Sisterhood of Suns: Daughters of Eve

by Martin Schiller

  Encouraged by her findings, Kaly called up the footage from the security cameras in each location. She had to use her RSE clearance to get the imagery, and initially, what there was, was of little use.

  But once again, in the footage of the AHPC shooting, she found what she was looking for. It was as if the ghost of the murdered woman was somehow reaching from beyond the grave to help her find her killer and bring him to justice.

  A camera on an adjacent street had managed to capture the driver and their passenger. Both men were in the shadows cast by the bright afternoon sun, but when she enhanced the image, their features began to become clear. Kaly centered in on the passenger, and made a screen capture of his face. It was blurry, and the details were hard to make out, but for the first time, she was sure that she was looking at the face of her enemy.

  I’ve got you now, you fekking kunta, she thought fiercely.

  Eager to share her discovery, she contacted Major ebed Karri right away.

  Her superior was ecstatic. “Excellent work, N’Deena! Send the ‘vid over to me and I’ll have the techies give it a go.”

  Glad to be done with her assignment, she sent the clips off and then left the terminal, trying not to dwell on what she had been forced to watch.

  ***

  The Major didn’t keep her sniper teams waiting. A day after Kaly had reviewed her clips, Ebed Karri called everyone back in.

  “Ladies, gentlemen, first off, I’d like to thank you all for the time you expended looking at the ‘vids I gave you, “Ebed Karri began. “I know they were hard to watch, and I appreciate the professionalism that each of you showed in your notes. Now, let’s look at what we learned.”

  She brought a holo up. It displayed an image of a man in his mid-twenties. Next to this was a bulleted list of the techniques he had employed in all the shootings.

  “This man is the Angel, and you can thank Corporal n’Deena for identifying him for us. By the way, I’ll say it again just because it feels so fekking good--great work, Corporal!”

  She waited for a moment as Margasdaater and a few of the others gave Kaly congratulatory pats on the back before pressing on. “The Angel’s real name is Paacal Martinya, and before the war, he served in the ETR military as an infantryman with sharpshooter qualifications.”

  The Major sent a thought to the holojector and the image that Kaly had captured from the van came up for everyone to see. It was much sharper than hers, having been enhanced by the technical department at the Embassy. It also left no doubt whatsoever that the two images depicted the same man.

  “In all likelihood, he will continue to use a vehicle for his firing platform. Keep working in teams and concentrate on any suspicious ‘lectri vans, especially when they are in the vicinity of our assets. If you think you have something, try to confirm your target as a hostile, but don’t hesitate to take the shot. Lt. ben Soolee will give each Team its duty assignments. All right, let’s get out there.”

  Granda Longela, Nuvo Bolivar, Magdala Provensa, Esteral Terrana Rapabla, 1048.10|08|05:00:00

  Kaly had been partnered with Margasdaater and Vasquaaz, and the trio had stationed themselves in a hide overlooking the Granda Longela, Nuvo Bolivar’s historic Central Market. They were on the rooftop of the Market’s indoor vending area and the location offered them an excellent view of the entire area. Its air conditioning units and roof arrays also prevented them from being silhouetted against the sky and becoming targets themselves.

  The Granda Longela was one of the places in the city that regularly saw the largest concentration of Sisterhood troopers on patrol anywhere in the capitol. Of all the spots that Kaly, or any of her fellow snipers could think of, it was the most likely place where they would be able to find and engage the Angel.

  In addition to Kaly and her partners, a second sniper team was in place on another nearby rooftop, and several spybots were discreetly patrolling the area, watching the scene and listening for the tell-tale report of a weapon. The Navy was also in place, watching the entire area from space.

  But even with all this effort and technology, everything still depended on the Angel making an attack, and by the time it was 05.00 hours, this seemed unlikely.

  Kaly however, hadn’t given up hope. From her training, she knew that it was usually when everyone relaxed, that a sniper did their best ‘work’. If the Angel understood this, he would wait for the point when things became lax before he made his move.

  Scanning the area through her riflescope, she could almost feel him out there, somewhere, waiting just like she was, and considering his options. The minutes ticked by.

  She was just about to switch roles with Vasquaaz and let her be the primary shooter, when Margasdaater alerted her to a new development.

  “Kaly,” she whispered. “Ve have a van backing up tovards our troopers.” Despite what they knew about the Angel’s methods, this was nothing unique in and of itself. The Central Market had a lot of delivery vans entering and leaving on a constant basis. Still, it was not something they could ignore.

  When she brought Tatiana around to take a look, she immediately understood why Margasdaater had pointed this particular vehicle out. The driver wasn’t the same man that she had seen in the ‘vids, but he was nervous and his movements were a bit too stiff to be natural. She zoomed in.

  By this point, the driver had walked around to the back, and was opening the rear cargo doors. Kaly tried unsuccessfully to spot any suspicious loopholes cut into the sheet metal, and then examined the cargo itself. There was one row of boxes, stacked three high and positioned at the very rear of the cargo compartment. They seemed to contain vegetables.

  It was their arrangement that seemed out of place. Every load that she had ever seen before had been stacked towards the front of the cargo compartment to prevent it from falling on whoever opened the rear doors. This didn’t conform to that norm.

  The other thing that stood out were that the boxes weren’t tight against each other like they should have been. Instead, there were noticeable gaps between some of them, especially along the bottom of the stack.

  She tightened in on the spaces, trying to spot anything in the shadows, but found nothing.

  “Vasquaaz,” she said. “You see what I’m seeing?” Cabo Vasquaaz brought up her own rifle.

  “Si’a,” the woman answered. “Very strange. I don’t like strange.”

  While they continued to watch, the driver unloaded a hand truck and began stacking a few of the containers onto it. Once it was full, he started to wheel the load away. A perfectly normal delivery.

  Except that he had also left the rear doors open, Kaly realized. In the middle of a busy marketplace, and as if he was completely unconcerned that his cargo might be stolen in his absence. With the economy as bad as it was in the ETR, that was a distinct possibility. Even if potential thieves weren’t able to use the food themselves, the black market would find ready buyers for it.

  More minutes passed, and they waited.

  Then Kaly caught the movement of something that she couldn’t identify. It was back behind the remaining boxes. She tightened in on the area and the hairs on the back of her neck began to rise. Nothing should have been there.

  “I may have a hostile,” she whispered over the general Com. She called up thermal and bioplasmic images as she did so. Something in the construction of the packages themselves interfered with her getting a decent result, but she was still able to confirm that there was a warm living being of some kind, hiding behind them.

  “Team, if you think you have a target, you are green to fire,” Major ebed Karri advised.

  Kaly wasn’t sure and she whispered over to Vasquaaz. “Do you have anything?”

  Vasquaaz shook her head. The heat signature that they were seeing was so small that it could have come from a hitchhiking rodent. But it could have also originated from a gap in a snipers poncho, and they both realized it. Such a poncho was designed to mask heat and bioplasmic emanations. Despite every effort to pre
vent it, a few Sisterhood-issue ponchos were known to be in Loyalista hands.

  Kaly made her decision. Right or wrong, she would take the responsibility for what happened. “Shot out,” she said.

  The suppressed round made no sound as it left Tatiana and crossed the distance to the van. When it hit, only a few small splinters even announced that it had penetrated the boxes. She chambered another round and waited for something else to happen.

  The van remained still.

  Presently, the driver returned, loaded his now empty hand truck back aboard, and drove away. Watching him depart, Kaly felt a surge of disappointment, and profound embarrassment. Thanks to her nervousness, a delivery vehicle now had a neat hole punched into its sheet metal body. If the driver realized that the Sisterhood had been involved, it would come straight out of her pay.

  She was just beginning to calculate the repair cost, and its equivalent in Republic Paysolis when Margasdaater nudged her. “Kaly, look down at za ground---vere za van vas parked!”

  She and Vasquaaz both focused on the area at the same time. There were only a few drops spattering the pavement, but it looked like blood.

  Kaly conducted a quick check of their bioplasmic energy field and confirmed this. It was human blood. Male, in fact. Even more droplets were trailing behind the van as it drove away.

  “Team 1, Command,” she said. “There’s definitely something in that van. I think I hit the shooter.”

  Immediately, several local police units appeared out of the surrounding alleyways and closed in on the vehicle. The van didn’t stop though, and as the pursuit began in earnest, the Com became choked with traffic as Sisterhood military police units joined in.

  The chase lasted only a few blocks before there was a mixed cacophony of energy and chemical weapons being fired. Kaly desperately wanted to leave her post and join the fight, but she stayed where she was, and kept an eye on the Market instead. There was always the possibility that a second shooter was waiting to take advantage of such a disturbance. It was something that she would have done herself, had the roles been reversed.

  After what seemed an eternity, Major ebed Karri got back with them. “Team 1, you got the kunta,” she announced “He was in the back, using one of our ponchos and your round wounded him—a nice lung shot. When we cornered the van, he and his partner decided to shoot it out. They’re both KIA now. Great work! I’m glad to have this pain in the ass out of commission.”

  Kaly gratefully accepted a thumbs up from Vasquaaz and Margasdaater. But she wasn’t as elated as she had expected to be. She was just very tired, and grateful that the ghost of the murdered AHPC crewwoman would finally find her rest.

  ***

  A minor miracle occurred. Things actually remained peaceful for the next few days. Then, just as everyone knew it would, the situation changed for the worse. It was after all, the ETR.

  Freedom Square had begun to fill up early in the morning, and by evening it was at capacity. While some of the crowd were simply curious, or just looking for some excitement, the majority of them were protestors. One of these, clearly an activist leader, had perched himself on the statue of one of the Republic’s heroes, and had been haranguing the crowd with a portable voice box for the last few hours.

  It was the usual Loyalista shessdrek; down with the Sisterhood, down with The-Corrupt-Puppet-Government-of-Sanda-Ernan, down with the Fascist Rightists, down with Basically-Everything-in-the-Universe. And despite the oppressive heat, the orator didn’t seem to be tiring. For her part, Kaly had simply stopped listening to the man’s noise, or Vasquaaz’s derisive snorts at the more venomous portions of his tirade. Her focus was on the crowd itself, and the rooflines.

  The situation below their position was shaping up to be the perfect opportunity for the Loyalistas to strike and they had plenty of targets to choose from. In addition to a contingent of local riot police, a Military Police detachment had been loaned out from Claire d’Layne to bolster their numbers. Protests and riots had become an almost daily occurrence in the capitol, and the locals needed all the help they could get. Any of the uniformed personnel in the square were a potential victim of a sniper or a bomb attack.

  “Shess,” Margasdaater whispered. “I vish zese protestors vould talk about zomezing interezting. Like vhen ve vill get relieved to go piss—or maybe go piss and zen get zome fekking chow.”

  Kaly chuckled, but despite the fact that she heartily agreed, she didn’t bother to respond. Lying on a rooftop wasn’t fun under the best of circumstances, and the mention of food made her stomach growl, but she was willing to suffer a little discomfort if it ultimately meant keeping Sisterhood soldiers safe.

  Besides which, Margasdaater was always hungry, and she always wanted to relieve herself. Despite her size, Kaly had secretly become positive that the Zommerlaandar possessed a bladder about the size of a subatomic particle.

  She wasn’t worried about the woman breaking discipline for a nanosecond though. Margasdaater was as disciplined a trooper as anyone she had ever served with. She would stay where she was, and keep doing her job, bladder or not. She just liked to hear herself bitch.

  Just then, a group entering at the edge of the sqaure caught Kaly’s eye, and she zoomed in on them. There were four men, some wearing jackets with hoods, and others with scarves tied loosely around their necks. At another spot, an identical group, was also making an appearance.

  They were clearly troublemakers, she decided. Most of the protestors below her were genuinely concerned about the state of their nation, but in every gathering like this, there were always those who came looking for opportunities to commit mayhem. If everything went as it usually did, these same men would be the ones who would cause all the real trouble.

  She sent a command to her scope and took images of them all, catching what she could of their features. Once she had them, she immediately forwarded the data on to the RSE techs at the Embassy, and the local police. The anarchists might find the ‘fun’ that they were looking for at everyone else’s expense, but with luck, they would also be identified and arrested when it was all over.

  Then Kaly noticed that one of the men had a backpack with him, and as he kneeled down and opened it, she dialed in, trying to discover what he was up to. At the same time, she let Command know what was going on. “Team Commander, Team 3; I have a male with a suspicious pack. He seems to be unloading something.”

  The problem was that the crowd, whether by happenstance, or deliberate design, was packing itself in all around him, and blocking her view. She tightened the zoom, but the only thing that she was able to confirm was that the crowd was taking something from his hands, and hiding it away under their clothing. She strongly doubted that they were free sandwiches, but she also knew that the local police wouldn’t make a move against anyone just on mere suspicion. Things were too brittle in the square to risk that.

  Major ebed Karri also understood this. “Team 3 maintain visual,” she instructed. “Advise if you get eyes on any weapons.”

  This was exactly what Kaly was attempting to do. The suspicious males weren’t making this easy however, and after a few moments, the man she had been watching concluded his mysterious activity and stood. Whatever he had given away wouldn’t become known until the trouble really got going. Mouthing a curse, she resumed her general scan of the area, coming back to him as often as possible.

  Meanwhile, the mood of the crowd had darkened. The leader up on the statue had increased in volume, and his tone was angrier and more provocative than ever. Things were about to step off.

  But this was a problem for the riot police to deal with and Kaly kept her attention on the perimeter, searching for potential sniper hides, and anything that might signal a shooter; a glint from a scope, a silhouette on a roof, or something that seemed out of the ordinary. On that score at least, the square was relatively peaceful.

  By now, the crowd had grown weary of chanting slogans, or listening to the speeches. As one, they began surging forwards towards
the line of police, and here and there, a few of them began throwing things. Kaly couldn’t tell what, but from the way the objects bounced off the police shields, it didn’t appear to be anything more lethal than a few rocks, and possibly some garbage. She felt sorry for the women in the MP units below her. Getting pelted with trash wasn’t her idea of real soldiering, or anything ‘fun’.

  Two full minutes of this abuse went by before she finally discovered what the men in the crowd had been distributing. When the mob became daring enough to come closer to the police line, a few of their number lit up the homemade firebombs and threw them.

  These didn’t have any real lethal effect in and of themselves. Aside from splashing their flaming contents on the ground, or shattering uselessly against the shields, none of the officers were actually harmed.

  The firebombs did manage to accomplish one thing however. They caused the commander of the ETR riot police to lose their patience. At an order, the police surged forwards like a great green and black wave. Stun bombs went off before them, and clubs began to swing. In short order, the protestors were retreating, leaving only a few unfortunates behind to suffer at the hands of the policemen.

  Watching the melee, Kaly was sickened by its primitive nature. It was like viewing a medieval battle from Old Gaia. While a pack of four officers beat a man senseless with their batons right below her, she firmly concluded that of all the weapons in the modern law enforcement arsenal, riot sticks were surely the cruelest of all. There was nothing gentle, or even remotely ‘high-tech’ about them. Even in the most skilled hands, they were no better than Neolithic clubs. Much to her revulsion, she also discovered that there was nothing that compared to the sound of riot sticks pummeling flesh and bone.

  The protestors weren’t long in responding with force of their own. Lengths of piping and heavy sticks which had been concealed by the protest signs taped to them, made their appearance, and their wielders counterattacked. In seconds, the two lines of combatants collided and the whole scene became a confused tangle of individual struggles and absolute mayhem.