Chapter 3: Flight of Fancy

The Kelar admiral sitting behind the desk laced her fingers together and leaned back in her tall chair. As the leader of the 8th Army of the Sunguard—the Army permanently stationed on Gloria—she was the highest ranking regular military officer on the planet. And now Olt-mar-rost-kam was sitting in her office after having bypassed General Tamar to present his request directly to her.

He was entirely within his rights to do so, of course. He was a Sunguard Agent actively investigating the murder of a citizen of the Terran Federation, and in that role he enjoyed command privileges that far exceeded what his rank of major otherwise would have granted him.

“What can I do for you, Agent?” she asked, her eyes filled with a mixture of curiosity and friendly suspicion.

Olt-mar-rost-kam crossed his legs.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Admiral. As you’re probably aware, there was a murder tonight. The body of a young Terran woman was found in one of the entertainment districts.”

“This is Gloria. Bodies are found every night,” Admiral Log-tel-par-mon-vir replied, shaking her head. The motion wasn’t dismissive, but filled with deep sorrow. For all its might, the Sunguard was losing the battle for the soul of this world.

“True, sadly. But this particular murder doesn’t appear to be a crime of passion or desperation. I fear we’re dealing with a serial killer, or at the very least, a serial abductor who ultimately kills his victims. There are indications the woman was held captive in the Cassowary Mountains before she died.”

Log-tel-par-mon-vir looked physically ill.

“That’s terrible. Truly terrible,” she said. “And you believe the killer might strike again?”

Olt-mar-rost-kam wanted to say yes to impress upon the admiral the importance of the mission he was about to propose, but the truth was he didn’t know. Still, his instincts told him the killer was somewhere out there in Gawundhana Valley, possibly holding one or more other women captive as well.

“I fear that might be the case, yes.”

“But you don’t know for certain?”

“No, I don’t,” he finally admitted. “But even the possibility should be enough for us to act.”

“Of course, Agent. What do you need?”

“I would like four strike teams placed under my command. They would approach the valley where she was held from different directions, trapping the killer in a pincer maneuver and preventing him from escaping. I also need a medical team on standby to fly in and provide first aid to any other victims we might find there.”

She considered his request for a moment, then shook her head again. This time, the gesture really was dismissive.

“I’m sorry, Agent, but that seems like overkill. If I’ve understood you correctly, you don’t know for certain that the killer is there. And you don’t know whether there are any other victims. Perhaps the woman really was held there, but that doesn’t necessarily mean her killer is still nearby.”

She was right, of course. Still, his whole body itched to do something, anything. He couldn’t let the perpetrator get away with this.

“Two strike teams, then, Admiral,” he said, trying to make his case without sounding as though he were arguing with his superior.

“One team,” she countered. “And the squad medic will provide first aid if they find any other victims. There are over four million citizens living in Hartmann City, Agent. They need us, too. And deploying a strike team isn’t exactly cheap. I can’t, in good conscience, authorize anything more than that.”

Well, his conscience could, Olt-mar-rost-kam thought defiantly.

For a brief moment, he considered bypassing Admiral Log-tel-par-mon-vir and taking his case directly to Special Agent Mbenge. Knowing her, he had no doubt she would override the admiral if he could only present his case. After all, he thought, Special Agent Mbenge was a very reasonable person, for a Terran.

But this wasn’t really a matter for a Special Agent. This was a kidnapping and a murder. There was no conspiracy, no terrorist threat, no interstellar criminal activity, and certainly no threat to national security. There was a reason there were tens of thousands of Sunguard Agents stationed across the Terran Federation, and only about a hundred Special Agents. If every crime were elevated to their level, they would never get anything done.

In the end, Olt-mar-rost-kam resigned himself to accepting the resources the admiral offered. Less than twenty minutes later, he found himself aboard a Sunguard troop transport, looking down through the disembarkation slot at the ground rushing nauseatingly fast beneath his feet while clinging to the overhead railing for dear life.

The shuttle swept north, borne silently on gravity gradients gently bent by the onboard field generator. For the first half hour of the journey, no one spoke to him. There was some friendly banter among the thirty-two soldiers behind him, but they paid little attention to the Sunguard Agent leading them.

As the distant mountain range slowly began to rise above the horizon, that changed. Major McKenzie, a large Terran with skin as black as a Jerrassian’s, walked up to him.

“Any final orders, sir?” the Sunguard major asked. Towering nearly twice Olt-mar-rost-kam’s height, the Terran nevertheless approached the Kelar Agent with respect.

“I have full confidence in you and your team, Major,” Olt-mar-rost-kam replied, looking up at the other soldier. “You’re the one with the tactical experience. I know how to investigate crime scenes and interrogate suspects. You lead the way. Once you’re on the ground and have secured the area, I’ll follow. Codex Vitae.”

“Codex Vitae,” Major McKenzie echoed proudly as he thumped his chest in a hand-over-heart salute.

All intelligent life is sacred.

Together with Codex Inquisitionis, it was one of the two doctrines upon which the Sunguard had originally been founded, and it was commonly regarded as the more important of the two. Of course, the Sunguard had—by necessity—evolved since Moreno’s time, and several additional doctrines now guided its actions, but the original pair still held a special place in the hearts of its officers.

“Orbital surveillance shows the valley is only sparsely inhabited,” the Sunguard major continued. “No commercial-grade mineral deposits were ever found here, and most of the original settlers eventually left. What remains is a small village near the southeastern entrance to Gawundhana. The plan is to set down just outside the main building. One quarter of my team will then breach it, while the remaining soldiers fan out and encircle the compound. There are no trees we can use for cover, and, sitting at the bottom of the valley, the settlement has a clear line of sight in every direction. I’m afraid the tactical situation is far from ideal, sir.”

“Understood, Major. But time is of the essence. Once the first building is breached, the remaining structures must be searched within a minute. Preferably less, but sixty seconds is the upper limit. Anything beyond that, and the risk to any hostages who might be held there becomes unacceptably high.”

Major McKenzie appeared to consider the parameters Olt-mar-rost-kam had given him. After consulting his tactical map, he looked back at the Sunguard Agent.

“Can do, sir. If your perpetrator is here, we’ll get him.”

Olt-mar-rost-kam thanked the soldier, then turned to look at the distant cluster of buildings, now rapidly approaching. Behind him, he could hear McKenzie barking orders to his team.

Less than half a minute later, the troop transport came to a hard stop, two full meters above the ground. Feeling slightly nauseated as the field generator rotated the gravity gradient ninety degrees to offset the sudden deceleration, he gripped the overhead railing to steady himself. Turning his head, he saw the tactical team already egressing through the disembarkation slot in the floor of the shuttle, apparently unaffected by the shifting gravity.

They’re used to this kind of thing.

The thought filled him with confidence.

Once the last soldier had left the shuttle, the boxy vessel descended another meter to allow Olt-mar-rost-kam to jump safely to the ground. His shorter stature and lack of training would likely have made it dangerous for him to disembark with the rest of the strike team.

Not that it had stopped the seven equally small Kelar soldiers on McKenzie’s team from leaping out like daredevils, he mused. In any case, it wasn’t important. What mattered was that the soldiers had already reached the main building and were now battering down the old, unpainted wooden door that stood between him and a potential murderer.

Through the crisp mountain air, Olt-mar-rost-kam heard shouting from within the house.

“This is a Sunguard arrest. Stay where you are. Hands behind your heads. Failure to comply will result in the immediate use of force.”

Shouting, but no sounds of gunfire.

He entered the decrepit building through a broken door that now hung from the frame by a single hinge. For a moment, he saw nothing as his eyes adjusted to the darkness inside.

Then he saw them.

In the middle of the room, kneeling with their hands behind their backs and surrounded by eight elite Sunguard strike troopers, were two elderly Terrans, a man and a woman. Shaking with fear, their eyes darted back and forth between the muzzles of the gaser rifles the soldiers held trained on their heads.

“I am Olt-mar-rost-kam, Sunguard Agent,” he introduced himself. “You are hereby under arrest on charges of kidnapping, torture, and the murder of one Joleen Santos. As long as you comply with any instructions given to you, the Sunguard will guarantee your safety. Should your arrest be validated, you have the right to a trial before any Terran Federation court of your choosing, unless a Special Agent intercedes.”

The old man tried to say something, but his voice failed him. Olt-mar-rost-kam was about to ask him to speak up when Major McKenzie suddenly said something into his comms, too quietly for the Sunguard Agent to make out the words.

“The other buildings are secure, sir,” McKenzie said, turning back to Olt-mar-rost-kam. “They were all empty. My team found no hostages, and no suspects besides these two.”

The agent nodded. That was good news. While arresting the woman’s murderer had been the stated goal of the mission, rescuing any additional hostages had always been the higher priority. Knowing that no one else would be harmed here allowed him to relax a little.

“All right. Hook them up. Start with the man,” he told the strike team’s tech specialist.

The Jerrassian soldier immediately retrieved a portable neural writer from her backpack and began fastening it around the old settler’s head. It wasn’t a full neural writer, of course. Such machines required an intelligent computer to operate, and the strike team couldn’t very well carry an entire biotic brain, silicone oil bath and all, into the field. Together with its supporting equipment, an intelligent computer weighed more than a ton and required an entire room to house it.

What the tech specialist carried was only the detector, a headband capable of recording the minute electromagnetic field emitted by the neurons in the wearer’s brain with extraordinary precision. That data was then transmitted to a Sunguard intelligent computer back at base, which interpreted it to determine the feelings and thoughts coursing through the mind as electrochemical signals. The technique had existed for almost two centuries. Crude at first, but by now its precision was impeccable. And if necessary, the process could be reversed, allowing the neural writer to generate a stronger electromagnetic field of its own and induce precise currents in selected neural pathways within the wearer’s brain—hence the device’s name.

Feelings and thoughts were the keywords here, Olt-mar-rost-kam mused. Memories, on the other hand, were simply information stored among the neurons of the brain. They emitted no electromagnetic field of their own unless they were actively recalled and consciously reflected upon. The hallmark of a skilled interrogator was the ability to entice a suspect into thinking about precisely the things the Sunguard needed to know.

In this case, however, such a detailed interrogation would not be necessary. For now, the old man wore the neural writer only so that Olt-mar-rost-kam could determine, beyond any shadow of doubt, whether the answers he gave to ordinary questions were truthful. Any attempt to lie would be detected immediately by the neural writer, provided the man himself knew he wasn’t telling the truth.

“Did you murder Joleen Santos?” the Sunguard Agent asked the old settler.

Still kneeling with his hands behind his head, the man shook his head. Then, in a broken voice, he wheezed a soft, “No.”

“Was she held here?” Olt-mar-rost-kam continued.

“No. We haven’t taken anyone. I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Has anyone else been to this valley over the past week?”

“No one. My wife and I keep to ourselves. We hunt. We grow what we need. No one’s been here since spring.”

Olt-mar-rost-kam glanced at the tech specialist, who shook her head in a silent Jerrassian “yes.” That was it, he thought, and with it the fear he had felt as they approached the village returned. They would have to interrogate the woman as well, just to be sure, but by now he was certain that whoever these people were, they had nothing to do with the kidnapping and murder of Ms. Santos.

And that meant the real murderer was still out there.

Author's Note

The story you're reading is one of many set in the Lords of the Stars universe I've been creating over the past 30 years, where familiar characters and places reappear, and new favorites await discovery. Check out my profile to explore more stories from this universe.

While The Wolf Reforged is entirely standalone and can be read without any prior knowledge, I think you'll also enjoy Scorched Earth, Wonders From Beyond the Sky, and A Game of Wolf and Mouse which are prequels to this story, and Twilight Duty, Guardian of the Wolf, and Conscience of Steel, which are sequels.

Visit the official Lords of the Stars blog for more information about this hard sci-fi universe: https://lordsofthestars.wordpress.com

If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider giving it a like.