By Darkness Forged (Seeker's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Book 3)

by Nathan Lowell

  “With room enough for half the student body at Port Newmar, but that would require access to the cans from the ship,” she said.

  “It would, yes, but if they used the same mounting scheme on the mega as they do on a Barbell like us? And why wouldn’t they?” I paused. “Build out the can at a base. Load it up with everything you need. It becomes a portable base of operations. Attach it to a Barbell and take it where you need it. Pull the can off the Barbell and at least one of the cans from the mega. Plug the factory in and mate the Barbell to the free can.”

  “Carve an air lock from the bow or stern to let people in or out of the can?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “The cans latch at the corners and along the spine. The ends are basically metal bulkheads with an airtight door in the center.”

  She nodded, her eyes focused somewhere else. “It could work.”

  “You know what else would work?”

  She shook her head.

  “Building that can and mounting it to a stock Barbell.”

  “What would that buy you?” she asked.

  “A base of operations you could fly anywhere in the Western Annex and nobody would look twice at it.” I shrugged. “Living quarters, training spaces, anything you’d need to set up housekeeping.”

  “Until you docked somewhere,” she said.

  “Docking is nothing unless you’re going to trade cans. There’s nothing that says we couldn’t fly the Chernyakova around the Western Annex until doomsday. Nobody would notice that we never changed the can.”

  “What would you do with it?” she asked.

  “Well, if you wanted to go into bomb-making, it would be pretty good cover.”

  She snorted but she studied her boots for several long moments. “It could work.”

  “It still doesn’t answer the problem of loading and unloading cans,” I said. “It’s a start. Maybe we’ll learn more when we get out there.”

  She nodded. “We’re going to have to go, aren’t we?”

  “I don’t see how we can avoid it. The more immediate question is whether Kondur is on the level. How long have you known him?”

  “Almost a century, I think.”

  I felt my eyeballs bugging out of my head.

  “Don’t look so surprised. He’s a lot older than he looks.”

  “I have a hard time believing you’re old enough to have known anybody for a century,” I said.

  “Nice save,” she said. “When you’ve been banging around the Western Annex as long as I have, you’ll be really, really old.” She grinned. “Kondur has always been a straight-shooter. It’s why he left the High Line. He couldn’t stand the idea of CPJCT. He came out here and staked out this system as Dark Knight Station.”

  “Did he found it?”

  She shrugged. “To this day I don’t know if he founded it, bought out the founder, or just rolled in and took over. He cultivates a bad-guy image. Works at it diligently. Even the little mustache and goatee. Working out of that dive—which has the best coffee in the Western Annex, by the way. It’s all part of his persona.”

  “What’s he stand for?” I asked.

  “Besides a pretty woman?”

  She got a chuckle out of me. “No, I mean what’s his basic value set include? Clearly he was all right with these pirates until they hit his family.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true. Until he had direct evidence, I’m not sure he even knew who or what he was dealing with. He’s probably got these deals with cash-poor, resource-rich stations all over the Western Annex. If I had to say, that’s probably the best concrete example of what he stands for. Helping the little guy get started. Making sure that the Toe-Holds keep thriving.” She shrugged. “You heard him. He believes in the Toe-Holds and the fact that the Toe-Holds have to hang together against pretty much everything. Including these scum.”

  “Don’t beat around the bush, Chief. Tell me how you feel about them.”

  She snorted and rose from the chair. “If we’re leaving tomorrow, I need to get some messages out.”

  “You need me to stall for a couple of days?” I asked.

  She seemed to think about that for a few heartbeats but ultimately shook her head. “I think we can get underway and take our time out and back. There are no delivery bonuses. What kind of training can we do to keep people distracted?”

  “What? Our people?”

  She nodded.

  “Paint the spine?” I asked.

  She stopped in her tracks and turned all the way around to look at me. “Paint the spine?”

  “One of the SAs came to me the other day. Identified a safety hazard.”

  “In the spine?”

  “Yeah. Unless you know to look for the VSI nodes, if you’re too close to the middle, you can’t tell which end is which. In an emergency, that could be disorienting.”

  She frowned. “You’re kidding.”

  I shook my head. “Next time you go to engineering, stop somewhere in the middle, close your eyes, and spin around a bit. Open your eyes and pick the direction of the bow.”

  “I know which end of the ship is the bow.”

  “So do I, but without looking at the VSI nodes can you point to it?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know. Never tried.”

  “I hadn’t either until the other day.”

  She shook her head. “What’s wrong with using the VSI nodes as a landmark?”

  “Because, unless you’ve been trained to look for them by—say, being one of the environmental watchstanders—you probably don’t know that they’re always on the port side.”

  Her eyes widened. “That would be almost everybody on the ship.”

  I nodded. “It wouldn’t have occurred to anybody who’s in on the secret, and it’s one of those dangerous things you don’t know you don’t know.”

  “Her solution was paint?”

  “Yeah. A stripe of green to port and red to starboard. I suggested some decorative touches.”

  “Like Al and the mess deck murals?”

  I nodded. “Think she’ll sit for the board?”

  The chief shrugged. “I don’t know if she can even get an invitation at this point, but knowing you put her in? Yeah. She’ll remember that.”

  “Think she’ll make a good captain?”

  “No question in my mind. You better not have any doubts in yours.”

  I laughed. “I don’t. I’d sail under her any time.”

  The chief gave me one of her looks. “If you think she’d ever let you sail under her, you’ve missed the point.” She headed for the door with a wave in my general direction. “I have some things to do.”

  Chapter 25

  Dark Knight Station: 2376, March 12

  The day started out pleasantly enough. It started going south when the brow watch paged me to the lock.

  “What have we got, Ms. Torkelson?”

  “Station security, Captain. I asked them to wait in the gallery until you could meet with them.”

  “Did you page Ms. Ross?”

  “I did, sar. She’s out there with them now.”

  I nodded. “Anybody overdue from liberty?”

  “Nobody overdue, no, sar. The watch section is all present and accounted for.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Torkelson.” I walked down the ramp and stood beside Al. “Officers? I’m Captain Wang. Can I help you?”

  “Sorry to bother you so early, Captain.” His name tag read “Riordan.”

  “Do I have a problem, Officer Riordan?”

  “I’m not certain,” he said. “When was the last time you saw Verkol Kondur?”

  “Last night about 1930. He and his bodyguard left here headed toward Main Street. He said he had some things to take care of.”

  “Anybody else see him?”

  “We logged him on and off the ship. The watchstander watched him go. My chief engineering officer watched him walk away with the bodyguard.”

  “His bodyguard?”

  “Yes. One moment.
Lemme page the chief.”

  Riordan nodded and I pulled out my tablet and hit the chief with an “at your earliest convenience” request.

  She popped out of the lock in less than a tick.

  “Officer Riordan, this is my engineering officer. If you’d like to ask her, I think she will corroborate what I’ve told you.”

  “When did you see Verkol Kondur last, Chief?”

  “Last night around 1930 or so. He logged off the ship, joined his bodyguard here on the gallery, and headed off that way.” She pointed toward the main station entrance.

  “Did you recognize the bodyguard? Either of you?” the other officer asked.

  “I thought it was the same guy we saw him with the other day at his office,” I said.

  The chief nodded. “Yeah. It was the same guy. Hervé Villarosa. Been with Kondur at least five stanyers.”

  The two officers looked at each other. “I see,” Riordan said.

  “Can I ask what this is about?” I asked.

  “You can ask, but I can’t tell you. At least not yet. You weren’t planning on leaving Dark Knight Station, I hope?”

  “Soon as we get the can tied on,” I said. “Although the can’s not here yet so that’s going to be a problem.”

  He gave me a grim smile. “The Barbell’s only weakness.” He sighed and looked at his partner, a woman with “Marshall” on her name badge.

  She shrugged.

  “Kondur never made it back from here last night. Far as we know, he came here for dinner and never came back.”

  “You searched his tablet traffic?”

  “We’ve got somebody tracking through that now,” Marshall said. “He gets a lot of traffic and half of it is encrypted.”

  “I’m not surprised in the least,” the chief said. She gave me a little nudge with her elbow.

  “Under the circumstances we’ll be happy to stay until station security says we can go,” I said. “Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.”

  Riordan tipped his cap in our direction. “Thanks for your understanding, Skipper. Chief. I shouldn’t have to say it, but—confidential?”

  “Of course,” I said. “No need to get the station in an uproar. Right?”

  He gave me a wry grin. “Something like that. Yes. Thanks again.”

  They turned away and headed back toward the main station entrance. Riordan had a radio out, speaking into it as they walked.

  “This is not good,” the chief said.

  “Cabin,” I said.

  “Yup.”

  I walked back up the ramp and stopped at the watch station. “Did you log our visitors, Ms. Torkelson?”

  “I did, Captain. I logged their arrival and that they asked for you. I paged Ms. Ross as OOD and then you.”

  “Thank you. They’ve left. You can log them away, if you would.” I looked at Al. “Got a tick or two?”

  “It’s been a pretty boring watch so far,” she said. “I could use the distraction.”

  “You say that now,” the chief said and headed up the passageway toward the cabin.

  Al looked at me, shrugged, and followed the chief, leaving me to bring up the rear. I was pretty sure the morning—and probably the afternoon and evening—would be less boring.

  I stopped at the mess deck for a coffee on the way. Al followed me and filled two cups.

  “Good thinking,” I said. “This might take a while.”

  She looked at me and shrugged. “I’ve got the duty.”

  We caught up with the chief in the cabin. She slouched in one of the guest chairs and looked up to take the coffee from Al. “Bless you,” she said. “I didn’t think to get one on the way by.”

  “I probably wouldn’t have if the captain hadn’t stopped.”

  I closed the door behind me and took my place behind the desk. “How much are you up on, Al?”

  “I’m going with ‘I have no idea’ for now.”

  The chief and I took turns filling her in.

  “So, Kondur arm-twisted us into handling this cargo for him? A cargo that he has always handled personally. A cargo that we’re going to deliver to a bunch of killers who’ve taken refuge in a multi-billion credit boondoggle in slow orbit around Telluride.”

  “Basically,” the chief said. “Kondur being missing is a new wrinkle. I don’t know how to read that.”

  “Warning,” Al said without missing a beat. She took a sip of coffee.

  The chief frowned. “That would make sense but it only makes sense if there’s somebody here, watching.”

  “That’s a no-brainer if you’re getting your food from here. You’d want to know if anything threatened your supply line,” Al said. “Do we know if any ships left the station?”

  “No way for us to know. Traffic control might,” I said. “You think they grabbed him?”

  “It would be pretty easy,” Al said.

  “Even with that mountain of a bodyguard?” I asked.

  “Makes it easier,” Al said. “The mark isn’t suspecting anything because of the mountain. Two guys with tasers from behind. Drop them both. Trank them. Sort out the bodies at leisure.” She shrugged. “Easy.”

  “Station security?” I asked, looking at the chief.

  “Cameras on the docks. Selected public areas like the chandlery and Main Street.” She shook her head. “Neither Riordan nor Marshall struck me as incompetent. Kondur’s been playing the game a long time. He doesn’t hire fools.” She shook her head again. “No, if they had any better leads, they wouldn’t have been knocking at our lock this morning.”

  “Al?” I asked.

  “If it was a warning, he’ll turn up before long—probably banged up. Maybe suffering from a drug hangover.”

  “Bodyguard?” I asked.

  “They won’t be together,” she said. “He’s going to be hard to carry so they probably had one of the maintenance carts with a wagon. Toss him in the wagon, throw a tarp over him, and he’s just another bag of trash heading for compost or recycle.” She took a slurp off her mug and nodded. “That’s where I’d leave him. Just park the cart and walk away. Day workers come in and find him when they get around to seeing what’s what.”

  “What about Kondur?” the chief asked.

  “He’s going to be tougher. If it’s only a warning, he’ll show up. Beat to hell, probably. A good beating would make him hard to identify. I’d check the auto-docs around the area. They didn’t take him far, they only needed him conscious enough for a tersely worded, melodramatic warning before they beat the crap out of him and dropped him outside an aid station.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” the chief said.

  Al gave her a sideways grin. “You’ve been around the docks longer than I have. How would you do it?”

  “Just the way you described,” the chief said. “Verkol helped by not having a tail on himself. He’s safe in his own station, right?”

  Al sighed. “If I had a credit for every time I heard that one.”

  “I don’t know whether to be glad you two are on my side or worried at the depths you both seem personally familiar with,” I said.

  “Those are not mutually exclusive, Skipper,” Al said. “Pay attention here. You might learn something you can use later.”

  “Is there anything we can do?” I asked.

  “Doubt it. Where’s Pip?” Al asked.

  “I haven’t seen him today,” I said. “That’s not exactly newsworthy.”

  Al frowned and looked at the chief before stepping out of the cabin. I heard her knock on a door. “Pip? You awake?”

  I checked the chrono. 0940.

  A door opened and closed before Al returned. “Not in there.”

  I pulled up my tablet and sent him a message. “He’s probably holed up somewhere,” I said.

  Al shook her head. “He doesn’t cat around, as a rule. He may come home late, but he almost always comes home.”

  “He is on liberty,” the chief said, but she didn’t look convinced to me. />
  I checked with the brow and got a message back. “He went ashore yesterday afternoon just before evening mess.” A wash of ice water slid down my back. “Coincidence?”

  Al and the chief shared a look.

  “Kondur and Pip both missing at the same time? Yeah. That’s got to be a coincidence. They’re not connected in any way,” Al said.

  “Well,” I said. “They’re connected by a cargo container bound for the mega.”

  “We identified ourselves to that clerk at long-term storage,” the chief said.

  “You have any new thoughts on how big one of these nukes must be?” I asked.

  “Taking out a station? Probably bigger than a breadbox.”

  “Grav trunk?” I asked.

  She frowned. “Not enough data. Stupid designs abound. Poorly executed and you wind up with a popgun instead of a howitzer.” She screwed up her mouth in a grimace. “Dirty as hell, but no real ka-boom.”

  “So anybody with a grav trunk?” I asked.

  She gave me a noncommittal shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe. Possibly. Mass would give it away but that argues more for something in a shipping crate than a grav trunk. What are you thinking?”

  “Just because Kondur hadn’t been extorted yet doesn’t mean there’s not a device on the station he doesn’t know about.”

  “Insurance?” Al asked.

  I nodded. “I’m also thinking that the link has to be connected to the dockmaster’s office. The woman at the abandoned cargo warehouse saw Pip twice. Suborning a minor functionary like that would be useful. Keeps track of the station. Rides herd on the bomb. Notifies her handlers if anybody comes sniffing around.”

  “I’d have a cell here,” Al said. “What? Three? Five?” She looked at the chief.

  “Three is probably ideal. One for brains. Two for hands, eyes, and legs.”

  “So somebody saw us get the special can and alerted home? Kondur came for dinner and gets grabbed for reasons unknown, maybe a warning. Why Pip?” I asked.

  Al and the chief shared a look again. I had no idea how they were communicating. I never even saw eyebrows wiggle.

  “Hostage,” Al said.

  “Make sure we deliver the can without double crossing them,” the chief said.