Prison Planet (THE RIM CONFEDERACY Book 3)

by Jim Rudnick

  At least today was a pretty easy one. He ticked off Agenda items on the page in front of him that had to be discussed. The normal Leudi and Faraway trade wars were on round 900 or so, and as such, they led off the items after the business of the various events that would be the openers as usual.

  He frowned for a moment as he knew the budgets for the proposed 100th Halberd Anniversary festival was up early, and while the budgets weren’t that out of line, the simple fact was that his man on the scene, Captain Scott, was no closer to giving up the bottle than a one-year-old child.

  “Pretty much the same,” he said to himself and shook his head slightly. His aide popped up with a raised eyebrow at that, and he waved him back and set his public face back to noncommittal. Tanner would either give up the bottle or he’d be out of the RIM Navy, and I’ll have to cashier him out myself, he thought. It was a hell of a way to pay back a man who had saved his life, as well as hundreds of crewman, in battles long ago.

  He heard the treads of the DenKoss water trolleys coming in as he stared around the table and the majordomo placed the final few measured agendas. Sure enough, the three DenKoss members entered the Council chambers with staff doing the pushing followed by the lifting from the mobile trolley to the water baths placed at the table for this species. Slowly filtering in came the Quarans, those lizard-looking green-hide aliens that made the best wine out here on the RIM. The giant from Eran took his seat with delicacy, McQueen noted, as he’d broken the last one when he’d plopped his twelve-foot bulk down with aplomb. Perches were climbed on by the Djarreer members, and the Ttseens climbed up on their booster wedges in their chairs as they licked their whiskers and then a foreleg if it looked like it needed some grooming. Coming in at the end of the line of members, the Faraway Council member bounded twice to get to his chair, his tail pointing out behind him as he clambered in dexterously.

  Almost all ... ah, here’s the Vice Chairman, McQueen thought as the Caliph Sharia Al Dotsa sidled in, quickly got his papers out of his attache case, and looked surprisingly at the empty chair directly to his left. He scanned the room and then looked over at the Council Chief of Staff with a raised eyebrow and received a shrug as his unspoken question was answered.

  Reaching over to his left, he scooped up the gavel, and looking at the big clock above the doorway opposite the head of the table, he stood and slapped the gavel onto the desktop a few times to get some quiet in the room.

  “Chief, close the Council Hall off, please,” he instructed the man seated at the center of the horseshoe space in front of him. That man immediately looked behind him to the doorway as it closed with two Provost Guards taking up picket duty on both sides of the door.

  Slapping the table once more, he checked his agenda for any regrets, and seeing none, he spoke off the cuff.

  “Members, I seem to have taken over the gavel today as our Chairman is missing—and I do not know why that might be. No regrets listed, and Chief—anything to add, may I ask?” he said and then took his seat.

  The chief stood and said simply, “I apologize to the Council, but it is a mystery to myself and my staff as to where the Chairman is—we expected him to be here as usual to chair the meeting. I can offer nothing new on this, Mr. Vice Chairman,” he finished off and sat too.

  Looking around the room as the meeting began, McQueen wondered what the backstory about this would become, but the quickness of the movement on some of the early items led the Council to get to the one item he had any interest in at all.

  “Chief, can I ask that you put the next item up on the big screen, and yes, budget too?” the Vice Chair said, and they turned to the close wall to view same on the monitor.

  McQueen noted the numbers having to do with security and facilities had been updated, and as usual, they’d trashed his own demands and had cut the budgets by about twenty-three percent. Idiots. The RIM has bean counters that are idiots, he thought, and some in the room noted his frustration.

  “Mr. Vice Chair,” the member from Novertag said, “I see that the admiral while not voicing his displeasure with what we are seeing budget-wise ... may I ask that he speaks to this point?”

  He looked directly at the Vice Chair but he was speaking to me, thought the admiral, and he rose to speak after getting a nod from the Vice Chair.

  “Honored member, yes, you did see that I was frustrated with the numbers you see proposed by the accountants—but only in that they appear to have missed that I recommended—in fact, I pushed for more manpower on-site. We need to send at least four more RIM Navy vessels complete with Marines and Provost Guard battalions too. You’re talking about a ceremony in an open stadium with civilians and convicts, as well as Council members and Royalty, all in close proximity, honored members ...” he said.

  Round one, he thought and then sat back to watch.

  “Nonsense,” said the Zadran, his red eyes blinking in the brightly lit hall. “We have already seen in line ... what ... line eighty-one that there will be force fields protecting the stage, the citizens, and yes, the convicts too. That has been well covered, and members, please, these are force fields, and nothing can get through a force field. So, we don’t need those battalions at all. Hence the newer, lower security numbers.”

  He smiled at the group, and one had to admit that even though force fields were manufactured on Zadra, he couldn’t be accused of any kind of conflict of interest.

  Not hardly, McQueen thought and was surprised that no one rose to that point.

  In fact, he realized the Council was going to pass this with little effort to make the changes he knew were required. One can only really count on manpower—on men on the ground. It was obvious to him that the Council would not countenance any kind of budget increase—the Anniversary would be lean when it came to security, so there’d be more responsibility on current Navy personnel on-site. He flinched and thought he’d have to spend some time seeing what he could do as a ”non-budgetary” item.

  He watched as the Council voted to accept the budget and then moved on to the next item that was the proposed ceremonies and speaking opportunities for the RIM members. Now the infighting begins, McQueen thought, and he watched as again the Faraway member rose to try to swing away with his own interests and was interrupted by at least four members at once.

  Idiots abound on the RIM. That thought brought a smile to his face that he covered with his hand.

  CHAPTER SIX

  "Well, Captain, I see you have brought along your chef! What a pleasant surprise," Tibah said as she wiped her hands on her apron, trying to get some fruit juice off her palms.

  It was a busy morning at the Farmers Market, and with the special vegetables and produce the Caliphatians had on their shelves, they were busy.

  But not too busy to notice us right away, Tanner thought as he smiled at the Countess.

  "Ma’am, may I introduce CS Harlinson, that's culinary specialist, and yes, he's the head chef over on the Marwick. And when I told him what you have here—your 'fancies' I think you called them—he couldn't wait to see them," Tanner said.

  He smiled as his chef grinned at those violet eyes and they made their introductions. He noted that even though Tibah was a Countess, she clapped her arm over Harlinson's shoulders and led him off to the big table in the center of their large booth. They started to handle the various gourds and fruits, and Tanner was pleased the Marwick chef looked around for some kind of a basket. Tibah quickly got one of her workers to hand him a large box which he started to fill while they talked and turned the items over. He noted she had a truly great smile.

  Steady there, Captain, he thought and wished he'd had more than the single shot in his coffee a few minutes earlier and that the Market had a bar, but before he really got into that idea, his chef was back in front of him.

  "Captain, what a great find. I can't wait to give some of these a trial, and I already know a couple of great recipes to use right off the bat!" he said, hoisted the box up on his shoulder, and left the stall to
return to the Marwick.

  "Well, there's a chef with a focus on food," Tibah said as they both watched the man work his way through the crowded lanes back toward the landing port.

  "Can I also add," she said, "that he did make arrangements for the Marwick to have an account with us, and we'll invoice you monthly. All in all, what a great chef—you RIM Navy men are all right," she added.

  Tanner noted there would probably never be a better chance. Bull by the horns, he thought, so he gave her one of his biggest smiles and looked right into those beautiful violet eyes.

  "Tibah, perhaps this is unexpected, but I wonder, would you have dinner with me one night?" he said and watched as her face grew solemn.

  She looked away from him for a moment, then seemed to square up her shoulders, and turned back to face him.

  "Captain Scott, you make a girl feel ... well, feel lucky. I would be honored to have just such a date—how about tomorrow?" she said boldly.

  He smiled right back at her.

  "No, Countess, it is me that is lucky. I will come via pod to your farm and pick you up, and we can go anywhere you'd like ..." he said.

  They smiled at each other while all around them dozens of shoppers milled around the booth on the busiest Farmers Market lane.

  I have a date, Tanner thought, at least that's what she called it—a date with a Countess. He smiled even broader as they said their goodbyes. She went back to her vegetables, and he walked on clouds back to the Marwick.

  #

  It was not too often that the Lady visited my quarters, Gillian, the Adept counselor, thought, but again, it was part of current events and the stress she felt. She knew why the Lady wanted to meet. She had only one topic on her conversation dance list, and she'd gone to the same topic time and time again. It's only been a few days since the visit by Captain Scott, and yet the Lady harped on that topic.

  The door to Gillian's quarters opened, and she realized the Lady must have used her own thumb in the security slot to open the door, which of course, only she could do. The Sterling's security system was one of the best, but the simple fact that the Lady was Royalty made her thumb a door opener for sure.

  "My Lady," Gillian said as she rose from her mat placed on the floor to face Helena.

  "Yes, Gillian, I have more questions on this maneuver ... for instance, what does your Master Adept see?" she said as she sat on the couch that faced Gillian and looked for a place to put her tea mug. Not finding one, she reached down, put it on the floor beside her feet, and looked up at the Issian who again sat back onto her mat on the floor. The rest of the furniture in this general area of the living room space was just about empty, other than the small shrine on the wall behind Gillian with the chocolate-colored candles, the photo of Dessau, the capital of Eons, and the smaller photo of the Master Adept.

  Gillian took a moment to compose herself and then looked directly at the Lady.

  She knew what she had to say, and she knew that her number one task was to convince the Lady that the Master Adept was sure of what she had seen, even though Gillian knew this was not the whole truth. She had to lie, and as an Adept, lying to a citizen was fairly easy, even though Helena was a bit harder to convince.

  "Ma’am, the Master, as I told you, foresees that the captain will be wearing the Barony Navy uniform for sure. The time line shows that this will occur this year, and that is about as far as she—or I for that matter—can get, Ma’am. I didn't exactly lie, she thought,but the time line was really not so firm.

  Helena tapped her toe, stared at the Issian, and then looked over to the wall where the view port was closed, and the blank, black space barely reflected the interior of the room. Her foot tapped, and tapped, and tapped. Gillian could not see anything of what the Lady was thinking ... until ...

  Yes, there it was—acknowledgment of the truth.

  Gillian smiled.

  "Lady, may I add one more thing before you go on," she said.

  Helena nodded and her foot stopped its tapping.

  "Ma’am, one more thing that only now has come to light, but it too is of a major import to the Barony. At the 100th Anniversary Celebrations, there will be a major event, and what we see—more than just myself—Ma’am, is that there will be deaths there."

  The Lady leaned forward and her eyebrows rose on her pretty face.

  "Deaths? Plural? And to whom, why ... Gillian, this is very much an important development. What more do you know?"

  "Little, Ma’am, other than there will be some Celebration attendees who will die at the event. That is all that we know—not who or why or how this will happen—just that it will happen. And, Ma’am, as I am one of the closest as I am on Halberd, I see it plainly. The Master not so much, but I wonder what other Adepts here have seen, Ma’am," she said.

  That thought she could see rolling around in the Lady's brain ... that was an issue for them all.

  "We on stage will be behind force fields; there will be dozens of our own EliteGuards, our Provost corps, and there’s the Prison guards ... we are hugely secure. We will not be the ones who will die. We are not going to die," Helena said, and Gillian could see that was something she believed in.

  She did have a point. The force field could not be breached. Never had and never would. Once it was turned on, there was no way to broach its boundaries. Everyone knew that, so as the Lady had reasoned, all they needed to do was to be in an area protected by a force field.

  She smiled at the Lady and waited for the next question, not that any of them were really important as life seemed to carry on.

  #

  The head of maintenance for the Power Plant thumbed the keypad on the city side of the sub-station in Andros and entered first, the rest of his team following including the prison guards. Captain Terrance ensured they were all accounted for, and her nose was still in a snit because of the lunch they'd just had down the street in a real live restaurant. The team leader had insisted on treating the whole seven-person maintenance team to lunch, and she had to stand off to one side to ensure they all acted properly at the sidewalk cafe. She hadn't even been able to do more than wolf down a sandwich in the walk back to the sub-station.

  Imagine, she thought, taking convicts—not even Farm convicts, but Max Island ones—out to lunch.

  She would have to consider reporting the head of maintenance to her supervisor back on Max Island, but until then, it was “grin and bear it” time, and that made her unhappy. That and the city was full of visitors tonight since there was an Avengers rugby game with the team from a bigger city way across the province.

  She took the lead position as they got to the security door and noted the group behind her seemed to be interested.

  "This door, like all the doors into the sub-station, will not open for anyone—the AI, which is always on, allows only a short list of people or teams to gain access to the sub-station. Thumbprints only and I'm the only one here that can get the door open," she said as she thrust her thumb into the slot. The door chimed three times and then slid open. She waited, holding her thumb in place, as the team trooped by, and then popping her hand free, she slid in just in front of the sliding door as it slammed shut.

  Inside, the team went right over to the wall on the left and began looking at panels, dials, and switch banks.

  This might take a while, she thought and sighed.

  She nodded to the wall and asked pointedly after looking at the banks of transformer displays, "How are things? Seems to me that all the lights look like they're green and okay ..." She hinted that this could be a very quick visit.

  The sub-station sat between the Halberd landing port on the right and the stadium on its left, and while it had a small street-sized footprint, it had three underground levels including the actual conduit delivery level down at the very basement of the building. On the floor just above that sat the huge switching machines that took the raw voltage power and moved it down by many sizes from the huge cables down to smaller wired distribution channels. On
the floor just below the grade level, those wired channels went to the step-down transformers where the power was further de-tuned so it could then be distributed throughout the city and its various power needs via the infrastructure or power lines that were buried beneath the streets. One door, the one they had just come in from, exited out to the end-zone wall of the stadium. The other went out directly onto the landing port tarmac, but both were controlled by the sub-station AI and were secure at all times.

  Muri was over at the transformer display unit at the end of the row, and after a detailed look, she called over the team leader. While Terrance couldn't hear what was said, she knew her hope for the quick visit was over as the head of maintenance called out for a tool trolley, and he and Muri started to remove the covers of one of the gauges. As they worked on the stubborn gauge cover, it seemed the tall convict, the one from Olbia, knew a lot about that type of unit. She watched as he used his much taller height to put some real muscle into prying off that cover.

  Terrance sat and watched, and she hated the fact that she was always the one assigned to accompany the maintenance team on its monthly visits. She watched but also played Aliens and Asteroids on her wrist PDA while she waited.

  Those repairs took almost a full hour, and Terrance turned off her PDA game when the team moved away from the display unit. She quickly went over to the secure door that connected the sub-station to the huge stadium beside it. The door was always locked, but she knew if they went through that door, they'd get to visit the inside of the stadium too today. This door led to the area under the eastern stands where convicts were usually seated, and she wanted to check that area out too. But as she popped open the door, she was stopped by the voice of the team leader.

  "Sorry, Captain, but we're going to be checking all the sub-levels, right down to the conduit delivery bottom one. Something caused that unit to malfunction, and we need to find that out," he said, as he and his team trooped over to the staircase against the opposite wall.