Chapter 3

After several hours of being yelled at by Senator Lacy in front of his staff with a lot of, “Yes, Sir,” and “Sorry, Sir,” on my part, we ended up back at his apartment as we often did. I was sitting in one of his massive arm chairs next to the fireplace with a Europesian Brandy in one lackadaisical hand. Over on the couch, Erika and the Senator, Jim, were laughing about her wedding plans. Jim sat on the very edge of the cushion, almost falling off. His bushy white hair bounced as he laughed and rocked backward. Still wearing his black suit from our flight, there was some kind of dried food or drink sticking to the front of his shirt. He was thin, looking frail, but wire tough. His grey eyes could have granite’s toughness or a rain cloud’s softness. The wrinkles around his mouth and eyes showed clearly how much he loved to smile and laugh, but worry lines turned his brow into a bumpy thing.

My sister and I had changed out of our flight suits, but were still in uniform. Senatorial Protectorate white was on the menu today, which neither of us really minded. I had taken a quick shower at the barracks and shaved, as did my sister, so the contrasted clean SP officers next to the dirty Senator in black must have looked hysterical.

Their conversation traveled through something about having kids. I’m not sure what Erika replied, but it put them both into a fit of laughter again. I looked down at my left hand and absentmindedly rubbed my thumb over the black wedding band there.

It had been three years since Melody had been killed, but I still couldn’t bring myself to take the ring off. She literally was the love of my life. Also a pilot, when we graduated my sister and I were assigned to Senatorial Shuttle Kappa One and Melody was assigned to the training yard. We had successfully pulled a child baring license and had three false starts. When she died, she was pregnant with our triplets; Megan, after Melody’s mother, Elisia, after my grandmother, and James, after the Senator.

I didn’t think about her death often, but barely an hour escaped me where her gentle caress, or her smile, or her wit, or any number of her innumerable great qualities didn’t pass through my mind. If there was a singular person to exist that was as close to me as my sister, it was Melody. I sighed audibly and drained my glass. Because of those two actions, the couch conversation came to an abrupt end and they both looked at me.

I half-heartedly smiled at both of them, set my glass on the table as I stood, and made my way to my sister. “I’m sorry,” I said as I kissed the top of her head. “I need to get some sleep, and alcohol is not a great idea for me the night before I fly.”

Erika stood and hugged me hard, instantly seeing through my excuses. “That’s not why you’re leaving, Erik. Even Jim knows that.”

She released me to make room for Senator Lacy who, despite his frail frame, all but cracked a rib with his bear hug. “She’s right, son,” he said, slapping my back twice. “I might have lived in this system for over a century, but sure as my white hair is stuck to the top of my head, I can still see how much you miss Melody.”

I fought to keep tears from leaking out, but it wasn’t easy.

Jim released me and I turned away. Erika put her hand on my shoulder as I passed her and I forced a smile at her. She was feeling guilty about her wedding I knew. I could see it in her eyes. I opened my mouth to tell her not to be silly, but as soon as I did, my throat tightened up. A mass of emotions had flooded up from somewhere deep inside me all at once. I felt like I was about to burst into sobbing tears and fall to my knees clinging onto her like a scared child. It was a close thing, but I was able to fight it off. She gave me a brave smile which was her way of letting me know I didn’t have to say anything.

So, in silence, I left.

The elevator ride down from the one hundred and fiftieth floor felt like it took forever. It never stopped and took almost a full minute, but it still was soul crushing to be in it by myself. I was alone, in so many different ways. This stupid elevator ride was an uncomfortable reminder of just how alone I was.

When the doors opened into the streets of Tesserae, the sweet smells of the flowers in full spring bloom hit me and washed over me in a comforting blanket. I stepped out onto the walk and let that blanket enfold me.

I loved Tesserae. I had been born there, grown up there, went to school there, joined the Senatorial Protectorate and trained there. I had loved there, and I had lost there. It was home, the only home I had ever known.

“Evening, Protector,” a man said as he passed. He had a pleasant smile on his face and he nodded to me when our eyes locked.

He was a beefy man in his mid-fifties, obviously well-muscled as his shirt was straining to contain him. He was a couple centimeters shorter than I, which was still impressive given my two meters. His black hair was long and pulled back into a ponytail and he had a thick stubble covering most of his face. But it was his eyes that caught my attention almost at once. They were bright blue, almost white, and ringed with pink.

I had been taught in my Protectorate training that the Kuiper miners had had children with that eye color. At that time, it meant pirates. Pirates where having children with that eye coloration. It also meant that pirates had that eye coloration.

I stretched out my hand to call for him to stop when there was a shattering explosion above me. The sound was accompanied by a force wave that almost threw me to the ground.

I covered my head with my arms out of pure reaction. By the time I looked up and saw the fire billowing out of the penthouse floor, glass and shredded metal and permacrete had started to fall around me. I looked back in the direction the Uranian had been walking. He was still walking, but backwards and was looking up at the explosion’s remnants with a huge smile on his face.

I ripped my gun out of its holster and clicked on the power with a thumb. “On the ground!” I screamed at him. “By Senatorial Protectorate mandate, you are under arrest! Get on the ground!”

He showed me his middle finger, said “Lucifer says ‘hi’,” and bolted around the corner.

I didn’t pause, I followed at a full run. Glass, permacrete and other detritus continued to sprinkle around me as I rounded the corner. The pirate was halfway down the block and not slowing. I slid to a stop, aimed, and fired. The magnetic coil in my gun spat out its projectile. A purple-white line suddenly appeared between me and the pirate. My aim was good, hitting him directly in the back of his left knee… but he didn’t stop running. He should have crashed to the ground in a sprawl like I intended him to do. Instead, he was suddenly surrounded by a mostly translucent orange light.

I gaped. Force fields were a thing of science fiction; personal force fields even more so. But I knew staring at him wouldn’t do any good, so instead of just standing there with my jaw flapping in the breeze, I started purposefully striding forward and repeatedly pulling the trigger. I was suddenly very glad the walks were clear of people. Whatever that thing was around him, I was going to put it to the test. Fifty projectiles fired from a railgun at almost three kilometers per second is nothing to scoff at.

Again and again, the orange light jacketed him. I had given up on his legs and instead was firing at his center of mass. After I had fired ten shots it started to become hard to see him through the orange-colored field. Twenty shots and ten steps done and the field all but obscured him from my vision. Thirty shots and fifteen steps and I started hoping I was still aiming in the right place. He had quickly started outpacing me at this point and I was starting to worry. I had no need.

Mid-step and somewhere around shot thirty-five the light vanished and there was a second explosion: this one from his left hip. It threw him violently into the wall of the building directly at his right. Even over the wailing sirens above me and the distance between us, I could still hear bones break from the impact.

I stopped shooting, but kept moving forward at my same pace, never taking my gun off him. When I got up to the pirate, he still hadn’t moved. I realized that my earpiece had been screaming at me for a while but I had been so focused I hadn’t heard it. “For Mars’ sake,” a man was yelling, “Red, what in Sol is going on?! SitRep! Respond! That’s an order!”

I jerked my jaw to turn on my mic. “Explosion at Senator Lacy’s home. Suspect down and in custody.” I paused and glanced at the display on the back of my gun. “Thirty-seven shots fired for takedown. Location beacon activated,” I clicked the switch on the side of my gun with my thumb, “and ready for pickup. Senator condition unknown. Valkyrie condition unknown.”

And like the sudden explosion that had shook me only moments ago, what I had just said hit me. Erika… Jim… they had both been up there along with two guards. Did that mean they were dead?

I heard a long sigh from the other end of the coms before the reply. “Received, Red. Drones inbound presently. Waiting for confirmation from Valkyrie on current condition.” There was a pregnant pause, and then the dispatcher said softly, “She’s okay, Erik. They both are.”

I almost fell over in relief. “The emergency walls made it up in time,” he continued. “Coms are sketchy at best, but we already have a recovery team in route. Everyone thought you were dead. The explosive emanated from the elevator you were on.”

That made me blink. How was that possible? If it came from the elevator I was on, it meant that it would have been no higher than the twentieth floor. And that’s assuming it was on its way back up after the car let me off.

“Please repeat, Dispatch,” I said. “Did you say it came from the elevator I was on?”

“Affirmative, Red,” he replied. “It came from the same shaft you were in.”

That made more sense but something was still off. The car was down by me, but how could something fit in the tight spaces of the shaft and not affect the usage of the elevator?

Drone lights started to flood the walk around me. Soon they would start rapping up the suspect to eventually take him down to the station.

“Dispatch,” I said, “requesting placement on this case.”

“I’ll pass it up, Erik.” I still couldn’t identify the voice on the other end of the com, but he obviously knew who I was. “But to be honest, kid, I don’t think you’ll get it.”

“Received.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 4