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#Writever 10.7 — Commissaire (Commissioner)

The dron displayed the body of a hairy black rat without the redeeming qualities of a rat face and dentition, or the comfortably familiar body plan even humans shared with rodents. My opponent slashed with a newly-formed clawed arm as I dodged its kick.

That's when the bright flashes started.

Transparent sections of "sky" ran the length of the old McNeil colony, between the three greater sections of overgrown green belt and decaying cityscape. Much of the automation still functioned, as did the meteoroid defense. The blue light reflected and refracted all through the space vessel.

The dron bent its eye-like surfaces and thus its body toward the light. Essentially, it flinched.

I didn't.

My bat hit the clawed limb. It burst like a waterskin of blue ink, making a mess as it splashed a light pole. My roundhouse kick with the side knife of my rollerblade slit it open enough that it could no longer maintain turgidity. The ameboid creature splattered into—let's call it a "chunky stew"—across the pavement.

Dron are intelligent, despite having a high-kill lifecycle like rabbits. They passed their experience, fight skills, and determination to conquer to successive generations. Like cicadas, they came back in waves. We'd wiped out their "captain" cast over a century ago. The grunts, however...

I bashed choice bits in the "stew" and spread out the drying liquid to guarantee it couldn't reconstitute, then hobbled away from what smelled like a combination of pine solution and the scent of a bloody nose. If a sprain was all the damage I'd taken after an ambush, I counted myself lucky.

I sat on a corroded green metro bench and sounded my pipe whistle. Coded /squees/ echoed around the neighborhood. I sighed as everyone checked in safe. I was going to have to clean the rollerblades, but I looked as the flashes above intensified.

Actual strikes we rare; once in my lifetime. The dron had gotten in by crashing through a pane. The colony security had repelled them from the axial docks multiple times back then.

Suddenly, I saw beams of blinding electric blue converge from either end cap before a fountain spouted from Sector 16 of Clear 3. Broken glass sparkled in the sunlight as a dark rod trailed condensation a quarter of the way to the central null-g cylinder. A bang followed as it was only a few kilometers away. A whirling storm formed quickly.

My heart raced. I found I'd shot upright, and my right pastern complained with repeated pangs. I kept my eyes on the invader, stubbornly. Back then, the dron had used a planetary reentry vehicle that had passed through to crash on the opposite side habitable zone, striking the central pillar, causing the "Ding." The "rod," in contrast, grew wings and over the next minute as I watched, it righted itself and glided along an unpowered path toward Rogeant Township, within my district.

/Not dron. Please, let it not be dron./ I couldn't allow the thought pollute my head that, after more than a dozen decades, the invaders could have defeated Earth. If even one dron captain made it in to genetically transfer what they'd learned fighting humanity, we might fail to fight the horde off.

I had hyperventilated. I felt dizzy. Not very professional, considering all I'd worked to get to my position in the last weeks. When I lost view of the glider, I lowered myself to the cold metal bench, controlling my breath.

In.

Out.

I rubbed the area above my hoof, getting further pangs. Nothing broken.

"Get it together!" I growled at myself. I had a team I was responsible for—and now had the first new work any of us had had to deal with in a century. We might even meet unmodified original humans. Second wave chimeras had populated this colony. I stomped my rollerblade down. /Bang! Bang!/ knocking off the gore, then rolling each wheel to see if it needed lubrication. I wiped the wetness from my fingers on the cement.

I heard the first worried squee. Another followed. Alexander Rent, then Portius, then others. We were all shocked.

I stood. I straightened my uniform, then tilted my black name plate so I could read it. I'd been an officer for a week now, replacing that screwup Lodge Crandon, and, hopefully not a moment too soon. I read, "Commissioner Molly Brown," as I wiped off a drop of blue with my thumb.

I felt rather proud standing there, and afraid, which oddly also felt good. I put out of my mind speculations of whether we'd meet a dron or Earthers. I brought the whistle to my lips and ordered a meet-up at Flags Plaza as I thrust out my skates despite the pain, pumping for speed, and raced away.

[2½ hrs. Author retains copyright.]

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