by P F Walsh
Erkrut-Dom and Maja-Ben from the SIS, the State Investigation Service filed into the Senior Councilor’s office with smiles on their faces. Trakt-Men, the Senior Councilor, indicated for them to sit on the couch alongside the wall instead of the two uncomfortable chairs in front of his desk, he had ordered those to be made uncomfortable. They were instrumental in keeping meetings brief. Today, he wanted to hear everything about the investigation as to the disappearance of the honor breakers. He sat down in a side chair that faced the couch.
“What do you have for me today?” He asked.
Erkrut proceeded to explain a cadet had captured a vid of the drugging and kidnaping of an honor breaker. This had led to the apprehension of several persons related to those acts and put them to the truthmed. They happily disclosed what ships the kidnaped honor breakers were all loaded onto, and confirmed that they had used hypno-dust. Those ships had not yet returned to Hhearn to be seized for their destinations, but the criminals they had in custody were unable to disclose who they worked for since they never saw them unmasked.
“Then, we are, for a while, at an impasse?” The Councilor asked.
“No, Sir, we don’t know who they are, but we know when and where they meet, since one of the men we apprehended was a driver for his boss. They all meet monthly at an all-night convenience store. Our review of the ground plans for that area show there is an entrance to a set of underground utility tunnels in that store. We believe they go into the tunnels to get to one of the buildings in that area. Those tunnels for utilities connect all the warehouses and factories, so we don’t know which building they are likely to be meeting in yet.” Said Erkrut.
“But won’t they be alerted by the arrest of the kidnappers?” The Councilor asked.
“No, sir,” answered Maja. “We gave each of them a dose of memory scrub, the same med the Pirates use on hijacked crews, and then we dropped them off where we picked them up. They won’t remember being arrested and interrogated.” He said with a smile.
“So we can expect the bosses to all meet again this month?” Asked the Councilor hopefully.
“Yes sir, that’s the plan. We’ll have only a silent drone above to watch them arrive from a very high height. One of our ‘snooper’ drones can handle that. Then, we can scan for heat signatures and find out what building they meet in, as well as set up intercepts a few blocks away as they leave.”
“This is excellent work Erkrut and Maja, we may find out where all those missing people went, any guesses?” The Councilor asked.
“Well sir, the only reason we can come up with for this amount of kidnaping is some sort of slave labor as ugly as that sounds. It could be anywhere out there in space, but we’ll find out soon. If the ships come back before the meeting, we’ll try to follow it when it leaves again without alerting anyone. If it arrives after we scoop up the meeting, we’ll just seize the vessel or vessels and drain the crew and nav system of their data.” The Councilor was very pleased with the progress and surprised how it all began to come together from an alert cadet.
“The best laid plans of criminals often go astray” He thought.
Chapter Four
Book Three
The Discovery dropped out of ‘no-space’ into an adjacent system, and Allister began long distance scanning of the Mak system. The Sisters, now disconnected from the ‘no-space’ energy draw, gathered at the ship’s bridge door and requested permission to enter like the rest of the available crew that came as well. Sean granted permission to all as long as they stood by the back wall in case there was some unanticipated action that the crew would need to react to.
“The system is safe to enter.” The Sisters whispered into Sean’s mind as he waited for Allister to confirm.
“Captain the star is relatively stable right now. It should be safe for us to enter the system.” Allister said.
“Very well, Let’s do a short jump and look things over, and get a basis for likely routes.” He said as everyone headed for a couch except the Sisters who just stood there.
The Discovery jumped deep into the Mak system and began a scan. There were no life signs on the planet. Many parts of it looked scorched either from a sun jet plume as it became unstable, or some type of thermal radiation. There were no signals coming from the planet, no movement or signs of life in any of the scans. The planet was abandoned. They began mapping the system and its orbital habits. Allister created a model of these and then rolled back the model’s time to many decades ago, where everything would be at that time. Now they could begin to analyze what the emigrants were seeing at the approximate time of departure.
“Captain,” Allister began, “there are two routes I would choose based upon probability of finding an accommodating planet. This is simply choosing those areas of the stars that are densest within travel distance. They both seem equally promising. I am discarding the route that the Sisters took.” He said.
“There is a very, very faint, short signal coming from one of those directions. I cannot decipher what it means. It keeps repeating with nonsense in the text.”
Sean turned to the Sisters who said,
“There is no life there, but the signal tastes familiar.” They chimed in his head.
“Tastes?” He asked.
“Yes, all signals are energy and have a flavor to us. This one is a taste we have never tasted, but yet seems familiar.” They chimed silently to Sean.
“Allister how far away do you estimate that the signal is?” Sean asked.
“Captain, without triangulations I cannot estimate that. I would need to know the radiated strength of the signal to calculate that, and we do not know that. I can move the ship to triangulate and get an estimate.” He said.
“Do it Allister, any information we can gather will be helpful.” Sean ordered.
The interested crew went back to their activities as the ship positioned itself at three places in the solar system. Nasht-Mer went back to working on her English language lessons. The moves took two solars at thruster speed. Once Allister had the triangulation, he received permission to advance to the source of the signal, with all scanners at maximum and shields up.
It took a little over a solar to get within scanning distance and a small object appeared on the main screen zoomed out to max. Allister said,
“Captain, I believe what I am seeing a small ship radiating an ID. It is tumbling slowly making resolution at this distance quite difficult. There doesn’t appear to be any energy signature, or it’s so low I can’t yet resolve a reading. Shall we approach?” He asked.
“Yes, keep the shields up until we can determine there is no threat. Hal, warm up the weapons’ suite and lock the target. Allister, keep a wide scan of the whole area, this may be a decoy.”
“Acknowledged.” Allister said. Hal followed with,
“Yes, sir, coming up now.:.” As his finger flew across the weapons boards and the systems began an ops test.
The Discovery moved closer and the ship began to become discernable. It was a ship smaller than the Discovery and tumbling slowly without any energy readings.
“Captain, there are no signs of life aboard.” Said Allister.
“Bring us alongside Allister, and sync us up. Looks like we’ll be using that sled we borrowed.”
“Aye Captain,” Allister said, using an efficient mariner term he had heard others use.
Doris got the call and came to the Cargo Bay to suit up for the EVA to the abandoned ship. She brought her two favorite weapons. Sean was already there, disrobed and getting coated with suit gel. Mel and Artie were surprised as Doris shed her clothes and waited for her turn unashamed at standing for duty. She took her turn and coated with protective gel, slipped into the EVA suit and activated its systems. Sean was unlocking, pulling the sled out of its charging station, and rolling it over into the airlock. Doris was strapping on her accessory belt to hold her weapons. Her favorite, ‘Henry,’ was her .357 revolver loaded with three frangible rounds and three regular rounds. Her s
econd weapon was a stun gun given to her by her friend Maja-Ben from the SIS. Sean opened the inner airlock door and looked out the portal on the outer door. He could see the other ship seemingly stationary, but the stars were rotating now as the Discovery was station-keeping with the dead ship. They locked on their helmets, and did a radio check. He nodded to Mel, Artie and Allister and radioed,
“Doris, let’s do this.” He switched on the power to the sled and it rose up a few inches from the floor to begin to float. He pushed it into the airlock chamber followed by Doris. Sean reached over and hit the airlock activation button and the inner door began to close on them as he and Doris mounted the sled. After the air in the lock was recovered, the outer door opened, and swung away. The sled glided out slowly toward the other ship. Allister turned on the monitor screen in the cargo bay for Mel and Artie to watch their approach to the other ship.
Artie looked at Mel and said,
“This guy is having so much fun, I can’t believe it. Boy, am I glad we came!” Mel nodded his head with a big smile. He had enjoyed the blasé manner in which Doris had suited up and attached her weapons.
“A real professional,” he thought, “she’s done this before and ready for anything.”
Ambassador Dawson ordered up his car to take him to his favorite Chinese restaurant. He had enjoyed going there over the years to practice his Mandarin. Now, things were different. They claimed they had taken his son, but other than the driver’s license in the old wallet, he had no proof, and none that he was alive. The license could have easily been acquired by a pickpocket, a realization he did not come to, until he had completed what they instructed him to do. Now, things were sorted in his mind, and it was time for him to demand proof.
As he was seated at the same table he always sat at, he noticed the small cell phone sitting amongst the condiments and sweeteners. First thought was the prior diner had left it, but then it rang,
“Ni ho” He answered, and then began a brief conversation in Chinese. They demanded more from him. He demanded proof that they actually had his son and that he was alive. They hung up.
He went back to ordering his dinner, satisfied he conveyed his resolution succinctly. Without proof he would give them nothing. With proof, he was not sure, and was becoming burdened with the dirty business he had fallen into and the prospect that he may never see his son again despite whatever he may provide. It was even money. As he finished up his meal that he was eating slowly, the phone rang again.
“Ni ho.” He answered, and heard his son,
“Dad, I am alive and well, in fact they are feeding me now. I am cooperating so they don’t harm you. Do what they say.” His son was interrupted with the repeated demands, and the call was terminated. The Ambassador was a trained listener. As his son was talking, he heard in the background that he was in a place with other people chatting. He could hear fragments that sounded Japanese, and then, the sound of a large gong happened with some applause. He realized, his son was not in China, his son was in Japan. He knew that restaurant. He had been there three years ago. When the restaurant had a large order ready for a group table, they hit a large gong as the waiters came out of the kitchen with the trays. He knew exactly where it was. Now things were markedly different. He finished his dinner, left the cell phone on the table, paid his bill and returned to his car to go back to the residence. He needed to get on a secure phone and contact the Foreign Office in London.
The sled carrying Sean and Doris approached the slowly tumbling ship as they looked for an entrance hatch. As soon as they spotted one, Sean aligned the sled with the ship, and brought it up against it. He reached down and pulled the retractable tether from the sled and secured the sled to the ship while he thought “déjà vu,” here we are again, boarding an unknown drifting hulk with no idea of what is in store. They opened the hatch and climbed into the air lock. Lights came on, and they cycled the airlock, as Doris drew her stun pistol and set it one notch up from a normal stun. Sean radioed Allister,
“Allister, any commo coming from this ship?”
“No, Captain other than ID and downloading a language set. I’m converting now. The ship is on ‘stand by’ and the fuel is exhausted according to the ship’s status response.” Allister sent.
“Out of fuel?” Sean repeated.
“Yes Captain, it appears in the rush to leave the planet they forget to check the anti-matter fuel level. It dropped to a level unsuitable for flight, and now only has a tiny reserve to run the stand by systems. Otherwise, aside from being an old ship, it seems ready to function given some engine fuel.”
The lock had pressurized and the inner door opened. The lights came on. Doris and Sean moved into the main passageway and steeled themselves that they may find another ship full of dead people. The gravity system was off, or the ship did not have one. The power cell though, still had a charge and the lights came on as they floated toward the bridge. There was no one there, the main panel was lighting up dimly as they came into the bridge. All the chairs were empty. The luxury level of the appointments revealed the ship was an executive transport. A plaque on the back wall of the bridge named the ship and its manufacturing date. It was the “Bettlrig.”
“Allister, can you get the ship to stabilize with local thrusters?” Sean asked.
“Yes Captain, take a hold of something, I will stabilize in three.”
Allister stabilized both ships so they were no longer tumbling slowly.
“Allister, Doris and I will explore the ship. See if you can pull any nav data of where they were heading.”
“I can do that Captain; they left the ship’s security unlocked.”
Sean and Doris floated from room to room using the handles along the passageway and found various clothing and personal items left behind, but no ship’s log. The owner must have taken that with him.
“A starship cannot be easily sold without the log. The owner must have had hopes to return to get it.” He thought.
They checked each room to confirm no one was left behind and went to the cargo hold. There were dozens of suitcases and two metal boxes strapped down for flight. Doris activated her magnetic boots and opened one of the metal boxes.
“Whoa, lookey here.” She said to herself.
“Captain, I think you better look at this.” She said.
Sean came over and looked down at a box filled with small gold bars. They opened the second box, and it too was filled with gold.
“Under the laws of salvage...” He thought.
“Glad the gravity is off; we will need to float these over to the Discovery.” He said. Doris began to unstrap them from the cargo deck.
“Doris, be careful, that is a lot of mass and that box will be very hard to stop if it gets going.” He said. “Move it very slowly. You take one, and I’ll get the other one.”
Sean and Doris moved the boxes one by one over to the Discovery’s airlock with two trips. They closed up the other ship and asked Allister to restore that ship’s ‘stand by’ status.
“Log the location Allister, we claim the ship.” He said. Allister concurred and entered the find into the ship’s log with location.
“Allister, ask everyone to leave the cargo hold and turn off the gravity in there, we have a couple of very heavy boxes to bring in.” He said. “Also, these need to be locked up in one of the cargo secure cabinets.”
“Aye, Captain, stand by.” A few minutes later, “Captain, gravity is off, you may cycle the inner door now and the security cabinet is unlocked for you.” Said Allister.
Doris and Sean moved into the cargo hold slowly towing the boxes and placing them in the security cabinet. They closed the doors and set the lock. Then they locked the sled back into its charging station.
“Allister, please restore gravity in cargo.” He asked. The gravity switched on and a low thud was heard from the closet as the boxes settled down a fraction.
Doris, we will have to keep the boxes classified for now. That’s a lot of money on anyone’s
world. Just say we recovered some personal effects we may have to return.” Doris replied with,
“10-4, I got it.” As they climbed out of their suits, and used the cargo shower stall to wash off the gel.
Sean smiled and said,
“We have to stop meeting like this.”
“Knock it off, Captain.” Doris said trying to suppress a smile and act offended. They got dressed.
Later, when they got back to the bridge, Hal and Allister were looking over the data from the abandoned ship’s navigation database.
“Well, what have we got?” Asked Sean.
“Captain, we are headed in the right direction, but they really didn’t know more about where they were going than we do. We’ll just have to make short jumps, system by system, and check each one quickly before moving on. Exactly what they did a long time ago.” Said Hal.
“What do you think happened to the crew?” He added.
“I guess they were picked up by another migrating ship in a panic and just left everything behind.” Said Sean.
“Not knowing where they were going, and how long it would take to get there, no one was likely to share engine fuel. The ship belongs to us if we can recover it on the way back.” He added, “we’ll have to see if we can pick up an autojar of anti-matter somewhere to fuel it. We can use some of ours as well if we’re not low on the way back.”
Once again, the ship headed for ‘no-space’ for a short jump to the next system.