“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.
Rivka offered a toast, forcing Red to stop, his first square of steak halfway to his mouth. He put it down, still speared by the fork, and raised his glass. “To friends and the rule of law.”
“Weren’t you in here last night?” the hostess asked.
“I eat every meal in here,” Rivka admitted.
“You should get a Frequent Patron card.”
“I should buy stock. I see who I’m meeting.” Rivka waved and headed inside.
Tyler sat at the table engrossed in his pad. He looked up when Rivka pulled her chair out. “Whatcha reading?”
“A new Kurtherian Gambit book, released this morning. I think it’s number nine thousand or something. I’ve read them all.”
“How do you read nine thousand of anything?”
“I have a subscription and lots of time.”
“Dentisting isn’t what you thought it would be?”
“It’s great—better than I thought—but with modern advances, people rarely have dental issues. When they do, that’s where I come in. I have to stay up on the latest procedures, but usually those entail punching buttons on the equipment. And how about your gig? Magistrating living up to what you thought it would be?”
“That and more. Never a dull moment. As soon as we’re finished eating, I have to head back into space.”
“I guess we better order, then. I don’t want to hold up the long arm of the law.” Tyler waved to get the server’s attention. “Why don’t they have electronic ordering like all the other places?”
“Old-school. They like the personal touch. I come here a lot.”
The server took their order and left.
“I’ll be looking into alleged racketeering. I might have to visit some twenty-one planets on this trip.”
“Wow! I’ve only been to three different planets in my life. I need to get out more, but I can’t let the practice fall into disrepair. I have a reputation to uphold.”
“Always there when needed?” Rivka ventured.
“I should probably change it to that, but no. It’s Dentistry Done Right.” Tyler looked to make sure no one was listening before leaning close and whispering conspiratorially, “I tell everyone that the other guy’s slogan is No Pain, No Gain.”
“That’s Doctor Payne, right? No Payne, No Gain. I kind of like it.”
“But you’re not supposed to like pain,” Tyler countered.
“I don’t.” Rivka shook her head. “I bring the pain.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Mete out justice. Sometimes punishment is warranted, and that’s our charter. Magistrates can deliver the punishment on the spot.”
“Do you mean, kill people? Have you killed people?”
Rivka was taken aback. She didn’t want to be flippant about killing people who deserved to die, or that she had a special ability. “Would it matter if I had?”
“You have! But I don’t want to hear about it. I have a certain view of you that I want to hold onto,” Tyler declared, a range of emotions crossed his face before he restored his normal exterior. “Le femme fatale with roles reversed.”
“You said you read a lot. I understand.”
“A lot. How is your cat?”
“Hamlet is a trooper. The ship is kind of small, but he keeps himself entertained. Chaz takes care of him. It’s strange, to say the least.”
“You know cats are nature’s purest killers, but they’re only five kilos in size. That leaves them perpetually angry at the universe in a cute and cuddly package.”
“I doubt Hamlet has ever killed anything. He lives on a sterile starship.”
“No sun to shine in the window, no birds to watch, no vermin to kill. Poor Hamlet.”
“Outside of abhorring physical contact with humans, he seems fine. Maybe he’s an alien?”
“Maybe they’re all aliens.”
Chapter Four
“Red? A word, please.” Rivka crooked a finger for her bodyguard to follow. Once on the bridge, she secured the hatch and turned on him. “You can’t bring your squeeze on a mission.”
“She’s not my squeeze!”
Rivka rested her chin on her chest. “That’s not the point.”
“Then why say it? Aren’t words your best tool?” Red argued.
Rivka closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing, “Why is she here?”
“She took vacation, and you know the three of us can’t handle everything you need to do.”
“But you should have checked with me first.” Rivka put her hands on her hips and tried to glare, but knew that she was glad of the company. “We can’t take on any more strays.”
Red wore a reserved smile. “I think she’s the only one who’s not a stray. Maybe she won’t fit in after all.”
“Maybe not. We’ll be back here soon enough, although this could be a long one. Did you see that list of planets? That’s a Big Bertha buttload. I think we may have to go to them all, collect information, consolidate, and analyze. We’re on a scavenger hunt, Red. This is going to be an awful lot of mind-numbing digging through data.”
“Good thing you have an expert in that area whose mind never goes numb,” Chaz interjected.
“You’re going to be a busy guy on this one, Chaz. Thanks for stepping up.”
“My pleasure, Magistrate. Where are we going?”
“We’re going to start with two planets based on gambling, S’Korr and Show Low. They seem the most vulnerable for external interference in their affairs. Not that that is illegal, but that’s what we’re looking for. They are called ‘predicate crimes.’ Without them, there is no racketeering. Without enterprise involvement, there is no racketeering. This could be a difficult case to adjudicate. I will need everyone’s help, including Lindy’s.”
Rivka gave Red a thumbs-up before they returned to the mess deck. “Welcome aboard, Lindy. Consider yourself a member of the team. You’ll have a role to play, although I can’t tell you what it will be yet. We change depending on the circumstances. In nearly all cases, Red will be with me. Protecting me is his primary job. I need you to be good with that—except when I’m carrying his big ass because he’s passed out.”
“He didn’t tell me about that.” Lindy looked up at Red.
“It never came up, and for what it’s worth, she’s much stronger than she looks. Let me show you your room.”
“My own room? I thought they shared bunks on spaceships,” Lindy replied coquettishly as Red quickly ushered her away. Rivka watched them go. From the bridge, Chaz started playing the theme song to The Love Boat.
Jay, now sporting rainbow-colored hair, continued to paint, adding color to sections of her mural she’d previously finished. Rivka looked closely at it. Some of the painting had been dark, but it was growing lighter as Jay touched it up.
“Our past becomes less horrific when the future is bright,” Rivka stated.
“The darkness of our past lightens over time,” Jay replied, “when the sun shines on its shadows. We are what we make of ourselves.”
“When we control that which is within our control, yes. Those who count on luck will never see the light of day. A cloud will forever hang over their heads.”
“We must read the same things. Next time, you’ll have to come with me to the spa. It was a magnificent three days.”
“You spent three whole days at the spa?” Rivka asked.
“Yes, the Royal Executive Package.”
“Am I paying you that much?” Rivka pursed her lips and stared at the wall. She had no idea what anyone was getting paid,
including herself. Grainger handled that and never bothered telling anyone what they were good for besides food and lodging.
“Don’t forget who my parents are.”
“But they think you’re in jail.”
“I still have access to the credit chip, and it has a very large line of credit.” Jay grinned.
“Once they figure out you’re not in jail, they’ll send someone after you, and then we’ll both be in trouble.”
“You give them too much credit. They will be happy to know that I’m okay without actually having to do anything. Trust me on this.”
“I’m not sure if I should feel sorry or happy for you, but as you wish. We’ll leave it be. I’ll come up with something if a collector shows up at our door looking for you.”
“That’s why I like the idea of living on a spaceship.”
Rivka grunted approval and returned to the bridge. “We have work to do, Chaz. Pull up the information on S’Korr, please.”
S’Korr, a sports arena-type planetary economy with overpriced beverages and snacks, plus cheap team logo knickknacks and a massive sports book operation. On S’Korr, a patron could bet on any sport within the galaxy. The planetary data appeared first—climate, size, population centers—and then Chaz presented the governmental structure. It looked like a star chart, not a typical hierarchy with someone at the top. She held her head in her hands as she tried to make sense of it. “What are you showing me, Chaz? That is one fucked-up system.”
“It works for them. You will need to meet with no fewer than seven different entities, none of whom are required to work with the others. They stay in their lanes, so to speak.”
“Those lanes have to converge somewhere.”
“They do not, at least from a leadership perspective.”
“Start arranging meetings for me, Chaz. If there is a most important person, get that one first. After that, best you can manage in order of priority. I’m going to work out. I sense some frustration coming on and don’t want to take it out on the poor gamblers from S’Korr.”
Chaz retracted the furniture that cleared the space on the mess deck. She started with the magnetically-activated weight bar and pounded out a set.
Red appeared in his workout clothes, as did Lindy. Jay was miffed at having to stop painting. “Join us,” Rivka offered.
“Have we left the station already?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” Rivka answered with a shrug. “We’re buttoned up and ready to go. You know Chaz will have us there in no time, and then we might get distracted. Can’t miss the workouts. Our lives may depend on being in shape—like how you beat the bomb on Pretaria. Our physical prowess is our safety net.”
Rivka was talking to Lindy as much as Jay. Red never missed a workout, and often added exercises to focus on a particular muscle group or special ability. “We need a firing range in here,” Red mumbled.
“We have one—virtually of course—that I have linked to replicas of your standard Federation weaponry.”
“If only I used standard Federation weaponry.” Red smirked and nodded. “That will do, Chaz. As soon as we’re done, we’ll send some rounds downrange. Lindy needs to get accustomed to the firepower we may employ. Just in case.”
“I have no intention of shooting anyone!” she exclaimed crossing her arms on her chest.
“That’s good,” Rivka agreed. “We have no intention of shooting anyone, either, but sometimes it just happens. The better you are with weapons, the better you can use them to bluff. Imagine if you were able to shoot a weapon out of someone’s hand? You don’t get hurt, and they don’t get hurt, or not much anyway.”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
Jay held up her hands. “Not even going to pick up a weapon.”
“You are the young and innocent member of the group. We have to keep someone outside the fray. We don’t need you shooting a weapon,” Rivka said.
“Who says I’m not young and innocent?” Lindy asked.
“We can’t have everyone on board unwilling to fire a weapon.” Rivka scowled.
“Fine. I’ll do it, but I prefer not to. I don’t want to put that burden on our seventeen-year-old.”
“I’ve been around the block!” Jay tried to stand tall, but it only made her look scrawny.
“Everyone learns how to fire a weapon, and everyone learns how to fight. That’s the new team rule. We never know what kind of crap we’re going to get ourselves into. Just because you know how doesn’t mean you have to do it without thinking. We don’t shoot people in the back. We don’t fire without aiming. We don’t fire at all when we don’t have to.”
“This will be fun,” Red mumbled as he stretched and pulled the punching bag down to hit it bare-handed a few times. Lindy got on the other side, braced herself, and nodded. Red leaned into his punches, hitting the bag harder and harder.
“Keep your hand up,” Rivka suggested. “Someone’s going to pop you in the face while you’re swinging those haymakers.”
Red raised his hands to make sure that one always blocked his face. The skin on his knuckles was torn but healed rapidly. His new nanocytes were engaged. “Thanks for the upgrade, Magistrate.”
“Do all members of the team get the nanocytes?” Lindy asked.
Rivka dialed the bar heavier and pounded out another set in lieu of answering.
“The powers that be prefer not, because once you’re upgraded, you carry the nanos for life. A much longer life. They had to make sure I was in this for the full ride. Imagine if I was evil, what I could do being able to heal this quickly and survive extreme heat?”
“You’d still prefer air conditioning,” Rivka sniped. “I know I do. That place was like Hell’s own furnace. Fuck that.”
“Jay is a hardened criminal, so she’s on probation.” Red winked at the young woman, and she saluted with a paintbrush. “I think you’re the only one here who isn’t cast off from society.”
“How is the Magistrate a castoff?” Lindy asked, taking one of Red’s hands and rubbing it where the knuckles had healed as she looked at Rivka.
“We will leave that for another day. Let’s spar. Some defensive moves for Lindy and Jay while I kick your ass. I’m still miffed at having to carry you.”
“I’m still miffed that you had to carry me, but thankful you did. Don’t take it personally when I punch you in the face. Repeatedly.”
“That will be the day,” Rivka taunted, wondering how much faster Red had gotten after his Pod-doc treatment. Better keep your hands up, she told herself.
The corvette burst into space outside S’Korr’s lunar orbit. A smaller planet, S’Korr circled a k-class star. With a minimal population, but a massive tourist trade and a Gate with an active digital pipeline, all the galaxy’s games were streamed in real-time. The technology to make that happen had been developed for other purposes, but the founders of S’Korr saw opportunity, as budding entrepreneurs do. They seized it, and S’Korr became one of the top three betting havens. The Gate was filled with scheduled traffic, but that had no bearing on the Magistrate’s ship.
With its own Gate, the corvette could skip the lines, but it couldn’t get past the parade of ships heading to or returning from the planet’s surface.
“Insanity!” Rivka declared. “How long to get to the planet, Chaz?”
“Several hours. Not because we can’t bypass the traffic, but there is no place to park at the spacedrome. We need to park at the spacedrome to get ground transportation for you to travel to your meetings. I’ve secured a limousine service. Your first appointment is in four hours with a Mister K’Leptus, head of Best Sports Book.”
“Lindy?” Rivka called. The woman appeared. With brown hair and brown eyes, she stood in stark contrast to the crew’s other women. Red had shaved his head, making him look the starkest of all. “Have you ever gambled before?”
“Probably too much,” she said.
She shook her head. “Would you know a fixed match if you saw one?”<
br />
“Between the two of us we might,” Jay offered.
“What do you think, Red?”
“I think two good-looking women in a sports book will be treated like hookers no matter how they’re dressed.”
“That wasn’t my question, but I don’t think you’re wrong. Can we use that to our benefit, or do they play up their naiveté and find someone who is smart to give them a hand in spending their credits?”
“That’s not really my thing,” Jay said, looking at the floor.
“I’ll teach you what you need to know, but if anyone touches me, I’m breaking their arm, tentacle, or whatever protuberance gets shoved my way.”
Red nodded approvingly. “We have time. Let me teach you a few moves.” The women returned to the mess deck since it was currently configured for working out, and Red started his instruction. Rivka remained on the bridge.
“One more time, Chaz. Federation statutes regarding theft and gambling...”
Chapter Five
Red was the first off the ship. He was traveling heavy, carrying the shotgun and wearing his ballistic vest and leggings. S’Korr had no military, but each booking joint had its own small army of security. They’d been informed about Red. Time would tell if they listened.
Lindy and Jay came off the ship well after the Magistrate and Red had caught a limousine to the Best Sports Book. They were dressed casually, and after a short walk through the arrivals terminal, grabbed a taxi to the Best Sports Book.
That was the plan, and also a check to evaluate the quality of the planet’s intelligence apparatus. Red suspected that Lindy and Jay would be associated with the Magistrate and treated differently, even though he had floated the idea that the patrons would think of the women as hookers. Rivka didn’t think the two women would be linked to her. The bet was the next dinner out, paid for from personal funds.
Which reminded Rivka to check her account.
“First time on S’Korr?” the limo driver asked.
Red activated the privacy panel, and the driver disappeared behind an electronic screen.
Judge, Jury, & Executioner Boxed Set Page 23