Systems In Chaos: Dissention

Prologue

Prologue

“Tell me where they are!” he shouted into the curdling scream of his prey as he pulled a burning hot poker from his victim’s arm. The torturer had a toothless smile as he drank in the pleasure of playing with another’s life. He opened the toothless pit in his face in a laugh as he spluttered drool onto the prisoner’s face. “We know you are a Hadi informant. We know you have been keeping in constant contact with them.” He bent down close to the informant, his lips inches from his ear, “Tell me, and the pain will stop,” he whispered.

The informants head rolled from side to side in agony, trying to see where he was and if there was any possible escape. There was not. He was in a dark cellar, a room plated in steel sheets with no windows and only a dim light so that he could barely see the instruments of the torturer’s little game; pokers, chains, shackles, blades, hooks, nails and a great many other things that he had never laid eyes on, even in the Hadi Empire.

“N-No.. S-Stop please, I don’t... I don’t know an-anything,” the captive begged. Tears were dry upon his face from the hours of suffering he had been enduring so far. He was about to beg some more before his captor tightened the brace over his wrist and the bolt twisted further into his arm, “Arghhh!” If there had been any tears left to cry he would be crying them.

The toothless man picked up a small knife, one that the informant had come to know well in the last two hours. The torturer had already taken fifteen of the twenty nails on his body, only one hand remained untouched. The torturer grinned, through the gaps in his teeth drool spilled from his mouth and fell to the floor. He sucked it back up with a loud slurp. “Pity, I really didn’t want to continue. Ha-ha-ha,” he cackled at his own private joke as he pushed the knife under the nail of the victim’s thumb and pushed down, ripping the nail up. He informant screamed again, and coughed up blood as his throat bled from the hours of hoarse wailing.

“Please!” he begged, “Stop! Stop, you Bastard!” The Bastard raised an eyebrow and shook his head. Just for that he lost his last four nails.

The torturer walked away into the shadows, wiping a red stained rag over his knife. “Why did you have to go and call me something like that for?” He could hear the informant whimpering. Bastard walked the length of the table, eyeing and fingering each of the tools as he considered which to use next. “The Hadi have long hated the Zeuti and the United Alliance, especially since you broke away from them. But what my boss wants to know is: why, after so many centuries, have the Hadi returned?” He looked over to the man strapped to the table, bathed in dim light. He was shaking his head in disbelief and denial.

“Both factions have grown. The United Alliance has five planets and moons in the Home System colonised and two planets in the Centauri System; The Free Planets have built cities on three planets in the Tau Ceti System and then there is you. The Hadi not only have the triple planets in the Lalande System but have also colonised the Epslion Eridani System, which we have learned you now call the Voruxi System.” The Bastard stopped at a small sickle like blade. A small shiny tool with a wickedly curved steel edge. He picked it up and examined it in the murky light, the blade glinted just enough so the informant could see it. “But this is all common knowledge. What I want to know is a little less familiar, outside Hadi space.”

The informant shuddered, “Please, please...” he whimpered, weeping dry tears. The toothless captor looked at him and he felt dread grip him, “Alright... Alright, I-I’ll tell you.”

The torturer cocked his head to the side, “Good... I wouldn’t want to have to use this.” He brought the sickle into the light so it could be seen more easily, “Do you feel the same?” The informant nodded quickly. “Why are you here?”

“To see if the Zeuti Guardians have made any advances in Biofeed techniques or in stormsword technology,” he said softly, avoiding eye contact with his captor. A small laugh caught his attention and pulled his eyes towards the Bastard.

“How many times have I told you not to lie to me? You are here about the Zeuti, that much is true. But that is not the reason...” a long, dismal sigh came from the man’s toothless mouth. “I said I didn’t want to... but you have left me no choice.” He stepped forward with the blade in hand and placed the tip against the informant’s skin. The Hadi Agent stiffened at the touch of the cold steel. “I was just kidding,” the torturer said and the agent relaxed. That was foolish. “About not wanting to do it. I really do.” He smiled and slobbered all over the informant’s body as he slid the tip of the sickle beneath the agents skin and began to flay him. It took a dozen seconds for him to remove the layers of skin from the informant’s left breast, leaving only burning muscle in its place.

The agent cried and screamed for a long time after. The exposed tendons and muscles burned like nothing he had ever experienced before. As the Bastard was moving the sickle to the right breast the agent cried out, “We need to find out how many Zeuti Titans want to go to war!” He breathed heavily as he spoke “A-And why they chose to abandon Fathom and Kalorin, we need to find out if they are weak or not!”

The toothless Bastard stopped and nodded, They Zeuti did indeed abandon the planets in the Centauri System to the Hadi Empire... but so did the United Alliance. He rubbed his chin as he considered for a moment, and the Titans... the ten most powerful Zeuti in the Guardian Order. Sure, if they wanted war, the Hadi would need to tread more carefully. “Keep him company for a moment,” he ordered the guards as he opened a secret panel in the back of the room which led him to a small communication hub. He hit a small shape on his orange holographic computer terminal, in a moment the image of a phone showed up on the screen as he began his call. When it was answered no one spoke. “I am beginning to get something out of him. I...” he was interrupted by a loud crash coming from the torture chamber. He quickly switched the terminal screen to the security feed.

A large man was in the room, he was holding a stormsword. It had a bright red glow and crackled with grey lightning. The super heated, artificial, stormtron particles inside the sword had allowed the Zeuti Guardian to burn through the steel plated door like a hot knife through butter. The guards were able to get a few shot off with their storm-guns, firing off a few short and a couple long bolts of lightning. The Zeuti deflected them with ease by using his sword. Through the screen, the Bastard could barely make it out but, he could just see the ripples in the air around the Zeuti as the warrior built up biofeed within his body. The robed Guardian threw his hand out a moment later and a forceful push blasted through the air and threw the two guards back against the wall. The Zeuti made quick work of them before silencing the prisoner. The Bastard swallowed hard and blindly hit two keys on the holo-terminal to send the recorded feed to his boss.

“I don’t think I am going to make it, boss... I...” the terminal’s power cut off as the robed figured melted through the secret door with his swords. Why is a Zeuti doing this? Aren’t we on the same side...?

That was the last thought through his head before the mysterious figure marched over to him and put the burning stormsword through his throat and left him in a pool of blood.