Buster wanted to argue, but it made sense. His AI Philko appreciated a challenge.
“Chi, I need you to dig into the pits of something called the Damu Michezo on the planet Tol. With their application for membership to the Federation approved, we need to validate that this death match bullshit isn’t being corrupted within Federation Law. Someone called Valerie conducted an interdiction there once. You need to see if they still understand.”
Chi pointed to Rivka. “Sounds perfect for Zombie,” he deflected. She didn’t agree.
“No, it’s all you, my man. Dig in and see how they run it. I hear the Skulla are something else, so good luck with all that. We need a fighter on this one who will have some credibility. She looks like a strong breeze could blow her over.” Grainger pointed with a thumb.
“Hey! I resemble that remark,” Rivka quipped. She was taller and heavier than when she had first joined the Magistrates thanks to the Pod-doc, but she hadn’t gained as much as Lindy.
“Jael...”
“Why am I always last?” Rivka wondered.
Grainger ignored her. “Jael, you get voter interference on the frontier planet of Jurdenia.” He tapped his screen to send her the file. She gave him her best stunned-mullet face.
Rivka slid down in her seat until her eyeballs peeked over the edge of the table.
“And Rivka gets the icing on the cake.” Grainger paused for dramatic effect, but the Magistrates were making faces as they looked at the files. He had to stretch upward to make eye contact with Rivka. “Fine. This one is a bit disconcerting. It appears that someone is executing alien ambassadors on the planet of Collum Gate. This place held promise as a hub for intersystem negotiation. Even Yoll has taken advantage of the opportunity to negotiate boundary issues. It’s raising tensions amongst all the alien representatives since everyone assumes it’s one of them doing it.”
“A serial killer or a starter of wars?” Rivka considered while sitting up in her seat. “I’ll take it.”
She started digging into the case file Grainger had released to her. The others disappeared into the background as she focused on the information.
Rivka jumped up, startling the others. “I need to go. See you after we save the day.” She bolted from the room, yelling at her datapad for Chaz to recall the crew.
The Magistrate hurried aboard Peacekeeper. Red remained outside the corvette, waiting on his better half.
Lindy had been out running errands, since only one of the bodyguards had been needed while Grainger’s meeting was ongoing. She was on her way.
“Chaz, what’s the status of the crew?” Rivka asked.
“Ankh and Erasmus are in their laboratory. Lindy is on her way. I haven’t been able to contact Jay, but her embedded comm chip says that she is in the spa.”
“Again?” Rivka chuckled as she rushed back to the hatch. “Red, can you have Lindy stop by the spa and drag Jay out of there? I’m sorry, I mean, ‘coordinate her immediate departure.’”
Red put a finger to his temple as he activated his comm chip to talk with Lindy. A moment later he replied, “She’s on her way. She will coordinate Jay’s immediate departure, even if that means Lindy has to throw her over a shoulder and carry her.”
“They’ve called five times, Mistress Jayita. I think you should talk to them.”
“Nopity nope,” Jay mumbled into her towel as the four-handed alien continued to work on her back. The Pod-doc process had added weight, girth, and height. Lindy chose to deal with the changes by working out to excess. Jay decided there would be plenty of time for that later, so she turned to pampering.
A commotion outside the massage studio signaled the end of Jay’s reverie.
The door opened none too gently. “There you are!” Lindy declared. “We have to go. Immediate mission. Need to save the universe. Chop chop.”
Lindy crossed her arms and motioned with her eyeballs that it was time to get up.
“Get out,” Lindy told the masseuse. “Please.”
Jay groaned and whined as she got dressed. “We sit around forever, and then all of a sudden we’re in a hurry. What is up with that? Has being deliberate gone out of vogue?”
“If only the criminals would cooperate. And we haven’t been sitting around. We’ve only been back on station for what, six hours?”
“Not me.” Jay pulled on a new blouse, loose to hang over her yoga pants. On their way out, an older woman stopped them.
“I’m sorry, but your credit chip has been rejected.” The woman was standing between them and the door. Lindy wanted to go but wouldn’t leave her friend hanging.
“What’s the damage?” she asked.
“Nearly ten thousand credits.”
Lindy’s lips turned white, and she clenched her teeth, glaring at Jay. The younger woman, who was sporting platinum-blue hair, smiled weakly. “I’ve never looked at prices before...” she started to say.
“Now’s a good time to start!” Lindy stated angrily.
“I believe I have seven thousand.” Jay handed her personal chip to the older woman, who withdrew the maximum it would allow.
“You still owe two-thousand eight hundred credits.”
Lindy pulled out her chip and held it out. The older woman ran the charge, beaming after it went through. “Add your usual tip?”
Before Lindy could answer, Jay spoke. “Of course.”
The average person did everything they could to avoid confrontation. The relief on the older woman’s face was clear that she was happy that the situation was resolved with minimal grief.
Lindy took the chip and shoved it back into her pocket. She made growling noises deep in her throat.
“I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back.”
Lindy turned on her. “I just paid three thousand credits at a spa, and I didn’t get a single knot massaged out. You’ll take care of that when we’re on board!”
“Done!” Jay continued to profusely thank Lindy for saving her from the embarrassment of not being able to leave the spa.
“I still can’t believe you spent ten grand on the spa. How long have you been in there?”
“When did we get back?”
“Two weeks ago. You’ve been in the spa that whole time?”
“Not the whole time,” Jay stammered. “Well. The Pod-doc and then some shopping, but outside of that, yes. I’ve been here.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Jay kept falling back. “Keep up, we’re in a hurry.”
“My legs are a little rubbery,” she tried to explain.
“Two solid weeks of massages. No shit, your legs are rubbery. You’re working out starting about five seconds after the Peacekeeper’s hatch closes.”
“You used to be so much more fun,” Jay grumbled.
“I used to be three grand richer, too.”
Rivka sat on the bridge and scrolled through the case file. She pored over every word. Three ambassadors had died, one was lost with his entire entourage. Seven victims in total. Each attack had been unique. Besides the fact that an ambassador had been killed, there was nothing linking the deaths. None of them had been working on similar projects. There was no overlap. There was nothing that jumped out at her screaming, “Start here!”
She thought she heard the ship’s engines start and felt a gentle bump as Peacekeeper lifted off the deck on its way out of the docking bay.
“Status,” she requested.
“We are leaving the station on our way to clear space, where we’ll activate the Gate engines and jump to Collum Gate. Systems and stores are one hundred percent.”
“Thanks, Chaz.” Rivka stood and stretched. She needed a good night’s sleep if she were to tackle the fineries of the diplomatic circuit. “Call the crew to the rec room for a quick catch-up.”
“All hands, all hands, mandatory meeting in Peacekeeper’s nerve center, right now!” Chaz blasted through the ship’s systems.
“I think I should have been clear that you weren’t to shake everyone out of their skin
,” Rivka clarified a few moments too late.
“My bad, Magistrate,” the EI whispered.
The hatch opened, and she left the bridge. Four steps later she walked into the rec room, where no one looked happy.
“Sorry about that. Chaz is overly excited to be back on the job.” No one smiled. “Okay. Out with it.”
Lindy pointed at Jay.
“Jay?” Rivka demanded.
“My parents cut me off.”
“Why is that a surprise? You’re supposed to be in jail,” Rivka shot back.
“But. Well. I was spending money like I always do...” She hesitated. Lindy crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “Lindy had to bail me out of the spa.”
“You were incarcerated in the spa? Is that a thing?” Rivka was confused.
Jay hung her head, her face flushed.
“She ran up a ten-grand tab.”
“That’s a lot of body oil,” Rivka surmised. “And man candy.”
“I had to borrow money from Lindy!” she blurted. “I’m so sorry.” Jay started sobbing.
“It’s just money,” Rivka offered. Lindy turned into Red’s embrace, and he held her tightly.
Ankh watched emotionlessly. “I can take care of that if you’d like.”
“Would you?” Jay asked. Rivka was skeptical, unsure what Ankh meant. His eyes glazed as he communed with the AI resident in his head and together, they tapped through the networks.
“Lindy’s money has been restored to her chip, as has yours. The initial charge was unlocked and covered by the original chip,” he claimed.
“My parents allowed the charge?” Jay smiled through her tears. He didn’t dignify her question with an answer.
Rivka glared at Ankh. “We use our superpowers for good, Ankh,” Rivka said. “Put it all back the way it was, please.”
He disappeared into his own world for a few moments before his eyes cleared, and he met Rivka’s gaze. “It is undone, except for Lindy’s payment. There is a loan in Jay’s name which she will pay back from her wages as part of your crew.”
“Ankh! That was a very decent thing for you to do. And legal, for what it’s worth.” Rivka nodded once. She would have hugged him, but the Crenellian was even less touchy-feely than Red. “Thank you.”
Jay was oblivious to the huggability of others. She threw herself on Ankh and hugged him to her, picking him up and swinging him around before setting him back down and apologizing. She picked him back up for one more long hug. She set him down again and sat, closing her eyes as she took deep and slow breaths.
“Don’t do that,” Ankh told her in his small voice.
Lindy started to reach for him, but Red stopped her. He suspected the Crenellian regarded hugs as a form of torture. It probably took all he had to tell Jay not to do it.
The air grew thick, and no one spoke. It was Rivka’s ship, her crew, and her responsibility to keep the peace.
“We have a tough case coming up,” Rivka said firmly, pointing to the screen where Chaz had brought up the case file. “Ambassadors are being murdered. The Federation wants this one brought to a conclusion sooner rather than later. Seven deaths, three of them ambassadors, in the past week. Someone is knocking off alien dignitaries, and we can’t have that. I’m afraid that no matter how quickly we get there and start working the case, the bodies will continue to pile up. Some worlds have already evacuated their staffs.
“Do you hear those words as I do? Evacuate, as if Collum Gate were a war zone. What makes this case so important is that Collum Gate has been growing as one of the best places in the galaxy for alien worlds to negotiate. Many treaties have been signed there because the various parties can negotiate in peace. If we lose that, the Federation doesn’t know if it can be replaced. The sentient species of this galaxy could stop talking. If that happens, we all lose.”
“What you’re saying is that you have another intergalactic war to stop before it starts, you and the four of us. Seven, if you count that cat and the AIs.” Red rubbed his chin after being so profound.
“Something like that. For the record, I don’t count Hamlet.”
“Don’t count him out,” Jay joked, having recovered some of her composure.
“There’s the case file if you want to look at it. Pull up a map of the embassies, Chaz, so Red can get the lay of the land. We’ll meet with local law enforcement and Dignitary Security as soon as we land. In the meantime, I need some sleep.” Rivka started to walk toward her cabin. “Chaz. Take us in, but hold orbit until after I’ve had a good eight hours of sleep.”
“How do I evaluate if you have had a good sleep, Magistrate?” Chaz asked.
“How about you hold station until I tell you?”
“I can do that. Sleep fast, Magistrate.”
Rivka nodded toward Red and Lindy. “Keep the peace in my absence. And the quiet. Yes, peace and quiet.”
Red started talking to the ceiling. “Chaz, prepare the room for physical training. Jay, you have some iron to throw.”
Chapter Eight
“No!” Rivka declared, putting her foot down to emphasize her denial.
Red leaned toward her with his hands out, pleading. “Let us take the mech. You won’t even know it’s there.” He smiled pleasantly while Lindy made faces behind him.
“You know we can’t show up with a mech. You think that we’ll take fire and you don’t want anything to happen to Lindy.” Rivka struck a nerve; Red winced. Lindy punched him in the back.
“I’ll take care of myself. We’ll be wearing full ballistic protection, but you are not going to treat me differently. Didn’t we already have this protective man conversation?”
Red bit his lip while competing emotions warred within. Lindy hugged him from behind and apologized softly.
Rivka gave him a moment before continuing, “We are going in heavy, but not with a mech. I’m sorry Red, but we have a job to do that doesn’t include increasing the fear. We walk in confidently. We find the fucker who’s doing this, and then we deliver the judgment. If we are getting into firefights, we’ll unstrap the mech, and we’ll go to war. Until then, heads on a swivel and stay out of the open.”
The mech suit was strapped conspicuously on top of Peacekeeper. Getting into it would be problematic at the best of times, but there was no room for it inside the ship. Red had hoped to either maneuver it into the cargo bay while in space or climb into it while the ship was on the ground. In either case, it would take time and wasn’t something that could be done while under fire.
As the head of security, Red was challenged to know when they needed to man the suit before they came under fire. Their track record in regard to acting versus reacting wasn’t stellar.
“When we need to put on the suit, we won’t be able to delay,” he argued.
“I think when we need support from a mech, it will be patently obvious.”
“And probably too late,” Red retorted.
“And that is the razor’s edge that we will have to walk,” Rivka replied. “I understand, big guy. I like knowing your firepower has my back. I like knowing that Lindy’s firepower has yours. With Jay, we have four sets of eyes watching. That has to be better than when it was just us, doesn’t it?” Rivka tried to explain.
“You have me, too. I shall come with you,” the Crenellian stated, his voice even and emotionless.
“I’m not sure about that, Ankh.”
“It is logical. I’m the only so-called alien member of the crew. I’m the only one who can tap into security feeds wherever we may be, and I’m the only one who doesn’t come across as threatening.”
The others moved aside to let Ankh into their circle. Red looked over Ankh’s head at Jay. The small alien with the big head knew what the large bodyguard was implying.
“She’s terrifying,” Ankh whispered.
Rivka coughed and turned away, covering her face. She choked until she headed for the small galley to get a drink of water. “Thanks for reprogramming the food thing,” she said a
fter downing a glass and ordering a food bar. “This stuff is edible now.”
Ankh looked at her but didn’t reply.
“Can you program Grainger’s ship to produce only borscht-flavored bars?” she asked.
“Of course,” he replied. “If I knew what borscht was.”
“Never mind, then. It was a random thought. I need to focus on what we’re doing. I see this as a chess match. The murderer—and for now, I’m assuming that we have one perp and not a strange coincidence—has already made at least three moves, maybe more. We’re playing catch up. This person likes to kill high-profile aliens. Does Crenellia have a diplomatic presence here?”
Ankh considered the question. An emotion briefly crossed his features, something they’d not seen before and couldn’t relate to a human response.
“A diplomatic presence, no,” he finally answered.
“We may need you to play the Crenellian ambassador, Ankh.”
“I am not the ambassador,” he related the fact.
“As the only Crenellian here, there’s no reason why you can’t be.” Rivka smiled as a plan started to take shape in her mind.
“My people already have a presence here, but not an ambassador. I cannot speak for Crenellia.”
“Crenellians are here, but there’s no embassy?”
“There is a vehicle waiting outside for the crew of Peacekeeper,” Chaz reported.
“They’ll have to wait. Chaz, bring up everything you can find on the Crenellians on Collum Gate.”
The crew retreated to the middle of the recreation room. The five of them watched as a logo appeared on the screen followed by a short video ad. Company information scrolled by. Rivka shook her head.
“The Crenellians are arms dealers?”
“My people sell defensive weaponry, yes.”
“That looked like a hell of a lot more than defensive weapons,” Red mumbled.
“Some of the weaponry has an offensive component, but the market is huge for planets only wishing to protect themselves from an alien invasion.”
Judge, Jury, & Executioner Boxed Set Page 46