Excerpt: Siege of the Skies

Alhen looked down at his knuckles, eyebrows slightly raised in mild annoyance. They were bloodied, but the blood wasn’t his. He sighed and rubbed them clean on the tunic of the collapsed man before him, stooping to do so. His actions gained a moan from the broken body, the slightest movements hurting him.

“All this can be over,” Alhen sighed, tired and bored. “All you have to do, is…” he stopped abruptly and turned away at the slurred insult and beckoned the other man in the room to come closer.
“He doesn’t seem to understand that this will never end.” Alhen spoke louder than needed to the hooded man, for the broken man’s benefit. “Please, continue.”

He didn’t name the hooded man aloud, for names gave identity and that was something to work with - it made a person human. It was much harder to be beaten to death by an unknown entity, for that meant you were against someone you could never control or persuade. His father had told him that since he was a young boy, knowing that he, like everyone else in his family, would someday follow tradition and become an Enforcer, a place of honour and prestige.

This session was reaching the four hour mark, and if it went beyond it would become the longest Alhen had ever taken to get the information he needed, and he didn’t quite want that to happen. After a few moments of muffled screams he waved his co-worker back again and moved closer to the miscreant, sitting beside him whilst maintaining symbolic height over him.

“Now, if you’ll remain silent for just a moment.” Alhen moved as if to release the bounds which held the rogue, then paused, before tightening them to the point where they would cut through the flesh as long as blood was still pumping through his veins. “Shh, hush now. All you have to do is tell us their names, and where they’ll be. We can fix all this. We’ll make you healthier than you’ve ever been, dump you on one of the outside planets, and none even need know we ever had you. I promise. All you need to do…” he tightened the bounds a little more, biting back a smile as his ears were graced with a shrill scream that had been unable to be smothered for prides sake. “Just tell us, and this will all be over.”

“Karri. Jarrah.” The man finally sobbed. “Triav. I don’t know when, but probably by 2200 - or maybe they’re already there. They’re after the KDL and that’s all I know. I swear that’s all I know.” He looked up expectantly, as if Alhen or the hooded man were going to immediately release him and salve his wounds. “That’s all I know! I promise you!”

Alhen rose and beckoned the hooded man closer, making the man on the floor sob with relief and pain at the same time as the movement hurt; the bounds still cutting into his flesh. He looked up at them, but the order didn’t come.

“Move on to sequence 35P, two-naught-five.” Alhen instructed, and after a few murmured into his comms link the hooded man nodded in the affirmative. The roof above them slid apart, and a device was lowered in, all gears and bars and shadows, in the expensive yurara metal mutation that was the mark of the Enforcers - no other group had the money or connections to access such things.
The man on the floor screamed, eyes dimmed as all hope left him as he slowly realised more was to come, despite what had been promised. He didn’t bother to protest, to shout ‘but you said!’, but still Alhen paused beside him.

“I know well, boy, to never trust a Sky Pirate,”

He left him with the hooded man then, and joined Jordin in the protection of the room next door where they could witness together, neither saying a word as a rough, thick blanket was thrown over the face of the Sky Pirate and then his hands and legs tied into place, making him look like a large cross. The platform below was tilted so his legs were elevated, and then the contraption above him whirred softly, moving until a large sprout was directed right above his head. The Sy Pirate did nothing. Resigned, knowing he couldn’t get away, knowing he could not stop the inevitable, too weary to even try. Alhen frowned. He wanted information, not pride and honour.

The hooded man looked to their direction, knowing what part of the wall was actually a window, and then when he didn’t hear an order to stop, he gave a short comment to his comms link and water began to spout out, gushing down on the Sky Pirate’s head and then gurgling away into a gutter right behind him. It would feel like he was drowning, and adding that to the countless broken bones he had already earned, it wouldn’t be a surprise at all if he-

“He’s unconscious, sir.”

Alhen sighed and gave the order to stop until the Sky Pirate was brought back to consciousness, and then turned his attention to the other man in the smaller room.

“Any news on the two others?”

As soon as the Sky Pirate had revealed the names, location and prize in mind, Enforcers would have been dispatched immediately, despite the fact it was on a planet many weeks travel away from where they currently were.

“Reports so far show that the Sky Pirates managed to evade capture, but they were also denied the KDL. Not bad. Not good, though, of course.”

Alhen eyed the man, then nodded. “Agreed, uncle.”

“I really must get back to my reports. Your father asked me see how you were doing. He’ll be away for another week yet, were you aware?”

“I am now.”

They saluted each other and without another word Jordin left, leaving Alhen to direct his attention to his prisoner. He tried to quell his thoughts, such as the cry in his head that said neither his uncle nor his father had worked such information from any sky pirate within four hours, but hadn’t had any such luck by the time he was paged to come back into the interrogation room.

The Sky Pirate lay gasping for air on the floor, a strange wheeze accompanying every intake of breath, to which Alhen only grimaced.

“If you have any respect for yourself as a mortal man, you will tell us all you know.”

“I shall live again.” The man’s eyes were hazy now, and Alhen realised too late that he had pushed this on too far. “I shall soar through clouds and the stars, I shall see wonders you would weep at, I shall live a life you will never know, for I am free. I will be free.”

“Hold your tongue, pirate.”

“I cannot be silenced. My words shall weave through your minds, and reveal your discontentment. I shall-”

A sharp kick to the head silenced him indefinitely and Alhen swore under his breath, at the situation, at himself, at the lowly Sky Pirate who had proved to be almost worthless.

“The article was saved.” Picolt, the hooded man, pointed out. “And another kill added to your list.”

“He didn’t tell us enough, though.” Alhen said. “Though nothing is ever enough,” he added, before Picolt could - a line he had repeated often. Alhen knew he was never pleased, one of the reasons he was such a proud Enforcer.

“So return the KDL sooner than expected and cite lack of secure space. The Sky Pirates, if still in range, will surely return and there you can nab them, surely.” Picolt waved it off, initiating the cleanup. The body was rolled into a chute that had been conveniently built into the wall - the body would fall into a large fire that burned constantly, and within moments a couple of unnamed men arrived to begin cleaning the floors.

“Walk with me.” Alhen gave no further comment to the previous suggestion, which meant he would probably use it. “What are your plans for this weekend?”

“Nothing. And that’s my plan, Alhen. I’m doing nothing as my weekend - don’t know how you can even walk after last.”

“Training and daily exercise.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“I’m aware of that. I’m also aware you have no daily regime.”

“Mm, and it’s staying like that.”

They walked in silence and Alhen let his thoughts overcome his awareness, so much so that he was still re-living the feel of bones popping and cracking under his grip so clearly that he didn’t realise Picolt had called his name five times already.

“What?”

“I said - fancy a drink before we knock off today?”

“No. You know I don’t drink.”

“Yeah well, I feel rude and strange not offering every time. You’re a weird one, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know that.”

They parted at the doors to the change rooms, their different jobs signifying they needed different services, even when it came to showers and personal lockers, and from then on Alhen was alone with his thoughts once more. Others were around, but once he had snapped in his ear pieces, no one bothered him even to say hi. He was serenaded as he exercised for an hour and then took a shower, all the time reliving those almost-four-hours minute by minute, combing it over for anything he may have missed. He remembered every cut and every break, how the Sky Pirate had reacted to every single one. Finally though, as he leant up against the tiled wall, rubbing out his notes he had made on the fogged glass, he knew he had nothing extra to add to his report. He dressed and made the final notes to his report and then sent it for reviewing and filing as he walked, exiting the building with the usual care. Security had to be maintained at all times, and since he had, on his first day, snatched a Sky Pirate who had been lurking in the shadows around the corner from this very building, teasing them all with his gall, he had always been on the lookout since then for another snatch.

One day he would get them all, he promised himself. Yes, the transport home to his single occupant flat may be dull and boring, and yes, the food he ate day in and out was tasteless, and yes, he had no ‘friends’ like he saw others did, but at least his life had a purpose. He eyed every person he possibly could between work and home, due to this late hour there weren’t many out and about anyway, until he was behind his door and had locked it behind him.

In his spotless apartment he ordered in his dinner, and then brought up his report once more to read it again while he waited for delivery. He knew he wouldn’t think of anything new, but couldn’t take the risk that it wasn’t there to be found. He would dream that night of the events that had passed, and would relive the metallic-tainted smell of blood, the agonised screams and the feeling of absolute power. He would do so, because it all worked towards the goal of one day being noted as he who caught and killed the most Sky Pirates in all of recorded history. These abominations would fear his name, his family would finally recognise his greatness, and he would finally find himself worthy.

As these Sky Pirates found joy in ruining the lives of good, law-abiding folk, he too would take pleasure in wiping them off the line of existence, and that thought allowed him to keep going each day.

Once though, just once he would like one of them to ask him why…

Because he knew what his answer would be, and he knew he would say it as he squeezed the last breath from their throats.

Justice, he would say. And because Sky Pirates don’t deserve to live.