Hands of Injustice
I was asked once, while drinking some Rik’Tarian malt liquor, who I most respected out of all my acquisitions. Out of all the men I had taken into custody, which one would I least like to have to retrieve again. Damn,…
I thought, after twenty-five years in the Expanse Acquisitions Agency, Special Procurement Division, I have arrested so many alien goons, fringe nutcases and political undesirables, that it was hard to tell them apart. Being in the SP division let me see the real eccentric cases, the ones that escaped Special Re-Education Centers, or the mutants that a corporation made by mistake and set free by “accident”. Or the cyber-psychotic warrior from the Cyber-Units of the Expanse Special Forces.
I thought long and hard. It was a toss up between a two-day long fight between an Aldarian warrior-beast, and McCrystal Dragonstar. I chose Dragonstar, the best gambler, freight-smuggler, and marksman in Terran Expanse. I chose him because I technically didn’t arrest the Aldarian warrior-beast… well, at least not all of him.
This man was in the First Karian War, which was hell in itself. He was said to have 103 confirmed kills, and survived the G’Dora Invasion. He was captured halfway through his second tour with the Royal White Light Brigade, Unit 12, on a backwater world called Fi’ang, and was field interrogated. Karian field interrogations for humans are real mothers. I am glad I am Proglonian. Karians seem to have a unique insight into how to hurt a human. This is probably because of their common simian origin.
They attached special electrodes to one of his hands and one of his feet, inserting them under the nails. These electrodes surged with a special bio-energy called Electro-Blue, which is twice as painful as normal electricity. Then they inserted two gredi’ish worms underneath the skin on chest. These worms love all kinds of neural energies, and usually like to implant themselves in a victims brain. But that would not serve the Karian’s purposes. These worms also have a special liking to Electro-Blue energy, which is like an addictive drug to them. They love to feel it surge through their little barbed bodies. And like a moth to the flame, they like to get closer to the source. So they tunnel through the victims flesh, until they reach the electrode. This process, of course, is a very painful process, on top of the constant surge of painful EB energies. Unfortunately, much like the moth, they don’t know what is good for them. The energies build up in there bodies, so when they reach the open air, it is released in a small explosion, killing the worm, and destroying the limb they have tunneled through. This entire process takes days. By the end of the month, he had no hands or feet.
The worst part of McCrystal’s torture was the Karians chose a pair of pregnant gredi’ish worms for his first set. They laid eggs inside him all the way up to the electrode. These things grow fast, so he was in constant agony for weeks.
A rescue party finally arrived when the Terran Expanse re-took the region. Seeing what the Karians had done, the Terran Marines really tore up the area, from what I hear. There wasn’t a piece of a Karian larger than my left antennae. The Marines then got the orders to leave those prisoners behind they deemed helpless cases. Dragonstar was one of them. No one is sure what happened next, but somehow he survived, despite being ruled a “helpless case”. Rumor has it, he was found by some old hermit, who healed him back to health. It is also unclear where McCrystal regenerated his hands and feet back, but I can tell you from experience, they are not normal human hands or feet. Some suspect some kind of alien technology.
No one came back to that backwater planet till long after the war was over.
By then, McCrystal was looking for some payback. He dabbled in some terrorism, although no legal system can pin him with those charges. He also is rumored to have joined the Assassins Guild for a while, completing a few minor contracts. Neither were his bag. So, he started his sleek little smuggling ring. This, of course, lead to his gambling habit, his only weakness. Some who know him well suspect something about his hands aided him in his extreme success in gambling, but no one could prove it. I’m sure there was something about those hands.
He has escaped 23 times from planetary authorities and 8 times from Federal Expanse maximum security orbital prisons. Again, those of us that know about his history, suspect the hands. I captured him on Gla’ash, in a gambling casino. It cost me a pretty credit, but the reward paid me back tenfold. It’s not my fault he escaped in transit to the H’Daarash Asteroid Belt. So, Acquisition regulations be damned, the next time I have him in my blaster sights, those hands are the first thing I shoot. Those fuckin’ hands.