by Jaxon Reed
Gina stopped in the middle of it all, uncertain where to go now that she had arrived.
Across the room, Xie spied her. She broke off from her conversation with other officers and approached the detective.
“Hi, I’m Seana Xie. My partner and I took that perp in from the café earlier today.”
“I remember,” Gina said, shaking the smaller and younger woman’s hand. “Detective Wilcox, NID. At least, for now. We found out today they’re dissolving NID.”
“Oh! Really? Dang. Well, I’m sure Muni is hiring if you need a job.”
Gina shrugged and said, “My boss has been tagged by the Chancellor as the new Director of AOJ. She says she wants to bring me along. But if that falls through, I’ll probably be looking.”
“Wow, AOJ. That’s the big leagues. Well, I hope the best for you. Anyway, thanks for coming. Our John Doe had outside help. You see the mess they left. We’d love to have you give us a hand in any way you can.”
Wilcox grimaced and stepped out of the way of a floating gurney someone pushed past, followed by a doc bot. They went out the blown door and headed for a waiting ambulance.
In the distance she could see several emergency vehicles had already lifted off, flying to Octavia General Hospital at full speed, lights flashing.
Wilcox said, “So, what does PLAIR have? People can’t just come into a police station and shoot it up without leaving some clues. Can they?”
“Evidently they can, Detective. Come on, I’ll show you the holo feed.”
-+-
The black-clad woman and man pushed the body in the door out of the way and stepped inside Interrogation Room 3 as ventilation cleared smoke in the air.
The man rushed to the chair with the prisoner and took out a small laser drill. He pointed down about 10 centimeters from the end of the chair’s left front leg and activated the drill.
A second later with a wisp of smoke from the tiny hole, the force fields snapped off and the prisoner slumped free.
The woman said, “Pick him up. I’ll take care of the others.”
He nodded and put the prisoner in a fireman’s carry, awkwardly holding his heavy blaster in a free hand. Then he stepped around the body in the damaged door and exited to the hallway.
The woman dropped a small incendiary device on the body of her fallen comrade.
She ignored the broken law bot on the floor and aimed her gun at an unconscious Officer Xie, lying near McNeese.
Before she could pull the trigger the sounds of blaster fire in the hallway distracted her.
Thoop! Thoopah!
Her companion returned fired.
ThuppaThuppaThuppa!
“They got people coming!” he shouted at her. “We’ll have to fight our way out!”
She turned and stepped over the body, leaving the police officers unharmed.
Three seconds later the incendiary device went off, turning the dead man’s body, along with his black leather clothes and what was left of his helmet, to ashes. The blood splatters burned up along with everything else.
-+-
Xie made a slashing motion with her hand and the holo froze.
She said, “So that’s what happened. They shot up the place on the way out, killing or injuring about a dozen more officers.”
“And then what?” Wilcox said. “They had to go somewhere, right? Did they get into a car? Walk? Take a bus or autocab? PLAIR should have followed them.”
“That’s just it, Detective. It’s like they dropped off the face of Diego. I can understand the AI not identifying them via retinal scans. Those funny goggles they all wore would block that. But when you apprehended our perp from the bank robbery earlier today, we couldn’t figure out who he was even without his goggles. There were simply no records for him.”
“That’s odd.”
“Tell me about it. No DNA, no iris scan or even fingerprints. Nada. Complete blank in the system. Likewise we picked up voiceprints on the other three, but no go there either. No facial recognition. And of course, they torched the corpse left behind with an incendiary designed to scramble the DNA in the ashes. But I doubt we’d be able to find anything on him, either. We’re at a complete loss.”
“And then they disappeared outside the station?”
“It’s almost like PLAIR never knew they were here to begin with. She realized there was a breach, but she could not identify the intruders, nor could she follow them once they left the building. It’s very frustrating.”
Wilcox furrowed her brows.
She said, “Let’s go back. You said something about a bank robbery?”
“Right. We asked PLAIR not to release details to the media yet, but this morning our perp and that woman robbed a local savings and loan shortly after a drone made a delivery of 100,000 credits in tokens.
“We’re still unsure of all the details on that incident, too. Nobody died, thank God. A teller was able to press an alarm button hidden under her counter before they finished jacking all the money.”
“They still have panic buttons?” Wilcox said, smiling. “That’s old school.”
“Evidently some of these mom and pop outfits still do. And it’s a good thing, too, because it alerted us on time. We got there as the getaway cars were taking off. The one with the woman and half the loot disappeared somehow. I haven’t read the report yet. But the one my partner and I chased, we manage to shoot down with our squad car’s guns. That’s when you had the opportunity to meet John Doe face to face.”
“You know,” Wilcox said, rubbing her nose, “the more I hear about this guy and his friends, the less I like them.”
Xie cracked a grin in agreement.
Gina said, “But I can tell you a couple of things you might not have noticed yet.”
Xie raised her eyebrows and said, “I’m all ears.”
“The big intruder who did not get shot knew exactly where to drill to disable the chair. That indicates either police knowledge or some really good intelligence about police operations.”
“Okay. That’s a good point.”
“And another thing. Those big guns they were using? Those are League military.”
“How can you tell?”
“I recognize the shape. Thespar Industries. Another telltale sign is the fact the blaster bolts were red instead of green. That’s a dead giveaway.”
“Oh! I think I knew that. Dang.”
“It’s true both sides used both colors, but heavy artillery for ground troops in the League was almost uniformly red, and green for us.”
“I’m embarrassed about that one.”
“Don’t be. Someone would have noticed, eventually. What’s more troubling is . . . where in the world are bank robbers getting heavy League ground weapons?”
Xie raised her eyebrows. When the detective put it like that, everything sounded much more troubling.
6
Ginger Storm, also known as Stormy, exited her car and walked into a warehouse garage on the edge of Octavia’s industrial district. She was now in a borough called Eastside.
The inside of the building looked completely different from the outside. It offered furnishings fit for a palace, or at least a ritzy mansion.
The interior was incongruous to the humble warehouse’s dreary exterior, which matched other drab buildings for blocks around in this dull and rundown part of the city.
The car, a sleek shiny black sports model, rested on a pad along with twenty other flying vehicles. Most were new, but a few clunkers were present, too.
The clamshell doors on the roof slowly lowered, blocking out the sun. The entire garage was hidden from view on the outside.
Stormy sighed. She looked back at the car and the man exiting it, carrying another man on his shoulders.
A great of deal of camotech shielded the building and several others in this general area from overhead view. A giant reflection field set up in the neighborhood meant no one was likely to see the cars if they were left parked on the roof. But Stormy was never one to take c
hances if she could avoid them.
Her name and resulting nickname, like so much else about her, were fabrications.
Her long curly black hair, going down to the small of her back, was fake. It had been grown in a lab and attached to her real hair, which came down only to her neck.
Breast cellular augmentation, body sculpting nanobots and selective surgery on her face made her far more attractive. She appeared nothing like the person she used to be.
That person ceased to exist four years ago.
When the war started, Ginger Storm was born. And Stormy served the League faithfully under deep cover on Diego.
But now the war was over. And against all odds, somehow the Republic won.
Lead Tetrarch Thrall sued for peace. In his weakness, he conceded all the quadrants lost to Republican forces.
He really had no choice in the matter, Stormy thought. Clarion and Euripides had the only quadrants left. Even Epsilon itself, the League’s keystone capital planet, had fallen.
Chancellor Cole made a big deal out of letting the “liberated” planets vote on whether they wanted to remain in the League or join the Republic. But Ginger Storm knew what really happened. Umpteen millions of credits flowed from Harrington House to help sway those elections in the Republic’s favor.
Ads were bought in all their media markets showing footage of Star League’s State Security and Intelligence torturing and raping victims.
Damning evidence from all the trials of SSI agents was publicized. Last words from secret police before their executions, expressing no remorse for their crimes against humanity, were broadcast repeatedly across the former League planets.
Faced with that sort of propaganda, hardly anyone voted to stay in the League. Given the choice, who would want to remain under the Tetrarch’s sordid thumb?
Stormy could hardly blame them. To her, this proved why elections were dangerous. You never know which way an honest one might go. That’s why the League never held them, after all.
Never allow an opportunity to lose your grip on power, she thought.
She watched Evan Edge, the big guy carrying Gilbert Marx who remained unconscious.
Edge had that mix of bloodlines most people carried, but his dominant one was Central African. He had dark skin and a handsome face. Were they working under different circumstances, and not trying to undermine the Republic at the moment, Stormy might have been willing to have a relationship with the big man.
Marx, on the other hand . . . Marx was the source of all her current troubles.
She sighed and removed her dark goggles, placing them on the leather helmet where it covered her forehead.
Edge brought the comatose Marx to a sofa. Up here in the garage, their team could socialize, share drinks and watch holos. It doubled nicely as a rec room.
A set of three couches sat arranged in a U shape, with a holo in the middle. They could see all the cars in the garage from here, and had access to a kitchen with a fridge full of beers.
The whole place reeked of money.
Which was ironic, Stormy thought, because right now she needed money and Marx had lost half their haul from the bank earlier today.
Edge collapsed in the couch opposite Marx.
He sighed and said, “We lost Chuckles.”
“I know we lost Chuckles, Edge,” Stormy said crossly. “I was there. I saw it.”
“I hate that we lost Chuckles.”
“I’m not happy about it either. But I incinerated him. Don’t worry, the pigs won’t learn anything from the body.”
“I don’t care about burning him. It’s Chuckles himself I miss.”
Stormy bit her tongue. She felt like snapping and saying something like Ivan Charles, the man nicknamed Chuckles, was a fool for sticking his head in the interrogation room like that.
She wanted to say Chuckles got what he deserved for being an idiot.
Deeper down, if she were honest, she wanted to say she was grateful Chuckles went in first. She was relieved that he bought the farm and she did not.
But she held back all those statements.
Edge was not the sharpest blade in the drawer, she thought. Which was also ironic, given his name. But berating him right now for expressing remorse over losing Charles was probably a bad idea.
She made a motion and the holo turned on, showing the evening news.
“. . . from a bank robbery this morning. This man, shown apprehended here by an officer from NID who had stopped for lunch at the café . . .”
Stormy made a twirling motion with her finger and muted the volume.
“I want to know who she is, Edge.”
“Looks military.”
“Of course she’s military. She’s NID you dimwit!”
Immediately, Stormy regretted snapping at the big fellow. Her face fell as anger and irritation seeped out of it.
Edge showed no sign of hearing her.
He said, “We fought some bad ass Marines. They hit planet after planet, porting down from above and putting our guys to shame. She looks like a Marine. Look at her, they’re replaying it. See how’s she ready to kill Marx? She’s got her boot up and with one proper blow, bam! He’s dead. Or she could reach down and grab his gun.”
Stormy watched the recording as Edge continued his assessment.
“But she holds back. You can’t see her face because they blurred it out, but she’s staring right at the cops. She’s holding back and letting them take Marx into custody.
“But if this were war? Yeah, he’d be dead, no questions asked. He’s a threat. And you eliminate threats in war. You don’t let the police take the threat into custody, you kill him then and there. She’s still adjusting to the new reality.”
Maybe the big guy has a point, Stormy thought, even if he was a little dull in other places.
Out loud she said, “We’ll ask Marx when he wakes up. If he didn’t learn her name, I’ll run some discreet queries looking for any new NID personnel who served in the Marines during the war. We’ll find her.”
They both watched the video replay one more time, showing Marx reacting to something in his ear just before the woman struck from behind.
Stormy nodded, watching the blanked out face of the NID officer staring at the cops.
She said, “We’ll find her and kill her.”
7
A doorman nodded at her and formally opened the entrance to the Ruby Room for Jodi Fonteneaux.
She wore her hair in a plain no-nonsense ponytail, as always. Now 41, she hoped her age added some gravitas for this new position she was about to assume.
At the same time, she hoped she had the experience for it. Running a civilian agency surely meant adjusting her expectations. She just did not know how much adjustment would be needed, yet.
Fonteneaux stifled all the self-doubts threatening to overwhelm her, and she walked into one of the most famous places in the galaxy.
The Ruby Room, so named because of its dominant color, was considered a public space. Nothing spoken here was off the record, at least not for very long. Everyone knew upon entering that their words would be recorded for posterity.
Behind her desk, the same one appearing in holos several times over the years, Chancellor Elsa Cole sat in a large wingback brown leather chair.
The chair actually made her look smaller. And she was petite to begin with, Jodi thought.
Standing respectfully to the right of the Chancellor, Admiral Severs remained at ease, hands behind his back. He smiled warmly at Fonteneaux when she walked through the doors.
Jodi approached the desk and stood at attention. Although Cole had never served in the military, she was considered the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy and all other armed forces in her role as the Republic’s Chancellor.
In a formal tone, Elsa Cole said, “Jodi Fonteneaux, I hereby appoint you to the position of Director for the Agency of Justice. Do you accept this position?”
“Yes, Madam Chancellor. I do.”
“The
n your work begins immediately. Let it be so recorded by PLAIR that you have accepted.”
Cole stood and smiled at the two taller people in the room.
She said, “Now, if you would step into my private residence, I would like to spend some time getting to know you better.”
Jodi smiled and followed the Chancellor through another door, knowing that the real motive for this move was to go someplace where their every word would not be recorded.
A few minutes later, sipping on tea and munching sugar cookies prepared by the Harrington House kitchen staff (who were all human by the way, Cole wanted her to know), the Chancellor summed up the current political situation for Fonteneaux.
“As you know,” Cole said while sipping on her tea, “my term is coming to an end. We will call elections soon, and I have appointed Admiral Severs here as my successor. He recently joined our party and will be starting a life in politics now that he has retired from the Navy.”
Severs smiled and nodded before taking a bite of a cookie.
“It’s going to be a rough election cycle,” Cole said. “Already the Morals Party is preparing to side against me. I think Hector Fuente will jump over to the opposition and lend his party’s support to them.”
Fonteneaux frowned.
She said, “That doesn’t sound good, ma’am. From what I understood, you needed the Morals Party to form a majority coalition last time.”
Cole sighed and said, “That’s right. Admiral Severs here will have to form a new coalition. But that’s not uncommon, and I’ll be there to lend him as much support as I can. I firmly believe that with a war hero, with the man who led us to victory over Thrall and the League, the Planetary Libertarian Party will be able to retain control of Parliament and Harrington House.”
“I’ve always wanted to ask if you find it funny that a party known as ‘libertarian’ clings to power so well.”
Cole laughed lightly, and it sounded refreshing. The war and running the Republic left their mark on her face now that it was over. Holos of Cole from when she first took office six years ago showed a much younger woman than the one sipping tea right now. How she managed to look so well while the war was raging seemed like a mystery to Fonteneaux.
