He nodded quickly.
"That's good. But, like I said, I'm a nice guy. And you're a lucky guy, because I've looked at your record, and I don't find any prior convictions for gambling offenses, which means you just got this thing or you haven't been caught yet." He lifted Welch's hand by the wrist, rotated it to get a clearer view. "No fresh scar. I guess that means you haven't been caught yet. So you've been lucky. Let's see how lucky you're going to be now. We can handle this two ways, Welch. One, you're in trouble. Two, you're in a hell of a lot of trouble. And that depends on how you answer my questions. So which will it be?"
Welch squirmed again, trying unsuccessfully to pull his hand from Garibaldi's grip. "I din't know. Din't think it was against the law."
Garibaldi shook his head. "Fraud: Obtaining goods, services, or other items of value by deceptive or misleading means." He tapped the gambler's hand against the table. "This is a deceptive means. A damned cheap one, too. Now, where'd you get the implant?"
"This guy. He has a clinic, out in the Belt. I owed him some money I couldn't pay back. And he told methat's all right, 'cause he could help me. He'd sell me this implant, and I could win money playing cards with the guys on the ship, pay him back the next time I was in port."
Garibaldi sighed. Why didn't they ever have a different story? Something interesting for a change? "How'd you lose the money in the first place? Gambling?"
Welch nodded miserably. "So I did what he said. Except when I went to pay him back, he said I still owed him for the implant, it was real high-tech stuff. But the guys on the ship, they weren't playing with me anymore, and so I figured it was time to get out of the Belt. I signed on with this out-system operation. And ended up here."
This guy has a vacuum for brains, Garibaldi thought. "And I suppose you ended up in the Belt after you got in trouble on Mars? Except it really wasn't your fault?"
"Something like that, maybe."
"All right, I tell you what you're going to do now. You're going to our Medlab, where a nice technician is going to remove that implant and throw it away like the piece of trash it is. Then you're going to sit in our lockup until your ship pulls out, and then you're never going to set foot on Babylon 5 again as long as you know what's good for you.
"Oh," he added, "and there'll be a charge for removing the implant. Our medics don't work for free."
"A charge?"
Garibaldi sighed again. "Don't tell me you don't have the money?"
"Well, I mean, I did, but it was all on the poker table, before that snake-eyed, telepath, alien bitch"
"Never mind that. So you don't have the money. I'll contact your ship, then, and they can take the cost out of your pay. Unless you'd rather tell it to the Ombunds?"
"Aw, sheesh, look, can't you give me a break? I never woulda done it if I had the money. ..."
"If you want a break, you've got to earn it. Now, let's start with the name of this guy out in the Belt?"
Welch didn't want to say, he squirmed a lot more, he whined, he was going to get in trouble. But Garibaldi was persuasive. When he had the information on the source in the Belt, he went on, "Now, how would you like to talk about Mars?"
"I don't know no names on Mars. I mean, it's been five, six years since I was there. Who can remember?"
"Try," Garibaldi urged him. "For example, what do you remember about a guy named Yang? Fengshi Yang?"
"I dunno. Never heard of him." But Welch's eyes were evasive.
"Let me jog your memory a little." Garibaldi pulled his viewer. "Here. This is what he looks like. Remember him now?"
"Maybe."
Yes! Garibaldi exulted inwardly. Finally! But he kept his expression blank as he pressed for more information. "Maybe what? Maybe you saw him on the Mars Colony once? Or twice? Maybe he worked for Earth Alliance?"
"Maybe I did. Back when I was working the deep mines I mighta seen him. Back before I got into space."
"Yang was a miner?"
"Nah." Welch was starting to squirm again. "But he worked around the mines. Maybe for one of the companies, I don't know. Metallicorp, maybe. Or AreTech. I think . . . people said he was like an enforcer. If, say, you owed money to somebody. Or somebody didn't much like you."
"I see. So this Yang would have been the kind of guy to have a lot of enemies?"
"Yeah, I guess so. I wouldn't want to mess with him, though. Not from what I heard."
"I see. And do you think any of these enemies might have been political?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Sure you do. Was Yang involved in the Free Mars movement? Do you think he could have been involved in any of the terrorist activity?"
Vehement head-shaking. "I dunno. I don't. That was after my time. I took off from Mars Colony six, seven years ago. Never was involved in any of that stuff. Far as I know, Yang worked around the mines, that's all. I didn't try to cross his path, you know what I mean?"
"I know what you mean." Garibaldi took a moment to decide. It was a direct order. All the way from the Joint Chiefs. Then he asked the question: "What about a guy named Ortega? J. D. Ortega. Did you ever see him when you were on Mars Colony? Working in the mines?"
"Nope. No, I don't think so. Name doesn't mean anything."
And that, for all that Garibaldi kept pressing him, was about all the information he could get out of Welch. But at least it was something. At least the guy had heard of Yang, and placed him on Mars.
Garibaldi made a decision. "So," he said, "I tell you what. I'm going to give you that break I talked about. 'Cause it sounds to me like you might have reason not to want to run into this Yang character. Right?"
Welch's eyes got very wide and the pitch of his voice went up. "Here? On B5? You mean he's here?"
"That's what I thought. So I'm going to do you a favor and let you go back to your ship now. You stay there 'til you pull out of the docking bay and you don't set foot on this station again. Got it?"
Vigorous nod of the head.
"I'll make sure no one knows you were ever here. And you'll do the same, right? You'll never mention to anyone that we had this little talk."
"Yeah, right."
Garibaldi called a guard to come and escort Welch to Medlab and then back to his ship. He hoped the guy had enough sense to keep his mouth shut. Because if Wallace ever found out he'd been asking questions about J. D. Ortega and the Free Mars movement, he was going to be in deeper trouble than Welch could ever imagine.
CHAPTER 16
Ivanova ran through the preflight check like a litany, secure in the familiar space of the Starfury's cockpit, suited up for space, hands on the controls. It felt good. It felt right.
"Escort Wing, ready for launch."
Sheridan had given her back what she needed. A command, if not the command they had taken away from her. And more than that: flight.
"Escort Wing launching. On my mark. Drop!"
The ship fell away from the station through the open door of the bay. As soon as she was clear, Ivanova hit the ignition, and the thrusters roared into life. She could feel their power, the force of acceleration trying to press her back into her seat. The rest of the escort formed themselves up behind and around her, and the six ships headed as one into the jump gate's infinite vortex.
Six Starfuries. Not the whole of Alpha Wing, but they were still going out in force, expecting a fight. Hoping, at least in Ivanova's case, for one. Hoping to splash some raiders, hit them where it hurt. And if she had a mental image of Commander Ian Wallace as the target when the plasma hit, well, so much the better.
The gate flung them out of hyperspace with Ivanova coolly ordering, "Hold your formation, Escort Wing." Their rendezvous was two and a half hours away, across Blue Sector, with the heavy hauler Kobold as it came through the transfer point carrying raw ingots of indium, titanium, nickel, and morbidium from the mines of Mars.
No problem getting a ship like that to show up on the mass detector, Ivanova thought. Almost as heavy as a small planet, with th
e inertia to match. Flying it would be about as exciting as a tug pushing a barge up a slow stream.
Her hands hovered over the fighter's controls, just to feel the temptation, just for a second, to cut loose with the afterburners. Yes, it was good to be back.
"2:20 hours 'til estimated time of rendezvous," she said, because she had no orders to give now that they were through the gate and still so far from their destination. The fighters were all in formation, all on course. You couldn't have aimless chatter in the cockpit when the ships were out on patrol, but sometimes on the long, stretches space could seem like an awfully big, dark silent place and a friendly voice was good to hear.
"Copy that, Alpha Leader," Mokena replied from Alpha Two.
By the time the jump gate showed up on the long-range scan, Ivanova was ready for the confrontation she expected and hoped would happen. "Weapons systems on. Keep on the alert for raiders," she ordered, but the fighter pilots had all been briefed on the nature of this patrol. They knew what was likely to show up, and they were ready for it.
Then there was a sudden massive energy surge showing up on her instruments, a blaze of blue light from the jump gate, and the transport came through from hyper-space at the maximum acceleration for a ship of her class.
Ivanova made immediate contact. "This is Earthforce Commander Susan Ivanova, commanding Escort Wing Alpha. Are you the Kobold?"
"Affirmative, Commander. Earth Alliance transport Kobold, out of Marsport. We're glad to see you out here."
"Glad to be here, Kobold. We've come out to give you an escort as far as Babylon 5. We've heard raiders might be taking an interest in your cargo."
"Thanks, Commander. I've got to say, it's about time, and then some."
"Take escort formation," Ivanova ordered her command, and they fell into place around the transport, matching velocities, heading back in the direction of Babylon 5.
It was too easy. Ivanova found herself almost wishing the raiders would show up. Once they were all on course, the transport's pilot came on-line through Ivanova's comm channel. "Commander, can I askyou said you heard raiders might be taking an interest in our cargo?"
"That's right."
"Well, could I askwhere you heard this? Your source?"
"Meet me once we're on Babylon 5," Ivanova told him, "and we can talk about it there."
"It's a date, Commander."
Alpha Two broke in: "I'm picking up something on scan. Bearing 80 by 44 by 122."
"I've got it, too," reported one of the other fighters.
Ivanova checked the screen. A trio of tiny points, at the limit of scan range, but closing in fast. Raiders, she thought at once, and the computer confirmed the probability: small, fast shipscertainly fighters of some kind, and in this sector, that meant raiders. "Heat up your weapons," she ordered. "Keep alert. Any more of them out there?"
"Negative, Commander. Just those three."
"Well," the Kobold's pilot said, "it looks like your information was correct, Commander."
But where are the rest of them? Ivanova wondered. The raider ships were small and usually operated in packs.
"Are we going to take them on?" Alpha Three asked as the three ships closed the distance while remaining well out of the Starfuries' range.
"They're trying to draw us away," Ivanova declared. "Three and Six: take off after them, get them if you can, but don't let yourselves get separated or drawn into a chase. Our job is escorting this transport."
At her order, the two fighters spun about with a burst of their thrusters and headed after the raider ships, which suddenly fled, leading them away. "Diversion," Ivanova said, mostly to herself. It was easy to follow the chase on her tactical display, as the pair of Starfuries bore down on the smaller, boomerang-shaped ships. Silently, she was cheering them on, her hand poised above the button of a phantom plasma torpedo, aching to fire. Go! Get them!
The raider pilots had judged the distance and their opposition well. As soon as Alpha Three and Six started to come within firing range, the three ships split up, attempting to divide the pursuit. "Don't do it!" Ivanova was about to order, but Alpha Three read the situation the same way she did.
"Stick with me!" he told his wingman. "We're going after the one heading off at ten o'clock!"
Together they pinned down their target. Alpha Three got off one good shot that singed the raider's tail and left him vulnerable to the next burst of plasma from Six, which finished the job.
In the meantime, the other two raiders had fled out of range. "Alpha Leader, should we continue pursuit?" Three asked Ivanova.
"Negative, Alpha Three, break it off and return to escort formation. Good shooting, you guys."
"Commander, do you think they'll try it again?" the transport pilot asked, but the question was answered before Ivanova could, as one of the other fighters reported, "I've got more of them on scan. Four this time."
"Hold escort formation," Ivanova reminded her command. "They're trying to draw us away. Remember, it's the transport they want."
But this time the raiders kept a more respectful distance. "They're looking for their friends," Ivanova conjectured. But of the first raiders, one was splashed and the other two turned tail, and eventually these newcomers retreated out of scan range, giving up on their anticipated prey. Ivanova watched their images disappear from her display. There was a sharp stab of regret for the opportunity lost, the chance to take off after them, weapons hot and ready. But, as she knew full well, the transport was her primary responsibility.
"It looks like clear sailing back to Babylon 5," she announced to the Kobold. "Just sit back and enjoy the ride."
"Commander, you have no idea just how good that sounds," the pilot said in a very sincere tone.
When Garibaldi started to add up the facts he had so far, one minute it seemed almost conclusive, the next minute it had all vanished to a handful of threads so thin you couldn't hang a feather from them. It felt strange to be working without the computer, but ever since Wallace had wiped his files, he wasn't sure what kind of bug the Earthforce investigator might have placed in the system. Generally, he considered himself sharp enough when it came to computer security, but he had to figure that Wallace had come from Earth Central with passwords and override codes to override anything he might have.
But before they had computers, they had paper and pens, and so did Garibaldi.
So, adding it all up, so far he had Mars Colony, with Free Mars terrorists, with morbidium mines, with the raw material for plasma weapons. Out here in Grid Epsilon, he had raiders, hijacking the cargoes of morbidium.
Linking them together, he had J. D. Ortega, maybe part of the Free Mars movement and maybe not, turning up dead on Babylon 5 with some mysterious, now-missing piece of information. He had Susan Ivanova, investigating the hijackings, sent a message by Ortega that might or might not have referred to that mysterious information. And now: Fengshi Yang, again from Mars, again showing up dead on Babylon 5. Yang, whose records were not what they should be: an "enforcer," somehow connected with "the mines."
Was he an agent of the Free Mars movement? A terrorist? Welch didn't seem to think so, but Garibaldi didn't think much of relying on Welch's mental powers. An agent of the raiders, maybe? The agent who passed on the shipping data? Had he come to Babylon 5 to meet Ortega? To work out a deal? Pass on a warning? To kill him?
Garibaldi pushed squares of paper around on his desktop, arranging them in different configurations. Which arrangement made it all make sense? A square of paper marked X for whoever had killed Ortega. Another X for whoever had killed Yang. But was X one person, or two? Maybe one X had killed another X. Then there'd be only one X left. What side was X on? Or should that be what sides?
His data screen stared at him blankly. Damn! It would be so easy just to access the computer and ask it to search the records for anyone on the station with a previous involvement in mining on Mars. Yeah. And how much do you want to bet that won't bring Wallace down on your head, Garibaldi?
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Well, there was more than one way to search. This sure as hell wasn't getting him anywhere. He flashed the squares of paper. He had all that stuff in his head, anyway. What he needed now was to have another talk with someone.
It hadn't been easy to set this up. Garibaldi still didn't know the guy's name. Just that he was Nick's friend, whose lady friend had worked in the survey office, been interrogated by Wallace, and shipped back topresumablyEarth. Mineral surveys, assays. Did that have anything to do with mines? With morbidium shipments? Terrorists? Fengshi Yang?
Nick's friend was a nervous-looking guy. Claimed he didn't know anything, he wasn't involved, didn't want to be involved. But he had, Nick had grudgingly admitted it, been involved with mining. Or at least with mining machinery, a company that built the big loaders.
The meeting place was down in the machine shops, one of the dozens of different divisions of the Engineering Department on Babylon 5. The manhe still wouldn't give his namehad his fists clenched inside grease-stained coveralls and wouldn't take them out. Garibaldi got the feeling there was something in his background behind it, maybe something in his record he didn't want to come out, some incident in his past that had made him generally hostile to the kind of authority Garibaldi represented, to Earthforce.
"I only agreed to this because Nick asked me to. And mostly because he said maybe you could do something about Sonia. Find out ... something. Where they took her. What they did with her. Why."
"I can try. I'll do what I can. But I've got to tell you up front, whatever happened to your friend is out of my control."
Babylon 5 02 - Accusations (Tilton, Lois) Page 11