Hard Right Page 4

  The pictures became shaky as the droids began to run towards the two doors – the screen now split so the leadership could see both. One of the droids pressed the button on the door to open it and it began to move slowly from both sides. It was an airlock, so the group of droids all stepped inside the large space to the next door and closed the exterior door, before opening the inner one. When the other droids got to the smaller door it turned the handle and pulled. It was locked. A little message in red appeared ‘Door locked,’ it said and flashed off again after a couple of seconds. The droid moved back a couple of steps and fired an explosive bullet at the door handle, and it blew apart. The droid then opened the door and pointed a weapon through into a darkened corridor. It switched on its headlight and illuminated it. It merely led to what was assumed to be another airlock. There were doors off to each side, two each. The three droids split the tasks as they opened and searched the rooms, before arriving at the airlock. It had a keycode lock on it. The droids silently stepped back as another message flashed up on screen in red. ‘Blowing lock,’ it said. It fired another explosive and the door was then pulled off its hinges by the lead droid. This meant that they could not go any further if they were to preserve the breathable air, if there was any on the other side of the second door. ‘Awaiting instructions…’ the message said.

  ‘Number 501, guard the door. Droid numbers 405, 406 and 407, remain in the launch bay,’ Karry’s Second instructed.

  ‘Instruction received,’ the droid spoke, but still added its response to the log on the screen. Karry and some of the others in the throne room with clearance, could access the logs at any time, with a verbal instruction.

  ‘There are heat signatures coming from the other end of the complex. Send half your force to go and seize them. Do not kill them unless they put up a defence, which demands retaliation,’ Karry’s Second instructed. The battle drones also responded and three of them flew across the site to a large building, with a second launch bay and closed bay doors. The battle droids began to run through the complex until they came to another large door. They fired missiles and blew the doors through then entered the launch bay. One half of it held a ship and three beings dressed in grey overalls, with black helmets began to open fire with laser pulse weapons, not unlike the ones that the Empire used for their military. This was noted by Karry in the throne room. She remained silent about it, stealing a glance at the military chief and then the Emperor, before turning back to the screen, hoping that no-one saw what she saw or noticed her reaction.

  The droids fired back, hitting one full on, his guts and blood spilling out onto the floor as he fell forward, his body hitting the deck with force. The other two ran quickly to the ship and closed the door. Lights came on underneath the ship. It was a dull silver colour, with a half dome window where the cockpit was. Within seconds the guns opened up on the droids, as they swiftly returned fire on the guns, that protruded from the bottom half of the cockpit space. Pulse weapons were hitting the droids hard. The ship engine started, the bay doors opened, and the air began to suck out anything that wasn’t nailed down. The droids turned to the doors. Three made it through and three were being dragged towards the doors, as the ship left the bay. As it appeared on the outside of the building, the drones also opened fire. The ship took several hits as it shot off into space.

  ‘Pursue,’ Karry’s Second instructed the drones. Three of them shot off at breakneck speed. They had AI, like the droids, so range wasn’t an issue. Where they went the battleship could follow. ‘Are there any survivors?’ Karry’s Second asked the remaining droids, who had managed to get back in behind the airlock doors.

  ‘Negative,’ one of them replied.

  ‘Damn!’ Karry said out loud without meaning to. She glanced back at the Emperor.

  ‘So, we have no survivors to interrogate?’

  ‘Not unless one of them is still inside the building. The battle drones will pursue the ship wherever it goes sire.’

  ‘Okay. Close the screen,’ the Emperor instructed and it flickered away.

  ‘We will interrogate the building. No matter how quickly they escaped, there will be evidence of who they were and where they’re from sire,’ Lord Bander explained.

  ‘Alien?’ the Emperor suggested.

  ‘Not sure, sire. They had laser pulse weapons, that were very similar to ours.’

  ‘I will instruct my Second to see if there are any left inside the settlement we can examine. Then we’ll know.’

  ‘Aliens could still have weapons from us. It won’t settle anything,’ the Crown Prince said.

  ‘If they’re alien then there will be evidence. I will guarantee it sire. If not, the pursuit may bear fruit,’ Karry suggested.

  ‘Very well. Keep me informed,’ the Emperor said, then stood and walked quickly out of the throne room.

  Chapter Seven.

  Don and his father took their seats in the transport, 100 meters from the ground. The arm connecting the bus to the platform, retracted, just as the second earthquake struck. Don and his father could see the ground move below. ‘Whoa!’ Don said as he looked down at a wave, lifting buildings as it moved along. ‘If we’d have stayed at the dock for another few seconds, we’d be stuck there,’ Don said.

  ‘Yes, I know. Scary stuff,’ Mitus replied. They continued to look down as they watched people scatter and emergency services rushing to help people, lights flashing. Then they felt the bus move up and down, in a wave movement. ‘You feel that?’ Mitus asked.

  ‘Yes. The movement of the earth, from the quake must have pushed the air upwards and the bus upwards.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  They both continued to look out the windows at the chaos below. Then a building at the edge of what they could see looked as though it was about to collapse. ‘That’s not my building is it?’ Don asked as he strained his neck round to see, eventually standing back up and heading to the back window. Mitus stayed put as he watched. Eventually the bus reached its top speed and began to race away from LA, moving past line after line of high-rise buildings, far below. Ahead and behind were other skycars and buses and bigger vehicles.

  ‘So, what did you do to the Emperor that got you expelled?’ Don asked his father, as he returned to his seat. ‘I think I need to know now, because I have made myself a target because of it.’

  His father looked at his feet then he looked into space ahead of him, not focusing on anything. He was silent for a few minutes, while Don stared at him waiting, impatient for him to tell him.

  ‘I’d be breaking all kinds of laws if I told you. The penalty is death, you realise that don’t you?’

  ‘You’re already a dead man if the Cleaner Corp finds you. No trial, no leniency. Just killed right there on the spot.’

  ‘Okay. I guess I have little to lose now. Well you know the fourth planet?’

  ‘Yes. Micklemass 1.’

  ‘The president there is pushing for independence from the Emperor. He is strongly opposed, naturally. But this struggle is beginning to escalate. They’re looking for ways to arm themselves in case the Emperor increases the military presence there. The trouble is that the Emperors surveyors, have located a massive deposit of Rhodium and Rhodium is in short supply, especially here on Earth. I think everyone just expected to find it with all the mining going on across the Empire. If Micklemass 1’s president realises what they have, they will be able to fund a massive military resistance to the Emperor and towards independence.’

  ‘So, what was your role?’

  ‘As a geologist I was on the team who discovered the deposit, but I was stupid enough to mention that Micklemass 1 should be told what they have on their planet, under their feet. That’s what got me chucked out of the Emperor’s staff.’

  ‘You just mentioned it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Shit.’ The two men went quiet. ‘What do you think the Emperor is up to?’

  ‘I can’t tell you much more – in public anyway. Ears are everywher
e,’ Mitus explained. At that he looked around the bus. There were two men in formal work clothes, a plain white shirt, hanging out of soft grey trousers – the uniform of the 9 to 5’ers. There were two older women, who looked poor, sat together and a young child with his mother, picking his nose. He drew his attention back to his son. ‘We’ll wait until we get clear of this skybus,’ he added. The skybus then reached its first stop. It docked and two men entered the bus, with two more on the concourse.

  ‘Secret police,’ Don said. ‘They’re here for you.’ He stood up and walked towards them.

  ‘Dr Jackson!’ one of them yelled down the bus towards Mitus.

  ‘No. You can’t take him. We’re going to the Emperor to plead clemency,’ Don said, holding one hand against the chest of one of the men, whilst blocking the aisle. The policemen then looked down at Don’s hand and grabbed it and attempted to twist it with his arm, to get physical control of him. Don countered quickly by hitting him in the chest with his other hand. Winded he let go and stumbled backwards. The other officer stepped in and the two on the concourse joined the melee. Don was grabbed by both arms, as one of the men stepped past and pulled a weapon from his jacket.

  ‘Fight back dad!’ Don yelled trying to twist and grapple his way free. The officer stepped up to a startled Mitus and fired his weapon straight into his forehead and that was it. He was dead. The other men dragged Don from the bus and there he found the room to wrestle himself free and headed off into the station.

  ‘Let him go,’ one of them said. ‘We have our target.’

  Chapter Eight.

  The settlement on Amalthea was being searched by Karry’s Second, with her team of marines. The airlocks had been blown by the attack, so they were all wearing space suits. There were ten human marines and the droids, which were standing still, awaiting instructions should there be any. The damaged droids were taken back to the battleship for repair. ‘Definitely human,’ the Second said, as she began to open up computers around a lab. There were schematics for weapons and a collection of Empire made pulse lasers and guns.

  Karry was still monitoring the operation from Earth, after the Emperor and his entourage had moved on. She was in a control room, with banks of screens, including operational reports of the droids and the damage assessment of the kit that was used. The main and biggest screen in the centre, was monitoring the progress of the fighter drones that had gone after the ship that had escaped from the settlement during the raid. They had now traced the ship to a deep space station which was privately owned, called station X35. This station was the biggest in its class and would have cost not much short of three hundred billion Units. It was ten miles high and shaped like a double pyramid, with the two bases flat against one another.

  The fighter drones had been prevented from approaching the station. There was some Imperial presence on the station, along with their own private security teams and from time to time the two clashed over capturing criminals or dissidents, and people who had fled to escape the Cleaner Corp.

  ‘Stay in position until I get there. If the ship leaves follow it,’ Karry’s Second said. ‘Send reinforcements. Twenty battle droids to X35.’

  ‘Yes ma’am,’ the AI control centre spoke, flatly with a soft male voice. The control centre managed the droid army, kept in large numbers across the Imperial territories, which included Earth and Mars which was nearing the end of the terraforming process. There are two life sustaining planets in the same system, called Kaybe and Clement. They weren’t perfect copies of Earth when it came to their life support systems but needed less intervention than all the others. Then there was Micklemass One and Micklemass Two. Rocky planets with ice, ripe for terraforming and currently carrying a large population of human beings, who were a few decades away from having full life support running there. They were named one and two because they were so similar in size and their features were also similar. Deep Blue is a planet completely covered in water and therefore was harder to turn into a colony and was as a consequence not so densely populated. People were put off by the idea of living in floating buildings, although foundations are being constructed for land-based buildings and infrastructure. Lastly Red Night, was a planet in a system with binary stars. One of them was a red dwarf star and would cast a red glow on the planet at night.

  Karry’s Second turned her battleship around and engaged the engines, reaching near light speed in a few seconds. X35 loomed into view after a while as her screens filled up with radar signatures. Ships coming and going and her battle drone’s stationary and in formation nearby. X35 space station, was one of the largest types of station. It was big enough to house up to one hundred thousand people and their places of work, including full repair services for large transport ships, moving goods around the Empire. The huge hangers and the lights shone out into space, making it hard for people to see the stars from their windows.

  ‘Load up twenty droids,’ she ordered as she walked quickly to the launch bay and walked up a ramp into a ship where the droids waited inside. The ship left the battleship and asked for permission to come into the station.

  ‘Permission granted,’ came a male voice. The ship entered the station and landed. They all left the ship. ‘Wait here,’ she instructed, and the droids stood in two lines on the deck, while her close protection droids walked behind her. She headed towards the administrator’s office and was met by a tall, bold man, with two gold implants.

  ‘This way. Mr Nogort is waiting for you,’ he said. Norgort was the manager of this private trading and residential space station. Karry’s Second walked quickly, easily keeping up with this man, who legs were much longer and whose strides were longer. They walked into an open lift, which was being held by another staff member dressed in a uniform, with the station’s logo on the shirt pocket. The doors closed. Karry’s droids stood either side of her, as the man looked nervously at this formidable weapon. The door opened at the top floor and they all walked through into a large open space with seats and a large desk, at one end and was surrounded by windows looking out into space and all the ships coming and going. Karry’s Second paused for a moment and looked out the window, before Norgort appeared.

  ‘Karry or Karry’s Second?’ he asked, with a degree of familiarity.

  ‘Her Second. We are hunting a ship, which looks like this,’ she said getting straight to the point, as a screen appeared and still image of the ship appeared on the screen in front of them. ‘We wish to arrest the pilot and any other crew he has.’

  ‘I will search my files. However, anyone who comes here should they stay within the rules, are protected by me whilst they stay. That is my policy.’

  ‘I am acting on behalf of the Emperor. You have no choice,’ Karry’s Second explained.

  ‘My answer is you cannot arrest anyone under my protection. This is not Imperial territory. Now do we have that ship here?’ he said as one of his staff handed him a screen which he pushed back once he’d seen the relevant information.

  ‘If you don’t co-operate, I will have no choice but to use force. You have one hour to hand over the fugitives.’ Karry’s Second said and stood up and left, her droids behind her.

  Chapter Nine.

  Don ran as fast as he could along the concourse and out some glass doors, into a huge mall on the top floor of a skyscraper. Up there were boutiques and meeting places and it bustled with people of all kinds. He pushed past some of them as he headed for the lifts. There were four lifts in front of him as he frantically searched for one that was closest to his floor. He looked up to see what floor he was on, as he was unsure. Two men appeared behind him as they jostled people out the way. He could hear the commotion and guessed it was for him. He turned his head and as he did so, he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, as he spotted one of his pursuers with a small black weapon. Don got electrocuted by a small round pellet which discharged a shook into him. He began to shake and collapsed on the spot, unconscious. The people around stepped aside saying and doing nothing to hel
p. They knew better than to interfere in the business of the Secret Police.

  When Don woke up, he was in a plain room, with a low light and grey walls. He was sat in a chair.

  ‘Welcome Don,’ one of the two men said, sitting opposite him, while the second stood back towards the door behind him. He was feeling groggy as he turned his head to look at the man behind him.

  ‘Secret Police I assume? You’ve killed my father so what do you want from me?’ he asked.

  ‘We want to make a swap,’ the officer in front of him was doing all the talking.

  ‘What kind of swap?’

  ‘You have a martial arts and combat augmentation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You want to get a pardon from the Emperor?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Helping a fugitive, destroying a government droid. And you’ve been fired from your job at Cleaner Corp. This means you’ll forfeit all your privileges and be selected for destruction.’

  ‘Shit. Is that how you treat Cleaner Corp operatives is it?’

  ‘You should have killed your father. Refusing to kill designated targets gets you fired. You know that. And if you can’t pay your way you get killed.’