by Peter Grant
The mention of a Medusa-registered ship gave Steve a sinking feeling of apprehension, but Dhruv didn't seem worried. He continued, “Her cargo includes two thousand bead carbines with twenty million rounds of ammunition, support weapons of various types and sizes, four hundred patrol vehicles and transporters, and several thousand tons of general supplies. It’s all been donated by various UP member worlds. The UP assembled everything at their regional staging base on Nova Iberia, and contracted with Leona to bring it all here as a single shipment.
“We need to get this inspection done as quickly as possible, because this is a high–priority cargo. Our Marines have been training Radetski’s unified forces for a couple of years, and they’ve been patrolling alongside us for the past three or four months. As soon as they have their own weapons and equipment, they’ll take over planetary security from us, and we can go home. You can bet our Marines are looking forward to that! The cutters and cargo shuttles will form the planet’s first orbital transport squadron, to work aboard the depot ship and patrol vessels.
“The UP’s already inspected everything. I expect the Nova Iberia transit seals will still be affixed to every container, so I don’t see why we can’t simply check them quickly, then sign off on the whole shipment.”
Steve frowned. It looked as if the Warrant Officer wasn't aware of Medusa's long history of misconduct. He raised his hand.
“Yes, PO Maxwell?”
“Sir, how much do you know about Medusa?”
“Nothing. Why do you ask?”
“Because, Sir, if I were a smuggler wanting to get contraband into or out of Radetski, or sell weapons to terrorists here, I’d fall on my knees and thank whatever Gods I believed in when I found out that a freighter from Medusa was coming here. It’s one of half a dozen planets where spaceships can be bought and sold with no questions asked, often for much less than their commercial value. They’re re–registered there, given new names, new gravitic drives to change their emission signature, and sometimes structural or cosmetic alterations, then re–sold on the legitimate market. I was a merchant spacer before I joined the Fleet, Sir. Merchant spacers regard planets like Medusa as thinly disguised havens for pirates and other criminals, where they can sell stolen ships and goods at minimal risk to themselves.”
Dhruv frowned. “So you’re saying the planet’s ships aren’t trustworthy?”
“Sir, if Leona’s a Medusa–registered ship, I respectfully submit that’s grounds for suspicion in and of itself.”
The Warrant Officer’s frown deepened. “But she was chartered by the United Planets! Surely they wouldn’t charter a ship if she might be suspicious? They’ve got too much to lose.”
“That depends on who does the chartering, Sir. You or I would think that way, but a minor UP bureaucrat who’s told to simply get the goods from planet A to planet B might figure that saving a bundle on freight costs was all that mattered. There might also be bribery involved, Sir. It’s happened often enough.”
Dhruv nodded reluctantly. Scandals involving bribery, corruption and mismanagement in the UP bureaucracy were so frequent as to barely rate a mention on news bulletins any more, unless the sums involved were very large or the details more than usually intriguing.
“I take your point, PO,” he said slowly.
Sitting beside Steve, Gavril raised his hand. “Sir, may I add something?”
“Of course, Gavril, go ahead.”
“Sir, irrespective of the vessel involved, if I were trying to smuggle arms to terrorists on Radetski, what could possibly provide better cover than a legitimate arms shipment? Wouldn’t it be easier to sneak illegal weapons planetside concealed amongst the legal deliveries? A high–priority shipment might be even better, because I’d expect the arrival inspection to be hurried in order to speed up the delivery.”
Steve nodded vigorously. “Sir, to add to what Gavril says, if any merchant spacers might be open to bribery to help smugglers get an illegal shipment past an arrival inspection, I’d expect Medusans to be more likely than most to be among them.”
Dhruv sighed. “You do realize that if we go through her with a fine–tooth comb, it’s going to cause all sorts of delays — not to mention irritate a lot of UP Mission officials and administrators?”
“Yes, Sir, I guess it will.”
Gavril said slowly, “Sir, may I suggest this is about something more important than delays? If we don’t check this ship thoroughly, and PO Maxwell’s fears prove justified, and weapons reach the terrorists from aboard her, how many people on the planet will pay with their lives? I’ve seen too much of the terrorists’ handiwork. I don’t want to see any more, Sir.”
Steve choked up for a moment. “Sir, what Gavril said really hits home with me. There were a man, two women and two small children lying dead in the square of that town ten days ago. The kids couldn’t have been more than a few years old. Another young girl was wounded — I flew her out aboard my cutter. She was asking for her mother, whom we later found out was one of those killed in the square.” He could hear the raw anger in his voice, but couldn’t help it. “Sir, we daren’t risk letting that happen to anyone else.”
Dhruv put his elbows on the mess table in front of him, interlaced the fingers of his hands and rested his chin upon them, thinking hard. At last he sighed. “This is above my pay grade. I’m going to take it to the skipper. PO Maxwell, you’d better come with me. The rest of you, carry on until I get back to you.”
They found Senior Lieutenant Parasurani in his tiny office, laboring over the patrol craft’s weekly returns. He listened carefully to Warrant Officer Dhruv’s summary of the problem, then looked at Steve.
“You’re sure about Medusa? You wouldn’t trust one of their ships on principle?”
“Not just ‘No’ but ‘Hell, no!’, Sir.”
Parasurani’s eyebrows climbed. “As emphatic as that?”
“Yes, Sir. Ask any honest merchant spacer. They’ll confirm it.”
“That’s interesting, because there are people aboard Baobab with that background. If they agree with you, that’ll be pretty powerful supporting evidence to lay before Captain Innes.” He stood. “We’re going to have to take this to him — he’s our Force Commander on this station, so any decision is ultimately his responsibility. PO, stand by to run Warrant Officer Dhruv and myself over there, please. Mr. Dhruv, please alert Chief O’Neal to take over until we return.”
“Aye aye, Sir,” Steve and Dhruv responded as one.
“Oh — and change into Number Two uniform, PO. Captain Innes may want to speak with you.”
“Aye aye, Sir.”
~ ~ ~
Steve waited in the anteroom to Captain Innes’ spacious office suite aboard Baobab. Senior Lieutenant Parasurani and Warrant Officer Dhruv disappeared inside, and he heard the rumble of conversation through the closed door. Captain Innes’ voice rose several times. He sounded less than happy.
After a while two more people came into the anteroom. Both hurriedly straightened their uniforms before knocking at the Captain’s door and being admitted. One was another Senior Lieutenant, the other a Senior Chief Petty Officer.
At last the door opened again. Warrant Officer Dhruv said, “Come in, PO Maxwell.”
“Aye aye, Sir.”
Steve swallowed hard, tried to look less nervous and more confident, and marched through the door. He snapped to attention inside, facing the Captain as he sat behind his desk.
“So you’re the one who started all this fuss,” Innes rumbled. He was a tall, burly man, his salt–and–pepper close–cropped hair crowning a heavy–set face with dark beard–shadow on the cheeks and chin. His slate–gray eyes stared unblinkingly at him.
Steve didn’t know how to respond. He settled for a simple “Yes, Sir.”
“Close the door behind you and take a seat, PO.” Innes leaned back in his seat, fingers drumming on the desktop as Steve pulled a chair from the small conference table in the corner, brought it to where the others were
seated before the desk, and joined them.
“I don’t mind telling you, my first instinct was to dismiss your suspicions out of hand,” he began. “I’d never heard anything so fanciful in my life, particularly from a very junior NCO, and even more so in the absence of any concrete evidence whatsoever! However, Senior Lieutenant Parasurani mentioned your certainty that other merchant spacers would support your opinion of Medusa vessels. Senior Lieutenant Razçak and Senior Chief Lamartine both served in the merchant marine before joining the Fleet, so I called them in and asked them about Medusa. Both unequivocally supported your views — profanely so, in one case.” He looked pointedly at Senior Chief Lamartine, the ghost of a smile on his lips. Unabashed, Lamartine grinned.
Innes glanced at the officers. “I’ll be asking BuIntel why they didn’t include information about Medusa and similar planets in our Intelligence Pack for this mission, because it’s certainly relevant to our operations — but that’s a matter for another time.”
He looked back at Steve. “I’ve also taken into account your performance while you’ve been with us. Senior Lieutenant Parasurani reports that you’ve done an excellent job as Grasswren’s cutter pilot, frequently going above and beyond what’s expected of you. The most recent incident was ten days ago, when you volunteered to take ammunition to a Marine patrol and evacuate their wounded under fire. Not only did you succeed in both tasks, you also wiped out a terrorist mortar team, despite being wounded.” His eyes went to Steve’s uniform jacket, which now bore three personal and two unit award ribbons, plus the Planetary Combat Badge.
“Colonel Shota placed a ringing endorsement on your personnel file. I’m well aware he doesn’t hand them out lightly. Given that, plus your outstanding track record with us, plus your commanding officer’s support, plus two trusted members of my crew who share your views about Medusa, I’m forced to take your warning seriously, notwithstanding your junior rank.
Innes looked at each of his visitors in turn. “The question is, what do we do about this? How can we find anything illegal — if it’s there — without unduly delaying the shipment? The UP Commissioner’s already asked me to expedite delivery by every means possible, including using our own cutters and cargo shuttles to supplement Leona’s in bringing everything down from orbit. I simply can’t delay matters too long. I need ideas, gentlemen. Let’s hear from you.”
There was silence for a few moments as everybody thought. Senior Chief Lamartine spoke first. “Sir, we could contact Leona while she’s inbound, asking her to transmit her structural plans, load diagram and cargo manifest to us as soon as possible. We could use the excuse that the UP Commissioner has asked us to expedite delivery, so we want to plan our inspection before she arrives in orbit. I think that provides enough justification for our request that she won’t find it suspicious.
“The structural plans will help us understand the layout of the ship, and determine which areas are more likely to contain hidden compartments. There probably won’t be one in the middle of a wide open cargo hold, but a warren of little rooms or a maze of tight, confined passages is a different story. The cargo manifest will show us how the freight is packed, so we can select for inspection only those containers that are more likely to have spare space inside them where smuggled goods might be concealed. The load diagram will show us where they are aboard Leona, Sir, so we can go straight to them without wasting time looking for them.”
Innes nodded approvingly. “All excellent points, Senior Chief. Very well, we’ll do that. What else?” He looked around the room.
Steve hesitantly raised his hand. “Sir, I presume Baobab has a Loadmaster to handle stowage of her cargo and supplies?”
“That would be me, PO,” Senior Lieutenant Razçak answered.
“Great! Sir, you have to balance the ship’s load to maximize her longitudinal stability, right?”
“Yes, of course, otherwise our next hyper–jump might be our last.”
“Yes, Sir. I presume Leona’s load diagram and cargo manifest will provide the mass of each cargo container or crate or pallet on board?”
“They should, if they’re any good.”
“In that case, Sir, could you use your software to figure out whether Leona’s longitudinal stability is optimized by the current location of her cargo? If it is, that’s an indication she may be innocent. On the other hand, Sir, if the weights and locations of her cargo as shown on her load diagram don’t add up to optimum longitudinal stability, that may indicate they haven’t told us about everything on board. There’d have to be something more, heavy enough and in the right location to bring her longitudinal stability back to where it should be. In fact, Sir, if you can guess what weight would be required to do that, and where it’d have to be positioned, that might tell us where to look for a secret compartment full of smuggled goods.”
“Hmm…” Razçak scratched his chin thoughtfully. “It’s not a bad idea in principle, PO, but there are problems. For example, every ship fine–tunes its longitudinal stability by moving liquid ballast between tanks on its spine or keel. Leona might have enough ballast to account for any discrepancy in declared cargo weight and location.”
“Yes, Sir, but wouldn’t Leona’s structural diagram show her ballast tanks? You could figure out whether their location and size is enough to compensate for any discrepancy you detect, Sir.”
“True. You obviously know something about a Loadmaster’s work.”
“I watched the Loadmaster at work aboard the merchant freighter where I started my spacefaring career, Sir, and read about the subject in the ship’s library.”
“It shows.” Razçak turned to Captain Innes. “I can’t guarantee that PO Maxwell’s idea will produce definitive results, Sir, but it’s certainly worth trying. Even if I can’t pin down a location to within a few meters, I may be able to identify a portion of the hull — for example, the after third of the ship, or the bows — and say with some confidence that any discrepancy is probably located within that area. That’ll help our search party narrow their focus, Sir.”
“Will you be able to do all that before Leona arrives in orbit?”
“It won’t be the first time I’ve pulled an all–nighter, Sir.”
“Then do so, please, Senior Lieutenant. Thank you for your suggestion, PO. Let’s hope it helps us find what we’re looking for — if it’s there, of course.”
“Yes, Sir,” Steve acknowledged, feeling a little shaky after daring to speak up in the presence of so many senior personnel. At least Captain Innes hadn’t cut him off at the knees for his temerity!
Warrant Officer Dhruv said, “Sir, we could increase the size of our search party. I normally have only ten Spacers with me, but if we could borrow additional personnel from the other patrol craft or from Baobab, we can fit forty or more aboard our cutter. That’ll make the search much faster, and we’ll have more personnel on hand if anything goes wrong. We can explain to Leona that the extra Spacers are there for the same reason we asked for her documentation — to speed up the inspection in order to get her cargo planetside as quickly as possible.”
“Good idea, Mr. Dhruv. Thank you.”
Parasurani chimed in, “Sir, we can use some of those extra personnel to station armed guards on Leona’s bridge and in her engineering spaces. Four or five Spacers in each area will do. If anything goes wrong, they’ll be able to stop the crew from trying to run for it.”
Innes frowned. “Won’t that arouse the suspicions of Leona’s crew? It’s not part of normal boarding and search procedure.”
“We can explain it’s because this is an arms cargo, Sir, requiring additional security precautions due to the presence of terrorists on the planet. That sounds plausible enough that I think they’d probably accept it, Sir.”
“Very well, we’ll do it. Thank you, Senior Lieutenant. Anyone got any more ideas?” No one spoke. “Thank you all for your contributions. Senior Chief Lamartine, kindly detail some of our Spacers to reinforce Grasswren’s boarding and
search party, brief them, and issue them the necessary weapons and equipment. Her cutter will collect them from us on the way to Leona tomorrow morning. Co–ordinate that with Warrant Officer Dhruv, please. He’ll remain in command of the boarding party.”
“Aye aye, Sir. Permission to accompany the boarding party, please, Sir?”
“If you wish, Senior Chief. Oh, yes — detail two NCO’s to take charge of the sections stationed on Leona’s bridge and in her engineering spaces, to stop her crew making a run for it if necessary. Make sure they know what to do.”
“Aye aye, Sir. One last request, please, Sir. Could PO Maxwell come aboard Leona with us? I know he’d normally remain with his cutter, but he might spot something that someone lacking merchant spacer experience might miss.”
“Make it so, please, PO Maxwell.”
“Aye aye, Sir,” Steve acknowledged. “In that case, may I request that Senior Chief Lamartine include one of Baobab’s cutter pilots among his Spacers, please, Sir? Your pilot can secure the cutter while I accompany the boarding and search party.”
“Make it so, please, Senior Chief.”
“Aye aye, Sir.”
Captain Innes rose to his feet. “Very well, gentlemen. I’ll leave matters in your capable hands. I’ll be very interested to see what comes of this little affair.”
~ ~ ~
Baobab’s docking bay was thronged with thirty of her Spacers and a dozen more from Grasswren. Armorers issued bead carbines, ammunition chargers and power packs, supervising carefully as the recipients prepared their weapons for use. It had been decided that it would be safer for so large a group to do so in the docking bay, rather than in the confined area of the armory. Clearing barrels had been secured along a bulkhead to permit safe weapon handling.
Senior Lieutenant Razçak arrived, looking tired and weary after his all–night calculations. He took Warrant Officer Dhruv, Senior Chief Lamartine and Steve aside.
