by R. E. Graham
“Okay, so this “Shadow Man”, where did you meet him?”
“He…he has her…”
“Who? Who does he have?” Varius couldn’t see that even while the bounty hunter’s arm was pinned to the ground, that his trembling hand was still able to pull a small pill from his pocket. He clenched it in his hand tightly.
“You better start telling me more than this” the Inquisitor said as he stood back up. “This fire is getting serious and you have broken some serious laws by attacking an inquisitor. I could just leave you here to burn to death.”
The assassin jammed his hand into his helmet and fed himself the pill. Varius holstered his firearm and fought to yank the hand free. As he got the hand out of the shattered visor he saw the man’s mouth was covered in greenish foam. The bounty hunter’s lifeless hand fell to the floor.
“Dammit!” Varius stood up and kicked the stack of plasti-crates. They crashed to the ground in a pile. “Aaaaarh!”
The plasma rifle began to beep loudly just before it burst into pieces. With the fire expanding around the room and making its way up the walls, the room was getting very hot to be in.
“Frick. Frick. Frick!” Varius shouted as he walked back over to the dead man and yanked his helmet off. “Marth, scan his face and run it through the Bureau’s database” the Inquisitor said angrily.
“Scanning…searching…searching…searching…no results found.”
Varius tossed the helmet against the wall to his right before he walked over to the door frame. He readied his weapon and checked the hallway for any other attackers. The fire continued to spread and now consumed the small room and was burning the second floor.
Great, now I can’t find whatever it was that he was covering up!
He continued down the hallway all the while he checked his corners to be sure an ambush wasn’t waiting for him. When he reached the large open space in the warehouse again he relaxed his body a little. He turned around to see that the second floor was fully enveloped in fire.
Varius shook his head in frustration and knocked over another stack of plasti-crates. “Okay, he shot the drone instead of me. Why? Maybe whatever the drone found was more important than me?” The Inquisitor stood back up and began to pace.
“What would be more important than an inquisitor looking into this? Well, there are already two inquisitors on world investigating the incident. Maybe there is a piece of evidence here. But where? I have no idea what I am looking for that the drone could have found.”
He paced back and forth in the small room.
“Emergency personnel detected en route to this facility Inquisitor” the AI said.
“Something serious is going on here. This Shadow Man must be a serious player involved in whatever is going on here.” Varius exited through the hole in the wall and went back to the large truck to retrieve his jammer. He deactivated it as a long extinguisher truck with strobing lights pulled down the alley and drove towards the fire. Varius disappeared down a different alley and put some distance between himself and the scene. He pressed a button on the right side of his helmet and it slid apart and folded itself back into a small rectangle shape at the base of his neck.
Any evidence I could look for in the warehouse is gone. Only one lead left. I have to go talk to Eva Primus.
Chapter 10
Cycle: 412 Month: 7 Rotation: 12
Prefecture: Siimon
Planet: Eden
Location: Keepers of Peace Main Compound in Lucifer
A bright green hovercar pulled up to the stonecrete curb and the backdoor opened. Varius exited the hovercar and scanned his left gauntlet as he got out. The small terminal’s red light turned green and the driver in the front seat waved as his passenger walked away.
On the ride over from the warehouse Varius used Marth to access the local KoP directory and found that Eva Primus was being held at the Keepers of Peace detention center after she was arrested two rotations ago.
The Inquisitor stood for a moment to observe the massive KoP compound. Large thick walls created a clear perimeter around the buildings within. As he approached the guard station several KoP agents dressed in their all white armored uniforms stopped him from proceeding. The big man on the right said, “Identification.”
Varius couldn’t see through the man’s black tinted visor of his helmet. He took out his holobadge and showed the guard.
“Alright. Go to the scan station by the guard post before proceeding inside.”
Annoyed, but not wanting to instigate things further, Varius nodded.
After being cleared from the scan station the large fence for the compound slid open. Varius couldn’t see the faces of the men stationed around him, but he could sense them glaring. Keepers of Peace and inquisitors didn’t historically care for one another. An inquisitor generally operated alone and in situations where local authorities had failed to solve an issue that was getting out of hand. Sometimes the local authorities received Keepers of Peace forces and even that wasn’t enough. After several hundred cycles of an inquisitor fixing the problems even KoP agents couldn’t deal with, it had created a rift between the two branches of the judicial arm of the Corre Republic.
Varius followed a sidewalk to the main building which was the command center located at the middle of the compound. In most instances the KoP facilities were laid out identically on whatever world they were deployed so that forces rotating around the Republic would know exactly where every station within the compound was located regardless of which world they were on. The command center served as the officer personnel quarters, central communication center, among other things.
Personnel moved all about the compound’s grounds. Some squads were following the inside perimeter as they trained in their workout uniforms while others went in all directions fulfilling various duties and tasks. Two stout Sentry WarMechs stood guard outside the command center while two Sierras patrolled the compound. Their heavy steps could be felt throughout the stonecrete that made up the main courtyard.
The Sierra was the most common WarMech design in the Corre Republic. It was constructed with the purpose to be the backbone of the military. It generally did not excel at any one task but was more of an all-in-one package. Normally it would come equipped with a 14D cannon instead of a right hand that fired ballistic rounds the size of a man’s forearm, a five-pack buster missile rack attached to a rotating mechanical arm mounted to the left shoulder and a mech sized retractable combat knife attached on the underside of its left arm. It also was equipped with a jumper pack to help aid its maneuverability despite its squat looking appearance.
Seeing as how KoP forces were used to enforce law and order within the Republic and wouldn’t be used against invading armies, KoP Sierras typically would have their combat knife replaced with an anti-personnel chain gun to help break up any violent demonstrations.
It wasn’t being reported widely, but Varius and the other inquisitors knew the truth, the Republic currently was not in a good situation. Famines and food shortages were rampant over closer to two dozen worlds. Riots were becoming so normal on certain planets that the media had been given a blackout order from the Bureau of Interworlds Communications to keep other worlds peaceful. Varius’ mind fell back to the horrible atrocity he came across on Assembly. He shuddered as he thought about what it would take to turn a person to eat another human.
There wasn’t any movement from the Sentry’s, but the Inquisitor could feel their pilot’s eyes follow him as he made his way to the command center.
While the Sentry was only really fielded by the Keepers of Peace, it had received a lot of bad press when multiple media outlets broadcast a scandal that became public when a government official was accidentally recorded joking about the Sentry design program cycles ago. As with many things in the Corre Republic, bureaucrats and politicians voted on particular development programs of the military branch. The Sentry was intended to be a wide use design that could easily be outfitted with different we
aponry loadouts depending on its mission or the branch that it served.
After billions of cuso were spent to begin design and production it continuously had program setbacks as the design simply didn’t work. It failed a plethora of tests and had been taken back to the drawing board repeatedly. Eventually the Sentry was fielded by several Corre Republic garrison forces on the border worlds. One battle against the Faust Union demonstrated the Sentry’s overall design flaws when one Republic commander was gunned down because his WarMech locked up during combat in the cold tundra on the planet Blizzard. Most generals wouldn’t allow a Sentry in front-line assignments, so the KoP found use for them in quelling dissidents.
Ha, Sentry’s…what a useless design.
The Inquisitor climbed the wide front steps of the command center. Four more guards stood watch outside the thick bullet resistant glass doors. Once again Various scanned his gauntlet at the scan station. As the glass doors slid open Varius heard one of the guards make a scoffing sound directed to his back. He spun around on his heal, his leather belt cape twisting in the motion, as he in one swift motion got right into the guard’s face.
“Do you have a problem agent?” the Inquisitor asked. His face was so close to the visor of the guard that he could see his own individual eyebrow hairs in his reflection.
The guardsman stood to full attention and shouted, “No sir!”
Varius scowled at the shorter man for another moment before he spun back around and went inside.
After he made his way through the vast structure of the command center and after he had to verbally chew out a guardsman who got a little too frisky at one of the other stations within the facility, Varius finally arrived at the detention center within the command center. Located three floors underground, it wasn’t a place that an ordinary person could escape from.
His boots thumped against the hard floors as he walked up to the front desk. A young blonde woman sat behind the counter at her terminal and greeted the Inquisitor without a smile. “How may I help you inquisitor?”
“As I understand it. Two rotations ago a squad of KoP agents brought a Ms. Eva Primus into custody. I need to speak with her” Varius said keeping his face like stone.
“Eva Primus is currently unavailable as she is being interrogated at the moment.”
“I see. Well, I need that interrogation finished promptly as I need to speak with her.”
The blonde became visually uncomfortable at Varius’ growing discontent. “Inquisitor, I apologize but I cannot do that.”
That’s it. I’ve had it with these dullards!
Just before he could lay into the female agent another voice spoke up boldly.
“What seems to be the matter here?”
The Inquisitor looked up to see a tall gray-haired man walk out from one of the rooms behind the desk. There was a long scar on his left cheek that ran from under his chin to the edge of his hairline. Varius noted the blazing star symbol on the collar of his all white officer’s uniform and recognized his authority.
“Hello Inquisitor Varius, I am Legatus Tye Aquilas. I apologize for my personnel’s reaction to your abrupt landing last night. Is there something that I could assist you with?” the tall man asked as he brought his arms behind him in a relaxed parade rest.
“I need to speak with Eva Primus. Shouldn’t take long.”
“Ah yes, Ms. Primus. She is currently being interrogated at the moment by one of our operatives.”
Varius smiled. “Yes, your assistant here was just informing me of that. Nonetheless, I need to speak with her, immediately.”
“I apologize for the inconvenience, but we are in the middle of an investigation and the soonest I can make her available will be later this afternoon” Aquilas said confidently.
“Hmm…well, perhaps with the free time I will have that I can look through the chestcams of your field agents from the night of the warehouse raid?”
“Are you implying something Inquisitor?”
Varius smiled. “Not at all. I have heard that you successfully subdued a rebellion, her rebellion…” he said pointing towards the interrogation room, “…and I am certain that every single one of your agents acted responsibly as their positions dictate and didn’t do anything that would require an inquisitor investigation into the KoP operations here on Eden.”
Tye clenched his jaw tightly and broke eye contact. “Please give me a moment to prepare her for you.”
“Thank you” the Inquisitor said as his eyes followed Legatus Aquilas down the hall.
The agent at the desk tried to make herself look busy as the two were left alone. He placed his arms behind his back and pulled a small silver disk from a pocket on his belt and gripped it tightly in his gloved hand.
Varius noted cobwebs that had gathered in the corner of the ceiling.
They can’t even keep a room clean, much less maintain peace on a whole planet.
He was shaken from his internal thoughts as he heard a pair of boots coming from the hallway. Tye Aquilas was followed by a shorter man with an agitated look on his face. He was unrolling his sleeves and Varius noticed a cut on his knuckle.
“She is all yours Inquisitor” the Legatus said with his arm extended.
Varius nodded warmly and walked to the interrogation room with his hands tucked behind him. Both men watched angrily as the Inquisitor walked out of sight.
“Sir, what is this all about?” the agent asked Aquilas.
“It doesn’t matter. Inform Inquisitor Titus. We’ll let him deal with this.”
As the blonde bent down to use her comm system the Legatus stormed out of the detention center to return to his personal office.
Two guards stood watch outside of the interrogation room. Varius nodded at them as he went inside. The thick blast door slid shut behind Varius with a hiss. The room was pretty much empty except for a flipped over metal table and chair, and Eva Primus chained to the wall. There was a cut above her right eye that bled, and she had multiple bruises on her forearms and one nasty one on her right cheek. She wore ordinary citizen clothing, nothing that would peg her as some sort of freedom fighter. But Varius had dealt with enough would be terrorists to not trust his eyes initial conclusions.
While her outer appearance may look of a woman defeated, her eyes didn’t. She glared at Varius with incredible intensity.
“Hello Ms. Eva Primus. I am Inquisitor Varius.” He said as he leaned against the door and stuck the silver disk to it. Without a noise the door had become disabled by the disk and would not open until he disengaged it. He looked about the room once casually and noticed the camera built into the wall. He took several steps toward the table.
“I have reviewed your file and read all about your group and your desire to acquire firearms.” He flipped the table back over gently and the chair along with it. He sat down as he continued. “I can only assume that your objective with weapons would be to begin terrorist guerilla warfare against the sovereign government of the Corre Republic that controls this world.”
Her eyes burned but she refused to speak.
“You have some very serious accusations cast against you” Varius said as he pulled out his jammer and set it down on the table.
Eva’s expression changed to confusion.
“That’s better. Now you can talk with me a little more freely” the Inquisitor said as he smiled widely.
“I don’t know why you’re here. I’ve already spoken to two other inquisitors and they didn’t believe me either. And the one touched…” she didn’t finish her sentence as she broke eye contact.
“They didn’t believe what Ms. Primus?” Varius asked as he crossed his arms.
“Yes…I was involved with the Eden’s Forgotten Legion. But our goal was peaceful protest.”
“Of course, it was” Varius said jokingly.
“Look, do you want the truth?” Eva asked annoyed.
“That’s why I’m here. Please, continue.”
“Several months ago, a man named
Rian Kennedy joined our group and I eventually made him my personal right-hand man. It wasn’t too long before he went behind my back and started to stir up the group and make them angry at the governor on Eden.”
The Inquisitor held up a hand. “I want to know specifically about what happened at the warehouse in the industrial district.”
“That’s what I’m getting to” Eva shot back.
Varius gestured that he was sorry and for her to continue.
“Rian riled everyone up so bad that they decided they were going to arm themselves and strike at the head of the serpent. They were set to meet at the warehouse to purchase weapons from some arms dealer. I tried to stop them but was locked in a room in our headquarters.”
“Who was the seller?” Varius asked as he sat up in his chair.
“They only called him the Shadow Man. I never wanted to attack the Republic. I’ve seen what happens when you fight against the government and I wanted to save them from that fate. I got out of the room and rushed to the warehouse. Sadly, by the time I got there it was already swarmed by KoP agents and their mechs. The fools had no idea what they were getting themselves involved in.” Eva’s expression changed from bitterness to being softer as her eyes fell to the floor.
I need to know the truth. I’m running out of time! It won’t be long before they notice the camera is disabled.
“Ms. Primus, I need to know what really happened at the warehouse. Something else had to be going on. I went there and saw what must have been a warzone at one point. Your little peaceful group must have been up to something else. What sort of weapons were they purchasing?”
Her head shot back up. “I am telling you the truth! That bastard Kennedy lead my people right into a trap. And I have no idea what sort of weapons they were buying.”
“You know, I looked through the KoPs files on the incident and there wasn’t any record of a Rian Kennedy among the dead. Is it possible he is still alive?”