“Tell us when you’re less than a minute out.”
“That would be now. Chaz has the engines fired, and we are taking off. The spacedrome tower requests that we get clearance before moving.”
“Tell them to get fucked. No, belay that. Ignore them. We’re on our way. Meet you at Big Butt’s.”
Red started to rock and breathe heavily as he prepared for the life-or-death sprint. “Are you ready, Magistrate? From what I’ve seen, they are to our right and down the road, firing from a raised position. I’ll need you to run in front of me, zigzagging to mess with their aim. And as fast as you can go. The faster, the better.”
Rivka sighed. “Not feeling so great, Red. Better with each minute, but we don’t have time for me to heal all the way. So, we’ll go with good enough. What do you say we survive to fight another day?”
“I’m all for that, but damn, Magistrate, you have a way of bringing out the worst in people.”
“That’s what I get for only dealing with criminals. Ready?”
“You go, and I’m right behind you.” Red yanked the door open and Rivka bolted into the street, running like mad. Red followed her out, finding it hard to stay right behind her since she did more jinking than running straight. Bullets splashed around them.
Red took a couple shots in the back of his ballistic armor. It stopped the rounds from penetrating, but it still felt like he’d been hit by a jackhammer. He wrapped an arm around his head, knowing that he wouldn’t come back from a head wound. Rivka ran the same way, with her arm draped protectively over her most vulnerable spot.
The shots stopped. Rivka started to run straight, but a big vehicle slashed into the street in front of them and skidded to a stop. Two shooters leaned out the side windows and started firing. Red shot back. Rivka aimed while running and hit the side of the vehicle, but nothing that made the shooters duck. Red fired his shotgun, and the slug ripped through the metal below the open window.
The humanoid disappeared. The second stopped shooting for a moment.
“I want him alive, Red!” Rivka yelled as she slid to a stop, dropped to a knee, and aimed her flashlight device, sending a neutron pulse at where she guessed the shooter’s legs were. He screamed in agony and slumped out of view.
The vehicle ground its gears as the engine revved, and it started rolling backward. Red cranked a round into the driver’s door, and the engine returned to an idle. Rivka ripped open the driver’s door and climbed over the dead humanoid. She stuck her head out, then pulled back. She’d seen that both shooters were incapacitated, possibly even dead. Red reached a massive hand inside and dragged the driver out, tossing him to the side as if he were a piece of garbage.
Once in the driver’s seat, Red looked at the unfamiliar controls. “Hang on, Magistrate. It’s going to get rough.”
The vehicle jerked and bounced as Red tried to control the energy transfer between the engine and the wheels.
Rivka found one shooter dead and the other delirious from the pain in his legs. She gripped his face and fired questions at him, but he knew nothing. Orders from a middleman to absolve his gambling debts.
Extending credit to gamblers to hold them hostage; it made Rivka sick to her stomach. The man’s head exploded, sending goo and blood all over her. Rivka’s first reaction was one of disgust in that she’d have to clean the jacket, and the next was about her safety. The vehicle died, and Red cursed it.
“We’re walking, Magistrate,” Red declared, opening the door opposite where the original shots had been fired. He climbed out, and she rushed after him. A battery of shooters appeared on the rooftops, locking Rivka and Red into a kill zone with no way to escape. A bullet tore into Red’s neck. His cry of pain ended in a gurgle of blood. A bullet hit Rivka’s exposed arm. Her leg. A second time in that leg. Red stumbled and fell.
Chapter Thirteen
The sun was blotted out as the corvette dropped precipitously into the gap between the buildings. Defensive weapon systems blanketed the rooftops, leaving only the sound of the atmospheric thrusters controlling the descent of the spaceship.
It touched down, and Rivka lifted Red to his feet. He was barely conscious. She wasn’t able to walk on one leg, so she used him as a crutch. The ramp descended before the ship touched down. Rivka and Red fell onto it, and the corvette immediately started to ascend. The ramp rotated to dump the two inside, where Jay and Lindy helped them to seats in the rec room.
Lindy was almost apoplectic when she saw the gaping wound in Red’s neck with blood pouring from it and half a dozen more injuries. She poured the contents of the medical kit on the deck, grabbing bandages to staunch the blood flow.
Rivka’s wounds bled profusely as well. Jay tried to stop the bleeding and found that the blood was sticky and coagulating even though the damage was fresh.
“The Magistrate has had her nanos for a while. Red’s are still new, and probably aren’t as dense in his blood. I think they’ll both survive,” she ventured, voice shaking.
“Do you know, or are you guessing?” Lindy challenged.
Jay didn’t respond. She busied herself looking for more wounds, and tending them once found.
Ankh remained in a bubble within his own mind while he and Erasmus worked on the problem of unweaving the disguised and hidden tendrils leading to the enterprise behind it all.
“Don’t you die on me!” Lindy cried as Red went limp in the recliner and rolled to the floor. She and Jay tried to lift him back into the chair, but they couldn’t budge him.
“See?” Jay said, pointing at the steady throb from a vein in his arm. “He’s alive and healing.”
“How do you know?” Lindy wondered, skeptical and afraid.
“His wounds are closing. If he were dead, they wouldn’t be.”
“Aha!” Ankh exclaimed, surprising both women.
“Get them some water. They need to replace fluids,” Jay said, looking at Lindy.
Ankh looked around for the first time, realizing that he was surrounded by the injured. “What happened to them?”
“You talked to them! They were under fire, and we took the ship into the city to rescue them.”
“Where was I?” Ankh asked. Jay pointed to the seat on which he was sitting. “Interesting. No matter. We have something. Let me know when the Magistrate can talk. I’ll be in my quarters.”
Ankh strolled away, weaving as the ship flew upwards to escape the atmosphere. Chaz was leaving the planet using a flight path to keep the corvette as far away from other ships as possible. He was ready to Gate the ship the second they broke into open space, and earlier if he couldn’t avoid it. Erasmus had mentioned it was possible with the new Gate technology, but Chaz didn’t want to be the one to test it. He veered to the far side of the planet before arcing toward space.
Rivka rubbed the spot where the bullet had torn a great hole in her chest. No physical scar existed to show its passage. Only the memory remained, and it bothered her. It hurt, even though the instant she was shot she knew she would be okay. Rivka didn’t feel invulnerable. The opposite.
She walked slowly from the bridge to the recreation room. Red was reclined in her chair. “You’re in my seat,” Rivka snapped without mercy.
“How come you heal faster than me?” Red asked.
“Better genes,” Rivka replied without hesitation. Lindy snickered. Red’s discomfort was obvious when he tried to sit up. “You should stay where you are. You look like shit.”
“I was worried, because I feel like shit. Dammit, Magistrate! We need a full mechanized platoon if we’re going to stay on this course. Do you know how close we were to dying?”
“About as close as we get every single time we leave the ship. You know what they say, don’t you?”
Red shook his head.
“They only need to get lucky once. We need to be lucky all the time.”
“I don’t like what ‘they’ say, because it’s way too close to the truth.”
“Ankh! You wanted to talk with us
once we were conscious, so here we are—your captive audience,” Rivka announced.
Ankh appeared in the passage leading to the cabins. He continued to hug Erasmus to his chest.
“Couldn’t you leave Erasmus in your cabin?”
“I could,” Ankh answered. He took a seat at the table next to Jay. “Breedin is on Zaxxon Major. We will need to access their systems to determine how they get the credits to Mandolin. When I backtrack, Mandolin is one of the richest organizations in the entire universe, but there is no trail for how they have gotten or maintain their wealth.”
“That’s impossible. There are always digital crumbs to follow.”
“There is always a trail, but here there isn’t. There is a cover-up on a scale unheard of when it comes to the Mandolin Partnership. Oscura Mandel has traveled to all the worlds in question, and personally negotiated the agreements that forced early cancellation of Bad Company contracts. Seven is the lucky number, Magistrate.”
“I don’t disagree that seven is a lucky number, but why in this case?”
“There are seven companies between Mandolin and the recipients. There are three layers of companies after the first four shell companies. There is a deliberate disconnect between the fourth layer and the third.”
“How do they get the money if they’re not associated? You’re killing me, Ankh. My little brain can’t comprehend what you’re trying to explain,” Rivka complained.
“Just because I said they weren’t associated doesn’t mean they’re not associated!” Ankh declared. His whole body shook in the way his race laughed.
“That’s genius!” Rivka remarked. “Which is my way of saying I still don’t understand.”
“Cash sales from buyers. It’s simple money laundering for the final three players. Untracked cash purchases on a planetary scale. Without the credits passing through a Federation monetary facility, we lose track.”
“All credits have to pass through. Otherwise they are delegitimized.” Rivka sat down and rubbed her chin. Red started to snore. She could use more sleep, but her head hurt. Ankh was talking her in circles.
“The final transactions pass through official channels in billions of small transactions, each with a unique buyer and unique seller, but nothing changes hands. The credits come out the other end squeaky clean.
“We can stop a hundred or a thousand transactions in the trillions of day-to-day exchanges, and it won’t mean anything to Mandolin. Three layers of billions of transactions?”
“Yes. Erasmus has enlisted the aid of all of Plato’s stepchildren. Seven of the most powerful AIs in the universe are combining their computing power to resolve this puzzle. There are three entities that twist billions of transactions a day. Now that we know what to look for we will root them out and shut them down, especially when we validate our countermeasures by confirming information within the systems of six of the planets remaining on your list.”
“And then what, Ankh? Nefas already sent space fighters to kill us. When that didn’t work, he sent soldiers. What next? Is he going to form a singularity to suck us into the black hole of doom?”
“It is only a black hole. The doom is a given,” Ankh replied.
“Can he do that?” Rivka wondered.
“No.”
“But what is next, Ankh? Tell me what you and Erasmus think Nefas will try next.”
“He will continue his attempts to kill you, but not directly. It will be through third parties, as we have already seen. This will make it more difficult to predict details regarding the attacks.”
Red perked up from what Rivka had thought was a sound sleep. “We’re going to get attacked everywhere we go? Six more planets and then we’re done?”
“Six more planets,” Ankh began, “and then we will have to go to Morinvaille in the Corrhen Cluster with the evidence we will present for you to judge Mister Mandel and the entirety of the Mandolin Partnership.”
“How do you think that’s going to go?”
“Poorly, unless you bring the War Axe with you.”
“You want me to requisition a battleship in a RICO case?”
“It’s technically a destroyer, but yes, if you want to live. And since I want to live, I’ve already coordinated the request. Ted believes the issue with the enemy destroyer will be resolved shortly.”
“How is everyone on Keeg Station? They were hit right before we left,” Lindy asked, nudging Red to the side of the chair so she could sit next to him.
“I didn’t ask, and Ted didn’t say,” Ankh replied.
Lindy wasn’t impressed with the Crenellian’s explanation. Red started rubbing her back, and she rested her hand on his bare chest.
“What evidence do we expect to gather by visiting the six planets? I have enough now to confront the Mandolin Partnership.”
“Erasmus and I believe those six planets house the distribution systems by which the whole operation exists. The money laundering. Without the money, the organization would be significantly handicapped. If you go straight to Morinvaille, you may remove Mandel, but you won’t kill the organization. Kill the money first, then when you cut off the head, the creature will not come back to life. Without the money, there will be no bribes. Without the bribes, the contracts that the planets have signed will be shown as less advantageous than the ones they had with the Bad Company.”
“Less advantageous contracts are not illegal. The intimidation is sketchy, which makes the bribery less compelling. Was it really a bribe, or did Mandolin find willing compatriots? What about the shipping, not accounting for all the goods aboard. That’s called smuggling, which is also illegal, but does it rise to the level of a predicate crime? I think it does. The smoldering fires around this cesspool known as the Mandolin Partnership suggest we may be able to establish a new legal precedent applying to monopolies, racketeering, and corruption. Whodathunkit? Rivka Anoa writing precedential case law.”
Rivka smiled without looking at anyone. The others remained quiet, letting her have her moment.
“Zaxxon Major, Chaz. Prepare to Gate to the edge of the system,” Rivka ordered before returning to the bridge. “Whenever you’re ready to go back into battle, Red, we’ll head to the planet.”
Red tried to get up, but Lindy pushed him back into the recliner. “Rest for a while,” she whispered. He pulled her to down until she lay on top of him. He closed his eyes and hugged her close.
Jay stood in the middle of the room looking uncomfortable. Ankh had already gone to his cabin. She put on headphones and started a movie. She was torn between wanting to get off the ship on the different planets and wanting to live. With each new case, the criminals became more brazen. The danger had increased to the level of open hostilities. What are we doing? Is this the law, or is this war? Jay opted for an old documentary called Star Trek.
Chapter Fourteen
The Magistrate had opted for her body armor with the Magistrate’s jacket over it. The pin on her collar sported the galactic scales of justice.
Red was loaded up with all his gear, and then some. The shotgun was over his shoulder, but in his arms he carried a man-portable railgun, standard issue for the warriors of Terry Henry Walton’s Direct Action Branch. Red also wore a helmet. He looked comfortable in combat gear.
“And you say you never served?” Rivka asked.
“Doesn’t mean I didn’t fight,” Red answered mysteriously, refusing to give more information when Rivka twirled her finger.
“Let’s try not to kill them until I do my zombie thing.” Rivka reconsidered. “Maybe it’s best if we avoid the whole killing thing. We left a few bodies back on S’Korr.”
“Those were all guns for hire. Kind of like me, but with no morals or charter. I don’t shoot first, but sometimes I would like to. There are people in this universe who need to be shot, preferably in the face from close range.”
“Thanks for restraining yourself, Red.” Rivka turned to Ankh. “Who do we need to see, and what do we need to do?”
“Deposit one of the coins near their main computer interface. We’ll do the rest.”
“Where is that?”
“Once we’re close, we’ll be able to direct you.”
“Makes me wonder if we even need a lawyer for this part. Maybe we sub-contract with a mercenary group, but one that has morals and a charter, like the Bad Company.”
Jay pursed her lips and worked her jaw.
With one finger, Rivka tipped the young woman’s chin up. “You don’t like that idea.”
“I don’t want you to die, Magistrate, but you love the law! How can you make sure the right people are getting punished if you aren’t there?”
Rivka pulled Jay into a hug. “Sometimes it’s nice to see an issue through someone else’s eyes. You and me, Red. It’s up to us to weed out the riffraff and enforce the law.”
Red checked the buckle on his helmet and the charge and load of the railgun, and tapped the bulging pouches on his vest.
“What do you have in there?”
“Grenades.”
“What do you need grenades for?”
Red rolled his eyes and motioned to the door.
“Get us where we need to go, Chaz,” Rivka requested. “Tell us who we’re meeting and where to find them. Don’t be fucking around with the locals. We don’t have time for that shit. From this moment until this case is over, we treat every planet as if it were filled with Mandolin sympathizers. We won’t shoot first, but if we shoot, it’s to kill. We will burst on the scene like a bistok bull in a glass shop. Keep them on their heels until we’re gone. Try not to break anything, Chaz, except their rules.”
“Erasmus and Chaz are coordinating. Ship sensors are active. Closing on the planet. Secure yourselves for transit through the upper atmosphere.” The corvette almost immediately started to bounce and bump.
“I’ve been thinking about a name for the ship,” Jay began over the growing roar of reentry.
“And?” Rivka was intrigued.
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