Prog 4 : Drop
Manta detached from Aegis with a series of mechanical clanks as anchors and latches disengaged and retracted. The fighter sat atop a precision-engineered slab of heat-shielding, designed to vent the searing exhaust gasses away from the airship's envelope when the plane docked. With a screaming roar the main turbofans lit, rising to a crescendo of burning noise. Slowly, the vectored exhausts lifted the shield-shaped aircraft up and away from Aegis. The airship bobbed in the V-TOL jets' wake, attitude control fans working to keep it in place. "Separation complete," came Betancourt's clipped voice in the Judge's earpieces – radio was the only way to be heard over the scream of the engines. "Manta independent callsign registered." The tone of the engines changed to a higher-pitch and the plane lurched forward. "Clear to maneuver – engaging ramscrams in five, four, ready, steady . . ."
Betancourt's "Go!" was masked by a sudden explosion of noise – 'sound' was a petty description for the aural assault from the engines – and the physical impact on the Judges as the craft accelerated. Teeth snapped together and heads jerked, helmets bouncing against the walls where the four of them were maglocked in place.
"Grud on a Greenie . . ." muttered Anderson. Brufen was pale, his face gray and running with sweat. Quartermain's face was severe, her sensual lips compressed, her jaw locked and nostrils flaring as she struggled to control her breathing.
Cornelius flexed in his restraints, riding Manta's acceleration like a bike. All he would have needed to do was chew gum to complete the image of indifferent, radiating calm. "Not the wildest ride I've had today . . ." he murmured.
"Thirty to LZ!" called Betancourt. "Deploy window is ten."
"Thirty to drop, window is ten, confirm!" shouted Cornelius. "We ready?" he asked his fellow Judges. His voice echoed in their earpieces.
"Oh, Dok no . . ." muttered Brufen.
Anderson nudged him none-too-gently in the ribs. "Judge the drokk up!" she ordered. "You wear the eagle? Fly like one!" She looked over at her XO and grinned – but there was carefully-controlled fear behind it. "Ready!" she shouted.
"Just like a drill, just like a drill, just like a drill . . ." Quartermain chanted as a mantra.
"Jackie?" asked Cornelius.
"I am The Law, I am justice, I am The Law, I am justice, I am . . ."
"She's good," Anderson assured him.
"Ten to drop!" Betancourt reported. "Nine, eight, seven . . ." His count continued as Brufen gasped.
"Haven't done this in ages . . ." he muttered.
"Dropped?" asked Anderson. He shook his head.
"Engaged . . ." he moaned, trembling in his restraints.
Quartermain's eyes snapped open. "It's like riding a bike," she said suddenly.
He turned to face her. "You mean you don't forget how?" he asked hopefully. She shook her head.
"Naw – if you try it without a helmet we scrape you off the tarmac and ship to you resyk in a bucket," she said dryly. Brufen gulped, swallowing bile. She closed her eyes and continued her chant – but this time with a self-assured little grin on her face. "I am The Law, I am justice, I am . . ."
". . . two, one, window!" The engines screamed and Manta's airframe squealed with stressing metal as Betancourt flung it into effective reverse, thrusting the vectored exhausts forward. The nose pitched upward, the plane corkscrewing to lose speed. The Judges lurched in their restraints, crimson lights and warning klaxons whoop-whooping like a killbot's heartbeat. The drop-ramp crashed open, revealing the confusion of the stalled traffic of the Dream Cruise hundreds of feet below. The roar of the engines and the wash of the jets battered hotly into the droproom. Manta lurched and rocked – with the doors open, the aerodynamics were ruined, the engines throttled-down to protect the airborne assault unit, the plane held aloft by inertia and the fact gravity hadn't quite noticed it yet. "Window is closing! Eight, seven, six . . ."
"Go! Go! Go!" ordered Cornelius, slapping the release button on the front of his restraints and sprinting down the ramp. He leaped off it, widowmaker in his right hand, left grabbing for a cluster flash-bang. The cable whipped through the arrestor gear, barely slowing him from free-fall. The sun was set, the pale blue of the sky long-gone – now the western curve was justice-blue, the rest of it sentencing-black. Most of the streetlights were harsh silver halogens, but there were pools of glowing bronze cast by just-warming sodium lamps. He seemed to hang in the air above the crime scene for a few instants, his visor's HUD crawling with data and warnings, the adrenaline of anticipation washing away wounds and weariness from the Cursed Earth and Cedar Point.
These few seconds were precious jewels beyond price in combat – the perps below him were caught flat-footed by the sudden appearance of Manta and the Judges' airborne assault, gaping and stunned, fumbling at best for weapons. He assessed the LZ, chose targets and prioritized them. He primed the cluster grenade and tossed it.
In Manta's droproom, Quartermain inhaled deeply and hit her release, sprinting shakily forward and diving off the jump ramp with a screamed battlecry; "I am The Law! I am justice! I am The Law!"
It ain't original, thought Anderson, but there are reasons things are classics. She hit her own release, glancing over at Brufen. The Tek-Judge – his justice-blue uniform purple in the crimson lights – was quivering and quaking, shaking his head. "I . . . I can't . . ." he mouthed.
With an unceremonious curse, Anderson slammed the butt of her shotgun into his restraints' release and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. She threw him stumbling forward, helping him off the ramp with a hearty kick in the seat of his pants. He screamed and flailed as he fell, computer-controlled arrestor gear keeping him from tumbling. Anderson grinned and charged down the ramp herself, kicking off it just as it started to close.
The cluster bomb exploded fifty feet above the elevated highway, scattering miniaturized flash-bangs over a wide area. A second later, they detonated – bubbles of ear-splitting noise and eye-boiling brightness, sending perps and hostages alike stumbling deaf-and-blind, guns dropped as they clutched at their faces. Cornelius shifted his weight, angling his body so his boot crashed into the back of a perp's neck as he landed. Slamming the unfortunate man face-first into the tarmac he swung the shotgun and sent another crashing backwards with a shattered jaw. "Judges!" he roared, helmet-speakers amplifying his voice over the scream of Manta's engines. "You're under arrest!"
Quartermain touched down next to him, landing awkwardly, one leg going out so she slipped down onto one knee. She recovered quickly in an I-totally-meant-to-do-that way, lifting her shotgun to her shoulder and bracing her elbow on her thigh. She fired without thinking, training turning to instinct in the heat of battle, and a perp went down with a sucking chest-wound. "Hey!" she yelled, standing up and charging forward. "My boss don't talk for his health!" She fired again, hitting a ganger in the shoulder and sending him spinning away.
Cornelius sprinted forward, dropping perps with shotgun blasts, leaping atop the gleaming lipstick-red and chrome glory of a classic car. He was no expert, but it said Ultima on the back and he was pretty sure the logo was Nissan. He had no idea how much such a thing might be worth, but it had to be tens if not hundreds of thousands. "Throw down your weapons!" he shouted. "Hands on your head!"
Anderson hit in the space he and Quartermain had cleared, shotgun blazing. Most of the perps in that area had been neutralized; Quartermain had cuffed one to the rims of a freaking Oldsmobile which looked like it still had the original wood-effect vinyl! Oh, don't scratch it, don't scratch it, please don't scratch it! she thought at Quartermain furiously – PsiDiv could not afford a lawsuit for the value of that priceless antique. She swept her gaze around the LZ – the perps were recovering from the stun grenades, gathering their wits. She reached out with her psynses. "Leader's bailing!" she shouted. "Blue transporter!"
"My fox!" yelled Cornelius. He set off at a run across the parked cars, leaping from roof to roof, boots denting bodywork and scratching paint. The bulky transporters were behind the gun-trucks and bikes, vintage cars being loaded onto them. One of the transporters was reversing away, banging into the others in the driver's panic. The bikers raised their guns, the heavy weapons on the backs of the pickups turning towards Cornelius. He dived for the gap between two cars, his shoulder crumpling the door panel of a mint-condition Tahoe as bullets whipped through the air, tearing up the asphalt and chewing vehicles to scrap. Ignoring the anguished cry from the car's owner, he smashed the nearside window with the butt of his shotgun and shot the opposite one out. Poking his head up, he hit two of the gun-trucks with the laser. "Targets painted, Nick!" he cried. "Light 'em up!"
"Targets acquired." Betancourt's voice was detached in his ear, precise-but-playful – Cornelius could imagine the face the pilot was making; calm, collected, heavy-lidded, only half in the now. "Fox one, fox one. Missiles away." Twin lances of light punched into the gun-trucks from above and behind, massive smoke-edged orange-red fireballs blossoming and scattering bikes and gangers like toys. Screams were flung back towards Cornelius on the hot air, the Chevy he was sheltering behind rocking with the blastwave. As he leaped up and vaulted over the hood of the car, Manta howled overhead, heavy-caliber full-auto fire from the wing-mounted cannons tearing into the remains of the perps' vehicles. "Justice Department!" Betancourt roared over the radio and the external PA system. "Stand down!"
Brufen had landed seconds after Quartermain and Anderson, saved from fractures by the semi-intelligent harness which slowed his descent in the final few meters to nothing more than a bone-jarring thud! Even so, he stumbled, the arrestor gear piling on top of him as it fell, tangling him in the cable. By the time he had extricated himself and got to his feet, the two women had secured the immediate area. Perps were kneeling on the floor, hands behind their heads, some cuffed, others lying dead or dying with bullet wounds. "Brufen!" Anderson ordered. "Hold the scene!" She gestured with the barrel of her gun. "Jackie! With me!"
"Yes, Ma'am!" snapped Quartermain. Her carbine had run dry – she tossed it to the ground and drew her lawgiver, utterly unable to suppress the joyous grin that stretched her face when it cycled and came online as it recognized her DNA. Her blood was singing, her limbs moving of their own volition, training sweeping through her without conscious thought, all her actions instinct. She set off after Anderson, the two of them weaving through the cars behind the barrels of their guns, freeing hostages and taking out perps step by textbook step as they moved towards the construction equipment roadblock.
Cornelius leaped from the last of the vintage cars, holding his breath as he ran through the burning wreckage. He'd shipped his shotgun, his lawgiver cracking as he executed a couple of injured perps. He made it through the fire and found himself between two of the massive transporters, hemmed in on each side. Ahead of him, the blue transporter was still reversing away, bouncing between the others with sparks and screams of scraping metal. Gangers with battered-but-serviceable rifles blocked his path.
He dived into one of the transporters' wheel-wells, bullets ringing around him, one or two bouncing off his armor. He stuck his head and arm out of cover – the perps were inexperienced street-toughs, posturing with the guns without any real idea how to use them. They hadn't sought cover – and two shots from Cornelius meant they wouldn't make that mistake again. He jumped out from behind the massive tire and ran forward after the reversing transporter.
Overhead, Manta howled as it banked and swept back. "I have lock," Betancourt reported. In Cornelius' HUD, flashing lights and an overlain-outline showed just what he was locked on to – the transporter carrying the 'jacker-in-chief. "Do I have the green light?"
"Negative," ordered Cornelius tightly. "I don't want the insurance claims." The transporter wasn't full, but he could see it was loaded with enough classic cars to make the paperwork a nightmare. "Patrol and protect, do not engage without authorization."
"Man, you ground command are all the same!" Betancourt lamented, the smile in his voice clear. Cornelius didn't answer, instead running after the transporter.
It had reversed clear of the tunnel made by the other two, turning so it was broadside to the highway. There was a frantic figure in the driver's seat, struggling with the awkward gear shift, furiously spinning the steering wheel so he could turn. "Rapid fire," said Cornelius calmly and shredded the rubber of the near-side wheel with a short burst. He'd stopped sprinting – the perp wasn't going anywhere. "Armour piercing," he ordered as he walked forward, allowing himself a certain amount of swagger as the panicking carjacker struggled with the blown-out tire, the rim of the wheel grinding as it dug a gouge in the tarmac. Three hardened bullets tore through the engine like a blowtorch through synthi-spread. It spluttered and died silently.
Back at the LZ, Brufen spun at a yelled challenge. "Drop the gun, lawman!" A perp was standing ten yards away, using a sobbing woman as a human shield, his pistol pressed to her neck. Brufen brought his lawgiver up two-handed, shuffling his feet to get them into a range-perfect stance. "Now, I'm going to walk out of here . . ." the perp said.
Brufen licked his dry lips. "Release . . . release the hostage," he said, his voice high and wavering. "Your crimes carry multiple life sentences – do not make it worse for yourself by compounding your felonies." The perp laughed.
"You don't do this much, do you?" he correctly surmised. He pushed the gun harder into the woman's neck, moving so she was covering more of his body – there was no safe shot any Judge could take, let alone this uncertain boy-in-blue. "I'm gonna count to three. One . . ." Behind the visor of his dark-blue helmet, Brufen narrowed his eyes, considering. He nodded and lowered his gun. The perp smiled and chuckled.
"Ricochet," Brufen said calmly, and shot the ground between the perp's feet.
The rubber-titanium shell hit the asphalt and bounced off, deflecting at a shallow angle to hit the side of a car. The perp managed to start laughing with a mocking "Heh-heh . . ." before the bullet bounced back and opened a keyhole in the side of his head. Abruptly, he stopped laughing and crumpled to the floor.
"Math," said Brufen by way of satisfied explanation, an instant before a gigantic lumbering shape flung a car aside and swatted at him with a massive fist. It caught him a glancing blow in the shoulder, his armor taking most of the blow, the edge of a plate driven into his arm, numbing it. He was flung across the highway with the wind knocked out of him, sliding and skidding to a halt, the material of his jumpsuit scoured to the blood on the rough tarmac. Half-stunned and with his helmet knocked off, he fired frantically at the bulky mass of the exo-suit bearing down on him. The perps must have been using it to help load the cars on the transporters – it was a heavy industrial model, common in Big Tri, with a box of crude armor welded over the pilot compartment.
Citizens screamed and scattered – the mechanical monster ignored them, concentrating on the Judge. Bullets bounced off hydraulic limbs and makeshift armor – a better shot might have been able to hit fluid lines or joints, but it was unlikely the Tek-Judge could have managed that on his best day at the range let alone stunned, wounded and flustered. The suit grabbed a car between it and the Judge, crumpling the bodywork with its claw as it lifted it, tossing the vehicle off the elevated highway like a discarded toy.
"High Explosive!" said Brufen with relish – he'd never actually fired one of these shells, not even on the range, but if there ever was a moment to use one it was now and he would be drokked if he didn't enjoy it. The lawgiver cycled, but unsatisfactorily, the tone of the metallic note somehow wrong.
And then Brufen realized his pistol's Category II magazine was partially-loaded with training shells, because he never used it anywhere except the range and who would have thought he was ever going to deploy? His 'Hi-Ex' shells were simple smoke-grenades.
"Oh, dear . . ." he muttered. He winced and looked away from the behemoth about to smear him to paste, seeing a particular antique car just behind the exo-suit. And then he smiled. "Standard!" he called and shot the Pinto in the gas tank.
The bulk of the exo-suit shielded Brufen from the worst of the resulting explosion, but ripped shards of razor-sharp metal and a spray of burning fuel tore through the unarmored rear of the suit, shredding the pilot to a roasted hash inside the pilot's compartment. The exo-suit froze in mid-strike, swaying back and forth. Brufen scrambled clear as it toppled forward with a ringing crash. He studied it carefully for a few seconds as the compressors cycled down and the hydraulics relaxed and then nodded, satisfied. He swept his gaze over the cuffed and kneeling perps, drawing himself up to his full height and lifting his chin. He put his boot on the exo-suit, posing with his smoking lawgiver held two-handed at his shoulder.
"I am . . . The Law," he said.
In the cab of the transporter the carjacker cursed and frantically tried the ignition again and again. He yelled in panic as the door was torn open and Cornelius hauled him out of the driver's seat, throwing him to the ground. He tried to get up, but Cornelius' knee in his back pinned him down and drew a cry of pain from him. "You're under arrest," said Cornelius as he cuffed him. "Grand theft auto, conspiracy to commit, criminal association, failure to properly signal a turn." He hauled him upright, getting a look at him. "Memphis Raines?" he asked, amazed. It couldn't be anyone else – the crazed look and ridiculous hair of the famous carjacker was unmistakeable. "Drokk it, man, what is it with you?" he asked. "Half of the time you pick the best jobs – award-winning stuff. And the other half it's like it's amateur hour." He didn't wait for a response, instead marching his perp back towards the LZ.
Anderson and Quartermain had reached the impromptu roadblock – most of the perps had fled, fleeing northward, but a few had remained. Anderson gestured with her shotgun. "Outta there!" she ordered. "Move!" Terrified, with their hands raised, they complied. "Cuff 'em," she ordered Quartermain, stowing the widowmaker and clambering up the bucket supports of a big yellow digger so she could stand on the roof of the cab. Almost wearily she drew her lawgiver and sent precise shots out into the night.
Quartermain was cuffing the final perp when something flashed through her awareness. "Cass! Down!" she screamed. Anderson instinctively dropped to one knee, spinning and firing as she did so. That probably saved her life – the bullets that would have torn through her spine and kidneys whipped past her head and shoulders. One clipped her helmet, ringing it like a bell and knocking her off the digger with a cry. "Cassandra!" screamed Quartermain in anguish.
The moment of distraction let the perp wrench himself free. He punched her in the face and slammed her against a rusty pneumatic drill. He lunged for her and pinned her helplessly against the machine, his hands squeezing her throat. "Little Judge-girl!" he spat contemptuously.
Anderson's snap-shot hit the perp who'd fired at her, tearing through the muscle of his thigh. He clutched at his wound with a cry of pain, dropping his gun. Brufen ran towards him, clambering over the fallen 'suit, struggling and lurching on the uneven footing, aiming his lawgiver as best as he could. "On your knees!" he yelled in a frantic frenzy. "Now-now-now!" The perp crashed down, more due to his leg going out than anything else, linking his hands behind his head as the Tek-Judge covered him with a shaking weapon.
Quartermain choked and gasped as the perp throttled her. She snarled in anger and drove her stiff, locked fingers into his solar plexus, sending him staggering back. She grabbed his wrist in both her hands and spun, throwing him over her shoulders to land on the floor in a winded heap. Dispassionately, she put her boot behind his shoulder and wrenched with the full strength of her arms and hips. He screamed in agony as humerus and scapular separated, his clavicle breaking with a particularly-disgusting wet snap.
"My name," she said through gritted teeth, "is Judicial-Cadet Jacqueline Fiona Quartermain. And you're under arrest, you son of a spug." She wiped her mouth – shining in the harsh halogen streetlights, her pale blue glove came away streaked with red. "Cassandra?" she called frantically, peering between the muddy yellow vehicles.
Anderson was kneeling on the ground on the other side of the roadblock, her helmet cracked and lying next to her. She was holding her head in her hands, her shoulders shuddering with pain and her cheeks running with tears. "I'm good," she managed. "Just . . . owwww!" She fumbled on her belt for a bottle and popped it open, her shaking hands scattering little white pills on the road. She picked one up with trembling fingers and slipped it into her mouth, grimacing as she crunched it between her teeth and swallowed the harsh powder.
Quartermain beamed with delight, relief flooding through her. She narrowed her eyes and spun on her heel, paying no attention to the perp she'd crippled. She stalked purposefully between the jammed cars, heading towards the fallen exo-suit. Brufen was standing atop it, his gun trained on a kneeling perp with a rifle lying in front of him. Thermal imaging in her visor showed it had been fired recently. "He shot Cassandra?" she asked.
Brufen nodded. "I've got him," he told her, moving his lawgiver so it caught her attention. "Cuff him."
Quartermain looked at the perp for a second, and then drew her own weapon. "Attempted murder of a Judge," she said coldly.
A queasy look spread over Brufen's face. "I've got him!" he shouted desperately.
Quartermain didn't even acknowledge him. She lifted her lawgiver and pointed it directly between the perp's eyes. Pleading horror flashed through them as it came up. At the last instant, he flinched and turned his head away. "Please . . ." he mouthed.
She didn't pause or hesitate. She fired.
The ammo-read in her visor's HUD dropped by one and the kneeling perp dropped, too. He tumbled with a neat hole punched in the side of his head, hitting the asphalt loose-limbed, a marionette with cut strings. She remembered her dream and stepped to the side, putting herself between Brufen and the final perp. Behind her, she could hear Brufen gasping and heaving, trying to process what he had seen and she had done.
She looked over iron sights at a ganger swinging at her with a crowbar. She fired again, but her shot went through empty space as he stumbled to the side. A widowmaker round had slammed into him, entering under his arm and exiting through the opposite clavicle. He flopped to the ground, dead before he hit.
"Clear!" called Cornelius, slowing from the sprint he'd used to arrive in time.
"Cl . . . clear!" stuttered Brufen.
From where she'd laboriously climbed back atop the cab of the digger, Anderson waved her shotgun to attract their attention. "Yoo-hoo!" she called. "Clear!"
"Visible hostiles neutralized," Betancourt's voice said in their earbeads. "Big Tri Judiciary informed – inbound."
Cornelius turned to her. "Call it, Cadet," he ordered.
She swept the scene, taking stock of the smashed cars, the burning wreckage, the dead and the dying, the cuffed perps and sobbing citizens. Above her, Manta banked as Betancourt swept over the LZ. Very deliberately, she safetied and holstered her lawgiver.
"All clear," she called.
A/n : In a very early Judge Dredd comic, there was a story about carjackers who were stealing vintage cars. The satire was that these very valuable (in the 22nd century) cars were cheap and terrible cars in the 1970s (when the comic was published). A lot of them were British cars, too (British comic) – things like Reliant Robins, Ford Cortinas etc. etc. I tried to do a little of that here – the faux-wood panel Oldsmobile, a Chevy Tahoe, a Nissan Ultima). And, of course, the exploding Pinto gets a shout-out!
Not a lot else to say – I tried to give everyone something to do (although Cornelius and Anderson – having had their own action elsewhere – get a little less than others. We sort of gloss-over what they do) and tried to show some characterization and development. Quartermain gets the lion's share, of course – it is, after all, her story.
Anyway – what do you think? Review box is right underneath – just type what you thought! I always return the review love!