The Last Flight of the Argus

by E. R. Torre

  “What is it?” Maddox asked.

  “It’s from the war and it’s just about intact. Anything else, the man in white can figure out on his own. Tell him I’ve got it.”

  Lang laid down some change. With a nod and a wink, he headed out the bar.

  Kelly Lang whistled a cheerful tune while returning to his ship's docking berth. At some point in the distant past, the corridor before him was immaculately clean. It was now filled with reddish dust and a stampede of footprints both old and new.

  It took Lang a few minutes to pass this corridor and reach the entrance to his craft. At the foot of the door, he punched in his security code and waited. His ship’s outer doors opened and he entered an even narrower and grimier corridor.

  Home sweet home.

  He took only a couple of steps before hearing a ring.

  Lang returned to the ship’s outer doors and pressed a button beside a monitor on the wall. It lit up with a view of the Titus station’s docking berth doors. Walking into the area was a man dressed in immaculate white.

  “That was quick,” Lang said.

  The scavenger pressed a button and the outer doors opened. The man in white stepped through them and out of the camera’s sight. Lang shut the monitor off and opened his ship’s outer doors once again.

  Lang met up with the man in white just as he reached the pressurized doors leading into the Sandstorm. The man’s white suit was immaculate. His face was chiseled and very thin. Icy blue eyes gave Lang an impatient stare.

  “Maddox showed me your photograph,” the man in white said. “What you're selling better be real, Mr. Lang. I don't take kindly to people wasting my time.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it.”

  “It would be an even bigger shame if I discovered you were trying to pass off a forgery.”

  The smile on Lang’s face evaporated. The man in white, otherwise known as Ned Frasier, was one of the chief engineers of the Titus space station. Though he worked for the Epsillon government, those in the salvage business knew he was also one of the elite middlemen that dealt with Erebus War material. His clients paid very well and no one crossed him. That was because it was rumored he had very deep ties to the underworld.

  “I wouldn’t call you out if what I was selling wasn’t big, and real,” Lang said.

  The scavenger escorted Frasier to the rear section of his ship. The two paused before the double doors leading into Sandstorm’s decompression chamber. Lang punched in the appropriate access code and when the doors opened he motioned for Frasier inside.

  Frasier did so and stopped a few feet short of the probe.

  “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Lang said.

  Frasier did not reply. Instead, he scanned the machine as if he were a starving man admiring an elaborate banquet. After a few seconds, he walked to the probe's side and leaned down to get a better look at her faded red lettering.

  “I did some research,” Lang said. “The probe’s from the Argus. She was a juggernaut class ship that –get this– wasn’t even supposed to be here during the war.”

  “Argus,” Frasier repeated. His voice was a whisper. He touched the probe gently, as if feeling for a pulse. “Where did you find her?”

  “Among the asteroids.”

  “Where?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Frasier’s cold eyes stared hard at the scavenger. Lang wasn’t sure what to make of the intense expression on the man in white’s face.

  “No offense, Mr. Frasier,” Lang sputtered. “But I tell anyone where I found this and whatever claims I’ve got for any future discoveries are gone.”

  “I will pay you well for this item,” Frasier countered. “Well enough that you won’t have to worry about making any further forays into Erebus. But I will not pay you one credit until I know where exactly you found this probe.”

  “Why?” Lang asked. “You think there’s more treasure out there?”

  Frasier drew an impatient breath. He rubbed his eyes before letting out the breath.

  “As a historian, an amateur historian anyway, I make it my hobby to know as much as possible about the Erebus War. As you said, the Argus was not one of the Epsillon warships listed as perishing within this system when it erupted. Unfortunately, I’ve had more than a few scavengers offer me items they claim were from ships stationed here at the time of this explosion. They demand top dollar for what amounts to planted items. I need to know where you found this probe, Mr. Lang, because that’s the only way I can verify the Argus was indeed in system when it exploded.”

  Kelly Lang scratched the back of his neck.

  “I see,” he finally said.

  “Is this all you found?”

  “Yes sir,” Lang said. “I guess…I can understand your concern, Mr. Frasier. If you’re willing to pay extra, I’ll throw in the location of this find along with the probe itself.”

  “I didn’t mean to question your honesty,” Frasier said. “The fact is, your discovery has taken me by surprise. How many others have you told?”

  “You’re the first,” Lang said. He didn’t consider Maddox. After all, talking to Maddox was the same as talking to the man in white.

  “I’ll give you fifteen thousand credits for the probe, and the information on where you found her.”

  Lang had to keep from gasping. The sum was more than he’d make in five years of scraping and struggle. Tempting as it was to agree right away to this exchange, Lang knew he could get more, provided there was more to be salvaged from the Argus.

  “Your offer is very generous,” Lang said. “I’ll need a while to think about it.”

  Frasier shook his head. “This offer remains as long as I’m standing on your ship. I will not be drawn into a bidding war.”

  Lang considered arguing, but ultimately relented.

  “My momma always told me I didn’t have much business sense. How about, just for my peace of mind, we make it an even twenty thousand credits?”

  Frasier considered this for no longer than two seconds before agreeing. The coldness in his outer expression melted. “Your mother was a bit harsh in her judgment. Twenty thousand credits for one day’s work isn’t bad at all. Now tell me, where did you find this magnificent item?”

  Frasier waited within the decompression chamber of the Sandstorm for his crew of five men to box and remove the probe.

  Lang ate a late afternoon snack as the men worked.

  The scavenger no longer cared about the probe and was at peace with the fact that he disclosed the location of his find. His mind was on the money Frasier transferred to his account and, even more specifically, how he would use it. The first thing he’d do was get the Sandstorm updated. He had taken her in for full service a couple of months before, but he always wanted a speedier craft.

  After the Sandstorm was upgraded, he’d travel to all those places he dreamed of when he was a child. Maybe somewhere out there he’d find another woman like Elizabeth, his recently departed wife. It was too bad she couldn’t share in this good fortune.

  Frasier’s men hauled the boxed probe past Lang. Ned Frasier followed close behind them but stopped when they reached the ship’s exit doors. Maddox was there, waiting for the men to pass.

  “We’re done,” Frasier said. He offered Lang his hand. “Thanks for coming to me first.”

  “Absolutely,” Lang replied. He shook hands with Frasier before the man left his ship.

  Frasier walked into the narrow corridor outside the berthing dock and approached Maddox. The two walked several steps behind the men carrying Frasier’s crate and spoke in a low voice.

  “We examined Lang’s flight recordings,” Maddox said. “They’re genuine.”

  “And the location of the probe?”

  “Exactly where he said he found it. I hired another scavenger to take Rasp to the area. So far, they haven’t seen any other material.”

  “It is irrelevant,” Frasier said. “I’m afraid our greatest fears are a reality. The Argus was
not destroyed in the Erebus explosion.”

  “After all this time,” Maddox said. “But are you sure? All we have is the one probe. Maybe the ship was destroyed and the probe somehow survived.”

  “No. The probe is nothing more than a small box. A reinforced small box, yes, but compared to the hull of the Argus...No. That ship was designed to withstand the harshest conditions. The ship survived, but was rendered inoperative. The crew, those still alive, released that probe after the explosion. It was a message in a bottle, so to speak. It’s the only reasonable explanation for its present condition.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Gather our people. All of them.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  STARSHIP MERRICK, orbiting the planet Salvation

  B’taav’s footsteps echoed against the metal mesh when he stepped out of his ship and onto the landing bay of the Merrick. Jonah Merrick’s personal secretary silently joined him. The two exited the landing bay and eventually reached the plush carpeting that filled the ship’s inner corridors. Their footsteps went silent.

  During their brief walk to Merrick’s office, the Secretary said nothing. It was just as well. B’taav didn’t feel much like talking anyway.

  The doors to Merrick’s office were made of a metallic alloy that reflected cold blue light off the fluorescent cells on either side of the corridor. They were security grade reinforced, befitting the head of industry of such a prestigious corporation. Merrick’s secretary pressed her hand against a sensor. There came a faint hiss as the blue metal doors parted, revealing Jonah Merrick’s enormous office. The Epsillon industrialist sat behind his enormous oak desk.

  For the moment Jonah Merrick ignored his visitors and instead stared out the window that filled the rear of his office. Beyond it laid the planet Salvation. Farther in the distance, rising above the equator, was its third moon.

  B’taav walked to the center of the room and froze. A lean, brown haired woman sat on a chair at the far side of the room. Unlike Merrick, her pale green eyes were on B’taav from the moment he first entered. She was sizing him up, calculating the means with which she could best him, either in physical combat or through other, more subtle efforts. B’taav returned her gaze in kind, despite his weariness of these Independents’ games.

  “Mr. B’taav,” Jonah Merrick said. “Please have a seat.”

  Merrick’s secretary remained by the door while B’taav stepped into the room. He sat in a chair opposite the Epsillon Industrialist’s desk. Merrick’s attention remained on the breathtaking view of outer space.

  “So pretty,” he said. “In all my years of exploration, I have yet to see an ugly planet. From orbit, anyway.”

  “Things look better from far away.”

  Merrick nodded. The window turned completely black and the Epsillon Industrialist’s focus was on B’taav. “Please give me your report.”

  B’taav explained in detail what happened on Salvation, from the moment he landed on Ferro City to the events of the past hour, including finding the mechanical spiders in his room and Goodwin’s death.

  “Those are the dry details,” Merrick said when B’taav was done. “Now give me the rest of it.”

  “When I was met at the Salvation star port by the police and assigned an escort, it was clear someone within your organization leaked my arrival and status for the purpose of neutralizing my effectiveness. When Bill Goodwin acknowledged he was the one to leak the information, it momentarily threw me off. The leaking of the information, I thought, was deliberate sabotage, yet here he was, admitting to doing this as if it were some colossal, unintentional mistake. Either he was very dumb…”

  “Not likely, given his position,” Merrick said.

  “...Or he was very, very clever. That’s why I put up an act of being furious with his supposed bungling. It’s why I told him to tell you I wanted more money.”

  “I got your message loud and clear,” Merrick said. He pointed to the female Independent at the back of the room. “It's the reason I sent Latitia in after you.”

  “That wasn’t necessary.”

  “She comes from a long, prestigious line of Independents.”

  B’taav felt a dull anger grow within. He drew a breath and calmed himself down.

  “After some give and take, I agreed to allow an escort be assigned to me,” the Independent continued. “He was an officer named Ken Shepherd. I figured he, like Goodwin, might try to slow me down. Only the exact opposite happened. He turned out to be very smart. Too smart.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Even on the best of days I couldn’t sift through literally thousands of documents and hit on a good, solid bit of information as quickly as he did. He discovered Gail Griffen. He was the one that made me stay behind to bug her apartment while he followed her. He then called me when she was in the restaurant and he was able to identify, just like that, the two men she met from the Lewitt Catering Company.”

  “In the business world we appreciate efficiency,” Merrick said. “But are suspicious when there's a little too much of it.”

  “When we discovered the details of the meeting between Gail Griffen and the Lewitt Catering boys, Ken Shepherd was the one that insisted we stay outside of the hotel, ostensibly to make sure everyone entered the place and, thus, were trapped within. He was also the one that didn’t want the police coming in too fast. He said we had too little on them. He said we should wait for them to reveal more serious crimes.”

  “Not a recommend procedure.”

  “Officer Shepherd portrayed himself as someone who worked by the book. He had issues with me using surveillance devices without the proper authorization, yet in a situation like this, where we had the suspects in a confined place and with officers potentially feet away in case of any trouble, Shepherd had us on the road, far away from them, and without any nearby backup. I went along with his plan, but by that point I no longer trusted him. I knew something bad was going to happen in Gail Griffen’s room.”

  “And it did, of course.”

  “She overdosed on Accelerant, but remained lucid enough to keep hidden and draw me into her room. The only way she could beef up while retaining her intellect was to take incremental doses of the drug for at least two hours before the meeting with the Levitt Catering boys.”

  “Is it not possible she took it after they arrived and pulled their weapons?”

  “No. If she had, her brain would have fried and her heart burst. She knew she was trapped, even before they arrived.”

  “Premeditated suicide?”

  “Someone tipped her off. Someone deeply involved in this case.”

  “Officer Shepherd.”

  “That's my guess. It explains why he kept the police and I away, at least until it served his purposes. It also explains how Gail Griffen knew about our video and audio bugs and disabled them before I showed up in her room.”

  “But Shepherd went in after you?”

  “He had to. When I left him, I told him to call in the police. When I entered the Tropic Hotel, I also told the manager to make that call. Only one call was made.”

  “It wasn't Shepherd's?”

  “Exactly. I got in touch with the Police after being driven back to my hotel. They told me the only call they received about the commotion at the Tropic Hotel was from the Hotel’s manager. I made a second call, to that same manager, and asked him what Officer Shepherd did after I left the lobby. He said Shepherd took his time moving from the Hotel’s entrance to the elevator. A curious thing to do, especially after several gunshots were fired and I flew into the place with gun in hand. The manager said Shepherd started moving only when the cops were on their way into the Hotel's lobby.”

  “Shepherd gave you time to confront Gail Griffen, then had to go up before the police did, to make sure you, and she, were dead.”

  “If everything worked according to his plan and the police hadn’t been called in prematurely, Shepherd would have waited several more minutes in the lobby, no
doubt checking his watch and grumbling about the police’s late arrival. Upstairs, I’d become Gail Griffen’s last victim, and her Accelerant poisoned heart finally explodes. When the appropriate time passed and the police still didn’t arrive, I have no doubt Officer Shepherd would have finally called them in. He would have chewed out the operator and wondered out loud, so the manager could hear, what happened to his backup. Afterwards, when all the bodies were discovered, Officer Shepherd would cry some genuine tears when he told the story of how he waited for the police but they arrived just a little too late. His final report on this whole mess would complement me for taking care of the pirate presence on Salvation while, simultaneously, falling victim to it.”

  “Bloody, but neat,” Merrick said. “Shepherd was recommended to you by Police Commissioner Herbert.”

  “Which meant he was in on it as well,” B’taav said. “But Herbert was put onto me by Constable Goodwin. On the ride back to my hotel, I asked Constable Goodwin if he knew Shepherd. He admitted to knowing him. Very well.”

  “All three were in league.”

  “Yeah. Because I was still alive, I was in danger. I figured either Goodwin or Herbert sent an assassin to my hotel room to finish me off. He was dead when I found him, a victim of his own Black Widow devices.”

  “Latitia did an admirable job countering the spiders’ original computer programming, didn’t she?”

  B'taav didn't reply.

  “I don’t expect gratitude from you, B’taav,” Latitia said. “We Independents usually try eliminating, rather than aiding, each other.”

  “Did you take out Goodwin?” B’taav asked her.

  “I thought he died in a traffic accident,” she replied.

  “What about Police Commissioner Herbert?”

  “Tomorrow’s another day.”

  “Thank you for your work,” Merrick told Latitia. “You’re excused.”

  Latitia approached B'taav.

  “You shouldn’t take things so hard,” she said to him. “This business is just a game, after all.”