In the interrogation room, the vicious-looking Ashes Agents made an example of someone. They randomly picked a class enemy from the Bio-Generator District, tortured them to death using the cruelest methods in human history, then cordially invited Smijib to sit in the same spot.
"Name?"
"Smalak!!! Smalak!!! (terrified hive creature screaming)"
"Your! Name?!!"
"Smijib! All Smijib are a hive mind, all of us are Smijib! Our species has only a little over a thousand individuals, living in Kalimak, a hidden system of the Zirick Cooperative. Our planet is the desert world Kalimak I! Smalak! (Hive mind screaming)"
"Tell us about Kalimak I."
The Agent waved a hand, and a cleaning robot soon swept away the class enemy, whose tortured remains had been mangled beyond recognition.
"Smalak!!! (hive screaming) This planet is our home. We live in safety, far from the violence of the galaxy. Once, we took part in that violence. Killing, crime, piracy-we did it all. But not anymore. Now we only tend our Hydroponics Farm."
"Before we became pirates, we were refugees. Nobody would take us in except the captain. She saved us from a miserable fate and allowed us to join her flotilla. The captain gave us a new name. In exchange, we looked after the ships. We handled cleaning, cooking, ammunition, hydroponics, and cargo management. We worked hard. Then we joined Captain Nais's crew, until later, when we finally left the captain and settled here!"
Smijib rattled off a torrent of words, spilling everything it could say.
The Ashes Agents were pleased. Clearly, demonstrating Ashes' interrogation tortures and powerful memory-restoration techniques to their guests was quite necessary.
"You called that chip the Star Kingdom Atlas. What do you know about it?"
"Smalak! We know nothing about any navigation chart. Black Needle just suddenly came to our