=  With eyes of blood
       And bitter blue
       How I feel for you
          ("Like Suicide"; Soundgarden)
 

The gleaming lights of Alpolis could be seen even from orbit. It was a sight that was most often described as 'magical' if the observer were to look at it at night. As the starship descended from the upper layers of the atmosphere, and the pressure steadily increased outside the carbon-steel barrier that separated the passengers from frigid sky, the lights shimmered and blinked, like stars in their own right.

It was said that every Earth-born human, no matter how jaded, yearned for nothing more than to be able to catch sight of the lights of Alpolis from above. It was a sign that the traveller had returned, giving himself (or herself) to the embracing arms of Mother Earth.

From his seat in the passenger starship, Foxx quietly obeserved the view outside. He felt the relief of coming home, even if it was to an empty home. He'd lived in this city for as long as he was a Hunter, and knew it like he knew the back of his hand.

"Quite a sight, isn't it?" Miles commented beside him.

He nodded. "It's good to be home."

She gave him a funny look.

"What?" he asked.

Miles shook her head. "I just didn't really picture you to be the sentimental type," she said, grinning.

He smiled wryly. "Neither did I, to tell you the truth." He sighed in relief to himself. It looked like she'd finally dropped hassling him about his family matters. They had driven in silence all the way to the Olymphan Starport, and halfway through their insterstellar flight. Miles had been the first one to break the silence and she'd done it with a lewd joke she'd heard from the mechanics back at HQ.

*****

There were rumours floating around the HQ regarding Miles. Depending on what you heard, she was either a former assassin lying low, a SuperTrooper in disguise, or just a plainly lucky and bafflingly talented ex-student.

Foxx never knew what to expect from her (besides the cliched 'expect the unexpected'). In the end, he left all the speculating to the other Hunters; those who had the time, the inclination and the imagination to handle that kind of thing. He'd learnt to accept whomever he worked with while asking as little questions about their backgrounds as he possibly could. After all, most of the Hunters he knew liked nothing more than to be able to leave their past dead and buried.

'The greater the chances of dying... That's where you'll find them,' had been the tried and true way of describing the people who made it their lives to kill SuperTroopers. Foxx had once, foolishly, thought of it as romantic. He'd been a kid, then. Wide-eyed and inexperienced.
 
 

He remembered...

A dark night, not as stormy, but still as wet, and they were drunk. They had finished their first hunt as partners, and it had gone well for them. With the reward safely credited to their accounts, they'd both treated each other to a victory feast.

He remembered. They had been sitting on the hood of the hovercar, unheedful of the rain, passing between them a bottle of fast-disappearing old-fashioned tequila. With the alcohol loosening his tongue, he'd finally asked her what he -- in his normally more sober moments -- would never do. And she'd said...

"I wasn't a killer, you know. I never started out that way. I loved life. I wanted my happy ending, and for a while, it looked like I was going to get it."

"Then what?"

"Then they came and they killed him. My happy ending. Took him away from me, and left me behind for dead or worse. Only I didn't die." She'd laughed at that. Softly at first, then uncontrollably. "He'd always said I was probably too stubborn to die. God help me, he turned out to be right. I wanted to forget, but you never can, you know?"

He knew.

"So I decided that I wanted to die."

Just like him. Just like half the other Hunters who roamed the hallways and the consoles of headquarters. Nothing very remarkable.

But she'd said it to him with no tears, no uncertainties. He knew she meant it, and she probably still did.

*****

Miles brought the car in for a touchdown in the unit's parking lot. Unlike the car she'd rented on Olymph, this one was a standard enforcer's vehicle, lightly armoured and built for maneouvering between the closely packed buildings of Alpolis. It had been waiting for them at the pickup area when they had disembarked at the starport.

As the two exited the car, the Chief Mechanic, Dzeladdin, sauntered over, chewing on his trademark toothpick.

"Geez, Miles," he muttered. "Take it easy on the landings, next time. My boys keep having to fix the levitators every time you bring a car in."

"At least it means you'll be earning your paycheck," she replied easily. "Look who I sucked up while in space." She hitched a thumb over in Foxx's direction.

Dzeladdin grinned when he saw the other Hunter. "Good to see you again. I heard you had some trouble while up in Olymph."

Foxx smiled and nodded.

The mechanic shrugged, unfazed by Foxx's silence. "Walsh has been yelling for you two for days now. Better get your rears into his office now before he chews me out for delaying you," Dzeladdin said, waving mechanics over to take their car in. He paused, then turned to the two. "There's been a lot of talk floating around here lately, what with the Class Alphas being called in..." He trailed off, looking at them speculatively.

"We'll let you in the know once we find out ourselves, Dzeladdin," Miles told him with a glare.

The mechanic nodded, but he looked unconvinced. "Sure."

As they started to walk away, Foxx turned to him. "Listen. My stuff's still in the trunk. Could you send it up to the lockers?"

The man made a face. "They should pay me extra for playing porter," he grumbled.

The Hunter chuckled. "Thanks." Despite his bitching, Dzeladdin was a reliable man.

They reached the chief's office in good time, considering one of the elevators was out of order again. Walsh was busy under a mountain of paperwork, but looked up as they entered. "Took you long enough," he rumbled.

"Sorry, boss," Miles answered. "But the Olymphan police wanted to hang onto this guy a bit longer. It took a lot more than an order from the Terran security to get them to let go of him."

Walsh grunted, and turned to Foxx. "Messy situation you got yourself into," he said. "The TAF's security division wasn't very happy when they learned about what had happened to Meredith. They've been raising hell over it since the news reached here."

"Sorry, sir. Unavoidable circumstances."

"I know. It always is." With a sigh, he reached for the comm unit on his desk. "Siti, no calls or visitors. If it's anything important, just reroute them to Q-Ball for me."

"Yes, sir," his secretary replied.

Walsh pressed a button on his console, and his entire office dimmed as the windows darkened and tinted.

Foxx hid a grin. It was a theatrical sort of feel to the whole process, and it always reminded him of one of those spy vids he'd watched as a kid. They sat.

"Five weeks ago, five STs flew the coop," Walsh began. "They hijacked a heavy scoutship at the Jade-Wokev line and jumped into hyper before the authorities could stop them."

An image of the scoutship appeared before their eyes as Walsh spoke. Foxx leaned back in his chair, listening, as Miles stayed carefully neutral.

"Two days later, Goran Interplanetary Patrol units found the ship free-floating near the borders of the Empty Zone. It was empty, but within Goran space itself, they found three bodies floating. Seems they'd all been ejected into vacuum with no protective suits. Well, all but one.

"The Gorans notified Terran Armed Forces once they found out the connection between the scoutship and the renegades. The survivor claimed that his ship, a light freighter," and its image shone beside the scoutship, "had been taken over by four individuals, all matching the descriptions of the renegades that jumped Jade-Wokev."

"Four?" Foxx asked.

Walsh nodded. "I'll get to that bit in detail later." He went on, "We think the STs who stole the craft went into the Empty Zone to lose their trail. We've sent our investigators and contacts to check up on the freighter."

"Any luck?"

He nodded. "It took three weeks of careful digging, but the ship turned up on Tortuna. Unfortunately, it was piloted by a Pedulont trader. She claimed to have taken command of the freighter two weeks before, after purchasing it through a middleman. We have no leads on the middleman at all."

It was not a surprising thing, actually. The Empty Zone was the best place to go if you wanted to disappear from the face of the universe. As it was, they had been lucky to find the stolen craft at all.

"So we have no idea where the 'Troopers went?" Miles asked.

"None."

"What about the one that was missing during the second hijacking?"

Walsh shrugged. "For a while, we'd heard and seen nothing on him at all." He called up a file picture of the 'Trooper in question. He looked, for all intents and purposes, normal. His face was just like any other you'd expect to find on the streets every day. A wolf in human skin.

"Six days ago, we sent Parker out to WolfDen to do a routine data transfer, as well as supervise the tests on the new line of STs. She sent back a message saying that she'd found a possible rogue working inside WolfDen."

Miles and Foxx exchanged glances. She shook her head, a faint smile on her face. "Well, if I were a runaway 'Trooper, I guess WolfDen would be the last place people'd expect to find me."

"So then, the 'Trooper that Parker bagged that night...," Foxx began to say.

Walsh nodded.

"But Parker got gunned."

"Correct. And we still don't know who did it."

"Her scan records?"

"They don't show a thing," Walsh replied. "The area was clear when she made the scan, and it was still showing the all clear by the time her backup arrived. The damnedest thing, though, is that whoever it was who shot her called in the medics by uplinking her scanner to her car's comm unit."

Both Hunters managed to limit their reactions to a mere exchange of glances once more.

"Seriously?" Foxx said.

Walsh nodded. "Arrogant bastard also left behind a note." He waved a bagged piece of paper in front of their eyes.

In neat and even handwriting were the words, 'Sorry about this.'

"Oh, my," Miles breathed. "A penitent would-be killer."

"We got a sighting of the remaining rogues in the Hymoon system six days ago, then almost immediately after updating WolfDen about the case, we got a call from Nagata, personally requesting that we put highest priority on this particular case."

Walsh banished the images, replacing them with new ones showing the faces of the remaning rogues. "These are the ones we've got left." He isolated a picture showing a white-haired 'Trooper, wearing some kind of shades. "This one's called Stingray. He's a 5th gen, 'Trooper First Class, and probably the most dangerous. The psych reports show him to be an unstable character. We think he's probably the one who blew the traders out the airlock. WolfDen's psychs say he's more than capable of doing that."

The picture shifted and a woman's face seemed to stare curiously at them. Unlike Stingray's this one was more exotic. Her face was more fine-boned, her hair an interesting striped black and white, somehow giving her an almost gentle look. "Darkstar. 5th gen, 'Trooper First Class. Nothing remarkable about her on record, except that she excelled in close combat."

Once more the picture changed. It was another 'Trooper woman. Her face showed a remarkable similarity to Darkstar's. Where Darkstar was gentle, though, this one seemed almost malevolant. Piercing eyes glared at each of them like a predator's.

"Chimera, 5th gen. 'Trooper First Class, covert operations. She's from the same genetic batch as Darkstar's, by the way. Her accomplishments are a mile long. Infiltrations specialist, information hacker. They say she's about as good as The Shadow, if not better."

Miles had an unbelieving look on her face.

Finally, Walsh called up the last one. This one was the most difficult to gauge. He had the classic 'hero' look to him. Short blond hair, bright green eyes, chiseled looks. He looked like he had more in common with vid stars than with SuperTroopers.

"Pretty," Miles commented.

"And also the leader of the rogues. This is Shane Gooseman. One of the last from the 6th generation SuperTrooper batches. Before going rogue, he was the model 'Trooper. Outstanding achievements in the field of battle, no psych imbalances, almost perfect control of bio-defenses."

"So why would he go rogue?" Foxx asked.

Walsh gave a shrug. "No one knows. In any event, your job is to stop them all; no exceptions." He handed them a small black case, hardly bigger than a fist. "Take this. The datachip inside has got all the relevant records we currently have on the rogues, which isn't much. I want the two of you to go to WolfDen and get every ounce of data about the STs from their main databanks," he said.

"Why can't we just get the data through our link here?" Miles asked, as Foxx pocketed the chipcase.

"Because for some reason, Nagata has a personal interest in this case. He's got the files under the heaviest protection available, and unfortunately for us, we don't have the... authorisation to look at it. As yet." He leaned back. "Nagata's asked to meet all the Hunters being assigned to this case. I've already sent Daley and Afsan to WolfDen to do tests on the employees, but I doubt they'll find anything. As for you two," he looked pointedly at them, "you go meet the President of WolfDen as soon as you get there."

* * * * *