EPISODE 6: INTIMACY AND MURDER ACROSS THE GALAXY
Junior Engineering Officer Katherin Alley of the DSCS-PRETORIA unlocked and entered her hotel room. She had just returned from a night out with some of her crewmates, all courtesy of the ship’s Captain, that handsome Stefan. Humming to herself, she set down her purse and hung her coat in the closet beside the door. New Pallas City certainly didn’t have the best of reputations when it came to safety, but the Captain had paid out of his own pocket to get the entire bridge crew hotel rooms in the safer parts of town. This hotel was far from the lap of luxury, but was comfortable and close to the tourist sector, so she didn’t mind. The rest of the Pretoria’s crew wasn’t so lucky, and had to sleep on the ship like they always did. Poor guys.
Although the hotel room was dark, she didn’t bother flicking on the light, instead kicking off her heels and going straight into the washroom. As much as she kept up the clean and orderly look around her shipmates, Katherin in reality was somewhat of a slob. Tonight was fun but tiring, and she wanted to take a shower and fall straight into bed. She undressed in the crisp, white hotel washroom, leaving her skirt, blouse, and undergarments lying in a pile in the corner. She’d clean it up in the morning, she swore.
Katherin showered and brushed her teeth, throwing on one of the hotel’s bathrobes. She walked out of the washroom and back into the hotel room, preparing to throw off the robe and collapse on the bed.
Until, that is, she noticed the shining white teeth floating in the corner of her room.
Before she could shout out or make any other noise the teeth flashed across the room, and soon the body accompanying the teeth was on top of her, strapping a very heavy piece of tape over her mouth.
“Shh.” Cassiopeia whispered.
Katherin jerked, but could not throw the dark shape off her.
“Shh.” She whispered, gently stroking Katherin’s cheek. Tears streamed down her eyes. The tape muffled her screams.
Cassiopeia reached into her coat and pulled out a knife.
“Shh.”
The planet of New Pallas was a young one, its continents still moulded together as one large Pangaea. This did not stop its original colonists, though, who named the world after one of the founding planets of the DSC. Its predecessor had gained a reputation as an innovative and assertive planet, containing many of the Confederacy’s top universities and spawning more future presidents of the Confederacy than any other DSC world. New Pallas did not follow in the footsteps of its namesake, however, and grew farther and farther from them as time went on. New Pallas was a lapdog world, extremely loyal to the DSC, but corruption, cronyism, embezzlement, and many other criminal elements ran rampant on the world. These elements were centered around the planet’s capital of New Pallas City, or NPC for short. Of course, to judge an entire planet by its capital city would be foolish, especially since NPC had its affluent neighbourhoods as well. New Pallas had its safe country towns, beautiful natural reserves, and friendly citizens too, but even in these, one could be sure the businesses paid “protection” and the lands were owned by the mafia.
It was to New Pallas that Cass, Hierophant of the Wheel, was sent to commit eleven murders.
Landover had a lot on his mind. Luckily, he had a lot of time to think as well. He had had his talk with Captain Sonett on the Fulmination, then went his merry way. The Wheel fleet disengaged as promised and Admiral Schlieffen dropped him and his shuttle crew as close to Extorris as they were allowed to go. Which was still not very close at all.
The home world of the exiled order of the Burning Eagle was a pariah planet, and under normal circumstances no members of the Wheel military were permitted to go near. The order that overthrew them and the current head of government, the order of the Glowing Wheel, attempted to enforce this by setting up a multitude of sensor stations on the approach to the planet as well as having ships patrol the area. Given the very three dimensional nature of space it was naturally difficult to catch every vessel sneaking, but the long range sensors were quite effective. Legally, one could only enter the space around Extorris through one of several checkpoints, which were always manned by at least one Battlecruiser. The former government was held under strict guard.
This state of affairs displeased Landover. He had grown up under the Burning Eagle and from what he had seen in his time in the army and navy, they ruled justly, following the tenets of the Wheel as they were set out, hundreds of years ago. They brought many new worlds under the fold of the Wheel, introducing their philosophy and way of life to the people there.
Many worlds had had their support cut off soon after being colonized, and the few people living there had regressed to primitive life forms, using tools of stone and wood. These worlds often had to be cleansed and the populations eradicated to make the planet suitable for re-colonization. Landover had taken part in one of these efforts, but with no real pleasure in the act. He was doing what was necessary to spread the ideology of the Wheel.
The Wheel had always believed that the way to progress was progress itself, and that galactic peace could be achieved through technological singularity. This general line of thought had persisted from the Burning Eagle to the Glowing Wheel. Another direction of thinking shared was that the technology could not be brought to outsiders until the singularity had come: both orders held the Deep Space Confederacy in incredibly low esteem.
That was where the similarities ended. The Glowing Wheel, in the fifteen years they had been in power, had begun to radicalize the state to a much greater extent than had been seen under their exiled predecessors. The technocratic ideology of the Wheel became a way to control the people and the military instead of a way to improve the lives of the people.
The former admiral would never voice such thoughts out loud, though. Traitors to the Wheel were not very highly regarded.
“Has anyone seen Katherin? It’s been three days…”
Tobias Oppel, Junior Communications Officer of the DSCS-PRETORIA, entered his hotel room, flicking on the lights while kicking off his shoes. The Captain had got them a whole month off, and he planned to enjoy it along with the rest of the bridge crew. What that engineering girl did or where she went during this period of R&R was not his business, and he didn’t want to make it his. He was somewhat of a cynic and knew that she could be replaced if this was her way of going AWOL. He shrugged to himself. It wasn’t his business.
He undressed, showered, and brushed his teeth. The hotel was nice and clean, at least. Tobias had lived in New Pallas City for the first 16 years of his life and those were enough to grow him a good distaste for the city. Still though, the Captain had gotten them this hotel on the nice side of town on his own dime, so he owed Sonett props for that. Captain Sonett, Tobias thought, was a good guy, if a little bit full of himself. He put on a fresh pair of boxers, climbed into bed, soon afterwards falling into what would be a long and restful sleep.
Until he woke up two hours later, feeling an unexpected weight on top of him. He very quickly found his mouth taped shut and his arms and legs tied to the four corners of the bed. His eyes adjusted to the darkness to notice the shape sitting on top of him. While he couldn’t make out what they were wearing, the person was obviously female. Tobias was reminded of a high-school party where he found himself in a similar situation, only the girl in question was wearing much less clothes and he was not paralyzed with fear.
“Can’t see me?” Cass asked, her voice filled with mock concern. She pulled a flashlight from a pouch around her waist and lit up her face with it. “Boo!”
Tobias saw with some surprise that the one invading his hotel room was a pretty, possibly teenaged girl. He was severely confused by the implications. The entire situation seemed surreal. The flashlight also illuminated the girl’s clothes: she was wearing a short grey dress that ended just below the waist on top of black tights, attire not at all unusual for trendy highschoolers of the day. What did strike him as odd were her black rubber gloves – and the fact that she had him tied to his bed.
“Sorry!” She giggled, as if reacting to his thoughts. Very slowly she reached behind her and dangled in front of his shrinking irises a deadly-looking knife.
“I’m not that kind of girl.”
The arrival of the independents was unexpected to be sure. Judging from their reactions the DSC thought they were allied with the Wheel, but Landover was caught just as off guard as anybody else. Their suicidal attack on Kaisari was also an oddity: their willingness to so obviously throw away their lives reminded Landover of his days in the army, days that he had long left behind. Schlieffen had promised to use the full extent of his authority to investigate these newcomers, and Landover hoped he’d pick up something up soon. In any case, the distraction the independents provided proved the perfect cover for his mission to Cassiopeia.
Landover thought about her a lot since she had gone. As a Hierophant and eventually an Admiral of the Wheel, Landover had chosen a celibate life. The work of an Admiral involved long and difficult work, and so men or women holding these ranks were restricted to a life of chastity, as had been set out in the tenets of the Wheel at its inception. Yet, somewhere buried deep within him Landover held a paternal instinct towards this girl, a willingness to protect her from the world at large. He was far past his prime as a father and she was a deadly assassin who was likely insane… yet evolution had brought up men to be fathers and Cass was the first real girl in his life for decades. Her only possibly jocular attempt to murder him notwithstanding, he needed her to return safely from her mission. Not only because he had other plans for her down the line, but because above all, and no matter how absolutely fucked up it sounded… he wanted her to be safe.
“Sir Landover.” A slight voice came from outside his cabin, bringing Landover out of his thoughts and back into the real world. “We’re approaching the exclusion zone. The Battlecruiser PERCEPTION has ordered us to dock with them for examination.”
“Do it.” Landover ordered, standing up off his bed. He cracked his knuckles, then grabbed his bridge coat from its place in his closet. Donning it, he made his way to the bridge of their small shuttle.
The docking procedure went smoothly. The shuttle landed in the PERCEPTION’s hangar bay, where Landover and his small crew were greeted by a Wheel officer and an entourage of marines. They verified the identities of everyone on board, ensured that yes, it was indeed Landover and not an imposter, and sent them off into the exclusion zone.
Soon, they’d arrive at Extorris.
Landover decided to take a nap.
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