Eclipse

by James Swallow

  "Uh-huh," said Royd, who then sneezed.

  Dave's attention wandered to the drive-thru window and what he saw made his eyes widen. "Hey, you guys! We got company!"

  Larry followed Dave's outstretched hand and saw the distinctive shape of a Lawmaster weaving between the trailing traffic, closing on the Autobank. "Crem! We ain't ready to go yet!"

  "Royd, get Joe outta the vault," snapped Dave. "We'll take what we got and scram."

  "No way!" said Larry, twisting the control setting on the weather gun to "Chill." "I'll deal with this. We take it all, right? I mean, we don't want to look like amateurs when they show us on MC-1's Most Wanted."

  "Dredd to dispatch, am approaching with caution. Get traffic control to set up a roadblock at the Bleeker off-ramp. I'll deal with this."

  "Control here, that's a roj."

  Gunning the Lawmaster's engine, Dredd brought the bike in line with the drive-thru ramp and hesitated, calculating the angles of approach. Movement at the rear of the mobile bank caught his eye and a figure emerged from cover, the bulky shape of a weapon in his hand. Without conscious thought, Dredd's training took over and he veered the bike out of the firing line, just as Larry depressed the firing stud.

  An actinic flash of blue light leapt from the muzzle of the weather gun and struck the road with a crackling discharge of energy. Where it hit, rimes of ice instantly blossomed into existence, spreading over the asphalt in a broad fan. Super-cooled air buffeted the Judge as sleet and snow formed around him. Dredd gripped the handlebars grimly and worked the bike with his knees and arms, turning into a fierce skid as the Lawmaster's Firerock tyres lost purchase on the road. Dredd was dimly aware of wheels screeching behind him as mo-pads and robo-trucks spun out on the ice field. Larry hosed the weather gun across the road, painting white swathes of frost along Dredd's path. Any second now, the Lawmaster would flip over and send its rider tumbling along the highway at hundreds of kilometres per hour; it was a chance the Judge refused to take.

  Dredd revved the Notron 4000 engine and aimed the bike squarely at the Autobank's rear. Spitting wet slush and chips of ice, the Lawmaster rocketed forward, even as inertia dragged it down. Dredd coiled his muscles and pushed off the saddle, arms outstretched. For one agonising instant, he seemed to be suspended in mid-air, and the next, his gloves caught on to a maintenance ladder and held. The Judge hauled himself up to safety, turning in time to see his bike vanish beneath the wheels of a massive roadliner. Pausing to draw his pistol, Dredd considered the Lawmaster; how many of them had he lost in the line of duty since his first days on the street? Fifty, sixty? It would mean more paperwork to complete when he returned to the Sector House at the shift's end - but for now he had more important concerns.

  Working his way over the vehicle's hull, Dredd dropped down on to the drive-thru ramp. A wrecked robot lay in a sizzling heap, torn out from one of the teller's stations and in a corner, the Judge found an injured man, his face and hands lobster-red from what appeared to be sunburn. "How many in there?" Dredd asked.

  "Fuh-four, Judge. One of 'em got me with a huh-heat ray."

  "Stay put. Help is on the way."

  Dredd crouched and made his way towards the bank entrance. Parked on the exit ramp was a sleek Korvette Slabster on auto, doors open, the engine idling. Taking aim with the Lawgiver, Dredd selected an incendiary round from the magazine.

  "I lost him!" Larry shouted. "He went around the back!"

  "I saw the bike go. He's gotta be dead," Big Dave added, as Joe and Royd emerged from the vault. Joe had two large carryalls in each hand, the zippers straining to hold in the wads of currency and Dave forgot all about the Judge when he saw them.

  Joe Dexter's face was split in a grin. "First thing I'm going to get me is one of those luxy-apts in Central. Then a face change, make me look like Conrad Conn..."

  "You won't be getting nothing if that Judge is still around!" spat Royd. "Where's the getaway car?"

  Big Dave opened his mouth to answer but the words he spoke were lost in the sudden report of an explosion from the vehicle ramp. Larry's jaw dropped as he caught sight of the car vanishing in a puff of orange flames. Joe clutched the moneybags like long-lost children and Royd swore. None of the Dexter gang were looking the right way when Judge Dredd came through the doors at a run, picking out his targets.

  He gave a mandatory challenge. "Weapons down, creeps! I won't ask again!"

  "Take him out!" Dave shouted, firing off a round from his shot-blaster.

  Dredd ducked and rolled, coming up behind a display screen and fired on the move. "Leg shot!" The standard execution round cut a supersonic course across the bank and shattered Big Dave's left kneecap, exiting the other side in a puff of blood. The eldest Dexter crumpled, screaming.

  Royd fired wildly, his autopistol chattering, bullet discharges chewing through plasteen wall panels and blasting apart desks. Some of the citizens and bank staff cried or whimpered, trying to lose themselves in the thin mist.

  Dredd shot back at Royd, but the perp was quicker, dodging behind a pillar. The Judge watched as the gunman he'd encountered earlier ducked out of hiding to grab at the bags of cash.

  "Spug off!" Joe hissed. "We go together or not at all, Larry!"

  Larry Dexter made a pained face and reset the weather gun to "Gale". "Fine. We'll blow this helmet-head out the door!" He pulled the trigger and a concentrated blast of air boomed from the rifle, blowing a hole in the glasseen roof.

  Dredd was ready when Larry's head popped up from cover and he fired; the bullet creased Dexter's cheek and embedded itself in the delicate electronics of his weapon. Larry tensed as the weather gun arced and vibrated. Without any intervention on his part, the gun's control switched over to "Hurricane" setting and hummed into life once more.

  The weather gun coughed out a cone of force that tore across the inside of the bank, scattering papers and anything else that wasn't tied down into a vortex of racing wind. Larry held on to the weapon as the discharge slammed him back into Joe and sent the carryalls flying. The bags tore open and a storm of credit notes rippled into the air.

  "Grud, no! The money!" Royd yelled, his gun falling away as he desperately tried to grab at armfuls of fluttering cash.

  Larry struggled to deactivate the weather gun, but the weapon's gravity-energy coils were red-hot with overload and it continued to spit out a whirlwind inside the confines of the bank. Dredd wedged himself behind a stanchion and held on as the gale tore at him. Outside, a trail of debris spewed out into the Autobank's wake, thousands upon thousands of credits streaming into the air.

  Royd hugged a million or so to his chest and grinned, but only for a moment. The edge of the continuous blast from weather gun caught his legs and threw him upward. Dredd watched the perp go tumbling past him in a mess of flailing limbs, up and out of the hole in the roof. The Judge's jaw hardened; the next victim could be an innocent.

  Summoning all his strength, Dredd braced himself against the wall and aimed his pistol at Larry Dexter. It took just one shot.

  "Armour piercing," Dredd shouted over the wind and the audio-selector in the Lawgiver obeyed, chambering the round. The bullet struck home, cutting through the weather gun's power core and into Dexter's chest. Like a switch being flipped, the miniature hurricane died away and drifts of paper and banknotes settled to the floor.

  Joe Dexter swore and held up his hands in surrender. Beside him, Larry was coughing up blood but was still alive. "Joe! Joe!" he choked, his voice urgent.

  "It's okay, cuz. You'll be fine," Joe said wearily, as Dredd cuffed him.

  "Who cares about that?" Larry managed. "We got busted by Judge Dredd! That means we'll get on MegCrimeWatch for sure!"

  The Mobi-Cred came to a halt at the Bleeker Street roadblock and Dredd found an H-Wagon waiting on the megway. The traffic control supervisor, Judge Evans, nodded at the blocky aircraft. "Got a call from Justice Central while you were busy in there. Chief Judge Hershey wants you in her office. Expedite immediate."


  "I'm the arresting Judge. I need to stay on site until the situation's locked down."

  "Negative, Dredd. I've been told to take over here. That H-Wagon will get you to the Grand Hall."

  Dredd grimaced; he didn't like leaving a job half-finished, but orders from the Chief Judge were not to be ignored.

  "Look on the bright side," Evans continued in a dour voice. "At least you won't have to do the paperwork. You won't have to be there when accounts division hear you let a few million credits blow over the whole of Sector 40. That honour's going to be mine."

  Dredd shrugged and made his way over to the flyer. "It's an ill wind..."

  Hershey steepled her fingers and gave Judge Chapman a level gaze. "This situation..." she said carefully, "has all the makings of a political nightmare."

  Chapman nodded, stroking the thin stubble on his chin. "Agreed, Chief Judge, but I don't see that we have a choice. The request was made. We can't ignore it."

  "No. But let's face it, Dredd's last trip to the Moon wasn't exactly a roaring success. A dead Psi-Judge from Casablanca. A viral outbreak."

  "Oh yes, that zombie doppelganger business," Chapman grimaced. "But that was seven years ago. Things have changed a lot since then, what with the expansion of the Triumvirate council and the global partnership treaty-" His sentence was interrupted as Hershey's intercom beeped.

  "Judge Dredd to see you, Chief Judge."

  "Send him in."

  Chapman stood as Dredd entered, as a mark of respect for the senior officer. Dredd gave him a cursory sideways glance and nodded to Hershey. "Reporting as ordered."

  "Take a seat, Joe." Hershey indicated a chair. "Sorry to pull you off duty in the middle of a watch, but we've got something that requires your specific attention." The Chief Judge ran a hand through her hair, brushing the dark strands out of her eyes. She seemed fatigued, Dredd noticed. The pressures of the high office were no doubt taking their toll on her - the woman who had accompanied Dredd on the quest to find the Judge Child was long gone now and in her place was a seasoned veteran, older and wiser but still showing the same iron-hard resolve. "This is Chapman, Space Division. He's here to provide some additional background."

  "What's the situation?"

  Chapman touched a control on Hershey's desk and the lights dimmed as a holo-projector in the ceiling came to life. "Space-Div has been monitoring increases in incidents of large-scale armed violence across the Luna-1 colony over the last few months, but we haven't been in a position to get involved, not without stepping on the toes of a dozen other city-states around the world."

  Dredd watched as a hologram of the Moon formed, with markers pinpointing confronts all over the lunar territories. "So, what has changed?"

  "This morning, Justice Three intercepted comm traffic from an outlying complex, Kepler Dome," said Hershey. "The place was in flames. Then an emergency call was placed via encrypted channels to Earth from Luna-1's Judge-Marshal Tex."

  "Tex..." It had been more than twenty years since Dredd had served his time as Luna-1's Judge-Marshal and on his recommendation it was Tex who had been installed as the colony's permanent Chief Judge. So many things had happened on Earth in the meantime - the Apocalypse War, Necropolis, Judgement Day - and through it all, the proud Texan lawman had retained his post as governor of the lunar city with a reputation for fairness and strength. "If he's calling us for help, the situation must be grim," Dredd said.

  "Actually, he's calling you for help," Hershey noted. "Marshal Tex contacted the Triumvirate council and specifically requested the assembly of a Judicial task force under your direct command, to assist the Luna Justice Department with the current crisis."

  "Because Luna-1 is an international zone, the team will be drawn from five of the signatories to the partnership treaty." Chapman worked the projector controls and the image of the Moon was replaced by a map of the world, with the cities that were party to the treaty picked out in green. "East-Meg Two have selected a Judge from their Kosmonaut Directorate and the Pan-Andes Conurb have sent a man as well. You'll be joined by representatives from Brit-Cit and Simba City when you reach the Moon."

  Hershey held out a datapad. "I've made arrangements for your caseload to be transferred, Dredd. Your briefing is in here. Get your gear and report to Kennedy Starport. You've got a seat booked on the next NEO-Clipper to Union Station."

  "Why me?" Dredd asked. "Last time I set foot up there, the Luna Special Judicial Service tried to finger me for murder. I doubt they'll be happy to see my face again."

  "You gave Tex his job, Dredd. He respects you and, more importantly, he trusts you."

  "But there's more to it than that, isn't there?"

  Chapman frowned. "Space-Div's intelligence unit has heard rumours that there are cracks forming in the global treaty. There's a chance that elements inside the international community are working to destabilise Luna-1. I don't have to tell you how valuable lunar territory is now, especially with the discovery of those new titanium deposits. If the Triumvirate... If Tex can't hold it together up there, things could get real ugly real quick."

  "He wants you, Joe, because he knows you'll put the law above politics," added Hershey.

  Dredd got to his feet. "When do I leave?"

  3. UNION STATION

  Dredd felt the familiar sensation of artificial gravity as he stepped down from the airlock and into the dock terminal. The floor curved away from him in a low slope in both directions, disappearing into the roof - or so it appeared - from his perspective. Like a lot of the larger Near-Earth-Orbit platforms, Union Station was a spin habitat, turning along its axis to provide gravitation for the transient population that passed through its halls. The Judge was familiar with the transfer procedure and made his way to baggage reclaim, snagging the heavy armourplas diplomatic case that contained the majority of his equipment, including his Lawgiver.

  On a Freeport orbital like Union, Dredd had little jurisdiction to speak of, and in accordance with international space law the use of any projectile weapon he might carry was forbidden. The penalty for discharging a ballistic firearm on an orbital was quite severe, as he recalled - if convicted, the guilty party would be placed in an airlock and vented to space. Death by Lethal Ejection, they called it. Dredd approved: in an environment where one stray bullet could lead to the deaths of thousands from explosive decompression, the law had to be an effective deterrent.

  The passport control droid scanned his ident card with a ruby laser beam, the thread of light flicking across his face and his badge. It paused as it examined the holo-pic on the card. "This doesn't show your face. Could you take your helmet off, please?"

  "No." The force put into that single syllable made it clear Dredd would not tolerate an argument.

  "Oh." The droid considered this, then decided not to press the point. "Business or pleasure?"

  This time Dredd didn't even bother to reply.

  "Business it is, then." The robot handed back the card. "Enjoy your stay."

  Beyond the terminal, the station opened up into a vast, hollow cylinder, walls rising up to meet in an arched "ceiling". For the most part, Union Station was a waypoint; a place that people stopped at on their way to somewhere else and the interior reflected this. Much of the habitat was given over to eateries, capsule hotels and arcades full of stores. The scents of cooking, human sweat and other, less identifiable smells, mingled in the air.

  The station had a slightly shabby look to it. Developments in single-stage-to-orbit rockets and trans-shuttles in recent years had meant that the higher-paying passengers going interstellar didn't need to use NEO transfer stations any more, but there were still droves of ordinary citizens who took suborbitals from EasyMek or SpaceTrain, heading out to the Moon or leisure stations like Bacchus at the LaGrange points. People from dozens of nationalities swarmed back and forth in broad rivers of bodies, breaking apart like frightened shoals of fish to filter into food bars or down the entryways into the departure lounges. A troupe of Sino-Cit e
ldos back from the spas on Ceres filed past a delegation of Uqquan traders from planet Qu, while a rowdy group of Oz skysurfers traded lewd stories with a party of dustboarders bound for the Martian sand-seas.

  Dredd surveyed the crowd with a practiced lawman's eye. A place like this would be paradise for a tap gang or a pickpocket, but as he watched he saw little that set off his internal radar. Overhead, small oval watch-drones flitted about looking for troublemakers and, now and then, Dredd caught sight of a Duritz Securi-Bot ambling through the concourse. Dredd had little time for robot law enforcers - his encounters with the Justice Department's troublesome Mechanismo units had seen to that - but perhaps in an environment like this, machines were the best solution. He watched the droid as it clanked past him, a stun pulser at the ready in its grippers.

  The chronometer overhead chimed the hour and Dredd took a moment to purchase a cup of synthi-caff in the waiting area; the dry, recycled air in the clipper had left his throat parched. Sipping the drink, he saw a flash of movement in the periphery of his vision.

  A woman yelled something in Hindi that sounded midway between a curse and a sob, as two shapes vaulted away from her in opposite directions. A pair of juves, both with the wiry gait of orbit-born spacers, had grabbed her bags and bolted. They clearly knew the patrol schedule for the Securi-Bots - the area was clear of them - and they were sprinting for the drop tubes to the lower levels. Without putting down the caff, Dredd gave his case a swift kick and sent the container sliding across the plastic floor toward the closest thief. The juve ran straight into it and went flying, the lower gravity of the station granting him a graceful arc through the air just moments before he collided with a waste bin and crumpled into a heap.