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Manticore · (This post was last modified: 10-02-2012, 07:34 AM by Manticore.)

ID: JAMES LAMBERT

''¦I know that James Lambert is dead.'

The words smashed into Lambert's shattered consciousness like a rampant thunderbolt. It simply wasn't possible that she knew the entire truth; he had covered his tracks so well. The old days, the man he'd used to be, had faded even from his memory as he had truly moved on from that life.

But that was now irrelevant, he realized. The years of work he'd put in now might as well never have happened.

He managed to choke out a word. 'What...?' A desperate gambit, really, was all it could ever be. Yet he still clung to the faint hope that perhaps she didn't really know everything about what she implied.

Her response was merely another cackle of glee. 'Playing the denial game still, are we? As you wish, but I can see it in your eyes, my dear.

'But yes, James Lambert the lad born on Curacao who joined the Bounty Hunters to follow in his father's footsteps is, indeed, dead. Long dead, in fact. And I think you know something about his death, don't you... Herr Jaeger?'

He looked into her eyes through the falling orange mist and saw his undoing. He slowly lowered his head to the floor, acknowledging defeat.

'No more denials for me? But I was so looking forward to continuing that little game! No matter, as I notice you refuse to acknowledge who you really are, Erwin Jaeger. Perhaps you need some reminding, though I doubt such an intelligent man requires a reminder of his own life...

'Let's see how much I can remember. Erwin Jaeger, born on Curacao to Rheinland expats. Returned to Rheinland after death of said parents sometime around 799 AS. Took in with the Unioners, in fact a particularly nasty bunch of them in the Munich system, after which there are no records for a time. Then, in 807, there was the Augsburg Massacre, where an entire transport full of refugees was destroyed with all hands by a gunboat under the command of a certain Erwin Jaeger. The Federal Police reports even indicated that the ship made a point of blowing away every life pod from the vessel before making its escape. Jaeger and his crew spent quite some time atop the police's Most Wanted list, but managed to kill or elude every single sting op the government sent after them. But the last sighting of Jaeger or his ship, the Nachtkrappe, was in 808 and it was assumed that they had suffered some other fate.'

He still stared at the floor, tears streaming down his face as the walls came down and his old wounds were ripped open once again. Banshee's words washed over him, each new detail further battering at his wounded soul.

'Now here's where the story gets interesting,' she said, continuing on more for the benefit of the girl in the corner than for the man in the tank. 'James Lambert, the hotshot kid Bounty Hunter who was also, incidentally, born on Curacao, mysteriously left Sheffield around this same time and completely disappeared for a few weeks. He resurfaced later in the Taus, but with a few strange differences that anyone but an astute observer wouldn't have noticed. That's because Erwin Jaeger killed James Lambert and assumed his identity, and has been pretending to be James Lambert ever since.

'It was a clever ruse, but did you really expect to keep it up forever? Clearly you benefited from being born in the same place as Lambert, but you're at least five years older than you claim to be. And don't think your little outburst in German during the recent New Berlin raid didn't raise some eyebrows in the Navy. And what will happen when those harebrained fools at Naval High Command find out that the Butcher of Munich himself is hiding among their ranks? War or no war, I'd imagine you would wind up in a cell for a very long time.'

Eyes downcast, he could only slowly shake his head, muttering 'No, no, no, no, no...' to himself.

'Oh, but yes. Still, you did manage a good job covering yourself, and so I'm going to need you to confirm this all for me.' She nodded to the mech waiting by the tank's control panel. As the orange mist disappeared and the pain began to build again, she said, 'So... would you kindly tell me your name, sir?'

He lifted his head to stare into her eyes, a bit of defiance rising in him along with the pain. 'James Lambert, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Liberty Navy. Service number 891-15778.'

'Wrong answer!' Banshee cackled with glee once again. 'Let's try this again. What is your name?'

As the pain threatened to explode out of him, he gritted his teeth and responded once again with the same answer. His blue eyes glowed with a newly rekindled fire as he stood to face Banshee and deny her the confirmation she sought.

Inside, he was a broken man, but one thing still managed to hold him together. He knew he would die soon, whether it be today, tomorrow, or a few days afterwards. Yet, he believed with every fiber of his being that a man could change who he was. Yes, he had done horrible things in his past life, but Erwin Jaeger was long dead, regardless of what Banshee said. He was James Lambert now, and, damn it all, he would die as James Lambert.

The screams continued endlessly in that docking bay, but Banshee's frustration continued to rise as the cardamine's best efforts failed repeatedly. Again and again she brought the man to death's doorstep and then back, but he continued to refuse to admit his true identity, denying her the proof she required for the next part of her plan. In her frustration, she eventually let him linger a moment too long in agony, and his body gave out under the pressures of the continuous pain and shock. He entered dark recesses of unconsciousness that could not be reversed by the tools she had on hand, so she was forced to send for Rogues to haul the unconscious body down to sickbay.

Sighing with irritation, she sent Pita home and retired to her ship. The fun would have to wait but perhaps it was for the best. She began to devise new torments to crack her subject's unexpected burst of defiance.

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