“Here we go,” said Larson, jerking upright in his chair. “Barnes, do you have a fix on the target?”
“Got it,” said Barnes. “Twenty thousand K’s off the port beam.”
“Transport D47, this is the light transport Kingfisher. We are in your vicinity and able to render assistance. Time to your position ten minutes. Repeat, ten minutes. Over.”
“Kingfisher, this is transport D47. Request immediate assistance. Over.”
“We’re on our way,” said Larson. “Barnes, jam their transmissions and then get Lenny up here. Tell him his time has come.”
* * *
DCI Burns watched as the service history of the vessel D47 appeared on his screen. It had started life as a military courier but just a few months ago had been converted into a prison transport, presently based in Atlas but making regular journeys across the length and breadth of known space. With a crew of three it was presently on a run between Earth and a facility on the dwarf planet Hyperion in the Atlas Kuiper belt. A few seconds later he had the details of its present assignment on the screen. There was only one prisoner. It took a while for him to get the necessary security clearance but a few minutes later the prisoner’s name appeared on the screen. As coincidences went this one was an absolute beauty, with bells, whistles and a full marching band.
By the time Mullins made it back to the surface he was pretty much an expert on shipyard safety protocols. As soon as the shuttle landed he hurried to the metro station, dodging between the throngs of rush hour passengers. Making his way from the concourse to platform three he noticed Jimmy Franks just a short way ahead. Their eyes met for a moment – Jimmy stared in surprise but Mullins just carried on walking.
For his own part, Jimmy was shocked to see the policeman following him. He recalled Burns saying that someone would be keeping an eye on him but he hadn’t expected it to start so soon. Perhaps this was just Burns’ way of making sure that he got the message. Jimmy found a place by the edge of the platform and gazed down at the floor.
In many ways he was glad that he had finally been caught. The last few years had been a nightmare. He was fed up of being scared; he woke up scared and went to bed scared. Scared of the police who might catch him and scared of his handlers who might do much, much worse things to him. He was just glad that one way or another it was coming to an end.
Unfortunately for Jimmy it wasn’t the end he had in mind. He never noticed a man walk nonchalantly up behind him. Just as the train pulled in, a hand pushed Jimmy firmly in middle of his back, propelling him towards the precipice. A woman screamed as Jimmy tottered on the edge and another onlooker made a grab for his flailing arms. He almost succeeded but the grip was lost and Jimmy fell out of sight underneath the wheels of the approaching train.
Like everyone else, Mullins immediately turned his head at the commotion. He saw the desperate lunge by the onlooker and registered the wide eyed expression on Jimmy’s face as he fell from view. Then his policeman’s training kicked in, and unlike everyone else who continued to gape at the spot where Jimmy fell he immediately scanned the platform… and there! A man with collar turned up glanced backwards as he disappeared through the exit. Mullins had the briefest moment to take in the features but they were features he knew well enough from the mug-shots. It was Chumly.
* * *
Larson maneuvered the Reaper alongside D47 and then brought her gently up to the airlock. After the usual bumps and thuds, the docking clamps engaged, held and the green ‘Safe to open airlock’ sign blinked on. Larson, Barnes and Lenny made their way down the airlock tunnel to the outer door of D47, Barnes giving the door a couple of hearty thumps with a hammer that he’d brought along for the purpose.
“All set?” he said. Larson nodded. Lenny just stood there, his face a mask.
“OK, here we go,” said Larson as the outer door of D47 began to open, a relieved looking Clive waiting just inside.
“Are we glad to see you,” he said. “A meteor must have–”
Clive got no further. Lenny raised his weapon and loosed off three quick rounds, all of which hit Clive in the chest. He was dead before he hit the floor.
“Jesus, Lenny!” shouted Larson. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“No witnesses,” said Lenny with a scowl. Then he moved off towards the flight deck, returning just a minute later. Larson and Barnes exchanged glances; that hadn’t been in the script.
“Listen,” said Larson as they made their way to Jacks’ cell. “This is no big deal. We open the cell door, you slot the target and we’ll be on our way. No theatrics, OK?”
Lenny didn’t answer. He arrived at the cell door to find Jacks standing in the middle of the cell, staring straight back at him. Jacks had his head cocked to one side, a disparaging look on his face. Larson stood at the door controls and tapped Lenny on the shoulder. “On three,” he said. “One, two… three.”
As the heavy, reinforced glass door swished open Lenny slowly raised his weapon, a sneer on his face. “Who’s the big man now?” he said. “Huh! Banged up there in a cell! Well here’s a message for you. A message from Jack Hobbs! You mess with us…”
Larson gave an exasperated shake of his head as Lenny continued ranting at Jacks, who simply stood there with his arms folded.
Barnes rolled his eyes, unclipped his own side arm and then calmly shot Lenny in the shoulder. The force of the shot propelled Lenny into the cell, spinning him straight past Jacks and onto the bunk on the far side of the room.
“Well done, Sergeant!” said Jacks, picking up Lenny’s gun. “A perfect example of non-lethal force, though to be honest I would have killed the bastard.”
Larson looked from Lenny to Barnes to Jacks, then from Jacks to Barnes to Lenny, mouth open in disbelief and arms dangling loosely by his side.
“Barnes!?”
“I’m afraid the name isn’t Barnes,” said ‘Barnes’, leveling his gun at Larson and jerking his head in the direction of the cell. “In you go. I think Lenny might need some medical attention.”
“It’s barely a scratch,” said Jacks as he and Larson traded places. “Doubt if it’ll even leave a scar. I’m sure he’ll survive until help arrives – if it ever does,” he muttered as the door closed.
“If you’d like to follow me sir,” said ‘Barnes’, “I think we’d best get underway.”
“Agreed,” said Jacks. Before entering the Reaper he paused to gaze at Clive’s inert form, the eyes still wide open, previously in surprise but now just blank and staring. “Collateral damage… It’s rarely a pretty sight.”
Up on D47’s flight deck, Captain Slattery watched as the Reaper broke away and headed out into deep space. Slattery had spent ten years in the military before becoming a civilian pilot and had instantly recognized the sound of gunfire when the intruders came aboard. Almost before Clive had hit the deck plating he sealed off the flight deck from the rest of the ship. Clive’s assailant had attempted to force his way through but it was going to take more than a handgun to break through the reinforced steel door.
With all the shipboard cameras offline Slattery had no idea what had transpired, but making his way back to the cell bay it seemed that he now had two people in the cell instead of the previous one. One of the occupants was screaming like a stuck pig while another one was telling him to hold still.
Second Officer Hansen returned to the communications array. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is the prison transport D47. We have been attacked and have casualties on board. Request immediate assistance. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday…”
CHAPTER 4: A Man’s Man
On arriving back on Atlas, the four surviving occupants of D47 were taken to the Atlas General Hospital. Their distress call had been picked up by an outward bound freighter at the extreme range of D47’s transmitter; if the com officer hadn’t been possessed of excellent hearing it would have cruised right on by. As it was, by the time it docked, everyone on board D47 was unconscious. Another couple of hours and it wouldn’t
have mattered if it had never arrived at all.
According to the senior duty physician, three of the four were recovering from CO2 poisoning and though there wouldn’t be any lasting damage they would be kept overnight to be on the safe side. In addition to CO2 poisoning, one of the four had been shot in the right shoulder. The wound wasn’t serious and had most likely been delivered by a weapon on a low power setting. He would also be kept in overnight after which he too could be discharged.
Burns wanted to interview all of them, and in particular the two who had managed to get themselves locked up in Jacks’ cell, but for the time being he was preoccupied with Jimmy Franks’ death. Their only connection to the salvage scam been murdered right in front of their eyes and weeks of investigation had been flushed right down the pan. They weren’t just back at square one – they weren’t even in the game anymore. The only thing Burns could do was drag Chumly in for questioning.
“Yeah, sure I was on the platform,” Chumly had said. “Came in on the 5:45 from Hamilton. Look, still got the ticket stub. Went to a business meeting up there, see. The Hamilton Resort Hotel. Check it out if you don’t believe me.
“Yeah, I saw the commotion on the platform… I heard that some guy threw himself under the train. I don’t get it myself – if you want to do yourself in, there must be easier ways to do it. It’s criminal if you ask me… leaving all that mess for someone else to clean up. And how about his family? How must they be feeling? Ought be a law against it, that’s what I reckon.”
Chumly’s story about being in Hamilton earlier that day checked out, as did his claim about arriving on the 5:45. It wouldn’t have mattered if they’d had any decent CCTV footage or eyewitness accounts putting Chumly in the vicinity of Jimmy Franks in the moments before his death, but the fact was that they hadn’t. Despite several appeals, they had not one reliable eyewitness. Not a single one. Scrutiny of the CCTV footage revealed a picture so grainy that it looked like someone had thrown a sack of gravel at the screen. There were any number of men that could have been Chumly but a positive ID was out of the question. How was it they could get a crystal clear, high resolution picture of a galaxy two hundred million light years away but couldn’t get a decent snap of someone’s face from twenty yards?
So after telling Chumly in no uncertain terms that he knew, and that he wanted him to know that he knew, Burns had been obliged to let him go.
* * *
The Reaper
Another person enjoying his freedom was Commodore Jacks. It was true that along with the dishonorable discharge he had been stripped of his rank but he wasn’t the sort of man to get hung up on technicalities. ‘Commodore’ was a title that he’d grown rather attached to and he wasn’t about to give it up upon the whim of some old fool with more gold braid than sense. The rank suited him, it appealed to his very nature. Commodores served in the vanguard, they led from the front and they led by example – unlike the admirals, who skulked around in the safety of their bases, cowering behind their desks and basking in the glory provided for them by the real fighting men. Men like himself.
“It seems we have a fine ship, Sergeant,” said Jacks after finishing his tour of the Reaper.
“Indeed we do, sir,” replied Master Sergeant Fletcher, late of Unit 12, Military Intelligence. “The Reaper is a modified fast transport vessel. Eighty five meters long with a dry weight of four thousand tons. She’s powered by a Rapier hyper-drive and a pair of Olympian G7s for sub-light travel. There’s not a faster ship outside the fleet.”
“Armament?”
“None as standard, though in addition to the internal cargo hold, the Reaper can also carry a pod under the hull. The pod can be configured in a variety of ways, the present configuration being as a tactical weapons pack. We are equipped with two J&P particle weapons and a Talon rotary cannon. The pod also holds an electronic countermeasures pack and a shield generator. In addition, we have five alternate registrations that we can employ to give us a tactical advantage as the situation demands. In the Atlas system we generally go by the designation of the Kingfisher, registration number A-7598. A reactive coating on the outer hull allows us to change our registration markings at the touch of a button. We can instantaneously become the Grayling, the Saracen, the Cormorant or, the previous captain’s favorite, the Reaper.”
“The Reaper… has a ring to it, don’t you think?”
“That it does, sir.”
“Tell me, sergeant, what kind of work has the Reaper been engaged in?”
“Freelance work, mostly. Larson had links to a number of organizations, some legitimate, some not. He appeared to have especially close links to the Atlas subsidiary of the Delph Consortium, which is why I was sent undercover here.”
“And what was your remit?”
“Fleet Intelligence was looking into the Delph’s involvement in supplying arms to a group of mercenaries operating in the Proteus sector. The Reaper had already been identified as one of the vessels engaged in the smuggling of armaments out of the Atlas system. My mission was to gather intelligence on the frequency and makeup of the shipments. We made the Reaper’s co-pilot an offer he couldn’t refuse and I took his place. It was fortunate that Larson’s ship was also chosen to intercept the prison transport D47. If it had been another vessel…” Fletcher let the words hang in the air.
“Fate, sergeant. Some things are meant to be, though I do have one question.”
“Sir?”
“Why didn’t you allow the shooter to complete his mission? Simpler for all concerned. Why break your cover? I imagine your superiors will be most displeased.”
“Not a difficult question to answer, sir. Work undercover long enough and you start to wonder which side you are on. It seemed a good time to make a choice.”
“Very enlightened, Sergeant.”
Enlightened wasn’t the word Fletcher would have chosen. Disillusioned, maybe. Embittered, certainly. He’d spent most of the last fifteen years pretending to be someone he wasn’t, assuming whatever persona was necessary to complete the mission. Not that he got to choose what missions he was sent on, of course – that was done for him. Missions decided by his lords and masters in the upper echelons of the military, who in turn received orders from their lords and masters, the bureaucrats and elected officials who prowled the halls of officialdom.
Fletcher had been plucked from the ranks by the then Commander Jacks, who was looking for recruits with the right attributes for induction into the Military Intelligence Division. After a few successful tours in M.I.D. Fletcher was seconded – again by Jacks – into the ‘Troop’, the unofficial name for a unit whose official name Fletcher had never learned. Perhaps it had never had one. The Troop wasn’t entirely military, but neither was it a civil. It wasn’t even permanent and seemed to spring into existence when someone high enough up the chain of command decided it might be useful to have a highly trained infiltrator/spy/assassin on the team.
His first job was to infiltrate a group that was trafficking people – mostly women – buying them and selling them on to the highest bidder like so much meat. What they were being sold into wasn’t something he cared to dwell on. Suffice to say they weren’t being sent off to a new life with a loving family and a puppy dog to play with.
He joined the crew of a small transport that travelled way out to one of the distant colonies, picked up the ‘cargo’ and then headed across to Ksara, one of the ‘new worlds’, a colony where man had arrived but civilization was still playing catch-up.
The ship had a three man crew; Fletcher, the pilot and a roughneck named Plink. Half way to Ksara, Plink decided to enjoy a period of R&R with one of the cargo before she was turned over to her new owners. The girl might have been above the age of consent, she might not. Either way, judging by the screams, she wasn’t consenting. Plink cuffed her around the head and then raised his billy-club. Fletcher didn’t wait – he drew his pistol and shot Plink in the center of his chest.
The pilot turned just as Plink
went down. With a bellow of rage he reached for a locker behind his seat. As he bent around the seat Fletcher shot him in the side of the head. Job done. Well, half of it. He radioed for his back-up which was trailing the ship, exchanged the cargo of humans for another of marines in battle armor and continued on to his destination. On arrival, he disembarked the squad of marines who returned some time later in a disciplined though highly pumped up state. The captain of marines reported that after a brief but vicious exchange the mission had been brought to a successful conclusion. No losses, no prisoners – just the way Fletcher liked it. The marines sang bawdy songs all the way back to base. Fletcher joined in, singing lustily as Plink and the pilot were zipped up in their body bags.
Not all missions were so clear cut. His next job was to provide assistance to a known criminal. Get him off the planet, avoiding the authorities, were his orders. The man in question was a convicted arms dealer and money launderer. Expensively attired, he sat quietly and confidently as Fletcher piloted the small shuttle into orbit. There they met a larger vessel, one with government markings. The gentleman left without a backwards glance and that was that.
And that’s how it went, some missions whiter than white, some murky and the odd one or two that were just plain dirty. As the years went by, he found himself making too many compromises and making too many excuses to himself. ‘Ours is not to reason why…’
He’d brought down any number of people who would lie, cheat and kill for gain, but by the same token he’d done the dirty work for a government that was equally adept at lying and cheating. And while they were doing it they’d smile, shake your hand and commend you for a fine job well done. The worst of it was that you’d smile back.
His latest mission was a case in point. The mercenaries in the Proteus sector were nothing more than a group of colonists trying to protect their homes from a gang of thugs in the employ of an industrial conglomerate. The conglomerate wanted the colonists off the planet, after which they’d likely blow the crust half to bits in search of some rare element or other. And the colonists? No-one gave a damn. No-one. The conglomerate tried to bribe them out of their homes and when that failed they’d tried brute force. And now that the colonists were fighting back, the conglomerate were using their political muscle to have the colonists labeled as a rebel faction and get the government to do the dirty work for them. And in turn the government would get people like Fletcher to do their dirty work.
The Blunt End of Oblivion (The Blunt End Series, Book 2) Page 5
