“If you have any sway at all with Grainger, no more tall-alien civil disputes or war-starting disagreements. Give me crimes so I can find and punish criminals. Give the offended-people disputes to Grainger.”
“I don’t have anything to do with the case selection. I am sorry, Rivka. You seem passionate about this point.”
“I love the law,” Rivka said as she rested her chin on the table. “I’m tired of looking through this stuff, which means my four hours are up. I’m going to the gym.”
“You’ve been here forty-seven minutes.”
Rivka’s mouth fell open. “You must be mistaken. It has to be at least three hours. I’m hungry again.”
“I am good at many things, and keeping the time is one of them. Forty-seven minutes, Magistrate.”
Rivka perked up. “That means the others will still be at the gym. A little sparring with my brothers, maybe kick Jael upside her no-cake-for-you face. How does that sound?”
“Vindictive and mean.”
Rivka turned off the screen and powered down her datapad. “It’s all in the spirit of getting better at what we do, Lexi. I’m sure they want to kick my ass, too. Don’t let Red know that I’ve gone on without him. I’ll make it back before he returns. Where is he, by the way?”
“At All Guns Blazing. He is at a table by himself.”
“Shit.” Rivka wanted to leave him to his own devices, but couldn’t because her conscience would punish her for abandoning him. Rivka set out for the stairs to the restaurant level.
Rivka flopped down in the seat opposite Red and he jerked in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“The better question is why are you sitting alone?” Rivka asked.
“Because Lindy doesn’t get off for another hour and then we’re going to take a walk. Damn! I’m back on the clock. Let me tell her that I have to cancel.” Red rose and started looking around.
“Sit down!” Rivka ordered. “You didn’t see me walk in, and now you have to look for her instead of just knowing where she is? You are far too distracted to work efficiently, so you have to take the rest of the day off. I will see you in the morning. I promise not to get killed between now and then.”
Red scanned the area before reaching into his coat. He shielded something with his hand as he pushed it toward the Magistrate. “Take it.”
She looked at the small pistol and wondered how Red could pull the trigger. “Let me guess, your backup to the backup?”
Red held up five fingers. The fifth backup.
“Lindy, huh?” Rivka slid the pistol into her lap, tested its feel, and slipped it into the inside pocket of her jacket. “Good luck, big man. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she told him as she walked briskly away. As soon as she left the restaurant, she almost bumped into a man and a woman. The woman dropped her purse and it burst open, and Rivka stopped to help her collect her things. The man and the woman leaned in together, scooping things back into the purse.
The man apologized as he bumped into Rivka when he stood. The Magistrate knew something was wrong. She grabbed the woman’s arm, instantly sensing the scam. She elbowed the woman in the head and turned to give her full attention to the man, only to find the pistol Red has given her to carry aimed at her face. Rivka’s eyes focused on the end of the barrel. It was shaking slightly, but not enough for her to act.
A massive arm looped under the pistol, knocking it upward as the hand slammed into the criminal’s throat. Rivka caught the pistol as it fell from numb fingers. She put it back into her coat before turning her attention to the woman, still moaning from a broken face. The man’s face turned purple and his eyes rolled back in his head before Red let go, dropping the perp to the deck.
Rivka pulled her datapad out. “Lexi, please dispatch station security to All Guns Blazing to pick up two perps guilty of theft. The threat-to-Magistrate charge will be delayed until I think about it a little bit. They are to be held in separate cells until I deliver a final judgment. Oh, and they’ll need medical attention, too.”
“I take my eyes off you for ten seconds...”
“Do you think he would have fired?” Rivka asked, not so sure the man had it in him to commit murder.
“He could have, which is all that matters to me.”
Lindy stood at the entrance to All Guns Blazing. Red smiled and waved.
“I’ll take care of things here,” Rivka told him before she saw the look on the server’s face. “On second thought, you wait here.”
Rivka hurried to Lindy before she could run away. “I’m Magistrate Rivka Anoa. Red is my bodyguard, and he’s the best I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m Lindy,” the woman replied. “I don’t know what I just saw. So violent.”
“What you saw was the commission of a crime by well-practiced criminals. They are predators, and have no place where decent people live. They have been judged and found wanting.”
“Is that what you do?” Lindy watched Red as he tried not to look back.
“That is what I do. Red makes sure that I can do it without interference. He just saved my life, and I don’t take that lightly. I feel safe when he’s around. Maybe that’s why I got into that situation—because he makes it easy for me to be trusting. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go. I hope we get to see you again.”
“I look forward to it,” Lindy replied.
Rivka panted heavily. She was covered in sweat and bruises that were already healing.
“You are much better than you used to be!” Grainger said, trying not to sound demeaning.
“She must have been really bad before if this is what you call progress,” Jael muttered. She was also covered in sweat and bruises.
“I’m too tired to even flip you the bird.”
“I know what you mean. I’m also jagging you. You fight well, but this guy lives for this shit.” Jael pointed with her chin.
Chi lay in the middle of the mat performing a perfect dead-man pose. Grainger flexed and shadow-boxed.
“On that note,” Rivka started, “what law school did you go to?”
Grainger stopped punching and stepped over Chi on his way to take a seat on the bench beside Rivka. “Hard Knocks U?”
“You’re not a lawyer, are you?”
“No, and neither are you. I’m a Magistrate, and we mete out justice.”
“But only in accordance with the law,” Rivka countered.
“Of course.”
“So where did you learn the law?”
“Are you judging me, Magistrate?” Grainger asked with a cold edge. “I didn’t go to law school, but I studied hard because I had to if I was going to help the other...” he looked around to make sure no one was listening, “Rangers make the transition. There were more Rangers than anyone ever knew. We embraced our new mission, and we couldn’t do that openly by going through the gateway of academic approval. I’ll tell you that our taskmaster was as rigorous as your school.”
“I went to law school on the Meredith Reynolds, thank you very much.”
“’The Queen’s Barrister’ before you were a lawyer. I know. Tell me a story, Magistrate Rivka.”
“I was a nobody who did well in school, saw some shit I didn’t like, and figured that people needed lawyers, as ridiculous as that sounds. Finished undergrad in three years, and immediately started the Reynolds Legal Academy. In my final year, Bethany Anne herself made an appearance. She spent a fair amount of time on the QBBS Meredith Reynolds, but I’d never seen her before. I often saw that hunk of man candy known as John Grimes, but I digress. He was a Ranger, wasn’t he?”
“Common misconception. No, he was never a Ranger, but that’s because he was the Head Bitch. Something completely different. He could have been a Ranger, but that wasn’t what Bethany Anne needed from him,” Grainger explained.
“BA stopped by the table where I was in the middle of a test. She wanted to talk. Who was I to deny the Queen? But the clock was ticking. It put me in a quandary. BA found it funny. She took my te
st pad off my desk and broke it in half. I was crushed. Instant failure. All I saw was three years of hard work down the drain, quick as that. BA’s smile was infectious. I knew it would be okay, but I still wanted to prove myself by acing the test.
“The Queen put her hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes so deeply I think she saw all the way to my soul.
“She let go and said, ‘You are special. You see things, don’t you?’ I’ve always had the ability to see random emotions but never thought much of it. I thought of it as intuition, nothing more. I stumbled through an incoherent answer, but BA stopped me. ‘I am making you the Queen’s Barrister. It is what you will be from this moment forward. Even though you haven’t graduated yet, you will. Don’t fuck it up. I’ll call in my marker at some point. You’ll know it when you see it. Make me proud, Rivka Anoa—proud that we have fucking laws and people like you out there helping the universe’s twatwaffles understand what it takes to comply with them.’ And then she walked away.”
“That’s it?” Grainger asked, disappointment painted across his face. “I was expecting something more epic than she made me fail a test, I felt bad, and she gave me a title to make me feel better.”
“Is that what you heard?”
Jael and Grainger both nodded. Chi twitched enough to show that he wasn’t dead.
“You have to be the worst listener of all time,” Rivka told Grainger before continuing, “No epic space battles. It was school, a sedate environment, where we fought the good fight within an established framework. Turns out that I was pretty good at it, as you know.”
“I wouldn’t know a good lawyer if one washed up dead on the beach.”
“And now you are one!” Rivka said as she poked Grainger in the chest. “I need to scrub off the stench of kicking your ass.”
“You called me a good lawyer! Thank you. I am all that and more. You can scrub and scrub, and it won’t change the sweet smell of my victory.” Grainger helped Chi up. “When are you guys heading out?”
“Tomorrow,” Jael replied. “It’s a short hop and a boring case. I’m in no hurry.”
Chi’s eyes rolled around in his head. His mouth worked, but no words came out.
“Tomorrow for me as well. I need to rescue Jay from her spa weekend,” Rivka replied.
“Are you going to see about getting her some Pod-doc time?” Grainger wondered.
“Not yet. I don’t know if she’ll stay on the team. I’m not pushing her one way or another. She seems to like it, though.”
“If she stays, think about it. She’s painting a mural in your rec room, and I’d like to see what the finished product looks like,” Grainger said while picking at his fingernails.
“It’s coming out quite nicely. It’s the story of her life, it seems, painted on the backdrop of space. It’s peaceful and violent, beautiful and ugly, but always hopeful.”
“You should be a politician with that waffly bullshit.”
“Isn’t that what lawyers do when they’ve had enough of lawyering?” Rivka went in to the locker room, turned on the shower, and let it rain over her. She could feel the power that the nanocytes were restoring to her body. They worked on the inside, and she scrubbed the outside while her mind churned through RICO.
3
“A little more of that, please,” Jay requested in a silken voice. The alien masseuse used all four of his hands to work the young woman’s back. Oil glistened in the soft lights.
“If you’ll please excuse me,” a female voice inserted.
The masseuse stopped. Jay sighed and pulled her face from the padded hole in the table. “Yes?”
“You have an urgent call. It sounds official, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“Was it a woman? Called herself Magistrate?” Jay wondered waving for the woman to hand over the comm device.
“Yes?” Jay said again.
“Jay! So glad to hear your voice. You must have missed my earlier message about the team meeting tonight. We’re heading out first thing in the morning. Are you coming with us?”
“I’ve been here all day and didn’t get any messages, so I must compliment the staff on their duty to their guests.” Jay nodded to the woman, who smiled in reply. “Going with you is my job, isn’t it?”
“As long as you want it. You’ve proven yourself, so you’re on the team. We need to talk about this next case. It could be dangerous.”
“I expect that’s how all your cases will be. They wouldn’t send the Queen’s Barrister if it were a milk run.”
“I’m the newest Magistrate, so these are the milk runs. Maybe they’re the shit details. I have yet to figure out which. All Guns Blazing in thirty minutes.”
“Do you ever eat anywhere else?”
“I like their food.”
“Of course you do. Quantity over quality.”
“That strikes a dagger into my heart. I am reeling from the verbal blow as if pierced by a Bungholian war spear. I’d like to think we get high quality at a good price. Plus, AGB Enterprises is a wholly owned Team BMW asset, a friend to the Bad Company who does favors for the Federation all the time. It’s best to stay on their good side.”
“Fine. See you there.” Jay gave the comm device back and pulled the towel over her as she sat up. “That’s it. My spa retreat is over.”
“I am so sorry to hear that, Miss Jay. You have been our special and favored guest these past three days. You are an exquisite example of the finest culture.”
“If my parents heard that, they wouldn’t believe it.” Jay smiled at the woman and nodded at the alien, who quietly excused himself to allow Jay to get dressed in private. “I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I guarantee I’m going to need another three days in the spa.”
“You’re bringing a date to our mission briefing?” Rivka asked, looking down her nose at the big man.
“You make it sound like a bad thing. You know what they say about too much work,” Red replied casually. “Besides, I ran a background check. She’s clean.”
Rivka punched him in the shoulder. “Fine. Tell her it’s confidential.”
Jay sauntered into the restaurant wearing a new dress and new shoes and carrying a handbag. Red raised an eyebrow. “What happened to our juvenile delinquent?”
Rivka smiled and clapped softly. “I like the new you. You look gorgeous!”
“Thank you,” she told Rivka before looking sternly at Red. “Not you, barbarian.”
She started to take the seat next to Red, but Rivka stopped her. “You’re over here. Red has a date.” Rivka pointed to the seat next to her.
Jay looked confused. “What’s a date?” she asked, feigning innocence and batting her eyes.
“It’s what you and I don’t get, but he does.”
“You have a date tomorrow!” Red blurted.
“Breakfast with the dentist? That’s not a date. It’s different than this.”
“How?” Red asked slowly.
“When I come up with a witty and sharp reply to that, I’ll let you know.”
Lindy strolled down the passageway, dressed casually in jeans and a button-down. She stopped to talk with the host at the front. Red waved, and Rivka snickered behind her hand. “How in the world would she miss you?”
Red gestured her to silence, then stood and pulled Lindy’s chair out for her. “Lindy, Jay. Jay, Lindy,” Red completed the introductions.
“I hope we don’t bore you to tears,” Rivka began. “We need to talk about my next case. We sometimes refer to them as ‘missions,’ and ourselves as ‘the team.’ I may be the Magistrate, but I can’t do what I do all by myself.”
“I understand,” Lindy said. “Red tells me that this is confidential. I’m good at keeping secrets, I’d like to think. You should hear some of the things customers tell me, but then again, if they’re telling a perfect stranger is it really a secret?”
“I like the way you think,” Rivka stated with a definitive nod. “As soon as we order, we’ll get down t
o business.”
“I don’t want to be too forward, but I’ve ordered for us, and it is already being taken care of. You won’t find it anywhere on the menu. Red wanted something special for each of you,” Lindy explained.
The corners of Rivka’s mouth twitched upward.
“I guarantee you won’t be disappointed,” Red added.
“As long as it isn’t Turbid Pie, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Jay said.
“Turbid Pie?” Lindy wondered.
“The most disgusting stuff in the galaxy. It’s toxic to humans, but the Keome and Pretarians consider it a delicacy. It completely stunk up our ship.”
“You have your own ship?”
Rivka nodded. “A corvette. It’s small, but it has some special upgrades just for us.”
“What’s her name?”
Red pointed to Rivka, who pointed to Jay, who pointed back at Red.
“We haven’t picked a name, yet,” Red answered.
“How can you not have a name for your ship?” Lindy pressed.
“I said that I can’t have my baby without a name, but here we are, nameless and unloved. Corvette Seven Seven Four suffices until the right name comes along. In the meantime, we have an Entity Intelligence called Chaz on board to fly the ship. We are only passengers. Chaz is the bomb.”
“Don’t forget Hamlet.” Jay showed the cat’s size with her hands. “A cat that lives on the ship.”
“You have a cat?”
“He’s worth his weight in gold. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how Yus came out of his shoes when Hamlet jumped on him.” Jay started to laugh.
The food arrived, seafood salads for Jay and Lindy, a massive bistok steak for Red, and a platter of hamburgers and fries for Rivka.
“Very funny, Red, but I accept your tribute. You get a reprieve, but tomorrow I’ll most likely find you guilty of something and condemn you to spend the rest of your life on Jhiordaan. And before you ask, no, you can’t take a date.”
Rivka winked at Red.
“Better dig in before it gets cold,” Red said, grabbing his fork while making his own knife appear from somewhere, leaving the restaurant’s blade untouched.
Destroy The Corrupt: A Space Opera Adventure Legal Thriller (Judge, Jury, & Executioner Book 2) Page 2