Blink: Phantom (Book 3)

15

Darien knew he shouldn't have done it, but he couldn't help himself. His whole body ached to know what Smith would be able to extract from their captive and, he had to admit, a small part of him was grimly curious about how in Space their commander planned to get that information. So he slipped down to the detention wing where he knew Brock was being held.

The station had never been designed as a prison so there weren't many cells, only a handful of solitary high security holding areas for priority targets and prisoner transfers. The marines guarding the door to the detention wing looked taken aback when he strode into the hallway clad in his casual Blink fatigues, but they didn't stop him.

He was getting close to the holding cell itself, but the screams that suddenly came reverberating down the hallway arrested his progress. The sound dug into his ears like a physical thing and he stopped dead. Another scream echoed past him, muffled by the thick walls of the holding cells, but coldly audible nonetheless.

It seemed the interrogation wasn't over.

When a marine guard came striding around the bend in the passage he was still there, listening. The screams had finally stopped a few moments ago, but Darien's mind spun with the implications. He recognised Corporal Barker; the man wore a grim expression and his skin looked a little drained of colour.

"Flint?" Barker stopped. "What are you doing here?"

"Where's Smith?" Darien asked, ignoring the question.

"He just finished up with your man."

"And?"

"And what?"

"What did he find out?"

"I don't know." Barker shrugged. "I wasn't in the room. Smith went in alone and he disabled the security feeds."

Darien felt a chill go up his spine. "So there's no record?"

"Oh, I'm sure Smith's got a recording of it somewhere but no one else knows what just happened in that room."

"Is that...can he do that?"

"He just did."

Darien knew well enough what that meant. Whatever methods Smith had resorted to in order to drag the required information out of Brock, he didn't want them on display for the world to see. Plausible deniability. Brock might have been a dangerous traitor, but torturing prisoners was still banned across the length and breadth of colonial space. The Blink organisation was meant to uphold those laws, not break them.

"I need to see him."

"Well you can wait here if you want to," Barker said, shrugging off his rifle. "I'm going to get a drink." And with that he marched off down the hallway and out of sight. Darien watched him go, then looked grimly back down the passage that led to Smith. A small part of him wondered if he really wanted to know what lay down there.

Shrugging off his apprehension, he squared his shoulders and set off down the passage, his boots thumping dully against the station's deck plating. Before long his ears picked up the sound of a commotion echoing towards him: mens' voices shouting; a crash. It wasn't long before he found the cause.

When he rounded the final bend in the corridor he found four marines wrestling Tannis Brock onto his stretcher, but the Ghost was fighting back with an almost feral energy. Even from the distance between them Darien could see the wild look in the man's eye. Eventually one of the marines smashed a heavy fist into Brock's face, stunning him. As he slumped back onto the stretcher another marine tugged a volt gun free and shot him for good measure. Brock's body twitched spasmodically for a moment, then went limp.