Chapter 525: Chapter 525 Cleaning House
Avery’s interrogation tactics proved to work wonders on breaking the spy.
He had only needed to permanently disable one more limb before the man started talking. His left leg to be precise.
It seemed that while he was prepared for death or regular torture, Avery’s unique brand was enough to crush his resolve.
Death or pain were things that came and ended swiftly, but what Avery had promised was instead a perpetual limbo that would have lasted for the rest of Kadfal’s natural lifespan.
Only someone with a truly iron will would be able to accept such a fate just to keep quiet.
Once Avery had moved to take away the man’s sight for good and gave him the opportunity to still live if he talked now, Kadfal had relented.
With the spy’s will crushed, Avery called in Kasandra and Kaiden to ask questions and to confirm that their captive was not lying.
Fortunately, the guy had lost the strength to resist and told them everything that they wanted to know.
The fear that Avery could leave him as only a mind trapped in his body forever was enough to keep him from attempting any trickery.
"So that’s how you beat my lie detecting. That’ll be something for us to check in going forward."
As it turned out, Kadfal had known about Kasandra’s talents ahead of time and had injected himself with a drug that lowered his heartrate and kept it at a constant beat for a few hours.
He had also been trained not to give anything away through his facial expressions or body language and that had proved enough for him to pass Kasandra’s interview when he joined the crew.
This method would only work for those that already knew of Kasandra’s lie detecting skills, so it would not prove to be too much of a problem most of the time.
For checking to make sure no one had taken the same or a similar drug as Kadfal, that would be easy enough.
Avery did not allow those that were hooked on dangerous or illegal substances to join his crew.
Doctor Raiti already performed checks on any prospective new members, meaning that Avery would just have that formality scheduled before the interview from now on. Whenever the next time they recruited again.
As for other spies onboard, Kadfal only knew of one other that had been snuck onboard at the same time as him and Vels.
She had not participated in the recent sabotage just in case the mission failed and Douvoi needed another means of acquiring information on Avery’s company. Specifically what Kasandra and Kaiden were doing.
"I’m guessing you know her?" Avery asked when he saw Kasandra’s pained expression.
"Yeah. She’s also a Felis Therianthrope and came to me to ask for advice several times. We’ve had lunch a few times together and even done some simulator practice. She told me that she’s aspiring to be a pilot and is pretty talented. I was thinking about potentially making her my copilot at some point."
Kasandra was clearly hurt by the revelation that someone she was hoping to become friends with turned out to only be getting close to her because she was a spy.
Had they not caught wind of this now, the consequences could have been disastrous.
If the girl had become Kasandra’s copilot, it would have been trivial for her to disable Kasandra at some point and fly off with her.
Just thinking about this possibility made Avery violently angry.
He almost left to find the woman and have her shoved out of an airlock immediately.
Still, he kept his composure and continued with questioning Kadfal.
Acting hastily now would only harm him and those he cared about in the end.
Gathering information was more important than satisfying his desire for retribution against the spies that had wormed their way onto the Intrepid’s crew.
After they had gotten all of the relevant information out of Kadfal, Avery, Kasandra, Kaiden left the room and began discussing their next course of action.
"I just sent a message to Ezra and asked him to take a team to capture Femeira. She’ll be brought to the brig after that. I wish I didn’t have to involve you with this Kasandra, but I’ll need your ability while we question her."
"Understood." Kasandra replied, her tone as icy as the first time Avery had met her.
She had thawed her heart a great deal since joining Avery, but this betrayal was obviously not easy on her.
Avery knew that it was going to be difficult for her to trust anyone she was not already close to for a long time coming.
It was around two hours later that Ezra captured Femeira.
The girl had caught wind of the squad coming to apprehend her and had done everything she could to escape.
She had ended up running through maintenance corridors and hiding in small compartments in between machinery.
Of course, she could not stay on the run or hidden forever.
Ultimately, she needed to get off the ship to escape, and Avery had everything locked down to prevent that.
Kasandra had been merciless with her questioning and wringed everything that she wanted out of Femeira.
She did not know of any other spies working for Douvoi, but she did have more information on Kasandra’s and Kaiden’s home.
Right after the civil war, she had been stationed in the occupied Woest Clan’s capital due to it having been her mother’s home and she could fit in without much difficulty.
Her job there had been to pretend to be one of the citizens and integrated herself into any rebel groups that started up so that they could be squashed in their infancy.
"Avery, get her out of my sight before I rip out her throat." Kasandra snarled.
There was rage in her eyes comparable to when they had come in contact with Fahad. Perhaps even greater.
Giving instructions to the security personnel on standby, Avery had them bring Femeira to another cell.
He then left Kasandra and Kaiden alone. He could tell that the two of them wanted to be by themselves right now.
’I guess I’ll go over our records and see if I can’t pick out anyone else that might be a spy.’ Avery thought as he let out a long sigh.
