By Darkness Forged (Seeker's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Book 3)

by Nathan Lowell

  Kondur shook his head. “Other than your discretion. The parties involved are ...”

  “Reclusive?” I asked. “Shy?”

  “Exactly,” he said. “Shy. Yes.”

  “And in return for this favor?” I asked. “Should I agree to do it?”

  “Well, you will have a can and my thanks.”

  “I can’t pay my crew with good will,” I said. “Surely you have the same problem?”

  “What would such a deal cost, hypothetically?” he asked.

  “Three hundred,” I said.

  “Three hundred thousand credits? That seems very fair.”

  “Three hundred million,” I said.

  “Are you mad?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I made that much on a single can of black malt delivered to Mel’s recently. Surely this small favor is worth as much as a can full of beer-making supplies.” I paused. “To say nothing of our discretion.”

  He stared at me and a smile grew on his lips. “Both ways,” he said.

  “Both ways. Three hundred million credits. Half on departure, half on return,” I said.

  He held a hand out across the table. “Deal.”

  I shook the hand. “Deal.”

  As we slipped out of the booth, Kondur spoke again, his voice low, barely audible. “You know the cost of failure?”

  I looked at him. “The wages of sin.”

  An odd expression crossed his face but he nodded. “Safe voyage, Captain. I look forward to your return.”

  “I’m glad we could reach some understanding,” I said.

  The chief led the way out of the dive and halfway down the block before she spoke. “Are you mad?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. Maybe a tad peeved.”

  She snorted out a short laugh. “You know where he wants you to go?”

  “Yeah. Shoots down my plan for never going back there.”

  “And we’re bringing back a can full of stolen goods. Do you have any idea how much trouble that’s going to put us in?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I think I do. Particularly since we’re not supposed to actually return.”

  “No? It seemed pretty obvious that’s what he’s asking.”

  “Yeah, that’s what he said. He doesn’t expect we’ll be back. He gave in too quickly on the negotiations. He’s going to pay us half up front but we’re never going to collect the other half.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I suspect we’ll be dead.”

  Chapter 20

  Dark Knight Station: 2376, March 11

  We didn’t say anything else until we got back to the ship. The chief followed me into the cabin and closed the door. “Do you know what you’re suggesting?”

  I sat behind the desk before answering. “Call me paranoid but he just held us up to deliver a can to the one place most likely to want us gone.”

  She plunked herself down across from me and stared. “Explain.”

  “All right. Start with the idea that you’re right and that an extortion ring has co-opted the mega. How that happened? No idea. I don’t know if Manchester is in on it or even if they know. It’s irrelevant to the current problem. We jumped through their space, close enough for us to see them on short range, presumably close enough for them to have seen us.”

  “How would they have known where we were headed?”

  “They had almost a stan’s worth of trajectory data. I could have extended that line to Dark Knight myself, so I’m sure they could. We should have just jumped straight out.” I shook my head. “Hindsight.”

  The chief frowned and sat back in her chair. “So, why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why would Kondur go along with this scheme? He’s got a rough reputation but he’s never been a criminal.”

  “I don’t have your resources, but just connecting the dots? We’re up against a gang that extorts stations by smuggling nuclear weapons aboard. Somebody who knows they’re sitting on a nuke might not behave normally. Kondur is behaving oddly.” I shrugged. “They have a reason to want us removed. The last thing they want is somebody who knows where they are.”

  The chief went very still.

  “I’ve overlooked something,” I said.

  She nodded. “We’re not the only ones who know.”

  The implication washed over me like a bucket of ice water in the face. “Kondur.”

  She nodded again.

  “Would they blow the station to silence him?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “They’d almost have to because they can’t tell who else might know. Dockmaster might. Some of Kondur’s people must know they’re being extorted.”

  “How do we find the device?” I asked.

  She frowned and steepled her fingers in front of her nose. “Depends on how leaky it is.”

  “You’ve never found one intact?”

  She shook her head. “Closest we’ve come is recovering most of one of their delivery ships. A Barbell, as it happens.”

  “Assume the gang is only marginally competent. That they’ve got their hands on some fissionables and a do-it-yourself kit.”

  “Lead is the easiest shield. Our fusactor cores are lead-lined,” she said.

  “What about the triggers? Don’t they need some shaped charges to trigger the reaction?”

  “That’ll be inside the shielding.”

  “How big are we talking?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Hard telling. Bigger than a breadbasket. Smaller than a boxcar. I’m not an expert on this stuff.”

  “You have anybody on your team who is?”

  She shook her head. “Not close enough to do any good. We’re not under any obligation to get underway immediately. How long can we stretch it?”

  “Couple of days should be easy enough. What’s that buy us?” I asked.

  “I need to know if Kondur is a voluntary participant,” she said.

  “How do we do that?”

  “Ask him,” she said. “But we need a lever.”

  “What kind of lever?”

  “I’m thinking the same one that’s being used on him. If we can remove that, we’ve got a chance.”

  “Doesn’t that mean we need to find a bomb that may not exist?”

  She nodded, frowning. “That’s the catch. Finding it proves the point. Not finding it proves nothing.”

  “How do we find it? Didn’t you just say we won’t be able to detect it?”

  “No,” she said. “I said we hadn’t found one yet. This is actually the first chance I’ve been privy to the potential before the event.” Her eyes narrowed as she stared into the distance. “I wonder if I have some data.” She threw herself out of the chair and headed for the door.

  “What’s up?”

  She stopped at the door. “We recovered a ship about five stanyers ago. We think it was the delivery vessel.”

  “You mentioned that before.”

  “I’ve got the forensics data with me. We might be able to reverse engineer the bomb’s profile.”

  “How?”

  “Residual radiation patterns. One of the anomalies we found. I need to look again to refresh my memory, but the level of residual radiation should tell us how leaky the device was and where they stashed it.”

  “If it leaked enough to leave traces, wouldn’t that be enough to kill the crew?”

  She shook her head. “Not right away. They may not realize the problem. A lot would depend on how they picked their crews, how often they delivered bombs, and whether or not they ever picked them up.”

  “I’ll get Pip moving,” I said.

  She stopped halfway out the door. “Pip?”

  “Yeah. If the bombs get delivered in cans, specifically Barbell cans? You don’t just roll a can into a station like this. It needs to be unloaded, the cargo stored or distributed. Pip has the connections to figure out that process.”

  “You’re thinking it might narrow down the locations we need to look?” she asked.


  “Can’t hurt. Might turn up nothing, but it’s a chance.”

  She bit her lip and nodded. “We should also invite Kondur over for dinner.”

  “Get him out of the station? You think he’s worried about being overheard?” I asked. “Is that even likely? He must sweep that bar three times a day.”

  “Paranoia digs in deep,” she said. “We might be surprised.”

  “I’ll get Pip going on the cargo handling. You figure out how to get Kondur aboard.”

  She nodded and ducked out the door.

  I reached for my keyboard but Pip came in before I had a chance to do more than put my fingers on the keys.

  “I thought she’d never leave. What’s going on?” he asked.

  “What did you find from the dockmaster?” I asked.

  “You were right. We’ve got a can coming in from the marshaling yard. Should be here by tomorrow’s morning watch.” He sat in the chair and stared at me. “What’s going on?”

  “Kondur froze us out until I agreed to take a can for him.”

  “That’s odd. He could have just hired us.”

  “Oh, he did but he wanted to make sure we understood that this was a special cargo and that we’re trading this specific can for another specific can at the destination.”

  Pip frowned. “That shouldn’t have been complicated. He could have just sent a note.”

  “The destination is the mega.”

  He blinked, one slow blink, eyelids pressed hard and then opened. “The mega.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s he paying?”

  “Three hundred mil. Half on departure, half on return.”

  Pip sat back, his eyes staring into space. “So, we jump through the mega’s location. Come straight here only to find that the station owner wants us to take a somewhat clandestine cargo back to the place we just came from?”

  “And return with a can of cargo from them.”

  “What are we allegedly taking out?”

  “Supplies.”

  “That doesn’t sound suspicious at all,” he said.

  “We need to find out how the station handles Barbell cans.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What’s their work flow? A can comes in, then what?”

  “Typically, it goes to the marshaling yard,” he said.

  “Yes, but after that? The cans are built for bulk cargo, but how many times have we had a can of ‘machine parts’ or ‘electronics?’ The shipper didn’t throw parts into the can.”

  “No, they’re usually in shipping containers and the containers get stacked in the cans. That undercuts mixed-cargo ships, but it requires that the whole cargo goes to one place. It’s a tradeoff that’s been around since the Barbells first rolled off the line at Unwin.”

  “Right,” I said. “So that also means that they must have someplace to unload them and procedures to control where the shipments wait until they’re claimed.”

  “You want to know where that is.”

  “I do. Preferably someplace centrally located on the station.”

  “That shouldn’t be hard to find out,” he said.

  “Good. Find out.”

  “Where is this going?” he asked.

  “I want to know if there’s a package that came in on a Barbell in the last five stanyers that hasn’t been claimed.”

  “Why would anybody ship something here and then not claim it?”

  “I can think of a couple of reasons. The addressee might have died. Might not have gotten the notification that it was in. Heck, it could have been shipped to the wrong station by accident and the original owner asked for a reshipment.”

  Pip shook his head. “You don’t believe any of that.”

  “No, but those are all good suggestions for things you can tell the people who ask you why you want to know.”

  “They won’t believe me either.”

  “I don’t care if they believe you as long as they tell you where that hypothetical crate might be.”

  “How about this? I’m an insurance adjustor looking for a lost shipment. I’ve traced it to Dark Knight and need to look over their cargo holding depot.”

  “You can be the emperor of the Western Annex for all I care.”

  He sighed. “Something has you spooked and I suspect Kondur is the cause. When I get back, I’m going to want to know what the hell is going on.”

  “I’ll tell you as soon as I can. You’re part owner, after all.”

  “I wasn’t going to play the owner card.”

  “You’d have gotten around to it. Work with me. How many times have I followed you into the dark?”

  He paused and tilted his head to the side. “That’s fair.” He stood and headed for the door. “I should be back for dinner.”

  Chapter 21

  Dark Knight Station: 2376, March 11

  The chief popped through the cabin door with a grin. “Found it. The ship had residual radiation on the aft side of the forward nacelle, just about where the inspection hatch would fall on the container. Nothing on the spine so it wasn’t strong enough to reach there.”

  “So, they filled a can, tossed the nuke in as an afterthought?”

  “That’s my working theory. It probably had a remote detonator and depended on the can being close enough to the station to be useful.”

  “So it had to be used during loading or unloading,” I said.

  She frowned. “That’s true.”

  “Do you know what was in the can?”

  “I only have the manifest records. It could have been full of wet sand. There wasn’t anything left of it by the time my forensics team got there.”

  “I’ve got Pip running down the work flow for incoming cans. He’s on his way to the dockmaster’s office now. With any luck he’ll parlay that into the freight-handling process. He’s looking for an abandoned cargo container.”

  “Why abandoned?”

  I shrugged. “Less risk. Ship it in. Put it in a box that would be routed to long-term storage, but relatively near some critical infrastructure. It doesn’t need to be too close. It’s a nuke, after all.”

  She grimaced. “Granted.”

  “Ship it to somebody you know isn’t going to be on station. Mark it ‘hold for pickup’ and never pick it up. It’s here until it’s needed.”

  “That’s only going to hold so long.”

  “Yeah. I’m guessing it only needs to hold long enough to make the initial demands. Once you’re over that psychological hurdle, it’s easier to keep paying. How long would such a device be viable?”

  “Depending on the device, maybe a couple of stanyers. They’re not exactly meant to last very long.”

  “How long ago have you got records of this gang?”

  “Earliest reports in ’66. We recovered this ship in ’68.”

  “So a decade. Plus or minus. That corresponds roughly with the time the mega went missing.”

  She nodded. “Raises the question of whether the mega failed or got hijacked.”

  “I’ll leave that to you,” I said. “I’m just trying to get a handle on how long Dark Knight might have been working under threat.”

  “Because if we knew that, we’d know how long ago that container had been shunted to the back of a warehouse somewhere.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We need to invite Verkol to dinner,” she said.

  “You seem to know him well enough.”

  She frowned and chewed on the idea. “Do we have an SA you can send with a note?”

  “Seriously?”

  “I’ve got some letterhead card stock. It’s hard to trace paper electronically. Harder still to intercept it.”

  “You’re assuming a pretty deep incursion into his infrastructure,” I said.

  “I am. If I’m wrong, no problem. If I’m right, we dodge the bullet.”

  “Will he respond?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I have an SA, if she’s not already ashore.”
I pulled up my console and paged Kris Cross.

  Cross reported to the cabin within a few ticks. “SA Kris Cross reporting as ordered, Captain.”

  “Have a seat, Ms. Cross. What’s your schedule this afternoon?”

  She settled on the front edge of the empty chair beside Chief Stevens. “Having lunch aboard and then heading over to Main Street for some shopping, sar. Probably have dinner ashore and then go bar hopping. I’m off until 0600.”

  “Would you run an errand for me while you’re there?” the chief asked. “I need to drop a message off for a friend but I’m going to be tied up here all afternoon.”

  “Of course, sar. What do I have to do?”

  The chief picked up a small paper envelope from her lap and handed it to Ms. Cross. “There’s a dive bar on Main Street.”

  “The one with no sign? A couple of doors past the brothel?” she asked.

  The chief nodded.

  “I’m not supposed to go in there,” she said.

  The chief blinked a couple of times. “Who said?”

  “The bouncer. Big, beefy guy with tattoos up his arms.”

  “He turned you away?” the chief asked.

  She nodded. “Yes, sar. He was nice about it. Pointed me to the spacer bar just down the lane. The Playground.”

  “His name is Norman,” the chief said.

  Ms. Cross’s jaw hinged open as she stared at the chief. “You know him?”

  “Yes. He’s a nice man whose job it is to look mean. His friend is named Sydney. You might have seen him.”

  “Skinny guy? Wears a lot of layers?”

  “That’s him. What I want you to do is take that envelope and give it to either of them.”

  “What if they’re not there?”

  “If you go this afternoon, they should be. In any case there will be a bouncer there. Hand the envelope to whoever it is and say ‘I was supposed to give this to Sydney but you’ll do.’”

  “That’s it, sar?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “What if Sydney is there?”

  “Just smile, hand him the envelope, and say ‘It’s from Maggie.’ Then walk away.”

  Ms. Cross flipped the envelope over in her hands. The initials – V. K. — the only inscription. “This is real paper?”

  The chief nodded. “A dinner invitation. In writing. An old custom.”