#ft-57

Hunter continued, “I wonder what the people, or even the Emperor, would think if they found out we did that!”

Jake nodded, absentmindedly, his head was somewhere else. He glanced over the articles in the paper, trying to figure out why the curfew had changed, why they had a huge barricade in the middle of the city.

Hunter continued to ramble while Jake found an article on an official EKSS emergency transfer. 

The transfer will include the Sliver League’s Lieutenant Reynolds to switch his squad with Emerald League’s Lieutenant West. We advise all citizens to continue to follow the curfew laws and respect the barricade. With cooperation, it will be removed temporarily. Thank you for your cooperation.

Lieutenant West? Had he heard of them before? Possibly an earlier article.

“Jacob?”

“What? Yes?”

“Whatcha reading?”

“Oh, just- some article, about a transfer. What was the question?”

Hunter rolled his eyes, “Celia wanted to know if you were hungry.”

“Oh,” Jake blushed a bit, “Yeah, sure.”

Celia nodded from where she stood in the doorway. She left to go back to the kitchen, where she’d most likely prepare the same thing they had every night. Maglintov, a typical Saturnia dish. Except for, no one on Sata ate it anymore, because it was super old and didn’t even taste that good.

However, with Celia being the only one with any cooking abilities, and the minor fire of last year in mind, they let her cook whatever.

Jake jumped out of his chair, going over to the monitor. Hunter continued, “I just feel like the Emperor’s Knights are taking credit when it’s not due. What can we do about it? Start a protest? Oh! Or maybe we could post videos of us handling it, that’d do it.”

Gabby scoffed, “The protest probably isn’t a good idea, I’ve heard about some group trying to take over, they are very anti-Emperor.”

Jake glanced back, “So they probably think that’s us! Is that why everyone is ignoring us! Do they think we’re the bad people!?”

Hunter frowned, “I bet that the Emperor’s Knights set us up! Think about it! They want all the credit, and just for extra revenge, they’re making us look bad!”

“We don’t know that,” Gabby countered, “but what’s this about a transfer?”

Jake pulled up the article on the monitor, they all gathered around. “Transfer of the squad that’s there now. They must be part of the Silver League. They’re bringing in a new squad from the Emerald League, is that good?”

Gabby weighed the options, “Sliver League is more likely to give some slack on the barricade and curfew, Emerald is much more strict. Who’s squad is it?”

“Um, Lieutenant West, do you know who that is?”

“West? Ugh, maybe, it’s been so long since I encountered anyone from the Emerald League though. Here, look up Lieutenant West.”

Jake typed in the search, then hit enter. Hunter leaned in, “Last mission: Special Ops. That’s it? No details?”

Jake clicked into the tab. Hunter read it, “Lieutenant West is the first Lieutenant in the Emerald League. Details about missions and assignments are limited due to restrictions by the EKAS. Great, she’s from Atlas, that’s ten times worse.”

Gabby scoffed, “You’re from Atlas.”

“I’m different,” Hunter stated matter-of-factly.

Jake rolled his eyes, “Oh yeah? How’s that?”

“First of all. The accent is super annoying, that’s why I have none. Second, the language is terribly confusing, it makes zero sense even to fluent speakers. Third, all the natives are complete jerks. They all look like they’re going to kill you if they get the chance.”

Gabby rolled her eyes, “Scroll down.”

Jake continued to scroll down the page. After they looked over the website for five minutes, Celia had joined them. They found a picture that showed graduate groups. 

“Andrews, Montrose, Owens, West. I thought she was First Lieutenant, why is she last on the list?”

Jake laughed, “Alphabetical order, stupid.”

“Actually,” Gabby said, “In Atalian W is the first letter, they don’t have the letter b, and M is the last letter.”

Celia made a face, “How do you know all  of this?”

“I read.”

Jake scrolled down to find a picture, “Which one do you think is which?”

The group looked at the pictures, Hunter said, “I think that West and Owens are the two on the outsides, and Andrews and Montrose are the two in the middle.”

The picture displayed four Lieutenants. Two males, who were on the outside, and two females, who were on the inside. One of the men had brown hair, with bluish-gray eyes. The other had dirty blond hair. One of the girls had almost copper hair and bright green eyes, while the other had chocolate brown and blue eyes.

Gabby shook her head, “I know Andrews is the blond, he, I’ve met before. I’ve heard of Owens, she’s the girl with brown hair. I’m pretty sure the red-head is West, which means Montrose is the other boy with brown hair.”

Celia shook her head, “No, in a report from last year it had a picture of Owens and Montrose. Owens is the boy, and Montrose is the girl with dark brown hair.”

Jake glanced back over the picture, “I don’t know, the blond looks like a Montrose to me. Dark brown is probably Andrews. The red-head though, I think that could go either way, West or Owens. But to me, Owens looks more like the lighter brown than red.”

The team argued over who could be who until they started to smell something burning. At which point Celia ran into the kitchen to check on the Maglintov. Jake glanced at Gabby, this week was going to be interesting.

Typical high rank officers, Jake thought to himself. They always wanted to act like if they had been there things may have gone differently. One of the Officers said, “There were a bunch of gang members, we didn’t have time to apprehend both the gang and the group of ‘heroes’.”

This caught Jake’s attention, earlier today his group had stopped a gang from shooting up a warehouse, then the Emperor’s Knights showed up. The Lieutenant handed the report back, “If you see them again make sure to contact me, they sound like a good ally. Now, down to business, you said that our target already moved through here?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And who was on shift when that happened? What gate was it at, do you have any footage.”

All three officers nervously shook their heads. Jake crept closer to the barricade. It was a simple task, hop it and run. The Lieutenant continued, “And why not? Were the systems hacked? You’re always supposed to be rolling film.”

One of the other Officers spoke up, “It blacked out, must’ve been hacked.”

“Do you have the camera SSA?”

They were all silent, confused. Jake was almost tempted to school them on it, just like Gabby had to him, but he remained quiet. Finally the last Officer said, “The what?”

“The system switch alternator? The internal processing chip? All the other cameras were rolling at the time so explain to me how they just hacked one, all of our cameras run off SSA, and Internal processing chips, there is no individual bullshit.”

The Officer shrunk a little, it seemed to Jake this Lieutenant didn’t mess around. He swung his leg over the barricade, intending to get out of here. He heard, “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

He froze in place, unsure of what to do. He heard heavy footsteps, he was shoved off the wall. He looked up, a rather large, definitely drunk, stood above him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw more movement.

---------

Kyra stared down all the Officers, who remained silent. She heard, “Hey! What the hell are you doing!?”

She turned around, expecting to see Owens yelling at his Officers, but instead a huge man shoved some kid off the barricade. It was an odd scene to say the least. 

In one swift motion Kyra brought her hand gun up, “Hey! Freeze!”

The man either couldn’t hear her or didn’t care. He proceeded to kick the kid. Kyra quickly jumped the barricade and promptly tackled the man. He struggled, and since he was much bigger than Kyra, managed to throw her off. 

He promptly attempted to punch her, missing. He stumbled around as he got up, Kyra punched him, square in the jaw, hard enough to knock him out. He fell with a heavy thud. 

Kyra shook out her hand, then turned to help the kid up. The side of his face was bleeding a little, but besides that he was okay. Kyra said, “Your dad?”

---------

Jake rubbed the side of his head, “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

The Lieutenant looked skeptical, “Excuse me?”

“He’s just a stranger.”

Jake realized to late that this might not have been a good answer. What reason would he have to be out at this hour? The Lieutenant rubbed her hand, “Why’re you out here?”

“I was-” he glanced at the man, “Running from him.”

The Lieutenant glanced at the now unconscious man, “Sure.”

Her accent sounded like she was from Atlas, Jake was almost sure of it. It surprised him how clearly she spoke Saturnian since she wasn’t from here. She continued, “Name?”

“Jake.”

“Last or first?”

“First, my last name is Declo.”

“Okay Declo, I’ll need to take you back to EKSS, just for identifications and to file a report, then you can go back home.”

Jake could tell she wasn’t buying his story. He remembered the article, with any luck he could pull this off, “Hey, you’re that transferred Lieutenant, aren’t you?”

“One of them, yes.”

“Oh, well then you must not know how things work around here.”

She crossed her arms, furrowing her brow, “Don’t I?”

“Yeah, see,” he lowered his voice, “I’m undercover for that case on our target, so if you’ll be so kind as to take my mark back, I’ll be on my way.”

She smirked, “Who assigned you?”

Jake tried to think of everything he knew about the ranks and roles of the Emperor’s Knights, “Carlson.”

“Oh really?”

“Yep, it’s pretty top secret, you know how he is.”

“Uh huh.”

Jake couldn’t read her, it was near impossible. She seemed so serious, and yet so- not. He quickly thought of something else he could say, “Officer Reynolds, it’s been nice meeting you Owens,” he only hoped he had guessed right, “but I’ve got to run.”

“Hold on, hold on,” her tone had changed from lethal to friendly, “You’ve got to tell me, how’d you do the job in ‘07?”

Jake blinked, what job? He hadn’t guessed right, that was the only logical explanation for her sudden suspicions. Before he could even begin to develop his lie West said, “Lies always do tend to have detail, I suppose. C’mon Declo, let’s go to the main office, shall we? I’m sure you’re well acquainted with it.”