In Earth's Service (Mapped Space Book 2) (5 page)

Now I understood why Sorvino had ordered me not to
shoot. Trask’s hit squad were all O-Force veterans. At the first sign of a
weapon, they’d have cut me to pieces without breaking stride.

Domar Trask, the only one of the three on my EIS
wanted list, had been a Battle Force Commander, court martialled for killing a
URA superior officer in a bar fight on New Liberty. He’d done it in the heart
of Washington Base, the URA’s largest training facility outside the Solar
System, in front of an army of witnesses and the base’s surveillance system.
The court martial had been a formality, but it had taken four military police,
two assault troopers, and an angry barman with a gee-bat to subdue him. Two of
the MP’s woke up in hospital for their trouble. Showing no remorse, Trask got
twenty to life in a military prison. He escaped nine months later, killing one
guard and maiming another in the process. Wanted by the URA, O-Force and two
ex-wives, he’d turned merc – definitely not the kind of man we wanted having
anything to do with alien cultures, not unless we wanted Access Treaty
problems.

Trask’s two companions had less colorful
histories. Stina Kron and Julkka Olen were both O-Force vets, honorably
discharged. No trouble with the law, but long associations with Trask before his
fall from grace. After leaving their planet’s service, both had disappeared
from sight.

Olen, the stocky former master sergeant who’d shattered
my skull, was a heavy weapons specialist who’d served alongside Trask for more
than a decade. Before teaming up with the O-Force Commander, he’d done several
stints in the brig for minor infractions. He had a hot temper and a mean
streak, but after coming under Trask’s influence, his record had been clean,
even commendable. He’d even received a commendation for bravery for putting
down a bloody insurrection on Yalis.

Stina Kron was a fighting suit expert. She’d
served as a specialist instructor with both Indian Republic and People’s Federation
of Asia forces and had more than sixty orbital training jumps to her credit,
most from Earth Navy ships. Unlike her two companions, her record was
exemplary. The PFA had tried to recruit her and O-Force had even offered her a
commission, both of which she refused.

When I’d finished studying their dossiers, I had
more questions than answers. Foremost among them was why three former Orie spec
forces types had murdered an EIS deep cover agent on an alien planet, popped
off two of the locals who’d got in their way and managed to escape under the
noses of technologically superior local law enforcement. Trask was a bad seed,
but his two accomplices had solid records, even if Olen required a short leash.
Was it personal loyalty to Trask that had dragged them down, or something else?

Whatever the reason, I hoped to find it in the
swamps of Novo Pantanal in six days.

Permian world

Qesari System, Outer Draco

1.09 Earth Normal Gravity

937 light years from Sol

124 Humans

The
Silver Lining
unbubbled at minimum
safe distance from Novo Pantanal’s gravity well a day before the date in
Sorvino’s data block. In the time it took Jase to deploy our sensors, a yellow
hulled ship with a triangular engine configuration jumped in on top of us. Her
transponder was broadcasting and her weapons were hot, although it took them a
few seconds to get a lock on us.

“Gutsy move,” I said, “jumping in on us blind.”

We could have fired before they got their sensors
out, if we’d been looking for a fight and if our single cannon had been
charged. The sentry ship had thick armor and four medium range weapons, not
nearly enough to take on a navy frigate, but a serious threat to any raider and
more firepower than we carried.

“She’s a merc escort,” Jase said, studying the
transponder data, “licensed to the Rafha Corporation.”

Rafha was one of the thousands of small Second
Caliphate operated trade companies proliferating Mapped Space and according to
the Society Register, the owner of the trading post down on Novo Pantanal.
Tradeco’s were a step up from solitary free traders. They tended to stick to
the major long haul trade lanes, often hiring armed ships to protect their
cargo vessels and occasionally attack their competitors, but Novo Pantanal was
a long way from the nearest trunk route.

“They want to talk,” Jase said, accepting their
hail.

A middle aged man with an elaborate moustache and
a red satin turban appeared on screen. “Identify yourself.”

I nodded to Jase, who activated our transponder.

When he saw who we were, he said, “State your
business Union trader.”

My mind raced. Novo Pantanal was a nowhere planet
with only a tiny trading post stuck in the middle of a swamp world at a
primitive stage of evolution. If that was all it was, it didn’t rate a merc
escort ship for protection.

Beside me, Jase quietly pointed to his sensor
console. He was tracking more than two hundred ships on the ground, clustered close
together on the planet’s surface. That told me everything I needed to know.

“We’re here for the floating souk,” I said.

It was a guess, but if I was right, this escort
was working for the Rashidun, the Rightly Guided, a secretive Second Caliphate syndicate
that operated a notorious black market, the Rashidun Souk. The souk moved from
one remote planet to another, always staying one jump ahead of UniPol and Earth
Navy. There were many souks scattered across Mapped Space, all elusive, all appearing
at certain times and places, then vanishing after a few weeks only to reappear at
a later date somewhere else. Catching them was like grasping at smoke, but as
they tended to deal only in smuggled goods, the EIS paid them little attention.

“What do you have to trade?”

“Nine thousand five hundred grams of niskgel.” It
was the only cargo of value we carried, not exactly contraband, but a good swap
for an illegal load.

“What do you seek?”

It was a trick question. If I named a cargo, it
would prove I didn’t know how this game was played and he’d open fire. “Right
guidance and privacy.” It told him I knew this was the Rashidun floating black
market and I reserved my right to conceal what I was looking for.

The escort commander nodded. “The Rashidun Souk
welcomes you. After landing, deliver two percent of your niskgel to our factor.”
It was their cut for running a market where anything could be bought and sold
without questions.

“Two percent?” I said. Prices had gone up since my
last visit to a Souk.

“UniPol activity has been increasing,” he said. “Extra
sentries cost money. Keep a constant comms watch. We will broadcast one general
warning should Earth Council forces arrive, then our escorts will abandon the
system. Disable your transponder after landing and do not reactivate it in this
system if the Souk is terminated.”

The Rashidun wanted everyone to run, hiding their
identity, making it harder for Earth Navy or UniPol to track down the
participants.

“A sensible precaution.”

The escort commander closed the channel, then his
brightly painted ship turned away. By now we had detected four more merc
escorts patrolling beyond Novo Pantanal’s gravity well, ensuring only genuine
black market traders were allowed to approach the surface. Much further out
were picket ships, ready to jump in and warn the Souk of the arrival of Earth
Navy or UniPol ships at the edge of the system.

“Will those escorts fight if the Brotherhood show
up?” Jase asked.

“Depends what the Rashidun are paying them.” Trade
company escorts would attack Brotherhood ships on sight – that was their job –
but Rashidun gunships would only risk battle if they’d been hired for a stand
up fight. These mercs looked like they were only on traffic control and picket
duty.

While the escort moved off, we headed for Novo
Pantanal, a dark green world with low mountain ranges, shallow oceans, thousands
of lakes and endless white clouds. It was a hot and steamy world, where the
highest life forms were insects and reptiles and while the plant life was
abundant, the soils and water were uncomfortably acidic for human needs. On the
sunward facing side, a continent sized shimmer reflected off a vast expanse of shallow
water lying beneath the greenery, hinting at the great swamp dominating much of
the planet’s surface.

Small footsteps sounded behind us as Izin entered
the flight deck. He climbed up onto the acceleration couch behind mine and
Jase’s and focused his bulging blue-green amphibian eyes on the screen. My
tamph engineer normally stayed in engineering tracking the ship’s vitals,
especially during atmospheric insertion, but Novo Pantanal had piqued his
curiosity.

“Told you there was lots of water down there,” I
said.

“Just because I’m amphibian, Captain, doesn’t mean
I have any particular fascination for watery planets,” Izin replied through the
triangular vocalizer over his small mouth.

“Doesn’t remind you of home?” Jase asked.

“Earth is not a swamp,” Izin declared, “nor is my
people’s birth world.”

Izin had never seen the Intruder Homeworld and
Earth had no contact with the Intruder Civilization, but the Tau Cetins had
given us enough information to understand tamph origins. There were risks
allowing the tamphs to stay, but the decision had been made millennia ago after
a wrecked Intruder ship had crashed on Earth. The tamphs were the descendants
of the survivors and they’d been on Earth long enough that we weren’t about to
kick them off now.

“It is Earth,” I said, “as it was three hundred
million years ago.”

“Its biosphere is comparable to the Permian Era,”
Izin conceded, “although both Earth and my ancestor’s homeworld had more varied
topography and more complex life forms at this stage of their evolution.”

“So, no swimming?” I asked.

“The astrographics register indicates the sea life,
while primitive, is highly aggressive.”

Jase turned to him genuinely surprised. “You’re
not going to let a few angry fish frighten you, are you?”

“I doubt the creatures down there have evolved the
capacity for anger,” Izin said. “I simply have no desire to exterminate
primitive aquatic life forms in order to get wet.”

Jase and I exchange amused looks, imagining Izin
wading naked through Novo Pantanal’s sprawling wetlands with a gun in each hand,
blasting every ripple, then the
Silver Lining
slid onto the guide beam
and nosed into the atmosphere.

We followed the beam down through white clouds toward
a tropical jungle teaming with primitive life. The only cleared dry land was
located on a low island close to the equator. When we dropped below the clouds,
a squalid collection of buildings came into view. They were closely packed,
separated by narrow alley ways and dotted with photon collectors and communication
arrays. According to the astrographics database the town, if you could call it
that, was named Kedira. The Rafha Corp owned trading post most likely harvested
biomatter from the surrounding wetlands, but the real source of its profits
would be its periodic hosting of the Rashidun Souk.

Surrounding the town in all directions were
several kilometers of cleared land where the ships we’d detected from space
were parked. It was unusual to see a spaceport encircling a town. Normally they
were located a safe distance away, but this was no standard spaceport.
Surrounding the ships were tents and marquees where black marketeers offered
their goods for sale or barter. There were so many tents that they had merged
together, creating a ring around Kedira Town, a sure sign the Rashidun Souk had
been going for some weeks and was almost full to capacity.

“If you want to sell your neutron rifle, Izin,” I
said, “this is the place.”

“Only if I could find something better, Captain.”

“Better than a flesh melter?” Jase said. “Good
luck!”

There were several landing areas at the edges of
the Souk large enough for the
Silver Lining
. Wanting to avoid attention,
I picked the smallest one on the southern side, where we could squeeze in between
several large ships and the edge of the forest. I circled wide and came in over
the trees so I could put her down without knocking over our neighbor’s tent
stalls.

“Jase,” I said as soon as we landed, “Drop our
belly door, set up an awning and offer a kilogram of niskgel.”

“What do you want for it?”

“Anything we can offload in a legitimate port without
getting arrested.”

Jase scowled, certain anything he could pick up in
a Rashidun Souk would get us thrown in jail. “You’re not joining me?”

“No, Izin and I are going to separate out the
signatures of every ship here. See if there’s anyone we know.”

Considering there were several hundred ships to
choose from and no transponders active, it would be no easy task.

* * * *

Mapping each ship’s neutrino signature proved
more difficult than I expected because the ships were so close together and many
had similar energy plants. All were idling in prelaunch modes, ready to run
should the merc escorts give the word, but even with strong signals, we couldn’t
identify half of them because they were full time smugglers not listed in the
Society’s recognition catalogue.

“The men you’re looking for could be on any of those
ships,” Izin said as he stared at his six screens, each filled with rows of white
boxes containing wavy green energy signatures.

“Or none of them. We are a day early.”

“It’s three hours to midnight.”

I stood, stretching my legs. “I’m going to get
some sleep. I’ll deliver the niskgel to the Rashidun factor tomorrow. Maybe I
can get something out of him.”

“The Rashidun are known for their discretion,
Captain.”

“And for their corruption.”

When I got to my stateroom, I used my threading to
trigger instant sleep. Whatever was happening tomorrow, I wanted to be fully
rested. After what seemed like only a moment, a side effect of threading
induced sleep, the intercom sounded.

“Captain,” Izin said, “another ship has just
landed. The same ship that left Nisport ahead of us, the Merak Star.”

It was almost dawn.

* * * *

With three hundred grams of niskgel in my
pocket, I walked down the belly door-ramp into cloyingly thick air. The
tropical heat and humidity was made more oppressive by the harsh orange sunlight.
Jase had strung several photon sheets from the gantries astern where we
normally towed three VRS shipping containers. He’d set up a folding table in
the shade with a sign offering niskgel and informing prospective buyers that
he’d be open for business at eight.

I hurried past our stall into the tent city. The
maze of narrow alleys and multicolored pavilions that had grown up around the
grounded ships were just coming to life with vendors laying out their rare and
beautiful items for sale. Some were stolen, some were banned because of their
intoxicating, sexual, violent or depraved natures, but all would deliver
tremendous rewards to any who could sneak them onto a human populated world.
The Rashidun Souk was a gold mine for smugglers, collectors and UniPol agents
alike, although one had to be well connected to know when and where it would next
appear.

Some vendors held up items as I passed, hoping to
tempt me to buy, showing only the merest disappointment when I ignored them.
Several of the shadier types watched me, wondering what treasure I might be
carrying, but with my P-50 in plain sight, none tried their luck. After passing
seven ships and the makeshift stalls surrounding them, I reached the dirty
prefab walls of the trading post. It comprised a cluster of mostly two story warehouses
and sleeping quarters for the sales agents who would stay after the Souk moved
on, picking up what local intersystem trade they could while they waited for
the floating black market to return.

The factor lived and worked in an imposing white
building with an ornate façade in the center of town. When I entered, a well
dressed young man offered to accept my exaction, but I insisted on speaking
with the factor himself. Without any sign of irritation, he politely showed me
through to the inner sanctum, a surprisingly plush office decorated with marble
and thickly woven carpet.

“Captain Sirius Kade? I am Jasim Hajjar,” he said,
extending his hand in greeting. He had a full beard with flecks of gray and wore
purple silk robes with a curved thermal-dagger protruding from his sash. “You
wished to see me?”