Daedalus Base // January 14th, 086 G.C.

Rayet Wolf adjusted his necktie and formal uniform before entering Chief Elnath’s office. This should be interesting, he told himself, so much for any chance of promotion. He entered the office with a devastating sense of trepidation. Taking a deep breath, he marched over to Elnath’s desk. Mustering up all the confidence he could, stood up straight. Hell, what am I so worried about? I didn’t do anything wrong. I did my best to apprehend a wanted man; they can’t fault me for that!

“Officer Rayet Wolf, reporting, sir!” Rayet announced, throwing his hand up in a salute.

Canis, fumbling through a series of paperwork, paid little notice to the young officer. He thumbed through a particular folder, scanning a wealth of semi-transparent electronic pages. Exhausted, he dropped it onto the desk, the contents splashing over an already growing collection of files.

Rayet stood in frozen salute. “Uh, sir? I was told to report to you?”

Canis tilted his head up. “Oh, sorry, you must be Wolf.”

“Yes, sir.”

“At ease. Have a seat.”

Rayet lowered into a chair positioned before the desk. The chief seemed beside himself, not giving the young officer a pleasant feeling about the dialogue to follow.

Canis tried to ignore the cluttered disarray on his desk. He was an organized man, a place for everything and everything in its place, therefore, the newfound mess proved to be detrimental to his psyche. He’d be the first to admit that he had a bit of an obsessive compulsive streak, above all when it came to cleanliness, neatness, and order. At present, it was something he needed to overcome.

He shuffled through a series of files on the desk, arriving at one particular folder. The contents held the initial, albeit brief, report of what happened in concern to the cargo shuttle. What a mess, he thought. Only if I had chosen a more experienced officer for the mission. But that line of thinking was far from satisfactory, experience held no value when dealing with Orion Darkstarr.

Only a week ago Canis had been instructed to choose a younger officer for the cargo shuttle assignment, one that wouldn’t ask too many questions and Rayet Wolf’s track record at the academy made him an easy choice. Now, due to the failure of the mission, the higher ups wanted a scapegoat and, despite Canis’s repeated wishes, Wolf was the perfect choice—thanks in part to the young fool’s own blatant disregard for procedure. What burned Canis the most was that, instead of meeting with Wolf, he could currently be furthering the investigation to find Darkstarr. Chancellor Tholus and his bureaucratic cohorts only want to cover their asses, Canis deduced, they want to make the whole thing look as official as possible, which included placing blame. If nothing appears out of place, no one would ever pry deeper and discover the truth. The Galaxy Enforcement chief was aware that there could be no allowances or giveaways concerning what the cargo shuttle had been transporting. Less than a dozen people had the complete intel on what the actual contents were.

“I assume you know why you’re here,” Canis began, opening Rayet Wolf’s file. “During your last assignment you managed to disobey more Galaxy Enforcement regulations than I care to count. Your haphazard approach to the situation has sent your partner, Officer Rift, into the hospital with a serious concussion. Because of your deliberate use of excessive force we lost two shuttles, both of which were our latest models. Do you know that if word got out to the tax payers about this we’d be crucified? Thankfully, by some miracle, no one was killed due to your recklessness.”

Any anxiety Rayet had been carrying was replaced by a newfound fortitude. “Sir, with all due respect, I don’t believe that I ignored any G.E. procedure,” Rayet reasoned with an air of calmness. “At least, none that I’m aware of.”

Canis was taken aback by the youth’s relaxed demeanor. Was this kid for real?

“You must be joking,” Canis said, raising his voice. “Where do I begin? Let’s see, you left the cargo shuttle alone, allowing it to be hijacked. You failed to contact Darkstarr’s ship to order a surrender and instead chose to attack in full force. This included using missiles, which are forbidden unless given prior clearance. Should I continue?”

Rayet’s high regard of Canis Elnath was fading fast. “Sir, you weren’t there, but I assure you, each of those circumstances had been warranted. Yes, Darkstarr hijacked the cargo shuttle, but I came close to taking him down, closer than any officer ever did in the past. You have to give me that.”

Canis shot the officer a disapproving glare. “You say ‘taking him down’? Am I to understand that you never had any intention of apprehending him to begin with?”

This guy just doesn’t get it, Rayet told himself. If he had been in the same position out there, confronted by the ‘Pirate Scourge’, he’d know that I was justified. Then it clicked. Canis couldn’t understand. He was not an officer anymore; the years as Chief of Galaxy Enforcement softened him into a glorified pencil pusher. The Canis Elnath that Rayet respected had been the cadet who scored high honors at the academy, became an extraordinary and valued officer, and worked his way up the ranks. Rayet could no longer see the man as the inspiration and role model he once had been.

“Sir, may I speak freely?”

“Please do.”

“In my opinion, the pacifistic views that Galaxy Enforcement expresses towards these situations are the reason why pirates like Orion Darkstarr are allowed to roam free. You can’t fight fire with flowers. Fire needs to be fought with fire! It’s simple. You give us the weapons, so let us use them!”

“You’d make a better bounty hunter than an officer,” Canis chided. “Galaxy Enforcement was created to serve as galactic peacekeepers, fortified with strict rules and regulations. Galaxy Enforcement regulations are there for a reason. They are not flexible.”

“Sir, just what was in that cargo shuttle we were guarding,” Rayet asked, raising an eyebrow. Something about the whole situation reeked. It had been one big mystery and Rayet was never fond of mysteries. If he was going to get thrown off the force, he should at least know what had been behind it.

“You’re out of line questioning a superior,” Canis countered, punctuating his words.

“Superior, only in rank,” Rayet muttered, narrowing his gaze on the Chief.

“In rank and experience!” Canis snapped, letting his anger fly. “Listen, Wolf, your academic record is impressive, you’ve scored highest out of any cadet to graduate the academy and, believe me, that is a remarkable achievement. But let’s be honest, many cadets graduated with high honors and they weren’t given instant promotions.”

They should have been, Rayet bitterly thought to himself. I should have.

“As it stands, I’m risking my own neck to even keep you on the force,” Canis warned. “Otherwise, you’d be out of here faster than a shuttle in star-jump. You’re busted back down to ISP. You return tomorrow. Be grateful you still have that.”

“Then I’m out of here!” Rayet leaped up, launching his chair across the room. “This whole thing is a sick farce anyway.” He tore the Galaxy Enforcement badge off his uniform and slammed it down on Canis’s desk. Rayet’s lip quivered and his eyes twitched. In a rage fueled stumble, Rayet made his way to the door.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Canis retorted. “You’d be stupid just to throw it all away.”

“You’ll be sorry, Elnath,” Rayet called back, his voice wavering. “Boy, will you be sorry. You know who my father is? Cygnus Wolf! Yeah, that’s right. He’s in the running to become Supreme Chancellor of the Galen Star System. Once he’s in, your job will be a living hell! Just you wait!”

The automatic door slid open and Rayet staggered out—but his voice continued on. “You’ll be in a world of slag, Elnath! A world of slag!”

Canis sat alone in his office, staring down at the files on his desk. With one clean sweep of the arm, he sent the paperwork fluttering onto the floor. Despite Rayet Wolf’s infuriating personality, there was something strangely endearing about the young man. He had strong beliefs, as misplaced as they were.

It had become harder and harder to find young officers that didn’t, in some way, share Wolf’s thinking. The new generation of raw recruits was even further removed from war than the last. Canis himself had never seen real war, though his father had and would often tell horrifically graphic stories of what it had been like. But the fresh cadets were two, sometimes three, generations removed. War was just a game to them, a game played on virtual reality consoles at home.

The forming on the Galactic Union had brought about an unprecedented peace, urging many to claim that armed conflict was a thing of the past. Even crime rates were down across the star systems. Galaxy Enforcement had given out more speeding tickets in orbital sectors and misdemeanor fines in planet and colony patrols last year than accumulated arrests in three years. The arrests themselves were mostly drug related and didn’t involve any major crime. Of course, there were the space pirates, who kept the otherwise lax Galaxy Enforcement on their toes, but those incidents were few and far between and played up more by the media than anything else. Besides, bounty hunters were often called in to deal with the pirates by private citizens before Galaxy Enforcement was even aware of the situation.

Peace, Canis contemplated the word. Only a handful of others aside from Canis Elnath were aware that war could be closer than most of the galaxy realized, especially with the missing contents of that cargo shuttle resting in the hands of a space pirate.

A beep discharged from the Galaxy Enforcement insignia badge on Canis’s uniform. Tapping it, he activated the speaker module.

“Sir,” a voice said, escaping the badge. “This is surveillance center four. We have something down here you should see.”

“I’m on my way,” Canis replied, deactivating the device.