Images flashed into her mind. Candi Matz directing the team. An event filled with willing women. Too much booze. The team descended and removed her. The others studiously avoided looking at the passed-out girl being carried away by Security. Business as usual, so no one is uncomfortable at a Callius Markmal party.
“Did Candi Matz direct the abduction?” More images. The team practiced the delivery of the spiked drink and the choreography of the selection and pickup.
“How much do you get paid for each person you deliver?”
A computer screen showing a stack of credits. The image didn’t show a number, but if it had, it would have been a big one.
“Where were you going, and who were you to meet?” Nothing. He didn’t know.
“How were you going to transfer your victim?”
He assumed they were going to physically hand her to someone else and walk away. He didn’t know that part either.
“It must suck to be a lackey. You think you have plausible deniability because you weren’t in on the rest of the plan?” Rivka asked, moving back to her side of the table.
He stared at her without speaking.
“I am Magistrate Rivka Anoa, and under the authority granted me under Federation Law, you are hereby sentenced to death for your role in the trafficking of Federation citizens. Do you have any last words before I carry out the sentence?”
He started to look around frantically. “What?” he blurted. “That’s it? But I was just a hired hand trying to make a buck. I had nothing to do with the trade. I was just following orders.”
“Just following orders,” Rivka repeated as she began to pace, never taking her eyes off the man who was now sweating profusely and vibrating with fear. “What if you had said no? What if the others had said no? Then there would have been no crime. But you were a witting ally, not just a lackey. You were helping make the slave trade possible, and you did it with the full understanding that you would be well paid. My regret is that I didn’t catch you and your fellow scumbags earlier, but I have you all now. You have willfully committed a capital crime, but I’m going to modify your sentence because death is too good for the likes of you. Your punishment is that you’ll serve the rest of your life on Jhiordaan. You will learn what it’s like to be a slave, in that you will never take another breath of free air. Don’t you worry—you won’t be going alone. The other three will be joining you shortly for your transfer.”
Rivka turned to one of the two guards in the room and stabbed a thumb over her shoulder. “Get that one ready for transfer to the prison colony, and hold three more seats. They’ll be filled with puckered buttholes shortly.”
The guard snickered. Red nodded to the woman as he and Lindy followed the Magistrate out of the room.
“Do you need to talk to the other jailbird?” Red asked.
“I don’t think so. I already saw what he had to say, so I can skip him. Let’s go to the med lab and see how Candi is doing. The evidence is overwhelming, so we’ll proceed under the firm belief that not only is she guilty of trafficking, but she’s the ring leader. I want to know her contact at the destination, because as of the moment we stopped their shuttle, she became a pawn in the big game. She’s not a player. I want to topple the king and queen. They’re still out there.” Rivka pointed in the general direction of the closest external station bulkhead.
“I want to see you topple them,” Lindy confirmed.
“Yeah. Fuck those guys,” Red agreed.
“Hating on the kingpins?” the Magistrate asked.
“I have a history with those types. Most are pricks. Rarely do you find ones like the High Chancellor or Nathan Lowell, or even Lance Reynolds. Those guys are solid leaders of empires, but they don’t climb over the backs of the downtrodden to get there.”
“Too true, my friend,” Rivka replied. Lindy nodded vigorously. “Next stop, sickbay.”
“There’s nothing you can do for her?” Grainger asked the technician.
“It wasn’t her injuries. There’s something else. It’s as if she’s trying to die.” The technician looked at the numbers and lines on a screen next to the bed and shook her head.
The door slid open. Rivka, Red, and Lindy walked in and made a beeline for Grainger.
“I’m sorry,” the technician said before moving to another patient.
“Sorry for what?” Rivka asked. She groaned when she saw who it was. “Candi Matz. You’re a bastard.”
“She has no intention of living,” Grainger said. “What did you get from the ones downstairs?”
“They did it because they were paid well, and it was the boss who asked them to do it. But they had no idea where they were going or who they were meeting with. That information is locked up inside there.” Rivka pointed to the woman whose face was obscured by a mask.
Rivka touched her arm and asked, “Where were you going and who were you meeting?” She studied the woman’s face. “Nothing there.”
A steady tone sounded as Candi Matz flatlined.
“I guess her sentence was death,” Grainger remarked before tapping his pad to request a full autopsy.
“You think she suicided?”
“I do. We’ll see if the autopsy confirms it, but I expect it to be inconclusive.” The medical technician stepped in to shut off the alarm and pull the sheet over the woman’s face before returning to her previous patient.
“Ankh said the ship was headed for Fenek Eudoxius. I wanted the perps to confirm it, though, and tell me who they were going to meet.”
“That last part is key.”
“And I think Candi died to protect the information. Maybe she knew she was just a pawn. That suggests they had something on her.” Rivka relaxed as she started to pity the woman.
“Like her family?”
Rivka removed her datapad from the inside pocket of her Magistrate jacket. “Ankh, can you check on Candi Matz’s family, like a sister, a mother, children, people who could be used to coerce her to join the traffickers. Find me everything you can, especially their whereabouts. She was paid well. They all were, but in her case, there has to be something else.”
“Erasmus will look into it. I’m busy at the moment.” Ankh cut the connection.
Grainger’s eyebrows went up before he started to laugh. “Genius comes at a price, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t care if it’s Ankh or Erasmus who gets me the information as long as I get it. Our friendly Crenellian might have some rough edges, but he’s saved our lives more than once, and I know that he will again. I’m happy to have him on the team.” She waved Grainger off as if chasing away a fly. Rivka turned to the technician and called, “How is our young lady?”
“We’re flushing her system to clear out the drugs. It was a heavy mix that we haven’t seen before: a narcotic and sedative combined. Nasty stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the people given this cocktail didn’t survive.”
Rivka clenched her jaw and put her hands in her pockets. She stood as rigid as a bulkhead frame. There would be no testimony that day.
“Lunch?” Lindy asked.
“Sounds great!” Red replied.
Lindy rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t talking to you.” The two clasped hands.
“Not yet,” Rivka said, relaxing through a forced smile. “Let’s see if this one knows anything. Can you wake him up, please?”
“That is not advised,” the technician answered with a passive construct, avoiding any responsibility for the judgment.
“Under my authority as a Federation Magistrate, wake him up.” Rivka’s tone suggested there could be no objection.
The technician prepared a drug to deliver through the IV. “This is not advised,” the woman repeated. Rivka impatiently stabbed a finger at the tube disappearing under the tape on the perp’s arm. The technician relented and administered the medicine, then made to remove the mask through which precious oxygen flowed.
“Leave it,” Rivka directed.
“But you won’t be able to u
nderstand his answers.”
“But I will.” Rivka’s expression softened. “I understand that you are only trying to do your job and help those who can’t help themselves. I’m doing the same thing. That woman who died, and this person? They have been kidnapping people like her,” she pointed to the unconscious young woman, “and selling them as slaves. I need this information so we can stop the next expected sale and work our way up the ladder until we have the one in charge. I don’t care if this scumbag dies, but I don’t want it to happen before I can ask him a few questions.”
“I think your capital punishment attitude is deplorable!” the medical technician shot back. Grainger raised a questioning eyebrow.
“His punishment will be Jhiordaan. Your efforts to save his life will not have been in vain.” Rivka smiled, close-lipped, but the woman harrumphed and moved away.
Red swelled as he stretched to his full height and scowled at the medical technician.
The Magistrate started to say something to him, but a groan from the bed drew their attention. Rivka immediately gripped his arm and looked into his wild and pain-filled eyes.
“Who were you delivering the woman to?” she blurted. Scattered images splattered with the emotion of Rivka’s attack on the long-range shuttle danced through his mind.
“WHO?” Rivka shouted, and an alien face appeared. Rivka embraced it and memorized it. A trigger. He mentally pulled it and started to quickly fade. An alarm sounded on the monitor next to the bed. Rivka let the man’s arm drop.
“They have a kill switch in their brains,” Rivka said softly. “It releases a small but lethal dose.”
“Did you get what you needed?”
“Yes. I need to link my comm with Ankh and concentrate. I think we can get a picture, and I hope that leads to a name.”
Grainger approached the medical technician, whose eyes glistened with tears that refused to fall. “They both suicided to prevent giving up the information. That is the level of criminal that we’re dealing with. You did everything you could, but their lives were out of all our hands. Someone out there is pulling the strings.” Grainger said softly, finishing with a nod toward the greater universe. Out there. Where the real criminal waited.
“Let us know the instant she’s awake, please,” Grainger pleaded with the technician. She nodded stiffly.
Rivka sat down and closed her eyes, then held her head to focus on taking the image from her mind’s eye and sending it over the comm link to Ankh and Erasmus.
Time dragged on as she concentrated to the exclusion of everything happening around her.
Ankh’s small voice projected into her mind. I have it.
Rivka leaned back and blinked her eyes open. “Who’s ready for lunch?”
Chapter Ten
Jay chased Floyd while those working on the hangar deck stopped to watch. The wombat was surprisingly fast when she wanted to be, especially during the game of Keep-away. Jay laughed like the teenager she was. Rivka, Lindy, and Red stopped to watch too, enjoying the simple fun of the pursuit. Floyd giggled into their minds even as she squealed out loud.
She raced between Jay’s legs, tripping the young woman whose flaming red hair sparkled against the darkness of space beyond the viewport.
Rivka waved when Jay spotted her, then jumped to her feet and ran in a tight circle after the wombat. She tapped Floyd’s head as she passed. The creature turned and chased Jay, who demonstrated the ability to zig-zag and sprint, jump, and dodge. She slowed enough to let Floyd catch her. The two strolled casually back, both breathing heavily as they joined the Magistrate and her bodyguards.
“I’m glad to see you happy, Jay.” Rivka remembered the juvenile delinquent who had given her the finger. She almost regretted dislocating said finger.
Almost.
“Where to next, boss?” Jay picked up the wombat, who snuggled into her arms and instantly fell asleep.
“I wish I could do that,” Red grumbled.
“You can.” Lindy shook her head.
“No way. That was two seconds!”
“Your personal best is seven seconds from speaking to snoring. I don’t see the difference.”
“Sounds trivial when you put it like that.”
“I’m envious of both of you.”
“No kidding,” Rivka agreed. “Next stop for the Peacekeeper Express is Fenek Eudoxius. Grainger is going to stay with the victim so we can get going. The first stop is to pick up that long-range shuttle. We need it. I have a plan.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I already know what it is...” Jay let the words drift as she turned toward the corvette, stroking Floyd’s ear with one finger while cradling her like a baby. The others followed, leaving the hatch open after they boarded.
“Waiting for Tyler. He’ll be here shortly,” Rivka explained. She tapped on the hatch to the bridge until it opened. Ankh was in the captain’s chair, which was now heavily modified and sporting a holo grid that surrounded the Crenellian. “I should have never let him move to the bridge.”
“Hush,” Ankh said as he tapped, swiped, and danced within the complex grid. Rivka sucked in a breath through flared nostrils. Red stood back, wondering if there would be fireworks.
The holo grid dissolved and Ankh cracked his knuckles. “At your service, Magistrate,” he said emotionlessly.
She had to ask. “What were you working on?”
“Refining the Gate drive miniaturization. Ted and I have just sent our upgraded design to R2D2 for testing. With at least an EI, even a Pod would be able to carry and use a functional Gate drive.”
“That’s all? I thought you were working on something important,” Rivka deadpanned. She waited, but her jibe didn’t get a rise out of the Crenellian. “What did you find out about Candi Matz’s family?”
Erasmus answered using the overhead speakers. “Her parents passed away, and she has no siblings.”
“Well, now. That drives a dagger into the heart of my theory.” Rivka’s mind stepped back to square one. She crossed her arms and stared at one of the few empty spots on the wall.
“However, she corresponds regularly with another female her age, who is located on Fenek Eudoxius.”
Rivka smiled. “Bingo.”
“Hi, honey! I’m home,” Dr. Toofakre called from the hallway.
“Punch the button,” Red told him. “It’s time to go. We got perps to roust.”
Chaz chimed in. “Preparing to depart the station. Please take your places.”
“I’ll need you to stop by that long-range shuttle first; see if we can salvage it. Best possible speed, Chaz,” Rivka ordered.
Ankh made a shooing motion with his small arm.
“When this case is concluded, I’m taking my bridge back.”
Ankh stared at her without blinking. She stared back. They remained like that until Rivka’s eyes started to burn. Red & Lindy left them to it. Hamlet made his way onto the bridge, jumped into the captain’s chair, and started to make himself comfortable. Ankh tried to push him away, but the cat avoided his hands.
“Fine,” Ankh said noncommittally. He broke eye contact and used both hands to shove Hamlet off the chair. With a hiss and swipe of a paw, three parallel red lines appeared on the Crenellian’s arm, a drip of blood trailing from each. “I don’t like your cat.”
“He’s not my cat. He comes with the ship.” Rivka bit her lip to keep from laughing as she walked out.
“The atmosphere has vented and the environmental controls are offline,” Chaz reported.
“Which means it’s cold and without air,” Red remarked.
Ankh stood in his shipsuit, helmet pulled over his head and inflated, wearing a coat and supplemental gloves. The others only wore their shipsuits, their bodies teeming with nanocytes to keep them warm until the umbilical from Peacekeeper pumped enough air and heat into the shuttle to make it comfortable.
Or at least, less lethal.
“I can direct you to do the work or a maintenance bot,” Ankh said.<
br />
“You’re going. Time is of the essence if we’re going to masquerade as Candi and her goons,” Rivka explained.
“It won’t work. They have met her before. Who else would have put the suicide solution in their brains?”
“I don’t need to fool them when we’re face to face,” Rivka argued. “All we have to do is create enough doubt to get in the door.”
“I cast doubt on your effort to create doubt,” Ankh said before going to work beneath the control panel in the cockpit while two maintenance bots entered the crawlspace to the engine compartment. Erasmus guided their efforts while Chaz pumped heated air through the tube connecting the two ships in the middle of interstellar space. A series of clunks reported the efforts of a bot working on the outer hull.
The lights flickered but remained off.
Using flashlights, Red, Lindy, and Rivka searched the small ship for any clues that might have been inadvertently left behind by the crew. The small cabins with three-high bunk beds were mostly empty.
The lights flickered and came to life.
Then the life support system started recycling the air and heating the shuttle to a more suitable temperature.
You can turn off the heat, Chaz, but be ready to turn it back on. I think Ankh is duct-taping this ship back together, Rivka said.
I heard that, Ankh replied over their internal communication system. When I’m finished, this ship will be ready to continue its journey to Fenek Eudoxius.
“When will that be?” Rivka was taken aback. When they arrived at the long-range shuttle less than an hour earlier, her initial impression was the ship was nothing more than scrap. Peacekeeper’s weapons had been well aimed, but the shuttle was small, and the damage appeared to be extensive.
Cosmetic, Ankh informed them as if reading her mind. That should be it. One last series of welds on the hull and we’re done.
Slave Trade Page 9