2 Chapter 2

After grabbing something hot to drink that contained a lot of artificial caffeine in it, Amanda walked into the hallway and bumped into a familiar face. She hadn't seen the old man in some time, as the capital city patrol was keeping her very busy. Her old training officer did most of his work off world so Star was always happy to see him.

"Hey!" she called out as she walked towards him. "What are you doing back here so soon, old man?"

"Nice to see you too, Sergeant." Captain Rogers said with a grin.

"Where's the rookie?" Star asked as she looked around.

"Like you have room to talk." Rogers replied. "It hasn't been that long since you were a rookie yourself!"

Amanda didn't respond and gave him a look that told the old man that he was pushing his luck. "What's going on?"

"O'Brien is downstairs." Rogers answered. "We picked seven prisoners from one of the moon colonies. They were causing mischief in one of the techless colonies."

"We have people in the techless colonies?" Amanda asked.

"We did that day." Rogers said with a chuckle.

Amanda padded the old man on the shoulder. "You'll have to tell me more about it later. I've got a briefing to get to."

"I'll do that, Sergeant Star." Rogers said as he gave her a wink. "You take care of yourself out there."

"I will." Amanda said as she left the old man in the hallway and strolled over to the large conference room for the day's briefing.

As she walked into the conference room, most of the seats were already taken. Amanda didn't really care as she preferred to stand close to the doors so the she could make a quick exit when the meeting was over. She did that so that she could get to her speeder and to work as soon as possible, but also to prevent the commander from calling on her to do something or gripe about another civilian complaint. While civilians were free to speak their mind, it never meant that what they had to say was correct. Sergeant Star had her fair share of complaints but she only took that as a sign that she was doing her job properly. She never took them personally and shrugged them off as sour grapes from people who had been caught breaking the capital law. The officers quieted down when Commander Anders strolled in. With blonde hair so bright that it could only come from one of the Swedish colonies. Once at the podium, Anders paused for a moment and then started to brief the crowded conference room.

"We've had some unusual off world activity," The Commander started, "Arrests off world are up, so we're going to have to work hard to make sure that this trend doesn't spill over into the Capital. Gang activity has been at an all time low, and it's been mainly pushed out of the city to the outskirts. I prefer to keep it that way. Any suspicious activity is to be called in immediately and no one tries to be a hero. Heroes go home in body bags and I really don't need the additional paperwork. I get enough of that from some of you already."

He shot a glare over at Sergeant Star when he made that comment.

"Your patrol routes have been forwarded to your speeders," The commander resumed, "Good luck and follow your directives."

The briefings were never long so Amanda personally thought Anders did it just to make sure that everyone arrived on time and were present to start the day. Sometimes she felt like a school kid being called for attendance every morning and with the technology that was available, doing an in person head count seems rather redundant. It was still the way Commander Anders preferred to run his unit, and he never hesitated to remind people who was in charge. Amanda wasn't in the mood to hear what his gaze was about and quickly shuffled out the door and towards her speeder, which carried her patrol route for the day. Once at her speeder, she discovered that her assumption was correct; Anders was angry. She was given one of the worst patrols in the city, something he was known to do whenever an officer got a complaint which caused him to do more paperwork than usual.

Star found it ironic that putting her in tougher parts of town would really make things better for him. Being in that part of town would result in more arrests, more interactions and thus more paperwork for Anders. Amanda thought putting her in a softer zone would be a harsher punishment as she would be bored and have nothing to do, hence less complaints. Either Anders was a glutton for punishment or he just didn't seem to care as long as she was up to her neck in scumbags and having to work her tail off. She also dared to think that one reason why she was getting this part of town was because of the fear of escalating violence and preferred to have his best in place, paperwork be damned. Amanda didn't require approval from neither Anders nor Captain Rogers to know she was the best in the Capital, she already knew it.

When Sergeant Star had cleared the hanger and was on its way to her assigned section, she immediately activated her communication boards and started to listen to incoming chatter. There were hundreds of officers working the ground, busting people who were bring rowdy or just getting in the way of citizens trying to do their own thing. The job of the patrolers above was to monitor the ground from above and only intercede when things became too dangerous and the officers on the ground required a stronger hand to help out. With millions of people in the city, it was too much for just the patrol to handle on their own, so there were assigned police forces but they were the lawmen in charge when things got really out of hand. More like marshals that only stuck their heads in when it hit the fan. In the section that Anders kept assigning Amanda to, that was often. She hadn't been in the air more than seven minutes when the first call for assistance came in.

"Sector seven to Patrol." The com-link called out.

"Patrol seven here." Amanda replied.

"We have a robbery in progress at a local shop."

"I have the location on my panel." Amanda said as she began to change course. "Are officers enroute?"

"Affirmative."

"I'll met them there." She said as she began to weave through traffic on her way to the shop that was under siege.

It didn't take her long to figure out why backup from the Patrol was called in. One of the crooks emerged from the shop armed with a disrupter and fired at her without hesitation. Star had no problem dodging the shots, but was surprised that the blaster was working at all within the city limits. There was tech installed in the city that was supposed to render all unauthorized laser weapons disabled but for some reason it wasn't working on this particular blaster, which meant Star was going to have to go old school and disarm the gunman with extreme prejudice. When she was close enough to make a move, Amanda leaped off the speeder and flipped out onto one of the balconies above the shop. She then withdrew her own blaster and returned fire. Unlike the man who was shooting wildly, Amanda hit the range everyday and never missed her targets. She nailed the gunman with a perfect shot to the chest, which stunned the man and knocked him to the ground.

Once on the ground beside the man she just stunned, Amanda placed inhibitor cuffs on the man and picked up his blaster. There were no markings, no logos or serial numbers. Wherever this blaster came from, it was homemade and not effected by the city's defense systems. She had never seen anything like it before. Whenever someone walked into the city limits with a blaster that wasn't authorized, there were defenses in the city that would deactivate it until the person returned outside city limits. When it came to this blaster, those defenses were not working. This was the first time someone had shot at Amanda within the city since she started working there. She could tell this was going to be a problem but immediately shrugged it off and walked into the shop with her own blaster raised, ready for anything. When she strolled into the shop, it was very quiet. People were lying on the floor with their hands on their heads. She moved in further, looking around for possible hostiles but there were none. Amanda then made a motion to the shop keeper who was in the corner.

"Where'd they go?" she whispered.

"The other two went out the backdoor when their friend started shooting at you." He answered while pointing to the door that led to the back.

Starr nodded and then proceeded to the backroom, still with her blaster raised and ready for anything to happen. She was usually very calm when working in the city but being shot at suddenly shook her up again. It wasn't like she wasn't used to it, she's seen her fair share of firefights in other systems and on other planets. She just wasn't ready for it here in the city, which startled her a little bit. That moment was over and Amanda was back in the game, in top form and ready for anything this time. She kicked the back door open and immediately strung into the alley way with a roll. When back up to her feet, she took a quick scan around. Nothing... the other two men had made their escape while their friend bought them time. She looked down at the illegal blaster she put in her holster and began to realize that things were going to get a lot worse before they got better. This was going to be a long day.