Solfleet: Beyond the Call

by Glenn Smith

  Their duties. She couldn’t help but grin at that irony. The instructors back in the security police academy had thrown so much information at the recruits—military laws and regulations, police security and patrol procedures, police-community relations, the use of force pyramid, arrest and detention procedures, marksmanship training on nearly half a dozen different kinds of weapons, crime scene security, evidence collection and preservation procedures, interview and interrogation techniques, report writing, and so on and so on. She and her fellow recruits had been so inundated with information that she never would have dreamed her duties would turn out to be as easy as they had.

  Still, despite all that, despite how easy her job was and how much free time her duties afforded her, she still wanted to finish school. She still wanted to earn her bachelor’s degree and then go to Officer Candidate School and earn her commission. After all, that was where the real money was—in the Officer Corps.

  And knowing that all the NCOs and enlisted folks were going to have to call her ‘ma’am’ all the time was kind of nice, too.

  She blew gently across the steaming surface of her tea and took a careful sip...

  * * *

  Three steady second-long tones—the ‘attention all patrols’ alert warning—sounded over their comm-links and were followed by the desk sergeant’s voice calling out, “All units, all units, this is Security Control. Fugitive alert. The civilian suspect in the assault on C-I-D Special Agent Ashley Urbana has escaped from custody. He has killed one S-I-A agent and has assaulted another. Both agents’ service weapons are missing, presumed stolen. Suspect is to be considered armed and dangerous. If sighted, apprehend immediately. Deadly force is authorized under standard regulations.”

  “God damn it!” Orwell griped. “Why does this shit always happen near the end of shift?”

  “Maybe the day shift will relieve us before anyone spots him,” Dylan offered.

  “Are you kidding me?” Orwell asked him as though the idea were completely ludicrous. “With our manpower being what it is right now? I can promise you, Dylan, we’re not going to be relieved. We’re part of this manhunt until it’s over. Let’s go.”

  Dylan fell into step behind his orientation NCO without another word, though for a brief moment he did consider asking him where they were going. After all, the fugitive could have been hiding anywhere in the facility. They could just as easily have been rushing away from him as toward him. But the moment passed and Dylan realized as they turned left down a particular corridor—the corridor that led directly to the civilian docking ports, as he recalled—that Orwell must have reached the same conclusion that he just had. The fugitive probably had a ship docked there and would most likely try to make his way there as fast as he could.

  “Control, Gamma-two,” Orwell called over the link as he hurried down the corridor.

  “Go ahead, Gamma-two,” Security Control responded.

  “Gamma-two-alpha and I will be approaching the docks from section Charlie-fifteen, corridor five. E-T-A about five minutes. Maybe four.”

  “Copy, Gamma-two. Will route other units to cover additional approach routes...”

  “Gamma-five breaking in!” PFC Gillis’ girlish voice shouted over the link. “Have suspect in sight, section Charlie-twelve! In pursuit, approaching main dock security checkpoint via corridor four!”

  Orwell broke into a full-speed run and Dylan quickly did the same. “Come on, Dylan!” he hollered. “Gillis is by herself tonight!”

  “Right behind you, Danny!” Dylan replied. He might have been an Intelligence operative from the future on a classified mission back in time, but right now he was a cop and a fellow cop needed all the help she could get.

  “Copy that, Gamma-five,” Control quickly responded. “All units, all units, this is Security Control. Gamma-five in pursuit of suspect in section Charlie-twelve, corridor-four, approaching main dock security checkpoint. Corridor-five covered. All remaining units converge on that area via corridors one through three. I say again, corridors one through three. Reminder... suspect is armed and dangerous. Exercise extreme caution. Deadly force is authorized if warranted.”

  They tore down the corridor as though every life in the facility depended on it. Gillis was a young woman on her first assignment—barely more than a girl, really. She had very little real experience, and if she somehow managed to catch up to that suspect and corner him, he’d very likely kill her before she ever got off a shot.

  They made a hard left and then a quick right, and Orwell nearly ran into the corner of the wall rather than slow down. They flew through the intersection with a narrower cross-corridor, nearly plowing over a group of three technicians, probably just on their way to work.

  “Suspect... now appr... approaching docks… from corridor-three,” Gillis reported, clearly out of breath, sucking wind. She must have been running as fast as she could.

  “Copy, corridor-three,” Control affirmed. “All units, all units, suspect now approaching docking port via corridor-three.”

  “Another dogleg coming up,” Orwell warned as he started veering to his left. But he cut the corner too close and hit the end of the wall with his shoulder, knocking himself off balance and stumbling to his right before he could recover, too late to leap over an unfortunate kneeling technician who’d apparently been working on something under the deck plates. He ran right into the poor man, knocked him over, and tumbled head over heels like a ragdoll into the far wall.

  “No! Go!” he shouted angrily when Dylan skidded to a halt to help him up. “I’m okay! I’ll catch up!”

  Dylan didn’t argue. Orwell could take care of himself and Gillis needed back-up as fast as she could get it. He took off running again, full speed, for the docks.

  He rounded the last bend and spotted the suspect, stopped abruptly and drew his sidearm as the suspect dashed behind someone—an older gray-haired gentleman in dress slacks and a lab coat—throw an arm around his throat, and press the muzzle of a pistol against his temple before he could even begin to react to what was happening to him. The old man dropped something to the deck—a handcomp he’d apparently been carrying—and grabbed and pulled at the suspect’s arm, but he clearly wasn’t strong enough to free himself.

  As far as Dylan could tell, the suspect hadn’t seen him yet, so he stayed as close against the right side wall as he could. If he could just stay in the suspect’s blind spot somehow while he slowly worked his way closer...

  He froze, thinking for one brief moment as the suspect backed himself against the wall that he’d been spotted. But instead of looking toward him, the suspect continued staring straight ahead. Gillis must have been right there in the room with him, holding his undivided attention.

  “This is Gamma-five,” he heard her say, both over his link and from somewhere nearby. “I have the suspect cornered at the docking port security checkpoint. He has taken a hostage, an elderly gentleman, and is holding him at gunpoint.” Good. She had him focused on her, just as he’d suspected. Now, if she could just hold his attention long enough... He was going to have to be quiet and very, very careful.

  “It was a good effort, but there’s nowhere else for you to go,” she told him. “There are at least six more security policemen on their way here right now. There’s no way you’re going to escape, so just let that man go. Lay down your weapon and surrender and you won’t be harmed.”

  That a girl, Gillis, Dylan thought as he started inching forward, ever so slowly. If she could just keep the suspect’s attention focused on her and not look over when she spotted him... He would have liked to tell her that through the link, but he couldn’t risk that the suspect might overhear him.

  The suspect kicked his hostage’s handcomp over to the doors and then pulled the hostage himself sidelong to the same place.

  “Those doors are not going to open for you,” Gillis told him. “All the access codes have been changed by now. You’ve gone as far as you’re going to go. Now let the man go and lay down yo
ur...”

  The doors opened and Dylan froze at the sudden sound. Whatever he was going to do, he was going to have to do it fast.

  The suspect kicked the handcomp back behind him, sending it sliding across the docking bay floor, and then started backing in there with his hostage.

  “No!” Gillis shouted.

  The suspect shifted suddenly and brought his weapon to bear on Gillis’ position. Dylan raised his own and fired without pausing to aim, counting solely on his natural instinct and years of experience to guide his shot. A second shot rang out, almost indistinguishable from his own, and echoed through the converging corridors before the sound of his own shot had waned.

  The old man stood frozen in place, wide-eyed, shaking with fear and probably in need of a change of shorts as the suspect fell like a tree in the forest, crashing to the deck behind him.

  Dylan trained his weapon on the suspect and moved forward cautiously, holding it there even after he saw the pool of dark red blood expanding from around what remained of the top of his head. “You all right, Gillis?” he asked without taking his eyes off of the suspect.

  “Uh... yeah,” she answered a bit tentatively. “I mean... yes, Sergeant,” she amended. And then, after she drew a deep breath and sighed audibly, she concluded, “I’m good.”

  Dylan moved to within a few feet in front of the frightened older gentleman, still staring down his sights at the obviously dead suspect, gazing into his wide-open, lifeless eyes. “Are you all right, sir?” he asked.

  “Ye... Ye... Yes. Yes, I... I think so,” the man answered as he massaged his throat, his voice quivering. “Thank you, young man. I uh... I fear I wasn’t... I wasn’t paying attention as I should. I shall have to... I... I shall have to never do that again.”

  “As long as you’re okay, sir. That’s what counts.”

  “I appear to be, yes. Thank you.”

  Sufficiently convinced that the suspect really was dead, Dylan finally slipped his sidearm back into its holster and looked up at the gentleman as he called into Security Control. “Control, this is Gamma-two-alpha. Suspect down. Hostage and...”

  Dylan’s next words caught in his throat as it suddenly dawned on him who the old man was. He could scarcely believe it, but there he was standing right there in front of him. He was easily several years older than he’d appeared in the picture that Commander Royer had provided him with and was sporting a fairly close-cropped and neatly trimmed but still pretty full gray-white beard, but Dylan knew he was right. He was sure of it. “Günter Royer,” he said, barely louder than a whisper.

  “Security Control to Gamma-two-alpha. Say again. I did not copy.”

  The gentleman stared at him through sea-blue eyes at once wide with surprise and narrow with suspicion at the same time and asked, “What did you say?”

  “Uh...” Dylan stumbled over his own jumbled thoughts for a moment, but then managed to complete his report to Control. “Control, this is Gamma-two-alpha. Suspect is down. Hostage and Security Police personnel, no apparent injuries. Uh... request...”

  “What did you call me, Sergeant?” the gentleman quietly asked him.

  “Request C-I-D and... uh...”

  “Gamma-two breaking in, Control,” Orwell interrupted as he limped up to Dylan’s side, drawing his attention. “On scene at this time. Gamma-two-alpha’s report is confirmed. We have an S-P involved shooting with apparent suspect fatality at this location—Gamma-two-alpha and Gamma-five involved. Request immediate C-I-D response and notification of civil authorities and paramedics.”

  “Copy that, Gamma-two. Notifications being made at this time.”

  “You okay, Dylan?” Orwell asked him. “Do you know which one of you got him?”

  “Yeah,” Dylan answered as he turned and glanced back at Gillis, glad to see that a couple of the other SP’s were already with her. “Uh... I’m pretty sure I did.”

  “Excuse me for just a moment, Sergeant,” the old gentleman said. When both Dylan and Orwell looked at him, he met Dylan’s gaze and said, “I would very much like to talk with you.”

  “And I you, sir,” Dylan assured him, “but C-I-D is going to want to take your statement regarding what just happened first. I’ll be there waiting for you when you finish with them.”

  “All right,” he agreed. Then he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, dabbed it across his brow, and said, “I think I need to sit down.”

  “Certainly, sir,” Orwell told him. He turned to one of the junior SP’s who’d just arrived and had him walk the gentleman over to the row of chairs lined up along the side wall. Then, once he and Dylan were alone, he asked, “What was that all about? Why do you and the old man need to talk? You know each other?”

  “No, not really,” Dylan replied. Then, being a vague as possible and hoping to avoid any more questions, he added, “He’s an old friend of my father’s from before my time. He just wants to tell me some old stories about some of the times they had together.”

  “I see,” Orwell responded, seemingly less than totally convinced.

  Chapter 25

  Dylan downed the last of his coffee and set his mug down on the small table beside him. As he’d expected, his post-incident debriefing had been a strictly routine one—little more than a necessary formality. As required by standard operating procedures, he’d temporarily surrendered his weapon to the SP duty officer when she arrived on the scene and had then reported directly to the C.I.D. office, where he’d been advised of his legal rights and had been questioned at length about the shooting. Knowing that he was in the right and that he had no reason to hide anything, and with PFC Gillis and Doctor Royer—or whoever Doctor Royer might have been pretending to be—as eyewitnesses whose honest accounts of what had happened would back up his own in every way, Dylan had not hesitated to waive his rights and had freely answered all of the agent’s questions to the best of his ability.

  Upon taking his sworn deposition and concluding the interview, the C.I.D. agent who’d conducted it had met briefly with the F.B.I. agent who’d observed it—another formality required by law because the shooting had occurred within civilian jurisdiction—and a representative from the Staff Judge Advocate office. After a mere few minutes of deliberation, the S.J.A. officer had officially declared the shooting ‘justified’ and had legally cleared Dylan to return to duty. Dylan still had to be evaluated and cleared by the staff psychologist before he’d be authorized to carry a weapon again, but that also was only a formality required by regulation. He’d be fully cleared in time for his next shift, no doubt about it—especially given the current manpower shortage.

  He’d been through it all before. Firefights, killing the enemy—sometimes dozens of them at a time—the deaths or horrible dismemberments of friends and comrades, his own devastating wounds... always followed by compulsory sessions with a shrink. If all those sessions had taught him anything at all, they’d taught him exactly what to say to avoid prolonging the process.

  This time the first step of the process, from rights advisement to his being legally cleared to return to full duty, had taken less than two hours, and he’d been waiting in the reception area for them to finish with Doctor Royer... and had been drinking coffee... ever since.

  He glanced at his watch and sighed when he saw that ‘ever since’ hadn’t yet been half an hour. He’d have guessed it had been twice that, if not longer.

  He stood up, yawned and stretched the kinks out of his tired body, then grabbed up his mug and walked over to the coffee dispenser to refill it, quietly thanking God that he was one of the fortunate ones—one of the few who could drink two or three cups of coffee and still not have any trouble going to sleep when he laid his head down.

  His mug refilled, he took a careful sip as he turned, intending to return to his seat, but at that same moment Sergeant Orwell came limping out from the back, saw him standing there, and moved in front of him to block his path. “What are you still doing here?” he asked.

  “Waiting fo
r the old man to come out,” Dylan answered. “They’re still talking to him.”

  “Oh yeah, you said you’d be out here waiting,” Orwell recalled as Dylan stepped around him and started back to his chair. “How did you say you know him again?”

  Dylan stopped and turned partway around to meet Orwell’s well practiced but obviously forced neutral gaze. He hadn’t said he knew the hostage at all, and Orwell knew that as well as he did. So why was he trying to use one of the oldest tricks in the book on him? Why was he trying to trick him into saying something that he hadn’t already said before? What was he fishing for? What did he suspect him of, and just as importantly, why? Dylan had only been on station for a few days. He hadn’t had a chance to do anything wrong... yet.

  And what in God’s galaxy made Orwell think that he’d actually fall for a simple trick like that in the first place?

  “I didn’t say I know him,” Dylan replied, being careful not to let his suspicions evince themselves in his tone. Better that Orwell think he wasn’t onto him until he could ascertain what he was after. “I said that he’s an old friend of my father’s.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right,” Orwell made a show of recalling. He wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t going to win any acting awards anytime soon, either. He turned away to pour himself a cup of coffee.