DARK ORBIT: The complete series, page 34
The armed guards stood well back, keeping him covered. If Lang did try something, they’d have more than enough time to place their shot.
Which left Staff Sergeant Lang with little choice but to go along with whatever they had planned. The obvious assumption had to be that they were taking him to be interrogated. The Iringan’s approach to his confinement had been fairly standard thus far, though Lang thought they might have got to this stage a little sooner. Four days was more than enough time to leave someone to sweat though it was a very effective way of letting the prisoner’s imagination work against them, summoning up all kinds of horrors.
But then Lang thought about the two Marines who’d been captured with him, Alvarez and Suarez. They’d no doubt have wanted to interrogate them before they got to him. Try and use whatever information they got from them to try and undermine his confidence. It was what he would have done.
Not that the others would have told them very much. They’d be able to break them down eventually, they always did, but it would take more than a few days with those two.
Personally, Lang had only been tortured once before. It hadn’t lasted very long but it wasn’t something he was ever likely to forget. The knuckles in his right hand still reminded him of it whenever it got cold.
The impartial part of his brain was going over the process now. Wondering how they might decide to play this. Worst case scenario was that the others were dead and that he’d have to face this on his own.
When they arrived at the end of the corridor a door opened and he was pushed inside.
He found himself standing on a metal platform that was brightly lit from underneath. The brightness made it difficult to get a clear idea of his surroundings but the warm air coming up from below carried the smell of grease and electrical gearing systems, so he supposed he was in some kind of lift shaft. Certainly, he seemed to be a long way up.
He went to the rail and tried to look downwards but all he could see was an inky blackness. It was exactly the same when he tried looking up.
The good thing he could think of considering his current predicament was that he was still active. Because the same couldn’t be said for either Gillman or Underwood. Both had been killed in the firefight with the Iringan troopers.
And, as for what had happened to Lieutenant Cooper and his team, he could only speculate.
Then he heard the unmistakeable sound of someone approaching along a metal gantry. The next thing, bright arc lights illuminated a platform over to his right. He squinted in an attempt to shut out some of the dazzle and tried to make sense of the figure standing at its centre.
“Suarez? That you?”
“Staff?” he’d have known the young Mexican woman’s voice anywhere. “You okay? I was starting to get worried.”
“Is it just us, then?” he said. “No word on Alvarez?”
As he said it, he heard muttered noises from over on his left. It sounded like someone had tripped over in the dark. This was followed by a string of Hispanic obscenities.
Suarez’s laughter sounded like a bark.
“Hey, pendejo,” she yelled. “You better watch where you’re going.”
The bright lights came on and Alvarez stumbled forward, a hand raised to shield his eyes.
“Suarez. That you girl?”
“Course it’s me. No one’s keeping us apart.”
Alvarez came to the front rail and dropped his head. For a second, Lang thought he might be crying. But then he slowly gathered himself.
“You still here, old man?” he said. “Thought they’d dump your sorry ass first chance they got.”
“No still here. Wherever ‘here’ is.”
“My guess is, we’re still on the Golgotha,” Suarez said.
If she was right, that considerably diminished their chances of getting out of there. The ship was so vast that the possibility of escape was virtually nil. Lang strained to try and see beyond the limits of the lights but found that he couldn’t.
“What do you think they’ve got planned for us?” Suarez said.
“Have either of you two been interrogated yet?” Lang asked.
They both shook their heads.
“Yeah, me neither. Which is sort of worrying. Like they already know everything they need to know.”
Alvarez said, “You’re thinking maybe the lieutenant…”
His words trailed off.
“I’m not sure what’s happened. But it’s not looking good. We have to assume we’re the only ones who made it.”
Suarez was nodding sagely. Considering the position they were in, she seemed inordinately calm. “Okay, staff. How do you want to play this?”
Lang looked from Suarez to Alvarez and back again. “Suffice to say that we’ve lost the initiative here. Chances of the three of us all making it out are pretty slim. But if you do get an opportunity to make a break for it then you’ve got to go for it. Get as far away from here as possible, then try and report back best way you can.”
“I’m not leaving no one behind,” Alvarez said, lowering a long rope of spittle down into the dark. “So don’t ask me to.”
“Much as I appreciate your loyalty,” Lang said. “We don’t have time for it. You see an opportunity, you go for it.”
There was a grinding of gears and Lang’s platform dropped with a delayed lurch. He was starting to descend whether he liked it or not. He held onto the handrail and, when he looked to the others, he saw that their platforms were also moving.
“Where do you think we’re headed?” Suarez had to shout to be heard.
“Gotta be the kitchens,” Alvarez said.
“Why’s that?”
“That’s what always happens,” he said. “Whenever the Hispanics turn up: stick ‘em in the kitchens.”
Any sense of levity was lost when the floor beneath them opened up and Lang found himself looking down on a matte green floor. He thought he recognised it from when they’d first come aboard. This was the cargo bay and from the sound of it, there was a party going on.
As they cleared the shutters, they looked down onto what looked like a political rally with enough seating for roughly two thousand people. Directly opposite this was a raised seating area, from the look of it this was where the VIPs would be based. Directly in front of that was another smaller stage fronted by what looked deceptively like a large sand pit.
This whole area took up less than half of the cargo bay and over to their left were various vessels, from shuttles to fighters. As they got lower, they were able to pick out individuals. The majority were officers who were drinking and smoking which was odd to witness bearing in mind all the assembled spacecraft.
There were two guards waiting to take charge of each of them when they reached the bottom. The first one to approach him was slim and nervous looking. His name tag identified him as Folan. He was unarmed and took his time giving Lang a very thorough body search. The reason for this became obvious when Lang glanced across to the VIP seats.
Located in the centre of the row was someone he took to be the captain. The man stood as one of his officers approached. He was tall and wiry with a shock of white hair. He also had a long aquiline nose which gave his bearing a certain gravitas.
The second guard covered him with a mag-pistol all the time that this was going on. He had a thick head of very dark hair. His name was Busek and he seemed to be enjoying himself. When Folan was finished, Busek led the way to the makeshift stage. There were three sturdy posts set at a distance from one another, each one with its own restraints. He stopped at the middle post and watched as Folan hooked his wrist restraints onto an overhead locking bar before snaking a cable around his waist and securing it to the post. Once Lang was secured, Folan stepped away smartly.
It was only then that he became aware that some of the officers sitting in the main stand were watching him. They seemed to be discussing something about his appearance.
Then another pair brought over Suarez and secured him to the post on Lang’s right. Then Alvarez was taken to the one on his left. Once the guards were finished, they went to stand behind the stage.
“I don’t like the look of this lot,” Suarez said, nodding in the direction of the assembled officers. They were wearing full dress uniforms of burgundy and black.
Once the three of them were secured, the noise level dropped appreciably and the officers went back to chatting amongst themselves. It was an odd set-up. In Lang’s experience ships’ companies tended to entertain foreign nationals and visiting dignitaries in the cargo bay during diplomatic visits. It brought the guests on board without giving them access to the ship’s defensive systems. But none of this explained why there was a large sand pit separating the stage from the main stand.
His first thought was that the Iringans might want to see them fight one another. He’d heard of crazier schemes and that seemed to gel with the evidence in front of him. If that was the case, he tried to determine whether they’d be expected to fight with weapons or not. If they were foolish enough to give any of them weapons, they’d soon come to regret it.
Lang tested his weight against the post, trying to see if there might be some movement in it but it had been solidly built. He’d have to think of some other way of causing a diversion.
There was a lot of drinking going on, with waiting staff carrying vast pitchers of ale about and a number of the officers were already drunk. One of these was a stocky, blonde-haired officer who looked to be in charge of some of the festivities. He moved from one group to the next and seemed to be welcomed by all.
While Lang was watching him, two enormous troopers arrived. They had a carrying pole slung across their shoulders with a vast wooden block suspended beneath. The blonde-haired officer made his way down from the stands to oversee where they were putting it. It ended up right in the centre of the sand pit.
Then the men went out and the officer followed them. They returned with a blocky wooden torso, complete with head, hanging from their pole while he appeared with a long black carrying case. It had to be over three metres in length.
“I hope they’re not expecting us to be part of some floorshow,” Suarez said dismissively, though the strain in her voice was clear.
“Yeah,” Alvarez said. “Cos my singing voice ain’t what it used to be.”
They watched in rapt silence as the two men positioned the dummy so it was resting with its head hanging over the edge of the block. Then they used a heavy rope to bind it in place. While this was happening, the blonde officer spoke to a group of men all of whom carried blocks of tickets. Each man’s tickets were of a different color. Some were red, some were yellow and some green.
Once the officer had given his instructions, they moved off to various parts of the room and it soon became clear that they were making bets. All this in full view of the captain and his senior team
“Are they going to want us to fight, then?” Suarez said.
Lang considered this had to be a possibility.
“Yeah, I’d be cool with that,” Alvarez rattled his restraints. “I could be your manager. And in the red corner, all the way from Trujillo, New Mexico, we have Lance Corporal Maria Ana Romero Suarez. Give it up, guys for the Mistress of Mayhem!”
But Lang wasn’t amused. He kept looking at the overly long carry case. It reminded him of something a stage magician might own. It made him feel uneasy.
They had to wait another hour before anything significant happened, by which time Lang was starting to lose the feeling in his fingers. There were various calls for quiet and all attention shifted to the blonde officer who was now standing at the centre with the two enormous troopers. By this time, Lang had picked up that this was Commander Jenrich. A man who he suspected of being the Executive Officer. If he was, he was a very drunk looking XO.
He stood facing the other two. They had their backs to Lang and the others and were holding the carrying case between them.
Jenrich stepped forward, opened the clasps and then slowly lifted the lid. From where he was standing, Lang still couldn’t see what it was inside but there was an appreciative whoop of excitement from the crowd.
Then Jenrich reached inside and took out a two-man crosscut saw. Lang had once watched his father and uncle use one of these to cut up a tree trunk and something shifted in his stomach as the two men carried the saw over to the block where the dummy lay.
Jenrich followed them over and seemed to be giving them a short talk, the sort a referee might give at the start of a boxing match. Then he pointed to a big digital timer on the far wall. Finally, he produced a white handkerchief from his pocket. He raised it into the air with a flourish before dropping it.
As the handkerchief drifted towards the floor, silence reigned but as soon as it landed, the whole room erupted.
In the centre, the two men had begun sawing furiously.
It took them less than a minute to cut through the dummy’s thick neck, the head hitting the sand with a solid thump.
“I don’t understand!” Alvarez said. “What’s with all the sand?”
Suarez said, “That’s to soak up the blood, numb nuts.”
Lang looked around hoping to be able to find a weakness in the stage. It had no doubt been thrown together for this event but everywhere he looked he came away frustrated. Perhaps if the three of them had been tied to the same post they might have had a chance but, as it was, he’d be wasting his time trying to break the post on his own.
Best to save his energies. He didn’t know when they might be needed.
They came for Suarez first. One of them took hold of her ankles while the other released her wrists. As she waited for the belt loop to be freed, it was obvious she was going to try something but as soon as it was off, the trooper whipped her legs away, so her head hit the stage hard.
The officers cheered this bit of cruel showmanship and, as the man stepped back to acknowledge them, Lang spotted his chance.
Using his wrist restraints as a pivot, he thrust out his left leg as far as it would go. His foot had made solid contact with the back of the man’s knee and he disappeared off the side of the stage.
There was outrage among the guards at this point and while one went to help the stricken figure back to his feet, three others went straight for Lang and started laying into him with their fists. With his hands pinioned there was little Lang could do to defend himself and he was aware of Busek standing behind him, pummelling his kidneys.
Not that that mattered. Lang was too distracted by the sight of Suarez being hauled away.
The onslaught lasted for less than sixty seconds before the guards stepped back, breathing heavily. Because of the wrist restraints, Lang hadn’t been able to get his elbows down to protect himself. As a result, they’d got in some solid shots to his mid-section leaving him badly winded and struggling to breathe. He thought that they might have also cracked a couple ribs but there was nothing he could do about it now.
His head was spinning and so he tried to concentrate on breathing deeply. Which was when he realised that everything had gone quiet.
The guards were still on the stage but they weren’t even looking at him. They seemed transfixed by something that was happening at the far end of the cargo bay.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“See that? The landing lights are on. Looks like someone’s coming through.”
Lang was aware of people in the stands getting to their feet. He lifted his head to see but he still had blood in his eyes.
“I thought all flights were suspended during Nawila.”
“They are,” it was Busek speaking. “Eighteen hundred to oh-six hundred. Nothing moves.”
“Okay? So, who are these guys?”
Lang felt the pressure in his ears lessen as the inner doors were breached.
“Who knows? Perhaps we’re being boarded?”
Busek snorted. “Not unless the entire landing crew are in on it. Look over there.”
He was right. The landing crew were all getting into position as the ship slipped through the veil.
“Oh, this is not good. That’s a church ship.”
“You sure?”
“Look at the markings. Church sends someone on the last night of Nawila? No, this is something serious.”
The ship advanced towards them and then at the last minute spun around, coming into land with its rear exit ramp facing towards them. Lang looked over to the captain who stood consulting with his senior team. From their body language, it was clear that no one had been expecting this.
By the time the party on board had disembarked, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this was a church ship. At the front were two priests bearing the standards of the Beacon Church followed by a number of high-ranking clergy. These preceded a figure dressed in the green and gold robes of a Superior, one of the highest-ranking figures in the church. And behind him there was a female Iringan officer.
“Heay,” Busek said. “Looks like Verlhof’s on the move.
Lang looked across as the captain – Captain Verlhof, started to move along the raised seating area. He was trailed by one of his officers who was in the process of giving him some last-minute pointers.
“Hey, staff,” Alvarez called. “Have you seen who they’ve got with them?”
Lang wiped his face on his shoulder, trying to get the blood out of his eyes.
“What’re you talking about?”
“The officer at the back,” he said. “That’s Sorenson.”
Lang couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Ingrid Sorenson?”
Their squad mate. The woman who’d betrayed them.
He shook his head, trying to clear it. “You sure?”
“Yeah. Quality piece of ass like that don’t come round too often.”
Lang managed to pull himself into position so that he could see better.
