Sergeant Joval took a deep breath and let it out rather forcefully as he put on his thick combat gloves and began suiting up. He was in the police station’s armoury and sat on a cold, grey bench, getting ready for his upcoming mission. Actually, perhaps mission wasn’t quite the right word. It wasn’t like it had been sanctioned by his commander or anything. Joval was acting of his own accord and whilst the spoils would be many if he succeeded, he feared he might lose his job or worse if he failed. The resulting turmoil swam around in his stomach and made him feel nauseated whilst simultaneously gnawing at the back of his mind. He genuinely wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing in this situation. It was a risk but he wasn’t sure it was one he should be taking – he had a steady job in the Galactic Police and a flawless service record to date. Why should he risk that for something he had been told to leave well alone by his Lieutenant? The thing was, the system did not always work and the more criminals that got away when it was clear they should be punished or incarcerated, the more Joval got a feeling that his day to day job didn’t always matter. Sure, he put away some low-level criminals but they usually got out again after a few months of incarceration and the bigger criminals almost never got caught. Not in his precinct at any rate. He wanted to feel like he mattered, to truly make a difference to the local area and make it safer for good, law-abiding citizens and to do that, he felt like it was his moral duty to not do his actual duty – to try and put away a true criminal, even if that meant going against a direct order from his superior.
As he wrestled with the potential consequences of his decision to apprehend this particular criminal, Joval didn’t even realise he had stopped getting ready and started to just stare off into space.
He was suddenly brought back to reality by a female voice to his left saying gently, ‘Sergeant? Sergeant Joval?’
The tall, strong alien snapped his neck to his left a little too quickly in the direction of the voice and grimaced as he felt a pang of pain shoot up the side of his neck. As he rubbed his neck with a gloved hand, Joval laid eyes on the owner of the voice. It was Le’Mi, flanked by Tylorran on one side and Hazir on the other.
‘Uh...yes, Le’mi? What is it?’
The slender female looked at the Sergeant carefully with scrutinizing eyes.
‘What are you doing, sir?’ she asked.
‘I...um...’ started Joval, before taking a little too long to think of a convincing lie.
‘You off somewhere, sarge?’ interrupted Tylorran.
He was chewing something in his slightly chubby cheeks but Joval could not see a packet or container of food anywhere about his person. The Sergeant sighed softly.
‘How did you know I was down here?’ he asked, avoiding the questions from his squad-mates.
‘Does it really matter?’ said Le’Mi, taking a step closer.
She was about to take another step towards Joval but he looked directly at her with a somewhat stern expression on his face and she thought better of it.
‘I was very careful to make sure that no one saw me come down to the armoury,’ explained Joval as he stood up, stretching his back to reach his full height of six feet three inches. ‘So why are the three of you now standing here in front of me?’
If he managed to intimidate Le’Mi – who took a small step backwards at this – he did not succeed in affecting either Tylorran or Hazir, the latter maintaining his trademark blank expression on his features as he stood perfectly still.
After a few moments of silence, Hazir piped up and said, ‘We were concerned about you, sir.’
Joval blinked a couple of times, staring at Hazir. ‘What? Why?’ he asked, somewhat confused.
‘Your behaviour over the last few days has been....uncharacteristic of you,’ explained Hazir, struggling to find the right words.
‘Yeah, you ain’t been quite yourself lately, sarge. You’ve been real secretive about stuff and haven’t talked to anyone much,’ added Tylorran.
Le’Mi clasped her willowy hands together and brought them up to her chest, looking at Joval under large eyelashes. She wanted to say something but didn’t. Joval sighed again and his head dropped. Feeling a little silly for reacting with such hostility, he turned around and sat back down on the bench.
‘I apologise. I know you are all simply looking out for me. And I also know now that it is harder than I thought to fool fellow police officers – you’ve all got excellent instincts, so I suppose I should commend you on finding me.’
Tylorran stepped forwards.
‘Although we are all worried ‘bout you sarge, to be completely honest we didn’t really notice at first. It was Le’Mi who pointed it out to us.’
Le’Mi’s eyes suddenly became very wide and she glanced at Tylorran with a look on her face that said, ‘Why are you telling him it was me?’
However, Joval simply smiled as he said, ‘Not only do you have excellent hearing but you also have a very sharp mind, Le’Mi. I’m clearly going to have to keep an eye on you in future.’
The slender female’s mouth dropped open in surprise, before forming an attractive-looking smile on her lips as her expression softened.
‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ she said.
‘So, you gonna tell us what this is all ‘bout, sarge?’ said Tylorran.
‘I suppose there is no point in trying to maintain secrecy anymore,’ said Joval. ‘I have received some intelligence regarding a suspect. I am preparing to take a flyer and meet up with some fellow officers. From there we are moving to a certain location to try and apprehend this suspect.’
‘That’s it?’ asked Le’Mi, surprise written all over her face. ‘Well, that’s simple enough. Why did you try and hide it?’
‘Come closer, all of you,’ instructed Joval.
The three did so, standing around the Sergeant as he remained seated.
‘Look, the reason I was so secretive was because I didn’t want to involve you in this. It might be dangerous and it definitely isn’t a sanctioned mission so I didn’t want to jeopardise either your lives or your careers by getting you caught up in this,’ explained Joval in a low voice.
‘You are about to conduct an unauthorised mission? That is very unlike you, sir,’ commented Hazir.
‘Surely it would be safer if you had as many people with you as possible for support?’ said Le’Mi. ‘Why don’t we all go with you?’
‘No,’ replied Joval firmly. When Le’Mi looked a bit upset, he elaborated, ‘As I said, I am disregarding an order by doing this. You are all bright, capable officers and the Galactic Police needs people like you. I don’t want this precinct to lose several talented individuals because of my actions.’
‘If I may, sir, you are one of the brightest and most capable officers with whom I have ever worked. What if the Galactic Police lost only you? That would still be a tragic loss,’ said Hazir.
‘I’ve never ever seen the sarge break the rules before. If he is, then it must be a big case. If so, I want in,’ said Tylorran with a grin.
Before Joval could say anything, Hazir added, ‘I too. I believe the success of this mission, whatever it is, would be far more likely with the whole squad on it working together. I propose we all go with you, sir.’
Then Le’Mi chimed in with, ‘Then it’s settled! Sergeant Joval, we’ve all got your back. We’re going with you.’
Joval looked from Le’Mi to Tylorran to Hazir and then back again. He couldn’t believe what his squadmates were willing to do for him and he did have to admit that he didn’t know how many people he would be facing when he attempted this arrest, so the more help he had, the better.
He couldn’t stop himself from smiling as he said, ‘All right then. I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could convince you otherwise?’
This was met with three people shaking their heads vigorously in a resounding ‘no’.
Joval’s smile grew.
‘OK, then you’d all better hurry and get suited up. We leave ASAP.’
All three proceeded to mo
ve to the armoury lockers and began to remove equipment and weapons.
‘So, who is the target that you want to apprehend, Sergeant?’ asked Le’Mi as she slipped on her gloves.
Joval looked up from lacing his heavy boots and replied, ‘A known criminal called Mr Vallan.’
Chapter 25