Flagship (10 page)

Sokolov arrived ninety minutes later and brought his captive aboard the
Teddy R.
The Navy pilot was in his late twenties, clean-cut, in his seventh year in the service. His name was Alberto Torres, and he seemed none the worse for undergoing the unnerving experience of having his ship shot apart while he was still in it.

He was brought before Cole by Ensigns Brill and Dunyach, two members of Sharon's Security team.

"Welcome to the
Theodore Roosevelt
, Mr. Torres," said Cole. "I notice that you failed to salute me."

"You are a mutineer and a felon," replied Torres. "I will salute only members of a legitimate military."

"You know why you're here, of course?"

"I know," said Torres.

"I will ask you once before I turn you over to the tender mercies of my Chief of Security: will you tell me where your eighty prisoners are currently incarcerated?"

"I will not."

"Okay," said Cole to the security men. "Take him away."

They turned and marched Torres to the airlift, and then to Security.

"He seems like a nice young man," remarked Christine. "I hope we don't have to be too harsh with him."

"Let's see what Sharon's miracle drug can do."

He found out an hour later when her image popped into view above his table in the mess hall.

"It's not working," she told him.

"It's a dud?"

"I doubt it," she said. "I think he's probably been conditioned against it."

"How about some old-fashioned hypnotism?" asked Cole.

"I'm no hypnotist. Besides, if he can resist bliathol, he can almost certainly resist hypnotism too."

"Well, see what else you've got in your drug cabinet. We're losing time."

She sighed deeply. "Right."

She broke the connection.

Val entered a moment later, got herself a beer, and sat down opposite him.

"Has he talked yet?" she asked.

"No."

"You're going to have to get rough with him," she said. "I assume your lady friend's tried drugs and they're not working."

"So far."

"Let me know if you need a little help with him."

"We'd like him to survive long enough to tell us what we need to know," replied Cole dryly.

She laughed. "I told you the first time you met him that the Octopus was an asshole. If you save him, he'll just do something dumb again."

"He may be an asshole," said Cole, "but he's
our
asshole. More to the point, he's got eighty men facing death because they followed his orders. We have to try to get them out."

"Things were a lot simpler when I was a pirate," she said. "I had just one rule: Everyone's expendable."

Cole saw Sokolov walking past and called him in.

"Sir?" said Sokolov.

"Sit down, Vladimir," said Cole. "I want to talk to you about Torres."

"No bleeding-heart mumbo jumbo for me," said Val, getting up and taking her beer with her. "I'm outta here."

She left the mess hall, and Cole gestured Sokolov to take her seat.

"Tell me about him, Vladimir."

"There's nothing much to tell. He never saw me coming, and I had his ship disabled before he could fire a shot."

"I don't mean about his piloting abilities," said Cole. "What's he like?"

Sokolov shrugged. "He seems nice enough. If we were still in the Navy, I think he could become a friend."

"Did he say anything, talk about anything, while you were bringing him here?"

"Nothing important, sir. The first thing I did was question him about where they're keeping the Octopus, so he knows why we want him. After that, he pretty much clammed up."

"Pretty much?" repeated Cole.

"He thought I was Navy at the beginning, and wanted to know why I was attacking him. I believe he actually thought it was a test of his loyalty, or his ability to keep the location a secret, until I explained that I was from the
Teddy R
and you were my Captain. From that point on he refused to discuss anything concerning the military except his name, rank, and serial number."

"So he was silent for almost two hours?"

"No, sir," said Sokolov. "We talked about sports."

"Just sports?"

Sokolov smiled. "And girls."

"Did you probe for any weak spots, anything that might get him to talk?"

"That's out of my bailiwick, sir," answered Sokolov. "I'm no psychologist. Any probing I do is in deep space, with my ship."

"Okay," said Cole. "Thanks, Vladimir."

Cole got up and wandered back to his office. After half an hour he contacted Sharon again.

"Any luck?"

"No," she replied. "Drugs aren't going to work on him, Wilson. If we give him any more, we could blow every neural circuit in his brain." She sighed. "He was
well
conditioned."

"How's he doing?"

"He's okay. Probably got some fuzzy vision, but that'll pass in time."

"We can't wait much longer," said Cole. "The message Sokolov overheard was that they're moving the prisoners in two days or less, not two days or more. I don't think we've got more than three more hours, four at the outside, to break him."

"Well, we're not going to do it with drugs, that I can guarantee you."

"Then we'll have to do something more forceful."

"How much more forceful?"

"Whatever it takes," said Cole. "You can't start with half measures and work up to truly harsh interrogation techniques. First, we haven't got the time—and second, we know his mind is resistant to drugs, but we don't know how much punishment his body can take. We can't have him passing out before he's told us what we need to know."

"I'll discuss it with Luthor and the rest of my staff and see what we can come up with."

"Just don't take too long," said Cole. "I'll be on the bridge. Christine is checking his serial number. Maybe she's dug up something useful on him by now."

Fifteen minutes later Sharon's image appeared on the bridge.

"Wilson," she said, "you'd better come down here."

"He talked already?"

"No."

"You didn't kill him?" he demanded harshly.

"No."

"Then what is it?"

"Security has a staff of five, counting myself," she said.

"And?"

"Two of them refuse to participate," continued Sharon. "They claim that there's no difference between harsh interrogation and torture, and they won't be a part of it."

"The difference is that if we don't apply it, eighty men are going to die," said Cole.

"You don't have to convince
me"
she said. "Tell
them."

"They're down there with you?"

"Yes."

"I'm on my way," said Cole.

"They're right," said Ensign Walsh, who was manning one of the stations. "If we do it, we're no better than the Republic we're fighting."

"The Republic we're fighting is going to kill eighty men if we don't do it."

"That's the fortunes of war," said Walsh.

"We captured Alberto Torres, and now we're going to find out what we need to know," replied Cole. "That's the fortunes of war, too."

"There's a difference," insisted Walsh. "The Octopus's men were captured on the battlefield, so to speak."

"One-third of the galaxy is a battlefield," said Cole. "Torres was captured on it too."

"They were captured committing an act of aggression. He wasn't."

"I haven't got time to argue the fine points with you, Mr. Walsh," said Cole. "Too many lives depend upon the results of this interrogation."

"It's not interrogation—it's torture."

"Granting for the moment that it is, consider this: Torres is going to live through it, because if we kill him he can't tell us what we need to know. Then ask yourself which is worse: harshly questioning one man who is going to survive, or letting eighty other men go to a certain death."

Cole left the bridge while Walsh was formulating an answer, and entered Security two minutes later. Sharon was waiting for him.

"Where are they?" he said.

"In the next room."

He walked into the room and found himself confronting Brill and Dunyach, the two ensigns who had taken Torres down to Security

"I understand you two refuse to follow your superior officer's orders," he said.

"It's torture any way you cut it, sir, and I'm not going to participate," said Brill.

"You know what's at stake?" said Cole.

"We're at war. They took their chances. They lost."

"Can't you say the same thing about our prisoner?"

"Put him in the brig," said Dunyach. "Or execute him, if that's what you want. But don't ask me to help torture him."

"'Torture' is an easy word to throw around," said Cole. "We're going to question him with some degree of harshness, that's all."

"You're playing word games, sir," said Brill. "You're asking us to cause him so much physical pain that he breaks and tells us what we want to know."

"That's right."

"That's torture," said Brill.

"Is it?" asked Cole. "What if one solid punch to the belly gets him to talk?"

"It won't."

"But if it does—is that torture?"

"No," said Brill reluctantly.

"How about four punches to the belly?"

"I see where you're going with this, sir," said Brill. "I don't know where it crosses the line from harsh interrogation to torture, but I don't plan to be a participant when it does."

"Has Colonel Blacksmith asked you to do anything you explicitly find repugnant?" said Cole. "Has she suggested you gouge one of his eyes out, or drive bamboo splints under his fingernails?"

"No, sir," said Dunyach. "But I won't hold him down while someone else does that to him."

"Would you hold him underwater until he drowned?"

"No!"

"Would you hold him underwater until it simulated drowning— maybe sixty seconds, maybe seventy?"

Dunyach seemed to be weighing the question. Finally he just stared into Cole's eyes. "I'm all through talking, sir. Do to me what you do to the prisoner, but I'm not going to participate."

"Even though it means eighty men will surely die?"

"Yes, sir."

"And if you knew some of those eighty men would undergo harsh interrogation, as they surely will before they're executed, would that make a difference to you?"

Again Dunyach seemed to be struggling with himself. Finally Brill spoke up.

"We're not going to do it, sir, and that's final."

"All right," said Cole. "You're confined to quarters, and we'll put you off on the next populated oxygen world we come to."

"For not torturing a prisoner?" demanded Brill.

"No," said Cole. "For disobeying a direct order, and for being willing to let eighty allies die rather than causing some serious discomfort to one enemy. Now get out of here."

They left without another word, and Cole went back to Sharon's office.

"Whatever you were going to do, can you do it with three people instead of five?"

"I don't know," she said. "I suppose we can ask Val for help if we need it."

"No," said Cole.

"No?" she asked curiously.

"I'm the ultimate authority who approved it. If you need help with whatever technique you apply, you come to
me
for it—no one else."

"Are you sure, Wilson?"

"I can't throw those men off the ship for refusing to do something I wouldn't do myself—and I can't let eighty men die when we have a chance to save them."

"All right," said Sharon grimly. "Time's running short. Let's get to work."

It wasn't pretty and it wasn't painless, but it was relatively quick, and in less than half an hour they had the information they needed. Cole left Security and returned to the bridge with it.

"Did he talk?" asked Val when he arrived.

"He talked," answered Cole.

"I thought he would," she said. "He looked too damned wholesome." Then: "Is he still alive?"

"Yes."

"Is he ever going to be able to function normally again?"

"Yes," said Cole.

"He talked too soon," she replied decisively.

"We can't all be like you, Val," said Cole. "I feel sorry for the poor bastard. He was minding his own business out in the middle of nowhere. He didn't ask for that information, or to have the transmission overheard. He's just a victim of circumstance."

"We're all victims of circumstance," she replied. "The competent ones make use of it or overcome it."

Cole wanted to tell her that she couldn't stand up under the kind of interrogation Torres had suffered, except that he had a feeling she was the one person on the ship who could. Instead he walked over to Wxakgini.

"Pilot, take us hell for leather over to the Malagori system."

"Hell for leather?" repeated Wxakgini.

"Old-fashioned slang. Ii means fast as you can."

"It's not a matter of how fast I can go, but rather how fast the ship—"

"Just do it!" snapped Cole. "I've had a lousy day, and I don't need any arguments about semantics!"

Wxakgini turned back to the navigational computer without another word.

"Malagori?" said Rachel, frowning. "What's there? I thought it was unpopulated."

"They colonized Malagori V a few years back," said Cole. "It's called Thistlepatch now."

"Why?" mused Domak.

"I suppose we'll find out when we get there," answered Cole. "Anyway, I gather it's mostly a shipping world. They've got a few dozen huge warehouses where supplies from the outer colonies, plus those they steal from the Inner Frontier, are temporarily stored and then sent off to those worlds that have ordered them."

"Do they
have
a prison for eighty people there?" asked Rachel.

"I doubt it. That's why they're transferring them so soon. They're probably just locked in another warehouse."

"What kind of defenses do they have?" asked Val.

"The usual planetary defenses," said Cole. "Nothing that can bother the
Teddy R."

"This should be a piece of cake," she said.

He shook his head. "Don't understand me so fast. They have no
planetary
defenses that can harm us—but we have to assume they'll have military ships patrolling the system. They won't know for sure that the Octopus didn't get off a coded distress signal before they captured him."

"Will we be asking some of our allies for help?" said Domak.

"I don't know what good it'll do," answered Cole. "We have only two other ships capable of going up against the kind of massive firepower that could hinder the
Teddy R.
One of them has no engine, and the other was just captured by the Navy." He paused. "We may need something other than a direct approach." He turned to Rachel. "Sokolov's still on board, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"And his ship's still attached?"

"It's bonded to the
Teddy R,
sir."

"All right," said Cole. "Have Pilot pick a rendezvous location for us, Moyer, Perez, and Flores—oh, and Jonah, the Octopus's son, if he wasn't captured with the others. Then contact them and have them meet us there in ten hours."

"Yes, sir."

"Let me know if there's any problem."

Cole walked to the airlift, and Val called after him. "Where are you going?"

"To the Officers' Lounge, to pour myself a stiff drink and try to get the taste of the past hour out of my mouth."

Cole walked to the airlift and descended two levels. He thought of asking Sharon to join him, but she hadn't looked like she wanted any company, even his, when he'd left Security twenty minutes earlier.

David Copperfield and the Platinum Duke were playing an alien card game when he entered.

"You're teaching him another game?" Cole asked of David.

"He's teaching
me,"
answered the little alien. "It's the only way He'll agree to play whist with me."

"Well, we all have to make sacrifices," said Cole, plopping down on a leather chair.

"Did our prisoner give us the information we needed?" asked the Duke.

"Eventually," said Cole.

"How long did he hold out?"

"Eighteen, maybe twenty minutes," replied Cole. He grimaced. "It must have felt like an eternity to him."

"I won't ask what you did to him," said the Duke, "but I do have a question."

"Yes?"

"Would you have done the same thing if you'd been after strategic information that you didn't know would save eighty lives?"

"I don't know that
this
will," said Cole. "It just gives us a chance at it. I have no idea what the Navy left behind to guard the prisoners."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I don't know the answer," said Cole truthfully. "I hope I never have to find out."

"Well, that's honest, anyway."

"I can answer it," interjected David Copperfield. "My friend Steerforth would never resort to torture under any circumstances."

"I don't believe you were listening," said the Duke. "He already did."

"Is the prisoner alive?" persisted David. "Will he recover fully?"

"Yes to both questions," said Cole.

"Then it was just interrogation, not torture."

"There's a very fuzzy line, David," said Cole. "I don't know if we crossed over it or not. I just know if we hadn't done what we did, we'd have condemned eighty men to their deaths. This way there's at least a chance we can save them."

"War is hell," said David.

"To quote General Sherman," said Cole.

"No, it was Admiral Vosburgh, right before she destroyed Pinchon V."

"You're both wrong," said David. "It was the immortal Charles."

"David," said Cole, "not every brilliant line belongs to Dickens."

The little alien pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket and held it out to Cole.

"Cut the cards," he said.

Cole cut to a seven.

"My turn," said David. He cut to a jack, flashed a triumphant smile, and put the cards back in his pocket.

"What was that all about?" asked Cole.

"I won."

"Okay, you won. So what?"

"So Dickens said it."

"What do you suppose he'd have been like if he'd read the
Communist Manifesto
first?" the Platinum Duke asked Cole.

"I suppose it could be worse," said Cole. "He could have read
Fanny Hill,
and none of the female crew would be safe."

"Or that Canphorite poet Tanblixt—the one who uses all that cosmic imagery."

"Will you please stop speaking about me as if I'm not here?" demanded David.

"But you're
not
here," replied the Duke.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You've been replaced by someone who loves Charles Dickens so much that he thinks he's David Copperfield."

"Steerforth, throw that man in the brig!" demanded David.

"Calm down, both of you," said Cole.

"He insulted me!" said David.

"David, I like you," said the Platinum Duke. "But the fact remains that you're certifiable."

"Shut up!'"
yelled Cole. The other two simply stared at him. "I just did something that I took a solemn oath never to do," he said. "I don't need any more hassles today."

Before they could either apologize or argue, Cole was on his feet and out the door. He walked through the aging corridors and past the dented bulkheads until he reached Security. Sharon was alone, and he walked up to her.

"How do you feel?" he said.

"Rotten."

He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. "Come on," he said.

"Where are we going?"

"My cabin," he said. "We can feel rotten together."

"I was hoping you'd ask," she said.