Duty and Obligation

by Sean Benjamin

  “Wish we had known you were coming,” said Whiting as Cunningham moved past him to the head of the table. He took Whiting’s recently vacated seat as he ignored the comment. The regional manager took an empty chair at the table.

  Cunningham placed his elbows on the table and leaned toward the group. “We are going to talk about slave ships and our current situation. If you lie to me, I will end you.” He paused and stared into each face beginning and ending with Whiting.

  “How many ships are there?” He stared at Whiting while waiting for an answer. Whiting was the only person he was going to talk to. He would watch the reactions of the others to gauge the honesty of the answers he received from the regional manager.

  Whiting paused briefly. It was easy to understand why. He had to know that Cunningham knew the entire slave plan had to have been his idea, and now he had to lay out the whole damn thing for him ending with a discussion of the plan’s legal fallout. He was dictating his own death warrant. His mind raced as he considered every possible answer but there was really only one course available–the truth. “There are eight ships. Tristan was taken and the other seven are being sent to various shipyards to have the modifications removed. We are putting them in separate yards to get quick action and reduce the attention the entire group might get in one place. None have…. cargo aboard them at this time.” Whiting’s voice was a croak. He had been hoping to solve this without main office assistance. Now, not only was the main office here, but it was in the form of one of the Cunninghams. No way this ends well for him.

  Albert nodded. “When will they get to their shipyards?”

  “Two of the ships are already in work in two different yards. Three others are in yards but the work hasn’t commenced yet but will shortly. The last two will be in their yards within thirty hours. They had the furthest to travel.”

  Albert nodded again. “What is the media fallout so far?”

  Whiting was again trapped. He would be the messenger with bad news one more time. “The discovery of the compartment on Tristan lead to many news reports. Now the conviction of Tristan’s captain has reenergized the story. The trial is over, so we think the story will die out now.”

  Cunningham stared at him with no expression. Seconds ticked by. Finally, he said, “You’re leaving out the part about the failed hit on the captain. That made news too. I even heard about it. You’re also ignoring the ramifications of those other ships being discovered. Any thoughts on those two items?”

  Silence grabbed the room until Whiting spoke in a soft voice. “The hit did fail. The shooter was killed, and the others got away. They won’t be found, and the rest of it will be a dead end. The shooter can be identified through her criminal record, but it has led to nothing, and it will end there. That news thread is done. We believe the ships will be redone without any problems. Captain Yardley was tried, convicted, and got twenty years. We don’t know if she talked. If not, the other ships may still be a complete unknown outside of our group.”

  Cunningham shook his head. His voice rose in reply. “Don’t know if she talked? Of course, she talked! You tried to kill her! You think she will keep quiet now! What does she know?”

  “Nothing, sir! Nothing about the other ships. We kept that in the office. None of the captains knew anything beyond their own ships.”

  Cunningham was not satisfied. “People gossip. Captains compare situations with each other. She knows more than just her ship activities. Even if she didn’t, we will have to assume she did know more just to be on the safe side. Are there guards or crewmembers on the ships in the yards?”

  The lack of a response and six people looking at each other was all the answer Cunningham needed. He exploded as he stood up. “You stupid bastards! Raferty Hawkins and the goddamn Royal Navy are climbing up our asses, and you didn’t even guard the ships! Those ships are the evidence against us! Even if Yardley didn’t talk, Hawkins has informers everywhere. Even if nobody talked, he would know there is more than one ship and will try to find them. If he or the Royal Navy get their hands on at least one more ship, they can make this a case of systematic slave running by our company.” He looked at Whiting. “Get some security on those ships. Tell the shipyards that you have people coming to guard them around the clock. Use local security already in the area or whatever, but speed is the most important thing now.”

  He now scanned the whole group with a disgusted look on his face. He talked quietly. “I’d like a few words with Mister Whiting, please.”

  The five district managers were quite happy to give the two of them all the space they needed. They fled the room as fast as their dignity would let them.

  Albert looked at Whiting and wearily shook his head. “What the hell, Raylen?” he asked quietly.

  The regional manager looked at the tabletop for a long moment. He then looked up at Cunningham. “We’re bleeding money. It is bad now but will get worse without the slave running. The Sunrise Grange hauling contract is worthless. They are in chaos and a guy name Colandra is trying to move into the vacuum with his own ships. We are being undercut by local companies and independents. No way to turn this around at the moment.” He stopped for a second as he gathered the next phase of the story in his memory. “It actually started as a mistake. The captain of Gawain hauled sixty slaves on his own authority. He got them through. I and one of the district managers learned about it from crewmembers, but the various authorities never found out. The man made a small fortune for himself. I should have fired him or turned him in. I know that now. It’s just that it was…. so easy. We ran the numbers. The shipyard conversion costs were negligible. The cargo pickups and drops could be rolled in with other hauls. The profits could be hidden with other funds. No planet officials would get serious about searching AC ships, and if they did, they wouldn’t find the compartment, or so we thought. The eight-ship volume would get us back to profitability in less than a year. During that time, we would work hard on getting other contracts. The agriculture mess would be sorted out by then. The worst would be over and we would end the slave runs. I swear this was always viewed as a temporary solution to the problem.”

  Cunningham interrupted. “I looked over the profits. Things started turning around five months ago. Is that when this started?”

  “The first converted ship was six months ago, and we had all eight online four months ago. The captains were paid a little extra, but nobody else got anything so costs rose very little. The people were put aboard as passengers or at a time when the crew was on liberty. The profits were enormous. Enough to offset the other losses. Again, in another six months, we would have been there. We have been aggressive in our pursuit of other customers and other cargos. We would have weathered this and gone back to being completely legit.”

  Cunningham was unconvinced. Profits were like a drug. Once you get them at a certain level, you don’t voluntarily give them up and slide back down the scale. He said. “How would you explain the loss of profits in six months when you gave up slave runs?”

  “We would have phased out the slave running as new contracts came online so profits wouldn’t vary all that much.”

  Cunningham knew that was wishful thinking. They would have had to come up with many new contracts to make up for the loss of the slave contracts. If they could get new contracts, they wouldn’t be doing the slave stuff in the first place. He didn’t mention his reasoning to Whiting but merely nodded. He remarked, “Get some security on those ships. They are physical evidence against the corporation. One ship is bad enough—but maybe, just maybe, we can explain it away as a rogue captain out for fast money. Nobody would really believe it, but it would be an easy way out so people might sign up for it. If the authorities get any more ships, that cover story won’t come close to answering for this, and we will be screwed.”

  Whiting nodded. Cunningham stood up. He was tired. This was out of control. This stupid bastard in this far-off hellhole known as the Badlands was about to destroy his family’s business. He would d
o what was needed to retrieve it. He left the room without another word. Cunningham walked out of the building without seeing any of the district managers. He assumed they were hiding in their offices and would return to Whiting when the coast was clear. Cunningham went to the hotel he had been checked into by his assistant and got his room number and coded entrance pass. Once in the room, he sent a long comm to his brother about the situation and what he intended to do about it.

  Chapter 36

  The Vice President of Operations (Bolindale) was pacing back and forth in his room at the Rosstrappe officers billeting. Leonid Kaplan had been kept at Rosstrappe for ten days now. The first three days they had not let him communicate with his people back on Bolindale. That had been inconvenient but probably not fatal. It would have been nice to send a warning message that an investigation team was on the way, but it was not a complete surprise the Imperial Navy would do that, so he knew the prison mess had largely been cleaned up before he came to Rosstrappe. The prisoners would talk, but that was about it. That could be passed off as stories told by criminals and liars trying to create problems for the authorities. The physical evidence had been removed and the camera images edited or destroyed. He was sure none of the official people at the prison would confess to anything. It would not only mean they would lose their jobs, but they could be looking at prison time themselves. Kaplan closed his eyes in contemplation. He had come to Bolindale only one year ago. All this stuff had been going on for decades. As the senior corporate official on the planet, he had been told to keep it under wraps. He was convinced it was getting worse at that prison and the other prisons around the planet. He tried to reverse the trend, but the local officials were having none of it. They all knew what happened out there at those sites but had no stomach for reform or for the punishment for prison officials that was required to hold people responsible for the situation. Kaplan had let it all slide. He had the feeling he would regret that soon enough.

  Now it was going to be a problem for all of them if this got out of hand. He wouldn’t even have come to Rosstrappe to discuss this with Admiral Hochstadt except everyone knew the attack had been reported in the local media immediately after the episode and, with Raferty Hawkins and Killian O’Hare involved, the reports would spread like a fire on a windy day. That was exactly what happened. The fact Hawkins and O’Hare were wounded had added to the flames. Media speculation raged as to their location as they recovered or the fact they might actually be dead. He wished. After all the publicity, it would have been seen as suspicious if the planetary government had not engaged the Imperial Navy in this matter. It was clear the raiders had departed the planet via spaceship so telling the Imperial Navy was damn near mandatory. Also, the local officials at the prison and in Longwall were demanding all resources be used to get the pirates. Kaplan had not wanted to bring in the Imperial authorities because once they were engaged, they could not be turned off. Now they were involved. He shook his head. There were many potential outcomes to this, most of them bad.

  The comm receiver buzzed. He answered. A woman’s voice identified herself as the Admiral’s aide, and could he please join the Admiral in ten minutes in the briefing room? Of course, there was only one answer. He ended the call and got his suit coat.

  Ten minutes later Kaplan entered the same briefing room he had been in before. The audience had the same officers but was augmented by the Admiral’s female aide and an officer with the insignia of a light admiral. He was introduced as Admiral Erich Dietrich.

  The agenda was different also. Kaplan was given a chair across from Admiral Hochstadt. She stared at him briefly and then nodded to Steiner. The commander began the briefing with one sentence.

  “We found this video compilation and feel it explains the whole affair.” He flicked a button on the imager on the table and the video played on the nearby wall. Everyone watched in silence. Admiral Hochstadt had already seen it so spent most of the time staring at Kaplan. During the sequence showing the women’s floor of the prison, Hochstadt suddenly felt eyes on her and switched her gaze to Dietrich. He was staring at her. She returned his look, and his eyes flicked to behind Hochstadt and then came back to her. Hochstadt knew what he meant. He had briefly eyed her aide. Hochstadt had heard the young woman squirming behind her as the video played. She was a junior officer who had spent her first tour in the navy on the home planet in logistics at Imperial Navy Headquarters. Watching the events happening on the video was a new experience for her.

  Hochstadt spoke quietly over her shoulder without turning around. “Matilda, would you get cold water for everyone, please.”

  “Of course, Admiral.” She rose to depart and then quietly added, “Thank you, ma’am.” She exited the room. Hochstadt nodded at Dietrich who nodded back.

  The images had been edited to reduce viewing time and to get out the irrelevant recorded activities. Every instance of abuse and crimes was left in. The pirate attack was viewed in detail and, once their activities were viewed in their entirety, they made sense. Nobody said a word throughout the presentation. When it ended, Hochstadt looked at Kaplan. “I have one question. O’Hare seemed very intent on having those two guards killed. They were older and their records indicated they had been at the prison since it was built. Was O’Hare a prisoner there years ago, around the time that Hawkins’ mother was killed?”

  Kaplan talked quietly with a defeated air. “I don’t know. Judging from her actions on the video, it is a reasonable assumption she was a prisoner, but there is no record of any O’Hare ever being held there. A scan of the images in prison records was done with a facial recognition program but gave no matches. Maybe she had a different name and slightly different appearance then. The program shouldn’t be fooled by the facial hallie, but maybe it was. The video image from the attack wasn’t that clear.”

  He went silent and looked down. He had no idea how they got the imagery, and he certainly couldn’t ask. It really didn’t matter now. It was over, and it happened on his watch. After a long moment of silence, he looked up at Hochstadt.

  She gave him a cold stare and spoke with open hostility. “You are under arrest. You lied to us from the beginning. Your lying helped cover up some unspeakable crimes. If I had a shooter in my hand right now, I’d put an energy pulse in your face. I know this activity was going on long before you got there, but you’re the guy whose name is on the door at the moment, so you’re taking the hit. You won’t be the only one. I’m declaring martial law on Bolindale. Admiral Dietrich here is taking his squadron over there to enforce it. I’m sending a bunch of my legal types with him. We are getting to the bottom of all this. You can mitigate some of the charges pending against you by helping the Admiral.”

  “I will cooperate all that I can, but I am not sure my corporate people will recognize your authority to declare martial law and basically take over the planet.”

  “Now is a really bad time for anyone to tell me what I can and cannot do,” she replied. “But if it makes everyone feel better, I’ll declare a state of emergency rather than martial law. Either way, the result will be the same.”

  She regarded him without expression, then said, “A little while back Admiral Dietrich did a good turn for Raferty Hawkins and helped save hundreds of civilians from a serious situation. I had no problem with his actions and remarked that we have to show people here that we can be the good guys too.” She leaned forward in Kaplan’s direction. “You see, that is the basis of Hawkins’ power. He is perceived as the good guy righting wrongs that nobody else will address. We need to do that. You, me, and everyone else in a position of power here. It undermines Hawkins, and we can do it on a larger scale than his people so should be able to generate some goodwill from the natives here. You have presented me with the opportunity to be the good guy here, but it won’t get us any goodwill, but it is the right thing to do.” She pointed at the blank wall that had been the screen for the video. “What is on that imagery sickens me, and I’m sure I am not alone in that feeling. We
are going to correct this situation, but most of the people will view it as the Goldenes Tor finally getting around to cleaning up their own mess. After all, your mining corporation is a Goldenes Tor entity and has been doing this crap for years. Everyone knows your corporation runs the planet. I think if we can clean it up, we will just have to settle for a job well-done. To get credit from the natives, we have to clean up things not of our own making. That is tough to do with corporations like yours doing business here, but this is a start.”

  She turned to Dietrich. “Admiral, please take Mister Kaplan aboard Lowe and proceed to Bolindale. Fregattenkapitan Steiner will go with you. Take the steps you feel are necessary to accomplish the mission. If anyone gets in your way, do what it takes to get them out of your way.”

  She turned back to Kaplan. “I’m going to have a lot of people in jail for this situation. I have already told Admiral Dietrich to get to the bottom of this, and any method he employs is fine by me. If you create any trouble or get cute, Admiral Dietrich can shove you out an airlock for all I care. You got that?”

  Kaplan nodded. “Yes, Admiral. I will cooperate completely.”

  She looked at Dietrich again. Her voice was hard. “Whatever it takes, Admiral.”

  Admiral Dietrich nodded and responded, “Aye, aye, Admiral.” He and Hochstadt had already discussed his assignment before this meeting. He would be given two companies of Imperial soldiers and fifty legal people from the bureaucracy at Rosstrappe to assist him. Dietrich stood up but paused a moment while looking at Hochstadt. “I’ll get things started but would like a word on a different topic when convenient.”

  Hochstadt answered, “Is ten minutes good for you?”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  Dietrich exited with Steiner and Kaplan while Hochstadt had a few closing comments and orders for the other staff members still at the table. Hochstadt was alone in the room when Dietrich returned ten minutes later. He took his original seat again. He looked at Hochstadt. “I plan on going in there heavy handed. There might be many complaints going back to the home system. You could hear from the government or headquarters on this one.”