Highest Hopes by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Now

Salmagard

S almagard had seen her share of Peacekeeper dramas in which the officers solved crimes, apprehended criminals, and upheld the laws of the Empress. She’d always liked them. After all, the Peacekeeping Force was much like the Service. The PKs just as selective, just as prestigious, and just as universally glamorized.

When those dramas had been on and Salmagard’s imagination had wandered, it had always gone to places in which she put herself in their shoes. But her imagination had never put her in the role of the one in the back of the flyer with her hands in control cuffs.

There were two female Peacekeepers in the flyer, one piloting, the other speaking to someone over an uplink. The one at the controls was a patrol officer, and the other was some kind of NCO.

The NCO stopped talking and reached over to tap the pilot’s shoulder, then pointed.

The pilot looked puzzled and started to speak.

“Put us down,” the NCO ordered. Taken aback, the pilot obediently altered their course. Salmagard couldn’t see where they were going, or much of anything; these flyers weren’t designed to offer her a view.

She had a feeling she knew who the NCO was talking to: Imperial Security. That had been fast; it hadn’t even been ten minutes since her arrest. She hadn’t said anything, or even identified herself, but by now, she was on every watch list in the Imperium, and she no longer had Alescio’s holo to fool facial recognition tech. Even if the Peacekeepers didn’t recognize her as a high-value target, the other agencies quietly monitoring them would. IS was already putting pressure on the Peacekeepers to hand Salmagard over without creating any records first.

The flyer descended. The NCO didn’t have to turn around to watch Salmagard; she had a feed of the passenger compartment, and she was watching it closely. Salmagard was strapped into place. She wasn’t going anywhere.

The pilot started to say something over her own comm, but the NCO swatted her and gestured for her to shut up. Then she reached over and keyed something Salmagard couldn’t see. Salmagard’s removal had been expedited because of the likely fictional situation at the hotel; the officers who’d arrested her had just handed her off to these two to be processed. None of that would happen; IS would take her before she ever reached a precinct.

There was definitely another Jacket session featuring prominently in her immediate future. Like so many other things, that should have bothered her.

The flyer settled down. Now, most likely, they would sit awkwardly until IS showed up. Who would it be? An agent like Hopper? A tactical team? Some analyst who happened to be nearby?

No, that was wishful thinking. It would be a tactical team, or something similar to one. IS knew by now that Salmagard was no longer afraid to play rough. They would be careful.

As she settled back to wait, the pilot and the NCO climbed out of the flyer. Were they leaving her here? That almost made this seem like a different sort of hand-off.

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