by Mia R Kleve
Lars didn’t bother to point out the Galactic Union considered attacking a Peacemaker a crime. Qivek had mentioned as much. “Thank you, Superintendent Richter.”
* * *
“Did she give you anything?” Qivek asked as soon as they left the building.
Lars checked the street. Still no sign of their ride. “No. She doesn’t appreciate outsiders tromping around on her turf, much less shooting it up. The suspect is in a hospital.”
“The University of Magdeburg Hospital, Room 514,” Ozor stated. “The suspect’s name is Torben Uller. I have his home address as well.”
Lars glanced over his shoulder toward the police headquarters. “How do you know?”
“I hacked their system. Their Aethernet security protocols are…quaint,” the spider replied.
A rumble from down the block drew Lars attention. A six-wheeled military vehicle rounded the corner. Dents and burns marred the armor and one of the headlights flickered.
“A Mercedes Type-59 Light Logistics Rumbler,” Ozor stated. A click-whine heralded the emergence of her laser.
“Hold your fire. I’d hate for you to shoot our ride,” Lars said.
“This hunk of junk?” Qivek scowled as the LLR ground to a halt. “It’s seen more years than you, Special Lars.”
The top hatch flipped open. A man Lars’ age poked his head out. “You called for a ride, ja?”
“Not exactly subtle, Jost,” Lars called.
“You want subtle, you get a little meep-meep car,” Jost retorted, grinning under his sunglasses. “Your pals, they won’t fit in a meep-meep car, nein? I’ll drop the ramp; climb aboard.”
“Great, another Human merc with an excess of personality,” Qivek muttered.
“How did you know Jost was a merc?” Lars asked as they ascended the ramp. Ozor brought up the rear. She had to hold her legs close as she entered the cargo compartment.
“He didn’t give Ozor a second glance,” Qivek replied.
“Detective Nilsson! What do you think? Should we paint it blue and white?” Jost crouched in the entrance to the cab. “Maybe we could put a spinning light on top?”
“Very funny. This is Jost Schlueter, a logistics specialist for Interpol and a few other parties best not named. Jost, these are Peacemakers Qivek and Ozor.”
Jost flicked two fingers from his forehead in an impromptu salute. “I never heard of Tortantula and Flatar Peacemakers, but it makes sense.”
“What mercenary unit did you serve in?” Ozor asked.
“The Rhine Raiders.” Jost rolled up his right sleeve to expose a pair of overlapping runic Rs. “We were a small unit and didn’t have a ride off world when Peepo hit. It’s a sad story to tell later over some schnapps. We should roll before the constables give us a ticket.”
“The University Hospital,” Qivek ordered, hopping on a bench. “We should pay Torben Uller a visit.”
“Sounds fun!” Jost disappeared into the cab. Six powerful electric motors hummed, and the rumbler lurched into motion.
Lars grabbed an overhead bar. “You can’t waltz into the hospital. As soon as anyone sees Ozor, they’ll freak out and call the police.”
“We have two hours until the sun sets,” Ozor said. “We could get some food, and once it’s dark go to the hospital.”
“Food, huh? Fine.” Lars turn toward the front of the vehicle. “Jost, can you find us a drive-through?”
“Ja! I’ll swing through a Burger Meister. How many double Meister Burgers do you want?”
* * *
One guard played on his phone while the other dozed. Even though they flanked the hospital room door, Qivek could have slipped past them without Lars’s help. However, Lars didn’t trust the blood-thirsty rodent alone with the suspect.
“Hey, guys.” Lars presented his badge. The sleepy guard sat up and scrutinized the identification, but the other one kept his eyes glued to his phone. “Special Detective Lars Nilsson, Interpol. I have some questions for the suspect.”
“Us local yokels can’t handle the investigation?” Sleepy demanded.
Lars raised his hand. “I get it. You don’t want outsiders mucking around in your jurisdiction. I only need a few questions for a case I’m stuck with so I can keep my captain off my back. Can you help me out?”
“Let him ask his questions,” the other guard said, tapping on his phone. “The prisoner isn’t going anywhere.”
“Fine.” Sleepy leaned back in his chair.
Lars entered the room and closed the door behind him. Uller was asleep or unconscious. Electronic beeps sounded from the monitors wired to the terrorist.
“Took you long enough,” Qivek said, climbing onto the hospital bed.
“A little professional courtesy can go a long way. You should try it some time,” Lars retorted.
Qivek pulled out a syringe the size of a toothpick and fiddled with a dial wrapped around the device.
“What’s that?” Lars asked.
“A nanite applicator loaded with interrogation nanites,” Qivek replied. “I’m going to wake him.”
“Hang on a second.” Lars lightly slapped Uller on the cheek a couple times.
The man stirred and his eyes fluttered open. Recognition blossomed in his eyes once he spotted Qivek. “What…what are you doing here?” he croaked.
“It should be obvious. Someone sent you to kill the Peacemakers. They want to know who,” Lars replied. He never thought he’d play good cop to an overgrown rodent.
Qivek grabbed the man’s beard. “Tell us who put out the hit on us!”
When Uller balked, Lars jerked a thumb toward the window. “If you’re not afraid of the chipmunk, you should worry about his partner.”
Ozor tapped on the glass and waved her pedipalps. Uller paled, and one of the monitoring devices beeped faster.
“Here’s the best part.” Lars leaned in close and lowered his voice. “She’s also a master hacker. Before she eats you, she’s going to send your mother all your porn account logins.”
* * *
“You primates are messed up,” Qivek remarked as they climbed into the rumbler. “You’re more afraid of reproduction than a Tortantula eating you one limb at a time.”
“You’re oversimplifying it,” Lars protested.
“Is he wrong?” Ozor asked.
Lars sat and pulled out his phone. “Unfortunately, no. At least we got the info.”
“You pulled the old porno ploy again? Hah!” Jost called from the cab. “Threatened to send his wife his browser history?”
“I told him we’d send his mother his porn site logins,” Lars replied. “He sang like a canary.”
“Where to?” Jost asked, powering on the rumbler.
“Lager Haus on Hallische Street.” Lars retrieved the address on his phone and sent it to Jost.
“Got it! Not exactly an upscale establishment.” Jost called. “You don’t want me to park out front, nein?”
“No. Park a block away.” Lars regarded the Peacemakers. “If I’m going to chat with an anti-alien activist, you two won’t make him talkative.”
“It worked with Uller,” Ozor countered.
“Only because he couldn’t run away or throw a bunch of goons at us,” Lars said. He knew, as soon as Qivek and Ozor appeared the target would rabbit. “I need to go in…Jost how adventurous are you feeling?”
“Danger with a chance of schnapps? Count me in!” Jost declared.
“It’s okay; I’m used to being left to monitor,” Ozor lamented. “Qivek, give Detective Nilsson one of our comm buttons.”
The Flatar climbed one of the spider’s legs and opened a pouch on her harness. “Special Lars, let me see your earpiece.”
“Special Lars!” Jost laughed from the cab.
Lars plucked out the earpiece and handed it to the rodent. Qivek set a slate the size of an old-fashioned business card on the bench and placed both the earpiece and a black disc on top of it. After a moment the slate’s display flashed amber.
Qivek handed the disc and the earpiece to Lars. He waited for Lars to replace his earpiece. “I’ve synced it through your translator. Keep the button on your person, and we’ll be able to hear what’s going on.”
“Fine.” Lars tucked the button in his jacket pocket. He’d do some actual police work instead of playing zookeeper. He studied the profile Ozor downloaded to his phone. Gerold Bender—suspected cell leader of Humanity First, alleged connections in the gray market, and top dog of a statewide gang. “This guy is going to be a barrel of laughs.”
The whine of the motors dropped in pitch as the rumbler slowed. “I hope this is a legal lot. I’d hate for someone to boot our ride!” Jost called.
* * *
The hulking doorman gave Lars and Jost a side-eye, but he didn’t impede them. Jost gave him a friendly nod and a thumbs up. Some sort of merc recognition? With Jost, it was hard to tell. Muffled electronic music thrummed in the vestibule. Stepping into the tavern proper, the bass-heavy electronica reduced nearby conversations to indistinct murmurs.
Lars’ eyes stung from the mix of smoke and vapor. The proscribed smoking would prompt an inspector to shut down the establishment, but Lars guessed the bar was on a list of businesses that received less than thorough visits.
Lars blinked his eyes clear as they wove through the crowd filling the dimly lit tables. The illumination brightened marginally over the bar. Lars gestured to a heavily tattooed bartender for two beers. He didn’t care about the brand, the drinks were props as much as anything.
As the bartender set down two glasses, Jost leaned forward. “You got brennivín? You know, Icelandic schnapps?” The bartender shook her head, so Jost pointed at a bottle on the shelf and gestured for a double.
Lars grudgingly paid for the drinks and scanned the crowd. “I’ve got him,” Lars muttered. Bender was sitting with half a dozen other people at a table near the billiards.
“Where at?” Qivek demanded. A weird reverb from the music accompanied his translated voice.
“Sitting toward the back, near the pool tables,” Lars replied. He gulped half his beer and abandoned the remainder on the bar. Lars tapped Jost. “Come on.”
Jost downed his shot and guzzled most of his beer. “Already? I was going to get the bartender’s Aethernet ID.”
Lars led the way along the bar, studying Bender’s group. Two of the women and one man were hangers-on, probably hoping to exchange their companionship for drugs or some other accommodation. The other two men could pass for gang members out of any entertainment video. The women flirting with them occupied their attention. The third woman, Lars didn’t discount—she’d already spotted him approaching. Her wary stance bespoke someone intimately familiar with violence. The third woman nudged Bender and pointed at Lars. Lars kept his hands clear of his jacket.
“What do you want, policeman?” Bender demanded once Lars approached within earshot.
Lars held out his phone and displayed his Interpol identity card. “I have a few questions. We can do this here, or we can step outside.”
“Get lost, policeman,” Bender sneered. The two gang-stereotypes stood. “I don’t have anything to tell you.”
“We don’t have to do this the hard way,” Lars stated.
“What he said!” Jost yelled over the music. “I’d rather be drinking.”
Bender laughed. “You’re outnumbered. Go away, policeman, while you and your friend can still walk.”
Qivek leapt onto the table and jammed his pistol in Bender’s face. “Please, let’s do this the hard way, primate. I can shoot through your thick skull and take out one of your buddies in the bargain.”
Bender froze. Whether or not he could hear the Peacemaker’s translator, Qivek had made his meaning clear. The woman drew a pistol and aimed it at the Flatar. The crowd, sensing something amiss, quieted around them. The groupies disappeared into the surrounding throng.
“Screw you and your alien gopher!” Bender shouted, fear creeping into his voice as he stared down the gun.
Qivek kicked Bender’s phone across the table to Lars and hopped onto a vacated chair. “You might not be afraid of me, you dumb Human, but you forgot about my partner.”
With a shriek of metal and shattering glass, Ozor peeled open a skylight. The spider leaned into the opening and a triangle of glowing red dots appeared on the table. The dots tracked across the table to the pistol-wielding woman.
“Put the gun away, or she’ll laze you extra-crispy,” Lars ordered. The woman holstered her pistol and raised her hands. Competent and smart.
“Who told you we were coming?” Qivek demanded, glaring at Bender. “Who paid you to kill us?”
“I’d answer the Peacemaker.” Lars pocketed Bender’s phone. “Unlike Earth cops, they can do whatever they want to a suspect, including eating them.” He jerked a thumb skyward.
“Erhardt, Konrad Erhardt. He wired the money in galactic credits and sent me a dossier.” Bender scowled. “He claimed sympathy to—”
“Whatever, primate,” Qivek interrupted. “I should shoot you as an example. You don’t fuck with Peacemakers.”
“We’ve got what we need,” Lars said. “Leaving him alive encourages others to be more cooperative in the future.”
Qivek hopped off the chair. “Fine.”
Snap!
The center of the table disappeared in a flash. The glowing triangle moved in the direction of the door. The crowd parted, scrambling out of its path.
“Don’t get any funny ideas about following us,” Lars stated, nodding toward the smoking hole.
* * *
“No brawl, no phone number, and hardly any schnapps,” Jost lamented as they climbed into the LLR. “Where to now?”
“We need to pay Mr. Erhardt a visit before they figure out how to warn him,” Lars replied. He held Bender’s phone toward Ozor. “I’m guessing you can hack this?”
“Its antiquity will make it more of a challenge than the encryption.” the Tortantula reached out with a pedipalp. “This design dates to a millennia ago.”
“Jost, head for Braunschweig. Erhardt has a house north of there,” Lars called toward the cab.
“Let’s see what this rumbler can do on the autobahn!”
It was just as well Jost didn’t have time for more schnapps.
In a few minutes, the phone chimed. “The messages in the cache confirm his story,” Ozor stated, swaying as the rumbler rounded a corner. “Konrad Erhardt used two layers of aliases and a virtual private network spoofing his location in Canada. He’s not good at being a criminal and covering his tracks.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Lars said. “If we get a hold of him, we could find out where the leak in Lockerbie originated.”
“As long as he can point us at the missing manufactories,” Qivek said. “Lockerbie didn’t pay us to hunt down moles. We’d offer it at a discount, since we’re already on a case for them, but it could alert the spy.”
“Speaking of which, if Erhardt spills the beans, we need to keep him from alerting whoever pulls his strings.” Lars searched for info on Binnig’s local operations. One of the missing manufactories was from Hanover. Did the conspiracy spread beyond the local branch of Binnig? Binnig numbered among the top corporations on Earth.
“We’ll get there in twenty minutes!” Jost yelled from the front as the rumbler accelerated. They must have reached the autobahn.
Ozor set a slate on the floor, and a holographic image of Erhardt’s property appeared over it. “I’ve accessed the home virtual assistant. The suspect’s family is out of town on a trip, so the only people present are Konrad Erhardt and four private security guards. Interesting, Erhardt’s original schedule placed him with his family, but he suddenly returned two days ago.”
A truck horn sounded, and the rumbler swerved, forcing Lars to grab hold of his seat. “Jost! Try not to get us killed!”
“Ja, ja. Don’t worry. The other guys don’t have armor!”
“Four guards? Sounds eas
y,” Qivek remarked. “As long as they aren’t mercenaries in mecha armor.”
“You mean CASPers? Since Binnig manufactures Combat Assault Systems, Personal, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Lars remarked.
“Based on security footage, I do not see any CASPers on the premises. All security personnel appear to be unaugmented,” Ozor reported. Four of her eyes flicked back and forth in the manner of someone reading. “Interior footage is limited to the entry points, but the doors are not scaled to accommodate the armored suits.”
“A pity. It could have been a challenge,” Qivek remarked.
“The guards may balk at admitting us without a warrant,” Lars said. It would take him longer to fill out the first request form than it would to arrive at Erhardt’s home.
“Peacemakers don’t need warrants,” Qivek snapped.
“I’m not a Peacemaker,” Lars replied. Technically, he didn’t have arrest powers except under extraordinary circumstances.
“I’m deputizing you, Special Lars,” Qivek announced. “Ozor, do the honors.”
The spider swiped her pedipalp across the slate. Lars’ UAAC chimed, and a logo with a blue tree blinked on it.
“Hey, can I be a deputy?” Jost yelled from the front. “It might help if we get pulled over.”
Qivek shrugged. “Why not?” Ozor swiped the slate again.
The commandant would have a fit if he found out. Lars smiled. The commandant had ordered him to expedite the investigation and get the aliens out of Earth police affairs.
* * *
“We’re almost to the gate!” Jost yelled. “Should I stop and honk the horn?”
Lars clambered forward. Pocket estates lined the road, one walled yard after another. Their destination lay at the end of the road on the left. He slipped into the safety restraint. “Go through it.”