279 Internal affairs 1

Being woken after 2 days on the job without sleep, police chief Hort swore like a sailor as he got up from the warm and comfortable bed he had just laid down in. Putting on a coffee stained, wrinkled shirt before donning a worn trench coat, gripping his police badge and service weapon on the way out. Arriving at the scene 10 minutes later Hort found that his subordinate had given him a lacking briefing.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Instead of what he had been expecting, the victims this time around were almost entirely Hellwalkers themselves, with the sole exception being a young navy officer who was being treated by a final Hellwalker in a slightly different uniform from the rest.

"Lieutenant, what happened here?"

"Ah, hello sir. The statement from both the navy officers over there, the Hellwalkers who can still talk and the spectators mostly line up. A group of Hellwalkers were beating up that young officer over there when that larger Hellwalker over there arrived together with others who've already left. Seeing what was happening the Hellwalker beat up his buddies and when some of them drew weapons he shot them, then started treating that navy officer over there."

Getting the rundown from his subordinate, Hort only found himself even more confused. With no other way of getting any more information, he decided to ask the only Hellwalker who was still standing some questions.

"Hello, I'm police chief Hort, care to answer a few questions?"

"Sure, but I'll keep treating this officer in the meanwhile."

Still not getting a read on the Hellwalker, Hort breathed a deep sigh as he took out his notebook.

"So, did you shoot those guys?"

"Yeah, I did. Two times each to be precise."

Surprised at the brutally honest answer, Hort had a momentary lapse in judgement where he believed that this particular Hellwalker might be alright.

"So why did you shoot them?"

"Because they were beating up this navy officer without reason."

"Okay? Then how come you're not treating them? They're your buddies right?"

"Because it's not needed, they're former Hellwalkers, getting shot shouldn't be an issue for them."

Glancing over at the injured Hellwalkers, the one whose jaw was destroyed in particular, Hort highly doubted any one of them would make it without immediate medical attention.

"Wait, what do you mean 'former'?"

"Just that, as acting Hellwalker command I dishonourably discharged them, effective immediately."

"... You what!?"

(God this guy is loud…)

From the start of their conversation, Dax's opinion of the police chief's personality had only gotten worse, but hacking into the police database and accessing his file Dax saw that he had done impressive work.

Seeing how rampant the corruption of the 125th had gotten, Dax realized he needed help dealing with them as he had been away from the capital for so long he lacked information, something this police chief had.

"Come to think of it, I haven't introduced myself yet. Sadly I'm not allowed to name myself so just call me whatever you feel like, I'm the acting commander of the 125th special ops orbital wetwork battalion."

Showing the police chief his identification and allowing him to confirm it was real, the chief suddenly had an entirely different attitude towards Dax. Finding a private corner to talk, Dax laid out his intentions.

"I've been away from populated space for a while helping to develop an entirely new type of weapon when I got word from the acting commander that people in my unit were acting out of therm. You seem to be a good man so I'll give you to it straight: I intent to purge the bad apples in my organization, I have the authority to do that on my own and that's not going to change, but seeing the damage done here I want to extend an olive branch to the police department who has been dealing with my problematic subordinates for me while I was away."

"What are you suggesting?"

Now aware of who he was dealing with, Hort was treading carefully. Although he wasn't that familiar with the 125th he knew the rumours about their outrageous authority, it is very likely that the qiton standing in front of Hort could kill him in cold blood without any repercussions.

"Cooperation. We both want to get rid of the troublemakers, so why not work together? Although they're under military jurisdiction, I can request your office do the investigations together with me."

"... No offence by I'm not just going to bark and show my belly because you order me to."

Needless to say, Hort wasn't going to just fall under Dax's command because he wanted that to happen, the very idea of working under the organization which had caused him so much headache over the last 50 years of his career wasn't going to fly.

"Ah, you misunderstand. Think of me as a blunt instrument with a special skill set and the ability to instantly bypass any red tape which usually restricts your investigations. I'm not interested in measuring dicks with you, I just want to get this done as fast as possible with the least amount of unnecessary bloodshed. If you also want that contact me using this phone."

Handing police chief Hort a phone with only a single number on it, Dax left the crime scene and went to Hellwalker command.

(Boy, it is good to be back…)

Looking around the building which hadn't really changed in all those years he had been gone, everywhere Dax went he met new faces who saluted him with slightly panicked expressions. 

(Seems like Phillipa told them I would be arriving… That should create some nice waves.)

With a bloodthirsty smile on his face, Dax continued to spread out webs and strings into the darkness, it was only a matter of time until someone acted rashly out of human nature, something Dax very well understood but lacked himself.

-

Just 3 hours after parting with Hort, Dax got a call from him asking for his cooperation. It seemed that the 8 Hellwalkers he had beat up had all died in the hospital they were admitted to, not from the injuries Dax dealt to them, but gunshots to the head with contact markings clearly visible on their tear stained faces.

"Did you do this?"

"Nope, I had no reason to kill them. If anything they were more valuable to me alive, something the culprit might have realized."

Standing over one of the corpses in the hospital room they had all been in, Dax's face held no trace of emotion while Hort had a grim look on his face.

"Looks like the executioner targeted the temporal lobe to destroy any memories still remaining in the corpse, same with the neural implants, it looks like they've all been burned out. This is almost a textbook example of an information control related execution."

Turning over the body Dax examined the spinal implant which had burned out, his complete lack of emotions or empathy seemed to rub Hort the wrong way.

"Really, a textbook example? Do they teach you guys anything other than killing?"

"Not really no, with the notable exception of intelligence and counterintelligence operations. Phillipa."

"Sir."

Calling out to his subordinate who had so far been completely erasing her presence, Phillipa succeeded in scaring a few police officers when they finally noticed she was in the room.

"You take the ones over there, I'll take this side."

"Yes sir."

Seeing that there were 4 beds on either side of the room, it came out evenly to 4 corpses each for Dax and Phillipa to 'process'. Pushing aside a medical examiner, Phillipa gripped the closest corpse to her with her hand.

"Hey! What are you doing!?"

"Extracting intelligence."

As Phillipa finished explaining herself, the body she was holding onto started twitching as she interfaced with it in an attempt to extract any useful information which might have survived the gunshot and few hours of postmortem activity. Needless to say, this was something both deeply immoral and illegal to do, but the 125th was above most laws and moral considerations. While the police officers and medical examiners present were deeply disturbed by what Dax and Phillipa were doing, none of them attempted to stop them, the reason being that they had no other evidence as all logs and surveillance footage within a 12 kilometre range of crime scene had been purged without exception, leaving no way to track the killer. Having worked within the police force for a long time, all the members present knew how much of an issue the corrupt members of the 125th had been, even with no way of getting an overview of the countless investigations which had been purged by military authority, the victims and affected people who had no way of getting justice reached into the hundreds.

This was their chance to finally settle the score.