280 Internal affairs 2 (1/2)
”In the 54 years I've been police chief of this section of the capital, I've catalogued about 1.154 accounts of murder which have been wiped under the carpet, along with those there are serval accounts of drug and weapon trafficking which I've investigated together with my colleagues in the military police but we've never been able to make a single arrest in those cases.”
Glancing at the senior investigators who had also gathered for the briefing, Dax saw bitter expressions when Hort talked about the countless cases which had been iced over the years, it seemed to be even more than what Phillipa's early investigations had found.
”You've worked with the MP's? How come there's no record of that?”
”Because the entire investigation was iced by the special counsel after it was found that members of the navy might be involved with it. They said it would be too much bad press if the public found out that the very force protecting them from the Emergence were also criminals dealing in drugs, weapons, and even slaves.”
Surfing at his boss' explanation, one of the senior investigators didn't like having either Phillipa or Dax in the room.
”What the boss is saying is that you bastards get a free pass because society needs you, for the moment at least.”
”Tough shit, seeing as you 'civilized' people don't want to get your mitts dirty this is what happens. It's no secret that the Hellwalkers are the only ones still deploying live ground units, the rest of you just hide behind your swarms of drones like the cowards you are.”
”What the fuck di-”
”That's enough Robert.”
Holding up a hand to stop his subordinate from getting himself killed, Hort addressed Dax after making sure Robert had calmed down.
”I would ask you not to demean my subordinates commander, I've worked with these people for a long time, I can assure you none of these fine men is cowards.”
”Then don't fucking compare us to criminals, we might not need to follow the law when operating but we do have our principles as an elite unit.”
Stating where each of them stood on their own beliefs, the talks were about to break down when Phillipa faked a cough to get the room's attention.
”Luckily we're all professionals here, so we don't need to like each other to cooperate. From the information we extracted I've managed to identify 58 different addresses that need closer investigation, let's divide and conquer. Hopefully, we'll come out of this with a lot of dead 'Hellwalkers'.”
-
”Excuse me, can I order now?”
”Ah, yeah…”
(... Am I that unusual?)
”Yes, sorry about that!”
”... At least they want to serve you in the first place.”
Meanwhile, Lilly who sat beside Solaris also let out a deep sigh as she took a sip of the beer she had to show her Hellwalker id to get a hold of. Lilly's small figure and… 'Lacking' features meant that a lot of people had mistaken her for a child, something which was outright infuriating the first 50 times it happened, but now she was just starting to get tired. Sure, the bar she was currently visiting together with Solars had an impressive selection which almost matched Dax's collection and the interior was gorgeous, but the attention she was getting as a Hellwalker and being mistaken as a child at a bar was not welcome.
(Honestly, these people have no sense for my body's hidden charm, I'm not a child.)
While Solaris and Lilly were bar hopping, Terra, Lia, Alice, and Mare were out and about sightseeing.
”... That's tall.”
”Mmm.”
”Says here that it's apparently an orbital elevator, it goes all the way up to space.”
”And way past that too, the total height of the structure is 400 kilometres…”
Standing in front of one of the larger orbital elevators in the Galactic Empire they were all stunned, simply attempting to look up and find the top of it made them dizzy. Every single person from the world of magic remembered when they met Dax or Lux and learned that they didn't have magic, with the notable exception of Mare they all remembered looking down on them to some extent, oh how wrong they had all been.
”If anything, mana has limited our development…”