Blowout 3: John Law

by Walt Staples

Reichter was conscious of the crowded feeling the four environment suited figures gave the battered, but still expensive looking living room. Before them, a large rectangular hole gaped blackly. With Ceti 94 on the other side of Eclectia, sunfilters were unnecessary, which suited the Investigating Peacekeeper just fine. He liked to be able to watch the eyes of people when he talked with them. This carried over to all his contacts with his fellow man; something that probably explained his lack of second dates. At the moment, he watched the black eyes of the firefighter whose bunker gear displayed the name, “’Dollman’ Takku.” “Okay, Dollman, you were first on the scene, right?” It was a habit of the peacekeeper that he used the first or nickname of the person he talked with. The easy camaraderie had caused more than one slip on the other’s part.

Dollman nodded. “Yes, sir. I was on ‘suited watch’ at the station. So, I got out the door first. ‘Gamecock’ Pelman from 53^rd was my number two coming in.”

“How long did it take you to rig the emergency airlock?”

Dollan grinned. “Took us 38 seconds, sir.”

Stony Oreman, the local Enforcer whistled. “Not too shabby, Ty.”

Dollman’s grin widened and he sketched a mock stage bow. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll be appearing all week.”

Reichter made a mental note that the two knew each other. He also agreed that the smoke-eater had reason to be proud. He continued, “And what’s changed since you came in, Dollman?”

“Absolutely nothing, sir—other than us standing here, of course.”

The peacekeeper glanced around. “When did you turn the lights on?”

The firefighter raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t, sir. They were all on when I got here.” He made a sweeping gesture toward the open doors with his hand. “They were all open too, when I got here.”

Yoshi Takai, Reichter’s enforcer, asked, “Why didn’t they close when the window blew out?”

Stony spoke up, “The Cleaner, DuPont, had them overridden.”

“Why’d he do that?”

The local enforcer was short and broad in contrast to Yoshi, who was tall, broad, and blond. Stony was also clean shaven, where Yoshi wore a handlebar mustache. He shook his head. “Don’t know, sir. He was pretty much of a wreck when they took him away. The medicos had to sedate him. Want me to go see him?”

Reichter thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Nope. Guess maybe I’ll take care of that. What I want you to do is work the scene with Yoshi here. I’ve cleared with your peacekeeper.” He turned to the firefighter. “Dollman, you can take off now. Thank you for walking us through this thing. I’ll mention the 38 seconds in my report and when I run into your chief next.”

The smoke-eater grinned. “Thank you, sir.” Reichter watched him go and turned to the two enforcers. “One more thing; get a hold of an engineer and see what he comes up with.”

Stony said, “Jill Forman is on duty. Should I get her?”

The peacekeeper tipped his head and squinted one eye. “No…I think I want someone independent.”

Yoshi looked at him questioningly. “Is there a problem with her?”

Reichter made a face and shook his head. “No, I don’t know her. I just want somebody from outside the system. Something just doesn’t smell right.”

Runaround

By Edward M. Erdelac

Considine stared at himself in the mirror. Puffy, sutured flesh peered out from beneath the stark bandage over his left eye, where a shard of Brendermeyer’s femur had torn a gash. His blue eyes looked sunken in their bruised sockets, and the second degree burns on his neck and chin were an angry red.

Not as angry as he felt, though. In this case, what was inside him was much worse than how he looked.

He was on a hefty dose of pain suppressants, but not so heavy as the clinicians had prescribed. He needed a clear head.

He had nearly shared Brendermeyer’s unfortunate end. Luckily Jelly hadn’t skimped on the cabin safety measures when he’d last refit the craft.

“You alright in there, Stanlon?”

Gorsh. To have to deal with him now. He gritted his teeth. Gorsh would expect questions, and he had them, but he was loathe to waste time listening to Gorsh’s non-answers.

But he had to keep up appearances.

He opened the door to Gorsh’s private restroom and stepped out into his posh office, with its Peace Council sigil on the wall and its massive viewport gazing out at the planet below.

Plush rug, chrome desk, tasteful art. Yes, Gorsh, you’ve done well for yourself.

“Have a seat,” Gorsh said, motioning to a comfortable chair in front of his desk.  “I’ll get you a drink.”

“Not with the pain suppressants, no thanks,” Considine said, limping over to the chair and easing slowly and agonizingly down into it. The fabric was like a scouring pad on his tender leg, even through his trousers.

“You sure you’re alright?”

“Don’t sound so disappointed, Gorsh.”

“Don’t be stupid. You nearly checked out. We were partners once. I’m concerned.”

He poured himself a drink of greenish fluid and downed it in a gulp.

Considine leered.

“What’s so funny?” said Gorsh.

“You. Still at the libations after all these years. Yet you’ve got a seat on the Council, and my sobriety, where did that get me?”

Gorsh smiled slightly.

“Never too late to start thinking about your career,” he said, offering the bottle once more.

“I’d rather smoke,” he said, pulling his singed pack of kelpweed cigarettes out of his pocket.

“Oh God, don’t tell me you’ve taken up smoking that seaweed garbage.”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Considine admitted, knocking one loose and pushing it into his lips. “Light?”

“I don’t want my office smelling like a fish market,” Gorsh said, settling in his chair.

“All heart, like always,” Considine said, replacing the cigarette and sighing.

“You’ll want to know, we have a lead on the bomber,” Gorsh said.

“I don’t want to hear about your leads. I want to know why he isn’t in custody, when he did the deed in front of you and two of your crack full-time Enforcers.”

“The bay was on fire, Stanlon,” Gorsh said, opening his hands. “My first concern was to get you clear of the wreckage.”

“Convenient,” Considine muttered. “Alright, what’s your lead?”

“We had an incident that caused some anti-Enforcer backlash a little while ago. There’s a sort of fringe dissident group operating on Avenir now. The Pigkillers….”

Considine’s mind wandered. Pigkillers. Terrorists. Just as he’d suspected, Gorsh’s lead was a damned smokescreen. He already knew the identity of the bomber, just as Considine did.

It was Orin Bantry, Morgenstar Munition’s star employee and Aloysius Morgenstar’s personal go to it guy by way of detonite.  Considine had smelled the stuff when they’d confiscated it from Croix in Zirconia, and he’d smelled it again when it blew Brendermeyer to pieces.

Somebody should have told Orin to stop wearing that stupid company cap.

Stiff Welcome

By Edward M. Erdelac

Considine eased the Zirconian shuttle through the magnetic field and cut the engines, automatically kicking in the stabilizers, which allowed the small ship to float easily in and down to the deck.

It was one of only three shuttles the Zirconian branch of the Peacekeepers employed. There was hardly any call for interplanetary transfers beyond shipping the occasional convict to Sheba. Most prisoners were put to work in Zirconia, so even that was a dubious requirement. They’d once had four, but the fourth had developed some kind of debilitating mechanical failure and had been cannibalized by its three comrades.

This particular shuttle handled sluggishly, and had a faulty rear left stabilization emitter, which caused it to dip in that quarter at random intervals, making the drink containers in the cabin mostly useless.

Considine spied a pair of suited Enforcers in their pristine tactical combat armor flanking a third man in a tailormade long coat, whose balding pate he recognized as belonging to his old partner Gorsh.

As he settled the ship down and unbuckled his safety belts, Brendermeyer was already heading for the hatch.

“Avenir here I come,” he grinned. “Big time.”

“You’re not going to find a warm welcome, I’m afraid.” Considine said. “Remember, they’re expecting Croix. You’re going to be something of a disappointment, I’m afraid.”

“I’m a comedian, Inspector,” Brendermeyer said, winking back at him as the hatch shot open. “I’m used to disappointing people.”

Considine had never yet caught Brendermeyer’s act. He couldn’t say he even remembered the moonlighting Enforcer ever telling a joke. At least, not one that he had remembered as funny.

It turned out, he never would.

Brendermeyer barely waited for the gangway to descend before he swung down onto the deck.

He was still taking in his brand new surroundings, so he didn’t notice the gaunt man in the red jumpsuit and pulled down cap pushing the air-dolly with the mag-clamps for the shuttle struts. Why should he? It was standard procedure to secure the ship to the deck for safety.

Except that the worker was vaguely familiar. Considine’s homunculus began to kick his teeth like mad.

Brendermeyer didn’t see the worker break into a run, shoving the air-dolly straight at the shuttle. Briefly out of control and speeding from the momentum, the floating cart whizzed towards Brendermeyer.

Considine shouted a warning, and the funnyman Enforcer did manage to side step the runaway air-dolly. It struck the gangway and promptly detonated, as no air-dolly bearing mere mag-clamps should have.

The force of the explosion ripped Brendermeyer to pieces and flung fire and metal and blazing bone up into the shuttle.

Considine was thrown against the canopy and slammed back down onto the console. He heard the emergency klaxons sound and the hissing of the flame retarders. At least they worked. He experienced the shocking sensation of being bathed for a brief moment in intense heat and then he was doused with a mound of cool but foul smelling chemical foam.

Avenir, he thought for one brief, bitter moment, before he lost consciousness.

Approach

by Edward M. Erdelac

“You sure this is a good idea, Inspector?” Brendermeyer asked for the fourth time.

“The Peace Council is expecting me to arrive with a passenger, Brendermeyer. It’ll look fishy if the compliment scan only shows up one life form,” Considine explained for the fourth time.

The police shuttle rose through the upper atmosphere and shuddered as the fiery sky turned black and starry.

“Never been up to Avenir,” Brendermeyer muttered, his eyes wide and full of stars. “Never even been in space before. Is it true you used to work up there?”

“I did. A while ago.”

“Why the hell would you transfer down to Zirconia?”

“I liked the view better.”

“You can’t see a damn thing down there.”

“Precisely.” Considine said, angling the shuttle for the huge ship. “It’s not all stars up here, Brendermeyer. There’s all that blackness in between.”

“I hear the women are choice, though.”

Considine pursed his lips. Brendermeyer wasn’t listening. There was a hell of a lot of politics on Avenir. A lot of clean fingernails with dirty palms. It had got to him. He had been ordered to overlook one too many shady deals, ordered to let one too many cases cool. Avenir was a stagnant place, with its unchanging air, its never shifting castes.

He much preferred Zirconia. He saw the underwater city as a happy medium between Avenir’s static, festering rot, and the violent upheaval of the surface of Eclectica. He liked the leaky hallways and the shifting light that played on the floors, filtered through fathoms of ocean and the thick viewing ports, chilling the raging red skies far above until they were no more than a placid shimmer. 

He liked the glimpses of sea life in all its forms, from the flitterfish to the ethereal angels themselves, going about their alien, inscrutable business on the edge of the Boatic Trench.

The dark waters. Dark waters. Croix had said he was sinking into the dark waters. Then something about the wardens, rising, and freedom.

He puzzled over this when the panel began to blink and Brandermeyer nudged his arm.

He keyed the receiver.

“Zirconia Peacekeeper Shuttle ZP-40, you are cleared to land in docking bay 882.”

“Understood, control,” Considine answered. “882.”

They’re certainly putting us in the proverbial boondocks. Why hadn’t they been directed to the police bay, or even the Peace Council?

“Keep sharp, Brendermeyer.”

Brendermeyer took his sidearm out from under the passenger’s chair and belted it on.

“You expecting trouble?”

“Just keep sharp.”

Proposition

by Fred Warren

Smith’s escape route twisted through a maze of corridors, maintenance tunnels, and ventilation shafts—a jumble of vectors pointing, in their summation, downward and inward. Any pursuers not intimately familiar with the bowels of Avenir would become disoriented in short order.

He hoped.

…through this hatch, bypass that one, up the ladder here, onto the catwalk— nearly rusted out; it won’t take many more of these trips—there’s the gap in the deck, mind the edges, ease down and through the structure, hang on a moment, quick drop to the deck below, now move, move, move—don’t slow down, never look back…

Fifteen minutes later, confident he’d left any trailing Enforcers far behind and hopelessly confused, he staggered into a vacant utility alcove and slumped to the greasy floor. Cold, dry air flavored with oil and iron knifed into his lungs and returned to the surrounding atmosphere with an asthmatic wheeze. His temples throbbed, echoing the drumbeat of pain pounding in his chest. One hand brushed his knee, and came away wet and sticky. A shard of metal had slit his trouser leg somewhere along the way and bit into his flesh. He wiped the blood onto his coat-tail, then turned his hand back and forth in the dim light to inspect an angry red laceration on the wrist, left by the cyborg that had caught him picking its master’s pocket.

“You’re losing your touch, mate.”

Smith scrambled to his feet, only to be shoved down hard by a heavy hand on his shoulder. He didn’t need to see the face. The gravelly voice was enough. Wallace Beadle.

The thug bent close enough to reveal a gap-toothed grin with blistered lips framed by three-day’s growth of wiry black stubble. The nauseating odor of decayed insect flesh filled Smith’s nostrils. “Comes of too much time spent wet-nursing the wee foundlings and not enough keeping your edges honed. You never would have gotten pinched like that in the old days.”

“As soon as I catch my breath, Wallace, I’m going to twist your head off. I warned you to stay clear of my territory.”

“Out of shape, too. Tsk, tsk.”

“How did you find me?”

“Silly boy. Nobody knows you better than I do. Every single bolt-hole is a fond memory of our old partnership, those profitable, carefree days before you met dear Ave and went soft in the head. I’d rather focus on the future, though. Your blunder has become my opportunity. I have a proposition for you.”

Smith smiled up at him. “Eat grit.”

“Oh, that’s a fine attitude for a penniless sod who can’t protect himself, much less the dear little tots depending on him for their livelihood. Yes, I know where they’re hiding. And let’s not forget the winsome Miss Kate, all alone, so delicate and vulnerable…”

“You’ve made your point. What do you want?”

“I have a friend in need of your peculiar resources. He has a number of parcels that require, shall we say, discreet handling.”

“I’m no smuggler, Wallace. You should know at least that much about me. You want a delivery boy, press one of your own goons into service.”

“Ah, but there’s the rub. These items demand unobtrusive couriers with a delicate touch. Your poppets displayed remarkable skill in the marketplace today, despite the failings of their ham-handed tutor. We think they’ll do nicely.”

Smith spat at Wallace’s boots. “Never.”

Wallace chuckled and wiped the left boot, then the right, on Smith’s injured leg. “As I expected. Let me introduce my client, so you’ll know I’m in earnest.”

A second figure emerged from the shadows to stand behind Wallace. He was a giant of a man, with a swarthy, scarred face, crooked nose, and deep-set eyes, but Smith’s blood froze when he saw what the big man was wearing.

Peacekeeper blues.

Night Terrors

by Walt Staples -

The Bourbon was expensive.

A sip.

But this is an important occasion.

Hefts the ship pistol.

Probably the most important of my life.

Opens the magazine loading gate.

Poor old man. Trying to stop a knife fight at his age.

Another sip.

Maurine choosing cyborg so she could be sure I'd see her from time to time.

Sets the bottle down and picks up the ring.

Her version of revenge from beyond the grave.

Light picks out the engraving of the two names on the ring.

Betrayed by me for the sake of my mistress, the Law.

The ring makes a “pling” as it lands on the table.

A cold lover, my mistress.

Picks up bottle.

Fourth one this week.

Liquid sloshes around in bottle as it is set down.

So many dead people.

Removes cartridge from box labeled “12mm Shipload.”

Some launched into Ceti in coffins; some walking around.

Pushes cartridge through loading gate.

So much blood everywhere.

Hand stops while removing second cartridge from box.

At this range, I'm pretty sure of a hit.

Picks up bottle and holds it to the light.

You and I have become all too good of friends since the trial—lovers, almost.

The light through the bourbon casts reddish reflections.

But my other lover, the Law, is the jealous one.

Liquid in bottle becomes agitated.

This ends tonight.

Bottle shatters against wall.

“Hello, Father? We met at my wife's trial. You said to call you if I ever needed anything...I-I need help.”

Strange Fish

by Edward M. Erdelac -

Inspector Considine experienced the same feeling he’d had when he’d first met the Peacekeeper dispatcher whom he’d only known by voice as a rookie on Avenir. He had conjured a face to go with the voice he’d heard day in and day out, and he’d been far off the mark when at last they’d met.

Almer Croix was like that. He didn’t speak the way he looked. He looked a wreck, barely able to manage a bar of soap let alone string words together coherently.

But his tones were measured, his speech refined, despite the limitations of his throat, scarred by years of living on the surface.

He couldn’t place the accent either, which was strange, as he’d always had a good ear for that sort of thing.

Croix raised his slashed and purpling eyebrows, waiting for a response from Considine, when he himself hadn’t answered one of the inspector’s queries yet.

“Space is cold, and dark, and dead,” said Considine. “Like the sea. And you breathe canned air, the same as you do down here.”

“Oh but the sea isn’t dead, Inspector,” Croix smiled. “Not by a sight.”

“Feel like talking now do you?” Considine asked.

“Oh yes.”

“Back to the matter of the detonite then.”

“Oh not about that,” he said, waving his hand. “Tell me about Avenir. Are there very many people? Why did you ever leave there?”

“Mr. Croix,” Considine said, losing his patience. “You’re looking at a spot in the Penal Labor Force on Sheba if you don’t start cooperating. A lot of hard, thankless work in tight spaces interspersed with solitary confinement. The gravity’s always on the blink. Have you ever tried to sleep in intermittent gravity? You rise and drop several times in the middle of the night. All your dreams are of falling. The crumbs of anything you’ve eaten winds up rattling in the vent over your head, and God help you if it happens while you’re on the toilet.”

Croix was smiling at him.

“Tell me about dreams. And about God.”

Considine pursed his lips. Had the man’s brains been shaken too hard?

“Six years, Croix. That’s the minimum penalty. Think you can hold out six years?”

“Oh, Croix won’t live six days, Inspector Considine.”

“What?”

“I won’t live six days.”

Superb. A lunatic. He’d be put on suicide watch then, no shoelaces or belts, no shaving.

“Why? Are you ill?”

“Croix cannot sustain me.”

“What are you talking about?”

Croix smiled and looked up at the ceiling.

“I should have liked to have seen space.”

“OK, last chance. Who supplied the explosives?”

Croix closed his eyes, still smiling.

“Friends.”

“What were you going to do with them?”

He only smiled.

Considine stood up and went to the door. He rapped on the hull, heard the wheel groan as Jelly Galveston swung open the door.

Over the big enforcer’s shoulder, the doctor in the white coat peered suspiciously in.

“All yours, doctor,” he said, and went past him outside.

“Jelly,” he said, when the doctor had re-entered and shut the door behind him. “Stay here till the doctor finishes up. I’m going to arrange for his transfer to the psych ward.”

“He a loony?”

“As loony as they come.”

Croix

by Edward M. Erdelac -

Almer Croix looked as if he had been stuffed in a sack of bruiser beetles and shook. Well, that’s what riding a titanium sphere rapidly to the surface with no restraints or padding did to a man.

He was only a few minutes out of the hyperbaric chamber, was still be checked over by a doctor when Inspector Considine wrenched open the hatch door and stepped inside.

“I’m not finished,” the doctor, a thin man as pale as his coat said, looking up from a suture he was applying to a gash on Croix’s brow. His huge eyeglasses made him look insect-like.

“Take a break, Doctor,” Considine said, taking the seat across the table from Croix.

“If you’re denying him medical attention—”

“He can have all the medical attention he wants after we’ve spoken. Doctor, if you please?”

The doctor finished the suture and Considine and Croix watched each other quietly as he did so.

Croix was a sickly looking bugger, even for a grit-breather who had gone through what he had. He had a topsider’s red eyes, and he coughed now and then, but there was something else. A sunken-ness to him. He looked deflated, dried up, his cheek bones very visible beneath his bruised and slashed skin, his bloodshot eyes deep in hollow sockets. His sparse hair was leper-white, though he was not as old as Considine.

The doctor stood up to pack his instruments.

“You can leave them, Doctor. I’ll look after them,” Considine said.

The doctor looked at Croix and reluctantly went outside.

When the door clanged behind him, Considine leaned forward.

“Let’s have a talk, shall we, Almer?”

Croix coughed.

“What were you going to do with the explosives?”

Croix stared and coughed again.

“Was it your intent to use them on the habitation ring all along?”

Croix looked somewhere past his shoulder, and his head leaned to one side, animal-like.

Was it possible he was suffering some ill effects from his ordeal? Did he have a concussion? Maybe he should have let the doctor look him over more.

“The detonite was stamped Morgenstar Munitions. Who did you arrange to purchase it from?”

Nothing.

“Almer, you worked as bug hunter for your whole life prior to moving down to Zirconia. That must have taken a lot of hard work, a lot of scrimping. A lot of topsies go their whole lives and never save up enough to get out of that damned air.”

The story was the same all over. Shebans and Carlston’s Covers wanted to get down to Eclectia. Topsies wanted to get below sea. Everybody wanted to get to Avenir. But even on Avenir there were divisions between the decks. He knew. Nobody was ever happy where they were at.

“Then three days after you move in, you get pinched trying to transport stolen explosives. To where?”

Almer was looking at him, almost through him.

“You’re not from Zirconia, Inspector,” he rasped in his gravelly voice. No point offering him a cigarette. Topsies smoked from the day they were born.

This time Considine said nothing.

“Your accent….you’re from Avenir.”

Croix leaned in, the disinterested eyes in his ravaged, battered face suddenly alight.

“Tell me what space is like.”

Peacekeeper: The Darkness Within

by Walt Staples -

“Sonny, this can’t go on.”
 
“Why not, Ray?”
 
“It’s not right. You can’t do things like that.”
 
“Don’t see nothing stopping me. Besides, why get upset now?”
 
“Look when it was a transient here or there, I didn’t say anything.”
 
“You got that right, Ray.”
 
“But now, children?”
 
“What do you mean, ‘children?’”
 
“Sonny, I know what you do, what you think. I know you’ve been watching them. Waiting for one to be alone. Just waiting.”
 
“So?”
 
“It isn’t going to happen.”
 
“And who’s gonna to stop me, Ray?”
 
“I am.”
 
“Ray, put that down. You don’t want to do this.”
 
“You’re right, Sonny, I don’t. But it has to stop. And if no one else can do it, I will.”
 
“Ray, can’t we talk this out?”
 
“We two have been talking since I can remember. It stops now.”
 
“Ray—“
 
#
 
“Who took the initial call, McGee?”
 
“Hennesy, enforcer from Section 4, Peacekeeper.”
 
“Bug pistol; he wanted to be sure.”
 
“Yes, sir. Sure makes a mess.”
 
“Wondered how long it would take.”
 
“You know the victim, Peacekeeper?”
 
“Yep. Arnold Sol. Pretty famous over at Forensic Psych.”
 
“How so, sir?”
 
“The most classic MPD case on Avenir.”
 
“MPD?”
 
“Multiple Personality Disorder, McGee. He only had two, but what made him a classic is they, the two personalities, were aware of each other.”
 
“What do you think happened, sir?”
 
“According to the door logs, nobody in or out.”
 
“No, sir.”
 
“Guess he lost an argument with himself.”

Peacekeeper: Housecleaning

by Walt Staples -

First voice: I take it that your investigation is complete?

Second voice: Yes, Councilman.

First voice: And your findings are?

Second voice: He’s dirty, sir. I have the testimony of six merchants that he has solicited and taken bribes from them.

First voice: What inducement did you offer them?

Second voice: That the council would take into consideration that they acted under duress in the crime. That being so approached by a peacekeeper under those circumstances would tend to be extremely intimidating.

First voice: Continue.

Second voice: I also have shop security data that the merchants surrendered that shows the peacekeeper in the act of demanding the bribes, and receiving same.

First voice: And the charges of Moral Turpitude, Conduct Unbecoming, and Betrayal?

Second voice: He is sleeping with the wife of one of his enforcers.

Third voice: Does the enforcer know?

Second voice: Yes, Councilman, he does. It is only a matter of time before there is a murder.

Third voice: Of the wife?

Second voice: No, sir, of the peacekeeper in question. My impression is that the wife is unwilling and is keeping silent out of shame, and to protect her husband.

First voice: Have you any further evidence to introduce?

Second voice: Not at this time, Councilman.

First voice: And your recommendation?

Second voice: That the council prosecute said peacekeeper on all charges, sir.

First voice: Thank you, Peacekeeper.

Gentlemen, motion to prosecute.

Third voice: Second.

First voice: All in favor?

Passed.

Thank you, Peacekeeper. You may go.

Second voice: Councilmen.

Third voice: Is that the one?

First voice: You mean about turning in his wife for the murder? Yes, that’s him. A good man; God help him.

Extraction

by Ed Erdelac -

Inspector Considine called the team in at 0300.

Considine had traced the illegal sale of some mining explosives to an ex-grit-breather named Croix, but somebody had tipped him off and he was barricaded in his cabin with the stuff, threatening to blow the entire southeast habitation ring into the Boatic Trench if he wasn’t given safe passage to Avenir.

There was a negotiator cooing at him like a babe through his door com, but Croix sure as hell wasn’t going to Avenir.

At 0305 as he laid out his demands, the Enforcers had suited up on the north end of Zirconia. Haj began passing out standard-issue GTL’s and pneumatic pistols, but Wilfort pointed out Croix’s cabin pod on the outer edge of the habitation ring and laid out the standard extraction plan. No need for hardware, but Haj was trigger happy and brought his pneumatic along anyway.

At 0310 Croix and the negotiator were arguing over the details of the shuttle that would take him up to Avenir. He wanted to pick the pilot himself from the duty roster. At the same time, the team was already wet, gripping the handlebars of a six-man sea-sled and puttering the long way around the city. Haj spotted an angel, a bioluminescent ghost stroking its way across the blue-black. He tried to take a shot at it, but Galveston, the pilot, warned him not to, and backed the warning with a meaningful tap on the diving knife on his belt. He was the only believer on the team—Jelly, they called him—short for Jelly Roller, the name some called the ones who attributed divinity to the angels.

At 3:17 Croix had the duty roster and was combing it for a name he knew. The team had ditched the sea-sled and cut their external suit lights, freefalling to the habitation ring, being careful not to bang their equipment against the hull. They hand over fisted their way to Croix’s outer shell connection joints and broke out their ratchets.

At 3:19 Croix selected Arden Pacoy as his getaway pilot. Considine made a mental note to nab Pacoy for questioning and checked his watch while the negotiator assured Croix his shuttle had been scrambled on floating launchpad B and was just about fueled and ready.

3:20 Croix was pacing his cabin, getting impatient. The team could see him through the portholes, a wiry, unshaven man with the terminally dirty, red-eyed look of a grit-breather. He hadn’t lived in Zirconia long enough to shake the look yet, long enough to know about the emergency surfacing apparatus installed in every habitation pod. The automatic release controls were on the wall beside Croix’s bunk, hid by a gaudy antique hula girl lamp. In the event of some catastrophe, the controls blew the explosive bolts that held the inner titanium pod in place, and the air-filled sphere would shoot to the surface like an inflatable toy. Of course, the ride wasn’t a smooth one by any means. It was fast and dangerous and survival wasn’t even guaranteed. Even if you lived through the ascent, you still had to get to a hyperbaric chamber or your blood would bubble up in your veins. The team was doing it the old fashioned way, from the outside. They’d bypassed the safety casings and were halfway through loosening the shell bolts. Brendermeyer was moonlighting as a comic in the Starboard Bar. He started to tell a joke about how many grit-breathers it took to empty a CO2 scrubber, but the punchline was lost at 3:22.

3:22. Croix asked the negotiator if Pacoy was ready to go yet, but received no answer. Considine and the negotiator had retreated beyond the emergency airlock in the outer hall and sealed it. The team popped the last of the bolts and Croix’s buoyant cabin was released from the outer hull container. The lights in Croix’s cabin turned red and the air inside lifted it away from the rest of the ring.

“Thar she blows,” said Brendermeyer over the team’s inter-suit com as the silvery sphere of the inner cabin rocketed away from the rusty outer hull and went tumbling end over end surface-ward.

Croix was tossed and shaken like a shoe in a clothes dryer. He’d be too battered and bloody to remember his own name, much less trigger the twelve pounds of HE detonite the Peacekeepers found in the shambles of his cabin when it bobbed to the surface approximately five seconds after the team had launched it.

Considine flicked the purple stub of a cigarette off the bobbing submersible and watched the cyanotine ash mingle with its distant relatives already drifting in the hot air. The medics carried Croix below. In about two hours he’d have words with the skinny grit-breather, when he’d been released from the decompression chamber.

For now there was Arden Pacoy to talk to.

In Plain Sight

by Walt Staples -

A shiver ran down Reichter’s spine. The great ship was too quiet. With his visor open, the investigating peacekeeper not only heard his own breathing but that of his enforcers, Cooper and Takai. He considered telling Cooper to stop the whistling; he’d been driving the theme to “For a Few More Credits” into the deck since they boarded the liner. Before he could form the words, Takai spoke up, “Coop? Will you stop whistling that? Or at least change the tune.” The outburst was uncharacteristic of the blond giant. Reichter suspected the silence was giving him the creeps too.

“Sorry, Yoshi.” He fell silent. It was rare that the small, dark man didn’t argue.

Reichter came to a decision. “Coop, Yoshi, if you want to, go ahead and turn your internal channels to some music, but keep it low. Turn up the gain on your external mikes; that should let you hear any faint sounds over the music.”

Both nodded and made the adjustments. The notes of the first movement of Raif Von’s “In the Fens” quietly purred in his ear as he followed his own order.

He mentally ticked off what they had. One--lights, atmosphere, gravity, but no ship’s A.I. Two--Avenir Control’s last sailing for the liner was fifteen standard years ago. Three--no cargo manifest or passenger list because it was recertified as a private yacht. Four--the owner and a large number of friends had not been heard from in at least twelve standard years. And five—the biggie—no bodies so far.

They stepped out on a balcony over the promenade deck with its huge pool. Takai remarked, “That’s odd.”

Cooper looked at him. “What’s odd?”

The big man gestured at the pool below. “Most people paint their pools some shade of blue, not purple.”

The other enforcer shrugged. “Maybe it went better with his complexion.” He turned to their superior. “What now, sir?”

Reichter glanced around the balcony, then at the deck below. “Coop, you go down and start checking the promenade. Yoshi and I’ll check these couple of staterooms,” he nodded toward the doors lining the balcony, “then we come down and help you.”

“Yes, sir.” He turned to the grand stairway. As usual, Cooper ran his mouth. “Pretty impressive. I wonder how many credits the guy was pulling down and whose grandmother’s secret he was keeping.” Reichter listened with half an ear as he pressed buttons to dilate the doors, occasionally needing to use the pass-pad built into his gloves’ index fingers. “Whu-wee! Stinks down here and I ain’t even at the bottom yet.”

Takai’s voice sounded in Reichter’s earphones, “What’s it smell like, Coop?”

“Like our compartment the morning after you had tacos. Like an egg gone evil. I—“ There followed a rattling crash.

Reichter called out, “Cooper! Cooper! Report!” He grabbed Takai’s tool belt as the enforcer rushed by. “No! Yoshi, stop!” The peacekeeper’s use of his command voice halted Takai. He stood impatiently as his superior hooked a safety line from the peacekeeper’s belt reel to his belt’s carabiner. “Okay, you lead.” Reichter drew his sidearm. “I’ll cover you.”

“Yes, sir.”

They began to descend the stairway. Cooper lay in a heap at the bottom. A red light on the back of his helmet blinked. “Dead light’s on,” Takai observed matter-of-factly. Reichter knew it was taking all of the big man’s willpower to stay professional. He knew from his own experience, the tears would come later.

“Yep.”

Takai coughed about the time the stink hit Reichter’s nose. The peacekeeper grabbed the banister with his free hand and yelled as he hung on, “Yoshi! Up, up! Come back up the stairs!”

The enforcer’s voice was slurred as he spoke between coughs, “It’s okay. The smell’s gone. I…I smell sweet—“

Reichter dropped the side arm and caught hold of the safety line. He pulled mightily and surged up the steps dragging the bigger man. “Get up the stairs, Yoshi! That’s an order!” Takai stumbled along behind. At the top of the stairs, he sat heavily, coughing as tears and mucus ran down his face.

Reichter breathed in and out swiftly, hyperventilating slightly as he flushed his lungs. He leaned over Takai and checked his readouts. “Blood Oxygen,” “Heart Rate,” and “Blood Pressure” were at the lower end of the green, but rising. “Oxygen Intake” went from yellow to green as he asked, “You feeling better, son?”

The younger man wiped at his blond handlebar mustache as he asked, “What happened?”

The peacekeeper’s face was grim. “Something hiding in plain sight and I didn’t think of it.” He put a hand on the enforcer’s shoulder. “Are you okay, now?”

Takai nodded. “I…I think so, sir.”

Reichter unclipped the safety line from his reel from the enforcer’s rig. He then took a line from Takai’s belt reel and hooked it to his own carabiner. “Okay, Yoshi, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to go down and get Coop. When I’ve got him secured to my line, you’ll pull me up while I pull his up. Understand?”

Takai nodded. “Yes, sir.”

The peacekeeper smiled at him. “Good. Okay, now you just sit there and rest until I get him hooked up. Then I’ll give you the high-sign.”

Reichter berated himself as he turned and did what he should have done in the first place—he closed his visor and went on internal atmosphere. He set his sniffer so as to confirm the element he knew he would find below.

#

Takai broke the silence on the cruiser’s bridge as they headed back to Avenir, “Sir, it wasn’t your fault.”

Reichter smiled sourly. “I doubt, Yoshi, the council will agree with that opinion when we get back to the Cop-Shop. But, thank you all the same.”

The enforcer shook his head. “Hydrogen sulfide. Where did it come from, sir?”

“That fancy fish pond on the promenade deck. It was a swimming pool when the liner was in service. Apparently, the new owner decided to turn it into a huge koi pond. After the circulation stopped when the A.I. packed up, things died in it and it turned stagnant. Eventually, anaerobic bacteria had a field day and the hydrogen sulfide was the result. That purple color of the pool was the little critters themselves.”

“So the gas killed the people?”

The peacekeeper tilted his head and squinted an eye as he considered. “No, probably not. Water recycling shut down with the A.I. The only food left I found was dry stores. I suppose they tried drinking from the pool; that probably did a number in. It must have been very bad for the last ones--there’s all that water sitting there in plain sight, but they know it’ll poison them. That’s probably why they were huddled in the promenade staterooms.” He fingered his beard as he gazed into space. “Yep, in plain sight.”

Graduation

Joseph H. Ficor -

Shouhei Fiko stood proud with the other recruits in their crisp gray uniforms. There were twenty-four in his graduating class. The last six weeks had been a nightmare, but this moment made all of the sweat—and blood—worth it. Soon, he would receive the single chevron that marked his transition from Enforcer Recruit to Enforcer First Class.

Enforcer Command Chief Romero stood in front of the recruits. “Recruit Platoon 74R. Attention!”

All boots clicked together as one. They were a well oiled machine. Romero had seen to that. These were the successful candidates who had excelled where thirty-six of their comrades had washed out. Shouhei was proud to be among the ones who had finished. His parents would have been proud, but they could not make the ceremony. They could not afford the trip from Adagio to Avenir. He knew that they were here in spirit.

Peacekeeper Colonel Pietrov personally pinned the chevrons on each recruit.

After all of the chevrons had been given, Shouhei joined the others in reciting the creed of the Avenir Peacekeeper Corps:

“We swear by the honor and blood of the Founders
That we will faithfully execute our duties
As Enforcers of the just and righteous laws of Avenir.

We will carry out our duties with honesty and honor.
Deceit and greed will be far from us.
Death before the dishonoring of the Corps.

On our honor and that of our forefathers, we swear.”

Romero then turned to the former recruits. “Recruit Platoon 74R, Dismissed!”

The voices—and caps—of the recruits rocketed to the ceiling of the assembly hall.

Red Light (FLASHBACK)

by Walt Staples -

Beach Ranks sneered at the old priest. “Why don’t you go rattle yer beads over my dinners? Maybe you kin resurrect their sorry butts. After all, there were only six of ‘em. It oughta be easy for you, sky pilot.”

Father Emil paid no attention and continued to whisper the Office for the Dead. He didn’t worry about its efficacy with a creature such as Beach. His job was to do the best he could. Final judgment was Someone Else’s prerogative.

Onslow, the young power engineer, grunted as he pulled tight the straps that held the reaction unit, transponder, and red and blue strobe that marked Beach as a Peacekeeper matter. He was still disgruntled that he’d been the engineer with the short straw.

Gunther, the investigating peacekeeper, stood to one side holding a piece of plastisheet. Following the procedure for execution, the charges and death sentence were burned into the sheet rather than read from a reader. Clearing his throat, he began to read the second part, “Beach Ranks, it is the order of the Tribunal that having found you guilty of six murders having aggravating circumstance, that you be taken this day at zero-hundred hours and removed permanently from contact with your fellow man. And may your god have mercy on you.”

Beach cackled, “They was good! You oughta try the other white meat sometime, Peacekeeper. Better than the cafeteria.”

Gunther remarked mildly, “I’ll accept that those are your last words,” and put the gag in place.

The peacekeeper asked Onslow, “Is the strobe and transponder armed?” When the other nodded, he turned to the assembled people—priest, engineer, and witnesses—and gestured toward the inner airlock hatch. “If you will…?”

They filed out, Onslow glancing back and Father Emil, still whispering, preceding the peacekeeper. Gunther pushed the button to close the inner hatch. He removed a lanyard with an ancient metal key from around his neck. He pushed the key into a slot on the airlock’s failsafe and looked away from the hatch window as he turned it. There was an explosive “whoof” and the safety light over the hatch turned from green directly to red without going through yellow.

As he turned the key back, the peacekeeper said in a barely audible voice, “Dear God, forgive us,” and crossed himself.

Peacekeeper

by Walt Staples -

The final break in the case.

I take a sip, the bourbon anesthetizing my tongue.

Our anniversary—26 years.

Another sip.

She lied to me—it was her all the time.

Sip.

Everybody lies to cops.

Level in the bottle slightly lower.

Arrest her?

The light through the bottle glows amber.

My oath to uphold the Law?

Swish the alcohol around in the bottle.

My vow before God?

Sip.

…to have and to hold…

Slide the bottle back and forth on the table.

I will discharge my duties with integrity…

I take another sip.

…for better, for worse…

Almost a dead soldier.

I will act justly and impartially…

Last swallow.

“Hello, Homicide? Let me talk to Clater.”

Bottle into the disposer.

…until death do us part.