Sunday, October 4, 2015

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 36

     Shevaughn was being lectured, and it was becoming an irritation.
     "I case you weren't aware, 'Commander', you and your 'people' might be able to wave around your diplomatic immunity, but everyone else gets investigated to the hilt.  Whoever you say that woman is, she's not on your embassy's list, and that puts her squarely in our jurisdiction.  So you can suck it."  Said the NBPD Special Investigator, Alfred Burke, with obvious hostility.
     "And as I've patiently explained, twice now, Miss Chase was wearing an Imperial medalert tag, and those are only issued to members of the Imperial House.  It would seem that, jurisdiction notwithstanding, she's my responsibility -"
     "Along with the rest of this mess too, I bet!"  Burke cut her off.  "This whole incident has a disgusting reek of typical Darkie criminality, and -"
     Chevy's hand snapped out, grabbed him by the neck, and lifted him several centimetres off the floor.  He clawed at his belt in an attempt to reach his service weapon, but her other hand clamped around his wrist with the titanic strength of muscles accustomed to far more gravity than his world produced.  His fellow officers rushed to intervene, but suddenly found themselves at the business end of three magrifles, and half a dozen Imperial Army D-68A1 assault rifles.  The resulting stalemate gave her a chance to speak.
     "Mr. Burke, I will only warn you once that I consider the term 'Darkie' insufferably offensive; regardless, you will consider Miss Chase to be under the protection of the Darkaellan Imperium, so any assault on her will have disastrous consequences.  Now, fuck off.  I have better things to do."  She let go of the Special Investigator, and turned her back on his gasping form in an attempt to rein in her still seething anger.
     The term Darkie was as racist an epithet as one could level at a native Darkaellan.  It had originated on Jefferson, where a deplorably large number of people used it to denote anyone who was not descended from the dominant, Caucasian, phenotype.  The unbelievable irony was that the original colonists of Darkael had been carefully selected from applicants whose ancestry was almost exclusively Anglo-Saxon.  The second wave was almost entirely North and Western European, with a minority of Slavic and Balkan émigrés as well.  Subsequently, there had been accusations (not unfounded, Chevy well knew) of racial discrimination in the Imperium's immigration policies, but the third wave of immigrants, all from Japan, had effectively silenced its critics.  The Imperium had shortly after begun using the Jovian moon Cerberus as a primary debarkation point for anyone wanting to emigrate.  Which had allowed the government to screen potential colonists in its own backyard, and out of sight of Terran busybodies.
     Needless to say, eighty percent of Darkael's population was of European Caucasian origin, and most of the rest were ethnic Japanese.  Yet the term 'Darkie' had traveled out into the Known Sphere and taken root, even on Minotaur; a world that was home to more combinations of ethnicities than anyone would have believed possible before the Great Exodus.  Like most Darkaellans, she knew that a person's ethnicity had no bearing on their value to society, and as a matter of principle eschewed the use of derogatory language in general.  Unfortunately, the Imperium had made decisions in its own self-interest that had earned it the enmity of a number of political, corporate, and military entities, and as a result, she heard the word Darkie with a certain regularity.
     She turned to speak with Kenjirō.
     "What do you think, Kenjirō-san?  Was this a local problem, or something else?"  She asked him in Darkaellan Gaelic, a language little known outside of the Imperium, as she gestured around the bar; now brightly lit by the forensic team's floodlights.  "The gunmen seem to have been very well equipped, QBZ-803 carbines aren't exactly rare, but it's unlikely that local criminal elements would use them; not when a 'back alley special' can be had for a fifth of what they cost."
     Kenjirō stepped in closer and held up a small object.  Taking it from him, she saw that it was a shell casing, 11mm caliber; turning it around she saw that the base of the cartridge had the letters IOF stamped on the rim next to the caliber.  An Imperial Ordinance Factory stamp meant that the ammunition had been manufactured on Darkael, which didn't necessarily prove anything, since large quantities of those had found their way onto the black market when the Imperium had pulled its advisors out of the Draconis system.
     "If you look closely, Commander, the marks from the firing pin and ejector are consistent with those made by a Hollis Mk21, standard military issue."  Kenjirō said, only adding to the incredible confusion she was experiencing.  How a military issue Mk21 had gotten on-planet was impossible to say, since their workmanship and expense limited their exportability to a few wealthy collectors, willing to pay for the sake of novelty.
     "We need to find a way to talk to the witnesses, it's the only way we're ever going to figure out what happened here."  Chevy declared.  "But I doubt the local constabulary will oblige."
     "Indeed, they will no doubt be even less inclined, after the throttling you just meted out to the good Inspector over there."  He said in mild reproach, bobbing his head in Burke's direction.
     "Yeah, well, he pissed me off with that 'Darkie' crack of his, so we'll just have to find a way around him."  She said, and signaled the rest of her team.  "We're done here, move out."

-----

     By the time she and her people were back at the embassy, she had the beginning of a plan, and quickly set about putting it in motion.  Her plan required a meeting with the ambassador, which was easy enough to arrange, since he'd already sent word while her flight was inbound that he would see her as soon as she landed.  She was going to get the Honorable Bruce Addison Stirling to contact the UniSys Police Force, and get them involved in the investigation, which would effectively sideline the local law enforcement people.  If she moved quickly enough, then she could talk to the survivors before the USPF was able to make it impossible to get to them.
     Her window of action was going to be vanishingly small, and Satoshi Hayashi was going to have to work fast to make the best of it.  If they were successful, she would be able to identify where some seemingly insignificant young woman had gotten her hands on that tag she'd been wearing.  If anything went wrong, however, she'd be lucky to be wrangling cliffcats on Cerberus.
     Actually getting the ambassador and their resident counterespionage agent on board took some effort.
     "You realize, don't you, Commander, that if our actions are discovered, then we will all be looking for new jobs?  Myself included."  Asked the ambassador, as she sat in his office, along with Hayashi.
     "Actually, Ambassador, I think it's highly probable that unemployment will be the best thing to happen to us if we fail."  She replied, much more candidly than she would have normally, but she felt that brutal honesty was best.
     "You've been quiet thus far, Agent Hayashi, What's your opinion on all of this?"  The ambassador asked, somewhat testily.
     The man seated next to Chevy, his hands neatly folded in his lap, was the Darkaellan Imperium's chief intelligence officer here on Minotaur, and his various assets would be needed to bring the plan being discussed to fruition.  If he didn't approve of the plan, then she was stuck.
     "I believe that the Commander has a good idea, but, as she herself pointed out, the timing would be critical.  If we can convince the USPF that the attack on those people constitutes a felonious act involving a Darkaellan subject, then they would be almost obligated to intervene.  There is a problem, however.  The local USPF office is the best staffed of any outside of the Terran solar system, and they have the resources available to commit themselves to a real investigation."  Satoshi told them, choosing his words with care as he continued.  "I have established a mutually beneficial arrangement with a member of the NBPD, who has been providing me with seemingly inconsequential gossip from the inside.  Most people, even intelligence agents, have no appreciation for just how useful such knowledge can be; without realizing it, he has accidentally given me some fairly confidential information. We may be able to leverage that to get him to act on our behalf, but this time a significant 'douceur' will be needed."
     Ambassador Stirling sat behind his desk of Minotauran spiderwood with his elbows propped on the arms of his office chair, and steepled his fingers beneath his nose, obviously deep in thought.  He regarded them each in turn before speaking.
     "Just so that we're all clear on this; we are going to deliberately involve an organization that has, historically, had an antithetical attitude towards the Imperium, in an effort to ascertain whether or not a member of the Imperial House itself was involved in this fracas, and then bribe a local officer of the law to provide us with a window of opportunity wherein we can snatch - or, at the very least, question - the relevant witnesses, before the USPF can sequester them out of our reach.  Does that about do it?"  The ambassador concluded somewhat acidly.
     Chevy thought that he had pretty well hit the nail on the head, but left out a critical ramification; if they failed, or got caught, then the whole situation could easily spiral out of control.  She decided not to point out the obvious.
     "In broad terms, that summary is essentially accurate, Ambassador."  She replied.
     "I can't say that the potential for grievous consequences if you fail thrills me, but I want answers as badly as either one of you, therefore I see no reason not to give you the permission, and resources, to proceed."  Ambassador Stirling told them.
     Chevy and Hayashi accepted the very subtle dismissal.
     "Thank you, sir."  They said, more or less in unison.
     As they left the ambassador's office, Chevy felt optimistic about their chances of success.  They would have to wait until UniSys got off its backside, and displaced the locals in investigating what had happened in the gambling den, but when they did, Hayashi would need to work fast.
     Thankfully, there was no such thing as a slow Darkaellan.

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 35

     When the medics found him, Rollie was huddled behind an overturned table, arms wrapped around his knees, covered in someone else's blood, with his eyes squeezed shut.  He was unsuccessfully trying to forget the last ten minutes of his life, but the images kept replaying over and over, no matter how much he willed them to stop.
     About a dozen members of the crew, including DJ, Alex, Hicks, Bao-Jian, Jinx, himself and a few others, had decided to spend some of their impending bonuses having a good time, while the Captain arranged the sale of their salvage claim.
     They had unanimously agreed that it was a good idea to maintain a low profile, so they'd decided to go to a semi private bar and gambling den in the Old Quarter.  Housed in a decrepit looking building without windows on the lower level, it catered strictly to spacers, and a few locals with dubious reputations.  For those who were interested, it offered dice, cards, mahjong, and a few games he'd never even heard of.
     The gaming tables were right at the front as one came through the beaded curtain, with tables and booths near the back separated by the oval bar area in the middle.
     The crew had taken over a corner at the back, and they were all looking forward to seeing how much Cameron would be able to wring out of their discovery.  Rollie had suspected that DJ had some kind of inside information on what the Captain was going to get for the colony ship, because he was engaging in some pretty serious public displays of affection with Alex, and he was still sober.
     Somewhere between the first and second round of drinks, Alex and Bao-Jian had gotten up to go get another round at the bar, when all Hell had let out for payday.  There was no doubt in his mind, that the sound of automatic gunfire in an enclosed space was going to stay with him for years to come.  It wasn't just deafeningly loud, it was concussive; something that could be felt, as well as heard.
     What became evident later on, was that the three gunmen had split up, with one covering the front and the other two moving around the bar, allowing them to - theoretically - use their overlapping fields of fire to herd their victims into a lethal barrage.
     There was no warning, the two men in dark coats had simply reached into them, pulled out their weapons and begun firing.  Rollie had seen them, and had frozen in shock as they began firing.
     Bao and Alex had been midway between the bar and their tables, and directly in the path of the first shots, and then Rollie's shock had turned to horror.  Bao was hit with two bursts of three rounds each, one high, one low, and he was dead before his body had begun to fall.
     Alex, showered with Bao-Jian's blood and brains, sprinted for their table.  As DJ screamed at her to get down, he grabbed the edge of the table, ripped it off the stand to which it had been bolted, just in time to push Rollie down, as one of the killers put a burst through Alex's back.  His aim was thrown off by her sudden acceleration, but three bullets struck her in the upper torso, and punched her to the floor in a writhing heap, coughing blood bubbles from a perforated lung.
     The second gunman had been walking his own fire along the wall into crewmates who were sitting at tables in the open, and most of them were to shocked to do more than scream incoherently.  Hicks was right next to Rollie behind the table, but he could only watch with horror as she did the unthinkable, and tried to surrender.  He was sprayed with gore as she was slammed into the wall behind them by long bursts of automatic fire.
     DJ saw Alex get hit, and his scream of pure, animal rage drowned out everything around him.  He popped up with a speed that seemed impossible, and his hands were a blur as he pulled his jacket back, and drew his personal weapon from the cross-draw holster on his left hip, punching it out in front of himself like a striking snake.  To Rollie, it seemed as though everyone else was moving in slow motion except for DJ.
     He watched as his friend put two rounds through the face of the man who had just gunned down the most important person in his life, and with as little effort as possible, put two into the second man's chest, with another through his head for good measure.  The third gunman had finished with the front half of the bar, and came around just in time to see DJ put down his second target, and he hesitated for just a split second.
     Dirk didn't.  He fired twice, striking his target in the lower abdomen, incapacitating him.  Dirk slowly walked over to where the man was lying, mortally wounded, and asked him one thing.
     "Who sent you?  If you tell me, then I give you my word that I won't let you die gutshot."  He said, in a voice cloaked in incredible serenity.
     Rollie hadn't heard what answer the man had given, but Dirk had stood back a step, said "Thank you", and then shot the man in the forehead without warning.
     When he turned around, his face was a mask of cold, raw, naked hatred, the like of which Rollie had never seen before, on anyone.  He'd calmly walked back to where Alex lay dying, he took the Medalert tag off from around his neck, and placed it carefully around hers, then he pulled the tag off of the chain, activating it.  He looked around and saw Rollie.
     "Rollie.  When they come, don't interfere, just tell them that she has to live, OK?"  He said, in a voice aching with sadness, mingled with inconsolable rage.
     Rollie could only nod his head furiously, he didn't trust himself to speak without screaming in horror at all he'd witnessed.
     Dirk looked directly at him and said: "Thanks Rollie, tell Alex that I'm sorry I won't get to meet her parents."  Then he stood up and walked out of the room, leaving Rollie to the horrors of his own memory.  He backed himself into a corner behind the table, curled himself up, and shut his eyes.
     He knew a monster when he saw one, and it had just walked out.

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 34

     Chevy was fast asleep when the emergency call came through on her comm implant.  Normally she was a light sleeper, but a day that had started with meetings, then proceeded to training, followed by surfing, and then dinner, drinks at a private club, and finally a couple of hours of decent quality sex, had wiped her out, and full consciousness was slow in coming.
     All that changed the instant she recognized the emergency code.
     She sat bolt upright so fast (and for someone operating in two thirds of their normal gravity, that was very fast indeed), that she nearly dragged her surfing instructor out of bed with her.  There was no time to apologize, and she started grabbing her clothing from the floor where it had ended up earlier, and dressed herself with indecent haste as he came to and asked her the most obvious question.
     "Where're you going, hái'ér?"  He asked, sleepily, using a word that she now understood as a term of endearment, which translated literally as 'babe'.
     "Emergency call, I have to go.  Fast."  She paused as a person to person call came in, and she scrambled to get her personal headset jacked into place behind her ear.  The jack wasn't really needed, but it encrypted her communications, making them indecipherable to anyone not on her unit's network.  Once she had it connected, she opened the connection, and spoke quickly.
     "Turlington.  IG identification number 211768.  Give me a SitRep."  She said tersely; identifying herself, and demanding information in the same breath, without any wasted effort.
     Kenjirō answered in a similarly clipped tone.
     "Commander, about two-point-six minutes ago, our monitoring station here at the embassy began receiving a Class Five emergency code from a broken Medalert beacon.  I had the signal traced, it originated from a commercial building in the Old Quarter.  Luckily, the call came in as the ready teams were switching shifts, so I've loaded them all up.  I have a fix on your location, we will pick you up en route; we are less than two minutes out, don't be late."  He informed her, as she ran out of the studio apartment without so much as a backward glance, ignoring the lift, and headed to the stairwell.
     The relatively low gravity allowed her to jump from one landing to the next without touching the stairs, and she was outside on the walkway fronting the apartment building with no other desire but to get to work. 
     She had enrolled at the Imperial Academy when she was eight, or about 12 Terran standard years old.  Her induction into the ranks of the Imperial Guard had taken place the week after her 12th birthday, where she had pledged her life to the service of the Imperial House, and now she found herself in the unenviable position of being called to action on behalf of that oath.  A Class Five emergency was reserved for members of the Imperial House itself, and there were no members of the MacMullen clan known to be on-planet.
     Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of vectored thrust engines, specifically those of a Tsuji-Gibson VH-71A 'Spider Wasp', a variable geometry VTOL attack transport, that resembled an unholy union of Russian attack helicopter and jump jet.  She could see it coming in at a speed and altitude guaranteed to infuriate the local air traffic controllers, police, and a host of corporate security services, but in that moment she couldn't have cared less if they'd shattered windows all along their path.  The pilot didn't bother to deploy the landing gear, but instead cut power to the engines, while simultaneously boosting power to the antigrav, which put the machine down right in front of her, about one meter off the ground.  She was running for the door before it even opened, and she simply jumped in without slowing down as it did.
     She didn't have to tell them to take off, because the pilot had applied power to the VT, and extended the stub wings for additional lift and maneuverability, before she could even yell "Go!"  In the close confines of the highly urban and incredibly built-up area in which they were operating, the pilot purposely selected a flight path at low altitude, which was illegal, but made it easier to avoid other air traffic.  Thankfully, there was little traffic along their route, and nothing she could do about it anyway, so she put the thought aside and focused on getting herself ready.
     Looking around the interior of the vectored thrust aircraft, she saw that the combat team was made up of a mix of personnel; Kenjirō and two other Imperial Guards, plus a squad of regular army for backup.  The Guardsmen were wearing Hollis-DTI's K7 'Guardian' late generation exoarmor; consisting of an outer shell of metaceramic, laminated with carbon nanotube impregnated polycarbonate, over an ultralight metaplast 'skeleton'.  Articulated with synthetic muscles, the K7 would allow the user to perform feats of strength that would be impossible otherwise, and its armor was proof against virtually all high velocity AP rifle rounds.  It was possible that a glancing shot from a light anti-material rifle might be deflected, but large anti-armor rounds from 14.5mm on up likely would not.  The squad of Darkaellan Imperial Army were wearing B4/6 'Interceptor' body armor, which, although it was moderately bulky and somewhat heavy, covered them from just below the chin down to the groin, plus the upper part of the arms, and would stop ordinary rifle fire cold, in addition to shell fragments and pistol bullets.
     "Kenjirō-san," she said, once she'd tied her comm into the combat team's network, "did you bring my gear?  Or weapons?"
     "I didn't have time to grab much, but there's a set of HEX armor, combat fatigues, boots and your personal weapons:  Rifle, pistol, plus HE and stun grenades.  I figured you would want to be airborne sooner rather than later.  If I have erred, I apologise."  He told her over the noise inside the cabin.
     She was less than pleased to hear that her own K7 had been left behind, but HEX armor was the next best thing, and she quickly began changing.  HEX was an abbreviation for High Energy eXchange, although the armor's appearance of being made up of small hexagonal plates led people to assume that the name was descriptive.  It occupied a niche between the Interceptor armor of the DIA and powered exoarmor; it was extremely light, and would stop almost any small arms fire, including high velocity armor piercing rounds.  It was also proof against the hypervelocity flechettes used by the HIA Marine Corps in their Colt-Armacon M-125A1 rifles, which was the primary threat against which it had been designed.
     Kenjirō had, however, brought her rifle, which she was very glad to see.  The Imperial Guard were issued the best weapons of any military unit in the Known Sphere, the crown jewel of which was the Hollis-MacNeil 6th generation magrifle.  Consisting of a slab-sided, flat charcoal metaplast shell, with an integral electronic sight, the 6Gen magrifles were capable of incredible accuracy on their own, but when linked to a user's cranial interface, they reached a peak of lethal efficiency that was completely without precedent.  The magrifle was essentially a man-portable railgun, capable of accelerating a 7mm prefragmented metaceramic bullet with a steel driving band to velocities of up to 2150 meters per second.  When a round struck a hard surface it would either punch through and fragment, or it would liquify, causing spalling and thermal damage.  In a soft target of heterogeneous organic matter like a human body, the round would destabilize and fragment explosively, creating dozens of razor like fragments. 
     Naturally, they had been declared illegal in every system outside of the Imperium, and even there, they were restricted to military service.
     "Commander, I have at least four local law enforcement VTOLs and air EMS units en route to our primary LZ, and one military VTA, a Kuàisù Jīngshén JS5-1 from its power output, set to intercept us; however, we should have time to drop your team off before that happens."  The pilot, Captain Ackles, said over the vehicle's interior comm.
     "Thank you, Captain.  Unless that military flight begins targeting us with fire control radar, ignore it and put us down as close to the beacon as possible."  Chevy instructed, as she secured her personal weapons for rapid deployment.
     "Understood, Commander."  He acknowledged.  "We'll be dropping into the primary LZ in 90 seconds."
     "90 seconds.  Got it."  She acknowledged in return.
     She began to feel the adrenaline and dopamine rush that preceded combat, and even the moderate weight of her weapons and armor became unnoticeable, while every sense became crystal clear.  She wanted to get in there and kick some ass, even if, intellectually, she knew the time for that was likely over, and there was probably going to be little more for her to do than pick up the pieces.  One thing was certain:  If it turned out that there was a member of the Imperial House injured, or dead, at their destination, then there was going to be hell to pay.
     Her thoughts were cut short for the second time in less than five minutes when the interior lights went red, alerting the occupants of the fact that they would be landing in ten seconds.
     She checked her rifle's power and ammunition levels, then let it hang on its sling while she made certain once more that her sidearm had a round chambered and the safety was on.  The cabin lights went out as she finished securing her helmet's chin strap, and she grabbed a support bar, just as the pilot cut the VT and pushed the antigrav to the limit, causing everyone to experience a brief moment of weightlessness.
     The side doors of the VTA slammed open, and Kenjirō's team jumped the last three meters.  They hit the ground running, weapons up and sweeping across the dimly lit street in both directions.  Shevaughn remained with the Army unit until the aircraft was closer to the ground, and she was the last one out.  She could hear the sound of incoming sirens, and the noise of both rotor and vectored thrust aircraft.
     "Captain Ackles, get airborne, and stay overhead, but under no circumstances are you to fire on anyone, unless you are fired upon first.  Understood?"  She said, immediately upon hitting the ground.
     "Aye, Commander.  Understood."  He replied, already underway before she'd finished speaking.  With their transport away, Chevy retracted her helmet's light enhancing visor, and took a look around.
     There wasn't much to see.  The street itself was poured concrete, and in desperate need of resurfacing; some areas had ruts so worn that major fractures had formed.  Buildings of a commercial or light industrial nature - one of which, she noticed, was a local manufacturer of sex toys - fronted the street in both directions, this area of Níngjìng Bay being part of the city's original industrial park.  There were vehicles parked along the sidewalks on both sides of the street, most of them locally made wheeled cars, and a few light cargo vans clearly belonging to businesses in the area.  A few were wildly out of place; there was a Ducati Vetrano 1098 Superleggera, which was only available on Earth, and rare enough there to almost certainly make it unique on Minotaur.  The late model NAC-Hyundai Aerodyne was also out of place; while not uncommon, it tended to be most popular with private security firms, and was definitely out of place in a neighborhood like this.  That, and it was still running, its front windshield perforated from several well placed gunshots, and the driver slumped over, clearly dead.
     She and the backup team secured the street while the Guardsmen, having pinpointed the structure from which the beacon was being sent, kicked in the front door.  Each second that passed while she waited for them to give the 'all clear' felt like a lifetime, but she willed herself to be patient; when she finally heard Kenjiro make the call, she led the way for the rest of the team.
     She could hear the sounds of multiple voices, and sounds of people in varying degrees of distress, as her team swept through a short hallway between the outer door and a beaded curtain at the far end.  The inside of the nondescript building turned out to be a bar; one that looked like a small, probably unregistered, gambling den.  The place was dimly lit, and a miasma of stale tobacco, spilled alcohol, and the brassy odor of fresh blood hung in the air, causing her nose to wrinkle involuntarily.  The floor was littered with bodies, blood, broken furniture, bottles, and glass.  Some of the bodies were still alive, although she doubted for long; even if the EMS units on the way showed up right now, it would be touch and go.  Nevertheless, she turned to the backup squad's leader, and gave orders.
     "Fan out, identify any wounded who are critical, and be prepared to assist the incoming emergency medical personnel.  If anyone who is uninjured can be persuaded to help, use them, but don't get too aggressive.  Go."  She ordered, and turned to where Kenjiro had stopped with the other two Guardsmen.
     She saw three men in identical Armorweave trenchcoats lying dead on the floor as she made her way across the room, each one had a Norinco QBZ-803 compact assault rifle on a tactical sling.  They had all been killed with a weapon of fairly large caliber, and by someone skilled in its use from the placement of the shots.  Her helmet's forward camera would record the faces of the gunmen, and she would run them past the embassy's intelligence section later, to see if they were known to the Imperium.
     "Commander, we found the Medalert tag, but there's something you should see."  Kenjiro told her, as she came to where he was standing, the other two down on their knees working furiously to keep one of the shooting victims alive.  "This one," he gestured at the young woman being worked on, "had an Imperial House issued Medalert tag around her neck, but I don't recognize her, and her identification seems to be genuine."  He concluded, handing her the woman's identification packet.
     Chevy looked at the ID in her hands, and found herself with more questions than answers.  She knew that the person on the floor was no member of the Imperial House, and yet the tag she was handed by one of her subordinates was one of those issued to direct relatives of the Emperor.  How had she acquired it, and from whom?  She examined the holo image on the ID card once more, looking for a clue when the locals started pouring in, yelling like a pack of cliffcats in a rut.  She ignored the noise, and stared at the image in front of her.
     Who the hell was Alexandra G.J. Chase?

Monday, September 21, 2015

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 33

* My many thanks got to Joe MacDonald for much of the background on The Cartel, it was his brainchild 20 years ago, and it seemed like a shame for it to go to waste. *

     "It looks as though I was worried for nothing, Gandu.  Offers are still coming in."  Said Cameron, as they sat in his private office on the Jester watching the bids roll in; his ship having safely returned through the Vulcanfall-Minotaur locus only four days ago, transmitting the limited details of their discovery of a derelict colony ship to the Space Enforcement Agency.
     The Agency was a system wide organization whose duties included local offplanet law enforcement, and inspections for compliance with Alliance and UniSys regulations in space.  They were generally considered to be one of the most trustworthy organizations with which to file a salvage claim, and they maintained it with considerable effort.  They tended to give salvage operators the best possible assessments it could, and its personnel did their jobs without a hand under the table, reaching for graft; some places, like Jefferson, for instance, would stiff you at every turn, and charge you for the inconvenience, all the while giving preference to anyone who was willing to pay for the privilege.  As a result, virtually all legitimate salvage operators working in Alliance territory, both private and corporate, used the Agency to file their claims.
     "No offers from Resodyne, though; I thought they would be first in line.  After all, we published the registry number along with the high resolution rendering of the ship's exterior.  Someone has to know about its omission from ARA Corporation's records by now, and the fact that they have been silent worries me."  Gandu commented pensively rotating his tumbler of Scotch whisky back and forth between large, spatulate fingers.
     "It's been less than a dozen hours since the SEA's Salvage Title Adjudication Board allowed us to put our find up for bids; maybe they were slow getting out of bed this morning, or they just don't understand what we've found.  Either way, when they get in touch - and they almost certainly will - the higher the standing offer at the time, the more they'll have to pay to get it."  Cameron pontificated, with a smirk of triumph.
     Gandu took a contemplative sip of the smoky, amber liquid before speaking again.
     "I am, admittedly, probably worried about nothing, but SEA-STAB probably has at least one person within its ranks who sells information to the Multisolars."  The XO countered, once again playing the devil's advocate.
     The Captain of the Jester considered what he had just heard for all of two seconds, and said, "Maybe, but probably only to the Cartel", grinning maniacally.
     Cameron would have been the first person to admit that having to pick between the highest bid on the salvage title, and any bid made by the Cartel, would be a decision fraught with uncertainty at best, but chances were that the Cartel's bid would likely be made by one of their proxies, and no one would be the wiser.
     Well, no one who wasn't as thick as lard, like grandma used to say.  Cameron thought.
     Gandu was less than appreciative of his Captain's attempt at humor.
     "Thank you, I hadn't actually thought of that."  He said, in a dry tone which suggested he would have much preferred not to have heard his Captain's attempt at humor.
     "Sorry, XO, I know it's not funny, but you know as well as I do there's a good chance that their factors and proxies are already bidding as we sit here."  He explained, somewhat unnecessarily.
     Like most people who'd had any dealings with a Multisolar corporation, Cameron was aware of the Cartel as a pervasive element of the Known Sphere's political and economic climate.  They had a reach that extended well beyond Sol and the Humanist Interstellar Alliance, into the Free Systems League, and the other Independent Systems; their influence extended right up to the edge of the Darkaellan Imperium, where it more or less stopped.
     The Cartel had evolved from a loose conglomeration of Earth-based multinationals into the first true Multisolar.  Over the course of a generation, they had embedded themselves into virtually every major company in the Sol system, and a majority of those in the Alliance, which had been an early benefactor of the Cartel's desire for greater autonomy.  Their only objective, as Cameron saw it, was power; their pursuit of that gave them access to the capital and economic resources to support their agenda, whatever that might be.  If, however, the Cartel discovered an impediment to its goals, then it was generally considered to be a good idea to stay home, if possible.
     There had been rumors circulating for decades, about people who had gotten on the wrong side of the Cartel in a bad way, and the rumors had a certain consistency; someone finds themselves on the Cartel's radar, and they suddenly disappear, die, or end up taking an unscheduled vacation very far away.  There's never any evidence, and no one will testify to anything, either on or off the record.
     To say that those who knew of - or just suspected - the Cartel's existence feared its attentions would be a massive understatement, but the vast majority of people had no clue that such an organization existed, and that suited the Cartel just fine.  Anonymity made it virtually impossible to target the leadership legally, to say nothing of how it frustrated occasional attempts made by some very brave, determined, and incredibly stupid journalists, who clearly had more ambition than good sense, to try and expose Cartel malfeasance in the Known Sphere.
     Yet, for all of that, exposure was something - perhaps the only thing - that it seemed to fear.  It was obvious that the leadership went to great lengths to hide their identities, and keep their activities from being publicized, which, to a number of people, meant that if you had incontrovertible evidence of something that would be impossible to ignore, then you had something to bargain with.  The Cartel would negotiate when it mattered, but you'd be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your days.  It was whispered to Cameron once that a particularly intrepid young reporter had really gotten the goods on the Cartel a couple of decades ago, and had used it as leverage to fastrack her career at InterStar Media Group, arguably the largest media company ever to exist, and now that woman sat at the head of the table in the executive boardroom, newest CEO of InterStar.
     If he suspected that one of the bidders was working sub  rosa for the Cartel, then there were worse things than feigning ignorance, and hoping that he was wrong.  If, on the other hand, they decided to let him know that a third party bidder was acting as their agent, then he would have to try and work out the best deal possible, and pray he didn't push so hard that they pushed back.
     "Captain, the fact that they are probably using a half a dozen proxies and third party buyers doesn't worry me, its the total silence of the one group that has the most to lose if word about what's on that ship was to be made public."  Gandu said, reiterating his initial point regarding Resodyne's absolute silence.  "They should have at least tried for an injunction against our claim by now, or something, and they're not doing a thing.  Do you suppose that they plan to just use the fact that it wasn't listed as an asset as an excuse to let it go, then pretend to be shocked when it turns up?"
     Cameron took a slow, pensive sip of his own drink and considered the question.  On the one hand, there were some advantages to Resodyne doing just that, since they had no reason to believe that ARA Corporation had kept a mobile black R&D lab in a backwater system.  They could quite easily shrug their shoulders and say:  'We are shocked, shocked I say, at the news that the company, which we purchased in good faith, was engaged in such terrible activities, but it has nothing to do with us.'
     On the other hand, it was entirely possible that there was a boardroom catfight going on right now at Resodyne, and when the dust settled they would simply offer more money than anyone else would want to put up, or try to cut a long-term deal that amounted to the same, and he'd be set for life; with enough left over that the crew's bonuses would make them insanely happy.
     "I can't say with any certainty that would be their plan, but it makes sense.  Really, though, there's not a lot they can do to prevent the sale from going through; they never knew it existed, so what's the basis of their complaint?  Any marginally competent lawyer would laugh himself sick before telling them to go home; as it stands, we can plead ignorance, and they can plead ignorance.  Trust me, Gandu, we're covered, and we are gonna make out like bandits."  He grinned like an urchin, and finished the remainder of his drink in a single swallow.
     His executive officer still didn't seem convinced, but he sat back in his Captain's very comfortable sofa, and took another sip of his drink in order to marshal his thoughts.
     "Shall I authorize shore leave for the crew?  I'd say that they've earned some real vacation time for a change, but I would like to rotate them through a third at a time, and maybe give an extra day to the last rotation.  As sort of a compensation for being last."  Gandu asked him, moving on to more immediate, practical concerns.
     "Yeah, go ahead; after six months aboard, and all we've been through, even Rollie is gonna want to get off the ship for a few days."  Cameron answered, reflecting on the fact that even his bosun had been climbing the walls of late, Saints knew they all deserved some R&R.
     He sincerely hoped they would have fun.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 32


     Shevaughn brought her leg up at her attacker's lunge, snapping it out at the last moment, connecting with the leg carrying virtually all of his weight.  He responded by using the impact to shift his momentum, and spun into a tight roundhouse kick that, had she not used the impact to achieve a slight separation, would have landed with enough force to knock her down, likely for good.  His foot was so close that she felt the skin of his heel brush against her left eyebrow.  His inability to connect gave her the opening she needed; she forced her muscles, now pushed nearly to the breaking point, to move her back in close proximity to her opponent, and she thrust her right arm under his passing leg, while simultaneously snap kicking the back of his opposite knee.  He went down hard, instinctively putting out his hands to protect against slamming his face into the floor, and she added her own weight; rolling up to put her padded elbow up to the back of his head.
     "You're dead, Kenjirō-san."  She said, as she bounced back to her feet, and held out her hand to help him up.  "The fancy roundhouse was a bit much.  Although I will admit, if it had landed, you'd be peeling me off the floor."  She added, bowing to him in return for his own, slightly deeper, bow before she took a small step back and strode off the tatami.
     He regarded the woman who had recently taken over the post of senior commander of the Darkaellan Imperial Guard detachment assigned to the embassy on Minotaur.
     "Indeed."  Was his only reply.  There seemed to be little point in debating the obvious.
     She walked over to the bench along the dojo wall, and reached for her towel and water bottle.  She rinsed the gumminess out of her mouth and then drank, pausing to pour some of the cool water on her head, quickly wiping it away with her towel.
     She could feel the subliminal pressure of Kenjirō watching her as she took off the tunic of her gi to inspect the spectacular bruise forming on her left upper arm.  She was accustomed to people staring at her behind her back, so long as he didn't do it to her face.  The memory of what had precipitated those stares suddenly rose to the forefront of her thoughts with a clarity sharp as a freshly stropped razor.  If only she had been as quick witted dealing with the Emperor's eldest son, as she was in the dojo.
     She decided that the injury didn't warrant a trip to the embassy's infirmary; it would be uncomfortable, but not debilitating, and her duties today were limited to organizational matters, so she had plenty of time to get it checked out later.  She put her tunic back on, threw the damp towel into a basket along the wall for eventual collection by the domestic servants, and grabbed her gym bag, turning to her sparring partner and second in command.
     "Kenjirō-san, get the other unit leaders and their seconds together for an operational briefing," she quickly consulted her optical implant's chronometer, "at thirteen hundred hours, and have the stewards set up tea and biscuits.  I'm going see if Satoshi Hayashi can be convinced to give an intel report on the newly installed director of the Space Enforcement Agency.  First, however, I am going to have a well deserved bath."
     Kenjirō seemed to consider her words for a moment, then offered a short bow of acknowledgement.
     "An excellent idea, Commander.  A good soak should put you in a much better frame of mind to deal with that eta, although I, personally, would wait until after."  He said, in an acid tone.
     "Just remember, Kenjirō, that man wallows through the abundance of mongrelized burakumin beyond these walls so that we don't have to.  He is, by that metric, a far better person than either of us, and his commitment to the security of the Imperium is ironclad."  She admonished him gently, before leaving the dojo.
     She stepped out of the building in which the dojo was located, and into the sweltering heat and humidity of Níngjìng Bay's late summer.  As always, she couldn't understand why anyone would voluntarily emigrate to a world like Minotaur; Darkael was cooler at the equator than the Bay was in its - so called - warm temperate zone.  Minotaur's tropical and equatorial regions were almost completely uninhabited, due to the fact that the average daytime temperature at this time of year was in the high 40s to low 50s Celsius, with around ninety-five percent humidity.  Darkael's equator rarely got above 35°C, and then only in the lowlands near the coast, the seasons were less extreme as well, due to the planet's shallower axial tilt.
     There were, however, some aspects of life here that were unexpectedly pleasant.  The gravity was about seventy percent of what she was used to, which was a good thing, because the air, although it had a slightly higher percentage of oxygen, was still much thinner than that to which she was accustomed.  She had endured about a month of acclimation before the embassy's doctor had cleared her for light duty, and another two before she was allowed to take on her regular duties.  As a result, she had done a fair amount of sightseeing after she'd landed.
     The southern tip of Níngjìng Bay had a white sand beach nearly five kilometers long, with what someone had described as "...firing the sickest, glassy right-handers in the universe!", which apparently was a reference to the waves upon which people went 'surfing'.  The idea of immersing herself in open water was terrifying at a level very near instinct, and she had been horrified by the sight of dozens of people sitting on their surfboards waiting for a wave.  For someone raised on Darkael, the notion was quite simply suicidal; the marine life on her birth world was incredibly dangerous, and found humans to be very much to its liking.  As food.
     One species of sauropod, called a Dracūl, which resembled a two to three meter long cross between a komodo and a giant horned lizard, was always found in or very near lakes and rivers, and had been known to kill people and Terran livestock, even when there was local prey closer and more accessible.  Dracūl (the same for plural and singular) were solitary and extremely territorial, and on the island of Acarsaid Mòr, where the Capital was located, they had been hunted to near extinction.  Needless to say, swimming was not a very popular recreational activity back home.
     Here, on the other hand, the planet's oceans, while teeming with life, were actually less dangerous than Earth's, and she found that she had a knack for surfing.  She had also discovered that there was no shortage of willing instructors from which to choose (although she was ultimately forced to admit that they were less driven by a desire to teach, than to get her in bed).  Their interest was more due to novelty than anything else, since there were probably less than a thousand Darkaellan subjects on-planet, and virtually all of them were employees of the embassy and their dependents.
     The embassy itself was large enough to accommodate all Imperial subjects in an emergency, but most took advantage of the Imperium's very generous housing allowance for embassy staff, and found private residences in the city itself.  Even so, the embassy covered a roughly square area of approximately 24 hectares, with three main buildings, and five smaller buildings for support services.  The buildings' exteriors had been constructed of locally sourced materials, and the work had been done by local contractors.  The interiors, however, had been made of both local materials, and others imported from the homeworld.  Most of the embassy's internal communications and data network had been built on Darkael and shipped here, but some of the most sophisticated components had to be brought from Earth.  As a result, the embassy had some of the best communications security on the planet.
     The grounds had the well manicured look of a Japanese garden, complete with an ornamental rock garden with its typical raked gravel, and bonsai trees.  The design of the building that housed the Honorable Bruce Addison Stirling, ambassador to the HIA, combined aspects of highland Scottish and Japanese architecture, and it blended in well with the other buildings.
     The confluence of Scottish Highland and traditional Japanese culture was no accident.  Darkael had been settled by a curious mix of Scots, Northern Europeans and Japanese, all of whom had a shared history.  They were all descendants, relatives, or associates of the seven families who had served as retainers and partners of the MacMullen clan.  Some of those relationships went back to the sixteenth century, but more than a century of relative isolation since the Exodus had caused some cultural dividing lines to blur into nonexistence, and others had ossified into impenetrability.

-----

     Shevaughn Turlington - her grandfather liked to call her 'Chevy', and the nickname stuck - was trying to organize her thoughts while soaking her tired muscles in the embassy's private spa bath, when an outside call came through to her comm implant, which meant that it was from someone with a lot of authority, and some heavy encryption; Imperial Guard communication implants couldn't normally be used with outside service providers, unless the originator used military grade encryption protocols.
     The call carried a Hyperwave ID code that she recognized instantly; it was a recorded message from an Imperial Guardsman who had been inducted at the same time as she.  It was short and to the point.
     "Hey, Chevy, I thought you might want a heads up:  Three Navy ships are headed out to Novy Sevastopol through the Minotaur locus.  The lead ship is being commanded by none other than Admiral Teiji Sakamoto.  Two of our merchant ships were apparently taken by unregistered privateers, so the Imperial House has decided to enforce the laws against piracy that the Baryshev Industrial Combine clearly won't.  Ki-o-tsukete, Chevy, and good luck."  The recorded message ended abruptly, as FTL communications were insanely expensive, and nobody wanted to spend more on their limited bandwidth than was absolutely necessary, although, since it had been invented by DTI, the Imperium's official business tended to go at a massive discount.
     She decided to share the anxiety of having someone like Admiral Sakamoto on their way.  With any luck he'd just pass through, but she would have to be ready, just in case he decided on a personal visit.  She activated her comm and pinged Kenjirō.
     "Kenjirō-san, I've just received a back channel heads-up from an old friend, letting me know that Admiral Teiji Sakamoto is going to be passing through the system.  Pass the word, I'll elaborate further during our ops briefing."  She said, as soon as he acknowledged her call.
     There was a long pause, which wasn't entirely unexpected.
     "When you say 'passing through', you don't necessarily mean a personal visit, right?"  He said, warily.
     "For my own sake, if nothing else, I hope not."  She replied with feeling.  "There's not much we can do if he does, so quit worrying about it, we still have a job to do."
     "Yes, Commander.  I'll pass the information to the other team leaders.  I'm assuming you will be informing the ambassador?"  He asked with a trace of sly amusement.
     The Right Honourable Bruce Addison Stirling, Ambassador to the HIA, was a grand nephew of Lord Clarence of House Stirling, one of the seven Noble Houses that served as governors of various territories throughout the home system.  She had to admit that the man owed his position more to guts and brains than most of his contemporaries, and that, suave and cultured though he may be, he was a ruthless as a dracūl when it came to protecting the Imperium's interests.  He was also less doctrinaire in his own way than many others who were born to service and privilege.  He was approachable, yet managed to maintain a professional detachment; he treated his subordinates with respect, while never losing sight of the fact that they were subordinates; most importantly, he seemed to know his limitations, and was capable of deferring to another's expertise when it was required.
     In short, Ambassador Stirling was the perfect boss.
     "You may safely make that assumption Kenjirō-san.  Although I'd be surprised if he doesn't already know."  She answered, before cutting the connection.
     The news that Teiji Sakamoto was on his way filled Chevy with a vague sense of apprehension.  The Admiral was an ardent isolationist, and arguably the best flag officer in the Darkaellan Imperial Navy; he had been an instructor at the Naval Academy, but his views had been cause for some concern, so he had been promoted, and given command of the 3rd Fleet.  She wondered why he had suddenly been given a detached squadron and a mission to a technically neutral station system, but the implications, like a Darkaellan winter, were chilling.  She suddenly found herself incapable of relaxing, despite the heat of the water in which she was immersed, so she climbed out of the bath, and reached for her robe.
     Some days, it just didn't pay to get out of bed.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 31

     Station systems existed for only one reason: Commercially valuable resources.  New Detroit was one of the oldest of the station systems, a solar system with no chance of ever hosting Terran life in any but the most tightly controlled of artificial environments; but it was a major trading nexus sitting in a system that contained one of the most commercially valuable materials known to man:  Kreshnium.
     Discovered accidentally by a xenogeologist on a survey mission through the system, Viktor VonKresh was lauded by the scientific community for his discovery of a substance that pushed the 'faster than light speed limit', once thought to be unbreakable, higher than ever thought possible.  Seven years after his discovery, Dynamic Technologies Inc. revealed that they had found a way to incorporate it into their next generation of FTL drives.  New Detroit's charter was drawn up within days of the announcement.
     The station had originally been designed as a twin taurus design with a rotational gravity, but the advent of gravity polarization technology had caused the design to be altered significantly.  The station, when viewed perpendicular to its long axis, looked amusingly like an old railway train axle with one large wheel at one end, and a smaller wheel with six balls around the axle next to it at the other end.  This design placed the habitation area all in the same plane and made it possible to have a very open space to live in.  The larger of the two quickly became known as Topside and was reserved for the station's commercial and administrative needs, open areas to supplement local food production as well as green areas for recreational pursuits, and naturally these areas became an attractive place around which to put housing for the people working Topside.  The smaller wheel became the industrial center for the station as well as efficient housing for the labourers, technicians, shipyard workers and maintenance personnel who were needed to keep the station running, and keep the shipyards in business.  It became known colloquially as Low Town, and it quickly became the place to find any form of diversion a person could want; bars, brothels, and dens of vice of every kind became common to the point that it became easier to tax them, rather than try to put them out of business.
     DTI had been one of the original investors in the station, but their interest was always seen as peripheral to a colonial charter; the system had a resource they wanted, and they were willing to invest to get it, but no more.  Their investment included a number of very quiet suggestions to the original board of directors about how to make New Detroit self-sufficient, including an offer of very low interest loans from the Darkaellan Imperium for developing an indigenous ship-building capacity.  There had been a number of deals made between the board and DTI, the most important of which was that DTI would get to purchase refined Kreshnium at a reasonable price, and and in return they would prioritize their FTL drive production to supply the local shipyard's needs.  They also brought in trained technicians to do the installation and maintenance of any FTL units.  This last was seen by many as an insult, an implicit distrust of New Detroit's ability to maintain the Drives themselves.  The truth was far more complex, since DTI had good reason to suspect that their proprietary technology would be a huge target for organizations like the Cartel, who would just love to get a massive leap forward in their own FTL R&D programs.  The status quo had been maintained, however, and most of the fears that a foreign monopoly on FTL technology would result in high prices, secondary costs, and artificial supply shortages to boost demand (and prices) turned out to be unfounded.  DTI and the Imperium made FTL drives cheaper and faster than anyone else, and within a dozen years had a market share of FTL drive production of about 90 percent, the last holdouts tended to be military SpecOps, or clandestine manufacturers, catering mostly to smugglers, pirates and other outlaws.  Most people didn't realize how much the history of this one massive station had been influenced by a state which was now widely viewed as a pariah by most of the people living outside of it.
     The irony of all of this was not lost on Petrona Hamasaki.  She had acquired a finely honed sense of historical irony in her present occupation as an investigator in the offices of the Minotaur branch of the United Systems Police Force.  The USPF had been her own figurative run for the border after her career in the NDPS had come to a explosive, screeching, grinding halt.
     She had been right, had done everything by the book, and had made certain that what had turned out to be the last official arrest of her career, as an officer of the law with New Detroit Public Safety, had been beyond reproach.  The fact that the Darkaellan woman she had tried to detain had been working for DTI's own private security unit shouldn't have mattered to anyone, after all, the NDS Legal Code did not provide outside contractors with any special immunity from prosecution.  DTI's security people had to obey the law just like anyone else, and she had deliberately committed an act of lethal violence on no other grounds than suspicion, and the ststion's Judiciary Board had refused to prosecute her for it.  Petrona's attitude towards the Imperium and its corporate subsidiaries - like DTI - had been as cynically hostile as anyone else's, and her indignation in the face of such a betrayal had been indecently volcanic.
     And now she sat in a small office in the large, block-like UniSys building in the Old Quarter of Níngjìng Bay.  The last five years had certainly been educational, that was certain; any lingering antipathy she might have felt over the official charges of insubordination and the unofficial advice of her former lieutenant, and boss, that she quietly resign before she was loudly cashiered, had been washed away, and replaced with something like pity for how badly informed about the realities of interstellar commerce and politics she had been.
     Her current boss, a man named Julius Benedict Harlow (Special Agent in Charge, Níngjìng Bay), had sought her out, and made her a job offer working for UniSys.  JB (as he preferred to be called) had made it clear that the offer was one likely to make her even more unwelcome than she already was in law enforcement circles, but she would have the authority to "...Stomp on anyone's dick if they get in your way."  To say that she'd been enthusiastic would have been a lie, but she had to eat, so she had said yes without really thinking about it.
     Her prejudices about the USPF had been as poorly informed as the ones she'd had regarding Darkael and DTI had been (what she now realized was just popular bigotry), and the learning curve in her new job had been challengingly steep.  She had come to understand the incredible difficulty of maintaining law and order across interstellar distances, and how one system's laws could conflict with another's to the point of laughable absurdity.
     Case in point:  A businessman from Jefferson finds out his 17 year old daughter is consorting with a man "of unsuitable nature" - ie. wrong skin tone, ethnic background, and religion; a triple threat - and has his private bodyguards beat the man with a thumb-thick rod and warn him, in accordance with what is scripturally acceptable common practice on Jefferson, that he would do well to move on.  The man who is beaten doesn't take the hint, and convinces the girl to elope with him on a ship to a new star system.  The father of the girl then sends his agents to find the girl and bring her home, since a girl of her age is not considered a legal adult and cannot make a legal contract of marriage to a man of whom her father does not approve.
     "Needless to say, JB,"  Petrona said as she explained events to her boss, "these guys just don't seem to grasp why the Alliance considers their actions kidnapping, and try as I might, it was a wasted effort.  I'd have had better luck explaining gravitic systems engineering to them.  Their case doesn't have to go through a UniSys Criminal Court hearing though, since they were forthcoming enough to admit that they put that girl's husband into a coma from the beating they gave him."
     JB gave her a sceptical look before asking, "Was that before, or after you advised them of their rights under interstellar law?"
     She couldn't help the Cheshire Cat grin on her face and said, "After.  They knew they had a right to silence, and legal aid, and they talked anyway.  Frankly, I don't think they took me seriously, it might have something to do with the fact that they come from Heardsfort County on Jefferson."
     "I don't get it, Pet.  What's so different about Heardsfort County?" JB asked while reaching for his cigarettes.
     "It was settled almost a century ago, primarily by what I personally would consider 'insanely conservative' religious fundamentalists; they don't allow women to enter most professions - especially law enforcement - and generally don't encourage them to live independently.  I think they thought I was your secretary."
     JB managed to avoid choking on the smoke from his cigarette as he laughed out loud, "And since you had done your due diligence, you didn't bother to enlighten them?" he finished for her.  He got a wink of her eye by way of response.
     JB started blowing smoke rings at the ceiling's air circulation vent and watched as they got pulled away to be filtered and recycled in one of the building's hydrostatic air systems.  Petrona had come to realise that this meant he was deep in thought, and waited for him to finish working out whatever was occupying his mind by removing the dust cover from the cranial interface port behind her right ear and plugging in her wireless uplink node.  She still got a thrill out of using the virtually unlimited access that UniSys agents had to the planet's public network, although here the office was a closed system that had to be accessed with a direct hardline connection.  Her first order of business was to check her private message in-box, there was little of interest aside from the ubiquitous vids of her younger brother's pet cat doing something dumb or cute.  Her brother was planning on going to university outside of their home system, he had a burning desire to go to a real planet and see what life there was like.  She wished him well, because she had a pretty good idea that her mother would be doing everything she could think of to keep him on New Detroit.
     It made her feel a bit homesick, but there was no way for her to go back without her past coming back to haunt her.  In her weaker moments, she wondered what would have happened if she'd gone public with the information in the official arrest record - of which she had kept a copy.
     Nothing good, probably.
     Publicly, her father had been outwardly stoic about what had happened, as Japanese always were, but the man had been as comforting as any parent could be expected to be in private moments between them.  She missed her father; the two of them used to meet for lunch on the first day of the month, just the two of them, no matter what.  It was their own private tradition.  Noboru Hamasaki's family were part of the Japanese exodus from Earth, people who had gotten tired of the rising ethnocentrism of their homeland's politics and increasing social pressure to be 'more Japanese'.  Her mother's family were mostly Hispanic, with a hint of Norteamericano in the family tree somewhere; not that any of them let it show.  She hadn't spoken to her mother since she had resigned from the force in disgrace, and left for Minotaur.
     'Both of us too proud.  Hispanics to the bone - as always.' Petrona thought to herself as she watched Joaquín's feline behaving badly. 
     JB's voice brought her attention back firmly to the subject at hand.
     "I think it would be in our best interests to ship our two wayward Jeffersonians back to local custody along with a sealed copy of their admission of guilt to you, as well as your own investigative report, and then let them handle it.  They admitted to beating that man to within a millimeter of his death, and they had to know that would be a crime anywhere." He stubbed his dwindling cigarette out in a little sand filled ashtray that sat on the right corner of his desk.  "Want me to make the call?"
     "Nah, the gang over at Bay PD has to get used to the idea that I can make them choke on their own work sooner or later."  She shut her 'link down and removed it, replacing the dust cover as she put her desk terminal on-com to place the call to the local Níngjìng Bay Police office.  She wished all of their cases could be resolved so easily, but that just wouldn't be in the Universe's nature.  Considering how her career had developed in the last few years, she knew that every easy case was followed by half a dozen real bastards.  That was tommorrow's problem, however, today's easy work meant that she could have a little fun, and she was really looking forward to a few drinks with the team, and knocking those pins over at the bowling alley.

Monday, August 10, 2015

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 30

     "Why the hell not?"  Alex demanded hotly, as she got up off the bed.  "I can't believe that you won't trust me to understand, so at least have the decency to say why!"
     Alex realized that she was losing her temper, but right now she just couldn't find the available detachment to care.  If Dirk wanted her to back down, then he would have to meet her half way, and explain why he had refused to tell her what they had discovered on the colony ship.
     She had waited in nail biting anxiety when the survey team had gone silent, and her mind had forced her imagination into some very dark corners.  It had never occurred to her that she might still be in the dark after everyone had made it back safely.  The idea was uncomfortably novel, and on a ship with a crew the size of the Jester's, it led to all sorts of wild gossip.
     She just wanted the truth, but it wasn't coming from Dirk as she'd hoped.
     "I can't,  Alex, I just... can't.  I won't insult your intelligence by telling you that it's for your own good, but I am going to ask you - beg you - to trust me when I say that telling you wouldn't put your mind at ease."  He said imploringly.
     Alex stood there, arms crossed in front of her, and considered what she had just heard.  The idea of him begging for anything, even her trust, was so totally unprecedented that she was momentarily dumbstruck.  She tried to think of an appropriate response, but her mind just kept spinning in circles, and the silence between the two of them stretched out uncomfortably.  She decided to give it one last try.
     "You want me to trust you, yet you don't seem to want to trust me.  How is that fair?"  She demanded, frustrated with her inability to sway him.
     He got up off the edge of the bed, crossed the room, took her by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes.  He did it so suddenly that she jumped involuntarily, and the look in his eyes was one she couldn't readily identify.
     "It's not fair, Alex, but I give you my word that knowing the details won't make it better.  Ask me for anything else, but let this lie.  Please?"  He pleaded in near desperation.
     She looked at him for several moments before the gravity of what he had just said finally registered.
     "Anything?"  She asked in disbelief.
     "Anything."  Dirk affirmed, relief in his voice.
     "OK, Marine," she said coyly, "if this plan of the Captain's works out, we are going to spend our bonuses to take a long, well deserved, vacation.  Deal?"  She paused long enough for him to respond.
     "I promise.  Anyplace in particular you had in mind?"  He asked, smiling.
     She couldn't believe her luck, and she exploited the opening.
     "Yeah:  Home, to Nova Sol.  I'm going to introduce you to my parents.  Oh, and you will indulge my public displays of affection."  She smiled, and patted him on the cheek before crossing to the door to the bathroom, leaving him standing in the middle of the room, with a stunned look on his face.
     "Wait, you - what did - I can't - just...  Wait... Your parents?"  Dirk stammered incoherently.
     She turned back just before closing the door.  "Bet you wish you'd told me what was on that colony ship now; but I really think my folks are going to enjoy meeting you."  She said, with a teasing edge of malicious enjoyment.
     Seeing the look on his face, she almost felt bad for him.
     Almost.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 29

     Rollie was in his usual hiding spot, in EEV Number 12, smoking one of his dwindling supply of real tobacco cigarettes.  He'd just left the meeting that had taken place in the Captain's office after having been segregated from the rest of the crew for more than two hours.  What conversation had taken place had been largely one-sided, with the Captain explaining why the survey team could never, under any circumstances, reveal that they had gone on board the ARA colony ship.  He had to admit that, if he had known - hell, if he'd suspected - what was on it, he never would have volunteered to go in the first place.
     With his cigarette held between clenched lips, he reached into one of his work jacket's inner pockets and pulled out a scuffed metaplast case, little bigger than a small matchbox.  He considered what he was about to do once again, turning the case over and over between his fingers, as tendrils of smoke drifted across the close interior of the escape pod, where it was pulled into the life support system's air recycler.
     He slid his right index fingernail under a faint recess in the case's surface where its two halves joined almost seamlessly.  There was a faint click, and the case opened smoothly to reveal the carefully arranged data storage cards, twelve in all, each one in its own slit in the case's foam insert, and a special adapter to allow him direct access to their contents through his cranial interface.  He removed the adapter from its slot in the foam, pulled out the built in CI jack, and unwound its threadlike connection cable.  With the ease of great familiarity, and without removing the cigarette from his mouth, he laid back on the crash couch and connected the jack into the interface port behind his ear.  He then removed a tiny data storage card from the case, and inserted it into the adapter, closed his eyes and pressed the small power button.
     The sensation was of having one's mind suddenly feel like it had just expanded in volume a hundredfold.  He felt as if he'd instantly stepped into a massive room in his mind; although they were small - barely the size of a child's fingernail, each card could hold a frighteningly huge amount of information, somewhere around 50 Terabytes.  The one he had selected was empty, although not for long.
     Rollie selected all of the POV images and video he had recorded through his cybernetic eyes, and copied them to the data chip.  He wasn't a scientist, but he knew enough of the basics to be able to make visual records of what might be important, and he had done just that.  The data card was packed with imagery of the bodies of the cybernetically enhanced GMHs, and of the lab technicians, surgeons, and researchers; basically everything that would be of interest to any competing entities with deep pockets, and a burning desire to see ARA Corporation's black ops R&D.  He'd recorded hundreds of still images of everything, from document hardcopy, to lab equipment, and even a random piece of jewelry that had been drifting amidst the charnel horrors they'd found.
       Once the copying was completed he accessed his cyberoptics' file cleaning program, and purged all of the original recordings from their on-board memory.  He gently removed the data card from the adapter and returned it to its slot in the small case. He removed the CI jack from the port behind his ear, allowing the thread-thin cable to wind itself back into the adapter, and placed it back in its own slot in the foam, then closed the case and put it back in his jacket.
     Reaching into another pocket, he pulled out the only object brought off the ship. 
     He had smuggled out the small piece of jewelry, vacuum sealed in a mylar bag; the single image he'd recorded of it hadn't been transferred, just wiped from memory.  Up until now he had only been able to give it a quick look, but here in his private hideout he could take the time to examine it more thoroughly.  It was a small piece, made of artistically engraved platinum, about five centimetres long and ovoid in shape with an elliptical stone inset into its surface.  The highly polished stone was like nothing he had ever seen before, it had swirling colors ranging from indigo to deep navy blue with occasional small gold flecks along the bands of color.  All in all, it was an amazing find, and it would likely fetch a good price on Minotaur.
     He was acutely aware of the danger involved in keeping the information contained on the tiny card in his possession, but Rollie was a firm believer in the concept of being prepared.  The images and video he'd saved were potentially the biggest goldmine he could have been handed, with a price tag attached that was essentially a blank check.  He doubted that anyone suspected that he'd taken the liberty of recording their entire trip through the ARA ship, because nobody had specifically asked him if he had.  Truth be told, however, he would probably have denied having done it anyway if they'd asked, but this way, he didn't feel like an asshole for lying about it.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 28

     The faint susurration of air from the vent on the wall behind the Captain's wirewood desk was audible only because Dirk had just finished explaining what he had found on the colony ship, leaving a profound, shocked silence.  Cameron, whose brows had creased intensely, like a pair of caterpillars engaged in a stare-down, was desperately trying to understand what he'd just heard, and not taking it well.
     "Would you care to repeat that?"  The Captain finally asked him incredulously.
     Dirk really couldn't blame him.  To be fair, he hadn't wanted to believe what he and Rollie had found, but there was no wishing things otherwise.  The situation was what it was.
     Perilous.
     "A mobile genetic R&D lab, with a fully equipped cybernetic surgery, Skipper."  He explained.  "I know it sounds crazy, but if you wanted to do illegal medical research; then making it mobile, and parking it outside of anyone's jurisdiction would make sense, right?"  He asked rhetorically, and hoped that the explanation would keep the man sitting behind the desk from noticing the huge hole in his logic.
     The 'colony' ship had been owned by ARA Corporation, once the leading multisolar in genetics research and development; it was now obvious that they might have been too smart for their own good.  Unless he missed his guess, whatever they had been cooking up had gotten out of hand, and in all likelihood turned on them.
     And that was the good news.
     "So, how can you be certain this was some kind of mobile black clinic?  It hardly seems like something you'd have a great deal of experience with, DJ."  The Captain commented, his voice edged in suspicion.  "More to the point, why wouldn't they come back and at the very least destroy the evidence?"
     Dirk had had his own suspicions regarding what they were going to find months ago, when, following their FTL departure from Vulcanfall, the Captain had finally told them what they were after.  He had nursed his doubts in private, but they hung like the old, battered MedAlert tag on its chain around his neck, a constant reminder of unpleasantness to be avoided at all costs.
     The Captain's final question was the big one - which he'd hoped would go unnoticed, and the one he couldn't answer, but he knew what they had found.
     When he was still in the Alliance Marine Corps there had been occasional rumors, second - even third-hand stories, and barracks scuttlebutt about corporations such as ARA and Resodyne having cybernetically enhanced and genetically modified combat units.  He told the Captain as much.
     "If you'd trusted me enough to tell me what you were planning early on, I would have told you this long before now."  He added, reproachfully.
     "So we file the claim quietly, without telling anybody that we went aboard.  At the very least we should be able to collect a healthy bounty from DTI for the FTL drive.  Then we simply put the whole thing up for public auction, listed as 'uninspected salvage' and wait for the bidding to start."  Said the Captain, confidently.
     Dirk winced internally.  What he didn't - couldn't - tell Cameron, was that he'd heard the same story that he'd heard in the Corps from his father once as a young man.  Years later, without any supporting evidence (which his father had been unwilling to provide at the time), he'd eventually come to think of the rumors as just that; rumors.  Obviously, he'd been wrong, and now he was trying to figure out how to extricate himself from the mess he was in.
     Not that the Captain was making things easier.
     "Captain, you can't be that naive!  You know as well as anyone, Resodyne will never trust that we didn't at least try to get inside that ship."  He said in disbelief.
     He knew that some of the upper management of ARA had ended up working for Resodyne after the buyout, along with a lot of the talent from the R&D sections of the company, and you could bet your last centicredit that some of them knew that ship was out here.  If the Jester and her crew waltzed back into Alliance territory, or even the Free Systems League for that matter, and put that ship on the auction block, then they'd likely be dead before they finished getting through customs.  It would be the same as if they had announced that they found a black ops genetics lab on a ship registered to ARA Corporation.
     He explained as much, adding:  "Those people are not people who take a possible threat to their lofty position lightly.  You've worked for one of the Multisolars, and don't pretend that they were any less amoral; if we even admit that we were here, then we're all fucked!  And I refuse to believe that you're too simple-minded to see it."
     It was hard to sit here, doing his best to throttle back a burning desire to tell the man sitting across the table the whole story, but if he did that, then he might just as well shoot himself now, because if anyone suspected that he knew what he did, then none of them would ever be safe again.
     Multisolar corporations were profit driven engines, after all, with reputations and revenues to protect, and their shareholders would not look kindly on executives who failed them.  They also had resources bordering on the infinite, and probably wouldn't think twice about killing anyone they couldn't tie up in court.  There was a slim chance that Resodyne might publicly disavow any knowledge of the ship's existence, and then hide behind a phalanx of lawyers, but he doubted they would allow anyone who had seen what was on that ship to die of old age.  The risk of negative public exposure regarding a possible violation of the United Systems Transgenics Ban, however, as well as the Kagoshima Accord, and Johannesburg Convention, would likely result in Resodyne being investigated by the USPF.  If UniSys investigators started prying into ARA Corporation's illegal activities, that might make the old ARA executives desperate enough to try and silence any potential witnesses.
     That wasn't the bad news, however, but before the Captain could frame a suitably caustic reply to match the expression on his face, his com badge chripped at him, displaying the chief engineer's icon.  He glared at Dirk before answering.
     "What's up, Brostowski?  I'm in a meeting."  He said, brusquely.
     "I figured you would want to know when the SSD came back.  It's back, and now you know."  She answered, with trademark bluntness, before cutting the connection.
     "What SSD, Captain?"  Dirk demanded sharply.
     The Captain regarded him with a slightly smug expression, and said:  "I took the liberty of sending a drone out while you were on your way back, and had it map the hull of the ship.  Once 'Milla has the images downloaded, we'll be able to create a complete external model of the ship."
     Dirk was about to royally lose his shit, when a bright light suddenly dawned in the proverbial swamp.  The SSD would only have recorded a map of the exterior of the colony ship, highly detailed to be sure, but provably so.  There was now a much better chance of survival.
     "Captain, that may be the best thing I could have heard right now."  He told him, in a relieved voice.
     "Happy to be able to oblige you, DJ, anytime."  He replied sarcastically.  "Perhaps you might elaborate, for the simple-minded."
     "Easy, we do exactly what you said originally:  We file a claim, put it up for public auction, but not as uninspected; instead we can say, because we have the imagery, that we could only do an external survey.  You won't get anything like the kind of financial settlement you would if we had a full survey, but if we showed that, then the UniSys Police Force would just confiscate it anyway."  He explained, careful to emphasise that the USPF could very quickly ruin their payday.
     The Captain sat back in his chair, and appeared to give the idea some serious thought.  Silence stretched out between them long enough for Dirk to become slightly anxious, and he hoped that the man had the sense to see that what he had proposed was the only option that offered them any chance of staying beyond Resodyne's notice.  More than that, he couldn't be a party to any official investigation into what they had discovered here; the news that a small salvage crew had found a clandestine bioweapons lab on the ass edge of the Outer Sphere would definitely be noticed on his homeworld.
     And that was the bad news.
     There were definitely some things worse than being hunted by the lethal agents of a major Multisolar, being hunted by Dirk's family was at the very top of that list.
     It would be difficult to imagine a more parochial group of people than his father and older brothers.  For them, the idea of associating with people who were not 'their kind of people' was unthinkable.  He'd embraced the anarchical thinking of his Earth-born ancestors, and struck out on his own, and in so doing had discovered a personal truth:  That the great variety of humankind was it's single greatest strength.  Which wasn't to say that his family would just let him go.  They no doubt believed that he had an duty to maintain the integrity and purity of his people, but if his biometric data were to appear in some official record of an investigation into violations of the transgenics ban, and the Kagoshima Accord in particular, he knew they would send their best agents to find him, and bring him home to meet what they believed were his obligations
     His attention snapped back to the Captain when he finally spoke.
     "I hate to admit it, but you're right.  There's no way we make any money at all if the Neofelynx gets out of the trap on this one.  We keep our heads together, and we get paid; but you're right, there'll be nothing for anybody if the UniSys authorities get wind of what's on that ship."  He declared, with thoughtful resignation.
     Dirk wasn't about to jump for joy - not yet, but he didn't think he would need to grab Alex and jump ship at Vulcanfall on the way back, either.  Even so, he resolved to remain vigilant for the foreseeable future, just to be safe.
     As they began discussing the details, the hoary, and utterly fraudulent, old adage about the Chinese written symbol for 'crisis' being a combination of the characters for 'danger' and 'opportunity' sprang to mind suddenly.  It seemed to describe the situation in which the Jester's crew found themselves.  It was full of potential dangers, and the opportunity was as potentially huge.
     It was definitely a crisis.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 27

     Cameron was not particularly happy, having had a brief, and frustrating, conversation with Dirk that had gone nowhere, and then being told that they were coming back earlier than expected; the survey cut short due to one of his people having a full-on, screaming freakout.  He supposed it could have been worse, but not knowing what they had found was driving him up the wall, and Dirk had adamantly refused to discuss it.  He'd offered no explanation, save to say that he had to explain it in person.  He had then cut communications with the Jester, and ignored his calls thereafter.
     To say that Dirk had better have a good reason for doing what he'd done, went without saying, but there was something about the tone of his voice that went beyond his normal professional terseness.  He had been evasive, and whenever Dirk got evasive, it was never good.
     Cameron decided that the best - and only - way to deal with the lack of incoming information was to distract himself with busywork until Mule-1 was safely back aboard.  To that end, he decided to get a better idea of what their salvage claim would net them in the way of revenue, using a wide range of assumptions about how much of the derelict would turn a profit on the open market, versus what Resodyne, or another company, might be willing to pay for it.  Since the original owners were defunct, and the ship had not been listed among ARA Corporation assets when those had been purchased by Resodyne, he could easily put the whole thing up for public auction.  It would be interesting to see just how much he could get for the whole thing in one go, but before he did that he'd need a complete structural survey, and inventory of the entire vessel from bow to stern, and they just didn't have the time.  Without a full accounting of the condition of the transport and its contents, the starting bids would be lower than he liked.
     Inspiration struck suddenly, and he realized that he had a way to get a preliminary survey of the condition of the colony ship's hull without the need for on-site personnel.  He called up Ludmilla Brostowski.
     "Milla, I've got Dirk and his team coming back early; they had to cut their survey short.  How fast can you send a salvage survey drone out there?"  He inquired, pulling up images of the derelict colony ship on his command console's monitor.
     "I can put an SSD outside in less than half an hour, but getting it on station will take some time.  Unless all you want is a fly-by?"  Replied the Chief Engineer.
     Salvage Survey Drones were little more than a vaguely spherical cage surrounding a remotely operated set of attitude thrusters, a small chemical reaction drive, and a basic sensor package, consisting of optical-infrared and low powered radar.  Most corporate ships had them aboard, but classed them as fungible equipment, and often made no effort to retrieve them.  Cameron tended to think differently, and if this job was about to go sour, he wouldn't have a great deal of money to throw around.
     "Program for a least-time course there and back, but leave it with a minimum survey time of, say, an hour; use a helical flight pattern along the main axis of the ship, I want to be able to model the entire exterior for future reference.  Oh, one other thing; set the SSD to record everything instead of continuously transmitting, we can dump the thing's memory when we retrieve it later."  He told the engineer.
     The latter part of his instructions would make sense from the standpoint of power conservation, but he had really done it without consciously thinking about it; he realized that he had done so mostly to keep anyone from being able to interfere with his getting a good look at the prize he was trying to collect.  It occurred to him that maybe he was being paranoid, and that what he really needed was a few hours of sleep.  He knew that wasn't going to happen, so he kept on working with the limited data he had, trying to find a way to turn their massive find into an equally massive goldmine.
     A little less than an hour later, his com badge chirped lighting up with the Chief Engineer's icon, and he nearly dislocated his thumb trying to hit 'Accept'.
     "Captain, I thought you should know that the SSD has reached the ship, and is running according to plan."  Ludmilla told him, succinctly, and added:  "It should finish within the next 45 minutes, and then be on its way back; call it two hours before we bring it back aboard and download any usable information out of it."
     She didn't wait for an answer, and cut the connection before he had a chance to respond, but he was unfazed by the chief engineer's blunt manner.  After nearly a decade of working together, the two of them barely needed to talk at all in order to communicate effectively.  Ludmilla Brostowski had been his chief engineer since leaving Haro-Ryushi to go privateer; she had been pushed out of the Tanner Combine, a large interstellar-capable shipping and freight hauling company.  They had officially declared her as 'surplus to requirements', but like a lot of people who raised objections to corporate skirting of regulations, she had simply been pushed out for refusing to put the ship she was responsible for at risk, and insisting that standard maintenance schedules be adhered to.  She had come on board, full of the iron pride of her Polish upbringing, and confident in her skills, both of which had stood her in good stead - and occasionally irritated the hell out him.  Nevertheless, she not only kept the Jester running, but in better shape than he had a right to expect, and she knew its every dent, patch, and secret better than anyone.  He'd learned a long time ago that people like her were rare, and when they showed up, you did whatever you had to in order to keep them happy.
     He realized that Mule-1 would be docking anytime now, and decided to head down to the well deck to meet Dirk upon arrival.  He swung by the medical bay to get Doc Morishita, since one of the survey team had apparently suffered from some kind of extreme panic attack, and no one knew how severe the damage was.  He truly appreciated having Ujio Morishita on his ship, it wasn't easy to justify the expense of keeping a fully licenced and certified medical doctor on board during the lean times, but he always made it a priority to have the doctor paid on time, regardless of the financial hardship.  Morishita, for his part, kept his certification up to date, kept a careful eye on the crew's health, and was always there when needed, uncomplaining, calm, and professional.
     As if to prove it, he found Morishita and Carla Ustinov, their new sick bay attendant, prepping a stretcher and EMS bag.  Jinx was running diagnostics on the ship's autodoc; made on Earth by Siemens-Medtronic AG, the autodoc was probably one of the most important pieces of equipment on the ship, and it hadn't been cheap.  The autodoc was a TC-7j 'Lumina', often referred to simply as 'the coffin', and it could diagnose and treat virtually any medical problem a ship's crew might have, from a sinus cold to trauma from explosive decompression.  Its bed retracted into the smooth, cylindrical housing of white metaplast while Jinx did her work, and he caught her eye as she looked up from the diagnostic tablet in her hand.
     "How'd the coffin check out, Jinx?  Everything good?".  He asked her.
     "As good as possible; all its systems check out, and I plan to keep it on standby for now, just in case it's needed.". She replied confidently.
     Intellectually, Cameron knew that he really didn't need to be in the medical bay right now, but he needed to be absolutely certain that his crew were up to the challenges coming their way.  Doc Morishita, Jinx, and Ustinov all exuded such a profound competence in their work that he sometimes wondered why they stuck around.  Today was one of those days when he was just glad that they did.  Further introspection was cut short by Bao-Jian's call from the bridge.
     "Captain, just thought you should know, but Mule-1 is on final approach, and should be fully docked within the next few minutes."  The pilot informed him as he watched the doctor load the EMS bag on the stretcher.
     "Thanks, Shen, I will be on my way threr shortly, you have the bridge for the remainder of the watch."  Cameron said, and turned to Morishita.  "All set, Doc?"
     "I believe so, Captain.  With only limited information regarding the patient's condition, I have prepared for a wide range of possibilities."  There was a mild reproof in the reply, and he understood the doctor's feelings.
     He was anticipating a less than pleasant conversation with Dirk once he was back aboard, and the closer that moment, the more incensed he became with his gunner.  Given the circumstances, he could understand cutting the survey short, but a complete communications blackout with a medical case in transit was criminally negligent at best.  To call his mood dark as he set foot in the well deck where Mule-1 was once again securely docked would have been a massive understatement.
     He spotted Dirk talking to Rollie, he appeared to have already removed his EVA gear and his exo, and as he got closer he could hear him say: "... I know, Rollie, just stay here, shut up, and get my exo back to the Crypt when the doc and company have got Bujdoso out of here, alright?"
     Cameron could see Rollie give him a look that bordered on mutinous before saying: "Fine!  I don't see what difference it makes, but you win!  Happy?"
     Dirk's reply was too quiet for him to hear, but the look on Rollie's face was a complex blend of sympathy and frustration.
     "Dirk!  Get over here!"  Cameron shouted from the deck, as soon as Morishita and Ustinov had gotten inside the tug, and Dirk had spoken briefly with them regarding Bujdoso.
     He didn't waste time; he marched over with a look on his face that - had he noticed it - might have worried Cameron right through the anger he'd built up on the way down.  Dirk looked like hell up close; his face, normally a mask of professional arrogance, was drawn and seemed pale.  None of which could be allowed to prevent Cameron from addressing his reckless, insubordinate behavior.
     "Do you have any idea how many USITC, Space Enforcement Agency, FSL, and Navy regulations governing the use of exoatmospheric craft you've bent, broken, or just ignored?"  He demanded rhetorically, and continued; "If we were anywhere near a populated star system, I'd beach you with a recommendation that your ticket be revoked, and you be brought up on charges.  In fact, I have half a mind to confine you to your quarters, and do it anyway."
     Cameron paused for a second, took a long breath, and said:  "But before I do, you will explain to me just what the hell you found on that ship, do you hear me?"
     Dirk didn't say anything for several seconds; then, in a flat voice seemingly leached of feeling, replied:  "I'll tell you as much as I can - but only you - and when I do, I promise you'll wish I never had.  I'll be in your office."
     He found himself following Dirk out of the well deck, with a sudden chill running down his spine.  He suddenly realized what he was hearing in the man's voice; it had taken a few moments for it to register, simply because he'd never heard it from Dirk.
     It was fear.