Titan (Old Ironsides Book 2) (11 page)

‘They abandoned that code every time they’ve attacked us!’ Marshall snapped. ‘Their survival is not my priority and nor should it be of concern to this senate.’

‘They are still human,’ the senator pressed quietly, his voice carrying the weight of history with it, ‘no matter how much they may deny it. It’s been six months since they attacked us and we have heard almost nothing from them since. If we truly are facing a dangerous and unknown enemy, then the enemy of our enemy is our friend, no?’

Marshall ground his teeth in his jaw but said nothing, looking instead to Arianna Coburn for guidance. Her chin lowered to her chest for a moment and she closed her eyes briefly, then she spoke.

‘Send a message to the Ayleean warlords,’ she said finally. ‘Inform them of what has happened, and that they should send a dignitary as soon as they can. Organize a code to grant them access and escort to Polaris Station.’

She turned to Admiral Marshall. ‘Bring the fleet in, organize a defensive line and prepare for whatever might be out there while we question the survivors.’

‘And the involvement of New Washington’s Police Department?’ the admiral asked.

Both Coburn and Marshall looked at Foxx and she saw a softening of the admiral’s expression as he recognized her.

‘We need access to Polaris Station and Titan’s armory,’ Foxx said, ‘as part of our investigation into a possible miscarriage of justice. If it happens that you require our assistance aboard Titan then we’ll be more than happy to oblige, admiral.’

Marshall allowed a smile to crack the armor of his craggy features.

‘As you all know, Detective Foxx and her colleagues proved themselves essential in solving a crime that almost cost humanity its existence just six months ago. I would not have believed that the same thing might happen again so soon, but right now I want the best people on the job to figure this out. I have specialists here on Titan in technology and scene surveillance but I don’t have detectives. Lieutenant Foxx, if you’re able to help us, we would be very grateful and I’d be more than happy to grant you access to the ship’s armory.’

Foxx stood up, suddenly nervous as a thousand pairs of eyes swivelled to look at her.

‘I’d be delighted,’ she said, her voice sounding tiny compared to the admiral’s booming tones. ‘But I won’t travel without my team, and we have one operation to complete.’

‘Bring as many people as you like,’ Marshall said. ‘Just get to Polaris Station as fast as you can. We’ll be bringing the survivors with us under quarantine conditions. Your team can meet us there.’

***

XII

New Washington

Nathan followed Detective Foxx to the squad cruiser, ranks of flashing lights flickering in the darkness and reflecting off the walls of buildings that towered into a night sky filled with billions of stars as though the heavens were reflecting the city below. Night had fallen on the Pacific Ocean far below, the gigantic space station revolving slowly in the absolute blackness. For a while Nathan could gaze upon the vast banner of the Milky Way stretched across immense vividly colored star fields, then he could see the Earth and the fainter lights of coastal cities against the darkened surface.

‘What happened at the CSS Senate?’ he asked Foxx as she moved alongside him.

‘We got clearance,’ she replied in a whisper. ‘Something’s got the fleet and the senate riled up but I’m not allowed to talk about it.’

‘Not even to me?’ Nathan asked with a teasing smile.

‘Especially not to you.’

Foxx turned to the other police officers around them, her voice clear and stern.

‘This guy’s dangerous so no heroics, understood?’

Twelve police department detectives were amassed around four squad cruisers parked in a side alley on North Four, one of the station’s most notorious slums. Even as Nathan scanned the stars above so they were obscured by a drifting veil of cloud that glowed a soft orange in the city’s street lights, the station’s air scrubbers as ever overworked to dehumidify the atmosphere. Rain would come soon to soak the city’s streets a glossy black.

‘Keiron Scheff,’ Captain Forrester announced, his big black face creased with distaste as he gestured to a projected hologram of Scheff floating on the hood of one of the cruisers, ‘aged twenty nine, one of the leaders of the so called
Prime Time
gang that spins the wheels on the upper east side here on North Four. Drugs, prostitution, racketeering and smuggling – you name it, they’re into it.’

Forrester gestured to Kaylin Foxx as he went on.

‘Detective Foxx has an informant who has directed us to the likely hiding place Scheff is using, which is four blocks from here in an old cinema complex that got certified ten years ago but hasn’t been pulled down. We have it on good authority that the complex is deep within the Black Hole, so maintain line of sight with each other.’

The “Black Hole”, as Nathan recalled, was an area within North Four that was filled with illegal jammers, making it tough for police to coordinate actions against the criminals and thugs that called the area home. The most notorious of the
Four Corners
, the external hubs of New Washington’s “wheel” structure, North Four’s streets were as rough as it got on the station. It was also the Fourth Precinct’s most frequent patrol duty.

Forrester shut off the hologram, his hefty two hundred forty pound frame dominating the meeting.

‘You’ll split into three teams of four and come at Scheff from all sides, cutting off his exits. If he does get through, the squad cruisers will be waiting for him. We all know what we’re up against here. The
Prime Time
gang favor bionic enhancements and drugs to give them the edge over us in a pursuit and we know that they’re armed and willing to shoot to kill, so let’s surprise them and keep them inside the building where their enhancements can’t help them. Keep your guard up, folks. Let’s go!’

Nathan followed Foxx to their assigned rally point on the corner of 15th and Mason, Vasquez and Allen hurrying to join them.

‘This could get rough,’ Vasquez said to Nathan, ‘no place for a traffic cop.’

Foxx smiled at the jibe but came to Nathan’s defense before he could reply.

‘It was Nathan who chased down Asil,’ she pointed out. ‘I think that he can handle himself.’

Nathan glowed with pride as he looked across at Vasquez and grinned, raised an eyebrow and adjusted his collar.

‘Yeah? What car were you in? Was Betty
Buzz
holdin’ the wheel for you?’

Nathan let out a sigh of superiority. ‘Betty was caring for a downed officer,’ he replied. ‘I was on foot.’

Vasquez’s eyes widened and Allen peered at Nathan in disbelief.

‘You chased down a Prime Time gang ‘hood
on foot
?’

Nathan ducked his head and wriggled the tension out of his shoulders as they approached the rally point, ready for the next pursuit.

‘All in a day’s work, fellas.’

Foxx eased in alongside a wall as she spoke to them all. ‘Of course, Asil got the better of Nathan in the end. If Betty hadn’t buzzed Asil with their squad car Nathan would be in the morgue by now.’

Vasquez and Allen grinned to themselves as Nathan frowned.

‘C’mon, I caught the guy and we were headed upstairs at the time,’ he complained. ‘Besides, Asil wasn’t going to shoot to kill.’

‘That so?’ Vasquez said as they positioned themselves for the order to go in on Scheff’s hideout. ‘And you knew that
how
?’

Nathan was about to reply when Foxx gestured for them to be quiet. Nathan looked across the street even as a light drizzle began to spill from the clouds above onto the deserted street, halos forming around the lights dimly illuminating the old cinema complex opposite.

Nathan had been mildly surprised to discover that cinema had survived to the twenty fourth century, and had been informed by Jay Allen that although it had changed somewhat since his day the fundamental pleasure of the shared experience of story–telling had not. The difference was that this cinema had been a virtual world cinema, where the viewers didn’t watch the movie so much as star in it themselves, right alongside their favorite screen heroes and heroines. A movie that featured hot–shot criminals, car chases and all manner of science fiction was still regarded as better when shared with a crowd, each person living the experience but hearing the laughter and enjoyment of their peers at the same time.

So far Nathan had resisted the urge to be hunted down by a Tyrannosaurus or blasted into an intergalactic war with insectoid aliens in perfect virtual reality, despite the encouragement of other officers on the force.

‘Here we go,’ Foxx warned them.

Nathan drew his pistol, watching the old cinema as across the far side of the block he saw one of the other four man teams appear in position, huddling against the far wall of the cinema.

‘Great,’ Vasquez said, ‘how come it’s always us who get to go in the front door?’

‘Don’t complain,’ Foxx replied, ‘the bad guys mostly run for the back door once we show up.’

Nathan’s optical ID chip flickered a silent
“GO!”
order into his right eye, and without a word they broke from cover and sprinted across the street as Foxx pulled a single, metallic sphere from her belt and pressed a button on its surface. The sphere glowed bright red with slow, rhythmic flashes that immediately began to get quicker.

Foxx rushed up to the cinema’s old entrance and tossed the sphere against the doors. It stuck in place instantly as Nathan and the rest of the team pinned themselves against the walls either side of the doors. Foxx dashed to Nathan’s side, pressed her body hard against his and covered her ears with her hands, Nathan close enough to smell the soft scent of her hair as he pressed his own hands against his ears.

A deafening blast smashed through the cinema doors, plasma spraying in fearsome bright blue globules of light as Foxx rushed toward the doors through a billowing cloud of smoke, Vasquez and Allen coming from the far side and Nathan following Foxx as they ran into the cinema’s darkened interior.

Nathan heard shouts of alarm and anger, saw figures staggering about in the lobby of the cinema as one of them raised something to point at Allen. Vasquez fired first, the shot zipping across the lobby and hitting the man in his chest as he screamed and fired his weapon, the shot going high and hitting the ceiling above them as all hell broke loose.

Nathan dashed for cover behind an old automated ticket dispenser shaped like a screen hero of some kind, an armor–plated warrior with metallic wings. A plasma blast hit the other side of the dispenser and it melted as though it were made of butter as sparks of plasma shot past Nathan’s face along with a blast of heat.

‘Forward!’ Vasquez yelled as he returned fire.

Nathan followed as Foxx, Vasquez and Allen plunged into the cinema’s interior through veils of smoke, flashes of plasma fire illuminating the shadowy darkness as though he were plunging through some kind of Hadean nightclub filled with warring demons. Plasma shots crackled this way and that as the thugs inside the cinema fell back toward the main amphitheater.

Nathan pushed on through the smoke, following Foxx into the huge amphitheater as he saw the other two teams flooding into the building from other entrances. The center of the cinema was level and flat, surrounded by seats in circular ranks rising up to where Nathan could see the police rushing in. Crowds of armed thugs fired from vantage points among the seats, debris and drug paraphernalia scattered on tables in the center of the cinema along with what looked like weapons and several women now sheltering beneath and behind the tables as the police rushed in upon them.

Nathan was about to descend after Foxx when something caught his eye and he saw a figure flash through the shadows and confusion and dash from the amphitheater, back the way the cops had come in. Nathan whirled and aimed but the figure was already out of sight as he instead dashed in pursuit.

Nathan sprinted back through the lobby and saw the figure ahead of him, a tall, lithe man with dark skin and a long jacket flowing like a cape as he leaped with inhuman agility down a flight of stairs toward the exits. Nathan ran hard in pursuit, leaped down the stairs and saw the flickering lights of the squad cars drawing up outside in support of the raid.

The figure dashed left and crashed through a side door near the exits, Nathan smashing through the same door moments later and seeing a flight of stairs soaring upward before him.

‘Jeez, not again!’

He dashed up the stairs, slammed his pistol back into its holster and pumped his arms hard, dragging in huge breaths and expelling them like a freight train as he powered up the six flights of stairs and heard a door crash just above him. Nathan emerged onto the top floor and saw an exit door ahead that led onto the roof. He crashed through it and outside to see the figure dashing toward the edge of the building.

‘Police, freeze!’

The figure ignored him as Nathan ran in pursuit, the side of the cinema looming up before them while the vast orbital station’s interior soared across the heavens high above, far more vertiginous now that they were above street level. Nathan could see the cityscape before them rising up as though somebody had lifted it and folded it back upon itself, the transparent ray–shielding above offering a dizzying perspective on the rest of the city. New Washington’s immense spokes soared away toward the central spaceport hub high above where distant vessels glinted as they slowed to dock, and he could see streetlights sparkling high above against the backdrop of Earth’s enormous shadowy sphere filling the heavens.

The figure ahead of him leaped upward once, twice and then a third gigantic bound as he soared into the air and easily cleared the gap between the cinema and the next building on the block. Nathan ran hard, and as he reached the edge of the cinema roof he extended his stride and then hurled himself through the air.

The street yawned beneath him, three stories straight down and shimmering with the recent rainfall. Nathan hit the side of the building opposite with a thump as his boots touched down and he rolled into one shoulder as he slammed the other hand palm–down onto the roof in an attempt to absorb the impact. The air burst from his lungs and his vision starred but he rolled and staggered to his feet as his hand moved toward his pistol.