281 Internal affairs 3

Falling silent in the middle of his presentation at the police headquarters, police chief Hort was about to ask the Hellwalker commander what was wrong when one of his subordinates rushed into the room.

"Sir! There has been a massive bombing in the plaza right in front of orbital elevator 1, multiple casualties!"

"What!?"

From his subordinates report this wasn't just a crime, but a clear case of domestic terrorism, something which hadn't happened since the start of the war of annihilation.

"It was an attempt to assassinate a group of my subordinates on break, I just got updated on the situation too."

Having direct access to the capital's ICI drone and surveillance network, Dax and Phillipa were both informed of the bombing just before Hort was, and they were already dealing with information control. 

"Everyone here who has any experience with triaging and or first aid please follow us to the roof, we're heading to the scene right now!"

Getting on her feet without any further explanation, Phillipa rushed towards the roof of the police headquarters together with Dax, Hort and a few other senior investigators where a Hellwalker CAS-7A filled with drones had already landed and was waiting for them.

Arriving at the scene after a quick flight, one of the senior investigators puked from the smell alone, although the sight which greeted wasn't any prettier. The bombing appeared to have been focused on a single area of the plaza, but that didn't decrease the damage done in the slightest. Within 300 metres of ground zero, everyone had just disappeared, there were no body parts left of them, only creepy voids in the burned stone tiles slowed where those people had been standing when the bombs detonated. From 300 metres all the way out to nearly a kilometre, the ones who were lucky enough to survive had so at a heavy cost. Internal bleeding from the blast wave and 3rd degree burns belonged to the lucky few while shrapnel designed to maximize casualties had robbed a lot from those who were simply unlucky, standing at the wrong place at the wrong time.

"We're establishing a field hospital here! Every 5 minutes from now a new transport will land and take critically injured victims to medical facilities all over the capital but we're stabilizing those we can here! Don't care about the dead yet, focus on those still living!"

Coordinating not only the personal she had brought with her from the police headquarters but also arriving first responders, Phillipa handled the rescue effort while Dax locked down the area by delegating free police drones together with the ones he had brought with him.

"IMI establish area domination at level 9, declare a state of emergency trough special degree #5551 section bravo."

Walking unflinching through the death and destruction surrounding him, Dax quickly reached ground zero where a massive crater had formed, well a slightly unusual crater anyway.

"Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah, thanks to Terra."

Just before they had been vaporized by the explosion, Terra had broken the rules of engagement to save herself, Alice, Lia and Mare by shielding them from the explosion with magic, leading to quite an unnatural looking crater with a pentagon shaped 'void' in the centre of it.

"I see, I'm glad all of you are safe."

Breathing a deep sigh of relief Dax finally felt at ease after confirming with his own eyes that his subordinates were safe.

"For now help with treating the civ's, we'll deal with everything after. Spread out and bring survivors to Phillipa, she's in charge of the medical effort."

As his subordinates ran off Dax breathed a deep sigh as he placed a hand on his holstered pistol, disabling the safety.

"Don't make me kill you, Hort, I really don't want to."

"... Okay, then don't. Simple as that."

Turning to face police chief Hort who had followed Dax from the moment he had slipped away, Dax saw that the middle aged police chief had already raised his hands above his head.

"This is just me thinking out loud about something I'm going to forget very soon, but this is most likely some highly classified stuff that's way above my pay grade?"

"That it is."

Maintaining a blank expression on his face, Dax was ready to shoot Hort dead without flinching, something both of them realized.

"Then I'm also guessing that whatever this is, it'll help us win the war?"

"That it will, and so much more."

Looking at Dax's blank expression for a few more seconds to find any hint at his intent behind telling him such things, Hort eventually breathed a deep sigh as a wry smile formed on his face and he put down his hands.

"I lost my 15 year old niece and my younger sister to the Emergence, make sure you wipe it out completely and I won't tell a soul about this."

Showing anger and bitterness when he mentioned the Emergence, Hort turned and left Dax with those words, as he saw it it was up to Dax to decide if he believed his words or not.

(That guy is surprisingly thrust worthy... I guess I need to keep up my part of the deal too.)

Seeing how he was still alive after getting back to the newly established field hospital, Hort resolved himself to keep one more secret from his subordinates, luckily Dax and Phillipa already had a firm grasp on the information control.

---

"341 people dead with 492 injured… They've gone too far this time."

"I agree, so does the special counsel and the administrative AI. I've personally received orders to terminate all domestic terrorists within the next 2 weeks."

A week after the bombing Dax met with the police for the first time in a few days, together with not only Phillipa but also the others this time, Dax shared the orders he had received from up high with the police chief who immediately frowned at such news.

"Terminate? That's not how we do things around here."

"That's why we are here, you guys can have what remains after the fact."

Answering in place of Dax, Solaris stepped up with a chilling smile on her face, like all others in the room she had no mercy left for the imitation Hellwalkers.

"Okay, we can work with that."

"Chief! This is not okay!"

Seeing how quickly their boss agreed to such therms, one of the senior investigators present spoke out in protest. In response Hort breathed a deep sigh before addressing his subordinates, it seemed he had gotten even more tired in these past few weeks, dark circles were clearly visible below his eyes.

"I know that, but I already got word from upstairs to follow the commander's orders without question. These terrorists pose a legitimate threat not only to our people, but also the survival of the Galactic Empire itself. If we help remove that problem and get to investigate how they got their funding and how they sold weapons and drugs to after these fine people are done then that's what we're going to do. The responsibility and burden of giving such orders lie with the state and we've been asked by them to do this, there's no backing out of this now."

Getting his subordinates on the same page, Hort reached for his coffee mug to get some more caffeine in him only to find that the cup was empty, luckily help arrived just as that happened.

"Chief Hort, I have brought a refill."

"Ah, thanks for that Rin."

Rin, the navy officer who had been attacked by imitation Hellwalkers a few weeks prior had taken on the role as liaison for Dax and his team, therefore she followed them most places they went and acted kind of a secretary at times, at other times she served as Dax's secure connection to the Galactic navy. Switching gears Phillipa stepped up to fill in the police department with the information she had obtained since the bombing as well as how to deal with said information.

"From the earlier data and evidence left over from the bombing I've been able to cross check the partial addresses first identified and narrowed them down to 4 possible sites. Conducting further surveillance of those places using resources which will not be named they have been confirmed to be what we're after. That's the good news anyway, the bad news is that the hostiles are confirmed to be in the possession of multiple state of the art localized electromagnetic pulse radiation emitters developed by Rex heavy industries to fight the Emergence, meaning we can't just use drones to clear them out. The confirmation of CBRN and MOPP type protective equipment on site all 4 places also rules out trapping then gassing the rats so we're left with a good old frontal assault without drones as the only option."

Showing a bright 'smile' as she reached that conclusion, something told the police present that the Hellwalker in front of them wouldn't like to deal with the situation any other way.

"This operation will be carried out with a coordinated simultaneous assault by 4 teams on each of the different sites lead by teams of Hellwalkers with the special police anti terror group Division 14 filling in the ranks and helping us to cover the ground needed."

The mention of the police's own closest things to elite special forces, the mood in the room brightened significantly. It would seem that the torn in the police's side over all these years would finally be purged.