Mission Zero (Fourth Fleet Irregulars)

by S J MacDonald

  ‘We need them to pick it up, see?’ Hali confirmed, and seeing incomprehension, ‘In fact, ideally, we need more than for them to pick it up. We need them to fail to report it. If challenged straight away, they could simply say that they’d heard the same information as us, that there was something here, and were, as good citizens, checking it out. They could come it all innocent, see,’ she adopted a mock-angelic manner, ‘‘Thank goodness you’re here, look what we found!’

  ‘It also has to be the actual drugs they take. You can’t take the drugs away and substitute something else because then you would have to prove that they believed they were picking up drugs, which is virtually impossible.

  ‘So, to secure a conviction, you need to see them pick up the drugs. Then you need to come up on them as if by chance, giving them every opportunity to report their find to you before you can act on a seizure warrant. That’s a tricky call, obviously, if you’re going to be sending a boarding party into a shootout. If the skipper feels there’s too much risk, he won’t send them in.’

  ‘He said something about not being allowed to fire on them unless they fire on us first.’ Mako remembered.

  ‘Well, yes,’ Hali said, with a grin. ‘If you were in pursuit of a vehicle, back when you were a cop, which you believed to be carrying drugs and armed suspects, would you have been allowed to pull out a bazooka and blast them out of the skies?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ He couldn’t help but grin at the absurdity of that, though he was shocked too.

  ‘Or a high powered rifle,’ she pressed, ‘to try to shoot out their engines so they’d be forced to make an emergency landing?’

  ‘Good grief, no, that would be insanely dangerous!’ He said. ‘The only thing you can do is to follow, contain the situation as best you can, warning other traffic and using box manoeuvres, working on the basis that they will have to land somewhere eventually. And ah, right, I see, similar situation, here – you can’t fire missiles or cannon at them as fleeing suspects.’

  ‘Absolutely not. We can fire warning shots across their bows, but they know very well exactly how close we are allowed to get with that, and unless they fire heavy weaponry straight at us, we are not allowed to fire at them.

  ‘I doubt we would, anyway. Freighters are so very fragile, you see, compared to warships. Even if we pulled our guns back to a tenth their usual power, they could still slice through a freighter’s hull. And however strongly we feel about the death and misery they’ll cause with the trafficking of those drugs, that doesn’t justify us killing them.

  ‘And we do have to be mindful in this that there may well be innocent people on that ship, who genuinely have no idea that they are involved in drug trafficking. They may well have been told, see, that they’re picking up a ‘heavy’ cargo of tetracitrine or cindar. Which makes them culpable, legally. But me, personally, I would not feel the slightest bit good about blasting some teenage first voyager dead because he’d believed what he was told by the skipper. There may even be kids aboard, you know? So we do have to be very careful how we handle it, and blasting at them with missiles is not an option. The skipper will only authorise firing on the container if it’s the only way to stop the drugs hitting the streets.

  ‘Ideally, we’d want to take the lot back into port, see? Lawyers have been known to claim, where drugs have been destroyed in space, that the Fleet faked all the evidence they are presenting, challenging the validity of the forensics on the ‘alleged’ drug haul. But it’s hard to challenge that when you have, you know, seventeen tonnes of drugs right there that the defence can see and have tested for themselves. So that’s what we’ll be going for, best possible outcome.’

  ‘And worst case scenario?’ Mako prompted, and saw wry looks.

  ‘Worst case scenario, it all goes belly up, we’re not able to destroy the drugs and have to let them go,’ Ali said. ‘But don’t worry, the skipper won’t let it come to that.’

  ‘He’ll come up with something,’ Hali agreed, with a confidence that was echoed in the nods and murmurs of agreement around her.

  Mako could only hope they were right.

  ____________________

  Chapter Ten

  The next three weeks of waiting were a very tense time for Mako. The day he knew they would be late back to Chartsey even if they left right then and made their own best speed was a tough one. Alex promised him that the Fleet would reassure his family when the time came and Minnow did not return, but Mako knew that would not be much consolation to them. Inda, his wife, would take it calmly, at least on the surface, staying strong for the kids. Knowing Arcus, he’d capitalise on it, working up the drama on campus. Pia would be worried sick, though, and the thought of his daughter going through that made Mako feel tight stomached too.

  At the same time, he hardly needed the skipper to tell him that they could not abandon this operation to head back to Chartsey because their passenger was concerned that his wife and kids would worry about him. That would cut no ice with either Customs or the Admiralty. Mako himself would be ashamed even to make such a request. He had known when he came aboard that his stay would be for the duration. Everyone had assumed that would be for a routine six week patrol but he had been warned that it might be for longer.

  And nobody, he knew, had been expecting this. It was even a joke aboard the ship that this was ‘mission zero’. It had never been intended to be the Fourth’s first mission, it was just a makework assignment to get them out of the way. It had turned into a real mission now, though, and with the conspiracy theory already kicking off there, few people at Chartsey would believe this was any kind of coincidence.

  ‘And it isn’t, really,’ Mako observed, discussing that with Buzz as they had lunch together. ‘I mean, yes, obviously, this wasn’t planned. There’s no kind of conspiracy. But there is, you have to acknowledge, a certain amount of cause and effect. I mean, for a start, we’re out here mostly because of the furore that kicked off in the media, right? And the 469’s skipper clearly only passed that information to Skipper von Strada because he trusted him, right? It was touch and go. You could see that on the command deck, that he was hesitating over it, making his mind up. I think he was very unlikely to have passed that information to any other Fleet skipper. It was because he knew how straight Skipper von Strada is, and how he’d laid his own career on the line to sort out a miscarriage of justice, that he was prepared to trust him. So we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the media frenzy, and we wouldn’t have had that tip off, if this was an ordinary Fleet ship. So it isn’t random; there’s a causal nexus there.’

  ‘Unarguably,’ Buzz agreed, with a placid manner, ‘and wherever there is a causal nexus or any degree of coincidence, as with our encounter with the 469 at Paradise Gardens, people often don’t believe that things could really have happened that way. I’m afraid,’ he observed, prophetically, ‘that we and the Admiralty are going to have long term credibility issues over this. But honestly, what choice do we have? It isn’t as if the skipper could have ignored that tip off. And now we’ve found drugs, obviously, we can only do our duty to the best of our ability. Backing off from this because we’re supposed to be keeping a low profile just isn’t an option.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Mako looked a little uncomfortable and ventured, ‘I only hope that it doesn’t, you know, kick off such a row that the powers that be feel that it would be politic to end the scheme.’

  Buzz broke into a broad grin. ‘Are you kidding?’ he said, and displayed, again, a percipience that saw far into the future. ‘If we can bring this in,’ he told the inspector, ‘and it’s established that we got that tip off because the freighter community has high respect and trust for Skipper von Strada, both the Admiralty and the Senate will go to the wall to protect us.

  ‘You have to understand the immense damage that was done by the Carolina incident, and the agonisingly slow, frustrating efforts to repair relationships. We have not had one major tip off from the freighter community, you
know, not one since the Carolina, and for a skipper to trust us with something this big, well, that’s huge. They will not be able to deploy the Minnow fast enough. They’ll send us into any area where it’s felt that something big is going down, hoping that spacers will trust us enough to tell us about it even when they won’t tell anybody else. So if we can pull this off, you know, the Fourth is going to be more than secure both with the Admiralty and the Senate, regardless of what ranting conspiracy mobs might yell.’

  Mako felt relieved. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘You’ll certainly have my support, for what that’s worth. Speaking purely from a rehab point of view, it is obviously just excellent what you’re doing. Highly specialist, of course, and as successful as it is largely because of how selective you are in your choice of candidates, but both the rehab scheme and pastoral care provided here are second to none and I will make that clear in my report.’

  Buzz looked at him with amusement and some affection, too.

  ‘You do realise, of course, that by doing so, you will condemn yourself to a lifetime of having people believe you were part of a government cover up?’

  ‘Yes, I realise that,’ Mako said, and lifted his chin. ‘But if you think that will stop me doing my duty and putting in a full and honest report, you haven’t got to know me very well.’

  ‘Oh, we’ve got to know you pretty well, Mr Ireson,’ said Buzz with a grin, ‘and nobody is questioning your integrity, believe me. It’s just that we feel responsible, you know? You’re here at our invitation after all and we do realise that this will up the ante in terms of media harassment for you as well as for us. And while we can head off into space to get away from it, you can’t, can you? You’re going to be stuck there on Chartsey, with widespread public belief that you helped to cover up us ‘using prisoners’ for ‘secret, dangerous operations’. That won’t be easy for you either professionally or personally. So you may just want to think carefully about how much you say publicly when we get back. Trust me on this, we will not take offence if you feel you need to distance yourself from us.’

  Mako gave him an affronted look and Buzz apologised, though with a chuckle.

  ‘Sorry – just felt it had to be said,’ he said. ‘And something else that does have to be said, too. If this does turn into a chase, we will be making every effort to send word back to Chartsey. We may either pass close enough to Paradise Gardens to send a shuttle there, or make passing encounters with other shipping. Failing that, if the ship heads straight out into off-route space, the skipper may send away our number four shuttle with a petty officer and a couple of crew to go back to Chartsey. It’s perfectly capable of making intersystem journeys,’ he assured him, as Mako’s eyes widened, ‘all our shuttles are. Number four is actually intended for courier work like that. It’s smaller than a starseeker inside, but a great deal faster and safer – faster than we are, in fact.

  ‘So, we need to talk about options. We could if you wish, try to drop you off at Paradise Gardens if we go past near enough. Ships drop in for shoreleave there all the time and it wouldn’t be more than a few days at most before a ship comes in, and they would pick you up as a stranded passenger. Or, if we’re passing other ships of course, we could get you aboard one of them. Or, if it comes to sending number four away, we could get you on that. It wouldn’t be a comfortable journey, there are no bunks and you’d be living on K-rations, but we could get you home.’

  Mako looked doubtfully at him. ‘Do you want me to leave?’ he queried.

  ‘No. Really not,’ Buzz assured him. ‘You are very welcome to stay and we’d be very sorry to see you go. Quite apart from the respect and liking that the crew have for you, Mr Ireson, you are in a unique position on this ship. As a passenger, you can sit down with the crew and talk informally with them, and talk to the skipper about things and ask him questions that the crew are not allowed to ask. Because you are a passenger, he explains things to you far more openly than he would, or could, respond to questions about his decisions and intentions from the crew. Everyone concerned is finding that very helpful, frankly, as a means to inform the crew beyond what would normally be considered appropriate by the Fleet, so you are in fact performing a very useful role.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mako felt pleased, as Buzz had evidently known he would, just to realise that he was not a burden or a nuisance to the crew, here, but actually helping. He had, in fact, suspected more than once that the crew had nudged him on to asking the skipper things, with a very attentive quiet on the mess deck when he was doing so, so that didn’t come as any great surprise. It was apparent to him too that the skipper did not mind that, as he neither declined to answer such questions nor took Mako into his cabin to discuss them privately.

  ‘Well, I would prefer to stay and see it out,’ he said. ‘My only concern is that my family will be worried. If there was any way in which I could just get a message to them to reassure them that I’m fine, I would like to stick this out and do whatever I can to help.’

  ‘Well, I hope we may want your help professionally.’ Buzz observed, and as Mako looked enquiringly at him, explained, ‘If we take prisoners, we’ll have to be holding them in our brig. The advice and assistance of an experienced prison officer and inspector would be very helpful. None of us have any experience of that, you see.’

  Mako stared at him, his fork suspended in mid-air. ‘What, seriously?’ he said, incredulous.

  ‘Seriously.’ Buzz assured him. ‘It has been more than ten years since any Fleet ship carried civilian prisoners. It’s always been an unusual thing, that. Generally, you see, if you’re arresting a ship, you just escort them into port and hand them over to the authorities there. Mostly that’s because of the legal situation. Space law is very complex and often contradictory. If you seize a ship and take its crew and passengers off it to hold them prisoner on your own ship and then they’re found not guilty, they need only make one call to a lawyer specialising in space law and use the words ‘unlawful salvage’ and eyes will light up, kching! It is, technically, you see, an act of piracy if the arrest and seizure is deemed unwarranted. Fleet skippers tend not to like to have that on their records. It doesn’t look good on the CV.’

  ‘But… you haven’t ever arrested anyone?’ Mako was struggling to get his head around that, aware of how long a career Buzz had had in the Fleet.

  ‘Oh, I’ve been involved in a few ship arrests, sure,’ Buzz replied. ‘And a couple of times where we’ve put people under guard aboard their own ships. That’s an important legal distinction because if you take people off their ship and then it’s ruled that you didn’t have the legal right to do so, that’s where the unlawful salvage thing comes in. I’ve been involved in cases where Fleet personnel have been held in the brig, too. But civilian prisoners? No. Most of my career has been on small ships, Mr Ireson, and they’re even less likely to bring prisoners aboard. None of the other officers or crew has any experience of that either. So we’ve all been looking up the rules and procedures in case we do end up going with the Moffat Solution.’

  Mako knew what that meant. It had been one of the things the skipper had discussed with him very soon after they’d begun this waiting game.

  There were, as the skipper had laid out, many possibilities for how things would go down from here. The pickup ship just might not arrive at all, having discovered somehow that the Fleet had been tipped off. Eventually, that would mean they had to give up and go home, though Alex was prepared to wait it out for three months before even being willing to consider that.

  If the ship did come in, then they would not challenge it straight off. It would probably be a container ship or one of its shuttles that came in for the container. What Minnow did then would depend largely on which way that ship was going.

  If the drugs were on their way to Chartsey, it would be relatively straightforward to trail them all the way back there. ‘Relatively’ was the operative word, there. If they opted to go down that route, they would have to maintain a very delicate and expert c
ourse in keeping the container ship on their own scopes while remaining invisible to them, watching them all the way into port at Chartsey and reporting the situation to the authorities. It was possible that Customs would decide not to act immediately but to instigate operations of their own, to follow the drugs through to the point of delivery in order to catch the buyers as well. In either case, Minnow’s role would be a covert one, merely observing and reporting.

  If, on the other hand, the drugs were going to Karadon where they might easily be redistributed on other ships, they would have to take more direct action. The management at ISiS Karadon were notoriously reluctant to cooperate with the Fleet, Customs or any other governmental authority. That was a major factor in the station being known as the roughest, toughest, most lawless station in space. By the time they’d got past the station’s delaying tactics, the drugs could be long gone.

  Alex had decided that if they were dealing with that situation, the best way to tackle that would be through the Moffat Solution. Named after the skipper who’d first employed it more than three hundred years before, it was a tactical strike, seizing control of the ship and bringing the skipper and anyone considered dangerous back aboard the corvette whilst everyone else was held under guard aboard the freighter.

  It would all depend really on the circumstances at the time, but they were preparing for the worst-case scenario of having to attempt an arrest of a much bigger ship. The skipper had been running several scenario drills every day. A good many of them had involved snatch teams in hullwalker suits storming through the ship. Sometimes he had them making as much noise as possible, stamping their duralloy boots and shouting, and other times he had insulating pads put on their boots and had them running the exercise in unnerving silence. He was keeping his options open to go with whatever would work best, once they knew what ship they were dealing with.