by R. E. Graham
Cycle: 412 Month: 7 Rotation: 12
Prefecture: Siimon
Planet: Eden
Location: Industrial District of Lucifer
Daylight shined through the dingy window of a small WorkMech repair shop that Varius had found the night before. He had negotiated with the owner, Mr. Henshin, so he wouldn’t take any other clients while his Spade was parked in the small hangar. The owner happily accepted when the Inquisitor agreed to his price since he paid in thousands of digital cuso upfront.
After the last couple of hours of refueling his jumper pack and checking over the rest of the systems in the Spade, Varius finally had time to get a bite to eat. As customary he pulled a protein bar from his pocket. He unwrapped the foil wrapper and took a big bite. Since it had been so long since his last meal, the mixture of sweet and salty flavors delighted his tongue.
“Let me know if you need anything else Inquisitor!” Mr. Henshin called out as he walked towards the front door.
“I will, and thanks” Varius responded as he did his best to not spit out his food while talking.
The sound of the door shutting echoed through the hangar. It didn’t matter what planet he was on, all repair shops regardless of their size had that same stagnant oily smell in the air.
All sorts of tools and boxes were loosely organized in the corner where the workstation was located. The stonecrete floor had several big stains from something that had leaked here long ago. It was tight, but he was able to navigate in and get his Spade into the repair station successfully. A metal walkway stretched from the two platforms on either side of the destructive machine.
Even though Varius had been a WarMech pilot for many cycles, he still felt a sense of admiration for how deadly his three-story tall killer could be. Especially since its armor was completely painted in dark gray and black except for the large white inquisitor insignia painted on the side of its chest.
WarMechs came in many different designs depending on their purpose and function, not to mention, each nation of humankind seemed to add their own flair to their designs. The Corre Republic generally favored simplicity with ballistic weapons since they had so many machines that they maintained across dozens of worlds. While some nations such as the Union of Stars favored plasma weapons, the expense was simply too great to issue to widespread forces of the Republic.
The Spade in particular was a powerful combination of mobility and weaponry. WarMechs were typically classified by their weight as larger designs could carry larger more powerful destructive weapons. Left unchallenged, a WarMech such as a Spade could level an entire town. Besides the Titan Killer scattergun for a right forearm and the Zephyr twelve ripper missile rack on its left shoulder, this Spade was outfitted with an anti-infantry chain gun loaded with hollow point rounds on the underside of the right forearm, smoke grenades on the sides of its torso, and four sets of micro missiles hidden under armor panels on its chest.
Varius patted the Spade with his gloved hand and turned to go down the metal steps. With arms stretched above his head he walked across the stained stonecrete floor and over to his bag. He retrieved a sealed water bottle inside and unscrewed the cap.
Prior to the incident aboard the shuttle during re-entry, the Inquisitor had read up on every public publication on the stream that he could about Eva Primus and her Eden’s Forgotten Legion. Many journalists had labeled the EDF as freedom fighters. Furthermore, they highlighted how the local group of terrorists themselves with the Libertas movement and that they were gunned down during a Keepers of Peace raid in a warehouse in the workers district of Lucifer. The leader, Eva Primus, had been captured elsewhere and taken into KoP custody.
One of the articles he came across suggested that maybe a weapons deal was going down at the same time the raid happened. Strangely, when he came back to the article it had been redacted and “corrected” by the editor to read that they didn’t have confirmation of what exactly was being bought. In Varius’ line of work, sometimes when a news source changed their story when most of the others already had a consensus on the incident it meant something was being covered up.
The warehouse is the best place to start investigating. Then onto the group leader, Eva.
He took another gulp of water.
Even though he knew it was loaded he ceremoniously checked his sidearm to ensure it was chambered. He holstered his weapon and attached his folded-up helmet to the base of his neck. The rectangular shape clicked into place.
Within Varius’ gauntlet was a fragment of his WarMech’s onboard artificial intelligence, Marth. The two fragments would synchronize to one another when Varius piloted the Spade. When he was on foot, Marth would leave a piece of herself within the Spade to maintain electronic systems and operate the security systems so the WarMech wasn’t stolen.
Before he left the repair shop, he considered taking his laser rifle along with him but decided against it.
Best not draw too much attention with extra firepower from either Titus or the KoP forces. It’s bad enough I already got caught with my Spade.
His steps echoed as his heavy boots clanked against the floor with every step as he exited the repair shop. He pulled out a small key card from his right pocket that the shop owner had given him temporarily and scanned it at the door terminal. The red light turned green and the door slid into the wall. The local star was still hidden behind one of the massive skyscrapers in the city, but daylight still brightened the street and its travelers below.
A group of five men clearly who had too much to drink the night before passed Varius. They laughed loudly as one of their compatriots poorly sang some drunkard song. One tripped over a garbage bin spilling out its contents on the sidewalk. The others lost themselves in laughter as the fallen man got himself up and spat on the garbage pile in disgust. They continued onto their next destination.
Varius checked to his right then exited the doorway. The door slid shut behind him and could be heard audibly lock. He continued to walk down the street at a reasonable pace trying to not draw any unwanted eyes to himself.
Eden was an industrial world near the border with the Union of Stars. Generations ago it was a beautiful planet full of plant life, now it was built up to the point that many of its natural fauna was harvested for land. It wasn’t long before corporate greed found its way to Eden and set up shop in some barren land. After decades of work, the capital of Eden officially was transferred to Lucifer.
This wasn’t the only world that had found itself overrun by corporations and greedy men vying for control. In fact, the entire Siimon prefecture was said to be controlled by big business and not actually by the governor who ruled the planet. There wasn’t anything on any of his missions that confirmed this local rumor, but it wasn’t entirely impossible. He had encountered plenty of corrupt politicians since he became an inquisitor. Some that he personally had to dispense judgement to.
It was still early in the day, but crowds heading to their jobs were beginning to form on the sidewalk waiting for traffic lights to shift. Varius inspected the group of adults that ranged from young and old, dressed as workers or the more upscale middle leadership that ran many of the businesses in the skyscrapers. The traffic lights all changed to orange to signal all vehicles to stop. White lights built into the roads activated and illuminated paths that pedestrians could take. Varius followed the lights behind a large group that broke from the larger body of waiting people that led him diagonally through the intersection.
He continued for several more blocks before he came to the warehouse district. While many of the warehouses were truly huge structures, there was one that was smaller located in the back, down an alley that still had KoP caution posts all over the place. Each of the posts were connected to a system that created a light barrier to the next post to keep people out.
Seeing as how the incident with the terrorists happened over five rotations ago there wasn’t anyone stationed to guard it. Varius knew that if there was any evidence of foul play it was probably already sc
rubbed from existence, but every now and then he would get lucky due to someone being sloppy.
As he approached the warehouse he saw an abandoned wheeled semitruck. After his helmet flipped up and clicked together over his face, he took a slender device from the pocket on his right leg and stuck it to the side of the truck. The Inquisitor pressed a button on the base of the jammer and it disabled any surveillance equipment outside the structure within range of the device.
Carefully, he ducked beneath the light beam to not set off a potential alarm and walked up to the warehouse’s main door. Having been on many investigations before, he was nearly killed one time when a door was booby-trapped. Not wanting to repeat history, he made it a habit of when going onto a crime scene to use his helmet to scan for traps. You never knew who didn’t want the truth to come out.
“Scan complete. No warnings detected” Marth said in Varius’ helmet.
“Any lifeforms?” Varius asked as he used his left hand to press the door switch. It did not open.
“No humans, but several rodents are detected.”
He used Marth to access the planet’s stream to see a map of the warehouse to locate another entry point. Cycles ago it became commonplace for surveillance companies to coordinate data taken from their systems and upload it to the government access portion of the stream for field officers, inquisitors or anyone else needing knowledge of a location in a big city.
There was another door on the side of the building so Varius headed towards it. As he rounded the corner of the structure he saw several craters in the ground outside and that the wall had been covered by multiple plastic tarps that were anchored to the ground. He yanked the corner of the closest tarp upwards, but the plastic cover was very secure. Using the knife from his shoulder sheath he cut a hole big enough for him to slip through. He was not expecting to see that the tarp was in fact concealing a very large hole in the side of the building. The hole was certainly big enough for a WarMech to fit through.
Also, to his amazement, there was almost no rubble or debris on the floor. It was as if the material that made up the wall just vanished. It was dark inside despite the light outside, but still too bright to use night vision. His helmet switched on a pair of lights on the top of his helmet.
He could tell instantly that the area had been pretty scrubbed of information. There wasn’t a single shell casing, magazine, or anything to indicate a fight broke out here despite the apparent damage. The long warehouse looked relatively empty except for a couple pieces of equipment scattered about. It was much too clean looking to have been the location for a raid. Typically, Keepers of Peace were not exactly delicate with their operations. Varius had witnessed plenty of times as they used aggressive tactics to “pacify” a crowd of angry protestors.
Sensing something was off, Varius used his helmet to detect any area that may have had bodily fluids previously. His eyes widened when his helmet displayed representations of many spots that had blood at one point.
“There were at least twenty-six locations of large pools of blood found. Possibly twenty-seven but one was difficult to distinguish from another nearby spot” Marth said.
This is clearly a coverup, but how big of one?
It was very common to be involved in a case with some criminal element trying to hide evidence and cover their trail. This was by far one of the biggest cases of a scrub happening so far that he had seen, and it might have involved KoPs too.
Regardless, this is not good.
Clearly anything worth seeing in the open area of the warehouse where the raid happened wasn’t going to yield anything helpful. He took a small case connected to his belt on his left side. Carefully he retrieved a small sphere within it and cupped it in his hands on the top and bottom of the metallic ball and twisted. Several blue lights kicked on and the ball began to hover in the air on its own.
After a moment it flew off into the warehouse to begin an extensive scan of the facility. While his helmet did a decent enough job of scanning a building, especially when trying to be stealthy, but the scanner drone was more equipped for situations like this.
While waiting for the drone to finish its scan, Varius continued to walk deeper into the structure to his right where storage rooms and management would be when the warehouse was in business. He mentally counted four cameras as he made his way through the hallways and rooms. Nothing stood out until his eye caught a pile of plasti-crates behind a door.
He inspected the top crate, but it was completely empty except for some packing foam. Agitated, Varius shoved the crate off the stack. It clanged loudly as it toppled over and hit against the wall as it slid down to the floor.
As the plasti-crate flipped over from the push Varius saw a strange triangular symbol. He picked the crate up from the floor and held it up.
It’s the same symbol as before.
While he continued to inspect the crate for any other clues the drone hovered into the room with him. He set the crate back down on the stack. Before he could grasp the sphere, it exploded into blue-ish glowing pieces followed by a loud hollow bang! Instinctively he yanked his arm back and drew his sidearm. He moved away from the wall and took cover behind the crates with gun aimed at the doorway. He switched off the lights on his helmet and waited to see if the attacker would enter the room.
“Danger, plasma gunfire detected” the AI chimed.
“Yeah, no poosh!” Varius retorted. “I thought you said there wasn’t any lifeforms here.”
“I said no human lifeforms. There were several rodents detected” Marth quipped back.
“Right, I’m sure they have learned to use guns!”
“Anything is possible Inquisitor.”
Varius clenched his jaw and his face reddened. “Can you just tell me where the shooter is?”
“I detect no human presence other than your own.”
“Great, they have an inhibitor” the Inquisitor said as he gently bumped his head into the wall from frustration. “What about the plasma weapon?”
“I cannot detect a trace of the weapon either. Perhaps they have a concealer attached to the firearm as well.”
“Fantastic!” Varius growled.
Just as the Inquisitor was about to stand up a white cylinder was tossed into the room. The helmet’s visor automatically darkened protecting Varius’ vision as the flash bang burst and intensely filled the small room with blinding light. A lone gunman with slick gunmetal gray armor entered the room wielding a stumpy looking rifle.
Varius fired one shot into his left knee and then another round in his right shoulder. The gunman cried out in pain and fell to the ground. Before he dropped his rifle to the ground, the assassin accidentally squeezed off a shot from the plasma rifle into a pile of garbage on the floor in the opposite corner of the room. A small fire ignited from the burning plasma but Varius focused on the attacker.
“That’s real sloppy of you. Guess you aren’t used to hunting inquisitors are you, bounty hunter?”
The gunman reached for his dropped weapon with his good arm but Varius kicked it away.
“You see, that wasn’t smart either” Varius joked.
Distracted by the vain effort to retrieve the weapon the Inquisitor didn’t see the assassin struggle to pull a cylinder from his thigh pocket and jab it into his leg. Instantly adrenaline coursed through his body and he brought his arms behind his head and legs towards his chest and hopped up.
Varius didn’t even flinch in surprise as he swung with his left fist, knuckles reinforced by the glove locking into place, and smashed the bounty hunter’s visor in. The sudden impact knocked the enemy off balance and he fell backward, hard.
“You don’t learn, do you?” the Inquisitor asked before he shot him in the other leg.
The assassin screamed out in agony.
“Now, tell me why you shot my drone.”
“I’m not telling you anything…bastard!”
Varius could see the rage filled eyes through his attacker’s broken visor. “
You are the one coming in here blasting away and you want to call me names? Where did you get that plasma rifle anyway? Concealers don’t come cheap.”
The attacker just glared back. The Inquisitor ground his boot into the bounty hunter’s left leg wound. He shouted in pain as he grabbed at his left leg with his left arm.
“There’s no way a useless assassin like you could afford that firearm. Tell me who do you work for? What happened in this factory? Obviously, you are here to cover something up” Varius barked.
“I’m not tellin’ you anythin’!”
“Fine, you made me do this…” the Inquisitor stood up to his full height and pulled out a small syringe from his belt. He held it up so the assassin could clearly see it.
“Do you know what this is? This is tru-loxan. It’s a very powerful truth serum that as it courses through your blood stream is going to give you an incredibly painful burning sensation. Hurts like a son of a dog.”
The bounty hunter didn’t say anything, but his eyes looked like he urged Varius to not do it.
“Have it your way!” Varius said as he holstered his sidearm and pinned the other man’s left arm with his right knee. He flicked the needle cover off with his thumb.
“No! No! Noooo!” the man shouted as he tried to resist but his other extremities couldn’t respond without unbelievable pain.
Varius moved the bounty hunter’s head to the left and injected the serum into his neck. Immediately the man began to convulse as his body became numb.
The Inquisitor stood up and waited thirty seconds before he squatted down and drew his sidearm again. He noticed the room begin to fill with smoke from the fire in the corner. His suit automatically kicked in safety measures and began to filter the air. “Who sent you?”
“I…I…don’t…know his name…” the bounty hunter said as he tried to fight the serum.
“Oh, come on, assassins always say that. Alright, who hired you then?”
The man shook his head as he fought harder until he finally relaxed and let the answer out. “He…stood in the shadows when we met. He…he…wouldn’t tell me who…he was…just called himself…the Shadow Man.”