rest? While he walked, Michael carefully checked himself out. He had been searched roughly; his shipsuit had been left a tattered wreck, pockets torn off and badges gone. His boots had gone, too, but a furtive check confirmed that his escape kits were still in place, thank God. Something told him he was going to need them.
Once he was out of the cage, Shithead waved him on; they came to an airtight door. “Go through, turn left. Keep going and don’t stop until I tell you,” Shithead called from somewhere close behind his right shoulder.
Michael turned to him. “But who-”
He had barely opened his mouth when Shithead whipped a short club from behind his back. Stepping to one side, he smashed the club backhanded into Michael’s stomach. It was so quick, so unexpected, Michael could do nothing to avoid the blow. The club drove the wind out of him, doubling him over with an
Shithead stood back, watching in silence. Michael slowly recovered, his mouth working desperately as he fought to refill lungs screaming for air. It took a while, but eventually he was able to stand upright with great difficulty, the pain in his lungs, stomach, and ribs coming and going in great searing waves.
Shithead put the tip of the bat into Michael’s face. “You don’t talk unless I ask you a question. Got it?”
Michael stood there, not saying a word. Shithead could go screw himself.
“Well? You understand?” Shithead swung the bat back, but this time Michael was ready for him. He ignored the pain from his ribs and stomach as the simple routines drilled into him by Corporal Yazdi kicked in. Michael’s arm went up. Half turning under the oncoming blow, he deflected the club away from him. Shithead lost his balance as he followed through. As he twisted, Michael stepped behind him and with delicate precision kicked the man hard in the crotch, the arch of his foot hitting home with a deeply satisfying crunching thump. Dropping the club, Shithead collapsed to the deck, screaming in pain. Michael grabbed the club off the deck. He was going to beat the son of a bitch to a pulp.
He never got the chance. A stun shot on full power hit him square in the back, dropping his body to the deck alongside the moaning Shithead. He writhed in a futile attempt to escape from the exquisite agony of tortured nerve endings, the club slipping from his fingers to clatter away across the plasteel deck panels.
Michael lay in a twisted heap, lungs heaving as he struggled to breathe, the aftereffects of the stun-gun shot driving bolts of molten pain up and down every nerve in his body. A second shipsuited figure appeared over him, this one a fat, dumpy man with pitiless eyes. He looked down at Michael through the slits in his hood. “I don’t suggest you try that again, sonny. If you do, I’ll ask the boss if I can space you. And you know what? I’m sure he’ll agree. Understand?”
Michael’s mouth tried to shape the words, but nothing in his body seemed to be working properly. His brain was, though; he was going to call this one Porky.
Porky leaned down. “I think you understand,” he whispered. He stood upright, stepped back, and kicked Michael casually in the kidneys for emphasis. He waved over the men who had followed him into the cargo bay.
Porky pointed at Michael. “Right. Two on this one. Interrogation room for him,” he ordered. “And two on this sad fucking apology for a spacer,” he sneered, pushing the toe of his boot into Shithead, who by then was lying flat on his back, legs drawn up against his chest, whimpering softly. “Take him to the sick bay. I think he’s going to need to have his nuts iced.” He prodded Shithead in the ribs with the muzzle of his stun gun. “Oh, yes. Iced nuts for you.” He laughed.
In a flash, the joke took root and started to flower. “Iced nuts,” Porky bellowed; the laughter turned to hysteria as the men around him joined in. “My favorite! Iced nuts,” he roared, slapping his thighs, tears beginning to run down his face.
His captors staggered about, to a man overcome by demented laughter. Michael lay there, wondering what the hell was going on. These were seriously dangerous people, he decided. So who were they? Idiot, he told himself after a moment’s thought. Run the damn voice analyzer and see what it says. Even as he put his neuronics to work, a new voice cut across the raucous laughter echoing around the cargo bay.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Nerve ends jangling with pain, Michael twisted his head around to have a look at the latest arrival. He might have known it: yet another hooded, shipsuited figure, but this one was different. He radiated a dangerous calm, an almost hypnotic authority, and in an instant his captors fell silent. He would call this one Snake, Michael decided.
“That’s better.” Snake walked over to Michael. “Name, rank, and serial number,” he demanded.
“Helfort, Michael Wallace,” Michael mumbled. “Junior Lieutenant, Federated Worlds Space Fleet, serial number FC0216885, and that’s all you’re getting from me, you murder-”
Snake’s boot flashed out, catching him under the ribs, the kick strong enough to lift him bodily off the deck. It was as much as Michael could do to roll away, a scream whistling out through clenched teeth as pain swamped him.
“Ah, yes, I see the problem now.” Snake looked thoughtfully down at Michael. He bent over to pick up Shithead’s club. “I think we’ve got a smart-ass on our hands.” He squatted down next to Michael, prodding him with the club for emphasis. “Your daddy should have warned you to be more careful with that mouth of yours, young man. It’ll get you into trouble one day. Now, here’s the deal.” Another poke, a hard one this time, into ribs already begging for mercy. “You behave, you answer my questions, and you stop the backchat. Do all that, and I won’t space you. That’s the deal, and it’s the only deal on offer, so I suggest you take it. Understand?”
Snake’s arm started to take the club back, so Michael nodded, flinching away. The man was right. His mouth would get him into trouble, and this was getting him nowhere. He also had a feeling that dropping Shithead to the deck, deeply satisfying though it had been at the time, might be something he would live to regret.
“Understood,” he conceded reluctantly.
Snake hit him anyway. Michael saw the blow coming but was too slow to move out of the way. The club slashed down onto his left cheek, opening a gash, his mouth filling with the coppery taste of blood. Michael stifled a scream; even dulled by the painkillers in his system, the pain was almost too much to bear.
Snake stood up. “Good. Now I think you see where I’m coming from. You two!” He waved two men over. “Take this one to interrogation. Now!”
Hands went under his armpits to drag him away. Michael’s neuronics pinged softly. The voice analyzer had a preliminary result. Michael’s heart turned to ice as he read the report.
The men were Hammers.
Michael was hustled through a bewildering succession of corridors.
His escorts probably enjoyed the trip much more than Michael did, bouncing him off anything that caught their eyes along the way; Michael hissed with pain as new insults overlaid old injuries. By the time they got to the interrogation room-a small, brilliantly lit compartment-Michael was beginning to wonder how much more abuse he could take. His body was now one huge mass of pain, and the long gash on his back had opened up; he could feel it leaking blood again.
The two Hammers dragged him through the door and slammed him into a simple metal chair bolted to the deck. Michael screamed as the pain from his damaged ribs overwhelmed him. In seconds, they had his arms and legs plasticuffed to the chair. Immobilized, Michael sat there trying to recover, comming his neuronics to dump more painkillers into his tortured system. Trying to move was pointless, so he did not bother.
The painkillers cut in, a cool, soft wave washing through his body. Soon he was able to straighten up a bit and look around. The brilliantly lit compartment was bare except for a steel table behind which was an empty seat. No doubt it was intended for yet another hooded, shipsuited anonymity, Michael thought.
He did not have to wait long. Someone new appeared, this one a tall man, his shipsuit hanging down loose over a thin and stringy frame. Staying well clear of Michael, he made his way around the table. He stood there for a moment and looked down, his eyes beady, glittering in the harsh light. Michael decided to call this one Stork.
“So,” Stork murmured softly as he sat down, rearranging the old-fashioned paper pad in front of him. Has to be the Hammer, Michael thought. Who else could it be? The rest of humanspace had stopped using paper centuries earlier. Stork looked him straight in the eye as he pulled out a pen. A bloody pen! Michael almost laughed. He was in some bizarre time warp.
“Right,” Stork said finally. “Let’s get started. Name, rank, and serial number.”
“Helfort, Michael Wallace. Junior Lieutenant, Federated Worlds Space Fleet, serial number FC0216885.”
Stork looked up at him in surprise. “Say that again!” he barked.
