Interrogation: Owens

Posted on 04 Nov 2016 @ 7:53am by Lieutenant Hannibal Owens & Lieutenant Commander Temerant Bast

1,847 words; about a 9 minute read

The interrogation room was a small room, barely ten square meters. It was dark and damp, and very sparse - there was nothing in the room save for a chair. However, unlike the holding cell where they had all been confined, there was a hint of technology here. The faint hum of some sort of technology could be heard, and although the room's periphery was very dark, there was a bright spot in the center, illuminating the chair, where the Hunters pushed down their guest.

Hannibal groaned as he was forced into the chair. He silently glared at his captors and struggled against the restraints that kept him shackled. As the Hunters filed out of the room, he looked around, trying to find ways to escape the cell. He couldn't discern any way to get out of his current situation. He looked up at the ceiling and then back at the door. There wasn't any hope of escape at this moment.

The Interrogator eyed the captive carefully. This one was physically strong, and that was why restraints had been required, unlike most of the other prisoners. The Interrogator's preliminary mind probes had determined him to be aggressive, prone to outbursts, and deceitful. But like most of his shipmates, his mental defenses were weak.

He took a small step forward, letting the captive see his silhouette. "Who are you?" he asked. "Where do you come from?"

"Hannibal Owens," Hannibal tersely replied while struggling at his restraints. "The rest is classified." He glared at his interrogator, silently daring him to do his worst. Hannibal braced himself for torture, not knowing what was in store for him.

The Interrogator smiled, baring his grey serrated teeth. "Classified?" he repeated. "What does this mean?"

He spilled himself into Owens' mind, and started playing with the man's fears.

Hannibal felt a growing pain in his forehead, as though the Interrogator were burrowing, forcing his way into the recesses of his memory. Hannibal started breathing heavily. He blinked and shook his head violently, trying to remove the foreign presence to no avail. "Mmmf...arrgh..." he groaned as he winced in pain. "Mmmf...classi...fied...means I...arrgh...I'm not telling you...ARRGH...a...damn thing..." He clenched his teeth and his fists in an attempt to brace himself for the onslaught. He had no idea it would get worse.

The Interrogator's assault on Hannibal's mind intensified, feeling like a red-hot branding iron being rammed through his skull. Suddenly, Hannibal saw flashes of disconnected memory. Each one played out in broken pieces, until one settled and took over his vision. He tried to push it back, but the effort was futile.

Hannibal found himself in back in his zero-G training in a dense asteroid field. His comrades were running drills, testing their limits in the harsh void of space. Hannibal looked out and around at all the different sizes of asteroids drifting in space. Suddenly, a voice screamed over the intercom, "WATCH OUT!" Two asteroids had collided, sending shrapnel straight towards the trainees. Hannibal turned his face right as a piece came and smashed the glass on his helmet. The glass began to splinter and spider out and Hannibal watched in horror as a white gaseous substance started leaking from his visor and into the black void of space. He fell to his knees and started gasping. Just as soon as the image came into his head, it left, leaving only the Interrogator in the room. His eyes widened. He didn't say a word, but his expression betrayed everything.

The Interrogator smiled, baring his grey serrated teeth. "I know what it is you saw," he said, his voice low and hoarse. "Do you know what this base is? We are in an asteroid. Caves, in an asteroid. Just a few rocks protecting us from the emptiness of space. Tell me what I want to know, or you may find those rocks crumbling around you. And your friends."

The Interrogator gave Owens a vision of Chief Marley, sitting in an empty cell, alone. Cracks started appearing in one of the walls, followed by the hiss if air escaping into deep space. Marley looked around in fear, and started panicking.

"What the hell..." Hannibal said softly, then bucked violently at his restraints. "What the hell are you doing to her?!" he yelled. "She didn't do anything! Let her go!" He strained and jerked at his restraints which were now digging into his wrists and opening small cuts. He felt warm blood drip into his palms but it didn't faze him. "You bastards! Stop this right now!" He stared helplessly at Marley who was now gasping for air, eyes wide in terror. Her breathing started becoming labored. Hannibal continued bucking at his restraints, each violent movement becoming slower than the last as the crushing weight of reality began to sink in.

"I'll...kill...you..." Hannibal said weakly, blood continuing to pour in his hands. Although even he knew that it was an idle threat at this minute.

The Interrogator let out a sinister laugh. He raked one of his claw-like fingernails on the man's arm, but in Owens's mind, the touch was a saw, tearing through flesh and bone and severing the arm.

"Where do you come from?" he asked again. He planted a feeling of longing in the man's mind - longing for home, a return to his roots, and waited for Owens's own mind to feed him the answers.

Hannibal went into shock, totally sending his body numb and shaking. He looked down and saw his right arm missing! Hannibal's mind was totally defenseless for the interrogator's next probe. Once again, he felt the searing sensation in his brain as the interrogator invaded his mind. He saw flashes of memory running through his mind again. Vega Colony. He saw his father raising his hand and his brothers cowering in fear. The image broke away. Then, he saw the beautiful Lake Dongting peacefully by the shorelines of home in Xiaoxiang, China. "No..." Hannibal said weakly, "get...get out of my head..."

The Interrogator saw the lake's shallow waters, and the town located on its shore. He saw the rice cultures, the fishermen, and the population going about its daily routine. He saw Earth, and its moon glowing golden overhead. He sensed Owens's profound attachment to this place. And he allowed himself to disappear from Owens's vision, replacing himself with the image of the officer's father, hand raised in anger, about to strike down. The father became larger than life, looming over the cowering Owens.

"Tell me about Earth," he demanded.

Hannibal stared in disbelief at the visage of his father rising in front of him. The man seemed to grow larger than the room they were occupying, gazing down at Hannibal with red eyes that glowed with hatred. He swung his left hand at the cowering Hannibal and connected with his right cheek, sending the still-restrained Hannibal to the floor. "Please...don't..." Hannibal said in a weak voice, still believing his arm had been ripped from his body. The towering man in front of him didn't comply. He reared back again and struck Hannibal in the side, sending waves of pain throughout his body. "Please! Don't!" Hannibal cried out in pain again.

"YOU WEAKLING," the man roared, eyes burning in rage and a voice that seemed to shake every panel in the station. "THIS IS WHAT YOU DESERVE. ANY MORE WHIMPERING AND I WON'T HESITATE TO START BEATING YOUR FRIENDS." He lowered his face to the floor and brought himself eye to eye with Hannibal. Hannibal looked in horror at his father's eyes, his scorching red eyes that seared Hannibal's vision, and felt the heat of his father's anger emanating from all sides. "Now," Hannibal's father said in a quieter voice, "tell me about Earth."

Hannibal tried to muster up every bit of courage he could. He was trained to never give out information, even under torture, but this was no ordinary situation. He gave the best answer possible. "It's...it's a...planet..." he said, and left it at that.

The Interrogator smiled. The vision had given him more information than the man had intended. It seemed that humans also had a tendency to prey on each other.

There was one final bit of information that he needed. Executor Krell had ordered him to get as much information as he could about the ship's weapons systems. He pushed the man farther into the vision, completely obliterating their current surroundings, and repressing any memory of capture from the man's mind. Now he was back on the bridge of his ship, and the Interrogator was a face on the viewscreen. Owens was back at his console, and his commander was standing beside him.

"Fire all weapons," ordered the commander.

Disoriented and dazed, Hannibal looked up to see his commander giving him a direct order. "Aye, sir," he found himself saying, "arming phasers and photon torpedoes. Ready to fire on your mark." Hannibal couldn't believe he was saying the words, he felt as though he were sleepwalking and unable to rouse from his extended slumber.

On the viewscreen, the Interrogator projected a view of the captive's home planet, surrounded by a fleet of Confederate ships. He focused on the captive's mind even more closely, increasing the realism and intensity of the vision. Scout ships were descending on the planet, filled with an invasion force that would reduce the majestic cities to dust.

"Stop those ships!" ordered the commander.

Hannibal looked down at his console; his weapons had no effect on the oncoming behemoth of a ship. "Sir!" he exclaimed, "Our weapons are having no effect." He paused and breathed deeply. "I propose we use the tricobalt torpedoes, it's the only way to make sure we can stop them."

"Fire at will!" confrmed the Commander.

The Interrogator watched the events unfolding in the captive's mind with great interest. He was memorizing every detail he could about firing procedures, access codes, and whatever information the captive's mind held about the technology behind those weapons.

Hannibal watched as the weapons of mass destruction emanated from the ship and plowed into the enemy ship, vaporizing it in one hit. Hannibal breathed out a sigh of relief and sank back from his station. Suddenly, he felt the same burning, boring sensation in his forehead. The room around him stretched and warped away until he found himself back in his restraints in the interrogation room.

"You...you m...monsters..." he said, weakly.

The Interrogator gave a sinister smile. He had extracted from his mind every bit of information he had about how the weapons worked.

He was now finished with the captive. He placed his hand on the man's forehead, and sent a mental overload, like a sledgehammer hitting his mind. He was instantly knocked unconscious.

He motioned toward the door. One of the Hunters stepped in the cell and picked up the inert form. He carried him back to the cell and tossed him on the ground, like a rag doll, amid his fellow prisoners.

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