“Nice try. Who negotiated your logistical support contracts?”
“The contractors, of course. They do all the contracting. We don’t have lawyers here, as I suspect you already know. They are simply contractors now, the ones who draft the contracts and negotiate the particulars.”
“Sounds like lawyers to me.”
“I expected you to be more subtle; tickle me with a feather or something. You are far more straightforward. No bullshit. I have jobs for people like you.”
“Already got a job. A damn good one. My corvette is kind of small, though. Maybe you can hook me up with something more of a frigate size?”
“Frigate? Why a military ship?” he asked.
“Because no one likes Magistrates, so we have to fight on occasion. Best to be ready for that.”
“Do you always win your fights, Magistrate?”
Rivka pointed to herself. “I’m still here, aren’t I? Let’s talk about you. I have zero interest in prosecuting you. As much as it may hurt, there are bigger fish in this galaxy. They are pulling strings at the planetary level, of which S’Korr is one. I would like your cooperation in building a case.”
“Immunity?” Rivka nodded, and K’Leptus laughed. “That’s funny. Are you going to put a military garrison on S’Korr with a flotilla in orbit? You still wouldn’t be able to protect me or anyone on the wrong side.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. There is someone out there you’re afraid of. Through threat or intimidation, they have you cowed. What have they done to make you afraid?” Rivka leaned forward. K’Leptus was too far away for her to touch him and see what occupied his thoughts, but she was close. She could feel it.
Rivka’s datapad buzzed with an emergency signal. “Excuse me,” she told K’Leptus. “I need to check on this.”
There was only one word. “Help.” She held the pad up for Red to see.
“We need to leave right away. I’m sorry that we haven’t finished our conversation, but I will get back with your receptionist for a more in-depth look at some of the concerns I have. Thank you so much.”
Red opened the door, and Rivka didn’t bother with a handshake as she bolted through it. K’Leptus rubbed his hand instinctively, glad for her quick departure. He stood in time for Red to hurry after his boss.
Rivka punched the button and started dictating to the pad. “Where are you? We are on our way from the fifth floor.”
The elevator arrived, and they waited while two people exited. They boarded, and Red kept the partygoers from getting back on after they realized they were in the wrong place.
The elevator stopped on the second floor and Red and Rivka ran out, then looked for the two women side by side. The entire place was filled with shouts of encouragement for teams and players; competitors of all shapes and sizes in every contest imaginable. It was a cacophony of chaos.
Rivka checked her pad. No answer. “Chaz, can you locate Lindy and Jay?”
“They are on the first floor of the establishment. I believe they are right below you.”
Red was first onto the escalator, taking the steps two at a time and elbowing people out of the way as he passed. They cursed him until Rivka ran by, and then they cursed her, too. Red hit the ground floor with a great leap, turned, and dashed behind the escalator where the largest section of the BSB was located. Once clear of the moving stairs, he saw them.
“Eyes on,” he yelled over his shoulder. Rivka accelerated to catch up. The women were on a table and men were pelting them with chips, yelling at them to “take it off.”
Red stopped a man mid-windup, wrenching his arm violently backward. The roll of chips dropped from the hand dangling at the end of a now-dislocated arm. The man howled in surprise.
“STOP!” Red bellowed as he threw one patron into another, carving a wide swath through the bettors who rapidly lost their excitement. One, drunker than the others, looked Red in the eye as he tossed a credit chip toward the women. Lindy caught it and stuffed it into her pocket. The man looked stupidly at the casino chip in his other hand. The two were of significantly different value.
“Hey! Give me my chip back,” the man shouted, and stepped toward the table. Red leveled him with a hammer blow to the side of the man’s head.
“Show’s over. Get the fuck out!” Red roared, facing the crowd as the women climbed down from the table behind him.
“What the fuck were you doing while this was going on?” Red accused a security guard standing nearby.
“All part of the show. They made a few credits, the men were entertained. It’s a win-win,” the man replied while picking at his teeth with a nail.
“Maybe the show includes me kicking your ass so bad you’ll get your own daisy plantation.”
The guard sized up Red before grinning. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall. You’ll be crying in your bitch’s breastmilk before the day is out.” He swept a hand for the revelers to clear the area. In the middle of the Best Sports Booking, a live fight was about to begin. The bettors arrived in full force and started shouting. In the blink of an eye, the casino had a table set up and was giving odds and issuing betting vouchers.
“Ten thousand Federation credits on the large stranger, Vered the Invincible!” Rivka yelled, waving her credit chip in the air. A laser from the betting table instantly accessed it and locked the funds. Lindy and Jay swept the floor around the table with their feet, piling the chips so they could scoop them up and find a safe place from which to watch the upcoming fight.
“Ten thousand credits on Brutus, BSB’s Head of Security,” a familiar voice called over the intercom.
“Yes, Mister K’Leptus,” the hawker replied from his place at the betting table.
You better fucking win, Rivka thought, smiling since she knew Red’s adage that he never lost a fight. She didn’t expect him to lose this one, but wondered what the other had up his sleeve. He didn’t look like the fighting type. He had an angle.
“No weapons,” he stated as he approached Red. Vered stepped back and slowly started removing his gear, taking care not to get caught with his hands tied up. He handed his weapons and armor to Lindy and Jay, who held it like a shield to protect them from the masses. But they’d lost interest in the women. Live fights were rare on S’Korr, and this one wasn’t going to cost anything to get into.
Red flexed, the muscles rippling across his bare chest as he rolled his shoulders and stretched his fingers. He raised his fists and crooked a finger at Brutus. “Every show is a good show, isn’t that right?” Red said softly.
The yells to encourage the battle increased until individual voices disappeared into a single din.
Rivka wished she were taller and started to work her way toward the front. She had her butt grabbed more than once on her way through. She stomped one offender’s foot and kneed another in the groin. When she reached the front, someone grabbed her left butt cheek and held on. She turned her head to face the man.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked coldly.
“Women don’t do sports, so I have to assume you’re here for a different reason. Like, to meet a real man.”
“Is that so? Your ignorance is appalling, and should be a crime. Unfortunately, it isn’t, but grabbing me is. I don’t care how you plead. I judge you guilty of battery.”
“Fuck off,” he said dismissively, returning his gaze to the warriors who were circling each other. He hadn’t removed his hand.
“I doubt punishment will cause you to change your ways, so this is probably going to hurt me more than it hurts you.”
“What’d you say?” he asked without looking.
With speed that made it a blur, Rivka jabbed him in the mouth, shattering his front teeth. The man’s head snapped back, and he pulled his hand away to cradle his damaged face. He tried to yell, but could only gurgle through the blood and broken teeth. He spat the mess onto the floor.
“I may have been wrong,” Rivka admitted. “That might have hurt you worse.�
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He lunged toward her, hands reaching for her throat. She met his charge with a front kick that sent him back into the crowd. He landed, gasping for air and wincing in pain from the broken ribs. The bettors let him fall to the floor as they returned their attention to the fight.
A long tail appeared behind Brutus. At its end was a sharp spike. It cracked like a whip as the security head aimed for Red’s bare chest. Red’s left hand seemed to materialize on the tail, locking it into his iron grip. He jumped backward and yanked on the tail, and Brutus grunted in pain. Red pulled harder and jumped, driving a two-legged kick into the alien’s chest.
Red held tightly to the tail, preferring to fight Brutus with one hand and his legs. The handicap was Brutus’, but although the alien seemed irked at having his tail held tightly, he gave no reason to believe that he was out of the fight.
Lindy and Jay found themselves under the table they’d previously been on top of. The fight was raging back and forth, the combatants oblivious to everything around them.
The alien closed with Red, who caught a punch and held tightly to the fist, but Brutus used his free hand to punch Red in the face. The two tried kicking each other, ending up blocking and knee-dancing but doing no damage. Again and again, the blows rained down on Red’s face. A cut opened, and blood gushed.
Red pulled Brutus forward and head-butted the alien, but it felt like ramming a marble statue. Brutus laughed as he swung again. Red surged forward, forcing the alien off balance. He went over backward, and Red followed him down. Red used the leverage of his falling weight to force the tail in front of him. As they hit, Red twisted the spike toward Brutus and landed on it, driving it into his throat.
Brutus’ eyes glazed as his life’s blood spilled from the wound.
Red climbed to his feet, blinking away the crimson drops that were already drying. The wound over his eye was closing, and he touched his forehead where he had tried to head-butt the alien. “That thing’s face must be made of titanium,” Red grumbled.
Lindy appeared next to him, holding up his vest. Jay handed him his shirt, and he wiped his face with it and threw it on the body. He put the vest on over his bare skin and the jacket over that. Last was his shotgun, which he threw over his shoulder. He finally looked at the crowd.
They had backed away and now stood in awe at what they’d seen. A hush had come over the casino.
“Vered the Invincible!” someone shouted from the back of the crowd, and others picked it up as a chant. “Vered! Vered!”
He looked at Rivka, who was trying not to laugh. She checked her credit chip, pleased at seeing that the deposit had already been made—her original ten thousand, plus twenty-two thousand thanks to the odds. Red caught her checking it.
“I get some of that, right?” he asked.
“A bonus, of course, and we’ll split it four ways.”
A small group of fans pressed in around Rivka and her team. They asked for autographs. Red frowned. He noted that someone had already taken his shirt off the body that two other security men were trying to carry away.
“You ever see an alien like that before? Looks like a man, tail like a scorpion.”
“No, but thanks for the Pod-doc time. I don’t think the old me would have caught that tail.”
“Let’s get out of here. I have some stuff to think about. The meeting with K’Leptus was illuminating in multiple ways,” Rivka told them, but when she turned to walk away, a crowd blocked them. At the front was K’Leptus.
“I think I’d like to continue our conversation now,” he said pleasantly.
“No can do,” Rivka replied flippantly. “Gotta run, but we’ll be back tomorrow to finish what we started. After that, you won’t need to see me again.”
Red reached for his shotgun. “The Magistrate is leaving. Please step out of the way,” Red said in a low and dangerous voice. “I already killed once today. Don’t make me kill again.”
K’Leptus looked furious. Used to getting his way in his own place, he was hesitant to yield, but in the end, discretion made for a calmer approach. He settled for verbal jousting. “Be on your way, then. We’ll be waiting for you tomorrow.”
Who’s we? Rivka wondered. She shouldered her way past K’Leptus and through the crowd. Red was in front, and Lindy and Jay flanked Rivka. The crowd cleared the path of Vered the Invincible. Once out the doors, they hurried to the waiting limousine. The driver made eyes at the two new additions as he opened the passenger door.
“Back to my ship,” Rivka ordered.
Red activated the privacy screen as soon as he was inside, and the limo tore away from the BSB on its way to the spacedrome.
Chapter Seven
The Magistrate sat alone on the bridge. It was late afternoon, and she was in no mood to go to Better Sports Betting for round two of beating information out of people.
She pursed her lips and stared at the screen. Case law. She needed more information before she could start looking for a predicate offense she was comfortable applying. She had nothing. Even with the kaleidoscope within K’Leptus’ mind, she did not clearly see a predicate crime. Beating someone up didn’t make the cut, especially if K’Leptus was the one who ordered the attack. A conspiracy, not an enterprise. No RICO application.
She knotted her hair around her fingers in frustration.
“You have an incoming call from High Chancellor Wyatt,” Chaz announced.
Rivka smoothed her hair and sat up straight, then leaned back and crossed her legs to look more casual, then uncrossed her legs to look more serious.
“Do you wish to take the call?” Chaz asked.
“Sorry, yes. Connect him, please.” Rivka smiled as the High Chancellor’s image filled the front screen. “High Chancellor! To what do I owe this honor?”
“Good morning, Rivka. I wanted to talk to you before your first case, but you were gone before I had time, and then I wanted to catch you before you left on this case but missed that window, too. I decided to stop looking for the perfect time. How are you doing, Magistrate?”
Rivka paused as she thought through her replies. The High Chancellor wasn’t one for small talk, or so she’d heard. Sarcastic or evasive answers wouldn’t help her status. “I don’t think I did the best job with the Pretarian Treaty. And this case isn’t starting out all that great, either.”
“A Magistrate’s performance is set at a very high level, but it is still simple. All we needed from that arbitration was to stop the impending war. The treaty was an avenue to keep the conversations open. I have no issues with how you resolved that arbitration. You took care of it, and I don’t care how. The Pretarians and the Keome have not lodged any complaints, and they both seem to be complying with the trade treaty. Plus, Bad Company has been working on a project where the offered labor is sorely needed. I look forward to seeing how they work out, but everything is on track. Your first case, or should I say your second case, was a huge win.”
“About that first case...” Rivka started, but the High Chancellor held up a hand to stop her.
“I know about Jayita, the governor’s daughter. I had to approve her salary as part of your team, and I did.”
The door to the bridge slid open. Red stood there in shorts, and Lindy was in her bra and panties. Rivka’s mouth fell open.
“Oh, sorry. Just finished a workout and wanted to make sure you didn’t have anything else for us before we, um, retire,” Red said.
“Who’s the old guy?” Lindy asked.
Rivka closed her eyes and turned back to the High Chancellor. He was laughing silently. “I’m Wyatt. Is that you, Vered?”
“High Chancellor? I am so sorry,” Red spluttered.
Lindy’s face turned bright red. “I thought you were looking at a picture,” she mumbled by way of an apology.
“Nice to see you, High Chancellor. My apologies for interrupting your call.” Red pulled Lindy back, sending the hatch to the bridge sliding shut.
“We have another who may be joining th
e team.” Rivka held Wyatt’s eyes.
“Is that the dress code on board your ship, Magistrate?”
“I don’t have a dress code, but maybe I should.”
“I’m kidding. The Magistrates have a hard job. Letting your hair down is important. I expect the young woman on Red’s arm is your newest addition?” the High Chancellor asked.
“She is on probation until I can figure out what she adds to the team.”
Wyatt nodded slowly before changing subjects. “You said that this case wasn’t off to a great start. Talk me through it, Barrister. Make your case.”
Rivka walked the High Chancellor through the steps she’d taken, including the insights from K’Leptus’ mind.
“It’s a gambling establishment. There will be plenty of crime, but has anything been ordered by the enterprise? Is the enterprise committing the predicate crimes, or are the crimes being committed independently? If you don’t have that causal link, then you have no RICO case.”
“I saw the fear in his face and a hint of it in his mind, but I hadn’t leaned on him yet. When I finally asked the right question he wouldn’t let me touch him, so I didn’t get to see his real reply—the one I would call the truth.”
“I am envious of your gift, Rivka. How much time would we save if we didn’t have to listen to the intricate quilts of lies compiled by the perpetrators? If we could only turn them over to see the foundation beneath, as you can. Alas, it is not to be, and we still have to prove our cases to those who can’t see within.”
“Unless we can mete out Justice right there, but we still have to justify our actions in the paperwork.”
“There’s always paperwork, even when it’s not on actual paper.” Wyatt rubbed his chin before he continued, “If you find the enterprise interference, you will find the predicate crimes. My suggestion is that you talk to the little guys. The billionaire who runs the BSB is a little guy in this case, and that should tell you all you need to know about the target of your investigation. The Mandolin Partnership run by Oscura Mandel is where you should focus your efforts.”
Judge, Jury, & Executioner Boxed Set Page 25