The Final Battle (35 page)

From Level A, prisoners would be herded down to the holding cells on Levels B and C by silent but always brutal guards who were never slow to use their plasteel batons. There they would stay, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks. But in the end, they all ended up being dragged to Level D for interrogation in rooms harshly lit by banks of halogen overheads that threw a pitiless white light from which there was no escape. The rooms were bleak and functional, fitted only with chairs and a simple metal table bolted to a plascrete floor pierced by a small drain to make it easier for blood to be hosed away.

The process was so assured, a guilty finding so certain, that the lucky few released without charge—and they were very few—were often violently sick on the pavement outside the Gruj as they waited for someone to pick them up. DocSec troopers called them boomers, because they always came back. The troopers had never been good losers, and every boomer was a challenge to their infallibility. And DocSec’s view of things was simple in the extreme: Everyone who ended up in the Gruj was guilty of something even if DocSec hadn’t yet worked out what that thing was.

For the overwhelming majority, the next stop on their journey through the bowels of the Gruj was preordained. In the interests of efficiency, the Gruj had its own investigating tribunal tucked away in a corner of Level A, the last stop but one for most prisoners and the only area underground that was even close to being comfortably warm.

Staffed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the tribunal was an organization intensely proud of its ability to listen to the evidence presented by the DocSec prosecuting officer and hear the accused’s response—if the tribunal could be bothered, though it rarely was—before bringing down the required verdict of guilty and recommending the sentence. The efficiency experts had decreed that the process should take five minutes if everyone did his job properly, and to nobody’s surprise, almost every case was dealt with in less. The record, proudly held for more than ten years by Investigating Tribune Corey MacMasters, was fifty-seven seconds from the moment the state prosecutor opened the proceedings to the handing down of the sentence.

Because of DocSec’s unshakable belief in guilt by association, it was rare for a case not to involve at least two hapless Hammer citizens. The record, once again held by the energetic MacMasters, was the trial of the entire crew of the Verity-Class heavy cruiser
Jossarian
, more than a thousand of them, their only crime having been to serve with a handful of crew members who complained too loudly about the conduct of Marshall Fench,
Jossarian
’s protector of doctrine and a man so irredeemably corrupt that even DocSec had been forced to bring him to account, but only once the misguided spacers had been consigned to the Hammer penal system after a trial in front of a tribunal temporarily set up in one of the Gruj’s huge underground garages.

MacMasters had finished the entire process in less than three minutes.

The final stop for the guilty was outprocessing, and then their journey through the Gruj’s little slice of hell would end where it started, back at the loading dock. There DocSec guards would ram the guilty into the back of black trucks, some for McNair State Prison and an appointment with the DocSec firing squad, some for the living death of the Hell system’s mass driver mines, most for the hard labor camps scattered the length and breadth of the three settled planets of the Hammer Worlds.

Michael shivered again. Hartspring had told him he was to be treated like any other DocSec prisoner. It was his misfortune to know in cold, clinical detail what that meant.

The door banged open, and a marine stuck his head in. “The APC is here, corp,” he said.

“Get the escort lined up,” Haditha said. “On your feet, Helfort. Let’s go.”

Michael’s journey down into the hell they called the Gruj had started.

Wednesday, October 20, 2404, UD
Level B holding cell, the Gruj, McNair, Commitment

The cold had seeped deep into his body. He was chilled right down the bone. For hours his body had been racked by uncontrollable shivering.
Hypothermia
, Michael thought.
If this goes on much longer, I’m going to die
.

Michael sat with his head back, eyes looking up at the single recessed light in the ceiling, leaning against the ceramcrete wall, at the point where he did not have the energy to care anymore. After days of relentless interrogation and physical abuse, his reserves of courage, of resilience, of self-belief, had run dry. He had nothing left to absorb the appalling shocks that life dished out. He was empty. He did not care. He had nothing left to care about. He was just a number in orange DocSec coveralls waiting to die.

He laughed softly, a laugh that mocked his obsessive determination to hunt down and kill Hartspring.

The cell door banged opened, swinging back into the wall with a crash. Michael did not even look up, unable to summon the slightest interest in the man standing in the opening.

“On your feet, 775,” the DocSec trooper said.

With an effort, Michael dragged himself upright.

“Outside!”

Michael stumbled after the man and into a bleak, harshly lit ceramcrete corridor. It reeked of chlorine. The Hammers used tons of the stuff to scour the blood and shit out of the cells. Two troopers waited for him. They took him by the upper arms and set off. Michael forced the men to take his weight. His feet dragged, one last tiny act of defiance.

If it bothered the troopers, they didn’t let it show. After a bewildering succession of turns and two elevator rides, Michael was manhandled into a small room and thrown into a chair; his arms and legs were secured to small rings. Job done, the troopers left, the door slamming behind them. Michael looked around, confused. He wondered what this place was. Unlike the interrogation rooms he’d been in over the last few days, this one was warm, softly lit, its floor not bare ceramcrete but carpeted. And the table was timber, not scuffed and scarred metal like all the rest.

He was left on his own for a long time. The minutes dragged past, but Michael was content to sit there to thaw out. The warmth soaked the chill out of his bones until his head fell back and he drifted into sleep.

A smack to the back of the head jerked him awake. “What the fuck?” Michael mumbled.

It was Hartspring. “Wake up, you sack of shit,” he said, his riding crop stabbing at Michael’s chest.

“What do you want now?” Michael muttered.

“You have a visitor, Helfort. And I’m warning you: Be polite, or by Kraa I’ll make you wish you were dead. Understood?”

Michael glared at Hartspring. His silence earned him a savage slash across the back from the man’s riding crop. “One day,” Michael hissed, “I’ll make you eat that fucking thing.”

Hartspring sniffed. “I don’t think so,” he said with a disdainful sneer.

The door opened. Michael sat up; he could not help himself. “I’ll be damned,” he whispered as he saw who it was.

“So, Colonel Hartspring,” Jeremiah Polk said as he walked in, “this is the young man who has given me so much trouble.”

“Yes, sir.”

Michael stared up into Polk’s face. It was a hard face, lined and drawn, the eyes hard too, a deep brown, almost black. They glittered in the harsh light.

Polk nodded. “Not very impressive,” he said. “He’s much smaller than I expected. So, Helfort, I hope the colonel’s treating you well.”

Anger flared. “This is the Gruj,” Michael snapped, “so that’s got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever—”

Hartspring’s hand shot out. It locked itself around Michael’s throat and choked him into silence. “I won’t tell you again, boy,” he snarled. “Mind your manners.”

“It’s all right,” Polk said with an expansive wave. “Let him babble on. It won’t change anything.”

“Yes, sir,” Hartspring said, letting go of Michael’s throat.

“I am disappointed, though,” Polk went on, talking over Michael’s choking fight to get air down his bruised windpipe.

“You are, Chief Councillor?”

“Yes. I was rather hoping you would have caught that woman of his as well. What was her name?”

“Anna Cheung Helfort, sir.”

“Yes, her. I would have enjoyed seeing the pair of them die together. So romantic—”

“You slimy son of a bitch!” Michael shouted. He hurled himself forward, arms flailing in a fruitless attempt to get free of their restraints. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

Polk laughed. “I don’t think so.” He turned to Hartspring. “Your prosecutor is taking his time,” he said.

“We need to take the time to get this right, sir. The trial is scheduled to start a week from tomorrow.”

“Humph!” Polk snorted. “It’s all taking too long, but I’ll defer to you on this one. Who’s the investigating tribune?”

“Kostakidis, sir, Marek Kostakidis.”

Polk frowned. “I don’t know him. He’s solid?”

“As a rock, sir. He was one of the tribunes who dealt with the
MARFOR 8
mutineers.”

“Kostakidis … Ah, yes, I remember him now. Seemed very efficient.”

“He is, sir. But more important, he’s very precise. There’ll be no mistakes.”

“Good. We have—”

“Hey!” Michael said. “I’m still here, assholes.”

This time Hartspring did not hold back. The riding crop was raised high before slicing down, a vicious slash that laid Michael’s cheek open, blood pouring down hot into his orange coverall.

“Now look what you’ve done, Colonel,” Polk said. His voice displayed no emotion whatsoever. “You seem to have spoiled that pretty face of his.”

“My apologies, Chief Councillor,” Hartspring said. He wiped the blood from the crop and stepped back. “It won’t happen again.”

“Really? That’s a shame. I rather enjoyed watching you do that.” Polk put his face close to Michael’s. “You do know,” he said, “that I’ve told the colonel that he can do what he likes with you once the trial’s over? Yes, I think you do.” He turned back to Hartspring, wagging a finger in mock rebuke. “But you must not let him die, Colonel Hartspring … well, not until I say you can.”

“Oh, don’t worry, sir. He’ll wish he was dead, but we’ll make sure he hangs on. I’ve instructed my best interrogator to keep Helfort alive for three weeks at least.”

“I like the sound of that. And the film crew?”

“Briefed and ready to go. I think you’ll enjoy my daily reports.”

“Oh, I will.”

Michael had had enough. “So how’s the war going, Polk?” he said. “Not well last time I checked. The
NRA
won’t give you the three weeks Colonel Asswipe here—”

Another savage slash from the riding crop cut Michael short, but this time he expected it, twisting his head down and to one side to take the blow on his head. The pain was excruciating; the crop opened a cut deep into his scalp that send blood pouring down his neck. But it was worth it, Michael thought, staring from pain-filled eyes up into Polk’s face, worth it to see the fear on the chief councillor’s face.

“Well, well, well,” Michael said, forcing a smile through the pain, “so it’s not going well, then. Maybe you’re the one who’ll be looking at a firing squad—”

Michael was still focused on Polk when Hartspring’s fist slammed into the side of his face, the blow so powerful that he blacked out for a second.

“I don’t care about how the little bastard looks, not anymore,” Polk said to Hartspring. “I want you to hurt him. Make him scream, Colonel. Just don’t kill him. I want him in court next week, unmarked and on his feet.”

Hartspring smiled. “Yes, sir,” he said. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

• • •

Twelve hours later, Hartspring followed two DocSec troopers as they dragged the bloodied wreck that was Michael Helfort into the Gruj’s sick bay. They dumped him on the floor.

“You!” Hartspring barked at the duty medic, snapping the man out of a half doze and onto his feet. “This man is a Class A prisoner. I want him fixed up now, and if he needs to go to the hospital, then organize it. Just let me know before you move him so I can organize security.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you two,” he said to the two troopers. “You do not let Helfort out of your sight. Understood?’

“Yes, sir,” the pair chorused.

“Good. I want an update in an hour.”

Wednesday, October 27, 2404, UD
High-security ward, McNair Memorial Hospital, Commitment

Michael was bored rigid.

Even the prospect of appearing in front of Investigating Tribune Marek Kostakidis was not enough to get him excited. In fact, he was looking forward to it in a strange way. It would be a change from the tedium of being locked in a secure cell inside a secure ward with nothing to do and nobody to talk to. It also would give him a chance to say his bit, even though he knew full well he would not be given more than a minute or two, if that, to say anything.

The trial would be a farce. That much was not in doubt. The attorney appointed by the tribunal to defend him had handed him the brief of evidence only the day before. The meeting that followed had been a complete crock, and the attorney not much better. Over and over, he had refused to respond when Michael had pointed out inconsistencies in the evidence, saying only that the brief had been prepared by DocSec, was accurate, and could not be questioned.

Michael had never met a man so spineless. A jellyfish would have been more useful.

He pushed himself upright and swung his feet out of the bed before standing up, doing his best to ignore the protests from his abused body. Thanks to the best medical care the Hammers had to offer—as good as anything the Federated Worlds could provide—he was well on the way to recovery, his system still loaded with nanobots busy repairing the damage Hartspring’s interrogators had inflicted over the course of those terrible hours of unremitting punishment.

Michael stood swaying until the light-headedness had passed. He slipped on his plasfiber half boots before forcing his body into its regular routine of pacing out the few meters his cell afforded him, stopping every few circuits to do squats and push-ups. It was a huge effort, but he forced himself to move, relieved to feel his muscles loosening in response to the exercise, the pain that had wracked his frame the first few days now reduced to a mass of dull aches.