Sci-Fi Novel, Origin Andromeda - Part 12 - Loukh!

Part 12
Bjorn is sitting silently inside his shuttle, thinking about Moktai and Loukh, contemplating on the differences they have and what could have driven Loukh to betray them all, he is also waiting for the decontamination process to start.
“At least we now know who did it” he says to himself before he turns on his radio and contacts Rob.
“Rob, I just needed a minute or two alone with my thoughts, have you detained Loukh and put him under guard?”
Rob who was going through the final stages of the decontamination results and was booting up Bjorn’s process was relieved to hear Bjorn’s voice again.
“Yes captain, good to hear from you, we have him under guard in an empty sleeping quarter, we have prepared a the interrogation room for you when you are back inside”
“Good, I know I can expect a lot from you Rob”
“Thank you sir, I also want to let you know that the decontamination process will begin in a minute or two and will take you around five minutes to complete”
“It will be a relief to be able to leave this shuttle, I expect that Davood has received the components by now, tell him to report back to me with his progress, I want us to continue our journey as soon as possible”
“Will do sir”

Henrik who was shocked when two guards detained Loukh for treason and took him away when they left the shuttle is now sitting together with Joanna in their private quarter.
“I don’t understand, how come I didn’t see or sense that Loukh had an agenda of his own? I’m truly shocked by the fact that he is responsible for the malfunction of the hyperdrive, we even worked side by side together with him a couple of days ago, did he know that the Man of war ship was going to coincide with our path? Or was that just a coincidence ” Henrik says with a tired and puzzled expression.
“My love, don’t be too hard on yourself, even Bjorn did miss this fact and he is the captain of this ship, let us wait and see what the interrogation uncovers, sometimes people can be very good at hiding their agendas from each other” Joanna takes his hand, they continue to discuss the matter and Henrik slowly begins to regain his confidence.
“You are truly amazing my love, you can show me the sun where there are only dark clouds to be seen, thank you” Henrik says with a soft voice.
“Thank you love, let’s go down and meet the others” they walk down to the corridor outside the interrogation room where they meet Davood, Bjorn and Rob, they see two doors next to each other.

“Good everyone is here now, I know you are all tired after this very long day, so please walk In through the left door and observe, after this we can hopefully get some rest” Bjorn says before he and Davood enters the interrogation room., Henrik, Joanna and Rob enters through the left door and finds a room next wall where they can observe the interrogation through a see through mirror.
“The room has only been used a few times under Bjorn's leadership, and never before have crew members had to be questioned” Rob comments.
They can see that Loukh is already seated and handcuffed, the walls inside the room is deliberately painted grey and boring, and containing only one metal table and two chairs.

Bjorn seats himself on the second metal chair on the other side of the table, facing Loukh and with a calm and relaxed energy he begins to talk.
"First of all, I would like to say that you are sitting here because you are one of the crew members who possess the knowledge of carrying out the sabotage and that in your cabin we found drawings and notes on how to implement it"
"Yes, yes that's right" Loukh says with a relaxed voice while slowly nodding his head in approval, Bjorn continues.
"As you probably know, this room is equipped with a number of sensors that measure the truth level in everything that is said in here, even what I say is measured and noted down"
Loukh sighs impatiently and says.
"Yes…I know…please start asking your questions now so that we can get this over with"
"We don’t want to spend more time than necessary, so we start"
Bjorn leans backwards, putting his left leg over the right leg in an comfortable position, this is a part of his interrogation strategy, as he learned a long time ago it is a game of the mind and not so much a game of trying to force the truth out of the suspect, easier to let the person feel that the game is over when seated in an relax position.

“Do you have anything against the Zouud Alliance?”
Loukh knows that his fate is sealed, he will be imprisoned until they arrive at Zouud, he refuses to admit to ZOP command that he has failed his mission, but he has a backup plan and that this will probably be his last words, so he relaxes and takes a deep breath.
”why not let this old sack find out just how much I am against it, and that they will be defeated, one way or the other”
“Yes, and I’m not the only one who shares my belief, we are many” he finally answers.
“So you did sabotage the hyperdrive?”
“Of course I did, this was only part one of my plan, but I was interrupted”
“Interrupted by the man of war ship you mean? Did you also now that the ship would appear here?” Bjorn quickly asks, Loukh only smiles.
“Actually not, but it was a pleasant surprise, I know how dangerous and how powerful that kind of ship is and hoped that they would blast us all into smithereens”

Bjorn is starting to feel how his disgust with this man flood his veins, but shakes it off without showing it, Henrik is truly surprised with the attitude that Loukh is showing and the way that he is speaking, he no longer talks with the same voice as before and he certainly isn’t just talking when its needed, this is more like bragging about what he has done, and planned to do.

“You said that you are not the only one who shares your beliefs, are there anyone else in this crew that wants to damage the Zouud Alliance?”
Loukh puts his right leg over his left leg, mimicking Bjorn’s position to show him that he isn’t afraid.
“You would like to know that, wouldn’t you?”
Bjorn slams his fists onto the metal table, knowing that this fight isn’t over and the interrogation will take a long time.
“We end this for now, but you will answer in time” he gets out of the chair and walks out of the room together with Davood who after the door closes behind them asks Bjorn why he ended the interrogation so quickly and abruptly.
“Why did you lose control in there?”

“I didn’t, I just let him believe that he got to me, this will take time and to continue right now would only waste everyone’s time and energy for nothing, we have to soften him up a bit before we continue” Bjorn answers with a completely calm expression, Davood nods understandingly, Bjorn signals to the guard who was standing outside to take Loukh back to his quarter before they enter the observation room where Henrik, Joanna and Rob is standing.
“What did you think about his reactions and comments in there my friends?” Bjorn asks.

While they have their focus on the discussion on the interrogation the guard is about to escort Loukh out of the room.
“Come on, move it traitor” Loukh has no desire to do as the guard says, so he reaches out towards the guard, his hands are still handcuffed but he manages to take the guard's weapon out of the holster, and shoot him in the back.
The guard, or Ziigot, which he was called didn’t even have time to react before he falls down on his knees and collapses like a sack of potatoes.
Loukh drops the weapon and runs towards the door and out to the corridor.
The others hear the gunshot and are shocked as they see the interrogation room, Joanna is the first to run out of the room and chase after Loukh, the others are just one step behind her in the chase.

Loukh runs as fast as he can towards the shuttle area but is abruptly stopped after he rounds a corner and one of the guards manages to take him down.
"Let me go! The Alliance will fail ... no one .. "shouts Loukh before the guard injects him with anesthesia.

"Check if his signature delivers any affiliation with ZOP, check if Loukh really is his real name or not, then lock this traitor under strict surveillance in his quarter until we reach Andromeda and can put the traitor before trial!" Bjorn says to the guard.

"Signature?" Henrik asks with a curious expression.
"All citizens are given a chip at birth and a DNA stamp containing an unique code that both are checked against a blockchain ledger for confirmation, about where they are born and other necessary personal information, imagine the same function as a birthcertificate” Bjorn explains.
"Ah, I understand..”

Later in the evening a meeting is held in the lunch room, the room contains a depressing lack of energy and the mood is very low among the crew while Bjorn and Henrik talks about what has happened.
“Loukh's motive was that he believes Henrik is not entitled to any power at Zuood, he would have stopped at nothing to make sure that we never arrive to our destination, his ruthlessness costed the lives of two very fine people, Moktai and Ziigot, who will never be forgotten, lets share a moment of silence”

While everyone is in the lunch room, Loukh wakes up, he succeeds in escaping from the sleeping quarter via a hidden air vent that he has made sure would be a way out if he ever was caught, without hope and without seeing another resort, he finds an airlock, gets inside it, closes the door and breaks the control panel before he manually opens the door outwards, disappearing quietly into the darkness of space.

End of part 12

Prevoius parts:
Synopsis
Part 1, The Cube!
Part 2, Run!
Part 3, E.B.A.A.T!
Part 4, The Awakening
Part 5, Kionidoo
Part 6, The Tour
Part7, The Pick Up
Part 8, Lift off!
Part 9, Sabotage!
Part 10, Rescue mission
Part 11, Belly of the beast!

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Thank you for reading this, hope that you find my story interesting and exciting.
Going to release this novel on Steemit, in parts with a few days between each part, need to work on translating the next part before I post it. I have been writing on it for a few years but never getting it out before, originally written in Swedish.

Dedicated to my lovely wife who gives me inspiration to write.

Hope that you like it.