P.M., Julie Steimle [unputdownable books TXT] 📗

Korad could not believe it. He fired into the crowd, yelling the command to stop once again. People ducked down low, screaming in fright. One was even hit, screaming in pain, but Jafarr Zeldar was nowhere to be seen. Infuriated, Dural Korad threw is leg back over his flight scooter. If there was someone to blame, it was not the People’s Military. He would get justice for the loss of the criminal. It was the Surface Patrol had to take responsibility. Those flymites were careless, filled with inferior blood and breeding. It was they who had lost him his man.

Mulling over the angry details, flying through the stretching tunnels that led to the Alpha district of the Surface Patrol, Korad fumed. They lost him in transport, he was sure. Too little attention was given to his cuffs. He had never lost Zeldar. They were incompetent, and they had to pay.

The gate opened ahead of him for a flymite. Dural Korad took his chance and flew on in after him before the doors closed, Mezela following straight after. Korad hopped off his flight scooter at once to face the guardroom officers of the Surface Patrol.

“You can’t come in here!” the gate guard yelled. He bore a laser pistol, type36 and pointed it as a threat.

“I come as I like!” Korad shouted back. “Who lost Zeldar? That rat was mine and you filthy flymites lost him!”

Across the room he heard an angry shriek, too high pitched to be from any man. Several Surface Patrol officers stood off to one side where the sound had erupted, and he caught a glimpse of a tiny blond woman Surface Patrol officer whose face was bright red with anger.

“We lost him? You lost him!” she shouted. Korad could see now that the officer was nothing more than a first pod Anzer, a small frail looking girl at that. He noticed her burning green eyes first as she glared at him with her tiny fists clenched. Her hair, however, indicated that she was but a mere orphan by her mourning strands.

Korad ignored the child. “I want to speak to the officer who caught him.”

The crowd of Surface Patrol officers snickered. The young Anzer glared at them to be quiet, but it did not stop them. Korad peered at them, waiting. 

“I am that officer,” the small Anzer’s sharp girlish voice declared.

Meet the Anzer

 

Korad stared down at her. It was too unbelievable to take her seriously. She was smaller than the rest of the officers, and one thing he did know about Jafarr was that he was strong, very strong. He had to fight off groupies almost daily in the undercity. No one such as this could capture him.

“No fooling now. I want to speak to the Alea who caught him!” Dural Korad said, searching the crowd of soldiers who were mostly Avers and Anzers. Mezela stood by his side and folded his arms, also waiting.

The Anzer stomped her foot. “I caught him, like I caught him before. I doubt you have that capture in your records since some idiot lost him in transport that time too.”

Korad refused to believe it. “You? You are a weak little flymite. An unimportant little flea.”

As if she were a jumping spider, the small Anzer leapt at him when he mentioned the word flea. Most people took insult to it, but no one had ever jumped at him before for saying it. No one would jump at a People’s Military officer. It was like inviting death. However, Dural Korad found that his ability to fight back fled him the moment she pounced. He tried to fight off the child, but it was as if she was a spider, biting him with a deadly hold and knocking him to the ground. All she had to do was wind him up in thread and suck out his blood. When he tried to move he found that he couldn’t—pinned to the very floor he had been standing on just a second earlier.

“Zormna! Get off of him at once!” a voice over the foyer called out with much authority.

Korad felt her reluctantly climb off his numb and aching back.

At last able to move, he rolled over and got to his feet but not without feeling all his joints ache. He saw the Alpha district leader standing over him as the small woman moved away, though the look in her eye showed that she was squelching the urge to kick him in the side.

He wiped his suit off with a short brisk stroke. Then looking up slightly, he lunged at the tiny officer who had now stood back from him just two paces. Dural Mezela, who had been watching with shock the entire time leapt forward to stop his partner, but he was too late.

Just like the flea that she was, the young Aver sprang up and out of the way, swung her leg just so, and Dural Korad found himself lying on the floor again, wincing from the blow. He tried to scramble up to fight back, but his partner was faster in his movements. Dural Mezela held him back.

Korad felt furious at the interference, but changed his manner quickly when Alea Arden stood glaringly close to his chest.

“What are you doing here in Alpha? You have no business here!” Alea Arden said.

Korad straightened up with a glare at the child Anzer, who seemed no older than thirteen Parthan years, too young to be an officer of that rank now that he thought about it. “This…this officer assaulted me!”

“I will deal with her later,” Alea Arden replied. “You did not answer my question.  What are you doing here, and how dare you enter this compound without the proper authorization? I could have you suspended for this!”

The head Alpha Alea stood firmly between them.

Korad glared angrily at the floor. He knew this Alea’s reputation. He was a hater of High Class order and the entire People’s Military. First in command under the Kevin, he was dangerous.

“I’m sorry,” Korad bowed, somewhat mortified he had to apologize to this lower class man. “I was only in a hurry to investigate the loss of a prisoner when I was assaulted.”

“I can understand the Anzer’s anger,” the Alea continued with his glare. “You give us lists, demanding we apprehend certain people that cross our paths, insisting we do your dirty work. And then after we have done it, your people lose what we have so tiresomely labor for.”

The Alea glanced at the small Anzer, almost winking. It was obvious to Korad now that the Alea and this Anzer were friends. There was no way to win a rational argument in these circumstances.

Korad growled under his breath. “It is important to the survival of Arras.”

Alea Arden shook his head. “I’m not so sure. I used to live in the undercity, and I know what your kind do there.”

Suddenly the reasoning of the man before him made sense. He was no more than an undercity rat, just like Zeldar. That was why Alea Arden was so hostile to the People’s Military. Since it was pointless to talk to him any further, Dural Korad bowed and tried to excuse himself.

Arden was not finished. “Those people aren’t worthless as you so clearly believe.” He followed the two officers as they returned to the entrance and casually suited up to depart with dignity. They mounted their flight scooters.

“They aren’t rats, they are human beings!” Alea Arden shouted out in the last. But they flew away, ignoring the calls of the undercity born Alea. He spoke only nonsensical babble anyway.

“P.M.s,” they heard him mutter.

The Surface Patrol doors closed and coded seals locked the only access to the surface of the planet.

Back to Headquarters

Dural Korad and Mesela returned to their bunker, tired from a grueling day of work. No one appreciated them. Korad was tired of the ordeal of dealing with rats and would quit if he were not so devoted to the real goal of the People’s Military. It was not just to keep the people in order, though it would be hard for the government to rule other wise. Their work was vital to the survival of life as they knew it. Their searches were necessary. Even the executions and the raids were necessary.

Korad loosened the straps on his boots and set them beside his bed. The next day would be a profitable one. Another Tarrn family had been found and they would be rid of another threat to the order of the underground city. After all, who was to say that ten-thousand-year prophecy should come to pass? What do prophets know about people? The rats could not possibly rule, and led by a Tarrn. Bah! Impossible. Besides, who was to say the government could not continue ruling forever? Just as soon as those rats are under control, everything would be all right. With that pleasant thought, Dural Korad closed his eyes to sleep.

 

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Publication Date: 02-28-2018

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