The Adventure of the Hound of the Baskervilles
By
UCSbdad
Disclaimer: Elementary, my dear Watson. UCSBdad does not own Castle. Rating: K Time: Just after Still.
"You're punishing me by making me take two weeks leave, sir?" Kate said, confused and unhappy.
"I'm not punishing you, Kate. I'm trying to help you. You work too hard. In fact, I see that you haven't taken a day's vacation since your apartment was blown up and you needed to hunt for a new place. Hardly restful." Gates tried to look sympathetic. "You've made mistakes on your last couple of cases. Not bad mistakes, but mistakes I wouldn't normally expect you to make. You need to unwind."
"I'm human. Humans make mistakes. I just happened to make a few in a row." Kate shot back. "Besides, you can't force me to take a vacation."
"No, I can't. But I can insist that you be given a full mental and physical examination. And I will, if I have to."
"A full exam? Every sexist cop in the NYPD will hear about it and decide little Katie Beckett isn't as good as everyone says. "She just can't take it.", they'll say."
"They just might." Gates said, pushing the filled out leave request across the desk to Kate.
Kate glared at Gates, but scribbled her signature and pushed it back to Gates.
"Excellent." Gates said with a smile. "I suggest you ask Mr. Castle to take you out to his place in the Hamptons. You have the next two days off anyway, so you'll have sixteen days of relaxation."
Kate growled something.
"Oh, and I've told your team that if they contact you in any way, I'll hear about it, and they won't like the consequences."
Kate stalked out of Gates' office and went straight to where Ryan and Esposito were sitting.
"You knew about this and didn't warn me?" She demanded.
"Self preservation, Beckett." Espo said. "We have no desire to be the go-to guys when a long dead body has to be pulled out of the river."
"And how bad can two weeks off be?" Ryan added.
Kate smiled coldly.
"Wait until I get back after having all that time to think of ways to make your lives miserable."
She turned on her heel and went to her desk. She pulled out her phone and called Castle and explained that she had a vacation, like it or not.
"It's not that I don't love being with you, babe, or that I don't like the Hamptons. It's just that two weeks of peace and quiet will drive me crazy. I'm just not built that way."
"I love the way that you're built, and I have a surprise that might help you out."
"A surprise? What is it?"
Castle managed to sound pouty over the phone.
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise."
"Castle, you know I don't like surprises so you'd better…"
"Oops. Alexis is calling me. Gotta go."
"Castle…" But he had hung up.
Kate finished up the paperwork on her last case and left exactly at five, headed for Castle's loft.
When she opened the door, she found Castle standing there.
"We're you about to leave?" She asked.
"No. Our guests picked up your scent when you came into the lobby and said you were on your way."
"Our guests?" Kate said, puzzled. Then it fell into place. "Oh, no not them." She said, pushing past Castle. Sure enough, there at the kitchen table with Alexis were three huge wolf-like extraterrestrials, dressed like extras for the Godfather or maybe Boardwalk Empire.
The three wore identical dark blue pin striped suits with black shirts and white ties, with fedoras pulled down over their foreheads and suspicious bulges under their armpits. They even wore spats over their well shined Oxfords.
Now, you may well ask, what were extraterrestrials doing on Earth?
Had they come as the vanguard of an invading army, ready to crush Earth and rule as overlords? No, not that. Most extraterrestrials who'd come to Earth said it was a nice place to visit, but they wouldn't want to live there.
Perhaps they'd come to warn us to give up our violent ways and live peaceably? Not likely. The people on the other side of the galaxy from us were happily shooting at each other and had no interest in what happened on a planet that was, galactically speaking, in the middle of nowhere.
Perhaps they had come to teach us a better way? To join a great, peaceable, friendly galactic civilization? Guess again.
No, the tropes of science fiction were wrong about our first contact with other races. They had come for ice cream.
"Ice cream?" You say.
Yes indeed.
At the end of the twentieth century an American astronaut named John Crichton had been accidentally sucked into a wormhole and shot to the other side of the galaxy. John Crichton had made one brief trip back to Earth, but his life and his destiny was on the other side of the galaxy and to there he returned. However, like many people who were far away from home, he tried to reproduce his home environment, especially food. Try as he must, he could not come up with an edible pizza, whether three cheese, or everything on it and everything in between. He decided his peanut butter and jelly sandwich was adequate. He thought his chili cheeseburgers were almost as good as the real thing. He felt his ice cream was no more than average.
However, ice cream became a huge hit across the far end of the galaxy. Soon planets were making their own ice creams, some better than others, but always trying, always striving.
This attracted the attention of a bold entrepreneur, Don Vito Vorleone, known to history as the Vorlagfather. Using the Vorlags' ability to find and navigate wormholes, Don Vorleone found his way to Earth and after a bit of trouble, (See Good Golly, Miss Molly, for details.) and with the help of Kate Beckett had made a deal with a gourmet ice cream company. Real gourmet ice cream from far off and fabled Earth was a huge success and Don Vorleone, through hard work was able to reap a small, but tidy profit. At least he called it small.
However, the good Don, dedicated as he was to making the lives of others more pleasant through ice cream, was astounded that many governments found his activities to be somehow wrong. Some planets put up huge tariff barriers against any imported ice creams to protect their own inferior ice cream industries. Others forbade the importation of ice cream from anywhere. Why, the Hynerian Empire insisted that all ice cream had to be sold to the government at prices the government set. Emperor Staleek of the Scarren Empire, upon finding that "getting cold" to use the euphemism common among Scarrens, reduced his fierce, battle hungry warriors to dull sluggards, uninterested in anything but their next hit of ice cream, banned ice cream upon pain of death for anyone with a stash of ice cream.
This saddened Don Vorleone. This was not capitalism as he understood it. The good Don almost cried when he thought of hundreds of billions of Hynerians with cold cash in their pockets and no decent ice cream to be had.
"This will not stand." Said the bold merchant prince. But how to get his ice cream to market?
He discovered that many of the people who kept his ice cream out of the market were poorly paid and undervalued members of the various customs and border control units. Don Vorleone was saddened that these fine people were unable to enjoy ice cream due to some silly bureaucratic mix up. A few financial transactions later, and Don Vorleone's very fast ice cream delivery ships were spreading joy and ice cream all over the far side of the galaxy. Of course, Don Vorleone had to raise his prices just a tiny bit because of the extra expenses.
All was not always well in Don Vorleone's commercial empire, so he had to employ people like the three now in the Castle's loft as troubleshooters. You might think of them as…public relations experts. They are, Buggsy, Muggsy and Puggsy.
The three Vorlags saw Kate come in and came to their feet.
"How's t'ings, Miz Beckett?" Said Buggsy.
"Everyt'ing copacetic?" Asked Muggsy.
"Youse looks in da pink." Said Puggsy.
"I'm fine, and to what do we owe your appearance here?" Kate asked, curious.
"They're cleaning me out at poker." Alexis said, grumpily. "Dad, I may need an advance on my allowance."
"Don't youse worry yer pretty li'l head about dat." Said Buggsy. "We took unfair advantage o' youse, so youse kin keep yer moola."
"Unfair advantage?" Alexis said.
Muggsy nodded.
"We kin detect youses increased heart beat when youse has a good hand."
Puggsy went on.
"An' yer eyes di-late, too. We kin see dat."
"So keep yer bread, Red. T'ink of it as a loining experience." Buggsy said in conclusion.
"I know your senses are better than humans, but they're that good?" Asked Alexis.
"Fer sure." Said Muggsy.
"Besides, it ain't like we can go down ta da mall and spend anyt'ing." Said Puggsy. "We does stand out a bit here abouts."
"So, if you didn't come here to get rich off of Alexis, why are you here?" Kate repeated.
"Da Boss, Don Vorleone, da Vorlagfather, has him a small problem an' he thought maybe youses could help." That was Buggsy.
"What kind of a problem."
"One o' Da Boss's good friends, Lord Henry Baskerville has him a problem. A huge any-mal is runnin' loose an' scarin' folks." Said Muggsy. "Da Boss has asked da famous consultin' dee-tective, Sherlock Vorlag ta look into it, but he'd appreciate it if youses would help out."
"Lord Baskerville is a Vorlag?" Rick asked.
"No, he's a Sebacean. Dat's a branch o' da hooman race dat was picked up by some intergalactic do gooders about a hunnert thousand years ago an' tooken to da udder side o' da galaxy to keep da peace. Dere's a lot o' Sebacean's around."
"An' Lord Henry's liddle niece has vanished." Puggsy added.
"What do you say, Beckett? Ready for some adventure?" Castle asked.
"It won't be boring, will it?" She said with a smile.
"I'll come too." Alexis said.
"You can't Pumpkin." Rick said quickly. "You have your summer internship at Columbia."
"Not any more. Professor Hartman took off to Cancun with Beth Hamilton."
"Beth Hamilton?" Castle asked. "Do I know her?"
"Sure, Dad. You've seen her here. Tall blonde, great legs, and D cup boobs. And she never wears a bra."
Castle shook his head.
"I don't remember her at all."
Kate laughed.
"Castle, you know I don't mind you looking."
"Why would I look at another woman when I can look at you?"
"He's good." Said Buggsy. "Real good."
"We'll need to pack a few things." Rick said.
"Don't youse be packin' too much. We'll get youses duds on Vorlag so youses won't stand out. It's on Da Boss. An' he'll have a few shekels fer youses fer expenses." That was Muggsy.
Once packed, they left the loft and went to the roof. There they found what looked like a 1930s touring car, complete with gangster white sidewalls. That, however, was a spaceship. They got in and Buggsy took off and in minutes they were at Don Vorleone's base on the far side of the Moon. Passing Vorlag workers packing Earth ice cream into refrigerated containers, they got into a long, sleek black ship that was much larger than the ship they'd come in.
"How long will it take to get to the other side of the galaxy?" Rick asked.
"About a half an Oith hour." Replied Buggsy.
"A little more if the traffic is bad." Muggsy added.
By the time the three humans were seated they could look out and see Saturn as they passed it. Then they were headed for a huge wormhole, which opened up and seemed to swallow them. In a split second they came out of the wormhole and were above a blue, green and white clouded planet that looked much like Earth.
"Home sweet home." Said Puggsy. "Dat's da planet Vorlag."
TBC
