down.”
“What the fuck was that all about!” Jessica asked as she stepped into the observation room.
“I don’t know!” Nathan admitted. He too was stunned by what had happened. “I thought that if he spoke Angla, we could trick him-”
“And who the hell is Na-Tan!” Jessica interrupted. She looked at Jalea, who was pacing back and forth across the opposite end of the room, rage still blazing in her eyes. “I mean, Warriors of God?” Jessica asked. “What the fuck?!” Getting nothing more than an angry glance from Jalea, Jessica turned back to Nathan. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what she was doing?”
“I think she was trying to get him to doubt his beliefs,” Nathan tried to explain.
“How? By quoting scripture?”
“It’s what she said earlier, that the guy was Ybaran, that they all learned Angla when they were young. Angla was always taught by some kind of priests of the order.”
“What order?”
“I don’t know, like some kind of religion or something. It’s all based on the belief that they all originally came from Earth, and that the Earth befell a great evil. They believe that someday warriors from Earth will come and free them from their own evil.”
“Oh great!” Jessica exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “So what, now we’re the horsemen of the apocalypse?”
Suddenly, the hatch from the corridor swung open and two crewmen stepped in, followed by Doctor Chen.
“He’s in there,” Jessica said, stepping aside and pointing into the interrogation room.
The three of them rushed past them, Doctor Chen glancing at Nathan as she passed.
“It is all my fault,” Jalea admitted, having finally calmed down enough to speak rationally.
“You’re damned right it is,” Jessica told her.
“I was only trying to-”
“I don’t give a shit what you were trying to do,” Jessica interrupted. She was about to lose her temper as well, and at the moment, if she did so, it would be at Jalea. “You know what; you’d better just go,” she added, pointing to the exit.
Jalea looked confused. She looked to Nathan for support, but received only his incredulous stare.
“Now!” Jessica shouted. “Before I smack you around the same way you did him!”
For a moment, Jalea looked ashamed. But it was only for a moment, as she regained her usual indignant composure and walked calmly out of the room.
“Jess, It’s my fault-”
“Of course it’s your fault,” she said, cutting him off. “But more importantly, it’s your fuckin’ responsibility, Nathan.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t play the religion card so casually, or you might just start a holy war! And those kind of things can spin rapidly out of control.”
Nathan stared at the floor for a moment, trying to process all that had happened in the last few minutes. Finally, he spoke. “You’re right, I don’t know. Hell, Jess, I don’t know anything,” he admitted.
“Then next time, leave the interrogations to someone who has actually been trained to interrogate.”
Nathan looked at her.
“Yeah, that’s right. Me.” Jessica shook her head as she tapped in her security code to open the weapons locker, and pulled her side arm out of the locker, placing it into the holster on her gun belt.
“You’re right,” he said again, as he stepped back out of the way. Two crewmen carried the unconscious prisoner on a stretcher, moving past Nathan on their way through the small observation room.
Doctor Chen followed them out, stopping momentarily in front of Nathan. “You know, it’s not like I don’t already have enough patients to care for, sir.”
Before Nathan could say anything, the young doctor departed. Jessica followed them out, also pausing in front of Nathan. “Jalea’s a loose cannon,” she said, her eyes still looking at the exit. She turned her head and added, “You know that.” Nathan’s head nodded ever so slightly in reluctant agreement as Jessica turned her head back toward the door, exited, and followed the doctor and her team down the corridor.
Nathan turned and looked back through the open door into the interrogation room. The table was still on its side, the chair knocked across the room. There was blood splattered on the floor, as well as at least two bloody boot prints, presumably made by Jessica as she walked out of the room.
Nathan let out a long sigh. At that moment, he didn’t think being captain was all it was cracked up to be.
The prisoner was still unconscious and was being carried on a stretcher by two crewmen. A bio-monitoring harness was attached to his torso and fingers and was sending a constant stream of telemetry to a handheld wireless receiver carried by Doctor Chen, who studied it intermittently.
“What happened to him?” Doctor Chen asked as they continued down the corridor.
“He became violent,” Jessica answered calmly. She knew it was a lie, but the less everyone knew about what really happened in the brig, the better off they would all be. Jalea had crossed a line. It wasn’t one that Jessica herself wouldn’t have crossed, if necessary. But it wasn’t Jalea’s place to do so, nor was it Nathan’s, as far as she was concerned. The man was barely able to pull off being captain. Interrogation was definitely something best left to those properly trained. Maybe next time, he’ll be more cooperative, she thought.
“I see,” Doctor Chen answered, noticing the mag-cuffs still on the prisoner’s wrists. “Wasn’t he restrained?”
“Apparently not as well as we thought.”
“I’m afraid I need more details if I’m going to know what kind of injuries to look for-”
“It’d be best if you left it alone, Doc,” Jessica warned, cutting her off.
“Can you at least tell me where and with what he was struck?”
Jessica rolled her eyes and sighed. “Several blows to the face, and at least one to the neck. In the process he fell backwards and pulled the metal table down on top of him, onto his chest, I think.” Jessica knew that she was telling her a bit too much, but she needed this guy to survive so that she could interrogate him properly. She knew the head game that Jalea and the captain had been trying to play on him. It had even appeared to be working to some extent. And if used correctly, she might be able to parlay it into some useful intel.
“Is that all?” the doctor prodded. “His nose is badly broken.”
“There may have been a boot to the face,” Jessica admitted sheepishly. She was starting to think she might have gone a little too far with that one, and she did feel just a bit guilty. “Is he going to survive?”
“His vitals are stable for now. I’m mostly worried about possible brain and chest trauma,” she explained as they entered the medical section.
“Jess!” Enrique called out from down the corridor. He and another crewman, both carrying side arms and automatic close-quarters weapons came trotting down the corridor. “What’s going on?”
“Had to rough-up a prisoner,” she joked, hiding the guilt that had hit her a moment earlier. “Go and keep an eye on him,” she instructed the crewman.
“Yes, sir,” the crewman answered as he followed the doctor into the treatment area.
“Did you kick his ass?” Enrique said, a grin coming across his face. He had been in a firefight with this guy and his cohorts a few hours ago. Seeing the sole surviving prisoner injured and suffering didn’t bother him one bit.
“It wasn’t me. Except for the boot to his nose in the end.” Enrique gave her a quizzical look. “Jalea snapped and started pounding on him.”
“Really?” Enrique was more than a bit surprised.
“Yeah. She was trying to mess with his head. I guess she got to him, cuz next thing I knew he was screaming something ugly at her and she flat-knuckled him to the throat and then took him down and started pounding away on his face.”
“Damn!”
“Scary part is, it didn’t even phase the guy. He just kept screaming at her. It was my boot that finally shut him up.”
