Whew! I'm back! This chapter took me a long time but it's a decent length so I hope you all won't be too upset with me. I really struggled with this, case details aren't my forte, but I hope I did alright.

"I'm just saying, 'Galactic Alliance Tactical Evaluation System'? The acronym doesn't even make sense!" Castle complained as he and Kate approached the central mansion of the palatial Wing estate. The grounds were gaudy and ornate, and some of the topiary were downright disturbing.

Castle didn't seem to notice.

"And 'Regulation Officer Interface" did?" she retorted, already tired of the argument. Castle and G.A.T.E.S. had bickered the entire way down to the surface, to no real end that Kate could see. She was ready to get this case over with, the last thing she needed was to be outed as a fed on Persephone on Unification Day without sufficient backup. Castle, of course, did not count. Hell, she should be grateful that he hadn't donned his ridiculous "costume" just to spite her. It hadn't gone over well two years ago on Londinium and she doubted that he'd get a much warmer reception here.

Besides, she was fairly sure real Browncoats didn't dress like that at all.

The suspenders, in particular, had been a bit much.

She rubbed at the aching spot situated between her eyeballs. Even though they'd only been on the ground for fifteen minutes, she could tell that this one was going to be a doozy. It would help if she could get her partner to focus.

"R.O.I. was a well-tuned machine, tried and tested. G.A.T.E.S. is brand new. I'm sure it has tons of bugs and things that haven't been worked out yet..."

"You're just upset that she called you a 'failed' companion," Beckett teased, searching her pockets for the key to the stasis lock. That had been one of the things she had insisted upon when they formed this unit. If she was going to investigate a murder she wanted to make sure the site was pristine. The only way to ensure that was to erect a stasis field the moment the scene was discovered.

"I'll have you know, Detective, that I was fully and thoroughly accredited with the Companion's Guild. There was nothing failed about it." Castle showed no signs of letting go of the topic, in fact he seemed to be winding up. Kate sighed as she held the electronic key up to the lock. The low buzzing of the field became noticeable only in its absence.

"OK, Castle," she said as she reached for the handle on the ornate double doors, "remind me, exactly how many clients did you entertain in your illustrious career?"

"How many?" he sputtered as she strode away from him. "Well, that's," he said as he hurried along in her formidable wake, "that is so not the point, Beckett. Not the point at all."

She bit back a laugh. If she had five hundred years, she'd never grow tired of flustering Castle.

"C'mon, Castle," she smiled, "we've got a murder to solve".

"Well," Castle said upon laying eyes on the body, "that seems a bit...excessive, don't you think?"

Kate secretly agreed, but strove to remained professional. Atherton Wing lay face up on his giant eyesore of a bed, spread-eagled and wallowing in a pool of what Kate assumed to be his own blood. His face was streaked with the same liquid, having hemorrhaged out of every visible orifice. Grotesque, to be sure, but nothing she or Castle hadn't seen before. The interesting part was the three foot long fencing saber shoved clean through his heart into the mattress.

Yeah, that one was new.

"Ok, what have y'all got for me..." Lanie said as she swooped in, followed more slowly by Ryan and Esposito lugging all of their equipment with them. The boys made it about halfway into the room before plunking the monstrosity that was Lanie's "portable" laboratory onto the plush carpet. Ryan put his hands on his lower back as Esposito groaned.

"I thought you said you were gonna get an anti-grav unit for this sucker, chica," the darker detective whined.

"Budget cuts," Lanie responded, "I guess I'll just have to make do."

"Tell that to my aching back," Ryan answered, knuckling his vertebrae before taking his first good look at the Ex-Wing. "Whoah, who did he piss off?"

"Secret Government Ninja-assasin," stated Castle confidently

Esposito scoffed, "Is that the best you can come up with? Dude, you are seriously slipping with the theories here."

"I may be a bit rusty," Castle admitted, sending a concerned look Beckett's way. Kate was touched, beneath his joking exterior he seemed truly worried about her. To be honest, the eye bleeding thing was a shock, even though she had seen it so many times before, most recently on Ariel, but there was Coonan before that. Being reminded of how her mother died was never pleasant, but the more pieces they found the closer they were to solving the puzzle of her murder.

Looking at the still form of the aristocrat, Kat was struck by the feeling that they had just found a huge piece.

"OH my GOD!" a slightly effeminate voice bellowed from the doorway. A slim man sporting shoulder length ringlets and an absurd parody of a military uniform rushed past Castle and Ryan, heedless of the integrity of her crime scene. If Espo hadn't have caught him at the last second, he would have thrown himself over the body in a dramatic fashion. As soon as the detective's arms restrained him, he burst into tears. She nodded thankfully at her subordinate and turned her attention to the wailing intruder.

Kate lead him out of the room and sat him down in a quiet alcove off of the main hallway. The boy, and now that she was closer she could see that he was a boy, certainly no older than seventeen, sniffed and hiccuped his way into silence. She placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Kate said.

He nodded.

"Can you tell me your name?" Kate asked, gently and with genuine sympathy, not wanting to upset him further.

"Bartholomew," he breathed, "Bartholomew Wing."

"That's an interesting name," Kate said.

"It's awful," the boy replied. "Ath used to tease me about it all the time, calling me Barfolomew ... Oh God, he's dead isn't he?" The poor kid's eyes glassed over with tears threatening. He took Kate's offered handkerchief with a watery smile and visibly tried to pull himself together.

"He was your brother?" Kate asked when he was calmer. Bartholomew nodded. "Do you know what he was supposed to be doing three nights ago?"

The young man shook his head. "He was supposed to go on the hunting trip with us, it's one of his favorite things to do but he canceled at the last minute. He said that he had gotten some information that he needed to look into and that I should have a good time and bag him a tiger or two..."

Kate nodded encouragingly, positioning her recording device discretely at her side.

"What kind of information?" she queried.

The boy sighed. "I don't know. He hasn't been himself for a while now, not since that awful space pirate stabbed him after the autumn ball last year." He sniffed, as if he had caught a whiff of something foul.

"Could you tell me a little bit about that?" Kate prodded.

"Oh, it was awful," the boy said, italics clearly audible in his tone. "I'll never know how that riff-raff managed to even get inside, but once he was there he did his best to ruin the entire affair. He should have been grateful he had been allowed in our presence, but the uncouth ruffian had no shame. He had his eye on Ath's Companion from the start!" He bristled in outrage. "I was honestly relieved when he challenged Ath. I remember thinking that he was going to get what was coming to him."

Even though duels were technically illegal, Kate knew that they still took place with alarming regularity. Still, she was surprised that the kid would admit it so readily to a law enforcement officer. She pushed on. "What happened?"

"The rogue cheated!" he cried, indignant. "He was in cahoots with the Companion and had her distract Atherton when he had had the battle won. Then he PUNCHED him and refused to finish the duel!"

"Wait, Atherton wanted this man to kill him?" Kate asked.

"If he had, then I would have had the fool imprisoned for murder and kept the family honor. As it was, we were humiliated and he walked away Scott free."

Kate made a mental note to investigate the more clandestined parts of Persephone culture. On the surface, it seemed to be your average Alliance world, perhaps a bit rougher and more colorful than those of the core, but peaceful. She was beginning to realize how much of a facade that really was.

"What happened to this 'space pirate'?" she asked. "Can you describe him for me?"

The kid opened his mouth to speak and then his jaw dropped dramatically. His eyes, which were honestly a bit squinty, grew round in surprise and, was that fear? He focused on something behind her and she turned slightly to see Castle approaching.

"HIM!" the boy squeaked. "That's him! That's Malcolm Reynolds!"

She groaned internally as she took in Castle's poleaxed expression.

This case just got a whole lot more complicated.

Please review, even if it's just one line. It truly makes my day.

Thanks for reading!