F. Wilson - An Enemy of the State

“You might kill one of us,” Josef said. “But that would be the last thing you would do. Ever.”

The blaster was suddenly snatched out of his hand. He saw it in Kanya's, but the exchange had been a complete blur. He hadn't seen her move.

“Quickly, now,” Josef said, turning to Stafford and his wife and motioning them toward the drop-chute. “The backup squad will be here any time now.”

As Stafford passed, Kanya handed him Broohnin's blaster. “Put this in your waistband and forget about it unless we tell you to use it.”

“What about me?” Broohnin asked, fearing the answer more than he had feared anything in his life.

Kanya and Josef merely glanced his way with their expressionless holosuit faces, then followed the pilot and his wife down the chute. Broohnin hurried after them. If Imperial Guardsmen were on their way, he didn't want to be caught here and have to explain the pilot's empty apartment. He was right behind them when they all pushed their way out to the street and came face to face with the backup squad as it debarked from a lorry flitter. The squad leader recognized Stafford immediately-no doubt his features had been drummed into their brains since his escape earlier in the day.

“What's going on here?” he yelled and readied the blaster rifle he had been cradling in his arms. “Where are the others? Who are these?”

Kanya and Josef edged toward the front of their group. Josef's voice was low but audible to the rest of the civilians. “Be calm, stand quiet, let us handle everything. There's only six of them.”

“I asked you a question!” the squad leader said to anyone who would listen. “Where are the two Imperial Guardsmen who are supposed to be with you?”

“I assure you we don't know what you mean,” Josef said. “We are not with these others.”

The squad leader leveled his blaster at Josef as the other five members of his squad arrayed themselves behind him. “Show me some identification. It had better be perfect or we're all going upstairs to find out what's going on here.”

Broohnin felt panic welling up within him, shutting off his air, choking him. This was it-they were either going to be killed or wind up Metep's prisoners. One was as bad as the other. He had to do something. He saw Stafford standing just ahead and to his left, his arms folded cautiously across his chest. His wife was clinging to his left arm and his attention was on her. Peeking out from under his right elbow was the butt of Broohnin's confiscated blaster.

Without thinking, without a conscious effort on his part, Broohnin's hand reached out and snatched at the weapon. He had to have it. It was floating debris on a storm-tossed sea, a chance for survival. No guarantee that it would carry him to safety, but it seemed to be all he had right now.

Stafford spun reflexively as he felt the weapon pulled from his waistband and grabbed for it. “Hey!”

Now was as good a time as any to get rid of the damn pilot, so Broohnin squeezed the trigger as soon as his finger found it. But Stafford's reflexes were faster. He thrust Broohnin's arm upward and Salli screamed as the beam flashed upward, striking no one.

Josef was not so lucky. At the sound of the scream and the sight of a blaster held high and firing, the squad leader responded by pressing his own trigger. There was a brief glare between the guardsman and Josef, illuminating the features of the former, briefly washing away the holosuit effect of the latter. Josef fell without a sound, a few of the accouterments on his weapons belt detaching with the impact, seeming to pop right out of his body as they passed through the holosuit image and landed on the pavement.

Everyone dropped then, including Broohnin. Kanya was the exception. She dove into the midst of the squad of guardsmen and began to wreak incredible havoc-punching, kicking, swirling, dodging, making it impossible for them to fire at her for fear of blasting a fellow guardsman. Broohnin found himself in sole possession of his blaster again. Stafford had rolled on top of his wife and both had their hands clasped protectively and uselessly over their heads. He was about to put an end to the pilot's threat once and for all when something on the pavement caught his eye.

A white disc with a small red button at its center lay beside Josef's inert form. Broohnin could not tell how badly the Flinter was hurt, or even if he were still alive, because of the camouflaging effect of the holosuit. There was no pool of blood around him, but then there seldom was much bleeding from a blaster wound due to the cauterizing effect of the heat. Deciding to risk it, he crawled over to Josef on his belly, reached for the disc, then began to crawl away. A glance over his shoulder revealed that Kanya had just about disposed of the entire squad, so he rose to his feet and sprinted in the other direction, into the safety of the darkness down the street.

With the disc in his left hand and the blaster in his right, Broohnin ran as fast as his pumping legs would carry him, through back alleys, across vacant lots, changing streets, altering direction, but always heading away from the center of town, away from Imperium Park and the Imperium Complex that surrounded it. He no longer needed LaNague or the Flinters or anyone else. The destruction of the Imperium was clutched in his left hand.

“Josef dead?” LaNague wanted to scream. The quiet, pensive man who had been with him for nearly five years, who was walking death down to his finger tips and yet so gentle and peace loving at heart, was dead. It was easy to think of Flinters as nothing more than killing machines, living weapons with no personalities, no identities. Yet they were all individuals, philosophically sophisticated, profoundly moral in their own way, human, mortal…

“How?”

Calmly, briefly, Kanya explained it to him, her face on the vidscreen displaying no trace of emotion. Flinters were like that: emotions were not for public display; she would suffer her grief in private later.

“I tried to bring his body back to the warehouse for storage until it could be returned home,” she concluded, “but there was no access. They have the building surrounded-on the street level and in the air, with infra-red monitors every twenty meters. I could not approach without being detected.”

“Poor Josef,” LaNague said, his mind still rebelling at the news of his death. “I'm so sorry, Kanya.” He watched her on the screen. How do you comfort a Flinter? He wished he could put an arm around her, knew there would be no steel or stone beneath his hand, but soft, yielding flesh. He sensed her grief. He wanted to pull her head down to his shoulder and let her cry it out. But that would never happen, even if she were standing next to him. Absolute emotional control was an integral part of Flinter rearing. A being skilled in a hundred, a thousand, ways of killing could not allow emotions to rule, ever.

Kanya was demonstrating that control now as she spoke. “Didn't you hear me? You're trapped. We've got to get you out.”

LaNague shook his head. “I know what's going on outside. I've been watching. I'll wait for them here…no resistance. How's the pilot?”

“He and his wife are safe with Mora.”

“And Broohnin? Is he safe where he can cause no more trouble?”

Kanya's face darkened for an instant; lightning flashed in her eyes. “Not yet. But he will be soon.”

LaNague stiffened involuntarily. “What aren't you telling me, Kanya?”

“Josef is dead because of Broohnin,” she said flatly. “If he had not delayed us at the pilot's apartment, we would have been gone before the squad of Imperial Guard arrived. Even after we were halted in front of the building, if he had followed directions and stood quietly, there would have been no shooting. Josef would be alive and beside me now.”