“I gotta kill you,” Martin declared, waving the pistol at him. “It’s your fault, see. And I’m the only one left. Bill Kershaw wanted you dead, so I gotta do this. There’s nobody else left to do it. Then I can concentrate on goin’ home.”
“But why?”
“Huh? Ashton, what the hell are you talkin’ about now? I gotta do this. Just shuddup an’ lemme finish matters, so I can go home.”
“Hold on,” Ashton said, holding up his hands, deciding to run with his gut and Martin’s ramblings. “I see what the problem is, here. I think I can help you out.”
“How the hell can you help me outta this shitty situation?”
“Simple. You don’t wanna do this. I can tell. You give me the gun, it’s over. We walk away from here, and I tell nobody. I don’t arrest you, I don’t report you, I don’t put out a warrant for your arrest. You’re free and clear.”
“Huh?”
“Well, you feel obligated, right?”
“Hell, yeah…”
“And you’re angry about it. Because they set you up in a no-win situation.”
“DAMN STRAIGHT THEY DID!” Martin yelled. “That damn bastard Kershaw! Two-timin’ sumbitch! I bet he never had any intention of gettin’ me offa this damn asshole of a planet!”
“Probably not,” Ashton agreed, calm. “Stranding you here was mild, really. Hell, I saw him and his pet bulldog, Stash, kill off lots of their loyal guys, once they got ‘in the way.’ I used to work for ‘em, you know. That’s why I don’t, now. And why they wanted me dead. I just got in the way. So I got out of the way, and they still came after me.”
“Really? You…you know?”
“Sure do. Firsthand,” Ashton said, holding out his hand, palm up. “That’s why I’m offering to let you off their hook. Gimme the gun, we both walk away from here, nobody tells anybody anything, you’re free.”
“You mean that, man?”
“I sure do. Gimme the gun, I tell nobody. We both walk away free.” He waggled his fingers. “All you gotta do is give me the gun.”
Martin paused with the gun lowered, searching Ashton’s face. Finally he nodded and laid the pistol in Ashton’s open palm.
“Okay,” he said. “Here you go. It’s all over, right? It’s gonna be okay now?”
“Sure thing,” Ashton agreed, slipping the handgun into the pocket of his jacket. “I won’t tell anybody, won’t send anybody after you. You’re free.”
Ashton turned and headed out of the alley.
“HEY!” Martin yelled after him. “What about getting me home to Sintar?”
“Oh,” Ashton said, slowing as he neared the mouth of the alley, with sector headquarters in sight. “I never said anything about that. That’s up to you. And Kershaw, I guess.”
And he disappeared around the corner.
“DAMN YOU, ASHTON!” Martin yelled after him.
Coronations and Assassinations
Finally, after a considerable amount of tension, especially in Catalonia Ciudad – though, thankfully, no serious incidents – the day of the coronation arrived.
Ashton sat with a couple of other police officers, watching the coronation from their offices, on a screen showing the VR feed. They saw the coronation of Trajan, followed by the secession speech of the “new Empress of Catalonia,” then the declaration by Emperor Trajan.
“People of Catalonia.
“You have been the victims of a deception. You have been lied to by your sector governor and by her paid minions in the Catalonian press. I am not an illegal occupant of the throne of Sintar, I did not execute the Council without cause, and I am not a tyrant.
“When my sister, the Empress Ilithyia, named me her heir, it was perfectly legal, although not traditional...”
“Yeah,” Ashton told Hernandez then. “This is the Major Dunham I knew.”
“He is a strong man,” Hernandez decided. “He survived the death of his family, his wife, the destruction of his world, when the Council and the police headquarters attacked. And now he carries on his sister's wishes. Alone.”
“Yes,” Ashton agreed. “That's the man I met.”
“And this is the man that idiota wants to supplant,” Hernandez said in disgust. “Feh.”
“...And yet,” the video continued depicting Trajan’s statement to the Sector. “People of Catalonia, if this is the path you wish, and not just the ravings of a madwoman, then I must take your desires into account. But you must also know that, if Catalonia leaves the Sintaran Empire, it leaves behind the benefits of being a part of the Empire. The medicines, the technology, the rule of law, the peace of Sintar.
“To that extent, it is your decision. I will not fight against a secession that has the popular support of the people of Catalonia. I will not lay waste to a portion of the Empire I hope to rule. I will not kill the very people I hope to serve.
“The moment of your decision is upon you. As a taste of what you would be missing, though, the Empire will no longer support the VR system and QE radio network that is only a small part of the Empire’s benefits.
“I await your decision.”
Ashton laughed silently to himself; Major Dunham – now Emperor Trajan – had definitely played a trump hand on that one.
And then the VR feed onscreen went dead.
Ashton blinked in shock. Wow, he really meant it, he thought, surprised. Like, immediately. A quick check revealed that the IPD internal comm was still operational, but nothing was coming in or going out of the headquarters building, not even to the Governor’s Mansion. And, he sighed, since that’s only for official business, I can’t even call Cally to find out what’s going on there. In terms of the people I love and care about, I’m completely incommunicado.
Coming out of VR, he looked around, and saw the others looking puzzled and glancing about as well.
“What do we do now?” Ashton asked then.
“Wait,” Jaime Hernandez said with a shrug.
The end of shift came and went, but General Walder kept everyone at their precinct buildings, and called in all the off-duty shifts. This included Ashton, whom Walder kept especially close.
“Because I gave my word to Maia and Lee,” he told Ashton, “that I’d look after you, mentor you, and keep any of the corrupt bastards from Sintar off your back. We already know they sent somebody after you; we don’t know how many others. And right now, there’s a hell of a lot of ‘others’ on the streets.”
“And they’re not happy,” Ashton agreed.
“No, they’re not,” Walder affirmed. “Besides, I’ve already had...word...from Sintar. Just sit tight and let’s see how this plays out.”
Some five and a half or six hours after the coronation, along about sundown, a call came in from the sector governor’s mansion from one of the staff there. Renata Palomo de la Gallego, sector governor and would-be empress, was dead, apparently shot by one of the enraged crowd. Walder called Ashton over.
“Nick, I want you to head up an investigation team,” he said. “At Captain, you’re currently my top-ranking active investigator, and from what I’ve seen and been told, have eyes like the proverbial hawk. I’ll pull together the team for you, but you’re in charge. Be careful, but go find out what really happened, because somehow I don’t think it happened like we were told.”
“Yes, sir,” Ashton said.
The shuttle hangar facility was across the side street from the sector headquarters building, and Ashton led his hand-picked forensic investigation team out the side door and toward the shuttle, which was already warming up for takeoff.
Since Coronation Day tended to be a holiday in most of the Empire, and all means of communication, news, and even financial transactions had been shut down by the VR removal, the streets were now very crowded with a lot of confused, frustrated, and angry people, and Ashton and his team had to carefully but politely elbow their way across the sidewalk, into the pedestrian-filled street, and through the gate into the hangar facility. This resulted in a certain amou
nt of yelling, foul language, and catcalling by said pedestrians, who were by and large well on their way to thorough inebriation, but since the police officers were courteous, nobody complained too much. In fact, some even tried to help part the crowd for the group to pass, apparently thinking that the nicer they were to the Imperial representatives, the sooner they might get their VR and QE comms back.
Until one man, very drunk, shoved his way toward the fenced landing-pad gate.
“DOMINICK ASHTON!” a painfully thin Mark Martin yelled, jerking and slurring his words badly, his hands nearly black; he had been fired from his mechanic job when he’d lost all dexterity. “YOU DAMN COCK-SUCKING IMPERIAL SCUM! What the HELL do you mean, doing this to me?! I’ll KILL YOU, do you hear?”
By that point, however, the investigative team had already boarded the shuttle, which was spinning up with a loud whine; there was no chance that Ashton had actually heard any of it, let alone seen or recognized Martin.
But as he ranted, the crowd around Martin grew quiet.
Deadly quiet.
Finally, as Martin’s inebriated rant died off, a big, muscular man addressed him.
“Hey, hombre, ¿qué haces? Don’t go pissin’ off the Imperial Police, man! The bitch in the mansion done enough for us on that account already! Just shut up!” (Hey, man, what are you doing?)
But Martin wasn’t in a mood to be told what to do.
“You shut up, chico!” he yelled. “I ain’t s’posed to even be in this hick dump, an’ that guy’s responsible for me bein’ here!” (boy)
“What? Did he drag you here, hombre?” the big man asked, squaring his shoulders. “I didn’t see nobody draggin’ you here. Why you here, man?”
“I was sent after him! He’s a cock-sucking suck-up, and he got all my bosses killed!”
“Killed how?” someone else asked.
“Executed!” Martin wailed. Members of the crowd glanced at each other.
“Este tipo es un ladrón,” someone murmured. (This guy is a crook.)
“Sí,” came several responses.
“Y está loco in la cabeza, un poco, tambien,” someone else added. (And he’s crazy in the head, a little, too.)
“And he wants to kill the Imperial Police detective,” the first man said.
“Is not good,” another responded. “Esa cabrona en el palacio has done enough already. We don’t need more shit goin’ down right outside Imperial Police headquarters.” (That bitch in the palace)
“You need to shut up and go home,” the big man told Martin.
“I WON’T!” Martin yelled. “I’mma follow that shu-shuttle an’ find Ashton an’ I’mma kill ‘im!”
He shoved the man, pulling a knife…but he fumbled it in his gangrenous hands, and it clattered to the sidewalk.
Seeing the knife, the man backhanded him. He was nearly twice as big as Martin, in his emaciated condition.
Martin’s feet left the pavement as he flew through the air and smacked against the main gate post, hitting the back of his head against galvanized steel. There was a mushy thud, and Martin bounced off, face-planting the pavement.
He didn’t get up.
The street rapidly cleared of pedestrians.
An hour later, one of the Imperial Police officers glanced out the window and noticed the body lying in the street.
The team headed from Imperial Police headquarters in the Catalonia capital on an official Imperial Police shuttle. They set down on the shuttle pad on the grounds of the sector governor’s mansion, where they were met by a staff member with an electric cart. He drove them around the back to a door, and led them to the sitting room in the residence portion of the mansion in the early twilight.
The body of the sector governor lay in the middle of the floor, shot three times in the chest. A pool of blood had formed under the body and spread, staining the tile flooring and the corner of a nearby area rug.
“Hello. Anyone here?” Ashton called, seeing no one else. A scrabbling sound came from behind a sofa against the wall, and Bernardo Palomo de la Gallego, husband of the deceased – Ashton recognized him from various media imagery – crawled out from the cubbyhole behind it.
“Thank God, you’re here!” he exclaimed. “It was terrible. We were talking, and then someone came in from the balcony and shot her. I ran for my life, and he missed me.”
Ashton raised an eyebrow.
“All right, Mr. Palomo de la Gallego,” he said. “Just have a seat. We’ll need to get a statement from you.”
“Of course, of course,” Palomo agreed, placating. “Poor Renata.”
But Ashton noted that he moved to the far side of the large room before sitting down.
Ashton met with Sergeant Fernando Garza and made sure that the forensics team was organized and under way with the investigation, then he went over to Palomo and sat in an armchair; Palomo had chosen another sofa. Ashton pulled out a small device and placed it on the end table between himself and Palomo, activating it in VR.
“What’s that?” Palomo asked, gesturing at the object with his left hand.
“Oh, it’s an audiovisual recording device,” Ashton explained. “It’ll enable me to record my interview with you so I have it on file. It’s intended to protect you and me from inaccurate memories and accidental transcription errors.”
“Ah. I see.”
“So, Mr. Palomo de la Gallego–”
“Just Mr. Palomo.”
“Ah. That is easier. Mr. Palomo, please tell me exactly what happened.”
“But I already told you. Someone came in from the balcony and started shooting.”
“In detail, please. What were you and your wife doing?”
“We were talking. I told you already.”
“About what?” Ashton asked, thinking, This is gonna be like pulling teeth. And just as much fun.
“Um, about the crowd outside,” Palomo said.
“What about the crowd?”
“Oh. We were wondering when General Walder was going to send some troops to disperse the rioting crowds.”
“Riots? Is that what you call a riot?” Ashton wondered, amused.
“Well…yes. Wouldn’t you? They were not happy,” Palomo pointed out. “They were yelling and screaming insults at us. We could hear them from inside.”
I’ll bet you could, Ashton thought, and let the distinction slide, for the time. “And then what happened?”
“And then a man shot from the balcony,” Palomo said, his eyes starting to wander to and fro. “We had the doors open for the breeze, you see, and he apparently climbed up and over the railing, and starting shooting. Renata went down almost immediately, but I ducked and dodged, and then ran for my life! I don’t know how I managed to avoid getting shot, too! He finally ran out of the room, back onto the balcony, and I hid behind that sofa–” he pointed at the sofa behind which he’d been when Ashton’s team arrived, “until you got here.”
“Who called us about the attack?”
“I don’t know. I guess it was one of the staffers who heard the gunshots.”
Palomo’s eyes were still dodgy, darting here and there, and Ashton bit his tongue to stifle the sarcastic comment that wanted to come out.
“I see,” he did say, deactivating the small recording device and stowing it in his jacket pocket. Then he waved over one of the regular beat cops that Walder had sent along for just such purpose. “Officer Mendez, please take Mr. Palomo into an adjacent room and watch over him while I see about finding the staffer who called us.” A quick, subtle hand signal added the command of, ‘Stand guard, and don’t let him out of your sight.’
“Yes, sir,” Mendez said, as she escorted Palomo out of the room.
Ashton wandered up to the forensics team. “What have you got so far?” he asked.
“No bullet casings, and no weapon,” Luis Garza, the lead forensic scientist, told him. “Powder here and there, by the look. We’ll have to wait until the autopsy report comes in to determine caliber, but I don
’t think it was a very large-caliber weapon. Something a bit more than a plinker, but not much.”
“We’ve got bullet holes in the wall, there,” Ashton pointed, “so we ought to get some caliber estimates off that.”
“Oh damn, how’d we miss that?” Garza said in disgust.
“Probably because of the dead body in the middle of the floor, and the guy hiding behind the sofa. The fact it got dark on us hasn’t helped.” Ashton glanced out the balcony door, then rolled his eyes. “Talk about melodrama.”
“Yeah, no shit. Patricia, hit the overhead lights, then get over there and see what you can find on those!”
“Yes, sir!” the junior investigator said, heading to the wall with the pockmarked surface.
“Is there anything else you see, sir, that my team hasn’t?”
“No, I don’t think so. More a case of wanting to know some specific things, Sergeant,” Ashton decided.
“Name ‘em.”
“Since we don’t have casings – likely an old-style revolver was the murder weapon – I want to know where the gunpowder is, exactly, to the best of your ability. I want to know where it stops, where it starts, and what the angles are on every one of these bullets. I want the security video checked, I want the security staff checked, and I want everyone inside the house or on the grounds checked for residue. Anybody who would have been in a position to fire the weapon at Ms. Palomo.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Finally, I want a search of the grounds in case an intruder is still here, or in case he – or she – ditched the weapon somewhere,” Ashton added. “No, wait a minute.”
The puzzled forensics team leader stood and watched as Ashton headed for the balcony, stepping out into the dark. He turned back and called to Garza, “Sergeant, could you have the staff turn on the outside lights for the rear yard?”
When the exterior lights came on, Ashton stood and stared out into the landscaped yard. Garza joined him.
EMPIRE: Imperial Police Page 28