Mason woke to the sound of heavy gunfire and the tearing of metal. His heart was pounding in his chest and he heard warning klaxons blaring through the ship. Was he on a ship? He tried to sit up quickly but his wrist was cuffed to the bed. He saw a pair of security personnel run past the door and saw two sprays of blood paint the windows of the sick bay. The nurse rushed out to see what was going on and he heard a scream punctuated by even more noise. He saw her slump to the ground against the door of the sickbay. The power armored Elemental came around the corner and he felt his stomach drop.
“Faraday?” He tried to yell over the klaxons.
“I am Star Captain Wilson Green of the Turkina Keshik. I have been sent to return you to the fold of our glorious clan way of life.” The power claw of the Elemental battle suit tore the metal bar free and Mason recoiled from the Elemental.
“Stop, I don’t want to be rescued!”
“You, the chosen acolyte of Luna Hazen? How could you not want to return to our way of life?” The Elemental battle armor moved slightly, and Mason covered his ears as the Shotgun fired again. Two more security personnel dropped.
“I am no one’s chosen acolyte. The damn Sokolov kids are off the deep end. They turned Jaxun into one of you! Mackenzie bought in completely!”
“Then why did you fight for our clan on Apollo?”
“I didn’t want to, but i had to.”
“To what end?”
“Mackenzie got herself captured to save a lancemate of ours named Leo. I wasn’t just going to let her run off by herself. When we were captured, we decided to work together to find her sibmate Jaxun, and find some way to free ourselves from the Jade Falcons!”
“Perfidy!” The Elemental roared.
“Look, I’m no one, less than the child of a trueborn warrior like the Sokolov kids! I don’t want to be a Jade Falcon, and i never wanted to be one! Tell them you couldn’t find me. Tell them i was already dead.”
“How did you escape Apollo?”
“I ejected from my mech after i set it to self destruct. I must have landed hard. I remember a giant Hanse Davion action figure pulling me out of the wreckage of my cockpit, and dragging me somewhere. After that i woke up here and there was all this noise and all this shooting.”
“I do not believe you, lying surat!”
“It’s the truth, I swear!”
“Do you believe him, Julian Sanders?”
The voice chimed in over the intercom. “I do. Thank you for the assistance, Ghan. Let’s get the sickbay cleaned up and the hallways cleaned.”
“Wait, What?” Mason said before he passed back out into his sickbed.
12 hours earlier
“Why do you not just ask him what you want to know?” Fins said quietly
“He might not be telling the truth.” Julian explained. Fins might be a little different, but after some ground rules were explained, she seemed to be a quick study.
“Lying? That’s terrible.” She answered him.
“Interrogation is possible, you certainly have the tools at hand to perform a quick and dirty information extraction.” Ghan said quietly.
“He was a comrade in arms. Leo would never forgive us if we tortured him.” Julian said with a shake of his head
“My people use a variety of chemical methods to acquire information. It would leave his body intact, but it could be damaging to his psyche. I am not sure how heavily he was indoctrinated by the Jade Falcons during his time with them.”
“Any ideas?” Julian said quietly to the room full of intelligence agents.
“We could scare him into telling the truth.” Fins said absentmindedly.
“What?”
“I saw a movie one time where the main character was a spy hunter who was tracking down a bunch of rogue voles…”
“Moles, Fins. Those are called Moles.” Ghan said quietly.
“I’m telling the story. So he catches one of the Voles and through some sophisticated scaring the crap out of him scenic elements, he managed to scare the Vole into revealing the entire plan and saved the day and got the girl and then there was kissing…” Ghan put his finger over her lips gently to shush her, and she promptly bit his finger.
“What is Mason afraid of?” Whisper asked quietly.
“Elementals.”
The entire room turned to stare at Ghan. “Why?”
“They tore apart a battlemech he was riding in, almost killed him in the process. Since then he has had an healthy respect for their capabilities and i suspect he holds a certain amount of dread for them.” Julian said quietly.
“You didn’t happen to bring one of those suits, did you Ghan?” Rampart asked him quickly.
“I always have one ready and one on standby. Why?”
“Can we replace your ammunition with blanks?” Julian asked him.
Ghan nodded, finally figuring out what they were planning. “Certainly, i will dispense with the laser mount and replace it with a heavy machine gun. I suspect noise and scent should be the keys for this operation?”
“Yes.”
“It will take me about an hour to get the equipment reloaded and to repaint the face of my suit.”
“Why repaint?”
“If he has truly gone over to the other side, he would recognize that i was not a member of his clan. This will be the most authentic way to gauge his reaction.”
“Are we really not going to tell Hayden what we’re doing?” Rampart said quietly.
“I would love to include her in this, but she’s not a spy. She may not be willing to make this choice with the rest of us.”
“If this is the course of action you wish to pursue, I will make the preparations, Julian Sanders.”
“Get yourself dressed. We’ll take it from there.”
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