They dragged the terrified security officer back to the safehouse, the journey through the tunnels a tense, silent affair.
Once inside, they secured Cassian to a chair in the center of the main room.
The arrogance he had displayed on the street was gone, replaced by a sullen, defiant fear.
"You're making a mistake," he spat, his eyes darting between Kiera, Ryu, and Joric.
"A big one. The Vanguard protects its own. You have no idea who you're messing with."
Kiera stood before him, her arms crossed, her face an impassive mask.
"You are mistaken, Officer Cassian. We know exactly who we are messing with. The question is, do you?"
The interrogation was a masterclass in psychological warfare, orchestrated by Joric.
They didn't use torture.
They didn't need to.
They used information.
Joric began by laying out Cassian's life in excruciating detail: his service record, his demotions, the exact amount of his gambling debt, and the name of the loan shark who held it.
He even knew the name of Cassian's estranged daughter, who lived in the Core Sectors.
Cassian's bravado began to crack.
This was not the work of common criminals.
"How... how do you know all this?" he stammered.
"The Vanguard is not the only organization with 'eyes and ears,'" Joric said coolly.
"Now, let's talk about your new employers. They paid off your debt, gave you a little power, a little respect. In return, all you had to do was feed them information. Patrol schedules, security codes, the names of other officers who might be... persuadable."
When Cassian remained silent, Kiera stepped forward.
She didn't speak.
She simply placed a datapad on the table in front of him.
On the screen was a single image: the body of Councilor Tarek, lying on a mortuary slab, his face a mask of horror, his body desiccated from the ChainForce draining.
"This is the company you keep, Cassian," Kiera said, her voice a low, dangerous whisper.
"This is what your new friends do. Do you think they value you? You are a tool. A disposable asset. The moment you are no longer useful, or become a liability, you will end up on a slab just like him."
Cassian stared at the image, his face turning a sickly shade of green.
This was the first time he had seen the true nature of the organization he had joined. He had been a low-level informant, passing on trivial data.
He had never considered himself a part of... this.
The final blow came from Ryu.
He stepped forward, his expression not angry, but filled with a strange, pitying understanding.
"I saw you at the meeting," Ryu said softly.
"You looked so proud. So did the others. They were just like me. Desperate. Looking for a way out. Did the Vanguard tell you what they did to the ones who failed? Did they tell you about the ones they took apart, just to see what made them tick?"
That was the first crack.
The image of the dead councilor was horrifying, but Ryu's words were personal.
Cassian was not a high-clan politician. He was a man from the lower rungs of society, a man who had made a series of bad choices.
He was, in his own way, a dust-rat.
And he was looking at his own potential future in Ryu's words.
"They told me... they told me it was about justice," Cassian whispered, his defiance crumbling into a pathetic, desperate plea. "About building a better world."
"There is no justice in this," Kiera said, her voice like ice.
"There is only power. Theirs. And you are helping them build it. Now, you are going to tell us everything. Every name. Every dead drop location. Every secret you have. Or, we will leave you to them. And we will tell them you talked."
Faced with the wrath of the clans on one side and the cold, disposable cruelty of the Vanguard on the other, Cassian broke.
The first crack in the Vanguard's wall of secrecy had appeared.