Serial - Part 11 (OC)

Serial (Part 11 – Calling the Hounds)

The hounds had prey. The moment Jackson and Vigari got back to the Citadel they had requisitioned one of the large ‘war rooms’ and set to work identifying their prey. The woman, Jessica Miles, had been easy. The Live Mind had run facial analysis on the video and identified her before they had even landed. The man, however, was proving to be a little more complicated.

“Maybe he shaved his hair since these were taken?” Vigari suggested. Before the two of them, displayed on the wall sized projection screen, were the sixteen human’s alive that matched their killer’s gender, skin tone and lack of hair. They had assumed that from there it would have been as simple as checking which of the suspects didn’t have an alibi however the Live Mind had seen to the end of that hope. Already it had compiled recent security footage for each of the men. Seven were working at the time of one or both of the murders, another five confirmed to have been among the patrons at a local bar both nights. The last four were either spotted by street cams far away from the murder scenes or confirmed via data pad activities to have been safely at home. They had even had the Live Mind run the man’s skull structure in comparison to the current human population and come up with nothing.

“It’s possible,” Jackson agreed, “We could do a sweep. Ask if anyone got a haircut lately.” As he spoke his eyes were fixed on the far corner of the wall. There was projected a still from the video Jackson had recovered. In it the image of the back of the killer’s head had been enhanced and maximized as far as their software could allow. Enough to see the glossy sheen on the psychos smooth head. There was something in the way the man walked, Jackson thought. Confident and strong, the man moved with intent but there was something else there too. Jackson knew this man, he knew he did. There were only five hundred humans left and he had met with each of them at one point or another and he thought he could almost recognize the man’s gait. But it was more than that. Something about him tickled at the back of Jackson’s mind, something… wrong.

Vigari gestured to the collection of bald men, “It may be smart to bring these guys in anyways. Question them, see if any contradictions arise in their alibis.”

Jackson considered it but shook his head, “No dice. We start mass detaining folks they are bound to get a bit testy.”

“Why?” Vigari asked. “If they are innocent they should be happy to lose a few hours if it leads to a killer.”

“No offense, pal,” Jackson said with a chuckle, “but you clearly don’t get humans.” He turned, pointing to where the image of Jessica Miles was projected on the wall opposite their male suspects. “Best odds are on finding her. She is the only person we know who’s seen this guy’s face.”

Vigari turned in his chair, stubby fingers steeped atop his chest, “How do you propose we do that? We already have an alert out on the Live Mind. She steps foot in front of a single camera in the Consortium and we’ll know. You proposing we root down till then?”

Jackson considered that for a moment before an idea came to him. “Not quiet,” he tapped a few icons on his data pad and in response the wall cleared, the images of the suspects replaced with an aerial view of the Zerha district. Then, two red dots appeared. “Here is where the first two bodies were found,” he explained, “and here is the path we can confirm our second victim’s shuttle took after the abducted Miss Walash from the Grulon district.” He tapped on his pad again and a black line began to carve its way from the northeast corner of the map towards the second red dot, set in the middle of Agri-zone 2. “Now, they disabled the shuttle’s transponder once they got to the murder site, right? Like they were leading us there, right?”

“That’s right,” Vigari said, small black eyes flicking over the map.

“And it wasn’t spotted after?”

“No,” he replied, “I would have told you…” He paused. Vigari stared at the map for a long moment then looked back to Jackson, suddenly grabbing his own pad and taking control of the wall screen. He zoomed the map out to display the districts directly surrounding Zerha. “Kilik, Doma, Rajack…”

Jackson’s grin became wolfish as he came to the same conclusion that was now dawning on Vigari’s face, “Every district surrounding Zerha is populated. Pretty densely too. Renjaw embassy and military in Kilik, Consortium ship yards in Rajack. So if nobody has seen the shuttle since last night then…”

“Then the damn thing still hasn’t left Zerha. Had it and one of the cameras would have seen it. Zerha is the only place on the planet you hide something that big and manage to keep it secret. Half of it is…” Vigari said and although there was shock on his face there was a smile on his voice.

“Ruins,” Jackson said. “Now, if I was a betting man I would say that someone noticed a Consortium branded shuttle landing somewhere it shouldn’t be. I say we hit the bars and put a few folks to the question.”

Vigari stood and clasped a heavy hand on Jackson’s shoulder, “Good work, kid. Let’s move.”

Jackson grinned, a powerful thrill lifting up in his chest. This feeling was why he became an Inquisitor. The trail was clear, the blood fresh and now it was a time to hunt. He stood and grabbed his coat off the table. “Don’t have to tell me twi-“

The door to the war room slammed open with enough force to spend webs of static across the wall screen. Jackson and Vigari both dropped their hands to their Hounds on reflex. It was a Kelesh dressed in a travel worn Inquisitor coat and a look of desperate panic. Behind him other Inquisitors could be seen, each of them running towards somewhere deeper inside the Citadel.

“Whats going on!?” Vigari shouted.

“Some kind of disaster with the Quoth. Everyone to the Com-center!” The Kelesh was gone before they could get in a word. Jackson and Vigari exchanged a glance and ran after him, scooping up their coats as they went.

The Com-center was the central intelligence hub for Inquisitorial operations across Consortium space. A massive Octagon it’s red stone walls were covered with hundreds of view screens and access terminals, each displaying data and analytics from thousands of worlds which then fed down into the Live Mind, eight hundred feet below.

The chamber was packed by the time Jackson and Vigari arrived, two thousand Inquisitors mumbling together in a dull roar. Half of them were out of uniform, Jackson noted, a few almost naked, having run here straight from their dorm cells. Each of them had the same look on their face, eyes wide in a toxic stew of panic, fear and confusion. When the voice of High Inquisitor Tekal came reverberating through the chamber, a nearby Norviegi let out a sharp scream.

“Be silent,” Tekal instructed. Far above their heads Tekal’s face appeared, projected on the largest of the Comm-Center’s screens. The crowd held its breath as he began, “What you are about to hear has not hit the public feeds, yet. Three hours ago a distress call was received from the Consortium’s seventeenth fleet, engaged with the Quoth host in the Dissala system. Upon engagement with the enemy an act of sabotage rendered the seventeenth fleet’s tact-com inoperable. Rescue ships were detached immediately; however preliminary reports indicate that the seventeenth fleet is lost with all hands.”

A gasp reverberated through the chamber but nobody stirred or cried out, not yet. That would come later. “The Live Mind has run an analysis of the data feeds from the Fearless and it has concluded that the tact-com was hijacked via unknown methods from a remote source originating from the Murdal System.” The image of Tekal vanished, replaced with projections of the Murdal system. Six were colony worlds, Jackson knew, the other three gas giants. The Murdal system was an outlier on the edge of Consortium space, seized to put an end to the pirate fleets that had once operated out of a star port near Murdal Three. The Consortium had hoped that would be the end of it but fractions of the once vast pirate operation had survived in the shadows, which was exactly why, out of the thousands of planets that made up Consortium space, almost 7% of Inquisitorial investigations took place within the Murdal system. During training the recruits had had a name for it. Murderer’s Bay.

Tekal’s face came back on screen; his tone softened, “I don’t think I have to tell you all what a unprecedented tragedy this is for every member of the Consortium. Not in over a thousand standard cycles have we seen loss of life on this scale. I also know many of you will have family and friends who are among the dead. I invite you to take your time to grieve but must urge you to be quick about it. The Consortium high council has decreed that our noble brotherhood will spearhead the investigation into the source of this signal. On your data pads you will be receiving transportation orders. Inquisitors currently assigned to high priority case work will be allowed to continue as normal and a token force will remain on Keleshia to maintain order. However, the great majority of you are to be reassigned to the Murdal system until the perpetrators of their heinous act are caught and brought to justice. May your eyes see the wicked and scourge them where they stand.” On cue Tekal vanished and the chamber filled with the soft electronic pings as two thousand data-pads received their orders. Everyone stood in shocked silence for a long moment until a Lenti broke it.

Jackson didn’t know the man but he wore the red coat. He watched as the Lenti stumbled forward into the middle of the chamber and turn, gawking at his brothers and sisters with eyes which swirled in fleck of violet and gold. Then there came a noise, like the hiss of oxygen which turned into a low whine. The Lenti moved his lips as if to speak only to sway and collapse, the whine turning into a wail which seemed to echo into eternity off the high stone ceiling. What happened next seemed to Jackson like a dream. People crying or desperately tapping their pads, trying to contact loved ones they knew were dead. For every mourner twenty others got to work, shouting orders and running off to grab their things. The cacophony was overwhelming and Jackson felt suddenly frozen by it. Of course he hadn’t lost anyone but those cries, he thought, those cries were familiar. The same ones echoed throughout the Hermes and onward into his nightmares. It wasn’t until Vigari tugged on Jackson’s arm that he realized Vigari had been calling his name.

“You alright, kid?” he asked.

“No, you?” Jackson asked.

Vigari shook his head, “No… Stay on point. Orders?”

Jackson fumbled for his own data-pad, his own fingers suddenly feeling wet and cold. He opened his inbox and found a single new message. He read, then read again.

“I’m not going,” he said, a queer numb feeling spreading through his chest.

“What!?” Vigari asked, snatching the data-pad from Jackson and reading over the short, terse message. Then he tossed it to the ground, letting out what sounded like curse words in a tongue Jackson didn’t understand. “Six hundred thousand people dead, you would think they would… Of all the stupid, dumb as…” he took a deep breath, then looked at Jackson, “I’m sorry, kid.”

The message, short as it was, ordered Jackson onto reserve duty. He was to leave the Citadel and return to his private residence until such a time that his supervising officer returned from emergency assignment. All currently ongoing investigations were to be temporarily suspended. Jackson looked back out. Two Inquisitors were helping the Lenti to his feet, the man’s eyes now vacant of their earlier delirium. Most likely, that Lenti would soon be on a ship bound for Murdal. Weak and broken as he was. “It’s alright,” Jackson said blankly, “Guess they don’t want unregistered asshole like me running around and fucking it up for them.”

“It’s not like that-“

“Don’t fucking tell me how it is!” Jackson shouted, drawing glances from the few people still inside the Comm-Center. A sudden rage was filling him. People were dead, worse, people were left behind who cared. Brothers, sons, mothers, a whole ocean of people and he was being told to sit on his ass and do nothing? Even if he couldn’t fix this there was also a killer on the loose, one who was smart enough to skirt the edges of the most advanced information network in the galaxy. “I took the goddamn tests. I swore the fucking oath, so why the hell am I being left here!?”

“You’re still under my supervision,” Vigari said, trying to sooth him, “It’s policy to-“

“Bullshit,” he spat. “They could send me with you. They could let me continue our work here but no. Can’t have the human out there fucking up their image while the nanny’s away can they!?” He knew he was out of line. Hell he was out of his mind. This was Vigari. The guy who went to bat for him, the guy who gave him the chance nobody else wanted to, but at that moment none of that seemed to matter. He was a hound and there was a hunt to be had and some deep part of him wanted it, needed it. He continued, unsure of where the words were coming from, “Admit it, Vigari, the only reason they let me wear the coat was so it would look good when we caught our killer. Humans taking care of their own, a real fucking heart warmer.”

He pushed past the smaller Em, nearly knocking him over as he went. Jackson’s stomach was in knots, his fists clenched so tight his nails began to cut into his palm. For a moment he wanted to go back, to apologize, and to let Vigari know that he understood why it was like this. He wanted to be the human Miller wanted him to be, forgiving and forward thinking. Then he thought about the Theolisian Jal, cut to pieces in a stone basement, and the Kelesh named Walash who had likely died screaming as she watched her own entrails being pulled from her belly by the fist-full. He thought about eight hundred thousand men and women, dead of a crime he was ordered to do nothing about. This was not the time for peace. Peace wouldn’t bring those people back. The hunting horns had already sounded, and the hound would get his hunt.

---

‘It’s not unusual, to be loved by anyone’ the voice of the long dead human rang in a twisted and discordant humana, ‘It’s not unusual to have fun with anyone.’

Despite Decaz’s best efforts to block it out, Gus and his ‘music’ had been a constant annoyance during the past few days. The decrepit human had found a great cache of music files from the human home world and had made it a point to ‘educate’ Decaz on the finer points of what he called ‘Lovin’ Music’. So far, he was less than impressed. Leaving aside the fact that he didn’t understand a single word of the lyrics, human music seemed to largely consist of the quasi-rhythmic abuse of their instruments. The loud crash of the ‘drums’ and dying animal screeches of their ‘guitars’ and ‘horns’ produced such a slurry of chaos that the Lenti often found himself delirious from the racket.

It did, however, distract him from the work at hand and the quiet anxiety he had had about this ghost ship since he first laid eyes on it. They had been at work on the Hermes for the better part of the week, starting at the bridge and working their way towards the rear compartments. They had drained the coolant and fuel lines, removed emergency shape charges and toxic waste. They had even cut a sixty meter hole in the hull through which they had winched out the reactor, still warm to the touch after two years of inactivity. Now they were on clean up duty. Every square inch of the wreck was to be scrubbed, rusted panels replaced and any missing components reconstructed with inert equivalents. It was a laborious and, as Decaz often complained, dull task.

“See,” Gus explained, clipboard tucked under his arm, “This song wasn’t written by Tom Jones. It was written by Les Reed and a fella named Gordon Mills. When they first wrote it they offered it to Sandie Shaw, who was a damn big deal in her time but she turned it down. At the time Jones was just starting out so they had him record a demo of the song so they could try to sell it to other artists, but there goes Tom Jones. Sang the damn thing so well, Sandie Shaw herself said the song should be his and the rest is history. This was his first big hit.” As he spoke the old man gestured feverishly, speaking as much with his hands as with his mouth. In him Decaz saw less and less of the ancient ruin of a man he had known. It was as if the music somehow revived him or, Decaz thought, maybe that was just being on the ship that did that. It was made for humans, after all, a fact which Decaz was reminded of every time he cracked his tall head on a door frame or ran his fingers over a control panel, it’s buttons built for shorter, thicker fingers than his.

“That’s really something,” Decaz replied absently, himself lugging a metal grinder. They had just started to work their way into one of the larger cargo holds when they realized half of the wall panels were deep with rust. Their bolts would need to be ground out before new ones could be installed.

“It is,” Gus confirmed with no air of sarcasm, “Of course, in the grand scheme of things Jones was still just a flash in the pan. Most these days never even heard of him, if you can believe it. These kids grew up with John Gordon or Levi Hartswood and all that other electronic crap earth pumped out those last few generations.”

“The Lenti make music with our ships,” Decaz provided, more out of an obligation to sustain the conversation than a desire to share. As much as he loved Lenti ships, they were a sore spot for Decaz. Of his sixteen brothers he was one of only three who had failed to gain admission to the Royal Academy of Ship-Wrights. “If the ship if calibrated correctly, each system acts as an instrument in a larger composition. A skilled captain doesn’t need diagnostics to know what’s wrong with his ship, he just has to listen to its song.” And this ship, he added silently, was dead.

“Her,” Gus corrected, a grandfatherly twinkle in his eye. “Ships are always women. Explains why they hurt you so often.”

While Decaz couldn’t begin to guess at what that meant, mention of the ship sent a small shiver up his spine. Despite the intensely bright lights they had rigged up all along the interior of the Hermes there was still something off about it. Maybe it was the rust or the dark stains in the sleeping pods that might have been food. Or maybe it was something else. A feeling he couldn’t quite quantify, like he was being watched. As if, somehow, the ship knew he was here and wanted him gone.

They paused long enough for the two of them to force open the rusted doorway to Cargo Hold C. The room beyond, while lit from the hall outside, was gloomy. Patches of rust stretched in thin lines from the floor to the ceiling, like the corrupted veins of a long dead giant. The few crates that remained on the floor were broken and empty, their contents likely used up long before humanity had even entered Consortium space. Towards the back of the room three more doorways stood open, the storage compartments beyond cloaked in shadows.

Gus entered first, his clipboard sliding out from beneath his arm as he began to note which wall panels would need to be replaced to make the ship show worthy. Decaz followed, stepping gingerly, his eyes fixed on the shadowy corners. It was then that he became aware of an odd, sour odor in the air. “You smell that?” he asked.

“What?” Gus asked but then he seemed to smell it too, his brow furrowing as he inhaled sharply through his nose. “Shit,” he muttered, “Give me your light.”

Fumbling at his belt Decaz detached his torch and passed it to Gus. The aged human flicked the light on and began to point it around the room, illuminating each shadow in turn.

“What is it?” Decaz asked, a growing pit in his stomach, “Is it poison?”

“No,” Gus said, the color draining from his face. “I know that smell.” Gus moved towards the back of the room and Decaz followed. The smell was stronger here, clogging his head and making his stomach broil. Poison, he thought. Some coolant line had snapped and they were breathing in poison. They had to go, had to run. He turned to Gus to say so but found the human frozen. The light was held in the old man’s outstretched hand, his breath coming in shallow, panicked gasps.

Decaz followed Gus’s gaze and saw the light was now shining into one of the rear storage compartments, no more than ten feet away. Inside, someone stared back at them. Decaz let out a scream and stumbled, tripping over his own feet and falling to the floor. The human man was tall, his scalp bald and reflecting the light. His arms laid flat at his sides, naked chest and flesh spotted with bruises wrought in purple and rotted black. Decaz lifted his eyes to meet the strangers gaze. His eyes were missing, black sockets leering at them above a twisted alien grin. As if hearing him the rotting man seemed to lurch forward, falling flat to the ground and leaving a swath of skin adhered to the wall behind him.

“Mother of god,” Gus whispered. Then he turned to Decaz and began to say something but the words were muted. Decaz stood, the world swimming in front of his eyes and then he was running.

His footfalls made hard smacks on the deck plates. The steel in the walls groaned and Gus’s shouts were echoing out only to return as twisted, chiding sounds. The dark, it seemed to Decaz, was alive and the Hermes was finally playing its song.

---

Link to Part 12 - The Prey

Link to Part 10 - Frontier

Thanks for reading!