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.

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.