Retribution: Downfall of the Republic (The Retribution Series Book 1) Read online

  Retribution:

  Downfall of the Republic

  © 2018 T.C. Shrader

  Dedicated to my lovely wife and amazing son.

  The two of you give my life meaning and purpose.

  You both made this story possible.

  Chapter 1

  Alistair Crowe was an anomaly of a man; his emotions in constant turmoil and his outlook toward life bleak and unyielding. Past circumstances had forced him to adopt a rather binary mindset, seeing everyone else in a black and white manner – either worth saving and protecting or targets for his unyielding retribution. People he trusted were few and those he called friends even fewer. Those he saw as in need of his unique skill set numbered in the hundreds of billions, but he did not see them as his flock, nor himself as their shepherd. He was not a religious man by nature, but he was not ignorant to the fact that there are many things in life he did not understand.

  No, Alistair Crowe saw himself rather as an agent of vengeance on behalf of the unheard masses. An Angel of Death, he would sometimes think to himself, followed shortly by a brief chuckle.

  Pragmatic at heart, he was always very aware of the reality of his lot in life. Delusions of grandeur had no place in his mind, which isn't to say that he wasn't proud of his work. His long and wretched existence would have rendered lesser men shattered, insane husks – or worse, predators of the weak. Those same predators that he himself hunted with increasing efficiency.

  He was not without his flaws, though. Not by a long shot.

  For as long as he could remember, Alistair was plagued with inner turmoil. Any suffering he witnessed, even as a child, weighed on him greatly. He had always felt as if he was burdened with the guilt of countless sins from a previous life and that his mission in this one was to care for and nurture those in need as he searched for atonement. These feelings, coupled with his irrevocably logical personality, were always at war within. A lack of spiritual guidance and understanding locked in a struggle with his need to understand and explain everything around him truly shaped Alistair into a man filled with conflict.

  And then there were the voices. Even though he was relatively certain that he wasn't suffering from any mental illness (genetic mapping had confirmed this on multiple occasions), he had a level of intuition that frequently bordered on supernatural. Gentle whispers lost in the fog of his mind as it raced every waking moment, he had never been able to truly focus and listen. But they were always there. He attributed a vast degree of his success to these whispers, but at heart he felt as if he were slipping ever closer to complete madness. Not once had he considered that the presence he always felt and the inner turmoil from which he suffered were one in the same. Nor could he have realized at the time that the answer was a relatively simple one.

  “Did Dervish say how long we'd have to wait for him?” a voice from only a few feet away had shattered Alistair's self reflective tirade and he refocused.

  “No, but we'll stay here all night if we have to. He'll want what we've got, and if I don't get paid soon I'm going to lose my knees, or worse.”

  The two men Alistair was eavesdropping on were several tables over, each nursing a light brown beer in a frosty glass mug. They were nervous; he could feel it in his bones. He knew what – or, more specifically, who – they feared and he was elated at the chance to finally make this man's acquaintance.

  “They say to pick your vices, not to overdo it. Just because you're a scumbag doesn't mean you have to gamble away every credit you get your hands on.”

  “Fuck off, Terry. It's my money, I'll do what I want with it.” The larger man, who Alistair knew from his extensive research into the station's unsavory underground, was known as Brick. He was widely known to be a compulsive gambler, but also a ruthless enforcer for a local smuggling and kidnapping ring.

  “It's just reinforcing a stereotype, that's all. We don't all have to be complete degenerates. Maybe you should spend your cut on a bit of education.” The other man, considerably more lanky but quite tall, was Terry Schist. He was essentially a nobody, but he and Brick had found some success in combining their brains and brawn into a somewhat effective kidnapping career.

  Unfortunately, their targets were typically teenage girls and young women, and when the number of missing persons reports began to rise, it caught the attention of Alistair Crowe. Serendipity had him in the same area when the reports began to surface and he took it upon himself to dig a bit deeper. Local authorities, while not entirely corrupt, were understaffed and outgunned, making the outer rim systems more prone to cartel activity.

  Home to a pristine world with an orbit similar to earth, Alceti III was prime real estate for new colonial development. The attraction to new colonists was great and the population growth far exceeded the capacity of authorities to expand their protective sphere. As a result, criminal elements preyed upon the colonists on the fringes and nobody could do much to stop it.

  While initial colony ships were escorted by a small fleet of naval vessels, they were designed for long term survival without support rather than heavy law enforcement. The colony itself, like nearly all others, was expected to provide local resources and manpower in order to form a defense against basic threats. Reinforcements could take months or years to arrive and every colonist was well aware of the risks they faced. The loyalty of most settlers lied with the Republic, but hardship was the standard on newly settled worlds and some peoples' allegiances tended to shift rapidly if they felt they were owed a better deal. Criminals of opportunity, not predators of the weak – at least not initially.

  This was the case for many of the renegades and outlaws that roamed the stars, but not Terry and Brick. They'd been all over the outer rim colonies and had spent many years doing whatever they could to make a quick payday - as long as it wasn't genuine work.

  “Let's do one more round, then get the fuck outta here. If he doesn't want our product, someone else will.” Brick was getting impatient, although that was more likely due to his bookie's impatience. The looming threat of having his kneecaps shattered with a pipe had proven a good motivator.

  “Agreed.” Terry was only a little worried for his old friend. The two seemed to tolerate each other, but their friendship was only skin deep. They'd sell one another out in a heartbeat if the pay was good enough.

  Alistair figured retaining their eyeballs, along with other key body parts, was a very good payment indeed. All he needed was a little patience.

  Just as the men were finishing what had been declared as their final round, a much larger man got up from the bar and casually approached them. Their table had four chairs, two unused – and the third man looked as if he needed both of them to support himself. He was well over seven feet tall and his stature was more gorilla than man. His dark skin was covered with thick black hair on his arms and a heavy dark beard hanging from his chin. This was very clearly Dervish, the man for whom the pair had been waiting.

  “I am interested, gentlemen. I apologize for the delay, but I had to be sure we would enjoy some semblance of privacy. Please, allow me to pay for another round of drinks.” He slid a pre-loaded credit card toward the men beneath which was a partially concealed slip of paper. “I'll take my leave but I hope the two of you stay and enjoy yourselves a bit longer.” With that he stood up and left and to a casual observer it was nothing more than a brief conversation with one party buying a round for the other.

  Actually using paper, Alistair noted. His enhanced eyesight was thanks to military grade optical implants, and he could clearly see Brick clumsily pocket the paper. If he
wanted to read it, he would have to get his hands on it, however. I guess paper can't be targeted by electronic surveillance outside of a camera, he thought and gently nodded, impressed.

  Brick was visually relieved and Terry smiled. They ordered another round, completely oblivious to the fact that their days as vagabonds were finally coming to an abrupt and gruesome end.

  Another twenty minutes after their encounter with Dervish, the bartender shouted last call. As patrons of the dimly lit dive started shuffling out, Alistair happily sauntered out among the other rabble, his grim determination masked by a smile. He was, after all, posing to be just another harmless drunk.

  He wandered out of the bar into the open bazaar proper, an enormous open space designed to be used as a general needs room by the space station's operators. This particular room was the smaller of two large caverns built into the station, the primary bazaar being roughly four times larger and significantly less run down. Many individual business owners secured permits to construct small temporary structures inside the cavernous rooms, and small towns formed inside as long as there were no pressing events that demanded such a large amount of space. The stations were designed to provide both citizens and government workers with ample room to conduct business as usual even among the stars, although the resource costs were very high. Open volume in space was no cheap order.

  Even though the perpetually dim lighting of the bazaars bothered him, the low light levels suited Alistair's needs frequently. The secondary bazaar of Alceti Hub was very cramped - it reminded him of the ancient cities he'd seen in films of Earth. Small alleyways were typically crowded with people going about their daily business, but this particular town had begun to resemble more of a shanty town than a magnanimous space station capable of housing tens of thousands of occupants.

  He leaned against the shack opposite The Cunning Linguist in a drunken manner although he was entirely sober. The bar was a dive he considered one of the worst he'd ever been to. Why Brick and Terry chose this as their haunt was beyond him, but he did his best not to judge. In his peripheral he saw his targets exit and, almost as quickly as he noticed them, vanished from sight into a perpendicular alleyway.

  The two men took their time heading across the bazaar to their flat in a small temporary housing shelter, none the wiser that they were being shadowed.

  Angel of Death, he thought again - and again he smiled. Despite his lifelong drive to nurture, protect, and provide, parts of him still loved what he did. His inner conflict was fueled heavily by an innate blood lust and a craving for carnage, which ran parallel to his need to bring a smile to a child's face or provide for a needy family. A walking paradox in human form. He had long ago come to terms with being inherently different, abandoning the hope for a family or regular life. A ranch on a colonial paradise was not in his future and embracing that fact helped him enjoy his work even more. He felt that the contradictory nature of his existence was a thin line, but he'd toed it for years without ever harming anyone he deemed innocent. His only solace was that his judgment was sound and that he would never act without being entirely certain that violence was justified.

  This instance was as clear-cut as they came, however, and he was looking forward to finally speaking with Brick and Terry. He knew so much about them as he'd spent the last several weeks researching their entire organization, both digitally and through good old fashioned reconnaissance.

  As they approached the ground level door to their room, Alistair silently approached. The front of the housing unit was strewn with trash and general debris, so he had to watch his footing as to not alert his prey. He didn't have much in the way of cover but their moderate drinking dulled their senses, so even in the event of a firefight, he favored his odds. His intuition had never steered him wrong before and right now his mind was free and clear.

  Terry grabbed a key card out of his jacket pocket, slid it across the lock on the door, and reached for the door handle as the small security light turned from red to green. Things seemed to be moving in slow motion for Alistair as he made his approach, rapidly closing the gap between predator and prey.

  As Terry swung open the door and took a step in, Alistair was less than 10 feet behind them. He would subdue Brick first by leaving him alive but useless. The brutality of his display would most likely coerce Terry to tell him everything he knew without any more persuasion, but Alistair wasn't averse to doing whatever the situation required. He could have easily gunned them down in the street, but a more hands on and intimate approach was much easier to conceal and would prove to be more effective.

  Alistair closed the distance and grabbed Brick's right hand while simultaneously gripping the base of his skull. Brick tried to react but couldn't even get out a scream before his face was smashed against the open door, his arm torn from its socket, and his body thrown to the ground. Alistair rushed in and slammed the door behind him before giving Brick a solid punt with the toe of his boot, dazing the man enough to buy himself some time.

  Alistair is not, by anyone's estimate, a small man. Rivaling the size of Dervish, Alistair stood nearly seven feet tall, half a foot taller than the average male, and he had a strong, muscular build. He wasn't overly bulky, but he knew how to use his considerable strength to great effect. A kick from his boot was like getting a kiss from a cinder block dropped from a rooftop - an analogy Brick most likely wouldn't appreciate.

  Just as Terry turned around, Alistair had his sidearm drawn on him.

  “Well hello, Terry! I've been looking forward to making your acquaintance since I first set foot on Alceti Hub. Think you could spare a moment for a fellow traveler?”

  Humiliating the worst scum humanity has to offer was something Alistair enjoyed above almost all else, and although his penchant for violence scared him at times, he knew that he was the very definition of a necessary evil.

  “What the fuck are you doing?!” Terry shouted, a combination of surprise and fear mixing in his voice.

  “All I want is the slip of paper in your friend's pocket here...” Alistair said as he knelt down and retrieved it from Brick's pocket as the man writhed in pain, “... and to ask you a few questions. Feel like answering?”

  Although he knew Terry was a spineless parasite, and that he was scared out of his mind, Alistair wasn't willing to wait around all night for a response. Terry was visibly shaking, especially after seeing his “muscle” so easily dispatched.

  “I – I ..” was all he was able to get out before Alistair decided it was time to get to business. He lowered his aim slightly and removed Terry's left kneecap with his sidearm. Alistair's preferred weapon during most spaceborne activities was his oak handled MRG pistol, a weapon typically unique to law enforcement and military officers. In appearance it was very similar to an antique revolver, but instead of a cylinder containing chemically propelled rounds, the cylindrical object above the grip housed dozens of iron coated tungsten spears. It used a series of magnetic coils to propel a ferrous projectile at nearly any speed the wielder needed. Typical magnetic weapons would use tungsten carbide as a projectile that would be catapulted forward using a heavy iron sabot. But the sabot would be ejected after firing and covering the ground with evidence wasn't conducive to lasting long as a death-dealing vigilante.

  Being on board a space station meant lower velocities when utilizing firearms, but at a range of ten feet against an opponent with no body armor, the weapon had no problem severing the lower half of a leg while barely scratching the hardened metal floor behind. Terry's scream was evident of these facts and also reminded Alistair why he appreciated the standardized housing patterns employed throughout the Republic; f ire proof and nearly soundproof, these units made his job that much easier.

  “Fucking god, why?! Somebody will hear me scream, you prick! You have to know that!”

  “Oh, Terry. These walls are soundproof. This conversation is strictly between the two of us. Well, the three of us, at least for another minute or two. Who's in Dervish's pocket that
allows him to get his stock off the station without inspection?”

  Terry's only response was now down from screaming to moderately loud whimpering. Alistair knew that torture very frequently provided unreliable intel, but he was stressed for time. If anybody saw his initial assault on Brick, station authorities could arrive at any moment. In this particular instance he decided that a fast and overwhelming strike was the best option, as it would shock his targets into submission. Most of his encounters were like this one, however, which was a tactical decision he decided to rethink after this was over.

  He reached back down to Brick, flipped him over, and slapped him in an effort to get him to regain consciousness. It only took one solid open palm to the face for Brick to open his eyes, and if it weren't for the crippling pain and useless right arm, he would have launched up at the stranger he now saw standing above him.

  “I think you might have a concussion. You should probably get to the clinic, they can be pretty dangerous.” Alistair was enjoying the many different levels of torture he was inflicting on these men and he felt totally justified in doing so. The lives they'd ruined were beyond count and he wanted some semblance of vengeance to be dealt out this evening.

  “What? What the hell are you doing? Who-” Brick couldn't finish his question before Alistair knelt down, grabbed the index finger on his left hand and started twisting, all the while keeping his sidearm trained on Terry. “Christ man, leave me alone! The fuck did I ever – Gah!!” he screamed as his finger popped, bled, and slowly twisted from his hand.

  Alistair only wanted him conscious so that his screams would help convince Terry to give up their group's inside man and decided to use brute strength as his final coercive tool. His face, originally one of curiosity and mischief, was suddenly dominated by an overpowering rage. His eyes were that of righteous fury and no words could be said that would describe exactly how serious he was. Not that he needed to, as Terry started talking after the final pop confirmed Brick's finger was now no longer attached to his body.