Shadows of Golstar (22 page)

Owens then turned his attention to the other assailant
who had quickly recovered and was grabbing for a side arm. The man was fast,
and he already had the weapon cleared from its holster. But Owens was faster.
He went straight for the gunman, inside his guard. He hit the man in the throat
with an elbow. The side arm’s energy discharge splashed off a nearby wall.
Owens could feel the man’s larynx crush under the savage impact and could hear
the muted thud of the dropped sidearm.

As the gunman’s body began to collapse, Owens turned
back again to the other gunman. The man had a vibra-knife clutched in his good
hand. He immediately lunged wildly at Owens. Owens easily avoided the blade and
brought his hands up in a defensive stance.

“Drop your weapon, you’re under arrest.”

The man emitted an inarticulate grunt and lunged at
Owens again. Owens blocked the knife-wielding hand at the wrist with an easy
parry. The man backed off, looking for an opening.

“This is your last chance, drop the knife.”

The man’s answer was to feint towards Owens’ chest
then he dropped low and went in, thrusting wildly for the lower area of Owens’
abdomen. Owens was just able to grab the wrist of the hand wielding the knife.
His hand clenched and the blade fell from the man’s numbed fingers. His
assailant immediately threw a punch with his free hand and struck a solid blow
to Owens’ chest, but it wasn’t enough to make Owens release his grip.

Still holding the man’s wrist, Owens threw a punch of
his own, solidly connecting with the man’s jaw. Owen hadn’t thought to soften
the blow, and the gunman’s jaw broke with a loud, sickening crack. The man
dropped to the floor unconscious. Owens quickly turned around, looking for any
others. Not seeing anyone in the immediate area, he looked toward the nearest
cubicles, checking for any more movement. Nothing was obvious.

He quickly retrieved his gun and cautiously went down
each aisle, peering into cubicles. Finally, he finished his inspection and
caught Starling’s eye at the other side of the room. He gave Starling a
thumbs-up and motioned for him to stay put. Starling signaled back that he
understood. 

He returned to the place where he had felled the men
and examined the two assailants. He confirmed the one with the crushed throat
was dead. The other gunman with the broken jaw was still unconscious. Owens
repositioned the man’s jaw so that he could breathe a little easier and checked
both men for identification. He was not surprised at finding their pockets
empty. He looked around the room again but could detect no other movement.

He started over towards Starling to tell him the two
ambushers were out of action when he almost fell to his knees. He was struck by
a hot wave pain from his injured side. He had forgotten that he had been shot.
He looked down and saw that the skin on the right side of his torso was
shredded. The wound extended to just below his belt line and the exposed flesh
was raw and ugly; blood was flowing sluggishly from the wound and soaked his
pants leg. He didn’t want to think about the condition of the skin and muscle
beneath his tattered pants. “Damn,” he muttered between clenched teeth. Then in
a stronger voice, “Hey partner, I could use a little help over here.”

Starling looked over at his partner, oblivious to the
pain in Owens’ expression, his own face screwed up in puzzlement. “Just what in
the hell was that? I’ve never seen anybody move that fast. Are you
bio-augmented or something?”

Owens clutched his side, attempting to staunch the
flow of blood he had been unaware of only minutes before. He straightened
painfully and still little bent at the waist, shuffled closer to his partner.
“No. I’m a Loder. I’m just a little stronger and faster than most; that's all.”

“A little stronger he says. You jumped like a
goddamned quintelope. It would have been nice if you had told me about your
special
abilities.
” Starling opened his mouth to say more, but finally noticed that
Owens was bleeding and instead quickly reached for his wounded partner. “Shit,
how bad are you hurt?”

“I don’t think it’s too serious, but I lost some skin
and it hurts like a bitch; I’m bleeding like a stuck pig.”

Starling grabbed one of Owens’ arms, ducked under it
to provide support and helped him to straighten up and hobble back towards the
entrance. Owens was careful not to lean on him with his full weight. Starling
maneuvered Owens to a nearby desk and had him sit on its top. “Here,” Starling
handed a rumpled handkerchief to Owens, “It’s clean. Use this to bind it.”
Starling removed the belt from his ample waist and gave it to Owens.

Starling watched as Owens used the handkerchief and
his belt to make-shift a pressure bandage. It didn’t cover the entire wound,
but it had slowed the bleeding. Owens winced as he cinched up the belt. “Aw,
don’t be such a baby,” Starling told Owens. “I’ve had worse injuries falling
off a bar stool.”

“That’s easy for you…” Owens started then stopped.
Behind Starling, the door from which they had entered suddenly hissed opened.
Owens saw a human figure outlined in the threshold. It took a fraction of a
second for him to register the weapon in the figure’s raised hand.

He screamed a warning to Starling and dove to his
right. His moment of hesitation proved costly. Starling never had a chance. His
partner had barely started to turn when his head exploded in a blast from the
security woman’s weapon. Before she could turn her gun on Owens, he had fired
several shots into the open doorway. Most of his shots went true. She collapsed
into a boneless mass at the door’s threshold.

Owens rose from his prone position, staggered over and
knelt before Starling’s body. Starling’s head had been completely severed from
his body. He stared at the grisly sight. “Damn, damn it…
”
Owens whispered harshly. They had killed his partner and he was to blame. He
should have reacted faster. But he hadn’t and now his partner was dead.

His thoughts spiraled down, flashing back on what had
just happened to them. They had been set up from the beginning. A rage began to
build inside of him, something hot and irrational. His heart began to pound
wildly, the heat of growing anger flushing the pain from his body. The anger
provided the needed focus. His mind traveled down a narrow channel, finally
resolving into a sharp, single thought. His mind began to demand vengeance,
“It’s time for payment…” He rose slowly from his kneeling position.

● ● ●

Owens woke up three days later in a hospital recovery
capsule. The clear canopy was retracted and he had only a single monitor patch on
his temple. He felt his side and found it completely healed. A patch of faded
pink skin was all that remained of his wound and soon that would disappear as
well. The recovery capsule obviously did its work.

His thoughts immediately turned to his dead partner. A
wave of guilt crashed against his consciousness, remorse threatening to
overwhelm him. It was his fault his partner was dead. What had happened to his
Loder reflexes, his so-called special abilities when Starling needed them? He
had failed, failed to guard his partner’s back. His vision blurred as he
relived the events that led to his failure.

He remembered it from the beginning, stepping through
each event as it occurred. His thoughts led him up to Starling’s death and
abruptly stopped. Nothing, he remembered nothing beyond Starling’s death. He
immediately broke out in a cold sweat, stomach clenching in cold, hard knots.
He could not remember what had happened after he shot the woman who had killed
Fred.

The recovery capsule had been monitoring his growing
distress. The canopy slid back in place and a fine tranquilizing mist filled
the capsule. He thankfully returned to the comforting, dark oblivion of
drug-induced sleep.

Two days later, he was out of the recovery capsule and
feeling better. Another day passed and he felt almost back to normal.
 
Although he still carried the guilt for
Starling’s death, he found he was beginning to cope with the loss of his
partner and his amnesia. He was transferred to a recovery hospice for
psychological evaluation and treatment. After a few more days, he was finally
given a clean bill of health and was told by his attending physician, he was
being released that evening.

That afternoon, as he was getting dressed, he received
an unannounced visit by the Police Commissioner, along with the head of the
taskforce and his Captain. Up to that point, no one had visited him. He was
left alone with his thoughts, interrupted only by his psych-therapy sessions.
His parents had been notified but because of the great distance from Lode to
Central, he convinced them he was almost fully recovered and they didn’t need
to come. They agreed only after he promised to visit them soon.

He quickly found out the three officials knew the
extent of his amnesia. They told him they had reconstructed what had happened
after he shot the security guard. It was clear from their reconstruction that
Owens had likely been in a state of shock from his loss of blood and based on
what must have happened, quite out of his head over the death of his partner.
They told him that he must have decided to go to the office of the man named
Wallenberg to confront him and force him into revealing the identity of any
others responsible for the attack.

Failing to get the security-locked lift to operate,
Owens apparently ran up the emergency stairwell all the way up to the
twenty-fifth floor. There, Owens had approached a very surprised Wallenberg.
The exact circumstances were still not clear, but Wallenberg likely had
attempted to use a weapon on seeing Owens still alive. By Wallenberg’s own
account, Owens disarmed him quickly. In doing so Wallenberg sustained a number
of serious injuries. The speed and ease with which Owens had handled him,
convinced the man to tell Owens everything he had wanted to know.

Using the security code Wallenberg had been forced to
give him, Owens took the lift to the sixtieth floor. An eyewitness attested
that a welcoming committee comprised of security personnel, patrol robots along
with a number of unknown men with weapons waited just outside of the lift to
greet Owens. The witness gave an incredible description of the fierce
confrontation that ensued.

Leaving a trail of broken bodies and destroyed
security ‘bots, Owens fought his way into the executive offices. There, after
what was reconstructed as another brief struggle, he overpowered and arrested
one of the twin brothers heading up the syndicate, Braden Lawrence. Owens
continued to search for a while longer but was unable to locate Braden’s twin.
He then must have had his first lucid thought since Starlings’ death. He called
for backup and when they arrived, he promptly passed out.

The final tally for Owens’ rampage was eight dead,
four wounded, three robots disabled and two arrests. No innocents were injured.
Fortunately, sufficient evidence was immediately uncovered to support the
arrests of Wallenberg and Lawrence. Upon further investigation, it was revealed
the Lawrence brothers had taken over the local planetary branch of Stone
Billings. They had replaced a few key people in the executive offices and most
of the security team. The real Wallenberg and number of other executives were
replaced by doubles. The remains of these employees were still being recovered.

The Lawrence twins continued to run the company’s
legitimate business with the replacements. As far as the corporate headquarters
knew, business was going on as usual. But under the Lawrence brothers’
guidance, the fake employees used the company as a front for shipping the
stolen technology to illicit buyers across Confederated Planets territory. It
was a highly organized and sophisticated scam.

The Commissioner took over and cleared his throat.
“Practically every rule and regulation were broken by you and your partner in
this incident. By not notifying the taskforce when you first discovered the
shipping receipt, you jeopardized the entire investigation.” He described a
number of other departures from official procedure in great detail.

After a time, he paused and took a breath, “I have to
admit, however, the outcome broke the syndicate’s back. You caught them all by
total surprise. They had no time to destroy incriminating documents. As we
speak, members of the taskforce are arresting more of the syndicate and their
clientele based on the information we found at the Stone Billings building. The
other Lawrence brother has gone to ground, but the whole operation is busted.”

His voice became harsher, “But make no mistake, I
cannot condone your methods in this case, and a price will be paid. However, at
the same time I cannot help but applaud the results.”

 The Commissioner then turned to the man standing
next to him. The head of the taskforce was a dark, burly man in an ill-fitting
suit with dead gray eyes lurking under bushy eyebrows. He proceeded for the
next ten minutes to berate Owens for his and Starling’s unprofessional
behavior. When he finally finished, he too grudgingly expressed his
satisfaction with the ultimate result. It was then his Captain’s turn.

Captain Davis first took the time to ask how Owens was
feeling. On Owens’ positive reply, the Captain said in a soft voice, “I think
you have a pretty good idea of how badly you and Starling screwed up. I won’t
repeat what has already been said. I’m sure you’re not going to be surprised to
find that as of now, you’re on official suspension pending an inquiry by IA.”