Galactic Council Realm 2: On Duty

by J. Clifton Slater

  The PID buzzed and buzzed and buzzed before I came awake. It was a message from Sergeant Bima. The Marine quick reaction force had been activated. Two attacks on Construction Station’s ion cannon walls had occurred and his force had been divided and sent to reinforce security on the engineering decks. It made no mention about activity around the Heart Plants.

  Three Druid robes and a vendetta against Heart Plants and Rebel forces attack the Station’s power plants? It didn’t add up. I dressed quickly and left the Hotel. On the street, I hailed a taxi and ordered it to Deck A’s main entrance.

  Three Marines stood guard at the lift. I was happy to see the beefed up security and smiled as I walked up them.

  “The lift is closed,” a Corporal stated, “Security lock down.”

  “Sergeant Bima’s orders, good,” I said pulling my Navy Officer’s tag, “Just checking.”

  “No Sir,” the Corporal replied, “We haven’t had communications from the Sergeant since he assigned us to the post.”

  “Then, who ordered the lock down?” I asked.

  “A Druid Elder,” he stated, “The Elder gave the order before he lead two other Druids and three Station security officers up to Deck A.”

  Ignaz had three stolen Druid robes so getting his hands on three Station security uniforms wouldn’t be difficult. Maybe they were Druids and maybe the security officers were the real thing.

  “Were the security officers armed?” I asked.

  “Yes Sir, they all were, with 45s,” he said.

  My pulse increased and I knew the six weren’t what they claimed. Druids may carry firearms but never in sight of Folks. They’d have secreted the 45s under their robes. Displaying a holster over a robe would damage the Druid’s finely honed mystique.

  I made sure each of the Marines saw my officer’s tag. They focused and snapped to attention.

  “What can we do for you, Lieutenant?” the Corporal asked.

  “Maintain the lock down,” I ordered, “No one passes to Deck A, unless they are Marines or Druids. No one leaves Deck A until they are cleared by Bima or me.”

  “Aye Sir, but the Sergeant isn’t here. And the Officer of the Guard is in the command center,” he informed me.

  “Exactly, no one leaves, not Druids, security officers or civilians,” I restated the order, “I’m going up. To be clear, the use of weapons is authorized.”

  I waved my PID over theirs. The authorization transferred and I left them checking their 45s. With my back secured, I entered the corkscrew elevator and pushed the button for Construction deck ‘A’.

  Chapter 28

  It was disorienting when the lift car turned and the doors faced upwards. For a few seconds, I was pinned to the rear of the car. The doors opened and I used a side ladder to climb up through the doors.

  The ladder had snapped onto an extension and I climbed it through the deck plating. It ended in a pressure chamber. I located the elevator switch and watched as the deck slid closed. My view of the back of the lift car was soon replaced by a solid deck. Air hissed, my ears popped from the higher pressure but stopped as the chamber equalized. Sometime during the sequence, my PID binged loss of signal with the Construction Station. I was for all purposes on the surface of the Station. Only a temporary overhead deck separated me from the void of space.

  Before opening the airlock, I pulled the Clan strap from the plain shoulder bag. I wasn’t ready to go Knight, yet, but I wanted quick access to my gear.

  The airlock opened on a large changing room. Rows of storage lockers for personal use faced rows of large racks with space suits. High benches and tables separated the two. At first, I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t see anyone because I was looking around at eye level. A moan drew my attention and I glanced at the deck.

  Bloody boot prints lead away from me disappearing down another row. I eased to the corner and peered around. The bodies were casually laid together. Workmen, half-dressed, all covered in blood and left to die. One moaned.

  This confirmed the Druids were fake as were the security officers. They’d shot the assemblers with no thought of taking prisoners. Dragged them out of sight from the airlock and left, secure in the knowledge no one would come to their aid.

  Two were alive and still bleeding. From the emergency medical cabinet, I pulled compression bandages. After wrapping the wounds as best as I could, I carried the two wounded to the pressure chamber. Then I made three more trips carrying dead workers to the chamber.

  There were two badly wounded, three dead bodies and me waiting for the pressure to drop and the elevator access doors to slid open. It finally did and I looked down at the back of the elevator car. ‘Indelicate, I know’, I thought as I drug and tossed first one of the dead down into the car. Once I had a stack of dead, I dropped my wounded into the elevator car. The dead bodies cushioning the living’s fall.

  I sent a message about the wounded to the Marines at the guard post. It went out before my communications were cut off by the deck plate. I knew, now, the target was the Heart Plant destined for the uncompleted Frigate. If Ignaz had demands, he’d have taken hostages. He hadn’t.

  The Clan doublet slid over my head and I tied the trousers tightly around my waist. I still couldn’t figure out why the Elders constructed them to tie rather than use another type of fastener to hold the pants in place. Once dressed, I snapped the Knight’s fighting sticks open. It was time for Ignaz and his compatriots to die.

  Their tracks were easy to follow. Even without the Knight’s cowl, I could track the bloody footprints. They traipsed through the blood of their victims and without a care left wet stains with every step. The prints entered a hallway.

  I found two more bodies. They’d come from above in pressurized elevators. Descending from the construction deck, the workmen, still in their space suits, had been gunned down. The prints passed beyond the bank of lifts.

  The airlock was closed. I pulled the hood down before shoving the door open and ducking. Three rounds passed over my head.

  “Probably a workman,” a woman’s voice said, “That’s keep him on his side of the airlock.”

  If I were a construction worker, it would have, but I was not. Looking at her smug face and scanning down to the blood on the side of her boots, I knew her time was over. Her security uniform didn’t present any defense as my fighting stick smacked the gun from her hand. She pulled back the injured arms instead of putting it up to block the other stick. It crushed her windpipe and she fell chocking and gagging to the floor. One down, five more war people to go.

  The floor of the hallway began to rise. It would pass through the decking and end at the Heart Plant’s sarcophagus. I reached another air lock but it was open. On the far side, a man was bent over a metal box while two more stood watching him. One of the standing men wore a Druid robe.

  I was planning my next step when a shout from higher up the hallway echoed back to me. As the noise died off, a brown ball came rolling down. When it stopped, a small arm flopped from the Druid robe.

  The war people had killed a Druid child. Their punishment would be a slow death from a Knight Protector of the Clan. I ran, sticks held high, directly to the three men. If they’d known to look for a shimmering shape they might have stood a chance. They didn’t and I passed the kneeling man on his right. My right stick shattered the bones around one eye. I kept moving.

  The two standing had a look of surprise as they watched the man fall to the deck and blood sprout from his face. My left stick slashed across the carotid artery of one. The crimson fountain was testament to my failure to make them die slowly. The last of the three clawed out his weapon but it dropped from a broken arm. Him, I simply knocked out saving his death for later.

  I tuned to the box and glanced into the interior. Amid the wires and flashing lights, I saw globes of explosives. Unless the six planned on a suicide mission, they’d have plans to evacuate before detonating the device.

  “Hurry up with that thing,” a voice called from above, �
�The ship’s inbound and you don’t want to miss the ride out of here.”

  Two to go and I knew where they were located. What I hadn’t foreseen was the camera and the two posing as Druids in front of the lens.

  “Turn it back on, I believe it’s show time,” one said.

  “Certainly Ignaz,” the other replied as he adjusted the camera, “You are live in three, two, one.”

  “For too long, Druids have been held back by the Galactic Council,” Ignaz said lowering and deepening his voice as most folks imagined a Druid master might sound, “Today, my brothers and I are throwing off the yoke and raising up to take our place as masters of the Realm. Come join me brothers.”

  The cameraman eased into frame behind Ignaz. His arms tucked inside the sleeves of his brown robe. He didn’t speak but signified his agreement with the fake Druid by nodding his approval.

  “From this day forward, I call on all Druids to kill any citizen who questions us,” he said still with the ultra-bass effect, “Any who stand in our way will be cast out. So says the Druid Council of Elders.”

  As he finished the speech, the other man slipped back behind the camera.

  “Nicely done,” he said flipping the camera off, “Now all we need is our third Druid and the bomb.”

  “Come on with the device,” Ignaz shouted, “We’ve got to wrap this up.”

  ‘I completely agree,’ I thought as I slip the brown robe over my head.

  “There you are,” he said as I struggled up the ramp dragging the device behind me.

  “The welds on the door may not hold and we don’t want some real Druids to ruin our fun,” the cameraman said, “Place the bomb next to the door. When we blame the Galactic Council for destroying the succulent in a failed rescue mission, we want to be sure the entire structure gets blasted into space. It’ll be a nice touch to kill a bunch of the brown devils in the process.”

  “You talk too much,” Ignaz said, “Are we ready? I want to get off this smelly piece of orbiting iron.”

  I grunted as I placed the box next to the entrance to the Blue Heart Plant’s coffin. The lid lifted and I mimed throwing a switch. Then, I stood up with my fighting sticks at the ready.

  “Is the camera on?” I asked in a deep voice.

  ”You don’t give the orders here,” Ignaz growled, “Start the camera and you two get behind me.”

  I delayed a second to allow the cameraman to take his place behind Ignaz. Somethings are just too easy. The cameraman collapsed as his knee shattered and his gun, worn in a holster over his brown robe, was lifted.

  Ignaz was in mid rant, somewhere between the superiority of the Druids and the riches owed them by the citizens of the Realm. I believe he was working up a sweat and I’ve got to give it to him he was fully committed to his cause. Maybe that’s why he didn’t hear the cameraman drop or me removing the brown robe.

  I wrapped one camouflaged arm around his throat. A pistol floated into view and Ignaz’s head rocked as three kinetic rounds scrambled his brain. The camera, I kicked off the tripod because no one can witness the revenge of a Knight Protector of the Clan.

  With the butt end of the left fighting stick, the one with the alloy point, I carved a ‘C’ in his forehead. The cameraman, I rolled over.

  His eyes were big, maybe from the pain in his knee, or may be from the formless shape looming over him.

  “I’m hurt,” he pleaded, “Help me.”

  “I’ll make the pain go away,” I said using the stupid bass voice they found so amusing, “But first, where is the ship?”

  “Deck ‘A’, third quadrant,” he said, “Quick, we’ve got to go.”

  “First let me do something about the pain,” I replied lifting him to a sitting position.

  I placed the point of the left stick’s butt end and slid it into the back of his neck.

  “No more pain,” I said as I carved a ‘C’ into his forehead.

  His eyes grew glassy as he realized the pain was going. Then again, so was any feeling in the rest of his body. It took a few beats for the heart muscle to realize no nerve impulses were reaching it. His mind was the last organ to go dark.

  Down the ramp from the Heart Plant entrance, I stopped to dispatch the living one and leave the Knight’s remembrance in their foreheads. My vow of a slow death forgotten, I wanted to get to the escape ship before it pulled out.

  The woman near the airlock received a hurried ‘C’ and I sprinted to the pressurized elevators. Passing three others, I finally found the one marked Quadrant 3. An emergency suit hung inside and I jerked it on as the elevator rose.

  “Warning, voiding air, warning, voiding air,” the speaker announced as the car rose above the final deck of Construction Station, “Manual permission required.”

  I slammed the release button and the air was slowly pumped out of the elevator. Bracing against the back of the car, I was ready to sprint to the ship. The doors pulled back. I bounded out, just in time to catch sight of a Shuttle’s under belly. It picked up speed to escape the weak gravity of Construction Station.

  Whoever was in the Shuttle was gone. I wondered if it was Gennaro.

  Beams for the unfinished Frigate stuck up like ribs from a huge skeleton. They reached almost to the opening at the top of ‘A’ deck’s cone. The structure surrounding the Blue Heart Plant glowed silver. It looked small sitting in the center of the massive upright girders. My anger ebbed and the haze lifted. My heartrate dropped.

  Peering down, I saw sharp sections of plating were just centimeters from my legs. Not an issue in a normal workmen’s suit, but I had on an emergency space suit. One wrong step and my life would have vented into space.

  I shuffled back to the elevator avoiding other sections meant for the unfinished Frigate. It seemed wrong for the hull beams to be laid for a capital ship, and a Blue Heart Plant set in place, only to have the project placed on hold.

  The space suit I stripped off as the car pressurized and dropped into the under deck. I raced back to the vault door. It took a few minutes using the Rebels’ cutting touch but I soon had the hard spots dislodged. Once the last one fell away, freeing the vault, I sprinted for the changing room.

  The Druids wouldn’t follow too closely. Some of the young ones would want to but the older Druids, seeing the markings on the dead, would prevent them. No one wanted to find a Knight of the Clan in full vengeance mode.

  All three Marines had their pistols drawn and were stationed watching a busy containment area. The Marines had followed orders. Corpsmen had brought in a mobile medical van for the wounded. Sitting on the deck to one side of the van were six construction workers. On the other side of the van, four station security personnel lounged. Mixed among the security officers and the workmen were a few civilians. None of the detainees looked happy.

  “Lieutenant. No one got in and we have a few who attempted to get out,” the Corporal assured me.

  “Where did the civilians come from?” I asked indicating the people not in uniform.

  “They wandered over and started asking questions,” the Marine replied, “So we sat them down to wait.”

  “Let’s go over and check their credentials,” I said walking towards the van, “maybe we can release them.”

  Sergeant Bima arrived before we get started on the document inspection. He leaped from a still moving urban assault vehicle and stopped. The expression on his face was one of confusion and he throw both arms into the air to punctuate the emotion. Marine Corps’ Sergeants give orders to Marine’s on guard duty. They don’t like to see changes when they return.

  I intercepted Bima before he reached the Corporal. After a long discussion, he joined us in checking IDs and clearing the detainees.

  “What’s the resolution from the ion walls?” I asked once the crowd was released.

  “The Rebels fired one volley at my Marines,” he said sounding a little disappointed, “They didn’t hit any of my people. One volley and they dropped their weapons and ran. Disappeared into the protes
ters.”

  “The attacks were a diversion from the real target, the Heart Plant,” I explained, “Thanks to your Marines the real attack failed.”

  “Looks like they didn’t do much,” the Sergeant said looking hard into my eyes.

  “5th General Order, Sergeant, they held their post and guarded my back,” I stated.

  “If you say so, Lieutenant,” he replied wearily.

  “Bima, I need to get to Orange on the alphabet side and I’d like to have some company,” I said as we stood by his command vehicle.

  The two Marines and I took the escalator down to Orange. Our strides quickly ate up the distance to Ignaz’s apartment. I let the Marines enter first because they were armed and armored. It was unnecessary. The apartment was empty and when I pulled out the fridge, the shelves were empty as well. There was no sign of the fortune in Pesetas, the list written in the strange symbols or the picture book with the mini pedestal. Even the bottle containing the strange mixture was gone.

  I released the Marines and trudged my way to the Breached Plate. Bulan was behind the bar.

  “Rough day?” he asked.

  “I’ve had better,” I replied sliding onto a stool, “Ale, please. Say, have you seen Gennaro?”

  “He hasn’t been around,” he said as he placed an amber glass of joy in front of me, “Funny thing is, I’m here a lot but last shift, his bottle disappeared.”

  “Give me another,” I replied sliding the empty glass in his direction.

  I’d file a report with Station Security, but I didn’t think it would do any good. Gennaro was probably already off Construction Station.

  After a few hours of sleep, I dressed and checked out of the Imperial Hotel. As soon as I walked out the Brown door, I inhaled. Sea salt aroma greeted me. The Druids had released the rich air from the Heart Plants.

  There were no protesters, as a matter of fact, the only people on the sidewalks were civilians, spouses and children. News of the fake Druid attacks and the assaults on the engineering decks had convinced them Rebels were behind the activities. A feeling of wellbeing washed over me and I wanted to stop and enjoy it. I would have if the memory of a dead young man hadn’t ripped the feeling away.