by M H Questus
“We’re heading for a small office complex attached to a warehouse. The warehouse district attracts a lot of the transients who need work, since docking ships will often just hire the closest people available to unload their cargo, rather than wait for the Dock Guild workers, especially if they’re transporting something they don’t want the authorities to know about.”
“Obviously.” Morcos nodded. “Which means protection, prostitution, drugs, and gambling.”
Kobayashi shrugged. “Most of the workers are honest people that just need a job. Some of them can’t get citizenship, others were small time criminals that struggle to get a second chance as a result. You know how it is.”
“Sadly, I do.” The set of her shoulders signaled that it was a topic Morcos didn’t want pursued, and Kobayashi let it drop.
The rest of the taxi ride continued in silence, Morcos reading the scant information the Interplanetary Marshal Service database had on Stacy Zousizhe. It reported that she arrived on a cruiseliner seven days ago, but the cruiseliner mentioned in her arrival documentation had no record of a passenger with her name. There were records of her coming and going to the station every few months stretching back over five years. She had been arrested once several years ago for being involved in a barroom brawl, and had a citation for striking a constable during the same event. It wasn’t a lot to go on.
Morcos tucked her datapad into the inner pocket of her trench coat as the taxi coasted to a halt. She stepped out while Kobayashi transferred the payment to the automated vehicle.
The warehouse district looked similar to every warehouse section of a starbase Morcos had ever been to: a wide corridor with airlocks on one side leading to the docking bays, and huge doors leading directly into the storage areas on the other side. The hallway itself looped around the starbase, angled slightly downwards like a gigantic corkscrew. Several warehouses further down the corridor, Morcos could see streams of people walking from an open airlock attached to a massive interplanetary freighter, carrying stacks of boxes either on antigrav lifts or just hauled between several people.
She turned to face the warehouse facility ahead of her.
“Temporary storage facilities.” Kobayashi stepped next to her. She could hear the nervousness in his voice. “Warehouses like this are rented for short term stints, long enough to transfer goods to a starship or between them. Rarely more than a day or two.”
“I’m familiar with the concept.” Morcos nodded. “Ready to go, deputy?”
“As ready as I’m going to be.”
The two of them walked towards the warehouse. Two large men stood on either side of the door to the offices, both dressed in matching black t-shirts and dark jeans. One, a monster of a man with enormous arms and shoulders that stretched up to his ears, held out his hand as they approached.
“Sorry, I dun knah who ya are, and no visitahs.”
Morcos pulled back the left side of her trench coat, showing the solid platinum shield of she wore over her heart. “Interplanetary Marshal. We’re here to see Ms. Zousizhe.”
The huge man shook his head, radiating cold apathy. “Sorry, I dun knah who ya are, and no visitahs.”
Morcos smiled up at the man who towered over her. “Are you aware of the interplanetary laws that exist to protect you from being nonlethally shot without provocation by a marshal in the pursuit of justice?”
The man blinked down at Morcos. “Naw.”
“There are none.” Morcos continued to smile, but there was an edge to it now, her eyes narrowed slightly. “The only thing that’s standing between me and putting a disruptor bolt square between your eyes is the knowledge that I’ll have to fill out about an hour’s worth of paperwork.” She leaned in slightly, and the huge man took a half step backwards instinctively. “You are currently not worth that one hour of mild inconvenience. Now, I’m going to try this again. We’re here to see Ms. Zousizhe.”
The big man rubbed his jaw with one massive hand while sizing up Morcos again. She continued to stand, smiling at him, her right hand loosely relaxed next to her sidearm.
“Raht. Terd dooah on da left.”
The man tapped his datapad once and the door between him and his equally nervous looking companion swung open.
“Much obliged, gentlemen.” Morcos tipped her cap at both and strode through the door. “Come along, deputy.”
Kobayashi, blinking rapidly, shuffled through the door with a nervous smile at the two bouncers.
“You know that’s not true what you said, right?” he whispered as the door shut behind them. “You’re allowed to stun them, but even then you have to have probable cause for defense. And stunners have never—”
Morcos held up a hand to stop Kobayashi’s nervous rambling.
“Of course. But most people believe it to be true, which makes it just as powerful,” Morcos said as she strode, shoulders squared, down the short hallway. The overhead lights flickered slightly, and the hallway itself was full of boxes, papers, and pieces from a disabled cleaning robot. The third door on the left was also the last door, the hallway ending almost immediately afterwards at bare rock.
Morcos knocked on the fake wooden door.
“Do come in, Marshal!” came a sing-song voice through the door. Morcos cast a glance over at Kobayashi as she opened her trench coat to allow easy access to her holster. Kobayashi, swallowing nervously, nodded and unclipped the peace string on his holster. He placed his right hand, which Morcos noticed was shaking slightly, in the loop of his belt. She held up a hand to him, nodded once, and opened the door to the office.
The interior of the office was a little smaller than Morcos expected, with a large desk covered in papers and datapads, and several filing cabinets lined up against the right wall. Zousizhe was seated behind the desk, busily tapping away at two datapads at the same time, not even bothering to look up as they entered. She was dressed far more conservatively, wearing a perfectly functional jumpsuit and a bandoleer holding wrenches, screwdrivers, and loops of electrical tape diagonally across her chest. Her jet black hair was pulled back into a ponytail.
There was a smaller desk to the right, with a nervous-looking man with thick-rimmed glasses and slicked back hair, bent over a stack of books. His attention seemed to be firmly fixed on his work, his head bowed.
“Interplanetary Marshal Act,” Zousizhe said without looking up. “I think it’s section 14, but it may be 15. The part about not being allowed to shoot people without just cause.” Her voice was utterly calm, and her entire body seemed relaxed as she worked.
“Section 14.3, actually.” Morcos said, not relaxing her stance. She tilted her head towards the door she held open with her left hand. “Could you tell your friend back there to step out to where we can see him?”
Zousizhe cast a look at whoever was on the far side of the door and nodded, and then returned her attention to her datapads. A tall man, whip-lean and full of sharp edges, stepped out from behind the door, a snub-nosed submachinegun held against his shoulder with one hand. He scowled at the two officers.
“Now that we’re all here,” Morcos smiled at Zousizhe, “I was hoping we could have a few words.”
“Sure.” Zousizhe kept tapping.
“Perhaps with more than 50% of your attention?” Morcos suggested, nodding at the datapads. Zousizhe looked up, obviously annoyed.
“What are you, a man?” She scowled as she pushed one of the datapads aside. “There. You’re getting 75%, but not an iota more. I have shipments to haggle for and repairs to arrange. Time is money, Ms. Marshal.”
“Think about it this way, Ms. Smuggler-lady,” Morcos said, hand resting on her pistol. “The sooner you deal with us, the faster you can get back to pretending to be a legitimate business.”
“Hey!” Zousizhe snapped, her voice hard. “I work hard for my living, unlike you spoilt government brats. I don’t get any handouts for just flying around in my fancy new starship and waving a trumped-up piece of platinum at planetary governors!” Zous
izhe scowled again. “Don’t you lecture me on ‘legitimate business’, government toady.”
“Now, Ms. Zousizhe,” Morcos said lightly, raising her hand towards Kobayashi and resting it on his right elbow, “there’s no cause for being insulting.”
As Zousizhe opened her mouth to respond, Morcos drew her pistol and fired twice in a single smooth, lightning fast movement. Flashes of green energy impacted squarely between the eyes of the man with the submachinegun and the man at the desk, dropping them onto the floor. Kobayashi flinched, shocked by Morcos’s effortless shots.
Kobayashi attempted to draw his pistol, but Morcos’s clenched hand on his elbow kept it in place.
Zousizhe let out a long sigh and leaned back. “Section 14.3 indeed. How long will they be out?”
Morcos holstered her pistol in a smooth movement and shrugged. “Normal human, about 2 hours. Somebody in their line of work will probably shake it off in about an hour, hour and a half, tops.” Morcos looked over at Kobayashi. “Deputy, you can close your mouth and blink a few times. Everything is okay. Do you need to have a seat?”
Kobayashi, a shade paler than when he walked into the office, nodded. He collapsed into a fake wooden chair near the back wall of the office, hands shaking and eyes open too wide.
“Thanks for that. Keeping up the whole ‘anti-government’ thing gets a little tiring after a while.” Zousizhe cracked her neck a few times. “Although I suppose I’ll have to give those thugs a bonus for getting shot.”
Morcos shrugged. “Seems more likely that you’re going to try and dock them a few days’ pay for not doing their job, but that’s just the read I get on you. Can we actually talk now?”
“Sure, but keep it quick. I really do have a stack of work I need to get done.” Zousizhe pushed the second datapad away. “You’re here about the bombing. I didn’t do it.”
“To the point. I respect that.” Morcos walked over and kicked the submachinegun under Zousizhe’s desk. “What did you go see Marshal Smith about yesterday?”
Zousizhe barked a short, cold laugh. “That? That was a mistake. A stupid oversight from one of my employees.” She cast a hard glance at the nervous man who had been seated at the desk, currently drooling on the floor. “A long gamble that didn’t pay off in multiple ways.”
“Care to be a bit more specific?”
Zousizhe sighed. “Look, we both know that I deal in commodities that, while legal on certain planets, are perhaps less legitimate while travelling between those planets.”
“You’re a smuggler, yes.” Morcos nodded, leaning up against a filing cabinet. The cabinet banged against the wall as she did so, obviously empty. Morcos shrugged apologetically.
“Sure. I like to think of myself as more of a lovable rogue, but smuggler works. Not illegal, and I don’t transport anything reprehensible. No slaves, no guns, no mind-melting drugs, nothing like that. Mostly artwork, the occasional relic, heck, one time I smuggled a flock of sheep to a remote mining village past three full squadrons of planetary interceptors. That was a good day.” Zousizhe smiled as she remembered, but then shrugged again. “But the trouble for independent operators such as myself? It’s getting harder and harder to keep my ship in the air. Starship maintenance is expensive, and the licensing protection fees and all these stupid monkeys with weapons they’ve never fired…” she gestured at the unconscious man sprawled on her floor. “Do you have any idea what the Tertian clowns charge to spy on me? I mean, it’s ridiculous. I have to pay these idiots so that they’ll stand outside my door and make sure that whoever I sign for shipments results in them getting a cut. It’s downright criminal. To say nothing about the amount of money I owe the banks for my starship itself!”
“You know, you could just ship legitimate cargo.”
Zousizhe rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure. A nice, respectable milk run to the inner systems? Within a month I would be broke and selling my ship to one of the major transport companies, and within a year I’d be stepping out of my own airlock from being bossed around by some desk-bunny making all the money off my hard work. No thanks. I’ll take the freedom.”
Morcos shrugged. “Your choice, Stacy. So what did you go talk to Marshal Smith about?”
Zousizhe winced. “I went to see if I could persuade the marshal to help a sister out. Either put some pressure on some of the less savoury business people I have to deal with, or even just let me know when a certain jump point might be supervised by authorities to check for illegal cargo, which would slow down my completely legitimate cargo ship. Anything like that.” Zousizhe cast a glare at the drooler on the floor. “Unfortunately, my sources failed to mention that the good marshal would be… less receptive to my charms than I had hoped.”
“They didn’t mention that she was female?” Morcos blinked. “Certainly they’re not that incompetent.”
“Straight.” Zousizhe shrugged. “Or straight enough to be uninterested in my normally persuasive offer.”
Morcos did a quick double-take. “You thought Marshal Smith was gay? Why?”
Zousizhe gave her unconscious underling another hard look. “I was told that Marshal Smith spent all her time at the academy in the company of women, and one woman in particular. That she was obsessed with her.”
Morcos blushed and half-smiled. “Yeah, I can see how some people might make that mistake.”
“That’s kind of you, but I sincerely hope my employee bothers to do some fact-checking before attempting to relay such vital information in the future.” She sighed. “To be honest, I was hoping to just be rational with Smith, but I find that many people seem to be more rational when they think it will end up with naked fun-times.”
Morcos nodded, but narrowed her eyes. She crossed her arms as she leaned on the filing cabinet.
Zousizhe cast her a cold look. “Hey, you want to judge me, you go right ahead. But I’m one of the last truly independent starship captains within a half-dozen jumps in any direction. And I didn’t get there on my back. I work hard, and if people happen to believe I’m going to sleep with them, who am I to correct their views until necessary?”
Morcos sighed. “I wasn’t judging, Ms. Smuggler. But I’m no closer to tracking down my bomber than I was an hour ago, and that makes me jumpy. I’d hate to return to headquarters empty handed.”
Zousizhe narrowed her eyes back at Morcos. “And bringing in an alleged smuggler, hardworking though she may be, on some trumped-up charge might make you feel better than going back with nothing.”
Morcos shrugged. “Obviously, I’d rather be chasing my bomber. But if I have nothing else to do…”
Zousizhe shook her head as she reached for one of her datapads. “Damn government lackeys, making me do your job for you. Fine.” She tapped the datapad a few times, flicking through files quickly. “There are three major players right now vying for control of the docks. The Tertians, the Mognogs, and the Detroit Boys. Tertians are the old school power, trace their lineage all the way back to the first gangsters that arrived in Delta on those old Chinese sleepships. The Mognogs are a Martian group, mostly young idealists and extremists, pretending to fund the independence effort on Mars while really just lining their pockets as quickly as possible. Detroit Boys are natives, a group of cousins out of the Nova Detroit system.” She leaned back again, eyes bright. “If somebody was going to do something in the docks, one of those groups either had to okay it, or do it themselves.”
Morcos nodded. “It occurs to me, Ms. Smuggler, that all three of those organizations are ones that would benefit you considerably if they were removed.”
Zousizhe looked at Morcos and tilted her head sideways. “Why, Ms. Marshal, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. I do know that if I didn’t give you something useful, that you’d come right back down here and try to march me off to a penal colony.”
Morcos smiled. “As long as we understand each other. Thank you for your help, Ms. Smuggler. Oh, and don’t leave Scorpii for a while. It would make me… upset.”
&n
bsp; Morcos gestured for Kobayashi to head out. The deputy stood and nodded at Zousizhe, still pale, and headed back into the hallway.
They both walked past the gorillas at the front doors with a nod, and waved down a taxi. Morcos pulled herself inside and breathed a long sigh of relief.
“Those were incredible shots, sir.” Kobayashi said. “I didn’t even see you draw.”
Morcos smiled. “Thanks. See what you can find on these three groups fingered by our smuggler friend. Maybe one of them will pan out.” Morcos turned to look out the window of the taxi as it pulled away from the warehouse.
Chapter 11: Improbable Suspects
“Welcome back, marshal.” Haley smiled her nervous smile, followed by the now standard wince as the nanobots working on her facial nerves sent a quick shock of pain down her face. Morcos smiled back sympathetically. The outer airlock door cycled shut behind her.
“Haley. What did you find?”
The two women started walking towards the ship’s mess deck, ducking through the small doors designed for maximum protection and, correspondingly, minimal ease of transit.
“There were a total of 53 people that, at any point since the beginning of construction of the Judicator, set foot inside. Of those, we can remove 41 from the list since they all were on board before the fuel cell was installed or there was any surrounding framework under the fuel cell on which to mount the bomb.” Haley held her datapad loosely in one hand as they both ducked through another door. “Those were all assembly workers of some variety: electricians, plumbers, that sorta thing.”
“Okay, I follow so far.”
“Of the remaining 12, we have a probable list of seven and an improbable list of five. The probable list doesn’t include anyone that would make an obvious saboteur. Nobody that I could find with a particular grief against the Service, or tagged with a military background sufficient for building such a device.” Haley flicked the file over to Morcos’s datapad. “Two weapons technicians, two computer techs, an engineer, a logistics person from headquarters, and a robotics technician.”