“I’ll kill you, you filthy Systie worm! I’ll kill you! You’re dead, you understand? I’ll cut off your worthless head! Talk, you subhuman pig!” Boudicca seized the fat, greasy Systie by the throat and slammed him up against the wall. Boudicca had her helmet off, but was otherwise totally armored. The Systie looked naked in comparison, clothed only in a litesuit. Boudicca was enraged, her face burning, her flaming red hair accenting it, her teeth like fangs. The Systie turned purple, strangling, his naked fingers clawing at Boudicca’s armored hand. The Legion Cross on her forehead seemed to throb.
“That’s enough, Boudicca!” Snow Leopard intervened, pulling her away from the Systie. Snow Leopard also had his helmet off, sweating and filthy, his blond-white hair plastered to his skull. The Systie slid down the wall and collapsed on the floor, gasping hoarsely, covered with blood and peppered with wounds. Another Systie slumped miserably in the corner, in litepants and no shirt. What looked like half of Beta and Gamma crowded around the prisoners, and they were in an ugly mood. I could not tell what function the room had served. Broken glass and rubble littered the floor.
“I’m going to kill him!” Boudicca surged past Snow Leopard and seized one of the Systie’s hands in her armored fist. She began to squeeze, slowly, a cenite vise. The Systie screamed in agony, groveling on the floor, with Boudicca slowly crushing his hand. I heard the bones snapping.
“Let go of him, Boudicca! He’s a Legion prisoner! I don’t care if we are pledged, you touch him again and I’ll see you lose your squad!” Snow Leopard wrestled her away from the prisoner. She pulled her hand away viciously and blood spattered on the deck. The Systie howled mournfully, his bloody hand still outstretched before him.
Boudicca again tore herself away from Snow Leopard’s grip, raising her E to the Systie’s head. “Talk, you scum! Your prisoners! Where are they! Talk, or you die!” She made a terrifying sight, a rabid wolf of a girl spitting venom. With that Legion cross burned into her forehead, she could have posed for a Systie hateprop show on the Legion.
The Systie continued to scream, his mouth locked open, his body twisted in agony. Boudicca had some support from the troops.
“Kill him! Do it!”
“Cut his arm off!”
“Set him on fire!”
“Put down your E! He can’t talk like this!” Snow Leopard tried to control her.
“He’s dead, I don’t care what he says, he’s dead!”
I watched this show in stupefied wonder, then I went on private to Priestess. “What’s all this about, Priestess?”
“I don’t know, Thinker. I just got here!”
“Talk, you maggot! You want to die slow? I’ll put you in a pit of acid! Talk, damn you!” Boudicca was going off the deep edge.
The Systie was a big man, but he was soft, clearly not a soldier. His face twitched, and his lips moved. “The ship,” he said. “We were supposed to be on the ship.” He had a very strange accent.
Boudicca seized him by his tunic, and pulled him up until his puffy, round face almost touched hers. “Prisoners! Speak, you fat slug! You took a prisoner! Where are your PWs! If you don’t tell me, I’m going to kill you, right now! Tell me and you live! Speak!” She screamed in his face, spittle flying wildly.
“They used stunstars…”
“Tell me something I don’t know, Systie!”
“They wanted some prisoners, to find out…”
“Where! Where did they take them!”
“We don’t know, they didn’t tell us! We’re not with the DefCorps!”
Boudicca slammed him to the floor in disgust, and raised her arms over her head, a gesture of supreme frustration. “I’m going to kill him!”
“I’ll talk to him, Boudicca. You’re too upset,” Snow Leopard said. “Take a drink, have some water. They’ll talk. Don’t worry, they’ll talk.”
Boudicca turned, and I had never seen her look so shattered. She appeared stricken and her eyes were moist. “All right, tenners, try, but if they don’t talk, I am personally going to strangle them both. You hear me, Systies!” She spun on her heel, hissing at them, and they recoiled from her fury.
A growing sense of dread washed over me. The fat man, on his knees, held his shattered hand before him, trembling and crying. Blood poured freely down his arm. “Can’t we stop the bleeding?” he sobbed. “We’re a civilian. We’re not a soldier. We didn’t shoot at the Legion. We don’t belong here.”
“Shoot him!”
“Shut down, Boudicca! Thinker-” A sharp blast outside interrupted Snow Leopard. We went to ground, and several troopers went charging out the doorway. Priestess made a move toward the wounded Systie. I stopped her.
“Get out of my way, Thinker!”
“Just wait a few moments-just a frac, all right? He’ll be all right.”
Snow Leopard interrupted us. “Thinker, you and I will interrogate the prisoner. Take off your helmet. Priestess, wait until the interrogation is complete.”
“The man is wounded,” Priestess said, pale and furious. “I formally request permission to treat his wounds. Now! He’s losing blood. I can bandage his hand while you’re interrogating him. And I am filing a report on how he got this wound!”
“Wonderful,” Snow Leopard said calmly. “All right, proceed, Priestess.”
I cracked open my helmet, and the stink of the place hit me immediately. It smelled of burning power cables and death. My eyes stung from the smoke in the air. Lasers snapped outside.
“Thinker, you may do the honors.” Snow Leopard wanted this done correctly, I could tell.
Priestess was already prepping the Systie’s hand.
“Thank you, Snow Leopard.” I turned my attention to the fat man, still on his knees. Snow Leopard and I squatted before him. Priestess pressed on a field dressing. “Systie, this is a combat tactical interrogation,” I told him. “You are a combatant, and you are being interrogated by field elements of the 22nd Legion of the Confederation of Free Worlds. We are now in a combat situation, and your cooperation is essential to our tactical success. If you refuse interrogation or attempt to deceive us, you will be shot dead immediately as a combatant. If you cease resistance and cooperate to our satisfaction, you will be granted official ConFree prisoner of war status and will come under the protection of the laws of the Confederation and of the Interstellar Code on prisoners of war. Do you understand the situation?”
“Yes. Yes, we do…we want to cooperate.”
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Will you cooperate?”
“Yes…” he seemed in agony.
“Good. Why is the System on this planet?”
His face paled, his eyes went wild, and he gasped for air. “Please…no…don’t ask us…”
“Thinker, forget that,” Snow Leopard interrupted impatiently. “Ask him if they took any prisoners.”
“Yeah, sure. Systie, did you take any prisoners? What the…” The Systie froze, his face trembling, his eyes glazed over. Blood burst suddenly from his nostrils, two bright red jets. His mouth popped open and his eyes rolled back in his sockets and he shuddered and toppled over backwards, stone dead.
Stunned, we just stared at the body. Priestess was astounded, her medkit still in her hands.
“Good!” Boudicca declared. “Now kill the other one!”
“Coolhand! Did you see that?” Snow Leopard asked.
“Yes,” Coolhand replied. “That’s got to be psych programming.”
“I agree. This is what happened to our two Systie recon guys.”
Snow Leopard pondered the possibilities. “This is really interesting. It was the first question…not the second.” His gaze turned to the other prisoner, still miserably huddled in the corner, shirtless. We gathered around him. He raised his face, bravely. He was young and muscular, and covered with old scars. He shivered, whether in cold or fear I did not know.
