Wyatt Earp , In Orbit over Delegor, Far Side of the Galaxy
“Planetary control is instructing us to hold,” Clevarious said for the third time.
“It’s been four hours. How freaking long does it take to clear a single parking pad that we don’t even need?” Rivka pounded back and forth within the constraints of the bridge. Her ballistic protection and helmet were stuffed into the corner.
That had happened after the first hour.
“Seems like more than four hours,” Clevarious replied.
Red and Lindy had returned to their quarters to wait there. Sahved stood patiently in the corridor, obsessively playing with his vest. The twik-twik of flipping the flaps open and closed was starting to grate on Rivka’s soul.
“Sahved!”
“Yes, Magistrate,” he replied, leaning his head through the hatch to look at Rivka.
“Take off your vest and put it with mine.”
“Are we not wearing ballistic protection?”
“When we leave the ship,” she explained.
“It has been a while, and I am getting used to the weight again. It is not natural for a Yemilorian to carry so much. We may be strong as bull bistoks, but we are thin.”
Rivka stared at him. He stared back.
“It’s okay. Take it off. For me and the serenity within Wyatt Earp , take it off.”
He cocked his head and stared at her. He opened the pocket twice before she screamed, “Stop flipping your flap!”
“Ahh!” He looked mortified. “Flapping like a bird with tiny wings I am. I shall endeavor to not do the flap-flipping ever again for as long as I live.”
Rivka closed her eyes and started to rock, trying to calm down. It wasn’t about Sahved. It was about cooling her heels in orbit while the blood trade continued to operate and a Bad Company private was missing, his life blood being pulled from his body, taking him to the edge of death time and again. The longer it took, the worse it would get. If another were kidnapped, then what? How many would it take for her to find the perpetrators?
“No need for superlatives, Sahved. It’s just us. Take off your armor. For me. I pace and grumble, you flip your flaps. Neither of us is good at waiting. I tell you what, bring the team to the conference room. Let’s talk about what else we have cooking.”
Sahved saluted and hurried away. He ducked his head as he jogged down the corridor. His vest bounced as he ran. The Yemilorian had not yet been enhanced. He needed the physical protection more than anyone else on the team.
Rivka knew she needed to lighten up when it came to Sahved. He had a keen eye and caught things that were out of the ordinary. He had no preconceived notions since he looked at everything through a fresh lens. He could consolidate information in a way that made sense, that they could work with. He had a long way to go if he wanted to be a Magistrate, but as an investigator, she needed him.
With a lighter load on her shoulders, she found half the team already in the conference room. Joseph, Petricia, Chaz, and Dennicron waved as she entered, almost as if they choreographed it.
“You did that on purpose,” Rivka remarked and took her usual seat.
“Not that you know, good lady,” Joseph replied.
She smiled and shook her head at the aristocratic titling Joseph had used for his long life. He treated Petricia like a princess, always her champion, even when they had found themselves kidnapped and suppliers for the blood trade on Earth for over a decade. At least they’d slept through most of it. Rivka nodded in recognition of her guests. She had a special task for them.
Groenwyn carried a sleeping Floyd. She, Lauton, and Sahved joined the group and squeezed in around the table. Red and Lindy remained in the doorway. Joseph stood to give his seat to Lindy. She looked down her nose at him.
“I insist. I’m going to stand no matter what,” he told her. He moved behind Petricia and stood there, gazing at Lindy until she conceded.
“Fine.”
Alant Cole appeared in the corridor and filled in where Lindy had been.
“While we’re waiting for Delegor to remove their collective heads from their collective asses, I’ll take the opportunity to tell you about something else that’s in the works. I have no graphics, no digital record of what Nathan Lowell, Colonel Christina Lowell, and I have put in motion.
“The Bad Company has contracted publicly with Onyx Station to support rest and relaxation, R and R for the warriors. They’ve touted the seedy bars on the lowest levels as part of the promotion campaign. The first warriors will arrive in a week, but only one at a time. They’ll rotate through every three days. And Chaz informs me there is a small Furlorian contingent on that station.
“Our Furlorian renegade will not stand out, but I need a team to be there and watch. I would rather catch them in the act than try to follow them afterward. Commerce is rather robust on Onyx Station, which is massive, nothing like a border station. As much I don’t like to think of my cases as missions, this one is specifically a mission where violence is imminent. I want you to go, Red, with Joseph and Petricia, but I also want an investigator, Dennicron, so you can act like two couples when you case the place.”
Red scowled and looked at Lindy. “I’ll be with the Magistrate. You’ll protect them, and they’ll protect you. They’ve been fighters a long time if I’m not mistaken.”
Joseph nodded. “Rest assured, my good man, we can hold our own should there be a Donnybrook.”
“A what?” Red asked. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t get the reference. No one else did either, not even Petricia.
“Fisticuffs, Master Vered. Marquis of Queensbury rules or the more modern Terry Henry rules simply state not to start a fight but to always end them. ‘Starting them is for pussies,’ I think is the quote.”
“Sounds like TH,” Rivka muttered. “I know you would prefer to be with me, but for a sting, I need a fighter. You won’t stand out as long as you’re with Dennicron. She’ll be interfaced with the station SI, so you’ll never be blind. Joseph will see into the minds of the kidnappers if they do appear, and Petricia is backup. No one goes anywhere alone because the three of you could be prime targets if you are identified.
“Don’t get captured because I can’t turn over all the galaxy’s rocks looking for you as much as I want to. There are too many rocks to hide under.”
“What if I give myself up as bait?” Red suggested. “We could use the Bad Company, but two for one might be too much of a temptation. A little Furlorian threesome.”
Lindy grimaced.
“I’ll do it,” Cole volunteered.
Sahved raised his hand. Rivka smiled at him until he spoke. “The warriors all have comm chips. How come he hasn’t contacted someone?”
Rivka tried to parse the input. She fixed Cole with a look. She hadn’t employed his skills as much as she would have liked. Without the Bad Company, the entire operation would be internal. Rivka worried that the warriors would get carried away, countering a kidnapping attempt before they could get the information they needed. She raised her hand for silence.
“And Cole. You’ll be the bait. I’ll contact Christina and tell her to hold off on sending any of her people. After a week, if we haven’t gotten any bites, we’ll swap you out with one of hers. If you’re there too much, it’ll look like a setup. You tell Clodagh because I don’t want her to rip me a new asshole.”
“You think I do?” Cole replied softly.
“You cheesedick!” Red proclaimed before facing the group in the room. “He’s escaping the tidal wave of his pregnant wife’s hormones. Good move, Cole. You’ll never live this one down.”
“Go fuck yourself!” Cole shot back, staring at the deck. “You don’t know what it’s like…”
“Hey!” Rivka shouted, biting her lip to keep from laughing. “It makes more sense that we use internal assets on this sting operation. Much more sense. Control and responsibility. No one gets hurt, and no one dies. Do you fucking knuckleheads understand me?” Rivka glowered at Red.
“Why are you looking at me?” Red threw up his hands.
“Pardon the interruption,” Clevarious started. “We’ve been cleared to land.”
“Once on the ground, Team Talon will board Destiny’s Vengeance , with Ankh and Erasmus’ approval, of course, and make best possible speed to Onyx Station. I’ll let Nathan know that you’re on your way. Sahved, Chaz, Groenwyn, and Lindy, you will hit the ground looking into the finances of Ambassador Bik Tia Nor. We are investigating him without investigating him if you get my drift.”
“Clearly,” Chaz replied. “We’ll take care of it, Magistrate.”
“Very muchly so,” Sahved agreed.
“Why didn’t you tell us about the sting op earlier?” Red wondered.
“We weren’t going to pull the sting for a while, but with the delay in landing, we have the opportunity to attack it now. Also, while pacing the bridge, it hit me only too painfully that Private Elbinar is out there somewhere, probably already being milked to within an inch of his life. He’s lying in a coma, unaware, unable to help himself. It’s incumbent upon us to find him because no one else will and no one else can. Keep that in mind with everything you do, people. The very dignity of our lives is at stake.”
“I second the Magistrate’s passionate desire to resolve this heinous crime,” Joseph agreed.
Rivka twirled her finger in the air, her signal to get to work.
* * *
Rivka watched her team board a waiting taxi while the Talon group climbed into Destiny’s Vengeance . It spooled up, and shortly thereafter, bolted skyward.
She returned to the ship. Lauton had already gotten back to work, helping parse the mass of financial data within which they suspected illicit payments for blood were buried.
Tyler leaned against the bulkhead, arms crossed, casually waiting.
“It must be hard,” he said.
She leaned against the wall in front of him, resting her hand gently on his arms, not to see the emotions in his mind, but to be calmed by them. “What do you mean?”
“Sending the kids to do what you know is your responsibility but can’t do yourself. Your job is hard, Rivka. And this makes it harder because you have to count on them to get it right. Did you train them well enough? Did you show them the right way to dig deep?”
“Sometimes you ask the hardest questions. What you didn’t say is, do I count on my gift too much? Is that real lawyering if I look into their minds and see that they’re guilty?”
“You can’t touch everyone. You investigate to narrow it down. Your team is there for you. You can trust them.” Tyler pushed away from the wall and pulled Rivka into his arms. “Do you know how long we’ll be here?”
“A day or two? This is a developed planet. I doubt they need a dental visit, but you know what we can accomplish in that time?”
Tyler waggled his eyebrows.
“Exactly. You can get into the Pod-doc and get upgraded. It’s time you got enhanced.”
Tyler shook his head. “We talked about this. That isn’t for me. I better not be where people are shooting.”
“You’re with me, and all it takes is for the wrong person to know that. You can’t hide on the ship. None of us can.”
“Ankh can,” Tyler countered.
Rivka chuckled. “You don’t get to use him in any paradigm that relates to the rest of us. You know what I mean. You are at risk at all times, both on and off this ship. We killed Nefas in the center of the rec room on board Peacekeeper . Evil has a way of finding vulnerabilities, and you are one of mine.”
“One of? Your team is the other?”
“Nah. They’re adults. Floyd! I worry about the little girl. And you need to beef up if you’re going to take your turn carrying her.”
“Why do we have to carry her? She’s a big girl.”
Rivka snorted. She took his hand, and they headed down the corridor. “I can’t believe you’d say such a mean thing. We carry Floyd when she gets tired. End of story, because she’s a good girl whose sole purpose in life is to be happy. Anything we can do to accommodate her, short of feeding her Cheetos, of course, we’ll do.”
“A soft heart, a sharp tongue, and love for her friends. What more could any of us ask from you?”
“That’s what I’m saying! Pod-doc, Tyler. I need it for my peace of mind; otherwise, I’ll worry. I can’t be distracted.”
“Is it worth fighting for?”
“You are,” she admitted.
He swallowed hard. Rivka wasn’t good at sharing her feelings, but when she did, they came in snippets out of the blue. “I’ll go, but don’t pump me up big like Red because then he’ll want to fight me in a perpetual dick-measuring contest. Once he loses, he’ll have lost for all time, and that would ruin him, like turning your prize stallion into a gelding. I can’t do that to him because I’m a team player.”