Chapter Two
Discipline
Inquisitor L2 Nell Jones of the Imperial Naval Criminal Inquisition Squadron, having stored the new gown and jewels in the capacious wardrobe room and back in her black leather uniform, inspects herself with minute care in the tall mirror as she does every day before leaving. It's more than Lange's insistence upon the presentation of the Inquisitors who serve under her Command, she would never come out of this room to let herself be seen as less than immaculate.
An Inquisitor of the INCIS is to be distinguished wherever she goes, for it is the impressive aspect of the space black leather uniform with the silver - or the gold of a One - highlights that convey silent menace to Sailors, Marines and Civilians alike.
From boots to the high collar of her jacket, the black leather is oiled to a luster, both softened and highlighted so the black gleams, making it appear blacker than when new.
The black shirt under the jacket is crisp, the creases razor sharp, the collar points hardened by the hidden triangular blades.
The closed jacket is decorated on the left sleeve with the Imperial Sword and World patch in silver with gold continents and blood red for the Earth's seas, seven inches long and starting a precise three inches from the shoulder seam. In the matching position on her right sleeve is the full color INCIS shield patch. Each of these she has replaced with each promotion, this being the fourth set and maintained in mint condition.
The silver shield at her left breast is the full color Arms of the Imperial Navy before which is the Imperial sigil, an ancient Roman silver short sword impaling the Earth from pole to pole, gold continents and red seas, both hemispheres displayed compressed. Between the northern pole and the sword's bronze guard are the letters INCIS and a black eagle spreads its wings menacingly over all. The silver backgrounded badge gleams from the meticulous weekly polishings so the INCIS sigil glitters in the light with her every movement.
The three medal pins at her right breast, set with precise balance to the Badge; Meritorious Service, Valor Under Fire and Marksmanship, glisten with their own special care.
x
The silver pistol, forward at her left hip and angled for easy right hand cross body draw, gleams with a mirror finish from the care she lavishes upon it. Its twelve bullets, needle pointed, Teflon coated .357 armor piercing rounds can slice through body armor the way her gleaming dagger pierces flesh. No pansy stunts like cowering behind car doors will interfere with her execution of the Emperor's Justice.
Her dagger is held in a leather lined bronze sheath strapped to her right pants leg so the shining hilt stays precisely level with her hand and a two inch representation of Earth is set midway so that, with the dagger in place, it reproduces the Imperial standard. The edges of the seven inch adamantium blade are so sharp she can slice a dropped sliver of paper into six pieces before it reaches the floor while the point, two microns wide, can be seen in full deadly detail only under a microscope.
In a line on her wide belt above the dagger are set twelve more upward pointing needle sharp .357 rounds but she's never needed these. Nothing has ever stood up to as much as half of the first set.
The eight pointed black cover set precisely level upon her head is meticulously cared for, the silver band glitters in the mirror while the short black visor is polished daily to its own mirror finish. The ornate full color silver backed shield, duplicated one third size on this device, is positioned precisely between her eyes and receives as much care as the shield upon her chest. Each could blind an enemy when the sun's position is right.
The black epaulets receive particular weekly attention, the black background polished as mirror fine as her calf high boots while the four silver strips, being .999 pure grade inset between the five segments of leather, receive their own special effort so they glint and glitter in the sunlight against the enhanced black backgrounds.
A more intense inspection confirms that not a scratch, mark, scuff or print mars the perfection of her uniform.
Now she may step outside.
xx
It's already night, she would otherwise be on her way home, having filed her report on the drive in, but you do not go home without making a personal report to the Chief Inquisitor at the end of an Assignment. However, she has an additional task to attend to that takes precedence.
Exchanging closed fist to left breast and extended fist salutes, more often receiving than presenting, with uniformed Interrogators or Support Personnel but seeing none of her fellow Inquisitors, she makes her way to the second floor Operations Division. Here, in this secured chamber that requires Iris blood vessel pattern identification to access, she will find Eric Beale.
The perfectly balanced steel door, rated to withstand a one ton explosion, swings away and she enters the bright florescent lit room and waits until the sensors signal the heavy barrier to close behind her.
At the other end of the long room Eric is seated before the slanted control panel that stretches nearly out of reach from his position in the centered rolling chair. Twelve screens set into the wall rise above him, three levels of four, and the wall to his left is a huge screen, eight feet high and fifteen wide upon which literally any camera's view or the output of any of the banks of computers that line the walls and the workstations before them can be brought up, then expanded to travelogue expanse or brought in close enough to count cable thick nose hairs.
The stations that surround a freestanding Tactical console in the chamber's center are vacant, normally manned by a dozen Support personnel during Alpha shift. This is Beta, and deep into it so most of the crew are on meal break, yet this is the domain of Inquisitor L3 Eric Beale, the mentor who'd first begun her training seven years ago.
x
He's still here, of course. To leave while an agent is in the field is an executable offense, that's another reason why she waited so much longer to come here. He's seated too comfortably in that rolling chair, his black jacket draped too casually over the back, his black shirt loose about the collar. The jacket's black shoulder boards, with their three silver strips, hang off the chair back, turned to her. The Imperial and INCIS patches on his upper sleeves are dulled; she believes they're the original ones that came with the jacket.
Since her first days as an L5 she'd worked here under his tutelage and they'd shared so much, particularly extras as she'd worked her way from a Five to a Four to a Three. He'd been extremely helpful in those slow but inevitable promotions. From training here exclusively as a Five to occasional Field work as a Four to full Operative at Three, she'd cultivated and maintained him, as others do, as a very useful resource while enjoying the extra benefits of their relationship.
But her promotion to a Two had come from a more useful resource, since as a Three fraternization with another Three would no longer benefit her Career.
x
She crosses the room, stops a half step behind his left side. "Eric."
He looks over his shoulder, gives her a casual look and a companionable smile. His glasses gleam briefly under the bright lights. "Hi. Welcome back." He returns his barely diverted attention to the third monitor on the bottom, which angles his head a little away from her.
"What? You don't even salute?"
"Huh?" He still gives her partial attention, focused on the activities on that monitor. All twelve are active, this one shows a ship's bridge from the forward section, looking on at the officers. "Oh. Salute. Yes." It's a touch of the knuckles of his closed fist touching his left pectoral, then little more than a twist of the wrist, ending the perfunctory gesture six inches from his chest. "So, how'd it go?" He looks back again. "I see you've changed."
"Of course I changed."
"Too bad. I'd like to have seen you in that gown." The camera in her ring, hidden among the diamonds, had never been turned toward her.
"You'd much rather see me out of it." His slow smile assures her of the so very obvious. But when she doesn't move to follow up that so sensual tone he turns back to the screens.
"But you distracted me."
"Sorry about that."
"Twice. You almost broke my train of thought."
"I have full confidence in you."
x
Her rounded side kick crashes her boot instep into the back of his neck, slams his face onto the controls, disrupts all the screens. As he bounces off she grabs his shoulders, shoves down and slams him to the floor. His head bounces with a satisfying thump and the chair makes its own loud crashes. She drops down and slams both knees upon his chest. His glasses are gone, she doesn't care where; he won't need them.
She clutches the soft front of his throat in her right hand and for emphasis digs her long nails deep into his flesh. He's silenced, mute mouth working, tongue seeking air, wide eyes terrified and pleading. He's already bleeding from nose and mouth, now she intends to hurt him.
"Never interrupt me when I'm working," she grates through clenched teeth. "Understand?" She grips tighter, shoves the daggers of her nails about his esophagus, pierces the soft flesh. He can't answer, can't gag; he's suffocating but the terror in his wide eyes assures her that she has his attention.
"You're a Three, get that? You were a Three when I got here seven years ago, you were a Three while I advanced and you're still a Three and do you know why? It's because we don't need a Tech, even Operations Chief, any higher so a Three is as high as you will ever be."
She tightens her grip further, digs deeper, feels warm blood seep under her nails and sees it slip toward the back of his neck as she grinds her knees onto his chest.
Not yet satisfied by the pleading in his eyes, she considers piercing deeper, the blood covering her fingertips.
He dares not fight back. The penalty for striking a superior officer – he'll take the beating.
"I'm an Inquisitor Level Two, you're a Three forever and if you don't understand what that means it means I outrank you." His blood trickling over her fingertips is heated by his fear. "You used to be my Instructor, now you follow my Orders perfectly and to the letter. And if you ever again fail to salute me properly and give me the respect I'm due I will–"
"The floor is no place for an Inquisitor, Mr. Beale," observes a deceptively mild female voice from over their heads. Nell looks up, Beale won't have the angle with her spearing hand crushing his throat.
x
Chief Inquisitor Henrietta Lange stands at the open door, resplendent in her space black uniform. Shoulder boards of gold, solid bars these, gleam on her shoulders and a double line of medals glitter on her right side. The shield at her jacket's left, the full color Arms of the Imperial Navy with short sword impaling the Earth superimposed on it, the letters INCIS between north pole and sword's guard with a black winged eagle over all is also gold, as is the matching though smaller device centering the black eight pointed cover, and both gleam ominously in the florescent lights. The band over the short black visor is also gold metal, a characteristic it shares with Level Ones. It doesn't gleam, Nell has noticed, but it doesn't have to.
Nell leaps off Beale's chest to Attention and he drags air loudly. Her fist against her left breast a smart smack, her fist extension hard and precise. She can feel his blood on her palm.
Eric, still wheezing, is slower to rise but he does hurry and his salute is as sharp, his breath volume fought down, his Attention stance ramrod straight and ice frozen. Many have deeply regretted offering less. They hold the outstretched salute until she'll return it.
Lange crosses the long room, her pace slow and deliberate as the steel door swings shut and Beale fights himself to silence. The two Inquisitors, salutes held, remain still as statues. The Chief Inquisitor personifies a thermonuclear bomb, small in stature but devastating in effect.
x
When she stops before them Nell's eyes are locked on a line that runs inches above her chief's head, Eric's line a head higher. Lange's eyes are lined upward to the man's throat.
"Your face is bloody, Inquisitor Beale, and your neck is bleeding into your open shirt."
That voice, an illusion of mildness, is known to make Storm Troopers tremble.
"Chief Inquisitor." He dares not move his eyes, locked as they are on a point on the distant steel door, nor does he dare move his arm but struggles to keep his fist from fluttering a single millimeter.
The blood from his nose, and from his mouth where he'd split his lip on the console, had been from that initial impact before Jones had seriously begun hurting him. He can feel the blood from his neck run downward, seep into and very likely ruin his black shirt.
He's not sure where his glasses are, his cover is on the freestanding Tactical board beyond Lange but he needs one no more than the other with his doom this close.
But Lange's head does move and she looks to the display screens which reveal no useful information since his face had smashed into the controls and her expression, even without his glasses, is appropriately sour.
She lowers her gaze to his jacket crumpled upon the floor as it had landed from that initial crash, her manner very deliberate. Eight seconds later she turns her head slightly right and she's staring at the overturned chair.
The room is utterly silent when she again looks up to his unmoving eyes. Ten seconds. Fifteen. She turns to Nell, whose fist stays locked slightly over the bomb's eyes. Ten more seconds, twenty, Nell feels her own doom in every tick of the clock.
"There is blood on your nails and fingers."
"Chief Inquisitor."
The blood is further than that, she feels it smearing her palm. When she opens her hand it'll be well marked but for the moment the woman can only see her fingertips.
Is she going to order her to cut those finger ends off?
She might.
x
"I came to inform you both that we expect, in the morning, the visit of a Deputy Grand Inquisitor."
"Owen Granger, Ma'am?" As Senior Inquisitor present she has the right to speak for the room, but what causes such a tone from the woman? A visit from the Deputy Grand is hardly unusual. Owen Granger is a terror, of course, but he's a familiar terror. They've weathered Granger storms before, they will again.
She's occasionally thought the man's visits to this small and specialized division are caused by a liking for their Chief. And if he does hold a liking for the woman before them, so much the better.
"No. Deputy Grand Inquisitor Dwayne Cassius Pride."
x
This is not unusual, this is extraordinary. There are four Deputies under Grand Inquisitor Lee Gibbs and they divide the Continental United States squarely in fine disregard for the twenty nine territorial borders; Jennifer Shepherd commands the Northeast Region, Russell Cransford the Northwest, Owen Granger the Southwest while Dwayne Pride rules the Southeast Region. For a Deputy Grand Inquisitor to cross territories to come to a facility without the Regional D.G.I. is disturbing in the extreme.
Owen Granger must be throwing a fit.
By the way: is Owen Granger alive?
x
Her arm aching from holding the salute for so long, she risks "Chief Inquisitor?"
"Inquisitor Jones?"
Her tone seems to invite question and she has many. She hopes she's not wrong. "Why is he coming?" She tries not to think that the morning suddenly seems so soon. She mentally kisses her bed goodbye.
"I do not know."
Lange's tone announces how much this irks her and they hold their breaths. She looks to Beale. "Bring Callen and Hanna back," then up under Nell's fist, "report to me when you get cleaned up."
"Yes, Chief Inquisitor," they say in careful unison.
She turns and starts out, still has not acknowledged their held salute, but then she halts, still facing the door. "Inquisitor Beale."
"Chief Inquisitor."
She looks back at the blood still trickling from his nose, mouth and neck, at his shirt, at the jacket on the floor, at the overturned chair, at his motionless eyes. "Clean this place up."
"Yes, Chief Inquisitor."
She turns, stalks across the room, the door opens for her and closes after.
x
They're left behind at stiff Attention, at Salute, Eyes Front.
Ten seconds.
Twenty seconds.
"Ma'am?" he whispers as quietly as he can.
"What?"
"What do we do?"
Ahead of them the steel door swings open. Lange stands on the other side. Her smile of satisfaction is small, but it's there. She raises her fist, slowly returns the salute and the door closes.
Eric tries to keep his sigh quiet as he lowers his thoroughly aching arm. Nell is silent.
"What do you think?" he dares ask. He sounds afraid that she'll remember where they left off. Good.
Nell steps toward the door but pauses at the freestanding Tactical console and picks up his cover. Of course neither the silver metal band over the visor nor the metal device in the middle are polished like hers are, probably haven't been since the last Inspection, nor does the dull visor reflect the bright ceiling lights. She flings it at him, its spin allowing him to catch it and put it on his head. He looks even worse with it on.
Ignoring this action, she looks closely at the console and runs her finger along the top. She inspects her bloodied finger and looks to Beale. "Clean this place up."
xx
Striding down the corridor toward the stairs that lead to the main level, acknowledging the salutes of her fellows, she reaches the gym as the door opens and L1 Kensi Blye, clad in tan workout pants and a black sports bra, steps out. Now it's Nell who crashes to a halt and executes a smart fist to chest followed by outward punch salute.
Blye acknowledges it but not as sharply, still precise but with more ease as befits a superior. "You're back."
"I'm back."
"How did it go?"
"Guilty, of course. I reported to Callen, he and Hanna are likely searching the forfeited house now. Thanks to his generosity, not that it was his to share, we've netted a nice gown and some very nice jewels."
"I'd like to have seen you in it."
She gives the taller woman a slow smile. "You'd much rather see me out of it." She ignores that it's the same observation she'd made to Beale.
"You know it." Kensi reaches out, hooks her finger between the buttons of her jacket and draws her close.
Already ignited by Duchane and Beale, two different thrills yet both unsatisfied, she's very ready. However she meets the taller woman's eyes, well aware of the finger hooking her.
"I'm supposed to report to Lange."
"Then we won't take too long."
Kensi pulls her into the gym and locks the door, turns to Nell and their mouths meet and tongues duel, both women too aware of time. Kensi goes for the easier choice, undoes the uniform belt even as Nell slips her palms up the taller woman's bare stomach, catches the bra and lifts it up and off. The kiss breaks for but an instant and when it renews with greater force Kensi has the pants opened and shoves down even as Nell pushes the sweat pants over rump and down far enough.
Their kiss boils as right hands reach for softer, wetter lips, Nell's left hand to a firm breast while Kensi snakes her hand under Nell's black shirt and their open mouthed kiss isn't enough to muffle increasingly fervent cries.