Clan and Conviction (Clan Beginnings)

by Tracy St. John

  Unfortunately, the bad guy’s mother already suffered mightily. Wynhod knew they would have to try to take Nobek Hurs alive.

  Gelan told them all, “Typical Delir withdrawal behavior will have the Nobek continuing to rise in agitation, probably killing his fathers and himself in the end. Do we have a negotiator on site yet?”

  The lead enforcer shook his head. “No sir.”

  “Good. They tend to make the problem worse when it comes to a Delir case. These guys can’t be talked down.”

  He turned to his partner. “Wynhod, you need to go in and close the situation.” He glanced over at the still weeping Matara Noma and sighed. “Get the Nobek alive if you can, both for his mother’s sake and because he might be a witness to the Delir gang’s activities. However, the hostages’ lives are your priority.”

  Wynhod nodded. “Understood.” He addressed the squad, now under his authority. “The situation is believed to be at the front of the home. We will use the maintenance access to enter through the rear. We’re using plasma rifles.”

  That got a few looks of gratitude. Plasma rifles required the men to be better shots than percussion blasters, a challenge Nobeks appreciated. However, Wynhod ordered them because their use meant less chance of killing the hostages.

  He continued. “I will go in first, recon the situation, and you will follow under my direction. Suit up and try to keep your weapons out of the Matara’s sight as you go in.”

  As the enforcers went to their shuttle to get additional armor and the rifles, Wynhod went to the waiting snipers. Keeping his voice low so Noma wouldn’t hear, he told the squad, “You’re needed to keep watch over the exits. You’ve got a visual I.D. on the suspect? Good. If he manages to get past us, shoot to kill. I won’t have a Delir-crazed Nobek with a blaster running loose among the population.”

  The snipers dispersed to cover all avenues out of the complex. Wynhod turned to see Gelan coming out of their shuttle with Wynhod’s helmet and plasma rifle in his hand. The Nobek put his headset com on and took the rest of his gear from his partner.

  He told Gelan, “I’ll report in as soon as we’re in position to enter. I’ll also leave my com open for you to monitor.”

  The Dramok nodded. “Good luck.”

  The enforcer squad got geared up and ready. With a nod, Wynhod led them to the maintenance service entrance, where the complex’s supervisor waited to let them in.

  The supervisor, a Dramok old enough to be one of Wynhod’s great-great-grandparents, ushered them into the service entrance. “Come in and I’ll go over the access route to Clan Moli’s home unit.”

  The room he brought the enforcers into was well-lit, a kind of office/storage area. The room was an efficient space, all of its metal furnishings gleaming in the illumination of the lit paneled walls and ceiling. Even the smooth rock flooring had an almost metallic sheen.

  A damp scent tinged the otherwise clean-smelling air. No doubt humidity controls were in place to keep the cave system dry, but much like the earthy smell of mountain complexes, the aroma of the natural surroundings could never be completely mitigated.

  All sorts of maintenance tools lined the shelves that took up half the room. Turning his back on that part of the space, the maintenance supervisor led them over to a long desk. On either side of it, work countertops stretched along the wall. A variety of components and machines, in various stages of repair, littered the work surfaces. As for the desk itself, it had a computer, which the supervisor commanded, “Show maintenance corridors plan, large view.”

  A vid the length of the desk sprang into being, illustrating a simplified blueprint schematic. The supervisor pointed out a large square space on the readout. “Here’s where we’re standing now. You’re going to use this main corridor to get to that unit’s systems room.” He ran his finger along the narrow passage that apparently started from the third door on Wynhod’s right. “Clan Moli’s utility and power room is right here. Number 26-C-8. Straightforward. You can’t miss it.”

  Wynhod asked, “And there’s access to the home itself from that point?”

  “Right. Code to trigger access to 26-C-8, authorization Sneri. That’s my access.” The access number flashed over the blueprint, and Wynhod quickly memorized it.

  Supervisor Sneri warned him, “Opening that door will ring a tone in the home to let them know someone’s coming in.”

  Wynhod turned to the team. Every enforcement squad had an infiltration specialist, someone versed in disabling warning systems and forcing entry, if needed. “Who’s got that?”

  An older Nobek raised his hand. He had an amazing collection of fighting scars on his face and arms. Looking at the man’s dozens of marks of honor made Wynhod jealous.

  “That would be me, sir. Senior infiltrator, private and public systems disabling rank.”

  Perfect, the exact man needed for this job. Wynhod nodded, eyeing the deep ragged scar on the man’s cheek with particular envy. It was one of the best battle marks he’d ever seen. He’d have to ask about it later, when lives weren’t on the line.

  He told the squad, “I’ll take point. Senior Infiltrator, right behind me, the rest in your usual tactical mode.”

  They assembled and the supervisor opened the door to the service corridor. Every last Nobek in the line was absolutely silent as they traveled single file to the maintenance access for Clan Moli’s home. All Wynhod could hear beyond the efficient hum of the complex’s machinery was his own heart. It beat a little faster and harder than usual, fed by adrenaline as he amped up for the coming takedown.

  This was what Wynhod loved about his work. His senses were on alert, making him acutely aware of how he felt right at this moment. Everything stood out in sharp detail: the lighting panels that suffused the hall with clear light, the perfect rectangles of the doors they passed, the minute variations in the stone floor under his feet. He felt the cool metal of the plasma rifle in his hands, the way each and every muscle in his body worked as he slid soundlessly towards his goal, how his hinged fangs pressed against his tongue as they tried to descend in his growing excitement. He was even getting hard in anticipation.

  Nothing made a man feel more alive than facing potential death. Next to sex, it was Wynhod’s favorite sensation.

  He found Clan Moli’s living unit’s systems room with no problem. Like the supervisor had said, there was nothing to it. He turned to the infiltration specialist. “You’re up.”

  While the scarred warrior went to work on the panel, Wynhod checked in. “Enforcer Wynhod to Investigator Gelan. We’re disabling the warning system and preparing to go in.”

  Gelan’s cool voice tickled his ear, making his semi-erection twitch. “Copy that. Maintain open com channel from this point.”

  “Confirmed.”

  The infiltration enforcer stepped back. “Warning tone disabled.”

  Wynhod gave the team their last instructions. “We’ll be moving from the back of the home towards the greeting room, but keep in mind they may have moved. Be ready for anything and remember the target may try to use his fathers as a shield. Do your best to take him alive, but don’t hesitate if you must take him down. Innocent lives take priority.”

  He got a short nod from each man. Wynhod turned to the box that the infiltrator had disabled the alarm on. “Inputting entry code,” he whispered to Gelan.

  A moment later, the door clicked open. No warning sounded. Wynhod had a look into the next room, confirmed no one waited in there, and eased inside with the rest following him.

  Chapter 4

  The officers found themselves in a utility room, where all the mechanics of the living unit were housed. Power, water, com and vid connections – all were controlled here by computer interfaces. The room was a small, blameless space, stark in its utility. Wynhod and the six-man squad barely fit inside.

  It opened into a bath facility. The sunken tub was clan-sized, much bigger than the one in Wynhod’s small quarters. It also had a huge shower area and four separat
e vanities. He thought perhaps the room was half the space of his entire apartment. He felt a twinge of want, looking at the evidence of life as a full clan.

  Dismissing hopes and dreams for the future, Wynhod led the group into the spotless facility. Now he picked up a loud voice coming from elsewhere in the home. The voice was male but pitched high, the speech frantic. He couldn’t make out what the man said, but the speaker sounded hysterical. It could be a delirious assailant or terrified victim. He couldn’t tell for sure.

  Wynhod went to the doorway that led into the rest of the home. He peered down a long hallway, its wall panels dimly lit. There were two doorways to each side of the corridor, all closed. The agitated voice seemed to be coming from the opening at the end of the hall.

  The Nobek readied his plasma rifle and slowly crept down the passage. He couldn’t hear his team following but knew they were there, also with guns at the ready. As they closed in on the end of the hall, he saw that he approached the family’s private gathering room. A firepit had been dug into the middle of the space, surrounded by large seating that offered comfort and luxury. A low table sat at one end of the room with a multifunctional entertainment-grade computer.

  Getting nearer to the room, Wynhod saw photo vids on the wall. They were clan pictures with beaming faces, along with many of a younger male. These shots had apparently been taken as Nobek Hurs had grown to manhood. Wynhod recognized his target from the pictures the squad leader had shown him.

  The room widened out to show it shared space with the dining area and large kitchen. As the low table where the clan took its meals came into view, the maddened, cracked voice Wynhod had been trying to interpret became clearer.

  “…just want to know why you won’t help me?”

  A deeper voice, quiet and soothing answered him, though Wynhod couldn’t make out what its owner said. That told him at least one of Hurs’ fathers still lived. The boy wasn’t shouting at his hallucinations yet.

  Wynhod reached the end of the hallway and peered around the corner. He saw a doorway on the far wall of the family gathering room. It led to another space that was probably the public greeting room. He spied two figures within that space, which was not as well-lit as the one he stood on the threshold of.

  One, a man about the same age as Wynhod’s surviving fathers, knelt on the floor. His gentle Imdiko face twisted in grief, tears sliding down his cheeks as he wept silently. Despite the percussion blaster held to his head, there was no fear or anger in the man’s expression. Only emotional agony, the kind Wynhod never got used to seeing though he’d been exposed to it many times since becoming a law enforcement officer. More violent crimes occurred between family members than strangers, and someone in the situation almost always looked like that.

  Standing behind his Imdiko father, Nobek Hurs was nearly unrecognizable from the still vids on the walls. The ravages of Delir addiction had turned a once handsome face gaunt and lined before its time. The skin that should be bronze had a grayish pallor. His long hair hung in greasy tangles. His whole look screamed drug abuse to anyone with eyes that could see.

  He held a blaster to the elder man’s head. Hurs’ other hand clutched the Imdiko’s curly hair tight in a fist. He looked straight ahead at someone Wynhod couldn’t see for the wall between the gathering and greeting rooms.

  The deep voice Wynhod had heard answering Hurs before spoke again. This time the officer could understand the words. “Don’t do this, my son. You will never forgive yourself if you harm your father Dran.”

  Long ropes of drool oozed from the corners of Hurs’ mouth. His eyes were so wide and staring, it seemed to Wynhod they should fall right out of his skull. It was Delir withdrawal all right, several hours old. Hurs was far gone.

  He screeched, “What about how he’s hurt me? How you’ve all hurt me?”

  Wynhod knew there was no talking sense to someone as lost as Hurs. There would be no negotiation. All that was left was the shooting and hopefully saving lives that would never be the same after this day.

  He watched how the blaster wavered in Hurs’ hand. The agitated Nobek’s elbow stayed close to his body, the perfect spot for Wynhod to aim for, disrupting the tarsal nerve and rendering useless the hand dependent on it. If done right, he would not have to kill Hurs in front of his fathers. Unfortunately, Wynhod’s angle was not quite right. If he shot from here, the plasma bolt would travel through Hurs’ arm and into his gut, tearing apart vital organs.

  The easy answer was to take the kill shot now, which would keep innocent Clan Moli alive. However, it would no doubt devastate the fathers to see their one child die, not to mention silence a potential witness to the Delir gang.

  Wynhod deliberated for no more than a second. He had learned to trust his instincts, and his gut told him to try to keep Hurs alive. He had to make the attempt, even though it put Imdiko Dran in danger of Hurs finally losing all control and firing the blaster into his skull.

  Wynhod signaled the rest of the squad to not follow but to be ready to move as soon as he fired. The sign language he used was one everyone in territorial law enforcement was familiar with, and the nods from the team assured him they were prepared.

  The quiet voice Wynhod assumed belonged to Dramok Moli spoke once more. “No one wants to hurt you, my son. We only want to help. Tell me what we can do.”

  Hurs focused on his father, allowing Wynhod to crawl very low to the ground across the gathering room floor. He reached the circle of seating cushions and peered over them. Hurs shook violently. Any moment he would break, losing the last of his sanity to the agony of withdrawal. Wynhod slid the barrel of his rifle over the cushion in front of him, letting the soft surface hold the firearm steady. He aimed carefully, getting Hurs’ elbow in his sights. Wynhod drew a calming breath and released it, waiting for Hurs’ blaster to waver just right again, giving his father a chance to survive should it go off.

  Meanwhile, Hurs reacted wildly to Dramok Moli’s last statement. Despite the quiet, controlled tone the elder man used, the young Nobek shouted, “Stop screaming at me!” His eyes shifted slightly to the right. “And you – you stop looking at me like that! I told you to keep your eyes closed!”

  A rough but careful voice, no doubt that of the Nobek father, answered, “My eyes are closed, my son. Look at me. They are closed very tightly.”

  “Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing? You think you’re so smart, that you can get to us before I blast his head off. Well, you’re wrong—”

  Hurs got no further with his threat. His blaster hand shifted up, and Wynhod decided that the opportunity was as good as it was going to get. The officer depressed the trigger of his plasma rifle.

  A bright red flare traveled from the end of Wynhod’s barrel in a stream to Hurs’ elbow. The young man’s forearm flopped downward, the blaster falling from his nerveless fingers. Wynhod had already released his own weapon, hurdling over the seating and racing through the doorway into the greeting room. The instant before Wynhod plowed into him, Hurs looked down at his arm in befuddlement, the pain of Wynhod’s shot not even registering yet.

  Wynhod took the young man down. The other enforcers were right there less than a breath later, grabbing Hurs and cuffing him in a coordinated attack. Not until he was completely helpless did the drug addict realize he’d been arrested.

  Hurs screamed. The sound was both savage and lost, giving Wynhod the chills. He’d never heard its like.

  To drown out the hideous noise, Wynhod called to his partner. “Wynhod to Gelan, we’ve got him. Send in emergency medical.”

  “They’re on their way in. I’m right behind them.”

  Wynhod checked on the three fathers of the young, deranged Nobek who shrieked fit to burst eardrums. The Dramok and Nobek were holding their shaken Imdiko as they all looked at Hurs with obvious sorrow. The sight was enough to make even Wynhod’s stoic heart ache for the trio of men.

  Emergency services and Gelan hurried into the home. One of the medics took a quic
k glance at the quaking, howling Nobek pinned to the floor by hovercuffs. In an instant, he barked, “Sedation.”

  Hurs’ lips moved around strident shrieks as they held him still for the injection. Whatever he tried to scream at them was unintelligible as he succumbed to withdrawal’s delirium. Almost as soon as the plunger finished sending the tranquilizer into his neck, Hurs’ voice cut cleanly off. He finally fell still, rescued from the madness and pain of his affliction.

  Everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as silence descended over the room. Wynhod motioned to two lower-ranking enforcers. “You’re his guards. No one without medical or security authorization goes near him.”

  They nodded and took stations on either side of the still body as a hover stretcher was brought in. The medics gently lifted the senseless Hurs onto it and placed him in stasis, standard operating procedure for someone under arrest.

  As Wynhod watched the medics float the prisoner out, a hand closed on his shoulder. He turned to face Dramok Moli, who immediately took his hand off the officer.

  The elder man, his face still miserable in the wake of his son’s meltdown, offered Wynhod a slight bow. “Thank you, Enforcer. Thank you for not killing him.” Before Wynhod could respond, the Dramok turned to Gelan, who stood next to him. “Do we need to remain here for your questions, or may we go to the hospital with Hurs?”

  Gelan regarded him with compassion. “I know your Matara will wish to leave immediately, and she will require the strength of her mates. However, I must conduct a preliminary interview. If two of you could remain behind while the other one takes her? I will make this as quick as possible.”

  Moli nodded. “Thank you, Investigator.” He turned to the still-trembling Imdiko. “Dran, go with Noma.”

  “Yes, my Dramok. Thank you, officers.” The Imdiko rushed out.

  Gelan indicated the seating cushions arranged in a conversation circle in one corner. “Let’s sit down. Can we get you something to drink?”