Fugitives, p.12
Fugitives, page 12
part #9 of Steven Gordon Series
By the sixth day, Tok had relaxed enough to request that his men come up for a sit-down meal at the table. Charlie put his guys down to keep an eye on the cargo. Afterwards Charlie lowered the shield on the gantry at his request and by the last day they were all on good terms.
Chapter 27
Charlie was standing by the ramp as it went down. He saw the tops of their heads and read their intentions as they leapt the last foot onto the ramp. He took one step and kicked their leader hard, who shot back off the ramp. Charlie’s escape tool leapt into his hands and two weapons exploded in the hands of their owners. Howe, Tapper and Lewis were right behind him, their weapons levelled at the intruders. Tok and his men were a second slower.
‘Prepare to fire!’ Charlie roared. ‘Drop your weapons or die.’
‘Wait!’ Their leader managed to gasp.
‘Drop them.’
One man hesitated and he screamed in agony as Charlie’s tool sliced an arm off.
‘One second more.’ He growled. Their weapons hit the ground. ‘Lie face down.’ He ordered.
‘Wait,’ Tok placed his hand on his shoulder. ‘They aren’t after the cargo. I know these assholes.’
Charlie switched off his escape tool and sheathed it. He went over to their leader and hauled him to his feet.
‘What are you arseholes up to? This cargo is under Imperial protection, I have the right to kill anyone threatening it, me, or my crew. You have a few seconds to live.’
‘We are from your rival company.’
‘No idea what you are talking about.’
‘They are your competition,’ Tok explained. ‘They have the long-term contract for deliveries. They don’t like people muscling in on their action. This is how they deal with it.’
‘Aren’t very good, are they?’
‘They think they are.’
Charlie pulled his victim close. ‘You have five seconds to get out of our sight before we kill you. Do you understand?’ He managed a nod. ‘Good.’ Charlie threw him a lot further than he maybe should have, but it had the desired effect. They scrambled away, taking the screaming man with them. He howled for a friend to take his arm. One of them did so reluctantly, leaving their weapons behind.
Charlie gave a nod, Howe and Tapper shot out and picked the weapons up.
‘Here was me thinking you were walking about unarmed all the time.’ Tok smiled.
‘I never walk about unarmed.’
Sirens began to sound. The landing pad was very close to a main street. The town looked a little rough around the edges, but in the distance he could see magical towers rise above a red cloud of dust that seemed to hang over everything.
Police vehicles sailed into sight, their lights flashing. They settled down and Tok went forward to greet them and quickly explained the situation. Charlie was reading the policeman’s mind as he approached.
‘This guy’s in the pocket of that company,’ he warned his people.
Howe give a slight nod. ‘How are we going to handle it?’
‘I’m going to dazzle the bastard with bullshit.’
Before the policeman could open his mouth, Charlie waded in.
‘What the hell is going on, why weren’t you here to meet us?’ The policeman opened his mouth to reply but Charlie did not give him a chance. ‘Under section 374, 326, of the Imperial code, all Imperial cargo of value, must be met at the landing site on time. It is the responsibility of the commander on the ground to ensure that the area is clear of any possible armed insurrectionists, of any kind.
‘We were given clearance to say the site was clear from your department, yet we were met with armed men who tried to storm this ship and secure its cargo. I am holding you responsible under section 374, 327 part B. I will require an official investigation under section C as to why we were ordered to land without the proper measures being in place. You are right up to your armpits in shit. Do you have anything to say for yourself before I have you arrested?’
‘You can’t…’
‘Under section 374, 328, I have the power to arrest any officer who has neglected to do his duty, or shoot them out of hand if I think they are going to resist arrest, as well as anyone else who tries to prevent that arrest. Am I making myself clear officer?’
‘You could cut him some slack,’ Tok suggested, trying to hide his amusement.
‘Why should I? He has obviously neglected his duties, or even undermined them.’
‘I know him, he isn’t a bad guy.’
Charlie shoved his face into the policeman’s. ‘You might be the king of this little shit pile in the arse end of the universe officer, but you aren’t bigger than the Empire or its laws. Get your shit wired straight or I will seriously fuck you up. Am I making myself clear?’
‘Yes sir!’ Was as much as he could croak.
‘Then attend to your duties please. If you do it right, I will say no more on this matter. Tok, you are the company representative, take over from here will you.’
‘Yes sir.’
Charlie ended up back on the bridge with a cup of coffee talking to one of the company men. They were early for the flour pick up and it wouldn’t be ready until the following morning. Charlie asked if it would be possible to add an extra ton of flour; he was willing to pay a little extra for their inconvenience. The company man seemed to be happy that they were getting some of their money back and charged him double. It suited Charlie just fine.
Howe came up and sat down opposite. ‘You are a piece of work Charlie. Tok was still laughing when they left.’
‘What am I supposed to say… the policeman was up to his neck in it. Those guys were going to secure the cargo and hold the company to ransom over it.’
‘Was all that stuff real?’
‘Very real. Every word, letter for letter. I didn’t expect that though.’
‘The company must have quite a hold in this area.’
‘Aye, well we just put a crack in their shell.’
‘What will happen now?’
‘He will be forced to find those men who tried to assault the ship.’
‘What about us?’
‘We gain a reputation for being reliable, on time and able to defend the goods we carry. There will be no repercussions. Just one word to any Imperial inspector about this will bring so much shit down on their heads it is unreal. If we stayed here then I would have just killed them, which would have brought an inspector hotfooting it in here. That company would have been right in the shit.’
‘We don’t really want that do we?’
‘That’s just it, but they don’t know that.’
Howe barked a laugh, ‘Good point.’
‘No one leaves the ship, get them all in and accounted for. No excursions, no excuses. Tomorrow we get the flour and leave, drop it off, pick up the next load of gold, back here, pick up the stores, back to the mining community, then we are away.’
‘Why not just pick up the stores now?’
‘The load isn’t ready, we have also doubled the inventory, this thing will be damn near filled to the beams with stores.’
‘Never realised you had ordered that much.’
‘Our goal is to fill our ships as quickly as possible and, if possible, under the radar. I also managed to add a ton of flour to this deal. Our wee bonus made that possible. Tok and his guys will be coming back with us to the station, then escorting the next load down.’
‘Then how do we get rid of the flour on this trip?’
‘They will have to report to their repository to collect the gold and escort it out. Babes will swap out what Stevie and Komoru have found and we tell them we exchanged the flour for it. Get it added to their inventory. We can ask Tok to grab his local accessor.’
Chapter 28
The accessor blinked in surprise at the rich haul. ‘You didn’t exchange all of this for a ton of flour?’
‘Hardly.’ Charlie showed him a fake receipt.
‘You got a good price for it all.’
‘We threw in the flour as a sweetener. Pay us a few pennies more on the load and it’s yours.’
‘You could make more banking it yourself.’
‘By the time we add in armoured car hire, and all that shit, we won’t be any better off.’
‘That is true I suppose, and it certainly won’t cost us any more to stick it in the same armoured car as the rest of it. The boss has asked if you guys would like a permanent contract with us.’
Charlie shook his head. ‘We have family commitments further on. Our real goal here is a shipment of stores to them. They have been waiting for a while. We should reach them before things get desperate, but not if we keep getting held back in this sector.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Asteroid DBRV 5567849486734774634.’
‘Oh right!’ You have a fair bit of travelling to do then.’
‘Yup.’
‘I will get on with this then and then contact my superiors.’
He assayed the gold and gemstones then got in touch with his people. He came back to Charlie with a smile.
‘The boss will be more than happy to take it all off your hands, at a little more than you were asking for as a thank you. There will be no bonus on this trip though.’
Charlie laughed, ‘I understand.’
‘He thanks you for your service and extends a hand. If you are in this sector again, you are welcome to come and see him to form a contract.’
‘Thank him for his consideration for me.’
‘I will.’
This time Charlie gave them free reign of the ship and it was a very relaxed journey. There were no surprises waiting for them when they made planetfall the second time, but Charlie detected some unsavoury characters lurking around and kept the crew aboard. The following day the stores arrived for the station. It really did fill the hold to the beam, and after it was loaded, they had a bit of trouble squeezing past it all.
Lewis had segregated both piles and when the ship was unloaded at the other end, the load that was left looked like a cliff that was about to collapse. Lewis and the crew worked hard to even it out before they took off. Again, Charlie detected more unsavoury characters and kept them on board. As soon as the load was settled, they departed.
They rendezvoused with Babes and Ico a thousand miles from the station in a dense part of the asteroid field. Steven and Komoru beamed over. Steven had a lump in his throat as he cast his eyes over the half mountain of stores. Komoru spontaneously gave Charlie a hug which nearly frightened him half to death.
Steven extended a hand and Charlie shook it with a frown.
‘What the hell is up with you pair today?’
Steven laughed, ‘It’s hope Charlie. We have all been on short rations for a while. We pulled a huge haul from this asteroid field while we were waiting for you. We found some very rich deposits. Do you think you could pop back and cash it in?’
‘Unwise. We almost over did it with your last haul. It was more than some miners haul out in a couple of years. We are going to have to create a better false paper trail than we have been doing.’
‘I don’t suppose it matters, but we have enough to pay for everyone’s identification now. Half the funds have already been transferred, we pick up their new IDs on a planet called Elvin, believe it or not. Some kind of government repository. They type in their details, say their IDs were lost in a ship’s fire and they will be issued with a new one. All automated. Their bank accounts will be charged the duplication fees.’
‘They have bank accounts now?’
‘Yes, so you had better make sure you pay them something.’
‘You’re the one with your finger on the trigger there.’
He laughed, ‘I’ll make sure there is enough in their accounts.’ He turned back to the half mountain. ‘This should last both ships a few months at least. It will get us to where we want to be, but it won’t get us home.’
‘That reminds me…’ Charlie walked over to the wall and picked up one of the boxes left by the guards. He handed the long box to Steven.
‘What’s this?’
‘It is what the guards were issued with. When I was in the army, we used to get issued with ten-man ration packs sometimes. This is something similar. We need Cookie to evaluate it. Himari is on the case now, but it seems the military sell off this stuff in bulk by auction. It is bought by different companies that then sell it to the miners.’
‘Why do they sell it off?’
‘Because it’s close to the end of its shelf life. This stuff lasts for ten years. A year before it goes out of date, they sell off anything that hasn’t been used.’
‘Can we get our hands on any of it?’
Charlie shrugged, ‘No sure yet. We could always build up stock by sourcing small amounts from lots of different suppliers, but that would be a pain in the arse. Ideally, we need it in bulk.’
‘I’ll give it to Cookie.’
‘So what now?’
‘Onwards to Elvin. Get those identifications. We keep adding to our stores. We are now beyond the point we would have left Imperial space if we had gone in the other direction. The hunt may well start in earnest now. There isn’t many places we can leave Imperial space from, and we are still a good distance from those. We have sent out probes with that message you suggested, but the thing is that it will take them another month to get clear of Imperial space and start transmitting. Without relay stations, it will take time for the message to reach Earth.’
‘Maybe we should leave the rim then and head inwards. There are lots of mining systems we can work in.’
‘I will think about it. Another thing I need to think about is getting the crew a break. Tension is running high; they need some sun and fresh air. And another thing, what are we going to do with this ship when we are finished with it Charlie?’
‘I thought we were going to dump it somewhere. We can’t take it home; it can’t carry enough fuel. Not that I wouldn’t like to take it home.’
‘The technology used to construct it is too far advanced just to leave it somewhere. They will eventually track it down. What about tossing it into a sun?’
‘The inspector told me we could damn near fly this thing through a sun. Another thing that has been bugging me about it is that the armour is so good, it would be a damn shame to destroy it. It came from a lost race. They relied more on the armour to keep themselves safe than they did their shields.’
‘We have some spare that we can analyse on Earth.’
‘You never said.’
‘Don’t worry Charlie, already thought of that one.’
Charlie scratched his head, ‘The only real way we can do it is to build auxiliary tanks; but we won’t be able to do that until the last minute. Oh! By the way, if I do go to all that trouble, then this baby belongs to me.’
‘What!’
‘Mine. It belongs to Charlie.’
‘Why?’
‘Cos.’ Charlie sniffed.
Steven laughed, ‘You like it don’t you?’
‘I like it a lot. You got your ship, Charlie got his. I got papers to prove it.’
Steven laughed even harder. ‘I suppose you are the only one of us who is stuck on the other side of the great barrier.’
‘I could go on holiday, drop off Lewis, that kind of thing.’
‘That’s actually a good idea.’
‘What about Mrs Mop?’
‘I think she will be cool with it.’
‘Then let’s get this stuff up to your ships and get the hell off mine.’
Steven completely cracked up.
Chapter 29
The Behema Emperor sat with a hot drink, deep in contemplation. The small group of officers had stood stock still in front of him for almost half an hour, yet none had dared twitch. Eventually his eyes focused, and he looked up at those gathered there.
‘Colonel Suki is it?’
The Behema in the middle who was standing slightly to the fore stiffened.
‘Yes sire.’
‘It would seem you have been announcing very loudly lately that you don’t believe the Humans have gone home.’
The officer swallowed hard. ‘I didn’t think I was shouting it too loudly sire.’
The Emperor smiled thinly, ‘You would be surprised by how many corpses in the cemetery didn’t believe they were shouting about something too loudly. However, you haven’t done anything wrong. You have simply put a little more thought into the matter than some of your peers. What makes you think they haven’t gone home?’
Suki took a deep breath, ‘The data doesn’t support them having left.’
‘Data, data, data, that’s all everyone says these days. Give me something solid.’
‘The Human’s biggest problem is supplies for a four-month journey home.’
‘We know that.’
‘There has been no sighting of the ships, no goods stolen, no sighting of any Humans on their supposed line of travel, nothing purchased that would indicate that they had managed to get their hands on enough supplies for the journey.’
‘Again, I know all that. They also eat aquatic animals Colonel. They wouldn’t have to buy them.’
‘Indeed sire, but I have read reports on their eating habits from the escort. Humans require a balanced diet to maintain good health. They require greens, more so than we do.’
‘Seaweed.’
‘There are many different cultures on board those ships, many of whom do not or cannot eat seafood or seaweed.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Yes sir, there is also the most obvious thing. Your daughter.’
‘She was loved up with one of the crew. If they have got together, she would no doubt happily follow him back to the Federation.’
‘I don’t think so sire. Her profile suggests that she wouldn’t leave the Empire.’
