Chapter 33

Year 4, Day 6, Endeavour, Terra Prime

Major Mazun Koth, telepath of the Kromagg Imperium awoke with a splitting headache. That wasn't unusual, pain was the lot of the Kromagg psychic, what was unusual was the material he was laying on. It was plush and white, totally unlike his normal bedding. The last thing he recalled was meeting one of their vermin agents and then... nothing.

With a start Koth realised something had gone wrong and he rolled to his knees, ignoring the pain. It was then he realised he was naked, and the soft material he had been laying on was all around him. The entire room, bar the very high ceiling was covering in it. There was no obvious door, and the bright lights were starting to pain his eyes. He absently scratched at his wrist and hissed with pain, inspecting it he noticed whoever had captured him, and he was sure he'd been captured, had clipped his nails cloth and removed his tracking implant, if the small scar on his wrist was any indication.

With a sinking feeling of dread he began searching his body looking for his other implants. Gone, they were all gone. Glancing around frantically he expanded his mind, searching for any contact. Only to be met with nothing.

Nothing.

Even on the most empty worlds he could sense something, some form of life, but not here, he was blind.

The Kromagg officer screamed in panic and rage.

***

Alexander was eating a footlong meatball sub as he watched the Kromagg telepath scream on the monitor in front of him. He wasn't very sadistic by nature, but watching the Kromagg scream brought a smile to his face, something about the Kromaggs really rubbed him the wrong way; he'd spoken to a few of his people and most had reported similar unsettling feelings, it was something that the ESRO were researching, without much luck. The best they could come up with was a theory that it was an ancient racial memory when the various pre-human species had fought for resources and living space.

It was odd really, Alexander had never felt anything like it when dealing with Aliens, even ones he detested, yet the Kromaggs, so unlike humans in many ways, invoked a powerful sense of hatred in him.

Shaking the feeling off he turned to the intel officers also watching the scene.

"So what's the plan?" He asked.

Captain Natalegawa turned slightly away from the screen and faced Alexander, "We thought it best to start slow, isolation and sleep deprivation, keeping him off balance; unfortunately we don't know how well chemical interrogation techniques will work on his species, otherwise we'd have gone with some of the more powerful narcotics sourced from the SWU"

Captain Brantholme took over, "We've got the entire cell lined with psychic jamming in the form of a dozen mind-shields cranked up as high as they'll go, you can feel it when you get close, it's like a buzzing in your brain. According to the XCOM research on the subject, depriving natural telepaths of their abilities is very unsettling, which should help with getting the subject off balance."

Alexander nodded, "Good, I want everything he knows, timetables, contacts, collaborators, the names of agents, dead drop locations, everything. Now tell me what you've got out of the human"

Captain Brantholme shook his head, "Not much sir, he's been thoroughly indoctrinated. He honestly believes that the Kromaggs are a superior lifeform and it's humanities place to serve them."

"It's doubtful he knows much of value anyway sir" Captain Natalegawa said, "You don't give the people going undercover anymore information then they need to do their jobs, not if you're smart."

Alexander nodded again, "Well, keep working on it, even just the names of the other agents in France would be useful"

Excerpt from Alexander Harlow's Personal Journal. Year 4, Day 9, Solitude, Terra Prime

The Kromagg forces on Earth 29 didn't take the capture of one of their telepaths laying down. From what we've seen they've gone to ground while they try to work what the hell happened. We've intercepted a few dead drop communications telling their human puppets to go to ground until further notice.

The best thing to come out of it we've managed to track down several major safehouses, two with Kromagg offices, likely telepaths, in residence. We're keeping them under watch, hoping they'll lead us to more of their setups.

It's only been a few weeks since we started operations but I'm feeling confident about our prospects, granted if the Kromaggs start their invasion early they'll roll over the entire place in weeks, if not days, but that would be contrary to their entire modus operandi, they are big into minimising their losses, I guess it comes from having their asses kicked so thoroughly on their homeworld that they were left with only a few million people by the time of their exodus. It's been centuries since then but facing extinction has an impact on a culture, and they do not want to waste Kromagg lives if they can get what they want through guile.

If we can keep them hesitating while we build up support, we might have a chance.