Judge, Jury, & Executioner Boxed Set

by Craig Martelle

  “I’ll keep an eye out. I like him watching my back. It’s one less thing to worry about. On a topic that is nearer and dearer to me, I think I did a good job out there.”

  “What do you want, approval from me? You have it. That case, just like almost every one we get, was tough. It could have been resolved a dozen different ways. Your way might not be my way, but in the end, all that matters is that you can defend it in a court of law.”

  “I can do that,” she replied.

  “Be excellent to each other?”

  “You did read it.” Rivka bobbed her head while biting her lip.

  “There’s Buster.”

  Rivka had already seen the Magistrate waving from inside the bar. They joined him. Two extra drinks were already sitting on the table. Rivka reached for one. Bustamove slammed his hand down. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  She was taken aback and stammered, “I was taking my drink.”

  “Get your own damn drink. These are mine.”

  “All three?”

  “Didn’t we tell you? Nanocytes keep you from getting drunk unless you overpower them.”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” Rivka countered. “How was the R2D2 case?”

  “A lot of looking through really boring shit. You’d think I was back doing lawyer stuff. Read all this documentation and write us a paper! Yeah.” Buster shook his head.

  “You weren’t a Ranger first?” Rivka asked.

  Both Buster and Grainger put a finger to their lips. “We don’t ever say that word,” Grainger cautioned.

  “Nope, I was a lawyer, but then I got a clue because the system was letting way too many hard-core criminals loose. I found a different way.”

  “That comes across as more on the vigilante side of the legal spectrum and not the uphold-the-law side.”

  Buster fixed her with a hard stare, and she slid her hand to his untouched drink and threw it back before he could stop her.

  “You owe me a Supernova,” he told her evenly.

  “And a beer. Bartender! A new round, on my tab,” she called toward the bar.

  “Now you’re speaking my language.” Buster gave her a thumbs-up.

  Grainger’s pad buzzed.

  “We’re on vacation,” Buster said. “Don’t answer it.”

  “It’s Nathan Lowell. Do you want me to tell him that you told me not to take his call?” Grainger tapped the pad, and the president of the Bad Company appeared. “Hey, Nathan, what brings you to my neck of the woods?”

  “That new Magistrate of yours committed the Bad Company to hire a bunch of tall aliens. What the hell am I supposed to do with a bunch of tall aliens?”

  Grainger turned the pad to show Rivka. She waved timidly at the screen, her eyes wide in shock.

  “There you are!” Nathan declared.

  “They could change light bulbs that us shorties can’t reach,” Buster offered.

  “Was that you, Buster?”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny your statement without my legal counsel present.”

  “Don’t make me reach through the screen,” Nathan threatened. “Well?”

  “Their ambient temperature is insanely high. They can almost tolerate boiling water, and work effectively in that kind of heat—”

  Nathan stopped her. “I’m kidding, Rivka. We can always use a good labor force with special abilities to tolerate environmental extremes. I’m not worried about that little detail. You helped us avert an interplanetary war. A war between two Federation signatories is the last thing we need. We already have a few of those, and they are ugly. We need to get in early and stop wars before they start, because once the shooting begins we have to wait until it’s safe, and that means watching people die. I’m not a big fan of that.”

  “Neither am I, sir,” Rivka agreed.

  “Good job, Magistrate. New cases have been transmitted, and the High Chancellor has been informed. Go forth and be excellent to each other. Lowell out.” The screen went blank.

  “I wouldn’t put those words into any more treaties,” Grainger advised slowly.

  “I won’t, although it’s not wrong.” Rivka nodded wide-eyed for emphasis.

  “And you call me strange!”

  The End

  Author Insight - Original Outline

  This is the original outline that I used as the basis to write this book. You’ll see how my mind works and how much I have to fill in outside of the key points. Outline – I wrote this as if I was going to have a co-author, but decided that it was best for me to write the story. I love the premise, the characters, and the story. I had already written chapters one and two, so the outline starts with Chapter 3.

  Enjoy!

  Chapter 3 – meeting with High Chancellor Wyatt (introduce some of his back story here – see the character list at the end). He grills her regarding the murder. She admits to it all, even though she isn’t sure what drove her to do what she does.

  The High Chancellor is a vampire, but can’t read minds. That is not that common. But he is old and has studied people his whole life. He can tell when people are lying. She isn’t. He can also sense the awakening nanocytes in her.

  “You know the High Chancellor’s Rangers have been disbanded?”

  “Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”

  “They’re not gone. We don’t call them Rangers anymore. We call them Magistrates.”

  “You took Rangers and made them lawyers?”

  “Meting out Justice is not for the faint of heart.”

  He leaves her to think about it without making an offer. She goes back to her cell confused. Is she going to be put to death for her crime or promoted? Keep in mind that she gets snippets of insight, but not from the vampire – his mind is far too disciplined to let errant thoughts leak out.

  Chapter 4

  Intergalactic guards whisk her away in the middle of the night. She is disoriented from lack of sleep but wakes up when they throw her on a two-person shuttle and fly her to space.

  She arrives at a non-descript cargo transport. A prison ship. She’s convinced that she’s going to Jhiordaan. A well-built guy walks in to the interrogation room. He looks different, but he’s wearing the barrister’s jacket. He looks battle hardened. “Are you a Ranger?”

  He puts his fingers to his lips. “We don’t say that word anymore, barrister. I’m not a fan of ultimatums, but there are two possible outcomes here. One is completely in my control. The other is completely out of my control. If you want to keep your position as the Queen’s Barrister, then join us, learn to handle yourself in a fight, including being able to use a wide variety of weapons. If you don’t join us, then your fate is as a prisoner, something I have no influence over once you’ve entered that part of our legal system.”

  No choice but to join, but it’s not that easy. There are tests. She has to interrogate three prisoners. One is innocent. The other two are guilty. She’ll have to identify if any or all are innocent and serve Justice on the guilty, but only according to the crimes she can prove.

  Chapter 5 (insert the legal mumbo jumbo to give it credibility)

  Prisoner Number 1 – accused of capital theft (capital means that the death penalty attaches). Elements of the crime – intent to permanently deprive the owner of their property that is valued in excess of 10,000 credits. Must prove both intent (mens rea) and action (actus reus). This perp did it – stole an original piece of artwork, but the owner inflated the value of what was stolen (insurance fraud). So not capital theft, but misdemeanor theft. After figuring that out, she kicks the guy in the head and turns him loose. Justice is served.

  Prisoner Number 2 – accused of assault and battery. He beat a man senseless. This guy is humble and contrite. He is ashamed and keeps admitting that he did it. She wonders why. Is he covering for someone, or did the victim drive him over the edge. She grills him on the fight. Turns out, the other guy threw the first punch, but the gentle man lost his shit in an adrenaline surge. He
couldn’t close the floodgates once they opened. She declares him innocent, but sends him to counselling so he doesn’t fall into an uncontrolled rage. Had he killed the other man, nothing could have saved him.

  Prisoner Number 3 – a Yollin, with carapace, mandibles, and two legs, which means he is of the lower class. He keeps calling her dickface. He is accused of murder. There’s a video that shows he did it. He says he didn’t. She thinks something is off. He says all Yollin look alike. She checks the records and they are as varied as humans. She gets into a shouting match and outmaneuvers him. He slips. “Guilty,” she declares and then adds, “fuck you.” He lunges and she kicks him so hard in the chest that it cracks his carapace. He falls back, spasms, and dies.

  She is appalled. Again she has failed to control herself. The Magistrate enters the room clapping slowly.

  “Welcome to the team.”

  Chapter 6

  Training, lots of kick-ass training. Make it impressive. Include weapons of all type like, a chair, nunchakus, knives, pistols, a wine bottle, you name it – anything can be a weapon.

  Keep in mind that everything a Magistrate does reflects on the legal system of the federation. Only the guilty can be punished. If punishment is directed, it must be carried out. A Magistrate can NEVER lose a fight to mete out Justice. If they don’t think they can beat a perp, then they have to call for backup, which gives the perp a chance at trial and getting off.

  Rivka becomes fanatical about training. She seeks to become uber-enhanced using the Pod-doc, but they don’t let her go hog wild. “Work within yourself. We don’t need any incredible hulks out there. A good Magistrate doesn’t have to necessarily be the biggest and the baddest, she only needs to know when the advantage to deliver Justice is on her side.”

  Also, introduce sidekick Vered (see character details below). Vered absolutely doesn’t get to mete out Justice. He is a bodyguard only. He will protect the Magistrate. If the Magistrate declares someone guilty and declares that Justice will be served, Vered must stay back, even if the Magistrate is getting her ass kicked and her life is in jeopardy. That is the federation legal code. Most Magistrates (the ones who weren’t Rangers), will call for police and run the perp through the trial courts.

  Chapter 7 (this might be two chapters worth of material)

  Assigned a corvette (they are looking for a name for their ship throughout this book) to travel the galaxy on missions assigned by High Chancellor Wyatt. She gets to know the crew (see character list below). This corvette is outfitted with the miniaturized Etheric power supply and integrated gate technology that R2D2 developed with Ted’s assistance.

  They go to an outpost to adjudicate a case regarding criminal mischief, something that usually wouldn’t get a barrister, because the local governor would handle it.

  This case is unique in that the case is against the governor’s daughter. Her name is Jayita, Jay for short. She is busting up stores on the space station. No one can control her. Finally the governor begged for an impartial party to deal with it. They sent the intern, but Wyatt knows the governor.

  She’ll be on display and reported on by these friends. She is tentative. The young girl is an ass, but Rivka suspects there’s something deeper. Her sense kicks in and shows the abuse the girls has suffered at the hands of her mother whenever the father isn’t around. He didn’t believe her claims.

  Magistrate puts the girl under her protection.

  Rivka issues herself a search warrant and sneaks into the governor’s quarters when she knows they aren’t home. She finds evidence, but it is unclear who it points to, could implicate the governor. She makes the hard decision to leave the evidence behind. She schedules a private meeting with the governor, but lo and behold, the governor’s spouse is there and won’t let them talk.

  Rivka clams up. She lets them do all the talking, and finally, Rivka declares her ruling. The girl is guilty of felony damage and making terroristic threats, she is condemned to life in prison. The parents are shocked and Rivka storms off.

  She was lying. Her first case and she fails. She adds the girl to her crew and commits to putting her in the Pod-doc to change her appearance while Rivka second guesses her decision. She let her emotions guide her decision instead of the law. She should have confronted the family, but her only real evidence was inconclusive. Her telepathic flashes put her in conflict with what she could prove.

  She calls her mentor (the former Ranger dude) and says she’s not cut out to be a Magistrate. He apologizes to her. They knew what the situation was and resolving it was going to take a certain amount of heavy-handedness, while also recognizing that the governor was doing right by the Federation. His successor probably would not. He applauded her solution, but cautioned her against doing it too often unless she wanted to pay for a bigger ship out of her pay.

  “I can afford to buy a bigger ship?”

  “That’s just it. No you can’t!” This dude (you pick a cool name for him that hasn’t already been used in the Kurtherian universe) is the funniest guy he knows. Rivka doesn’t always get his humor.

  Chapter 9

  More Pod-doc and more training as they return to home base (the non-descript cargo transport). She meets some other members of the group as they stop by to get their new assignments. This is an opportunity to detail what future story plots might look like.

  - A serial killer on Planet X (start a listing of character and place names). Keep track as you go, or you’ll be lost in a hurry, which means that I’ll be lost

  - A secret government facility that the brass thinks has been infiltrated, but they aren’t sure. It could be an inside job, if they could only find if something was stolen.

  - The Blood Trade. This was a thing in a number of books set on Earth (Second Dark Ages, Terry Henry Walton Chronicles, and Reclaiming Honor serieses). People are kidnapping the enhanced and draining their blood for non-enhanced to drink, boosts life and strength without getting the nanocytes programmed through a Pod-doc. This is on Yoll itself which is disconcerting. That’s why they want a Magistrate to come in and deal with it.

  - A cozy murder on Planet Y, within the ruling circle. What was the reason why one of the ruling leadership’s inner circle was murdered and who? They were on a retreat, only ten of them, but nine remain.

  She gets to participate in the discussions and realizes how little they know without being there in person, seeing the scenes of the crimes and talking first-hand with the witnesses, otherwise, it’s all hearsay, even witness statements because the questions could have been worded poorly. She starts to understand the Magistrate process better, which is akin to the judges of the old west who would show up to hear cases and then move on according to a schedule. The Magistrates here have that, too. Sometimes, they simply need to be somewhere and sit in judgment – the opportunity for a Judge Judy kind of scene should be in every book. The Magistrate hates sitting on a dais as two parties appear. Look at old Judge Judy scripts and see what is stupid funny. Then throw something like it in. The Magistrates can complain about their latest with the others whenever they get together for a beer. Maybe that’s how each story can end with that trope as well. The Magistrates lamenting their latest cases (in a funny way “And then she grabs him by the balls and starts twisting! I wanted to rack her a good one upside the head, but that dude was a dick. I let it go until he was about to pass out before I stopped it. We both made our points. Justice is served, bitches...”

  Chapter 10

  Rivka’s first assignment is to hear a trade dispute between neighboring systems Planet A and Planet B. The dispute has escalated to the point that the two systems are facing off, ready to fight a war. Rivka races into the middle of it and gets the parties back to the negotiating table, located on Planet B. She commits them to binding arbitration. She has the authority to determine how the contract details who is responsible for what.

  They agree because they risk losing their Federation membership if they breach the contract. They go back and forth, each
side (they are aliens, make them cool) tries to get Rivka alone to see how their position should dominate. She can’t interpret the flashes she gets from their minds, so she doesn’t know who to believe.

  Both sides are pushy and she ends the side conversations with fist fights as they try to physically intimidate her. She beats the crap out of both sides (their lackeys, the prime negotiators would never dirty their hands with the wet work, unlike the Magistrates).

  She returns to the corvette to think.

  Chapter 11

  As she determines a contract that screws each negotiator but is in the best interest of both their people, there’s a big argument. She hits the table so hard, it breaks in half. She hands the trade deal contract to each party to sign. They both point to the broken table. “Just sign it on your laps, for fuck’s sake!”

  At that point, a bomb goes off. Rivka’s nanos save her life, but one of the main negotiators (Planet A) is dead and the other is barely injured. Even in her pain-fogged stupor, she sees that they may have crossed the line to war as the one side will accuse the other of setting off the bomb.

  She determines two courses of action. Get both parties to sign the contract to avert the war, and then find who planted the bomb.

  The rest of this chapter is medical recovery and posturing. Everything is spinning out of control.

  Chapter 12

  Rivka brings her team to Planet B and starts the investigation. She suspects it was someone local as they had the access. The aliens from Planet A were restricted in their movements, ostensibly for their own safety.

  Planet A’s propaganda war was turning the A population against B. Rivka starts at the scene of the bombing. She feels like it should affect her, but doesn’t. She is looking at the scene dispassionately. There’s a blood stain in one area. The blood was hers. Now, it’s evidence in a crime.