“It’s been there all along,” Matthew Oliver said.
Michael sighed. “Seems so.”
It wasn’t a stealth screen, which operated by bending light around the object to be hidden. It was a very large hologram projected above and around the island.
Five hours later, a swarm of biomechs drifted on a breeze toward the hologram. The swarm vanished. Forty minutes later, the biomechs re-appeared on the other side of the island, drifted on the breeze out to sea and were picked up by a drone. The drone floated upward, toward Gehenna.
An hour later, they were reviewing the data.
“Excellent,” Michael said.
Anson grunted.
A landing field surrounded by low buildings surrounded most of the island’s surface. Two small ships sat at the edges of the field. They watched as a third ship, this one medium-sized floated down through the hologram and landed in the center.
“I am querying the ship’s brain,” Romulus said. “It’s registered as the Orion, out of Shalimar-5. It is less than two years old. A company called Rising Sun Trading Partners has recently purchased it.”
“I’ve never heard of Shalimar-5,” Michael said. It went without saying that he had never heard of Rising Sun Trading Partners.
“A small world on the edges of the Empire, technologically advanced. Their products are highly regarded.”
Four men and one woman emerged from the ship. Three other men met them, greeted them cordially and they all walked into the tallest building. An hour later, the five came out and clambered onto a skimmer, which left the island, heading toward Hancock. Meanwhile, a team of service drones re-fueled and inspected the ship. A few minutes later, twelve men and five women came out of the building and entered the ship, which rose on its AG and headed toward deep space.
“It all seems routine,” Anson said.
“They’ve done this before,” Matthew said, “whatever it is that they’re doing.”
“Where is the ship headed?” Michael said to Romulus.
“It’s too soon to say. They will be out of Cassidy’s gravity well within three hours. Once they enter slip-space, I can calculate a vector.”
“Good,” Michael said. “Meanwhile, let’s see where the Orion’s former crew is going.”
“What about the base?” Marissa asked.
“The base will still be there once we’ve learned what we can from these five.”
The hologram over the island projected an illusion of a peaceful, tropical paradise. It had no defensive capabilities. Gehenna’s drones drifted down, settled into place and silently observed.
The skimmer arrived at the Hancock spaceport within a few hours. The five former crew registered with the Spacers’ Guild and requested new postings. None were available at the moment but Cassidy was a busy little world. It seemed likely that some ship or other would soon be needing crew. Meanwhile, the five split up and checked into hotels along the beach.
He was big, as big as Michael, almost two meters tall, and well built, with dark skin, dark curling hair and brown eyes. He sat in a booth by himself, eating a sandwich, when Michael walked up. “Captain Conway?”
The man paused, his sandwich halfway to his mouth. He cleared his throat. “Can I help you?”
“Possibly. Might I sit down?”
Captain Conway’s eyes flickered to the opposite seat. He gave a small nod. Michael slid into the booth, caught the waiter’s eye and ordered a beer. Conway watched him.
“I’ll be frank with you,” Michael said. “You and your recent crew have good records, with no history of criminal activity. So far as I’ve been able to determine, you’re exactly who and what you appear to be.”
Conway blinked at him.
Michael gave a quick grin. “My name is Michael Glover,” he said. “I need to ask you some questions.”
“Do you?” Conway gave him a long, doubtful look. “And why should I answer them?”
“You would be assisting the forces of law and order.”
“Law and order…” Conway scratched his cheek, then shrugged. “I have nothing to hide, so ask your questions.”
So far, Conway’s heart rate was stable. He was curious but he wasn’t afraid.
“You recently transported a ship called the Orion to a base on an island on this world. The base is screened. It’s owners, whoever they are, want it to remain a secret.”
Conway frowned. “So? What’s the question?”
“First, where did you get the ship?”
“Rostov. My crew and I had just finished a transport run and we were waiting for a new gig. This is the first one that came along.”
“What was the assignment?”
“Transport the ship here. That’s it.” Conway shrugged. “Not a lot of money but an easy job.”
“Tell me about the ship.”
Conway hesitated. “The ship was supposedly almost new, but it’s not a new design and the finishings showed wear and tear.” He shrugged again. “It’s registered out of Shalimar. They make good ships.”
“And you didn’t find this suspicious?”
“Actually, we did; but the papers were all in order and the brain confirmed the registry. It was a simple job. We didn’t see any reason to turn it down.”
“Who are the people you turned it over to?”
“No idea. They gave us coordinates and paid half the transport fee in advance. We were paid the rest as soon as we arrived. Everything seemed to be in order.” Conway hesitated. “What’s this all about?”
Michael sat back in his seat, sipped his beer and pondered the question. “We don’t like secret bases in far away places,” he said. “It makes us…uncomfortable.”
Conway nodded, unsurprised. “And who is we?”
Michael shrugged. “I would rather not say.”
Conway thought about this for a second. “Not my business, is it? Anything else?” he asked.
“No,” Michael said. He drained his beer and rose to his feet. “Not at the moment. Thank you for your time.”
“Rostov-3 is a temperate world,” Romulus said. “Prosperous, largely self-sufficient, settled approximately four hundred years before the First Empire’s demise. A pleasant enough place to live but nothing to attract tourists and not much worth trading for. They have little to do with the rest of the civilized galaxy.”
Michael and the crew had checked out of the resort on Hancock the day before and were now sitting in one of Gehenna’s numerous lounges, a comfortable room equipped with couches, chairs, tables, a bar and a small kitchen. Cold meats, cheeses, bread and condiments spread out on the counter. A monitor showed Cassidy-1 rotating far below them.
“There are one hundred and three municipalities on this world,” Romulus said, “and many of the smaller islands are unclaimed by any of them.”
“So, the base is not illegal?” Anson said. “Anybody can come in and set up housekeeping?”
“That is correct,” Romulus replied.
“And what’s to prevent somebody else from coming in and taking it away from them?” Marissa asked.
“Nothing.”
“Presumably,” Henrik Anson said, “if somebody is taking such a risk, they want their activities to remain secret.”
“Presumably,” Matthew said.
Anson shrugged. Rosanna, mixing a drink at the lounge’s small bar, frowned. Curly, sitting back on the couch like a reclining bear, smiled at Rosanna. Richard Norlin, Captain Thorenson and Commander Dumas ate sandwiches and listened.
“While the base is covert, the drones have discovered no activity that would seem criminal or illegitimate,” Romulus said. “The workers rotate every six months. They are employees of Rising Sun Trading Partners. They are well-paid. None of the information in any of the data banks, and none of the conversations overheard by the drones, indicate any activity other than the obvious. Ships come in. Their crews transfer. The ships are serviced and re-fueled. They leave.”
“How long have they been doing this
?” Matthew asked. “And how many ships are we talking about?”
“Four years,” Romulus said. “Thirty-seven ships.”
“Is it always different ships?”
“Yes. None of the thirty-seven have returned.”
“If this were all legitimate, they could do it on Rostov.” Richard Norlin said. He paused with a sandwich halfway to his mouth. “Why here?”
“Presumably,” Anson said, “because here, nobody is able to complain.” He frowned. “Or even notice.”
“Let us assume that the ships’ brains have been wiped and re-programmed,” Romulus said, “and that these ships have all been hijacked. Where, then, are they going?”
“Hopefully,” Michael said, “we’ll soon know.”
“And what exactly happened,” Anson said, “to their original crews?”
Richard frowned. Matthew Oliver nodded. Nobody spoke. Captain Thorenson raised an eyebrow and stolidly took a bite from her sandwich.
“Is there anything more we can gain here?” Curly finally asked.
A good question. Michael clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and pondered it. “Romulus?”
“Aside from the facts I have already given you, their data banks contain nothing useful.”
“Then let’s leave the base alone,” Michael said. “No point in letting them know that we’re on to them.”
“I think it’s overstating the case to say that we’re ‘on to them,’” Anson said.
Frankie, who had been sitting next to Curly on the couch, leaned forward. “We have two solid leads: Rostov and wherever the Orion is heading. Which one should we follow?”
“We could split up,” Marissa said.
Michael smiled to himself. Marissa and her brother craved action. They were Illyrians—smart, aggressive and physically superior. They wanted a mission of their own. He considered it, then shook his head. “It might save time, but wherever the Orion is going, it will still be there. Rostov, meanwhile, might give us information that would be helpful.”
Marissa shrugged. Matthew grinned at his sister. “Rostov, then?”
“Yes,” Michael said. “Rostov.”
Chapter 6
The Orion reached the transfer point at the edges of the Cassidy system and vanished into slip-space. The ship’s destination was a surprise. “Duval,” Romulus said.
According to their database, Duval was a small system of two small planets, only one in the habitable zone, plus an asteroid belt and three gas-giants orbiting a yellow-dwarf sun. It had been one of the last systems settled by the First Empire before the collapse. Nothing had been heard from it since and it had never been formally contacted by the Second Empire.
Consulting his interface, Henrik Anson said, “Duval is far away.”
Michael shrugged. Rostov first. The marines and the naval crew deserved a few days of shore leave. After that, the voyage to Duval would take little more than a week. Meanwhile, Michael had a small issue to deal with.
Allen Chow, Drew Peters and Wesley Jameson sat on thin, uncomfortable mattresses on narrow cots in their cells as Michael, Frankie, a navy physician dressed in a white lab coat, named Drake Barrett, and six marines in armor walked into the detention bay.
“You!” Chow snarled.
Michael chuckled. “You have something to say?”
“You won’t get away with this!”
Jameson and Peters’ cells were adjacent. They could see and hear what was going on. All of them were suddenly on their feet.
“It seems to me,” Michael said, “that I already have.” He shook his head. “You three are truly idiots—criminally inclined idiots, which does not make your idiocy any less repellant.
“So, let me tell you the facts: I can kill you and dispose of your bodies, and nobody is ever going to hear a word from you again.” Michael smiled. “Down the drain you go. Like magic.”
Jameson, perhaps marginally more intelligent than his cousins, kept silent. His face turned white.
“Any last words?” Michael said.
Frankie put a hand on Michael’s arm. “Let me have them first, just for a little while,” she said.
Chao gulped. Peters stared down at the floor. Jameson looked sick.
Frankie chuckled.
“Well,” Michael said. “That is a pleasant little fantasy. No?” Michael’s tone grew serious. “But fortunately for you, we like to think of ourselves as better than three common rapists, so we won’t torture you and we’re not going to kill you. However, from now on, the three of you will reform your behavior. We’re going to make sure of that.
“Doctor, you know what to do?”
Drake Barrett smiled. “Absolutely.”
The Shiloh made a routine approach to the largest port on Rostov-3, requested landing coordinates and was assigned a slip. The ship settled down on its AG. Gehenna remained in orbit, hidden from prying eyes behind its screens.
Rostov-3, unlike Cassidy-1, was densely populated and technologically advanced. Rostov had excellent relations with its neighbors and maintained an embassy on far-distant Reliance.
Maintaining the fiction of being a prosperous merchant crew, Michael took a large suite in a multi-story hotel in Samara, Rostov’s capital city, only a few blocks from the headquarters of Rising Sun Trading.
Allen Chao, Drew Peters and Wesley Jameson were sent down from Gehenna in a scout ship and released in a small city on the other side of the world, named Kurga. The three men had been sedated for nearly a week, as the neural networks implanted by Drake Barrett worked their way through and around their brains. Michael had paid them a last visit before they left Gehenna.
“This is a common method of dealing with criminals in the Empire. You can go anywhere you want and do anything you want—except that from now on, you won’t be able to lie, cheat, steal or harm another sentient being in any way.” Michael smiled. “Questions?”
All three stared at him. “You won’t get away with this,” Jameson said.
“You’ve said that before, so spare me the clichés.” Michael waited for a moment, then shrugged. “No questions, then. Well, I hope you appreciate that you’re very lucky to be alive.” Michael grinned. “Frankie and I enjoyed dealing with you.”
From Kurga, they could find a ship heading home to Nereid. After that? None of Michael’s business.
They settled into the hotel and ate dinner at a local restaurant famed for supposedly original Russian cuisine. Michael had mixed feelings about the meal. The wild boar was excellent. Smoked lamprey, he concluded, must be an acquired taste.
Rising Sun Trading Partners, according to the local web, bought and sold ships. The corporation had been in existence for nearly twenty years, was highly profitable and had expanded to over fifteen nearby star systems. The company had been sold to the current owners (whoever they were) six years ago. Whether or not Rising Sun also stole ships, or at least traded in ships already stolen, could not be so easily determined.
The next morning, Michael and Henrik Anson took an airpod to the corporate headquarters of Rising Sun Trading Partners. They exited the pod onto the roof, fifty-four stories above the street, then took a lift down to Rising Sun, which opened onto a large lobby with a thick carpet, floor-to-ceiling windows and polished wooden walls. Two paintings hung near the lift, both men, both apparently middle-aged, wearing the Rostov equivalent of business suits, a dignified expression on both of their faces.
Michael blinked.
“Something wrong?” Anson said.
Michael stepped closer to the paintings. A small metal plaque was inserted into the bottom of each frame. One plaque read, Yevgeny Smirnov, President and Chief Executive Officer. The other read, Dimitri Sokolov, Corporate Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors.
“Not at all.” Michael smiled. This was not the truth but you never knew who might be listening. Dimitri Sokolov bore a marked resemblance to Harold Crane, one of the leaders of the attempted armed takeover of Kodiak. “We’ll talk later.”
Their appointment was with Smirnov. Hopefully, they wouldn’t encounter Sokolov, and if they did, it was doubtful that Michael would be recognized. The two men had never actually come across each other during Michael’s time on Kodiak. He shrugged. Nothing to do but take their chances.
“Romulus,” he subvocalized. “We might have a problem…”
The outside portions of the building were un-shielded. Microdrones could easily be inserted and Romulus had already done so. Unfortunately, the interior offices of Rising Sun Trading were far more secure. Romulus had managed to get a few insect sized drones inside but the drones could not communicate through the shielding. Hopefully, the drones were still operational and recording, but they would not know this unless and until the drones completed their missions and then managed to physically fly or crawl out of Rising Sun’s space.
“I cannot tell where Dimitri Sokolov might be, if he’s even in the building.”
“It shouldn’t be an issue.” Michael’s hair was longer than it had been on Kodiak. He had added a moustache and had changed the color of his eyes. All of these were routine precautions, not because he had expected a disguise to be necessary, but one never knew.
Frankie had urged him to send a doppel. She might have been right, but he disliked the feeling of his awareness being split. Also, none of their off-the-rack bodies were as capable as his own.
They were expendable in a crisis, though. Certainly, an advantage…Oh, well. Too late now.
They walked across the lobby to a pretty, dark-haired woman sitting behind a wooden desk. “Martin Gaynor and Henry Smythe,” Michael said. “We have an appointment.”
The receptionist glanced at her screen and smiled at them. “Certainly, sir. Down the hallway. Last office on your right.”
She buzzed them in through a security gate. No guards, Michael noted. That was encouraging. They walked down the hall and knocked on a solid wooden door. “Come in,” a voice said.
They entered. A man sat behind a very large, curving work-station. He looked just like his picture. Floor to ceiling windows behind him looked out upon the city. “Mr. Smirnov?” Michael said.
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