Star Lawyers Omnibus : Main Series - Books 1-3, page 49
Blue’s face lit up. “Lovey-dovely. May I stroke your pussy?”
The table burst into laughter, which startled Mr. Blue. Nobody had the energy to explain the faux pas, but Rosalie giggled, handed Lucy to him, and the blue alien purred in harmony with the blue-green cat.
The meeting broke up, and the Star Lawyers readied themselves for night court. Esteban moved close to Tyler and spoke in a low voice.
“My cousin, I did not want to say this in the open meeting. While I was under arrest, the Segerian privateer, Flávio Tavares, visited my cell. He was very cordial. He gave me alcoholic spirits, which I poured down the sink.”
“Why?” Tyler said.
“There is something very wrong about him. When Rosalie and I traveled aboard the Henrique, he was friendly but very distant. He laughed and joked with Rosalie, but I felt no mirth from him. This time, I touched the flask from his hand and felt nothing. I worry that he is filled with violence and deceit, but I cannot read him.” Esteban smiled weakly. “Perhaps prison depressed me and I projected my fears on the Captain. I am sorry to have brought it up.”
“No, no. Good thing you did. I’m no empath, but Flávio Tavares doesn’t smell right to me, either.” Tyler patted Esteban’s shoulder and moved on to other business. He called for Demarcus Platte to wait a minute, spoke briefly with Paco León, then caught Suzie’s arm.
“Babe, I need you to message Captain Liu Tan Heng aboard the Tianjin at the Alpha Site. Brief him about the hostile fleet headed his way.”
“What if he asks for orders?”
“Tell him to notify me immediately when the Alpha Gate comes online,” Tyler said.
Suzie raised an eyebrow. “And if a pirate horde appears?”
“No heroics,” Tyler said. “Disable and abandon the Gate. Re-group here.”
“It really turns me on when you take command.” Suzie kissed him and disappeared into the Henry’s computer net.
Demarcus Platte lingered by the hatch. The Security Chief shook his head as Tyler approached. “Boss, you have that look in your eye.”
“Me, Demarcus?” Tyler smiled.
“You’re about to ask me for something foolhardy, aren’t you?”
“I need some bombs.”
“Proton grenades?”
“No, amigo. Bombs. Big fucking bombs. Eight warheads, at least ten megatons each.”
Platte’s eyebrows tightened. “Jesus Christ, sir…”
“Can you do it?”
Demarcus sighed. “Yeah, I got a source among the asteroid miners. It will cost. Where do you want them delivered?”
“Soon as possible. Tonight would be good. Get them to Chief León. He’ll take over from there.”
“What are you planning?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Platte nodded. “How will you explain this to your father?”
Tyler shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. After tomorrow, he’ll never speak to me again.”
Demarcus disappeared to fill the lethal order, leaving Tyler alone in the cargo bay to contemplate the choice he had made. The Security Chief was right. Dad is going to kill me. And I don’t care. He’s wrong, and trillions of lives are at stake. To hell with the Legacy Project. If I can’t win his approval, I’ll give The Old Man a good excuse to hate me forever.
Twenty-One
The Supreme Council of Pontiffs barricaded themselves inside their administrative conference room when news of the attack reached the top floor of the Gobikan. Jakok ordered the remaining loyal Pontifical Religious Police to defend the corridor beyond the room with their lives. Twenty-three armed men and women took positions along the approach from the elevator landing to the sealed door to the conference room.
At first, Jakok assured the Council their power over the Suryadivan military forces and Religious Police would deter any attempted coup. Yet the situation kept escalating. They were declared blasphemous traitors by the religious court.
Thyrd Pon Bergé was reinstated as First Secretary of the Suryadivan Sacred Protectorate.
The People’s Assembly confirmed the arrest warrant for the Pontiffs and declared citizens who assisted the “deposed purveyors of sacrilege” guilty of treason against the state. Not surprisingly, Jakok’s coalition exploded after the first arrest warrants were issued.
And the bad news continued.
The Suryadivan military was in full mutiny against their theocratic government. Admirals and Generals blamed the Pontiffs for ordering the fleet into ruinous battle in defense of the Matthews Corporation Beta Site.
Next, the Chief Magistrate of the Religious Police released data about huge sums Pontiffs accrued by trafficking in elixir drawn from the Zyn-Vorkan under torture. The charges mounted.
Genocide for profit.
Attempted execution of Esteban Solorio to conceal high crimes.
False imprisonment of First Secretary Bergé and others.
Attempted assassination of Matthews family members.
Violations of the Suryadivan religious principle that all sentient life is sacred.
Fifteen counts of heresy, twenty-two blasphemies, and thirty-eight sacrileges.
“Enough!” Jakok shouted at the junior Pontiff who listed the charges against them.
“Well, this is not so bad, really,” Elach Raud said. “All we have to do is cease elixir production and shut down that portion of the Sacred Hunt. And say prayers for forgiveness.”
“Holy Father, you do not comprehend the magnitude of this crisis. We must fortify ourselves here and wait. I have a friend rushing to our assistance.”
“Who is that, Father Jakok?” Elach Raud said.
Jakok stood. “Someone who will evacuate us safely, if we can make our way to the rooftop landing pad.”
“But the Gobikan pad has never been used in my lifetime,” Elach Raud said. “I doubt the dome top will swing open to expose the original landing zone.”
“Do you want to stay here and die, old fool?” Jakok went to the wall and opened a secure panel with a series of code entries. At once, the paneling slid aside, revealing an elevator door. Jakok addressed the other Pontiffs. “When my contact sends the signal, I am taking this route to the rooftop landing pad. Join me, if you want to live.”
“No cakes?” Elach Raud sighed at the empty table. “Life always seems simpler when you have cakes.”
Weapons fire sizzled beyond the thick wood door of the conference room, the hiss of forced-ray blasters and unmistakable slap-slap of kinetic rounds smacking into wall and ceiling and flesh. Jakok activated his comm and called his deliverer, but no one answered.
When the door exploded in a shower of wood splinters, the closest Pontiff received multiple razor-sharp hits to the chest, face, and limbs. He collapsed, flailing like an impaled fish. More weapons fired in the corridor, then silence. Haze from the shattered wall and door hung in the air, mixed with thin smoke, which spoke of thermal blasts still burning beyond the entranceway.
Jazmir and his brother Kedak stepped through the broken frame, both carrying energy weapons. Kedak moved to assist the wounded Pontiff, but Jazmir stalked toward the remaining supreme leaders of the Suryadivan religion.
“You all deserve to die.” Jazmir’s head fin lay back, his gills flapped as he spoke. “Especially you, Jakok.”
“I have done nothing unlawful or contrary to Holy principles,” Jakok cried. “The Zyn-Vorkan are not a sentient—”
“They study philosophy! They compose poetry and music. Their race traveled the stars when our ancestors were living in lakes and ponds.”
“You are mistaken,” Jakok said. “I declared them non-sentient. My word is infallible.”
“Not even the gods are infallible!”
“Please, my son,” Elach Raud raised an arm in supplication. “No violence in these sacred precincts.”
Jazmir raised his blaster to fire. “Jakok deserves death!”
But Jazmir’s father, moving with surprising quickness for someone his age, leapt in front of the weapon. Jazmir’s arm was in motion, and he couldn’t process the actions before him fast enough to stop. He blasted Elach Raud with three rounds of thermal energy, burning through the elderly cleric’s chest, head, and left arm.
Jakok ducked into the elevator and vanished.
“Father!” Jazmir threw down the weapon and scooped up the bleeding Supreme Pontiff as the life oozed from the old cleric. Orange-red blood became blue-purple as it pooled on the richly carpeted floor. The son wept.
Kedak came to him. “It was not your fault. We must send people after Jakok. He is the true criminal.”
A moment later, a great sound of rushing air and rumbling thunder shook the windowless conference room. It persisted briefly, then was gone. A Resistance fighter came running to tell them a large shuttlecraft had hovered above the Gobikan and extracted the fleeing Jakok.
“Sir, the Religious Police are coming!” the rebel said.
“We will tell them the truth,” Jazmir said.
“Yes,” Kedak agreed. “I will confess. I shot our father in a moment of confusion.”
“No, Brother!”
“It must be this way,” Kedak said quietly. “I know the law. This is our story. The Judge ordered these blasphemers brought to justice. We used my Gobikan access codes to reach the top levels by secret lifts before the arresting forces fought their way up here. I shot Father, intending to kill Jakok to prevent his escape. Much of that is true.”
“Brother, why not tell the whole truth?” Jazmir said. “Tell them I fired the shots.”
Kedak slapped his brother’s head fin. “Foolish pouchling! You will lose everything. You are already implicated in plots against the Protectorate. They will see Father’s death as personal revenge, Jazmir.”
“It was a mistake!”
“I’ll fix it. I can manipulate the facts. I’m a better lawyer than priest.” He dipped his fin. “Eternal Truth is your job. I’ll get the charges dropped.”
Kedak glanced at the remaining Pontiffs, one seeping blood from splinter wounds, the other two petrified by fear. “If you support my version of the facts, your lives will be spared.”
The deposed prelates dipped their head fins, signaling assent.
Jazmir still held his father’s dead body. “I was so angry with him.”
Kedak helped his brother to stand. “He was a decent soul, misguided by others.”
Jazmir turned from the body. “I regret what I did, yet I still hate him.”
Kedak’s head fin shimmered, a sign of deep emotion. “Someday, you’ll forgive him. And yourself.”
“And what happens now?” Jazmir said.
“Now a new, bright future awaits our people.”
Jazmir shuddered. “If the Terrans rout the Pirate Armada.”
“Yes, truly.” Kedak lowered his head fin to invoke the protective power of all gods and goddesses. “I never thought I would say this, but now Tyler Matthews alone stands between the Suryadivan Sacred Protectorate and Dark Chaos.”
“Let’s pray to the Forty-Six for his success,” Jazmir proposed.
Heavy security at the Gobikan entranceway had disappeared. The doors stood wide open, clogged with fleeing Suryadivans. Tyler and his team struggled upstream against a tsunami of departing marsupial-amphibians who poured into the ground-level plaza from corridors and lift systems. Rumors flew about weapons fire at the topmost levels, without concrete information about who shot at whom or the outcome. As the Star Lawyers waited for one of the crowded lifts to empty, information began trickling down.
The Pontiffs have fallen.
Was it Jazmir, fighting upward, level by level, through defending Religious Police, to the pontifical sanctum near the top? Tyler longed to backtrack through the flood of panicky Suryadivans, flee the building, and fly the Patrick Henry to some remote planet with warm beaches and no battles to fight. He stepped into the lift.
The courtroom itself was relatively empty, which didn’t surprise him, considering everyone with half a brain was running for their lives. A hardy band of media representatives remained, a consolidated news team with holographic, 3D video, and translation technologies. Five young high priests in ceremonial garb and regalia filled the center of the fourth row, and immediately in front of the clerics sat a Suryadivan government official Tyler recognized by sight, although they had never met.
The recently liberated and reinstated First Secretary of the Suryadivan Sacred Protectorate, Thyrd Pon Bergé, attended the proceedings with a handful of ministers, whom Tyler took to be his cabinet. Also conspicuous in the practically empty chamber were the white sashes of two dozen, heavily armed Religious Police and an equal number of Secular Constables posted at the periphery of the hall, with a strong show of force at the access points.
Judge Gemma arrived with two male jurists in tow, ready to co-preside with the venerable Matron. They seated themselves on the judicial panel platform, adjusted their datacom pads, and whispered to legal aids who filled the spaces behind them. When Gemma was ready, she turned to the recording clerk.
“This court is now in session. Judges Hobak, Clerimon, and Gemma presiding. First case.”
The clerk read loudly but in a high, squeaky voice. Tyler couldn’t tell if the speaker were male or female.
“Matthews Interstellar Industries v. People of the Suryadivan Sacred Protectorate, Appeal of Easement by the People, Counter-prayer for Relief in the Form of Compensatory Judgment by the plaintiff.”
Gemma fluttered her head fin at both legal tables. “The Court notes counsel for Matthews Interstellar and the Sacred Protectorate are present. We will hear the People first.”
Kedak spoke a word to his table of co-counsels and strode to the edge of the Ring of Truth. He did not enter the circle, which was reserved for sworn testimony alone. The People’s Advocate tipped his head fin deferentially low.
"Honored Matron, Reverend Lords. The crimes I witnessed on Adao-2 require much courage and humility to overcome. The eyes of civilized, spacefaring cultures are upon us.”
Judge Clerimon sported the highest head fin Tyler had ever seen. Yellow-bronze with flecks of red gold, a veritable rooster-top. The Jurist snapped it at the People’s Advocate so sharply Tyler heard a distinct pop.
“Spare us the kowtowing, Kedak,” the elder jurist said. “You stand here a free soul only because our compassionate First Secretary extended a clemency shield around you in exchange for testimony against your priestly colleagues and the heretical Pontiffs.”
“Including your father, the Supreme Pontiff.” Hobak’s voice rolled like steel balls on hard surface. “Whom I understand you have killed.”
The Matron leaned forward. “Is that true, Kedak?”
Kedak bowed at the waist, like a half-closed pocket knife. “I serve the Sacred Protectorate, Honored Matron.”
“The rogue needed to fall,” Clerimon said. “But by the hand of a son? Have you no regrets?”
Kedak said, “My father’s death was never the goal. I only regret the real villain, Pontiff Jakok, has escaped.”
Gemma dipped her head fin and flicked it downward. “I knew Elach Raud in better days. Your father loved the Forty-Six, almost as much as he loved nibbling on his silly cakes. How strange to be here, cheering the brutal end of a confused little man.”
Tyler leaned over to J.B. and whispered, “Bear, he’s gotta be covering for the kid brother. Jazmir had nothing to trade for immunity.”
J.B. nodded slowly. “We may never know the whole truth.”
Gemma shook herself, gurgling audibly, like a human child flapping her fingers over her lips while talking. “However, it is not our place to question executive clemency. As much as it displeases me, Kedak, your patricide apparently was an act of service to the Suryadivan people. You may present your appeal, unless you wish to withdraw as Chief Advocate.”
“No, Honored Matron.”
“Proceed in a virtuous manner.” Gemma added, “If you can.”
Kedak drew his head fin to full height. “Thank you, Honored Matron, Reverend Lords. The People appeal the previous judgment of reinstating easement to the Matthews-Solorio conglomerate. Let me remind the Court that Matthews Corp has anchored its Alpha Site at the outer edge of the gravity field of the Adaon system. The Alpha Gate enables a parallel, trans-dimensional passageway to and from Andromeda, terminating at Jump Gate Omega in that distant galaxy. The People wish to rid the Sacred Protectorate of the threat posed by facilitating access to our space.”
“What threat does a Jump Gate pose?” Hobak asked in his rolling steel tones. “People will simply travel to Great Andromeda. How does that differ, in principle, from all the spacefaring races buzzing around this galaxy? There are thousands of Gates.”
“Reverend Lord, we have received intelligence that a pirate syndicate intends to use the Adaon system as a base of operations for an invasion of Andromeda,” Kedak said.
Gemma looked squarely at Tyler. “Do you know anything of this, Mr. Matthews?”
“Yes, Honored Matron.”
“Is it true?” Clerimon said.
“I don’t know about setting up a base, but there is a fleet inbound with intent to seize our Alpha Gate.” Tyler’s gaze darted to Gemma. “They are the same hostiles who destroyed the valiant Suryadivan naval force, which the former Pontiffs sent to protect our Beta Site.”
“I cannot follow the politics,” Gemma said. “But I know many Suryadivan mothers and fathers weep for lost sons and daughters, brave warriors who sailed with the Task Force. Why did we give so many lives for your property?”
Tyler felt the knife edge in her question, even with his limited fluency in Suryadivan. Suzie’s pale blue eyes caught Tyler’s attention. She nodded slightly toward Gemma.
“If it please the court, may I call upon my colleague, Suzanne London, to speak on this matter?”
Gemma’s thick lips curved into a sad little smile. “Proceed, Star Lawyer.”
Tyler whispered in Suzie’s ear. “Win this case, or I won’t rip your clothes off later.”
