After searching through Pixabay for brand new splash images each chapter, I've decided to take a page out of @beowulfoflegend's playbook and make a generic chapter splash. So enjoy it; it's gonna be the only one I put out!
In our last chapter, Cole and Edward ended up in an interrogation room in a military installation. Certainly seemed like it was bad news bears for those two, but then Miranda unexpectedly sprung them from detention. This chapter we see what happened from Miranda's perspective. Maybe we'll get some answers that way!
"Captain Beaufort has requested that you wait for him in room 216. The pilots of your charter flight," the corporal assigned to the staff duty desk said, looking at Cole and Edward before turning to Miranda for confirmation, which she provided, "will be debriefed in room 312. Private Ekerson will escort you to your respective rooms."
The private at the front desk, a boy no more than 20 years old, jumped to his feet and tugged his uniform top down to straighten it out. With a mechanical "follow me," he made his way from behind the desk and marched down a corridor. Miranda fell in behind him, with Cole and Edward in tow.
Miranda's trip was short; not more than twenty meters and one turn away, Miranda arrived at the room she was told to wait in for her commanding officer. Providing a formal thank-you to the private, she disappeared behind the door, leaving Cole and Edward with the child soldier to lead them to their designated waiting room. Once inside, she took a seat at the small table in the center of the room, dropping her pack beside her chair and pulling up her wrist assistant. Now that she was back on base and could access the secure information protocol router network, or SIPRnet as they liked to call it, she pulled up her military messenger program and checked for any updates on the more mundane things in her life, such as whether or not she'd been selected for this fiscal year's promotion board.
She didn't get a chance to scroll idly for long; the door opened after a few minutes. Reflexively, she stood from her seat and snapped to attention, only to find that it wasn't Captain Beaufort that walked in. Instead, the man that walked in was her age and her rank, but he was someone completely unfamiliar. She relaxed a little, raising a brow and peering at his name tape.
"Lieutenant Commander...Ricardo?" She said, looking back to the man in the uniform. He was broad-shouldered, with a clean-cut appearance that screamed staff officer, and the smile on his face looked entirely fake.
"That's me, Lieutenant Commander Rackham," he said, extending his hand to her. "Captain Beaufort is currently assigned to a temporary command, so the acting captain sent me down from the security clearance section to handle your debriefing." She took his hand and shook it firmly before sitting back down. Ricardo took a seat across from her, setting his datapad down on the small table between them and pulling up an app to record and transcribe her verbal statements.
"I'll be providing the data and surveillance logs of the Dutybound with my report," Miranda said. "Would you like a copy of them for your records as well?"
"Oh that won't be necessary. Including them in your report, I mean," he said, which immediately sent up a red flag in her mind.
"Please, send them via SIPRnet to my inbox so I can collate them with the transcript we're about to take care of here. I'll make sure to create duplicates and send them up the chain to Captain Beaufort, when he returns, and to the Operations OIC."
"Commander Heller, right?" She didn't have to ask; she was good friends with Mikela. What she wanted was his reaction to her asking, and what she saw did nothing to calm the growing unease with the situation. He continued fiddling with the tablet, bringing up his secure inbox without skipping a beat. The name didn't even register with the guy. Likely he'd never met Commander Heller, and the line he was feeding her about Captain Beaufort on temporary reassignment was also likely a load of thinly-veiled garbage.
"Right. It's less for you to worry about, Rackham," he offered absently. Once he had everything at his fingertips, he turned back to her. With that same plastic smile, he motioned for her to start. She leaned back in her chair and appeared to relax, starting from the beginning. She covered her pick-up by Cole and Edward, the trip to the Dutybound, and then she described what she found on board and what happened immediately after she downloaded the ship's logs. She was careful to refrain from making any projections or conjecture as to why it happened or what was found on the surveillance logs; if they managed to draw the same conclusions, good for them, but as of right now, she was not on the same team as the man sitting across from her.
He listened to her recounting of the events, keeping his eyes trained on her. She knew what he was doing, because she'd done it to plenty of people she'd interrogated. He was reading her body language and looking for visual cues to indicate if she was lying or adding in information to the narrative she was providing. To his credit, he put on a fantastic show of appearing nonchalant and attentive, but she hadn't been commissioned yesterday. She made no indication that she knew, and she stuck to the script; everything she told him was the truth, as she had observed it.
"Well I'm glad you made it out alright, Rackham," he said finally, tapping a button on his datapad to stop recording. "It would have been no small tragedy to lose such an experienced field operative to some sick trap set by pirates."
"I just wish the crew could have been saved," she said, letting out a sigh and feigning emotional distress over the incident. "They didn't need to die like that. There was no reason for any of this to happen." For a second, she could have sworn Ricardo demonstrate some sort of emotional response to her act, but it was fleeting; cold and calculating, he reached over and squeezed her shoulder.
"It'll be alright. Thank you for your detailed debrief," he offered her. Miranda gave him a nod but said nothing, keeping her eyes on the table as he made his way to the door. "Stay here for now. I know the captain would like to speak to you personally as well. Thank you again, Rackham."
As soon as the door was shut Miranda pulled up her wristpad and began pulling up her NID field spending accounts.
It was only going to be a matter of time before they froze them, and she needed to move as much currency as she could before they dropped the floor from under her. Thankfully, this was part of her craft; compartmentalized security and redundant failsafes were integral to the game, so she already had black accounts set up in the event she ever ended up burned and on her own. The likelihood had always seemed remote, and yet, here she was, freshly interrogated by an NID agent and ostensibly on lock down until they could determine how to dispose of her. With her money stashed away, she began the process of locking her alias accounts. She'd been smart enough to never provide the master signature key for any of them, just the owner keys, and she put that fact to use.
After about fifteen minutes of working through her digital profiles and accounts, she reached into her daypack and pulled her remote console out of the back pocket. It was bulkier than she would have wanted, but it was still small enough that she could tuck it into the back of her waistband without anyone noticing. Once she managed to position it such that it wouldn't drop down, she went to the door and opened it. She was immediately greeted by two Marines that were posted to the door, and they snapped to attention.
"At ease," she said. "I know I'm waiting on the acting captain of the NID detachment to come speak to me. I'm going to the latrine," she said, motioning down the hall. "I'll return shortly."
"Ma'am, we were given specific instructions by Lieutenant Commander Ricardo to keep you here in this room until Captain Willis came to speak to you," the one to her left said. She gave him a nod, then raised her hands.
"I understand, sergeant, and I appreciate your dedication to duty," she began, nudging her way from the doorway with small, deliberate steps. "If it's an issue, I will accept full responsibility for any sort of problem that might arise. I really need to take a leak, guys. I swear, I'll be right back. My daypack is right there; I'm not going to just leave my stuff."
The Marine that had spoken looked into the room and noticed the bag, then looked back to her. After mulling it over and shooting a silent look to his partner, who shrugged, he gave her a nod. Miranda flashed him a winning smile before she turned and hurried down the hall, feigning a full bladder. Once she was out of their line of sight, she immediately oriented herself and went to find interrogation room 312. She maintained her pace, keeping her steps even and not giving the appearance that she was trying to get the hell out of there. A few minutes later, she found the door she was looking for, along with a Marine standing guard. He snapped to attention when she came to a stop in front of him.
"As you were, corporal. I need to speak with these two in my office," she said, holding her hand up before he could object. "I understand your orders were to keep them there for their debriefing. I'm conducting their debriefing, and I'm moving them to my office."
"I'm sorry, ma'am," the Marine started. "My orders are to stand guard of this door and keep them in this room until they are debriefed and I receive further orders."
She was quickly running out of time, and she wasn't going to stand there and argue with an E-4 about moving those two down several hallways in the hopes that they could make their way out without alarming anyone.
She decided to take the direct route instead. She let out a sigh, feigning exasperation as she quickly scanned the hallway; there was no one else. Without a word, she lunged forward at the Marine, striking him in his exposed throat and causing him to gag. A quick knee to the gut crumpled him, and she put him in a head lock, cutting blood flow off long enough to render him unconscious. Leaning him against her, she reached behind him and opened the door, dragging the Marine's body in to both Cole and Edward's surprise.
"Rackham?" Cole couldn't have masked the surprise in his voice if he'd tried. She said nothing, dragging the unconscious Marine that was guarding the door into the room and shoving him into the empty chair Cole had been sitting in. "What the hell...?"
"Let's just say I'm not with NID anymore and you two are my only ride out of here," she said, pulling a pair of zip-tie cuffs from the guard's belt and tying his hands to the back of the chair and his ankles to the legs. "We need to get going. Time now. They haven't figured out that I'm not in my interrogation room yet, but that won't last. That goes double for you two." She stood up and grabbed the Marine's pistol, tucking it in the small of her back before smoothing out her uniform top over it; it sat tight against the console she'd shoved back there, but she decided now wasn't the time to complain about creature comfort. She was striding out the door when she realized she was alone, forcing her to turn and stare at the dumbstruck duo.
"Well? Do you two want to make it out of here alive or not," she barked at them. Cole snapped out of his stupor and gave her a quick nod, making a motion to Edward, who was already out of his chair and heading for the door. Once they left the room, she shut the door behind them and gave them both a look that was deadly serious. "Don't ask me any questions until we're off this rock. As of right now, you're walking with me; I'm your escort back to the door. Look relaxed, don't scan the room or the halls. Act natural for as long as we can. If shit hits the proverbial fan, run. We need to be airborne before they activate the air defense screen and shoot us down."
They gave each other a look as she spun back around and began marching in that determined way she had the first time they'd seen her. Cole and Edward had no choice; they fell in behind her and shrugged it off. This had to qualify as the strangest day of their lives.