Hiltraud's boots clicked along the passageways of the Westphalia, scattering crewmen before her. Anticipation ran through her bones as she rounded the corner to the cargo hold.
"Is he actually in my cargo bay this time?" She snapped. This Unioner had evaded the Rheinland military for far too long.
"Yes ma'am! We got him!" Hiltrauds' face split into a truly evil grin. "Wunderbar! Bring him to the brig, immediately. Inform Admiral Krieg that we finally have him!"
Her men hoisted the sagging, broken man between them. Admiral Kaiser walked behind, running through her mind the interrogation that was to come. She couldn't wait for Krieg to board. There was no telling what this Vlad would do in a cell by himself. She'd have to start without him.
Vlad was thrown on the floor of one of the cells. The room vibrated with a metallic thrum as his head hit the floor grates. Hiltraud stood over the limp body and asked, "So, my Unioner friend, where shall we start?"
(ooc: This all happened in game, we thought it'd be good to RP the capture of a notorious pirate [he died 3 times and instead of being dead...he was captured] More is to come)
Vlad, head splitting with a vicious combonation of hard cell floor, hard liquor, and sweet, sweet cardamine, stared up at the Admiral above. A vague thought flittered through the haze.
'Well... she's got a lot of... equipment. Wonder if this is going to hurt.'
He reached out towards the cell doors, but the hard-faced marines turned their helmeted heads, and took up guard positions outside the door. Sound-proofed panels slid into place, however, oddly, their surfaces gleamed with the lights of miriad cameras, recording every happening within the tiny space.
Hilltraud reached to the wall, and spoke, "Commander, is this being rebroadcast live?"
"Yes Ma'am," came a disembodied voice, "Everyone aboard will be seeing it."
"Good. Time to show these country boys how to deal with a pirate..."
The guards outside switched off their external cameras, preferring the darkness of a cold screen to what was going to happen next.
The admiral slowly walked toward the stripped, cowering hulk in the corner. He covered his head with shaking hands. He was stripped not only of his clothes but of his dignity too. Exactly how she wanted him.
"What do you want from me?" Vlad whispered.
"You know damn well what I want and I expect you to give it to me without question!" Hiltraud snarled.
Her booted foot came down on his chest and pinned him to the metal grates. She knew she'd have to put on a show for her men and the rest of the prisoners. They'd know never to cross her or any Rheinland officer.
Vlad's raised his head and smirked. He deftly grabbed Hiltraud's leg and twisted hard. She hit the floor so hard she was momentarily disorientated. When she realised what had happened, she looked up and saw two guards slam Vlad against the bars.
Hiltraud picked herself up and strode toward the Unioner scum. She backhanded him across the face and said through clenched teeth, "Seems our guest needs to be taught some manners. I'll be back in a few minutes. See to it."
With that she walked out of the cell. The lock clicked home behind her.
As the guards shifted positions, one moving behind to hold his arms while the other unslung his nightstick, Vlad sprang upright, and with incedible swiftness threw the rearmost guard into the bulkhead. As the guards skull snapped back, a fist blew his teeth through his brain, and he slumped to the floor, blood streaming from his ruined face.
As he faced the other, suddenly cautious guard, he stretched to his full 6'3" height, and let out a laconic yawn. "So... do you like your teeth the way they are? Don't see why, but some people get attached to them..."
The guard reached for his slung pistol, but as his hand reached the worn grip, a dusty boot caught him right in the... belt, and doubled him over in a heap. After a few more blows to the head, Vlad rose, pistol in hand, and faced the door, all 230 pounds of him poised for whatever happened next. A muscle twitched in his forehead, signalling the beginning of his cardamine withdrawl.
'So.. the Admiral likes being on top, does she? Have to correct that situation....'
With a Flash-whup! the door sprang open, and a squad of heavily armoured Black Legionaires roared into the cell. Vlad dropped the pistol, and sprang back, watching in horror as a Black-Clad figure swept in, and a gravelly voice bellowed, "What is this piece of filth still doing, breathing Rheinland's AIR?"
The admiral snarled, and stepped forward. It was a quick move, almost unseen; but while the admiral was old, he had lost none of his potency. The mailed fist that Vlad suddenly found in his stomach was proof enough of that. And the knee that came up to meet his falling face didn't help much either. For odd reasons, Vlad could hear the crunch as his nose crumpled again, but no pain followed it. Until he fell backwards and his cranium made contact with the cold metal floor. Then he could feel every little nerve, absolutely screaming at the top of their proverbial lungs.
Krieg, now satisfied that the Unioner would stay on the floor for the moment, he turned to the other admiral who had taken her place behind him.
"Admiral Kaiser. I trust there is some reason you've kept this," he gestured to the slowly recovering Unioner. "Alive?"
This is the real true story of rock and roll; it was not about anything more then, how to live your life, as a gangster, in sartorial splendor, and turning the world into a place where normality would never return again...- Malcolm McLaren
"Why have I kept him alive? He is one of the most wanted criminals in Rheinland. So far all i've gotten out of him is, 'For the People'. I still think we can get much, much more out of him now," Hiltraud said as she stepped forward. "Admiral, I'll keep him in line now that I know how to deal with him. My apologies for not being harsher with him in the first place."
She kicked the deadweight of the Unioner, disgusted that such a thing could give them so much trouble. She motioned for Kreig to step outside with her.
Once they had reached the passageway she said, "Permission to take him to Braunschweig, sir. It'd be safer to keep him there then in the belly of my ship. Wouldn't want anything to happen here. It'd be on our heads, Admiral, and you know it. We give him to Freelaman, our hands our clean of him then," She leveled her gaze with Krieg, if anything happened aboard the Westphalia or in New Berlin she'd be held accountable and so would he.
Krieg stood to his full height, looked down at Vlad and back up to Hiltraud. She squared her shoulders and waited for his response, "Have him transported immediately to Braunschweig, Admiral." Krieg looked at Hiltraud with narrowed eyes. No words were needed to know what would become of her if she failed this mission.
With her head up and shoulders back Hiltraud walked into the cell and told the Black Legionnaires, "See to it he's transported immediately. I want a full wing of escorts dispatched with the cruiser Vineta."
The black clad figures bodily lifted the Unioner and hog tied him. He won't be getting out of that compromising position anytime soon Hiltraud thought as he was swung between the two legionnaires.
'Bugger. I wants my cardamine, and I wants it now.'
Vlad, bleeding from the nose and mouth, spat viciously on the deck. As the pair of Black Legionnaires lifted him, he sluggishly addressed the bulkhead beside Admiral Hiltraud, "I'll shee yous and yer equipment in hellsh...", and passed out.
Krieg and Hilltraud looked at each other, and simultaneously shrugged. "Bloody Unioners.." As the guards carried him out, Krieg asked, in a quiet tone not normally associated with the Admiral, "So, whats this I hear about a recording?"
-------
Vlad came to on the floor of a cell much like the one he'd last visited. It had the same smell of blood, feces, and sandpaper that always seemed to hang about the prisons of Rheinland. It even had the same blood on the floor; His. As his eyes lifted higher, a figure was silhouetted against the glaring lights. Vlad dropped his head again, prefering not to see his latest cellmate.
He could still recall that Mollie aboard the BPA Newport, who was determined to prove that he, and he alone, had killed every single BMM employee and their entire family. Unfortunately, this 'proving' process involved the repetition of "I fecking killed 'em all!" for three weeks solid. Vlad had been forced to drive his toilet seat through the man's skull. Twice.
'Maybe this one won't talk...'
His cellmate leaned over, temporarily blocking all the light with his ragged mop of greasy hair. It looked almost like you could've wrung several liters of cooking oil out of it, but it wasn't until he spoke that recognition struck.
"Vlad, you stupid puke. If I'd known you were coming, I would've had a shower!"
Vlad leaned up on his elbow in astonishment, for he'd not heard that voice is nigh over six months, in a bar on Cadiz, just before the last, great raid on the Sirius Federation.
![[Image: sigiv3.png]](http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/1817/sigiv3.png)