The Belt Loop_Book Two_Revenge of the Varson

by Robert B. Jones

  The recent uptick in strange messages leaving Elber and Bayliss had the brass on edge. Either some dubious interplanetary industrial spying was going on or someone was getting information off Elber headed to eyes and ears unknown. They wanted to come down on the side of caution and vet the entire staff once more.

  Since she had been instrumental in cracking the Varson codes some years before, she routinely handled all intercepted electromagnetic traffic leaving the planet. Intercepts were collected from orbiting satellites, ships out in the Fringes, ships out in the Belt Loop. Most ships carried at least a three-man contingent of IS operatives and most of their activities were shielded from the rest of the ship’s crew. They were called code-breakers, cross-word writers, geeks, pencil necks, scribblers, hard-wired harridans and puzzle factory workers. And those were just the polite names.

  Mols looked at her screen as the numbers raced across in a blur. She pushed herself away from her desk and reached behind her for the coffee pot on her little hot plate. She was swirling the thick black liquid around the bottom of the glass pot, wondering if the six-hour-old brew was worth drinking, when her machine chimed a single note.

  When she turned back to her screen, it was flashing a single word: YORN.

  * * *

  Commander Davi Yorn felt movement. He had been a Colonial Navy senior officer long enough to know what the movement meant. Wherever he was, he was under acceleration. Hard acceleration.

  His hands and feet were still bound and his movements were restricted. A heavy black hood was still covering his head. In effect, he was blind and immobile. He searched his memory for clues. He remembered getting on the train, sitting by himself for the thirty-minute ride to the Mattarese station. He remembered getting a ground-car to his house. Then things got fuzzy. Was he in his bedroom when the lights went out? Was he hit? Did he engage an intruder? Did he hit his head while taking a shower, slipping on soap-covered tile?

  Yorn was confused. He calculated a few spatial equations in his head and got positive results. Now he was sure he had not suffered some crippling brain injury or related acalculia malady. His mind still functioned. The inside of his mouth was dry and cottony. He tried to move his head and felt a sharp pain in the side of his neck. An injection point?

  His mouth was taped shut and he pushed at the covering with his tongue. It didn’t budge.

  After a few more minutes spent recalling the vague impressions of the seconds before everything went dark and then a comprehensive personal inventory of his current physical condition, he determined he’d been drugged.

  Now he was moving in an unknown vessel, heading toward an unknown fate.

  He stowed his anger and instead concentrated on his bindings.

  What other choice did he have?

  Chapter 21

  By the time all the pieces of the puzzle were assembled and the key players were in place, the story started to make sense.

  Captain Uri Haad was sitting in Admiral Paine’s conference room along with Lieutenant Hansen and her son, Lieutenant Mols, Lieutenant Commander Tims from the Shore Patrol, and a rather bored looking Lieutenant Lopez from the Nova Haven Police Department. They were waiting for Milli Gertz, Greg Mason, and Bobbi Diggs.

  Haad was still in his utility uniform, the one he had donned some twenty hours before. Things had started to fall into place after he hit the Shore Patrol station. While he was in conference with Commander Tims, Max Hansen had reached him on the VOX. Haad sent a staff car for her. Next the local police arrived.

  The story went something like this. Gena Haslip had been murdered by a man known to the police as Alfred Jane, a local hustler and grifter. His stock in trade was boozing up lonely men or women from incoming Navy ships. The waitress at The Haven’s Heaven had heard them arguing shortly before Haslip was murdered and had remembered them from a few nights before, knocking back drinks. Kari Wint had also overheard Haslip threaten to expose Jane to the Navy for gathering information about ship movements. Next Lieutenant Lopez had shared the surveillance vids from the parking garage. Jane had walked right up behind her and stabbed her a half-dozen times then had run off.

  Then the tale got interesting. Harold Hansen next described how he was being followed. Haad was suspicious at first based on his previous dealings with the over-zealous boy. But when Har provided detailed descriptions of his “followers” including the license plates of one of the cars, the police started to take him seriously. Max then went on to explain how she had seen Commander Yorn in Matterese with the same cabbie that had picked them up from the spaceport. Har had even memorized that man’s chauffer’s license number from the little laminated card hanging from the dash of the cab. Calls were made, records were pulled. Soon photographs of the cabbie were in hand. Har and Max picked him out from the standard array of six photographs.

  When the report of Jane’s execution came across the wire, all of the entities involved in the mysterious mess agreed that some kind of conspiracy was indeed in the works. The Shore Patrol immediately placed Max and her son into protective custody and Haad tried to round up as many members of his recent crew as he could. Especially the ones that were scheduled to depart for Bayliss.

  Har only had two words for the grown ups before he departed for the holding cell. “Told you,” he’d said.

  The final straw came when Lieutenant Mols rushed into her uncle’s office waving a scrap of paper with a decoded message on it. That had been an hour ago. All of the players in this drama had been summoned and as soon as the other officers from the Christi made muster, the situation could be fully assessed.

  Admiral Paine was finishing up a comm call when the door opened and Milli Gertz came in followed by Mason and Diggs. The SP chief at the door pulled it closed behind them and they looked around the room and frowned.

  “The SP detachment I sent down to Matterese report that while things looked normal at Commander Yorn’s house, there were signs of a hasty exit by someone. And in answer to your question, captain, the house and the grounds were immaculate, but the boat and the associated gear in the boathouse were not touched. What’s that all about?”

  Haad shook his head. “When I finally reached Commander Yorn on his land line I asked him why he didn’t pick up the VOX page. He said he had been down at the lake fishing. He also said that he had to take a few days to find another maintenance crew for his property, that the place was a mess. Evidently the Yorn I talked to was not actually Commander Yorn.”

  “And the guy I saw with the cabbie at that restaurant was not him either. He’s been replaced by a look-alike,” Max said.

  “I’m afraid I might have told him some things that now, in reflection, maybe I shouldn’t have,” Haad said, looking at the floor.

  Admiral Paine came away from the comm stack and addressed the room. “Okay, let’s get seated and try to dope this thing out. We’ve got a full-blown, well-organized conspiracy on our hands. It’s going to take all of our wits to figure out who is behind this and why.”

  The group played musical chairs for a few seconds before settling into seats. Har Hansen elected to sit right beside Admiral Paine. Max looked at him across the table and frowned. He shrugged and held his hands palms up. Only Lieutenant Lopez remained standing.

  “If it’s all the same to you good people, I’m going to have to leave you. This trouble you folks are having has been taken over by the military and I have a double homicide to investigate,” he said. “Just came in, two guys jammed up down in Queentown.”

  “Lieutenant, we’ll still need to get any information you have that can help us. Can you send over another officer from NHPD as a liaison person?” Lieutenant Commander Tims said.

  Just then Lopez’s portable phone chimed. “Standby, one,” he said, holding up a finger at Tims. Lopez walked to a corner of the room and talked in muffled tones. He shook his head a couple of times, asked a few questions, then paused. Har Hansen was impressed with his badge and weapon clipped on his belt. It was a huge gun kinda gun, Ha
r thought, not one of those Navy electrics. Probably had real bullets in it. He guessed a street cop didn’t run into many aliens on his average day at work.

  Lopez finished his call and headed for the door. “They’re going to send over Sergeant Royal from our Military Liaison Squad. He’ll be at your disposal, admiral. He should get here in a few minutes if you want to notify your security guys downstairs.”

  Tims stood. “I’ll handle that, lieutenant,” he said and headed for the door.

  Lopez stopped and looked at Har. “By the way, kid, that car you scoped out was found at the scene of the double dip out in Queentown. The one you said was following your mom? Looks like these guys are trying to cover some tracks.”

  If Har’s smile had been bigger the top half of his face would have folded back and fallen off. He gave the room a couple of fist pumps but managed to keep any smart remarks to himself. Max grimaced and hugged herself. Admiral Paine looked down at Har but said nothing. His raised eyebrows said it all: One day this kid is gonna run this place.

  * * *

  The wheels were falling off the cart. It wouldn’t take the police long to link him to the deaths of Yaneel and that vile Paarit Vuunis. He hadn’t cared if he had been seen or not. He knew some of the people had seen his cab. Fuck them, he thought. Let the police come; I’ll take some of them with me if I have to. Galuud returned to this little apartment and started to gather his things. He had prepared for this day in advance. His emergency suitcases were hauled out, his case of cash and false identification papers retrieved from their hiding place beneath his secret transmitter.

  He examined his possessions and carefully studied the little hole he had been living in for five years. There was nothing left for him here. He went to a cupboard and wrapped his hands around a ring of keys and stuffed them in his coat pocket. He grabbed two comm link devices from a shelf and pushed them into another pocket. Next he pushed on the corner of a shelf and watched as the panel in the rear of the cupboard eased open. He reached in and ratcheted a control knob counter-clockwise and pushed it in. A small red light began to blink.

  Galuud grabbed his suitcase and the travel bag and walked quickly to the door. Without looking back he closed the door behind him and casually walked to the small open-air parking lot behind the apartment buildings. He went to the rear of a brand new ground-car and inserted a key and popped the trunk. He piled his gear inside and slammed the lid. He crossed to his cab and opened the front door. He threw one of the comm link phones inside, then closed and locked the door.

  By the time he settled into the front seat of the new vehicle he could already hear approaching sirens coming from multiple directions.

  He exited the lot from the alley entrance and slowly made his way out to the main drag heading north to the spaceport. He didn’t have a schedule in front of him but his plan was to get passage on anything smoking out of Elber. He’d settle for Canno, Bayliss or Wilkes. Any place but here.

  As he slouched down in his seat several NHPD cars sped past him heading for his building. At the next signal light he pulled out his comm link and activated it. When he saw the signal change in his favor, he punched in a three-digit code followed by a star then one more three-digit triggering signal. As he moved away from the light he looked in his rearview mirror and saw the fireball heading to the sky. Seconds later came the rumble and crackle of the twin explosions.

  His car shook for a second or two but he kept his eyes on the road and his hands on the control yoke.

  He increased his speed slightly when he saw the sign. It said SPACEPORT - KEEP RIGHT.

  Galuud put on his turn signal and smiled.

  PART FOUR: Yorn Strikes Back

  Chapter 22

  Disgusted, Bale Phatie turned from the window. Sooner or later these imbeciles would have to learn their place in the hierarchy. The one thing that disturbed him most was the activities of those whom he had to trust. If he could somehow find a way to be at all places at all times he would not need assistance from underlings no more capable of leading than they were of dressing themselves in the morning.

  The two captains looked at the polished floor and said nothing. One, a survivor of the attacks launched at Nuhuure, was a rather old soldier with plenty of battle scars to prove his bravery. But right now Phatie was not looking for brawn, he was looking for brains.

  “Tell me again how you failed to protect the weapon, Captain Giuure. I give you one thing to do and you fail. Now I question your ability to be of further use to me.”

  The other officer, a captain named Tyaadre, moved away from Giuure a few steps. He knew what was coming.

  Giuure hit his chest with his left fist. “I meant no disrespect to you nor this office, Piru Togurd. The incident is still under investigation and I assure you —”

  “Protect the weapon. That was what you were told to do. Your assurances are meaningless to me,” Phatie sneered.

  “Sir, there was no way to predict what the hybrid technology was capable of. The research team programmed in as many safety features as possible but when an admixture of alien and Malguur engineering designs are thrown together in such a haphazard fashion, what happened was not unexpected. At least not by me.”

  Flimsy excuse. More time wasted on inefficient and incompetent command and control. Phatie advanced on the officers and stopped within a sword’s reach. “We are falling behind schedule, Captain Giuure. Any more delays will have us in the embarrassing position of launching an attack on the human trade delegation and the escorting ships before we have the weaponry in place to do it with. The only way we win that initial confrontation is to take them by surprise with technology they are not familiar with. What is so hard about that scenario for you to grasp? Is it the timing or is it the complexity? What is your problem, Giuure?”

  The officer stepped back half a pace. He was used to Phatie’s tirades but in his heart he knew what the man had asked him to do had been impossible. “The damage was not so severe that it cannot be repaired. My staff engineers tell me that it was a matter of a burned out coil, that’s all.”

  “And you, Tyaadre, you stand idly by while we lose a valuable piece of hardware?”

  The other man spoke without hesitation. “I ran the ship as you ordered, eminence. I brought the boat around as planned in the preflight briefing. Once we hit the target range, I maintained the proper station.”

  Phatie looked down at him and waved a hand toward Giuure. “So, what you’re telling me is that it is this man’s fault? Giuure was the one that botched the test?”

  Silence. This one-on-one confrontation was the main reason Phatie had summoned the two captains at the same time. He’d read both of their rambling reports about the failure of the new weapon for the hybrid alien/Malguure ship. Each man had implicated the other. Now that they were in the same place at the same time, let the accusations come out and let each man defend his position.

  “Fire the new weapon for no more than ten seconds and determine its destructive power. That was all you had to do. Instead you unleashed a volley lasting more than a minute. The dampers overheated, the coils burned out and we are now going to be weeks behind.”

  “Once the main coil faulted, sir, the rest —”

  Phatie cut Giuure off mid apology. “I should fire you both. There are those that consider me a hard man to work for. Do either of you officers feel that way?” he said soothingly, putting his hand on his hips. “You may speak freely and what you tell me is off the record.”

  The two officers looked at each other. “Well, your eminence,” Tyaadre said, “sometimes I get the feeling that you want too much. We can only do what is physically possible for —”

  The shot lifted him off his feet and propelled him five meters across the room. When Tyaadre’s body hit the wall his arms flapped out and knocked over one of Phatie’s platinum statuettes. It took a full minute for the noise to subside. Captain Giuure stood rigid in the center of the room.

  “Erase that last statement,” Phati
e said to the ceiling, “I promised Captain Tyaadre he could speak off the record.”

  Giuure swallowed hard when Phatie examined his weapon. The barrel was still smoking. “And, you, Captain Giuure? What do you think of my management style?”

  The officer hit his chest with a resounding thud. “I have no complaints,” he said.

  * * *

  Inskaap burned the message after reading it. Of all the dumb bad luck. Things on Elber Prime had come undone and his operative Galuud had to make a hasty escape. At least the man had the sense to eliminate those other buffoons before departing. He would miss the information from Yaneel. The hybrid had been in place for many years, working as a maintenance man around the Navy Base and supplying his fatherland with valuable information gleaned from idle talk from loquatious sailors, snippets of gossip heard while mowing lawns, scraps of detail from trashcans and plenty of after-hours dumpster diving. The humans routinely hid their ship movements from the public but thought nothing of throwing away used and cancelled trip tickets to and from the orbiting Port Authority. Most of those discarded stubs were even graced with the names and ranks of the users and some even held serial numbers and weakly coded payment information.

  Sometimes he considered himself more of a “trash miner” than an intelligence operative. But that was standard practice for the world he lived in. One man’s garbage turned into another man’s battle plans.

  Now he was faced with a real dilemma. The human Yorn was headed to Bayliss on a speed boat and the doppelganger was scheduled to replace him on the Corpus Christi. Now those plans are shot. The human ship was damaged out in the region they called the “Belt Loop” and was sitting in drydock on the satellite Cantor. Instead of having an executive officer aboard a Colonial Navy warship he was now faced with the possibility that the switch would be detected as soon as the false Yorn showed his face on the Navy Base. He had planned for the fake Yorn to come up with some excuse not to interact with his captain and only make the next sailing at the last minute, giving the spy a chance to do as much damage to the ship, the docking facility and quite possibly the Naval Headquarters itself if he had the chance.