“What do you mean?” Peterson wondered.
“If I’m understanding things right, the news media here is kind of anti-Sintar,” Ashton explained. “Well, anti-Throne, to be honest. And the sector governor, some woman named Renata Palomo de la Gallego – who, as between us, sounds like she’s got cooties in the cranium – just eggs on the media something awful. General Walder thinks she might have certain ambitions of her own.”
“Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” Peterson decided.
“No shit,” Carter agreed.
“Anyhow, somebody got wound a little too tight on all of the political shit-talk, and decided to take out the Imperial Police,” Ashton continued. “He managed to make a bomb outta fertilizer and bunker fuel from the farms on the outskirts of Catalonia Ciudad, then he started sending threats to the cops. Walder sent out his top investigative sorts to see what was going down; when they figured out who this guy was, they rounded up a team and moved to apprehend him. Problem was, he built the bomb in his home. The damn thing took out him, the older residential building he lived in, almost all of the inhabitants who were at home at the time, half the beat cops who went along on the raid, and two-thirds of the entire detective force on the planet. Most of the rest of the detectives are in the hospital.”
“Damn!” Carter exclaimed, as Peterson muttered curses in the background.
“Yeah, alla that. Anyway, right now, all that’s left are his junior investigative staffers, all of which are a couple ranks below me – mostly relative newbies. Some of those are coming out of the beat cop division, but even so, they’re fairly green as investigators.”
“So you’re the top investigator, Nick?” Peterson asked.
“Sort of. For now, I guess.” Ashton shrugged in VR. “General Walder has requested some more temporary transfers, but what with the shit that went down in Imperial City, well…”
“Yeah,” Carter agreed. “That ain’t happenin’ any time soon.”
“Right. So he’s gonna be leaning on me kinda hard until that situation starts to resolve a little.”
“It’s only good for your career,” Peterson pointed out. “A legitimate ‘chief investigator’ looks good on the résumé, regardless of the reason. Just be careful, Nick. Lee and I are starting to kinda feel like you’re our kid.”
Ashton grinned.
“And I appreciate that,” he said. “I know Mom and Dad would, too, ‘cause you’re looking out for me.”
“Trying to, anyway,” Carter averred.
“Well, it’s getting late here, and I still need to ping Cally, so lemme let y’all go for now,” Ashton decided. “I’ll try to keep you posted about anything of significance that happens here, and while it looks interesting, I’ll be glad to get back home to Imp City.”
“Things heating up with Cally?” Peterson asked.
“Hell, I dunno yet. It’s good, though. And, um,” he broke off, then admitted, “I miss her.”
“Which is a good sign,” Carter claimed. “Okay, son, take care, and we’ll watch out for your Cally.”
“Thanks, Lee,” Ashton said, and broke the link.
Ashton promptly turned around and called Cally, allowing a heads-up notification in the call. She answered almost instantly.
“Nick? Is that you?”
“It’s me, Cal. I’m here on Catalonia.”
“Oh, thank God! You’re all right?”
“I’m fine. How ‘bout you?”
“I’m okay, I guess…”
“You’re not sure?”
“I miss you, Nick. I–”
“You what?”
“…Never mind. I’ll tell you when you come home. When are you coming back?”
“I’m not sure yet, Cal. Maia and Lee want me to stay here and lay low a while, let things get settled out there a bit.”
“Nick!”
“I know, I know. But they do need me here, Cally. Lemme tell ya what I just told Lee and Maia…”
Ten minutes later, Cally felt a little better about the situation, and Nick had crawled into bed to finish their conversation.
“…Wow. That was bad,” she said. “Really big blast, huh?”
“Yeah, it sounded like. And so they’re short-handed, and if this sector governor is as much trouble as what I picked up from General Walder, when you add in the change of rule back on Sintar, things could get interesting. And not in the good way.”
“Why? What did the General say?”
“It wasn’t so much what he said, as the way he said it…and what he didn’t say.”
“Whu-oh.”
“Yeah. So…” Ashton considered for a few moments, putting one bare arm behind his head and staring up at the darkened ceiling. “I watched a little bit of the local news an’ shit while I unpacked earlier, and I tried to line things up with what I picked up from Walder. If I was a betting man, I’d put money on the notion that something is gonna go down around the coronation of the new Emperor.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then maybe you could come home after that…”
“I might be able to, yeah.”
“Okay.”
“But that’s gonna be a couple months. Are you good with that?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“All right then.”
“Are you in bed now? You sound…horizontal, sorta.”
“Yeah.”
“Jammies?”
“By now you should know better than to have to ask. No.”
“Ooo.”
Nick laughed.
Catalonia
The next day, Ashton went out in plainclothes, sans disguise and thankful for the fact, with Sergeant Investigator Jaime Hernandez. Ashton had more investigative experience than Hernandez, but Hernandez knew the city better, so Walder decided to team them up, at least initially. Hernandez gave Ashton what he called “the ten-credit tour” of Catalonia Ciudad, or Catalonia City. He showed him the barrios in which he needed to watch
