This Corner of the Universe (8 page)

First,
the freighter’s registration and licensing were confirmed, a simple matter that
could be done via data link.  Every Brevic cargo freighter was required to be
registered with the Brevic Ministry of Commerce.  The database was continuously
updated via a militarized version of standata.  Additionally, all freighter captains
were required to carry proof of registration on their ships in the event that
the inspecting ship did not have the freighter in its database.  An
unregistered ship was to be immediately impounded; a threat that virtually
guaranteed any upstanding freighter would comply with the regulation.  Beyond
ship registration, the license of the captain would be confirmed.  Upon
confirmation, the captain would then be required to reaffirm under oath that his
ship’s officers were properly licensed.  Chief Brown would then conduct a few
random license checks on different officers. 

Next,
the ship’s manifest was matched with the physical cargo in the hold.  Under the
2500 section of the ISC Rules, any ship designated to haul cargo had to have
accurate manifests for the last six months.  Heskan knew that his inspection
crew would first scour over the manifest for any inconsistencies.  After
verifying the paperwork, they would break into teams and actually account for
each and every cargo container on the ship.  Unfortunately, inspecting the
cargo of a 450,000 metric ton bulk cargo carrier was time consuming. 
Additionally, opening an initial cargo container usually revealed several more
boxes, containers, barrels and tubs inside. It was unrealistic to open and
visually inspect each box, each package and every liquid or bulk container. 
The inspection team had to rely upon each initial cargo container’s seal. 

When
a cargo container was packed, a certified cargo master would observe.  The
master would then seal the container with a specialized seal that would break if
the container was reopened before reaching its declared destination.  Attached
to the seal, a cargo bill affirmed what was packed into that particular cargo
container and that it had been safely and properly packed according to ISC
Rules.  Chief Brown’s inspection teams would visually check each seal to insure
it had not been tampered with after a cargo master had secured it. 

Finally,
the inspectors would search the ship for hidden cargo spaces and contraband. 
The inspection teams would use sonic interrogators to check for smuggler’s
compartments and aromatic detectors tuned to sniff for various types of illicit
cargo.  The chief had told Heskan this was usually the phase where contraband,
if any existed, would be found.  As he sat on the bridge, Heskan realized that
another benefit of searching an Emeray freighter was the low probability of actually
discovering anything illegal.  Emeray Freight depended heavily on being
reputable and was too profitable to bother operating a smuggler’s ship. 
It’s
nice to get one “under the belt” so to speak before we perform an inspection
where something might actually go wrong
, he thought.  Three hours later,
Chief Brown signaled that EF-08 had passed inspection and his crew was
returning to
Anelace
.

Once
the shuttle was secured, both ships resumed their course for the RALF. 

“Secure
from action stations.  Jack, give me ship-wide communications,” Heskan
ordered.  He waited half a beat as the sensors ensign quickly complied before
speaking.  “Attention, Anelace, this is the captain.  Good work on that
inspection, everyone.  We’re still a little slow on coming to action stations but
we’re improving and we’ll have plenty more practice.  Section chiefs debrief
your sections and we’ll discuss the inspection at our next staff meeting. 
Heskan out.”

The
chime of Heskan’s cabin door knocked him out of his trance.  Looking at the
ship’s chronometer, he realized that he had spent the last three hours meticulously
studying the details of
Vagabond
in a vain effort to find some clue to
its rapid departure from the Skathi system.  So far, his continued efforts had
produced nothing.  Trying to trace the ship to a company, trying to learn more
information about its mysterious captain, trying to see some pattern in the
ship’s cargo manifest and working backwards from the ship’s recent ports of
call had all been dead ends.  The ship, its captain, its cargo and its previous
stops had been either hidden from standata or the information was so
generalized it was worthless.

Curiously,
Vagabond’s
cargo manifests showed only a variance of five percent for
the last three years.  While it was true that private freighter captains would
generally run an optimized route to yield as great a profit as possible, even
minor fluctuations in the trading prices of commodities over three years meant
that the cargo
Vagabond
carried should have changed to reflect those
routine price variations.  Instead, she had dutifully carried the same cargo in
the same amounts for three years even when the price of one of her main
cargoes, parts and maintenance kits for mono-linear solar engines, bottomed out
a year ago.  It appeared that
Vagabond
didn’t seem interested in
maximizing profits. 

The
freighter’s previous stops were likewise generic.  Before Skathi, she had
ported at Tarvos.  Before that, she had come from Anthe.  In short, she had
travelled to major systems as would be expected of any bulk cargo freighter.

Once
again, the chime sounded and once again it rocked Heskan from his train of
thought.  It had been two and a half weeks since they had boarded EF-08 and four
other freighters had routinely entered and left the Skathi system. 
Anelace
had boarded three of them within an hour of their entering the system and Chief
Brown’s inspection team had been thorough but had come up empty each time.  In
truth, this was no surprise.  Two of the three freighters had belonged to large
freight companies that probably would not risk their entire organizations for
one freighter’s worth of contraband.  Heskan had held out hope for the third
ship but it was dashed by Brown’s comm message informing him the inspection was
complete with no discrepancies.  He had taken some solace in the fact that even
finding nothing, he might still be accomplishing his mission.

The
chime sounded a third time.

“Enter,”
Heskan said irritably.

The
cabin door opened to reveal Ensign Jack Truesworth and Petty Officer Third
Class Brian Deveraux.  Truesworth cleared his throat and said sheepishly, “Uh,
sir, if this is a bad time, we can come back.”

Heskan
shook his head and motioned the two crewmen into his cabin.  “No, it’s fine,
Jack.  I was just lost in thought.  What did you need?”

Truesworth
motioned to his PO and said, “Brian found it so if he wants to give the
briefing…”

PO
Deveraux nodded and smiled at his section leader.  “Thank you, sir.”  He moved
into the room and handed Heskan a circuit board.  “This is from the buoy that
was positioned at the Skoll tunnel point, Captain.”

“The
one that suffered a radiation malfunction, right?”

“Correct,"
Deveraux agreed.  “This is the culprit,” he said as he pointed to the circuit
board.  “This board should cycle through the read/receive lines but it’s
fried.  It’s one of the most common failures in a high radiation environment.”

Heskan
handed the circuit board back to the petty officer.  “So nothing suspicious
about that, huh?”

“Not
in and of itself, sir.”  Deveraux turned the circuit board over and pointed to
tiny, stenciled indentations built into the board near a corner.  “Here is the
part number.  It tells us what it is, where it was made and when it was made.”

Truesworth
interrupted, “There’s really no reason to check them after construction.  It’s
more for the factories that do the initial build and then the preliminary tests
to ensure they work.”

Deveraux
continued, “But you had us check everything so I did and I found something I
can’t explain.”  The petty officer paused for effect while he pulled out his
datapad and handed it to Heskan.

“This
circuit board is part number RR-XHL-ISNE-SIN1-FAC3D-1024-982.”  Deveraux looked
up and added, “What you’re looking at, Captain, are the part numbers from every
other part this circuit board connects to.”

Heskan
scanned through eight separate part numbers.  “I’m not seeing what you’re
getting at, PO.”

Deveraux
took two quick steps to stand by the captain.  “Sir, look at the location
identifier here,” he said as he pointed at the fourth and fifth groupings of
each part number.

“JAN3-FAC1A,
for all of them,” Heskan read out loud. 

The
petty officer gave Heskan a moment to sort through the implications.  As the
repercussions struck him, Heskan spoke involuntarily, “Oh.  OH!”

Both
Deveraux and Truesworth started smiling and nodding but it was Truesworth who
spoke next.  “This buoy was built on Janus Three at factory facility One-A. 
However, this fried circuit board was produced on Sinope One at factory Three-D.”

“There’s
no reason to ship this part the eight-odd star systems from Sinope to Janus, is
there?” Heskan asked.

“No,
sir.  Not when Janus Three makes its own circuit boards right at the same
factory.  Which means that after construction, someone cracked open the buoy
and inserted this board from Sinope,” Truesworth answered.  “I had Brian go
back and track this board and it turns out that it failed nine years ago.  The
buoy it originally belonged to was decommissioned and sold for scrap.”

Heskan
brought his hand to his chin.  “So, someone bought that part, shipped it all
the way to Skathi and then EMU’ed out to the Skoll buoy to swap it with its
functional circuit board.  Presto, failed buoy.”

“It’s
almost perfect.  Out here, the navy is more likely to just replace the buoy
with a new one and if they do recover it for inspection, the failure looks
legit because it
is
legit,” Truesworth added.

“Yeah,
nine years ago it was,” Heskan said sardonically.  “Okay, we need to think this
through.  Brian, excellent work.”

“Thank
you, sir,” Deveraux answered back quickly and then turned to leave.  He had
been a petty officer long enough to know when he was dismissed.

Heskan
opened a comm link through his datapad and spoke into it, “Attention, Anelace,
this is the captain.  Section head meeting in fifteen minutes in the main briefing
room. Out.”

Next,
Heskan turned to face Truesworth again.  “Jack, that was some mighty nice
work.  I know you and your section must have felt like this was just pointless
busy work but you really made something out of it.  I want Deveraux’s
recommendation for commendation on my desk by next week, ok?”

A broad smile spread across
Truesworth’s face and he saluted, “Yes, sir!’

*  *  *

Thirty
minutes later, Heskan had outlined Deveraux’s findings to his section leaders. 
“We finally have undisputed proof that someone is tampering with the navigation
buoys in this system.  The questions are who and why.  Any ideas?” Heskan
finished.

Ensign
Selvaggio tentatively raised her hand and offered, “If they EMU’ed to the buoy,
then the ship carrying them would have to have gotten very close to it.  The
buoy would have detected it and recorded a near collision with it.  Was that in
the buoy’s memory?”

“No,
the buoy shows nothing like that and there are no signs of altering the
record,” Truesworth answered.

Selvaggio
looked up to the ceiling in thought as she continued, “So how do you get a ship
close to a nav buoy without detection…”  She trailed off, lost in thought.

“You
use a stealth ship,” Lieutenant Jackamore stated.  The engineering officer
cleared his throat.  “A ship with proper stealthing and moving slow enough could
get within a light-second of a buoy undetected.  Then the crew EMU’s out and performs
the operation on the buoy, returns to the ship and they move away with nobody
the wiser.”

“That
suggests a military ship.  We’re at least nine dives from the Hollies,” Riedel
said.

“It
wouldn’t have to be military if the ship was small enough,” replied Jackamore. 
“Sure, we’re used to thinking in terms of military-sized ships and if that were
the case, we’d be looking at something like one of our destroyer-sized scouts. 
However, it’s possible to stealth civilian ships too.  There’s black market,
near military grade, stealth equipment for sale and if it was installed on
something small, like a civilian sloop,” Jackamore tilted his head, “it’d be
awfully hard to detect.  Plus, add in this star system’s ambient radiation and
you have a bona fide stealth ship lurking out there.”

“What
would something as small and expensive as a stealthed sloop be good for out
here besides wrecking buoys?” Riedel asked.

“Not
much,” Chief Brown offered.  “They’d have a crew of maybe seven or eight with
hardly any cargo space; at most you might be able to mount an external railgun
or laser on her.”

“Holy
crap!” Lieutenant Vernay exclaimed.  All eyes turned toward her as she began to
turn a bright shade of red.  “Oops.  Sorry, sirs.”

Heskan
couldn’t help but smile a little.  “Keep working on that Tourette’s, Stacy.”

She
giggled softly, “No, sir, uh, I mean yes, sir.”  Vernay shook her head,
“Whatever.  What I mean is I think I know how the other buoy, the one at the
Narvi tunnel point, died.”

“Space
object debris strike,” Truesworth said.

Vernay
waved a finger at Truesworth.  “Yes and no.  What if the space debris was fired
from a railgun on that stealth ship?”

Truesworth
shook his head.  “Whatever hit it was roughly point one meters wide.  Stacy,
you said yourself that no political entity in known space uses point one as a
caliber,” Truesworth countered.

“Yes
but now I’m saying something different.  Two possibilities.  The first is the
debris was fired from a custom railgun.  Now why go through the expense and
trouble of building a point one railgun?  It’s stupid when almost anyone could
go to Lieutenant Jackamore’s black market stealth supplies and weapons emporium
and get a standard point two.  The power costs would be about the same, even
the size would be nearly the same and ammunition wouldn’t have to be custom
made.”

Vernay
took a breath and then continued, “However, if you wanted to make your hits
look like space debris, then using something nonstandard makes more sense and
might be worth the trouble.”

“And
the second possibility, Lieutenant?” Riedel asked.

“The
ship carries a standard caliber railgun but they used a sabot round.”

Selvaggio
interjected, “Stacy, I’m just a navigation officer.  They tell me where to go
and I make the ship go there really fast.  Can you translate that into
something understandable, please?”

Vernay
smiled at her friend. “The gun barrel is this big,” Vernay said as she used
both hands to form a large circle.

Selvaggio
exaggerated her nod and expression as if in wonderment.

Vernay
then used only one hand to form a smaller circle and added, “But the bullet is this
small.  Now, to get the bullet to fire cleanly out of the gun, the bullet is wrapped
in something, probably a carbon foam of some kind, so the bullet is now big
enough to be fired accurately out of the large barrel.   But when it clears the
barrel, the wrapping detaches and all that is left is just this smaller bullet
with an innocuous caliber.”

Selvaggio
stayed silent.

“‘Innocuous’
means…”

“I
got that part,” Selvaggio cut her off as she rolled her eyes.

Heskan
lightly tapped the conference table with an amused expression in his eyes.  “So
we might have a sloop-sized ship with stealth capability and a railgun lurking
around in this system.  What are the implications of that?”

“A
lot,” Riedel offered.  “Most sloops don’t have a tunnel drive.  So how did it
get here?”

“Transported
by a freighter, most likely,” Brown said.

Heskan
turned toward Brown, “Chief, would something the size of
Vagabond
have
the cargo capability?”

“Absolutely,
she has more than enough continuous hold space an’ the doors on those bulk
carriers could open wide enough to get it in an’ out.”

Riedel
continued with his train of thought, “But why is she here and how long has she
been here?  How long can a sloop operate independently?  When would it need to
resupply?”

“My
estimate would be a sloop wouldn’t be able to operate unsupported for more than
a couple weeks,” Jackamore said.  “If she is still in-system from the time the
first buoy went out to now, we’re talking many months, maybe years.”