They walked down the wide concourse of the station. Everywhere, it seemed, workers toiled at making the station active. Jaswinder looked at her chrono. She glanced at Matt, but he kept his head resolutely forward, and ignored her implied question. She gave a mental shrug, and walked with him. He must have people working around the clock.
“This way,” he said, and turned down a narrow accessway.
“This way?”
“Construction in the main corridor. Faster and safer to avoid it.”
Fifty metres on, he keyed open a door, and stood back to allow her to enter. Jaswider looked around at the familiar room. A picture of Johannes and their son, Owen, stood anchored to the side table next to the couch. The pleasant blues of the room relaxed her. She took a deep breath of familiar scents, and then turned to Matt.
“OK. Out with it. I didn’t expect your call for at least a month. Trouble? Your father?”
He looked at her in surprise, no doubt thinking that she’d bring up the conference first.
“Dad’s not long for this world, Jazz.” He used her old alias gently.
She grimaced. “I’m sorry to hear that, Matt.” Then she narrowed her eyes, and looked at him again. “Then why didn’t you call Johannes? He could have made it here almost as quickly as I did.”
“Have a seat.” Matt walked to the small fridge, and pulled out a bottle of water. He handed it to her after she’d sat herself down on the couch. He took the chair from the wall latches and set it in front of her before sitting.
“I don’t think we have much more than a couple of months. We need you here to align the hyperspace field nodes and software. We need the station ready to jump as soon as possible. Tomorrow we’re boosting to a higher orbit.”
“And Venture?” she asked.
Matt bit his lower lip. “Your ship stays by us until we leave. I have a wish list for her trader to pick up for Venture, as well as a hold here on the station for her to fill with cargo. It’s good that Bettina’s here, but why didn’t she get off the shuttle? And who are these other two people.”
Jaswinder took a sip of water to calm her racing mind. “That bad?”
Matt pursed his lips, then nodded. “That bad. Should we not make it, we’ll abandon the station and jump in Venture, packing all the personnel and goods that we can fit.”
Jaswinder closed her eyes a long moment, then opened them to see the worry lines about Matt’s face. She hadn’t looked closely enough before. He’d aged noticeably in the last few months. “I need sleep. I tried on Venture, but couldn’t. However, we’ve Richardson to worry about. After that, I’ll sleep.”
“Why him? Why here?”
“In order to appease Richardson, I need it to be a surprise for you, as well.”
“Appease that piece of garbage?”
“I kind of threatened him to get him here. It can’t look like the Families are ganging up. We need his cooperation. I set the meet on Haida Gwaii because he couldn’t refuse the invitation that way. They’ve wanted a look-round since we started.” She looked longingly at the door to the bedroom. “Matt, I need thirty minutes. And I need a clear path from the shuttle lounge to the conference centre. As few as possible must know of this.”
Matt rose. “I’ll see to it. And I need to get myself together for The Lottery broadcast. I have to tape a five-minute interview. I’ll meet you at Conference-4 in thirty-five.”
She gave him a sharp look. “The Lottery? We’re participating?”
“In a fairly big way. All continents.” He shrugged at her doubtful look. “If it buys even one more day, it’s worth it.”
“You’re the boss.” Jaswinder had thought she’d known Matt’s feelings about The Lottery.
“I may be the boss, but I’m also frightened.” He opened the door to the accessway.
Jaswinder paced the room after he left. Why had he said that? Now, she would have difficulty getting any rest. If Matt were frightened, which she could hardly imagine, she should be terrified.
She sat down, and began breathing deeply, just like she’d been taught. After five minutes, she stood, and began several yoga postures. The familiar, slow movements calmed her. Before she knew it, the buzzer rang.
“Yes?”
“Amalgamated Shuttle 21 will dock in five minutes,” came the voice of traffic control. “Matt asked me to warn you.”
“Thank you. I’ll meet the shuttle personally. Have someone from security standing by.”
She heard a chuckle on the line. “Matt’s already taken care of that. Said he didn’t want a repeat of your last meeting, whatever that means.”
“Thanks again.”
Jaswinder took a deep breath, glanced at Johannes’ photo once more, then began the walk to the shuttle lounge. There, she saw Hank Lowe, the Yrden Family Chief of Security, waiting with two of his men.
“Hello, Sheriff,” she said, and he grinned.
“Howdy, Ma’am.” He still liked his western vids. “Trouble?”
“I hope not. However, their crew must not leave the shuttle. I don’t want them on board, not even in the lounge.”
“Matt’s already given that order.”
“Good. The passageway is clear?”
“Yes, Ms Yrden.”
“Hank, you know better than that.”
“Yes, Jaswinder. And, as per Captain Yrden’s instructions, I escorted Venture’s captain and her two passengers to the anteroom. No one saw them.”
A green light came on.
“Shuttle’s docked and positive lock achieved.”
Jaswinder nodded, steeled herself, and began to walk toward the bay. Hank’s reassuring bulk comforted her. “Let’s go meet them.”
Richardson came off the shuttle first. Still a powerful man, though older and a little thicker. Jaswinder looked down to the hands that had once wrapped themselves around her neck. Then she looked back up to his face, to see the desire there. Desire to do the exact same thing again.
A balding man appeared behind him, carrying a business case.
“Who’s this, Mr Richardson?”
“Kevin Geller, Amalgamated Head of Legal on the station. You did mention legal problems.” Richardson glared at her.
“He can wait in the lounge. Welcome aboard, Mr Geller. If Mr Richardson and I can’t come to an informal arrangement, we’ll need your help. Until then, however, we won’t. Hank, look after him. Mr Richardson, if you’ll come with me.”
Lowe stopped short, astonishment on his face. “Ms Yrden?”
“Hank, Mr Richardson and I are old friends. I’ll escort him.” Her tone brooked no dissent. Hank didn’t like it, but he obeyed.
Richardson took the business case from Geller, who sat down in the lounge to wait.
The passageway lay before them, empty, as Hank had promised.
“Look, Ms Yrden, I know of no espionage attempts by my company that would necessitate a massive suit. I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but it won’t work.”
“Espionage?” Whatever went on in his mind?
“You asked me to recall the purpose of our last meeting.” He glared at her as they walked.
She stopped, and turned to him. “Mr Richardson. I’m sorry for the subterfuge I had to use to get you here. I apologize.” He looked stunned at that. “No, the purpose I referred to had nothing to do with your private purpose. I wanted you to recall the outbreak of disease on Liberty, and how we needed to work together to contain it quietly.”
His greying eyebrows rose. “Then why the threat?”
“No one must know why you’re here. Rumours still float around about the bad blood between us. Anyone who might have listened in will draw the logical conclusion. You’ll have no trouble persuading anyone who asks that the old feud re-ignited, but you put out the flames.”
“Those aren’t rumours,” Richardson said, glowering at her, and balling his fists. “And I don’t like threats, subterfuge or not. Now, what’s this all about?”
“In the confere
nce room, please. I have Matt and Bill Tannon waiting for us there. They’ll want to hear, too.”
Richardson blinked, and cocked his head slightly to the side. “They don’t know?”
“I didn’t want you to feel at a disadvantage. No, you’ll all hear about it together. Now, please, come with me.”
Hopefully appeased, Richardson accompanied her without further questions.
Matt and Bill Tannon, a rather portly man with a bald spot at the back of his head, waited for them.
“Bill, Matt, I’m sure you know Mr. Richardson.”
They nodded at him, but no one stepped forward to shake his hand, and he returned the same distrustful looks they gave him.
“Please, Gentlemen, take a seat. Trust me when I say that we’re in this together. Mr Richardson is not an adversary.”
No one moved.
“The sooner you take seats, the sooner you’ll hear what I have to say.” Men. Eventually, they sat, Bill and Matt at one end of the table, Richardson at the other. She shook her head and sat down at the middle.
“Venture made an unscheduled drop at Earth-African Nations Waypoint 2,” Jaswinder began, then plugged her datastick into a port. “We received this from the beacon.” She touched her screen.
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Emergency message. All ships. Pirates active this system. They’ve fired missiles. Going to maximum burn. Amalgamated 684.”
Jaswinder had their full attention. Each looked pale. Richardson recovered first.
“684?”
“Destroyed.” Richardson shuddered. She continued, “By the time-stamp, it occurred two weeks before we dropped.”
Tannon looked at her sharply. “If he went to maximum burn, he and the wreckage wouldn’t be anywhere close enough for your detectors to pick it up after fourteen days. How do you know the pirates destroyed the ship?”
“Did you go searching in a system that might contain pirates?” Matt looked ready to explode.
Richardson held up his hand, and they stopped.
“Ms Yrden, you didn’t call me over here to tell me this. A simple message would have sufficed.”
“No, Mr. Richardson, I didn’t. Bill, you’re correct: no wreckage in detector range. Matt, I didn’t have to search. Shortly after that, we received another Mayday, this time from one of 684’s lifeboats. We picked up two survivors.” Jaswinder toggled the comm. “Bettina, now if you will.”
Bettina, Carson, and Fulton walked in from the anteroom.
“Gentlemen, you all know Venture’s captain, Bettina Yrden. This is Amalgamated 684’s First Pilot, Wen Carson, and Amalgamated employee, Cabin Attendant Angela Fulton. Please sit down. Ms Fulton, if you’ll please relate your story.”
Angela looked from man to man, finally smiling at Richardson. “I met you once, Mr Richardson. My father introduced us.”
“Yes, of course, Darrius Fulton’s daughter. May I say, I’m very pleased that you survived, my dear. Please tell us what happened.”
Jaswinder stared at him. She had never seen Richardson display a softer side. He noticed her stare, and raised his eyebrows. “Continue, Ms Fulton, please.”
Angela related her story, leaving out the state of dress Venture’s crew found her in, and the reason thereof. Finally, she finished.
“Mr Richardson, I know my father will be worried when he hears about 684. Wen thinks I should stay here, but I don’t want my father to worry.”
“I’ll look after everything, Angela,” Richardson promised, and she smiled, relieved.
“Ms Fulton, if you’ll please return to the anteroom and wait. We have a little business to discuss.” Jaswinder remained silent until the door closed, cutting off all sound.
“Why should she stay here, Ms Yrden?” Richardson asked.
“I guess that’s my cue,” Carson replied. “If I may?” Jaswinder nodded, and Carson played the record from Amalgamated 684 to its Number 3 lifeboat. “I went dark, like Captain Sullivan suggested, but I went to the navigation telescope, and recorded what I saw.”
He activated the presentation screen, and hit play.
“Good God!” said Tannon.
“Yes, sir. That’s a USNA patrol ship. The very type of ship that the Earth Governments built to protect us from pirates. If they find out we’ve escaped their slaughter, and have any inkling that we’ve seen something like this, let alone recorded it, they’ll hunt us down and kill us. That’s why I think Angela should stay here, hidden. She couldn’t lie her way out of a minor reprimand, let alone play dumb about something this big.”
Jaswinder broke in, “And that’s why I couldn’t go over to Amalgamated, Mr Richardson, or FTL-1, as Matt suggested. Carson and Fulton would have had to identify themselves, and questions would come up. We both have military liaisons, and they’d get word of it. If they are doing this, who knows what else they are up to, what they might do?”
Bettina nodded. “I’ve had time to give this some thought. The possibility exists that certain Earth Governments either set the pirates up, or simply used them in order to tax us for their military funding. For all we know, they might have cleaned up the problem, but took over pirating to keep the money rolling in. Or we may have funded our own raiders right from the beginning.”
“Mr Richardson,” Jaswinder continued, “as representative of Amalgamated Shipping, you’ll do what you need to do with this information as concerns your company. We Families will do what we need to do. At a minimum, I believe we’ll decide to warn all our captains against getting cozy with any patrol vessels they happen to come across. You’ll have to decide how to pass the information on to the other TPC shipping companies. We may compete against each other, but this overrides everything else. Safety of our crews comes first.”
The table went silent, as each integrated the unwelcome news. Finally, Carson spoke up again.
“We have two more problems.” Everyone turned to look at him. “First, 684’s Lifeboat-3 survived. Venture has it locked down in one of her holds.”
“Not a problem,” Richardson said. “I’ll personally sign it over to Venture as salvage. I’ll lose the records over at Amalgamated.” He looked to Bettina. “You can fix it and use it, or fire it into a star as you desire. Next?”
“I uploaded Captain Sullivan’s Mayday to the Earth-African Nations Waypoint-2 beacon. Captain Yrden quickly discovered that the time-stamps on the beacon differed from those on Captain Sullivan’s broadcast by 36 hours.”
He didn’t have to spell it out. If the raiders caught the message, they’d know that someone survived.
“Captain Yrden,” Tannon asked, “did you upload or download mail, or in any way identify yourself to the beacon?”
“No, sir, we didn’t. We pinged, and got the Mayday. After that, we decided that discretion was the better part of valour.”
Matt nodded. “Good work. So, no one will know Venture dropped there. If anyone dissects the beacon, they’ll find the ping, but that could have been the lifeboat, testing. And that lifeboat could still be drifting, almost impossible to find after all this time. Or, for all anyone knows, Captain Sullivan could have jettisoned a buoy, programmed to upload the message after 36 hours had passed.” He looked to Carson. “Could that work?”
“Yes, sir. I stripped the lifeboat’s ID from the message.”
“Fast thinking, as befits a First Pilot,” Richardson complimented him. “But that will only work if you,” he indicated Matt and Jaswinder, “give Mr Carson and Ms Fulton sanctuary. No one must know they survived.” He looked at Bettina. “Your crew must never divulge this – at least not until we’re ready to publicize it, or until it no longer matters.”
Bettina shrugged. “I can’t guarantee it, of course, but everyone will get the message. And there’ll be no shore leave this visit. I’ll let it be known that if word gets out, jobs will be lost.” She shrugged again. “Best I can do.”
“Are you willing to give them sanctuary?”
“Mr Richardson, I need my job. I want to pilot,
” Carson said.
“Sorry. I’ll authorize a year’s wages, in cash. I’ll have it transferred over. By the end of a year, if not sooner, I think you’ll be able to come back. By then we should have some sort of resolution. Right now, we need time.”
Carson didn’t like it, and his expression showed it. What would they do with him? Jaswinder looked to Matt, who appeared none too happy, himself.
“Well?” Richardson asked.
“We’ll take them,” Matt decided. Jaswinder felt relief. “Mr Carson, I’ll employ you as shuttle/workboat pilot on board Venture. The crew already knows you. We’ll work up some fake papers for any station that asks. I’m sure we can find work for Ms Fulton, too.”
“Mr. Richardson,” Carson objected, but Richardson waved him to silence.
“Carson, if you make trouble, I’ll have you fired. I’ll blackball you throughout the TPCs. No one will hire you as pilot after that. Go and wait with Ms Fulton.”
Carson glared at him, but obeyed. Jaswinder almost grinned. That’s my Richardson, bastard through and through.
Tannon sighed, and stood. “Are we done here? I surely don’t want to hear any more bad news.”
Jaswinder nodded. “Thanks for your help, Bill. We’ll meet again in the morning, and decide how we’re going to spread the word.”
Tannon eased himself around the table, and left without speaking to Richardson.
“Well, Mr. Richardson, may I escort you back to your shuttle?” Matt asked.
“Not yet. I’ll draw up a quitclaim. I’ll pay you what amounts to one year’s wages for a First Pilot, and one year’s wages for a cabin attendant. That, plus my personal apology on behalf of Amalgamated Shipping, will entice you to sign that you’ll forgo all claims against Amalgamated for the events of whatever date we decide on. I’ll also require a non-disclosure agreement.”
Matt nodded, impressed. “That’ll keep your lawyer friend happy, and you’ll be able to bury it. No one on your board will want potentially damaging information getting out or even being placed in secure minutes of meetings. They won’t ask. There’s always something someone has to hide.”
“And I’ll have to talk to my employees, especially Ms Fulton, to explain all this. They’ll have to sign a non-disclosure agreement to obtain their benefits.”
Not With A Whimper: Survivors Page 7