Chapter 25: The Original Enemy

Chapter 25: The Original Enemy

Paulie awoke to something prodding him in the head insistently, tapping at his skull like a tiny woodpecker trying to dig through his skull.

With a snort and a jerk, he sat back up from where he had been slumped over the padded examination table next to Jakiikii. He looked, but she was gone, he rubbed his stiff neck as he sat bolt upright.

Panic briefly flooded through him in that instant as he flashed his eyes across the room and then stopped. Jakiikii was fine, she was awake and upright on the other side of the room, standing and talking in animated fashion with a different medical worker than the smaukling that had helped them the night before.

Paulie scratched his head in mild confusion as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the other hand. Had he been out for that long? He couldn’t tell so he checked his commie and balked a little. He had apparently been asleep for hours as it was now early the next day.

He stood with a slight groan and noticed that Mursk was standing beside him with a tray, on it was a series of basic foodstuffs Mursk knew he could process and a big steaming cup of an unknown dark green liquid.

He grabbed the tray and nodded his thanks, “Thanks, Mursk. Uh, what’s this?” he asked, pointing at the steaming drink as he set it down on the examination table next to him.

The mendagoonian guardsman’s autotranslator spoke a second after his own clicking response. “Mulak, though potent enough to melt my insides to beaded glass. Though I know that in this concentration it is much more amenable to your own apocalypser tastes.”

Paulie’s eyebrows rose a little as he took a cautious sip. It was indeed strong, almost as strong as a good coffee back on Earth. He smiled as the warmth of the heated drink traveled down his throat and almost seemed to spread through his whole chest, the slight electric tingle of its potent caffeine-like chemicals washing away the gritty feeling of exhaustion after a few more swigs that he used to wash down some of the plain cracker-like breakfast biscuits.

He shook his shoulders and set the cup down, Jakiikii was walking their way now. She had a tired look about her, but she was smiling. Her dainty little mouth curled up and her orange eyes were bright. She looked better than she had when they had arrived the night before.

She spoke presently, the slightly husky sound of her voice reverberating from deep in her chest cavity. “Good morning Paulie.”

He rubbed his eyes and grumbled, “It’s a morning alright, not sure if it is good or not yet. I must have fallen asleep. Are you feeling better?” He looked her up and down as if his cursory surface inspection could reveal anything. “You look better.”

“I woke up about an hour ago, I feel much better.” She nodded, giving him a little grin as she did so.

Paulie continued, “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

She shrugged and gestured at Mursk. “You looked so peaceful there, and Mursk was still awake. So I just figured we would let you sleep. The station was not busy and so it was not an issue.”

Paulie looked at the power suited royal guardsman standing next to him. He looked the same as he always did, bright blue faceted eyes giving away nothing. He asked, “What, you didn’t sleep?”

Mursk made a low buzzing sound and then spoke, his alien speech translating mechanically with none of the apparent humour he was displaying with his subtle antennae movements. The computer synthesised voice was flat, saying, “I am not tired. I slept several hours the other day. I do not require the lengthy downtime that you both seem to require on the daily.”

Paulie’s brow furrowed. He had been wondering about that, he had never seen the alien sleep or nap, hell he had rarely seen the man stop to eat. His metabolism must operate on another level. He took another drink of the mulak, the green liquid cooling steadily to a more comfortable temperature. He took a larger drink and then set it aside, turning his attention once more to Jakiikii as she danced a little from foot to foot.

She blurted out, “Mursk got through to Ishion while we were asleep by the way. He says that he can meet with you later today at the precinct, and he apologises that he will not be able to get here sooner.”

Paulie stopped, the insulated cup halfway to his lips as his eyes narrowed.

“What?”

She nodded and Mursk chittered a little nervously before he asked him, “I was not sure that even your name would get me through the red tape, but it worked surprisingly well. I should not be surprised, I suppose, for the hero of Korscam. I am curious, what was it you needed to discuss with him so urgently that it could not wait?”

Paulie rubbed his face with his free hand and shook his head. “It was nothing that required urgency, I just wanted to ask him if there was any possibility that I could borrow a spaceship to go to raid Jual’s secret pirate base.” Jakiikii stepped closer as he said it, her face taking on a concerned air even as her mottled skin darkened in alarm.

“Why would you..” She squinted four of her six eyes at him as they others roved around the room as if looking for where his marbles had gotten off to. “You can’t just go galavanting off into the nether after revenge, Paulie!”

Paulie snorted and then slapped the medical table next to him, causing the nearby nurse to yelp and hop away on the other side of the table. “Why not!?” He demanded, even as he winced and mouthed a silent apology to the startled alien in the long white medical tunic, not that she would know the meaning of the words not his intent.

He turned back to the others after a second and continued before either had the chance to disagree. “Why not! I was taken, beaten and experimented on. I have been dragged from one side of this city to the other and as far as I am concerned my work is still not done. Ooounoo’s operation was all well and good. But I want Jual, I want him for what he did to me. And for what he might still do to others.” He was breathing heavily and he stood, pacing back and forth. Rapidly cooling beverage forgotten in one hand even as he stepped to-and-fro like a caged tiger searching for an exit.

Mursk seemed at a loss but Jakiikii made up for the other man’s silence with her own tense reply. “Yes, and what happens to you when you do get there? Are you going to take out the entire pirate base alone? Cause don’t expect me to follow you into that trap.” She let out a snort, the two slit-like openings on her lower sides flaring as she did so.

Paulie shook his head and glanced at Mursk. “No, not alone. Mursk will be there too, and Hauxsu. They are sworn to look after me after all.”

“Paulie! That is an unfair thing to say, you would risk their lives for your own satisfaction..”

Mursk cut her off though, raising a hand and twitching his feathery antennae. “Yes, I would go. But not because it is my duty.” Paulie and Jakiikii looked over at him curiously, the tension fading from the air as the insectoid continued speaking. The flat and near-monotonous translator’s words held true meaning though. “I would go, because you asked it of me. And this is enough, hero of the house of Nastrica.” And to Paulie’s embarrassment the man bowed his chitinous head at him.

He stepped forward and put a hand on Mursk’s closer shoulder, the thick metallic plates of his orange and black powered suit were cool under his fingers. “Hey hey.. no need for all the, uh.. formal type shit.” He quickly pushed the other man back upright then stepped away slightly.

Mursk’s antennae twitched in possible amusement and Paulie shifted before trying to change the subject. “Well, Jakiikii is right. I can’t just go running off on my own. No matter how much I want to.” He slumped a little, a feeling of hopelessness being spread from his core to his extremities like a chilling frost. He knew he was overthinking the issue, but it was hard to see the path forward without a lot of help from people far more influential than himself.

He felt a comforting hand on his shoulder, then two more. Jakiikii stepped closer. “I know how you feel, Paulie. I do.” He nodded but said nothing. She continued after another moment. “Vengeance. Justice. Revenge. They are all just words for the same actions. Trust me, when the time comes to take action I will be the first one through that gate. Right beside you. But I just don’t see how it would be possible. Not without a whole army anyway.”

Paulie grunted, maybe he could ask Ishion for a battalion of troops then. But he knew when she was speaking the truth.

“Fine, I am still going to ask him for a ship though.”

Mursk chittered in what could have been amusement or distress and Jakiikii just huffed.

“Fine. You do that then. But don’t whine to me when he tells you ‘no zalcing way’.” She waved a hand for emphasis as she said it.

“You really think he would say no?” Paulie asked her. Jakiikii shrugged.

“I guess you would have to ask and see.” She seemed resigned to his decision now though, her eyes dipping a little as she gave up trying to argue with him. At least she wasn’t telling him not to try now.

Paulie stretched and looked around the small room. It was much the same as it had been the day before with the exception of the alien nurse that was trying very hard to look like they were not avoiding Paulie and his friends. He rubbed his stiff neck and looked out into the hall.

Gesturing at the door he asked, “Well, what now?”

Mursk checked his wrist computer and then nodded towards them, “We were slated to sit-in on a conversation with Mack and Officer Triddle today, in about half an hour in fact. A little early, but that is why we woke you instead of letting you continue to sleep.”

Paulie felt his blood chill. There was only one person he knew of that they might need him to be present for the interview of. Jakiikii’s skin flashed a pale white as she came to the same conclusion he had.

The two of them looked at each other and then Paulie swallowed heavily as he replied calmly, “Okay.”

Jakiikii and Paulie followed Mursk as they left the aid room and went back down the hall, though this time in the opposite direction from the library. Jakiikii seemed to know where they were going, but Paulie was unsure. If he had been this way before then it had been from an alternate direction. They walked up several flights of stairs and through at least two large open chambers before they turned down another hallway with doors on all sides a few minutes later. He sometimes forgot just how large the main adjudicator’s complex was, until he had to walk through it.

There was text on the walls next to the doors as they passed them by. He could not read all of them yet, but he knew enough yuuvian now to understand that they were numbered in sequence. They stopped in front of a doorway labeled with that same alien text and the number 112 and Mursk punched a button on a keypanel next to the door with a gloved hand.

Paulie turned to Jakiikii, who had been relatively quiet as they had walked, and asked her, “What does that say?” He pointed at the unfamiliar word on the door next to the number.

She glanced and then looked at him without moving her head. One of her flexible petal-shaped eyestalks doing the work. She replied with a single word, “Interrogation.”

He looked around and noticed again how many of these interrogation chambers there were. There must have been forty in this one hall alone, and clearly by the number on the door there was more than one wing. Mursk tapped at his wrist communicator and then knocked on the doorway, the metal thunking solidly under his power-suited hand. The door must have been solidly built.

The small wall mounted keypad lit up next to the door and a voice issued from it, but they were speaking the common galactic language and Paulie was unable to understand, he was not synced to the speaker and so the electronic voice was not translated by his parasite.

Mursk replied, “Yes, both of them. And me of course. Now are you going to let us in, Officer?” There was a short barking reply and then the door’s mechanism clicked and the indicator lights on the panel flashed blue. The door swung open a few moments later with a faint whirr of electric motors.

Mursk grabbed for the recessed handle and pulled it open the rest of the way while standing to the side to hold it for them. Paulie nodded and followed Jakiikii inside slowly, he thought he knew what was waiting for him, but his heart still seized in his chest a little as he saw the hunched and wretched looking figure through the large transparent wall that separated the main room from the interrogation chamber proper.

Sitting in the dimly lit room adjacent the room he had entered, their body semi-immobalised in the multi-species restraints they wore, was a thagurn female. Her mottled green skin and fur catching the light and her pitch black, pupilless eyes seeming to absorb the remaining illumination that fell upon her. He did not expressly recognise their alien features, but some intuition told him that it was Ooounoo. The underworld dealer of antiquities and black market goods that had initially contracted Jual to capture humans.

He had met her before, and not relished those meetings. In that moment he felt a deep spike of anger that almost made him yell aloud at the glass, almost made him scream ‘murderer’ or a hundred other foul things that still may not have done her true justice. He wanted to pound on it, to break through it and strangle the life from this wretch who sat before him.

Jakiikii seemed to notice him tensing and reached out two arms for him, one gripping his shoulder and the other wrapping her long fingers around his nearer hand. After a moment he began to relax as she projected herself over his mind like a comforting blanket. Her ability was muted, his mind seemingly naturally resistant to psionics. But it was a comfort all the same to feel her presence so intimately.

He took a heavy breath and looked at her, “Thanks, Jakiikii.” She just nodded, the alien woman smiling faintly at her handiwork.

There was another in the room though that seemed to have witnessed his near outburst, and from the dim half-light of the darkened booth stepped an alien wearing the dark blue and silver of the city’s adjudicator forces.

It was another smaukling, the almost avian-like creatures had sickly green skin and thick feathers along their backs and upper arms. Her colorful crest feathers rose in greeting as she stepped forward and Paulie raised one hand in response to her sudden appearance.

She stepped forward on her raptor-like clawed feet and spoke, her voice a gritty burr that almost seemed to catch in his ears like shards of jagged metal. All screeches and sharp barking cackles. But he understood the alien perfectly, his jargon worm translating the inherent meaning of her croaking speech.

“Hello, I am Officer Triddle. I understand that you are the ones responsible for the downfall of this horrendous creature who calls herself Ooounoo?” Paulie glanced at Jakiikii and then nodded. The alien woman seemed to smile though her beak did not move, her colorful crest shooting up like a exotic dancer’s headdress. “Then you have my thanks, and it is my honor to meet you both.”

Jakiikii gave the woman her own version of the display, her skin flashing white at the compliment as she danced a little on her daintily tri-cloven hooves. “Yes, it is wonderful to meet you as well! I have heard of you from Mack, he speaks highly of your work ethic and skill.”

The air in the room seemed to lighten as the mood changed from one of barely concealed anger to one of shared comradery. Paulie watched as Jakiikii’s face alighted with excitement as she asked questions of stories she had heard of the policewoman’s exploits. It was nice to see her so excited, and a little terrifying to hear of some of the close scrapes the woman had been through and yet managed to survive with little permanent harm done.

Paulie put the muted conversation aside as he stared back through the one-way window at the reason for everything that had befallen him these last few months. He hated her, but another part of him was also strangely grateful. For without the incident of his abduction at the orders of this criminal, he would never have discovered mankind’s small place in a galaxy much larger than he might have imagined was truly possible. He would never have met Jakiikii. He would never have found his true purpose.

He shook his head and closed his eyes. It was too conflicting, she deserved everything that was coming her way, yes. He knew that. But he shuddered as he realised that in a strange way, he had her to thank for everything his life had become.

All the good and all the bad.