"He was found in control of a starship over which he had no legal right," a Fleet officer who hadn't spoken yet countered. "The charge would be piracy. That falls under a different category entirely. International space law places piracy above nearly all other transgressions. In my book, using the word abscond is a kindness."
This seemed to take the wind out of the Corporate solicitor's sails for a moment, but she rallied with, "If such a crime did occur, it did not do so within the established borders of your nation. As a signatory of the Mapledown Pact, which covers the exact laws you seem fond of referencing, the Montaro Group is more than capable of investigating any alleged acts of piracy, and taking the appropriate actions."
Admiral Dusane had a furrowed brow, and looked mighty peeked about the entire conversation.
"What do you people want?" she asked, after a long silence.
"We want our employee released from custody..."
"This man is not under arrest," the same officer who seemed to see me with a peg leg and a parrot clarified.
"But he's not free to leave, is he?" the thin guy responded.
"We have a few more questions," the Fleet guy admitted.
"Nothing that can't wait, certainly. And now that we have our property back..."
"Yes, and let's talk about that property," the senior officer interrupted, tenting her fingers.
"Let's not," I injected flatly. Once more, the woman turned her green eyes on me, catlike. "That kind of approach is in no one's interest -- least of all, Fleet's."
"And I can just take your word for that? You've been privvy to the kind of information, and have had the sort of training, to be able to make that call?"
"Yes to both questions, actually -- which it should reveal in my profile that you have hanging in front of you. Ma'am."
"You don't know a single thing about Fleet's interests," the woman handed back, her expression and tone of voice unchanged.
"I know that someone back in the Alliance has been a black budget investor in this project all along," I replied. "If it isn't Fleet, then it's another group with quality information and deep pockets. That list is mighty short."
OOOOOOOOOO
twenty-four
* * *
We had a game coming up. Not just a practice, but an actual competition within the station league, and despite everything, I felt obligated to play. Because of everything, I felt obligated to win. Something was going to go right with this mission, if it killed me! This wasn't stubbornness or even (an excess of) immaturity. It was just me being sick and tired of acting recklessly, and reacting late. I understood the basic rules of smackball, and understood the need for overt plans and team cohesion. It made sense, and it was real: the realest thing in my life now.
In R&D, we were putting the finishing touches on a proposal to include WMD-enabled missiles into the freejump fighter. Since it was a military ship, access to such would be no problem for them, so, we figured, why not? We didn't expect Team to go for it, but they'd sit up and take notice. Our real goal was to get mass-effect weaponry included in the official documentation for the vessel, as a registered addendum. It would show that Mylag Vernier in general, and the Weaponry Sub-D in particular, was thinking big. It would make our part of the project flash, and we could use some flash.
I had replied to Maelbrott's office that I was declining the position. I was told to expect a certified letter from Legal, explaining that I was in breach of contract, and what I could expect from them as a response. Two days passed, but nothing came, indicating they had finally discovered that I was no longer under contract with Admin Security or anyone else on-station, and were now scrambling to look for options.
In the meantime, Floy, Ghazza, and even Jake put in for a Special Letter of Recognition (which was a civic, professional, and rather big-deal kind-of Corporatespace thing, apparently), singing my praises for the work in Research and Development. They even used language like motivator and indispensable. An award nomination like this was circulated through channels as a matter of course, so Amanda Kesselior called Floy, and tried to pull rank to get me fired. Floy told her that if Counter-Espionage wanted to move forward with it, then R&D would have no choice but to summon an Inter-Departmental Conflict Resolution Committee hearing, which would require company negotiators to be brought in from out-system. That would open the thing up to even more strangers, and alert the BoD that there was trouble in paradise.
Counter-E wanted me where they could watch me, but, as departments went, R&D was hard for them to run operations out of, since it already enjoyed the highest level of security on the station. Most of the undercover operatives the military had at their disposal weren't cleared to even enter the place. Worse yet, they had no proof I was anything other than what I said, so they couldn't override the wishes of R&D management without justifying it.
In the end, I stopped by Kesselior's office unannounced (and boy, was that an instant way to piss her off!). I proposed a compromise: I'd continue as I had up until then: working for both R&D and AdSec. Since it was up to me how to run my own office, I could make my own hours as well. She stated plainly that I couldn't do both jobs adequately. I stated plainly that a recently-bagged bogey, and recently-posted Special Letter of Recognition proved otherwise.
"The Nine didn't like you from the start, Mr. Dosantos," she warned. "He's going to hate you now. You'll have a lot to prove."
I didn't expect to be around long enough for anyone to need much proof of anything, so I just lied and said I would work hard to get in his good graces.
Later, while walking home, I called Shady Lady and got an update.
"Dieter's cooking along," Christmas said, with a smile in my eye-view. "He thinks we can be ready to leave in no more than two weeks. That works out, because we have just over four weeks worth of life support left. We'll have to go into the freeze right away, just as soon as we're off, or else we'll run out of air on the trip back."
"Any progress with Mavis?"
"John has been working on nothing else. He has an idea of the cause, but doesn't have a fix for it yet."
"I've been reading up on cybernetics, myself," I told him, taking a chance. "We could do a complete system reset. I think I know how to do that now. If the problem isn't in her neuralitics start-up routine, it should be cleared away with a full shut-down and restart."
"That would wipe most of her memory, and a lot of her skills. Aside from how catastrophic that would be for her, personally, it would leave us in no better shape: she'd be unable to fly the ship."
"I understand you can."
"In a pinch, maybe," he replied, completely unphased by my knowledge of his skills, "but it'll take more than I can do. Even she might not be able to manage it now with the military here. Especially if she forgets how to fly entirely."
"It should be fine," I assured him. "Mavis has local backups for all mission-critical information, like piloting and such. Her short-term memory is still bio-captured, so that should be safe. And I know that she's got copies of all her long-term memories in storage, back home. She might lose some stuff, but nothing she couldn't live without."
"You'd make that call for her?" he demanded, sounding disturbed by the thought of it. "Actually, it doesn't surprise me that you would. You've made lots of calls for this crew since we arrived."
"Add it to your report. I'm just saying that we have that option, if all others fail. And so far, our other options have amounted to exactly zero. We're out of time. To show you I'm not the stubborn jerk you think I am, I'll leave the decision in your hands. You probably shouldn't mention it to the others, though, unless you want to spend your last two weeks here debating the issue."
"I surely don't," he confirmed, looking exasperated; indeed, he looked to be at his wits end, a condition I'd never yet witnessed in him (except when mad at me). "The crew is barely functioning as it is. I get to go out and stretch my legs from time to time, but Stinna's gotten almost as unresponsive as Mavis. I had to order her to tak
e a shower the other day -- she was really ripe. And even then, she wouldn't go until I threatened to stick her back in the freeze. On the other side, John has gotten aggressive about some really weird things: he almost punched out Dieter for using the red drinking cup that sits on top of the Vaussermin dispensor -- you know the one?"
"Uh...with the spiral patterns on it? Yeah. Is it his private property now?"
"He seems to think so. He never uses it, but no one else is allowed to either. Since it's just a stupid cup, we never pushed him on it. Then Dieter came back, and didn't know about the taboo. It was a shock for him...seeing this level of cabin fever. Ejoq, we have got to get out of here."
"Soon, Chris, I promise. The two of us may have had our problems, but I've never lied to you -- everything I've done out here has been to get us back home, safe and sound."
"I believe you. I have to. Frankly, I've been thinking lately that you were right, all along. If our escape efforts go south, and Team somehow doesn't kill us...our only hope is in the fact that we never stole their tech."
I had made my way over to the coffee kiosk again without even noticing. I ordered my usual, listening to Chris and scanning for anyone following. That was a waste of time and worry, because if Team really had put a tail on me, it wouldn't be composed of absent-minded amateurs like their target.
"Hey, here's a job for Stinna, to keep her mind active," I proposed, when I had my cup in hand. "Think she could run a background algorithm on the people around me as I move through the station, to see if there are any matching patterns?"
"You're being followed?" He looked even more concerned, of a sudden.
"I don't know, but I could use some peace of mind."
"I'll see what we can do," he offered, and then said goodbye.
* * *
I got some work done in Weaponry during midshift, helping to break through a nasty foul-up with one of the control interfaces. Actually one of the young officers made the breakthrough there, but I got her looking in the right direction.
While we were focused on that, some guy came over from a Sub-D I'd never worked directly with before -- Piloting Controls.
Neither Floy nor Ghaz were around, so this little Off outranked all our people. He started giving us extremely angry orders about what we had to do to integrate our system into theirs, because he'd had enough of our crap, see?! Apparently, his group wanted the pilot to be able to take over Gunnery in an emergency, and nothing we were putting together could get emulated on their hardware. He shouted and accused us of some really ridiculous stuff, even slapping the table a couple of times, and causing our Tri-D image to wink out. He threatened the others with unrelated military violations, and acted like a near mental case.
While he was sounding off, I called Team Security posted in R&D, quietly, on my ring. A couple of big burly characters came hopping by in riot gear, and grabbed the guy by the shoulders while he was in mid-tirade. To say that he was flabbergasted would be an understatement.
"Who do you think you are, civvie?!" he demanded, after I identified myself to the responding guards as the one who made call.
I ignored him, and just told them he had burst into our office, acting irrationally. We didn't know who he was -- never saw him before (which was true). They hauled the man off, purple-faced and spluttering, and our group laughed and whistled when he was probably not quite out of ear shot.
I looked into the guy's situation later on, and learned that transfer orders were already in place for him. My group clapped me on the back more than once because of this, and after word got out (fueled, no doubt by rumors of my new status aboard station), Weaponry never had a serious conflict with another Sub-D again. They even started replying to our memos in a timely fashion!
That felt good, but it only lasted until the end of the shift. The Vipers had a game that night -- and I was now a Viper. Despite everything going on in my life, this actually had me worked up.
"We're going to go out there and play our best," Barney assured, in his quiet, gentle manner, and I really felt like we could.
Elaki never acted weird or upset about my having left that party with another woman. I had no idea what, if anything, anyone knew about what I was doing for a living now, but if it bothered her at all, she never showed it at practice or at the pub. At some point in the previous few days, Tip bin Horro wondered aloud where that big gal went. Laydin had been a fixture of Samples since he'd come aboard station, and her absence was felt. No one knew, of course, not even the bartender. And certainly not me.
As we stepped out on to the court from the central lift, Elaki gave me a squeeze of the arm.
"Just have fun, Ejoq." Her smile was bright and genuine, and I was grateful for it.
We were randomly assigned the Green, and filed over to our side. The Life Support Lightning was already waiting for us on the Blue side. I had Starboard Guard position, while Barney, as captain, had Center. Elaki was on Quator, Tip was our Anchor, and Fanny had Port Guard. The others were downstairs, in the changing room, waiting as relief players. My stamina was still crap, so they wouldn't be waiting long.
The plug was disallowed for this game (Amateur League rules forbade it), which meant the artificial gravity along its surface was off, though it still hung in the center of the court, to act as a line-of-sight impediment.
The Vernier Vipers was the lower ranked team, so we got to pitch first.
Barney gave the honor to Elaki, who looked directly at the Lightning Anchor, then spun low, and sent it screaming over the hemi on Port side. The other team's Center must have smacked it off (I couldn't see, because of the plug), as it came back at us immediately, from a completely different angle. I made a dash, but was slow.
Barney scooped it up behind me, then lobbed it through the air to Tip, who caught it easily. He pivoted on his heel while bending down, zipping it along the floor back our way, over to Fanny, still standing in the Quator Nook. She rolled it over the lines right there, where they were close, making the nook shot. The floor pulsed green once, while a deep chime sounded, like from a muffled gong, announcing our point.
The Lightning settled in after that, realizing we'd been practicing. My counterpart over the line was a tall woman -- taller than me -- and she eyed her opposite number with competitive stiffness, mouth set in a frown, eyes narrowed. I just tried to follow the ball, which wasn't always easy. Since we had made the point, they got the next pitch, delivered by their Port Guard. Fanny smacked it off, and it screamed along the floor, up behind the plug.
Their Anchor dashed over and smacked it wildly as it slowly rolled back at us. It came over fast then, and in a weird trajectory. I ran and dove, smacking it myself, back across the line. The tall woman caught it, then passed it off to someone else on her side. I was flat on the deck, and couldn't have blocked a counter-shot if I'd wanted to; but none came, so they must have had a strategy.
What that was became apparent in the next second, when their Anchor, looking to me like he was standing perpendicularly on the sphere wall, scooped the ball up from somewhere behind that darned plug, and did a wicked wind-up. He sent it dashing past Tip, on our side, and well out of Barney's reach. It went between Fanny's legs (she twisted and fell down, trying to catch it), and rolled back to their side. The Lightning Port Guard caught it with a sold kthopp, and the chime sounded while the floor pulsed blue.
I got a chance to pitch then, and scooted the ball along the floor out of reach of the tall woman. It must have been caught by their Center, because it came back at us along an oblique line, after only a second or so, and moving very fast. Barney went for the smack and missed. It rocketed behind him along the floor, but Elaki dashed, then rolled head-over heals, coming up with it in her basket.
She snapped it off past both their Anchor and Port Guards, who had nearly collided trying to block the shot. I heard shouting and the squeak of sport-shoes on the deck, as others ran to catch it over there, beyond the plug. It cruised back into sight, and I lined up to catch it and
make the point when it came over the line. The tall woman dove, though, and was just able to tap it lightly. It still rolled toward me, but at a slightly different angle, coming fast at my right. I put out a foot to stop it -- a move both legal and painful. It bounced off my instep, up into the air, and I caught it with the scoop.
The woman's little tap turned out to be enough for the sensor-enabled AI referee to count as intentional control of the ball, because we didn't get a point for my pain.
I lobbed the ball to Barney, limping a step, and he caught it easily, then shot it along the floor fast, right back the way it had come, past my tall counterpart. She yelped in surprise, running and bending for it, swinging for a smack, but stepped over the hemi line. A penalty ding sounded, while the floor stutter-pulsed green. She cursed, and jumped back to her spot like the floor was electrified.
Someone else over there had caught the ball, and pitched it. Barney scooped it up, and passed it to Elaki, who passed it to me. I feigned a shot to my left (Barney had had us practicing feints in the time running up to this game), then rolled the ball hard, off to my right. Their Anchor smacked it back, but Elaki caught it immediately and rolled it to Fanny. She stepped to the side as it went by, smacking hard.
The ball continued in more-or-less the same direction, but at a wicked speed, and their Port guard missed it completely. It blasted right by them all, and screamed along the inside of the sphere until it came into view again on the other side of the plug. It rolled by my counterpart more than a meter beyond her reach. I couldn't make it in time either, when it crossed the hemi line again, but Barney had lined up for the catch behind me. He scooped it up to a chime and green flash.
Risk Analysis (Draft 04 -- Reading Script) Page 35
