From the documented conversation, Audrey heard a voice saying, “I think Ailana’s biggest problem is that we have such a big gap between the rich and the poor. I work all the time and I can’t make ends meet…that really sucks. My boss makes five hundred million dollars a year, and quite frankly, I don’t think he deserves it! The company I work for is struggling to make a profit and he ain’t doing dick. Did ya know that our Union agreed to take a pay cut so the company wouldn’t go bankrupt…and we just heard that gave himself a raise?”
Another voice said, “at least you have a job, I ain’t got shit…I was going to try University but I ain’t got any money and can’t get a loan since the banks are so screwed up from the credit crunch the pseudo-capitalists caused. Like education would make a difference anyway…Ailana’s schools are underfunded and shitty…my friends dropped out and joined a gang…they make more money selling drugs than I would with an education…”
An angry voice declared, “Nobody can stay employed long enough to get ahead…my family is on welfare and in debt…and it ain’t fair. My dad worked his ass off at that factory. When I was old enough to go work there, they went out of business. And guess what happened next, the rich owners and CEO’s received government bailout money and the workers got canned. The unemployment line is so long now that I don’t even bother looking for a job…besides, any job that’s left don’t pay shit anyway.”
A bitter voice said, “These rich people, who control the government, keep scaring the poor Moralists, who still believe in that crap about the Ailanian dream, that taxes and government regulation will kill any hope for an economic recovery on Ailana. I can’t stand it! People still believe that bullshit about if you work hard…then good things will come to you…on Ailana, we work hard and all we get is used and abused by rich people, who don’t want us to have shit…so they can keep it all to themselves.”
An inebriated voice said, “I can’t find a job and I don’t want one. I just wanna get high everyday…I’m broke, broke, broke…that’s why I smoke, smoke, smoke.”
There was the sound of a bubbling bong before the screen suddenly became white. Audrey realized that Mara was lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, stoned out of her tree. “No! No! Don’t pass out on me yet!”
Audrey’s dry eyes finally felt relief as she saw Mara turn her head to the left. She began looking at the floor near the front of the room. Audrey gasped as she saw three pairs of legs. One pair was skinny and bare. The other two pairs of legs were muscular, and were wearing camouflaged pants, along with very large black boots. Audrey could see a black case sitting on the floor.
Her heart raced. She shook her fists as she exclaimed, “Those black cases…I bet they contain drugs!”
Audrey pressed a few buttons to activate her computer’s voice filters, until she heard a confident voice saying, “We would like to thank you very much for doing such a good job of keeping this stuff safe for us. We have had some problems with people cutting and selling our merchandise when we specifically told them not to! It’s so hard to find help nowadays.”
A weak voice said, “Well, that bag you gave me to sample was real potent. I still got some. In fact, I completely forgot about this stuff I was keeping in the safe for you. That shit you gave me blew my mind away, dude!”
“Well, glad to hear it,” The cocky voice said, “And for being such a loyal friend, here is an extra hundred dollars, and another bag of that mind-blowing stuff. Ailana’s corporations don’t believe in rewarding good employees, but Marco does. Just think of it as his way of saying thanks.”
The weak voice was suddenly happy, “Whoa, you guys are all right. If ya ever need me to store your stash for you again, call me up, bro. I never use that safe in my room for anything dude…I ain’t got shit worth stealing.”
“I’m sorry, amigo,” The cocky voice said. “By tomorrow afternoon, we’ll have loaded up all our merchandise on a spaceship. We’re getting ready to leave off this rock for good long time.”
“It was a pleasure doing business with ya!”
“Same here, my friend,” The large legs, and the black case then moved towards the door.
“Oh shit!” Audrey cried as she looked at the date which the documentary had been recorded; yesterday, at thirteen hundred hours. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head as she looked at the clock on her office wall; fifteen hundred hours.
She leapt out of her seat and dialed her com on the way to her office bathroom. She burst through the door and ran to her locker where she kept her field uniforms.
Moke answered with a tired voice, “what is it, Audrey?’
“Moke! I think I’ve found a shipment of Cutz! And I think it belongs to Marco Giraudoux!”
“Holy shit…” Moke sounded as if he were in shock as he said, “Audrey, get your team together! Meet me and Jack in the tactical room in five minutes!”
Location: 20,000 meters above Polynea.
Ailanian Standard Time: 1600 hours.
Within an hour of Audrey telling him how a group of Cutz smugglers had been storing their product in apartment safes belonging to people living in downtown Polynea, and how they probably had more than enough product to justify leaving the planet, Moke was aboard a high speed security aircraft. He was dressed in a black flight suit that was padded in the elbows, knees and chest area. He wore a thick helmet that had a microphone on a boom in front of his mouth.
The helmet’s visor had multi-binocular optical settings that allowed him to observe the ground beneath him. Sitting beside him, in the same uniform, was Captain Robert Kalawai, the head of the Ailanian Security Forces Bureau. Captain Kalawai was talking on his com to his officers at all the spaceports on Ailana. Moke had declared a state of emergency so he could issue and order to triple the number of security personnel at the spaceports.
“New information?” Robert said sternly, “send it over.”
His computer monitor lit up with some new data. Robert learned over to Moke and said, “We have three hundred ships with registered Expedite Passes at various space stations right now.”
“Keep looking!”
Robert scrolled through the data a little more. “Here it is!” He exclaimed, “We have someone lodging a complaint to the Akawala space port in Aiser City! Someone has had their computer system broken into and their Expedite Pass is missing from the files.”
“Let’s go!” Moke shouted as the sleek aircraft began moving downward at a very high rate of speed.
Location: AkawalaSpacePort…AiserCity…Akua Kai Sector…Ailana
Ailanian Standard Time: 1603 Hours.
“Man, would you look at that thing,” The heavy Bontune man in the black overalls said to his Hokupi friend as he shook his head. “That’s a mighty nice spaceship.”
Both men were standing in an enormous hanger, gawking at the sleek yacht that was sitting on its landing gear in front of them. The sounds of clanking metal rang throughout the enormous building.
“Four stabilizing fins…Externin-VC series engine …full Delhon coolant system. The owner sure spent a shit-load of money on that thing let me tell ya,” The Hokupi man said.
“I hate rich people,” The Bontune man said with a jealous sigh.
“Yeah,” The Hokupi man said with envy, as he straightened out the Union pin that was stuck to his shirt. “I hope the asshole who owns it, ends up crashing the damn thing into the moon.”
They watched the ship as it was pulled away by a small tow truck and looked away since the driver appeared to be a regular Union employee. The ship rolled down a large, well lit tunnel for several hundred meters while people in blue and black coverall suits walked around, not knowing that the ship was in the process of being stolen. The driver began to slow down the vehicle’s momentum. He pressed a lever that slowly activated the brakes on the yacht’s wheels and it came to a halt.
“Contraband in motion
,” the tow truck driver thought. “I did my part. The rest is up to them.”
The relative quiet in the hanger was disturbed as some large hovervans squealed their way next to the ship. A man with long, auburn hair stepped out of one of the vans, and he appeared to be in a hurry.
“Let’s get to it! We ain’t got all night!” Marco shouted as some very large men stepped out of the vans and began loading what appeared to be dozens of black plastic cases onto the spaceship.
While all the commotion happened all around him, Herb Swenson sat behind the controls of the tow truck, picking his teeth with his fingernail. He gave Marco a cocky grin as the sharp dressed outlaw walked up to him.
“So Marco, where’s your lovely lady?” Herb asked, with a devilish look on his face.
“Sadly enough…she won’t be joining us,” Marco said.
Herb cracked a sarcastic smile and bluntly said, “Well, sadly enough…I won’t be leaving with you either. It seems the Jonez boys, Bronson and myself have some more work to do.”
Marco sensed the frustration in Herb’s voice and didn’t appear to be phased by it. Marco looked at Herb with a bit of contempt, before he glanced over his shoulder and saw how Jhett Jones seemed almost bored as he sat behind the wheel of the hovervan. “You’re not getting scared are ya, Herb? It would be a shame to have to replace a good computer hacker with another one of those cyborg beasts. I kinda like having humans in my gang.”
“I’m not scared of them. I’m Jhett’s buddy and I just bought some Zoppy’s chili for Bloke.”
Marco flipped his hair and said, “Just make sure my merchandise in that warehouse stays safe. I’ll see you next, when I see you next.” His cape billowed in the air as he walked up the ramp and into the ship.
Herb got into the hovervan and said to Jhett, “Drop me off at the Kias Corporation Headquarters before you head down to the warehouse. I’ve got some, evidence to destroy.”
Jhett stayed stoic as he put the van in drive and slowly pulled away from the ship, rolling his way slowly out of the hanger.
As Marco boarded his newly acquired spacecraft and his cyborg employees drove away, no one in the hanger noticed how a bottom panel near the rear of the ship opened up. No one saw how the man in black slowly exited from the cramped space underneath the ship’s thrusters and slowly lowered himself to the ground. Without a sound, he calmly made his way towards the nearest exit without being seen.
Location: 15000 meters. Akua Kai Sector…Ailana
Ailanian Standard Time: 1604 Hours.
The voice on Moke’s com, tried to sound calm and dignified, “Sir, this is Rex Broadstein speaking…and I was referred to you by these fine people here…I just need to tell you that I had an expedite pass stolen from my ship’s computer system. And dang-nab it sir! This is really starting to piss me off! I can’t begin to tell you the shit I have had to put up with…”
Moke barked into his com, “where is your ship now, sir?”
“It’s at the Akawala spaceport…I was having some maintenance done on it.”
“We have a team there and ready Captain!” Robert said loudly.
Moke felt himself not thinking at all, his actions became automatic, like an animal fighting for its life. “Give the order to detain all ships!” Moke said even louder so he could be heard over the whine of the aircraft’s engines. “None of those expedite registered ships will leave until they have confirmed their pass number!” Moke felt his rage building as he shouted, “And make sure they get thoroughly searched!”
Robert nodded his head at Moke in agreement and began barking orders to his police officers at the Akawala spaceport through his computerized communications gear. The aircraft began a quick descent that made Moke’s guts experience a tingling feeling.
Within minutes they were hovering over the expansive spaceport on the outskirts of the city. Akawala spaceport had sixteen launching facilities, all radiating out from a large multi-domed building that housed the central command center. The ships were launched into the air with a combination of the energy from catapulting reverse tractor beams in the launch pad and their own thrusters once they were given clearance from traffic control.
Moke looked down and noticed all the launch pads had a ship on them. There appeared to be seven personal yachts and nine enormous transport ships of various makes. The larger ships belonged to Earth owned transport companies that made a huge amount of money by importing almost everything Ailana needed to have in order to operate as Earth’s welfare recipient.
Moke’s head hurt as Rex Broadstein’s voice grated in his ear as he scolded him for allowing someone to steal his pass. Moke bit his lip and mentally scoffed at the pseudo-capitalist as he remembered reading a message Audrey had intercepted for him. It was a message that Jacob Colombe had sent to one of his co-conspirators right before Moke’s D-Squad had tried to make contact with him.
We have it! We have the proof we need! It’s true! They have been killing our economy for the last decade! Our evidence is an economic model based on over 70,000 hours of continuous observation! We also have expert witnesses and whistle-blowers like Rex Broadstein! It’s obvious that what they are doing is for personal and political gain! We know about the role of the pseudo-capitalists! WE ARE All PART OF THEIR PLAN!
“Shit!” Moke narrowed his eyes in disgust as he realized that Rex had been cut off in mid-sentence.
“We lost him sir!” Robert shouted.
“Keep tracking!” Moke screamed, “We gotta find Mr. Broadstein! He just might be the key to all of this!”
Location: UlaLuba Hotel…Downtown Polynea…Ailana.
Ailanian Standard Time: 1610 Hours.
Police officers, clad in black fatigues, broke the door down by kicking it repeatedly with their heavy boots. After smashing the door down, they all ran inside like a stream of black ants
“It’s clear, sir!” One of the police officers yelled from the room.
“I realize that, you idiots,” Van Dien said impatiently. “Step aside.”
Without any sort of warning, he shinned a bright light onto their helmets, disrupting their night vision sensory system.
“SIR! We have lost our ability to see in the dark!” The officers began to hit their helmets with their hands, desperately trying to regain their vision again. Van Dien was soon disgusted by what he was witnessing. He pushed another button on his com and the officers became very still.
“That will be all, gentlemen,” Van Dien said into his com. “Use your cranial compasses to exit the room.” The men turned around and walked into the door frame. With a loud smack and a thump, they fell over each other into the hallway.
“Sorry sir!” One of them yelled to the other.
“We’ve got light out here!” The other cried out, “Deactivate the helmets! Let’s go home!”
Van Dien shook his head as he shined the light to the back of the room. It reflected off a slick pool of blood that had soaked itself into the sheets and carpet. He saw a body, with red hair, flowing over a blood spattered face. Even with half of her head carved off, Van Dien could tell that she had been a beautiful, young woman.
“Amateur bounty hunters…hired by Loko to protect him while he tried to get rid of his competitors and steal from his immoral business partners. Sometimes, there is no such thing as beginner’s luck,” He thought and calmly dialed his com.
“Yes?” The man’s voice on the other end answered.
“I suggest you get down here before Captain Sprog Kanta’s men arrive, there is a body over here that we need to take back to our lab. We need to examine the skull for a cranial computer…apparently, someone we know, has broken the terms of his probation…and is about ready to flee the planet. It appears that this part of our plan…is working out perfectly.”
Location: AkawalaSpacePort….AiserCity….Akua Kai Sector…Ailana
Ailanian S
tandard Time: 1611 Hours.
The pilot of the personal yacht, Envoy, was having some trouble with what should have been a simple process. The traffic controller’s voice calmly flowed from the com, “sir, we just need for you to confirm the second half of your code.”
“Uh, sure,” the middle aged, Hokupi pilot said as he nervously fished through the pockets of his ragged flight suit. “Just let me give you the first half again, uh…gonna make sure we got it right now it’s seven…uh…three…five.
“I can’t believe you forgot to download that part of the code!” Marco screamed at him in disgust. The Hokupi man quickly turned off the com and yelled back, “I didn’t know we’d need it!
Besides, it would have taken longer to download! You wanted it done fast so we wouldn’t get caught.”
Marco unholstered his sidearm from his expensive, shark skin belt. “If you don’t get this goddamned thing off the ground, I am going to put a laser bolt through your skull!” Marco flicked a switch on the gun and pointed it at the pilot’s temple. The Hokupi man saw the gun barrel out of the corner of his eye, and wished for a second he had not accepted this job.
The controller’s voice came back on over the com, “Sir, what is the problem?”
“Uh…we’re just double checking a few things…be with you in a minute.”
“This is just wonderful,” Marco said in disgust. “Months of planning and anticipation are about to go down the goddamned drain.”
Prisoners of Paradise Page 45
