The Core of Unity was in complete chaos when Rachel arrived. Armored shuttles were hovering overhead, officers were rushing to establish a barrier between the CSP and the surging mob of concerned citizens. Hastily assembled news teams were harassing the poor officers trying to maintain the barrier.

Things were so tense that the moment the public saw a human approaching there was almost a stampede as they rushed to get away from Rachel. The officers manning the barrier drew their guns as Rachel approached, and didn’t lower their aim even when Rachel showed them her badge.

Rachel was used to getting this sort of treatment, her whole life she had experienced the justified fear and anger people felt when they saw a human. It was hard to find someone on Unity who hadn’t been affected by the violent tendencies of Deathworlders, especially after the Terran riots. Not only had she grown numb to the treatment, but she even sympathized. She knew exactly how it felt to be overpowered by someone much, much stronger than you. No matter how hard you tried to resist it was pointless, and even when you gave up fighting an enraged Deathworlder might not stop their assault.

But today, for the first time since she was very young, Rachel felt annoyed. No, not just annoyed. She felt angry.

Whenever she wasn’t wearing her cloak Rachel always tamped down on her anger, always carful to never let her emotions show. But right now any control was beyond her.

She wasn’t just some deathworlder, she was an officer just like them. She went through the same training program, dealt with the same bullshit laws and regulations, and worked towards the same goal of protecting her home. She could understand them reacting that way to just any human, but after she had shown her badge they should have stepped aside.

More than that, she was apart of the special task force division. She outranked these jumpy beat cops.

She glared at the closest beat cop. A Cék’ek with ashy plumage and a prominent orange mohawk. Despite seeing Rachel’s badge the avian still held her gun up on Rachel.

Rachel felt her feet move before her mind had made the conscious decision to approach. Most species were taller than humans, but even amongst humans Rachel was pretty short. The Cék’ek was holding her gun at chest level, but due to Rachel’s… compact stature the gun was level with her head.

She glared up the weapon’s barrel and towards the looming avian above her. “I am officer Heart of the ADCU, stand down.” Rachel heard herself growl, much like how she would act as the Arbiter.

She hadn’t had time to change on her way, so she couldn’t use her Arbiter persona here. But hearing ADCU should have been enough to get the birdbrain to stand down.

She didn’t. “I don’t care. I wouldn’t care if you were the dammed Chief. There’s no way I’m letting a dirty Hellworlder past this barrier after what your kin did to us.”

Rachels eyes flared. She hated that stupid name, Hellworlder. As if being a deathworlder wasn’t good enough they had to create a worst name to describe her people.

Rachel didn’t give her the pleasure of sinking to her level. “Stand, down. That’s an order.” She commanded, biting off each word in a firm tone.

The Cék’ek flicked the safety off.

Rachel kept the brief flutter of fear off her face.

It was strange how she could stare down the barrel of a gun without showing any fear, but Astarte’s words only hours before had her legs quacking in terror. Maybe she was more ready to die than face whatever laid beneath the pirates words.

She mentally shook her head and forced that thought out of her mind.

Their stand off drew on. Neither backing down. The Cék’ek was waiting for Rachel to give her an excuse to pull the trigger, while Rachel was waiting for the bird to blink. She was very confident that in that brief moment she could disarm the bird, so long as she didn’t care about breaking bones.

A black gloved paw on the Cék’ek’s shoulder jerked the bird away from Rachel. Heretic, her fellow ADCU officer, had noticed the altercation and had intervened on her behalf.

His dark cloaked figure was also shorter than the bird, but the weight of his presence loomed over the bird. “What do you think you’re doing?” Heretic growled, his voice filter giving him a distinctively predatory sound to his voice.

“I am restraining this Hellworlder” the Cék’ek shot back, not the least bit cowed by Heretic’s presence.

Rachel saw Heretic’s paw clench and the Cék’ek dropped to one backwards bending knee. “You’re out of line.” Heretic growled. He kept squeezing, but was obviously careful not to break the bird’s weaker than average bones. “This assassin attacked the ADCU, and you’re trying to restrain one of our officers? One might think you were working with the killer?” he mused grimly.

Despite the pain she must have been feeling the Cék’ek didn’t back down. “If anyone is working with the killer it would be the Hellworlder. Isn’t it a little too convenient that the killer attacked your department when she just happened to be away from the core. She even has the same skin color as the assassin.” The beat cop spat.

Heretic cocked his head to the side. “I see. You’re an idiot.” He grumbled softly as he pushed the Cék’ek to the ground. “You are not worth my time, don’t let me see you pointing a weapon at one of our comrades again.”

“That thing is no comrade of mine.” The bird spat from the ground, but otherwise she didn’t make any more hostile moves.

Heretic lifted the tape and Rachel walked under it, not sparing the bird a second glance. Heretic fell in beside her and matched her pace with ease. As they walked Rachel felt her anger loosen and a tension she hadn’t been aware of left her shoulders.

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“I’ll report her actions to Judge” Heretic said, as Rachel was wondering how bad things were for that officer to be so aggressive.

Rachel glanced to her fellow officer. “Good.” She grunted out.

Heretic turned his head to Rachel, confusion evident in his body language.

“What?” Rachel snapped. She immediately felt bad for snapping at him, but Heretic showed no signs of being offended. Though it was a little hard to see through the cloak.

“You’re not going to fight me on this?” Heretic asked.

“Why would I, she was out of line?”

“Yes, she was. But the last time an officer was out of line like that you said to leave it.”

Rachel didn’t remember what he was talking about “When was this?”

“When those two jackasses cuffed you after your run in with the Reaper Mantis. You were unconscious with a broken arm and you told me to let them off with a warning. You said it was the proper response they should have towards a deathworlder.”

Now she remembered. Heretic had visited when she was recovering and promised to deal with those jumpy morons. At the time she didn’t care that those officers had exacerbated their wounds, but now Rachel felt angry at the memory.

What had changed between now and then?

Something else caught her attention. “Reaper Mantis?”

Heretic faced forwards “Your assassin paid us a visit.”

“I heard”

Heretic glanced at Rachel before facing forward. “We were able to recover the video and audio recordings. The assassin was monologuing as she killed Blik, she announced herself as the Reaper Manitis. Judge ordered us to use that name instead of her actual name. Try to keep the media from getting sensitive details.”

Shit, Blik was dead. He was one of the few CSI who didn’t feel uncomfortable around them. Rachel put the thought to the side and focused on the here and now. “So now our assassin gets what she wants.”

“Pardon?” He asked.

“Zera is unstable, violent, and sadistic. But she’s not stupid. If she didn’t want us to hear her then she would have sabotaged the feed. Her ego took a hit when she was bested by Astarte, so she fed us a name to use and attacked in a way that was impossible to hide from the media.”

“That can’t be true.”

“Its pretty typical serial killer behavior in humans. BTK, the Zodiac killer, Bundy. They liked killing, and they wanted the whole world to know.” Two of which had played the local Terran cops for seemingly no reason other than the thrill factor. Now that Zera’s secret was out she was likely to become much more active.

“I see” Heretic muttered as they entered the confines of the proper ADCU cordon. Once they were only surrounded by their fellow officers Heretic threw back his cowl, and the onyx furred Beric gave her a toothy canine grin “Good thing Judge decided to switch the word order.”

Rachel blinked “So she actually called herself the Mantis Reaper?”

Her Balikstro college frowned “Yeah, the Mantis Reaper. It fits with all the bug themed gear.”

“Did she get a new mask?”

“Looks like it.”

“Do you think she keeps spares, or is this one fresh off the printer?”

“I’d guess it’s a spare. She would have to bathe her gear in some sort of radiation chamber to proper wipe away traces of her other crimes. If her limbs are all artificial that should be easy to accomplish, but her head would be harder to sterilize.”

“Could we track via that equipment?” Rachel asked, throwing ideas out to try and find a lead.

Beric shook his head “That kind of sterilization chamber isn’t consumer grade, but it is common enough in many industries. A supped-up UV booth could even do the trick if you replaced the tubes often enough.”

“So that’s out” Rachel frowned. This was unfair, the ADCU had her name, her face, her DNA on record, and her history. And yet they were no closer to catching her. All they had done was give the psycho less reasons to be covert.

Would Astarte have any ideas for finding Zera?

Rachel shook her head at the idea. Astarte was a space pirate, and killer, and the reason Zera had attacked her in her own home. She should be the last person Rachel wanted help from.

They walked into the scene of the slaughter, and Rachel’s analytical mind began to mark down all the little details. The first thing she noted was that all the blood spatters seemed to come from attacks made with a right arm, the assassin’s remaining arm.

The second thing she noticed was that the splatter pattern was the same as the assassin’s other slaughter.

The third thing, and Rachel was ashamed that this was the last thing she noticed, was that Zera had taken her time killing the crime lab analysts. The bodies were covered, but Rachel could tell from the odd pools of blood here and there that the assassin had slowly lopped her victims apart as they tried to flee.

And she had done all of this with only one arm. Rachel was beginning to appreciate the skill Astarte would have needed to match blades with this madwoman.

Judge and Ben’kodic were standing next to what was left of Blik. His body hadn’t been covered yet as recording drones were still creating a 3Dmap of the crime scene. In death his chameleon like skin had become a pale yellow like jaundice with paler translucent bands were his stripes had been. Beyond his species, nothing else was recognizable of what had once been Blik.

Zera had taken her time with him. At least twenty thin cuts lined his corpse, nothing fatal but certainly painful. His arms and legs were at odd angels, and there were several places were his bones stuck out through gruesome cuts. His belly had been split and the contents of his guts were spilled onto the floor, and from a brief nauseating glance Rachel noted that Zera had pulled his entrails out so that they were stretched out across the floor reaching almost three meters from the corpse.

She recalled Beric saying they had video of Zera monologuing to Blik, and Rachel decided she didn’t want to see that video. She was already sure that she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, she didn’t need to make it worse.

Despite all the pain he must have felt, Blik’s expression looked almost peaceful. With the shape of his face making it appear that he had been smiling before he died.

“Sir” she said as she walked up with Beric.

Judge and Ben turned to her.

“And where have you been officer Heart.” Ben rumbled grumpily.

Her superior seemed, testy, to put it lightly. Rachel would be too if she had to deal with this. She glanced towards Judge, and he shook his head slightly.

“I was conducting an… undercover operation.” She said cautiously.

They had yet to clue Ben’kodic in on their schemes involving Astarte. Technically speaking, Rachel was supposed to be at the gym today for conditioning and recovery. But Judge had ordered her to make it up later.

Ben didn’t like her answer and turned his glare on Judge, “And are you still refusing to tell me what undercover work she was doing?”

Judge nodded “My apologies old friend, but this particular case is both sensitive and delicate. We are not ready to involve more people yet. But she did have my approval, and it was a good thing too.”

“Excuse me, but why is it a good thing?” Rachel asked.

Ben turned his head away to better glare at her through one eye. “After she finished up here our assassin made a trip to the high gravity gym, we believe she was looking for you. She… questioned Punisher and Edict about your whereabouts.” He said the last part with a repressed shudder.

Against Rachel’s better judgment she glanced downwards towards Blik as she imagined Zera’s questioning. “How is this possible? That gym is a ten minute walk from here.”

Judge and Ben exchanged a glance. “We are looking into that.” Ben said cryptically.

Why weren’t they telling her? If they had info on her assassin then she should know. Unless they were worried Rachel knowing could jeopardize the investigation. But that made no sense, unless… her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak-

“Whatever you just figured out you should keep to yourself.” Judge snapped.

Rachel closed her mouth, and nodded.

A traitor within the CSP, that was the only explanation. There was no other way for the assassin to move around unseen unless someone was helping her from the inside. Any investigation into this had to be kept secret to prevent a panic, as well as keeping the traitor unaware. Though that would only last so long.

Ben turned to face both her and Beric. “As of this moment all your cases are on hold until this assassin is caught. Heart, I know the Zera was your case, but as of this moment I am taking over. I am not calling your abilities into question, but as of this moment the case is too high profile for you. The media would chew us up and spit us out if they found out that a human was investigating another human.”

Rachel clenched her fists, but nodded her assent. He was right, and more than that this case had spiraled beyond her ability to manage.

Judge caught her eye and he cleared his throat. “Ben, if you can spare her talents I think I can make a better use of miss Heart’s time.”

Ben glanced sidelong at Judge, “Can this secret case of yours not wait? We are dealing with a crisis.”

Judge shook his head, “It cannot. It is time sensitive. Since her case is being taken over I would like to make full use of her time.”

Ben looked displeased, but still nodded. “Fine.”

“Good, then if we are done here I need to face the press.” Judge said in a weary voice, not looking forward to what had to be done next. “Miss Heart, please wait for me in my office so that we can discuss the results of your operation.”

“Yes sir.” Rachel said with a nod before she turned away from the carnage. As she left she made a detour to the nearest lavatory to hurl up the contents of her stomach. She had only just barely been able to tamp it down in the presence of her superiors.