15
Well, as I'm sure you can imagine, I was planning my escape before we even reached our billet. I was sure Samsonov was on to me, and it seemed very likely indeed our resident ISF thug, Akuda, would be paying me a visit all too soon. An event I didn't plan to hang around to experience.
However, immediately we marched back into the house we'd spent the previous night getting drunk in, rather than having time to slip away into the half ruined town in order to try to hide myself, Sergeant bloody Tadamoto stomped in after us and called us all into the large dining room, where our soft spoken
Chu-i Itto Kanehara stood waiting for us. He was one of your downy young officers, as green as the local sunsets, who was nervous around his men and tended to rely on grizzled old Tadamoto to actually run the platoon. On that day he was dressed in the usual tan fatigues, but with a black officers cap set smartly upon his well groomed noggin, with his combat booted feet spread apart and his hands clasped behind his back.
"At ease men." He said, then repeated louder, until we relaxed a little, wondering what this was all about. I noted the grain-magnate and his family seemed to have made themselves scarce as they were nowhere in the house as far as I could see. "Good, now then, we are due to advance on Twin Peaks as part of the Warlord's strike force at sixteen hundred hours this afternoon, an hour after the 'Mech vanguard will have set off." He paused, clearing his throat a little, clearly somewhat nervous in front of us uncouth grunts, and I was so jumpy after the disaster of that mornings parade I actually yelled 'Banzai!' At the top of my strained voice if you can believe it. The rest of the lads glanced at me, some shooting daggers, perhaps thinking I was trying to brown-nose to the
Chu-i after winning my mention in dispatches. Kanehara just stared at me with a baffled look, then coughed and continued.
"As I say ... the 'Mech vanguard. Which will consist of two assault and three medium lances of the Fifth, and will have the honour of breaching the walls of Twin Peaks." Perhaps it was due to my windy mood and jittery nerves at the time, but I absolutely blurted aloud without thinking to myself;
"Huh, odd, why not use the fire lances to batter the walls down from range?" The room went so quiet I'm sure they would've all been able to hear the horrified thunder of my heart going ten to the dozen, as I realised I'd just made a hideous faux pas ... a DIF grunt did not interrupt his officer during a briefing.
I looked up slowly and stammered an apology, quaking before the truly ghastly mix of stunned surprise and belligerent fury upon Tadamoto's ugly face, however the
Chu-i seemed so taken aback he actually answered me.
"A reasonable question Private. No Sergeant, it's quite all right, that's actually a most astute query. In answer, reliable intelligence has been gained confirming that the Fedrat 'Mech Regiment are holed up inside the walls of their city. Which walls are notably aged and lacking in long range weaponry, and as the Fifth is presently short of fire Lances here, due to the necessity of holding down Narhal's Raiders in the west, the Warlord has wisely realised a heavy force of hard hitting medium and short range 'Mechs can take advantage of the cowardice of these New Ivaarsen Chasseurs and close inside the shadow of their walls, thereby having the best chance of breaching the city."
As he was speaking I was thinking it through. Clearly Darlin' Arlin had ordered Duke Stephen behind Twin Peaks' dangerously weak walls, which in real terms would make the defence of the city actually harder, as the bulk of the long range weaponry on the 'Mechs of the Chasseurs themselves would not be able to be brought to bear upon an attacking force. If this 'Mech assault force went in hard and fast, and pummelled these apparently ageing walls with their heavy weaponry, Samsonov's plan might well work. I mentally shrugged to myself, well it was no skin off my nose either way, as I didn't intend to get within a hundred klicks of the place if I could help it.
Anyway, Kanehara went on to detail our place in the attack plan, which was to hitch a ride with a tank Regiment that was with us, then when the walls were down move into the city behind the 'Mechs and tanks in a mopping up capacity. Kanehara wished us all good luck and assured us he trusted us to all throw ourselves into battle with the selfless honour of true soldiers of the Dragon. With that we were dismissed and Tadamoto began to bear down on me, his ham like, scarred fists balled and ready to beat me into next week for speaking out of turn, or at all, during the briefing.
It was at that moment, as I steeled myself to gracefully receive Tadamoto's latest little chastisement, that my worst nightmare became reality. Two tan uniformed, black helmeted and armoured, DCMS Military Police Corporals jogged up, KK assault rifles bouncing at their backs, and stun-sticks at their belts. One of them, a huge brute with unshaven cheeks, panted out something to Kanehara, while the other, a shorter more rat-like looking runt scanned the lads with a piercing gaze and pointed at me.
"That's him." I heard the bastard exclaim. "You there, Private Nixon, front and centre." He shouted without waiting for the
Chu-i or Tadamoto to react.
My legs nearly melted there and then, and I thought I was going to faint my heart was racing so fast. Should I run? I quickly dismissed the idea, it would be an instant admission of guilt, and besides those bastards had rifles while my weapon was back with my gear in the next room. Trying to calm myself I turned and did my best to look innocent and curious. Tadamoto was looking from the MPs to me and back again, clearly struggling to work out what was going on, and perhaps why he was having the object of his wrath almost literally snatched out from under his fists. I doubled across to the
Chu-i and knocked off a smart fascist salute, aware of the cool, almost bored, stares of the two Corporals.
"Ah yes, Private Nixon, you obviously caught the Warlord's eye today." Kanehara said in a brisk tone. "He's asked
Taishi Akuda to debrief you fully about your execution of the Fedrat sea-soldier and how you came to be serving with us ... to better allow your heroics to be described in dispatches I expect." The blithering idiot said almost proudly. "So, if you would accompany Corporals Ortega and Hoshikawa here to the old church, they will escort you to your interview with the
Taishi."
Ortega, the larger of this prize pair cleared his throat at that, drawing a glance from that absolute plonker Kanehara.
"Sir, the
Taishi may need some time to ... ahem ... debrief the Private properly. So the Private will advance to Twin Peaks with us, and we have been ordered to collect all his gear." Looking a little taken aback, and somewhat worried all of a sudden, as perhaps the idiot realised there was more to this than a quick debrief to better allow the
Taishi to write up a mention in dispatches, Kanehara quickly remembered another more urgent chore and before hurrying away without another word to me, he sent Tadamoto to collect my gear.
"Don't even think about running chum." I heard Ortega's deep voice mutter in Japanese at my shoulder. "My colleague, Corporal Hoshikawa here, can blow a man's kneecaps off at a hundred and fifty paces ... I've seen him do it."
* * *
It's probable you lucky swines haven't personally had much experience with the Kuritan ISF yourselves, so I should imagine it's necessary I give you a quick overview of that bestial organisation, before I detail my 'interview' with
Taishi Akuda later that day.
Well, it's a fact y'know that even most of the more scholarly studies I've read on the ISF tend to make the most basic mistake of assuming it's run in a fairly similar way to our own MIIO, or the Lyran LIC. That is as a monolithic governmental organisation divided into neat internal departments, each with their own clear remit and area of operation. However I assure you, speaking from my own very extensive, if highly timorous, experience of the Snake secret police, this is very far from the truth of the matter.
Allow me to explain, y'see whereas our own secret service is, albeit by it's very nature, highly secretive, it does remain an openly accepted and publicly known Ministry of the Federated Suns government, with it's head a permanent member of the Privy Council; however the only firm things most Combine citicens know about the Internal Security Force of their nation is that, despite official Kuritan claims to the contrary, it exists, it's dreaded agents might be anyone anywhere, and that it's been run by that deceptively charming savage Subhash Indrahar for most of Takashi's long reign.
While it's true your Average John Smith from the suburbs of Avalon City probably knows very little about most of what the MIIO gets up to, there are however inevitably, in a freer state such as our own, plenty of books on the civilian market that lay out it's organisation pretty accurately, and most educated Fed Suns citicens can name the various internal departments, such as the Military Intelligence Liason, or the Bureau of Internal Investigations. Nobles and government officials probably even know the names of the heads of each department at any given time.
That certainly ain't so with the Kuritan ISF. There may well be important ISF bigwigs answering to Subhash personally, and charged with to some degree overseeing certain different operational areas, but the ISF itself functions more like a vastly widespread ancient Japanese ninja clan than a good old fashioned ministry. Most of it's agents and operatives belong to, and operate inside of, other Combine groups or governmental departments, and typically only their direct ISF superiors, who will also have their own rock solid cover identities and jobs, are ever aware of the agents affiliation with the secret police. Indeed about the only visible and publicly known ISF members are the Director himself, the military ISF 'Ambassadors' who are attached to every regimental sized or greater DCMS unit, and DCA ship or port, certain staff of the ISF propaganda service, and a few elite ISF military units, such as the jump-commandos of ISF 'Unit Ten', who nearly killed me during the Silver Eagle Affair.
This then has the effect that the ISF is perhaps the most feared instrument of terror in known space, responsible as they are for countless abductions, murders, and interrogations, due to the paranoia instilled by the fact that even your own family members might be agents, or might inform on you to the 'Friendly Persuaders' of the Civilian Guidance Corps (the civilian police), or to the Neighbourly Patrol (state sponsored civilian neighbourhood watch vigilantes), both of which organisations are positively riddled with ISF operatives.
This widespread, invisible, almost cell like structure, tends to mean inevitably that ISF agents are more diverse in their skills and areas of responsibility than operatives of other Inner Sphere secret services. The average agent would routinely watch those around him for the faintest traces of disloyalty of course, but also might be amongst the faceless black clad men who kick down the door of unfortunate 'traitors' in the middle of the night. He might also be the man who murders those 'traitors' and sticks their severed heads on
jitte daggers outside their homes, to serve as a grizzly warning to the victim's family and neighbours the next day.
Oh and by the way, while I'm holding forth on the subject, I can put you straight here on another couple of popular myths about the ISF; firstly, while the commandos of the DCMS' Draconis Elite Strike Teams often do train with the ninja-commandos of the ISF Special Units, and doubtless include some ISF members secretly within their midst, the DEST are Kuritan
army special forces, not ISF as some seem to believe. Secondly, it's been leaked in recent years into the intelligence community that Subhash the Smiling Savage has built up a secret society within the ISF itself which owes fealty only to him, and that this society, known reputedly as the 'Sons of the Dragon', acts as a kind of super-commando unit ... well there is some truth in this rumour, the Sons of the Dragon certainly exist, I should know I've sort of been a member since '39, and without their help I'd never have got off of Terra alive in '44. However, I assure you, there is a very good reason for Subhash's secrecy regarding their existence, and for the fact that he kept that knowledge from Takashi for so long ... and it has nothing to do with Subhash wishing to have guards loyal only to him. Blake's blood, he's surrounded by fanatically loyal agents at all times anyway, he hardly needs more ... no the reason for their secrecy is entirely to do with the enemy Subhash had the impressive foresight to recognise decades ago and then to build the unit specifically up to fight, and the vital necessity for plausible deniability on Takashi's part in the all matter. But I shall say no more about the Sons here, for it don't bear upon this story.
So then, I was unsurprisingly in a woeful state of nerves, sweating and nearly pissing myself with fear, as I was marched into the former New Avalon Catholic Church where
Taishi Akuda was apparently awaiting my arrival.
The Regimental
Taishi was typically something of a hate figure of in DCMS units, as they usually spent their days not in combat, or involved in any of the hard slog of campaigning, but rather sat safely out of the way, opening mail home from the soldiers, or spying upon the men of their given regiment, and all too often organising the arrest and punishment of any soldier not showing the requisite fanaticism and bravery.
I'd made certain not to draw Akuda's attention during my time with the Three Fifty Seventh Assault Regiment, but I'd heard some horror stories whispered by my platoon mates about the harshness with which he came down on anyone who stepped out of line, or was caught voicing 'defeatist' opinions, so it was with a very heavy heart and roiling belly I trudged that morning toward my fate.
* * *
Jommson's old NACC church was spacious and airy, making quite a pleasant change from the reeking smoky fog that still partially covered the town square and most of the streets. The pews were stacked against each wall, clearing a wide space where several inflatable camp tables and chairs had been spread, and where comm-techs, staff officers and sundry other tan uniformed Snakes worked, hunched over p-comps, portable comm-stations and maps.
As they had all the way from the billet, Hoshikawa and Ortega loomed either side of me, hustling me through the lines of tables as I caught a brief impression of stained glass windows along each dark brick wall, one large one in particular depicting a man hanging by his neck from a fruit tree, which I realised with a flash of memory must have been New Ivaarsen's own Saint, Oscar Kendrick. It didn't make for a pleasant image at the time and I wrenched my gaze away to find I was being led towards a black wood door in the left hand wall.
The two grim faced MPs nudged me through the door, and down a dimly lit stone staircase into the bowels of what seemed to be some kind of basement. As I reached the bottom of the stairs I pulled up short as I heard the most dreadful, high pitched scream echo up from somewhere further on into the gloom.
"Step it up chum, it's just a Fedrat being interrogated." Ortega growled in my ear, while pushing me on with his massive paw, down a long cobweb bedecked cellar, lit only by a scant few, bare light bulbs, it's walls lined with plundered and emptied wine racks. The screaming continued up ahead unabated, hoarse and raw, and so petrified was I that I actually considered trying to overpower my two burly guards and run for it there and then. However, the fear had well and truly unmanned me, as they say, and I'm sure at that time I couldn't have overpowered an asthmatic ant who was carry heavy shopping.
While musing absently that it was typical of the wastrels who tend to run the New Avalon Catholic Church, that before the arrival of the Snake invaders they had clearly maintained a very extensive wine cellar on the quiet, despite New Ivaarsen's strict prohibition laws, I was thrust down a side passage with several arches opening into side rooms. Glancing into the unlit rooms as we passed I noted they held stacks of dusty cardboard boxes, apparently full of books and papers ... presumably parish records and the like perhaps dating back centuries.
At the end of the corridor were two stout wooden doors facing each other, wan light seeped out from under each door and I gulped as I noted the terrible, harsh screaming was coming from the door on the left. I was most relieved when I was ushered through the right hand door. However I was not so keen to then receive a jab from Ortega's stun-stick in the small of my back, and gasped at the sudden shock before blacking out.
* * *
I came round slowly, aware initially only of a dusty smell, then a hazy piss-yellow lamp light filtered into my consciousness, and nagging pain gnawed at my wrists and ankles.
"Oh he's back with us." A cheerful warm voice said in faintly accented Japanese, and I forced my eyes open to find myself looking up at
Taishi John Akuda. He was a blandly handsome young man, with immaculately short cut brown-black hair, bright grey eyes, sun bronzed skin, and a wide expressive mouth that was presently twisted just slightly into a sardonic grin. Dressed in his insignia-less all black officers uniform, it struck me at the time he would have cut a swathe through the gals at any military function.
"I'm so sorry Corporal Ortega there had to stun you. It just saves time. You understand, I'm sure?" He said, leaning nonchalantly back against a wall covered in glass fronted bookcases. I tried to speak, aware I was in some kind of archival storeroom, lined with the cases full of old ledger books and the like, but my throat was so dry I simply croaked instead.
"Get the man some water Ortega." Akuda said, the picture of concern, as I looked down to find myself stripped to my white standard issue vest and boxer shorts, and bound tightly with plastic restraints to a metal chair. I moaned in horror, and instinctively tried to pull the chair up, however it was clearly screwed into the floor for it didn't give an inch.
Ortega appeared at my side and held a tin mug of cool water for me to gulp from, much of it splashing down the front of my vest, during which time Akuda sat back looking placid. I think the bastard must have modelled his attitude on that of his boss Subhash, for you could never have met a more charming, smiling, fellow. If you didn't know what he did for a living of course.
"So Private Nixon ... is it? Well, let me be clear, we know you're not who you say you are. Private Lucas Nixon has ... or should that be had? ... brown hair, and green eyes, he also has not got ... did not have? ... a prosthetic hand. Yours by the way is a fine piece of work ... Canopian?" He arched an eyebrow questioningly and I just gaped at him in horror.
"Hmm, so I need to know exactly who you are, who you are working for, and what your mission in the Three Fifty Seventh Assault Regiment is. Oh and please, as time is a factor for me today, refrain from prevarication, or I shall have to become ... unpleasant." He looked at me as if he was full of sympathy for my plight, a stance rather spoiled by the screams which happened to restart in the opposite room at that moment.
Well, I was caught red-handed, that was for sure. My mind raced for possible stories, but I quickly dismissed the few desperate ideas that sprang to mind; I had amnesia, I was a deserter from the AFFS who hated House Davion and wanted to join up with House Kurita, I was secretly a journalist for Dragon Soldier Magazine researching a piece on the reality of life at the front. All would never stand ... so I did the only thing I could think of. I told Akuda the truth, or at least a version pretty close to it.
I told him who I was, that I'd been aboard the submarine that had knocked out the convoy on the coast road, that I had been cast overboard during fighting, and that I'd hidden amidst the ranks of the Kuritan infantry awaiting a time to skip back to my lines. Though naturally I claimed the man I'd shot on the shore, rather than being a Davionist naval officer, had in fact been a member of the convoy I'd found wounded and had dressed up in order for my killing of him to appear to solidify my story. I ended by accepting that by the rules of war, he could execute me as a spy ... but to do so would rob him of the glory of 'bringing me in'. Conveniently forgetting Samsonov's part in my unveiling, I stressed that, being who I really was, Leftenant Darius Davion, the Hero of Mallory's World, I'd draw an enormous ransom and he would get all the credit.
Well it was a desperate move I'll own, but I could think of no better sat there on the edge of what could quickly descend into the most awful torture session. At least the Snakes would regard a MechWarrior of my reputation and fame as a prize catch, and that might be enough to keep me alive a little longer, and certainly, I reasoned to myself, would remove any need for torture there and then.
For a long moment after I finished my story Akuda just stood there looking at me blankly, then suddenly he began to laugh. Somewhat unnerved I shifted in my chair and winced as my bindings cut painfully into my wrists and ankles. As abruptly as he'd started, Akuda suddenly stopped laughing and fixed me with a stern look, then wagged his finger at me.
"Just how stupid do you take me for?" He said softly and I blinked in surprise as he leaned in towards me ominously. Squirming I tried to pull away without any success, and just as I thought the Snake sadist was about to physically lay into me, he poked me in the chest with his index finger.
"Surely you didn't think I'd buy that tissue of lies? Shall I tell you what I think?
I think you're an operative of the Order of the Five Pillars, and that you're spying upon the actions of our army here. Come along now, admit it, you're O5P aren't you? You're trying to hoodwink me into getting you back to your superiors, while leaving myself and 'the organisation' none the wiser as to what exactly you've been up to here, yes?" I shook my head forcefully in frustration.
"Order of Five Pillars? No, I tell you I'm Darius Davion. I swear it." I didn't know it then, but the ISF tend to imagine O5P agents hiding under every bed in the Combine, perhaps with some reason, so it should be no surprise he jumped to that incorrect conclusion about me. Anyway he just tutted and patted the top of my head like I was a pet dog.
"Oh stop that please, come on now every one knows that Darius Davion's about the only truly brave and noble MechWarrior the Fedrats have. He'd never hide like a coward amongst foot soldiers, and he'd certainly never treat the citicens of a Fed Suns world like I have it on good authority you routinely have." Oh splendid, I cursed to myself, my bloody reputation had clearly spread across the border to the Snakes, despite their own frequent and often in fact truthful black propaganda against me, and like most everyone else this steaming great twerp clearly believed the stories about how Darius Davion was the bravest, loyalist, most valiant, soldier in the whole bloody AFFS. So naturally, clearly knowing a fair bit about my actions since joining the DIF, he quite reasonably assumed there was no chance a callous rogue like myself was in reality the man I claimed to be. Which was ironic, and a fit comeuppance, I suppose some of you Holy Joes might smugly pronounce, whilst swelling with pious anticipation of seeing me suffer again no doubt, you damn hypocrites.
"Listen Akuda," I babbled never the less, desperate to convince this stupid Snake bastard before he got down to business on me. "I can make you rich man. Don't be a fool. Look you must have holos, or vids of me, that is Darius Davion. Find 'em, check 'em, you'll see I'm telling the truth. Damn it all, I've even got the false bloody flipper to prove it!"
Akuda tutted, and shushed me, while turning to a table behind himself, enshadowed against the back wall of the little storeroom.
"Do you know what this is?" Akuda asked, turning back towards me with what appeared to be a fencing foil in his hand. Looking at the blasted thing closer I could see it consisted of an intricate handle, with several metal dials upon it, attached to a thin black blade ending in a small metallic ball. Oh I knew what it was all right;
"A neural whip!" I gasped in absolute horror, to Akuda's beaming amusement.
"Ah, well done, well done. Indeed yes, this is a neural whip." He murmured happily, cutting it like a sabre through the air a couple of times.
"But ... but ... they're banned!" I bleated hopefully, involuntarily straining against my bindings and squirming in a futile attempt to drag my chair up out of the stone floor.
"Well in Star League times yes that was so, and even today they are still prohibited across most of the Inner Sphere ... not however in the Draconis Combine, as you may well know. The servants of the Dragon will use any tool necessary to further His aims." Akuda beamed again, then flicked the whip in the direction of Hoshikawa and Ortega, motioning for them to move safely back.
"Do you know why such devices are banned in other realms ... even such normally sensible states as the Capellan Confederation?" He asked in a conversational manner.
"Because they're beastly instruments of inhuman torture." I mewled back at him, unable to keep the wailing, high pitched, edge of raw terror from my voice.
"Oh, how well you put it." He purred, while almost gracefully extending his whip and gently touching it's metallic ball-tip onto my bare right forearm. I felt for just a split second the cold of the metal, then there was instantaneously a faint sharp crack of electricity and then blindingly fierce agony ripped through me. I shrieked, my body straining and rigid, yet bound tight, Christ it was pure hell, the waves of savage electric shocks jolting and searing across my body, my head was thrown back, I thrashed and writhed, my teeth clamped shut and ground together. Then, after what seemed like forever, yet was probably only a matter of seconds, it stopped as Akuda removed the tip of his vile device from my skin and I slumped forward in my chair, sobbing, gasping and shivering, nausea sweeping through me with such sudden force I violently threw up on the stone floor.
Akuda tutted, stepping back away from the spatter of my vomit, which had caught the toes of his immaculately polished black jackboots.
"You're not quite right actually." He said mildly, while turning to a nearby chair, and putting his soiled boots up on it one at a time, so he could fussily smudge away the mess I'd made with a cloth. "Neural whips weren't banned simply because they were, how did you put it? Oh yes, 'beastly instruments of torture'. Well not solely for that reason anyway, after all the Star League would have had to ban an awful lot of tools and implements if that were the case. No y'see, the thing about neural whips is that though they were initially designed to shock people into unconsciousness, much like a standard stun-stick, they carried the capability to be modulated to inflict the most intense pain imaginable, just short of the level most men would normally black out under. Pain so severe it can literally destroy a person, both mentally and physically, given time and careful use by the interrogator.
That was what those weak hypocrites back in Star League times didn't like, they balked at the idea of a torture device so skilfully constructed it could, in the right hands, maim solely through pain. They were happy for interrogators to use all manner of other tools in the pursuit of their calling, but they felt neural whips just weren't fair. Not cricket, as the Fedrats would say. Neural whips in other words were banned because they were too effective." While the sadistic swine scrubbed away at his boots and rambled on with his hideous tosh, I tried to recover my thoughts.
I was well aware of the horror I was faced with down in that gloomy little book-lined storeroom, I'd actually been Redjack Ryan's Chief Torturer for a time y'see and had regularly used neural whips on people myself, under the orders of Redjack, when I'd been on Butte Hold a couple of years previous, so I knew precisely how truly devastating they could be. Coupled to that even back then in '21 I'd already been on the wrong end of some pretty dreadful tortures in the past myself; such as the time a different ISF agent, that black brute Al'Ain, had injected me with a neural-toxin truth drug during the Bright Coup Plot on New Avalon, which occasion had ended up painfully forcing me to break up with the lovely bit of crackling I'd been cheating on at the time. Or there was when I'd been forced to be a contestant on that insane Niops Association tri-vid quiz show, in order to win my freedom during my time in the Periphery following the Marik Civil War, and I had nearly been fried to death with powerful electric shocks each time I got an answer wrong.
So then I was under no illusions. If I'd been trying to conceal anything, I wouldn't have been able to. Oh, don't you listen to these wiseacres who try to tell you one can compartmentalise one's thoughts when under torture, in order to shut off the pain, and still less to the freaks who claim that if one but endures the unbearable agony long enough one can actually reach a point of transcendence where the pain becomes a sort of hazy pleasure. No, my lads, my advice to you, if you should ever have the sheer bloody awful luck to be stuck in a dark room, with a sick sadistic frack who is about to set about you with the neural whip, or the pliers, or the meat tenderiser, or whatever ... is to spill everything you know, which he wants to know. And preferably before he gets started.
My problem on this occasion was that Akuda, the silly ass, didn't believe me when I told him the truth, and I didn't think I'd be able to convincingly lie, so I grasped at the hope he'd eventually twig I was actually being honest for once.
"Akuda, listen to me, I'm Darius Davion, Leftenant attached to the staff of Leftenant-General Arlin Stuart. All you know about me is wrong, I am a coward. I am a rogue." I sobbed and continued in a similar vein as he turned back to me, snorted and patted his whip upon my right calf muscle.
My babbling became a strangled scream as I violently convulsed and twisted again, the pain complete, blotting everything else from my mind. When it stopped I found I'd shit and pissed myself. Akuda tutted sympathetically.
"Oh don't worry, there's no shame here I assure you." He said and we fell into the most dreadful routine, he would badger away at me for a few minutes, laughing off my protestations that I was in fact myself, and trying to get me to confess I was either an O5P agent, or perhaps working for the MIIO, or our Department of Military Intelligence. He would then sigh and roll that ball tip of his whip along my arm or leg again for a while, watching me spasm and jerk as the excruciating shocks ripped through me time and time again.
All in all, I must say it was one of the worst days of my life ... and let me tell you, I've had some bad 'uns.