Chapter 29: Killer on the Loose

Chapter 29: Killer on the Loose

The next two days passed at a snail's pace for Paulie. He largely passed the time in study with Jakiikii, learning more of the GGI’s galactic standard language and trying his best to get the hang of deciphering the strange alien characters. When he tired of that they often sat cuddled close together on the lounge-like sofa in their small bedroom quarters. Mack had set them in a space on the farther corner of the building, as far from the front and main officer area as could be found on short notice.

He knew why, it was in order to isolate him and Jakiikii from the majority of the other adjudicators. He felt a twinge at that, Mack still thought they were in danger inside the second most heavily guarded building in the whole city, second only to the imperial palace itself.

Paulie stroked the furred ruff around Jakiikii’s neck that poked from the loose-fitting shirt she wore as the television-like device they were watching displayed yet another close-cut action sequence from ‘Heroes of Att-trak’, a fictional entertainment program that she had gotten him hooked on weeks before. The fur was soft, almost like down and very fine. Each fibre sparkled slightly on the end with a fibre-optic effect that made the fur almost glitter in the dimly lit room.

Paulie threw up his free hand in disgust as the hero on screen executed yet another logic-defying act of maneuver against his enemies. “Oh come on, you expect me to believe that Yessko would fly right into the path of the enemy battleship like that just on a hunch he could take em?”

Jakiikii snuggled into him a little more, humming contentedly from deep in her chest. “You have to believe that he has a bigger plan. You noticed the hole in the enemy’s defenses that was shown last episode?” She prodded his belly lightly with one arm even as she sucked in a breath and let it out in a deep whoosh.

Paulie glanced between her and the screen, two of her flexible flower-petal shaped eyestalks were turned to observe his reaction closely as Paulie scrunched his eyes. “Yeeahh?” He watched her eyes crinkle slightly in her version of a smile as she poked him harder.

“Well, just watch.”

He grumbled. “Your cryptic hints are not helping. Just because you have watched the whole thing before..”

“Twice!” She chirped proudly as she bumped her head into his upper chest lightly.

Paulie snorted and then poked her in the cheek gently, “Yeah, you told me before. You absolute bed-rotting couch-potato.” She just giggled a little at the remark and a third eye joined the other two as she gazed at him for long seconds.

He frowned. “What? Is it not enough that I have to endure the over-the-top acting antics of these characters, now I have to deal with you staring at me the whole time too?”

She flicked her bubblegum-pink tongue at him and smiled with her eyes again as one of her six hands patted his knee. “I am just curious what your reaction will be when it happens?”

“When what happens?” He asked, mildly exhausted by her overly excited prodding and not-so-subtle hinting.

She poked him again and Paulie snorted, digging his fingers into her neck ruff and massaging the hard muscle underneath suddenly. Her eyes squinted as she let out a small gasp and then glared at him. “Don’t do that, it isn’t fair.”

He did it again and she closed her eyes as she gripped his chest a little tighter.

“Oh, ok. Fine, you win!” She gurgled with a little sigh as his hands worked out some of the stiffness in her muscles.

Paulie smiled and watched as the alien woman melted into his embrace a little more. “You are always so tense, your muscles are like braided metal wire. You need another massage.”

She shushed him, “None of that, I want to see your reaction. If you start into one of your ‘tender human ministrations’ again I won’t be able to focus on the show at all..” She shushed him again as he opened his mouth. “..shhh-shh! Look, look! Here it comes!”

Paulie turned his attention to the screen again, Jakiikii’s arms wrapping around him as she laid her head on his chest. He watched in amazement as, true to her warning, the great and often psychotically heroic Captain Yessko stormed his small fighting craft directly through the incoming enemy barrage without a scratch and blitzed two anti-protonic torpedoes straight through the aforementioned chink in the huge enemy ship’s armour. The twin flashes of detonating munitions followed by the swelling of the battleship’s hull and then a blinding secondary flash as the entire ship was vaporised into a trillion spinning fragments that flashed by the hero’s ship.

There was a large swell in the music as the small ship sailed majestically out of the debris storm and then towards the beautiful paradise planet he had been defending solo from the evil machinations of the domineering aliens he had just narrowly defeated.

All in all it was an over-the-top and showy display that had him minorly rolling his eyes while smiling all the same. Because who didn’t love an underdog story.

Jakiikii had jumped up in her seat, arms pumping as the enemy was obliterated, shouting as she did so, “Yeah! Get them, that’s how you do it!” Paulie had to admit it, while the show was a bit formulaic and relatively predictable, her excitement was contagious and he found himself smiling widely and nodding along with her extollations.

She turned to him suddenly and wrapped him up completely in a six-armed hug that nearly knocked him onto his back as the end of season credits rolled up. “Yay! I love it when the good guys win!” She squealed in an altogether too gleeful manner.

He flailed slightly under her sudden excited assault of happiness and then wrapped his own arms around her in return as he regained his balance on the sofa. “Yeah. Me too, Jakiikii.”

She beamed at him, her six pink and orange eyes brighter than a housecat’s as she asked him, “So you are really enjoying the show?”

He nodded then gave her a wide grin. “Yes, absolutely.”

Whatever she might have wanted to say next was cut short as there was a muffled noise at the door and then both of their wrist communicators started to go off at the same time. For a moment they stayed there, frozen in place as the quiet alarms of a system-wide alert buzzed. Then the door slammed open and Jakiikii made an altogether less than brave sound as three orange, power-suited figures burst through followed by a slithering alien in the black and blue of the adjudicators.

Mursk and Officer Sasfren spoke simultaneously as they tromped in together.

“There has been a breach!”

“The station is under attack!”

Both looked at each other then at Paulie and Jakiikii who were busy scrambling up from their previous sitting position. Jakiikii snapped into command mode almost immediately, the words leaving her chest like bullets as she directed the orders at the room’s intruders.

“Well, guard the hall then! We will be ready in a moment.” Mursk and Sasfren hesitated, the other two guardsmen looking between their commander and the bristling termaxxi. She waved her two longest arms again, “Out, now!”

They left in a hurry, Hauxsu muttering a chittering apology that sounded flat even without the emotionless nature of the translator removing all intonation from the words.

Jakiikii looked around and then rushed to the wall near the bathroom, grabbing her hanging stealth suit and stepping into the bathroom to pull it on. Paulie was left alone in the main room in his casual dress. Baggy T-shirt and shorts. He stripped out from them quickly and kicked his legs into a pair of heavy pants made of a denim-like material and then pulled on an undershirt before grabbing his heavy plate carrier vest and shrugging into it. The straps fought him and he grunted as he chased one of them for a moment, the arm strap somewhere over his shoulder and back in a position he struggled to get into.

A voice spoke from just behind him, “Here, I got it.” Two hands helped him settle the heavy weight of the physical armour and he turned to see that Jaikiikii had already managed to shimmy her way into the dark one-piece stealth suit.

He grumbled. “How do you do that so fast?”

She chuckled even as she grabbed his overcoat and weapon belt. Handing them to him one at a time, he put on both as she strapped her own MDF pistols on with her two smallest arms and smiled with her eyes. “Practice.”

“Uh huh.” he muttered at her, stealing a glance at her as if he could discern the truth of it with a look. But she was as mysterious as ever and he just snorted and pulled on his greatcoat in the meantime.

He didn’t bother to button it up as they reached the door and he slammed his feet into his heavy boots. She threw the door open, not more than a minute or two after the others had barged through it in the first place. Sasfren didn’t seem surprised, neither did Mursk as he had likely started getting used to their strange mannerisms. Lach looked mildly impressed and Hauxsu was just staring.

“Ready?” Officer Sasfren asked nobody in particular.

“Always.” Paulie said, giving her a wry smile out of the corner of his mouth as he patted the force multiplier on his waist.

Mursk looked back and forth between them. “What do you two think you are doing?”

Jakiikii spoke quickly as she motioned for them to move down the hall. “The station is under attack you said, we are officers of the law. I will not sit idly by while others might be in danger.”

Paulie nodded his head and made a fist motion with one hand even as the other wandered to the heavy weight of Nemesis on his hip. “Yea, what she said.”

Lach seemed to make a positive gesture. “I agree, we are far more useful helping others than sitting up here in the abandoned wings.” Paulie and Jakiikii started walking down the hall. He was honestly just following her as he still had no idea where the hell he was in relation to the rest of the building. The damn brutalist architecture of the main adjudicator’s complex always managed to twist him around till he could not tell up from down.

Mursk and the other guards followed close behind before flanking them in a delta-V formation. In that manner they traversed the halls of the base quickly, Paulie kept checking his wrist assistant as they moved to try and get an update on the situation. But the local net seemed locked down and he could not get a good signal on the small device. It just kept flicking between an interrupted signal message and a prompt to reconnect to the network.

Another hall traversed and they ran into their first signs of life. Two adjudicators wearing office clothing were rushing their way down the hall, the taller heechian halting and dragging the other out of their way as Mursk and the other guards rushed past. Paulie gave them what he hoped was an apologetic look before they were past and gone.

From up ahead there were the sounds of shouting. Not the panic of a firefight, more like the angry protestations of some poor soul trying to find order amongst sudden chaos.

The voice was strange, but familiar. The subtle barking accent underlying the shouted words making him think of Mack, but not quite the same. The tone was gentler, somehow lighter, and as they turned the corner he saw why.

As their group rounded the corner and entered a larger mustering space he saw the person shouting orders. It was a miriam, and for the briefest moment he thought he was seeing Mack, but then he noticed the large frill that hung from the sides and back of the alien’s head almost like fleshy folds of hair. As the alien’s gaze turned their way these folds flared out and stood out from her head suddenly, her surprise display as involuntary as a gasp. They were grey like her skin, but covered in intricate blue markings and design swirls. Some were clearly natural patterning and others had the look of artificial additions, maybe paint or tattoos.

The female officer stepped away from the small crowd she had been ordering around as her elaborately patterned frill settled back down. The heavy folds once more taking on the appearance of lumpy hair or perhaps a strange head scarf.

She immediately arrowed towards Sasfren who threw a salute as the approaching senior officer stamped one of her soft-soled feet on the floor. “I am Officer Hardle. I’m in charge of this section, what are you doing here? Who are you?” She demanded to know immediately and with a glare of suspicion in her large grey eyes.

As the shorter alien gritted her teeth, Sasfren seemed to try and come up with an answer, but Paulie decided that now was the wrong time for mucking about in office politics.

“The station is in danger, we are here to assist. Who we are is unimportant in the short term, what’s the situation.” A bit of a gamble, if the woman was a stickler for the rules then she might try to mire them in regulations.

His gamble paid off though as Officer Hardle narrowed her eyes but nodded. “Ok, I will admit that having three royal guards is not exactly something I am willing to say no to. As far as I know there was a reported breach in the west prison block a few minutes ago. Aside from that there seems to be a localised blackout. I suspect jamming as it took effect right after the initial alarm signal. I can’t get accurate information on the situation. Are your comms any better?” She asked, her stoic features tinged with the slight air of hope.

Sasfren shook her scaled head, pupilless brown eyes seeming to take in the whole room all at once. “The west prison block?” She asked, her expression petals opening up a bright yellow and orange. Something had clearly alarmed her.

Jakiikii saw it too, blurting, “That’s where Ooounoo is being held!”

Paulie hunched and cursed. “Shit!” He looked around, “We need to get there, or rather we need to get ahead of whatever is going on. What’s the fastest way between here and the prison block?!” He pointed a hand at the miriam officer, the woman’s frill flaring again in her surprise at being so addressed. But Paulie didn’t have time for subtlety, of how Mack would have loved to point it out to him too, he joked to himself silently.

She composed herself quickly though to her credit and gestured past the other assembled officers. “That way, but there is no way we can get there without passing through at least two lockdown checkpoints. They will stop us and with the jamming they may hold us there for confirmation until the communications have cleared.”

Mursk stepped forward and pressed a series of keys on his armour’s controls. A small light began to pulse on his armour and the armour of the other two mendagoonian guards. It was bright blue and shone like a dire warning to any that might try and slow them down.

He chittered, his autotranslator fizzing as it relayed, “Do not worry about that, priority-blue guard code. They will not dare to stop us.” His antennae rose as if in challenge and Officer Hardle seemed to nod slightly.

“Okay, alright. That’s useful. Let’s move.. quickly!” And she gestured for Mursk and Sasfren to fall in on either side of her as she led the way that she had motioned to only seconds before. Paulie took up a position with Jakiikii just behind them with Lach and Hauxsu on their sides, the rest of the collected officers behind them in turn as they moved in a tight wedge through the halls towards whatever had caused the alert code in the first place.

As they moved Paulie could not help but get a dark, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Like he could already tell they were in for worse news. But he kept his negativity to himself as they rushed around corners and down stairwells, getting ever closer and closer to the truth.

In what seemed like no time at all they were there. The lockdown checkpoints had not slowed them. Indeed as they arrived and the officers stationed on duty saw Mursk and the other guards approaching with their blue beacons lit, they veritably dove out of the way as the group charged past. With their mission so unimpeded, they made good time.

As Paulie’s view of the greater holding area was revealed, the nature of the problem became at once apparent. There was a collection of officers and uniformed guards all around in a cluster. Mursk and Officers Sasfren and Hardle moved forward even as the rest of the group semi-dispersed into the surrounding area. Various aliens in the blue and black uniforms of the local policing forces investigated the area almost aimlessly even as he watched.

Paulie stuck close to Mursk and Sasfren though, Jakiikii and the other two royal Guardsmen were still at his side.

The leading officer in front of them stepped forward with an arm outstretched. “Whoa, whoa. Hold up, who are you..” The alien’s four eyes went wide as they noticed Mursk and then Paulie. Clearly he had some amount of knowledge of him as he quickly nodded his head and then ushered them forward. “Oh, it’s you. Yeah, well.. unfortunately there was nothing we could do. Medical was alerted immediately, but she was already dead by the time we got here. I am sorry.”

They moved forwards with the tall alien and as he got closer he was able to see a figure on the ground, their body sitting on and partially covered by a black bodybag. He gritted his teeth, he recognised the smaukling officer.

Jakiikii made a low grumbling noise as she covered her chest with four hands. “No.” She breathed out, her husky voice carrying in the relatively quiet air.

“Officer Triddle was the one who triggered the alert. Clearly there was a struggle, she was stabbed in the throat and the back of the chest, rupturing her heart with enough force to break some of her ribs.” The alien that had originally stopped them said angrily. “It has all the hallmarks of a targeted attack, likely by an enhanced aggressor."

Paulie swallowed, the dark blood splashed across the door and floor nearby was evidence of the violence of her end. Turning towards the officer he asked, “What do you mean, enhanced?”

Now it was Officer Hardle’s turn to speak. “Enhanced aggressor, cyborg assassin. A favorite of the great movers and shakers of Korscam’s underbelly. And considering who’s cell this is, I am assuming that their original target was not Officer Triddle there.” The alien pointed at the corpse.

The tall alien that had led them to the scene shook their angular head. “No, the prisoner was found dead too. Strangled to death by the looks of it, the bones of her neck were like crushed gravel according to the paramedics. They are in there now, loading up the corpse.” He made a move as if to go inside the dark opening to the holding cell. “Did you need to see?”

Paulie shook his head, making the alien glower slightly as if affronted by his nerve. “No. That is not necessary. I already know enough, which way did the attacker go?” A cold spike of anger jolted through him, followed by the dull hum of adrenaline. He fingered the grip of his huge revolver as his eyes followed the direction the alien pointed a moment later.

Paulie smiled slightly as he started walking before anyone else could react, it was not a friendly smile.