THE PRIZE: BOOK TWO - RETRIBUTION (39 page)

“I will assume for the moment that you are not part of this plot.” All three shook their heads. “I will interrogate you later, and if you know anything of this plot I strongly suggest you tell me and avoid any unnecessary unpleasantness.” He deliberately used the word interrogate, instead of interview, as it sounded more menacing. All three nodded.

“You will return to the Cruiser and place yourselves under arrest. Is that clear?” The three wise moneys all nodded, bereft of the power of speech at the moment.

All three would probably spill their guts telling him everything they knew about the General’s activities, even if they had to make it up. Penn hated doing Markoff’s work for him and digging out traitors, but none of their schemes would get them closer to knocking off Markoff. He was too well protected. So much for the dick-measuring contest. It was pathetic how easily the General had caved in, all because of guilty knowledge, even by association with his nephew. It also neatly sidestepped the question of his authority. It wouldn’t take long before the news of the General’s arrest was all over the fleet, and who had arrested him. Penn doubted anyone would ask him for his credentials after this. Plots to kill Markoff were a dime a dozen where the Var were concerned, and that guilty knowledge would have most of the senior officers ducking for cover and coming up with stories to cover their own guilt. So much the better, the more they worried about their own skins the less likely they’d ask about his authority. It still didn’t answer the question of where Ellis was, or where she’d gone. Hopefully the station security tapes would provide some of the answers. He might even have to grill the slavers, those that were left, but one way or another he’d find out where she was, or was going, either as a slave, or free. Just then, the two boys returned, looking just like teenage boys should look now.

“Do you know where they keep the station security tapes by any chance?” He asked on the off chance they might know. Both boys grinned.

“Yes, sir. We know where the Var kept the security record chips.”

Without a sophisticated search program, Penn had to review several weeks of cam footage. Even on fast forward, it still took time. The boys kept him fed and supplied with an endless stream of coffee of all things, while his ship’s comm operator kept him appraised of what was going on in the fleet. They no longer pointed their weapons at the station, but did keep up a constant request to speak to him, the last being the Commodore. The standard answer they received was that he’d get back to them when he’d finished interrogating people on the station. By now, all the low life scum on the station were so shook up, none of them dared leave for fear of getting blown to dust. In all it took a day and a half before Ellis showed up on the screen and by that time, trooper E’shee reported that he’d successfully sliced the lock on the safe. Penn took a break, and freshened up before going outside. As usual now, he wore his shades and looked impassive, giving the impression of brooding intensity and dominance. The safe turned out to be even larger than the all those before put together, and he estimated there had to be over a billion gold credits and other assorted negotiable items. He put Sergeant Brask in charge of transferring the horde to his ship, adding that a couple of bags going missing wouldn’t be noticed. Brask smiled and nodded, thereby securing his, and the troopers silence and cooperation in the theft.

Penn ordered Sergeant Brask to start bringing in the station operation people one at a time, and he began his interrogation. Being stripped naked and strapped down to a chair in an overly hot, bare interrogation room for several hours had a demoralizing effect on anyone not trained in anti-interrogation techniques. Penn added a little something extra by setting up a very low-level drone, barely audible that grated on the unfortunate individual’s nerves. By the time the hatch screeched open on rusty wheels everyone was ready to talk to the point they were admitting to sins he’d never thought of. Mainly all he had to do was stand there with his hands behind his back and look at them through his shades. One look at his midnight black uniform with the twin lightning bolts on his collar and they started babbling.

“And what of this human female?” He asked when they ran down and started blubbering. He held up a data pad with Ellis’ image and watched their expression. Most times, they just looked up at him and blinked, as if they didn’t understand the question. Not surprising, as most probably hadn’t been on duty at the time, or had been engaged elsewhere when she’d docked for refueling.

“Yes, I remember her. She was IMPSEC… and stopped here to refuel.”

“And, what do you know of the plot against the Emperor and the Director of Imperial Security?” Even the mention of a plot had most peeing on the floor. The last such sweep had killed off ten times as many innocent people as it had the guilty, if there had been any. That question usually started them babbling again, pleading their innocence or knowing nothing about any such plot. The one that had started thinking about IMPSEC imposters, he had thrown into a cell on the charge of treason. That meant anything they said after that was automatically disbelieved. At least Ellis had been here, refueled her shop and took off for parts unknown. Maybe the sensor logs would give him a clue of where she went next.

For that, he had to make a trip up to the operations center, if it could be called that with Sergeant Brask in tow, not that he expected trouble but Brask wasn’t taking any chances. The place was a mess. Half the monitors were dead, panels had wiring hanging out and the place stank of old food, spilled Kaf, sweaty feet, and by the look of it the floor hadn’t been swept since Emperor Cytec was pissing in his diapers. Both the on duty personnel had their feet up on the console, one sipping Kaf while the other was smoking a stim stick and leaning back in his chair, the original operational seats long gone.

“On your feet maggots!” Sergeant Brask roared. Penn winced and suppressed a smile as both Tellurians fell out of the seats. One look and they both scrambled to their feet and came to attention. Brask stalked across the deck and stood glaring down at them.

“Smoking and drinking Kaf while on duty is forbidden.”

“But... we’re not…”

“Did I give you permission to speak.” He bellowed, rocking both back on their heels. “This officer wants to have a word with you, after which, I’ll have a few words myself, clear?” They nodded. Penn walked over and stood there for a moment looking both up and down with a slight look of distaste.

“Show me the holo log for this time period.” He held up a slip of paper with the time stamp of the Corvette’s departure.

Both scrambled for their respective consoles and began frantically tapping on the keyboards. A few moments later a holo of the local system flashed up in the tank. Penn had timed it right, and it showed a ship, presumably the Corvette leaving the dock and slowly moving to a point at the edge of the system. At that point, it winked out of local space as it jumped.

“Any way of telling where it went?”

“Not really, sir, but it would have downloaded data from the Nav Buoy before it jumped.”

“Can you retrieve that data.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then do it and be quick about it.” Moving to another console, he worked it for a few minutes, and additional data sprang up beside the ship.

“It jumped to Nav Buoy P82645-Proxima Three, sir.”

“Step out and show me where that is.” The holo zoomed out, showing more of the surrounding star field and the projected course of the fleeing ship. With no real time view, Penn could only assume that’s where it had gone. It could just have easily gone elsewhere, but at the speed of light, it would take several weeks or even months, depending on the real time distance involved before any data from P82645-Proxima Nav Buoy reached this station. Only then could he positively say that that was where the ship had gone.

“Where are we in relation to Telluria Prime?” In answer, the tech stepped out even more, gradually filling in the blank spaces around the station.

More and more icons filled the space. Nav Buoys, star systems, planets and star names, as well as showing major shipping lanes. At last, Telluria Prime showed in the tank, a very long way from here. In real time, it would take a month at least to jump there, ever by the more direct route. That was good news, as it meant that little or no current data was coming in, not that Penn expected Markoff to announce to the universe at large that he’d screwed the pooch and let him and Ellis escape.

“Keep stepping out.” He ordered, and gradually the outline of this spiral arm came into view. It was interesting to see that Ellis’ direction was towards the outer edge of the arm, and that got Penn to thinking.

“I notice that there are more Nav Buoys towards Telluria Prime and other star systems than down the arm towards the core. Why is that?” The Techs looked at each other for a moment. “Being just a simple soldier, I know little about jump points or shipping lanes, please enlighten me.” He added as a way to cover his lack of knowledge.

“Well sir. This is imperial space and well mapped. Down the arm towards the core is Thrakee and Silurian space. That’s why there are so few Nav Buoys in that direction.” It made sense, as the Empire wouldn’t have detailed knowledge about Thrakee space. It was odd that many of the border systems in Silurian space were shown however.

“Explain why we can see some of Silurian space and not the Thrakee.”

“Um… well sir, from what I know about history. At one time, we were um… somewhat friendly with the Silurians. Several of our survey ships mapped the boundary between their space and the Thrakee.” It made sense, and also told Penn where Ellis was going. The question was, could he catch up with her before she got into trouble crossing Thrakee space?

“Assuming the Corvette is heading toward Silurian space along the outer edge of the spiral arm, what would be the most direct route to intercept it before it reached Silurian space?” That brought a startled look from both the techs.

“The most direct route would be straight across Thrakee space to this Nav point.” One of the icons in the tank began to flash. ‘The problem is, we don’t have any Nav Buoys in Thrakee space, nor can we use theirs. The hand-shake protocol and encryption is different.”

“I understand that, but what if a ship took a jump from the last buoy to one known one on the other side?” Again, the techs looked at each other.

“That would mean you’d have to be in jump space for over two months, sir.” Penn frowned, understanding what they meant.

On a short jump, say of two weeks, and the debilitating effects of jump space weren’t so apparent. More than that and the accumulated effects of stray radiation and neutrino particles had a detrimental effect on performance. Commercial cargo ships that did take long jumps usually had the crew in cryo-sleep and rotated them at regular intervals to prevent this. Warships on the other hand couldn’t do that with their high crew compliments and the need to be ready to go into battle at any moment. If he remembered right, it took several hours to bring someone out of cryo-sleep. Streaking through jump space was like a blazing arrow pointing in one direction, and risked being detected by the enemy. Once detected, they could calculate where you were going to exit from the jump and have a fleet standing by when you did. Not a good thing when it took so long to bring the crew to battle stations. Penn thought about it as he paced slowly back and forth, frowning slightly in thought. His ship could make the jump, and the crew compliment was small enough to put most in cryo-sleep. It was also possible that one ship might go undetected and able to slip across Thrakee space. It was still a high-risk proposition, and the thought of coming out and being surrounded by Thrakee warships didn’t have a lot of appeal. He stopped for a moment in front of a monitor, and for a moment didn’t realize what he was looking at, then he did. It was a view outside the station, and Tellurian fleet. His lips twitched in a smile. Being one small Corvette in the middle of a Tellurian fleet was a different kettle of fish. If… no, when they were detected the Thrakee would go after the larger ships rather than his, and in the confusion of battle he should be able to slip away and jump before they noticed.

Penn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. So far, he’d been flying on one wing and a prayer. It was one thing to con the odd Tellurian station commander and the crew of a courier ship, but could he carry it off with the Admiral and senior officers of an entire fleet? Impersonating an IMPSEC Colonel with a pair of big brass balls could only carry him so far. Someone was bound to ask for his credentials and authorization, and check them against their database. When nothing showed up whoever it was would start questioning those orders. He stood there thinking, formulating one plan after another and rejecting them. He had to come up with a game changer, something that would stick and stop any questions before they started. In the end, he turned and walked out of the control center and back to the late Var’s quarters. A stiff drink, food, coffee and a shower worked their magic and he was soon sliding between clean sheets for a good night’s sleep. Maybe that would help jog his brain into coming up with a workable plan to save Ellis’s ass. Day and night are arbitrary on a space station and as luck would have it, it was the night cycle when he climbed into bed. He hadn’t thought about security when he’d gone to sleep, and to his surprise, he found both boys wrapped in blankets on each side of his door when he walked out. Both were armed with flechette pistols, and were both fast asleep. Smiled at their attempt at guarding his person, even if nature had taken over and put them both to sleep.

“Time to wake up, boys. We need some breakfast.” They looked up at him with sleepy eyes before coming wide awake and looking sheepish. “Not to worry, it’s the thought that counts.

After a good breakfast prepared between the three of them, Penn wandered into the late Var’s office and checked out the contents of the safe. Greedy wasn’t the word for Var Petofi as there was still a fortune in gold credits on the shelves even after Sergeant Brask’s detail had transferred much of it to his ship. On a whim, he started checking out the numerous documents stacked on one shelf, wondering why the Var needed to keep them. Having records of his sticky fingers wasn’t something the Var’s were noted for, so why keep these documents? Most appeared to be electronic messages of one sort or another about some upcoming sweepstake or animal race. Some of the names he recognized as high ranking Vars, even a few close to the Emperor himself. What struck him as odd were the references to some training mission by the military and the navy units in case of an invasion. He dug deeper but couldn’t find out who the supposed invader was, just that key civil and military installations were to be taken over and held against the possibility of an insurgent attack, or by covert enemy units dressed in imperial uniforms, all under the cover of a horse race.