It was a direct flight; all other stops occurred after Catalonia. Therefore, it would only take about two weeks.
Nevertheless, Ashton decided to keep his head down for the time being. He stayed in his cabin the whole time, having food brought in and inspecting it carefully, while spending the rest of the time sleeping, reading, or looking up information on Catalonia in the ship’s virtual libraries. He would have liked to be able to talk with Cally, but with the ship in hyperspace, that wasn’t possible. So he sighed and went back to reading.
Outside the locked cabin, Mark Martin wandered by several times a day, in increasing frustration.
If anyone stopped him to ask, he was only, “…Stretching my legs.”
“Yes, I know Peabody is a lieutenant colonel,” Peterson told Co-consul Saaret – formerly Council Head Saaret, but he was the only member of the Council who had remained true to the Throne, so Trajan had given him the opportunity to resign before sentence was pronounced on that body; being a wise man, he had taken it – in a full-immersion VR conference, “but I know someone who is a relatively recent retiree, who has considerably more years in with the Imperial Police than Peabody has, and never besmirched his badge, either.”
They were speaking in response to a communiqué that Saaret had put out in the Imperial City Police Department; Maia Peterson had seen it and immediately responded, and the current meeting was the result.
“So this is someone you trust?”
“I’ve known him for years, and I trust him with my life, Consul Saaret,” she declared. “I trust him so much that I ended up marrying him about two weeks back.”
“This sounds interesting,” Saaret said with a slight grin. “Tell me this story, please.”
“Well, well, then,” Saaret said, at the end of the tale, which spanned several decades of service. “He does sound promising. And how many straight, honest young cops did he send to the ICPD, to get them out of harm’s way?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Peterson said, “but I know at least half a dozen of ‘em came through my Investigations division. I’d say over the years, a couple dozen, easy. Hell, we just sent one off-planet to keep him safe; did you hear about the attempted theft of the Empress’ Sigil? That was one of his kids.”
“I did, in fact. Really? One of his kids? That’s excellent. And he himself was smart enough to play straight, and yet stay out of trouble with his superiors…”
“Yes, sir. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do all that and not be at least suspected, which is one of the main reasons he never got promoted above captain. But he was still my equivalent over his people, so they recognized the skills. He had the responsibility, if not the pay grade.”
“One of the reasons. Do you know of others?”
“I do,” Peterson averred. “Those young cops were his kids; I didn’t use that terminology lightly, or in jest. He looked out for ‘em. The only reason he didn’t take early retirement a lot sooner was so he could look out for ‘em. When the attempted Sigil theft went down, it just got too dangerous with nobody there to back him up, so he got out while he could.” Peterson paused, then snarled, “And the bastards still went after him.”
“Aha. That’s important to know. All of that.”
“It is, sir. And I think he’s in even better shape, because he’s out from behind that desk he was stuck at, and he’s maintained his certs with me.”
“And you don’t have a problem with it?”
“No, sir. I think it would be good for him, in a lot of ways.”
“All right. Let me look into it, then.”
When the IIS Adannaya II reached Catalonia, purely by luck of the draw Ashton debarked on an earlier shuttle than Martin, who scurried into the next shuttle, hoping to catch up to him in the spaceport.
But when he reached the gate, Ashton was already departing in the company of General Kurt Walder, head of the Imperial Police for Catalonia Sector, and a small contingent of escort police.
Well, at least I know where he’ll be working, Martin decided. I’ll keep an eye on things, see where he bunks, and sooner or later, I’ll take care of him. If I’m lucky, I’ll hook up with some of Kershaw’s people here. Which makes me think – now that I’m planetside, I need to report.
He tried to use the QR system to link into Kershaw’s VR from Catalonia, but it was odd; he couldn’t raise anything on the other end. The comm tried to link, then there was… nothing.
Eh. I’ll try again later, he thought with a mental shrug.
“Wait – WHAT?!” Ashton exclaimed, as Walder finished explaining matters in his personal vehicle, while his driver took them to the IPD headquarters on Catalonia.
“You heard me correctly, son,” Walder said. “The Empress named her brother, Major Robert Dunham, as her successor, and in response to the patently obvious attack by the Council on the Throne using the corrupt police at IPD Headquarters, he released her Imperial Decrees condemning both organizations – but not the IPD Sector Branches – and dissolving the Council. Then, using the plans and preparations that Empress Ilithyia II had set in place, he completely destroyed the Council building and the Headquarters building, then sent in troops, and ensured that every mother’s son and daughter of the lot was dead by lunchtime.”
“Damnation,” Ashton said, astonished.
They were silent for long moments.
“Oh,” he said then. “But…so I should be able to go home now?”
“Well, I talked to Maia and Lee about that,” Walder said. “They sort of want you to stay here for a few weeks, just in case. Look. Just because everybody who was at Headquarters got taken out – and frankly, and as between
