Chapter 30: The One that Got Away

Chapter 30: The One that Got Away

Paulie stalked the halls of the complex like a big cat hunting prey, his heavy booted feet pounding the floor like the drumbeats of hell. The trail of destruction he was following was not hard to follow, every few turns there was more evidence of a vicious one-sided firefight.

The bullet holes, laser burns and bodies stacked up more and more in his mind. At least six officers were critically wounded, four more dead that he had seen so far. And the killer was still in the building, that much he was sure of. They had not had the time to escape yet, and if he had his way they would not.

He took a corner too fast and skidded into a wall, grunting as he slammed into his hard enough to crack the wall.

“Paulie!” A voice panted from behind him, “Slow down a little!”

He glanced over his shoulder to see that while the rest of the alien officers had been left far behind, Jakiikii and the power armoured mendagoonian royal guards had managed to keep up with him.

He shook his head and continued moving. “Can’t stop! They might get away if I do!”

Mursk spoke, his autotranslator buzzing just loud enough to be heard over the rushing of blood in Paulie’s ears.

“You could be running into an ambush! Paulie, I implore you to slow your..” the alien paused in speaking as the three guards had to use their wings to fly over a cluster of people assisting some injured officers. Paulie just vaulted over them in a single jump and Jakiikii dug her specialised hooves into the wall to go up and around them as they ran.

Mursk’s voice continued after a moment to catch his breath, “You should slow your headlong rushing. We have no idea as to the situation ahead!”

Paulie shook his head and pointed over his shoulder. “We are catching up. EMT had not even arrived at that last scene yet, did you notice?” He said between gasps of air. He wasn’t really tired, but he had not really had many opportunities to let loose and go full out lately. Trapped and cooped up as he had been over the past few weeks.

Jakiikii seemed to flash pale even as he said it, her unconscious response telling him she had indeed noticed.

They dodged around a few more scenes of carnage, some of them with unmoving bodies and the wails of injured and dying aliens. The mixed screams and hooting barks of them created a veritable cacophony of terror and panic that seeped into the scattering of others they passed. He had a hard time ignoring their cries for help and mercy, but he was on a more important mission. If he could catch this killer, stop them, he could prevent more death and destruction right at the source.

It was this thought in his mind as he finally skidded around another corner and saw something he had not been expecting.

In front of them was a large room, adjoining to the main hall like some sort of doorless office space. There were desks with computer consoles and monitoring devices on them, and sitting around at least three of them were surprised looking adjudicators with their eyes locked on the other doorway, a doorway with three figures in the blue and black of adjudicator peace officers. He caught a glimpse of pink fur and mottled blue skin under the peacekeeper uniforms.

Before Paulie even had the chance to ascertain the situation farther than that the figures in the far doorway were opening fire on him through the surprised office workers, two of them were cut down with the third screeching and leaping for the cover of a heavy metal desk. Paulie heard Mursk chitter in surprise as the gunfire was directed their way.

Multiple calibres of bullets and slugs rattled off the walls in his direction as he pushed Jakiikii roughly out of the path of danger back the way they had come. He tried to use the movement to propel himself the opposite way, but apparently Lach had been taking the opposite approach and they collided together and they were both sent flying in unpredictable directions.

Paulie went flying into a nearby desk, his heavy body crumpling the flimsy sheet metal of its construction in an explosion of desk supplies and small novelty magnets. Apparently whomever’s work station he had just decimated had been a fan of them.

As the magnets were sent scattering all over the floor, nearby desks and general vicinity, Paulie grabbed the handle of Nemesis and finally pulled the huge revolver from its holster. He didn’t have a plan, hell, he didn’t even know what was happening. Why had some of their own allies seemingly just fired on them? What was going on?

He yelled the same question to Mursk and Lach, the two guards had taken up positions on the other side of the room behind desks of their own. More incoming fire, one sparked off the side of Lach’s armoured gorget. The alien barely even twitched as it dug a shallow grove out of the armour and slammed into the wall next to him.

“Maybe it is because they saw your power armour and in the moment did not recognise it?” Paulie mused, loud enough for the other aliens to hear. He played the hunch, “Korscam adjudicator friendlies! I repeat, friendlies! You are firing on your own people!” His only response was a loud curse from one of the opposing officers and then more shots rang out in their direction.

“Shit!” Paulie swore, his head jerking as another round slapped the side of his desk hard enough to almost pierce the metal. The deformation in it appeared inches from his head. It must have ricocheted from another desk nearby. He looked towards Mursk and then the doorway, he could see the tip of Jakiikii’s electron rifle poking around it. It looked like she was preparing to do something foolhearty, so he decided to do something dangerous first.

Paulie scooted over on his ass, making sure to keep his head low, then positioned himself behind another desk. This one intact, console and all. Placing his shoulder against it, and with the faceless helmets of both the mendagoonian guards staring at him amid the chaos, he suddenly stood with explosive force. Throwing all of his tremendous strength directly into the desk’s metal frame, which buckled under the sudden strain, but was also catapulted across the room with a velocity that he could only call surprising.

His aim sucked though and the desk smashed into the wall a full meter away from the opening they were taking fire from, but it had the otherwise useful effect of making one of the aliens scream in surprise or fear. This was followed by a scampering sound, like padded shoes on a carpet floor.

The incoming fire died down immediately and Paulie waited in cover, he might as well let the guys wearing helmets with actual armour take the first look. Mursk and Lach expertly used the available cover to move up and in seconds they were even with Paulie. Mursk checked over Paulie, feeling his arms and legs with his free hands as Paulie swatted at him.

“Hey, stop that. What are you doing, man?” he complained.

Mursk stopped, arms halfway to his left kneecap and right shoulder. “I am making sure you are unharmed, Paulie. You did get shot at a few seconds ago, or had you forgotten?” The humourless tone of the autotranslator only served to make the deadpan remark even funnier and Paulie chuckled after a second of confusion.

“Oh.. yeah. Right!”

Mursk patted him a few moments longer then shook his helmeted head. “Okay, you seem whole, though I do sometimes wonder if there is unseen damage to your head. You ran in there like a crazed..”

He was cut off as Jakiikii and Hauxsu stepped into the room, both of them with weapons drawn and looking ready to riddle any movement with electromagnetic death. Jakiikii’s face was pale and her skin seemed to flicker between grey and mottled brown as she looked towards Paulie, her eyes were wide as for a brief second she seemed torn between rushing to hug him and screaming at him for being an idiot. At least that was the impression he got as she finally settled on looking very relieved and cross.

Paulie waved a hand through the air, “We don’t have time to debate. There is clearly something else going on here, those guys were in officer uniforms. Come on!” And he stood to rush off again but was stopped by two hands on his upper arm. Even with the alien’s power-suit's augmented strength he could have easily pulled away, but something in the alien’s body language made him pause.

“Paulie. Those were real adjudicators, not impostors. I scanned one of their faces and ident number, they are legit as far as the system can see. We may be walking into an ambush designed specifically for you.” The flat tone and Mursk’s helmeted head robbed any sincerity from the words, but he could tell the alien was serious.

He shrugged, “Then we will just have to spring the trap on our own terms. The longer we stand here the farther ahead of us they get!” He started moving towards the exit again and this time the other man did not stop him. Paulie glanced at the downed adjudicators, one was whimpering and seemed largely unhurt. The other two were fully gone however, puddles of blood spreading from their perforated bodies. He clenched the fingers of his free hand into a fist.

“They can’t be allowed to get away with this atrocity.” He muttered under his breath and started to once more pick up the pace. Gike’s surface gravity was much lighter than Earth’s and his human muscles powered through the halls like a machine. The mystical medicines of the GGI had kept him in peak physical condition despite the lack of real strain on his body, in fact he may have actually gotten stronger.

Either way, he made short work of the intervening spaces and within less than two minutes they had caught back up to their would-be killers as they struggled to escape down a long hall. One of the aliens, a short heechian male judging by the protruding fangs, stopped and turned their way to fire a killing burst down the narrow hall. Paulie was fast, but in that split second he calculated his own agility was insufficient to aim and fire before the alien’s weapon tore him and the others into bloody chunks.

The blue-skinned alien’s head snapped back as a ghostly blue line of shimmering energy slammed right through its forehead and out the back of its skull in a puff of boiled blood and vaporised skull fragments. Jakiikii slammed into the ground with a grunt as she finished the dive that had allowed her to get around him to take the shot, her perfectly stabilised six-armed shooting stance allowing her to perform the impossible move even as Paulie was still reacting to the situation.

As the still-thrashing corpse slammed into the ground ahead of them the other two killers managed to slip around the corner amid the sound of more gunfire and shouts of alarm. Paulei spared only a second’s glance to make sure Jakiikii was alright before he rushed forward, his gun now raised and at the ready. He would not let himself be caught off guard so easily again.

Paulie approached the corner with heavier and more measured steps. No longer bounding through the halls in great, gravity-defying leaps. Once again a voice stopped him.

“Careful, it is most certainly a trap at this point.” Lach spoke from just behind him. “Allow me the duty of looking first.” The alien’s translator spoke as the alien pushed past him slightly then slowly extended an arm out past the corner. Paulie just watched as he suddenly remembered Mursk having mentioned before that their suits had cameras in their hands for this kind of thing.

Lach spoke, “I see them, they have cleared the room. We are still two stories up, they have no escape. The fools have backed themselves into a corner!” Paulie sniffed, that would make sense if these were some random thugs or would-be assassins for hire off the street. But they seemed to be legitimate adjudicators meaning they would certainly have some knowledge at least of the layout and structure of the building.

He said as much quickly and Lach glanced at him, the blue visor of his helmet blocking out what little emotional display may have been on the insectoid alien’s face.

The mendagoonian royal guardsman just made a small arm gesture that Paulie did not recognise and asked, “Well, if it is some manner of elaborate ploy then it certainly will not benefit us to give them additional time to prepare.” Paulie was inclined to believe the man, doubts or not these dangerous people had to be stopped. He gripped the gun in his hand harder and then looked back at the others.

“What is the layout of the space?” Mursk demanded before Paulie could say anything else.

Lach spoke quickly in mendagoonian, the translator struggling to keep up with the rapid clicking speech. He caught a few words out of it though, it was an open space with office equipment and large windows on the farther wall. No additional exits could be seen and there were several large support pillars between them and their quarry.

Paulie turned back partially, “Jakiikii, you don’t have any armour on. Stay back, stay safe.” She made a low groaning whistle that he knew to be a sound of indignation, her skin darkening in her frustration but she made no moves to ignore his plea. Nodding to the others he gestured to the opening. “Okay, on the count of three. One.. two..” He watched them tense, and prepared himself.

“Three!”

Lach and Mursk hurtled around the corner, one going high and the other low as an almost immediate hail of gunfire slashed through the open space between them. Paulie waited for only a half-second more and then dove around the corner too, using his superior strength and reflexes to kick off the floor and then rebound off the other wall at a high angle. With that move he effectively propelled himself up and over the bulk of the incoming shots, though something did glance off his chestplate and tug at the skin of his thigh.

He hit the ground hard with a thud that drove the breath from his lungs, but he was behind the cover of a solid support pillar now and leaned his back against it as the other two guards settled themselves behind cover of their own. He cursed, his thigh burned where something had managed to graze him and draw blood.

There was the sound of shuffling and then a voice shouted across the space to them.

“You should not have followed me Urrenian, though I admire your tenacity in doing so. I have no orders to terminate you, though I would have relished the chance to do so!”

The voice was alien, a sort of chuffing, snuffling rasp that made him think of a seal for some reason. But the tone and the inherent venom in the voice were familiar to him and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand as he recognised it. The pink furred alien he had seen earlier, that hateful smirk he had dealt with so many times before.

He gasped aloud. “Visk!”

There was a loud crash, the sound of shattering glass and then a distant thud. Paulie looked out from his cover and saw that one of the large windows had been broken and the cold wind of the city was blowing through it, much to the stunned shock of the remaining traitor officer.

He didn’t think, he reacted to the situation. He was up and sprinting at them before they had the chance to react. Paulie used the but of his gun to smash the remaining alien to the floor, though not so hard as to outright kill them. They would certainly feel the blow to the head when they awoke though.

He moved to the window even as Mursk and Lach moved in to secure the fallen alien. Looking through he saw the city, and far below on the ground was a small cracked impact mack like something heavy had hit the ground hard. Had Visk jumped?

Jakiikii rushed into the room with Hauxsu in tow. “What happened, did you say Visk? Like, officer Visk?”

Paulie nodded. “Yes, I recognised his voice. It was Visk, though how he got away..” Paulie just shook his head and looked out the window again thinking about the mention of a cybernetic foe. Jakiikii stood by him and her eyes roved all around the scene.

“I see blood, he must have gotten cut jumping through the window.”

Paulie nodded then turned from the window. He might have been able to jump down without too much trouble, and the guards had wings and could have followed easily, but they would never catch him in the city. Not as they were now without backup and supplies.

There was a snore and the unconscious alien turned over slightly, groaning but remained out.

“Well, at least we got one of them. Though part of me assumes they will know nothing, or they would likely have not been left behind alive as they were.” Mursk nodded as Lach said it. Paulie frowned, they would get to the bottom of this plot. Ooounoo was gone, but there were still threads to be pulled if one knew where to look.