When the rains may come (Science Fiction)

24. The Compromise

Command was wearing a crisp white blouse under an equally crisp navy blue blazer and a pencil skirt of the same color. The blazer had the Vigilant Squad insignia on the right breast pocket and a hawk embroidered on each shoulder. Her stockings were black and so were her pumps. Her short brown hair were slicked back and she wore bright red lipstick and a slight touch of blush on her cheeks.

She was in the High House of Justice in the city of Kingsville–the government district–waiting in the corridor right outside the courtroom. The bronze plaque on the wall read: Protection of the law is the service to humanity.

Her mind went over all the details of Luce's case, over what went down in Sector 22. The rain, the truck, the dead operatives, Lisa Neville, the Silver Lining. And now there was the Last Hand involved in it as well.

This thing had gotten too complicated by now. She scoffed. That was a joke. It had been complicated from the very beginning. Right from the point when they got the news that Richard Neville had gotten away with the information of Silver Lining. The fact that they had to go after his wife just meant that it had already snowballed into a bigger mess.

There was no point in questioning Luce's competence. He was one of the best agents in the Vigilant Squad. He had a simple job–stop the information about Silver Lining from spreading. The special grade truck, Peacebringer, getting stolen was a problem that arrived at the eleventh hour. It had not only distracted Luce from his main assignment but forced him to improvise with minimal resources. No, there was no point in blaming it on him.

That wasn't how the Firsts were going to see it, though. They were always looking for someone to blame. Command would lose one of her most reliable men if Luce was to take the fall for everything. She wanted to save Luce in all this. But that meant she had to take the fall for it herself. Make it look like the entire chain of command was to blame.

In any other scenario, this wouldn't have daunted Command as much as it did now. Since there wasn't just the threat of some sensitive information leak but also a stolen special grade weapon and terrorist involvement that she had to answer for. Again, it was too complicated this time. So complicated that the Firsts could dissolve the entire Vigilant Squad department for all they cared. They could and they would if they felt like it. They'd done a lot worse for a lot less.

Command held back a groan. She had told Luce that he wasn't in as bad of a spot as he felt he was. She was starting to doubt it now.

A few minutes later, they called her into the courtroom. She walked in through the tall gilded doorway. Here goes nothing.

###

"You sure, you didn't hit your head too hard, Erik?" Gemma asked. They were inside the truck now. "You are talking about breaking out almost two hundred people from a high security prison? Are you sure your brain processed that sentence correctly before your mouth said it."

"I stole a special grade truck from right under their noses, remember?" Erik smirked.

"Erik, this is one truck," Gemma said. "We are talking about two hundred inmates. We are not even as big a group as we used to be three months ago!"

"I know. We are short in numbers."

Gemma scoffed. "We aren't 'short in numbers,' Erik. We are just two people left of the Last Hand. We can't do shit."

"Who said it was just gonna be the two of us who will do it?" Erik said. He was still smirking.

Gemma looked at him. She didn't like his expression one bit. "Y-You mean, there are gonna be other people involved too? But who?"