Grendel Unit 2: Ignition Sequence (3 page)

3. When Will They Shoot?

A large crowd of people crashed into one another in the background of the newsfeed flashing on the vid screen. Their shouting and chanting was loud enough to force the reporter to cover one of her ears and duck her head toward the small transmitter pinched between her fingers. "We are live from the scene of a mass demonstration in front of Unification's newest embassy, located on Zucariah Outpost," she shouted over the crowd. "Human settlers are protesting their forced relocation in order to make room for the arrival of yet another alien species into accepted citizen status."

The feed cut to
a small, purple-skinned figure with tiny black eyes, standing behind a podium. The creature looked up at the room full of dignitaries and said, "We are pleased that Unification has finally lived up to its name and given the Zucariahians a rightful voice in the governance of our own planet."

The reporter's face
re-appeared back on the screen, she was glancing nervously to her side as the angry mob closed in around her. "That was…that was Supreme Malec III, the elected leader of the Zucariahians, communicating his−" her voice changed to a high pitched yelp as a bottle sailed through the air and crashed on the ground near her. "Forget this, we're out of here!" she shouted, throwing up her hands to knock the hovering camera drone out of her way as she took off running. The camera was knocked off its gyroaxis and fell sideways, catching an upside-down image of the crowd chasing the reporter down.

In the
sky above the reporter, a squadron of Unification military ships could be seen lowering to the planet's surface, carrying hundreds of armored riot police. The feed turned to static momentarily until another reporter appeared onscreen, this one sitting at a news desk in a brightly lit broadcasting station. His shimmering blue suit was sharply pressed and his thick, wavy hair was brushed back and sprinkled with glitter. "Well," he said, his face a carefully-practiced look of calm, but sincere, concern, "Things certainly look like they're getting intense down there. Earlier I had the chance to speak with one of the young leaders of the Sapienist movement on the condition of anonymity, and you will not believe what he had to say."

The blurred-out face of a hooded man appeared on screen. His voice was digitized and
deep when he said, "The Sapienist movement is dead. We're moving beyond that. I don't consider myself a Sapienist, I consider myself a disciple. The human God has given us dominion over all the sludgesuckers in the universe, but because of people like you, who debase yourselves by consorting with non-humans, he is going to punish you. We are his punishment. We are the cleansing fire."

Frank Kelly looked away from the vidscreen in disgust, but then he saw that the man sitting next to him on the interstellar transport was nodding along. When the
Sapienist said, "We are the cleansing fire," the man mumbled, "Damn right."

Frank picked up his bag and changed his seat.

After he landed planet-side, he took the first shuttle he could find to the Unification Federal Courthouse. Back at school, all of his friends were still celebrating their graduation from college. Frank had thrown his cap into the air with the others and turned around and walked back to his dorm room to start packing.

When he arrived at the courthouse, he waited in
the long line of people trying to enter, going through the invasive security scan like everyone else. He never said his last name, and never said who he was there to see.

He found a
pretty young secretary sitting at the desk in the office outside of the judge's chambers, and she looked up as Frank Kelly walked in. There were various photographs and certificates decorating the walls around her, all of them also bearing the name Frank Kelly and images of a man who resembled him, just with gray hair and looser jowls. Frank smiled at the secretary and said, "Is the judge in?"

She nodded and said
, "I can check. Your name please?"

Frank leaned down and said
, "I'm his son, but I'd prefer if you didn't tell him. It's kind of a surprise. I just flew in this morning."

She whispered that she understood and got up from her chair to knock on Judge Kelly
's door and said, "There's someone here to see you, your honor."

"
Who is it?" a man responded from inside.

Frank
wiggled his yellow graduation tassel in the doorway and said, "The guy you just spent a fortune on sending to school. I figured I'd show you what all your money bought."

The judge stood up and threw his arms wide
, "There's my boy! I watched the whole ceremony on the vidscreen. I cheered when they called your name. What a ceremony."

"
It was nice, I guess," Frank shrugged. He looked around at the hundreds of volumes of law books lining the walls of the office. Old books still bound in their original materials that looked like they'd fall apart if you touched their spine. New books programmed into individual scrolls of paper-thin plastic that contained rules of criminal procedure for ten thousand different species that fell under the judge's jurisdiction.

The judge waived for his son to sit down and said
, "I'm glad you're here. We have a lot to discuss."

Frank nodded slowly and said
, "Yes, we do."

Judge Kelly cocked an eyebrow at him
suspiciously and said, "I don't like the sound of that. What's wrong?"

"
Nothing, I was just agreeing with you," Frank said quickly, feeling his courage begin to dissipate faster than he could keep hold of it.

"
All right, well then let's get to it. I've already made several inquiries about openings at law schools in this sector. Obviously, I'd like you to go to Marbrax U. since that's where I went, but I'm not trying to sway you in any way. Even though I golf with the Dean of Admissions and just helped his son on a serious criminal case. That boy's going to be a problem, you mark my words."

Judge Kelly kept speaking
, until his voice was nothing but a low buzz in Frank's ears, and Frank had to speak to stop the buzzing or else he'd have been driven insane by it. "Dad, I'm not going to law school," Frank blurted out. "I don't want to be a lawyer."

The judge continued, not listening,
"And you can always apply to Vegaview School of Galactic Law if you want a good back up university. I know people on the board there who will definitely want a judge's son in their class."

"
Dad," Frank said. "I'm not going to law school." 

His father
's head cocked sideways in confusion, as if Frank had just spoken in an alien language. "Sorry," he said. "What was that?"

"
I don't want to be a lawyer. Or a judge. I'm not going to law school."

"
What are you talking about? You've always wanted to be a lawyer. Why the hell else did you major in Criminal Law at college if you didn't want to be a lawyer?"

"
Because that was what you said you'd pay for," Frank said. "In fact, it was the
only
thing you said you'd pay for."

The judge leaned back in his chair and
studied his son carefully, like an opponent who'd just produced a weapon unexpectedly. He shifted in his seat then, gearing up to deal with the new challenge to his authority.

That would easily be dealt with.

Judge Kelly was a man accustomed to speaking with people who needed to be instructed. There were plenty of young men and women and vorakks and P'authia Giant Worm Segments and hundreds of other misguided and directionless youths who came into his court on a daily basis who needed to be instructed. He got out of his chair and walked over to close the office door and lock it. He quickly entered a series of numbers into a keypad on the wall and the room darkened momentarily as a bright blue beam of light stretched from one wall to the other and quickly rippled across every surface. The computer on the judge's desk went dark, and one-by-one, every electronic device in the room followed.

Frank reached into his pocket and looked at his phone. The screen was
black.

"
Maximum level of privacy ensured,"
the wall unit's computerized voice said.

The judge
leaned his hip against the edge of his desk, taking his time and gathering his words in his mind before he said them. He looked down at his son with a patient smile and said, "I'm going to talk to you like a man, Frank. There are things about this universe you don't understand, because you were never exposed to them. You were protected as the son of a judge, growing up on this planet in an all-human colony. Now, I know you just came out of school and they spent four years filling your head up with all that feel good nonsense about humans and aliens, but I'm telling you that it's not really like that. I don't call them
sludgesuckers
, but let's face it, that's what they are. They aren't like us, and they never will be. And if we walk around with our rosy-shade sunglasses on, thinking they'll somehow appreciate us, we're living in a fantasy.

"
Out here in the real world, these aliens are waiting to try and overrun us, son. Now, luckily, we've got control of things for the most part, but they outnumber us twenty to one, and if they all get their act together some day it's going to be all-out war. We are going to be fighting for our own survival. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Frank looked at his father and said
, "My school was multi-species. The valedictorian of our class was a Baltricorian."

The judge waved his hand and said
, "Sure, sure, of course there are some good aliens out there. I even have friends who are aliens, son. They managed to make something of themselves and didn't ask for handouts and didn't take the easy way. But I'm telling you, I see it every day. These alien scum will gut you and eat you quick as look at you."

"
That's funny, people say the same thing about lawyers," Frank said.

The judge folded his hands in his lap and said
, "Before I go any further, let me ask you this. What would you rather do than go to law school?"

Frank braced himself. This was the moment of truth.
"I want to be a doctor," he said.

"
A doctor?" the judge said, laughing sharply. "You want to go to medical school?"

"
That's right," Frank said.

"
Well, you can forget it. Listen, the medical profession used to be something respectable. Your Uncle Michael was a pediatrician, back before the government mandated all this cross-training, multi-species nonsense. His last delivery took thirteen hours and he wound up pulling forty-two eggs out of an Arachnothoid's rear end. Can you imagine that? Having to stick your hand up the hind quarters of some enormous spider? So get this, he finally gets all of the eggs out and starts putting them into the incubator. He can see all the tiny little spider babies crawling around inside the eggs, their little faces and furry legs, pushing against the membranes trying to get out. Just when he thinks it's over, the mother goes nuts and starts eating the eggs. He's trying to pull her off to save the babies he just delivered, and when security finally shows up, guess who they restrain?"

"
Uncle Mike," Frank said.

"
Uncle Mike," the judge continued, before waiting for his son to finish speaking. "They restrain him because he's violating some sort of sovereign species birthing law and he's got to watch his own patient sit there and eat half of her own babies. They took away his license after that, Frank. They took away his livelihood. He died begging on the streets. All because of some sludgesucker who wanted to eat her babies."

And of course
, you were too embarrassed by him to help him,
Frank thought. He pressed ahead, knowing it was not the time for accusations. "I thought you didn't use that word?" Frank said.

"Oh
, grow up. I thought we were having an adult conversation."

"
Dad, I know it sounds bizarre but it's completely normal for the Arachnothoid species. They're too weak to produce milk after such a long birthing process, so they consume enough of their own eggs to feed the rest of the babies. She wasn't trying to kill the eggs, she was fighting to save them. Uncle Mike should have known that before he started the procedure."

The judge stared blankly at Frank and said
, "Do you hear yourself talking? That was just the tip of the iceberg compared to what doctors have to deal with now. Forget it. End of discussion. You're going to law school, and that's final."

Frank steeled himself
, suddenly glad he was sitting down because he was sure his legs were shaking now. "No, I'm not," he said.

The judge slammed the desk in front of him and said
, "You little ungrateful son of a bitch, I paid for you to go to college so you'd have some sort of future instead of glomming off of me the rest of your life. You pick anything else and you are on your own. Don't ask me for a damn thing."

Frank sighed deeply and said
, "I kind of thought you'd say that. I understand."