Free Mission by Viola Grace Page A

game to bar fight to political uprising, she was there and calming things down.
    “Peacekeeper Springs, please report to launch deck.”
    Jewel got to her feet and put her data pad away. Her ability to study had flourished with her biological capability in the field. The faster her body got, the faster her mind got. It was rather entertaining to deal with. She had no casual friends, but she didn’t need them, her books were very entertaining.
    As her first six months in space passed, she learned that she was uniquely suited to life as a solitary Terran in an alien environment. Any sentient being in her vicinity was immediately calmed and she couldn’t turn it off. After acknowledging that she was responsible for saving lives and broken limbs, she had made peace with her mental makeup and the effect it had on others. She didn’t have a lot of friends, but she wouldn’t have enemies either.
    She joined the others on the launch deck of the peacekeeper headquarters. The crew met her and nodded as they armed their weapons.
    Commander Teffrin addressed them. “We have an unauthorized landing craft that doesn’t answer to hails. We need you to go and investigate the craft, restraining any occupants and bringing them here.”
    Jewel slid her shock sticks into the holsters on her thighs. She settled onto her riot runner and checked for the coordinates. The rest of the team finished gearing up and when they took off, so did she.
    The line of riot runners ejected from the launch bay with the door grinding shut behind them. Fourteen officers flew out of the base at her side, and Jewel followed the cloudy streak from the sky to the clumsily landed ship.
    She took in the details and noted something very odd. “Team, has anyone else noticed that that was a highly controlled landing?”
    Peacekeeper Wehn agreed. “It looks like they deliberately made it into a skid. Why would a ship do that?”
    They were coming in too fast to stop at a safe distance. Jewel said, “Suggesting overshoot and approach from the other side.”
    “Negative. Land and we will make the best of it.”
    Jewel made a face and pulled back, dropping to the ground as far from the ship as she could. With her riot runner safely disengaged, she walked toward the rest of her team.
    “Springs, take the lead.”
    She nodded. It was standard procedure to send her first. She usually calmed whatever was going on.
    As she made her way toward the ship, she kept her stun sticks in their holsters. The cargo seal of the ship opened and a platform extended. Jewel saw the figures moving toward her down the ramp, and she stepped back.
    “Bots!”
    She pulled out her shock sticks and flicked them to full charge.
    The other peacekeepers trooped up behind her, but the bots moved beyond biological speed.
    Jewel felt that she was being tested as she struck and knocked over bot after bot. The bots were conversing with each other at rapid speed, and when they all chirped, a gas cloud enveloped Jewel and the peacekeepers nearest her. She heard the others falling but had no idea how many were down.
    Everything got bright and then went dark and cold.
     
    Jewel woke in a holding pen with the floor under her carrying the hum of artificial gravity. She looked around and saw Officer Shivohn.
    Shivohn shifted down a few bunks and sat down next to Jewel. “I thought you were never going to wake. They threw you around like a doll.”
    Shivohn was wearing a soft blue gown that matched the gowns on half a dozen women who were visible down the expanse of cells that stretched to the left and right.
    Jewel was dressed in a matte grey that did nothing for her, or so her sister had always said. Her body was spotted with aches and pains but nothing worse than she had experienced during training.
    “Where are we?”
    Shivohn rubbed her forehead. “We are on a fight station. We were taken, and from their comments the guys in medical, they only took the females.”
    “Why?”
    “For the fighters.