Occupied Earth Read online

  “Hey!”

  The drone backed off and its metallic voice, manipulated by Steve, said, “Sorry.”

  They searched the house, but there was no sign of Hannah, just as Blocker had expected. Still, Steve pushed the topic with Panten.

  “Who the hell told you she was my girlfriend?” Panten whined. “Hannah Perez has never even spoken to me.”

  Steve looked pissed. It was clear to Blocker that the Mahk-Ra detective didn’t believe a word he was hearing.

  “Look,” Panten pleaded from the backseat, “I know who really did it. It wasn’t Hannah.”

  “When we get back to the station, we will teach you not to lie to us,” Steve snarled.

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Then how do you explain your girlfriend’s DNA on the shell casing?”

  That stunned Panten into silence.

  Something cold coiled in Blocker’s stomach. This guy was supposed to get Hannah off the hook and instead the dumb son of a bitch was tightening the noose. Had Kyla sent them off on a wild goose chase while she got Hannah clear? If that was true, the whole town would pay. He couldn’t believe Kyla would do that. They were still missing something.

  Twisting around in his seat, making his voice as menacing as Steve’s, he said, “The governor has been assassinated and someone’s going to pay. Might as well start with you. You know the penalty for murdering a Mahk-Ra?”

  “Death,” Panten said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  Blocker pulled his gun. He couldn’t shoot Panten through the bulletproof Lexan that separated the front and back seats, but his goal was to scare the shit out of the loser, not kill him.

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t have my partner drive us down to the river and we’ll just get this over with.”

  Panten’s eyes went wide. “Wait, wait, I brokered the goddamned deal.”

  “What deal?” Blocker asked.

  “Between the shooter and the one who hired him to cap the governor.”

  “Who did the hiring?”

  “I can’t tell you that, he’ll kill me.”

  “And the shooter?”

  “They would both kill me. I can’t tell you!”

  “He’s lying,” Steve put in. “He’s making it up as he goes, trying to save his girlfriend.”

  “No,” Panten shrieked. “I told you, she’s not my girlfriend.”

  They were getting closer to the station and Blocker knew his time was running out.

  “Drive us to the goddamned river and let’s save some time. He’s got nothing to tell us, let’s just kill him so we can get back to work, find someone who will help us close this case.”

  Finally, his voice tiny, Panten said, “It was a mock.”

  Steve glared at him in the rearview.

  “No offense,” Panten added lamely.

  “That’s impossible,” Steve said.

  “It was,” Panten said. “A Mahk-Ra hired a shooter from out of town. A pro who goes by different names and faces way I hear it.”

  “No,” Steve said, his voice colder than usual. “It is not the Mahk-Ra way.”

  Blocker saw only one way to save Hannah and maybe bring the killer to justice. If it didn’t work, well, best to not think about that.

  When they got to the station, Blocker practically ripped Panten out of Steve’s hands and, yanking the suspect by an arm, drug him inside. He bypassed booking and the interrogation rooms.

  “Where are you going?” Steve asked, the one struggling to keep up, for a change.

  Blocker all but ran the suspect down the hall to the office of Stanis-Ra and burst into the colonel’s office without so much as a knock.

  “What is the meaning...” Stanis blustered as he rose from behind his desk.

  “Blocker, what are you doing?” Steve called from behind them.

  Even Panten was talking. “What the hell?”

  Still holding Panten by the arm, Blocker said, “Colonel, you said you wanted Aquinas-ra’s killer brought to you within twenty-four hours. We brought you the man who set up the killing.”

  “But Hannah Perez...” Stanis said.

  Again, Blocker cut him off. “She didn’t do it. For that matter, neither did this asshole, but he set it up.”

  “What are you saying, Detective?” the colonel asked, his eyes wide, staring at Panten.

  Steve hung back by the door, totally unsure of what Blocker was doing.

  Blocker was as far out on a limb as he could be. The only thing left was to play out the bluff. “Panten here says you paid him to kill Aquinas-ra so you could move up.”

  “That’s a lie,” Stanis roared, but his eyes weren’t on Blocker, they bored into Panten who shook his head feebly.

  “I didn’t tell them, Stanis,” he pled. “I didn’t.”

  Stanis’ hand went to his weapon and he drew it. Blocker’s gun was still in its holster and his right hand gripped Panten. He figured they were both dead.

  As Stanis’ weapon came up, there was an explosion from behind Blocker and as he watched Stanis drop his gun and sag to the floor, Blocker realized Steve had shot the colonel. Spinning, Blocker saw Steve standing there, shock on his face, like he was just realizing he had drawn and fired.

  “You were right,” Steve said, quietly.

  Blocker shrugged. “Even though Mahk-Ra aren’t supposed to covet, Stanis did. He learned it from us. It’s one of our biggest weaknesses. All that observation...”

  “He learned too well,” Steve said.

  This was the first time Blocker had ever seen pain on Steve’s face. Another lesson learned from the Earthers, he supposed. They grilled Panten for most of the night, but he was of no help with identifying the sniper’s real identity, the guy was a frickin’ ghost and already in the wind. Afterwards, a Mahk-Ra guard marched the petty criminal into the alley and shot him behind the ear. Blocker felt bad for the guy, Panten was nothing more than a patsy but it was either him or maybe the whole city.

  Exhausted and feeling shitty about Panten’s death, Blocker left the station with the idea that he might get a couple hours sleep before his next shift started. A call from Kyla changed that. He got her up to speed on what had happened. Two Mahk-Ra officials were dead, and a couple of Mahk-Ra bodyguards. Panten had been the only Earther to die, though. Even though she would never know it, Blocker had even managed to save Hannah. Not a bad day’s work. Kyla gave him a bit of information as a thank you.

  Instead of going home, Blocker went to a shabby neighborhood near the railroad tracks that bisected town. There was a homeless shelter there. Looking in through one of the windows, careful to stay in the shadows, Blocker saw a woman pouring coffee at a makeshift bar, chatting with the homeless people on the stools before her. Her hair was short now, streaked with purples and reds to hide her even more, and she wore glasses that he knew she didn’t need, but it was Hannah.

  She smiled and something in his heart froze for a second.

  He could never have her. He could dream, he could hope, maybe someday, but they were still on opposite sides, as far as she was concerned. Still, there was hope. That was what Red Spear was really about, what Blocker knew he was about, the thing he lived for...hope.

  OF COURSE the bomb went off prematurely. That’s what I get for buying second-hand timers from the East Emerald Double Dragons gang. But that’s what was available given the window of time I had and with the recent gutting of the local insurgents. Now the mocks were on point and on the move. Logic demanded that I should call it a day, but this was the last chance I was going to get to take a shot at that fuck, Masstas-ra. I’d been informed he was scheduled to cycle back to Ra-Prime later today, and who knew where after that. It was now or never.

  I knew he hadn’t been hurt because he hadn’t even made it to the stage when the device went off.

  Fuck.

  I’d planted the bomb in a coffee urn just to the left of the stage. Unlike the timer attached to it, it was a nice piece of tech. The thing gave off a false organ
ic signature, thus evading scanner detection.

  Nice.

  There was some comfort in that it seemed I’d iced that bastard, the Director of Ports, up there on the stage. That now late bastard had him a taste for Earth pussy and frequented a nearby seaside pleasure house that also had a casino attached. Bribing his regular girl so I could plant a bug in her boudoir wasn’t a big deal. She hated the prick and his sick demands. But he was smitten with her, telling her all sorts of bullshit about setting her up in Madrona, the gated Potemkin Village just off the shores of Lake Washington and reserved for quislings and assorted sell-outs. He loved to go on about himself, how nothing in this sector could function without him. After sex and plied with Irish whiskey, one of his other weaknesses, it didn’t take too long to learn the plans for the christening ceremony.

  Not only did I get him, but a few other high-level mocktards as well were also sent to the happy hunting grounds, but not the one that mattered...the one responsible for what happened to my wife and daughter. No, I’d missed him.

  It was a good thing I’d altered my usual M.O. and hadn’t planted myself on a roof with my rifle to pick off strays as they ran from the blast area. The mocks already had their drones in the air, buzzing and whizzing about the rooftops and upper stories of the various buildings. Fortunately there was the cold-assed rain coming down. For all their sophistication and fancy gadgets, the rain played havoc with the machines, and yet they chose Seattle as the seat of their government.

  Dipshits.

  I moved out from among the humans and mocks who had come outside from the hiring hall to take a gander at the commotion. A couple of Civility Patrol dickwads barreled past, pushing and shoving everyone out of their self-important way. Of course everyone scattered for cover when the bomb went off. But as there were no other explosions, their curiosity overrode good sense and they had started to drift back out into the open. I’d been hanging around the docks for the past three weeks, dressed appropriately enough to avoid suspicion. I’d even picked up a few days work off-loading ships.

  I couldn’t believe it when I heard that the battle cruiser being finished was going to be named for that righteous fuck, that so-called war hero Masstas-ra.

  Christ.

  But when I heard that he was going to do the christening, well, that was just too good an opportunity to pass up. They were making a big thing out of this being the first battle cruiser built entirely of Earth materials. But what it really meant was that the empire was in trouble. The messy war they were engaged in over in that other star system was finally taking its toll. Resources were being stretched thin. They meant to bleed Earth of any and all resources in this fight of theirs.

  The showers had turned to a drizzle. I milled with the crowd along the dock area, bumming a smoke while keeping an eye out as they evacuated the docks. One of the perks of working the Port was the ability to get real cigarettes, copped fresh from cargoes being readied for export straight from those hillbilly labor camps. Our overlords rightly considered tobacco a filthy habit, but they also understood that for humans pressed into off-world service, and increasingly under pressure by the Mahk-Ra, the things did seem to aid in relieving stress.

  “Think it was the Spear?” the beefy dude I got my cig from said under his breath.

  “Who knows,” I said. “Some of them do be swinging a set. Could be stragglers, left over from the recent scrubbing, figuring on payback.”

  “Yeah, I hear you,” he said, producing a vicariously induced grin. Then just as quickly, it was gone. You never knew who you were talking to. Who was looking to turn someone in to the Community Leader or some other rat-fuck snitch kiss-ass functionary in order to make Brownie points with our alien masters.

  With that in mind, the dockworker quietly stepped away from me and I from him. By now several shock troopers had assembled and were trying to regain some order while Masstas escaped. Technically the space port is several klicks away from what was now Seattle proper. The Red Spear cell had recently been neutralized and the few members left alive had been sent off to the RZ camp in Phoenix. So the mocks had felt pretty safe to do their propaganda-rich christening.

  Suckers.

  It’s not like I didn’t know I was playing out a string that would ultimately end in my death, but I’m not suicidal. I had a pulsar pistol on me and I could have charged that shithead while he was still recovering from the shock of the explosion. With the mini-bomb on me, a phone grenade, I could have probably fragged enough troopers to pull it off before I got blasted to ribbons. Still, training is training. Recon your surroundings, what are the possible value-added on sites and availables in completing your mission.

  “Move back, clear a perimeter of 100 meters,” the sergeant of the shock troopers yelled out. He was big, even for a mock, seven five or more and a weight lifter. Because of the rain it was pretty overcast, some of the troopers actually took off their sunglasses, their big, black eyes roving about scanning for trouble.

  Watching the crowd right after the blast I spotted my quarry making his way to the vintage car he’d arrived in. I recognized his babysitters, a human and a mock, from files I’d procured on the black market a while ago. The human’s name was Paul Harper, an agent for the FBI. The mock, his partner, JoHannas-ra.

  Interesting.

  I moved off along with others who didn’t want to be in the vicinity in case matters went south and the shooting started. It looked natural, not any way out of the ordinary. Down a nearby side street of warehouses, robot forklifts and cargo tenders went about their business unloading sealed shipping containers. Some of these were being loaded onto flatbed trucks. I walked over to a bobtail where a guy in a rain-slicked parka was munching on a sandwich. He was at a loading dock of a frozen fish warehouse, sort of isolated as the robots piled pallets of processed fish bricks into his truck.

  “What was all that about?” he said chewing on his faux roast beef and motioning back from where I’d come.

  Hunching a shoulder to distract him, I used a stunner mini-rod. I shocked him in the chest and he doubled over, I followed that up by socking him so hard in the head he folded like a busted out gambler. Filching his key fob from his pocket, I saw that it required a security code. I stomped a boot on his knee and he gritted his teeth.

  “Give me the code,” I demanded. I flashed my butterfly knife, flipping it open and closed rapidly.

  He talked and then I gave him a good boot in the head to unconsciousness. When the mocks interrogated him later, maybe they’d believe he had nothing to do with this. Maybe he’d only get five or six years in a labor camp, but more likely he’d get sent out over the water to Blackwell’s Island, the super max prison where incorrigibles of all stripes resided on the blackened volcanic rock. I drove off in his truck after using the control on the fob to command the robots to cease loading and close up the rear of the truck’s cargo bay.

  They weren’t going to wait for air transport as that would be precious minutes of exposure. They had pushed Masstas-ra into the antiquarian limo he’d arrived in and were moving out. I was sure, despite its looks, the damn thing was probably armored and possibly outfitted with defensive weapons. There was a skimmer leading the way through the crowd and another following. I didn’t need to chance shadowing them close as the most logical place to take him was the nearby and fortified Department of Freight and Transport, less than three miles away.

  The mocks are nothing if not crazily efficient and record conscious. Water, road, air and off-world hauling in the service of the empire requires the right paperwork. In this region those come from the D.F. & T. The pertinent electronic document blanks -- never saved on the system but on portable drives - could be used by smugglers or rebels. That’s why the transport departments are built bunker-like to discourage incursions – top floor at the surface, several floors beneath the ground.

  I had previously mapped out the streets in my head. I took a shortcut and zoomed through a swath of dockworker housing, mostly nondescript con
crete apartment blocks that reminded me of the crap housing I grew up in back in Sacramento near the downtown arena where I use to sneak in to watch the Kings basketball team. The area is decently cared for and it was a bitch secreting away one of my caches, but I’d eventually found a spot behind an old senior center.

  In a freestanding little used outside storage shed, long in need of repair, I fetched a tool case from behind some adult diaper boxes and took off again. Traffic was light that time of day. I passed an over-sheriff patrol car, a Ra and Re in the vehicle. They gave me the once over and I nodded back, a nervous smile on my mug just like any other civilian hoping to be left alone to do their job without any trouble. They rolled past and I gave the rig some gas, heading back toward the roadway at a clip.

  It’s pretty much a straight line to the Department and if I was moving that shitheel, that’s the way I’d have done it. No rigmarole, no fancy ducking and dodging. No time for that kind of bullshit ’cause maybe there’s some floating IEDs around, or some clear plastic, nigh invisible Symtex Bouncing Betties. I figured they’d want to get him safe and secure as fast as possible.

  In my case I had a few special items, including an RPPG, a rocket-propelled pulse grenade launcher. I parked in a handicap zone near the front of a housing complex that bordered the route as I heard the sirens approach. I’d bet the noise hadn’t been Harper’s idea but Masstas-ra, being the self-important prick he was, would have insisted on the hoopla so that the humans would know somebody important was coming through and to make way.

  My phone’s lockPic app easily overcame the circuitry of the apartment’s entrance gate, and like that, I was inside. The rain had let up for a few minutes and even though it was still overcast and cold, there were a couple of good lookin’ babes in spray-on bikinis laying by the pool. They must have been freezing their asses off.

  Crazy.

  From the bit of chit-chat I heard between them it sounded like they worked at the nearby casino. I tipped my cap to the ladies as I walked by. Maybe they thought I was there to repair the washing machines what with my work clothes and the case I was hefting.