The Blue King Murders
Page 33
“I’m okay. Just worried,” he said.
“Any idea what your mum is talking about?”
“Not a clue. It’s not a typical note from home. Mom is tough, self-confident, always in command of herself. In this letter she sounds tense. Even frightened.”
“Better call her.”
“I will,” Tyler said. “I will.”
“To hell with Schrodinger’s Cat. Make the bloody call.”
He picked at his food awhile, then showered and dressed. Suzie also wanted to get cleaned up after marathon love-making, but she told him not to wait for her and to take the call in his work station off the breakfast nook, where he could have privacy.
Tyler refused. “I want you to hear what she has to say.”
Suzie showered, dried and dressed, and pinned up her long blonde hair. She held Tyler’s hand while they waited for the Apexcom to establish a hyper-dimensional channel between the Henry, docked at the Annistyn Orbital Hub, and the encoded location of Bianca Matthews at Kansas City, Missouri, thousands of light years Coreward of the Quirt-Thymean Empire. Tyler wanted to look his mother in the eyes when they spoke, so he requested an Apexcom holographic link.
When she appeared, the hologram was a life-size, tangible replica of Tyler’s mother. Bianca had been crying.
“Suzie is with me,” Tyler said.
“I see her. Que linda, mi nuera.” Holographic Bianca came to them and the three embraced. His mother felt warm and solid as Suzie had been as a hologram. Tyler swore he could smell her freshly shampooed hair, but realized it had to be Suzie. They shared the couch where Tyler had done his four-night penance.
“What’s wrong, Mom?”
“Do you mind if we speak Español Nuevo? Suzie is fluent, no?”
“Claro que sí,” Suzie replied.
Bianca continued in her native Neo-Spanish. “Today I tell you something I have never told anyone. Will you keep my secret?”
“Completely. I’m your son, and right now your lawyer, too.”
Now she was definitely scaring him. Did Mom have a fatal disease, like Aunt Camilla? Sometime in the past, had she run afoul of the social norms of an alien culture, like Uncle Charlie? Did she kill an innocent bystander, steal corporate funds—what? He waited without asking. She appeared to be gathering her thoughts. Again, not like her. Mom was a blurter. She threw words like a peasant woman chucking crockery at a lying husband.
“When your brother visited the Mek colony at Lerrotica, he encountered an old friend of Noah’s, a man I have vowed to kill.”
She’s upset about that snake? “Flávio Tavares,” Tyler said. “I read J.B.’s after action report. Does this have something to do with bringing him to justice?”
Tyler almost offered to let Rosalie and Julieta track down and kill the bastard. But, thank God, he caught himself before letting that game-changer loose. Mom still didn’t know they were JPT dispatchers.
“Please listen. I do not have much time,” Bianca said. “Your father asked me to contact you, Tyler, but he will track this call and want to know why we spoke via deep encryption. I will give him only half the story.”
Okay. That wasn’t a surprise. Mom and Dad were always scheming to scotch each other’s pet projects. They loved ardently, but played the game to win.
“What can we do for you?” Tyler said. “Name anything.”
His mother smiled. Painfully, it seemed. “At the Lerrotica Tradeshow, Flávio asked J.B. for help.”
“I heard.” Tyler smirked. “What kind of help did he want? J.B. never mentioned.”
“Rosalie punched Capitão Tavares before he could specify,” Bianca said. “She must have been furious. It is so unlike her.”
“Serves him right,” Tyler said.
And it’s not unlike her at all, considering she has personally whacked over sixty bad guys this year alone.
“This is very hard to explain.” Bianca sounded urgent now. “Flávio faces an indictment before the Free Enterprise League. They are charging him with high treason, collusion with pirate-hunters, and working as undercover Law Enforcement to break the criminal network and destroy their star nation.”
“And…?”
“And his trial is in three months. I want you to represent him.”
Tyler’s pulse skyrocketed. Are you shitting me? You’re Admiral Mom, the toughest pirate-killer in known space. Why ask me to defend that back-stabbing prick? It doesn’t make sense.
“Does Dad know you’re—?”
“Of course! He asked me to call, I told you.”
“Lemme get this straight. You want Star Lawyers Corp to locate the secret homeport of the Free Enterprise League, barge into their legal system—if they have one—and get that Portuguese sonuvabitch acquitted before a pirate court?”
“Sí.”
“Por qué?”
“His life is at risk.”
“Perdóname, Mamá, if I’m not troubled by the irony of a Segerian pirate, which he is, facing trial before a pirate association, which they are, for being undercover law enforcement, which he is not.”
“What if I told you he is.”
Tyler blinked. “Is what?”
“Undercover law enforcement.”
“No fucking way!”
She swiveled to face him on the couch. “Watch your mouth. I am still your mother.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry, Mom.” Tyler stood, pacing. “But you’re on record swearing to roast him over a spit.”
She nodded regally. “I have a little temper. This is not news to you.”
“He gave the pirates the location of our Beta Site! Thousands of humans and Suryadivans died.”
“No, Tyler. I am sorry to say this, but Kichirou Tsuchiya alone controlled the pirate fleet, not Flávio.”
“If that’s true, why was Tavares at the Beta Site when we arrived?”
“Your father ordered Tavares to check the force protection arrangements at the site. He was having a meal with the Site Commander when Kichirou struck. His FTL and Apexcom were knocked out in the battle. You found him hiding from the pirates, not commanding them.”
“If Tavares didn’t tell them, how did the pirates locate the Beta Site?”
“Deputy Ambassador Tanis Zervos was Kichirou’s spy at our Trade Embassy on Suryadivan Prime. Like Flávio, she is Segerian, but reported to Sakura House.”
Tyler searched for more objections. “He attacked the Quirt-Thymean ECM ship. He helped other pirates dodge justice!”
“He did.” She nodded. “At first, your father and I thought he had betrayed us. But we carefully studied these matters. His attack was surgical, caused no permanent damage, and no Quirts died. It provided a cover story for his escape from the Alpha Gate battle.”
“You’re certain of this?”
“Es la verdad.”
“But he is El Rey Pirata—the Pirate King!”
“Your father suggested that name. Noah and I have struggled to protect his identity.”
Tyler stopped pacing, and leaned on the back of the couch. “Why?”
“Because he provides Noah with priceless intel on pirate activity. Flávio just learned where the Dengathi are getting advanced technology. He can lead us to—”
“The ancient derelict,” Tyler said.
“So, you know about it? If Tavares dies, we lose our best chance to recover that vessel, and las Ranas will mine the wreck and sell dangerous, advanced technology to predatory and unstable regimes.”
“Rosalie broke his nose!”
“She did not know the whole truth. She must never know.”
“Why not?”
“It is complicated.”
Tyler looked into her eyes and saw someone unfamiliar. Until this minute she was the terror of pirates in the Jayendra Corridor, the real Scourge of the Stars to predatory bands lurking at Gates along Brightstar Curve. Now his warrior mother had gone AWOL, replaced by a frightened, middle-aged woman. He didn’t like it. She was always so youthful and strong. A c
hill swept his body.
“What aren’t you telling me, Mom?”
“You read me well, Tyler.”
“Tell me.”
“There is another reason you must defend him. And this is the part which requires your utmost discreción. No one else knows.”
“Tell me.”
She paused, took a deep breath, and blurted it out. Words she had never spoken aloud to another living soul.
“Flávio Tavares is J.B.’s father.”
Tyler couldn’t speak for several minutes. Suzie kept her hand on his arm in supportive silence. Finally, the son asked a single question.
“Who is my father?”
Tears streamed down Bianca’s face. “Noah Matthews. Also Rosalie’s.”
Tyler looked at Suzie, who nodded. “We’ll take the case,” he said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thomas W. Shepherd, D.Min., earned his B.S. Ed. from the University of Idaho, Master of Divinity from Lancaster Theological Seminary, and Doctor of Ministry from St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City.
He retired from the US Army in 1988 after serving as an NCO, Warrant Officer Aviator, and military Chaplain. During the Vietnam War, he flew medical evacuation helicopters and was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Purple Heart, the Air Medal, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with silver star device (foreign award). Originally from Reading, Pennsylvania, Shepherd taught public school in Georgia and pastored churches in the Deep South and California.
After teaching history, theology, and ethics at Unity Institute & Seminary near Kansas City, Missouri, “Dr. Tom”, as students and friends call him, retired to Tucson, Arizona, with wife Carol-Jean and their gentle pit bull, Riley. Enjoying the freedom of retirement, Shepherd vows to write book-length fiction, “Until they plant a cactus over my bones.”
Although best known for his popular, long-running Q&A column “Good Questions” in Unity Magazine, Shepherd has written novels and nonfiction books, including Friends in High Places (iUniverse, 2006), Good Questions (Unity Books, 2009), Jesus 2.1—Upgrade for the 21st Century (Unity Books, 2010), The Many faces of Prayer: How the Human Family Meets Its Spiritual Needs (Unity Books, 2013), and Glimpses of Truth, 2nd Edition, (CreateSpace, 2014). His published novels include Wrathworld (iUniverse, 2002), Bad Moon Rising (CreateSpace, 2014) and Stardate (CreateSpace, 2014). He has written over twenty plays for Young Adults.
The Blue King Murders is the third book in the Star Lawyers saga. Sometimes described as “Star Trek meets Law & Order,” the storyline continues after Forbidden Sanctuary.
Look for Star Lawyers Book 4 - House of the Silent Moons, November 2018. More to follow. The story continues.