Suicide Run

by Nathan Lowell

  “Yes,” Wallace said. “He made quite a good case for her.”

  “He made the same case to me,” Bixby said. “With Finance and SpaceOps behind her, he said she’d be a shoo-in and could get the project under control.”

  “She’s an excellent administrator,” Wallace said with a smile at Pittman. “Besides, she had one of the most senior structural engineers in the sector as her technical liaison. He should have been able to deal with any issues arising from design and construction. It’s what he’s been doing here for decades.”

  Natalya raised her hand.

  “Yes?” Allen said.

  “How much would Mr. Vagrant lose if the project went through to a successful completion?”

  “Why would he lose?” Allen asked. “He’s director of communications.”

  Caldicott cleared her throat and raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow in Allen’s direction.

  “Ms. Caldicott? You have some light to shed?”

  “One-third of the current couriers are Vagrant’s ships. Owned and operated either directly by M. Vagrant Outfitters or indirectly through companies he owns majority stakes in.”

  Allen’s jaw all but dropped to the table. “How was he able to do that?”

  “It’s not against the rules. His holdings on this were hardly secret.” She cleared her throat again. “I might have been doing a little prospecting in the data. He has a lot of companies—both here in the Toe-Holds and in CPJCT space.”

  “So, if the new ships come online?” Allen asked.

  “His contracts would all eventually expire,” Caldicott said.

  Wallace said, “Well, they wouldn’t all expire at once. Some would have to be renewed to give us time to ramp up the fleet.”

  “You wouldn’t need as many ships if you restructured the architecture,” Zoya said.

  Caldicott’s icy expression thawed as she looked at Zoya. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Explain,” Allen said.

  “Spoke and hub,” Caldicott said. She nodded at Zoya. “You tell him. I’ve tried talking sense to them until I’m blue in the face.”

  “If you divide up Toe-Hold space into service regions based on loading, you put a hub somewhere in the Deep Dark where the ships can jump out of. They make a lot of short, fast runs, and dump the data back to the hub. They don’t lose days in transit from here to there and back again. Use a few dedicated ships to shuttle crews and data back and forth to the various hubs. The service-time paths get shortened, the service becomes more reliable, and it scales up without major problems as the demand curve grows.”

  Allen looked at Dorion. “This is your bailiwick. Talk to me.”

  “They broached the topic with me a little while ago. It makes a certain sense, but it still depends on getting these little hummers out there, which takes us back to the yards, back to the design. It’ll still take a goodly number of ships, but maybe not the fleet we originally planned for.”

  Allen looked at Caldicott. “Why is this the first time I’m hearing this?”

  “I haven’t been able to get it out of board committee to do a feasibility study,” she said.

  “Board committee?” Allen said.

  “Communications committee.”

  Allen’s eyes widened. “Which Vagrant chairs.”

  “You see the road block.”

  Allen scowled and pulled out his tablet, pressing a few keys. One of the battledressed officers from the entry stuck his head in. “Sir?”

  “Find Malachai Vagrant. Stop him. Don’t let him get on one of his ships. I want to talk with him.”

  “Is he under arrest, sir?” the guard asked.

  Allen paused and looked at Caldicott.

  “He’s not broken any of the by-laws that we know of,” she said.

  “Murder? Attempted murder? Theft of company resources?” Natalya asked.

  Allen rounded on her, his eyes wide. “What?”

  “Somebody killed the first project manager. Somebody tried to kill us. Somebody has absconded with an experimental ship that belongs to the company. Somebody has been skimming off company projects for decades. That last one’s probably Downs and not Vagrant, but still.” Natalya shrugged.

  “You got all that?” Allen barked at the guard.

  “Sir!” He ducked out and slammed the door as he left.

  They all sat there in the silence for a few moments.

  A monster yawn overtook Natalya and her stomach growled. “Sorry,” she said. “I got a nap earlier but it’s been a rough few days.”

  “Anybody else have anything to add?” Allen said.

  “Not at this time, but I’d like to reconvene if we discover new information,” Wallace said.

  “Sounds like a plan. I declare this inquest closed pending further development.” Allen stood and stretched. “Ms. Regyri, Ms. Usoko. We’ll find you some housing and get you fed. Ernst? You might want to get down to the docking bay and check out your ship.”

  “Yes, sir. I would kinda like to see how much damage they did.”

  “With any luck they’ve got assets we can leverage if it comes to compensation for any losses.”

  “Much obliged.”

  The group drifted toward the door where they met Captain Adams coming in. “They got out before we could close the door,” she said. “Security is tracking cam footage now. We’ll find them.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Allen said. “Please see that these people get unlimited visas and get Mr. Panko back aboard his ship as soon as possible.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Oh, and put a departure hold on all Vagrant’s ships.”

  “Won’t work,” Caldicott said so quietly Natalya could barely hear her.

  Allen heard. “Why not?”

  “It’s a shell game. Something like half of the shipping docked at the moment is connected to Vagrant somehow. That’s not counting his various yachts under assumed names.”

  Allen stopped in his tracks and narrowed his eyes at Caldicott. “A little prospecting?”

  Caldicott shrugged.

  Allen sighed and looked at the deck while he rubbed the back of his neck with both hands. “All right. Zoya and Natalya need food and lodging. Ernst needs to get back to his ship. I need to get back to my office. Somebody needs to find the missing ship. And that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head.”

  “Good news on the ship, sir. The tug will have it docked in its berth at the yard by this time tomorrow,” Adams said. “Tweedie messaged to let me know. Just a skipper trying to help out. Nothing nefarious.”

  Allen frowned. “Thanks. I’m not sure I’m buying it, but we’ve got other fish on the grill.”

  “I’ll escort Mr. Panko to the docks and get his visa.” Adams said.

  Frobisher spoke up. “I can show Ms. Usoko and Ms. Regyri to the transient housing.”

  Caldicott gave him a small frown. “If you don’t mind? I’d like to pick their brains about this spoke-and-hub idea. I can show them to the Ravaine. They’ll have hot and cold running everything there.” She smiled at the two women. “My dime. Consulting fee.”

  “Right,” Allen said. “Go. Do. Get back to me.”

  Bixby, Frobisher, and Wallace said their good-byes and got out of the way. Adams was about to leave when Allen said, “Ernst? Sorry. A word before you go?”

  “What d’ya need, Joe?”

  “Where are they?” Allen asked.

  “The chips?”

  Allen nodded.

  “Not on my ship,” Panko said.

  “I gathered that. Where are they?”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I can check to see if they’re where we left them.” He winked at Natalya.

  “You won’t tell me now?”

  Panko shook his head. “Sorry.”

  Allen’s eyes narrowed, giving Panko a thin-lipped, hard look for a moment. “Can’t say as I blame ya,” he said. “But if that’s really contraband, I want our money back.”

 
Panko grinned. “Can’t say as I blame ya,” he said. He headed for the door, which Adams held open for him.

  Chapter 44

  High Tortuga

  2366, June 1

  AS SOON AS CALDICOTT got them out of the hearing room and walked a few dozen yards down the corridor, she frowned. “Those things always give me agita,” she said.

  “Inquiries?” Natalya asked.

  “Any of the mixed group meetings. Vagrant’s bad enough in divisional director meetings. Put him in a group of mere hirelings and he becomes insufferable.”

  “You mean like Joe Allen?” Zoya asked.

  Caldicott bobbed her head a little bit side to side. “Joe was the only one who wasn’t a director. It sticks in Vagrant’s craw that—technically—the CEO of the mothership outranks all the divisional directors.”

  “Can’t tell the players without a program,” Zoya said.

  “Even with a program,” Caldicott said. “I wasn’t kidding about Vagrant’s holdings.”

  Natalya cast a side-eyed look at the older woman. “Pardon my saying so, but none of you are exactly scratching out a living.”

  Caldicott laughed. “That’s true enough, but Malachai’s got fingers where most people don’t even know there are pies.” She winked at Natalya. “I’m not hurting. Nice thing about being Data Division is that I get access to some of the juicy bits.”

  “Is that ethical?” Zoya asked.

  Caldicott glanced at Zoya with a small frown. “Probably not.”

  “Would you get into trouble with the company if it were known?” Zoya asked.

  Caldicott smiled. “I was careful with my contract. I’m actually required to personally investigate data irregularities. I have a team of data miners who work directly for me. Sometimes scraps fall off the table and we’re able to pick them up.” She shrugged. “A million here, a million there. It adds up for us but in the grand scheme of things? Doesn’t amount to pocket change. Not even rounding error. It’s dust on the back of a comet. Total GDP for the Western Annex is measured in trillions of credits a day. Wallace can tell you exactly, but it’s huge and it’s growing.”

  “That’s why Vagrant wants control,” Zoya said.

  “Control?” Caldicott asked.

  “The new ships.”

  “Ah, well, yes. He’s heavily invested in the current network. Losing that investment would hurt.”

  “It’s not just that, though, is it?” Zoya said. “Not just handling the courier duties.”

  Caldicott grinned at her. “Shrewd one, aren’t ya.”

  Natalya looked back and forth between them. “He’s using his couriers to move goods, too.”

  “And he moves a lot of goods,” Caldicott said. “Not as much as his books want us to believe, but still a lot. If he loses that pipeline, he loses a lot.”

  “What? He’s laundering the credits?” Zoya asked.

  Caldicott chuckled. “I never said anything about laundering. Or smuggling.”

  “Why tell us?” Natalya asked.

  Caldicott paused and looked Natalya in the eye. She squinted a bit as if trying to see inside Natalya’s skull. “I don’t know. Call it a hunch. Call it keeping my ear to the figurative ground here and knowing that Joe Allen and Brian Dorion hired you two out of Dark Knight without anybody here catching a whiff. You’re both out in the cold as far as data is concerned.”

  “Out in the cold?” Natalya asked.

  “You’ve got no believable background. Your academy records aren’t public although you both graduated the same day. The public records are complete fiction. They’re consistent, but that’s about all I can say about them. That can’t happen by accident. You’re working for somebody. You want to tell me who?”

  “We work for Brian Dorion,” Natalya said.

  Caldicott snorted. “You keep getting paid from Port Newmar. A pittance but regular as clockwork every month. A body could live on that if she was careful.”

  “We don’t know who’s doing it,” Zoya said. “We left Port Newmar under some peculiar circumstances.”

  Caldicott considered that for a moment. “You wanna share?”

  “There might have been a murder involved,” Natalya said.

  “You didn’t kill him,” Zoya said.

  “I said ‘might.’”

  “So, TIC,” Caldicott said. “That has the smell of a TIC operation. Why did they send two green kids out of school?”

  “I don’t even know who sent us,” Zoya said. “I was supposed to start training as a TIC agent after graduation. Things got a bit out of hand.”

  “You’re actually that Zoya Usoko, right? Konstantin Usoko’s granddaughter?”

  Zoya stiffened for a moment. “Yes. Why?”

  “I thought so. It’s an unusual name. The other five Zoya Usokos in the Western Annex are all in their eighties. Your records say you’re from Margary but don’t link to a certification of live birth.”

  “Is that unusual?” Natalya asked.

  “It’s not unusual for Toe-Hold space, but it’s extremely rare for the High Line. Those people record every time somebody farts.” She grinned. “That’s good for people like me.”

  “How did you make the connection?” Zoya asked.

  “Financial news. When one of the richest people in the Annex has a kid, it’s news. When your father was born, it made a splash. When he walked away from the business, it was bigger news. When his daughter took over as skipper on a mining barge at the tender age of twelve? Yeah. That was roundly reported as both crazy and abusive. It didn’t make the public streams, of course, but the smart money tapped you as the heir apparent. Until you went to the academy and dropped off the grid.”

  “You got all that from the data?” Natalya asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Financial records got shifted around, shuffled through some shell companies, but we run the payroll for everybody.”

  “Not all of it,” Natalya said.

  Caldicott bit the inside of her lip again. “Yeah. That’s true. Chips are a blind spot, even for us.”

  “Why don’t you close it?” Zoya asked.

  “We make too much profit from it. We don’t know who’s using them or what they’re doing with them, but they generate a lot of revenue for us. We’re not about to cook that golden goose.”

  “Why are you telling us this?” Natalya asked again.

  “Well,” Caldicott said, with a shrug. “You asked. I don’t know who you’re working for—and you won’t or can’t tell me—but I trust you. Since you’ve been here, that project has begun to feel more solid than it has since Jeffrey died.”

  “He was killed,” Natalya said.

  “I’ve often thought so,” Caldicott said. “But I can’t prove it on the basis of the data. Nobody wants to believe it’s possible to open both doors on the airlock.”

  “Of course it’s possible,” Natalya said.

  “Even against the pressure?” Caldicott asked.

  “Open the inner door first,” Natalya said. “Simple. I haven’t got any special knowledge in the case but who said anything about having both doors open at the same time?”

  Caldicott stopped and stared openly. “That’s the report we got.”

  “Maybe so, but that kind of malfunction wasn’t necessary. Most ships dispose of refuse by stacking it in the lock, closing the door, and popping the override on the outer door. Whoosh. Everything in the lock goes out with the air,” Natalya said.

  “Jeffrey could have done it himself if the outer door showed green,” Zoya said. “That’s a software issue. Anybody with access to the station’s systems could have done it, left it long enough to do the job, and then pulled the patch out. No fingerprints. No smoking gun.”

  “That’s ... unsettling,” Caldicott said.

  “Yes, ma’am. It is,” Zoya said.

  Caldicott’s brow furrowed and her eyes focused in the distance. “Wanna bet?” she asked.

  Natalya glanced at Zoya. “Bet? On what?”

  “Tha
t there are no fingerprints?”

  Zoya’s eyebrows lifted and her mouth opened wide enough for a small “oh” to escape.

  “Exactly,” Caldicott said. “Just because nobody’s found them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

  “It might just mean nobody’s looked in the right place,” Zoya said.

  “This long after the fact?” Natalya asked. “You’d need a team—” She saw Caldicott’s grin and closed her mouth with a snap.

  Caldicott nodded once and struck off down the corridor again. “Come on. While you’re getting settled, I’ve got some business to attend to. Plan on dinner at 1800. I’ll pick you up at the hotel.”

  “Hotel?” Natalya asked.

  “What? You thought I was kidding?” She led them around a corner and into an atrium that rose six stories above them and looked big enough to land a freighter in. “Main concourse for Alpha,” she said.

  “Alpha?” Natalya asked.

  “The station’s so huge they gave each section of it a name. Like a neighborhood. Alpha is ... well ... alpha.”

  “The first?” Zoya asked.

  “The leader,” Natalya said. “The boss.”

  Caldicott touched the tip of one finger to her own nose. “Now, let’s get you checked in. The Hotel Ravaine is right around the corner.”

  Chapter 45

  High Tortuga

  2366, June 1

  CALDICOTT’S PRESENCE brought a dapper manager to the front desk. “Director Caldicott.” His smile would have looked cheesy—even obsequious—on a lesser man. “How may we assist you today?”

  “Etienne, mon cher, these two ladies are stranded here on our lovely station and are in dire need of shelter. Can you find a small space to fit them in for—say—three nights?”

  “Mais, bien sûr.” Etienne gave Natalya and Zoya each a warm smile. “Do you ladies have any preference?”

  “Is my suite available, Etienne?” Caldicott asked.

  “Of course, Director. Will you be staying with us as well?”

  “Not this trip. Let them have it for as long as they need it, if you would?” She reached across the desk and took his hand. “And put it on my tab. I owe them a great deal.”