Leviathan

by Erik Schubach

  “You do have a propensity to get injured on a regular basis. Perhaps it would be better if you let the Enforcers from more durable races handle the dangerous stuff?”

  “Aww, I didn't know you cared.”

  “I don't, you're just the only one I can talk to, so... eh.”

  I snorted. Gods be damned if she didn't get snarkier and funnier every day, I'm such a bad influence on her.

  Then I asked as I started moving again, “Can we go home now? I am so done with this day.”

  “Yes, please. I've already arranged transportation, the taxi is waiting just outside.”

  Chapter 12 – Stairway to Heaven

  After arriving home injured, bruised, and exhausted, ignoring Graz's yawned question about how it went, I stumbled down to the showers and was instantly awake. “Son of a...” I had forgotten there was no hot water.

  I took the time after my shower to examine all my recent injuries and reapplying synth-skin patches. My two pike wounds were progressing nicely, they were angry red lines surrounded by sickly brownish-yellow bruising, and I figured they would be completely healed in another twenty-four hours.

  My leg wound was a little deeper than I had anticipated, it would be at least three days or more with a week of soreness to work out once the tissues fully healed. I contemplated going to Med-Tech to get it healed now, but it would just bring up a lot of questions I didn't want to answer just then.

  The one that worried me the most is the large blackening bruise on my shoulder that had me thinking I might have a broken collarbone, but Mother assured me that she did a full scan on me and nothing was broken.

  Even with all the aches and pains, it had felt good to vent all my frustrations on those rent-a-thugs. I didn't have to hold back so I could arrest them for attempted murder. It almost made the bad day I had bearable.

  I wondered absently if they realized just how lucky they were by attacking me off-world. On the Leviathan, most violent crimes had but one sentence. Death. And then their bodies sent for reclamation to be used as fertilizer in the agricultural districts. In the closed environment of a spaceship, even one as large as our Worldship, there wasn't room for violence as it could cost not just their lives but potentially the lives of everyone on the vessel.

  Imagine if for example, an engineer for the CO2 scrubbers and air recirculation, who had expertise in a specific system, was murdered and something went wrong at his station. It could cost the lives of hundreds or thousands before other engineers could get up to speed enough on the subsystems to effect a repair.

  So as archaic and uncivilized as it may seem, the ultimate punishment is used to deter that kind of violent behavior. Whether or not that works is up for perpetual debate, but it is the system we have, so it is what we work with until a better system can be put in place.

  The only other punishment that is harsher, is the one for murders or mutineers. Spacing. They are forced into an airlock and blown out into space to suck hard vacuum. A painful way to die and your body is left floating in space for all of time. They die knowing that even in death they cannot benefit the world at the reclamation plants.

  Most other crimes are dealt with by time in the mines, either the pressurized or unpressurized sections depending on the offense. Or with the rationing of meal cards or other benefits, or cleaning the undesirable systems in the stacks like grease trap duty.

  Almost fifteen percent of the human population, at one time or another, have done at least a day in the mines. A disproportionate amount. Most other races have had less than one percent of their populations in the mines since they are used to living by strict sets of rules just to stay alive. And no Greater Fae has ever set foot in the mines.

  Maybe that does illustrate the volatile nature of the Human race, whose lives burn brightly for the barest blink of an eye in the perspective of the other races before it is extinguished. So I'm thinking that Humans take more chances to live our lives the fullest we can, in what little time we are afforded.

  I snorted at that line of thought when I winced in pain, as I re-dressed to head back up to my quarters to sleep. Or maybe we all just had a death wish?

  The day had caught up with me when I laid down. I thought I'd be up all night trying to figure out the last pieces of the puzzle. I had to have an airtight case if I were going to present it to the Commander. Especially since I was supposed to stay away from it. But I was fooling myself since I was out before my head hit the pillow.

  The next morning I ached everywhere and I inventoried each new pain and compared it to my memories of the fight. Yup, I definitely took a beating, though I gave better than I got. I geared up and Graz landed on my shoulder and had me lay out everything that happened the last night in detail.

  She nodded and asked as I started toward the door, “So what's on our agenda?”

  I cocked a brow at her as I slipped on my helmet. “What's next is that I go down to the Heart and watch miners through a window all day. You're not coming.”

  “Aww... what about the case?”

  Sighing I explained, “There is no case, the case is closed.” Then I rolled my eyes. “I'll be working the case while I'm supposed to be on guard duty. I could get dereliction of duty, but I almost have the perp nailed to the wall.”

  She nodded and said, “Aurora,” at the same time I said, “Sin.”

  Gods be damned. Now the Sprite had me applying all the evidence to the woman I was trying so very hard not to be attracted to. Everything fit, either way, I just needed those last bits of information to figure out which one was the killer.

  I brightened at the thought. “If it wasn't Sin, then why did he sic his goon squad on me?”

  The smile was wiped from my face when the mini-party-pooper suggested, “Or maybe they're working together. That call he made could have been to the Princess, and she sent those nulls to attack you.”

  Mother Fairy humper! Grah! She was right. But what would make a woman like Rory work with a... Fae... Lord? Lovers? Of course, my mind went there. They were insanely beautiful people and had similar interests and were working for the same thing.

  I found the thought depressing, but I had to look at that as a possibility too. They both had identical motives. And Mother didn't have their whereabouts at the times of the murders logged. But unless Rory had a way to move around outside of Ha'real, where Mother isn't allowed to log or surveil, without being detected, then she was in the palace during three of the five murders.

  Mother was working on why she didn't have any of Sin's movements logged at all. He was somehow able to move around the ship with impunity, unless he lived in the brothel.

  And every murder site had cameras and scanners malfunctioning.

  I'd have to think about that later, just then I had to hurry or I'd be late for my first full day at my new duty station. Yay. Just shoot me now.

  I couldn't dissuade Graz from tagging along. Even after informing her that she could only go as far as the observation station at the Heart, she couldn't come into the guard booth, she shrugged and remained on my shoulder.

  The other Enforcers avoided me like the plague again as I boarded the lift and headed down to ground level. I was going to head to the trams as I walked out of the building; gods did I already miss my Tac-Bike; when Mother said in my head, “Umm...”

  I didn't like the apologetic tone in her voice. “What now? Things couldn't possibly get any worse.”

  “Hold that thought, Knith. The Commander is pinging your coms. He looks pretty mad.”

  Sighing from the bottom of my being, I said in resignation, “Put him through.”

  His face barely had time to appear in my peripheral vision when he was yelling at me, “Shade, get your sorry ass in my office! Yesterday!”

  “Sir.” I blinked as he just cut the comlink.

  As I muttered, “What now?” My mind going to the altercation last night and wondering if word got to him, Graz was saying, “Umm... maybe I will go
find something to do. Maybe find some scrap somewhere to steal... I mean salvage.”

  She buzzed off in a streak of falling dust as I called out after her, “Coward!” Did I just get a double flip off from the flying terror?

  I'm not sure how, but everyone seemed to know where I was heading, my head low and not meeting anyone's eyes. It was like being in the Clinic or school again, heading to see the headmaster for something stupid like making Lar'el eat mud for tripping Kess in the exercise yard. To be fair, the boy ate grass for lunch all the time, I was just helping him supplement his diet. Yeah, the headmaster didn't buy it either.

  The looks I got told me I was doomed. Then a terrifying thought came to mind. What if I was being suspended, or worse, fired? I didn't know what I would do without this job. I had no skills except for being an Enforcer, it was who I was, and I was damn good at it.

  When I stepped off the lift, I had decided I was going to go out swinging. I saw Commander Reise with his back to me as he spoke with a group of people by his assistant's desk. I snapped out, “I'm damn good at my job, and you know it. Whatever fresh new hell you...”

  I trailed off when he and... gulp... the president turned back to look at me, and they revealed Princess Aurora of House Ashryver standing so regal, so refined, so... she scratched at her ear like a dog before straightening with impeccable posture again.

  I looked away from her lips, wondering if she were trying to glamour me because I felt bewitched... until she scratched again, breaking the effect. Nope, I guess not, she was just that enchanting to me, for a probable murderer.

  Then I had the common decency to look mortified as I blurted, “Sorry, I didn't know you had...”

  The Commander just sighed and growled out to me, “I don't know what shitball you're dragging the Brigade through...” He paused and said to the woman, “Begging your pardon ladies.” Then continued with me, “And I don't know how you pulled so many strings, Shade. You're a pain in my ass, but for some reason, the Princess here...”

  He looked at her with that smitten gaze I was getting used to that most Humans used around Fae lords and ladies. “Has insisted that the harvesting murder cases be reopened and that you spearhead it.”

  Whaaaa?

  The president spoke to me, her eyes glued on Rory like she was seeking her approval, “And after a long conference call I had this morning with the Princess and Queen Mab herself....” She said the Queen's name like the sigh someone would have for someone they were pining after.

  “We will be setting up a new liaison position as a bridge between the Enforcer Brigade and Ha'real. Since the Queen has determined that there seems to be a disconnect between law enforcement and the Fae, she wants to start to mend the gap between the two, to show that not even the Fae are above the laws of the world we live inside.”

  Then the Commander sighed and said, “They... the Queen, Princess Aurora, and the palace guard of Ha'real, insist upon your appointment to the station. And against my better judgment, the Brigade will honor that request. But with the caveat that we assign you a partner to dissuade you of your maverick bullshit that won't fly in the A-Ring.”

  I blinked in horror. “A partner? But Commander!” I did my best work alone. It wasn't my fault that most of the Enforcers they partnered me with when I got out of the academy, wound up either laid up in Med-Tech or getting reprimanded by the higher ups. I have a, umm, style.

  What paranoid, underachieving officer were they going to...

  He said to the President and Rory who was smirking and making eyes at me as she looked overly amused at the situation, “Lieutenant Keller is the most highly decorated officer in the Beta-Stack.”

  Rory moved forward and said to him as she cocked her head, eyes narrowing in concern when I limped forward, “And he will accept working as second to Enforcer Shade?”

  Commander Reise said, “He outranks Shade, so she will be his subordinate, Keller will be your primary contact for Ha'real.”

  Rory, her eyes still on me, stepped up to President Yang to take her hands. “Kyoto, if it is just a rank thing, then I'm sure that is easily rectified.”

  Yang looked moments away from tittering. She was such a strong, decisive, and confident woman... and married. Yet she looked like a schoolgirl whose just been noticed by her secret crush. Then Aurora turned her eyes to look demurely at the most powerful woman on the world outside of the Fae Queens to devastating effect. I would have thought she glamoured her if I hadn't been looking at Rory's face at the time too, but I felt nothing but the arousal I already had with the Fae scientist in the room.

  The President stood taller and said, “Of course.” She was in full-on politician mode, like a prancing peacock for the Winter Maiden. “Reginald, take care of this.” She was trying to gain favor from the house of Winter.

  Aurora looked away from the President, whom she was playing like a fiddle, for a moment to ask Reise, “Which Enforcer has seniority?” I saw the smiling tick at the corner of her lips, telling me she already knew the answer.

  He grumbled out, “Shade does, but she is also the most disruptive officer in...”

  She interrupted. “Disruptive but effective if I read her file correctly.” His silence was all she needed. “Grand, then it's as easy as Kyoto suggests?” I was still in a bit of shock over the whole conversation and bit confused.

  Reise said, “Fine, but I'm not making her a Captain.”

  When Rory dropped Yang's hands, the president turned to me and said, “Congratulations, Lieutenant Shade. We will be keeping an eye on you.”

  Then she turned and gushed, “Princess Aurora, it was such a pleasure to meet you. I look forward to being the first president since Exodus Launch to meet Queen Mab personally. But I have many obligations I must attend to, the Rings don't stop spinning for anyone.” Ah, so she was being bribed with a meeting with Mab for this horse and pony show?

  She actually did titter when Rory inclined her head ever so slightly at her and I cleared my throat to get Yang's attention. A president didn't need to be acting like this. I never would have thought Yang was a Fae groupie if I hadn't seen it myself. She raised her head at my prompting eyes and cleared her own throat and stood tall and proud.

  She inclined her head to the Commander. “Reginald.”

  “Madame President.”

  Then she was off, her Presidential Security Unit trailing her. That's when I noticed Rory's two guards, whom I had bested in her lab, standing behind where the other guards had been.

  I was still stunned that I had somehow been promoted to Lieutenant, and was going to lead some new posting... In the A-Ring! Was this some attempt by Aurora to prevent me from investigating her?

  The Commander said, “Shade, we'll solidify your new posting over the next few days, until then, you're reassigned to the case. Tread softly.”

  Sometimes I could kick myself as I had a million questions going through my mind but my mouth blurted out an asinine, “Does the promotion come with a raise?”

  The commander glared at me as Rory looped her arm in mine, and pulled me limping toward the lift, answering for him, “Of course it does.” Then she looked back to Reise. “Thank you, Reginald, we'll leave you to sort out all the details. In the meantime, I'm sure the new Lieutenant here is wanting to finish questioning me since we were interrupted yesterday by an unfortunate incident centered around me being a dog.”

  As the elevator was closing, her guards at our back, I narrowed my eyes in thought, and instead of greeting her, or pulling away from the heat of her arm in mine which I was savoring, I asked, “When did the uhh... spell wear off on you?”

  She chuckled. “This counts as one of your questions. It was just after midnight. I still feel like I've got fleas.” She scratched her ear in a very unladylike manner.

  After midnight? That made me happy on so many levels. It eliminated the possibility Graz had stuck in my head that Sin had called her last night. The thugs and subsequent attack wer
e all him. Then my good mood faltered. It still didn't clear her.

  Then she waved a finger and the lift stopped moving between floors. “My turn. Why are you limping, and why can I feel pain radiating from you?” She reached up and took my helmet off and I was batting her hands away as she tried removing my SA's to get to the seals on my skinsuit.

  “Hey, hey, hey. What are you doing?”

  She stopped, crossed her arms over her chest, and huffed. “Show me.” Then she looked at the guards and growled, “What are you looking at?” They quickly turned their backs to us to stare at the transparent back wall of the lift blocking the view from the street.

  I looked at her and she bit her lower lip and ordered, “Strip.”

  “I'm not...”

  She pointed at me, a glare on her face. I sighed and stripped to my skivvies and she looked at the bruises apparent all over my body now... and the two angry scars where the pikes had punctured the skin, and my leg.

  The woman looked ready to kill as she asked in an icy tone that had my jaw humming in harmonic resonance. “What... happened?”

  I shrugged. “Just all part of my investigation. Shook a few trees last night to see what would fall out.”

  She blinked as she moved up to me, her hand hesitating like she wanted to touch the wounds. “You were still investigating the murders? I thought they pulled you off the case.”

  I nodded and droned out, “They did, and assigned me a guard booth down in the Heart. But I don't give up so easily.”

  She smiled at that and said to the air, “No, I don't suppose you do.”

  Then she asked as she looked me up and down slowly, cocking her head as if she were following the curves of my form with her eyes while she reached for the ugly bruises on my shoulder. “May I?”

  Did she... did she want to touch them? I nodded and then an eerie blue light started to emanate from her palm and frosted air passed between her hand and my skin. She laid her hand on the worst of the bruising. It chilled and faded to nothing.