The difficulty was that “everybody knows it’s the Pallamar” was not evidence enough either to be allowed to accuse them of piracy on the media or to arrest them. Ships that had been raided by the Karadon pirate could only report that it was a cargomaster freighter with its ID covered over. Since cargomasters were the most common kind of ship in space and the Pallamar had no distinguishing features, they could not be identified to any degree that would stand up in court. Their boarding parties wore clean-room suits, masks and voice-synthesisers, too, obscuring their identities and leaving no forensics. After four searches by Customs and the Fleet had not found any incriminating forensics or stolen cargo, the Pallamar’s skipper had hired very expensive lawyers who’d won a case against them for harassment. They’d also secured an injunction so that the media could no longer even mention the Pallamar in association with any story on space piracy.
“If anyone can take the bleeped out down,” another spacer said, “it’ll be the Fourth.” He spoke with admiration and rather obvious hope. The ABC journalist interviewing him had struck gold, finding a deckhand on one of the container ships who’d been aboard one of the ships raided by the Pallamar a few years previously. “I was on the Pineapple when it was hit by the bleeped out six years back. They’d obviously followed us from Karadon and hit us when we were just four hours out of port. They knew exactly what we had aboard – they fired scatter missiles ahead of us and launched two shuttles at us. We surrendered, obviously. You do not mess with these guys, seriously, trust me on this. We all know what happened to the Jackpot. Their skipper was going around for months saying that if they were hit, they’d fight back, boasting of having his crew trained to use the cannon and having guns aboard. They vanished without a trace on a run to Canelon, no debris ever found or nothing. So yeah, we did as they said. They were in and out in three minutes, grabbed the containers they wanted and were away almost before we knew what had hit us. We came straight back to Karadon and reported it, for what good that did us!” He shook his head with remembered disgust.
“They said it was nothing to do with them, outside their jurisdiction. But that didn’t stop them buying the bleeped out’s cargo when they came back in a couple of weeks later, even though they had to have known that it was the cargo that had been ripped off us, because they’d sold it to us in the first place! If you ask me, they’re in on it, definite, in cahoots with the bleeped out, tipping them off what cargoes to go for and buying them back, no questions asked. The Fleet doesn’t do nothing about it, neither. All they did when we reported it was to give us a crime number for an insurance claim, said it was long gone by then and nothing they could do on just our say so alone that it was the bleeped out, no corroborating evidence. It’s about time that they sent in someone like the Fourth. They don’t let cack like legal formalities get in the way of taking out the bad guys.”
That wasn’t true, in fact. It was just part of the mythology that had been growing up around the Fourth since the seizure of the Might of Teranor. It was clear, however, that the Fourth had the wholehearted support of the majority of the spacers in port. It was also clear that they considered the station management to be complicit in both the drugs trafficking and the piracy.
Against that, Chokran Dayfield made a poor showing. He looked grey faced and puffy eyed after a night of little sleep and much anxiety. He’d dozed only to wake several times, jolting awake with a panicky conviction that he’d heard a noise. Every time he’d woken it had been with a lurching fear that it might be to find his bedroom full of giant, silvery figures about to put handcuffs on him.
Taking stock of the situation that morning hadn’t done anything to alleviate his stress. Karadon had gone, in twenty five hours, from having twenty seven thousand customers and eight thousand four hundred staff to having just forty six visitors still aboard the station, not counting the media who’d now set up camp in the Central hotel. Of the eighteen hundred staff still there, about a third had made it known that they were only waiting for a ship to come in heading for their homeworlds before they too would be leaving.
“Oh, please,” Chok was giving a press conference in which he had hoped to lay out a compelling explanation of the dirty tricks the Fourth was playing here. Instead he found himself facing a barrage of questions about piracy. “Not that again!” he protested, and had to make an effort to pull his professional manner back into place. “I have already made Karadon’s position on this very clear in many previous discussions with the media,” he said. “For a start, let us please not use the term “space piracy”, a term only fit for juvenile movies. Secondly, while incidents of cargo theft do, regrettably, occur, there is no evidence that they happen any more frequently, statistically, in this sector than in any other high-traffic area of the League. Thirdly, Karadon has no law-enforcement role and no jurisdiction of any kind beyond the space of our own parking orbits, so there’s nothing we can do about such incidents, anyway, other than pass on reports to League authorities. We do, of course, cooperate with the Fleet and other authorities to the best of our ability in that and all other law enforcement matters.”
He was going to lay out all the many ways that Karadon cooperated with and supported the Fleet and groundside authorities, but was shouted down by the journalists. They’d heard that speech already, far too many times, and were keen to provoke a more personal reaction. The questions that succeeded in beating through the storm were about the viability of the station – was it even safe to operate it with so few staff remaining aboard?
“Yes, of course,” Chok said, though he was conscious as he said that of a conversation he’d had earlier with the station’s technical director. Words like “critical threshold of staffing to maintain life support throughout the station” had made him uneasily aware that this was not an environment where you could take breathable air and survivable temperatures for granted. “Karadon Leisure remains open and ready for visitors,” he said, “and Karadon Freight is operating too.” He gave the cameras a determined look. “Business as usual.”
Only it wasn’t, of course. Freighters with cargo they’d been paid to deliver to Karadon were doing so, but they would not pick up even scheduled cargo now unless they were having it checked by the Fourth. Nobody was buying or selling in the Freight Club. Instead, they were doing business amongst themselves aboard the Logistics 912, one of the container ships in port that had set itself up as an alternative trading venue.
“No, I wouldn’t describe this as a “sudden turnaround” on the part of spacers,” one of the editors who’d lived on the station for years gave an editorial interview to one of his station’s journos. “There’s been a lot of feeling amongst them for as long as I’ve been on the station, myself, particularly on the issue of piracy. I’ve heard the words “we don’t have any choice” from so many of them over the years that it’s been like a theme tune. And they’re right, too, there is no viable alternative for many long-haul routes than to call in here for supplies and cargo exchange. Spacers themselves have been calling for action to be taken on the lawlessness at Karadon, though they’re so scattered and mobile as a community that they’re not very effective at undertaking strong public lobby. I’m sure that fear has been a factor, too, as the kind of people suspected of being behind drug trafficking on Karadon are notoriously violent in their reaction to people speaking out against them. The feeling I have is that the arrival of the Fourth has acted as a catalyst, though, empowering spacers to feel that they can take a stand, themselves. There’s certainly high expectation amongst them that the Fourth can, and will, take effective action where all other authorities have failed.”
Feeling amongst the tourists who’d evacuated from the station was rather more mixed, though even there much of their anger seemed to be directed at the station and at the liner companies that had brought them into that situation rather than at the Fourth themselves. There was a lot of talk about who they were going to sue, and how much compensation they could get.
In the mid
dle of the afternoon, however, conversation turned to discussion of the latest breaking news, that lawyers on the station were now acting for the four people arrested from the Demella Enterprise. Not only that, but they were to be allowed aboard the frigate for meetings with their clients.
The media covered that with high drama, filming the lawyers going aboard a shuttle at the station, then following them as they made their way to the frigate. They were given clearance to approach, though directed to dock at a subsidiary airlock on deck seven rather than the far more customary reception airlock on deck three. After that the media could only speculate for three quarters of an hour until the shuttle broke away again.
In fact, there’d been very little drama on the ship. Three lawyers went aboard, rather nervous but determined. They were obliged to stand in the airlock for a few seconds while a thorough security scan was carried out, but once through that they were greeted pleasantly by Lt Commander Fishe. She gave them hard-copy versions of the terms and conditions they’d already agreed to before coming aboard, collected their signatures for the log and showed them straight into the brig. The entrance to that was right next door to the airlock, so they did not get to see any other part of the ship. There, though, they were able to meet with their clients privately. They were provided with refreshments and treated with civility throughout, with nothing at all that they could complain of as they were shown off the ship.
Their expected statements on behalf of their clients were given to the media within another half hour. Unsurprisingly, all four prisoners had accepted their lawyers’ advice to refuse to make any statement while they were in Fourth’s custody. Their lawyers would only declare their innocence without getting specific, hinting darkly at evidence having been “manufactured”. They also admitted, reluctantly, that the conditions the prisoners were being kept in and the way they were being treated, for now at least, appeared to be satisfactory.
Licia Simmington, however, was very keen to tell her story. She and Zak Eldon were taken over to the Queen of Cartasay a couple of hours later. At their request, a press conference was organised at once, with thirty selected journalists allowed to come over from the station.
“It was terrifying,” Licia said. “We had no idea there were drugs aboard the Demella, obviously. People did tell us that it wasn’t a good ship to work on but nobody said anything about drugs and it was only going to be for a few weeks – we just want to get to Chartsey, see?” She and Zak were holding hands as they faced the cameras. They looked overwhelmed but Licia, at least, was keen to have her say. “We’re from Kenso,” she explained.
That did explain a lot, too. Kenso was an agricultural world way out in the boondocks. Its chief industry was growing and processing food nutrients to supply the central worlds. The lure of the capital world brought thousands of kids just like these pouring off ships at Chartsey every day. They didn’t just go to see the sights, the soaring towers and the sky so criss-crossed with traffic you could hardly see the blue. They went seeking fame and fortune, the glamour of a new life amidst bright lights and beautiful people.
“We’re working passage to save our money,” Licia said, “and we thought the Demella would be fine, just to get us there. We didn’t even know we were leaving port. We were just on the mess deck having tea when all of a sudden Jer, the skipper, said something to Dusty, he’s the engineer, about “firing her up”, and the next thing, we were coming up out of port while the Queen of Cartasay was coming in. Then, the next thing, the screens went off and we could hear shouting on the flight deck, so we went to see what was going on.” She glanced at Zak, who nodded confirmation, though he didn’t say a word.
“Before we got to the flight deck, though, there was Mr Jablenko at this place by the airlock. I didn’t even know what it was at first – we’d only been on the ship a couple of days and I hadn’t even noticed those screens, before. But he’d pulled out this chair and was shouting to Misha, to Ms Simone, about going down fighting. She was over at another screen on the other side and yelled at us to get something to fight with. I realised all of a sudden that they were guns, you know? I could see that they were aiming them at the shuttles coming towards us. I still didn’t know what was going on, we hadn’t seen the Heron, we didn’t know where the shuttles were from. I thought for a second it might be a pirate attack or something, people had told us there’s a lot of piracy round here. But then, see, I saw the Fourth’s emblem on the shuttles as they got closer, and I shouted at Mr Jablenko to stop, it wasn’t pirates, it was the Fourth. I tried to grab his arm, shouting at him, and he…”
She gestured graphically, demonstrating how he’d punched back and up, driving his fist into her face.
“I remember his fist hitting me,” she touched her forehead with an almost wondering expression, clearly still finding it difficult to believe that someone had actually hit her like that. “I kind of remember falling and hitting my head on the deck. Then the next thing I knew, really, I was in sickbay on the Heron.”
Her expression changed, becoming one of warm pleasure.
“They were so lovely,” she enthused. “Rangi – their doctor – is just so lovely, he couldn’t have been kinder. Their sickbay is lovely too, all pretty and green, not what you’d expect on a warship at all. I felt better by this morning but they didn’t rush us. Buzz came to see us, Mr Burroughs, he’s just so lovely. He told us we’re not in any trouble and we’d be free to go, but would we be willing to make statements, and of course we said yes.
“Yes, yes,” she answered as a hail of questions interrupted her, “of course they said we could have a lawyer if we wanted one, but why would we? We didn’t do anything wrong! So we made our statements this morning. They’ve just been looking after us since then, told us to take our time and think about what we wanted to do. Buzz was trying to get us to go back to Kenso, really, but we haven’t come all this way and gone through all this just to give up and go home.”
There was a confusion of shouted questions, and the White Star officer helping to run the press call quietened things down and picked out one of the journalists.
“Sadie Kettle, ABC,” said the journo, using cameras to film both herself and the teenagers. “What about you, Zak? What’s your story?”
“I ran away,” Zak said, “when the shooting started.” Rangi had worked intensively with him in counselling and healing meditation, supporting him through the dreadful shame he’d felt at having run away as he had. He’d abandoned his girlfriend, hidden in a shower and wet his pants. At sixteen, there could be few things more humiliating, and it was still a difficult thing for him to have to admit to.
“I should have, too,” Licia said, loyally, gripping his hand tightly and declaring, “Zak’s always the sensible one out of the two of us.”
Zak straightened up a little, heartened by that and by the fact that none of the journos were laughing, pointing at him or calling him a coward as he’d feared, but evidently agreed with Rangi and Buzz that running away when guns were being fired was a good decision.
“What was it like when their guns hit the Demella?” Three journalists asked, simultaneously.
“I don’t remember anything about that, I was unconscious by then,” Licia said, and looked at Zak.
“I thought the ship was coming apart, it was shaking so much, and there was this horrible groaning noise,” Zak said, looking scared again even at the memory, “I couldn’t feel my hands, everything was like going numb. I thought I was going to die. I’m glad they did it though.” He squared up bravely to the cameras. “They stopped those people and they caught them. And they might have used us as hostages or human shields, too, so they did the right thing, firing at the ship.” His pronouns were confused but his meaning was apparent.
Both of them shook their heads, though, at a surge of questions about the experimental weaponry the Fourth had used – had they been told anything about that at all?
“That’s top secret,” Licia pointed out. “All they told us was th
at it’s like a stun gun, for ships.”
“Did you meet with von Strada, at all?” Another journalist asked, as Commander Quilleran signalled that it was their turn.
“Yes,” Licia nodded. “He came to the mess deck after lunch and sat with us for about five minutes. He said thanks for making the statements and were we really sure and determined to go on to Chartsey. People on the mess deck had been saying that Chartsey’s not so good as it looks on the holly, see, and maybe we should go to Canelon or somewhere instead, have a holiday and then go home. But all we’ve ever wanted is to go to Chartsey, see? We’re going to get an apartment, there. I’m going to be a model, and Zak’s going to be my stylist.
“When we told Mr von Strada about that he kind of smiled, which surprised us because it says on the holly that he never smiles, that he can’t, or something, because he’s from Novaterre. But it was, you know, a sad kind of smile. He’s a very serious kind of person, I think. Anyway he said that he’d get us onto the Queen of Cartasay, on one condition. He gave us this…”
She held up a flimsy of the kind used for hard-copy data transfer.
“It’s a travel warrant from Chartsey to Kenso,” she explained. “He said we had to register it with White Star and promise him that if things didn’t work out for us on Chartsey we’d go home. That was really kind of him though, you know, we’re not going to need it. We’ll be fine. He did ask us not to give any interviews, too, but we wanted people to know what had really happened, and how lovely they were, too, looking after us.”
“But you were on a mess deck?” The next selected journalist asked, quickly. “Does that mean you got to see around the ship?”
Licia burst into giggles and Zak grinned, too, faces bright with remembered hilarity.
Karadon (Fourth Fleet Irregulars) Page 16