Final Justice By Brad Corletti ------------ The door to the Red Home's refresher slid open quietly. Brad emerged and slipped his mobile phone back into a pocket. He'd changed out of his combat webbing into more casual wear - dark black jeans and a grey shirt. Civilian wear, as he thought of it. He nodded to Fes, who had been waiting. "It's set up. You remember your part?" Fes simply nodded. -- "You wanted to speak to me, sir?" Sci looked up from his datapad. "I'm a bit busy, sorry. What gave you that idea?" The auxiliary looked simultaneously a little relieved, disappointed, and confused. "I was in the cargo bay, checking the inventory. B came in and told me you wanted to talk to me." "Odd." The ship shook. "What the..." Fes' voice came over the ships' intercom. "Don't worry everyone, we've just lost an escape pod. It looks like... it's headed for Israel." Sci stood there for a moment, letting this sink in. "Oh, B, you stupid idiot." His datapad chirped quietly. He glanced at it out of habit. This had better be good. Seeing that it was from B, Sci shooed the auxiliary off and retreated to his cabin. A holoimage appeared. It wobbled slightly, and the background kept coming in and out of focus. It was B, presumably recording the holo on his mobile phone. "Hi Sci. I'm off tying up a loose end. I didn't see much point in involving the rest of the group - they're all tired and need to recuperate. Besides, if I ball this up, I don't want anyone else going down with me. Don't follow me." The holo of Brad looked down at the floor, then back up again. "Don't worry, I'll melt the pod. Brad out." -- Ordinarily, an escape pod is an electromagnetic flare in the darkness. As it travels, it is sending out distress calls across every permissable frequency, to improve its occupant's chances of survival. This escape pod was running silent. Corletti watched the navigation display closely. The last thing he wanted was for an unidentified object to fall on Israel from high orbit with the world watching. That would be... a little tense. The interior of the pod began to grow warm. He was glad the viewport faced aft, back towards his origin. The fore of the pod would currently be engulfed in flame from the atmospheric entry. He resisted the urge to make course adjustments. If anyone had picked up his plunge, he wanted them to think they were seeing space debris, or a small meteorite - anything but a powered craft or missile. Anything. It looked like he was off course. Oh well. If that was the worst thing that happened today, he'd count himself lucky. Still a few minutes from impact. He closed his eyes and leant back against the crash restraints. The waiting was the hard part... Impact wasn't quite the right word for it. When the pod was reaching the ground, it activated repulsorlifts. It touched down safely, then shut itself down. Corletti undid his harness and climbed out of the hatch. He slung a satchel across his back - it contained all the equipment he would be needing for the mission ahead. The light was brilliant, and he knew it would take a few minutes to adjust to the glare. The pod had sunk deeply into a sand dune in the barren desert. He pulled out his phone, and according to its navigational readout, he had landed in the Negev Desert. His eyes, squiting against the brigtness, scanned the horizon. Nothing but sand as far as he could see. "De ja vu," he muttered to himself. "Guess I'd better start walking north." He slung a thermal detonator into the pod, and started on his walk. He'd walk until the slag from the pod was out of sight, then call Donna for a lift. The ground shook when the thermal went off behind him, and smoking pieces of escape pod showered down around him. He turned around, and a thick, smokey plume was beginning to rise from the gouge the pod had dug. It had to be visible for miles. This was going to be a long walk. -- It was night before he risked the call. Patching his phone into an Israeli network, he dialled Donna's number. She picked up almost straight away. "Hi Donna. This is Drake. I need a lift." "Where are you?" After having walked an entire day in the desert heat without human contact, he felt immediately better to hear her voice. "Negev Desert." He rattled off the GPS coordinates. "Christ. It'll take me hours to get there." "I can wait. Thanks." -- She showed up in a military jeep. Brad didn't ask how or where she got it. She didn't look happy to see him. Neither of them said anything until he had climbed into the passenger seat and thrown his satchel into the back of the jeep. Donna broke the silence. "Didn't think I'd see you again." Asshole. Brad's mind finished the sentence for her. "We didn't blow the shield up. It's on the table." "You have it?" Donna glanced over at him, briefly, then towards his satchel, then returned to the road. "Not on me. It's a bit big." "What do you want for it?" "Sorry, I'm only talking to your boss about that. Better give him a call, we need to get a meeting set up." "Where?", she asked, opening the jeep glove compartment and pulling out her phone. Brad stared into her eyes. Then his gaze shifted to her cheek, and the bruise that was still there. This had to be hard for her, but she was still his only contact inside Well's organisation. "Where I wronged you." -- They met in the hotel parking lot. Corletti and Donna arrived first, and waited in the jeep. Wells and two of his men arrived a few minutes later. Wells approached the jeep with a smile. He and his men were dressed in business suits and carrying briefcases. Weapons, no doubt. "Mr 'Defel'! Good to see you again!" Wells seemed much happier than he had the last time he'd run into him. "You'll forgive me if I don't shake your hand." Brad and Donna got out of the jeep, and Donna began walking towards Wells. She stopped, however, when Wells held out a his hand, palm out. "That's close enough, thanks." Wells rested his briefcase on the ground. His men did likewise. "Yes. I assume the offer still stands?" "Of course. Though my superiors aren't keen on the amount of money you've asked for." "Tell them they're dreaming. What I'm asking is a pittance next to the amount of money you'll save on the missile shield research you won't have to fund, alone. Then consider the political capital you'll be able to milk from scrapping the AMS project, and I shouldn't have to point out the amazing technological benefits you'll derive from having a working energy shield to reverse engineer." "Believe me Defel, I've tried. You can't put a price on a golden goose - not if it lays golden eggs." "That's right. I'm not in a position to capitalise on it - they are. They're going to have to pay up." One of Wells' men fell over. Wells looked at the fallen man, an expression of disappointment on his face. "Idiot." Donna started to sway, as well. Brad felt heat flushing his body, and his vision began to constrict. He'd been poisoned. Donna lurched at Wells, clearly angry with him. In her drugged state, she was slow. Wells had ample time to pick up his briefcase and use it to smash her across the face. Corletti roared, and he felt the lightning at war with the toxin in his veins. He ran at Wells. Wells held his briefcase out like a shield, and Corletti drove his fist into it. The briefcase held, but something inside broke - a jet of pressurised air burst from it, and it sailed off into the distance, wrenched from Wells' hands by the sudden force. Gas. He'd been standing there, arguing with Wells while gas choked his lungs. A flash of fear crossed Wells' face. Had he miscalculated? Fatally? More men emerged from the darkened interiors of cars. Corletti heard firearm safeties disengaging. The parking lot was congested, there wasn't much room to move. They were already firing. He ran up the hood of a car, and started jumping from car rooftop to car rooftop. He was slowing down. The toxin was winning. He dropped one of his flashbangs as he ran, but more of Wells' men had cut off the exit he was approaching. Lead filled the air. The flashbang went off, but they didn't stop firing. He couldn't go through the exit - the air there was thick with lead. His only shot was to leap the fence. He turned, put everything he had into it. It wasn't enough. His sense of balance failed him, and he fell sideways. He skidded painfully to a stop, then everything went black. -- He awoke to the sensation of water on his face. Correction. He awoke to the sensation of his face under water. He was hauled to his knees and he blinked, trying to clear his vision. His arms were manacled behind his back. He was in a simple concrete room. A metal bucket full of water was in front of him. Beyond that, was Wells. The man holding him dunked his head in the water again. When he was clear of the water, Brad shouted, "I'm awake!" "Good evening," Wells began. "We were beginning to wonder how long that would take." Brad settled onto his haunches and waited for Wells to continue. Being captured was beginning to feel like a habit. He looked around - one exit. The guard who had dunked him was now pinning his shoulders down. Come to think of it, he couldn't really move his legs much either. Wells wasn't an idiot, he had to give him that. "I want the shield. You're going to tell me where it is right now. I'm tired of playing games with you people." Corletti remained silent. "Fine. You're the hero type. We'll see how long that resolve lasts. Bring her in." Donna was shoved roughly into the room. Like him, her arms were handcuffed behind her back. Unlike him, her legs were free. "You're going to torture Donna until I talk? Is that your plan? Wells, she's one of yours. What the fuck do I care if you torture her? I decked her myself not long ago." Wells laughed. "And she told us all how sorry you were about that. Anyway, she showed me where her loyalty was when she came at me swinging yesterday. So. Where's the damned shield?" "Where you'll never find it, dickwad." "Wrong answer!" Wells had a nightstick, and he struck Donna with it. She stood and took the blow without making a sound. "Where's the shield?" "Your mum has it." Wells demanded the shield. Corletti refused to tell him. Donna was struck. The sick cycle repeated a dozen times, until Wells switched to a knife. "The shield is buried in the desert. I'll take you to it. Just let us go." "When I have the shield, you'll go free." Wells promised. "I'm a man of my word." -- The Libyan desert. Fuck, it's hot. I am spending way too much of my time in the desert. "How much further, Corletti?" Wells was sweating profusely in his suit. "Beyond that rise." Brad tried to point, but his hands were still cuffed. They'd freed his legs but had injected him with something instead, so he felt a strong sense of lethargy that the heat was only making worse. Eventually, they crossed the rise. Below them was a featureless stretch of desert sand, identical to every other patch of desert they'd crossed so far today. "There," Brad said, and pointed to the base of the dune. He sat down heavily, not willing to move another step. Well's grunts went to work immediately, running to the spot indicated and hacking enthusiastically into the sand with shovels. Two guards and Wells himself remained with Brad and Donna. Brad watched critically as they dug further and further. "You sure this is the spot?" Wells asked. Some of his men were completely invisible, the men having dug a good seven or so feet into the sand. Brad just nodded. Wells began to grow frustrated. "Relax, Wells." Brad could tell his patience was wearing thin. "Why should I?" Wells growled. "Because you're being Watched." The look of alarm on Wells' face was almost as welcome a sight as the flash of metal that whistled through the air, right through Wells' SMG. It fell in half and fell onto the sand. An enormous geyser of sand erupted between the grunts in the sandpit and the people on the rise. A strange howl could be heard, and then the [i]Red Home[/i] screamed out of the sky, turbolaser fire sending packets of superheated sand skywards in a circle around the area, trapping Wells' men in the hastily dug pit. From its open cargo bay blaster muzzles spat stunbolts at the now-exposed men. Wells gaped. His two guards primed their weapons and prepared to execute their prisoners. Fes burst from his hiding place in the sand dune and swept the guards' legs out from under them. They fell to the ground, and Fes disabled them with mongoose-fast strikes. The sound of stunbolts died off, and the turbolasers ceased firing. Wells' men in the sandpit had been stunned. Only Wells himself remained standing. He started to run, but Brad picked up one of the guards' weapons and fired. Wells stopped running, and turned. From the front, his suit was a mess of red blood. He mouthed something, then went limp, collapsing into the sand.