by William Cray
Duran glanced over the edge of the platform, his only way out, a slow but sure fatal plunge through the depths to the cold lake below.
“This is going to take too much time, Elijah. The clock is ticking. Even if I told you everything you still would have to try to confirm it. There’s no time.”
“You’re coming with us Rory. Until you can prove what you say. There’s nothing I can do now. Things are getting out of control.”
The P-Teks approached, now just a couple of meters away, their arms extending and unfolding into a grasping articulated net, an electrical charge surging into capacitors to subdue resistance.
Duran’s voice lowered to a whisper through gritted teeth as the machine took over. “You don’t understand what you’re doing. If you send them after me Elijah, you’ll be comforting their widows knowing it’s your responsibility. Every one of them.”
Cole took a step back, watching the change in Duran.
“But I’ll only shatter you.” Duran growled. “You’ll live in a skeleton that walks for you and takes every shallow starving breath for you, so that every day for the rest of your life in this decrepit city, you’ll know that you should’ve trusted me.”
Duran locked his eyes on Cole who took a step back, reaching for his weapon. Cole froze as Duran’s Mag-gun leapt into hands with a snap.
-LOCKED
-30APERS
-RDY
Then he jumped.
14
North Trench Level 10
Outside Blast Site
New Meridian City
Hebes Chasma Trench, Mars
Elijah Cole climbed the few steps into the mobile command center erected on the massive support barge, now floating into position across the chasm from the blast area. Outside the command center, lifters came and went from the barges landing pads, dropping off or receiving cargo and casualties. Emergency service vehicles and vans filled the cramped deck of the barge as Cole took charge of the recovery efforts.
Cole blew past a group of officers and gathering officials on his way to his private office on the barge. His mood was foul and he didn’t care what feelings he hurt at the moment. He was on his way to take another call, and he knew what was coming.
The Justice Minister, by order of Prime Minister Mikoyan, had just passed jurisdiction to him. The initial assessment teams had determined the blast had been the result of an explosive device, a bomb planted inside the hotel. An act of political terrorism had occurred for the first time during his eight-year watch as Chief Commissioner and it would be the Constabulary’s responsibility to find the perpetrator and bring charges. New Meridian City Police and the Commonwealth Ministry of Codes and Enforcement would assist, but the case was his.
Cole had just been outside, exerting his presence on the situation, commanding order to be maintained. He had issued his initial instructions to the various agencies involved and convened with the emergency response coordinator who still ran the actual rescue and recovery effort. The emergency teams would clear the casualties and ensure no further devices were waiting in ambush. Once the initial rescue was complete Cole would direct the evidence collection. It was a situation they had rehearsed hundreds of times and now put into action. Everything was sliding into its place and order was imposed upon chaos, with one exception.
Duran was still missing and his men at the abandoned weapons locker had gone quiet. They were no longer on the net and hadn’t been heard from in the hour and a half since Duran had plunged into the depths of the cavern. Cole had sent reinforcements and had warned the two officers that trouble could be headed their way if Duran survived the fall into the reservoir. They were ordered to pull back and observe, reporting any activity. Cole knew if just the two of them confronted Duran they wouldn’t stand a chance, so he tried to position them without getting them butchered by the machine. He had sent more of his dwindling manpower to Duran’s hotel to retrieve his belongings and observe any attempt to recover them. But so far, everything there appeared normal. Soon he would turn the city’s entire law enforcement might to finding Duran, who had transitioned from colleague to suspect in the flash of an explosion.
Cole entered his personal office space, and sat behind the small desk. The communication set beeped as Cole entered the encryption cipher. The Prime Minister appeared along with his immediate boss, Pardo Centane of the Martian Ministry of Justice. Centane was a former mayor of New Meridian and close political associate.
“Yes Prime Minister, Minister Centane.”
“Elijah,” the Prime Minister said. “How bad is it?”
“So far we have seventy two casualties, twelve dead, but we are still digging people out. We have reports of another thirty missing but all of them may not be in the debris. Rescue crews have reached the blast epicenter and the skeets aren’t picking up any additional life signs.”
An expression of deep concern flushed the jowls of Prime Minister Mikoyan as Centane jumped in. “Anything you can tell us about the blast?”
“Very little at this point, other than it appears to be a poor military grade mashup in composition. It was centered in the elevator shaft of the Ulysses hotel, so the main blast was contained within it. There is significant structural damage, but other than rescue ops I can’t tell you anything else. My teams won’t be going in until the integrity of the tunnel is inspected.”
Centane continued. “Any threats or motives you can discern?”
“No sir, the only warning I had was what Ambassador Tonaska relayed to you earlier this morning.”
“Suspects?”
Cole hesitated. Duran was certainly a person of interest, but he had been under constant surveillance when not with Floss other than a few hours inside the Zone where he was on foot. He couldn’t have planted the bomb, but he could still be involved somehow. Too much was happening at once for this not to all be related.
“No.” he said. “Nothing concrete but we are starting to sift the sand.”
“What about the cyborg? Do you think he survived?”
“He believed he could, otherwise he would have engaged us and I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. He’s still out there until we find a body.”
The Prime Minister’s rosy face began to darken, the famous ill temper that made him such a magnet for his critics began rising to the surface. “Could this have originated from the Zone, Commissioner?”
Cole knew where this was going, knew it would eventually get to this point. It was inevitable. “That’s our only blind spot sir, we have ninety seven percent materials accountability for construction of a bomb of this type in the Chasm side. The only other place the bomb could have been assembled and transported would be from the Zone. We just can’t keep a network up in there.”
The Prime Minister nodded. “Ok…look Elijah, once you get control at the site and get me some answers, I want Clean Sweep online as soon as possible. I’ll call up the Red Guard and get you Commonwealth assets, although probably not troops. I want all the surface habitation domes cleared out and sealed up for good. I don’t care if you scrape a million people out of there I want them out. No more safe havens for gangs, drugdealers, junkies and now fucking terrorists. Run them all out, process them, then pop the bubbles, you understand?”
Cole nodded. “I understand sir, but it will get ugly. That I can guarantee.”
Centane jumped in, “It’s already ugly Elijah. I’m flying up there this afternoon.”
“One other thing Commissioner, I’m setting up a quarantine around the city. Shutting off rail and airspace. Whoever is responsible isn’t leaving and they aren’t getting any more help coming in.” Prime Minister Mikoyan barked.
“I don’t understand sir, we can monitor who comes and goes. Those are natural choke points we can use to funnel out the perpetrators. Shutting down the transportation grid will send them deeper into the city and they’ll dig in for the long haul,” Cole interjected with more force than he expected.
“Listen Commissioner. This is way
above your head. The Emperor is already accusing us of not protecting his assets on Mars, and is threatening to pull out his interests, which is exactly what he has wanted since the Accords of Abdication forced him to retain a percentage of his financial and industrial concerns on Mars, most of which are in New Meridian. I wouldn’t put it past that decript old sodomite to be responsible for this. He’s got a squad of jigjobs just waiting to zoom in and assist us with this situation, cutting our balls off in the process. If he succeeds and his corporations are allowed to leave because they don’t feel safe and we can’t protect them, then Mars will lose over eighteen billion in commercial Hagues. I’m not going to sit by and let that happen, and sure as shit falls slow on Mars, neither are you. We are going to do what it takes to resolve this immediately.”
Cole sat back in the chair, the rebuke grating his pride. He had been a law enforcement officer his entire adult life. He knew politics were always part of the job once you got to this level, but never had he risked men for political expediency. It raked his guts open and he was ready to scream in anger.
Centane interjected again before Cole could counter. “Elijah, the Prime Minister and I are in complete agreement on this. We are going to get you what you need, and the operation is yours, but at the end of things, the Zone must be cleared out. You and I have talked about it many times before. Now we have to do it. It’s a festering sore. This will be your operation. Do well and you will save lives in the long run. Stop these terrorists and these horrific murders in the same stroke. No more drug labs, abandoned children or gang wars and we’ll finally bring Phelman’s Children in from the cold. It’s long overdue.”
Cole nodded reluctantly, realizing there was nothing he could do about the decision. It had been made. All he could do now was stall, but if they were going to do this, now was the best opportunity. “What about the unions and the radiation zone time limits?”
“We’ll suspend the limits. I’ll declare an emergency. They can’t refuse an emergency by law.” Centane said.
Cole nodded, standing from behind his desk. “I’ll see where we stand and report back as soon as I have word. There is one more thing…”
“Very sloppy work.”
The AudVid of the bomb unit showed robotic arms and probes picking up the burned lump of swathing, rotating it around, revealing every charred and flash scarred angle of the package. The manipulator stopped its smooth rotation as a cylindrical puncture mark came into the central viewer. Halting the swivel gave the B-Tek’s sensors a chance to increase the resolution of the imager, which improved the three-dimensional scan of the remains of the device. The bomb technician standing next to Elijah Cole in the command center repeated the comment. “Very sloppy. I never would have expected to see this. Not after the initial scans.”
“What do you mean?” Cole asked.
The bombtech free rotated the cross-section, focusing on an indention on one of the unmarked corners of the device, saying, “This is our second-stage compression package. The Benerite was only the coagulant. This package was the big booma, but the initial blast threw this second stage away from detonator causing it to malfunction. We were very lucky. If this stage had detonated we would have two or three levels of tunnels to dig out. Catastrophic.”
Cole examined the image along with the others leaning in. Captain Isley stood next to Cole, looking at the image and shaking his head. “Benerite triggers are very advanced. Not the usual miners fuse you find out on the mountain.”
The bombtech nodded. “The components we’ve identified show a complex architecture, but the most important part of the package, this,” he pointed to the revolving image, “was put together very sloppily.”
“Is it possible that the detonator was put together somewhere else by an expert and assembled by a perp who didn’t know what they were doing?”
“Likely.” Isley responded.
“So there’s a bomb factory out there somewhere.” Cole said. “This could just be the first, and we can bet the next one won’t be a dud.”
Cole took the few steps to the holographic image of the Ulysses interior, remembering the conversation with Duran about the possibility of a cloaking field hiding a structure that only the military could detect. Isley followed, leaving the bomb tech to continue directing the men and machines engaged in the blast area. Cole continued, “What about the target Captain, political significance?”
Isley ran a hand through his short blonde waves, then dried his forehead with his redcoat sleeve. He told the technician on the console to put up a surveillance image from just a few hours before the disaster. The posh lobby of the Ulysses appeared on the monitor. It’s ivory columns and marble statues were surrounded with flowing fountains inside the central lobby and reception floor. Centered near the hotels central elevator column was a marble podium with a goldglass display containing a collection of artifacts and mementos. Isley pointed to the collection. “The bomb went off here. Probably mounted on a modified carryall on its way to the elevator.”
“Significance?” Cole asked.
“There was a collection of items presented to the hotel by Phillip Maxius Cannis, sixth in line to the throne, when he signed the Noctus Labyrinths Imperial-Martian Cooperation Agreement about sixty years ago. I did some research and Phillip Maxius was the last ranking member of the Cannis family to visit New Meridian. The accords turned over Imperial lands near Pavonis Mons to Martian control in exchange for cooperation with mineral exploitation rights near the Noctus Labyranthus.”
Cole nodded in understanding as Isley continued. “The deal didn’t pan out for Mars, with dry holes in the mountains and the Emperor making some significant finds in the trenches. There were also rumors of kickbacks and favors granted in exchange for the deal. Typical double dealing that we have come to know and love from our dear Emperor. Anyway, the political significance of the bomb epicenter is significant if you were trying to send a message to Old Cannis himself.”
Isley ordered the image of the current devastation replaced by the resplendent lobby of just a few hours ago. “One more thing,” Isley pointed out. “I don’t think we were lucky. A potential attack of this magnitude should have killed five times the dead we have now. I can’t see how the damage was so minimal.” Isley halted as Cole glanced at him with the skepticism of his trademark E.Cole eye. “Relatively I mean sir. Look…”
He swiveled the view of the blast area to a view angling down from the top, through the main elevator shaft. “The blast in the lobby was directed out, through the entrance and into the concourse. Everyone in the lobby was vaporized and most of the rest of the injuries were in the tunnel along the path of the exiting blast wave. If that bomb had gone off inside one of the elevators, the energy would have been directed through the entire hotel. We would have three hundred dead instead of twenty. Maybe even more.”
Cole searched Isley’s expression. He could tell Isley was postulating, and indicating something else, something below the surface. To believe what Isley was implying was irresponsible but Cole couldn’t let the boldness of Isley’s assertion go unfinished. If Isley were to one-day advance in the very political Constabulary, he had to be able to speak his mind and deal with the consequences. Cole challenged him.
“You have a theory Captain?”
“Sir…” Isley hesitated before continuing. “Sir…this was not an act designed to kill people. It was a measured attack, not a bungled one.”
“Why?” Cole responded, coming to very much of the same conclusion himself as Isley laid out the bombing circumstances.
“The bomb was designed to fail, but still scare the living shit out of us. You don’t go to that much trouble to put together a bomb of that level of sophistication and then fuck up both its delivery and its execution. No way. But the target is crystal clear.”
“You haven’t supported this with anything tangible Captain but for arguments sake lets continue. Ok…who is our compassionate ideologue bomber then?”
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They both knew who was implicated by Isley's analysis, but Cole recognized Isley wouldn’t commit to saying. Long fingers still stretched from hidden places and strangled dissent, even from the depths of exile. Isley fell silent and for that Elijah Cole unloaded.
“Do you expect this office…my office Captain… To proceed on the assumption that this uber-competent terrorist was merely trying to get our attention without hurting too many people with a bomb he purposely designed to fail?”
Isley stood there, stone faced and taking the dressing down. Cole turned away from him, speaking to the entire cowed audience of the command center. “Never bring me theories. I am not interested in conjecture or postulation. Leave that to me. From you…” His waved his arm, sweeping the command center in a curt motion. “…I want fact! If you have a hypothesis on how to take a better shit…you better be able to tell me the entire technique from how far down to drop your pants, to how to wipe your ass. I want to know what style of sani to use and with what hand, including finger position. Otherwise to me…” He turned back on Isley, “It’s just the same old shit.”
Cole took a deep breath. He wasn’t fair to Isley, he knew that, but everyone needed to understand that it wasn’t their place to dip their toes into politics and let it prejudice their investigation. That was his job.
Letting the fire inside cool down a beat, Cole continued. “Now, there’s a bomb factory out there somewhere. I want it found and the people responsible in front of the magistrate by nightfall.”
Cole stalked up to the communication center, the female tech cringing as he approached. Cole put his hand on her shoulder, whispering, “Settle down Corporal. I need you do two things for me.” He removed his hand from her shoulder, and leaned over. “I need to talk to Lieutenant Floss and I need to contact the Phobos Military Depot.”
