FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2380 ROYAL SALUSIAN ARMED FORCES JOINT COMMAND CENTER (THE TRISKELION) CHELTOPOLIS, SALUSIA The first thing that became apparent to Maia Sterling when she and Gil Grissom entered the operations planning room at the Triskelion was that the Minister for Home Defense did not like Grissom, and the second thing was that Grissom didn't like him either. The Minister was officially Grissom's boss, or at least his boss's boss's boss, since he had ultimate responsibility for the Royal Salusian Mounted Police as well as the various military units tasked with protecting the Empire's two capitals, its Government, and its civil institutions. Still, Grissom wasn't a particularly senior RSMP officer, only a detective inspector, so Maia didn't know what to make of the fact that they knew each other well enough to have a firmly established personal antipathy. It wasn't the first time Maia had wondered about this apparent discrepancy between Grissom's rank and his true seniority. He'd been Queen Asrial's personal choice to participate in the clandestine search for evidence the Mars Division had conducted on Musashi a few years before, and in his interactions with people who were nominally his superiors, he seemed to wield an obvious but nebulous moral authority. People deferred to him even when they didn't have to. Maia had felt an inclination to do so herself, and she couldn't tell where it came from, apart from his considerable air of expertise. The Minister for Home Defense, a tall, thin man with a good bit of grey in his muzzle, obviously didn't feel the same thing - or more likely, Maia thought upon a moment's reflection, he did, and violently resented it. "Well, Grissom," he said as they entered, "you may be interested to know that our analysts believe your bungling of the Vampire case has now directly endangered the security of the nation. Well done." Grissom didn't rile. He merely stepped to the edge of the holotank, gazed at the various symbols and indicators floating within it (none of which made a lot of sense to Maia, though she could see it was obviously some sort of strategic force deployment diagram), and said mildly, "On what do your analysts base that conclusion, Minister?" "The Butcher appears to be making for the Capital. Gods know what havoc he intends to wreak when he gets here. The whole of Her Majesty's Government must be assumed to be in danger." "How do you know where he's going? The CCC hasn't been able to track him." "The Ministry for Public Security has graciously lent us the use of their surveillance satellite network. Their operators are intermittently picking up an anomalous energy source in Saenar. They think it's your killer's battlemover. It's not the most definite contact, but it's fairly clear that he's moving southward." Grissom studied the map. "Have you deployed the Guard?" The Minister scowled even more sourly. "Only Her Majesty the Queen has the authority to do that, as you know," he said, as if dealing with an exasperatingly slow child. "She chooses not to do so. What's worse, rather than retire to the Mount Aisan bunker until this situation can be contained, she's chosen to go on with her day as planned." He tsked in annoyance. "Long live the Queen, but she is the most -frustratingly willful- woman." Grissom half-smiled. "Long live the Queen," he murmured with less rote form and more warm admiration. "At any rate, I asked you here as a courtesy," the Minister went on. "Your services will not be required in the upcoming operation. The Vampire case is now entirely out of the Mounted Police's hands - so why don't you go back to chasing pickpockets and leave the heavy lifting to the security forces." Grissom glanced sharply at him, but the Minister was on a roll now and wouldn't be put off with a sharp glance. "Or whatever it is you do," he added mock-graciously. "You may return to the Great Lodge. Once we capture the Butcher, you may well be called upon to identify him. What's left of him," he added with a nasty smile. Acknowledging the dismissal with a mere nod, Grissom turned to go. Utterly at a loss, Maia followed him. They had reached the door when the peremptory voice of the Minister halted them momentarily. "Oh, and Grissom." Grissom paused and turned back with a "yes?" look. "In light of your and their abject failure to deal with the Butcher effectively, you shall be paying your mercenaries yourself." "Now you listen here, buddy - " Maia began, her patience finally exceeded, but Grissom applied discreet pressure to her elbow and ushered her out, not bothering to acknowledge the Minister's remark himself. "That pompous windbag," Maia fumed as they climbed into the back of an RSMP aerodyne for the short flight back to Saenar. "How can you just take that kind of abuse from him?" "I can take it," Grissom replied with a faint twinkle in his eye, "because it and he are both irrelevant. He's a politician. Ministers come and go." He took a holographic PDA from his inside pocket and pulled up a smaller copy of the map they'd seen in the war room. "Look here - you can see he was right about one thing. If this -is- an energy trace from the Butcher's battlemover, he's definitely heading south. But he's canny - he's staying under cover as much as possible, using heavy structures to mask him from the satellites." Grissom traced the faint, intermittent path across the underlying lo-rez map of Saenar, looking at it from different angles; then he frowned, a look of dismay coming into his eyes. "What?" Maia asked. "Look at the points he's chosen for cover. That's a railway bridge... this is a storm sewer... Highway 220. His course is constrained by his avoidance of open ground, but even so... he's not heading for Cheltopolis. He'd be trying to go southwest for that, but he's not. He's going southEAST. All his moves are calculated to get him to the southeast corner of Saenar." He looked up from the display and met Maia's eyes. "He's trying to get to the Queen." /* The Who "The Seeker" _Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy_ (1971) */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES EXILE Manhunt Part 5: Everything That Rises Benjamin D. Hutchins (c) 2009 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited H/V SURPRISE DEEP SPACE, BOUND FOR SALUSIA Captain Hutchins may well have been dozing when his comm officer called his name, though as a matter of form, he wouldn't admit it. "I was just resting my eyes," he insisted. "What's up, Mr. Leeds?" "I have a priority transmission from Socko Base," Vanessa reported. "Put it up," said Gryphon, and a moment later Vision's face filled the main viewscreen. "Something's happened on Salusia you should know about," the AI said without preamble. "Since you left Meizuri there's been a huge uptick in comms between the various Salusian security forces, especially in northeastern Cheltar." "How can you tell that from way over there?" "I've got a back door via subethernet into one of their comm satellites. Do you want to hear this or not?" "Sorry, go on." "Most of it's more heavily encrypted than I've got time to break right now, but I did catch a single transmission in the clear. It was a phone call, I think, accidentally made on an unsecured line, between a Royal Salusian Army post and the Ministry for Home Defense." Vision paused, considering, and then said, "Maybe it's best if I just let you hear it." A moment later there came an unknown voice, male, with the scratchy overtones of an intercepted telephone circuit: "I need an update on the Butcher's location before I can deploy my armor effectively." Another man's voice, younger-sounding, replied, "Ah, that's unclear at this time. We believe he's still in Saenar. MPS are having a hard time locking onto him, but we, ah, we have no indications that he's left Saenar at this time." "The rest is just the older guy berating the younger one and wanting to know who his supervisor is," Vision said. "Voice stress readings are near the top of the scale." Gryphon had leaned forward in his command chair like a man at a sporting event when things get exciting. "'The Butcher'... " he said, mostly to himself. "Someone called the Butcher is in Saenar. Causing an uproar within the state security services... " He sat up straight. "Yellow alert." The alarm sounded and the color-keyed strip of lighted trim along the top of the bridge walls changed to yellow. "Is that all you have?" "For now. I'm still monitoring the situation. If anybody else lets slip anything useful, I'll let you know immediately." "Thanks, Vision. Good work." Vision nodded. "Socko Base out," she said, and her image was replaced by the streaming starspecks of warp travel. Gryphon thumbed his intercom panel. "Bridge to Engineering." "Go ahead," came Henry Lang's voice. "Henry, I need more speed. What can you give me?" "I think she'll stand warp nine," Lang replied. "I'll let you know if she won't." "Very well, bridge out. Max - fast as she'll go." At the helm, Maximilian Hunter smiled. He did love to see how fast a ship would go, and the Surprise, for all that she looked like one of those clumsy Klingon tubs, had so far proven a delight to fly, swift, responsive, and eager to be driven hard. "Maximum warp, aye aye, sir," he said, plying his controls. The Surprise shivered slightly, the constant subliminal hum of her drive pitching up a half-tone, then a full tone, as the starspecks streamed by a bit faster and their rainbow trails lengthened. Max worked the throttles and secondary engine controls delicately, trimming the ship's space-warp envelope by hand for maximum efficiency. It took him ten seconds to finish adjusting things to his complete liking, and it was with an air of great satisfaction that he turned in his seat and reported, "Warp factor 9.21 and holding, sir." Gryphon waited for the protesting call from the engine room, and when it didn't come, he grinned. "Well done, Mr. Hunter." Then he sat back and considered his situation for a few moments. "Who's for a movie?" RSMP HEADQUARTERS SAENAR, SALUSIA Both Grissom and Maia had spent most of the hundred-mile flight from the Triskelion to the Great Lodge on the phone, Grissom trying fruitlessly to persuade the Minister that he was reinforcing the wrong location, Maia trying with slightly (but only slightly) greater success to round up some reinforcements. By the time they disembarked from the aerodyne and made for the Lodge, they were able to give each other reports on their progress, such as it was. "Not only won't he listen, he's had my comm blocked," Grissom said. "He -would- choose this moment to be slightly relevant," he added wryly. "What have you got?" "Most of my people aren't in the system," Maia said, adding ruefully, "I only came for a -meeting,- after all. I'm afraid there are only three of us on Salusia, and the rest can't be here for days. We'll do what we can, though." Superintendent Verron met them in the lobby. "The Minister just called," she told Grissom as they entered. "He gave an explicit order that no one here is to give the slightest credence to your wild theories or assist you in any way." Grissom regarded his boss with mild curiosity. "And?" he prompted. Verron held his gaze sternly for a moment, then bared her teeth in a grin. "What can we do?" Grissom smiled and resumed his course for his lab. "For the moment, my top priority is getting a better handle on where he is. There must be some way we can narrow down his location. The satellite trick MPS are using is good, but it's not enough. Have you heard anything about Harrison?" "They tell me he'll recover," Verron said. "He'll be in hospital for at least a month, though." "Good. He broke this case, you know. Quick thinking." "Yes. I don't believe I've met your friend." "Commander Maia Sterling, Mars Division," said Maia. "Mirrim Verron," the Salusian officer replied. "I'm supposedly Grissom's boss," she added with gentle sarcasm. "That must be a tough job," said Maia sympathetically. "Sometimes," Verron agreed. "What about the GENOM office in town? Surely they'd have some way of tracking their own product." "Harrison told me the machine he saw was their latest model, only cleared for military sales," Grissom said. "Let's see if they're missing one." USS ENTERPRISE (NCC-1701) STANDARD ORBIT OVER SALUSIA At 31, James T. Kirk had been the youngest officer in the history of Starfleet, and in the rather longer history of the Earth Defense Forces before that, to be promoted to the rank of captain and placed in command of a front-line starship. Now 35, nearing the end of his ship's first five-year mission of galactic exploration, he remained an unusually young captain - though at least experience and the rigors of deep space exploration had put enough mileage on him that visitors to the Enterprise no longer took him for a cabin orderly. He entered the conference room across the hall from the main torpedo room to find those whose presence he'd requested had already arrived. "There's a security situation in Saenar," he announced. "Before allowing me to send any non-Starfleet personnel into the city, the Minister for Home Defense has requested my personal assurance that you won't make his life harder." Looking from Raoul Duke to Valeris to MegaZone, he went on with a faint smile, "Under the circumstances, I find myself reluctant to vouch for -any- of you three. However, Mr. Spock has given me -his- personal assurance, and... I suppose that'll have to do." "Security situation? What security situation?" Duke asked. "It seems one of the galaxy's most wanted criminals is at large down there." Kirk gave Zoner a hard look. "I believe you may be acquainted with him." Zoner looked around, confirmed that Kirk was looking at him, and gave him back the "me?" face. "Goddammit, Kirk, we've been over this," Duke burst out. "The man's not - " "The one who's down there right now appears to be," Kirk cut him off sharply. "He's murdered six people that they know about, and nearly killed a Mounted Police officer. Right now he's rampaging around in a stolen military robot. The authorities have asked for our help in scanning for him." Duke came halfway out of his seat. "That's the other one. It's got to be." He clenched a fist. "If we could catch him - !" MegaZone spoke for the first time. "Or kill him." "Killing him would leave too many questions unanswered, man," Duke shot back. "We need him alive!" Kirk let them argue, then turned to the young Vulcan woman seated on the other side of Duke. "Well, Miss Valeris, you've been quiet. Haven't you got any opinion to offer on the subject? Everyone -else- seems to." Duke turned away from his argument with Zoner to watch her warily as she considered Kirk's question, but it was with perfect composure that she said, "My opinion would be quite irrelevant, Captain." The balding journalist began to look relieved, until Valeris went on with the same perfectly calm candor, "Besides, I am much more interested in what you would look like with your shirt off." Duke dropped his face into his hand, but Kirk only looked momentarily bemused (and Spock raised an eyebrow). Leonard McCoy leaned across behind Valeris's chair and hissed at Duke, "(I thought you said she was better.)" "(It's a work in progress, man,)" Duke replied, sounding harassed. "I've sent down a security team to assist the city's authorities in their search," Kirk said, letting it pass. "In a few minutes I intend to join them. Spock, Bones, you're with me. You three can come along," he added, addressing the passengers, "but the first sign of trouble out of any of you and I'll have you beamed straight to the brig." "Tyrant," Duke grumbled, but Kirk ignored him. As the others left, Spock hung back, so that in a moment he and Duke were the only ones left in the conference room. "Dr. Duke," he said, "a moment, before we join the others in the transporter room." Duke got up, patting the pockets of his shooting jacket for something and looking slightly distracted. "Sure, man, sure. What's on your mind?" "What are your intentions regarding Lieutenant Valeris?" Spock asked. Duke looked as if that were a question he hadn't expected. "Wuhh... well, I... guess I assumed you guys were gonna take her back." "Technically, she has never been a member of this Starfleet," Spock pointed out. "A board of inquiry might well decide to assume her commission based on an assessment of her skills and character, but in her current condition I would not recommend that she make the attempt." The journalist eyed Spock dubiously. "What are you saying?" "I am saying, Dr. Duke, that Valeris might be able to return to duty some day, but for the moment she needs to stay with you." "I don't have the space for that, man!" Duke protested. "I lead a very independent lifestyle." "Such are the wages of sin, Doctor," said Spock pitilessly. "Don't get smart with me, you pointy-eared bastard." Spock took a step closer and, pitching his voice lower, became - if it's possible - even more serious. "Hunter," he said, and Duke looked startled at the use of the name. "As she is now, she will never survive in the outside world without you to guide her down the path you yourself have set her on." Duke hesitated for a long moment. "You're serious." "As Dr. McCoy would say, 'as a heart attack.'" "Damn." Duke rummaged in his pockets again, came up with a cigarette, and fitted it into his holder, but didn't light it. Then he sighed heavily and shrugged. "Okay, man. Okay. You win. I'll keep... doing what I can for her." "Thank you," said Spock. "Strange as it may sound, coming from me, I believe you may be her only hope." Then he turned and said, "We should not keep the captain waiting." H/V SURPRISE "Now arriving at Salusia," Max Hunter reported. A moment later, the Surprise dropped out of warp and the blue-green disk of Salusia rushed toward them in a blur of lightspeed pseudomotion before settling into a slow and steady growth. The twinkling motes of starships' running lights and reflections from their hulls shone all around the planet, almost like a massive debris field. "Wow," said navigator Rick Sterling from his station next to the helm. "Look at all that traffic." "Salusia ATC is hailing, sir," Vanessa reported. "Put 'em on," said Gryphon. Careful not to sit up too straight in his conn - a bounty hunter, he figured, would slouch a bit - he composed himself and waited for the face of the Salusian aerospace traffic coordinator to appear. "Incoming vessel, please identify yourself," said the coordinator, a young Kumbari woman with the collar tabs of a Royal Salusian Navy lieutenant. "Hunting vessel Surprise, home port Eleanor City," Gryphon replied with a casual smile. "Captain Cosmo Buchanan at your service." He turned the smile into a personable grin and added with a twinkle, "Literally, if you've a mind to it." The operator blinked - one would have thought she'd be used to that kind of traffic, attractive as she was, but she seemed taken aback, at least to hear it coming from a scruffy human who needed a shave. After a second she collected herself and added, "What is your purpose in visiting Salusia?" "My purpose?" Gryphon laughed gaily. "You've got the Butcher of Musashi wandering around your capital and you have to ask what a bounty hunter's visiting your planet for?" "I'm not authorized to discuss the internal security situation," the operator replied firmly. "Where are you bound?" "Where are you located?" Gryphon could've sworn the poor girl was blushing under her white fur as she grappled with her first instinct and replied after a few moments, "That's immaterial." "Alas, alack," said Gryphon. (Behind him and to the left, out of the ATC operator's field of view, Saavik rolled her eyes in a distinctly un-Vulcan manner, drawing a stifled bark of laughter from Jamie.) "In that case, Cheltopolis will do." The coordinator adjusted something on the panel in front of her and then said, "Very well, you're cleared through to Cheltopolis approach. Follow the routing indicators we're providing on subchannel four and don't exceed 75 megalights within salustationary orbit. Have a nice day." Gryphon gave her the lazy grin again. "You could make it nicer." "ATC out," she said crisply, and cut the connection. Gryphon sat up straighter and addressed his crew at large. "What do you think? Too much?" "Conceivably," said Saavik dryly. "Well, she'll certainly remember you, sir," said Vanessa diplomatically. "First rule of traveling under an alias, Lieutenant," said Gryphon with a much less salacious grin. "Whatever you do, don't act furtive. It arouses contempt in the cop-heart. Not only will she remember me, she'll remember that I -certainly- wasn't acting like a wanted fugitive sneaking onto the planet." Finney grinned. "And she'll think we're such douchebags we don't even know what city the Butcher's been reported in." "Just so, Lt. Finney," Gryphon agreed. "Just so." The Surprise's ATC-prescribed flight path took them through several of the standard orbital bands, with course and speed calculated to maintain a minimum safe separation between her and the vessels already "parked" in those orbits. That minimum safe separation was within visual range, though, and as they passed through the outer bands, all the hands on the Surprise's bridge caught sight of the familiar shape of a Constitution-class starship - the same shape as their lost, beloved Invincible - coming into view around the limb of the planet. Without being asked, Rick Sterling dialed in a higher magnification setting, and the ship leaped into closeup, every detail crystal clear. She was one of the -old- Connies, before the famous Enterprise refit of (their home year) 2271, with the cylindrical warp nacelles and the smooth grey paint job. As she finished her "turn" around the planet, her markings came into clear view. "Hey, look, it's the Enterprise," said Max. "Holy antiques, Batman," Rick remarked. "This timeline must not be as far along in starship technology," observed Jamie. Sterling grinned and ran a hand through his jagged mop of blue- black hair. "I wonder if the female crewmen are wearing those old microdress uniforms with the go-go boots." "Focus, Mr. Sterling," Gryphon chided him mildly. "Focus." "Aye aye, sir, sorry, sir." They landed at Cheltopolis International without incident, unloaded the car, and Gryphon mustered his small crew at the foot of the Surprise's ramp. "Saavik, Jamie, Vanessa, Doc - you're with me. The rest of you, keep the ship secure and make the appropriate noises if the authorities take an interest." He turned to his helmsman. "Mr. Hunter, the ship is yours until we get back." Hunter slumped, his antennae drooping. "Aw." "Sorry, Max. We've only got so many seats." He grinned. "Maybe Jamie should've bought a minibus." Then, putting a hand on Hunter's shoulder and leaning closer, he said, "Keep her warmed up and ready to scramble. We may need backup in a hurry. I'm counting on you. Okay?" Hunter nodded. "We've got your back, Captain." Gryphon clapped the helmsman's shoulder and turned to his "away team", who had assembled what little gear they had and fallen in by the car. "Let's ride!" It didn't take Gryphon long to recall the layout of the major roads of Cheltopolis; he hadn't been here in many years, but the basic framework of the city was the same. Soon they were rolling north out of the city limits and through the suburban sprawl on the broad, low, boulevard-like Highway 229, known since time immemorial as the Intercapital. He found a classics radio station, turned up the heater, rolled down his window, and reveled in just being alive and at large on one of his favorite planets. /* ZZ Top "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" _Deguello_ (1979) */ A moment later, they passed one of the white-lettered black highway signs listing distances to destinations ahead, and his smile turned into a full-fledged grin as he laughed aloud. "What?" Saavik asked. Turning down the radio a little, Gryphon replied, "That sign gave the distance to Saenar in miles! MILES, Saavik!" "I fail to understand your enthusiasm," she said. "For the first time in 40 years, -I know how far away I am from something!-" Gryphon declared. "And the next time we pass a bank, I'll know how cold it is outside! Instinctively! Without having to do math in my head! Look!" he cried, pointing. "It's 26 degrees! I understand in my heart that that's cold but not -real- cold!" Saavik looked at a loss for a few moments, then said, "I'm... so pleased for you." In the middle of the back seat, Mira McRea leaned to her right and asked Finney quietly, "(What the hell is the captain talking about?)" "(He's originally from 20th-century America,)" Finney replied. "(They still used the pre-metric measurements then. Apparently they're the galactic standard here.)" McRea looked no further illuminated. "(And that makes him happy? Will he be passing out stone knives next?)" "(He'll hear you,)" Vanessa chided her. Gryphon didn't hear, but only because he was distracted. He was weighing his options and considering the angles. Eventually he reached a decision, but just as he reached toward it, the car's radio beeped, interrupting the song. Gryphon detoured his finger and hit one of the other buttons, causing Vision's face to appear on the video display, her signal relaying through the Surprise's comm array. "Captain," she said. "You should find this interesting. I've intercepted some communications between the Federation ship in orbit and the shore party. You might find the captain's voice familiar." A short spit of static, and then the voice, which was, indeed, startlingly familiar: "... says to try the lateral array, Mr. Scott." "Aye, sir, that's better," an equally familiar voice with a sharp Scots burr replied. "I think I've got him now. Looks like he's stickin' tae that storm drain in the southeast quadrant." "Well done, Scotty. Uhura, relay that information to the Ministry, please." A woman's voice this time. "It's on its way, Captain." "Very well. Keep monitoring the situation. Let me know the minute he moves. Kirk out." The pulse of static came again, and then Vision said, "How about that?" Gryphon smiled. "He's using the Enterprise's sensors to pin down the Butcher's location - and it seems like the Butcher knows it. I wonder what he's waiting for." He pushed the accelerator down harder, picking up speed, and moved into one of the center lanes. "Nice work, Vision. By the way, how did you tap these comms?" Vision smirked. "They're using what to us is a 30-year-old Starfleet encryption key." "Speaking of encryption keys, I was just about to call you. I need a secure connection from this console to the Great Lodge." Vision eyed him. "You're calling the cops?" "I'm calling -a- cop." STORM DRAIN No. 38 SAENAR GENOM Corporation Boomer(r) Biomimetic Mechanoid Series 33/S GRP-HN1 (Operation Gotterdammerung Key Item No. 1), more widely known as the Butcher of Musashi, stood next to his deactivated DG and snarled at the world. It was nearly 5 PM; it had been dark for the better part of an hour; he was still hemmed in down this bloody storm drain; he could feel the preliminary edge of Biocrash Syndrome creeping up on him after the previous night's interrupted recharge; and his backup was -late.- None of this was calculated to put this particular android, never built to be the galaxy's most congenial, in a good mood. He heard footsteps behind him, turned, and saw a man (or maybe another Boomer, who could tell) in the tactical armor of the GENOM Corporate Defense Division's riot-control forces. "About fucking time you got here," he snarled. "Situation's changed," the riot trooper replied, ignoring HN1's outburst entirely. "There's a Fed starship in salusync. Its sensors are what's tipping the hounds every time you move." "So I gathered," HN1 said sourly. "So what's the new plan? The old fake arrest trick, and then I 'get away' from company detention before they get around to handing me over to the cops?" The trooper shook his head. "Central's got a better idea. We got a report from PALCON that the genuine article's planetside, looking to join the hunt. If that's true, he'll most likely avoid the rest of them and come down after you himself." HN1 considered that. A nasty smile spread across his face. "A switch." "Roger that. You stay buttoned up, we kill him, presto. We win the PR war in one stroke. Once he's dead we can 'prove' he was really guilty the whole time, and the Company gets the credit for finally bringing him down." HN1's smile broadened as he considered the implications. "When all the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men couldn't pull it off." The trooper nodded. "It does mean we have to abort the assassination, but at this point the city's locked down so tight we'd be hard-pressed to make that happen anyway." HN1 sighed philosophically. "Ah, well. Another time, my lovely Asrial." He climbed back up into the DG, sealed the plastron, and paused before lowering the head. "How many guys did you bring?" "30," the trooper replied. HN1 nodded. "Good enough." He buttoned up the DG, powered it up, and raised it from its parked-and-locked position. "Let's keep them interested." /* Rhythm Heritage "Theme from S.W.A.T." _Disco-fied_ (1976) */ "There's that signature again. There's definitely some kind of mecha down that drain, Captain," Scotty's voice reported over Kirk's communicator and, unknown to either man, Gryphon's car radio. "He puts his head up every now an' then, so tae speak, but it's like he doesna dare come out. Maybe he knows we're on tae 'im." "Maybe so. Keep watching. Kirk out." Kirk closed his communicator and turned to Spock. "What's he waiting for?" "Insufficient data, Captain," Spock replied. "We do not even know for certain who 'he' is. It might be something entirely irrelevant to the situation at hand. As humans say, we could all be chasing a wild goose." The Enterprise landing party, along with a number of RSMP and Ministry of Public Security officers, Gil Grissom, and two Mars Division officers, were gathered at a small command post in a corner of Queen Shiva Park - a large, open, grassy area, fringed by sparse woods and then bounded by the streets of southeastern Saenar. The drain entrance the Enterprise was monitoring was at the far corner of the park, about two miles away, hidden by a slight rise in the grassy ground. The Ministry of Public Security officer selected to lead the detachment sent to Queen Shiva Park was human, one of several prominent Earthpeople to join the Salusian armed forces in the 22nd century and who, for various arcane reasons, were still alive and well today. Colonel Dashiell Faireborne, who for reasons opaque to Kirk went by the codename "Flint", was a rangy man who appeared to be just entering middle age and who seemed to have been born wearing a green beret. He had introduced himself as belonging to a branch of the Ministry he called only "Section 9". "I just got off the radio with the Minister for Home Defense," Flint said conversationally. "He called personally to tell me to stop asking the Minister for Public Security to ask him to send the Army down here. He's convinced we're barking up the wrong tree." "He may be right," Kirk admitted. "Just the fact that he believes it is enough to convince me we're not." "You have an interesting government here," Dr. McCoy grumbled testily, but Flint only laughed. "Constitutional monarchy in action." Miranda Stirling peered off into the darkness with eyes accustomed to spotting targets in the darkness of space. "Hang on," she said. "I've got movement." Maia stepped up next to her and looked where she was pointing. "Got 'em. You're right, there's somebody over there, approaching the ridge." "What?! How did they get past the cordon?" Flint raised his electrobinoculars and tabbed them to low-light mode. "I see them. Five of them. Hell! They're nearly on -top- of that damned drain!" Kirk stepped up next to the Section 9 agent, who handed him the binoculars for a look. "Who the hell are they?" "I'm not sure," Flint replied. Tabbing the comlink affixed to the back of his glove - say, some part of Kirk's mind noticed, that's snazzy - he said, "Diedrich. Kosterbell. Get those people out of there." Gryphon climbed to the top of the ridge, his nerves singing with adrenaline resonance, and looked down into the shadowed fold of ground that held the storm drain entrance. He could see nothing within the dark mouth of the concrete shaft, a circular opening in the bank about ten feet in diameter, but it felt right. Where else would he find the bastard but a dark, damp hole in the ground. "Captain, we have attracted the attention of local law enforcement," Saavik reported from a pace or two behind him. "I estimate they will reach our position in 30 seconds." "Plenty of time," Gryphon replied. Then he inflated his lungs and bellowed, "ALL RIGHT, HERE I AM! COME ON OUT AND LET'S DANCE, YOU ROBOT PIECE OF SHIT!" For a second, his voice echoed hollowly in the concrete throat of the storm drain. Gryphon could hear the Salusian cops approaching now, yelling for him and his team not to move and to stay where they were (which was redundant), and he wondered whether he was about to feel really, really stupid. Then something stirred in the darkness below, and a pair of glowing yellow eyes appeared. "... oh crap," Gryphon murmured, backing up a step. A metallic clank came from below, then another, and a hulking, angular shape emerged from the shadows. Gryphon backpedaled another two steps, then turned and yelled, to his crew and the approaching cops, "RUN - !" Autocannon fire tore into the ground around them as the five ex- Starfleet personnel sprinted away from the ridge. The cops wisely abandoned their pursuit and scattered. The battlemover ignored them, as did the small body of riot-armored GENOM troopers that followed it. The appearance of GENOM CORPDEF agents in full uniform, apparently backing up the battlemover they had believed to contain the Butcher of Musashi, baffled the police as much as the unexpected interlopers had. "Shit!" Gryphon yelled as he dove behind a small rise in the turf. The rest of his field team followed him, missed by the battlemover's wild cannon and even wilder laser fire, and huddled up next to him behind their meager cover while they considered their next move. "In retrospect, Captain, direct confrontation might not have been your best plan," Saavik observed. "I didn't know he had a battlemover!" Gryphon yelled, oddly outraged by the whole situation. "That shit's new, I assure you!" "BENJAMIN HUTCHINS," the battlemover declared in a thunderously amplified voice. "YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. SURRENDER IN THE NAME OF THE LAW." "Oh, so -that's- your game, is it," Gryphon snarled. So furiously indignant about the whole situation that he disregarded his personal safety, he stood up, turned to face the oncoming GENOM force, and shouted, "ROBOT DOUBLE DEACTIVATE!" As one might expect, that had no effect, and as a new salvo of blasterfire and cannon shells roared across the park, Saavik reached up, seized her captain's coattails, and yanked him bodily back behind cover. "That always works in the comics," Gryphon complained, throwing Saavik a wink. With that small gesture, he showed her that he hadn't lost his senses; he'd done it to keep the others' morale up, not that they really needed it. If anything, Jamie was spoiling for a fight even more than he was. She was cradling her phaser rifle like a favorite dog and compulsively switching the power setting between levels nine and 10 (which, she liked to explain to new security officers, stood for "disintegrate" and "no, seriously, disintegrate" respectively). "Okay," he said. "Better cover twenty yards back. Big rock, opposite side of the footpath from that command post." "I see it," Saavik confirmed, before Jamie could ask, "What's a yard?" "I'll cover you guys. Ready... steady... GO!" At the command, Gryphon sprang up from cover and opened fire with his phaser, felling two GENOM troopers and demonstrating conclusively that a hand phaser was worth precisely dick against a DG's deflector shields. Behind him, his four shipmates scrambled up and then ran for the rock; Gryphon kept up his covering fire for a second longer than he dared and then broke and ran after them. They weren't the most dignified spectacle, five trenchcoated, commando-sweatered figures running for their lives (especially with a slightly overexcited Jamie Finney, the most diminutive of the five, helpfully yelling "SERPENTINE, SIR! RUN SERPENTINE!" as bullets and blaster bolts zipped all around them), but they got away with it, piling behind the rock and struggling to catch their breath. Glancing across the path, they found themselves face-to-face with, albeit a dozen yards or so away from, Kirk's party and Flint. Finding himself suddenly faced with a person from his past, Dash Faireborne demonstrated the mental agility that had made him such a successful special operative as he took only three seconds to blink and find his voice again: "Ben? Ben -Hutchins?- But if you're here, who's that?" Gryphon grinned and called across, "Hi, Flint, nice to see you. Listen, can I be excused from the whole getting-arrested thing right now? I'm a tad bit busy. You don't happen to have an antiarmor weapon handy? Or maybe an ARM Slave?" "Uh, fresh out, sorry." "Dammit," Gryphon grunted. "I left my Valkyrie in my other pants." He looked around, noted the familiar faces, and zeroed in on the large, dark-clad man who was staring at him with an expression of disbelief. "Oh, hey, Zoner. How about you? RPG, maybe?" "Uh... sorry, no," Zoner replied. "I wasn't expecting to get into a firefight." Gryphon shook his head sadly. "Tsk. You -always- expect to get into a firefight." He scanned further. "Raoul! I see you got my Vulcangram. How are you, Valeris?" Valeris beamed, clearly delighted to see him. "Bitchin', thank you," she replied. It was Gryphon's turn to blink, but it lasted for only a moment, most of his attention being grabbed by Flint's musing: "What are those GENOM guys waiting for?" "They probably think you're arresting me." "Well, I -should- be." "COME OUT OF THERE WITH YOUR HANDS UP," the battlemover boomed. "IF YOU DON'T, WE'RE COMING IN AFTER YOU." "We're not gonna let them do this, are we?" Maia demanded. "I'm open to suggestions," Flint replied. "We haven't got the firepower to win an argument with that battlemover - and they're technically in the right." "What?! Fuck technically!" A high whining sound interrupted the argument, and everyone turned to see an armored figure, crouched low over the handlebars of a milspec Repulsor Garland in green RSMP livery, speeding toward them. The bike lobbed a few bolts from its plasma cannon across the park, scattering the GENOM troops and making even the battlemover hesitate, and then slewed expertly off the path and came to a halt behind the rock. The rider, who wore light green CVR-3 that didn't match the bike's markings, dismounted and saluted Gryphon. "Here you are, sir. I borrowed it from our Salusian friends' motor pool. Figured you might be able to put it to good use." Gryphon shucked his trenchcoat and climbed onto the Garland. "Thanks. And you are?" The man flipped back his armor's facebowl and said, "Bernard, sir. Lieutenant Commander Scott Bernard, Mars Division. It's an honor." Gryphon stared at him for a second. "We'll... talk later, Mr. Bernard," he said. "Looking forward to it, sir," Bernard replied. "Okay. Here we go. Watch for openings!" he told his shipmates; then he gunned the Garland, toed the repulsor array online, and darted off across the park. On a rooftop across one of the perimeter streets from the park, a slender man in a dark leather jacket knelt and balanced a massive subether camera on his shoulder, aiming its high-resolution lens into the center of the park. "Crosslink complete," a calm, British-sounding woman's voice said from a small speaker set into the side of the camera, near the operator's ear. "You're live in five. Four. Three. Two. Going live... -now.-" The man waited until he was certain the red TRANSMITTING light was steady, focused in on the unfolding battle below, and announced, "This is Edison Carter coming to you live and direct from Queen Shiva Park in Saenar, Salusia's Crown City. The crisis that's been brewing in the city all day appears to have broken loose in this normally quiet district, with what appears to be a force of GENOM Corporation riot control officers facing off against the crew of a private starship that arrived in Cheltopolis earlier today. We've received unconfirmed reports that one of that ship's crew is none other than Benjamin Hutchins, the former Wedge Defense Force officer accused of mass murder in 2288 and missing for more than 20 years... " It took Gryphon a few seconds to get the hang of the controls - he'd last ridden a Garland more than 50 years ago by his reckoning, and that had been one of the wheeled ones - but it all came back with a few moments' experimentation. He swung round in a tight arc, his inboard knee brushing the grass, and raced down on the GENOM position. The battlemover opened up, but it couldn't get his range. He waited until the crosshairs in the center VDU lit up, then opened fire. Plasma pulses tore at the DG's shields, strobing them wildly in the low light between the park's dim lamps. Gryphon gave the Garland one last burst of throttle, then punched the mode control and hung on. The seat jumped underneath him, and then, with the usual fleeting but terrifying I'm-going-to-be-crushed moment, the cockpit closed around him as the machine sprang up into battroid mode. The center VDU fuzzed, and then Gryphon had the curious experience of seeing his own face, albeit twisted into an unrecognizable mask of hate, appear on it. "You idiot," HN1 leered. "This battlemover was specifically designed to -scrap- Garlands." "That may be," Gryphon replied, hurling his machine into a booster charge while pumping plasma fire from its now-handheld cannon at his enemy, "but it's still a slapdash, substandard piece of GENOM knockoff crap... " The Butcher dodged the charge; Gryphon converted his attack instantly, grounding the Garland and slamming an elbow strike into the back of the DG's head. As the DG took two stumbling steps forward and half-accidentally turned around, Gryphon pivoted the Garland and added nastily, "... just like you." He received about half of HN1's inarticulate, spittle-emitting shriek of rage before the transmission cut off and the battlemover was upon him. /* Loudness "Soldier of Fortune" _Soldier of Fortune_ (1989) */ The two machines were about evenly matched; the DG had a strength advantage, but the Garland was quicker. HN1 was an inexperienced pilot, while Gryphon was rusty. They disabled each other's ranged weapons in fairly short order and then closed in, battering each other like sailors in a seaport bar. "FROM HELL'S HEART I FUCK UP YOUR SHIT," the DG's pilot bellowed furiously, his rage unwittingly transmitted via the PA to everyone within a half-mile. "Boy," Miranda observed to her sister, "that GENOM guy's really taking this personally." Maia gave her twin a baffled look. "Mir, did you even read the memo?" she asked. "That's the Butcher in there. The counterfeit Gryph?" "Oh," said Miranda; then, her eyes widening, "OH!" The DG got in a particularly solid blow, ripping off one of the Garland's arms; Gryphon retaliated with a punch that nearly took the DG's head off, blacking out about half of HN1's sensors. The battlemover's shields flickered, then failed altogether as Gryphon drove home two body blows to the DG's one, cratering midsection armor and compromising a main hydraulic line. Jamie Finney saw her chance. Making sure her phaser rifle was jacked all the way to 10, she stood up from behind the rock and yelled to her comrades, "SUSTAINED FIRE! BRING THAT SONOFABITCH _DOWN!_" Vanessa Leeds wasn't an officer much inclined to end up in combat, but she'd taken her weapons training just like anyone else in Starfleet who was landing-party-rated, and though she was a generally quiet and unassuming young woman, she proved now that she was no shrinking violet. Shoulder-to-shoulder with Finney, she raised her phaser pistol, as did Saavik on Finney's other side, and the three Invincible officers poured scarlet-flecked orange energy into the DG's crumpled aft armor. It glowed, then sloughed away, and internal components began exploding as the beams scythed through them. Seeing what the three women were up to, the GENOM troopers shouldered their weapons - that guy in the CVR-3 couldn't cover every angle at once - but Maia Sterling wasn't about to have any of that. "No you don't!" she barked, darting out from the police barricades and opening fire with her Gallant-H90. Miranda was right behind her, moving with the ease of instinctive rapport and long partnership to complement her twin's every move. Scott Bernard joined them, moving around the Surprises' position to cover their flank with his laserfire and, if it came to it, his armor. Disconcerted by the sudden barrage, the GENOM troops briefly disengaged, then regrouped with all the crisp discipline drilled into them by their corporate masters. Their squad leader, in particular, was on the ball; he dodged a burst from Miranda's Gallant, and, leveling his plasma rifle from the hip, knew he had her dead to rights - - until the keening blue beam of an earlier-model phaser cut him down in his tracks. Captain James T. Kirk had decided whose side he was on. One of those women was a Vulcan. There was no way, in Kirk's experience, that a Vulcan would ever display such loyalty to a man who wasn't worth it. "Enterprise!" he shouted. "Form up on me!" Unlimbering their own phasers, Spock and the Enterprise security squad flanked their captain and began methodically pushing the troopers back. MegaZone, Raoul Duke (unlimbering a gigantic chrome handgun from somewhere inside his shooting jacket), and Gil Grissom joined them - as, after a moment's lightning consideration, did Flint. "What the hell are you doing?!" the GENOM 2 in C demanded through the amp in his helmet. "That's the Butcher of Musashi you're defending! You'll all hang for this!" "I'm not sure what's happening now," Edison Carter admitted to his riveted audience. "Those appear to be Starfleet officers - I'm being told the one in gold is none other than Captain James Kirk of the USS Enterprise - but at this point I can't tell why they're engaging the GENOM officers." While this was going on, the DG staggered, its systems failing. Furiously cursing, the Butcher wrenched at his dying controls, setting the machine on a suicide course for Gryphon's limping Garland and triggered the self-destruct. The crash crippled the Garland's power train, forcing Gryphon to eject, but the explosion never came. The Surprises' massed phaser fire had already destroyed the charge without setting it off. Gryphon hit the ground rolling, sprang to his feet, and leapt toward the disabled DG as HN1 popped the rear emergency hatch. GENOM blasterfire laced the air around him, but he paid it no mind as he phasered the hinge points, freezing the hatch partway open. Having thus prevented his adversary from making a quick escape, he scrambled up the wreckage, ignoring the cuts and burns inflicted by hot and twisted metal, reached inside, seized HN1 by the scruff of the neck, and hauled him out like a landed fish. "NOW, MR. HUNTER!" Gryphon roared. "LIGHT 'EM UP!" With a sound like a waterfall, the Surprise decloaked, hovering at an altitude of perhaps a hundred feet, and floodlit the park, turning night to day with her landing lights. Blinded by their own night vision equipment, the GENOM officers staggered and cursed, some dropping their weapons to claw at their visors. Flint, the cops, and the Starfleet contingent stared open-mouthed. Revealed full in the beam were the two men standing, one at the other's arm's length, upon the sloping back armor of the prone, smoldering DG. One, dressed in dark pants, boots, and a maroon commando sweater, was Gryphon. The other, wearing a grey tab-front tunic and trousers, was... also Gryphon. "THERE! YOU SEE?" Gryphon declared in what his Invincible shipmates liked to call his "quarterdeck bellow" - not only because he was monumentally pissed off, but also because, now that the cloak was off, the Surprise's repulsors and thrusters were pouring quite a lot of noise down on the battlefield. "DO YOU _GET IT_ NOW?" Edison Carter knew that this was one of those rare but electrifying moments in a telejournalist's career when the worst thing he could do was keep talking. He just knelt on the rooftop, keeping the focus sharp, checking the input levels on the parabolic mic attachment, and let the moment speak for itself to all twenty and a half billion of Network 23's viewers. "I've finally caught you," Gryphon snarled through his teeth at HN1. "And now you're going to pay." "The hell you have," HN1 replied. With a sudden convulsion, he broke Gryphon's grip on him, then kicked the startled human off the DG's wreckage to the ground. Jumping down, he made to curbstomp his human foe's face, but Gryphon rolled out of his way, slung himself to his feet, and reached to his back for his sword - which wasn't there, because he'd taken it off along with his coat to keep it from potentially jamming the Garland's transformation. "Shit," he snarled. He went for his phaser instead, but HN1 was quicker and smacked it away, then rocked his head back with a punch that would probably have put a normal human down for the count. Gryphon staggered, recovered, and slipped into the well-worn patterns of the Asagiri Katsujinkenryuu's empty-hand techniques. HN1 was strong and quick, but unskilled. It was a simple enough matter to avoid his next punch, trap his arm, twist it hard, and throw him to the ground. "Captain!" Saavik called. He glanced up just in time to see her throw his sword to him. Gryphon caught it, drew the blade, and let the scabbard and straps fall, wasting no time to have the sword in position by the time the Butcher was back on his feet and closing. Cursing, the Butcher fell back and drew a polymer-ceramic survival blade, his only remaining weapon, from his boot. He had a distinct reach disadvantage with this weapon, but it was better than nothing, and combined with his superior reaction speed, it enabled him to hold off the furious swordsman for several crucial seconds before betraying him in the end. Parrying a full-power blow, the one-piece ceramic weapon slipped in his hand and gashed his own leg, drawing a steady flow of not Boomer nutrient fluid, but what looked for all the world like regular red blood. Gryphon moved to capitalize, but HN1 mastered his shock and pain quickly, ducked inside the strike, and punched Gryphon full in the face with a fistful of knife hilt. The blow nearly shattered several teeth; only a timely flinch saved them, but it couldn't save him from being knocked flat by the blow, his katana flying from his hand and disappearing into the night. He came around quickly, taking mere seconds to recover from a blow that would have caved in a normal man's face and possibly snapped his neck, to find Mira McRea injecting a tri-ox recovery compound into his carotid artery. Renewed strength flowed into him even faster; he dragged himself to his feet, shaking his head and feeling at his teeth, then accepted his silently-proffered coat from Saavik and looked around at the startled men and women surrounding him. "Where'd he go?" he demanded, shrugging the coat back on. "Which WAY?" "East," Spock told him, consulting a tricorder. "Outside the battlemover, his energy signature is quite distinctive. He appears to be making for the Kingsway." Gryphon's eyes went wide. "Hell. He's trying to reach the palace on foot." He turned to Flint. "Alert the Imperial Guards. I'm going after him." "You'll need backup," Kirk objected. "So back me up," said Gryphon with a grin, and, snagging Spock's tricorder out of his hand, he set off at a dead run in pursuit of his double. /* Juno Reactor "Pistolero (Man With No Name Remix)" _Pistolero_ (2000) */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presented UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES EXILE Manhunt Part 5: Everything That Rises starring Maia Sterling Giol'bertis Grissom H.M. Gov't Minister for Home Defense Benjamin D. Hutchins Vanessa Leeds Vision A Salusian general An MHD official Henry Lang Maximilian Hunter Mirrim Verron James T. Kirk Raoul Duke MegaZone Valeris Leonard H. McCoy, MD Spock Richard E. Sterling Kanaia Henatiro Saavik Jaime Finney Mira McRea Montgomery Scott Nyota Uhura 33/S Infiltration Unit GRP-HN1 Some GENOM CORPDEF riot troopers Dashiell Faireborne Miranda Sterling Scott Bernard Edison Carter Theora Jones by Benjamin D. Hutchins with Chad Collier Geoff Depew Philip J. Moyer and The Usual Suspects phaser technician Janice Collier Manhunt will conclude in Part 6: Must Converge E P U (colour) 2009