by John Bowers
The train ran almost three hundred miles east to the capital, a ninety-minute trip; Trimmer Springs was the end of the line, but between Trimmer and Lucaston were five other stops, so the maglev made two or three round trips on a normal day.
He rested the back of his head against the building, shoving the hat right down over his eyes. He felt comfortable and relaxed, confident; his .45 rested snugly in his belt holster. He seriously doubted that any terrorist would bother with a target as small as Trimmer Springs, but if he was wrong, he wanted a heads-up. If it ever did happen, he hoped Nick would be home, because he really didn’t fancy taking on a gang of revolutionaries by himself.
The suns were down when the train first appeared around the mountain curve in the east. A trio of brilliant headlights blazed through the gathering dusk as the maglev streaked into the station. The horn sounded briefly and Nathan heard the hiss of air brakes as it began deceleration; forty seconds later it slid to an effortless stop, so quiet that anyone sleeping on the platform might not have heard it.
Nathan’s eyes narrowed as the doors slid open and passengers began to disembark. His pulse went on low alert as he scanned the new arrivals. The train boasted six cars but he only saw passengers stepping down from three. Two crewmen from the station pulled open a cargo door in the lead car, hauling out a few pieces of luggage, which they placed on a mobile cart—and loaded luggage from another cart that had been waiting. By the time they were done the passenger exchange was complete and he heard good-byes from people on the platform. One or two people were crying as they waved to departing relatives.
The passengers wandered toward the station in a loose gaggle; four from the lead car appeared to be a family unit with two small children; one man departed from the second car, a businessman by the look of him—and from the third, a group of teens, five in all. Two were boys and three were girls. The boys looked local, though Nathan didn’t specifically recognize them.
The girls were a different story.
Nathan pushed off from the station wall and squared himself as he watched them approach. The five teens were laughing and joking, but it quickly became apparent they weren’t really together. As they approached the terminal they stopped, as if to say good-bye. One of the girls impulsively kissed both boys, and with a final laugh and wave, the boys separated from the girls and walked away.
The girls kept coming.
They were weirdly dressed.
They had no luggage.
They definitely weren’t locals.
One was heavy and wore a dress that draped her like a tent to within an inch of the ground. The others were skinny as flagpoles, their unkempt hair long and stringy; all three wore bead strings around their necks and one had flowers in her hair. They proceeded toward the station as if they hadn’t seen him, still laughing and joking, but Nathan saw furtive glances in his direction. The hair on his neck began to tingle.
They were thirty yards away. He began strolling in their direction, his pulse ratcheting up another notch to double-time. He began to wish Nick were here.
The train sounded its horn and began to move, returning back the way it had come. The girls, still pretending they hadn’t noticed him, stopped at the baggage cart and began matching their boarding passes to the luggage tags. They identified two bags and hauled them off the cart; one was so heavy it took two of them to lift it. Nathan reached them just as they set it on the platform.
“Evening, ladies,” he said casually, trying to keep the tension out of his voice. “Welcome to Trimmer Springs.”
All three turned to face him, eyeing him from head to toe. They were smiling, but he detected animosity—the smiles weren’t friendly.
“Hey, check out the pig with the cowboy hat!” the fat girl said, and the other two giggled.
A second girl nodded at the .45 in his holster.
“How many people have you killed with that?” she asked, her eyes an open challenge.
“What brings you to town?” he asked.
“It’s a free planet,” the fat one said. “We can go anywhere we want.”
“That’s right!” the third girl declared. “So stop hassling us.”
Nathan grinned. “I welcome you to town and now I’m hassling you?”
“That’s what pigs do, isn’t it? Hassle people?”
“Maybe in your world. Not in mine.”
“What do pigs do in your world, then?” asked the second one.
“They shoot people with big guns,” said the third girl.
Nathan planted his feet. “You don’t look like you’re from this area,” he said. “Do you have relatives in town?”
“Not in this town,” the third girl said.
“Then I think you got off at the wrong station.”
“Oh, well.” The fat girl sneered at him. “Too late now. The train’s already gone.”
“Is there a hotel around here?” the second girl asked.
“Maybe we can stay at your place,” said the third one.
“Yeah, how about that?” said the fat one. “You are kind of cute…for a pig.”
The second girl plucked a flower out of her hair and stepped forward, reaching for his hat. Nathan instinctively took a step back and put up both hands to block her, his danger flags snapping at high alert.
“Step back!”
“What’s the matter, pig? You don’t like flowers?”
“Flower Power!” shouted the fat girl.
Nathan’s scalp tingled. “Don’t you mean, ‘Power to the people’?”
All three registered shock at his utterance, then sprang into action.
“That’s right, bitch!” snarled the girl with the flower.
She lunged for his weapon, but he blocked her and elbowed her aside. The third girl also sprang at him—he didn’t see the knife until it impacted his body vest. The blade skidded off, but she drew back and lunged again, aiming for his throat. His combat training kicked in and he nailed her in the face with his right fist, leaving his gun momentarily exposed. The knife wielder hit the platform with a cry, but the flower girl leaped for his gun again, jerking it halfway out of the holster before he slugged her in the face with his left. As she fell, he jerked the .45 free of her hand and swung it toward the fat girl.
He was almost too late. As Nathan was fighting off the attack, the fat girl hiked her tent up around her waist and unslung an ugly semi-automatic machine pistol. She swung it toward him just as he gained control of his .45, and he found himself staring into the stubby 10mm muzzle. For one frozen instant he hesitated; the fat girl did not.
“Kill the pig! Kill the pig! Kill the pig!” the others shrieked, their shrill voices cutting through the gathering dusk.
The fat girl pulled the trigger.
Her inexperience saved him—she had forgotten the safety.
“Drop it!” he shouted. “Don’t make me kill you! Drop the fucking gun!”
To his dying day, Nathan Green would never forget the mixture of fear and hatred in the fat girl’s eyes as she snapped off the safety and jerked the arming lever of her machine pistol. She took aim again—
Nathan’s .45 roared three times, the muzzle blast deafening. The girl jerked with the impact of his slugs; her eyes sprang wide and her mouth popped open. As she toppled backward to crash face-up on the platform, a burst of 10mm rounds streaked into the evening sky.
Stunned at the sudden attack, Nathan spun to cover the other two, who now sat staring in disbelief at their fat friend.
“Drop the knife!” he shouted at the one who had tried to stab him. “Drop it now!”
She stared at him with shock in her eyes, and without a word let the knife fall to the platform. Nathan took a step forward and kicked the knife away, then rolled her face down and stepped on her right hand to pin it; he took aim at the third girl, who had tried to take his gun.
“Face down, right now! I’m not fucking around! Do it!”
Eyes wide with horror, the skinny girl with the wild, unwashed
hair did as she was told. She began to sob as Nathan E-cuffed her friend and then did the same to her.
He stood upright, panting hard, and wiped his forehead with his left sleeve. He placed the still-smoking .45 into its holster and approached the fat girl. The machine pistol was still in her right hand, but her fingers had lost their grip and he pulled it free. Trembling with the beginning of the shakes, he knelt beside her and pressed his fingers against her carotid artery. After ten seconds he moved back and, still on one knee, buried his face in his hand for a moment, shaking hard.
“Fuck!” he whispered. “Fuck me!”
He sat there a moment, just breathing, then got unsteadily to his feet. He pulled a radio off his belt.
“This is Nathan Green, U.F. Marshal. I need backup at the maglev station.”
A familiar voice answered at once. He recognized it as Carrie King, a Trimmer Springs police officer.
“Copy that, Marshal Green. Did I hear shots fired?”
“That’s affirm. Three possible terrorists, one down, two in custody.”
Carrie King acknowledged his request and signed off.
He already heard sirens.
Cachet Hotel – Lucaston, Alpha Centauri 2
Nick could hear the tension in Nathan’s voice. He was in his hotel room when Nathan called to tell him what happened just an hour earlier. He could see the rookie Marshal still shaking in his vid-phone.
“I never killed a girl before, Nick. Somehow, it’s not the same.”
“I know. I killed my first one three weeks ago.”
Nathan’s eyes rose to stare at him through the screen.
“I froze. I-I mean, I hesitated. I had her lined up but I didn’t fire.”
“Well, that’s pretty serious. Were you wearing your body vest?”
Nathan nodded. “Yeah, but she was aiming at my face. It wouldn’t have mattered.”
“Why didn’t she fire?”
“She forgot her safety. It took her a couple of seconds to clear it, and by then I was over it.”
“You got lucky.”
Nathan nodded again, glancing at the floor.
“I don’t feel very lucky. I’m still shaking.”
“That will go away. Did you talk to Chief Dwyer?”
“Yeah. The girls are being interrogated right now. Their luggage was filled with explosives.”
“What kind?”
“Fifty pounds of enriched PlastOMite, two dozen detonators, and smart timers.”
“Jesus Christ! They could flatten the whole town with that. How were the timers geared?”
“They were programmed to a satellite clock. All they had to do was specify the time and walk away. The satellite signal would do the rest.”
Nick nodded thoughtfully. “That’s probably how they’ve been getting in and out of their target zones without being detected. They don’t need to be within a thousand miles to set the bombs off.
“Have you been home yet?”
“No. I called Kristina and told her I got held up. I don’t think she knows why yet.”
“Don’t be surprised if she knows all about it. Trimmer Springs is like a microchip when it comes to gossip—it travels fast.”
Nathan managed a grin, though he obviously didn’t feel like it.
“When are you coming home?”
“I don’t know yet. This incident will probably trigger another U.F. marshal meeting, and they’ll probably call you in as well.”
“Okay. Well…I better start moving around. Can’t sit on my ass for the rest of my life.”
“Hey, buddy, I’m glad you’re okay. Sounds like you did exactly the right thing.”
“Thanks, Nick. See you soon.”
Wednesday, May 24, 0445 (CC)
53rd Floor, Federation Building – Lucaston, Alpha Centauri 2
“We’ve had a bit of a break the last couple of days,” Marshal Robert Bridge told the assembly. “Last month we took our first ARMO prisoner right here in this building; last night in Trimmer Springs, rookie Marshal Nathan Green—” Bridge pointed to where Nathan sat next to Nick. “—captured two more. He also killed a suspect who tried to blow his head off.”
Bridge strolled the front of the room.
“I don’t know yet if it’s significant, but we’re starting to encounter the terrorists in person now, which we never did in the past. All we had to work with the past few years were the videos sent to us by the Chairman; it may be that we’ve just been lucky, or our higher alert is paying off. Or, the Chairman may just be getting sloppy.
“It seems he likes to use girls to carry out his revolution. That doesn’t mean all the terrorists are girls, because we’ve killed one man and captured another, but pay attention to teenage girls in particular, especially if they act out of character. The girls Marshal Green encountered stood out because of their dress and attitude.
“The girls from Trimmer are being transferred to our facility today, so we hope to gain more intelligence from them.”
Nick raised his hand. “Can I talk to them?”
Bridge laughed. “Sure, why not. But don’t you have to be in court?”
“Not for a couple of days.”
“Okay, I’ll set it up for tomorrow.”
River Walk, Lucaston – Alpha Centauri 2
From the moment Nick killed Nadine Wilson inside the Federation Building, local and planet-wide media had been hounding him for interviews, but he always sidestepped them with the usual excuse of “under investigation, unable to comment”. They followed him into the hallway outside the courtroom on a daily basis, but he brushed them aside, leaving his attorney to make whatever comments she deemed appropriate.
After the news broke that Nathan had killed the girl in Trimmer Springs, the frenzy intensified. As Nick and Nathan exited the Federation Building after the morning meeting, planning to have lunch on the River Walk across the street, four reporters spotted them and closed in like velociraptors.
Nathan saw them approaching.
“Shit!”
“Relax. I got it.”
Nick stopped walking and Nathan followed suit. They stood perfectly still as reporters and holocams blocked their path. Nick recognized most of them as the same crowd he had been dodging for days, and came to a decision. He held up both hands.
“Marshal Green is not going to comment on the events of last night. If you need a story, you can talk to me.”
They immediately turned their attention to him.
“Marshal Walker, can you comment on the shooting at Trimmer Springs last night?”
“Marshal Walker, is there any progress on finding the ARMO leader?”
“Marshal Walker—”
Nick held up a hand again and they fell silent, mini-mikes extended, looking like a pack of hungry dogs waiting for table scraps.
“What’s your name again?” he asked the first reporter.
“Connie Cowan, Channel 6, AlphaNet.”
“I hope you aren’t related to Horace Cowan? The suspect?”
The attractive young brunette blushed and laughed. “No, I’m not.”
“And who are you?” He was looking at a different reporter, a blonde.
“Amiee Noble, SkyNet.”
“And you?”
“Henri Ferrier, LGBT Interstellar News.”
Nick glanced at the fourth reporter but she didn’t wait for the question. She smiled and extended her hand for a shake.
“Lucy Yap, Lucaston Action News.”
Nick surveyed them for a moment. They still waited, breathless with anticipation.
“Are we live?”
“Almost,” Lucy Yap told him. “We’ll be on the air five minutes after we’re done.”
“Okay, I’m going to make a statement. I’m going off the reservation here and it may cost me my job, but I’m sick of pussy-footing around with these ARMO bastards. Right up front, let me clarify that the office of the United Federation Marshal has not authorized me to make any statement at all, so what I�
�m about to say comes only from me—and it’s personal.”
They held their collective breath, mini-mikes quivering.
“The name of the man in charge of ARMO, the man responsible for murdering thousands of innocent people on three planets, is Kenneth Saracen. He’s a spoiled rich kid from Terra, a capitalist crybaby pretending to be a hero of the ‘people’. Everything he’s doing, everything he’s done, all the people he’s killed—all of that is just to get even with his daddy for cutting him out of the family will.”
“What can you tell us about Mr. Saracen? Does he have a criminal record?”
Nick sneered. “First of all, don’t call him ‘mister’. He hasn’t earned that title. He’s thirty-five years old, but he can’t even get laid. He has to recruit teenaged girls and brainwash them into doing his dirty work. That’s the only way he can feel like a man. In reality he’s just a coward, rotten to the core, yellow from head to tail. He hides from the law and sends children out to die in his place, just like Stalin and Lenin.”
“Are Stalin and Lenin members of ARMO?” asked Amiee Noble.
Nick stared at her in dismay. “No, but we’ve identified two others who are. Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan.”
“Are they Alpha Centauri residents?”
Nick shook his head. “Jesus Christ, lady, how did you ever get to be a journalist? Read a history chip!”
Amiee Noble flushed and stuttered. “C-Can—what else can you—”
“Is it true the Chairman wants to kill you?” asked Henri Ferrier.
Nick nodded.
“Kenny-boy likes to call himself ‘the Chairman’, but the truth is he’s just a child playing a game. The closest he comes to being a ‘chairman’ is when he takes his meals in a high-chair; he says he wants to kill me for taking out one of his assassins.”
“How do you know he’s a coward?” asked Lucy Yap.
“He says he wants to kill me, but it’s been thirty-three days. Thirty-three days! What does the chickenshit need, a starmap? I’m right here!”
Nick gazed into the nearest camera.
