The sun in the blue sky above was scorching, the desert air dry as it gusted across the lonely plains toward the pine valleys of Mount Laguna. From where they waited he could just see the distant Pacific Ocean, a faint gray band in the milky haze of the bright horizon.
‘I got movement.’
Foxx’s whisper was harsh as he waited with her inside a simple concealment tent, its markings identical to the surrounding terrain. The living–mesh tent was covered in tiny photocells that mimicked the ground to either side and then generated a natural image that perfectly concealed what lay beneath, in this case two very hot and uncomfortable detectives crouched one behind the other.
‘You should’ve got a bigger tent,’ Foxx complained in a whisper.
‘I didn’t think we’d have to wait this long.’
‘Maybe they got spooked.’
Nathan watched as a small blue cruiser swept in a graceful turn and then settled down into the dust of a shallow valley below where they crouched. Its exhaust sent a billowing cloud of dust up into the clear blue sky and then the silence returned to the desert as Nathan watched a tall man with densely braided hair and bio–luminescent tattoos climb out of the vehicle and wait in the sunlit silence.
‘One down, two to go’ he whispered.
Foxx looked up into the hard blue sky and then she gasped. Nathan looked up too and spotted a flash of sunlight off metal as a second craft descended toward the desert. As he watched so a smile spread across his face and he nudged her gently with his elbow.
‘That’s Detective Samson's ride,’ he said. ‘C’mon, let’s hear it.’
‘I’m saying nothing until we know for sure.’
‘We’ve got a bet, remember?’
‘Yes I do, and I disagreed with your thoughts and bet against you, remember? Scheff’s here, and that other vehicle is going to be his dealer.’
‘You’re gonna owe me,’ Nathan teased as he watched the craft hove into view and landed near Scheff. Moments later, Detective Samson climbed out.
And then quite suddenly a third vehicle appeared through the haze.
‘Who’s that now?’ Foxx whispered.
The vehicle swung around and the metallic hull plating flashed as it reflected the sunlight. Nathan squinted, unable to see the markings as the vehicle settled down and its engines fell silent. Nathan saw the entrance hatch open, and then Foxx spoke tersely into her communicator.
‘Go, now!’
Nathan leaped into movement behind Foxx, his joints aching at the sudden motion after so long cooped up beneath their shelter, and as he did so he saw Vasquez and Allen zoom in overhead from the north as four more police officers burst from their own concealment hides and rushed down into the valley with weapons drawn.
‘Police, freeze! Hands in the air where we can see them!’
Nathan saw Scheff throw his hands in the air, a decidedly calm expression on his face as Detective Samson stared at them in amazement. Nathan ignored Samson however and instead hurried to the third vehicle and yanked the entrance hatch open.
Nathan grinned as he looked inside and heard Foxx’s gasp of disbelief.
‘Erin?! What are you doing here?’
Erin Reed glared at the police officers from the pilot’s seat as Nathan hauled her out and grabbed her wrists, yanking a set of manacles from his belt and securing them around her wrists.
‘Erin Reed, you’re under arrest for the homicide of Prison Officer Anthony Ricard, attempted homicide, conspiracy, smuggling and obstructing police business.’
Foxx stared in amazement, one hand on Scheff’s wrist and a pistol held to the criminal’s ribcage.
‘Nathan, what the hell are you doing?’
Nathan grinned at her. ‘My job. It’s okay, you can let Scheff go.’
‘I can do what?’
‘He’s in on it.’
‘In on what?’
‘Cut a deal,’ Nathan replied, ‘in return for helping the police with their enquiries, right Scheff?’
The criminal smiled down at Foxx. ‘Got me eight years off m’sentence.’
Erin Reed glared at Scheff. ‘I’ll have your guts sliced out in prison, you snitch.’
Nathan yanked the manacles about Erin’s wrists a little tighter, eliciting a squeal of pain from her as he spoke.
‘No you won’t, because Scheff here won’t be going to a prison where you have any sway. You thought you had it all sewn up didn’t you, running this little business of yours on the side, right up until Xavier got posted to the same unit as Anthony Ricard, your business partner.’
‘Will somebody tell me what the hell is going on here?’ Samson demanded.
Behind Nathan, one of the uniforms climbed out of Erin’s cruiser, an MM-15 pistol held by the stock between his forefinger and thumb.
‘You were about to become the victim of a second homicide,’ Nathan said. ‘Erin here knew that with her husband dead and the case closed, the only people left who might suspect foul play would be the detective who worked the original case and ourselves.’ He looked down at Erin. ‘Or did you just happen to own an MM-15 pistol?’
‘But she came to us for help,’ Foxx said.
‘No, Roma Reed came to us for help,’ Nathan said. ‘Erin here could hardly refuse to come too so she had to play along with Xavier’s mother. I have no doubt that she was hoping all along we’d fail to solve the case, right Erin?’
‘Too bad,’ she snarled at Nathan, ‘without Xavier to fill in all the blanks you won’t have enough of a case to…’
‘Why don’t we ask him?’ Nathan cut her off.
‘You can’t ask him, he’s…’ Erin’s sneer collapsed as true horror filled her features. ‘No.’
Nathan turned as from one of the police cruisers Xavier Reed climbed out, his eyes locking onto his wife’s as he made his way over.
‘You told them he was dead,’ Foxx gasped. ‘You told me that too.’
‘I said that he didn’t make it,’ Nathan corrected her. ‘He didn’t make it out of Tethys conscious, but he did make it out alive. Amazing, what medicine can do these days.’
Nathan watched in silence as Xavier moved to stand in front of his wife, and his voice was every bit as tortured now as it had been when he had been incarcerated inside Tethys Gaol.
‘Why?’
It was Scheff who replied. ‘She’s got herself a nasty drug habit, had it for years since she was with Zak Volt, back in th’day.’
‘Zak Volt?!’ Allen gasped. ‘What the hell?’
‘Her name is Maria Martinez,’ Nathan said. ‘I had her ID checked by Forrester back at the precinct and it was fake. To have it altered on the black market costs big money, more than she earned with Xavier combined, so we checked into her real history and made the connection to Zak Volt pretty easily.’
Foxx frowned. ‘How did she get a job as a shuttle attendant with a drug habit?’
‘Ricard,’ Nathan replied. ‘Seems like his debt to Erin here went further than we knew. I had Erin’ records checked, and guess who cleared her medical records for the CSS? It was when Ricard started working with Xavier, who was straight as an arrow, that he feared exposure. My guess is that Ricard’s gambling habit got him into debt with Zak and Erin, who got Ricard into the smuggling game as a way to repay the debts but figured he was becoming a liability, hence the carefully planned hit to kill two birds with one stone. We thought that Scheff was behind the shooting, but he got the idea from Erin and tried to use the same technique to set Asil up as the patsy for a shooting in New Washington.’
Xavier seemed genuinely appalled as he looked now upon Erin with a sense of horror.
‘We had a life,’ he whispered.
Erin stared up at him, all pretense of love long gone. ‘You were a handy way to get inside knowledge of the system,’ she spat back.
Xavier recoiled as though she had physically struck him. ‘But our daughter…’
‘An inconvenient complication,’ Erin replied, ‘and a gigantic pain i
n my as…’
‘Get her out of here,’ Nathan snapped at the uniforms gathered around them. The police officers escorted Erin away as a brace of police cruisers appeared in the distance, lights flashing as they moved in to transport her to jail. Xavier watched her go and then stared into empty space.
‘There will be others,’ Nathan said to the stricken man before them as the two cruisers landed nearby, ‘and right now there are some people here I think will be a bit happier to see you.’
Xavier turned in time to see Roma and his daughter climb out of one of the other police cruisers, and suddenly his grief was forgotten as he dashed across to them, only slightly favouring the injury to his torso as he dropped to his knees and into his daughter’s arms, his mother kneeling with them in the hot sand, her arms wrapping around them both and her eyes shining with gratitude at the little knot of detectives.
‘Nice touch man,’ Vasquez said as they watched the reunion.
‘How’d you figure it out?’ Foxx asked Nathan.
‘Erin’s job as a shuttle flight attendant was a cover for the arms smuggling,’ he said. ‘Only thing that helped me figure it all out was that for somebody to have set up such a perfect hit on Ricard, they would have had to both have known where both men would be at a given time, have at least one of them on their side to set things up, have access to Xavier’s firearm to tamper with the plasma charge to cause a fizzle at just the right moment, and also be able to move weapons to and from New Washington. Only Erin fit just right, but without the knowledge of her drug habit we didn’t have any reason to suspect her. She must have told Ricard to kill Xavier in return for clearing his debts, and that Ricard should claim that the shooter ran away in one direction while she fled in the other. But instead, Erin saw an opportunity to take down Ricard and her husband at the same time, removing the chance that he’d figure out what she’d been doing. Her entire marriage was a sham, designed to get her the access she needed to break Zak Volt and his crew out of Tethys.’
‘You knew all this time?’ Foxx said. ‘While we were sitting out here sweating in the desert?’
‘Thought you’d like a little more planet–side time,’ he smiled back. ‘And I wanted to catch her in the act, so there could be no question. Scheff here complied with my request in return for leniency from the DA’s office, so all we had to do was get him to call Detective Samson with information on the case and tell Erin where they would be. If either Detective Samson or Erin came armed with an illegal weapon, we would know why.’
Detective Samson blinked in consternation. ‘Wow, nothing like innovation I guess.’
‘You alibied out real easy,’ Nathan said in reply to the detective.
‘But Ricard was seen hanging around drug dens in New Washington,’ Foxx said.
‘He was looking for an out,’ Nathan explained, ‘trying to expose Erin and Scheff without implicating himself by investigating their drugs and smuggling operations. It also explains Ricard’s heavy drinking before the shooting at the bar in San Diego; he wasn’t really up for it, maybe didn’t even intend to go through with shooting Xavier, which would explain why he never drew his weapon and only reached for it. Erin set them both up for the fall. She must have realized that Ricard was looking for an out some time ago, hence I knew it would be Erin and not Samson who would turn up here armed as Samson only became involved after the shooting. The only loose link we could use to expose Erin was Scheff.’
They looked at the braided–haired convict nearby. Scheff glowed with delight as he folded his arms and looked at Foxx. ‘Man, I could get used to this police work lark. Yo’all need another set of hands here to…’
‘No,’ Vasquez, Allen and Foxx all said at once in unison with Nathan.
‘Get him out of here too,’ Foxx said to the uniforms, who obliged by dragging a scowling Scheff away toward one of the waiting vehicles.
Nathan walked up to her and grinned as he folded his arms across his chest, examining his fingertips in the hot sunlight.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Foxx asked him.
‘You told me it was my case, remember? You said Forrester wanted me to prove myself if I wanted him to hand me a detective’s shield.’
Detective Allen offered Nathan a clap on the shoulder. ‘You did that all right, in Tethys.’
Nathan inclined his head and then looked at Foxx.
‘Dinner on you,’ he said.
Foxx rolled her eyes. ‘Fine, just this once.’
‘Remember, you agreed to get frocked up.’
‘Seriously? You meant that?’
‘You look lovely in girl’s clothes.’
‘Yeah, that’s something none of us get to see much,’ Vasquez said. ‘We’re looking forward to it.’
Nathan blinked. ‘I hadn’t realized that…’
‘Dinner on me,’ Foxx smiled sweetly at him, ‘but I didn’t say we’d be alone.’
Nathan felt deflated as he looked at Allen and Vasquez, both of them standing with their arms folded across their chests and protective looking expressions on their faces.
‘You weren’t thinking of cutting us out, bro’?’ Vasquez challenged him. ‘After all we’ve been through?’
‘Well, no, but…’
‘No buts, bro’,’ Vasquez cut him off as he wagged a finger in the air between them. ‘We’re a team, right?’
‘Right,’ Nathan mumbled.
‘Right,’ Allen said cheerfully as he holstered his weapon and dusted his hands off. ‘Not a bad bit of work. Only took us nearly losing our lives to finish it off unlike Foxx and Vasquez here, swanning around aboard Titan.’
Foxx and Vasquez exchanged a glance as the last two police cruisers lifted off. After a few moments they were alone in the silence.
‘The reason Erin and Scheff met out here was because it’s remote enough that nobody could track them or listen in,’ Foxx said to Vasquez. ‘The wilderness is about the only safe place left to talk.’
Vasqeuz nodded and looked in turn at Allen and Nathan. ‘You think we should tell them?’
‘Think you should tell us what?’ Nathan asked, and then he realized: ‘What happened up there while we were in Tethys?’
Foxx sighed, and gestured for Nathan and Vasquez to move in closer.
‘What I’m about to tell you goes no further than the four of us, okay? While we were aboard Titan…’
***
XLII
CSS Headquarters
New York City
The senate building, an amphitheater as big as a soccer pitch and filled with ranks of seats surrounding a central dais, hummed with the massed conversations of hundreds of delegates and senators as the Governing Council took their seats.
‘You really think this is the start of a new era?’ Foxx asked Nathan.
Nathan shrugged as he sat down beside her near the dais, their position providing them with an unobstructed view of the speaker’s stand and the senate building itself.
‘I don’t know, but if everything you’ve told me about what happened on Titan is true, this is probably the biggest event in human history.’
‘Didn’t sound like that to me,’ Detective Allen said.
‘You weren’t there,’ Vasquez pointed out.
‘He’s got a point though,’ Nathan went on. ‘I mean, seriously, “goo”? That’s the best word they could use to describe it?’
‘That’s what it was,’ Foxx replied. ‘It was horrible stuff.’
Nathan shook his head in disappointment. ‘I grew up on movies of giant robots, ravenous insects and blood thirsty aliens invading Earth and attacking humanity, and the best reality comes up with is soggy goo. I mean, c’mon, millions of years ahead of us in evolution and that’s the best they could come up with?’
‘It nearly took Titan down, bro’,’ Vasquez said defensively. ‘If they can do that with some glorified hair gel, what else do you think they might have waitin’ in the wings?’
‘Custard bombs?’ Nathan suggested. ‘Killer
shaving foam?’
Detective Allen sniggered, but Vasquez shook his head. ‘You guys weren’t there to see it.’
‘Nope,’ Nathan agreed. ‘Sadly, we were vacant, Vasquez.’
Vasquez stared at Nathan for a moment in horror and then he glared at Foxx. ‘You didn’t.’
‘You didn’t say that I couldn’t,’ Foxx smiled sweetly.
‘That was nothin’,’ Vasquez waved them off brusquely, ‘nothin’ but bad luck and timing.’
‘So you’re gonna get stuck right in from now on then?’ Nathan asked. ‘Not hang around in the latrine?’
‘Not get stuck on the can?’ Allen asked.
Nathan burst out laughing, loud enough that many of the nearby senators glared across at him with stern expressions. Nathan cut his laughter short, and as he did so he heard the massed conversations die down as CSS Director Arianna Coburn walked gracefully to the central dais and moved to the speaker’s platform. A series of holoscreens hovered into life around the senate, allowing those sitting further away to see and hear the director clearly as she spoke.
‘Senators, members of the CSS and police force,’ she began, glancing briefly at Foxx and Nathan where they sat near the dais, ‘we gather here today to hear about a momentous and potentially catastrophic encounter near Polaris Station, and of what it means for our future. I can think of no greater intellect to impart this data than Doctor Hans Schmidt.’
With no further elaboration, Coburn stepped back from the dais and in her place materialized Doctor Schmidt. The Holosap moved to stand before the speaking platform, his voice carrying clearly to the gathered senators.
‘We have waited many centuries for this day,’ he began, ‘and now that it has come it has been, as so often has been the case between races on our own planet, a time of conflict and misunderstanding. Two days ago the flagship of the fleet, CSS Titan and her crew, encountered for the first time a species born not of this Earth. We could not have hoped to understand in such a short space of time what its motivations were, what its origins were, where it came from or where it intended to go to, but we did know that it was a predator.’
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