A Murder Below Zero
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: There's zero chance that I own Castle. Rating: K Time: In an AU future.
"I did?" He replied mildly. "How?"
"You said you were going to do nothing!"
"If I said that, I certainly did lie to you. I've been doing something every day. Every one of them. Even when I sleep. I do something. Inhale. Exhale. Snore."
"You know what I'm talking about, damn it!"
"Not a clue."
She read the headline out loud: "Senator Bracken Assassinated."
"Bracken was shot and killed by an eighty-four-year-old Loyalist ex-officer in the middle of the damned Capitol. The most secure place in the whole country! You can't get a sewing needle in the Capitol past the surveillance, but this old man got a pistol through and put five rounds into Bracken before he was killed by the guards."
Rick nodded.
"I believe the article said there was a serious breach of security. Rather a few breaches in fact. They said it was a shocking breakdown. And it was. I imagine there will be an investigation."
"You killed him!"
"Me?" Rick did his best to look shocked. "I did not. I was right here. You can ask anyone. Krulak was right here. He can tell you I haven't killed any senators ever. I can't even remember the last time I killed anyone."
"You…You…You…"
Suddenly, Kate felt very tired, and her legs began to wobble.
Rick got up from behind his desk and led her to a chair. She sat down and began taking deep breaths.
"It's over, isn't it?"
"That it is." Rick said. "You look like you could use a cup of coffee, and a bear claw. I just happen to have a grande skim latte with two pumps of sugar free vanilla handy and some bear claws."
When he handed her the cup of coffee and put a plate of bear claws by her, Kate realized she desperately needed coffee and a bear claw. She gobbled down one bear claw between sips of coffee and began on a second bear claw.
"Kate, the Union of Aeneas is the largest, most populous, wealthiest and most militarily powerful country on the planet. We cover the temperate zone for four thousand miles from east to west and for three thousand miles from north to south. If you add in the Frontenac Peninsula, we come within two hundred miles of the North Pole. During the wars, we took over about a thousand islands in the Great South Sea. Most are just rocks, but some are populated and will probably become provinces one day." He shrugged. "We also took a lot of islands in the Antarctic Sea, but they'll never be provinces."
"We have a total population of two hundred and sixty million people."
"In spite of the wars, including two civil wars, our industrial base was pretty much untouched by the wars and the wars caused a vast expansion of our economy."
"Our Army, Navy and Air Force is larger than all the rest of the planet's militaries combined, even after the drawdown of forces following the wars. We have bases all over the world and still occupy our former enemies' homelands."
"And, with the wars almost two years in the past, the military still basically runs this country because we have to. There are plenty of people who want to concentrate on this country and to hell with the rest of the world. But if we leave our former allies and enemies to starve and freeze in the ruins of their cities, they'll come to hate us. One day, we'll have to fight the whole world again. Maybe we'll win, but it would be better if we didn't have to fight."
"So, we control many things. For instance, we control transportation worldwide. We control railroads, civilian airlines, both passenger and cargo, and we control merchant shipping. Nations get what they need. Perhaps not as much as they'd like, but they do get enough."
"I like to think that people like General Montgomery and myself, are smart enough and patriotic enough to know that military control can't last. If it does, eventually, our generation will grow old, retire and die off and we'd probably be replaced by people like Bracken and Demming who think only of power. So, we're moving to bring back democratic, civilian control. Faster than some would like and slower than others would like. And we're not advertising the fact."
Kate nodded slowly.
"And so, Senator Bracken was killed by…a lone fanatic."
Castle laughed.
"You know Kate, while you're still gorgeous, you do look a little tired and worn out. Some of us rent a little place in the Offshore Islands. Would you like to take a week off and go with me, Detective Beckett?"
"A week, Colonel Castle? How about two weeks?"
The End
Author's note: Next up is Beckett of Arabia. Something from Rick's past comes back to bite him in the ass. It also bite's Kate's lovely derriere as well.