Two personalities were already emerging from the mass of frightened and bewildered people. One was the first mate, Kem Salmond, protesting against the outrage of the Fleet’s storming the ship. He was blustering furiously.
‘Where’s your warrant? I demand to see your warrant! And what d’you think you’re doing, shooting a passenger? I’ll see you all court martialled for this! I’ll sue your arses off! You’ll regret the day you ever…’ he ranted on, barely pausing to draw breath.
The other personality arising from the huddled mass was the engineer, Cass Bridewell, who also happened to be the mother of the youngest member of the crew. There were, fortunately, no kids on the ship. You didn’t tend to find kids living on the big corporate owned container ships. They were more likely to be found on smaller, independent freighters. Joss Bridewell, at fifteen, was the youngest on the ship, working as a deckhand while studying for a place in merchant service officer college.
It was very quickly obvious that either Cass Bridewell had known nothing about the drugs or that she was one of the galaxy’s best actors. At first anxious only for her son, she turned on Buzz, then, just as angrily as the first mate, shouting at him that they’d come aboard the ship more like pirates than the Fleet, firing guns, anyone could have been hit!
‘And what for?’ She challenged, wrathfully. ‘A box of heavy tetracitrine?’ She confronted the large, armoured figure without fear, hands on hips, glaring up at Buzz’s blanked-out faceplate. ‘Is that what the Fleet’s come down to now?’
‘No.’ Buzz replied. ‘For a container full of DPC. 16.72 tonnes of DPC.’
She stared at him in blank incomprehension.
‘Don’t be damn stupid.’ She said. ‘This ship does not run drugs.’ Her manner conveyed very effectively that she would not have anything to do with a ship that did, and her glance at her terrified son made it clear that she would not have allowed him to have anything to do with it either.
‘I’m afraid the evidence says that it does.’ Buzz said. ‘We confirmed 16.72 tonnes of DPC in the container your shuttle picked up.’
The engineer told him, forcefully, that they must have made a mistake.
‘No way would the skipper do that to us,’ she insisted. ‘No way.’
‘It was forensically tested.’ Buzz told her. ‘There is absolutely no doubt about it. It is pure grade DPC.’
Cass Bridewell took that in and went white as she faced the reality that both she and her son had been implicated in major drug running. She turned her head slowly and looked at Kem Salmond. He, obviously knowing her a lot better than the Minnow’s exec did, held up his hands defensively.
‘It’s a mistake,’ he said, and when he could see that wasn’t convincing her, ‘I was told it was tetracitrine, I swear!’
Cass Bridewell didn’t say a word. She just threw her fist straight at his mouth. He dodged and blocked that, deflecting the punch with his arm, but he wasn’t quick enough to dodge her kneecap driving hard into his groin. As he folded into a private world of pain, the engineer stepped back, holding up her hands as stun rifles aimed at her.
That, however, was the last of the fighting. Buzz got them all sitting down within a few minutes, with cups of tea to calm the situation down.
It was evident though that they were already falling into three camps. Those who were with the first mate, clearly relying on him to get them out of this, gathered around him, resentful and belligerent. Those who were evidently with Cass Bridewell gathered on the other side of the mess deck. They were upset but swearing they had no knowledge of the drugs and promising full cooperation with the authorities. The third group consisted of a handful who were protesting their innocence too but were not believed by Cass Bridewell, getting a scornful, ‘Oh, yeah, right,’ from her when they tried to join her group. They ended up sitting at another table on their own, hovering between the two camps. Relationships between the three groups were obviously going to be hostile, but Buzz was able to report that crew and passengers were settling down. The seizure operation had, so far at least, been a success.
‘Excellent job, everyone.’ Alex said, with the drugs now secured on Minnow’s hull and the Might of Teranor firmly under their control. ‘Now all we’ve got to do,’ he observed, with a dry note in his voice, recognising that this in fact had been the easy bit, ‘is get them back to Chartsey.’
____________________
Chapter Thirteen
Half an hour later, the Minnow’s number four shuttle sped away to take the news of their capture to Chartsey.
This had been a problematical decision. Mako had thought that once they had the Teranor under their control, they could move into the busy part of the space lane and send messages to Chartsey that way. Liners would certainly pass by, and they had secure facilities aboard too for the transport of prisoners. Mako had expected that they might even be able to transfer their prisoners aboard a passing liner, along with reports.
In this, though, he had been enlightened by the crew. They were in fact moving further out from the main shipping route, since the last thing they would want was to let it become known that they, a very small corvette, were carrying four hundred million dollars worth of drugs and had a quarter of their crew aboard the Teranor.
The vast majority of spacers would be wholly supportive of the Fleet in making that arrest. This was, however, a route to Karadon, famous for its smuggling and piracy. If the wrong ship got to hear about the Teranor’s predicament, knowing how slow the freighter was and with the corvette already stretched to the limit in coping with such a big ship under arrest, they could find themselves with big trouble on their hands.
The skipper, at any rate, had made the call to move them safely out of shipping routes and to send their number four shuttle to Chartsey as quickly as possible to report the situation and ask for backup. They would not get Zeus, of course, since the carrier could not leave the home squadron, but they might get one of the attached ships coming out to meet them. With a bit of luck they might even get Falcon, one of the fastest destroyers in the Fleet. If the shuttle was able to maintain L28 all the way to the capital and if they were lucky enough to get Falcon sent out straight away, they might have help in around three weeks. They were going to have to work, though, Mako knew, on the basis that they might end up having to take the freighter all the way by themselves. That was going to be a long, hard job.
He could have got out of it, himself, very easily. They had offered him a place on the shuttle, which would have got him back to Chartsey in eighteen days. They wouldn’t be very comfortable days, admittedly. The shuttle would be packed with four of them aboard. There were no bunks so he’d have to sleep in a reclining chair. There would be no privacy and they’d be living on self-heating tray rations.
That was not why he’d declined the offer, though. He was, after all, a prisons inspector and right now, this ship had prisoners aboard. He had no direct responsibility in that but even so, he felt a professional obligation. It was very important, he felt, to be able to show that there had been nothing untoward going on here. So he had told them he would see it out, contenting himself with sending messages on the shuttle.
So, as the ship stood down from action stations, Mako went to see for himself how the prisoners were doing. The man who’d shot at them, Rikado Marsh, was still in sickbay. Both he and the skipper had been put through formal procedures to confirm their identities, then provided with a written copy of their rights and information as to what was going to happen to them. They had also been issued with Fleet overalls and a personal hygiene kit each.
Marlon Steppard was in the brig by then. He seemed grateful for the opportunity to use a lavatory and get dressed, though Mako did not think from the smell of sweat on him that he had showered. Mako noted, without surprise, that someone had already provided the Teranor’s skipper with a mug of tea. Regardless of what they thought of him, Mako knew that their care of their prisoner would be faultless.
Mako had in fact supervis
ed the preparation of the brig himself. He could not take on any official responsibility for the prisoners as he had no authority to do so, but he had gone through all the regulations and provision to be made with Alex and Buzz and was helping as much as he could. The number eight airlock had always been, officially, the ship’s brig, though it had not been used as such under Alex von Strada’s command. Even when Jace Higgs had thumped Lt Simons, his detention had been purely nominal. He’d been restricted to the mess deck, despite all Lt Simons’ demands for him to be thrown in the brig.
Now, though, they had prisoners, so the comfy chair and tin of cookies had been removed from the time-out room. Mako had ensured that it met not only Fleet regulations for the detention of prisoners but standards which would be acceptable to the LPA too. That had not been difficult, in fact, since the provision was, in all respects but that of personal space, rather better than LPA standards. The foldout bunks were flimsy looking but perfectly comfortable. The shower and lavatory were of the same standard provided for officers and crew. Catering was fine, with unlimited drinks and snacks available as well as the same food that the crew ate.
Mako’s only concern was that the airlock brig was rather small for two prisoners. It was equipped as a survival pod with four fold out bunks. Its life support capacity was rated for up to twelve people though Mako could not see how twelve people were even supposed to fit in there. It would be crowded, he felt, with two prisoners, though comparable with the kind of personal space the rest of them had. The prisoners would be permitted the use of what exercise facilities the corvette possessed.
The corvette’s officers and crew were also, he was pleased to see, sticking rigidly to the letter of the Carpane Convention in not questioning their prisoners. The temptation to interview the freighter’s skipper must be immense. Even Mako felt that, longing to ask the man what had brought him to this. Was it mere greed, all about the money and never mind the cost in human misery and devastated lives? Was he one of those strange, conscienceless people Mako had met sometimes in prison? Or had he been brought to this, somehow, even perhaps forced into it as Ty Barrington had felt pressured by desperation into stealing Fleet supplies?
There was no doubt that he had been up to his eyes in it. A ship could not spend six days diverting from route to swap out one container for another full of drugs without the knowledge of its skipper. His reaction to being arrested, too, his total lack of surprise when the charge was put to him, made it very clear that he was guilty as sin. Mako longed to ask him why, and the temptation just to try to talk to him about it, off the record, was extreme.
He could not, he knew, do that, because even to put questions to this man informally would be violating of his rights.
‘I saw about you on the holly.’ Marlon Steppard looked searchingly at him as Mako introduced himself and explained that he was an LPA inspector and would be monitoring his welfare whilst he was in custody. ‘You’re in on this secret unit thing, right? Covering it up?’
Mako gave him an affronted look.
‘There is no ‘this’,’ he asserted firmly. ‘There is no conspiracy here. None of the parolees were even actively involved in your arrest.’
That was true too. The members of the snatch party had been chosen from amongst volunteers. Jace Higgs had tried his best to get in on the party but he had not been picked. His role had been no more than manning his assigned action station as a damage controller. Jok Dorlan had been part of the team looking after the Minnow’s own computers, very firmly in backroom support role. Ty Barrington was now going to step up to running the galley while CPO Martins was away, but the most active role he’d had in the actual seizure operation had been helping to clear the mess deck when they went to action stations.
It was apparent from the look the freighter skipper gave Mako, though, that this cut no ice at all. Marlon Steppard had woken up to find himself being hauled out of bed by silvery, anonymous figures looming like monstrous robots in the dim cabin. It was going to be difficult to convince him, after that experience, that there had been nothing hinky going on.
‘Yeah, right,’ he said. ‘It was those prisoners who raided the Teranor, wasn’t it?’
Mako sighed quietly, foreseeing that he was going to be spending a great deal of time over the coming weeks and months, even perhaps years, answering that question.
‘No, they weren’t,’ he told the prisoner. ‘The team which arrested you consisted of Lt Commander Burroughs, the ship’s exec, assisted by Sub-Lt Tarrance and perfectly ordinary members of the crew.’
He did, admittedly, even as he said that, wonder, himself, whether the description ‘perfectly ordinary’ could really be applied to the Minnow. It had been an extraordinary ship even before it had been moved into irregular service. You certainly could not describe Alex von Strada as any ordinary kind of skipper.
‘It was entirely legal.’ Mako assured him. ‘A covert operations raid, yes, but perfectly legal. They have, I believe, served you with all official paperwork including a written copy of your rights and specifics of your arrest?’
‘Yeah, right,’ said the Teranor’s skipper again. A look of low cunning flickered over his face before it was replaced with a strangely artificial fear. It was distinctly different from the genuine nervousness he’d displayed a little earlier. ‘But that won’t stop them shoving me out an airlock. These people are nutters. There’s no telling what they might do.’
Mako felt a strange sense of déjà vu. There was a particular kind of prisoner who just loved it when a prison was under inspection, spinning up the wildest yarns they could come up with. He could see that same kind of calculated allegation here. Marlon Steppard, he realised, was a player. That did not come as any great surprise really, since simple, honest, straightforward people did not often end up running DPC at all, let alone by the container load. He was, Mako could see, already laying the groundwork for a defence based on Fleet brutality. Oh joy, he thought, recognising with that that he was going to be accused of being complicit in that too.
‘I do not believe,’ he said, ‘that you have any reason to fear any mistreatment or misconduct, Mr Steppard. And you have, I hope, been properly informed that this detention facility is being continuously recorded. Everywhere you are aboard this ship, throughout your detention here, will be a matter of full record, with that record being passed to the authorities on Chartsey.’
Marlon Steppard gave him a cynical look. ‘Yeah, right,’ he said, for the third time, and added, ‘Film can be edited.’
With a sense of deep foreboding, Mako recognised what kind of impact statements like that were going to have on the already hysterical conspiracy theories being fanfared by the media. This was going to get very frustrating before it was over. At the same time, though, he felt an absurd desire to laugh.
How stupid, he thought. How stupid and, yes, contemptible; a cornered rat lashing out in pathetic desperation. As he looked at the drug runner, he could only see him as a flabby man shaking in his underpants. His manner remained professional but his eyes held scorn. Seeing that, Marlon Steppard glowered back at him.
‘Well, if you have any complaints about your treatment,’ Mako said, noncommittally, ‘inform me and I will carry out all proper investigations.’
The freighter skipper snorted, this time, his favoured ‘Yeah, right,’ evidently not being strong enough to meet the case. Mako just left it at that. Marlon Steppard, he recognised, was going to be a right pain in the backside, but here was nothing to be done about that other than handle him with calm professionalism. So he left him to it and headed up to sickbay to check on the other prisoner.
There, he discovered that Rikado Marsh was going to be even harder to work with. He had come round in sickbay. To be fair, that must have been quite a shock in itself, what with all the rainbows and chimes. The holographic waterfall and birdsong wouldn’t have made it any easier for him to believe that he was aboard a Fleet ship, either. It had taken some minutes for them to convince him that
he was, in fact, aboard a Fleet corvette.
Mako took a dislike to him within the first minute of making his acquaintance. It was a quality in the man’s eyes which made him feel an instinctive revulsion. He tried never to be unprofessional, of course, in his relationship with prisoners, but he prided himself on being quite a good judge of character. His impression of Marlon Steppard was that he was weak, rather stupid and definitely frightened. He might be potentially dangerous if cornered and with a weapon to hand, but Mako’s impression was that he would always try to weasel his way out of situations rather than fight.
That was not the case with Rikado Marsh. He was a man who would, when he heard a commotion outside his quarters, go out there with a handgun and start shooting. He had not hesitated to do that even though the Teranor’s skipper had been in the line of fire. Mako did not like to use the word ‘evil’ and he was even more cautious about allowing what he knew about someone’s offences to prejudice the way he thought about them, but of the two of them, he felt, Rikado Marsh was infinitely more dangerous than Marlon Steppard.
He was being kept in sickbay for a while, under observation while he recovered from the effects of being stun shot, but he too had been provided with kit. He had showered, taking trouble with his grooming. He was wearing the Fleet coveralls they’d given him with obvious distaste. The black and lilac satin pyjamas he’d been wearing when he was arrested certainly indicated a liking for opulence, if not taste, and one of the first things he asked was whether he was entitled to have his personal kit sent over from the Teranor.
‘You’ll have to ask one of the officers about that,’ Mako said.
He felt uncomfortable, and was glad of the presence of Rangi Tekawa and the two crewmembers who were standing quietly just inside the door. He would not have wanted to be alone with Rikado Marsh. In fact, truth to tell, he would really have preferred for there to be a high security barrier between them. ‘I am on board purely in a monitoring role,’ said Mako, feeling it to be important to distance himself. ‘I only wished to introduce myself so that you are aware that I will be monitoring the conditions of your custody.’
Mission Zero (Fourth Fleet Irregulars) Page 29