Alex Hartron slowly sifted through the evening’s news feeds looking for any stories that covered the ongoing trial of the person known as the Beast of Ukari. The verdict was going to fall no later than this week and as far as Alex knew that particular human garbage would be found guilty and executed. Guilty on evidence that Alex had supplied along with his team of investigators. He didn't find what he was looking for, closed the feed and leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his neck. The door to his office opened and his secretary peeked in, a white folder in hand.
"Lex, I have a new job for the squad."
Alex frowned but didn't take his arms down.
"What and where?"
She opened the folder and read from the front page.
"Multiple homicide on Xang Xi station. Ehm let me look, yep Daltas Hold, deep in grey."
"Interesting. And they have acknowledged our demands?"
"Yes sir, they have signed the contract."
"Guess we have a new customer."
He took his arms down and smiled at the secretary.
"Well, go and set it up. Tactical briefing in three hours and leave in six."
She nodded, dropped the folder on the table and left leaving Alex to his own preparations. Not that he had many. Since setting the Allied Police Investigation Group up as a subsidiary of Allied Police he had provided investigation skills for the various factions of grey. All the factions had their own police force of sorts or rented police forces but they were more or less what you would call border police more concerned with controlling in and out flow of people and goods. The specialised skills needed for investigating major crimes were generally not neither needed nor cost effective thus leaving room for APIG to conduct their business. And so far they had been a great success with crimes solved for Ineubis, Axia and BioCom controlled stations. This was going to be the first job for Xang Xi, one of the larger of the grey powers, quite a catch for them if they could make it work.
He picked the folder up and skimmed it. Multiple murders within the last four weeks. All knife jobs, all cut with what looked to be a straight razor. Some sicko was at play but he would get him; he always did.
###
The courtroom was larger than it appeared but still managed to look oppressively clustered with the walls and panels all kept in darkly coloured wood, brass and heavy tapestries. The windows were covered by heavy pieces of cloth in red and gold that further blotted out the sun. Even the ceremonial guards seemed darker and more foreboding. Asteroth wasn't impressed, he knew how the court would look if he had been acquitted, the soft glow of Emmerwood shining with the sunlight pouring in from the uncovered windows and the red and gold flags and banners unfolded and paraded behind the judge. Besides, he knew that he would be found guilty; wasn't that the role of a scapegoat?
He sat alone in front of the panel of judges, the lowest ranking a full colonel, and smoothed his uniform out of habit. He looked at his judges without emotion and noticing that it made them uncomfortable, made an effort of looking directly at each one of them until they started fidgeting with papers or busying themselves otherwise. The central judge of the panel of five gathered his papers and cleared his throat.
"Captain Pieter de Vries, call sign Asteroth."
Asteroth rose, assumed the correct position and nodded.
"Present Sir."
"Captain de Vries, you have been found guilty of gross misconduct, misuse of State property and endangering fellow Serco servicemen and women. You have been acquitted for the charges of treason, murder and theft of State property. The sentence shall be immediate dishonourable discharge, removal of all privileges normal to a member of the Serco Military including pension, and revocation of your Serco Citizenship. You shall be moved from Sol to Helios B-14 where you will be exiled forever in this and any form you might take. You will be considered persona non grata in all of Serco space. Do you understand the sentence?"
Asteroth stood silent when the verdict was read, completely still when the large Serco marine walked over to him, tore the rank insignia off his uniform and left him standing with the torn jacket. He waited until the marine was finished before answering with no emotion in his voice at all.
"Yes, I understand. Hail Lady Serco."
The medals and ribbons he had received during his career were carried into court and the marine took each piece and cut it in half with a xith wire cutter before dumping the pieces at Asteroth's feet. He then nodded to the guards that grabbed Asteroth under the arms and led him out of the courtroom to his small cell. On the way out he noticed Ziegfeldt stare at the crushed medals and whistled softly, catching his attention. He smiled to the grizzled veteran and almost imperceptibly shook his head. The Chief nodded and slowly came to attention and saluted Asteroth on his way out, ignoring the protests from the court military policemen.
The bunk contained a simple blue boilersuit, a pair of soft boots, a data chip and a PDA. Asteroth stripped, leaving the torn uniform on the floor and grabbed the boilersuit, stuffed the data chip and the PDA into his pocket. He turned to the two MP's and extended his arms towards them.
"Ready for the metal."
"If you agree to behave it will not be necessary Sir. Ahem, citizen."
"Equally wrong there son. I am now officially just an outcast, scum of the spacelanes, dreg of humanity. But I'll have to insist on the irons, bad behaviour seems to be my middle name."
###
Cat saw the trade ships blink out one by one as they jumped into Latos O-12, the sector containing the wormhole to Sedina, the most dangerous jump of the journey. So far it had been a boring routine mission. Her radio crackled;
"Lead and two passing wormhole. Standby for orders."
Cat sighed; he went through this at every jump and every time it was the same. Three, you can proceed.
"Three, you can proceed."
She shook her head and watched the trade vessels pour through the wormhole before activating her own drive. The white harsh glare of Sedina Prime flooded her cockpit as she exited and she slowly turned her ship to follow the Behemoths. A couple of circles made of exotic particles announced the arrival of another group of ships, two Centurion Rev Cs one bright pink, one neon blue, both carrying CLM codes for their IFF.
"Three, you'll engage the pirates, two and I will cover the convoy."
Cat grinned; that was the response she had expected, she would have to do all the hard work while the two others ran away. She turned towards the neon blue Rev C and fired her gauss canons, the blue balls of plasma skirting the underside of the Rev C but not hitting it. The pink Rev C turned towards the traders and started pumping positrons into the nearest Behemoth tearing armour plates off like wrappers from a candy bar. The neon blue Rev C fired a long stream of neutron that savaged Cat's frontal armour and made her push the side thrusters furiously to escape the deadly fire.
The two fighters spun apart and Cat checked her damage readout; 30% remaining. Bloody hell, that pirate could fly. If only he shot as well as he flew, she would have been debris. The pink Rev C had exploded the first Behemoth and was now tearing chunks of armour from the second one, giving chase with no regard at all to the twin escort fighters that did their best attempt at fleeing anyway. The neon blue Rev C moved towards her again and the streams of green death painted a veil of death all around her Vulture but not touching it at all, her dodging skills good enough to avoid the beams and send a double gauss shot into the rocket ship. She grinned with satisfaction as the Rev C broke off trailing crushed and melted armour. A rookie pilot would have pressed on and tried to land another hit, which would have been rewarded with a string of neutrons as the neon blue Rev C flipped over and pointed straight at her Vulture again. She rewarded the pilot with a double slug of gauss plasma that was dodged without problems, the 129 metres giving the pilot almost three tenths of a second to react.
In the background she could see the remaining Behemoth explode in a shower of debris and cargo crates, the life support pods spinning wildly but securely away from the cargo ship. The twin Vultures of her companion escort guards engaged their jump engines and exited the sector leaving it to Cat to deal with the two pirate Rev C's. Her radio crackled with static as a signal opened for the common channel.
"Run away little kitty, live to fight another day."
Cat's face twisted in annoyance almost as if it possessed its own mind
"Screw you pirate."
The neon blue ship twisted inwards towards her in a forward barrel roll, slight thruster adjustments up and down ensured that her targeting computer couldn't get a fix on it, firing neutron beams around her ship. Cat disengaged the targeting computer and focused on hitting the opponent while her own ship was pummelled by fire. A solid hit of gauss fire slagged almost half the armour on the Rev C but that was the last hit that Cat landed. The armour on her own Vulture was so damaged that a stream of neutrons could tear through the ship and force her ejection pod to launch her to safety. She opened her eyes. Nothing. She opened her eyes...
###
The life support pod spun safely away and Retractile wished it a good trip. It had been a good fight and he had no ill feelings towards the escorts that had guarded the convoy that he and Azumi had just killed.
"What's the loot Az?"
"Revolting, they were shipping free mining beams"
Retractile flinched at that. When they shipped crap like that they could just as well have a sign on the front Behemoth instead of escorts. Naturally that would mean that they would try that on more valuable cargo too and so they would have to shoot everyone again. He grinned at that thought and pushed the comms button while twisting the ship to face Azumi;
"Time for another one or do we have to report the incident?"
"We really should report it Retract, just one voy more and we'll do it okay?"
Retractile corkscrewed his ship past her pink version and took up position behind it.
"Sweet, this time you take the escorts."
