Tales Of The Rocket Patrol 2

Chapter 4

     Commander Anders' first instinct was to have Sergeant Star arrested for what she had just done, but it was a daunting task. She was not only one of their most skilled officers in hand to hand combat but she also possessed the only fully functional blaster in the building. He took a deep breath, stood up and then approached Star.

     "What do you plan to do with that?" Anders inquired.

     "I'm going to take it to the science lab, find out why it's still working." Amanda replied, "We need to find a way to shut these down before we're overwhelmed with a new crime wave like we've never seen before in the city."

     As much as he hated her right now for what had just happened, she was right. They needed to study the blaster to make sure they could fix and update their security systems. "Take that to the lab, tell the geeks down there that this blaster is priority one. They don't have anything more important than this."

     "Yes, Sir." Amanda said as she turned and walked out of the Commander's office with a smile on her face.

     She had not only blasted something in his office, but she was able to get away with it. Amanda was still confident that she'd pay for it later but in the end Commander Anders was a good officer; the city and its people where his top priority and not some petty grudge with a cocky member of his patrol. She respected him for that and would do what she could to make sure neither of them would get caught with their pants down again when more of these blasters came into the city. Her worst fear was that a lot of them were already there. The soot out today was just a test to make sure they worked. If that was true, they were about to be knee deep in blaster fire fights which was something that a lot of recruits took for granted and slacked on as they assumed the defense grid would always be there.

     Amanda had always wanted to work off world, travel with guys like Rogers so she practiced three times a week in the blaster halls. If she wanted to work off world where there were no defense grids to help her out, she would have to be the best shot in the galaxy. She worked very hard to be the best shooter in Rocket Patrol history. Over half the records in the city blasting zones belonged to her as her hard work had been paying off over the last several months. That didn't change the fact that most of the officers in the patrol were not ready for that kind of fire fight and were horribly ill prepared. Any attempt to give them all a crash course would cause a panic and the people in the city would know there was something wrong. Most of them were going to learn through trial by fire, not a preferred method but a valuable teacher. Those who survive will walk away better patrolers, if any of them survived at all.

     While she was strolling towards the lab, she spotted someone in the hallway and pulled him aside. He was a good officer, despite his lack of discipline concerning his waist line. He seemed more surprised than upset that Amanda wanted to speak with her.

     "Peter, I need your help." she told him.

     "Anything for you." Peter said as he seemed eager to do anything.

     She let the comment pass and proceeded to quickly tell him something. Then without any notice, she shoved Peter away from her. "Watch where you're going next time, you clumsy oaf!"

     Peter was about to say something back but stopped when he saw Amanda wink at him, indicating it was an act. "I'm terribly sorry. It won't happen again."

     "Make sure it doesn't." Amanda snapped back. "And tuck in your shirt!"

     After making that last abrupt statement, she walked away from Peter and carried on down the hall towards the lab where she wanted to drop off the blaster for inspection. She was about halfway to the lab and avoiding as many people as possible when something finally happened. Two of the guards that were present in Commander Anders' office approached her as she tried to walk past them, blocking her way to the lab.

     "Is there a problem?" She quickly asked.

     "The blaster, Sergeant Star." The man said with his hand extended. "Hand it over."

     "Or what?" Amanda asked.

     Rather than tell her, one of the two men attacked wit the intent of taking the blaster from her by force. Star not only caught the man's terrible hook but proceeded to strike the elbow of the offending arm as well as land two more body shots before using her left hand to drop the big man to the ground with a sharp uppercut. Before the other man could respond, Star immediately attacked him with a barrage of hard kicks, most of which he was able to block before taking a shot that caught him in the side of his knew which forced him to the ground. Once cut down to size, Amanda took her own blaster and pistol whipped the second man, sending him crashing to the floor with a loud thud.

     Rather than hang around, Amanda proceeded to continue walking towards the lab, eager to deliver the blaster for them to examine. It was clear that someone in the Patrol was too scared to even let the rumor of this blaster cause a panic, which was the wrong move. They needed to get a head of this and denying its existence was only going to set them up for embarrassment when the next blaster comes into town and then the next hundred after that. It was clear that someone didn't want her to make it to the lab with the blaster. What confused Amanda the most was their motives. Did they just want to quell the panic, which didn't make sense cause they can't deny it if more blasters make it into the city. She had to conclude that there was someone on the inside trying to keep the blaster's secret from being exposed. Someone who was a part of the new blasters being smuggled into the city for what Amanda had to assume was for something far more sinister. Like Rogers had told her earlier, she was going to have to keep watching her six, because someone was out to stop her. Star was less than twenty feet away from the lab when the lady who was in Anders' office, escorted by several military officers, blocked her from accessing the doors. She took the blaster that was in her hand, and hid it behind her back.

     "Can I help you with something?" Amanda asked.

     "The blaster." The woman replied, "I want it."

     "You can't have it." Amanda said, boldly standing up to her.

     "And why not?" the woman then asked.

     Amanda smiled at them all, but not for the reason they thought. Behind them was Peter, already in the lab. He had taken the blaster from Amanda and delivered it to the lab while she was fighting in the hallways. To reveal this little fact to them all, she pulled out the blaster from behind her back to reveal it was Peter's primary pistol, which then revealed to them all that the illegal blaster was no longer in her possession.

     "Because it's already in the lab." Amanda answered.

     The woman turned around to enter the lab, but it was too late. On her instructions, Peter had ordered the lab to lock down. Anders himself said that the blaster was their only priority so once it was in their possession, the geeks locked all doors and immediately began to inspect the weapon.

     "This isn't over." The woman called back to Amanda.

     Amanda pulled out a pair of cuffs. "If you and your men don't walk away, I'm personally going to toss you all into lock up for obstructing a Rocket Patrol investigation. We clear on that?"

    The officers behind the woman scattered and walked away. Their boss stood there in the middle of the hallway and stared at Sergeant Star for a moment before walking away. Amanda had won for now, but she had a feeling that wasn't the last she was going to see of that person.