by Richard Dee
She was dissolving into floods of tears. I hugged her and Melva just stood there, she can’t have known what to think. She had only found her father a few short weeks ago, now she was listening to him and his gangster girlfriend discussing her uncle’s criminal life and how someone called Dolmen wanted to kill him. Not only that, he was also involved in her father’s girlfriend’s family’s kidnap. I don’t think she could believe any of it. This was something else that I would have to explain.
“One thing’s for certain, we can’t do anything here. Let’s get into town, see Griff,” I said in the end. “He might have some idea about what’s going on.” We hadn’t talked to him since leaving for Rosskine, so he needed bringing up to speed. And I had the box to show him.
“Dannika, can you find out anything you can about Malkin, where he has his base, what ships he uses, anything at all.”
She was looking worried as well. “I’ll try, Dave,” she said. “I’m sorry, Irin.”
“You never mentioned Malkin before,” Griff said to Irin, later that evening. “I’ve heard about him, he’s one of the up-and-coming criminals.”
We were sat on his balcony, steaks had been consumed and the wine was flowing. We had told him more about what had happened and how the number had been connected but not answered.
Irin had calmed down a little, the food and wine had improved her mood. I think that she was still clinging to the idea that it was just a coincidence, I had my doubts but if it helped her, I suppose it was a good thing.
“We only heard the name just before we left Rosskine,” she sniffed. “It seemed like a Villiars thing, two different managers told us the same story, we had the packet from Evers, he said that he had spoken to them.”
“It might be innocent, just the same name,” said Griff. “Trouble is, Villiars is a big company. If Malkin is pretending to be a Villiars manager he could easily get away with it. He only needs one person on an obscure world to believe him, he can hack one computer and enter his details. It would spread throughout the whole company network. He must be a manager because someone official said so. Anyway, it’s on the company computer. You can get a forged ID if you know where to go and there you are. He can waltz onto Jintao and persuade the local boss, who doesn’t know him, to do what he wants. Any checks on the Villiars network will show that he’s legit.”
He was so right, it meant that all the time we had thought Sanja was safe, she might have been with Malkin, maybe she was already dead, along with Nuri and Costa.
“But Dolmen said…” Irin started and Griff shook his head.
“Dolmen’s OK, but he’s old and out of it. Malkin is the new breed, he does what he wants. Dolmen has integrity, Malkin wouldn’t know it if it bit his arse.”
“But is Rixon responsible?”
“NO,” he shouted, making us jump. “He’ll be just as angry as Irin; it makes the whole thing look bad. One person agrees to something, another goes and changes it all. Rixon will be mad about it. Trouble is, he should never have said it. He’ll have no support, no matter how many agree with him, they can all see which way the wind is blowing. Dolmen is on the way out, it’s better to align yourself with the new boss.”
“We have a lot to sort out,” I said. “Dolmen, Rixon, now there’s this Malkin involved, what are we going to do?”
“It’s getting complicated,” he said thoughtfully. “Malkin’s one of the young pretenders of the three families; they run a lot of the organised crime in the Federation. They live in the IW; quite legally, and only operate on our side. If they get any hassle, they just have to scuttle back over the border and they’re legitimate. The IW will protect them.”
“Then we need to deal with him and get Irin’s family back before we get Rixon to see Messinya.”
“I can have a listen,” said Griff. “Dolmen was right that I can’t go back, but I know a few who can, I’ll put the word out.”
“There’s more,” I said, lifting the box from my satchel and placing it on the table.
Griff peered at it. “Is it live?” he said.
“No, I disconnected the power supply.”
“Good, the General doesn’t need to know where you are.”
“Who’s the General?” Even though I had a good idea, I had to ask.
“She’s head of security in the IW; a very powerful lady. Where did you find this? It’s a beacon, it tells the receiver where you are all the time.”
“The border patrol. They put it on the hull when they boarded us.”
“The IW doesn’t have a border patrol; they were the secret police.” He looked at the box for a while. “If I were you, I would turn it on again when you’re back in the IW. And I have a feeling that you’ll be back over there soon.”
Chapter Sixteen
Now we were waiting again, this time for Rixon to get in touch. Griff had sent a lot of traffic to various places to try and find out what Malkin was up to, the lack of any news was driving us crazy. Irin wasn’t sleeping and I was worried about her. In the end I took her to a doctor. He said she was stressed and needed rest. He gave her some sort of pills that knocked her out. She was staying with Ria; they had developed a real friendship.
That left me and Melva, which was good. I was sure that she would ask me about Rixon but she seemed to sense that it wasn’t a good subject, anyway she had her own life to sort out. Her story about flying with Jimbo had given me an idea. It would help me get my mind off things as well.
“While we’re here, with time to spare,” I said to her, “we’d better teach you how to fly, never mind a bit of manoeuvring in orbit, you need to learn from the start.”
There was a simulator in town and Griff pulled a few strings to get her onto the next course. It was intense, five days instruction and then a day of tests. At the end of it the instructors pronounced her competent.
That meant she could start flying under supervision, it also allowed her to apply for a practical type test, which would qualify her to pilot one specific craft. She chose the Sprite, which meant that I could take her out for practice flights, build up her hours while she waited for her assessment. She also had a lot of knowledge to absorb, about ship construction and equipment, radio and emergency procedures, local regulations and the laws about space travel.
She was a pretty good pilot right from the start, although she had a tendency to try and do things too quickly, to skip steps in procedures. “Why can’t you do things in order?” I asked her after she had missed out a whole series of checks.
“Myra will tell me if there’s a problem,” she said.
“A lot of ships don’t have an interface like Myra.” I was trying to be patient. In a way, I agreed with her. A lot of it was old fashioned and redundant but you had to satisfy the examiner, then you could make your own mistakes, once you had the certificate.
“Remember, the assessment covers all configurations of Sprite. What if Myra was out of action? Do it like that in your practical assessment and you’ll fail.”
On the day, I had to hand Freefall over to a government-assigned pilot and leave them to it. Hopefully she had got the message. To say I was nervous was an understatement, especially as I had to turn Myra off before I left. Now my girl was on her own for two hours, as she was tested on take-off, landing and everything in between. I spent the time pacing up and down the bay with Irin, who was starting to have better days. She was trying to convince me that it would all be fine.
Eventually Freefall descended and made a textbook landing, except for the fact that the ramp was opposite the entrance. Melva must have realised before touchdown. When Freefall was about ten metres off the ground she went into a hover and spun neatly before dropping backwards into the perfect position. I had a sudden memory of doing exactly the same thing on the Orca years before and applauded her in my head. The ramp dropped and after a moment the examiner appeared, followed by Melva.
“You’ve passed,” I heard him say and she grinned.
“I did it, Dad,” she
shouted.
“Are you her father?” he asked me. I nodded. I was so proud that I couldn’t speak. “She has the makings of a fine pilot,” he said, “as long as she remembers procedures.” He handed her a disc. “This is your practical authorisation,” he said, “and well done.”
“Can I do all the flying now?” she asked. “To get my hours in?”
I had jobs lined up but didn’t want to commit to them while I was waiting to hear from Rixon. In the end I compromised, by running short shuttle flights for a local technology company who were moving some operations to one of New Devon’s moons. They had sensitive equipment to manufacture and the lower gravity was the best place to do that. The advantage was that Melva could do all the flying, short but intensive operations to build up her confidence. She grew in ability; it was a couple of weeks’ good work for her, which attracted a good wage as well. In between times, she studied for her theory exams.
Then we got a message from a contact of Griff. Rixon was ready to meet us. But we were not going back to Rosskine. Instead we had to get to a planet called Greenfield, a farming world that was still in the IW but was a lot closer to the border.
It was then that the other benefit of Melva’s new job became apparent; before we had heard about Rixon, she had set off to fly as co-pilot on a ship that was going to Caluga. It was a chance to get some valuable watchkeeping experience and see Messinya for a couple of days.
There would be no argument about whether she was coming with us. I was relieved, I didn’t want to have to try and stop her again.
Chapter Seventeen
We were back in the IW, at the place on Greenfield that Rixon had told us to be. Myra had found it without a problem, we landed in the desolation of a grass sea, dotted with sheep. The ruined buildings of an abandoned settlement loomed around us.
We had crossed the border undisturbed this time. I had turned the IW beacon back on and attached it to the hull while we were on the way. Whoever it might have told, nobody had stopped us this time.
It was late in the day and dusk was falling as we walked into the ruins of a brick building. Part of the roof was missing, our footsteps echoed on the stone floor.
On the way, we discussed how we would play it with Rixon. In the end we decided not to let on that we knew about Malkin. We wanted to see if he mentioned him. If he didn’t, we could confront him with the news, see how he reacted. We could tell him about Melva and his mother’s wishes. And we would have to keep quiet about Ria and my promise as well. I just hoped that he wouldn’t do something stupid, like try to shoot us as soon as he saw us.
The place was deserted, we walked around and could smell the faint tang of wood smoke; someone had been here recently. Then we saw the ashes of a fire, inside one of the ruined walls.
Irin suddenly gasped. “There’s someone here,” she said. I sensed movement behind me. I turned, just in time to see a shadowy figure moving across the gaps in the brickwork.
“Well?” asked a voice at my ear. I spun around and Rixon was there. He seemed older than when I had seen him less than a year ago but still tall and strong in his frame. His hand rested on the grip of a holstered pistol.
“Hello, Dave, don’t mind them. They’re just my boys. They’re making sure you haven’t been followed. You must have been feeling brave, bringing Irin here after all that I said. It wasn’t me, I kept my word.”
Irin just looked at him; this wasn’t how we had expected the conversation to start.
“What do you mean?” asked Irin. “You kept your word?”
“Well that’s why you’re here isn’t it, Irin? Because of your mother and son?”
This was making no sense. “No,” I said, abandoning part of our plan. “I’m here because your mother asked me to find you. Griff helped me. Irin is here because she’s with me. Ria wanted me to find you as well; but not for the same reason.”
At the mention of the names his face changed, all sorts of emotions passing across it as he heard them. His mother brought love, Griff a grin, and as for Ria, well it wasn’t fear but it wasn’t joy either, it was more like a sort of apprehension.
“I’ve been told that my family are with Costa, the Villiars manager from Jintao,” said Irin. “He’s taken them with him on a business trip. Dolmen said that they’re safe.”
“Let me guess. Malkin was the name of the man who took them, wasn’t he?”
That was it, confirmation. She ran over and grabbed him. “What do you know?”
He tried to push her away and I helped. It would do us no good, but she was relentless, swinging punches at his head which he blocked as he tried to move backwards. In the end she stopped and crumpled to the ground sobbing.
“I’m sorry,” said Rixon. “I know you blame me but I kept my word.” I had a sudden realisation that Griff was right. It was time to let on that we knew what was happening.
“Did you take my family?” she said at last.
“No, he didn’t,” I told her. “Someone else did.”
He nodded his head. “You’re right, Dave, it was Malkin. I told him not to. Dolmen told him the same. It was over. Trouble was, he wouldn’t take it.”
“How do you mean?”
“Malkin’s a new kid on the block, people might not have liked what I did but that was final. Their safety was in my gift. Malkin comes along and disagrees.”
“Has he killed them?”
“I doubt it, it might even the score as far as Malkin’s concerned but it would achieve little. It would embarrass me, sure, but apart from that, who cares? No, he will have them alive somewhere and he’ll reach out to you now that he knows you’re in the IW. He’ll get you into a trap and very publicly kill you, and then me, to show that he means business. He’ll kill us all, he loves it.”
If he was right, I was worried as well. “How do you know that’s what he’ll do?” we both said together.
“I’m in trouble, because of you,” he grinned, “according to some of the more… modern of my peers. They think that I’ve been disloyal, broken the code. I’ve been thrown out. I’m in limbo, under Dolmen’s protection. I get the dirty jobs, ferrying crap around. I’m watched all the time. I thought that was why you’d come; because you reckoned it was me, even though I’d said all bets were off.”
“Not at all, I was hoping that you’ll be sensible about it, I have some big news for you, then all this happened.”
“Well I would like an explanation,” said Irin. “I wondered if it was you, it was worth the risk to find out.”
He sighed. “You’re right of course; I can’t do it now, the same as I couldn’t do it then. I had to make noises like that for my crew, or I would have appeared weak and that would have been the end of me.”
“But now?” Irin said. “Things have changed?”
“Exactly, I don’t have that crew anymore, no need to appear strong to keep them in line. I’m a bit more able to say what I think.”
That sort of made sense, no matter what Messinya had said, Rixon had never struck me as unnecessarily cruel. I had never really thought that Myra kept him in check. I had to accept his explanation, so did Irin. If she ever wanted to see her family again, she would have to change her attitude. I kept talking before she could put her foot in it.
“Fair enough, I’ll tell you in a minute. First, what happened, the day that Orca was destroyed?”
He looked at his fingers for a while. “It was so long ago, and you leaving was just the start of it. Remember how I said that you had to get Myra safe?”
He had told me that after we had destroyed the Bishop, it was on top of his list. I nodded, this was all news to Irin, I had only told her a little of my past. Not because it was a secret but we had been so involved in things that it had never been the right time. I knew nothing much about what she had got up to with Rixon’s crew either.
“I knew that Vlad or his boys would be after us, it didn’t take long after you went. Griff was away delivering your spares and we had been trying to ge
t crew sorted but there was some problem, nobody wanted to work for us. I realised that the word was out. We were all running around doing stuff, just to keep solvent. As far as everyone else was concerned, we were dead, we just hadn’t realised it.” There was a faint noise, away in the distance, like wind rustling through the grass.
“Go on,” I said.
“Then we had the new crewman who upset everyone, he called himself Marik. I tried to tackle him but he told me that he was from Vlad and I was to lay off. He said that I could kill him if I wanted but it wouldn’t solve anything, someone else would just turn up. He left but I had my suspicions that he had set something up. When Griff came back, we tore the ship apart looking for a clue to what he had planned. Then, the day before you were due to arrive, while we were in orbit, I found it, a sub-routine in the base code of the engine control systems. And I didn’t find it in time to delete it. Griff was working in one shuttle, I got everyone else in the other and we left, just as the ship blew.”
Marik had been there when Myra was killed. Maybe Rixon didn’t know about the second traitor.
“Why didn’t you go and rescue Griff then?”
“I had no signal from him, I thought he was gone, caught in the blast. Our shuttle was damaged and only able to limp to the nearest planet, it took days and we barely made it. Besides which, Marik had told me we were being shadowed and I didn’t want to hang around. I tried to call him and he never answered. And then I came here and did what I did, I found out later that Griff had survived but I never looked back until I heard your voice on the radio at the moons.”
“I found him when I turned up to meet you,” I said, “we managed to save his life but only because we took his arm off. Did you knew about Myra?” He nodded. “I’m sorry; the Chenko’s ship, Oblaya or whatever it was called, it never came back. We figured that you had both gone, then we heard that Freefall was still flying but that Myra had been killed. I tried to hunt them down to get the story, obviously Vlad had been killed so I was pleased but I still wanted to know. We never found them.”