Chapter 39

Aaron raised an eyebrow and smiled knowingly at his captive.

“Fiaz, The only way you will be released from custody is your death. In case you don’t recognise the uniform and the badges on it, I am a Special Forces Detective Inspector. I was hired by UNSEC to hunt down smugglers, slavers and pirates.”

“We have already dealt with Rupert. The planet below this ship, Sheldon, is now a free planet. A little bird informed us that you were going to stop here before going on to the other planet in the Dos System. What was your business with Rupert?”

Fiaz’s lips tightened and the tingling in his wrist was becoming increasingly annoying. It wasn’t zapping him, just buzzing and prickling his skin. It was as if he had ants crawling around his wrist and biting him. He had to scratch.

“Let me guess,” Arron said and tapped at his top lip.

“Drugs and money,” he said and watched as Fiaz’s eyes flared.

“He had to pay his taxes, didn’t he?” Aaron then tried. He grinned at the look he received from Fiaz.

“So, he did work for you?” Aaron then tried.

Fiaz scratched harder as the biting feeling intensified. He wanted to say a lot of things, but he had already worked out that expressing his feelings towards this dangerous puppy would result in pain. He loved dealing out pain, but he wasn’t so fond of receiving it.

Aaron shrugged. “It’s okay; I’m just pulling your chain. Patty, your son, has already filled us in on your involvement. Oh! Commiserations on losing your other son, Hasid. It wasn’t smart of him to try to rape Special Forces Detective Inspector Dusty Carmichael.”

Aaron watched as the hatred filled Fiaz’s eyes.

He went on in a conversational tone, “She is a High Mage these days. When I told her that we had you and Patty in custody, she was delighted. I don’t know how that woman ferrets out the information she does, but she wasn’t surprised it was you on the ship. She was even expecting you to turn up.”

“One more thing before I leave you in peace. In this day and age, you do know that paper records are old hat, don’t you? You should also know that Dusty is a computer whiz.”

“She broke the encryption on your data files within two minutes. All that data is on its way to Earth. Storing the files next to the black box recorder for the ship may have seemed smart, but it truly wasn’t.”

“I’m also going to leave you with a gift. We know you’re a vindictive son of a bitch, so you will find that if the names of anyone on this Special Forces crew or the names of anyone in their families are mentioned, you will have no memory of them.”

“You will remember that your ship was blown up and a team picked you up but not who they were, and you will deny it was us if we are named. We are just MPs who work for UNSEC and are not important. Do you understand?”

Fiaz frowned and lost track of his train of thought for a moment. “Why am I on this ship, and who are you?” he asked.

“We were told to pick up the people from the ship you were on and to detain them,” Aaron said as he lowered his legs and stood in front of the cell once again.

“You have no grounds to hold me,” Fiaz replied.

He felt a twinge as he did remember that they had evidence. The buzzing feeling in his wrist also intensified, and he moaned.

“Unhappily, we do. We were told to drop you off on an island where other detainees are being held. We should be there in a couple of hours,” Aaron told the man, and he turned and left.

Fiaz was left alone with his thoughts and a buzzing, itching wrist.

Striker One landed about two klicks from the other cube and in the next inlet on Rupert Island.

Aaron and the crew didn’t bother altering the bottom floor of the cube that they left on the island. They simply stripped two rooms on the lower floor and put preservation spells on them before they stocked them. They added some other useful tools and equipment to one of the other rooms.

They also put the prisoners to sleep before transporting them to the cube. The seven men who woke inside the cube were quite disorientated. It didn’t take them long to work out that they were on an island once they ventured outside the cube.

Fiaz told two of the crewmen to walk the perimeter and to not come back until they had found a way off. He was still pissed to find himself on an island. His useless, bloody son had turned into a snivelling cry-baby and couldn’t even hold a decent conversation without bursting into tears.

When the two men hadn’t come back after a couple of hours, Fiaz thought they were still walking. When Rupert and four of his crew turned up at lunchtime, Fiaz and his people were delighted. They all rushed out of the cube when they heard the hail from Rupert.

Fiaz’s delight didn’t last for long.

Nuru stepped up to him, and without ceremony, he pushed a long, thin knife between Fiaz’s ribs. He twisted the knife before wiggling it around to make mincemeat of Fiaz’s heart, which rather dampened his high spirits.

“Justice is served. May you rot in hell, Fiaz Merat,” Nuru said as he watched the body fall to the sand, and then he spat on it.

Nuru was as surprised as the others were that the cuff had let him kill the Vezir. He hoped his sister rested in peace now. He couldn’t count the number of times he had wished Rupert would let him kill Fiaz.