From HT
Chapter 29 – Assassin
City of Eden, Ulysses’ Aircar
The sleek form of the sporty black aircar cut through on course between the stacked levels of local traffic. The cloud deck was a fiery crimson turning towards purple bubbled plain below him. The near countless windows of the downtown core’s towers cast their glow to reflect off of the suspended water droplets that wreathed them. They cast long shadows as their forms interrupted the nearly set sun’s final rays.
Ulysses was lounging in his copilot’s seat, his eyes staring out the aircar’s bubble canopy, seemingly entranced by the near perfect grid lines of fellow aircars that passed above and below his own. For once in what seemed like a very long time, he was at peace. He relished it, for he knew it would only last a short time. He even was able to ignore the assault shuttle that had slipped silently in behind his aircar, trailing it at a discreet distance. Being the current leader of the sector, and with the assassin of the previous ones still at large despite a system wide dragnet, certain precautions had to be taken to protect him. Both aircraft were going considerably slower than their max speed, not even edging the sound barrier, in order to comply with Eden airspace safety and control guidelines. It would still be a few minutes flight time to the Spaceport because of this.
Ulysses wished that he didn’t have such a near unbearable weight to return to. Even with his solid cadre of loyal officers, it was a very heavy responsibility he had assumed when he took the reins of power into his hands. As much as he was concerned over any new senior officers Starfleet assigned to the sector, part of him was almost glad that the crushing responsibility of safeguarding billions of lives would no longer be his alone.
Suddenly, he felt a spike of wrongness in his head. It wasn’t exactly unpleasant as much as it was unexpected and alien, yet almost at once was familiar. In his minds eye, the little girl from his dream appeared. Her piercing blue eyes were concerned, and she parted her blue hued lips to speak with a distinct British accent.
“You are in danger, you are not safe.”
Then the presence in his mind was gone, as if turned off like a light switch. Ulysses blinked, shaking his head a few times as if to help clear it. In its wake, a feeling of crushing dread washed over him. It was much the same feeling he had had when the Section 31 ship had tried to turn 2nd Fleet into part of a new planetoid. It was telling him to alter course immediately.
City of Eden, Police HQ, that same time
“Captain?” A young sensor tech asked.
“What is it Horrowitz?” The department’s shift CO growled gravely. Appropriately named Quentin Justice, he was a man of 42, balding gray hair, and carrying a slight paunch around his middle. He wore the near black navy-blue uniform of Prescott’s Star’s System Police Force. He had been a law officer on Altair before he had joined the first wave of colonists to Prescott’s Star. He had remained in law enforcement here, and was now a well respected individual in the local community, known for enforcing equality under the law for all citizens.
“Just got a blip from security monitor Tango Charlie Four Nine. Unauthorized power source on the roof of Tower 602.”
“Do we have a drone to poll for data in the area?”
“Yes sir, I have already dispatched a Sierra Roy Six covert recon drone to give a look see. Should be onsite in about 50 seconds.”
Quentin nodded. “Good job Horrowitz.” The young officer beamed at the praise.
It had been a relatively uneventful day, as if even the cities criminal element was unwilling to spoil The Skipper’s visit. It was still an uneventful day, likely the unknown power source was merely a service team suffering from a fowl up of authorization. Just the same, the Book said all such occurrences had to be looked in to. And for good reason, for a rooftop with a heavy weapon was prime terrorist real-estate. The damage one could do to the air traffic, or even nearby towers if he had sufficient firepower would be considerable.
City of Eden, Roof of Tower 602, that same time
The final piece of his weapon slotted together and locked in with a satisfying click. The heavy Hyper Velocity Missile launcher unit completed its self tests and lit the appropriate telltale lights along its base. It indicated that all four of its missiles were ready for launch. Taking a stroll to the opposite side of the rooftop, Operative 11J slipped the control VR glasses over his eyes. His hands plugged a datalink cable into the PADD he carried, allowing the data from the City Traffic Control computer hack he had emplaced to be shown in his VR glasses. They showed the normal rush hour, ray pattern grid, the traffic coming and going with precise precision and razor straight lines. All save one small, unobtrusive black aircar with a considerably more noticeable, predatory form trailing behind it on an identical course. They had a special lane all to themselves, and priority clearance through Eden airspace to the adjacent Spaceport. That was his quarry. Had to be.
Lining up the targeting crosshairs over his prey with his VR glasses, Operative 11J smiled lightly as the HVM launcher on the opposite corner mimicking his head’s movements. Initial aim point was critical when the range was as short as this, for the speed of HVM’s meant that they had very little time for in-flight course correction beyond relatively minor adjustments. Satisfied that he had an adequate lock on both targets, Operative 11J pressed the launch commit button on the HVM unit’s stick style controller and waited half a heartbeat. The unit received the launch commit command, and popped open the guard doors on the front of its quad launch cells. The unit didn’t need to use its onboard sensor suite to get guidance instructions, for Eden’s own ATC computer was giving it all the data it needed.
Their warheads consisted of nothing outside of the missiles themselves, little more than javelins of extremely dense battlesteel. These were not the smaller, man-portable versions, these were the heavy ones, as big around as your arm. An unassisted man could barely raise them from rest in standard G, but Operative 11J’s adaptive muscles merely shifted to a form that
could lift them in Lilith’s slightly stronger than Terra standard gravity. Faster than an eyeblink, the four heavy HVM’s ripple fired from their launch cells and their impulse engines slamming them to velocities upwards of 95 PSL.
City of Eden, Ulysses’ Aircar, that same time
“Descend… Now!” Ulysses ordered. His tone demanded instant compliance.
Lieutenant Theisman hesitated for the briefest instant, but word had percolated throughout Prescott’s Star’s Starfleet ranks that when The Skipper gave one strange orders, it was best to obey them. It had saved quite a few lives in the past, and as such merely added to The Skipper growing larger than life mythos. Almost before conscious thought, he had shoved the side stick controller as far ahead as he could while simultaneously slamming the throttle stick to its forward detent. Autopilot automatically disengaged, and near instantly a giant hand forced Ulysses deeper into his seat as the peppy aircar snapped to respond to the pilot control inputs.
City of Eden, Police HQ, that same time
The spherical, golf ball sized SR–6 RD was finally coming into range of Tower 602. Its sensors sent a real-time data feed back to Police HQ, dumping it to Trooper Horrowitz’s terminal. He looked over it, with Captain Justice looking over his shoulder. Quentin’s eyes bulged in dawning horror.
“Jesus Cr…” Horrowitz managed to squeak before quad trails of dazzling incandescence snapped into being from the business end of what could only be a heavy HVM rack. At virtually the same instant as they appeared, they were virtually drowned out by the day bright flash from somewhere to the camera’s left. It light up the twilight like a temporary second sun. Then the signal went haywire as the tiny RD went tumbling to the right, out of control.
City of Eden, Roof of Tower 602, that same time
11J’s first two missiles tracked perfectly, striking the aircar’s escort squarely on it’s pilot compartment and AM stores. While both were heavily armored, they couldn’t withstand a Heavy HVM strike on their own. And since the assault shuttle wasn’t in a combat situation, they had their shields down. Just the same, the Empire made their assault shuttles tough. Her entire front end disappeared into a boil of harsh light with the first HVM strike. A split second later the rest of the ship was gutted as her AM storage pod was breached. Out of the brilliant glare and shockwave of the detonation, the shattered remains of the assault shuttle tumbled down towards the distant ground.
The second two HVM’s also tracked well, but for some inexplicable reason, the aircar had begun a steep dive. They struck further back from their intended aim points, ripping the aft half of the aircar free in an eye tearing boil of light and sending the relatively intact front spiraling away. This was good, for his primary target was likely dead thanks to the rear passenger compartment’s virtual disintegration.
The explosion of the assault shuttles AM stores created a temporary second sun for the city of Eden. Those unfortunate to be looking near directly at the blast were blinded. The aircar traffic in the general vicinity was scattered like lake water from a thrown stone. Some of the less lucky ones careened into buildings.11J was fortunate he knew the blast was coming. His from reverted from its rock like state to his natural gelatinous, amber form. It reformed into the smooth featured humanoid shape his kind favored when not liquid. 11J walked over to the edge of Tower 602, continuing to watch his target spin towards terra firma. The light cloud deck had been boiled away from the local area by the energies liberated by the assault shuttle’s destruction, allowing him an unobstructed view.
City of Eden, Police HQ, that same time
Quentin Justice began to bellow orders even as the general alarm began to wail upon sensing weapons fire and explosions.
“Dispatch EMS, Fire Department and SWAT teams to Sector 21 on the double! Tell em to watch themselves, there’s a Heavy HVM site on Tower 602.”
“Captain, Sierra Tango One and Sierra Tango Two are both going down according to ATC! Casualties are currently unknown but believed to be 100%!” Another dispatcher shouted from across the room.
“Bloody hell!”
“When the assault shuttle’s AM stores went, there was a MT level explosion Captain. Reports are coming in from across the city of flash blinding cases and severe radiation contamination. Also, the blast front forced some local aircar traffic down. Confirmed casualties so far are five dead, with at least 23 injured.” A different dispatcher said grimly from a few desks away. “Atmosphere regulation installations are removing most of the airborne radiation as we speak, but cleanup is still gonna be a pain.”
“Double check that all personnel going into Sector 21 have anti-rad vaccines beforehand. And make sure they’re in HASMAT gear and get deconed afterward.” The nanites of the anti-rad vaccines would continually purge the harmful radiation and repair the damage it caused to living tissue. The bad thing is that they had a limited endurance, meaning that they had to be replenished after a time. The SWAT teams would be adequately protected in their unpowered assault armor, as would the Firemen and women with their power assist suits, but the EMS personnel would be quite vulnerable.
At least it was a small blast, and the towers weren’t affected through their defenses either, thank God!, Quentin thought.
“You tell SWAT that I want that bastard, if he’s still alive, to be taken out with extreme prejudice!” As per His Imperial Majesties General Edict 12, Section B, all those suspected of being involved in assassination of political or military leadership of the Empire can be summarily executed. While for most cases, Quentin Justice’s personal leanings were that they should at least have a fair trial, he was more than willing to exercise the full extent of the law in this particular case.
City of Eden, Ulysses’ Aircar, that same time
It was as if someone had turned on an impossibly bright light behind them. There was a loud pop-bang combined with the sounds of tearing alloy as an intense surge kicked the back of Ulysses chair. The aircar was already starting to dive into the cloudbank when it was as if a giant fist took the small aircraft and shook it like a dog sheds water. Then the aircar was in an uncontrolled descent, punching through the vanishing cloud deck in a flat spin combined with a slight tumble. The G forces forced Ulysses’ head around and down, allowing him to see past the back of his chair. He frowned for an instant, for something was wrong with the view. Then he realized that he was seeing far more out the back of the aircar than he was supposed to. Ulysses addled mind took a few seconds to register that the entire back half of the aircar was gone. The only thing that had saved his life up to this point was that he was on the right side of the internal armored divider of the small aircar. The entire aft half had been blotted out of existence.
All flight controls were unresponsive, save for the small forward airflow control surfaces operating on redundant backup. But with the main wings ripped away, the small front canards proved inadequate to maneuver out of the violent death spiral the remains of the air car was locked in. Ulysses caught a fleeting glimpse of the onrushing ground before the G-forces caused the world to go black.
.... 
He, he, he. 
