by Sid Kar
Romvyk had designated strategic choke points across the blueprint and the mercenaries made haste and took their positions. There they opened fire on any starship guards or other armed crewmembers that tried to come to the aid of the guards.
Soon thereafter, Nanja Panga switched on his radio and said, “Commander Romvyk, all of our teams are in position.”
“Five minutes before schedule, I like that,” Romvyk replied, “I want our forces to remain concentrated to hold back the Strike Soldiers. Once I am sure of that, we will progress to our primary objective of storming the starship command room.”
“Yes commander,” Nanja Panga replied. He personally oversaw the setup of heavy laser cannons just beyond the entrance to the large corridor leading to the strike soldiers’ barracks. Any time now, he thought, their operation depended on whether they could hold back the soldiers at this point.
Raptor, Barryett, Tollvyk, Styx and Hartar assembled around a formerly vacant station in the command room, built slightly off to the side from the central area. Capitan Styx sat down in the main chair and started up the terminals and machines. This was the control section to coordinate infantry battles abroad the starship itself. It was very rare for this section to be used and most starships went through their entire lifecycle from initiation into the Army to the final sell off without the computers of this section being turned on even once – except for practicing scenarios.
The terminals displayed the locations of the starship guards with a number next to them. The radio messages sent by them were being translated into battle situation analysis by the computers.
“Commodore, your orders are required to turn on the Battle AI specific to this section and purpose,” Styx said.
“Upload Battle AI Eradicator,” Raptor said.
“Battle AI Eradicator, uploaded and running,” Styx replied when the computer accepted Raptor’s voice authentication.
Eradicator: Battle AI Eradicator reporting for duty, Commodore.
It spoke from the speakers at the side of the terminals.
“Eradicator, give us the battle analysis,” Styx ordered.
Eradicator: A textbook pin down of our forces through the use of strategic chokeholds. It is a scenario right out of our own Army’s playbook.
“What the hell?” Raptor asked, “How many of them are there to hold down two thousand starship guards?”
Eradicator: It appears more than double that number. Starship sensors cannot distinguish one biological from another but I am getting a rough estimate based on all the radio messages called in by our guards about the opposition they are facing in the different locations.
“Col. Tollvyk, you tangled with them earlier,” Detective Hartar turned to him.
“Shot one bastard right off of his rope,” Tollvyk said.
“Can you describe their uniforms to Eradicator,” Hartar said, “its database contains records on just about every military and paramilitary organization in the galaxy.”
“Sure,” Tollvyk said and started describing the uniform. Eradicator started searching its database but Hartar spoke first.
“That’s Dark Star Company out there,” he said, “Hell, every detective knows of them.”
Eradicator: Correct.
“No wonder it’s a textbook operation out of our own manual,” Styx said, “Renegade Romvyk leads them.”
“That is not good,” VC Barryett turned to Raptor, “He knows our methods and tactics, all of them and all potential responses.”
“And Carvyk must have given him the blueprints for Conquistador,” Hartar added.
“Time to call in the Strike Soldiers,” Raptor said and asked Styx to connect directly to Col. Maktar. Two seconds later Col. Maktar was visible on the display and there were a lot of soldiers running around behind him.
“Col. Maktar why haven’t your soldiers stormed the enemy yet?” Raptor asked.
“Commodore, my soldiers have been stopped at the only two locations abroad this Starship that connect my section in the rear half to yours in the front,” Maktar replied, “Connectors 1 and 2, they are five hundred meters long corridors at the other end of which the enemy has taken position. My soldiers are trading lasers with them across the length of it.”
“You have armored hovercraft that laser long guns can’t easily penetrate,” Raptor said.
“We are just preparing them,” Maktar smiled, “hence the rush behind me.”
“Be careful, we are almost certain it’s Dark Star Company we are dealing with,” Raptor said.
“Renegade Romvyk’s mercenaries,” Maktar scratched his chin, “He was a Col. of Strike Soldiers just like me. Surely, he must know of our presence.” Then he looked up at Raptor again, “Don’t worry Commodore, last I heard there were no more than five thousand of them and we have three to one advantage in numbers, not counting the rest of the guards and the crew.”
“Good luck,” Raptor said, “Alright then.”
“Alright.” Col. Maktar saluted Raptor and the screen went blank. Raptor turned to Styx.
“Any progress from your guards?” Raptor asked him.
“Negative and it is unlikely to get better for them,” Styx said pointing to a few locations on the starship blueprint displayed on the largest terminal in the section, “Romvyk knows all our narrow corridors that lead to major sections of this starship. Places where two, three or four gunmen can hold of a force of tens of attackers.”
“Do you mean to say that a large portion of our Starship is effectively under enemy’s control?” Raptor asked and Styx simply nodded his head.
“Commodore, but we are under a complete lockdown,” Barryett tried to console him, “They can’t penetrate any of our controls and equipment. Not with mere laser guns. They would need heavy firepower to destroy our doors and walls hardened with special metal alloys.”
“Capitan Styx, can your guards coordinate a takeback with Strike Soldiers?” Raptor asked.
“I would advise against it,” Styx said, “my guards don’t have the numbers and we would have to use a large number of crew to dislodge the mercenaries from their chokeholds.”
“No we need the crew for starship operations,” Raptor said, “That would be the very last option.”
An encrypted message popped up on one of the terminals and the Battle AI instantly decrypted it. Col. Maktar was prepared with his soldiers loaded onto the armored hovercraft and they were ready to launch a simultaneous attack through both connectors to take back the courtyards and rest of the starship.
Col. Maktar was sitting inside the fifth or sixth armored hovercraft with nine more strike soldiers tightly clutching their laser guns when they received the ‘go ahead’ from Com. Raptor. A train of over twenty hovercrafts lifted up in the air and headed into the connector. A single rapid fire heavy laser gun was mounted in front of each hovercraft. They slowly entered the large connector and then picked up speed. The connecting corridor was five hundred meters long, about fifty meters tall and fifty meters wide. As their hovercrafts moved forward, they received laser fire from the mercenaries but the beams bounced off their armors. The first two hovercrafts opened fire with the mounted rapid-fire laser gun and a rain of thick laser bolts jolted the first layer of mercenaries twenty feet back. There was no more fire from that end.
The first hovercraft reached around three hundred meters mark when suddenly a single flash of light appeared on the other end and a powerful laser beam blasted it into pieces. The second hovercraft tried to maneuver down but another bolt ensured that it met the same fate as the first one.
“Laser cannons,” the pilot of the third hovercraft shouted, “heavy fire, taking heavy laser fire.”
“Abort! Abort!” Maktar shouted. As his hovercraft turned around he stomped his boots on the floor and punched his open palm with the other hand. How could he be so stupid? Of course Renegade Romvyk knew that they had armored hovercrafts that could break chokepoints held by mere handheld laser guns. He would have brought more firepower!
Maktar’s and sixteen other hovercrafts returned back but the third hovercraft was not so lucky and it was shot down while making a complete turn. Maktar jumped out and slammed his cap on the floor in anger before picking it up a couple seconds later.
“Col. Maktar, we can’t proceed towards the mercenaries even in our armored craft, they have heavy cannons,” the leader of the second group tasked with assaulting Connector #2 said over his radio.
“Same here,” Maktar said, “And I lost three.”
Meanwhile on the other end, Romvyk Nyk and Nanja Panga exchanged congratulations.
“Commander Romvyk, once we started firing heavy firepower, the strike soldiers’ turned tail in their hovercrafts and ran back,” Nanja said.
“My boys got three of them,” Romvyk said, “Tough they are, fools they aren’t. So that finishes the second part of our plan. We can be assured our cannons will stop any armored assault. Nanja meet me with your assault team at our target location. We will now proceed to our primary objective: assault and take the starship’s command room.”
Chapter 11: Investigation
SPASI Detective Rockvyk walked out of the shower room, sat down on the bed in front of the small window and threw his laser pistol on the small table in front of him. He had carried his gun inside the shower: that’s how paranoid he was now.
He had spent the whole of yesterday night staying awake with his pistol and someone else’s half empty whiskey bottle for company five floors above the floor on which they had been ambushed. The police had cordoned off that entire floor but they could not go door to door asking questions across the entire length of a hundred and twenty floor hotel. Presumably, he could have walked out right away flashing his badge – police didn’t question state detectives – but they might have decided to make an exception yesterday.
Instead, he had fallen asleep in the wee hours of the morning. Or he might have passed out because he remembered that the bottle was empty when he had woken up in the afternoon. Then he had put on his suit and walked out half stumbling and to the police outside the hotel he appeared no different than any other drunken reveler, perhaps even oblivious to last night’s events. That was the huge benefit to staying in an upscale hotel such as Ruby Spiral; the guests were the elites of this planet and of many other worlds of the Empire, with enough reach to get Chief of Police or Planet Administrator to return their calls right away. Subsequently, police didn’t bother the guests and Rockvyk had not been stopped for questioning.
But now he decided on an exact opposite tact by getting a room in one of the cheapest, run down hotels somewhere in the outskirts of the main city. He had walked out without paying last night’s tab and he didn’t want his name anywhere near that hotel or even connected to this planet. He would pay cash and pay out of his pocket; he wasn’t going to splurge from his paycheck or use official tab. And he wanted to hide out.
As he watched the evening sun set on this region of Rainmar, he thought about yesterday’s events more like a detective and less like a shaken participant. Someone was onto them and it had to be the likes of Carvyk, Lambda Man or whoever was ultimately pulling the strings of this. He would start his investigation tomorrow morning.
Next morning, Rockvyk checked out of the hotel early. Since he had booked the room by smacking down cash and giving no name, the checkout was just a simple goodbye to the middle aged hotel clerk, who was perhaps also the proprietor.
There was a reason Com. Antrar had chosen this planet. Antrar must have known that the secret bank account for Lambda Man’s funds was held at the Bank of Interstellar Trade Finance; Yarwyk had been his good friend after all. He would have presumed his and Army Detective Evyk’s investigation would begin at the bank, which meant in all likelihoods the bank was headquartered here. His hunch had been right. Last night he had called the telephone operator for the bank’s number and called the bank for their headquarters and hours.
Bank of Interstellar Trade Finance specialized in financing commercial starships engaged in trade across planets and star systems. Its headquarters was located in one of the busiest and swankiest business districts on Rainmar. Its main office buildings were two tall but narrow skyscrapers, flanking a wide but short semi-circular building in the center, which had open, marble steps leading to its shiny, wide glass front door.
Rockvyk had taken an air-taxi that dropped him to the edge of the steps and he walked up confidently, dressed in his rose red suit and black pants, his long legs taking tall strides and outpacing the regular bank workers beginning their day. He reached the top, flung open one of the huge glass doors with his massive palm and smiled at the pretty, young receptionist at the central, welcome desk.
“Which way to the bank’s company office, madam?” he asked her.
“Walk down from here till that hallway and make a left for elevators,” she pointed behind her.
“Thank you,” Rockvyk smiled and again strolled down with poise as if a rich client heading to his appointment to discuss his fat bank balance.
He turned left, picked an elevator and pressed the button for the topmost floor which had the office of the commanding officer of the bank. He walked down the shiny, black marble floor and came to a semi-circular desk with an older lady sitting behind. To her right a few steps behind was a gray, steel door and two policemen were standing outside engaged in a jocular banter. When they saw him, they straightened themselves, ended their conversation and stood on either side of the door with hands in front of their belt and with a serious stare on their faces.
“Sir, do you have an appointment with Mr. Kavlar today?” the secretary asked him but with a skeptical expression as she knew her boss reserved the first hour of the day to go over his phone bank and read his mail.
Rockvyk flipped his badge in front of her face and gave her two seconds to read it, then he yanked it away from her and showed it to each policeman in turn. They were slightly taken aback and stood aside. Rockvyk pushed open the door himself and walked in and saw an older man dressed in black suit, at his desk flipping through his mail.
“Can I help you?” Mr. Kavlar asked him.
Rockvyk said nothing but pulled out the chair in front of the bank’s top manager, sat down with one foot on the other knee, then leaned forward, smacked his badge open on the desk, then gave it a push down the table with his index, middle finger and the thumb. The badge rotated like a top as it slid down and stopped just before the edge in front of Mr. Kavlar.
“SPASI Detective Rockvyk Torryen?” Kavlar read the badge then threw his mail on the side of the table, “What is this about?”
“Don’t you want to verify?” Rockvyk asked.
Mr. Kavlar picked up the badge, then entered its number in a state database accessible from his computer. It was an open database accessible to the public which had a right to verify a state officer’s identity using his code so as to prevent an imposter from taking false advantage.
“You check out, Mr. Rockvyk,” Kavlar returned the badge and Rockvyk returned it to his inner suit pocket. Banks were not the jurisdiction of Counter-Smuggling Division but then Mr. Kavlar could not be expected to know this, Rockvyk thought. For him, all SPASI detectives were the same.
“Mr. Kavlar, we are concerned that smuggling rackets are utilizing your bank to hide and move their funds,” Rockvyk said, “and one or more of your employees may be helping them do it. I need a list of all your current and past employees going back a couple of decades to cross-check against our own list of potential smugglers contacts.”
“And you have a Letter of Search from the court for it?” Mr. Kavlar raised hackles.
Rockvyk chuckled and said, “Mr. Kavlar, I am trying to make it discreet for your own benefit. We know how important your bank is for interstellar commerce. If word leaks out to your clientele that smuggler funds are commingled with theirs and thus a risk of money in the accounts getting tied up in court cases…I don’t need to tell you the implications.”
Rockvyk could have
secured a Letter of Search but the honcho of the local SPASI branch would have heard of it and blown his marbles. A frontier detective nosing around on his big planet without requisite obeisance, the honcho could have him disciplined.
Mr. Kavlar did not say anything but his face shriveled and frowned. He was anxious and thinking deeply and then said, “Only the list of employees?”
“Yes sir, past and present both,” Rockvyk said, “You benefit too. The smugglers’ friend is very likely stealing money from the bank and if so we might get it back.”
Mr. Kavlar slowly nodded his head. He turned around, got up and walked over to a secure cabinet and then took out a small metallic ball, half inch in diameter with multiple lighted reflectors across its surface and rolled it to Rockvyk across the table who dropped it in his outer suit pocket.
“I appreciate discretion, I hope you do likewise,” Mr. Kavlar said.
“Discretion is our business,” Rockvyk got up and grinned, “Speak of it to no one. I am your only contact in SPASI.”
Rockvyk walked out as briskly as he had walked in. He took the elevator down, grabbed a telephone book from a nearby row of payphones, flipped through the pages as he walked towards the entrance, then smacked it shut and tossed it on the central reception desk with a smile and a request, “please return it for me.”
“Sure, sir,” the young lady answered.
Rockvyk walked out and down the steps and hailed another air-taxi to the address he had just found and memorized.
The local headquarters of SPASI on planet Rainmar was not too far away from the bank’s headquarters and he reached it in five minutes. The building was about thirty stories high but shaped in a nondescript, rectangular shape with off-white walls and black windows.
Rockvyk walked in and after a couple of SPASI guards scanned his badge, he was allowed to wander inside. There must have been a thousand SPASI detectives, dressed in their archetypical rose red suit and black pants, and a couple thousand SPASI guards in their rose red shirt and gray pants, going about their business in this building. This meant Rockvyk did not have to worry about not being recognized by the locals.