by G J Ogden
“Do you know what these ‘irregularities’ were that the last Fleet crew found?” Sterling asked the bored-looking administrator.
Reese shook her head. “Something about unusual off-book transmissions,” she shrugged again. “But I checked the logs and found nothing, so I don’t know what the hell they were talking about. A day later, those three workers you’re here about went AWOL.”
Sterling glanced at Banks, who was also frowning. There was clearly more to the disappearance of the workers than Sterling had been told and, so far, nothing made sense.
“I’ll tell you this for free, Captain,” Reese then added, drawing Sterling’s gaze back to the administrator. “You won’t find anyone on New Danvers who is turned, if that’s why you’re here. Hell, the Sa’Nerra wouldn’t need to turn half the people here to get us to see their side of things.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?” snapped Banks. Any talk of sympathizing with the enemy always drew an immediate and aggressive reaction from her. “They’re butchers who have been killing us by the thousands for the last fifty years.”
“Seems to me those emissaries are trying to end the war peacefully,” Reese hit back. “Yet all Fleet wants us to do is make more beams and more deck plates and more rivets, so you can build more damned warships. And now here you are, accusing us of being spies and traitors,” she snorted derisively. “Fleet has a damned cheek.”
“The emissaries are liars,” replied Banks, practically growling the words at the administrator. Her hand had tightened around the PDA and Sterling could hear the casing creak under the pressure of her grip. “They’ll destroy earth and kill us all if we don’t stop them.”
“So you Fleet types keep saying, Commander,” Reese hit back, unmoved by Banks’ impassioned riposte. “All I know is that my people work day and night with no thanks and no possibility of reprieve. It’s no better than prison labor.”
“Fleet make sacrifices too, Administrator, Sterling cut in. “I’ve lost count of the number of officers and crew that had died in this war. But if we lose, everyone dies.”
“The war has to end someday, Captain,” Reese replied, her tone as icy and cold as the rain dripping off Sterling’s jacket. “So what if it ends with us losing?” The administrator gestured to her two henchman who moved over to one of the internal doors and pulled it open. “Death can’t be any worse than another fifty years of this crap,” she added, glancing back at Sterling.
Curiously, Sterling didn’t see anger or bitterness in the administrator’s eyes, but resignation. Like many of those on the factory worlds, she had likely been born on New Danvers and had known nothing else. The average life expectancy of a factory worker was twenty years lower than the Fleet average, and the rate of accidental deaths and suicides was the highest in all sectors of United Governments society. Even so, for Reese to suggest death as an acceptable resolution to the workers’ perpetual condition was shocking, even to someone who had seen and experienced loss on the level Sterling had done.
“I trust you have everything you need, Captain?” Reese added, though she left no time for Sterling to reply before continuing. “Notify me when you intend to leave.” Administrator Reese then turned her back on Sterling and Banks and sauntered out of the room, closely followed by her two stocky companions.
“Something doesn’t add up about this mission,” mused Banks, who had returned to studying the PDA. “People go missing all the time, usually because they’re on drug-fueled benders. In the week since the three we’re here to investigate went AWOL, a dozen more have disappeared from this sector alone.”
Sterling stepped closer to Banks and peered down at the screen of the PDA. The device was grubby and old, and the screen was cracked, though Sterling couldn’t be sure that the latter damage wasn’t due to Banks’ excessive grip.
“The difference is that the others all turn up sooner or later,” said Sterling, looking at the incident reports. “They’re either caught and made to work even harder as punishment, or they wash up dead in one of drainage channels.”
Banks highlighted a recent incident report and her eyes grew wide. “The homicide rate here is worse than in an entire season of ‘The Streets of New LA’,” she said, referring to a popular Fleet crime drama on TV. “This place might actually benefit from the Sa’Nerra bombing it from orbit.”
Sterling huffed a laugh then found himself instinctively placing his hand onto his pistol. Rather than making Administrator Reese nervous, she had made him feel even more on-edge and under threat. “Let’s check out the quarters of these missing workers,” he said, feeling suddenly exposed. “Hopefully, we can wrap this up quickly and get the hell off this planet.”
“Should I get Shade to provide a security escort?” Banks asked. She waved the pad at Sterling. The screen was still showing the last month’s homicide report. “I don’t want to end up as another statistic.”
Sterling shook his head. “No, we’ll just draw even more attention to ourselves,” he replied.
Then he glanced down at his SIB uniform, remembering Banks’ comment about how it was like having a target painted on their backs. Across the other side of the terminal room, he saw some lighter rain jackets hanging above the drainage grates. He pulled off his SIB jacket and swapped it with the jacket on the hanger.
“What do you think?” he asked, stretching his arms out wide to give Banks a better look.
“I think it looks like that jacket is older than you are,” Banks replied. “But I guess it’ll help us blend in a little more.”
Banks then swapped her jacket for one on another of the hangers. However, as she pulled it on, her nose turned up in disgust.
“Hell, this smells worse than one of your sweat-soaked t-shirts,” she complained.
“You should be used to it then,” Sterling hit back. He removed his weapons belt and hung it on the rack before sliding his pistol into the pocket of his new jacket. “Come on, let’s go and play detectives,” he said, waiting for Banks to conceal her own pistol.
“I’m sure we’ll just find these missing people in a gutter somewhere,” Banks said, zipping up the pocket where she’d hidden her pistol.
“To hell with the missing workers, I want to know why Wessel was here a week ago,” Sterling hit back, fixing Banks with a meditative stare. “That asshole is up to something, and I’m willing to bet that whatever it is, it’s not good news for us.”
Chapter 9
Shift Seven Seven
Banks stood guard while Sterling approached the door to the missing worker’s apartment in the residential sector. Wiping a layer of grime from the name plaque with the sleeve of his jacket, Sterling read the name out loud.
“Amy Camargo. I think she was the first on the list of three names that Wessel gave us.”
Banks glanced at the name plaque, while still keeping half an eye on the corridor. The residential sector was a constant hive of activity and it was taking all of their concentration to stay alert to potential dangers.
“Shall we be polite and knock?” asked Banks, with a wry smile.
“That’s not really our style, is it?” said Sterling, returning his first officer’s mischievous smile. He then tried the handle of the old-fashioned door, but it was locked. “See if you can get this open while I watch the corridor,” he added, stepping aside.
Banks moved in front of the door and took two steps back. Sterling could see her insanely powerful thigh muscle tense up.
“I mean hack it with the PDA Reese gave us, not kick it down,” Sterling said, speaking up quickly enough to stop Banks in her tracks. “That hardly counts as us being discreet, does it?”
“I guess not, but I prefer my way,” grumbled Banks, removing the PDA that the facility’s administrator had given them from her jacket pocket.
“We’ll try your way next, if the PDA doesn’t work,” replied Sterling. His hand was also pressed inside his jacket pocket, although his was wrapped around the grip of his plasma pistol rather than a
PDA. It had been this way for almost all of their journey on foot through the sprawling residential sector of the factory complex. Despite their worker-style jackets providing some camouflage, Sterling and Banks had still stuck out compared to the residents of the sector. The hundreds of off-shift workers who were milling around the recreational zones had a distinct fashion and style that was worlds apart from the regimental orderliness of Sterling and Banks’ appearance. However, the real giveaway that neither of them belonged on New Danvers was the tattoos – everyone had them while Sterling and Banks did not. Even so, despite frequent suspicious glances and whispered comments as they progressed deeper into the complex, no-one stopped them or even spoke a word to them.
Banks hurriedly worked on the PDA, then held the device to the door lock. A few seconds later the mechanism operated. She tried the handle of the hinged-door and it swung open with a fatigued groan.
“See, no excessive violence required,” Sterling said, removing the pistol from his pocket and stepping inside the room.
“Not yet, anyway,” Banks replied, still covering the corridor.
Sterling switched on the lights, which fizzed and blinked like archaic neon tubes. However, once the room had finally been bathed in the grubby yellow glow from the strip lights, it was clear that no-one was home.
“And I thought the standard crew quarters on the Invictus were compact,” said Sterling, slipping the pistol back inside his pocket. “This has to be half the size.”
Banks followed Sterling inside and closed the door. The yellow lights inside the apartment hummed like a choir made up entirely of diseased bees.
“This place certainly looks lived in,” commented Banks, which Sterling took as code to mean that the apartment was filthy. Empty food containers littered the floor and dirty clothes were piled up on the compact two-seater sofa, which appeared to double-up as a bed. “I think we need to get a deep-cleaning crew in here, before we start rummaging around.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Sterling, dropping to a crouch and staring at a stain on the metal deck plating. “This looks like blood.”
Banks moved closer and dropped down beside Sterling, using the torch function of the PDA to illuminate the patch in more clarity.
“Are you sure it isn’t just hot sauce?” she quipped. Sterling shot her a look that told her in no uncertain terms that her humor – as usual – was misplaced.
“I’ve seen enough blood to know the difference between DNA and sauce,” Sterling hit back.
Following the trail of blood splats Sterling found himself looking over at the door. Taking Banks’ hand, he redirected the aim of the torchlight on the PDA so that it was shining on the door handle. Another dark smear was visible, coating the handle and the panel of the door surrounding it.
“Looks like Miss Camargo didn’t go willingly,” said Sterling, standing up. He then cursed and shook his head. “None of this is making any sense,” he said, as much to himself as to his first-officer.
The handle of the door was suddenly pressed down from the opposite side. Sterling felt his heart-rate spike and he pulled the pistol from his pocket as the door creaked open. The tattooed face of a man appeared through the crack. He immediately spotted Sterling and Banks, eyes growing wide with surprise, then slammed the door shut. The thud of fading bootsteps was then heard outside.
“Shit, we have to get after him!” Sterling called out, grabbing the handle and yanking the door open.
Banks rushed out first, barging through a group of off-shift workers and scattering them to the floor like ten-pins. Sterling followed, blocking out the angry curses and aggressive shoves of the workers as they climbed to their feet, and raced after her.
“I don’t see him,” Sterling said, as he caught up with Banks, who had already reached a junction in the labyrinthine residential sector.
“There! Black jacket with ‘Shift Seven Seven’ on the back,” cried Banks, pointing along the corridor to her right before setting off at a sprint.
Sterling still didn’t see the man, but he followed his first officer anyway, his progress made easier by the fact Banks had steamrolled more off-shift workers out of her way as she went.
“Go to neural!” Sterling yelled, tapping his neural interface and running after his first officer.
More angry curses and waved fists were hurled in his direction as he leapt over the bodies of factory workers who had been flattened by the momentum of Mercedes Banks. He felt wetness splash across his face and realized that some of the workers were spitting at him as he went. The mass of bodies in his path continued to impede his progress and soon Banks had widened her lead over him.
“I can’t keep up with you, but don’t let the man out of your sight,” Sterling said over their neural link.
Their quarry then made a sharp right, leaping over a makeshift barrier with the words “No Entry” written in bold red letters. Banks continued her pursuit, smashing though the barrier like it was made of Styrofoam. The worker with the “Shift 77” jacket then ran up a flight of metal stairs, pushing through a door that led into a maintenance area. Banks hammered through the door moments later and Sterling lost sight of her.
“Mercedes, hold up!” Sterling called out through their neural link, but he could feel his connection to Banks fading. The dense metal construction of the residential district and sheer mass of other minds around him were making it difficult to maintain a link. “Get out of my way!” Sterling yelled, pushing irate workers aside in a desperate effort to reach his first officer. He took a punch to the back and more spittle landed on his jacket and neck, causing the fire in his belly to ignite. Sterling hammered a left cross into the face of the worker who had spat on him, then raised his plasma pistol and fired into the air. “Get back, right now!” Sterling yelled as debris from the blast rained down on the crowd. Most of the workers did as he ordered, but one man made the mistake of taking another swing at him. Sterling ducked under the wild right hand then hammered an elbow strike to the worker’s throat. The man rocked back and Sterling blasted him in the foot, destroying it below the ankle. The worker cried out in pain and collapsed to the deck, grasping his shin as if he’d just received a brutal soccer tackle. Sterling aimed his pistol at the rest of the crowd. “I said get back, now!” he yelled again, and this time the crowd obeyed.
Suddenly, alarms blared out inside the corridor and a strip of red light across the top of the wall pulsed on and off, bathing the faces of the workers in a blood-red hue. It reminded Sterling of the general alert condition on the Invictus, except on this occasion, Sterling was not surrounded by the safety of his bridge and crew.
“Security Alert, weapons discharge detected,” an automated announcement blared out over a PA system. “All workers are to immediately return to their quarters. Repeat, all workers are to immediately return to their quarters.”
The crowd thinned rapidly as panicked workers ran away along the corridors in order to comply with the directive. However, three men held their ground. Sterling saw one of them pull an improvised blade from inside his oversized brown jacket and come forward.
“You don’t want to do this,” said Sterling, aiming his pistol at the man. “I will kill you.”
The man didn’t react and continued his measured advance. His two companions spread out behind him, also drawing shards of what looked like metal or sharpened plastic from their jackets. Under the blood-red alert lights, Sterling could just make out the number ‘77’ tattooed below the man’s right eye. Glancing across to the other two workers, he noticed that both had the same tattoo in the exact the same location.
“Last warning,” Sterling said standing his ground. “One more step, and you’re dead.”
The worker stopped and smiled, then Sterling was grabbed from behind. He felt a wire tighten around his throat and instinctively he pushed back, pressing his head against his attacker and stepping into him. With some of the pressure relieved, Sterling reached up and grabbed the wire that had b
een wrapped around his neck. Twisting his body into the man, he struck his attacker in the groin, forcing the man to relinquish his hold before blasting him at point blank range.
The other attackers were on top of him before the dead worker even hit the ground, but Sterling managed to keep hold of his pistol. Firing again, he blasted the kneecap off another attacker, blowing the man’s leg off below the knee. Sterling then felt metal and plastic shards stabbing his flesh, but the thick worker’s jacket he was wearing stopped the blades from penetrating too deeply into his body. His pistol was then knocked from his grasp, but Sterling did not let up. Evading another strike, Sterling caught his attackers’ arm and broke it at the wrist, causing the man to scream in pain. Stripping the shard from his attackers’ grasp, Sterling then plunged it into the man’s neck and hammered it deep into his flesh with a powerful palm strike.
Only one man now remained, and this one quickly turned and fled. Sterling spotted his plasma pistol on the ground and recovered it before taking aim and firing. The plasma blast obliterated the worker’s right shoulder, sending him down, screaming in agony. Sterling pursued, shaking off the pain of his own stab injuries and kicked the man over onto his back.
“Who are you?!” Sterling yelled, aiming his pistol at the man’s head. “Answer me now!”
“It was a job that’s all!” the man cried, cradling his injured shoulder.
Sterling kicked the man’s hands away and stepped on his neck. “Who paid you?!” he yelled. “Tell me!”
Sterling then caught sight of another figure in his peripheral vision and dropped to a crouch moments before a gunshot rang out in the corridor. Sterling fired back, missing the man by inches as more bullets flew toward him, skipping off the deck and walls with sharp metallic pings. Sterling held his nerve and fired again, hitting the gunman in the gut. The blast hollowed out the worker’s intestines and spilled the contents of his stomach onto the deck. Sterling continued to cover the gunman for a couple of seconds to make sure he was dead then returned his aim to the man on the ground. However, the worker with the ‘77’ tattoo was already dead, blood oozing from a bullet wound to the top of his skull.