Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire

by Stephen W Bennett

  “Howard, I don't want to make the crew on the cutter feel bad, but the smugglers dumped the pod to get the chase ship to stop for a rescue while they caught a Jump Tac. Why didn’t the cutter save the kids, and let the pricks escape. If the PU hadn’t boycotted Khartoum from new technology, they would have had a T-squared drive and could have been gone as soon as they left atmosphere. A diversion like the one they used was only a ploy to give them time. It should have worked. Instead, the kids died and they were caught. Why didn’t their strategy work? Bad luck catching a tachyon, or did the cutter give chase and ignore the kids?” His last question had an edge.

  “Hell Henry, the diversion worked okay from the kidnapper’s vantage point. The cutter immediately turned to pursue the pod, and it would never have been able to catch the traffickers after that chase. The heartless pricks had triggered the pod’s thrusters to increase the gap, and programmed the steering computer for a random walk mode that made it change directions all the time. They punctured the hull so that escaping atmosphere was clearly detectable, encouraging the cutter to exert every effort to make the rescue. It was hard to catch the pod before the hole in the hull bled out nearly all the air pressure. It turns out they wanted that boy dead if they couldn’t get away with him. The three girls were already aboard when the boy was captured, and were incidental.”

  “Then how’d the cutter catch them if it chased the pod? They should have had enough time to get minimum Jump energy. Did you have a second cutter aloft?”

  “Nope, we had a Falcon and a Kobani.”

  “A what? Oh, you must mean Haveram’s bird. How the hell did the Chief get involved?”

  “He was on Poldark buying Hub credits with precious metals and gems so he could go shopping on Old Colony planets. Our banks know him now, and he doesn’t have to offer proof of legal origin for his Koban minerals and jewels. He was about ready to lift from the same little spaceport where he does some of his under the table buys when he’s here. The Falcon has a good suite of com gear and an AI that monitors airwaves for suspicious transmissions that might be about him. The Falcon’s AI detected there were several police shuttles inbound. It alerted Haveram in case they were coming for him.

  The AI then told him about the Tower’s attempt to order another ship to wait for other traffic to clear before launching. The Chief realized the police were actually homing on the Delta Dawn, the smuggler’s registry name. One of the kids, the boy, is from the wealthy Christoph family, and he had a tracker device embedded in case of a kidnapping for ransom. Otherwise, the police wouldn’t have been closing in on that ship at all. No one knew the girls were also held captive.”

  “How did Haveram get in on the chase?”

  “When the Dawn lifted against instructions, Haveram heard the police shuttles broadcast an alert to our cutter in orbit, and they told the cutter’s captain that it was an escaping child kidnapper. As I said, they didn’t know about the other three kids at that time. I’ll have to clear the Falcon of a traffic violation for an unauthorized launch, but Haveram was airborne before the Dawn even cleared atmosphere. The Falcon has a hell of a Normal Space drive and it reached space fast. When the Chief saw the cutter veer off chasing the ejected escape pod, he micro-Jumped dangerously close to the Delta Dawn and shot off several of their Trap emitters, leaving them stuck in this system. He boarded them entirely alone.”

  “The Falcon is armed? I didn’t know that.”

  “Henry, all you had to do was ask him, Chief Haveram hasn’t made it a secret to us. He has three clanship heavy laser cannons, and one plasma cannon, all cleverly concealed from the outside. I knew about it a while ago, because he invited me to retire after the war and join him in a shipping company he plans to form.”

  “Hey, don’t you do that before I finish mopping up on K1. I need you commanding the forces left on Poldark until I get back.”

  “Relax. I’ll keep babysitting for you. I may take him up on the offer eventually, but only if and when he can get me a captured clanship to fly. T-cubed is the transportation wave of the future, and only Koban has the ships that are easy to convert. The Falcon, as a T-squared ship of human design, can’t be converted to a T-cubed drive and would need a complete new drive installed, same as it did when it was changed to a T-squared drive. That bird is going the way of the dinosaur, so he has to replace his beloved ship.”

  “Fine,” he said, mollified, “But you had better give me some notice before you punch out, please. I take it Haveram is who discovered the connection to Khartoum after the boarding. Only Mind Taps could have gotten that out of the crew so fast, before the cutter took them into official custody. Are they Arab looking? That should have attracted attention on Poldark if they were men with swarthy skins and Arab accents. Some of their smugglers even use hormonal creams to restore ratty looking beards, to overcome the genetics of hundreds of years ago. Their religion wouldn’t be anyone’s business if they didn’t use it as an excuse for a fanatical and corrupted purpose, such as human trafficking, which many of the sheiks in charge of Khartoum’s Destiny do.”

  “The prisoners aren’t on the ground yet, but Haveram says nine of the crew were hired thugs of the lowest moral caliber, spacers and gunmen recruited from various Rim World underworld sources. Only the captain and first mate are from Khartoum, but they don’t look or sound the part. The hired hands knew exactly who they worked for, and have similar moral standards, which is to say none at all if the money is right. They’ve apparently made multiple successful snatches on Poldark in the past, and on other Rim Worlds after the war started, selling the kids or young women on Khartoum. We have their encrypted logbook key, thanks to Mind Tap, and it provided a manifest of past trips. We know the victim names, ages and genders, to which sheiks the captain made his previous sales, and how much was paid. It’s a very lucrative trade and more widespread than we suspected.”

  “When Haveram learned how they killed those kids today, what kept that captain and his mate alive, or any of them for that matter?”

  “He Comtapped me, and asked if he could accidentally hole their hull or simply shove them out an airlock. I reluctantly asked him not to do that, since we needed their public trial to establish their connection to Khartoum. It was too late to prevent some broken bones, but all of them will heal before the trials. Executions would be called for by pre-colony Poldark law, but the sissy PU laws will prevent the executions they deserve.

  “Hell, Henry, that’s a bit of irony don’t you think? Under PU law, hero Haveram that caught the scum would warrant execution, being gene modified. A consolation is if the nine scumbags are given life sentences on Poldark, they’ll find themselves placed in the general prison population. That could prove fatal to them as child killers from Khartoum, from other prisoners. In any case, we need to wake up our citizens that with the Krall gone, and normal society still in tatters here, the crooks are moving into the vacuum after the navy pulled back to the Hub, and most of the PU army is off planet with you, and civil authority isn’t fully restored.”

  “I hope to hell our panty waist PU appointed Governor plans to do something about Khartoum.”

  “Calling Fletcher names ain’t good politics Henry, and she is from Poldark. I talked to her and she really wants to do something, but as a New Colony and a member of the PU, Poldark can’t up and send a force to Khartoum to do anything. The PU isn’t in the mood for a local war on any scale, and we don’t even have diplomatic relations with that Rim World pesthole. The PU can’t recall an ambassador they don’t have, which would only show their civilized displeasure, or they could impose an added economic boycott. Since the sheiks don’t openly deal with us infidels anyway, that’s of little use. A naval blockade of Khartoum’s shipping would be tantamount to a declaration of war, so that won’t happen. Frankly, the sheiks wouldn’t give a shit what the PU might say if they won’t use force. Aside from the military, we don’t have an interstellar police force for unaligned Rim Worlds.”

  “By damn, I’ll b
e done here in four more months, and I’ll come back and provoke some sort of frigging reaction from those bastards, to excuse our taking military action.”

  “How about something under the radar, and more forceful than you can apply with the regular PU army troops under your command? By the way, doing what you suggested would cause a storm of diplomatic problems with other Rim Worlds, and get your ass fired. Military action by you would be perceived as coming from the PU, not from a reactionary Poldark general. Which you know you are.

  “It would be worse politically than what Medford’s public statements in front of the Capitol stirred up with the Rim Worlds. It was aimed at Koban, but her words and sentiment applied to any Rim World. It might spark Rimmers to buy arms, and get belligerent over perceived PU interference in their affairs. We don’t need border wars and skirmishes over this.

  “The Kobani, on the other hand, are enjoying a spate of respect and sympathetic coverage by the news media. Why don’t you Comtap Haveram and Tet, and have a joint conference? With you away on K1, it’s a perfect time for something to happen to Khartoum that clearly leaves you, and Poldark, clear of suspicion and will please public sentiment here at home and other planets along the Rim.

  “Tet has proposed an interstellar Kobani police force, or defense pact. This is the opportunity to do something good, which will be popularly supported. When leaked to the news with details, it could get the decent Rim governments interested in hiring Kobani for protection from bad behaving neighbors, and generate moral support from Hub world populations for such an independent police force.”

  “Ah Ha. I like your devious mind Howard. You’ll make a good partner with Haveram. I’ll get back to you.”

  ****

  “Khartoum Defense Command, this is Captain Haveram, owner and operator of the freighter Falcon, Poldark Registry, requesting permission to land at Khartoum City Spaceport. Here is my digital registry and manifest.” The electronic documentation was then transmitted.

  It was several minutes before there was an answer, in an accusatory and distrustful voice, but speaking Standard without the Arabic accent expected. “Falcon, this ship’s previous visit here was over three years ago. The primary owner then was Malcom Trakovic, and the Captain was Miljan Pasternak. Who the hell are you?”

  Haveram answered calmly, “I just told you. I’m the current owner and operator of the Falcon, with no partners. I bought the ship from Trakovic three years ago, when the war made his business difficult and unprofitable to operate on Poldark. Things have eased here now, the navy is gone and travel and shipping is no longer restricted. The local law isn’t able to provide as much inspection as did the navy. I have some unusual cargo. I want to renew a business relationship with the sheiks of Khartoum’s Destiny, like that Trakovic had.”

  “We don’t know you, and therefore there’s no relationship to renew. I doubt you’re a Muslim, so that’s a strike against you here.”

  “Neither was Trakovic or Captain Pasternak, but I will render all the proper respect. Perhaps you should ask Sheik Abdul Sayed if he would like his prize cargo that he expected to arrive with the Delta Dawn. Not to mention future services from me that the other ship provided for him and other sheiks, out in the Rim region. I guarantee you the Dawn and crew aren’t coming back from Poldark, and it was the news of its very public capture three days ago, which stirred me to inquire about expanding my business. I can offer Sheik Sayed something he wanted very much that was on the other ship.”

  There was a long pause, then a short transmission. “Hold your equatorial orbit above five hundred miles. Don’t shift to other latitudes by more than ten degrees or descend more than fifty miles. I’ll have your ass blasted out of space with heavy plasma bolts if you do. We have batteries placed completely around the planet.”

  “Hey, I read the published standard arrival instructions. I know what the hell I’m supposed to do, I hope you do.”

  He didn’t get the snappish reply he half expected from the controller on duty. The man was more than just a space traffic controller at this low traffic world, and working at the Planetary Defense Command meant that if he said you couldn’t land or deviate, he could back up his threat.

  It was six minutes before the previous speaker returned to the frequency. No other space traffic was heard in that entire time, indicative of how limited traffic here was. “Sheik Sayed says your manifest doesn’t say you carry what he wanted. The Dawn had a specific cargo he ordered. If you have that, he’ll talk to you. On the ground. Otherwise, leave or get burned.”

  “I’ll admit, the rare animals I carry might not sound as truly exotic as they are, and they aren’t anything the Sheik ordered. In fact, they aren’t even aboard for him or any Sheik. Nevertheless, the item labeled as one fair-haired colt is only for the Sheik. Everything else is speculation cargo I already had, to see what might be of interest to possible buyers on other planets.”

  “A horse? The Sheik didn’t mention that, asshole. He has hundreds of them. You best have something more to offer him.”

  “No. That item is something that he definitely wanted, and had been waiting for it this month, waiting for several years in fact, but he’ll know what I mean when you tell him that it isn’t really a colt. I’m not discussing this over an open unencrypted frequency. Tell him.”

  The kidnapped boy was what the Sheik had ordered procured for him. The only son of a former business partner, from before the war. The father was heir to a third of the Christoph family business, and had screwed the sheik out of some investments when he arranged to launder some of his billions in dirty money through front companies on Poldark. The start of the war had ended the lucrative relationship, and the father of the boy had kept the cleaned money, originally earned by the sheik from human trafficking and smuggling among various wealthy Rim World and New Colony purveyors of young innocent flesh, illicit drugs and arms. Sayed had wanted to obtain clean Hub credits for legal investments and purchases, which were blocked for him by using Khartoum Rials or certain other Rim World currencies he received in payment. Rim worlds had a history of dealing with the sheiks, but they would only accept Rials at a very steep exchange rate.

  Haveram knew all this from the minds of the captain and first mate of the Delta Dawn. The dead boy had been sent to private schools and lived in a guarded and sealed family compound, half a world away from the Krall invasion. A powerful AI, and security guards, kept the Christoph family safe from outsiders, and their pictures out of the news and off social media. The names of the four dead children were still being withheld from the news and families, or even that deaths had occurred. Nevertheless, the boy’s family had powerful connections and might find out at any time. The Governor couldn’t hold off notifying them very long. The Khartoum operation would have to move fast.

  The captain of the Delta Dawn had used a Poldark contact kept on retainer, who had watched the Christoph family compound for several years. When the targeted boy reached puberty, he started sneaking out to have adventures with local girls, who didn’t know who the rich, good-looking blonde young man was. The contact didn’t have a picture of the lad he was looking for, but his age, and a physical description that resembled his father, was convincing. He was seen coming and going from an inconspicuous locked side entry from inside the walled Christoph family compound. It was enough for Sheik Sayed to act.

  Even if he was the wrong boy, he had a market value, and if the right boy, he was nearly priceless to the sheik. Either as an object of ransom and financial ruin for his father, or for pure revenge. There was financial evidence that the father, heir to part of the Christoph family fortune, had made some poor personal investments in attempted war profiteering schemes, and might not be able to pay his full debt to the sheik. In that case, a very sexually and physically abused young man would be returned home, near death, with no tongue, and too crippled in mind and body to communicate.

  The boy’s father would get to see the worst that human trafficking did to its victims, an
d be unable to reveal his connection to that trade, to explain why his own son had been deliberately selected, despite far easier and less conspicuous targets. He’d have no proof anyway. The rumors that it was bad business to cheat the sheiks of Khartoum’s Destiny would be circulated in the small illicit circles that did business with them.

  Minutes later, the answer was delivered. “He wants you to land and turn over the property for prompt payment. You are cleared to make an approach to Khartoum Spaceport now.”

  “Not so fast. I’m not about to turn this item over to anyone but Sheik Sayed in person. The actual value may prove to be far greater than it appears on the surface. I want a deal that offers me either a set percentage of this deal, or a longer term service arrangement for my ship and myself with the sheik.”

  “Who do you think you are to dictate terms to one of our most powerful men? You’re just a smuggler.”

  “I’m the smuggler that got him what he has wanted for years, and that he had the patience to wait for it to arrive. This is my calling card and an introduction to other things I can achieve for him. He entrusted his original deal to a man who was captured, and then spilled his guts to the Poldark authorities. That’s how I learned of this agreement, from my high-level contacts, and managed to fulfill the contract the Sheik had with Captain Khalid Mubarak. Thanks to me that deal remains a secret, since the dead can’t speak.” At least it was unknown to the public on Poldark. For now.

  “Sheik Sayed should hear that I know the real name of Delta Dawn’s captain, and the unimaginative alias he used here was Ali Baba. That’s proof of what I learned from my contacts. Mubarak will never speak of secrets he knows about Sheik Sayed, or of Khartoum’s Destiny to gain his freedom.”