Pirates of the Outrigger Rift

by Gary Jonas

  “Save it. I really don’t care.”

  Maxwell didn’t bother to keep up the smile. His lips turned into a tight grimace. “What is it that you want to know, Detective?”

  “Well, for starters, why do you think Casey was dirty?”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with Randol’s daughter.”

  “Well, I’m just curious. If Casey was the leak, and he’s dead, how did Thorne get the information he needed to ambush the Aurelius? Seems to me like you still have a problem unrelated to Casey.”

  Maxwell shook his head. “The trip had been scheduled for some time. I’m sure that this had been in the works for a while. Suffice to say that there has been a dramatic reduction in attacks in the last few days. I think that speaks volumes.”

  “Still, if you had been doing your job, she wouldn’t have been abducted,” Chandler said.

  He leaned in close to Maxwell’s face, invading his space. Maxwell didn’t move, but even though it was only a holo, Chandler knew he wanted to.

  “Mr. Chandler. I agree. I take my responsibilities seriously. I was foolish not to insist that all the travel plans for corporate VIPs be rerouted. I am sickened by my failure. But all I can do at this point is try to move forward and assist in getting her back.”

  Chandler backed away and stood up. “Okay, tell me everything you know about the attack on the Aurelius.”

  “Yesterday, while in transit from the Trent System to Driscoll University on Corona, the Aurelius stopped midflight. We’re not sure what disabled it, possibly a plasma torpedo. There was a brief distress call, which I can provide to you, but there really isn’t much on it. Simply that they were being attacked. We believe the ship was boarded, but one man escaped in a life pod. He is currently recovering in a hospital outpost. I will have the details sent to you. Beyond that, we’ve heard nothing. The ship hasn’t been recovered.”

  “Don’t you find it a bit unusual that out of all the intergalactic transports, Lord Randol’s daughter happened to be targeted?”

  “That’s a broad assumption, Detective. I would think that any luxury yacht would be a target for pirates.”

  “You don’t think it’s significant? That perhaps more than simple profit is involved here? A man like Thorne holding the daughter of a corporate lord has a lot of leverage.”

  “He certainly does. But until we hear the kidnapper’s demands, we are in the dark as to their motivations.”

  “Seems like you’re doing a lot of sitting around waiting. What are you planning to do proactively?”

  Maxwell glared at Chandler. “When I first accepted employment here, Thorne was a minor problem. He had hit a few scattered transports, but he was a manageable threat. I asked Casey and the lords to provide me funding for more escort fighters and better security, but at the time they felt their money could be better spent elsewhere. Casey made sure of that. It took them too long to realize that with every ship Thorne raided, his power and resources grew. I didn’t create the problem, they did, and now that I’m security director, I’m left to deal with it. Don’t tell me I’m not doing my job. Without me this corporation would have fallen long ago.”

  “Irreplaceable, are you?”

  Maxwell sighed. “Of course not. I just do my duty like any other corporate employee should. You, for example.”

  “Me? I don’t work for the corporation. I work for Randol.”

  “A matter of semantics, surely,” Maxwell said, putting his feet up on his desk, both providing the appearance of relaxation and widening the gap between himself and Chandler. “I really can’t blame you for being so crude. After all, you’re fighting a losing battle. Lord Randol is asking you to do by yourself what the concentrated effort of a megacorporation could not accomplish.”

  “I’m not impressed by your efforts, but I know one thing,” Chandler said. “There’s a leak in this organization that’s been feeding information to Thorne, and that leak is somewhere up high, and I’m not convinced it was Casey. Tell me, Maxwell, do they pay you enough? Irreplaceable employees usually command a hefty salary.”

  Maxwell kicked away from the desk, bolted to his feet and pointed a finger in Chandler’s face. “Watch yourself, Detective. You can only push me so far, and it would be unfortunate for you and Lord Randol if you were implicated as an accomplice in the recent theft of corporate data.”

  Chandler rose from the desk and smiled. “Relax, you’re going to mess up your pretty suit. Besides, as soon as you find that data, we should be able to end all this confusion, right?”

  Maxwell’s cheeks flushed, but he quickly composed himself and spoke in a more contained tone. “Mr. Chandler, toward that end, you could benefit financially if you were to assist my office in the apprehension of the courier whose capture you disrupted the other day. There’s a price on her head.”

  “Good luck with that,” Chandler said. “Your goons have been doing great so far.” He turned and began walking out of the room, leaving Maxwell fuming behind him. “You know what this office really needs?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “A coffin and mourners. This is the most depressing room I have ever seen. And what the hell kind of music is that?”

  Chandler smiled as he switched off the holo transmission and faded away. His perceptions shifted and he was again sitting in the cockpit of the Marlowe. He removed the crown-like transmission ring from his head and put it away with the holo unit.

  There was something about Maxwell that rubbed him the wrong way. He was too smug, too clean. But Chandler knew he had to be careful and not push too far—he needed Maxwell’s cooperation.

  He reached forward and checked the piloting controls. He was closing in on the location of the hospital base. It was time to make some calls to some old contacts. He needed information that only they could provide.

  Brock sat quietly in the transport compartment of the small troop carrier. As he had hoped, his performance on Raken had got him promoted. The single contact he knew in Thorne’s organization had introduced him to a disreputable ship captain and a destination unknown with a group of fellow recruits. Brock felt like a hot prospect on the move, getting closer to uncovering the details he needed.

  But from the vacant looks on the faces of the other men around him, he was either destined for true greatness in the organization or he was just delusional. He was bored anyway, so he figured he might as well test the waters.

  “So,” he said to no one in particular. “What do you think about the latest trends in the economy?”

  They stared blankly at him.

  “Okay, how about art? Did anyone catch that exhibit by Trath on Matilda?”

  No reaction.

  “Ah, I see. Does anyone really hate it when it’s raining and you look up and get hit in the eye?”

  “Yeah! I hate it when that happens,” the guy on his right said. “I do that all the time. Small universe, ain’t it?”

  He had found their intellectual level. Perhaps they would discuss why it was that the smell of your own flatulence was never quite as bad as that of others’.

  Luckily, conversation was kept to a minimum on the trip. They mostly slept, fought, ate, and used the head. By the time they arrived at their destination, Brock had determined that most of the men were local street toughs, too unemployable by the corporations to make a living any other way but illegally. They were ripe for recruitment for a few credits, but also dangerous to count on to do any work requiring subtlety, or to trust with sensitive information.

  Thorne solved that problem by not telling them anything. Brock had no idea where he was being transported to. He knew only that it was some sort of base for staging raids and that he was to serve as a boarder—to help take ships—and as a guard, in the event prisoners were taken.

  He would be expected to work for a minimum of one year. He’d enjoy the provided entertainment, save his pay, and be returned home at the end of his tour with a pocket full of credits. More likely, however, most would end up chucked out an airlock if Thorne t
hought they knew too much. Thorne hadn’t survived this long trusting his secrets to morons like those Brock saw around him.

  They arrived at the base in two days. They called it “Thorne’s Lair.” All he knew of it was that it was an underground maze. The trip in the cargo hold hadn’t afforded him a view of anything except the sleazy recruits around him. When he got off the ship it was through an airlock tunnel. It was surely some hunk of rock somewhere too small to have an atmosphere. And the maze had to be the result of mining. That might be a good hint of the location if there weren’t thousands of abandoned, mined-out moons and asteroids. Still, he resolved to look out for signs that might pinpoint where he was.

  At this point, however, he didn’t know how he would contact his handler in the Confed to report. Ideally, he would like to collect as much intel as he could, then find a way to shanghai a ship and blast out of there. The navcom on the ship would tell him what he needed to know about the location. But he had to be able to escape the pirate fleet that was stationed there. That was going to be damn near impossible.

  The men were all herded into a room where a quartermaster was issuing gear. The quartermaster was a grizzled old reprobate with bad teeth and a desperate need to trim a pair of eyebrows that branched together like wild octopus tentacles.

  “Name?” the quartermaster asked.

  “Brock.”

  “What size shirt and pants?”

  “I wear a standard-plus-one in shirt, and a thirty-four-unit waist by thirty-six length in the pants.”

  The quartermaster made an entry into a notescribe and grabbed a box off the shelf behind him. He checked off each item as he handed it to Brock.

  “Here we are. Crew shirt, large, two each. Crew pants, large, two each. Boots, large, one pair. Socks, two pair. Belt, large, one each. Sword, junior class with scabbard, one each.”

  Brock looked at the stack of outsized clothes and frankly stared at the cutlass. “A sword? Really?”

  “Yes. Have you not seen one before? It’s like a long knife. You stick people in the gut with it and they die.”

  “You tell me you actually use swords? What about pulse pistols? Blasters?”

  “Don’t be an idiot. Of course we use pulse pistols and blasters, but the sword is mandatory. It’s part of the uniform. And …” the man looked from side to side and then leaned toward Brock, whispering. “Thorne has some sort of blade fetish or something. He’s the boss. We follow his rules. Don’t get caught without yours or I guarantee you won’t get a second chance. You’ll get a blade in your gut, son.”

  Brock nodded. “Alrighty, in that case—yo ho ho! I’ll buckle me some swash then.”

  The rest of the group got their gear and were led toward the crew quarters. The advantage of using the old mine was that there was a lot of available space. Each man could have his own private room. There was a common crew area for eating, drinking, and gambling. This seemed to be the major pastime. He was told that once a month a shipment of pleasure workers was imported from parts unknown. This was also a major form of entertainment.

  As they walked down the corridors, Brock glanced down a side hall. There was a guard posted in front of a barred cell door. A beautiful blonde woman paced behind those bars. He asked the man leading them around. “What’s that?”

  “That’s the brig. Prisoners, hostages, that type of stuff.”

  “She’s quite a looker. I wouldn’t mind interrogating her.”

  “You and me both, pal. But don’t get caught wandering in that area unless you’re assigned there. You’ll end up dead.”

  Brock nodded. He wondered who the woman was. That was another bit of intel that he intended to discover before he left this rock. He was going to try to wrangle himself a job as a jailer. If he could manage a jailbreak in the process, all the better.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Chandler started the search for information about Helen Randol by getting in touch with a few of his more shady contacts. Ships were hot commodities; the pirates would turn the Aurelius quickly for profit. There were always those who didn’t care where their ship came from as long as the price was right. There was a thriving underworld that specialized in processing stolen ships for resale, refitting them just enough to prevent easy identification.

  The Confed had attempted to crack down on this criminal industry by making it mandatory for ships to carry unique transponders and encoded microtags. However, it was difficult to regulate all of Manspace. Humanity, fiercely independent, rebelled against rules and feared that the Confed would become too powerful if it were that easy to track the movements of every human ship. Conspiracy theories ran rampant, and the Confed could not get the independent corporations and governments to cooperate on a standardized registry. Any ship could be ultimately identified by comparing it to its blueprints and researching serial numbers deep in the bowels of the hold. But first the Confed had to have probable cause to conduct the search—hard to get when the shipyards are silent for the right price.

  Therefore, it wasn’t any great difficulty to sell a stolen ship. The odds of getting caught were small. Although some ships were ultimately recovered, they had to be found quickly before they were refitted, and the owner would need very specific information to identify a particular vessel.

  In the course of his past investigations, Chandler had met many individuals who made their living through illegal means, but he had a mutually beneficial business relationship with them nonetheless. It was a necessary evil for those in his line of work. He let the word out that he needed information about any ship matching the description of the Aurelius coming to market. He had some of Randol’s money to throw around in gratitude, as well as his personal reputation for honorable discretion when it came to protecting the identity of his sources.

  He knew the Aurelius was an Athena-class yacht so he had details of her tonnage, engines, and capacity. But he didn’t know any uniquely identifying details of the interior structure that would distinguish it from any other ship of the same class. Randol was of no help on the subject—he never paid any attention to anything but the carpet and furnishings.

  Chandler needed a crew member who crawled around the hold. Worked on the engine. Scribbled graffiti in the toilet stalls. Luckily, one had survived. But talking to him wasn’t going to be pleasant.

  Chandler hated hospitals. They smelled funny, they didn’t let you drink or use tobac, and they liked to wake you up to give you sedatives. People went there to die and, while they waited, their butts got cold sticking out of those stupid hospital gowns. But the main thing he hated about hospitals was the fact that they were full of sick people.

  Pissed-off ex-husbands, he could handle. Street freaks with shivs, he could handle. Guys hopped up on stims who wanted to play rough, he could handle. Invisible germs that can make you drop dead, he had a problem with. He wished the hospital was part of Nebulaco’s holo network. But no such luck.

  Chandler walked down the cold, antiseptic hallway toward Jackson Radje’s room. Radje had been a crewman on the Aurelius, and he was the only witness to the attack, escaping in a life pod that was later found by a Confed patrol. He was injured, but he would live.

  When he reached the door to room 432, Chandler looked in and grimaced. It was a ward of ten beds, full of coughing, sneezing, wheezing, dying people. What a pain in the ass. He read the nameplates on the beds as he passed by. Unfortunately, he could not avoid also reading the diagnoses. Altairian Plague, Ritifian Fever, parasitic and fungal infections—he was afraid to breathe.

  Finally, he found Radje’s bed, displaying the comforting diagnosis of skull fracture. He could live with that. One thing was for sure, if you were poor, you couldn’t afford to get sick because you never knew what disease the sap in the next bed might have. Radje’s head was bandaged with a gel-like substance that glowed and throbbed with his heartbeat. Wires ran from a monitoring console to the man, and a confusion of displays showed on the screen above his head. He appeared to be sleeping.

&nbs
p; “Hey, Radje,” Chandler said.

  The man didn’t stir.

  The patient in the next bed began to have a coughing fit. Covering his mouth was evidently not in his nature.

  “Great,” Chandler said, and moved to the other side of the bed, only to discover an overpowering odor of shit emanating from the patient on that side.

  “Wonderful. Oh, Radje! Wake up!” Chandler shook the man’s shoulder. “I don’t have all day. I want to leave here a healthy man.”

  Still the man did not stir. Looking around him, Chandler turned back to the unconscious Radje and bent to yell in his ear. “Wake up!”

  The man jolted awake, almost falling off the bed. The monitors went crazy, turning red and wailing.

  A nurse rushed in to see what was the matter, her white uniform chilling the effect of her beauty. “What happened?”

  Radje sat up in bed, breathing hard. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Must have been a nightmare,” said Chandler. “Since you’re up, let me introduce myself. Mike Chandler, private investigator. I’m trying to get some information about the pirate raid on Randol’s yacht.”

  “Sir,” the nurse said. “You really should leave. Mr. Radje is in no condition to answer any questions, and you’re disturbing the other patients.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Radje wants to speak with me, especially since he likes his job at Nebulaco and wants to keep it. And as far as these others are concerned, hell, they’re all goners—maybe they’ll kick off early and save you some work. Speaking of which, the guy next door there has had an accident.”

  The nurse sighed. “Fine, but if I have any trouble out of you I’ll—”

  “What? Spank me? Okay, but wash your hands first and keep the nurse’s uniform on.”

  The nurse scowled and left to see to her next patient.

  Radje had calmed a bit, settling back on his pillow. Chandler sat on the edge of his bed and took out a notescribe to record the interview.

  “Okay, Radje, tell me about the raid.”