“I had to negotiate with Parker to get us out of there alive,” she said, pulling a thinpad out of her jumpsuit and handing it to him.
He glanced down at the open screen. “Those are sleeper pods,” he whispered. “Slaves?”
“It’s a load of sedated passengers from the planet,” she offered. Her face wrinkled in a slow motion cascade of emotion. Swallowing hard, she added, “They’ve been sold.”
“Sold? That makes them slaves.” He brought his hands up and ground his fists into his eyes.
She shrugged. “It’s probably a matter of semantics.”
“Slave trading is one of the things in the Coalition that is punishable by hanging.” He swung his feet off the side of the bed and pulled himself to the edge so he could stand up and choke her to death. “You can’t be that… insane. Why would you agree to transport slaves?”
“Ethan, wait,” Nuko said. “She had no choice. They loaded an antimatter bomb into the cargo container and tied it to the ship’s power grid on a deadman switch. She couldn’t refuse.”
“And it was the only way Parker would agree to get you back,” Kaycee said.
“He didn’t get us out of there.” He shook his head and stood up. Violence was still the top item on his personal agenda.
“Ammo and Quinn were supposed to be Plan-B,” she said.
He wobbled on his feet and reached out for the wall to brace himself. He wasn’t going to sit back down until he had an answer that made sense, or until he’d carried out his fantasy of strangling her.
“Can you just look at it like we’re freeing 300 slaves bound for Lyra Prime?”
He glanced at the pilot and frowned. “I thought you said we are approaching Localus?”
She nodded. “We’re stopping there first.”
“Why? It’s two days out of the way.”
“So, we can get this to the authorities,” Kaycee said, holding up the medical scanner she’d been carrying. “Dr. Forrester documented as much of the operation as he knew about, and we’re hoping to get it into the right hands to do something with it… before they find out what we’re carrying.”
“Forrester?”
“Yah, he was the Medical Director at Watchtower, and is the one responsible for implanting the Ut’arans they were harvesting,” she said. “He also helped patch you back together.”
The anger started to drain from him, as something far less pleasant pushed ice water through his veins. He eased back down on his bed. “If he was part of their operation, why would you trust him?”
“He’d been implanted before he got to Watchtower,” she said. “He had no way to resist working with them until I cut his connection.”
“You’re saying this is bigger than just what was happening at the station?”
She nodded. “There’s a lot on the scanner’s storage drive. Hopefully, it will be enough to end their operation.”
“If it’s not, then we’re all screwed,” he said. “I don’t know if I can swallow all this right now. You’ve wagered everything on whether we can dig ourselves out faster than the Coalition will be looking to bury us.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I had no choice and I had to do the right thing.”
“There’s no way this is it,” he said.
“Exposing their operation? How is that not right?
He sighed. “But you’ve done a lot of wrong things to do it. I don’t even know how many laws we’re breaking just having them aboard.”
“Haven’t you gone against the rules to do exactly that in the past?”
He glared at her. “That’s a cheap shot.”
But it was valid.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Cygnus Localus was a farming colony. Small, agrarian, and low on the technology index. Only seven parsec from Earth, it didn’t need much in the way of heavy industry. In fact, other than the gas mining operations on one moon of the ringed giant, there was almost nothing of value in the system. That meant the Localus government had no need for major security forces.
Considering what they were carrying, that suited Ethan just fine.
They’d shut down their transponder just before they entered the system and waited in the darkness on the outer edge of the system, hoping that nobody noticed them. The less attention they attracted, the better their chances of not dying with a noose around their neck.
They were already a day late on making the drop off at Maxima Six and by now, Parker had probably sent out a warning to his network that something was moving sidewise. He was shrewd enough to have his own Plan-B, as well as several other alphabetically arranged backup schemes, with progressive degrees of ugliness.
Ethan sat on the ConDeck alone, staring at the distant sun and trying not to chew himself to death while he waited for things to break loose. He knew it was pointless, but still he chased down all the ways that they might play out… and all of them ended badly.
Rene rolled onto the back riser of the ConDeck and parked his mobility seat behind his normal monitor station. Kaycee had confined the engineer to a wheelchair for several weeks since he had dozens of small stress fractures in the bones of his lower legs. He stood up with a groan and swung into the other seat.
“Give me some good news,” Ethan said, swiveling to face him. He’d ordered the engineer to assess their options to disarm the reactor overload trigger.
He let out a long sigh and shook his head. “The only thing I can come up with is to build a phase lock controller for the ground plane. If it works, it should delay the reactor going off if we disconnect.”
“That means we can cut the container loose. And then what?”
He shrugged. “Leave it and run like hell before it blows up.”
“There are three hundred Ut’arans in there.”
“I’m not sure it would work anyway, but it’s the best I can do.” The engineer drummed his fingers on the edge of his console. “Whoever designed this thing is a master—”
“Captain I am detecting a ship approaching,” Marti interrupted. “They just dropped to sublight over the nearest threshold beacon. ETA twelve minutes.”
“What is it?” Ethan spun to face his console and opened up the sensor display.
“It appears to be a Percheron class freighter.”
“A freighter?”
“Pirates?” Rene suggested, opening his screen and calling up the data. “They’re running hot, but it looks to be all engines. I don’t see any weapons active.”
“Can we run?”
He shook his head. “Sublight only. That kill switch Parker told Kaycee about lit up when we dropped out of cruise. As soon as our coils kick up to threshold levels, it’ll trigger an overload in the reactor.”
“Just to be safe, let’s arm the repelling lasers and prepare for boarding parties,” Ethan said. “Get Kaycee and Nuko up here.”
“Yes captain,” Marti said.
“This isn’t the kind of trouble I expected. Security, yah, but pirates?” Ethan growled. “Can’t we ever catch a break?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Rene said, pointing at the screen in front of him. “There are two wings of ships leaving the mining colony. They’re probably security.”
“They appear to be Defender class patrol gunships,” Marti confirmed. “Range and velocity put them at just over four hours to our current position.”
“So, we survive the pirates, only to get arrested afterward,” he said. “All we need is FleetCom to show up for the party to get things really swinging.”
“That comes later,” Kaycee said, appearing on the ConDeck with Nuko a step behind.
The eyeball that Ethan shot her almost knocked her through the wall. She froze so fast that Nuko was three steps up her back before she bounced to a stop.
“I assume that help is here?” she said, sheepishly.
“If it’s disguised to look like a pirate raider and a flotilla of security gunships, then yah, help is coming.”
“Pirates?” Nuko dropped into h
er seat and logged into the control screens.
Ethan nodded. “A Percheron class freighter at ten minutes. They’re not charging guns. At least not so far.”
“Have they hailed us,” she asked.
“Not yet,” he said.
“Do you have a visual on them?” Kaycee asked.
He rolled his eyes. “They are still almost five light minutes out.”
“Can we open a comm?” she asked.
“Yes, your ladyship,” he said, rolling his eyes and biting on his lip. “Would you like to drive too, while you’re giving orders?”
“I don’t think it’s pirates,” she said, ignoring his sarcasm. “I think it’s the cavalry. Marti can you check the transponder on the ship, or is it still too far away?”
“There is an error,” Marti said. “The identification code identifies it as CSV-1070, Olympus Dawn.”
“Excuse me?” He shot a side eye at Nuko. “It’s running a jigged transponder?”
“That is correct,” it said.
He glanced back at Kaycee who was nodding.
“Its transponder identifies the ship as us, clear down to the keel serial number,” Rene added. “That’s going to take some explaining.”
“Can we get that comm now?” Kaycee asked.
Ethan nodded. “Spin it up and let’s see what’s swinging.”
Nuko opened the comm. “You’re on.”
“Olympus Dawn to… Olympus Dawn. Standing by for visual channel,” he said.
The image of the other ship’s ConDeck materialized on the forward viewscreen. Elias Pruitt and Jefferson Cordwain stood on the riser behind the captain and her pilot. An alien technologies engineer and a legal advisor?
“Actually, it’s the Elysium Sun,” the other captain said. “At least it will be in a few minutes.”
“Captain Walker, I’m surprised to see you up and about already,” Pruitt said, jumping in and drawing an eye roll from the other pilot. “Kaycee said you were pretty badly injured.”
“She did a good job of gluing me back together,” he said, shrugging with his good shoulder. The other one still wasn’t happy about life, but he had hopes that it would have time to get better before they hung him.
“Elias, I didn’t expect you to be here,” Kaycee said, she was obviously pleased to see him.
“I brought a few toys with me in case we couldn’t convince our passenger he needed to play along,” he said. “I figured I might be able to help out.”
“So, did it work?” she asked.
“He has agreed to cooperate,” Jefferson said. “In exchange for certain considerations.”
“Who?” Ethan asked.
“His name is Sho-chen Addams,” Elias said.
“He came aboard of his own free will,” the advisor said.
“That might be because when we showed up in Lyra Prime he mistook us for the Olympus Dawn.” Elias grinned.
“The fake transponder.” Ethan nodded. He wasn’t sure why it mattered.
“He volunteered to help us out?” Kaycee looked relieved.
“For the most part,” Pruitt said. “That’s probably why he still has most of his body parts.”
“I’m still blind. Who the frak is Addams and why is he important?” Ethan asked.
“He’s the person who designed the failsafe detonator on the antimatter reactor you’re carrying. He’s agreed to deactivate it as long as we give him a running start on the law… and Mr. Parker,” he said
“I think he’s more afraid of his employer than of any legal problems he might face,” Jefferson said.
“The transponder lured him out of his hole. He had a crew with him to help unload the cargo, but when they realized it was a trap, they bailed on him faster than roaches in a solar flare,” Elias added.
“From there it was simply a matter of convincing him that his only hope of survival was to disappear, and that we had the resources to help him with that,” he said.
“Or we could feed him in several pieces to a recycler.” Pruitt smiled in a chilling way that told the captain he was a lot more than just an engineer.
“Alright, that solves the bomb problem, but what then?” Ethan asked.
“We’ll take the files on the medical scanner that Dr. Forrester gave you, and use them to negotiate with FleetCom authorities,” Jefferson said. “If there’s enough there to take down the whole operation, it shouldn’t be any problem getting you off the hot seat.”
“What are we supposed to do in the meantime? We’re sitting on a cargo container full of—”
“Yes, you are,” he said, cutting him off. He pointed at his ear and nodded at the captain sitting in front of him. “The security forces en route from Localus Trinity Mining will make sure you’re safe until we return. Just sit back and wait.”
“But no matter what, don’t let them aboard,” Elias said.
“FleetCom has jurisdiction in this matter. As long as you don’t make any threatening gestures, they have no rights to board or search your ship,” the advisor said. “Of course, if anyone else shows up, they would be obligated to protect you.”
“Captain another ship just dropped over the threshold,” Marti said. “It looks to be a private cruiser.”
Jefferson glanced at his wrist chrono and smiled. “Perfect timing. That would be Coalition News Service. They got an anonymous tip that someone had taken down a slave trading ring and that if they wanted the exclusive story, they had to be here before it all goes public.”
The captain of the Elysium Sun twisted in her seat to face the advisor, but he ignored her reaction.
“CNS?” Ethan asked.
“A free media can be your friend, if for no other reason than because people in power don’t dare cross any lines when there are witnesses with recording gear and a loud voice,” he said.
“I’m not a fan of being in front of an optic,” Captain Walker said.
“We’ll handle all the media engagement,” Jefferson said. “You just keep them off the ship until—”
“Right, until you get back.”
“Now, Elias and Mr. Addams will be aboard in a few minutes,” he said. “You need to give their pilot the documentation that Dr. Forrester gave you, so we can rendezvous with the Nakamiru before it gets here.”
Rene shook his head. “I didn’t even know the Nakamiru was out of spacedock yet.”
“It’s on a training mission about three parsec from here. It just so happens that the Wing Chancellor for FleetCom is aboard as an observer, so we will present the evidence to her in person,” he said.
“FleetCom doesn’t announce training missions publicly,” Nuko said.
“Smythe isn’t only a biomedical company,” the advisor said. “You could say we’re not really public as far as that goes.”
“So, your plan is to fly into a FleetCom training theater, in a ship with a hotwired beacon, and hand Chancellor Parada what we’ve got on the Watchtower operation?”
“As soon as we rendezvous with you, we will reset our transponder and have you go live. From the range of the approaching ships it shouldn’t be possible to tell we traded names,” the other captain said.
“Well that takes one item off the list of criminal acts.” Ethan leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “That doesn’t change the fact that pushing this down her throat is going to take some big titanium eggs.”
“If it all goes according to plan, they will review the evidence and decide they want to take charge of your payload. Hopefully, this means you are less than a day from getting this mess off your back.”
The advisor sounded confident, but it was still a shipload of wishes as far as the captain was concerned.
“If he can convince the chancellor.” Nuko shot Ethan a skeptical eye roll that confirmed she shared his opinion.
“We won’t tell them where you are and what exactly you are carrying, until she agrees not to prosecute,” Jefferson added.
“And if she doesn’t?”
“The
n you can always take them back to Watchtower,” Elias said.
“Yah, I can see Parker letting that happen.” Ethan laughed out loud at that mental image.
“It looks like you’ve packaged it cleanly to me,” Kaycee said.
Ethan was far from convinced, unfortunately it seemed to be their only way through and out the other side.
“There is one last thing,” the advisor said. “I will need you all to imprint a Power of Agency for me.” He pulled out a thinpad and tapped a screen to send the documents.
“We’re receiving the files now,” Marti announced.
“These are so that I can represent you and your crew in negotiating your legal settlement,” he explained.
“Settlement?” Ethan asked.
He nodded. “Watchtower Station is a Coalition Science facility. The reckless endangerment to you and your crew that occurred while under the care and protection of the government, gives us a very strong legal position for pressing a case for damages.”
“We’re going to bring a suit against the Science Wing of the Coalition?” Rene’s face ratcheted through several expressions as he tried to process that reality. “We’re sitting on a boat load of… ahem… cargo, and you want to go full frontal on them?”
“A strong offense is often the best way to keep an adversary off balance,” Jefferson said. “However, I think the threat of legal action will be sufficient for them to admit liability and make an offer commensurate with their exposure.”
“Are you angling to use this as a bargaining chip to keep them from prosecuting us?” Ethan asked.
“If they assume that to be true it would only operate to our advantage, but I don’t intend to let it play out that way,” he said. “When they see the filing I intend to make on your behalf, they will consider it in their best interests to settle.”
“What are we talking here?”
“Let’s just say the settlement should be substantial.”
Chapter Forty
Ethan Walker stood alone on the shipyard observation gallery of Cochrane Station One, staring out at the matched pair of Percheron class freighters. Less than a year ago, he’d been struggling to make his lease payment on the Olympus Dawn and today he paid cash for the Elysium Sun.
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 62