Megaship Maverick (Conquest of Stars Book 3)

by Sid Kar

  Detective Hartar alone had stood back and he had been carefully watching where the mercenaries’ laser beams were striking: they angled downward and hit the floor and the lower wall.

  “Com. Raptor, is there an elevated platform outside of the warehouse?” Hartar asked on his radio.

  “No, but there is a bridge,” Raptor took a look at the blueprint, “There is 50 meters of open space till the reactor room but a twenty feet high bridge crossing it perpendicularly at the halfway point.”

  “Raptor, you were right, should have brought along more starship guards,” Tollvyk said, “Just four of us will never make it running 50 meters of open ground.”

  “No Col. even forty cannot make it across,” Hartar said, “they can pick us out one at a time.”

  Nanja Panga and six mercenaries had taken up position on that very bridge and were firing over the railing into the door of the warehouse.

  “Just two more doors of the reactor room and then we would have been in the hallway accessible to strike soldiers,” Kartar shook his head.

  “We have to try,” Tollvyk said distraught.

  “No,” Raptor’s voice boomed over the radio, “Toll, they have the high ground and you do not have heavy firepower. I am aborting the mission, abort now and return.”

  Tollvyk clicked off the radio, pulled the door shut and then punched it hard.

  Chapter 14: Silent Member

  “I hope all of you had a good space trip,” Rockvyk said rubbing his hands, “welcome to Rainmar.” He said to his staff of two senior detectives, eight junior detectives and four SPASI guards whom he had fetched from his office on Bravo. All of them had just arrived in a civilian space cruise wearing civilian clothes and were unpacking their bags in a large, spacious room of Hotel Emerald Bliss, another posh inn for the planet’s and traveling elite.

  “Chief Rockvyk,” a young, junior detective asked, “how come we have a case on Rainmar? Aren’t we out of our region?”

  “Better not ask boy,” an older senior detective laughed, “What you don’t know, you can officially deny.” There were chuckles and laughters in the room.

  “He is right,” Rockvyk said standing tall towering over the rest in the center of the room, “I will not be telling you more than what you need to know for your specific task. If someone official corners you, you are following my orders, as you are required to do. The case is politically radioactive and I don’t want any of you, especially my junior detectives just starting their future with SPASI, to get taint on their records if it goes sour.”

  Rockvyk turned around and walked to the cabinet. The junior detectives were slightly apprehensive but also excited; they would not have joined the Spy and Detective Department if they didn’t relish dangerous intrigues.

  Rockvyk took out a photograph that he had pulled from the Army records and printed out a large copy of, and nailed it to a large board he had set up in the center of the room.

  “This is our target: former army colonel Lantar Ryk,” Rockvyk said and then to emphasize his importance, pounded on the photo with the side of his fist.

  “I suspect he might be managing a secret bank account for a ring of smugglers,” Rockvyk said, “but he might also be connected to powerful politicians. Therefore, while this is a textbook case of a round the clock watch and quietly lifting enough information to allow us to access the suspect’s bank account; we have to start one step back, assume he has counter-spy protection.”

  “Who would provide him that?” a senior detective asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rockvyk shrugged his shoulders then said, “Alright, get back to your rooms and get refreshed. Continuing the policy of civilian clothes only but keep your laser pistols and SPASI badges with you at all times. We start early tomorrow when Mr. Lantar goes to the bank.”

  First few days were spent in determining whether Lantar had counter-spying protection to watch for other spies. Counter-Spying Protection was provided by SPASI to state leaders, top industrialists and arms engineers while Department of Army Investigations provided it to Army Commanders. Its purpose was to identify if a particular individual was being spied upon by foreign spies. Counter-Spying detectives were specialists who wore civilian clothes and observed from a far distance, not the target individual, but anyone else who might spy on him. His detectives watched Lantar from very far, too far to glean any useful information about him, but far enough to detect if he had any type of guards and detectives looking after him. They concluded he did not. That was Rockvyk’s original hunch, after all Lambda Man would not want to reveal its existence to Army Investigations, but he had to be thorough because the opposition were professionals too.

  Next few days were used to establish a personal profile of Lantar Ryk. His ten detectives worked around the clock in rotating shifts to establish habits and routines of Lantar and to find any quirky and unusual details about him they could tease out. He kept his four SPASI guards in reserve, to rapidly respond to a call for help from any detective working outdoors and to protect their hotel rooms. Lambda Man or Commander Carvyk or whoever else had sent those shooters would not hesitate to do likewise again if they got even a whiff of Rockvyk’s team’s presence.

  It turned out there was nothing unusual about Lantar’s history and no eccentricities in his personality, which is what Rockvyk had once again suspected beforehand. Just the type of personality that would not draw any attention that he too would have recruited for a role of a money man. Lantar had two daughters and one son, all grown up and all living on different planets than Rainmar. His wife was said to be – by her friends of whom his detectives had inquired under false pretenses – a reserved woman with inward temperament. Just the sort of wife who would not inquire too closely into her husband’s work. Another reason for Hortar Aflavyk, original Lambda Man’s banker, to pick Lantar as his successor.

  As they were making a plan of infiltration, Rockvyk had a lucky break. It happened that one of the junior detectives, Tulkar, had an older brother who was a starship mechanic at Comvyk Interstellar Freight Company, that owned and ran thousands of star freighters lugging goods between hundreds of star systems.

  Now Lantar was a middle banker – not a junior banker making do with the accounts of former freight capitans starting their own space shipping companies with their first ship, but also not a senior banker handling the accounts of big freight companies with hundreds of starships and fat account and loan management fees – Lantar managed established but small shippers. His personality was more that of a soldier that he previously was, steady and loyal but not that of a salesman gregarious and social. Dangling the prospects of handling Comvyk company’s banking business, was a bait he would salivate over like a hungry dog over biggest, juiciest bone his master held out.

  Tulkar’s brother had talked a lot of shop and business and Tulkar could fake it. Rockvyk decided Tulkar would pretend to be a distant nephew of Comvyk family – a younger son could be too good to be true – and a single, unexpected incident in Rockvyk’s view did not become suspicious, that required two events, coincidences.

  Tulkar called upon Lantar and just the mention of Comvyk Freight Company got him an appointment the next day. When Tulkar arrived, he presented a company identification, dexterously forged by Rockvyk’s detectives based on Tulkar’s memory of his brother’s card, and when he took it out of his wallet, he dropped it by mistake in the trashcan to the side of the table. He kneeled on the floor to pick up the card and out of sight of Lantar he took out a round, black disc two inches in diameter and attached it under Lantar’s desk. It was a small electronics hijacker device that contained SPASI’s Infiltrator AI.

  Tulkar asked to take Lantar out to lunch at a very expensive restaurant to talk business; bill paid courtesy of Comvyk company, but in actuality put on the SPASI tab and Lantar agreed to the unusual time of 3:00 pm as Tulkar claimed to suffer from space lag in his lunch time.

  The next day at 2:50 PM chief detective Rockvyk once again strolled in the Interst
ellar Trade Financing bank’s headquarters, with his long arms sweeping the air on either side and his long strides making up the distance two steps at a time. He walked in and there was that same pretty, young receptionist at the welcome desk and he smiled widely at her and she acknowledged with a grin of her own.

  He didn’t stop to ask, he already knew where the company offices were and specifically where Lantar Ryk’s office was. Today he was dressed in a fine light blue suit, over dark blue pants and silky white shirt with shiny brown leather boots. An expensive combination that cost twenty times the price of his government paid suits and boots. He had put it on SPASI tab but only rented it for the day, he dare not buy it outright for the SPASI’s budget clerks would have literally jumped on his back, snatched his suit off of him and returned it for a refund.

  Rockvyk chuckled to himself as walked in the elevator bank and waited till there was an empty elevator and took it to the third floor from top where Lantar’s personal office was. He just hoped he did not run into Mr. Kavlar, the Head Manager of the Bank.

  Rockvyk walked on to the floor where single room offices lined either side of the hallway. He approached Lantar’s office, turned to the locked door and searched inside his outer suit pocket for a card. Right then he heard footsteps in the hallway and from the side of his eye he saw another banker in black suit and pants walking down from the far side. He took out his cigarette box instead, put one in his mouth and lit it up with the lighter from his left pant pocket.

  “Waiting for someone?” the banker asked in passing.

  “Appointment with Mr. Lantar,” Rockvyk replied letting out a smoke with just a glance his way.

  “He must have stepped out, he will be along soon,” the banker said, took one look at Rockvyk, and kept going to the elevators.

  No doubt he sized him up by his clothes, Rockvyk thought, bankers quickly learned to estimate the wealth of a potential client by the clothes they wore. And he was not surprised that Lantar had not told his colleagues of his lunch meeting, after all he would not want them to try to move in on his big game. Rockvyk smoked his cigarette with nonchalant airs while the banker waited for his elevator. When he was gone and the hallway was once again empty, Rockvyk quickly took out the card and pressed a small key to open the wireless connection with the electronics hijacker hidden inside the room by detective Tulkar yesterday.

  The device contained an Infiltrator AI that would probe the electronic security system inside the room, break its protections and seize control. There could have been a problem if electronic signals were all routed through hardened wires, but bankers liked their remotes, better to access room security from their chair than having to move around and that meant wireless accessibility and that meant SPASI’s Infiltrator was inside.

  Rockvyk scanned the card and the door light displayed green. He quickly glanced once to the right, then to the left, then yanked open the door, jumped in and closed it shut from inside to display red light to any walker’s stray eyes. He closed the blinds of the windows, then knelt down and picked up the hijacker from under the table and dropped it in his suit pocket. He fired up the banker’s computer and attached SPASI’s decryption device to its wires.

  He waited as it went to work on bank’s computer security. He sat back in the chair with his hands behind his head and his feet on the trashcan. He finished smoking his cigarette and threw away the remnant into the ashtray. It was the same color and brand as most other half smoked cigarettes in there.

  The decryption and cracking of login codes would take time but he was not short of it. Tulkar would stretch the lunch out for an hour, then drinks for another half an hour. The restaurant was twenty minutes away in airship ride. Lantar wasn’t going to return today for only ten minutes. But Rockvyk did not want to spend the night in this room.

  He got access inside the computer in fifteen minutes; he detached the decryption device and dropped it back in his pocket. He navigated through the bank’s internal system, it took a while and a few wrong turns, but he was there at the entry to Lantar’s client accounts in another fifteen. He could not break into this account, no SPASI tool could: it had Army encryption. Hortar Aflavyk had told him that but Rockvyk would have expected no less.

  It would not have been possible for Lambda Man to install Army’s electronics security on Lantar’s room and computer without giving up the name of the game. But Lantar could easily install Army’s encryption for one particular account.

  There were other ways around it.

  He took out another small, electromechanical contraption from his inner suit pocket, ripped out the keyboard wire and attached his own object in the wire conduit then attached the wire to the other end of the intruder. The computer screen changed to a maze of numbers and letters. He did not have to break the encryption; the small machine would read the keyboard memory and spit out all the keys that had been hit in the order they were.

  Rockvyk already knew the 15 digits long account number because Hortar had told him. He scrolled across the screen, identified the number and then memorized the letters that came right after it, almost certainly the password. He plugged out the intruder object and dropped it right back inside his suit. He was back on the account screen, typed in the account number, took a deep breath and entered the password…and he was in.

  The Lambda Man’s secret account had multiple billions of stars in cash and state bonds. No one, not even the wealthy industrialists stashed billions of stars in cash. A large number of liquid bonds issued by Starfire State were used to disguise the account and avoid drawing bank’s attention, but there were no investments.

  He read the names of the account partners and saw six names, the same ones mentioned by Commander Yarwyk including Regional Star Commander Carvyk Botlar. There was a seventh partner, but there was no name upfront, just the phrase: super-partner. That would be the member of House of War, Rockvyk nodded his head, once he had the name, he would go directly to SPASI Chief and ask him to personally approach the Supreme Commander.

  He looked through the account. He read the account rules which stipulated that funds could only be disbursed when at least four partners entered their codes for approval or when the super-partner approved it himself; he was the true owner of the account and the financier of it. That confirmed Rockvyk’s suspicion that the top level conspirator was in House of War. Carvyk could not recruit multiple high ranking army officers for his scheme on whom he held no power or authority. It had to be one patron. His former police and SPASI experience pointed in that direction.

  He read the information on the account type: this was a mixed account. A combination of a partnership account generally used by business partnerships where partners with 50% plus one shares were required to use funds and an inheritance account where a rich benefactor would deposit money for his heirs but where he retained ultimate ownership.

  Rockvyk was getting impatient. He looked everywhere for super-partner’s name for ten minutes then finally found a small section with partner information. He ignored the background details of the other six and fervently searched for the silent member.

  He found it and the shock of the revelation was a punch to his gut and the impact threw him back in the chair, his arms flailing on either side and legs sprawling and twitching, his head dropped back on the chair, his mouth hung open, his tongue went dry and his eyes stared at the ceiling with no focus anywhere.

  The screen displayed the name of the silent member, the super partner and owner of the account: Sejavyk Pytar – Supreme Commander of Starfire Army.

  Chapter 15: Redemption

  When Tollvyk returned to the Command Room by back tracing their route he was wondering whether his friendship with Raptor had played a role in Raptor’s call. He had to acknowledge that if he were to put it in mathematical terms, the chance of success of making it across the open space while fighting off the mercenaries on the high bridge was less than 10%, maybe even less than 5%, but who really knew. It was sure a long shot. But did they h
ave any other shot?

  He was bewildered to see that Raptor, VC Barryett and Capitan Styx were standing over a man seated where Styx had and observing the display screens while his hands were tied with chains and there were fifteen to twenty starship guards surrounding that section. Tollvyk saw Alvina standing looking over there with her hands folded across her chest.

  “What is going on?” Tollvyk asked, “Who is that prisoner?”

  “Capitan Kyrtar Prym,” Alvina said, “our friend the Stardjacker.”

  In an instant Tollvyk understood what Raptor was thinking, “Raptor isn’t going to…”

  “That’s what he is planning,” Alvina nodded her head then tapped her laser gun, “rest of us are preparing for battle.”

  Tollvyk, Kartar, Hartar and Agnosis walked over to Raptor and the starship guards let them through their circle.

  “We failed,” Tollvyk shook his head.

  “Bad luck at the last moment,” VC Barryett.

  “Renegade Romvyk can anticipate our thinking, he was one of us,” Capitan Styx said.

  “Is that the Stardjacker,” Tollvyk pointed to the seated man.

  “Be nice, Toll,” Raptor said, “He was under orders.”

  “I hope I didn’t hit you too hard, Col. Tollvyk” Kyrtar turned to Tollvyk.

  “Oh no,” Tollvyk said, “then again I did beat you. You went out the hovercraft the hard way, not me.”

  Kyrtar half-smiled then turned to Raptor.

  “What do you think?” Raptor asked, “Does this convince you that we are in the right and Commander Carvyk is acting on his personal accord and not following army directives?”

  “This does bolster your case substantially,” Kyrtar said and stood up which seemed to have made the starship guards slightly uneasy and they aimed their laser guns at him. “But I don’t have to judge the issue to do my duty.”