Cade triggered a command telling the ship that the high intensity lamps in the next room should be turned on. For a normal crewmember, this would involve pulling up a command list on their Helix and picking the option that corresponded with the lamps. But for Cade it was a simple mental command. His brain told the ship to do something and it understood. Cade wondered sometimes what that said about his mind. Even for other Lambdas it was usually not such an easy task to interact with technical systems, and artificial intellects, but for Cade it was the most natural thing in the world; Cade’s world, at any rate. Not for the first time Cade wondered how much of him was still human. That thought went far beyond wondering how much of him had been replaced in the name of enhancements over the years. Cade wondered if perhaps he had crossed that line from man to machine and if so whether it had happened before or after they started augmenting his body.

Cade shrugged off the all too common thoughts and stepped through the door into interrogation room four. In many ways the room wasn’t that different than one that could be found in the medical bay. it was sterile, full of diagnostic equipment designed to monitor the various bodily functions of its occupant. The key difference was one of intent. While both rooms were designed to keep their occupants alive, only one was designed to keep them healthy and it was not the one that Cade now found himself in.

Xander Pacius was strapped to a metal examination table, at the moment that table held him at a nearly vertical angle forcing him to stare directly into the four high intensity lamps that hung over the door.

Cade calmly walked over to a panel on the wall and manually turned down the lights just a little bit. This was an important step and one he took every time he came to speak with Xander Pacius. It showed the man that Cade was in fact capable of small kindness. It kept him from seeing Cade as merely a tormentor, because should that dynamic ever shift in that direction, then the only way Pacius would give Cade the information he needed would be if Cade shattered his mind completely, and Cade didn’t want to do that. Not if he didn’t have too.

Still Cade feared it might come to that, over the last week, Shard’s superiors were becoming increasingly impatient for Pacius to speak. This in and of itself would mean little to Cade, but his superiors at Lambda were much of the same mind. One way or another, Pacius didn’t have a lot of time left.

“Good morning, Captain Pacius.” Cade said, taking a small cup of water, and walking over to place it to Pacius’ lips. At first Pacius had wanted to refuse the small cups of water he was given, Cade knew. Pacius knew the game they were playing, the matching of wills, but that minor rebellion hadn’t lasted. Him being thirsty didn’t get either of them anywhere and now he drank almost gratefully every time he saw Cade.

“I hope you’re as well as current circumstances will allow.”

Pacius cast a dagger look at Cade as he finished drinking. He hated Cade, for what he was and for what he was doing. In the end Cade was ok with this. It didn’t change anything for Cade, though it more than likely would end up costing Pacius quite a bit.

“How well do you expect me to be? I’ve been hanging from a wall in the dark for days.” Pacius spat.

“Fair enough, Captain.” Cade sat down in a seat across from Pacius, one he had positioned precisely so that Pacius could crane his neck to see him, but only just. “Is there anything I can do for you before we get started?”

“You can let me know how my crew is doing.” Pacius said, and Cade wasn’t surprised, Pacius had said some variant of this every time they had spoken over the last week and a half.

“Captain, I want to, but we’ve been through this before. I can’t tell you anything until you start telling me about the things I need to know. Tell me… tell me if elements of Strife’s Merchant Marine Corp are planning a coup.”

“So we’ve started then?” Pacius said.

“The U.P.E. needs to know. We need to know how far your demonstration goes. It is my responsibility to obtain it. Tell me, and I can return you to your crew.”

Pacius said nothing for a long time. At first he had insisted that he had been acting alone. He had hoped to convince Cade that there was no involvement by other S.M.M.C. Captains or governing entities, or from STR1-FE’s government. Cade had made it clear early on though that they knew he had spoken to governor Maher shortly before the incident. Now he just remained silent. Still Cade had to try, after all any day might be the day Pacius broke down. For Pacius’s sake, Cade hoped it was today.

“Captain… Xander, I have no illusions of your opinions about us. I’ll spare you the speech about how bad this could be for Earth or the entire U.P.E. I doubt it will move you. Your sole incentive for telling me is a cessation of the questioning and a return to your crew.”

Pacius continued his silence. Not even bothering to glare at Cade.

“Very well, can you at least tell me why you dumped the Helix earrings? Surely, Captain you can tell me this and then I can help you.”

Pacius remained as silent as ever.

“Is it possible you’ve grown too weak from hunger to answer?” Cade knew this wasn’t the case. He knew exactly how diminished Pacius’ body was. They had been monitoring his vitals from the moment he was hung from the wall, and while they had been depriving him of both food and sleep, he still had quite a bit more time before such deprivations prevented him from speech and Cade was sure he would break before then. Still Cade didn’t have that time to wait anymore.

Cade stood up and walked to the door. He opened it and stepped outside for a moment. When he returned, he was pushing a cart with several covered platters on it. Cade could tell from the look on his face that Pacius could already smell what Cade had.

“Captain, I really hope you don’t mind if I take my lunch while we talk. With all the things going on, I have hardly had time to eat in three days. But look who I’m talking to. You know better than most, I imagine.” Cade said, pulling the cover off one of the platters to reveal a large plate of curried chicken. Cade could tell that the smells of strong spiced meat was getting to Pacius, but that Pacius was also disgusted with himself for it. That was good, Cade needed to twist that knife just a little bit more.

“I need to hear something. Tell me something. If you do, I can feed you.” Pacius looked as if he wanted to speak but was clearly determined not to.

“If you don’t talk, I can’t help you.”

The conversation went on like this for some time. Cade asking for an answer or just for some cooperation and Pacius remaining silent.

“Xander, please talk to me, if you don’t, I can’t protect you anymore.” Cade said, hoping the insinuation that things would only get worse from here might do what isolation, exhaustion and hunger failed too.

“I’ve already told you everything, I told it to you from the start. There is no more to tell, nothing I have that you don’t.” Pacius said, and to Cade’s ears he sounded like a much older man.

The two sat in silence for a while after that, Pacius had clearly said all he was going to and Cade needed to consider what came next.

Eventually Cade stood up and brought the other platter over to Pacius. Cade released his arms from their shackles. The severity of the days kept strung up had taken their toll. Pacius collapsed to the floor like he had no strength left in him.. He slowly rocked back onto his knees, working his hands where the straps had held him immobile. Cade handed him the platter of chicken. Pacius hesitated for a moment, suspicious that this was just some new trick, some new way to break him.

“Your crew has been fed. It’s okay.” That was all Pacius needed to hear it seemed. He dove on the platter no longer trying to resist.

“I thought you couldn’t feed me until I talked.” Pacius said around a mouthful of chicken.

“Captain, I am sorry. Things will be much harder for you now,” Cade said, turning away from Pacius. For the first time in ten days, he walked from the interrogation room without bothering to turn out the lights, or lock the door behind him.

Cade walked down the hall, wondering what he could have done differently. It didn’t matter; Captain Shard himself would be taking over the interrogation. He was the man who destroyed his ship. This was the man responsible for all the death that had happened. Pacius would be lucky to get out in one piece at this point, and there was little Cade could do about it.

As Cade turned the corner, he spotted Shard approaching. “Don’t you want to observe? Isn’t it your job?” he asked.

“No, Captain. I will go over the transcripts once you’ve broken him,” Cade replied coldly. He continued down the corridor contemplating the man, Xander Pacius. Cade respected him. Any man who could give up nothing after a week and a half strapped to a wall in a dark room with no food and almost no water was worthy of respect. Pacius was a man with convictions. Despite himself, Cade went to the monitoring room and viewed the interrogation. He owed it to this man to at least watch.

“I know you are a subversive working to destabilize the Frontier. I know you are trying to bring it into open revolt against the U.P.E.! Now you will tell me the names of your co-conspirators!” Shard was saying, as Cade activated his feed of the interrogation room.

Shard barked a command at a technician, and Pacius started screaming. He looked expectantly at Pacius, waiting for an answer to his question. When Shard didn’t get one, he barked, “Turn up the intensity.”

Pacius’ body convulsed with the feedback the technician was flooding into his nervous system through the Helix earring. Cade could tell that at that intensity, it probably wasn’t long until it completely torched every synapse in Pacius’ brain.

“Who is working with you? Who’s giving the orders?”

Shard gestured for the technician to stop the Helix onslaught, but only waited a moment before ordering its resumption again.

“I will ask you again, Captain. How far does this go? Is the Service-Corp planning to revolt?”

This time, when the neural attack stopped, Pacius actually spoke.

Pacius’ words came out in a rasp—which even Cade’s sensitive ears, combined with the high-resolution sound pickup, couldn’t make out.

“What was that, Captain?” Shard asked, moving a bit closer.

Again, Pacius spoke in a whisper that Cade couldn’t catch.

“One more time,” Shard said, closing the final distance between him and his prisoner. His ear was almost at Pacius’s mouth, and then it happened. Shard screamed as Pacius bit down on his ear with all the might his body still had in it.

Shard pulled away, a river of blood running down his cheek, a matching one running from Pacius’s mouth. Cade saw the prisoner now grinning with an insane glee and spit something wet and fleshy onto the floor in front of him. Cade didn’t need the near-perfect video feed to know what it was.

Shard stepped away from Pacius, a look of pain and rage on his face. Not saying anything, Shard used the hand that wasn’t gripping the side of his head where his ear used to be and drew his sidearm. Without a moment’s hesitation, Shard fired. Cade watched, disbelievingly, as Pacius’ kneecap disappeared in a red mist.

Alarmed, Cade sprung from his seat and dashed to the interrogation room. When he got there, Shard had his gun pressed against Pacius’ forehead. “I will enjoy killing you. Don’t think I won’t. And no one will ever think to question me.”

“That’s enough, Captain.” The command in Cade’s voice brought Shard up short. He turned around to look at Cade standing in the doorway and quickly took in his firm expression.

Shard put his thumb on the hammer on the back of the gun. He was testing Cade, who was more than eager to accept his challenge. Cade pulled up the sleeve on his left arm. At a glance, nothing was out of the ordinary but ever so slowly his hand started to subtly change. Slowly Cade shifted the components in his arm, shifting metal supports and cabling, retracting lines of artificial muscle, adjusting them to allow the long blade that this arm concealed to emerge. Cade could have done this quickly if he had needed to, the prosthetic was capable of reconfiguring at speeds almost too fast for the unaided eye to follow, but right now, it was better to allow Shard to see it happen, and give him time to understand what it meant.

“Put it down.” Cade said, the long thin blade resting against his leg.

“Your role is to observe, Cade. The mission is mine. You had your chance. For ten days you had your chance, now Pacius dies. He dies for what he did to me!” Shard almost screamed.

“Captain Julio Cesar Shard. You are in violation of your orders, both mine and those of the United Planets of Earth. Holster your sidearm now or I will have no choice but to exercise my Authority as the Lambda Observer of the U.P.E. Enigma.” Cade said, without emotion or inflection.

Shard looked at Cade and Cade could see fear in his eyes. This was the closest Cade had ever come to killing him he had ever been and he knew it. Shard feigned composure and holstered his weapon, his eyes never leaving Cade and that long blade protruding from his hand.

“Captain, order your men to take Pacius back to his crew now,” Cade instructed.

Shard straightened his shirt and pushed past him into the hall. He was bound for the ship’s infirmary, but he did give the order before he left.

Next Chapter: Chapter 8: Short of Crusifixion