"Vital signs are stabilising," the same female voice said. "For a second, I thought we couldn't revive you."
[Reactivating optical implant]
[System rebooted]
[Testing…]
A scrolling text wall of red appeared in my vision as I felt the whirling of the implants in my eyes, adding to the pounding feeling in my groggy head.
Something caused the neural link to shut down to bare minimum state. Not a good sign. Did they inject me with something? Last I remembered, I was inside the cell of the battle fortress brig.
Now I am lying down.
Gradually, my vision sharpened to the sight of two high ranking uniformed officers, a Velesian female and a Haolean male in a sparse room with a peeling ceiling.
They need to repaint the ceiling. I caught the sight of forcefield generating devices installed above. Those can isolate me in a localised bubble immediately if activated.
The Haolean officer waved his hand above my face, only to get me blinking. He straightened up to snap his fingers at someone I can't see.
I heard a click of a doorknob and blinked a few more times, only to have a few towels flying onto my lying body, quivering in the icy cold environment surrounding my body. My clothes felt damp.
"Alright, princess," the Velesian officer said condescendingly as she took out a bulky scanner from the holster belt and ran it over my head as I tried to pull myself up. "Don't get up yet."
[System active]
[Warning: Medical Bio scanner in use]
Medical bio scanner posed no big issue for me. I clutched my head, only to grab the soft towel carelessly thrown on top.
"Nothing wrong, but the signal jamming earlier was odd," she told the sterner looking Haolean officer.
I ignored their hush-hush conversation and asked, "Can I get up now?"
"Yup, get up if you wish."
I got up and stared at the sweating but freezing box like structure they placed me in. It reminded me of a coffin with the telltale fading mists of nitrogen gas.
So this is the cryogenic chamber the entity in my subconscious told me about?
My optical implant made out the forcefield surrounding the room, the surveillance cameras perched at each corner and the furniture - three chairs and one table.
"And where am I?"
"The defrosting unit," she replied as she went over to her seat.
I raised my eyebrow at her.
"A temporary holding room…" she noticed my stare and realised what I meant. "Shoah Ultramax."
Those damn cyberneticists exposed me to prolonged usage of nitrogen fumes to send me into a real hibernation phase. Damn lab rats don't abide by conventional rules anymore.
During the time, they transported me from the Eden planetary system to the Shoah planetary system.
I lost track of time now. How long was I in a box?
Damn, how did they do that?
"ARRRRGHHHH WHAT THE FUCK…. ITS FUCKING COLD!" Trey's voice wafted into our room.
So they transported Trey too.
With a yawn, I stretched and examined the sarcophagus holding me before towelling myself down from the condensation forming on my skin.
"Can I get out of this thing?" I asked.
The Velesian officer nodded, and I clambered out of the sarcophagus while the two kept an arm's length of distance from me.
I clutched a large towel on me as the Haolean officer pulled a metal chair for me to sit.
"First thing, we need to talk," the Haolean officer said while leaning on the metal table with his arms folded.
They bolted the table down to the ground. Not the chairs.
"I am Commander Adahrim, of the Shoah Ultramax."
Commander? Means more trouble to come. I watched him pull a tablet from a table.
"Who are you?" He asked.
Lies would be futile now in my captive state. They already know that I'm Kamuy.
"Just a Kamuy wandering about in space," I answered the obvious, much to his irate expression while watching him struggling to keep a straight face.
"Who is she?" I glanced at the Velesian officer.
"A medical officer overseeing your defrosting process," Adahrim replied. "What's your name?"
Good question. What name should I pick? Besides, these pairs here don't seem to know much about the Kamuy.
"Genga Panuku," I replied, trying not to laugh.
Genga meant space and Panuku meant punk in a Kamuy dialect, which I'm sure these two didn't understand.
The Great Swirl Council didn't give a damn about us back then. Why would they delve into our dialects now?
They looked at each other but said nothing. I noticed the frowning commander, who seemed to think about 101 questions he could ask me.
Interrogation was not strong on his suite of cards if he was struggling to think of one.
"Profession?"
Bland. Hopeless.
"Mercenary."
"A Nuwan mercenary?" He pushed further.
Too direct and I pretty out figured they dug up enough to establish my connections with Rong and maybe the Nuwan Imperium.
The Great Swirl Council wasn't strong enough to start a war with the Nuwan Imperium.
His close ended question is the last type of question an interrogator should ever ask. Usually, the best interrogators would draw you out with open-ended questions to encourage spilling of information.
"A mercenary - whoever can pay, I'll do the job like carrying cargo for legal trade, of course. By the way, where is my ship?"
Let's see what he does with my question.
"Confiscated, but we'll return it on your release once you serve your sentence for false identity," he replied.
He disappointed me with his hopeless reply. As far as I knew, even in the renegade Narakan system, no one ever recounted their stay in Shoah.
All we heard in the mercenary outlets were tons of unverifiable rumours, more of a 'friend of a friend of a friend of a cousin told them' type of rumours.
Shoah Ultramax is the perfect place to make individuals disappear.
"In an Ultramax?" I retorted. "False identity is a lesser petty crime."
Commander Adahrim heaved a heavy sigh and rubbed his chin. "No you didn't. But you killed someone in Eden."
"Killing an assassin in self-defense is now a major crime?" I protested. "What kind of shitty justice system do you have?"
He pinched his forehead in frustration, visibly trying to think of an excuse to justify my imprisonment. I knew he couldn't say the real reason - I am imprisoned because I am the big scary boogeyman of a Kamuy.
"Besides, General Perkuna thanked…"
"He's dead," Commander Adahrim replied.
Really, who cares? But I faked a look of surprise.
Dead? What? Surely… no… don't tell me they think I had something to do with it?
Maybe I should flip the table on Commander Adahrim.
"When I left Eden, he was alive," I insisted. "You can check my exit logs on the ship and the authorities, too."
"I am not saying you killed him. It's just that we suspect you of being an accomplice. The route you took is suspicious."
I wrapped the towels around my clothes while staring at Commander Adahrim. "I don't like crowded routes."
"We also found that you met Perkuna Zhiva during that time. He was also arrested, together with his gang, for the assassination of his father."
How far fetched can it get? I knew Zhiva was trouble from the beginning.
"If you pull the tapes, he is the one approaching me and I'm the one avoiding him. So now if someone harasses me, I'm associated with the harasser and if a relative of my harasser died, I'm a suspect even though I am a few planets away… what type of logic is that?" I argued.
"I don't think you understand the seriousness of the suspicion. You killed an assassin which could look like a cover up for a crime. And when you left, you didn't use a normal route of exiting a hotel. Not to mention your space route was unusual. Far from the inhabited planets, far from help, should your ship run into trouble. Most ships take a route near to help," Commander Adahrim explained patiently, blissfully unaware he was revealing his own cards.
"So what now? What do you think is going to happen?" I leaned towards him.
"They may transport you out of here once they find a suitable location to house you."
If a suitable place existed, they wouldn't put me in an Ultramax prison. Commander Adahrim should brush up his bullshitting skills.
No way. The commanding officer of an ultramax would waste his time to talk to me unless the Great Swirl Council issued him with orders.
"I'm assuming that you didn't personally come to talk to me."
"Ah yes. It's about your stay in the Ultramax. While you are to enter the general population, I would like you to consider the isolation unit which we are prepared to offer, because the criminals here are not a nice bunch."
I rolled my eyes at his words.
"General population is fine."
He gritted his teeth, showing me displeasure at my choice. Why would I choose the damn isolation units? I needed a crowd to cover my tracks while figure out the layout of the prison.
Surely ships would dock here to ferry officers back and forth from the station to their home planet. I needed the layout to plan my escape.
"We could bunk you in with the other fellow you came in with. Some company, at least. It seems like you two have a friendly relation—"
He knew Trey would be vulnerable in the harsh environment of the Ultramax and tried to use it against me.
That was abhorrent.
Trey isn't any of my business.
"General population is fine," I repeated my answer firmly.
No one tells me what to do. Certainly not a commanding officer of a prison.
"Tell Captain Elim to come after he is done in Section 8Q," Commander Adahrim tapped on his communication badge and then faced me. "He will accompany you to general, along with that other new arrival after you change your clothes."