almost seductive. “You will not be able to resist us indefinitely. Why not give up the answers now and save yourself the pain.”
Another slap. I wondered, vaguely, if they were going to knock out a few teeth. I wanted to come out with a smart answer, but that would just be another chink in my armour, another opening they could use to beat me. I thought I heard Muna snarling in the distance, unable to help me or even help herself, as slap after slap rained down on my face. I wasn’t going to be such a pretty face afterwards, part of my mind whispered, and I almost smiled. It was too painful to smile. The effect of the slaps were burning through the effect of the stunner. A final slap sent my chair flying over backwards and I knocked my head against the hard stone floor.
“Get him back up,” the woman ordered. I felt my head spinning as the two men lifted the chair up and placed me back facing the woman. In one of the cheap entertainment vids the UN produced, the fall would have broken my cuffs or perhaps the chair, but I tested them and the links were as strong as ever. She seemed to come closer to me, whispering into my ear. “This won’t help you in the long run, my dear.”
I gathered my energy and spat right into her face. She didn’t squeal, or order my immediate death; she showed no reaction at all. Her two goons looked ready to pound on me until my head was crushed into powder, but she held up a hand, preventing them from acting.
“We could hurt your friend,” she said, wiping the spittle off her cheek with a paper towel. “Beta?”
Beta — a thuggish man — stepped forward and slapped Muna’s face. I saw a trickle of red blood spilling down from her lips, contrasting oddly against her dark skin, and winced inwardly. I met her eyes and saw her shake her head, just slightly, at me. She didn’t want me to tell them anything. I didn’t want to tell them anything either.
“Don’t,” a voice said. It was the first man speaking. “Hurting him is fine; do it, but don’t harm the girl.”
The woman rounded on him. “This is no time for half measures,” she snapped. I wondered, suddenly, if the farmers and the Freedom League had their disagreements. I hoped that that was true. It would give me — or my successor — a weapon to use to pry them apart. The farmers would regard Muna as a breeder — now there was a joke and a half — and would be sensitive to any harm inflicted on her, or any other woman. “This is our one opportunity to get the intelligence we need before the ship returns and I will not waste it.”
The farmer didn’t back down. “Use the drugs on him, if you must,” he said, “but don’t harm her.”
I wondered if the woman would lash out at him — she seemed mad enough to want to hurt him badly — but instead she just turned back to her goons. “Get the drugs,” she ordered, before she looked down at me. “With these drugs, you’ll give up everything you know.”
She was wrong, I realised, and seriously considered telling her so. The UNPF drug immunisation program wasn’t worth a quarter of the money the UN had spent on it, but the Legionaries — including Muna and myself — had been injected with Heinlein-grade immunisation drugs. The irony was almost laughable; unless the Freedom League had come up with something completely new, there was a good chance that they were about to kill me, or at least make me very sick. A dead captive couldn’t tell them anything.
“Here, Alpha,” one of the goons said. His voice wasn’t a Heinlein accent; unless I was much mistaken, it was a Russian accent from Rodina, the Russian-ethnic world. It suited Fleet’s impression of the Freedom League being a group that wasn’t backed by any particular planet — which made sense, as if Fleet managed to pin down a single supporter, the response would not be kind — but it was odd meeting any of them on Svergie. They tended to stand out in a crowd. “I’ll inject him now.”
I felt him push the needle into my arm and winced as he injected me with the drug. The reaction was not long in coming. I felt a wave of dizziness, followed by a burst of violent spasms against the restraints and finally throwing up all over the floor. My head was ringing as I retched again and again, trying to get some of my vomit on the bitch. I knew that it would probably get me killed, but I no longer cared. I just wanted the pain to end.
“Shit,” the woman hissed. I could barely hear her as my body convulsed one final time. I wondered if I was going to die, before realising that the worst was probably over. The immunisations I’d had when I had formed the Legion had rejected the drug, but unless I had plenty of water to drink — and soon — I was going to feel worse. My kidneys would have problems cleaning my blood after that. “No, don’t try to inject the girl; she’s probably got the same counter-drugs in her body.”
She came to a decision and stood up. “Beta, get the spy and get her to give him — give them both — as much water as they can drink,” she ordered, coldly. I felt a wave of relief that I tried hard to keep off my face. At the moment, water sounded like a very good idea, worth an answer or two. She probably knew it. “If nothing else, the results of today’s experiments will weaken their resistance for the future.”
I couldn’t resist. “Keep dreaming, bitch,” I said. I coughed and spat up more vomit. My throat felt as if I’d been on a nine-day bender before returning to barracks, as I had more than once as a young soldier. “I won’t tell you anything.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “Come on.”
With that, she swept out of the room, leaving us both alone.
Chapter Thirty-Four
It is vitally important that all captive soldiers be rescued as soon as possible. That is not just for morale reasons, but also to prevent them from spilling everything they know to the enemy. Although soldiers can be trained in resisting interrogation, the truth is that everyone breaks in the end. No prisoner can keep a secret forever.
The sound of the door opening again brought us both back out of our private thoughts. I would have liked to talk to her, but I would have been astonished if the walls didn’t have ears. They might have left us alone in the hopes that one or both of us would say something they could use against us, but I had a nasty feeling that it was going to be the end of me. I felt dehydrated and utterly sick, barely able to move; they didn’t even need the restraints. I was going to die here, leaving Muna in their hands and Ed in command of the Legion. At least it wasn’t as if someone incompetent was going to take command.
“I brought you some water,” Suki said, as she entered. She wore a farmer’s outfit now, the conservative garb of those who lived outside the cities, but her face was downcast and pale. She flinched away from what she saw in my eyes, but managed to hold the water bottle to my lips anyway, allowing me to drink. I wanted to reject the water, to accept certain death, but my body overruled me. I drank deeply before finally allowing her to remove the bottle and give Muna a drink. “I’m sorry about everything.”
Refreshed, I felt the dull ache of my face and the pain at the back of my head. “You’re sorry,” Muna repeated. She, at least, could talk properly. “We took you in and made you one of us. You repaid us by treason. What are you sorry for?”
I tuned out the two women, trying to remember what I knew about the counter-interrogation drugs. The water would make it easier for my liver and kidneys to flush out the remaining drug, but I wouldn’t be in for a very good time over the following three days. The galloping shits would be the least of my problems. If they tried to inject me again, my body might not endure the injection so easier this time… and the reaction might well kill me. Without the drugs, what else could they do? The answer came quickly. They could hook me up to a lie detector and an electric shock machine, shocking me every time they caught me in a lie.