Deep Space Dragnet (Rich Weed Book 2)

by Berg,Alex P.

  I frowned, but upon visual inspection, it did seem as if the doors hadn’t been forced. No scratches, dents, or gouges upon the seals—assuming, of course, they hadn’t been replaced.

  I’ll need the ship’s access logs, I told Uche.

  You think we haven’t already looked for intrusions?

  I’ll still need them, I said.

  There was a pause on Uche’s end. I’ll see what I can do. No promises. Ducic might be the only one with clearance to see them.

  Tarja cut in. A red light flickered in the corner of my vision, indicating it was a private channel. Rich. We need to talk.

  Yeah?

  What the hell are we doing?

  What do you mean? I asked.

  You really expect to break this piracy case by examining the nicks on the bay doors?

  I’m an investigator, I said. This is what I do.

  Tarja didn’t respond, but I spotted her shaking her head.

  I glanced toward the cargo. Want to check it out, Carl?

  He nodded. Sure.

  Uche interrupted before I reached the peak of my next hop. Look, guys, I don’t want to tell you how to do your jobs, but could you maybe skip the tungsten maze? If you were hoping to find clues left from our iridium shipment, that’s all gone. Plus there’s a crawler headed this way with more cargo, and the bots on Varuna aren’t the newest models. If they run into you, it could give them fits. I’ll give you one guess who Captain Rhees is going to blame for that.

  Yes, said Tarja. For the love of God, lets head back in.

  Why so eager? I asked. You’re a spacer. You practically live in a suit.

  Tarja crossed her arms. I’m bored out of my mind, that’s why. And we’re getting nowhere. Are those good enough reasons for you?

  On the second point I had to disagree, but I kept it to myself for the time being. I nodded and hopped toward the airlock upon meeting the ground.

  12

  I sat in a chair in the Agapetes’ break room, nursing a weak cup of coffee. Tarja had excused herself to the Samus Aran, and I’d sent Carl after her, mostly to make sure she wouldn’t try to take off without me. Ducic stood to my side next to the room’s automated beverage dispenser. He’d refused to partake in the coffee, but he’d accepted a mug of reconstituted wheatgrass juice, which sounded positively horrifying.

  I took a sip of my café au lait and grimaced. Of course, on second thought, maybe Ducic knew something I didn’t.

  “Is the coffee always this bad?” I asked.

  Uche sat across from me in the small room. He’d neglected to take a beverage of any kind. “Honestly, I don’t even notice it. They’re space rations. Nothing’s ever fresh.”

  I shook my head. “Over a thousand years of space travel and technological advancements, and we still can’t make preserved food taste good. Where did we go wrong?”

  “I think everyone stopped caring when they figured out how to use Brain technology to activate taste receptors artificially,” said Uche.

  It was possible. If I really wanted to, I could activate a realistic Brain simulation in which I sipped on the galaxy’s finest coffee and nibbled on decadent pastries and chocolates, but I couldn’t override the taste sensations produced from actually eating and drinking. GenBorn had locked that portion of the Brain software to users after a high-profile case involving a meal replacement product by the name of Soylent Brown, which was largely composed of wood pulp and maggot protein. Its consumers had been so Brain taste dependent they couldn’t tell the difference.

  I set my coffee down on the table before me. “So I take it you don’t particularly miss the comforts of home.”

  Uche’s eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I’m just wondering why you joined InterSTELLA,” I said. “Travelling through space, seeing the galaxy, all that jazz. I admit, it sounds tempting, but I have to figure the reality is less glamorous.”

  Uche snorted and shook his head.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Did I touch a nerve?”

  The muscular first mate sized me up. “You’re a Cetiean, aren’t you? You’d have to be based on your build.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Tell me,” he said. “What sort of monthly government work stipend do you get?”

  Paige had to remind me. “A thousand SEUs.”

  “Which I assume is plenty to live off, as long as you’re not extravagant,” he said. “That’s why you see so many bots and droids on Cetie. The government can’t entice people to come out of their own Brains, much less their apartments. Why would they? The bots do better jobs. Human workers aren’t needed. But the economics are different when you have a population several orders of magnitude greater on a planet that’s substantially smaller.”

  “You’re from Earth, then?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Born in the Confederated States of Central Africa,” he said. “Want to take a wild stab at what my government work stipend was back home?”

  “A lot less than a thousand SEUs a month, I’d assume.”

  Uche snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Bingo. Back at home, my family could barely afford an apartment the size of this room, and I grew up eating hydroponic potato cubes and fishmeal protein steaks. That’s the real reason I don’t mind the food here. And mine isn’t an uncommon tale. Government stipends are low all over Earth, in every nation and confederacy. I’d argue artificially low, specifically so people will move away. That’s why I joined InterSTELLA.”

  I sat there twiddling my thumbs and performing lip gymnastics. I hadn’t meant to bring up a sore subject.

  Uche cracked a smile. “Although…I have to admit, I did always harbor dreams of travelling the stars. So you weren’t totally wrong about that.”

  “How’s it been?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Mostly as you’ve suspected. I stare at narrow ship corridors a lot, and when they let me out, it’s mostly to asteroids.”

  Ducic slurped his wheatgrass. I’d almost forgotten he was there, which was difficult to do in a small room with a five hundred kilo Tak at your side.

  “I must admit,” he said, “this story resonates with familiarity for me.”

  I rested my arm against the back of my bench. “Is your home planet overpopulated, too?”

  “Unassailably so,” said Ducic. “You see, in commune of my birth, there was—”

  Uche leaned forward. “Look, I’m sorry to interrupt, Ducic. You seem like an okay dude, and under other circumstances, I’d, ah…love to hear about your upbringing. But as I’ve tried to point out on numerous occasions, I do have other things to do, not least of which is meeting up with Kass. So unless you have other pressing questions…?”

  I didn’t have anything specific to ask, mostly because I hadn’t gotten a grasp on my own line of thought yet, but that didn’t mean I was done. Really what I wanted was to isolate the crew one by one, talk to each of them, get to know them, and hope some overarching narrative came into place, but given Urrupain’s surly demeanor, Rhees’ outright hostile nature, and Uche’s impatience, I wasn’t sure an answer of “Mind if I just hang around and poke my nose into stuff?” was going to fly. After all, outside my time in the cargo bay, Uche had been attached to my hip.

  I stalled for time. “What can you tell me about the Agapetes?”

  Uche sighed. “What do you want to know?”

  “How big is she? How many crew can she accommodate? Does she have any unusual or interesting tech onboard? Engineering details, all that stuff.”

  “I suppose I could get you her technical specifications,” said Uche.

  “What about design schematics?” I asked.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. Anything else?”

  I was definitely detecting a note of annoyance. “I’ll still need those security logs.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to look into that yet, for obvious reasons,” said Uche. “If and when I obtain those I’ll
pass them to Ducic.”

  I eyed the Tak. He stared into his wheatgrass.

  “You have anything to add?” I asked.

  He looked up, startled. “Pardon? Do you have need of my services?”

  “What’s going on? Did you nod off?” If nothing else, Ducic had remained exceptionally quiet. He’d only piped up to offer clues into his upbringing—and then been summarily shut down.

  “Nod off? What is this expression? Was I suffering uncontrolled neck spasms of which I was not aware?”

  “You seemed distracted,” I said. “As if you’d fallen asleep. With your eyes open. And no, I have no idea if that’s possible given your physiology.”

  “No. I…” He paused for a moment, took a long draught of his beverage, and set the cup on a counter adjacent to the beverage dispenser. “My apologies. I should be more focused. I suffer pangs of self-doubt, but I should not let that interfere with tasks at hand.”

  “Self-doubt?” I said. “Why? Because of your specialty in pseudogravitation as opposed to…I don’t know, something more applicable?”

  “In part, yes,” said Ducic. “But also because of my upcoming year one progress evaluation. I am eager to provide my superiors with evidence of my aptitude and enthusiasm.”

  I lifted a brow. “Year one? How long have you been working for InterSTELLA?”

  “A little over ten standard galactic months,” said Ducic. “I believe Officer Chatterjee’s assignment of me to this investigation is a potentially great vote of confidence. If I can deliver.”

  I pursed my lips.

  Uche stood. “Guys, could you let me escort you back to your ship? Please?”

  “Oh. Right. Sure,” I said. “If you get us those documents I asked for. And I reserve the right to come back and ask more questions. Not necessarily of you, but rather your crew.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be thrilled.” He waved toward the open door.

  I obliged, but not before casting a surreptitious glance at Ducic. He was a rookie?

  13

  Carl met me at the airlock to the Samus Aran, which thankfully was still docked with the Agapetes. He gave me a nod. “So I got the ship schematics and technical specifications from Paige. Anything in particular you’re hoping to glean from them?”

  Uche had secured the documents en route to Tarja’s ship and sent them to me via Brain, whereupon Paige had forwarded them to Carl. I found the speed at which he obtained and parted with the information suspicious, especially given his obvious reluctance to provide the Agapetes’ security logs.

  Ducic followed me closely, so I skirted Carl’s question. “Let’s look at the information together. Basically, I’m trying to get a better feel for why the Agapetes was targeted.”

  Carl and I settled ourselves onto the wraparound bench seats in the main cabin.

  Ducic sidled up next to us. “Can I be of service?”

  I’d kind of hoped he’d retire to his room, but I nodded. “Of course.” After all, I didn’t want to alienate the guy. I had a feeling we’d need him on our side if we had any hopes of unraveling the mystery presented to us.

  I spotted a holoprojector above us. “Paige, can we use that to create a rendering of the Agapetes?”

  Sure, she said. I’ve got rudimentary privileges on the Samus’s servenet. Don’t get jealous, though. In all honesty, Tarja hasn’t warmed up to me much more than she has to you.

  The projector flickered to life and a miniature version of the Agapetes appeared over the table.

  “Perfect,” I said. “Though could we get half of it displayed in blueprint form? Cut right down the middle?”

  So…not perfect, said Paige. Though I appreciate the sentiment. You know how to make a girl feel special.

  If only.

  Paige obliged me, and suddenly half the ship disappeared, replaced instead with a glowing blue architectural outline showing the freighter’s hold, crew quarters, maintenance shafts, engine compartments, and the rest.

  “Alright, Carl,” I said. “You’ve got the technical specifications on hand and you’re better at translating schematics from digital to physical form than I am. Let’s start with the crew quarters. Where are they?”

  My partner stuck his index finger into a portion of the glowing blue outline. “There are two sets of two cabins. The ship is symmetrical in nature, so there’s one set on each side. Each cabin can hold three humans or humanoids, for a total of twelve.”

  Uche had mentioned they had eight crew on board at the moment. “What about life support? It can’t be designed to accommodate only twelve people.”

  “Of course not,” said Carl. “For factor of safety reasons, it can support quite a bit more.”

  “How many more?”

  “That’s not a simple question to answer,” he said. “There’s no single life support system on board. Many systems work in concert to keep the ship operating at peak performance. The oxygenator and the carbon dioxide scrubbers, solid and liquid waste recycling, ship’s power, heating, and magnetic field management, to name a few. The systems aren’t all taxed equally by the addition of more people, and the degree to which system would be stressed is largely time dependent.”

  “So what you’re saying is a two hour pirate attack would put a strain on the ship’s oxygenators and carbon scrubbers, but not so great as to cause a problem in the long run?”

  “Precisely.”

  I scratched my chin. I’d need Carl or Paige to run some numbers.

  “Pardon,” said Ducic, “but this is obvious, if not from physical calculations then from experimental evidence. Holovids clearly show attackers and crew suffering no ill effects from oxygen deprivation during attack.”

  “Please don’t ask if I’ve watched the vids,” I said. “I don’t need anyone else questioning that for as long as we’re on this case.”

  Ducic glanced at me with flattened ears and widened nostrils. Hopefully it wasn’t an indication of his slighted honor.

  I heard a thump and turned to find Tarja standing under the cockpit hatch. She sauntered over and planted her hands—now devoid of gloves—on her hips.

  “So,” she said. “You’re back. It’s a shame. I was starting to enjoy Carl’s company.”

  I glanced at my partner. “You hit it off?”

  He smiled. “I didn’t say a thing.”

  “Hit what off?” asked Ducic.

  Tarja ignored him. “I see you obtained the ships’ schematics. Very nice. They’re good for what exactly?”

  “Gathering evidence,” I said. “Putting a narrative together. That sort of thing.”

  “And what sort of narrative have you devised from poking at this image of the Agapetes?”

  I tsk-tsked and shook a finger. Tarja wouldn’t get any bites on this particular fishing expedition. Between the advanced warp drive tech, the pirates that seemed more like caricatures than real felons, and the clues I’d already gathered aboard the Agapetes, I had a general feeling about what was going on, but what if I was wrong? I didn’t want to propose an unfinished theory, something Tarja or Ducic or even Carl—because I hadn’t discussed it with him yet—would tear apart because of a major oversight on my part. I needed more time to think.

  Tarja sighed and shook her head. “Alright, look here, Weed. I’ve been lenient. I brought you here on my ship because you thought it would be beneficial to interview the crew of this ship for God knows what reason. I guess because holovids aren’t good enough for you. I’ve tried to be a team player—”

  Haven’t try very hard, said Paige.

  “—but I think it’s high time we cut the crap and moved onto avenues that have some chance of helping us track down these space pirates. Every minute we waste is a minute these thugs can fade further into obscurity.”

  “And you have a plan, I suppose?”

  Tarja snorted. “Of course I do. We’re going to start with recon of the asteroid belt.”

  I couldn’t he
lp but notice how Tarja’s plan happened to keep us more or less in the same place we already were. How convenient… Perhaps that was why she hadn’t put up much of a fuss over my initial request to head to the Agapetes.

  “Alright,” I said. “I’ll bite. What exactly do you intend? To fly around aimlessly, bouncing off asteroids in the hopes one of them eventually turns out to be a pirate ship instead?”

  Tarja’s face tightened. “I’m a bounty hunter, you numbskull. There are hidden pirate sanctuaries built into at least a dozen asteroids in this belt. I know where they are. We’ll hit them, one by one, searching for the culprits.”

  “I don’t mean to be presumptuous,” said Carl, “but that method of attack would seem to have a statistically insignificant chance of success.”

  “And to think I was starting to warm up to you,” Tarja said. “Look. I’m the bounty hunter. InterSTELLA hired me for a reason. It’s because I have inside knowledge of pirates, their haunts, and activities and they don’t. Neither do you. So when I tell you I know where these places are, you should listen. Even if we don’t find who we’re looking for, we might find clues or rumors as to where they’ve gone.”

  “I wasn’t doubting your credentials,” said Carl. “I merely meant if the pirates were hiding under our noses, don’t you think InterSTELLA’s scouting expeditions would’ve picked up traces of their presence?”

  Tarja waggled a finger. “That’s where you and Vijay are wrong. What if the InterSTELLA flunkies haven’t found abnormal warp signatures along the Sol-Tau Ceti line because they’re looking in the wrong spots—like say, within the star systems? Perhaps right here in the asteroid belt.”

  Ducic blinked his cow eyes. “You believe said interstellar brigands are entering and exiting warp from within surrounding confines of the asteroid waistband?”

  “Why not?” said Tarja. “It might sound suicidal, but these are crazed pirates we’re talking about. And they clearly have advanced Alcubierre drive tech at their disposal. Perhaps for them, the exit from warp is a much more precise process than it is for us.”