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  "All right," I said, overcoming my raging fear of losing her and shaking off the image of her lying on the floor in a pool of blood. She moved over with considerable effort and patted the empty space.

  "Sit and give me all the gory details."

  I recounted the incident, trying to skip over some parts, but she insisted on hearing every detail. Kris returned halfway through the tale, and I had to repeat the story from the beginning. The telling somehow seemed to make the incident a little less terrifying. It helped that Alexa and Kris managed to find humor in certain parts that I had to admit were funny—like when I threw Red into the air. When I left with Kris, I was feeling much better and had shaken off my depression.

  "Thanks Kris ... for everything."

  "You're worth it." She smiled.

  * * *

  When I arrived for work the next day, everyone was already there, which was unusual, and Adrian called for an early conference room meeting. I was surprised to see Stauffer join us.

  "First, Anna, are you recovered enough to be at work?" Stauffer asked, and I felt his concern.

  "Yes, sir. My shoulder is a bit stiff, but otherwise I'm all right."

  "Good, but if you feel you need more time off, you're certainly entitled."

  "Sir, I'd like a few days off when my mother is released from the hospital."

  "Take as much time as you need. And you'll need to get clearance from the NIA psychology department. It's required after a shooting where someone died."

  "Sir, while my mother lay in a pool of her own blood bleeding to death, they had a laser beam on her head and threatened to kill her if I didn't give them Red."

  "What did you do?" Wilber asked.

  "I gave him to them, and as they watched him sail through the air toward them, I shot them. I haven't thought about them once since," I said, and was greeted with silent nods of understanding.

  "I'd clear you, but I can't, so I'm afraid you'll have to talk to them. Just a formality, but until they clear you, you can't officially come back to work. Of course, I'd understand if you talked with your friends." He grinned. "And I've approved a request to provide you with security. Someone will contact you at home today. The NIA doesn't like their people getting killed. It interrupts getting work done." He left the room smiling.

  "Would you mind sharing the story with us?" Adrian asked. "We'd like to know what happened, and something might help us link those men to the smugglers or eliminate them as opportunists."

  "No, I don't mind. I had just gotten into bed when ..." I retold the story again and somehow each time it seemed to make it a little less painful.

  "I guess a poisonous snake flying through the air in your direction would be a bit distracting." Wilber laughed. "What a dilemma. A poisonous snake worth more than a hundred thousand credits flying toward you—to shoot or not to shoot.

  "Here," Adrian handed me a CPC chip. "This contains all the information we've discovered about the men that attacked you and your mother. Maybe you can see some way to connect or eliminate them from the smugglers' organization."

  * * *

  When I got home, two men were waiting in a ground vehicle. I would have panicked if they hadn't contacted me in the skimmer to let me know they would meet me at the house.

  "Good evening, Miss Paulus. I'm Special Agent Rhodes and this is Agent Tidwell. I've been assigned to provide you with personal security. If you don't mind, I'd like to discuss your schedule and normal routines so I can have someone there when you are most likely to be vulnerable." Rhodes said. He was several years older than Tidwell, but they both looked like they could play professional soccer. And they carried concealed weapons under their jackets.

  "Now's as good a time as any. Come on in and we can talk in comfort." I led the way to the kitchen where Joetta, Alexa's cook, made some coffee for them and fetched me a glass of mixed berry juice. "I don’t know if I have a schedule. I work at the NIA headquarters in Eteos ..." I spent an hour discussing how I traveled between the office and home, my work, the fact I lived at home while they tried to established how they could best protect me. In the end, I had a number and would keep them apprised of my activities and whereabouts. Someone would always be guarding the house when I was scheduled to be there. "Mother is planning on doing things to the house to make it more secure. I'll let you know when I know." They stayed, as they were expecting workmen to install surveillance equipment around the perimeter of the house.

  After a quiet dinner alone, I spent the evening examining the chip Adrian had given me. It took me an hour to get to sleep, as I was aware of every little noise. It didn't matter that I reminded myself the police and NIA had people guarding the property.

  The next day workmen knocked on the door at seven hundred hours. The police had verified their work permit and permission from Magistrate Bellona to be there.

  "What are you planning on doing?" I asked after directing them to one of the spare bedrooms near Alexa's and my bedrooms.

  "Magistrate Bellona told me to tell you it was a surprise." He smiled and I felt his amusement. I shrugged, wondering what Alexa was up to. Something to do with security I guessed, and left them. Each day they arrived at seven and worked into the evening. The room was being demolished as far as I could determine from the outside as I was told I wasn't supposed to look. The third day, Stauffer scheduled me with a Doctor Browder. I arrived fifteen minutes early, glad to get out of the house with men running in and out and the noise of machinery. Right on time, his secretary, a middle-aged woman with a pleasant smile and manner, answered her phone and then looked in my direction.

  "Miss Paulus, Doctor Browder is ready. Go right in." She smiled for a moment then returned to whatever she had been doing. When I entered, a white-haired elderly man stood and came walking around his desk to meet me. Although his round clean-shaven face was smiling, I felt no emotions. I thought that strange, but then I had never met a psychologist.

  "Miss Paulus, I'm Doctor Browder. Take a seat and make yourself comfortable. Would you like something to drink?"

  "No, thank you," I said, looking around the room. Except for the chair behind his desk, there were only two other chairs in the room. They were padded and looked comfortable and sat facing each other with a small wooden table next to each. Everything in the room was neutral: the chair a light tan, the walls white with a faint blue tint, the pictures on the wall photos of forests, rivers, and scenic landscape. I took the seat closest to me and sat.

  "From the NIA report I received, you were involved in a shooting, and that’s the reason you're here. How have you been sleeping?"

  "I've had some trouble getting to sleep at night. The house feels very lonely without mother home, and I guess I'm still a bit nervous and listening for noises."

  "That's understandable. What about shooting another human being?" He asked, sitting back in his chair.

  "What about it?" I asked, not sure what he wanted.

  "How do you feel about killing someone?"

  "I hadn't thought about it. They were trying to kill my mother and me, and almost succeeded. I had no choice." And I would do it again, I almost said but decided that wouldn't be wise. There was something about the doctor's lack of emotions.

  "You’re repressing those painful emotions, but then that's why you're here." He smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. He felt bored.

  "No, Doctor Browder, I'm here because of some department rule. Does everyone that kills someone in self-defense or the line of duty have to see a psychologist?"

  "Of course, Anna. You are not being singled out—"

  "Then you interview the crews of navy personnel who are involved in a space battle?

  "Of course not—"

  "But you just said everyone that kills someone. Believe me, a missile into a cruiser kills lots of people. So aren't they affected by the people they kill?"

  "That's different. You can't see the people dying. You saw the men you shot."

  "So, if you kill a hundred people with a missil
e, that shouldn't bother you, but if you kill one man who's trying to kill you and you can see him, that's different?" His logic failed me. Suddenly, I felt his anger, although the smile remained.

  "We will discuss this over the months. You have to come to realize the trauma you suffered killing those men. Today you're suppressing those feelings, which is natural."

  "Doctor Browder, this is our last meeting. Those men were evil, and I'm not sorry I shot them. You are not going to convince me I'm supposed to be sorry for killing them no matter how many sessions we have, so there is no point in having any further meetings."

  He smiled, but I felt the hate toward me. "Then you won't get permission to return to work."

  "Then I'll go work someplace where the rules make sense and their doctors don't hide their true feelings behind a smile." I wouldn't admit it to him, but I would be sorry leaving the NIA. I liked the people and the work.

  * * *

  The next day at his request, I reported to Stauffer’s office and was sent to see Rear Admiral Rawls, Director of NIA operations on Oxax. When I entered her office, Stauffer was already there. He looked tired.

  "Admiral Rawls, you asked to see me?" I said, standing at attention, although it wasn't required as I was a civilian. It was a habit I had acquired at the academy.

  "Yes, Anna. Please sit." I felt her concern, which I assumed was because of my confrontation with Doctor Browder and refusal to follow the rules. Well, I had made my decision and would have to live with it. "You have upset our Doctor Browder. He believes you have suppressed emotions and are unfit for duty."

  "Yes, ma'am. We didn't see eye-to-eye on the rules."

  "Rules?" she asked and leaned forward slightly.

  "Yes, ma'am." I went on to explain my cruiser example. She sat back and laughed.

  "Yes, I can see why you upset him. According to the report, you shot two men. That doesn't bother you a bit?"

  "Ma'am, they shot my mother three times, and while she lay bleeding to death on the floor, they pointed a laser at her head and threatened to shoot her again unless I gave them what they wanted. So no, I don't regret killing them and would do it again in a heartbeat. Ironically, if they had offered to save my mother for Red, I'd have given him to them."

  "Even though it would have meant your death?"

  "Yes. Any day of any week."

  "Doctor Browder doesn't understand, but I do, Anna." She picked up a stylus and wrote something on her tablet. "Stauffer, Miss Paulus is cleared for work." Then she turned back to me. "I'm curious. What did you do when they demanded your red-headed krait or they'd shoot your mother?"

  "I gave Red to them ..." I went on to explain what happened. She was smiling when she dismissed us.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Homecoming

  Four days later, I picked up Alexa from the hospital. She had recovered most of her color and appeared to be moving well with only minor discomfort. It felt wonderful having her home again.

  "All right, Mother. What have you been having done to the guest bedroom?" I asked when we arrived home.

  "Come," she said, and led me up the stairs to the guest bedroom and opened the door. What do you think?" I surveyed the room, trying to remember what it had looked like. I'd only been in it once or twice to fetch something.

  "It's smaller than I remember, and I thought it had a bathroom attached, and the bookcase is new." I saw nothing worth all the time the workmen had spent working in there. Alexa walked over to the bookcase and studied the floor for several minutes, then kicked the bookcase. When she did, a panel opened like a window. She waved for me to enter. Inside was a small room with steel walls and an electronics suite.

  "It's called a panic room. The walls are metal and able to sustain a small rocket, it can only be locked and opened from the inside, and we have electronics to communicate with the outside world and to see what is happening via the security cameras. I decided you and I’d had enough of hospitals and next time we would just hide until the cavalry arrived."

  "I like that idea. It will avoid me having to see Doctor Browder again," I quipped.

  "I talked with Admiral Rawls yesterday. She liked you. Said she had reservations about Stauffer hiring someone so young for such an important project and was considering firing you after she received Browder's report. But after talking with you, she agrees with you about Browder and thinks Stauffer was smart to hire you." She took out her tablet and showed me how I could tap into the video cameras and how to alert police and NIA security. "I've also had the doors and locks reinforced and connected to the police and NIA security. Feel better?"

  "Yes, much." I gave her a tight hug. I had missed her more than I realized.

  * * *

  I went in to work the next day. Around nine, Kris and Wilber showed, and at ten we gathered in the conference room for our daily required meeting.

  "It's been an exciting couple of weeks following your adventures," Wilber said as I sat. "I particularly liked your shootout with Doctor Browder. Always thought that requirement was ridiculous. Oh, it helps some people. But in most cases it’s you or them, and after it's over, you aren't considering trading places."

  "Hopefully, the excitement is over," Adrian said. "Anyone have anything they want to share?"

  "I think we should concentrate on squeaky clean merchants," I said. I had been reviewing everything the team had collected over the past month and that seemed to be the most notable observation.

  "I agree," Adrian said after a long silence. The Wheeler's crew didn't have one member who had been in trouble with the law. In fact, that was their lawyer’s main defense, even after we found the contraband.

  "That's true. I noticed that the few times a crew member got in trouble over the years, they were immediately dismissed. And they were overly cooperative during all their inspections by customs," Wilber said. "How many merchants have crews with no records or get favorable comments from the inspection team?"

  "That's a big task since there must be hundreds of merchants, not counting the ones coming from the Peeps and Freebees," Kris said, using the common street names for the PRS and FPU.

  "The Wheeler was an Alliance registered merchant, so maybe we should start with them," Adrian said, looking at his tablet.

  "But the contraband is primarily from the Peeps and Freebees," Wilber said, frowning.

  "Maybe that says something about the way they operate and the reason it's been so difficult to stop them," Adrian said. "Let's start there. We can get a list and divide it up among us. I'll see about getting the list."

  Kris had been right when she identified Adrian's role as leader, and from the look of things, no one else wanted the role—it was a lot of work. I couldn't stop thinking about the missile. When the meeting ended, I called Chief Hartley and made an appointment for lunch.

  I met him outside the base, and we went to a small café several kilometers away so as to avoid meeting anyone he knew.

  "My treat, Chief," I said as we were seated. The chief had been silent except for recommending the restaurant and giving me directions to get there. "Your payment is to answer a few questions for me."

  "Yes, ma'am," he said, eyeing me cautiously. He was a typical chief: a serious no-nonsense person who knew his job and was inquisitive. He looked old enough to be my father. His sandy hair was cropped short in a crew cut, and he had a rugged square face with penetrating eyes.

  "Anna, please. I'm a member of the team investigating the Wheeler, but I'm not an officer." I stopped when the waitress appeared, and we ordered the house specialty: shredded meat in a spicy sauce on a bun with potato chips. He ordered an Oxax beer and I ordered a mixed berry juice. It flashed through my mind, that my drink choice emphasized my young age, but I was who I was and shrugged it off.

  "What would you like to know, Anna?" he said after taking a drink of his beer.

  "That missile we had you take apart. Could it be launched and easily recovered by another ship?" The thought had been nagging at me for the past
couple of days. Normally, you didn't expect to retrieve missiles, but what if you could?

  "Interesting question. You shoot it off and someone else retrieves it and its contents." He remained quiet for a while, sipping at his beer. "I can think of several ways of doing it, but I'd have to open up that missile in order to tell you whether that one could be easily recovered. Without some kind of homing device or beacon, it would be very difficult to find a missile hurtling through space. And when it ran out of fuel, impossible."

  "Thank you, Chief. For now, we don't want you going anywhere near that missile, as it could alert friends of the smugglers that we are aware of their innovative storage container. But at some point I'd like you to dismantle it for me."

  "Sounds like fun. You've aroused my curiosity now. That would certainly be a clever way of handing off contraband with little risk." He smiled. We spent the rest of the meal sharing stories. He talked a little about his career and a few incidents with dismantling explosives, and I in turn talked about the academy. I dropped him back at the base before returning to headquarters. Later that afternoon, Adrian handed each of us a chip with our list of merchants to check out. My list had fifty-one, so I assumed there were around two hundred Alliance-registered merchants. I took out my tablet, linked to the NIA system, and began my search.

  * * *

  It took three weeks for us to research the two hundred and five merchants Adrian had found. We met the next day in the conference room. Adrian was first to speak.

  "I found only two merchants that met our main search parameter, that is having squeaky clean crews."

  "I found only one," Kris said.

  Wilber leaned forward. "Three."

  "Two," I put in.

  "That's eight eligible candidates for Smuggler of the Year." Wilber laughed. "What now?" he asked, his question obviously directed to Adrian.

  "We need to find out their itineraries, and then one of us needs to be there when each customs inspection is performed. We need to continue to be careful not to alert anyone of our discovery on the Wheeler. That may have been the unique brainchild of the crew, but it may also be the organization's current modus operandi. If it is, we could seriously impact their smuggling operation in the Alliance. At tomorrow's meeting, each of you needs to have the next ten-day itinerary for the merchants you identified."