Chapter 30: What Ends is New Beginnings

Paulie saw nothing for a few moments and so he used that time to dash forwards with superhuman speed, the lower gravity of the moon did nothing to alleviate his mass though and he slammed into the far wall with enough force to crack the wall under his shoulder.

“Ow, shit!” He swore as he rebounded off it and to the floor, shoulder now bruised from the impact. Losing his footing probably saved his life though as another triple burst of those bright plasma bursts hissed through the space his upper torso had only just vacated.

He rolled back into cover and was rewarded with the sounds of the thug cursing in long hissing gurgles before another shout. “Arbiters! Get out here …!” The alien criminal yelled a word that Paulie’s translator worm didn’t complete. There was the sound of scuffling and Paulie leaned around the pillar he was using for cover to see two more dark shapes duck into the cover of the overturned furniture.

Paulie took aim with the gun in his hand and then realised it didn’t seem to have a trigger mechanism like he had been expecting. He swore silently, of course not. Why would an alien gun be built like one with which he was familiar? He slipped back into cover and looked over the gun in his hand, it was small. About the size of a nine-millimeter pistol. The outside was a dark matte blue metallic color, a series of small dials and buttons on the top and back with what could have been a side mounted magazine or power pack.

While he looked at it dumbly he jumped as another sound broke the relative silence. A series of much louder cracks, like something splitting the air itself. A few more of those ear popping cracks were followed by the sound of something screeching in pain for a moment. Then another crack and the pained cries fell still.

“Zalc! The dumb judy-cator shot Tarks!” Another series of loud cracks and the sound of scuffling. At least one of the goons in the hall turned their head towards the sound and Paulie used the distraction to rush the other two. The two that were still looking yelled, one of them aiming their weapon his way. But Paulie had been expecting that.

With a yell he bounded up and to the right, kicking off the floor in the moon’s lower gravity and using the wall to rebound up and over the shots they loosed in his direction. He felt the wall crack under the force of the impact and for a split second he thought that he might end up barreling straight through it. But then his momentum was arrested and he rebounded off the newly cratered wall and back towards the ground. Faster than the hostile aliens could react, he was in front of them.

He used his momentum to kick the thick synthetic looking table they were using as cover out of the way. The motion sent it spiraling away, along with the slight looking alien that had been using it as cover. He threw the seemingly useless pistol as hard as he could at the leftmost alien, a sort of shrimplike creature with large compound eyes and pale yellow flesh. It went down hard in a spray of shattered chiton fragments and orange blood, the gun having left his fingers with seemingly lethal velocity.

The distracted alien tried to turn towards him as the other alien landed in a heap on the other side of the hall under the heavy table, but they only succeeded in turning halfway before Paulie had drawn the knife and Slashed it across the small pink otter-like alien’s face. It fell back with a scream that made Paulie shudder slightly even in his adrenaline fueled state. He leapt over the flailing alien and to the side of the door the commotion seemed to be coming from.

Paulie stopped and sucked in several shuddering breaths. With a moment to think, he did so. What the ever-loving shit was he doing? He wasn’t a police officer. He wasn’t a soldier, mercenary or even a fighter. He had been in lots of fights in his youth, yeah, but nothing like this. Nothing with guns or these stakes.

He could die, he would die if he wasn’t careful. He had resisted the plasma blasts before. But something told him that they had not been trying to kill him outright before. He didn't think he was going to get off as easily this time.

Paulie held the knife at the ready, filtering out the sounds of the still screeching alien writhing on the floor behind him. No, he needed to keep his wits about him as he moved inexorably towards the target of his current ambition. Another series of loud cracks split the air as he peeked through the doorway only to see a withering barrage of back and forth fire. The bright blobs of plasma shots came from a couple of Mack’s attackers.

The return fire from further in the room was sporadic, the bright blue lines of the shots like ghostly contrails that seemed to fizz and pop in the air like lightning. At least one of the two remaining thugs saw him as he peeked inside. The strange ant-like creature opened its mandibles in a loud chittering alarm as it brought its gun to bear on him.

He had two options, both bad. He could duck out of the line of sight of the alien, giving them time to ready for his eventual move. Or he could just dive in, trusting his speed and agility to see him victorious.

Paulie didn’t even have to think it over, his friend was in danger and so he reacted.

Paulie dove into the room with a loud shout, “Look out you weird buggers!”

Maybe not his most impressive insult, but it did the trick as it caused the nearer alien to flinch slightly. This marginally threw off their aim, combined with Paulie’s much stronger angle of attack and reaction time it allowed him to just stay ahead of the plasmafire that was directed at him. The bolts flying wide to blast smouldering craters out of the wall behind him.

Each loud thunderclap of collapsing plasma containment fields struck him like a physical blow, the power in each of those shots would have put down a moose he imagined. Much less he himself. He hit the floor hard and coughed as the air was knocked from his lungs. But it was just enough.

He lined up and threw the knife that had been in his hand at the nearby insectoid, and his aim was true. All that knife throwing he had played around with in his youth had finally come in handy it seemed as the blade sailed end over end to bury itself up to the handle in the ant alien’s neck. All six of its arms reached up to grasp at the blade as it gurgled, a wash of bright orange blood spilling from its mandibles as the thing dropped its gun and keeled over, twitching and gurgling.

The other alien seemed to have noticed him now, and he tensed as the wide barrel of the gun it held swung in his direction. He took a breath, the air screaming into his abused lungs as he got his arms down and under him. The effort to push himself up and out of the way seemed almost impossible to muster, but he managed to just dodge the first bolt of brilliant purple light as it simmered right under his back. Singing the shoulders of his shirt and causing a line of white hot pain along his shoulder blades.

He could smell burning hair, his own in all likelihood as the thug readjusted for another shot. He was cooked. There was no way he could dodge again, not out in the open like he was, winded and in pain to boot. He would have closed his eyes to avoid seeing his own death coming, but he needn't have bothered.

A line of corruscating blue energy speared through the small gap in the alien’s eyes. Its far-too-human face turned at once from anger to pained surprise as an explosion of gore painted the wall behind it a deep maroon in color. The many-limbed body flopped to the ground without a twitch and Paulie slowly got to his hands and knees, still unsure as to how he was not dead.

He got to a kneeling position and looked over his shoulder just in time to catch a dark shape flying at him before he was knocked to the floor once more in a heap. It was Jakiikii, the termaxxi had come to his aid in just the nick of time. She was hugging him with all six arms, the woman seemingly beside herself that he had nearly watched him die. He smiled widely as she untangled her arms from his and then offered him two hands which he accepted gladly.

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“Thanks for the assist, I don’t think I would have made it otherwise.” She nodded as he groaned and shrugged his scorched shoulders, her face serious despite his words.

She rushed around him after a moment and he followed her, “Mack! Oh, Mack! Are you okay?!” She cried out as she moved to the back of the room and through a badly scorched doorway, the mortar still smoking from the carbonised scarring across its surface. He heard her let out a trilling cry and his heart dropped.

Expecting the worst, he followed the distressed alien woman into the back room and stopped. Mack was there, his body lying on the floor amid a small puddle of bright blue fluids that must have been blood. Jakiikii was kneeling by his side, two arms covering her face, two on his still form and two more rubbing together all at once. He swallowed heavily and fell to his knees in shock and horror. He had been too late, he was always too late. It was just too much, too damned much.

But he stopped, the corpse twitched and Mack let out a small groan. One of his large grey eyes peeled open slightly as he raised a hand towards Jakiikii’s face slowly. She took it in one of her secondary arms, the woman’s six eyes all laser focused on the wounded detective as he whispered her name. Paulie watched the two as she gasped in sudden joy at his being alive and then chirped in renewed horror at the man’s obviously wounded state.

If Paulie was feeling the strain of emotional trauma then the termaxxi herself must be going through a ringer. He felt a sudden desire to comfort her, but also felt it was an inappropriate time. Instead he pushed down the hurt and fear, locked them up in a box and placed them in the same dark hole as his mind parasite while he stood and rushed out of the room.

Paulie looked both ways as he got back into that long drab hallway and then saw some commotion further down the corridor towards where the officers had been. He waved his hands until he got the attention of one of the white garbed figures. “Hey! Wounded man down here! We need help!”

The shouts got more attention, this time he had no spare time to exchange pleasantries. So as the alien physicians approached he pointed to the room and to their training and credit the paramedics rushed inside without another look at him or the bodies that must have been there too.

He turned around at that thought and lurched. The shrimp alien he had killed lay where he had struck it, a slowly congealing pool of orange liquid soaking the carpet under its still form. But the other two were gone, just a splash of alien blood to show they were ever there in the first place. He swallowed and scratched his head, hopefully that wouldn’t cause any issues later on.

He felt a small pit in his stomach as he thought it, the parasite at the back of his mind whispering dangerous nothings to him before he quashed it. “Well.. cross that bridge when we get to it and all that.” Paulie muttered under his breath. He glanced at the pale walls and monochrome carpeting of the hall again. What a terrible place to die in, he mused idly.

He turned and noticed officer Sasfren down the hall, he waved to the petal-headed snake woman and got a small wave in return from one of her tentacle-like arms. Entering the small apartment again, he heard voices and the sounds of things being moved around and walked into the back just in time to see a heavily bandaged Mack being lifted carefully onto a stretcher-like cart. It had no wheels though, and as he watched in amazement one of the paramedics pressed something that caused it to slowly rise into the air on nothing at all.

Some manner of antigravity? He thought about it, the zen’kkalkians’ ship had gravity so they must have some ability to control it. And if the nasty little reptiles had that kind of tech, what was available to the GGI as a whole.

He stepped to the side as they rushed Mack out, a distraught looking Jakiikii moving to follow. But instead she stopped at Paulie’s side, all six of her hands wringing together in her worry.

He nodded towards the disappearing first responders and tried his best to reassure her. “He will be fine, I am sure of it.”

She stepped closer to him and nodded her angular head. Her lower breathing gills fluttering as she let out a heavy breath. “Yeah. I know, they already pumped him up with stimulants and some quickheal. But I hate to see him like that.”

The way she said it made him feel like this was not the first time she had seen the man get badly hurt. “I assume that this has happened before?” She nodded her head slightly, four of her eyes turning inwards as she avoided his gaze.

She just shrugged four arms. “Yes. He is an officer, he does dangerous things all the time. This isn't the worst he has been before.” She seemed to hug herself slightly with her lowest pair of arms though even as she said it. He got the feeling she was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince him.

Paulie wanted to say something to make her feel better, but once more he found he was lacking in the emotional capacity to say something helpful at that time. With nothing to say he sighed heavily and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She looked up at him with a few eyes but didn’t tell him to back off and so he maintained the contact.

The two of them stayed that way for a little while until several others entered the room. An adjudicator he didn’t know as well as the pink otter-like alien he had met on his first day, officer Liick as Mack had called him. He was told he would need to file some papers and follow them for deeper questioning. He reached out for Jakiikii and smiled as she gripped his hand in one of hers as he was directed away.

She nodded to him and spoke, “You will be okay Paulie. I will meet you when they are done here.” He gave her a nod and a slight smile.

Not exactly the most reassuring thing to hear as he was whisked away out of the torn up room by a group of alien police officers. But he supposed it was as he might have expected things to end after the week he had just been through. As he had been taught by the harsh realities of life at a very young age, life never tended to go the way one expected.

Epilogue

Paulie stepped into the clinically neat room slowly. He wasn’t sure if the figure reclining on their side with his back towards him was awake or not. But Paulie had wanted to come see him regardless.

He must have made a noise, for the figure stirred and then shuffled around till they faced his way. Mack’s large grey eyes, normally so expressive and full of vitality, were dim and seemed at once sunken and bulging from their oversized sockets. The man was clearly in great physical pain, but still his nearly flat face broke into a strained smile as he saw Paulie approaching.

“Oh..” He coughed. “It’s you. I thought it was more of those damned doctors. Always poking and prodding at me..” He coughed again and reached for a small container on the side of his bedding. Taking a sip from the cup, he turned back to Paulie and nodded slowly. “They seem to think that I am a miracle. But I have had worse, all I lost was a few inches of intestine this time anyways.”

He seemed to chuckle darkly, his sharp teeth flashing in the light as Paulie stepped close and then reached near to the side of his bed. This was the first time he had chanced upon Mack awake since the shootout days before. It was only the third time he had been allowed to leave his room to see the man.

“I.. I wanted to make sure you were alright, Mack.” Was all Paulie muttered.

He wasn’t really sure what else to say to the man, but it didn’t seem as though much more was needed as the man looked at him and asked, “Were you still looking for work, Paulie?”

Paulie perked up, his eyes tracking back to the detective’s sunken features. “Uh.. yeah. Yes, I am.” He stumbled over his words, nodding his head vigorously.

Mack nodded slightly. “Good, that is good. Because I think a new adjudicator’s aide position just opened up.” He looked at Paulie meaningfully. “That is.. if you are free.”

He opened his mouth, nodding as he was about to answer when another sound made him stop. He only had the time to turn slightly before Jakiikii rushed fully into the room, “Oh! You are awake! And Paulie, I was hoping to see you here!” She seemed to slow down, her excitement fading as she saw the serious looks on their faces. “What is it, what happened?”

Paulie’s face cracked into a smile even as he tried to hold it in. “I just got a job is what happened. Mack said he wants to take me up as an adjudicator’s aide. Not really sure what that is..” He mumbled but she gripped his upper arm with two hands.

“Really?! That’s great! Hey, Mack? I have been dying to know. How did those thugs know where you were? I mean, it was a safehouse wasn’t it? It was supposed to be a secret” She seemed at once concerned and a little pointed in her questioning.

Paulie nodded. He had been wondering the same thing for the last couple of days as well. Mack seemed to pull himself a little more upright and then stopped as he closed his eyes and put on a pained expression. He let out a slight wheeze and lay back into the sheets with a groan, Jakiikii moved closer to his side in concern. The termaxxi woman’s demeanour changed instantly to one of worry as she crouched and reached out to place a delicate hand on the suffering man’s shoulder.

Mack nodded weakly to her and took a breath. “It is my fault, I am pretty sure there was an entrapment program on the data crystal that leaked my location as soon as I accessed it the first time. Before I was able to set up the firewall and decryption programs. Ooounoo could have been tipped off by that.” Even as he said it the man seemed a little unconvinced but Paulie didn’t want to interrogate the man while he was lying in the hospital.

So instead he accepted the explanation for the moment, determining to ask the man more thoroughly when he was discharged with a clean bill of health.

He just folded his arms and nodded. “We will get her, Mack. I promise you.” the detective nodded and Jakiikii’s bright orange eyes flashed in anger as she hissed.

“Yes. We will.”

She stood and rubbed her head as she tucked her eyes close to her elongated skull. After a moment she glanced at Paulie. “So, an adjudicator’s aide. As the local expert in that field I could offer some valuable data in regards to the hiring process. Data that may just help you jump a few lines and make the first impression stick.” She giggled a little for the first time in what seemed like days as she reached out and grabbed one of his hands.

He was powerless to resist as she gave him a tug away from Mack, the detective grinning as he watched her.

“Come on, I will show you how to file your papers. You already set him up in the system with Rozz, right Mack?” The detective nodded to her and Paulie was tugged again.

He gave Mack a pretend pleading look and the man smiled even wider. With a shooing motion he seemed to close his eyes in mild satisfaction and rolled back over again. Paulie relented, allowing the six-armed alien woman to pull him along, her excitement palpable and her enthusiasm infectious.

Paulie might have been a stranger here at first, but he was a stranger no longer. He had friends, a new job and most importantly of all… he had a purpose.

End of Book 1