Chapter 12
Subject: Maddy
The security and science team made fantastic time getting back to the shuttle landing zone. Wildlife was everywhere and they were clearly spooked. Nothing dared linger within the team’s line of sight long enough to incur their wrath. The shuttle met them at the LZ right on time and lingered just long enough for the team to file in and strap their equipment down. The pilot didn’t kept silent as he sent the shuttle on a sharp bank and rocketed full speed back towards New Carthage. A column of smoke as wide as a mountain range rose up in the distance behind them as they flew home. The security team was silent, but the science team talked incessantly, speculating on the nature of the orbital calamity that befell the planet.
The shuttle avoided flying over much of the city, but from what Maddy could see, things were bad. Crowds gathered around police checkpoints. There wasn’t fighting, but there was certainly civil unrest. Locking things down is probably a good idea.
The shuttle pulled off a combat drop onto the roof of the station, hovering just above the roof and allowing the team to hop down and unload equipment. The roof was definitely not designed to support the weight of the light shuttle, but a few thousand kilos of people and equipment wouldn’t be a problem. Maddy made a mental note, this is quite the option in a pinch. She keyed up the group comms channel again, “alright team, clearly something is up beyond our pay grade. Sergeant Blitz and I are calling a lockdown. No leaving the station until we get an idea what’s going on. I’m going to suggest beefing up the watch rotation as well, so expect to be pulling nights.” Gremlin groaned at that. Dad and Felix nodded. Maddy changed the comms channel to a private one with Liselle.
“I’ll call you later?” Maddy asked.
“Please,” Liselle replied quietly.
Maddy’s perspective on things had changed over the course of the last op. From Smoker terrorizing the animals, to the planet coming under attack or being hit by meteors, or whatever, to Team Two coming together under her leadership to actually demonstrate a decent level of competence. Maddy’s mindset shifted, switching from a reserved complacency to a sharp focus. She was working now, all the time. Fleet Marine Maddy was active, and paying attention.
The coming days were painful; ‘hurry up and wait’ in all it’s glory. No official news came, at all. Just officially worded notices declaring arrests for violating new company rules. Orbital shuttles were locked down on the station. Everyone had to be off the streets at night without a valid work pass. Animals were rounded up and shoved into their corner of town; ‘The Exhibit’, as the locals called it. Strict rationing had gone into effect for the local population, but that didn’t bother the science or security team. They had a huge stockpile of spares and foodstuffs in the station storeroom.
Maddy spent the time working out, standing watch, getting to know her team, and flirting with Liselle. She wasn’t sure Liselle knew she was flirting with her. Part of her was sad about that, but the better part knew that plausible deniability for that sort of misconduct was probably a good move.
“Why does everyone have dumbass nicknames except for you?” Maddy had asked Felix.
“Felix IS my dumbass nickname,” Felix replied, smiling his toothy smile.
“Felix is a regular name,” Maddy knew his actual name from the timecards she was apparently in charge of submitting. It wasn’t Felix, but still.
“Alright, well, its a story,” Felix said. Maddy gestured ‘go on’ with a circular hand motion.
“Well, when I first got to NC we used to watch this stream all the time. It was called RaceCourse. You know that one?” Felix asked. Maddy shook her head, she hadn’t heard of it. “Yeah, well. It was a stupid ass show, real cheesy. They had teams of like, four guys and they had to build carts to get a bigass totem across the finish line. Way too heavy to carry, so they had to get real creative building, and the course was full of traps and shit. The announcer was super annoying too, he’d shout ‘another one dowwwwn!’ when the carts would crash. Anyway, I started saying it because it made everyone laugh. I’d say it when I finished a chore, when I dumped a mag on missions, you know, whenever.”
“The announcer’s name was Felix, wasn’t it?” Maddy asked. But she already knew. She liked the kid. Felix was one of the very few on the team that actually seemed like he wanted to do good. He was always eager to do what Maddy ordered, and never questioned her. Felix was reliable, and a good kid. He would have made a good marine.
Maddy also kept a close eye on Team One. Especially Chief. Her suspicion seemed to grow daily. Blitz was never far away from him, and Chief’s behavior continued to grow more and more bizarre. He’d started constantly calling whoever was standing watch with ‘suspicious’ sightings from the camera feeds, but there was almost never anything actually happening when he called stuff in. He also wouldn’t let anyone touch the cameras or access the feeds. Despite the lockdown, Maddy was certain she’d seen members of Team One sneaking in and out when other Team One officers were on watch. They were up to something, covering each other, and concealing it. Maddy didn’t know what, but it bothered her.
On day three of lockdown, Maddy decided the cabin fever and bizarre paranoia of Chief and his goons was enough. She called Dad and Felix on the comms, asking them to gear up and meet her at the truck.
“We going on a mission?” Felix asked.
“Sort of, I’ll explain on the way. Light armor only. No primaries, just the shotguns in the truck,” Maddy had asked. They met her at the truck, their light armor and sidearms making them look official, like cops. “Dad, you’re driving. Get us to the police station.” Dad didn’t question it. The team piled in, and the truck pulled out of the station. The air outside was filled with smoke and a light dusting of ash rained down. The horizon was dark, despite it being afternoon still. The result of the uncontrolled wildfires.
“Okay we’re on the way, explain now,” Felix stared at her, expectantly. Even though he was in the back seat, Maddy could feel his eyes burning into her head.
“So, when’s the last time y’all talked to the cops?” Maddy looked at Dad and Felix in turn.
“Not like.. ever?” Felix responded hesitantly.
Dad sighed, thought, and then spoke, “we are supposed to have a mutual aid agreement with them. The deal was if they get in the shit we’ll come help, and if we get in the shit out there, outside the barrier, the breach control teams will come help us.”
“Breach control teams?” Maddy hadn’t heard of them.
“Yeah like the tactical arm of the cops, they’re ISD troops. Probably the only real professionals left out of the whole colony. They shoot anything that gets past the barrier, or at least thats the idea. Guess they could do anything. They have a sweet gunship.”
“Listen, I trust you two as much as anyone on this assignment,” Maddy figured flattery would help, but it didn’t hurt that it was true. “We don’t know what the fuck is going on in orbit, the fires are getting worse, and the town is a shit show. I figured it’d be smart of us to try to get some information, see if we can ingratiate ourselves with the locals, make ourselves useful, and get some perspective in the process.”
The truck pulled up to the first checkpoint. Two ISD police officers were flanking either side of a row of anti-vehicle bollards, the kind that live recessed in the road and pop up when the signal is given. “I’ll talk,” Maddy said.
One officer walked up to the passenger side. Maddy rolled her window down.
“What do you want?” The officer stated flatly. No telling if he recognized the vehicle or uniforms.
“SAS security forces,” Maddy flashed her badge, “I’m Security Sergeant Turner. We’re looking for the nearest lieutenant or captain.” Maddy stumbled on those last words, she actually had no idea who they were looking for. Just a cop in charge of the other cops.
“Why?” The cop asked with a tone of incredulity.
“Look, we are federal law enforcement and we need information and want to help. We’re supposed to be helping each other.”
The cop looked at her for a minute, grinding his teeth. Then, he spoke, “Detective Ward is the watch commander for this district. She’s up the road near the south end of the spaceport, you’ll see a tactical vehicle at a checkpoint, she’ll be around there. Stay away from the admin and headquarters district. There’s a ‘round the clock protest that’s keeping them busy.”
And with that, the officer turned and walked back to his post. The bollards dropped, and Dad hit the accelerator. Maddy broke the silence, “kind of a dick huh?”
“Yeah, well. We haven’t been living up to our end of things, so…,” Dad responded. He was a lot more talkative in small groups it seemed. Maddy decided to seize the opportunity.
“So, what got you to join up with the team?” She asked, looking at Dad.
He looked at her with a wild expression, like she’d crossed some unspoken boundary. He settled, then spoke, “we kind of have a rule not to talk about that sort of shit, it pisses everyone off.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit a soft spot,” Maddy put her hands up in a placating gesture. Dad pulled the truck over.
“Actually, no. You should know.” He took a deep breath, preparing himself, “my wife got sick, like you. I was in the triple-S as a load master for the an air wing, retired just under a year before she got sick. The VA told me that she’d need cybernetics to keep her from dying, and the only contract they got for a retired conscript like me was running security on a shitty little planet called Oasis III. So, I didn’t really have a choice. I sign on the dotted line or I watch her die.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry man,” Maddy replied. She hadn’t known anything about his backstory, much less that he was in the conscript corps. The Triple-S is slang for the Systems Security Section, a paramilitary force that maintains order in the frontier systems. Not a choice job by any stretch, and definitely the type of thing you get stuck with when you don’t qualify for better service.
“Yeah so, ten year contract. No pay, just a living stipend that gets paid out to SAS for providing housing. Wife gets to live and work and take care of the kids as a single mom while I-,” Dad was turning red, getting angry. His contract sucked, but Maddy’s was only slightly better. He flexed his jaw for a few seconds before sighing, “Felix, tell her about your contract.”
They both turned to look at Felix. He shrank under their gaze, a look of immense shame and guilt across his face.
“It’s alright,” Maddy tried to reassure him. “I wont judge. We all had to sacrifice something.”
“Nah, they paid me.” He squeaked.
“What do you mean?” Maddy was confused. Dad had a look of righteous anger.
“They paid me. I went to enlist in the fleet, but I kept failing the test. The recruiter gave me a contract for the science section instead of fleet, 10 year contract with an enlistment bonus, like a whole extra year pay up front. They dropped me here after academy.”
“What the fuck,” Maddy was shocked. Dad laughed and started driving. How is it she had to take a pay cut and sign on for ten more years to get the job, when they paid Felix a bonus? “I got sick FROM THE MARINES! We had a ship’s reactor overload in the docks, I got irradiated to fuck and had to get the medical nanite system to keep from dying. They made me pay for it and sign on for another for-fucking-ever, and they paid you?! Dad had to abandon his family and sign an indenture contract even though he’s a veteran? And they paid you a fucking bonus?”
Dad’s laugh left, but his smile stayed. It wasn’t a happy smile, more like smug satisfaction from being proven right. Or maybe that mixed with sympathy. “This is why we don’t talk about it Sergeant. Everyone’s stories are different. Some are like ours and some are like Felix’s. It seems like the Dominion took what they could when they could. Some were sent here as punishment, some had to pay to come, and others were paid out. There’s no rhyme or reason. By the way, those nanite systems that we traded our fucking lives for,” Dad flashed a conspiratorial stink eye, “they have a cybernetic clinic up by the hospital that is loaded with thousands of them, collecting dust. There’s a surplus of them right here. They’re less than worthless. They’re a liability.”
Maddy ground her teeth. She’d been screwed over by the marines in a way that was entirely untenable. She turned her gaze out the window as the truck passed a shanty town of broken buildings and groups of desperate colonists, abandoned and left in the dark as their planet literally burned. The whole damn planet has been screwed over. They rode in silence, occasionally getting waved through checkpoints. The crowds of angry colonists grew more numerous as they neared the city center. They navigated through and around the crowds until a police tactical vehicle came into view, parked in an intersection. A half-dozen cops in riot gear took up posts around the vehicle. Colonists walked by, not paying heed to the riot cops. They were heading downtown, Maddy guessed.
The truck rolled to a stop and Maddy jumped out, still pissed from the revelation Dad and Felix had dropped on her. She walked up to the nearest cop, all of her enthusiasm for making nice having evaporated on the ride over. She made a conscious effort to compartmentalize the anger.
“I’m looking for Detective Ward,” she said, flashing her badge. The cop nodded and pointed to a slim female cop wearing a white uniform shirt under her riot gear. Maddy nodded thank you and approached the cop, Dad staying behind to watch the truck and Felix on her tail.
“You must be Detective Ward,” Maddy said, extending her hand for a handshake. Ward didn’t take it.
“You’re with the science group? You must want something, huh?” Ward replied. Maddy put her hand down. Not hurt, but angry that the whole system here was so fucked up. Chief needs to be removed. Everyone hates us.
“Opposite, actually. I’m new to the group, on loan from the fleet marine corps. I’m in charge of expeditionary missions beyond the barrier and liaising with the locals.”
“So you’re the new boss then?” Detective Ward asked.
“I also do payroll and order equipment and everything else so I’m sure it looks that way from the outside, but no. I’m a sergeant. I’m just trying to repair damage from the misses the team before me has made.”
Ward smiled at the comment and removed her helmet, cradling it under her left arm. She had short blonde hair and a thin face. She wasn’t as cute as Liselle, but she also wasn’t Maddy’s coworker. She extended her hand, Maddy took it and shook.
“Well then, sorry about the shitty introduction. I’m Detective Ward. My sense of humor is fucked up from the last few days, I’m sure you understand,” Ward said.
“Security Sergeant Turner; you can call me Maddy. We’ve been lying low since the uh, ‘event’.” After three days Maddy still wasn’t sure what to call it. Was it an attack? Did the orbital station break apart and fall through the atmosphere? Who knows.
“Yeah, ‘the event’. You know we still don’t know what that was? If you came down here expecting answers you’re shit out of luck. Our admin is about as useful as your Chief,” there was an intensity about her last statement. She looked at Maddy, appraisingly.
Maddy replied, “yeah, our leadership has some difficulties.” She didn’t want to go straight into name-calling and gossip. Unprofessional. Keeping it vague is a better move. “I don’t know what happened before me, but I’m here for forever now, and I want to make things better.”
The detective smiled, “okay Maddy. You’re a marine so I’ll cut you some slack and give you a chance. You really want to help? Now is actually a good time to dive in. I’ve got one for you right now, as it so happens.” The detective pulled out a smart link device and swiped on the display. Maddy did the same. The text “New Contact Card: Elizabeth Ward. Accept?” Crossed the display. Fuck yeah, Maddy thought and pressed accept.
“So for the last day and a half we’ve been getting missing persons reports. Well, missing children.” Detective Warden started.
“Children? I guess I haven’t noticed until now but I haven’t seen a kid since I got here,” the realization coming to Maddy as she said it. It was true, she hadn’t noticed the lack of kids but now that she thought about it, it seemed weird.
“Yeah, well, there’s a lot of reasons to not have any in this shithole, but it still happens. Kids aren’t allowed in the city proper because they spread disease, so families tend to shack up in little communities on the outskirts. There’s actually several outside the barrier, if you can believe that.” Detective Ward paused to allow Maddy to finish typing notes into her smart link.
“There’s a larger village outside of the barrier that’s renounced their employment contracts. Technically, we should be throwing them in jail, but, you know. It’s a fine balance out here.” Detective Ward paused briefly, taking a breath, then continued, “They have five missing children. All gone last night. You know it’s bad because they called us for help. Technically, I’m not supposed to render aid, and practically I cant. There are more cases closer and my caseload is actually more than I can physically do, not even counting the temporary assignment supervising the riot forces.”
“Yeah, makes sense for us to look into it. We’re federal and impartial to ISD business. Why do you think there’s kids going missing? That’s bizarre.” Maddy was fully engaged in the conversation. The anger from earlier was gone in full.
“I don’t know. No comms out of the system, full planetary lockdown. Beams from space burning the forests. Kids going missing. Riots in the streets. Maybe it’s the end times?” The detective shrugged, “maybe your science team found something? Alien defenses on the planet? Activated it by mistake?”
Maddy shook her head no. But, given the chaos, Maddy knew bringing them into the fold would be the smart move. They might have perspective that the security team lacked, and maybe they’d spot something Maddy missed. Even if they contributed nothing at all, Maddy was sure they’d appreciate being consulted at the very least.
“Okay detective, you’ve got a deal. We’ll look into it and let you know what we find out,” Maddy said, relieved to have found an in that brought both the locals and the science team together. She might not be the actual manager for the security team, but she could do a lot of good finding opportunities like this.
