Ultimately, he was forced to resign, which was for the best. Now, some three-plus years later, Gallic—during his off time—continued the pursuit. Seeking to find the one who’d ruined everything; who had stolen away his life.
The life insurance policy hadn’t provided much, but he had some savings. Financing a high-interest loan, he purchased a wrecked Hewley-Jawbone carrier, for pennies on the dollar—the Hound. It took him over a year to make the craft space-worthy.
With the snakes now held somewhat at bay, Gallic said, “Continue the message.”
“John . . . I wanted to be the first one to tell you. There’s been a . . . development in your wife and daughter’s case. We may have a strong lead.”
Chapter 3
Frontier Planet, Gorman — Heritage Plains Township.
His actions were unhurried, almost methodical in nature—well practiced. He moved within the home’s darkness silently, like a whisper or a slight breeze; a breath. He stopped and listened to the sounds, louder now, emanating from the family room. The killer tilted his head, not wanting to miss a thing. How he’d missed this. There was a short giggle—really more of a snort—from the young girl, Tami. He smiled. What a lovely sound that was. He needed to remember it; mentally catalogue it away for later—for forever. The sound of playing cards being shuffled echoed into the hallway where he stood.
“Oh no, you don’t! You little cheater,” the mother exclaimed, laughing.
Ah . . . that would be Catherine. The killer took a step, then another. He wasn’t concerned about being discovered within the home. They were alone here. Only the three of them now—he’d made certain of that. He took another step—this one quicker, more deliberate. A rustling sound was suddenly more audible, his hard leather belt rubbing against the fabric of his disposable overalls. Also, a jingly sound as small nails collided within his oversized pouch. His eyes fell to the tool belt, secured around his narrow hips. Glaring down at it, he listened, hearing only silence. But then came their soft whispering:
“Did you hear that?”
“Did I hear what?” the mother replied, her voice playful.
“I’m serious!” came the young girl’s excited whisper.
“Your turn to deal; I’m getting up to pee. Want anything from the fridge?” the mother asked, continuing the whisper game as she moved into the kitchen.
Right then the killer shot forward into the kitchen—a mere blur of motion and wild kinetic energy. He spun, reached out for Catherine’s long hair and felt its softness, its slippery nature, in his palm—trapped now within his fingers. Tightening his grip, he tugged hard. Jerked backwards, Catherine’s scream was cut short by an uncontrolled inhalation of breath. As she toppled over, the killer dragged her, caveman-style, as she kicked and flailed about. Together, they moved out from the kitchen into the family room.
Rising to her feet, Tami’s mouth gaped open: her eyes wide, not understanding.
“You!” Catherine yelled, kicking out and connecting a solid, painful, blow to his upper thigh. The killer released his hold on the woman’s hair and spun, punching out with fury to the side of her head—a punch that contained sufficient force to crack concrete. More than enough force to crack the side of her skull. He glanced up, noting the pretty daughter’s horrified face. She wants to run. Instead, though, Tami lost control of her bladder. The killer fondled the handle of the ten-inch knife at his hip, next to the head of the ballpeen hammer. “Please don’t hurt . . .” Tami’s eyes followed the motion of his fast-moving hand—the knife’s sideways trajectory—and moved to cover her throat. But she was too slow . . .
Chapter 4
Frontier Planet, Muleshoe.
Gallic didn’t move—simply stared at the blank display and the hovering End of vid-message prompt.
“AI, request a real-time channel to Superintendent Bernard Danbury, at D-22. Let me know when you have a connection.” Gallic knew the request for an encoded synchronous coms channel could take anywhere from ten minutes to several hours: sometimes longer.
He headed toward the loft’s portside, while removing his outer coat. Draping it over the back of one of the leather couches, he entered into the cooking, mess area—located at the rear far-side of the compartment.
Pulling out three separate frying pans from the low-placed cupboards, he set them on the cooktop while willing his mind into submission. One-by-one, mentally closing all inner doors and windows and locking them shut; he then rechecked each one again, battening down the hatches. He’d practiced this same mental exercise a thousand times—maybe ten thousand times. For the most part, it worked. He managed to stay in control, keeping the wiggly things from slithering in—infiltrating his thoughts. He opened the refrigerator and retrieved a nearly full carton of large brown chicken eggs and placed them on the steel-top counter. Using his shoulder to prop open the door, he next grabbed a glass pitcher filled with fresh milk, a stick of butter, and a generous slab of uncut bacon—setting each down by the carton of eggs.
Next, Gallic opened the top cupboard, where he retrieved a loaf of unsliced sourdough bread. Firing up three burners, he adjusted the flames before adding ample pats of butter to two of the pans. The butter quickly sizzled down, its oily liquid coating the bottom of the pans. As he jostled the pans around, the clang of metal clanging into metal was both a familiar, and welcome, sound—grounding him—keeping him present. Pulling a long knife from a drawer, he quickly sliced through the slab of bacon. Hungry, he cut the slabs thick and placed them into the ungreased heated pan, which began to sizzle. Making four wide cuts in the loaf of sourdough, he situated the slices, one at a time, in the larger buttered pan. One by one, he cracked open seven eggshells, letting their contents slurp into a large red bowl. Pouring in seven generous drips of milk, he rapidly beat the mixture with a fork to ensure enough air was swirled into the eggy-mixture. Sufficiently beaten, he poured the contents into the other buttered pan. Using a fork to turn the bacon and flip over the slices of bread, he suddenly had to squeeze shut his eyelids.
Without warning, a mental door had cracked open, standing ajar. Gallic caught movement there in the semi-blackness, lying just beyond his closed-tight lids. The paralysis came first. He heard them approaching—a muffled, awful sound—like a stampede of oversized vermin. As the bacon began to burn—the eggs thickening, then scorching—greasy smoke rose into the compartment’s air and swirled around him. Gallic continued viewing the ever-widening inner door, where, in the near-darkness and obscured by the billowing smoke, he saw the small, reptilian, non-human faces. Clamoring to get out—fighting one another—each wanting to be the first to come forth. But suddenly, in an instant, he was no longer peering inward into an open doorway, or concerned with crawly snakes, or even aware a fire had started on the stovetop. His entire attention was transported to another time, where, centered on his scratched, weathered, D-22 desk, was an open-case-file—more precisely, a crime-scene case file. He reached for the stack of 8x10 vid-sheets. Hot bile crept into his throat, his heart rate jumped, becoming almost tachycardic, as their distorted, bloated faces—blurry at first—came into view.
“Fire! Mr. Gallic! Fire! Fire! Mr. Gallic! Fire!”
Gallic’s focus returned from the past—from three years, four months, and thirteen days ago. He turned off the burners and stacked the three, blisteringly hot, pans into the sink. Flames erupted momentarily when bacon grease sloshed onto what remained of the ruined toast. “AI, increase mess area ventilation until this damn smoke clears.”
“Yes, sir. Your requested coms channel has been re-established and Chief Superintendent Bernard Danbury is waiting for you.”
Gallic walked from the cooking mess area toward the control center, his heart rate still accelerated, not yet a normal beat. Cursing under his breath, he was irritated with himself. He’d obviously forgotten to properly latch and lock up an inner door inside his screwed-up mind. He had to be much more careful in the future.
* * *
The holographic ima
ge of Superintendent Bernard Danbury was waiting for Gallic. With concern furrowing his brow, Danbury asked, “Did I hear something about a fire?”
“Nah . . . everything’s fine. The Hound’s AI can be a bit dramatic.”
“How are you, John?”
“Fine . . . right as rain.”
“You’re still working?” the older man asked.
“What else am I going to do? Plant tulips back on Earth?”
Gallic quickly let their small talk come to an end; his blank stare was all the coaxing Danbury needed to get down to business. “As I mentioned in the . . . um . . . message, there are a few new developments.”
“How is that even possible, since there have been zero resources allocated to the case since I left D-22?”
“You know that’s far from the truth, John. But I’ll let that go . . . because we’re friends. Do you want to hear what I’ve got or not?”
Gallic asked, “Credible?”
“I don’t know. Hell, I hesitate even bringing it up to you before things can be followed up at D-22. But John, there’s strong similarities; no, more than just similarities. I’m talking about a near-identical crime scene to . . . Clair and Mandy’s.”
“You getting this from a D-22 inspector?”
“No, John . . . I’m getting this from another arbiter, one who resides in the Agricultural belt within the Territories.”
“I’m in the Territories.”
“I know that.”
Gallic asked, “Where then, exactly? Give me the details: Who’s the Frontier Marshal, where’d it happen, and when?”
“All in good time, John. I’ve dispatched Tori. You remember her, don’t you?”
Gallic did indeed remember Tori—Silvia Tori. Three-and-a-half years ago she was new to the department—a walking-talking cluster-fuck. “Really, Constable! Tori? That’s the best you can do?”
“She’s Sergeant Tori now. And when, might I ask, did you last hear of D-22 sending someone out to that God-forsaken section of space? Don’t be such an ungrateful ass.”
The Colonial Police Department-District 22 was under Earth’s British purview—the same section of agricultural territories that Gallic now inhabited. Many of the same geo-political boundaries found on Earth also extended into the vastness of space. Whether large or small, the same superpowers dominating Earth had rushed to stake their claims in space over the last hundred years.
Danbury continued, “She’ll be there tomorrow morning. Stay where you are . . . she’s got your coordinates.”
Gallic thought about the 5T, now sitting in the Hound’s hold. He needed to get her into Polly Gant’s meaty palms within the next twelve hours or take a hit on the commission. Without that fee, he could lose the Hound.
“I’ll be here,” Gallic said.
“And let me be perfectly clear, John. This is Tori’s case. You are tagging along as an observer only. No direct intervention. Do you hear me?”
Gallic nodded.
“I’m serious. That order goes all the way up to the Deputy Assistant Commissioner. Keep a low profile. Give her your thoughts and opinions, but more than that, she’s been instructed to kick you to the curb. Screw this up, I’ll have your arbiter’s license pulled . . . that’s how serious I am.”
“Understood,” Gallic said back.
Danbury’s face turned less serious. “I’m staying in the loop on this, John. We should talk in a couple of days.”
“Thank you, sir. And I’ll play by the rules . . . best I can.”
Clearly, that was not what the superintendent wanted to hear, and Gallic knew it. But ribbing his old boss came naturally.
The coms connection faded to black. Gallic checked the time on his ComsBand, wondering if he could do it—make it all the way to Rawlins City, drop off the bratty kid’s luxury ride, then make it back here in time. It would be close, but he was fairly sure he could manage it. If not, Tori could cool her heels for a few hours at Renegade’s Haven. He hesitated, briefly considered why he would even think about leaving. What could be more important than this apparent new lead, one possibly connected to his wife and child’s murders? The answer presented itself immediately—stay objective. Carry on with your life. You know what happens when you get too consumed, too fixated. He’d come close before, almost crossing the thin line that separated sanity from insanity; was on the verge of being locked away, put in a padded room and medicated—sedated 24/7. No, he needed to stay focused, maintain some semblance of his former lifestyle that he’d worked so hard to rebuild. Treat this new murder case, which may or may not be related to his, like any other murder case. Mentally stay detached from seeing some personal connection. As of now, his focus must strictly remain objective. He needed to stay sane.
Chapter 5
Frontier Planet, Muleshoe.
A thunderous roar rumbled across the prairie as the Hound lifted off. There was nothing subtle about her two powerful gravitorque drives, even inside the vessel’s thick fuselage the noise level was substantial. But Gallic hardly noticed after three years of frequent takeoffs and landings. And, just like him, wherever the Hound came and went, it was always noticed.
Still pitch-black outside, Gallic stared out the control center’s forward window and into the nothingness beyond. He felt the clunk, clunk, clunk beneath his boots as the landing struts folded up, becoming seated inside the Hound’s underbelly. He then leveled off on the upward thrust as gravity began to release its hold on the ship. Within a moment, as the outer atmosphere began to thin, stars could be seen—dancing and sparkling in the far distance. He rechecked that the AI had inputted the correct heading—Rawlins City. That would place him three light years distance out from the territories. Rawlins City, back in the general direction toward Earth, was closer to Alpha Centauri—4.22 light years from Earth and the Sol system. Alpha Centauri had three stars and 600 known planets—forty of which were colonized.
“Transitioning to FTL, Mr. Gallic . . . on your command.”
“Proceed,” Gallic said. The trip would take hours and he needed to get his mind off Danbury’s comments. Old memories stirred up that he didn’t want to think about. Not now. “AI . . . resume the Earth news broadcast I was last watching . . .”
Gallic, glancing at the display, viewed the projected face of Professor Harkins, with his Albert Einstein-like hair, which was red and gray, not white. Standing amongst several teens, he was recognizing the great hall addition to the National Air and Space Museum, in Washington, D.C. Gallic had met the professor several times and genuinely liked the older man. An Asian boy pointed toward the high, suspended fuselage of a spear-tip-shaped vessel.
Professor Harkins said, “Well . . . everything changed with that amazing, singular discovery on Mars.”
“When was that, Professor?”
“The year was 2029. Almost a hundred years ago, on the second manned mission. Explorer Zheng He—a cooperative U.S. / Chinese space exploration venture . . . was decreed to reach the red planet and establish a far larger, far more elaborate base than their first installation on Mars. The new site—Musk-Horizon—lay adjacent to the area known as The Hidden Valley. Where, in thick mudstone strata from an ancient evaporated lake bed, rich with river and stream-related deposits, and a mere seventeen feet below the Martian surface, that incredible alien spacecraft was discovered.
Another teen, a girl with long blonde hair, asked, “Why’s that? It doesn’t look so incredible to me.”
“What you’re looking up at . . . that alien vessel . . . is estimated to be close to five thousand years old. What do you think you’ll look like in five thousand years, Brianne?”
The others in the group laughed. One of the boys said, “Bet she’ll look better than she does now,” and they laughed even harder.
The professor continued, “In history, there have been other such monumental discoveries: Discoveries that not only changed, but bettered, existing life conditions. The discovery of fire; and the use of weapons, either hunted with, or
to ward-off predators; and the wheel, which single-handedly and inexplicably, transformed ancient societies. Prompting early man to stray from what had become familiar and safe, and venture forth—and explore! The wheel was just such a discovery.” The professor’s excitement was contagious. Gallic could see it on the lit-up faces of the teenagers.
An Asian boy asked, “Did the ship still fly? Did they fly it back to Earth?”
“No, since it crash-landed on the surface of Mars. It took them three-and-a-half years to bring key components of the ship back to Earth. As more aeronautic scientists from around the world came to evaluate the highly advanced technology—especially the vessel’s unique, exotic-matter propulsion system—it quickly became evident that space transportation, henceforth on, would forever be altered. The discovery, designated Curz, the name bestowed on the ship’s originating alien race, catapulted science and technology hundreds of years forward. Soon, distant twinkling stars, with their accompanying planetary systems, would be within man’s reach. As with the advent of the prehistoric wheel, nothing again would be the same.”
“Turn it off,” Gallic ordered the AI.
* * *
The Hound came out of FTL five hours and fifteen minutes later. Of the three stars within Alfa Centauri, the closest to Earth was Proxima; the farthest away were Centauri A and Centauri B. Since Gallic was approaching them from their opposite direction, he’d be reaching Centauri A’s planetary system first, where Rawlins City was situated—on an Earth-size, yet far more desolate planet, called Grimes252.
Named, undoubtedly, after some scientist with a big telescope—the first to spot the shithole of a planet decades earlier. No one called the planet Grimes252. Everyone just called it Rawlins City, since there was nothing worth mentioning about the rest of the planet. The only exception, at first, was what seemed to be some promising rare mineral deposits. Although the mineral deposits failed to live up to their initial hype, Rawlins City flourished nevertheless. Although considered a United States territory township, the city was actually highly international and where the majority of galactic business took place. Large banking and insurance institutions built their high-rise mega-buildings there. And where buying and selling, whatever came out of the territories, usually took place: for the agricultural quadrant, the mining quadrant, the manufacturing quadrant, and for the newest quadrant, Oceanic—where ten, recently terra-formed worlds, were breeding a variety of aquatic life forms within massive, submerged, fish farms.
Galaxy Man Page 3