by R. E. Graham
Also, to his amazement, there was almost no rubble or debris on the floor. It was as if the material that made up the wall just vanished. It was dark inside despite the light outside, but still too bright to use night vision. His helmet switched on a pair of lights on the top of his helmet.
He could tell instantly that the area had been pretty scrubbed of information. There wasn’t a single shell casing, magazine, or anything to indicate a fight broke out here despite the apparent damage. The long warehouse looked relatively empty except for a couple pieces of equipment scattered about. It was much too clean looking to have been the location for a raid. Typically, Keepers of Peace were not exactly delicate with their operations. Varius had witnessed plenty of times as they used aggressive tactics to “pacify” a crowd of angry protestors.
Sensing something was off, Varius used his helmet to detect any area that may have had bodily fluids previously. His eyes widened when his helmet displayed representations of many spots that had blood at one point.
“There were at least twenty-six locations of large pools of blood found. Possibly twenty-seven but one was difficult to distinguish from another nearby spot” Marth said.
This is clearly a coverup.
It was very common to be involved in a case with some criminal element trying to hide evidence and cover their trail. This was by far one of the biggest cases of a scrub happening so far that he had scene, and it might have involved KoPs too.
Not good.
Clearly anything worth seeing in the open area of the warehouse where the raid happened wasn’t going to yield anything helpful. He took a small case connected to his belt on his left side. Carefully he retrieved a small sphere within the case. He placed his hands on the top and bottom of the metallic ball and twisted. Several blue lights kicked on and the ball began to hover in the air on its own.
After a moment it flew off into the warehouse to begin an extensive scan of the facility. While his helmet did a decent enough job of scanning a building, especially when trying to be stealthy, but the scanner drone was more equipped for situations like this.
While waiting for the drone to finish its scan, Varius continued to walk deeper into the structure to his right where storage rooms and management would be when the warehouse was in business. He mentally counted four cameras as he made his way through the hallways and rooms. Nothing stood out until his eye caught a pile of plasti-crates behind a door.
He inspected the top crate, but it was completely empty accept for some packing foam. Agitated, Varius shoved the crate off the stack. It clanged loudly as it toppled over and hit against the wall as it slid down to the floor.
As the plasti-crate flipped over from the push Varius saw a strange triangular symbol. He picked the crate up from the floor and held it up.
It’s the same symbol as before.
While he continued to inspect the crate for any other clues the drone hovered into the room with him. He set the crate back down on the stack. Before he could grasp the sphere, it exploded into blue-ish glowing pieces followed by a loud hollow bang! Instinctively he yanked his arm back and drew his sidearm. He moved away from the wall and took cover behind the crates with gun aimed at the doorway. He switched off the lights on his helmet and waited to see if the attacker would enter the room.
“Danger, plasma gunfire detected” the AI chimed.
“Yeah, no poosh!” Varius retorted. “I thought you said there wasn’t any lifeforms here.”
“I said no human lifeforms. There were several rodents detected” Marth quipped back.
“Right, I’m sure they have learned to use guns!”
“Anything is possible Inquisitor.”
Varius clenched his jaw and his face reddened. “Can you just tell me where the shooter is?”
“I detect no human presence other than your own.”
“Great, they have an inhibitor” the Inquisitor said as he gently bumped his head into the wall from frustration. “What about the plasma weapon?”
“I cannot detect a trace of the weapon either. Perhaps they have a concealer attached to the firearm as well.”
“Fantastic!” Varius growled.
Just as the Inquisitor was about to stand up a white cylinder was tossed into the room. The helmet’s visor automatically darkened protecting Varius’ vision as the flash bang burst and intensely filled the small room with blinding light. A lone gunman with slick gunmetal gray armor entered the room wielding a stumpy looking rifle.
Varius fired one shot into his left knee and then another round in his right shoulder. The gunman cried out in pain and fell to the ground. Before he dropped his rifle to the ground, the assassin accidentally squeezed off a shot from the plasma rifle into a pile of garbage on the floor in the opposite corner of the room. A small fire ignited from the burning plasma but Varius focused on the attacker.
“That’s real sloppy of you. Guess you aren’t used to hunting inquisitors are you, bounty hunter?”
The gunman reached for his dropped weapon with his good arm but Varius kicked it away.
“You see, that wasn’t smart either” Varius joked.
Distracted by the vain effort to retrieve the weapon the Inquisitor didn’t see the assassin struggle to pull a cylinder from his thigh pocket and jab it into his leg. Instantly adrenaline coursed through his body and he brought his arms behind his head and legs towards his chest and hopped up.
Varius didn’t even flinch in surprise as he swung with his left fist, knuckles reinforced by the glove locking into place, and smashed the bounty hunter’s visor in. The sudden impact knocked the enemy off balance and he fell backward, hard.
“You don’t learn, do you?” the Inquisitor asked before he shot him in the other leg.
The assassin screamed out in agony.
“Now, tell me why you shot my drone.”
“I’m not telling you anything…bastard!”
Varius could see the rage filled eyes through his attacker’s broken visor. “You are the one coming in here blasting away and you want to name call? Where did you get that plasma rifle anyway? Concealers don’t come cheap.”
The attacker just glared back. The Inquisitor ground his boot into the bounty hunter’s left leg wound. He shouted in pain as he grabbed at his left leg with his left arm.
“There’s no way a useless assassin like you could afford that firearm. Tell me who do you work for? What happened in this factory? Obviously, you are here to cover something up” Varius barked.
“I’m not tellin’ you anythin’!”
“Fine, you made me do this…” the Inquisitor stood up to his full height and pulled out a small syringe from his belt. He held it up so the assassin could clearly see it.
“Do you know what this is? This is tru-loxan. It’s a very powerful truth serum that as it courses through your blood stream is going to give you an incredibly painful burning sensation. Hurts like a son of a dog.”
The bounty hunter didn’t say anything, but his eyes looked like he urged Varius to not do it.
“Have it your way!” Varius said as he holstered his sidearm and pinned the other man’s left arm with his right knee. He flicked the needle cover off with his thumb.
“No! No! Noooo!” the man shouted as he tried to resist but his other extremities couldn’t respond without unbelievable pain.
Varius moved the bounty hunter’s head to the left and injected the serum into his neck. Immediately the man began to convulse as his body became numb.
The Inquisitor stood up and waited thirty seconds before he squatted down and drew his sidearm again. He noticed the room begin to fill with smoke from the fire in the corner. His suit automatically kicked in safety measures and began to filter the air. “Who sent you?”
“I…I…don’t…know his name…” the bounty hunter said as he tried to fight the serum.
“Oh, come on, assassins always say that. Alright, who hired you then?”
The man shook his head as he fought harder until he finall
y relaxed and let the answer out. “He…stood in the shadows when we met. He…he…wouldn’t tell me who…he was…just called himself…the Shadow Man.”
“Okay, so this “Shadow Man”, where did you meet him?”
“He…he has her…”
“Who? Who does he have?” Varius couldn’t see that even while the bounty hunter’s arm was pinned to the ground, that his trembling hand was still able to pull a small pill from his pocket. He clenched it in his hand tightly.
“You better start telling me more than this” the Inquisitor said as he stood back up. “This fire is getting serious and you have broken some serious laws by attacking an inquisitor. I could just leave you here to burn to death.”
The assassin jammed his hand into his helmet and fed himself the pill. Varius holstered his firearm and fought to yank the hand free. As he got the hand out of the shattered visor he saw the man’s mouth was covered in greenish foam. The bounty hunter’s lifeless hand fell to the floor.
“Dammit!” Varius stood up and kicked the stack of plasti-crates. They crashed to the ground in a pile. “Aaaaarh!”
The plasma rifle began to beep loudly just before it burst into pieces. With the fire expanding around the room and making its way up the walls, the room was getting very hot to be in.
“Frick. Frick. Frick!” Varius shouted as he walked back over to the dead man and yanked his helmet off. “Marth, scan his face and run it through the Bureau’s database” the Inquisitor said angrily.
“Scanning…searching…searching…searching…no results found.”
Varius tossed the helmet against the wall to his right before he walked over to the door frame. He readied his weapon and checked the hallway for any other attackers. The fire continued to spread and now consumed the small room and was burning the second floor.
Great, now I can’t find whatever it was that he was covering up!
He continued down the hallway all the while he checked his corners to be sure an ambush wasn’t waiting for him. When he reached the large open space in the warehouse again he relaxed his body a little. He turned around to see that the second floor was fully enveloped in fire.
Varius shook his head in frustration and knocked over another stack of plasti-crates. “Okay, he shot the drone instead of me. Why? Maybe whatever the drone found was more important than me?” The Inquisitor stood back up and began to pace.
“What would be more important than an inquisitor looking into this? Well, there are already two inquisitors on world investigating the incident. Maybe there is a piece of evidence here. But where? I have no idea what I am looking for that the drone could have found.”
He paced back and forth in the small room.
“Emergency personnel detected en route to this facility Inquisitor” the AI said.
“Something serious is going on here. This Shadow Man must be a serious player involved in whatever is going on here.” Varius exited through the hole in the wall and went back to the large truck to retrieve his jammer.
A long extinguisher truck with strobing lights pulled down the alley and drove towards the fire. Varius disappeared down a different alley and put some distance between himself and the scene. He pressed a button on the right side of his helmet and it slid apart and folded itself into a small rectangle shape at the base of his neck.
Any evidence I could look for in the warehouse is gone. Only one lead left. I have to go talk to Eva Primus.
Chapter 4
Cycle: 412 Month: 7 Rotation: 9
Prefecture: Siimon
Planet: Eden
Location: Keepers of Peace Main Compound in Lucifer
A bright green hovercar pulled up to the stonecrete curb and the backdoor opened. Varius exited the hovercar and scanned his left gauntlet as he got out. The small terminal’s red light turned green and the driver in the front seat waved as his passenger walked away.
On the ride over from the warehouse Varius used Marth to access the local KoP directory and found that Eva Primus was being held at the Keepers of Peace detention center after she was arrested two rotations ago.
The Inquisitor stood for a moment to observe the massive KoP compound. Large thick walls created a clear perimeter around the buildings within. As he approached the guard station several KoP agents dressed in their all white armored uniforms stopped him from proceeding. The big man on the right said, “Identification.”
Varius couldn’t see through the man’s black tinted visor of his helmet. He took out his holobadge and showed the guard.
“Alright. Go to the scan station by the guard post before proceeding inside.”
Annoyed, but not wanting to instigate things further, Varius nodded.
After being cleared from the scan station the large fence for the compound slid open. Varius couldn’t see the faces of the men stationed around him, but he could sense them glaring. Keepers of Peace and inquisitors didn’t historically care for one another. An inquisitor generally operated alone and in situations where local authorities had failed to solve an issue that was getting out of hand. Sometimes the local authorities received Keepers of Peace forces and even that wasn’t enough. After several hundred cycles of an inquisitor fixing the problems even KoP agents couldn’t deal with had created a rift between the two branches of the judicial arm of the Corre Republic.
Varius followed a sidewalk to the main building which was the command center located at the middle of the compound. In most instances the KoP facilities were laid out identically on whatever world they were deployed so that forces rotating around the Republic would know exactly where every station within the compound was located regardless of which world they were on. The command center served as the officer personnel quarters, central communication center, and among other things.
Personnel moved all about the compound’s grounds. Some squads were following the inside perimeter as they trained in their workout uniforms while others went in all directions fulfilling various duties and tasks. Two stout Sentry WarMechs stood guard outside the command center while two Sierras patrolled the compound. Their heavy steps could be felt throughout the stonecrete that made up the main courtyard.
The Sierra was the most common WarMech design in the Corre Republic. It was constructed with the purpose to be the backbone of the military. It generally did not excel at any one task but was more for an all-in-one package. Normally it would come equipped with a 14D cannon instead of a right hand that fired ballistic rounds the size of a man’s forearm, a quad missile pack built into the left side of its torso and a mech sized retractable combat knife attached on the underside of its left arm. It also was equipped with a jumper pack to help aid its maneuverability despite its squat looking appearance.
Seeing as how KoP forces were used to enforce law and order within the Republic and wouldn’t be used against invading armies, KoP Sierras typically would have their combat knife replaced with an anti-personnel chain gun to help break up any violent demonstrations.
It wasn’t being reported widely, but Varius and the other inquisitors knew the truth, the Republic currently was not in a good situation. Famines and food shortages were rampant over a dozen worlds. Riots were becoming so normal on certain planets that the media had been given a blackout order from the Bureau of Interworlds Communications to keep other worlds peaceful. Varius’ mind fell back to the horrible atrocity he came across on Assembly. A shiver ran down his spine as he thought about what it would take to turn a person to eat another human.
There wasn’t any movement from the Sentry’s, but the Inquisitor could feel their pilot’s eyes follow him as he made his way to the command center.
While the Sentry was only really fielded by the Keepers of Peace, it had received a lot of bad press when multiple media outlets broadcast a scandal that became public when a government official was accidentally recorded joking about the Sentry design program cycles ago. As with many things in the Corre Republic, bureaucrats and politicians voted on particular development programs of the
military branch. The Sentry was intended to be a wide use design that could easily be outfitted with different weaponry loadouts depending on its mission or the branch that it served.
After billions of cuso were spent to begin design and production it continuously had program setbacks as the design simply didn’t work. It failed a plethora of tests and had been taken back to the drawing board repeatedly. Eventually the Sentry was fielded by several Corre Republic garrison forces on the border worlds. One battle against the Julcas Union demonstrated the Sentry’s overall design flaws when one Republic commander was gunned down because his WarMech locked up during combat in the cold tundra on the planet Blizzard. Most generals wouldn’t allow a Sentry in front-line assignments, so the KoP found use for them in quelling dissidents.
Ha, Sentry’s…what a useless design.
The Inquisitor climbed the wide front steps of the command center. Four more guards stood watch outside the blast rated glass doors. Once again Various scanned his gauntlet at the scan station. As the glass doors slid open Varius heard one of the guards make a scoffing sound directed to his back. He spun around on his heal, his leather belt cape twisting in the motion, as he in one swift motion got right into the guard’s face.
“Do you have a problem agent?” the Inquisitor asked. His face was so close to the visor of the guard that he could see his own individual eyebrow hairs in his reflection.
The guardsman stood to full attention and shouted, “No sir!”
Varius scowled at the tall man for another moment before he spun back around and went inside.
After he made his way through the vast structure of the command center and after he had to verbally chew out a guardsman who got a little too frisky at one of the other stations within the facility, Varius finally arrived at the detention center within the command center. Located three floors underground, it wasn’t a place that an ordinary person could escape from.
His boots thumped against the hard floors as he walked up to the front desk. A young blonde woman sat behind the counter at her terminal and greeted the Inquisitor without a smile. “How may I help you inquisitor?”
