The end of a story...

[Xing]

"Shielding back at full strenght, taisho."

Isabelle turned around her head to look at the lieutenant, somewhat surprised, but smiling to keep the man comfortable,
"Taisho? I'm not even a member of the imperial fleet, lieutenant."

The man nodded politely,
"We are aware of this. However, we have assumed that from the far away land you come from, your rank must have equaled that of our taisho. If we are mistaken, please accept our sincere apologi..."

Isabelle raised a hand slightly,
"No need for lieutenant. Thank you for this touch of respect, I appreciate. I was indeed a "taisho" when serving among my people..."
She turned back her attention on the spherical viewscreen in front of her, her eyes looking in the distance...
"It seemed like so long ago" she said unconsciously in such a low voice, it was barely a whisper.

The lieutenant nodded in agreement even though he didn't fully understand what this meant.
After all, the greatest warriors were always depicted like mysterious spiritual men... and women, right?

--

Before going for interrogation, Isabelle went down to the machine room, where Jimmy was supervising the repairs made to the flagship. The corsairs invader obviously attempted to destroy the engines, without too much success. However, many systems, less critical to the functionning of the vessel but still important, were either completely destroyed or heavily damaged.
"Looks as if a bunch of 5 years old child passed by with axes chopping off everything... too bad they didn't chopped each other accidentally." she said without much emotion, seemingly even amused
"err, did I say that out loud?" she said as she noticed Jimmy looking somewhat weirdly at her. She smiled slightly, walking a bit closer to him,
"Sorry... these bloodbath scene always remind me of my darker side..." she sighed slowly,
"I might have to use that darker self in a few minutes though... but I need whatever I can substract from these corsair pirates. Their intel might save our life, or we might be walking straight in a trap without even knowing..."
Her cyan eyes didn't seemed as bright with joy as they used to be, but they regained some of their strenght when she looked at her love.
"Thank you hun for staying with me all the way... thank you."
She stood on the tip of her toes for a few seconds, a few seconds to kiss her love quickly (because Jimmy was somewhat taller than she was) before going to the grim "dungeons" of the vessel.

--

Isabelle wasn't much of a humanist, she knew it. A few years spent in the Liberty White Wolf squadrons made her a very cold and efficient military tool when it was requiered.
Over the time, she managed to control, restrain that incredibly dark side of herself to the point where, in a normal life situation, she looked, well, quite normal and even cheerful. However, war was an ugly place to be, a harsh place to survive, and there, not only did this side surfaced easily, she needed this unhuman war machine. Herself.

"Where have you launched your strike."

In her life, she had tortured more people than she cared to remember. In her memory, none of them had a face. It was necesary, so to keep her mind mentally balanced. Those who failed to forget their victims often ended up in an asylum or ended their life with a laser beam. There was nothing to be done about it, every human being was made like that.

"Injection of serum to low quantity."

No, in fact, she remembered one. Her first time. Like many other, the first time was hard and usually ended up with a morally painful souvenir. Her's was perticularly... horrible.

"Where have you launched your strike."

They managed to breack through a rogue outpost somewhere on Houston. It was such a dry sky. The White Wolves present were sweating to death in their heavy combat armour, even though their movements, swift and deadly, didn't seemed so.
when the base was cleansed, they discovered it was about to detonate. They could have escaped, easily, so fast they made the job. But the outposts had many interesting data that would take time to download and decode. Too much time to do so before the self destruction.
Luckily, the crime-band' chief was still alive. Lost a whole arm starting from the shoulder, but they managed to sterilise and put the terrible wound on stasis.
The White Wolf commander looked around and picked her to perform interrogation. It was suposed to be relatively easy, they had time before timer went up.

"I will describe a bit what this serum does. It will force you to reveal me, anything I will ask. We are indeed messing with your brain. However, because your sub conscious tries to fight it, your body will easily be confused, and do actions that might become deadly for you."

The truth serum. Ah, it was a very useful tool, takes a lot of training before one was qualified to use it. In unexperienced hand, the victim often ends up dead, or both interogator and victimes die, if the last one isn't securly restrained. Madness can give the human body quite some surprising strenght.

"You may pray for the most merciful death, which is a case where the brain shut down, and leaves you in a vegetative state. This happens only 4.5% of the time. Usually, that is, 45% of the time, you will end up biting your own tongue or swallowing it, to keep yourself silent."

The screams panicked her usually steeled mind, and in her panick, she administered way too much serum. The amount was safe for a normal body to endure - at least, a 55% chance to survive or so. Which was high, with that deadly serum.
But the man lost an arm, bled nearly to death. The toxic counpound overloaded in his blood. And his blood, came out from every orifice of his body. Eyes, nose, mouth, ears.

"Where..."
"A-2 THETA-PRIME!!!!!!"

--

A few hours later, Isabelle nearly collapsed in exhaust as she exited the prison' gates...
But now, they were finally safe to return home....
where was home already? aah yes... uncle Daite...

She smiled without any restrain as she fell in her bed, fell in the world of sweet dreams. Why, what was she doing in that sinister dungeon anyway?

--

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