Peush was whisked to the back of his group and safety, but Hong fought right in the front. The Totki were good warriors, but the Olmarr had those high-speed, electric chainsaws which were savagely effective.
“Hank, look out!” I heard MTB shout.
I turned, not especially concerned, as I was unable to get very concerned in a fight. I saw a Totki running towards me with… duct tape?
He jumped up and pressed it on my face and it was so bizarre I was momentarily at a loss. I mean, I carried around like 500 pounds of chains, did they think some adhesive ribbon was going to stop me? Yeah, it was over my eyes, but it’s not like it was permanent. It didn’t even hurt.
I reached up to remove it.
My fingers were far too thick and clumsy to grasp the tape, let alone feel it. And I couldn’t hear any crinkling because of the sounds of the battle. I tried rubbing at it, but I couldn’t generate enough friction to burn away duct tape all that easily.
Hmm.
“Hey, can someone get this tape off me?” I asked.
I was basically an obstacle in a gang fight. I could hear the commotion, but had no idea how the sides were faring.
I couldn’t tell my Stair Boys to apprehend the combatants as they were busy trying to kill each other.
“Everyone just calm down. We can work this out,” I said feebly.
I heard my Stair Boys yelling and then gunfire.
Great.
“Stop struggling,” Valia said. “I don’t want you to turn my hands into jelly with your monster fingers.”
I stood there as she removed the tape from my eyes.
When I was gifted with vision again, I saw there were four dead, eight wounded, and none captured beyond those who were too hurt to run away.
About half of those hurt were from my Stair Boys shooting.
I did not feel this was a successful patrol.
CHAPTER 11
It was the next day and I was conducting a small trial in my living room with Hong, Peush, MTB, Valia, and an adjudicator named Gralion.
“I demand Street Trial,” Hong declared, wanting a public trial on one of the court streets.
“No, your men are wounded and I don’t have the desire for my guards to be sitting around at the hospital waiting for a trial date. This gets solved now.”
“What are the charges?” Gralion asked. He was an older man who had never made judge and was bitter about it.
“Assault. Endangering the telescopes. Blocking the Waves. And attacking me.”
“No one ‘attack’ you. It was tape.”
“What?” Gralion asked.
“Duct tape, I believe,” Peush said.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I was still attacked. And it wasn’t a gun, so it was illegal.”
Neither Hong nor Peush really wanted to be in the same room with each other, but they wanted their men back more and I wasn’t doing two trials.
“What do you sentence them to?”
“I have eight wounded. Five from you,” indicating Hong, “and three from you,” to Peush. “Half go to prison.”
“Prison?” Hong screamed. “That too much. Stair Boys do shooting, not us. It them that cause trouble,” he said, pointing to Peush.
“How can one-and-a-half of my men go to prison?” Peush asked, smirking.
“Round up. Two,” I said.
“That’s very excessive, Supreme Kommilaire,” Gralion said. “I think a fine is more in order.”
“Yes!” Hong said.
“I’m changing my sentence to death. All of them.”
“You can’t do that,” Gralion argued. “That’s… double-jeopardy. Or mistrial.”
He had apparently not bought the book of legal terms.
“Says who? Besides, you two were there also. I could arrest both of you, so don’t get cocky,” I said.
But I couldn’t arrest them. That was an idle threat and they knew it. I was sitting here with them, the next day, essentially negotiating for the release of their men. If I arrested Hong or Peush, how many hundreds or thousands would march down here to set them free?
“How do you decide which ones go to prison?” Peush asked.
I chose to back off a bit and give them some room.
“You pick the ones who go free. But I need two from you and three from you,” I answered.
“He should have three,” Hong said.
“How about one and two between them?” Gralion asked.
“Two and two,” I countered.
“Deal,” Gralion said.
The bosses weren’t happy of course, but by making the numbers even, they at least couldn’t say I treated either side preferentially. This was the outcome I had been planning all along.
“Fine, tell me the names of those you want freed. A couple guys are really hurt, so you might want to just let them go to prison—or maybe you want to set them free. Up to you.”
“May we see them?” Peush asked.
“No.”
Not sure why I said that. I just didn’t want to deal with it, I guess. I wanted to get them shifted to prison so we could move on.
Peush gave me the names of ones who were apparently higher in the Olmarr Republic hierarchy. Hong gave me names of ones who had important familial ties.
I radioed for those to be released and the others to be prepped for transfer. Everyone was pissed off, but they should have thought of that before they got into a street fight in front of the Supreme Kommilaire.
“Boss, your Stair Boys suck,” Valia said, when we were alone later.
“Shut up, new guy,” MTB responded.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, as soon as you were blinded, they spent about thirty seconds trying to figure out how to break up the fight and then they just pulled their guns and shot at everyone. I’m surprised more people weren’t hurt.”
“It didn’t happen like that at all,” MTB countered.
“Then what did happen?” I asked, “Because I see a lot of gunshot wounds and no injured Stair Boys.”
“Would it have been better if your own people were hurt?” he asked, mock surprised.
“Just give me your view.”
“Well…” and I could see Valia’s account wasn’t too far off based on his expression. “Maybe they did panic a bit. It’s not exactly easy to take a chainsaw from a guy trying to kill another guy who is wielding a spear.”
“Yeah,” I conceded. “You think training would help? I don’t think we’ve ever had any. Not for real.”
He shrugged.
“How do you train for Belvaille, Boss? You learn by doing, as I see it.”
I decided to personally transfer the prisoners to their final home.
RW33. The Royal Wing. It was a huge freighter sitting a short distance from Belvaille.
Valia was with me in the shuttle, as I thought it wouldn’t be bad for her to see the process.
Used to be I hated flying. I would throw up every single time I entered zero gravity. Now, I loved it. I was weightless! I could move around and lift my arms with little effort.
It was only about a fifteen minute trip total, but it was fun. I felt like a kid again. Though I still had my same mass, so I had to be careful not to go accelerating myself too much or I could cause some damage, maybe even wreck our ship.
The prisoners, two from each gang, were fairly injured and covered in bandages or lying down. I didn’t even have them restrained. They seemed resigned to their fates, especially knowing that their leaders had specifically chosen not to save them. Being picked last for kickball was one thing, but this was harsh.
We docked with the freighter.
Our ship was merely connected to the side and we were still weightless. This is how we delivered supplies as well.
We opened a door and there were a series of sealed hatches ahead. They couldn’t open any of those until we had disembarked.