บท 11: Chapter 11: The Darkbane Prison
"My experience tells me that if the suspect didn't give a confession, it's usually because of the lack of pain, not the lack of crime."
- Captain Boris of the 7th Police Department.
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"So you're telling me that you, an Obsidian Naval Intelligence officer who had broken elite Republic spies before can't loosen the tongue of a 15 year old boy? A noble-born who probably cries his eyes out at the slightest cut?"
In Admiral Lamb's office in the heart of the Obsidian High Command Center, the Admiral was sitting comfortably in his seat, with the woman who had been torturing Alexander standing across from him nervously.
"There is something off with him, sir." The woman defended herself. To be honest, she was also quite surprised with her results, or rather the lack of. "The amount of Compound Tyrant I gave him...he should be screaming his lungs out. It's not a question of how tough he is. The human body shouldn't be able to take so much pain without some severe reactions. Yet..."
Admiral Lamb smirked at the reply. "Well, whatever you want to say about them, the Wolves are tough bastards. Every single one of them." He remarked quietly, not really thinking too much about this phenomenon and simply classifying it as the boy's innate ferocity and resilience. After all, what else could it be?
The woman's mouth opened at the reply, but she wisely remained silent.
"So you can't get an answer out of him?" Lamb asked once again. "Is that what you are telling me?"
Even if that was the fact, the woman couldn't acknowledge it in front of her superior like this. Neither the Holy Phoenix Empire nor Battlefleet Obsidian tolerated incompetence. "We can break him, sir, but we need time. Of course, I suppose it is easier to just put a bullet in his head and get this over with, sir."
Admiral Lamb didn't say anything, and the woman continued with a bit more confidence than before as she took the silence as encouragement.
"Sir, I don't see the need to extract the information from the boy. After all, whoever rescued him clearly failed in their plan when he walked right into our trap. We have the boy, and we can kill him whenever we want. As for the traitors...forgive me, sir, but even now, this battlefleet bears the name of the boy's father. There are loyalists among us, and despite our best attempts to purge them, there will be loyalists among us for quite a while..."
Gradually, the woman's voice started trailing off as she noticed the mocking grin on the Admiral's face. The Admiral was still silent, but it was definitely not the encouraging kind. If anything, it was quite the opposite. When she finally wisely shut up, the Admiral scoffed.
"If that is truly what you think, Major, then perhaps being a brute is the only thing you are good for."
"My...my lord?"
"This isn't just any random loyalist we are talking about." Lamb's fingers were crossed in front of him as he spoke quietly. His eyes stared into those of the Majors, which quickly broke off to the side at the slightest contact. "You have read the reports, right?"
"I have, my lord."
"Then you know that this loyalist, or group of loyalists, not only knew about what was going on within Wolf Den. They also took a dying boy with four holes in his body and stitched him back together like nothing happened. And then, they brought him all the way here."
There was a sense of disbelief in Lamb's voice, mixed in with a tiny fragment of fear. Invisible, well-hidden fear, but fear nonetheless.
"The squad of Capital Security Forces that encountered the boy outside of the walls of Wolf Den had multiple Knights with them. The investigations your own ONI operatives carried out suggested that they didn't fire a single shot. Yes...several Knights, all killed before even one of them could pull the trigger. Even more ridiculously...they were killed by a melee weapon. Not by a gauss machine gun or grenades. No...by some sort of blade that went right through their face shields like they're made of paper."
"What the...how? That's impossible!" The Major knew all too well what Knights were capable of. A Knight could mow down entire infantry squads in seconds before being taken down by overwhelming firepower. Their armors were designed to be able to ignore small-caliber gauss rifles. Gauss rifles! What sort of blade could kill them? And before they could even put up anything resembling resistance!
"That's not even the most terrifying part." Lamb continued, his brows darkening. "Ever since the coup started and the first shot was fired, we had our loyal troops positioned all around the regions around Wolf Den. CSF forces cleared the streets while fire teams took up pre-chosen positions in houses and balconies that gave them clear lines of fire onto the open streets. We wanted to make sure that anyone who made it out of Wolf Den wouldn't make it too far."
"From Wolf Den to the Obsidian High Command Center, there are around 40 such firing positions. There are scouts, fire teams, anti-vehicle squads, and snipers. Some CSF troops. Some Marines. Some Imperial Army squads. There were even ONI Strike Teams involved. All of these men and women were vetted by us for months to ensure their loyalty. They are the best in the business. Guess what?"
He leaned forward and said in a low voice before the Major could even respond.
"They're all dead. Every single one of them. Once again, not a single one of them was able to fire a shot. 40 positions. Hundreds of elite troopers. Not one shot. Not a single one of them even managed to sound off a warning before they were killed. In melee. No..."
He leaned back in his seat once again, his head lifting a little.
"This is no ordinary Wolf loyalist. Whoever did this knows exactly where our ambushes are. They know how many men there are and what they're carrying. Not only that, they have an effective strike force that completely overpowered our forces. Even then, they had to be extremely lucky to accomplish something like this without any of us getting the slightest of clues."
Finally, to conclude this, he let out a snicker.
"Either that, or we are dealing with an omniscient, omnipotent god."'
He had no idea how close his joke was to the truth, although Agony was neither omniscient or omnipotent. Still, that was enough to scare the crap out of Admiral Lamb. Then again, from Lamb's position, knowing and not knowing what he knew and didn't know, it was only justified to be scared.
Admiral Lamb would never have guessed that this 'mysterious force' was actually an interdimensional god who had left this world already, or the fact that this god didn't even know Gerard Lamb, and nor did she really care about the Wolf family. All Lamb knew was that this was perhaps the greatest threat to his ascension.
The ONI Major knew what the Admiral knew. That was why she was properly scared. If what Admiral Lamb hypothesized was indeed true...then the problem could be deadly. "I see. In that case, the High Command may be compromised. I will transfer the boy to a classified ONI facility at once. After that, we will work double time on him…"
"No." Once again, Lamb refused her suggestion. "Not ONI."
"I'm sorry, sir?"
"You are assuming ONI is absolutely secure. That may or may not be correct." Lamb repeated. The suspicion in his voice was clear as day. "Like you said, so many things here bear the name of Gerard, including ONI. Including Battlefleet Obsidian. Especially Battlefleet Obsidian."
Admiral Lamb was fine with using Gerard Wolf's trust in him to betray the man and stab him in the back, but the prospect of being on the receiving end of a similar betrayal didn't quite sound so fine. Perhaps Alexander Wolf had neither a fleet nor any ally at the moment, but he had his last name and sometimes that was all one needed.
If he was rescued, then the Wolf loyalists would gather at his banner and this coup d'etat would turn from a clean operation into an all-out war. It was something Lamb couldn't afford to happen. If it wasn't for the fact that Alexander might be his only lead to this discreet band of powerful loyalists, he would've had the young Lord shot already.
Another thing Admiral Lamb didn't understand was that if the loyalists truly knew so much about this operation, then why would they bring Alexander back to Obsidian High Command Center...and to him? They must know he was a part of the coup, right?
Regardless, he wanted these loyalists found as soon as possible, and before that could happen, he wanted to make sure that Alexander was kept in a location that no one, not even ONI, could get to.
"No..." The Baron finally made his decree. He looked up at the Major again, who immediately stood up straight and awaited his commands. "We are moving him to Darkbane Prison."
Darkbane Prison.
The place was as terrifying as its name suggested.
Darkbane Prison was a detention facility built over twenty years ago, well before Gerard Wolf became Count and made the planet of Valorian his Capital World. Twenty years later, it still stood tall with every bit of its fierce reputation intact.
Darkbane Prison held an average of 3,000 prisoners, along with 1,500 soldiers of the Darkbane Prison Security Forces and 500 other non-combat personnel, including doctors, administrative staff, and others. But what truly made the prison stand out amongst the thousands of other incarceration facilities across the planet was the fact that no one had ever escaped from Darkbane Prison before. Ever.
For one thing, the prison itself was surrounded by water on all sides. The water regions acted as natural barriers against any escape attempts, especially after they were populated by fierce predators like sharks. Any attempt to swim across the water to safety, well...it would be a slow and agonizing end.
Of course, if anyone intended on breaking out, they would be using aircraft or naval ships. Unfortunately, the agency in charge of keeping the prison secure, the Darkbane Security Ring, made sure that was impossible as well. Electric nets, machine gun positions, automated turrets, and sniper towers were set up along the coastline of both the Darkbane Prison and the beaches of the mainland. Any unauthorized naval ship that tried to land on either side of the sea would be sunk and their crew and passengers would be devoured alive. Even if the infiltrators somehow found an opening, their ships would quickly be detected by the advanced military scanners that cover the entire water region. Any unauthorized vessels would be pursued, hunted down, and destroyed.
Unlike on land, it was nearly impossible to hide on water.
Aircrafts wouldn't fare any better than naval ships. An orbital platform in the low orbit of Valorion would make sure no one could enter the atmosphere from space, fly to Darkbane Prison, and perform an extraction. The platform held multiple squadrons of interceptors, ready to be deployed against any hostile aircrafts.
At the same time, low-altitude aircrafts wouldn't survive the missile defense network on both sides of the water, and nor would they be able to avoid the detection of quantum radars.
The only vessels permitted to travel to and from the prison island were the yearly personnel transfer ships and the monthly prisoner/supply transport ships. The former brings transferring prison employees and guards to and from the facility once a year. The latter carries supplies, ammunition, and fresh prisoners to Darkbane Prison at the beginning of each month.
Of course, additional transports would be sent for emergency prisoner transfers and other urgent needs.
In all of these cases, the transport ships would have been authorized beforehand, along with all the personnel involved on the trip. Their information would be sent to everyone involved as well as uploaded to all the radars and scanners. Doing anything less risked having the entire ship marked as hostile and blown up.
Guards and personnel working on Darkbane Prison were, in fact, as much imprisoned as the men and women they watched over. They were contracted by the years, and within the year of service, none of them would be allowed to leave the island for any reason. After a year, they could choose to stay for another year or leave. Many left. Most stayed.
The only time the transport ships would bring people other than the original crew back to the mainland would be during the day that only occurred once a year. Even then, the passengers would be repeatedly verified under heavy security before they could even get on the ride. Their personal belongings would be searched and trying to bring anything from the prison off the island would be against the protocols. Only when their identities were confirmed would they be allowed to board the cargo ship and go home.
The island was pretty much cut off from the rest of the planet, and not just physically. The entire island was blocked off from the planetary net, which connected the rest of Valorian. The island was still covered by a military network, but only one device on the island could access it. That device was located in a heavily secured Communication Center, and even then, it needed the security access code of both the Warden and the Vice-Warden to receive any message. Sending messages only required one security code, but that was still rather strict.
The idea in this design was that any external threat would be immediately noticed and handled. Most in the prison couldn't send messages out, so the idea of a prisoner getting access to a MI or PI and texting their colleagues a cry for help would be impossible. Even if someone infiltrated the guards, they would never be able to coordinate a rescue.
As for why receiving the messages took two codes...if someone kidnapped the family of, say, the Warden and tried to blackmail him, then the Vice-Warden would be able to see it immediately and relieve the Warden of his command.
It was the perfect prison, and getting out of prison without proper authorization was impossible.
Regardless of who the mysterious saviors of Alexander were and what they were capable of, Admiral Lamb was sure that there was no way they could get into Darkbane Prison. If they did manage to get in, they definitely wouldn't be leaving. Considering the potential influence of these loyalists in Battlefleet Obsidian and ONI, Darkbane Prison happened to be safer than both of them.
When the ONI Major told Alexander about what was going to happen to him, the young man had full knowledge of what it meant. He knew the basics about Darkbane Prison and its fierce reputation, mainly because his father mentioned it to him at some point in the past. His father also mentioned that kindness and mercy alone couldn't rule a world. There would always be vile individuals out there who want nothing else but to spread pain and suffering, and a place like Darkbane was all that they deserved.
It was ironic now that his own son would be sent there to live out the rest of his days. Then again...he wasn't exactly wrong.
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