Footsteps in the Rain - 21104.01

From Federation Space - Official Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

By Aldren

Prologue.

Newly promoted Midshipman Aldren smiled his thanks to Cadet Tiven as the Vulcan retuned to their table carrying the tray of drinks. Aldren leaned forward, fetching up his glass and raised it to his lips, tasting the cold liquid. Tiven resumed her seat, glancing about her with her own unique birdlike movements. The bar was filling up now. As more personnel finished their duty-time and came for a quick drink with friends. The murmur of conversation getting louder.

Aldren returned his glass to the tabletop, settling back into his chair. He raised his eyes from the drinks to Tiven, who was still looking off towards the door. She had seemed preoccupied all day. Avoiding conversation during the allotted refreshments break earlier. Now looking about the room.

“Are you ok?” He asked, seeing her head swing back to him. She regarded him with that typically deadpan Vulcan gaze. Tilting her head slightly to one side before speaking.

“I could ask you the same?”

He frowned at her response. Brows drawing together slightly.

“What do you mean?”

“I have noticed that today you did not participate in the Security tasking protocol fully.”

She leaned forward slightly, her brown eyes holding his. He regarded her smooth skin, noting the angle of her defined eyebrows, prominent cheekbones. Full lips that never smiled. Wondering not for the first time since they had joined the Academy on the same day what it would be like to kiss her.

“I don’t know what you mean.” He tried.

“Aldren, we have worked together for the past three years. I can tell when something is bothering you.”

She paused and looked down, seeming to contemplate her next response.

“To quote a Human saying, a problem shared is a problem halved.”

He sighed loudly, realising that continued resistance to the attractive Vulcan would be indeed futile. He had hidden his past from so many of the Star Fleet Instructors, almost succeeded in graduating from the Academy without recounting his story that had so defined his life.

“It brought back a painful memory today. Reminded me of a friend of mine and something that happened to us a few years ago.”

Memory.

The rain hit the windshield with a constant drumming. Running in rivulets down the domed surface. The brake light’s of the hovercraft illuminating briefly as it settled against the kerbside. I leaned forward slightly, peering through the peppering rain, ensuring that the craft had indeed stopped fully.

The wipers of our cruiser tried to swipe back the deluge of water. Clearing my vision for a brief moment. I had become accustomed to the almost substandard equipment supplied to us. Virtually every Trooper had. You didn’t join the Angosian Police Force expecting anything else. It ranged from poorly maintained vehicles, right through to your PPE ( personal protective equipment ).

Most Troopers like me bought and maintained our own. The Job as we called the collective of faceless hierarchy, couldn’t or wouldn’t help out. Quoting Government spending cuts, dropping crime rates ( which we all knew was simply Politician-like senior managers adjusting the annual figures to reflect what they wanted ).

Out here, on the streets of Angosia III the crime rate had not fallen. I would say it had in fact risen sharply since the day of the Soldier’s imposed exile. Not that I could remember those dark days, but I knew enough of our history to form that judgement. The so-called Super Soldier’s had doubled as a peacekeeping Police Force during the times of the War. When the war had finished, and the Soldier’s had been sent to the Luna colony, the seedier, rarely talked about underclass of our High Society had started creeping out from under the rocks they had been forced to hide.

With them came the crime. Neighbourhood’s, once quiet pleasant places to live now infested like a cancer with the growing anti-social. Burglaries, robberies, damage. Roaming kids joining the gangs, attempting to eke out an existence by committing acts of assaults, homicide in order progress up the ladder of their gangs leadership.

And of course the drugs. It had started slowly at first, but even during my two years on the Job I had seen the change. CR - 123, or commonly known as Rampage had caught hold of the poorer citizens like wildfire. The drug, ingested through the tear ducts causing people to commit acts of atrocity.

“Well, at least this one stopped.”

Her voice dragged me back to the here and now. Spoken with her usual quiet. I glanced from the windshield to her. Seeing Rutha in profile. Sitting next to me, her delicate features bathed in the glow from the dash readouts. She already had one hand out to the door release, her other flicking the release on her safety harness.

She looked at me, and I could see her blue eyes glittering.

“C’mon, lets get this over with so I can get home.” She added, pulling the sides of her windbreaker tighter about her.

I engaged the idle control on the steering column, hearing and feeling the grumble of the cruiser change down to a gentle rumble. She flashed her grin again, poking me in the side as she popped her door. I suddenly felt the wind and rain lash in through her open doorway, and I smiled at her back as she exited our cruiser.

I popped my own door and climbed out. Feeling now the rain lashing down against us. The warm confines of our cruiser now swapped for the miserable night. I pulled the zipper of my own jacket up, for a moment contemplating whether to delve back into the vehicle for my gloves. But Rutha was already out too now, and she moved forwards toward the hovercraft we had stopped.

I could see her lithe figure as she crossed in front of our vehicle. The red and blue strobes flashing about us. The street was deserted, a rundown area of the industrial part of the city. Buildings, most boarded up and derelict lined both sides of the street. I took a step away from the cruiser, my boots splashing into the growing puddles of standing water. Most of the roads here were debris filled and potholed. A streetlamp further down the street flickered and buzzed. Combining with the Police strobes, bouncing off the faceless buildings around us.

I could feel the rain now, running down my neck between my jacket collar. Soaking into my uniform shirt, Cold and miserable. I started forward, intending to follow Rutha to the vehicle but was halted by the radio crackling to life in behind me in our vehicle, heard through the still open door. I glanced to Rutha, about to call out and then seeing that she had already passed the rear of the stopped hovercraft and was now approaching the drivers side window. I quickly ducked my head back into the cruiser, depressing the mike built into the dash and answered the slightly distorted voice of the controller.

“Bravo Mike 20, give us a code 6, vehicle stopped, no problems.” I said.

“Received Bravo Mike 20. Standing-by.” Came the tinny voice from the speakers built into the ceiling of the cruiser. I imagined the controller, sitting in her warm office back at HQ.

I left the open door and started back towards my partner and the stopped vehicle in front. I could taste the salty rain now as it ran down my exposed face, hair plastered against my skull, blinking it outta my eyes, soaking into my uniform BDU’s. The leather overcoat protected my upper body, no such protection on my face and hands though. I could smell the sulphur from the factories a mile away.

I crossed then the space between the front bumper of our cruiser and the rear of the hovercraft when Rutha‘s voice drifted back to me. I could see her talking through the open drivers window of the hovercraft.

“Sir, stay in the vehicle.”

I heard her say, at the same time as seeing the drivers door pop open.

She glanced momentarily back to me and our eyes met. I had a sudden feeling in the pit of my stomach. A feeling you only experience when you know something bad is going to happen. Something that you can’t immediately stop, like a sixth sense of approaching danger. Felt like hearing and sensing a rushing wave just before it crashes against the shoreline at night. You can’t see the water, but you know it’s there, and any second you are going to get engulfed.

I could see Rutha standing there, seeing how the rain had soaked into her almost black coloured hair, plastering it against her face, her slender neck.

I could suddenly see the snub nose of a gun poke out through the open window of the vehicle. It was only inches from Rutha’s chest. Pointed straight at her. The next thing I saw was a staccato image, burned into my retina’s as the muzzle flash lit up the street. Everything stood out to me in that instant. Frozen as if by lighting. I could see the interior of the hovercraft we had stopped, illuminated by the flash from within. Could see the hunched over figure of the driver, half glimpsed straggly long hair, resting across broad powerful looking shoulders.

I saw the superheated pulse of plasma strike Rutha full in the chest. Saw it splash across her front and seem to lick about her. Engulfing her. Sure she was wearing the standard issue PT-170 body armour. Wearing it as per regulations underneath her uniform shirt, so as not to appear too aggressive to the peaceful citizens of Angosia. Was wearing her heavy leather jacket over the top. But that doesn’t stop a plasma shot. We all know that.

I saw with that feeling of shocked horror her arms flung outwards, lifting her from her feet, an anguished startled cry dying in her throat she was propelled backwards. I saw her hit the pot holed street hard, saw the back of her head crack off the rain slick tarmac. I knew then, by the way she had taken the shot, the way her body had flown back through the air, that she was already dead. Just like that. One minute joking with me, feeling her warmth next to me in the cruiser, hearing her breathing, smelling her subtle perfume. Now she was gone.

I saw the door of the hovercraft continue to open, and I dropped my right hand to my holstered sidearm. Feeling my fingers begin to close over the cold grip. My right thumb flicking the retaining clip, feeling the weight of my gun drop into my hand now, starting to draw it up and away from my side. I managed to get my gun up to my waist, punching it out ahead of me as all the drills had stated. My feet moving without me thinking, adopting the Weaver stance.

I was just a fraction too slow. The second flash of my assailant’s gun blinding me. I felt a vicious hammer blow to my left shoulder. Felt like somebody had hit me with a sledgehammer. A crushing blow that expelled all the air from my lungs. The next feeling was of the wet tarmac against my back. I saw my gun, knocked from my grasp clattering across the street, spinning away into the night.

I lay on my back, mouth open, blinking against the rain that fell onto my upturned face. Arms and legs spread-eagled. Mouth working, opening and closing, trying to draw a ragged breath in. Unable to do so, feeling my lungs burning now, wishing I could just take one merciful breath. Feeling something else now, a building heat across my left shoulder and part of my neck, waiting for the pain I knew would come any second.

Instead I heard some footsteps, couldn’t seem to turn my head towards them. Then I saw that straggly long hair, around a pale face hovering into my view. The man looked down upon me and I saw he held his gun in his hand still, raising it towards me. Seeing the cold black circle pointing straight at my face. I stared back at him, willing my eyes to close, to block out the sight of my murderer.

My eyes closed slowly, and I took that breath I had wanted so much. Feeling it fill my lungs, coughing now. Pain in my chest. Then I heard running steps, moving away from me. Bleeding away into the dark. I opened my eyes to the sound of the aircushion of the hovercraft filling, expanding. Then the noise of the drive being engaged and it pulling away. Speeding off into the rain soaked night with a high pitched whine of it’s turbine.

I lay there unable to move, thinking that at any second that gun would hover back into view. Finish me off as I lay there. No idea how long I stayed there. I was aware that I could hear my controller calling us up. The radio crackling in the distance. Feeling my eyes growing really heavy. Then all I was wishing for was sleep. Just a moment to close my eyes, so very tired. Gradually, agonisingly slowly my eyelids drooped, closing and blotting out the rain, the dark clouds overhead, the stars beyond. Just visible beyond. Thinking to myself that maybe I should visit that Star Fleet Recruitment Centre down on Lockwood Boulevard. Maybe now was the time to change my career. Consciousness left me.

Epilogue.

Aldren finished talking and was aware, somehow, during his story that Tiven had reached across the table and taken his hands. They both sat there, drinks and the other patrons of the bar moving about them forgotten. Tiven looking at him with her subdued version of concern on her passive face.

She didn’t speak for a long time. They simply sat there, until eventually Aldren gently pulled his hands from hers. Aware that he had tears in his eyes. He straightened himself up, angrily wiping away at his eyes. Realising that for the first time in five years he had spoken aloud of that night.

Quietly he excused himself, mumbling something under his breath. Standing and backing off from the table. They had sat for about an hour, and as he glanced at the chronometer set above the bar, he knew that he should return to his quarters. Tomorrow was his final exam. Tomorrow he would know if he had completed his basic training and graduated from the Academy.

Aldren also knew that he would never see or speak with Tiven again. Knew he would ignore her calls and avoid her eye if he passed her in the corridors. Knew that she would never tell anyone, however illogical it may seem.

Aldren walked out of the bar with the doors closing slowly behind him. Didn’t look back once.