"Where is Chalnarc," Jocasta asked. Her voice held no hint of demand or even interest, it sounded almost alien in its careful lack of affect. The prisoner cringed as though he had been meanaced with the blade of a knife. The outlaw was secured to a work bench, his wrists were secured with high density cargo tape to welding clamps which would have held sections of starship hull in place. That didn't stop the unwashed outlaw from hauling at them as though he might, by some herculean act, exert the thousands of pounds of pressure needed to weaken their grip.

"Where is Chalnarc," she repeated in the same empty tone, circling to the head of the table. Jocasta was not a threating woman, by design she had a soft somewhat lush look, a genetic aesthetic designed to encourage people to underestimate her. At the moment, standing over a prisoner in the cargo bay of a starship it was a particularly incongruous look, like a longue singer in a holodrama that had wandered onto the wrong set. The chamber was floored with metal grilles that covered conduits and wiring junctions and the walls were lined with tool benches and parts bins. Tool hung from magnetic attachment points and several holo projectors shimmered slightly in power down configurations above consoles which hummed with their own inner life. Jocasta was dressed in a black jumpsuit with a matte finish that made her chestnut hair almost shimmer. Her bright green eyes stood out in her pale heart shaped face, all but glowing with intensity, and the state of the art nano lenses which she habitually wore.

"You going to torture it out of me bitch?!" the outlaw demanded, fear giving a bite to his bluster. He was a scraggly fellow with dirty blonde hair and a feeble attempt at a beard. He was dressed in durable clothes of natural leathers and wore a faded jacket of now indeterminate color. His face had been burned and scared at some point in the past in what he claimed had been a gunfight but Jocasta suspected was probably the explosion of some sort of gas powered cooking unit. He didn't smell very pleasant either, having lost control of his bowels and bladder when Jocasta had shot him in the chest with a stun blast.

"Why do people always go straight to torture," Jocasta sighed, reaching out and putting a finger to each temple of her captives head.

"You know what the problem with torture is?" she asked conversationally. The outlaw probably thought he knew a thing or two about the subject having run with Chalnarc and his gang, but Jocasta had seen the real pros go to work, people who would haunt the nightmares of small time scum like her guest.

"People Haaaaate it," she explained, drawing out the word hate to emphasize her point.

"They tell you anything they can think of to make it stop, and then what do we have to do? Go out and verify it, if we even can, and it takes forever just to find out that they were probably just lying to you in the first place," she expanded, looking up to the bank of medical holograms that hung at the foot of her work table, observing brain patterns and stress reading from a half dozen sensors trained on her prisoner.

"So what do you do? Keep torturing till your information is verified? I've seen it work, but half the time the prisoner dies or goes insane by the time you can verify any information. It is all really a lot of hassle." The outlaw seemed more put out by her clinical description of the effects of torture than he would have been by the actual process.

"Usually, its easier just to ask." Jocasta closed her eyes, the augmetics blinking out.

"WHERE IS CHALNARC," she commanded, her voice burning with intensity as her psycic lance burned into the mind of her prisoner. The outlaw spasmed and would have soiled himself again if he hadn't already done such a complete job of evacuating his bowels in the cheap hotel room she had lured him to preparatory for this interview. His back arched as his body contracted, pulling hard enough at his restraitins that his hands went pale from lack of blood. She slid into his mind, the bland primer questions and the drugs she had given him lowering his natural defenses to the point that she could push through. A welter of images and unfamiliar thoughts crashed against her like a tidal wave but she clung to her purpose, refusing to be bound by what her host found important and focusing on her own need, sifting and sorting the images in blinks of an eye that seemed to last hours. With a gasp the contact broke and she sagged backward exhausted by the effort. There was a taste of blood in the back of her mouth and spots danced before her eyes.

"Great..." Jocasta muttered to herself as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, the images of a dilapidated mining settlement and miles of radioactive desert throbbing in her mind.  

"Just for once I wish you people would set up shop on a nice beach..."

_____________________________________

Jocasta slid around the pole gyrating and cocking a hip enticingly as she did so. Gone was the woman in the black jumpsuit, now she was naked save for ludicorusly small lingerie made from some sort of metalized plastic and her hair had been dyed a vibrant blond with nano applique.  A few of the cantina's denizens looked on approvingly but the majority of them seemed to be busy not paying attention to the murder of one of their stupid, or merely unlikely, companions. It wasn't the first killing she had seen in the three days she had been working as a dancer here, the easiest and most secure cover she could find while she waited for Chalnarc to stick his neck out of whatever hole he had climbed into, and she suspected it wouldn't be the last. What was more interesting was the stranger who had entered the bar moments before and now seemed to be interrogating the bartender about something. Beyond the fact that he was a stranger in a place that saw few strangers, he had a look about him that Jocasta had learned too well in the years since she had left Hegemony service to make her way as a bounty hunter. Violence wasn't really her strong suit, she preferred the hunt itself to the conclusion, but this one had the look of a fighter. It was possible he was some affiliate of Chalnarc, but even if he had no connection to her target, she didn't like new elements in her carefully constructed plan. She continued to dance, dipping down to give a long tongued Karagan a good look at her generous cleavage before straightening. Watch and Wait, in Hegemony Intelligence those were the golden words. Whatever game the stranger was playing, she would figure it out soon enough...