StarCraft Solid and Reliable

Solid and Reliable

Lieutenant Ezekiel "Zeke" Spader took a long drag off of his drooping Tarsonis Mild cigarette and let a sigh carry the grey-blue smoke out the other side of his mouth. It curled and billowed past his tired blue eyes set in a permanent squint and framed by deep crow's feet, seeming to caress the brim of his sweat-stained fedora of cheap grey felt before drifting up towards the caged fluorescent tubes that flickered and droned above him. Police officers and assistants of the medical examiner swarmed around and past him and his partner, picking through the blood-splattered debris that had once been the cafeteria of a modest neosteel fabrication plant. Zeke's eyes swiveled over to where a maintenance worker, his face as white as the Styrofoam cup he sipped synthcaf from, sat on a bench in the employee's locker room and gave a rambling statement to a nearby officer.

His eyes moved over to the far wall, where birthday decorations composed of a cheap foil banner and a handful of balloons sat obscenely unmolested amidst the carnage. There had been no need to aim that high. Zeke's eyes then tracked the path of bodies as they had attempted to flee to the back wall or hide behind the thin fiberglass tables. Cake and entrails clung to chair legs and the underside of tables, ripped apart with equal ease by the torrent of 8mm party favors the Dominion Suppression Squad gate-crashers had brought with them and delivered indiscriminately to one and all. The first responders had arrived in time to see the eight-wheeled Gorgon APC peel away from the scene, its metal hide as black as murder and Emperor Mengsk's seal emblazoned on the side in red and gold.

This was no crime scene, it was a massacre. In years past there would have been fallout for this; investigations, probes, inquiries. Bucks would be passed and scapegoats thrown to the public wolves to appease them. But not now, not under Mengsk's rule. The damnedest part of it all was that Zeke knew the man who had given the green light to this, and he might as well try to issue an arrest warrant for God as bring _him_ up on charges. No, there would be no investigation here, just putting up cordons, carting away bodies, and telling the public to move along.

'You ever miss being a cop?' his partner asked suddenly, deigning to speak for the first time since they had arrived. Lt. Spader looked askance to his partner and long-time friend, looking for all the world like a roughly-shaved gorilla given a trench coat and a Trilby, choosing instead to reply with an question of his own.

'Don't suppose the DA could be enticed to wander by this crime scene, huh?'

Harker chuckled. 'Sure, let me lay out a trail of whiskey and hookers.'

Zeke found he couldn't summon more than a grunt in response, eyes tracing over the civilian workers broken apart like pieces of a blood-drenched jigsaw puzzle. He had seen everything in his twenty-seven years on the force; bodies drowned, burnt down to the bones, gnawed upon by rats and dogs, beaten until their bones were the consistency of corn meal, but even after all that the sight of this made the bile rise in his throat.

'It's depressing,' Harker noted, shifting his massive hands into his overcoat's pockets.

'You don't say,' Zeke muttered, staring at his shoes that had not known the loving touch of a brush or cloth for years it until his stomach stopped doing back flips.

'That shade of green. Just awful,' his partner added, Zeke following the man's gaze to where he studied the trim on the cafeteria's wall.

'You're a real card, Paul. Maybe you should take up comedy if this whole detective thing doesn't pan out for you.'

'What? With this face? It'd be movies or nothing,' Harker scoffed, favoring Zeke with a toothy grin that would be the stuff of some child's nightmares.

'Let's head, ' Spader announced after a long moment of silence, 'We've put in our time occupying space here,' finishing off his cigarette with a short draw and then flicking the butt into the middle of the crime scene where it hissed out in a puddle of congealed blood.

'I'd suspend any officer I saw doing that five years ago, Zeke,' Paul noted softly as he followed his superior out of the room into a dingy hallway crowded with stretchers and body bags ready to be filled.

'Please don't report me, Paul. This job is all I have,' Spader replied in mock fear but letting real bitterness creep into his tone as he slapped another Tarsonis Mild up from its crumpled pack to be deftly plucked by his thin lips. Zeke's hand groped around in his right pocket and produced a metal lighter shaped like a Confederate firebat solider in CMC-660 armor, its bright red paint peeled away from years of constant use. Pressing the soldier's helmet down produced a sputtering flame from its outstretched arms, enough to ignite his latest cigarette before disappearing back into the rumpled bunker of his coat pocket.

Walking outside the pair was greeted by a light drizzle, the best winter could muster against the oppressive and omnipresent heat found in Foundry's Orange District, blast furnaces and smelting plants operating every hour of the planet's thirty-two hour solar day, 404 days a year. An industrial park the size of a small city, it churned out all the neosteel plating, wire, and frames necessary to keep Mengsk's war machine running. The constant heat, noise and smoke had given it another name too; Hell's Forge. Zeke's precinct, the 5th, ran right through the middle of it, encompassing many of the smaller factories not owned by interplanetary conglomerates as well as most of the cramped, prefabricated habitat towers the workers lived in.

Accompanying the heat was the acrid smell of a host of chemicals used in the cleaning and processing of the metals and vomited out into the atmosphere from smokestacks the size of battle cruisers, eventually finding its way back down either as an eye-stinging haze, or acid rain that left oily puddles swirling with a kaleidoscope of vile colors like the ones Zeke splashed through carelessly on his way to the squad car.

'Precinct. You Drive,' Zeke muttered, coughing fitfully as his lungs struggled to cope with both his cigarette smoke and the chemical laden air.

'Yeah, why not? You look like you could use some cheering up,' Harker responded, unlocking the vehicle's doors with a fob and opening the door with a creak and whine of metal. Removing the cigarette from his mouth long enough to spit a wad of phlegm to the uneven asphalt of the parking lot Zeke paused as he looked out past the police cordon, uniformed officers holding a small crowd of onlookers back with out-stretched arms and words made harsh and inhuman by the respirator masks they wore. There was anger in those faces, word spreading fast and far in a community living and working so close together. That anger would spread like sparks from a fire, landing in the bars and homes already made tinder dry by a hard life and a sense of entitlement to something better. Riots would burn across his precinct and only spilled blood could quench it, and anybody wearing a uniform would be fair game.

Once inside the car Harker let the engine pull them along to the barricade, the officers parting the crowd to let them past. Zeke started as something hard struck the window to his right, cracking the glass and eliciting a roar of approval from those gathered there.

'Times are tough when all they can spare for a parade is concrete confetti,' Harker commented, revving the engine and pulling out onto the broad, rain-slick street, leaving the factory and the jeering mob of people behind. Zeke shrugged the incident off by slouching in the seat and letting the rumble of the engine and the rhythmic squeak of the wiper blades lull his mind, watching the distorted smear of Orange district pass him by through the cracked window.

The precinct building greeted them both with a cacophony of insults, yelling for order and phones bleeping, the sounds so familiar they were almost comforting. The usual line up of drunks, pimps and gang-bangers spat and growled while waiting for processing, the desk sergeant currently in a row with a scrawny, half-naked turk addict, the man far too energetic for someone who's ribs were showing so clearly through his ashen skin. With patience and grace worthy of a ghost operative Spader's secretary materialized beside him, clipboard in hand as she seamlessly matched pace with the pair.

'Back from the Falcon Industries massacre? Good. Doctor Marcroft has handed me her sixth transfer request in as many days; you can't keep putting it off like this…' she began, swinging the laden plank of particle board in front of his face. Zeke batted it aside like a fly.

'Doctor Marcroft will stay in the morgue if I have to put her on a slab myself. I don't care whose niece she is…'

Nonplussed, Cybil continued, 'You are three months behind on your incident reports and five behind on your performance reviews. I don't know if you've noticed through that screen of smoke you exude but people here work very hard, and some of us would like to know that its recognized.'

'Don't bother me with that slag, Cybil. I've got enough on my plate with Captain Burke down for the count with that heart attack a week ago and the commish fighting off allegations of corruption. Besides, Mengsk's cronies have their fingers on the purse strings now and if they can cap the department's budget to put one more marine on the field they'll do it. If you want someone to pat you on the back and tell you "good job", well, good job,' Zeke responded, tossing his spent cigarette on the floor before him and crushing it with his next step forward.

'Oh, don't patronize me, lieutenant. I can't leave the precinct every time I want and forget about the paperwork piling up like sandbags before a flood. If I wasn't here you'd probably being crying in a corner right now, or drinking yourself into a coma. I tell you…' Cybil began, her words picking up speed as her own mounting frustration spilled out like run-off from a storm drain. For his part, Zeke tuned her out and let her blow off some steam, listening instead to the phone conversations of the seated officers as he walked the same twenty-six paces to his office he had walked countless times before.

'No, m'am, we cannot spare any officers to help you look for your cat…'

'A zerg knocked over your garbage bins again last night. I see. Could you give me a description of the, uh, alien in question…'

'I can assure you, sir, that the police have no knowledge at this time of cloaked ghost agents following you around. Yes sir, I know they can read minds….'

Zeke opened the door to his modest office, permitting Harker to enter first before slipping in himself, closing the door swiftly enough that Cybil had no opportunity to follow.

'A pot of synthcaf would be lovely, if you have the time,' Spader said before shutting the door loudly the last few inches. A frustrated growl and the rapid staccato of her heeled shoes fading into the distance announced Cybil's departure, Zeke's shoulders sagging in relief. Tossing his top coat and hat over the withered remnants of a potted plant the detective edged past his scarred and dented metal desk and eased himself into the office chair with a creak of bone and metal. Tilting his head back, Zeke examined the water-stained ceiling tiles while Harker pulled up the only other seat in the room, a rickety wooden contraption that groaned mightily under the detective's bulk.

'So what's the plan, boss?' Paul asked, the question hovering thick and silent between them like Zeke's latest draw from his cigarette. The lieutenant smashed the stubby butt into the glass ashtray on his desk that Cybil had dutifully emptied while he was gone, shaking his head.

'I don't know, Paul. I just don't know any more. I'll put a request in for more officers from the cushy 6th, but we both know those guys get paid too well to do actual police work. There'll be some smash-and-grabs and civil disobedience at the very least in response to the massacre, and the usual anti-Dominion tagging of businesses. We need more bodies in uniform on the streets to keep an eye out for rabble-rousers looking to form a riot, but almost everyone here is pulling a double shift every day as it is and more badges keep piling up every week from those too fed up or scared to keep walking their beats. Can't say I blame them. And then there's…'

The intercom on Spader's desk buzzed, Cybil's heavily distorted voice interrupting his rambling self-pity.

'Special Agent Smythe just walked in, making a bee-line right to your office with his usual entourage of goons in tow.'

Zeke and Harker exchanged glances, the latter standing up from his chair and making his way over until he hovered at Zeke's side, large, hairy hands clasped before him. No sooner had he done this than the distinctive "whine-clomp" of a marine in power armor walking down the floor penetrated the room's interior, a smaller black blur against the office's frosted windows followed by a pair of hulking shadows who took up flanking positions on either side of the door before the third one entered.

Zeke had known data processing units with more charm and humanity than Smythe exuded from every immaculate inch of his being. Wearing a high-necked black suit that shimmered as he moved from the ceramic weave armoring he closed the door behind him and, without a moment's hesitation, walked over to the chair Harker had just vacated. Placing a gloved hand on the back of the chair the agent made a show of dragging it, squealing, across the floor until it was exactly centered with Zeke. Then, in the quick, measured movements of a fresh clip being loaded, sat down. Blonde hair cut short and square enough Zeke was certain computer-guided lasers were involved gleamed under the office's single light, the police lieutenant watched his reflection select another Tarsonis Mild from the pack in Smythe's broad mirror shades, fixed at his temples with sub-dermal implants. The emperor's insignia, stitched in red and gold on Smythe's left breast, made Zeke's eye twitch, this man no less a weapon in Mengsk's arsenal than the APC that delivered the suppression squad to Falcon Industries.

'To what do we owe the pleasure of you visiting our little corner of Mengsk's brave new world, Smythe?' Spader drawled tiredly, about to reach for his lighter then realizing it was still in his coat pocket.

'I'm here to do my job, Lt. Spader, because you are not doing yours. The police are supposed to maintain order and yet I am inundated hourly by reports of violence, destruction of property and loss of life. What do you suppose I am to make of this?'

Zeke and his partner exchanged a look before Zeke answered, unlit cigarette wagging like a white finger from the corner of his mouth; 'We had no idea your marines were giving you hourly reports on the success of the sorties you authorized. We'll have suspected dissidents line up in a more orderly fashion to be gunned down in future, rest assured.'

Smythe's answering smile was plastic. 'Sarcasm is the language of the coward, Lt. Spader. Speak what you mean or say nothing.'

Zeke straightened in his chair, leaning forward to set his elbows on the desk, fingers threading together before his face.

'You want me to speak what I mean, _Special Agent_ Smythe? Let me start by saying you must be proud of your boys,' he began, jerking his head past Smythe to the door behind him, 'so many operations and no fatalities or injuries sustained. Must look real good on the reports you send back to Mengsk too. That's what happens when you pit unarmed civilians against trained soldiers. Plastic knives and forks are little match for gauss rifles I'm told. And then they evaporate like a fart in a hurricane, and we're left to pick through the wreckage afterwards and take all the heat from the public, who for some reason, seem to have a little trouble distinguishing between black and blue when it comes to uniforms.'

'Every day I have badges turned in when I need them handed out, and I'm at a point where I'm ready to deputize whores so at least we'll have some sort of presence out on the streets. My officers are tired, disillusioned and afraid, Special Agent Smythe, and now you walk in here with enough firepower at your back to level a city block and tell me that I need to do my job. What do you suppose I am to make of this?' Zeke ended, slamming the palms down on the top of the desk with a loud slam. The hulking shadows outside shifted their weight at the noise but did nothing.

'You have a leak,' Smythe stated after the resonating sound dissipated from the small room.

Zeke rubbed his eyes, as if trying to dispel Smythe as a product of sleep deprivation.

'I'm sorry, what?'

'You have a leak, in your department,' Smythe repeated calmly as if explaining something simple to an exceptionally dull child.

Spader leaned back in his chair, one arm over the back, fixing Smythe with a searching gaze.

'You certain? This precinct?'

'I am always certain, . To speak anything else would be a waste of time, a luxury you or I do not possess. Someone is feeding intel to subversive factions in the Orange district, permitting them time to flee before my "boys" as you call them, can get there. The leadership and resources we've encountered thus far give no indication that they have compromised our communications network and this district possesses a one in three escape ratio, far beyond random chance. I am left with the inescapable conclusion that someone in your precinct is feeding information to the enemies of the Dominion, the penalties for which are distinctly unpleasant.'

'You cannot know for certain. They may possess such means, and since you can't find them you point the finger at us…' Zeke countered, his voice gaining fire before it was quenched by Smythe's icily delivered interruption.

'Statistically improbable, or what is it that you detectives are so fond of saying; "I have a hunch". Only when this possibility is eliminated will I devote any of my resources to any alternatives. You will use any skill or method at your disposal to find this individual or individuals and deliver them with collaborating information to me by this time tomorrow or I will shut this precinct down and turn every one of you out onto the street. I will then repurpose this location for my own team of investigators and maintain order in this district at the tip of a bayonet if I must.'

Zeke gaped, stunned into silence by the verbal barrage. Beside him, Harker shifted his shoulders with a rustle of cloth, Smythe's head turning fractionally towards him.

'Did your hand just move closer to your firearm, detective?'

'No, just getting an itch,' Harker responded, nonchalant.

'My marines suffer from the same epidermal irritation, alas, only on their index fingers. I trust my meaning is understood.'

Harker grunted his assent.

Like a hydraulic extending Smythe rose to his feet, and with an about-face worthy of a parade ground, turned to leave.

"Wait! We need more time, you can't possibly expect us to find this person by tomorrow!' Spader implored, rising to his feet as his shock melted away like cat ice.

Smythe didn't stop, opening the door and speaking as he exited; 'This time tomorrow, Lt. Spader. Don't disappoint.' The door closed and the three shapes, two large and one small, walked off with the ponderous stride of inevitability.

'You can't…!' Zeke bellowed, bolting out of his chair and was half-way past his desk when a massive hand clamped down on his shoulder and held him there. Spader struggled momentarily but his partner's hand was as firm and gentle as a parent seeking to hold their child back from danger.

'Let him go, Zeke, before you doing something we'll both regret,' Harker implored, his voice uncharacteristically soft, 'we'll find the one responsible. We're detectives for god's sake. It's what we do.'

Releasing a frustrated sigh Spader finally slipped free of his partner's grip and stood with his hands on hips, staring at the floor. Taking a pace forward Zeke gripped either side of a two-drawer filing cabinet and proceeded to kick the front of it in a series of quick, violent motions, a frustrated scream gushing past his clenched teeth.

With the door to the cabinet bent permanently closed and his toes throbbing with pain Zeke rounded his desk again and collapsed into chair, hands reflexively seeking his lighter only to come up empty again. Another short scream and the still unlit cigarette tumbled through the air to pat weakly against the door's window before landing on the floor. Lunging forward Spader stabbed the intercom button almost forcefully enough to send it over the edge of his desk.

'Cybil! I want every case file involving the violent suppression of dissidents from the past two years on my desk as of yesterday, served with a pot of snythcaf as hot and black as the devil's own beating heart or I will have yours, you got me?'

Collapsing back into his chair, chest heaving with emotion Zeke groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed tight enough to make it look like he were trying to force them out the back of his head. The sole of one of Paul's shoes scraped the floor in the sudden silence, followed by a clearing of his throat.

'See? I told you coming back here would cheer you up.'

Zeke emerged from a black, dreamless sleep by an insistent shake, the world blearily resolving into the top of his desk laden with stacks of files laid out like an shrine to a bureaucratic god. Captain Burke had always hated computers, insisting on hard copies of every file despite nearly overwhelming pressure to unify the data storage.

'You fell asleep again old friend. We've banged our heads against this wall long enough, you should head home and get some shut eye while you can,' Harker offered, towering over him to the left. Zeke shook his head, pawing weakly at the case file before him.

'No, I just drifted off for a second. Get another pot of snythcaf in here and I'll be fine,' ending the sentence with a jaw-popping yawn.

'This is the third time in the past hour. You need sleep, not caffeine, I can hear your kidneys screaming from here. Go home, for a couple of hours at least.'

'Don't you understand what's at stake here?' Zeke countered, running a hand through his thinning brown hair, 'they'll shut us down. That can't happen. I won't let that happen!'

'This was an impossible task, both Smythe and yourself know that. He threw you a bone to keep you from planting two in his chest and one in his head right then and there. He'll be back with a whole platoon next time, probably with ghosts on stand-by in case we try and barricade ourselves in. The station will still be here in four hours, Zeke, and they'll need you conscious and coherent for the tough times ahead,' Paul argued, setting his hands on his hips and taking a stance that let Zeke know he would not budge on his issue.

'Do you think they know?' Paul asked quietly, chin resting on his folded arms, staring blankly forward like he could see through the piles of folders and the door beyond into the bustle of the precinct's main room.

'They know something's up, with the way you snapped at Cybil after Smythe's visit, but no, not the specifics.'

'I couldn't tell them. I can't tell them. It would be the death blow to this limping beast, officers stealing weapons, ammo and vehicles, officer workers taking personnel and case files to use as blackmail to pay the bills. Not an officer on the street. Rioting, looting, rape, murder, the violent suppressions afterwards...Falcon Industries was just the beginning…' Zeke groaned into his cupped hands, feeling like his life had been disemboweled and no matter how desperately he tried to stuff the entrails back in they wouldn't fit, mocking his efforts.

'Come on, up. We'll think of something. We always do,' Paul insisted, grasping Zeke by the arm and hefting him to his feet. Absently grabbing his coat and hat as he shuffled to the door, placing the latter on his head and opened the door slowly, as if it were composed of reinforced neosteel rather than cheap plasterboard. Looking back, Zeke's made several attempts to speak, his mouth working but no sound coming out. Finally, he managed to croak; 'Thanks, Paul.'

Zeke's walked through the offices insensate to the comings and goings of his fellow officers, people parting to allow him to pass and every clipped greeting met with only a single nod and a few mumbled fragments of words. Reflexively Zeke pulled out the pack of cigarettes from his pocket, his fingers groping around but finding the packet empty. Crushing it in his hand he tossed it to the floor, and, shouldering his way past the crowd at the entrance, exited into the humid night.

The drive home was a mind-numbing cocktail of thought, emotion and regret chased by the chemical stink of the rain that still fell, slowly dissolving the world around him. Under the flickering light his apartment complex's drab lobby he purchased a fresh pack of Tarsonis Mild and trudged, back bent under the weight of his thoughts, up the stairs to his apartment. Cellophane yielded to the efforts of his clawing fingers and another white coffin nail as fresh and beautiful as a summer's day made its way to his lips. Two paces later it was lit, Zeke jamming his thumb into the biometric reader on his door and stepping through when it slid open with a disapproving hiss. 'Honey, I'm home,' Zeke announced on an accompanying bed of smoke.

On the far side of the room a lamp and the small flat-screen turned on, as did the lights in the kitchen to his right, the microwave whirring to life in heating the sweet-and-sour Nuke Noodles he had put in there before leaving in the morning. His walls, teeth and fingers all shared the same nicotine-stained hue, the carpet pitted with the craters of dropped butts. Tossing his coat and hat onto the bed that hadn't been made since the fall of the Confederacy Zeke wrestled free of his leather shoulder holster, the large hand gun bouncing twice before coming to a rest. Spinning the lid off of the bottle of Bountiful Gold Label whiskey he had received from Captain Burke when he had be promoted to lieutenant and with whom they had split half the bottle that very night he poured the remaining contents into a glass tumbler.

Looking up from the half-filled glass Zeke's eyes focused on the framed pictures hanging frosted in dust and mottled by the perpetual damp. Graduation from the academy; citation for meritorious service handed to him by the old police commissioner before he was replaced by a crook; Zeke and Paul standing side-by-side, grinning beside a five million credit seizure of hab destined for the streets of Foundry; Zeke getting his bars, chin back, chest out, a barely restrained smile on his lips, uniform so sharp and clean, buttons gleaming in the flash. His eyes then shifted their focus until he was looking at his own reflection in the glass, tracing over the deep grooves carved at the corners of his mouth and eyes by the chisels of age and stress, over the white at his temples and scattered liberally through his stubble. 'To happier days,' Spader murmured, toasting the faded ghosts of his past with the tumbler and downing half its contents, the glorious smoothness of the whiskey like a liquid dose of nostalgia.

Cigarette flaring he looked again at the picture of Paul and himself standing together. Partners for twenty-one years they could finish each other's thoughts and sentences, or with nothing more than a tilt of the head and a squint convey an entire theory and then provide a response. Would they huddle beside the same trash fire for warmth years from now, bickering like old women about how things used to be? The next sip of whiskey did nothing to dispel that thought.

Thoughts of Paul pivoted his body around to face the holster pistol where he had dropped it. Setting the drink down Zeke walked over and hefted up the solid piece, undoing the snaps securing it and drawing it, the holster falling like a shed, useless skin back to the bed. The sheer weight of the MP-18A drew his hand down, "aim high" Paul had said the day he gave it to him, "and try not to break your nose with the recoil". The "Goat" as it had been dubbed by its users because of its bulky design and ferocious kick was a throw-back to the weapons issued to the original colony ships centuries ago. It didn't have to look good, it didn't have to be ergonomic, it just had to work each and every time the trigger was pulled.

Zeke remembered the first time he had seen the ugly metal thing, laying in a hospital bed after taking a slug through the left lung when his sleek, standard issue PB-IX had jammed, leaving him at the mercy of the perp Harker had flushed out the back door of a flop house to him. That's what happened when you contract to the lowest bidder for your city's law enforcement firearms, better to have red on the cops than in the books the thinking upstairs went. When Paul had pulled back the lid from the box it made all the flowers and brightly-colored cards he had received look like the cheap tokens they really were. This, this was genuine affection with a trigger and a barrel big enough he could fit his little finger down it.

"So I'm at your side even when I'm not there," Paul had said as Zeke's still-weak hands attempted to lift the behemoth from its molded case. Zeke, voice thick with emotion, had just managed "thanks, Paul" before lapsing into silence.

Without even thinking why Zeke chambered one of the pistol's seven fat slugs with a click like the reaper's own scythe tapping the ground. Things felt better when this weapon was with him, on the nightstand beside him as he slept, slapping lightly against his ribs like a reassuring pat from the man who had given it to him. Solid and reliable, just like Paul. Zeke turned slowly until he faced the image of Donny Vermillion bleating out whatever the teleprompter told him to like the sheep he was, a clip of Mengsk talking at some press conference over his left shoulder. Zeke drew a bead on the emperor's bearded head, aiming high so the slug would punch through his broad forehead and leave an appropriately fist-sized crater in the back.

A cloak of shame settled on him then, pulling his pistol down to hang useless at his side. How _dare_ he dream of insurrection now, finding the courage to fight only when tyranny drove him into a corner with no other option? Smythe and his lot had turned him into a toothless watchdog and he had done nothing but gripe while they did it. What did it matter anyways? Like he had told Paul, Smythe would be back with a whole platoon of marines and Zeke knew he would only get one or two shots off before he ended up like those poor souls at Falcon Industries. Maybe, maybe if he did something, no matter how futile, it would excuse his capitulation and embolden those who came after him. Maybe if he did that Paul could forgive him for being such a blind fool for so long. Setting the pistol down on the bed Zeke collapsed into the leather easy chair he had bought with the money he had earned from his promotion and downed the last swallow of his past glory. His eyelids flickered then closed, his last sight Mengsk's proud visage promising swift retribution to Jim Raynor and any who worked to slow the progress of the Dominion.

Ezekiel Spader awoke with a start and a vague sense of panic, sunlight filtering through the battered, dust-caked blinds to his left. Grunting with a stretch he yawned and looked at his watch. Blood-shot eyes widened and he uttered a curse, stumbling over the glass he had dropped last night and pulling his suspenders back over his shoulders. His formerly white shirt had been pocked with amber stains that smelled of benzene from the rain last night and his chin itched with stubble, but his appearance was good enough to die. Strapping on the shoulder holster Zeke hauled up his pistol and examined both sides carefully. 'Let's do some good today,' he uttered, holstering it but leaving the securing strap undone.

Zeke was so focused on the confrontation with Smythe he was walking through the offices before he realized he hadn't lit a smoke yet. 'Is Harker here yet?' he called out to Cybil who was by the coffee station chatting with a conspiratorial hunch with two other female officer workers.

'Your office,' she replied quickly, fixing him with an inquisitive look. 'Something up, lieutenant? Usually you're smoking like a coal plant this time of morning.'

'Must've forgot them at home,' Zeke replied with a bland smile, opening the door to his office and closing it quickly behind him.

Harker sat in the same chair; hat tilted down over his eyes and relaxed but Zeke saw the tell-tale gleam from the shadows that the tall detective was awake. 'We found him,' Paul announced in a voice deep with exhaustion. Zeke's quick pace slowed, coat tucked under one arm, hand midway to remove his hat.

'You did? Who is it?' he blurted out, his plans and resolutions from the previous night suddenly thrown off-kilter. Would he sacrifice this officer for the rest of them, turning him over for torture and public execution, or would he still find the will to fight if his entire career was not on the line?

Paul's answer came in the form of a case file tossed onto Spader's desk, some of the papers and photos spilling out. Putting his hat and coat aside Zeke kicked his chair aside and flipped open the file. Several seconds of reading passed, Zeke's expression growing more confused by the word. 'I don't recognize this file. A violent suppression at a textile factory seven…eighteen months ago. Twenty-three dead. Where did you find this?'

Paul straightened in his chair and then leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands playing with some sort of cheap plastic daisy Zeke hadn't noticed before. 'Wedged behind the filing cabinet in this very office. What does it tell you?' he probed quietly.

Zeke shrugged; 'Lists of casualties, uh, ballistics reports, next of kin information…' he replied as he read further, leafing through several pages. There was a knock on the door and it opened, Cybil backing into the room carrying a tray with two steaming mugs of synthcaf.

'Out,' Spader ordered with a dangerous tone in his voice, not bothering to look up, extended index finger like a gun barrel. With a frustrated sigh Cybil obeyed, slamming the door loudly behind her. Zeke's hunting finger stopped suddenly, nestled under a name that lurked half-seen somewhere in the cobwebs of his mind. Ellie Cain. Why was that name familiar? The realization came with enough force that it nearly drove Zeke to his knees. His head swiveled up to look at Paul to find his partner was already staring at him, rolling the stem of that plastic flower between his massive hands.

'Married five years; divorced for seventeen, but could you believe she still kept this stupid cheap flower I gave her on our first date pinned near her work station?'

Time slowed, the world closing in around Zeke until all he could see was Paul rolling that ridiculous flower back and forth, his dark eyes fixed on it.

'Paul…'

'Why? What do you want to know, why I did it, or why she and twenty-two fellow employees were gunned down when only two of them were responsible for printing anti-Dominion banners for political rallies? We were patching things up between, you know. Seeing each other. Trying to make it work again….'

'You…should have told me. You lied. You didn't have…' Zeke began, only to be silenced by Paul's bitter retort.

'Didn't have to lie Zeke? You came in here with a righteous fire in your eyes today, but what about yesterday? Or the week before? Or two months ago? You wouldn't have understood, and I suppose I can't blame you. This job, this building, is everything to you. Sometimes you can only understand when something that precious is going to be taken away.'

'We can…'

'Hide me? No. I dug this grave a long time ago. All I have to do is lie down in it now. Smythe and his suppression squad are on the way. I was actually getting worried that you wouldn't make it here before them,' he admitted with a dry chuckle.

'It can't end like this Paul. I can't let them take you,' Spader pleaded, a dryness clenching his throat that had nothing to do with his smoking habit.

'There isn't room in this grave for two, Zeke old friend. I'll leave the hard stuff for you this time, carrying on after I'm gone. What you choose to do, well, that'll be between you and your conscience, just like it's always been.'

There was the sound of distant voices yelling now, the same word over and over. The heavy clomp of inevitable feet drawing closer. Paul leaned back, tucking the plastic daisy behind his right ear, gripping the edge of his coat to reveal the butt of his firearm. The security band was undone. Faster than Zeke believed possible he found his own firearm in his hand, the iron sights trembling as he blotted out Paul's nose with it.

'Don't, Paul. Just don't. We can get through this, I swear. We'll find a way, just like you always say.'

Harker shifted his weight on the chair, fingers sliding down to where the handle of his gun protruded out.

'Paul, don't!'

'You going to let them take me, Zeke? For weeks of "interrogation" followed by a swift trial and an audience with a firing squad on live TV? I don't want to be gunned down by resocialized murderers and psychopaths. I want my death to mean something, to give you and the rest a chance to carry on. It's the only way they'll believe you weren't in on it. The only way.'

Hulking shadows stomped into view, the entire wall suddenly bursting inwards, black-armored marines with that hell-forged insignia on their shoulder pads, impaler rifles raised.

'Paul!'

Paul drew. Zeke's pistol bucked once.

Solid and reliable.


End file.
