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.
"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.
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