Deep Space Intelligence : Complete Series

by Gary Weston

  ‘You have it,’ said Ian. ‘One hundred percent.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Sally. ‘Come on. Let’s eat.’

  ‘Finally. I’m starved.’

  The atmosphere improved dramatically as they sat around the table and ate.

  ‘You may as well know,’ said Tilly. ‘I put a call out a few days ago to Tagg Raven. He’ll be on his way by now.’

  Sally said, ‘Raven? Does it have to be him?’

  ‘Mom. It may not be, but I’m guessing he’ll insist on it being him.’

  Ian said, ‘How can you trust Raven enough to be on a case with him? He let you down.’

  Tilly pushed her still half-full plate away, her appetite suddenly gone. ‘Not so long ago, I’d have thought the same way. Not now. It was…It just happened. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  Sally reached out and held Tilly’s hand. ‘Just be careful, ok? Don’t take any unnecessary risks.’

  Tilly smiled, her facial muscles feeling even more like they should feel.

  ‘I’m older and wiser. I’m ready to kick some ass.’

  Chapter 163

  Detective John Poacher had what it took to be a good detective one day. Stickability. When Tilly Jordan arrived at the police H Q, Poacher had already been at work for close to two hours. He was on his third cup of coffee when she and Inspector Jett found him staring at the screen, several sheets of paper spread out on the work platform in front of him.

  With just a nod of acknowledgement to the two women, Poacher said, ‘I couldn’t sleep. Things were going round and round in my head.’

  ‘Such as?’ Jett asked.

  ‘They have to be somewhere, right? We are fairly sure they haven’t taken off from Tryzon. So. I got to thinking, if I were they, where would I be hiding out?’

  ‘And?’ said Tilly.

  ‘Out of town. Sure. Not too far, but somewhere off the beaten track a way.’

  Jett said, ‘Which is why we were checking out the old mining settlements.’

  ‘So we did,’ said Poacher. ‘And got nothing. So, I got to thinking, not the old settlements but something similar.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Tilly.

  Poacher tapped the papers on the work platform. ‘I researched the archives and listed all the buildings within one hundred miles of the city. Old farms. Factories. Anything still standing but abandoned.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Jett. ‘So what do you have?’

  ‘Twenty seven possibilities. I’ve had the satellite programmed to check them out. In the last hour I’ve checked out fourteen. Nine farms, five old factories, including the old smelter. My uncle Peter worked there. When the ore ran out, it was closed down.’

  Jett said, ‘Close to thirty years ago. No sign of activity, though.’

  ‘So a blank so far,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Poacher. ‘But that’s just buildings on the south side of the city. The satellite was reprogrammed to cover the maximum number of buildings in one hit. It’s now being reprogrammed again to cover the rest.’

  ‘Ten out of ten for initiative, Detective Poacher,’ said Tilly. ‘How long before you can start looking at the others?’

  Poacher checked the time. ‘I’ve just been informed we’ll be good to go in another…twenty three minutes.’

  ‘Right,’ said Jett. ‘Go get a feed from the canteen in the meantime. Be back here in twenty minutes.’

  Poacher got up and stretched his back. ‘Thanks. I could do with a feed.’ Poacher hurried away.

  ‘He’s a good young officer,’ said Tilly. ‘A credit to you.’

  Jett smiled. ‘Obviously a rising star.’

  Chapter 164

  ‘Both of them, Fritz. Both alive and fit.’

  ‘And no drixolate. You did it, Corey. You damn well did it.’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe. You know the score. We dose up these new ones. No more drixolate. They all live, then I say we did it.’

  Fritz blasted the ceiling with the laser rifle, sending a shower of plasterwork over themselves. ‘Listen up. Any of you play up, the next shot is for you. One at a time. Put your bare arm through the bars. One wrong move and I slice it off with this bad boy. You. Arm. Now.’

  None moved. One of the two who had survived two days without drixolate said, ‘That shit you got there. It got rid of the drixolate, right?’

  Another said, ‘Is that right? That’s a cure? An antidote?’

  Corey said, ‘He’s the living proof. Him, too.’

  ‘That’s it? One shot of that shit, we don’t need no more drixolate? No more living scared in case we miss a shot and all our insides die on us?’

  Fritz and Corey looked at each other and shrugged. ‘This is it,’ said Corey. ‘A cure.’

  ‘Well what are we waiting for? Give us the stuff, man.’

  One by one they all put their arms through the bars, willingly wanting the drug. Corey went along the row of cells, administering a dose to each man. All went well until he reached the last one in the line-up. Seeing how willing and eager he was to be dosed, Fritz relaxed a little too much. The last man suddenly grabbed Corey’s wrist and pulled hard, yanking the arm through the bars, twisted painfully against the steel.

  ‘I wanna know what happened to the others. You sons of bitches killed them all, didn’t you’

  ‘Let go of him,’ yelled Fritz.

  The man twisted Corey’s arm back hard against the bars. ‘Tell your pet monkey to drop the damn gun.’ Another hard twist had Corey screaming in agony. ‘Tell him.’

  ‘Let him go,’ yelled Fritz.

  Corey screamed out, ‘Do it, Fritz. Put the gun down.’

  The man bent Corey’s arm again, Corey’s knees buckling on him. The man’s face was fixed in an angry scowl.

  Fritz nodded. ‘Ok. I’m putting the gun on the floor. Let him go, ok?’

  ‘Yeah. So you can shoot me.’

  ‘No he won’t,’ said Corey. ‘But if you don’t let go of my arm, I guarantee you’ll have no antidote or Drixolate. And you know what that means.’

  The gun was on the floor. The man realised he had no choice and he let go of Corey’s arm. Fritz’s anger boiled over, he grabbed the gun, pointed it through the bars and put a hole in the man’s head.

  ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ said Corey, on the floor, nursing his arm. ‘We needed him alive.’

  Fritz said, ‘He’s just one. We don’t need him.’

  ‘You damn fool, Fritz.’

  ‘Hey. I just got him off you.’

  Corey said, ‘And I told you not to shoot him. Why can’t you just do as you’re damned well told?’

  ‘Hey. I’m your partner, ok? You need me as much as I need you.’

  ‘Oh, like you could come up with the formula?’

  Fritz was shaking with rage. ‘I do my share. I killed those men with this.’ He waved the rifle at Corey. ‘You know something? Screw you. You don’t need me? Fine. Let’s see how you get on without me.’

  ‘Fritz!’

  Fritz aimed the gun at Corey. ‘Don’t you move, or I swear…’ Fritz stormed off down the corridor. ‘Screw you.’

  Chapter 165

  Fritz had had enough. He knew he wasn’t as bright as Corey. But he had pulled his weight and done his share of the dirty work. He mentally kicked himself for being sucked into Corey’s crazy world and his plans to be fabulously wealthy. And where had Corey’s big ideas gotten them? Every cop on the planet would be looking for the missing men and their abductors. And maybe Corey could make the drug work, and maybe the cops wouldn’t be allowed to touch them, if the governments wanted the formula. That was a lot of ifs and maybes. Too many as far as Fritz was concerned.

  There was still time to make a clean getaway. It made sense to Fritz to do just that. They were almost there with the drugs. Why not get the hell away and lay low for a little while? Then, when the heat had died down a little, go to another similar planet and start again, but this time, not from scratch.

>   But Corey could be stubborn. Not always a good thing. Corey was so damned sure a working formula would make them invincible. Untouchable. Ok. If Corey was so convinced about that, let him take the heat. Fritz could easily lie low for a few weeks and get himself on a ship, any damn ship, as long as it got him off Tryzon.

  ‘Yeah, screw you, Corey,’ snarled Fritz to himself.

  Fritz went to the prison workshop, once used to train prisoners into useful and productive members of society. The hired hover-bus was locked away in that workshop, out of sight from any surveillance from the skies. Everything had been done to give the prison the appearance of still being abandoned.

  Fritz opened up the huge workshop doors. Then he climbed into the drivers seat, placed the laser rifle on the passenger seat, and started the engine. The patched up rubber skirt bellowed out and the vehicle lifted off the ground, sending clouds of dust into the air. He drove out into the weed strewn yard. Then he remembered he would have to open the main gates.

  The gates were two thick squares of steel, each one five metres high, three wide. They were electrically operated, and once they had installed the generators to run the facility, they had control of the gates. Fritz parked the hover-bus, leaving the engine running. At the gate, he keyed in the new code he and Corey had coded into the fancy locks, then a three inch thick steel girder creaked as it fought decades of rust and neglect and swung reluctantly away. Fritz had at least lubricated the hinges, but it took all his strength to heave the gates open enough to pass through with the hover-bus.

  Climbing back inside the bus, he was about to drive out of the prison, when Corey appeared and stood in his path.

  Fritz yelled, ‘Get the hell out of my way.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Fritz. Not when we are so close.’

  ‘Move or I’ll run you down.’

  ‘Come on. You and I can have it all. Just a little longer and it’s all ours. They’ll never dare touch us.’

  Fritz said, ‘No. You’re the crazy one. Come on. Corey. Get in the damn bus. We can still get away with this.’

  Corey just stood defiantly in front of the hover-bus. Fritz blipped the throttle a few times, making the engine roar. He inched forwards until the rubber skirt was actually touching Corey. Then, Corey went to the passenger door.

  Fritz grinned. ‘I knew you’d see sense. Come on, pal. Get in.’

  Corey looked at Fritz, then he saw the rifle on the passenger seat. He grabbed it and pointed it at Fritz.

  ‘I can’t let you ruin everything, Fritz. Not when I’m so damn close. Cut the engine.’

  After all their time working together, doing what they needed to do just to survive, Fritz couldn’t believe Corey was aiming a gun at him.

  ‘Cut the engine, Fritz, or I will put a hole in you.’

  The two men stared at each other for a moment. Then Fritz rammed the throttle wide open and the hover-bus lurched forwards, flying towards the open gate. Corey let off a shot that made a hole in the rear window, missing Fritz’s head by a whisker, before putting another hole in the front window. Both men cursed each other, as Fritz drove along the drive that led to the main highway. Reaching the intersection, Fritz let the vehicle hover. Left took him to the city. Right took him into the wilds of the planet. In the city perhaps he could blend in, keep low until he could find a way off the planet. Heading the other way, meant trying to survive in a barren wilderness. He turned left towards the city, thinking that was his best chance to survive. He would lose himself in the hundreds of thousands of locals and tourists. Screw Corey.

  Chapter 166

  Detective Sergeant Bill Webster was taking a stint watching the satellite screen while Poacher was on a break. It was a tedious job, working with the satellite controllers, getting them to make fine adjustments from his instructions.

  ‘Ok,’ said Webster, between bites of cake and sips of juice. ‘Pan right. No. The other right. Hey. Slow down, will ya? Sending me dizzy going that fast. Right. Nothing. Pan out. I said out, damn it. I’m trying to see the big picture here. I wanna know if there’s anywhere we missed. Crap. What the hell?’

  It was a sudden red flash which had caught Webster’s eye. ‘Hey. The old prison. Pan right, pan right. Now in. Slow it down. And hello. Come to daddy. Am I going crazy or is that a damn hover-bus racing out of there like a bat out of hell?’ Webster put an urgent call through to Jett’s office. ‘Don’t you lose that damn bus.’

  ‘Bill? You have something?’

  Inspector Jett and Agent Jordan entered together.

  ‘The prison. I almost dismissed it as being deserted, which it should be. Then I saw something like a laser shot, now we have this.’

  ‘A damned hover-bus,’ said Jett. ‘Of course. The old prison. A perfect spot to secure a few abducted men. It became too old and small to be any use, so the new prison was built fifty years ago. My grandfather worked at the old prison until it closed.’

  ‘That bus,’ said Tilly. ‘It’s heading right here to the city.’

  Webster grinned. ‘Then I guess we should organise a welcoming committee.’

  ‘I’ll get the chopper in the air,’ said Jett. ‘That can come behind the bus from the south. Bill. Get every available officer and vehicle on the highway to intercept that bus. We got the sons of bitches, Agent Jordan.’

  ‘Not yet we haven’t.’

  Chapter 167

  ‘Another five and a half hours,’ said Karma Casey. ‘I might give up flying for good and damn well walk home.’

  ‘Just give us a nice soft landing, Karma,’ said Raven. ‘Saltoe’s getting edgy again.’

  ‘Excuse me. All my landings are soft. And I’m not including that fiasco on Foregone.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Maybe Tilly’s got this wrapped up by the time we land. We’ll spend a few days on Tryzon on some downtime before we head back home.’

  Casey said, ‘It’s ok for you, Tagg, but I got me a haul waiting for me when we return, and the contractors will be screaming for their stuff.’

  ‘No peace for the wicked, I guess. I’ll be back flying a desk again I suppose.’

  Casey said, ‘You don’t seem too keen, Tagg.’

  ‘I suppose I’ll get used to it. I do miss the action, though.’

  ‘Be honest, Tagg. If it wasn’t for Joy and the baby coming, would you even consider being desk-bound?’

  ‘For about ten seconds,’ admitted Raven. ‘It’s the same old story. When I was in the thick of things, being shot at from all directions, I’d be thinking how crazy it all was and I needed to quit while I still could. Then once the bad guys were either banged up or dead, I’d think, good job, Raven. You made a difference.’

  ‘Well,’ said Casey. ‘Maybe you need to rethink your new job a bit. Don’t adapt yourself, but adapt the job so you can still make a difference.’

  Raven said, ‘Hmm. That’s very deep and meaningful, Karma. I’ll have to give that some thought.’

  ‘You do that. In the meantime, you go calm Miss Saltoe down. I wouldn’t want her leaping out of the airlock out of fear.’

  Raven smiled. ‘What a delightful image.’

  ‘Scram.’

  Raven returned to the tiny passenger section. Miss Saltoe was busy on her recorder.

  ‘Hard at work, I see, Miss Saltoe.’

  ‘I was just checking my insurance to see if crashing on a D S I mission is covered. Then I thought I’d update my will.’

  Raven grinned. ‘So. Thinking nice happy thoughts then. Good for you.’

  ‘Just being practical, Agent Raven.’

  ‘Quite right, too. Just so you know, we have a little over five hours to go.’

  ‘Have you been to Tryzon before, Agent Raven?’

  Raven said, ‘Only once. Just a stopover on my way to Varlindra. The alignment was just right at the time, so I thought what the hell. Tryzon is too darned cold for my liking. I hate being cold.’ Raven looked to the rear of the ship where the airlock was and remembered what Casey had said. He closed his e
yes and imagined the corpulent woman hurtling herself into deep space.

  Saltoe said, ‘You look like something is amusing you, Agent Raven.’

  ‘Hmm? Oh, no. I always try to think happy thoughts before landing. I think I’ll go lie down for a couple of hours. Don’t you go anywhere, ok?’

  Raven left the woman with a puzzled look on her face and went off to his bunk.

  Chapter 168

  Fritz was already beginning to regret his actions. For years, he and Corey had been side by side, even before the days of the Masters. They had met at university, him doing an engineering degree, Corey the sciences. They were always the party animals and popular with the ladies. Corey used his skills and access to chemicals to produce and sell drugs, Fritz helping with the distribution. All just good fun and making enough to pay their way through university.

  Until a girl died. It hadn’t led to convictions, because of lack of evidence, but it was enough to get them both booted out of uni. With the blight on his academic record, Corey was unable to finish his degree and it was impossible for him to find work worthy of his time. Fritz didn’t have it quite so tough, but the work wasn’t at the level he’d been hoping for.

  Then along came the drixolate. Rumours had been circulating about the drug. Most right thinking people only saw horror in it. Corey saw potential. Governments on several planets were warning people to take extreme care and be wary of strangers approaching them. Scientists were trying to find a cure, an antidote for those already infected. So far, it had eluded them. The only way to keep the afflicted alive was to supply them with the drug for the rest of their lives.

  Rather than avoid the growing army of drixolate runners, Corey had actively sought them out. He found a ringleader, himself a slave, and had offered him a deal. He was the one who would shoot Agent Jordan, years later. Corey said he would work for them, providing he was well rewarded, and was never made a slave.

  The ringleader was high enough up the food-chain to request a meeting with the Masters. Curious at such an audacious human, they had agreed and Corey was flown to the space station. His mind had been probed and the Masters in the tank were sure he was genuine and would also be useful. If he proved himself with loyalty to the Masters and also his usefulness, he would become one of the elite humans who would be enslaved willingly, not with the drug. Their unquestioning obedience would ensure them a rich life when the Masters were in charge of the human race. Corey could see the future plans of the Masters as they probed his mind. Farming the humans for food. Taking their kind from planet to planet, turning it into a world fit for the Masters.