He stood quietly trying to get a read on the room. He saw faces filled with a variety of shock, fear, and disbelief. Well, I really don't blame them. It still seems too absurd to be true. Hawthorne let his head droop and let out a sigh.
"For the Queen!" Hawthorne looked up to see his friend, Commander Lucas Svenson standing and staring directly at him. A look of determination on his face.
"For the Queen!" Another officer in the back of the room stood up.
One after another, officers stood and proclaimed their loyalty to their rightful sovereign using those three words. In the end, roughly one-third of the officers had stood with him. Hawthorne had never been so humbled by and proud of the men and women that served under him. He had asked them to blindly follow him into a large scale act of treason and sedition, and they had trusted him.
Due to the number of people that had chosen to stay, Hawthorne decided to keep the Poseidon as the new home for those that chose to follow him. The Athena would be used to return the others to the Commonwealth. For the next several hours, every available shuttlecraft flew back and forth between the three Commonwealth ships ferrying crew members to either the Poseidon or Athena, depending on their choice to stay or return.
Hawthorne had returned to the Poseidon's bridge and was watching the Athena from the main screen. She had powered back up and was setting a course for the Commonwealth. He watched the ship engage the primary engines and it was out of sight within moments. That was when the weight of the day came crashing down on him. The gravity of the decision he had made and had asked these others to make.
Creator, please let me be right. Help me take care of my people, and help me serve my Queen with honor.
CHAPTER 12
Sandra Peterson always had mixed emotions right before raiding a suspect's location. Part of her was a little bit anxious since there was no way of truly knowing what was inside the building until you breached the door. Mostly though, she felt electrified. Her adrenaline had kicked in, and her heart was racing. She pushed the nerves to the back of her mind. Can't afford to get nerved up. We've got a murderer to catch.
They had pinpointed the suspect's location down to the town of Research City near the top of Olympus Mons, the highest point on Mars. Research City was named because the location was originally a research settlement. Over time more and more industries had set up labs there to study various disciplines in the reduced atmospheric pressure of the extremely high altitude provided. As more scientists and their families moved into the settlement, it grew into a town, then a large city offering every convenience and amenity a person could desire.
The Capital Police were working with the Research City Police Department since the location was in their jurisdiction. However, CTD had made it clear that there was a potential terrorist threat, therefore they would be taking point on the raid. The RCPD was only too happy to step back and let the Capital Police when they heard the word 'terrorist'.
Owen Cordell was standing in front of Peterson, peeking cautiously around a building corner trying to get a visual on the suspect's location. Chen was standing behind her, and behind him was a small army made up of officers from both Capital Police and RCPD. Peterson hadn't counted but estimated that there were at least thirty people here, all in full tactical gear. She had assisted the CTD before and knew that Cordell's team operated more like elite military soldiers than the typical police officer. Which meant there would definitely be a body count before things were over.
Cordell pulled back around the corner and faced the group behind him. "We've got at least four confirmed hostiles. One on the rooftop of the building, probably their primary lookout. At least one just inside the front door. I've seen the same face peek out from the drawn curtains three times. At least two on the upper floor, peeking through the last window on opposite ends of the building. I doubt any of them is the one that we are looking for. So, we'll have to take out the lookouts if we want any chance of getting close to the building without our suspect knowing. Our intel has the suspect active on the Interlink less than five minutes ago, so this is the right place. Our snipers have already taken a position to remove the lookouts." Cordell tapped his ear-borne comm device. "Fire on my signal." He peeked around the corner again. He was watching for the moment they could take all four out at once. "Fire!" He ordered. there was a momentary flash as the four snipers fired their pulse rifles.
"Already people, move out! You know your assignments," Cordell shouted to everyone.
The group began moving in on the building as quickly as they could. Peterson and Chen were following Cordell straight to the front door. They formed up on each side of the door, while an officer with a ram breached the door. Cordell was first in, followed by Peterson, then Chen. They heard the crashing sound as the second group hit the back door of the building to make entry. Cordell, Peterson, Chen, and the rest of the police officers began to clear the rooms of the building. They finished clearing the first floor and began to make their way up the stairs to the second floor. A man armed with a pulse rifle was at the top of the landing and started firing on them. His assault lasted only a few seconds, as the detectives and officers opened fire on the lone gunman. The gunman's body fell back into the hallway at the top of the stairs, covered in blood and charring from the pulse blast impacts.
They again began clearing the building, room by room. The last room at the end of the hallway had it's door open, and they could see a man sitting at a desk frantically working at a console interface.
"Capital Police!" Peterson shouted at the man as she entered the doorway. "Hands in the air. Do it now!" Chen and Cordell formed up behind her, each lightly touching her back with one hand, the other training a gun on the man seated at the desk. The man didn't even both to look up, he just kept working feverishly at the console in front of him.
"I said hands up," Peterson repeated the order. "If you do not comply we will be forced to..." Her instructions were interrupted by the sound of a pulse blaster firing. The man seated at the desk pitched backward, his body and the chair both crashing to the floor. His face was a bloodied and charred mess, caved in from the impact of the blast.
Peterson turned around to see Cordell returning his blaster to its shoulder holster under his jacket. "What the heck, Owen? He was unarmed! We could have interrogated him!"
"He wasn't going to stop whatever he was doing until he was dead or captured," Cordell replied calmly. "In that time, he could have finished what he was working on. He could have been arming a bomb, sending a warning to his accomplices if he had any, or wiping the console's data core so that we couldn't get any information from it. Regardless, he wasn't going to give us any information. I've dealt with his type before. The guy we killed at the stairs wasn't there to try to stop us, but just to slow us down so this guy could finish."
"You don't know that," Chen joined the conversation. "He could have given us valuable intel on who he was working with. Now we'll never know."
Cordell walked over to the dead man's console, Peterson and Chen following closely. He retrieved his gloves from a pocket, powered the console down and ejected its data core. "I'll have my guys get to work on this immediately," he said walking toward the door. He stopped and turned back to face them when he reached the door. "You guys okay to oversee the rest of the evidence collection? I don't want to wait on this." He then walked out the door and down the hallway towards the stairs.
"What just happened?" Chen asked Peterson. "This was supposed to be a raid, not an extermination."
Peterson shook her head. "What just happened is CTD's standard approach. Shoot first, and on the off-chance, someone survives, ask questions. That is why I turned down working in CTD and joined homicide." She began to examine the body. "Nothing you can do about it now. Let's just see what we can learn from this mess." She pulled an identification card from the dead man's shirt pocket and examined it. "Well, this day just got better," she muttered.
"What is it?" Chen asked his partner.
&n
bsp; She showed him the identification card. It was a military issued ID card. That, in and of its self, wasn't that uncommon. Any person that had served in the fleet, or any civilian that worked for, or around the fleet, had one. What made this one unique was the faint red wing watermark background. "Roscoe W. Harrison. He was a Sovereign Angel. The ID is expired, so he's not active, and probably not honorably discharged or he would have been issued one indicating he was in the reserves."
Chen sighed. "So we have another dead body linked to the fleet, this one, a Sovereign Angel. Which makes this a Fleet Justice case now, since all Sovereign Angel matters are their jurisdiction alone."
"Yep, it would be. If they knew about it," she grinned. "I'm not telling them, are you?"
Chen was getting that feeling again. The one that meant he needed to call his wife and tell her that he wouldn't be coming home anytime soon. He pushed the thought away. Peterson might like to play fast and loose with the rules, but he couldn't. He needed his job, and this was a big rule to break.
"Sandra, we can't keep this case," Chen told his partner. "If we get caught working it without reporting it to the OFJ, we could go to jail. I don't look good in stripes, and I'm not wearing them for you or anyone else. I have a family to think about." He looked at his partner. He could see the look of determination on her face and knew that she wasn't going to let this go. "Here is what I am going to do. I'm going to go home now, and spend the rest of the evening with my family. First thing tomorrow, I'm going to file the proper report indicating that this investigation needs to be turned over to the Office of Fleet Justice immediately. So, you've got until eight tomorrow morning to do whatever you want." He mumbled something under his breath about his partner being too headstrong for her own good as he left the room, and left Peterson to work alone.
***
No'tok was enjoying his new ship. He had received an encoded message from Gaelon reprimanding him for destroying all three ships. What of it? You still got what you wanted, didn't you, Gaelon? The entire universe believes that the Dominion is once again setting its sights on conquering the universe. If he had his way, the Dominion would have indeed returned to their old ways. The recent emperors in the Dominion have been spineless, especially Glars'n. Their policy of hiding from the rest of the universe has made our people weak. No'tok clenched his jaw. He hated all things weak. Things like mercy, compassion, and peace were useless. He had decided that he was going to make certain that the Legion was never seen as weak.
Gaelon had ordered him to return to Zophitan, but he had ignored that. He was using the power of his new ship to attack any craft he came across in the guise of a V'drellian warship. You want the people to hate the Dominion, Gaelon? I'll make certain they hate it as much as I do. They had been hiding among the outer planets of Commonwealth home star system. Their last victim was a Terran Pathfinder class ship.
At first, he would damage them and give them time to send a broadcast blamed the Dominion before destroying them. Now, he didn't care. As soon as they could get a clear shot at a ship, they took it. The crew was beginning to enjoy it as much as he was. Gaelon, you made a mistake putting so many V'drellians in officer roles on this ship. I've awakened the dormant bloodlust in them now. We will make a path through the universe that is paved in the blood of the weak.
It wasn't just the crew's bloodlust that these attacks were satisfying. No'tok enjoyed the thrill of taking life more than anything else. Inflicting pain and death on others was more addictive to him than any drug could ever be. He saw the same look of enjoyment on the face of Krat'sa, the tactical officer. He knew that she had been exiled from the Order of V'drellz Stragizi by K'oron personally. That made her an asset. Should they encounter the Commandant-General of the Order, he knew that he could count on Krat'sa would stop at nothing to kill the man that dishonored her publicly. Oh, how I would love to watch her slice that smug K'oron open and pull out his entrails.
The biggest surprise to No'tok came in watching his first officer. Gar'loz had quickly embraced the thrill of hunting down and destroying the enemy. He was actually launching his own attacks when No'tok was off duty. He wasn't being careless about it either. He would stalk his prey before attacking, like a scr'athla beast playing with its food before killing and devouring it.
No'tok was sitting in his chair on the bridge watching while his first officer was taking the lead in targeting their next target, a Terran passenger ship. He had been toying with it for a while now. He would momentarily turn off the sensor dampener in the camouflage system, just long enough for the passenger ship to pick them up then he would turn it back on. The result was that the passenger ship would begin to make erratic course and speed changes, which was all the slower, weakly armed vessel could do. After repeating this hide-and-seek maneuver several times, the passenger ship stopped reacting.
No'tok chuckled. Gar'loz has made them think they are having a sensor anomaly. They've just started to ignore it now. He looked at his first officer who was smiling. Gar'loz had noticed as well.
"Mak'naw, bring us up behind them, full camouflage," Gar'loz instructed the navigation officer. "I want them to feel the full terror of our emergence." The navigation officer nodded and altered their course and speed to come in behind the passenger ship.
"Krat'sa, power up our weapons," he ordered the tactical officer. "Be ready to fire the moment the camouflage system disengages." She began working at her controls.
"Weapons are ready, Commander," Krat'sa announced.
"We are ready to fire, Admiral," Gar'loz turned to face No'tok. "On your command."
"This is your hunt, Commander" No'tok replied with a smile. "This is your kill."
"Thank you, sir." Gar'loz grinned much as a son might after receiving praise from his father.
***
Emily Watson was having the time of her life. The seven-year-old girl was on her first trip away from Mars. Her parents had saved up their money for over two years to afford to take a family trip to see the rings of Saturn. The passenger cruise ship, Angel of the Stars, had been making good time and they were on schedule to see the rings tomorrow. Today, she and her parents were enjoying a picnic on the rear arboretum deck of the cruise ship. The artificial sunlight felt warm on her skin as she played a game of tag with her father while her mother was getting the food ready.
Earlier that day, the ship had acted strangely, as though whoever was setting the course couldn't make up their mind which way they wanted to go. Her father had asked a member of the crew about it, and he was told that there had been an issue with the ship's navigation system causing the course adjustments and speed changes, but that it had been repaired and that there was nothing to worry about.
"Emily, Sweetie," her mother called out to her. "It's time for you and Daddy to take a break. Lunch is ready."
"Okay, Mommy!" The little girl looked at her father. "I bet I can get to the sandwiches before you can!" Then she took off running toward the picnic blanket without a word of warning.
"Hey," her father protested with a smile, "that's not very fair!"
The three of them sat down, and her mother passed out the plates of sandwiches.
"Oh boy!" Emily exclaimed. "Nut butter and jelly! Yum!" She shoved as much of the sandwich into her mouth as she could and began chewing.
"This was a great idea, Liz," the father said to the mother smiling. "I'm so glad you talked me into this. She will never forget this trip."
"That smile definitely makes it worth it," Liz said watched their daughter devour the last of her sandwich. The little girl had blobs of nut butter and jelly smeared around the corners of her mouth.
"Daddy, Mommy, did you know that Saturn's rings were first seen by an Earthling named Galileo a long, long, time ago back when people still lived on Earth." Emily loved to recite facts about the planets. "He thought they looked like ears on the planet. That's silly!" She watched any archived video she could find about their solar system. She was going to be an astronomer when she was ol
d enough to join the academy.
"I did not know that," her father George replied. "I bet you know a lot more about Saturn than I do." Emily just grinned and nodded.
"The first man-made object to reach Saturn was the Pioneer 11 probe," she shared more trivia about the ringed planet. "It was just a machine. It didn't carry people with it. The first people to see the rings were on the Earth ship Struve. It was named for a family of famous astronomers. Why can't our family be astronomers or something else important?"
"Because your father is a terraform data scientist," her mother answered. "He helps to figure out ways to bring life to dead planets so that Terrans can live there."
"And, your mother is a civilian engineer for the Commonwealth Fleet," her father added. "She works on designs for new engines so that ships can go farther and faster through space. That way Terrans can explore more of the stars that astronomers find. I think those are both pretty important jobs." The little girl thought about those answers and grabbed another sandwich from the plate her mother had put them on.
They were enjoying their picnic when Emily suddenly screamed pointing at the large observation window on the rear wall of the arboretum deck. Her mother and father both turned to see what Emily was pointing at. What they saw through the window filled them with panic.
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