Chapter 26: Might As Well Ask

Chapter 26: Might As Well Ask

Jakiikii and the smaukling woman talked at length and with great animation for nearly eighteen minutes before their excited conversation was interrupted by a chime from Officer Triddle’s wrist-worn communicator. The feathered alien flexed her double-jointed arms and tapped the device several times as if navigating a series of menu screens.

The voice that issued from it a moment later was deeply familiar, masculine and with a sort of barking accent that Paulie instantly recognised as Mack’s.

“Open the door, I’m here.” The voice said.

Officer Triddle immediately glanced at a nearby console screen showing the hall outside the door and upon visual confirmation that Mack was indeed outside and also alone, she pressed a button Paulie had not noticed before and the door thunked again as the thick locking bolts were retracted.

A moment later the door swung outwards and a pale-skinned alien wearing a brown greatcoat limped in leaning on a short, metal cane. One of his legs was a cybernetic replacement, lost in the dangerous raid on Ooounoo’s main compound.

Mack’s large grey eyes lit up when he noticed Jakiikii and Paulie, though he turned to her and greeted her first. She walked over and wrapped the man in a tight embrace as he spoke loudly, “Well. I figured you two would be here today. I had tasked Mursk with bringing you both safely to the precinct for a reason. I wanted you here when I finally cracked Ooounoo open. And I think I finally have the information to do it.” He patted his chest as he said it, as if making sure there was something under his coat.

He looked at Paulie next and nodded his head respectfully. “Paulie.” Mack waved through the window into the room where the green-skinned alien sat, hunched and miserable looking in her grey prison garment as he said it then stepped toward Paulie.

Mack clapped him on the arm. “Good to see you pulling through, I heard about your tussle with that riiken.” He shook his head, long neck spines chattering together like dry reeds as he did so. “Now that is a tough nut, but you cracked it.” He slapped Paulie’s shoulder again as he grinned wide, his wide mouth was full of sharp teeth that flashed in the light.

“Every precaution was taken..” Mursk started to say, but Mack waved him to silence.

“Yeah, I know. You and your team did everything you could, and I am once again sorry for what happened. You need to pick a replacement before they leave the precinct, I won’t have their protection below full strength. Not for a single moment more than is necessary. I don’t know why you have not already.”

Mack fixed the mendagoonian soldier with a stiff look and the power armoured royal guardsman shifted almost uncomfortably. That Mack could elicit even that much of a reaction of unease from the normally stoic alien was more than a bit telling to Paulie. Mack must have some serious sway over the details of his and Jakiikii’s protective detail it seemed, even enough to order the royal guardsman around.

Mursk for his credit met the miriam’s gaze unflinchingly, though with his inflexible chitinous facial features it was a little hard to tell. After a moment of this the insectoid man waved a few arms and made a small sound almost like a giant bee buzzing in his ear.

“I will seek for a replacement with all due haste. But I will not speed the process just to fill the void left behind faster. They must be solid, I will accept no half measure substitutes.” He seemed adamant as he said it, his hands making a swift chopping motion as he finished speaking.

Mack nodded, his large grey eyes fixed on Mursk. “See that you do. Just don’t take too long, the pressure coming from outside is extreme. And there are more threats yet undiscovered.”

Mack shifted on his forward legs, the light buzz of his cybernetics piercing the air as he leaned more heavily on his cane with a short sigh. He waved a hand at Officer Triddle and she stepped towards him as he stated bluntly, “Alright. Let’s go talk to the prisoner. I have some new information I want to verify, and I think I know how to get her talking.”

The smaukling officer clacked her long beak and squawked, “I am sure you do. But she will just push it all aside and lead the conversation like the last few times.”

Mack nodded, his eyes glancing through the one-way window to look at Ooounoo. “She sure will, I am counting on it. Her arrogance will be the key.” The way he said it, his neck quills chattering together in the midst of his dark excitement, it almost made Paulie feel sorry for the woman. Then he remembered the hot, dark coffin he had been trapped in and his resolve stiffened again.

Jakiikii and Paulie stepped closer to the glass as Mack and Officer Triddle walked to the other side of the room and entered the interrogation chamber through another short passage not connected to the main hall. It must connect to another space, possibly where they had brought Ooounoo herself in from.

As Mack opened the doorway the thagurn sat upright on her multi-species stool and then seemed to squint as much as a creature like her could be said to. As Officer Triddle walked in and closed the door, taking up position by it with her arms by her sides, Ooounoo spoke in a mocking tone.

“Oh, great. The questions brigade is back. You are here to learn more about my ‘grand operation’?” the alien said the last part in a way that was translated as mocking to his ears. The jargon worm was doing more than just translating speech, it also translated her intent. The speakers were crisp, the voices broadcast from the sealed interrogation chamber into the darkened room he and Jakiikii were still in.

Paulie frowned as the criminal spoke, but Mack was unperturbed. He sat across from her, his back to the doorway and the window looking on from a sideways perspective so both were clearly in view. He tapped his wrist commie and then looked up at her as if surprised to hear her speak.

“What? More great wit from the head prognosticator herself? I would have thought one with your great intellectual talents would have died of boredom long past from our little chats. But here you are, still hanging on despite the grim monotony of speaking to little old me.” The speech was so passive aggressive, so full of subtle jabs that it made Paulie chuckle in spite of himself.

Mack continued as Ooounoo’s alien features screwed up into an unreadable emotion that could have either been disgust or a desperate need to vacate her lower bowels and then waved a hand before tapping a grey-skinned finger on the table’s surface between them. “Far be it from me to intrude, but it seems to me like you have little else to do but sit there and answer my questions.”

She held up a tentacled hand, her boneless finger-like tendrils waving as her four long antennae twitched. “No. No more of your proliferating banter. I have had about as much of that slop you call humour as I can take, I may just break yet from having to look at your goopy face all night long.” Paulie saw the alien’s face muscles twitch and watched as Mack’s stance shifted slightly.

Mack nodded, still unfazed by her colorful spite-filled words. “Alright, then would you rather discuss your illegal holdings again? As I seem to recall we didn’t get very far into that. As I remember you answered all seventeen of my questions by telling me to go and have sexual intercourse with various people and objects, not the least of them myself on four separate occasions.” Officer Triddle seemed to snicker and Ooounoo leaned back into the wall behind her, seemingly pleased with herself.

She cocked her head, all four unblinking black eyes fixed on him as she snorted. Her proboscis-like mouth fluttered as she spoke, “Yes. And I will continue to do so as long as you continue to try to get information out of me. Your bumbling attempts are even less effective than your paltry attempts to make my life less than comfortable. I am used to mistreatment, there is nothing you can say or do to me that I have not already experienced before.”

Mack nodded his head, his long neck flexing as he cocked it. “Nothing?”

She folded her arms across the table in front of her as she leaned forward. “Nothing.”

Mack shrugged and leaned his cane against the table conspicuously. “Well, then I suppose you would not be surprised to hear that your second shipment of zwelchen nygors was intercepted leaving the system. I guess your buyers in..” He squinted at the small tablet he had produced from inside his coat, “..Jakoo, won’t be very happy.”

She tensed slightly. Clearly she had not been expecting to hear that from Mack, but she maintained her presence and just waved a hand even as three of her antennae twitched and her body tensed ever so slightly.

“It is of little consequence.” She said flatly. The mask slipped slightly, Paulie saw it. Mack did too.

Officer Triddle stepped forward half a pace. Her taloned feet clicked audibly through the speakers as she cawed, “You do not deny them then?”

Ooounoo shrugged her shoulders. One hand reaching up to idly rub one of her head spikes. “What good would it do? I am accused of far worse crimes already than paltry smuggling. This is the least of my problems, another of which I can hardly deny as you would have a preponderance of evidence already or you would not have brought it up to me.”

Jakiikii grunted from next to Paulie and he glanced at her. She gestured to the thagurn criminal and nodded. “She is right, they would not have mentioned it unless it was already confirmed. She has nothing to gain by denying it and they lose another piece of potential leverage over her as she makes it clear it can’t be held over her.”

She cursed under her breath but he heard it anyway, “Zalc..”

Paulie patted her arm as Mack began to speak again, his voice coming through the speakers on the wall clearly. “Okay then, so you surely won't deny having worked with Miicree then as well?”

That made Ooounoo sit upright, Officer Triddle balked too at the name and Jakiikii swore again. Paulie looked at the faces of everyone and took in expressions of shock and disgust. He asked, “What, what’s so bad about them?”

Jakiikii waved a hand at him to be quiet as Mack nodded his head and continued speaking.

“Yeah, you were trading on the illegal goods markets. We already knew that, but too stoop to such low levels?” he clicked his tongue and barked a laugh, not nearly as forced as before as if he were genuinely amused. “Well, that is just pathetic even for a criminal low-life piece of scum like you.” Ooounoo tensed, her boneless limbs coiling as what passed for her fists clenched under the table. “Seriously.. I am not mad, just disappointed. Working with Challsetgo, sure. I can understand, the man is a respected smuggler and honestly nearly slipped through our fingers. The man has skill. But working with the likes of Miicree? How low can you crawl, you must have been truly desperate to employ the likes of..”

Mack’s mocking finally struck a nerve, the green skinned alien exploding as she seemed to try and lunge for Mack. The table bumped but her restraints held her to her seat even as the metal screeched.

Officer Triddle pulled a microwave pistol from her belt and pointed it at Ooounoo as the chained alien hissed, “You know NOTHING!” Hate dripped from her tone like venom, if looks could kill then surely Mack would have evaporated on the spot.

But Mack didn’t even flinch. Instead, he just tapped the screen of the tablet a few more times as if browsing for a new pair of shoes. Finally he looked up at her as if seeing her for the first time, a slow grin splitting his face nearly in half as he flashed his sharp teeth at her. His large grey eyes staring at her unnervingly.

“Why Ooounoo. I had no idea you were so worried about the company you keep. I suppose you would not be too happy if we went and picked her up for questioning? Maybe mentioned that we knew she was working for a big-shot like you? I would have to make a very public announcement about that kind of thing, maybe it would show up on the Sharl News Network or High-5 Tonight? What would the other low-life scum community think? The great and powerful Ooounoo, asking the absolute dregs of the low-life barrel to do her delivery work?” He seemed to relish the other woman’s visible anger and he leaned into the table even as he glanced at Officer Triddle and motioned for the tense looking smaukling officer to lower her less lethal weapon. She did so slowly, reluctantly.

Mack rolled his shoulders, several cracks issuing as they popped. He then fixed Ooounoo with a stare as she growled, “Who talked? Which one of those cowardly slop-shoveling mental invalids told you about Miicree?”

She seemed absolutely livid with anger and Paulie watched on in confusion. He was still unsure as to why this Miicree person was so bad for Ooounoo’s reputation. Jakiikii seemed transfixed by the events unfolding in front of them and so he kept watching silently.

He saw as Mack tapped the screen of his tablet again and smiled. “Nobody had too, though they did tell us a lot of other interesting things. Your association with Challsetgo for one.” Ooounoo seemed to buzz in anger again. Mack continued without pausing, “We also know about your associates in the Yellek system, and will be sending a task force there to ascertain the nature of your enterprise in that system too.” Her fidgeting stopped as he said it and then she seemed to hunch over. A strange sound emitting from her as she did.

Mack frowned and sat upright.

“Fools. All of you.” She growled.

She looked around the room, her head flicking in the direction of the one-way window as she slammed a boneless hand down on the table, making Officer Triddle reach for her belt again.

“You are already dead. You just do not know it yet.” She made the sound again, it seemed to be laughter. Her head scrunching down on her furred chest as she continued to cackle.

Mack stood and leaned on his cane as he spoke, “You are in no position to make threats anymore, might I remind you. You are..”

But she cut him off with a waved hand. “No. I am not threatening you, but you just have not realised the depth of your own mistake yet. That damn urrenian has put you up to this hasn't he?” She looked at the one-way window again, almost as if she was staring directly at Paulie through the glass. Paulie took an involuntary step back as she screeched, “You are watching this aren't you! You are dead, your whole planet is dead! They know, they already got the warning! You hear me ureenian! Your whole planet is going to burn!”

Paulie’s heart seemed to drop out of his chest at her words. He took a deep breath as he suddenly felt like there was a great dark weight settling over him from all sides and he swayed on his feet as his vision swam from the sudden wave of stress and fear.

Jakiikii was there by his side immediately, her hands steadying him and her voice a soothing balm as she pressed the mute button and cut off the alien’s ravings. “It’s fine. She can’t hurt you, she is just trying to get in our heads.”

Paulie nodded, but he wasn’t so sure. Her words had the sting of something darker, a thought coming to him as he remembered the words of a half-whispered nightmare. A promise of retribution against his whole species. A promise of destruction to rain upon all human kind. Rozz had warned him that he was the catalyst of a new apocalypse, and now Ooounoo’s ranting about Earth’s impending doom?

He looked at Jakiikii and shook his head. “No, she was telling the truth. At least, what she believes to be the truth. I know you can feel it, use your telepathy thing, is she lying?”

“Not how that works..” She started to say but Paulie shook his head.

“Just try.” He pleaded.

Jakiikii tensed and then turned all six eyes to look back at the thagurn who was now screaming silently in an empty room like a thing possessed. “No.” She sucked in a large breath. “She isn’t.”