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{The story on P-a-t-r-e-o-n is at 170 chapters.}
{Book 1 has been completed.}
~~~(POV: Durado)~~~
I watch as Ziller takes multiple deep breaths. His body is lightly covered in acid burns, and most of his fingers and toes are missing.
He won't die from blood loss. I'm making sure of that. "I can end your suffering, Ziller. All you have to do is tell me what I want to know." Ziller looks up from the ground, and his eyes are red from crying.
Not emotional pain, but from physical pain. He sees me looking and my uncaring gaze. He knows there is no way out of this, and if he does want it to end, then he might as well speak.
However, he still refuses. Much to my disappointment and frustration. He's not acting right. Why would such a selfish man protect someone?
He has no reason to fear whoever it is.
He has no reason to keep what he knows hidden. "I don't understand you, Ziller. You're a mass-murdering psychopath and display no regard for life or anyone else. Yet you're keeping secrets about who hired you to kid the settlement and my daughter." He just weakly laughs, and I'll admit, it gets to me a little.
I have to stop myself from lashing out.
He raises his and continues laughing. Guess it's my fault for trying to understand a lunatic. "Ohh, Durado... You really want to know?" I have a feeling he's yanking my chain or something, but he has a slightly serious undertone. "I'm a deadman, so might as well..." He now has my full attention.
I sit down in the chair across from the one he's tied up on. "I was hired by a scientific corporation... You might've heard its name before... Teller-Bravo..." What the fuck... Why would the biggest corporation in the universe be interested in a little world.
I'm on the edge of my seat as he takes another breath to continue. "They never gave specific on why they wanted me and my crews to take the world, more specifically. The people. However, being who I am, I couldn't help myself from trying to figure it out." His breathing is labored.
And I'm absorbing all the information. "Teller-Bravo needed test subjects. The perfect world would be one off the beaten path, and no one would miss if a few hundred thousand settlers went missing." My baby girl was on that world.
He leans his head back, and I watch him blink a few times. "What I found out was the Yelare system was an old system, one that had already been explored. Not by any alien species in the current population... The Primordium..." I squint my eyes ever so slightly.
Everyone in the universe knows about The Primordium. They mysteriously disappeared from the universe long before any other species reached the transgalactic level. "The planet of Heroor, a farming world. Officially stated to be terraformed. While it's true, it was terraformed long before the settlers got there." I don't know where this is going.
He leans his head forward and looks at me. "Why Teller-Bravo took the settlers is beyond me... Something I never understood. They were taken to a secret facility. That's all I know about the settlers and your daughter, but there is more you should know about what happened there." He has told me who has taken my daughter, and while she's not a slave.
She might be even worse off. Teller-Bravo answers to no one and goes whatever it wants. It has the most brilliant and mysterious geniuses in the universe.
I nod my head for him to continue with what he knows. "Heroor held many secrets. The settlement was just a front. Sponsored by a shell company owned by Teller-Bravo. They worked in the shadows. While the settlement made it look like an uninteresting world. When they learned what they could, they took all the settlers, every last one. Then they sterilized the planet. My men and I were unwittingly used as a scapegoat. Their true objective is unknown to me." All of this information... I can see he still has more to give.
We have time, and as long as he keeps talking, he'll live his last moments without me torturing him. I'll give him the quick death he doesn't deserve, but that matters not. The only reason I continue to listen is that I'll need every bit of information on Teller-Bravo.