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

by Nathan Lowell

  “You’re willing to leave him here that long?”

  “Not my first, or even second, choice. If we get that can on today, we can be underway tomorrow. We’ll be back in—what? A week?”

  The chief nodded. “Something like that.”

  Oscella crossed the room to stand by us. “Ideas? I see you two over here plotting.”

  The chief laughed. “We’re both about tapped out. We don’t know there’s a bomb. That’s the problem. We can’t prove there isn’t one. All we know is that there’s a team of at least two people who wanted to send a message to Kondur that they’re watching him. We’re assuming they tagged Pip to have leverage over us.”

  “So, we’re back to square one?” Oscella asked.

  “We need the can before we can get underway,” I said. “I thought it was on its way yesterday.”

  Oscella shook her head. “No idea. I think we’ve done all we can do here. Is there anything else you can think of?”

  The chief glanced at me before shaking her head. “Unless we’re overlooking something, there’s no unaccounted-for radioactive device here. Your crew may find something.”

  “That’s funny.” Dumaurier had a finger running down the strings of data.

  “A good funny or an uh-oh funny?” Oscella asked.

  “I’m not sure.” He stood and crossed to one of the glowing fusactor icons on a nearby screen. He peered at it, then moved to the next one. “The display isn’t showing the difference. It’s too small to register.”

  “Difference?” the chief asked, crossing to look over his shoulder.

  “This one, it’s got the levels I’d expect from a standard fusactor running under an average load. The numbers confirm it.” He nodded at the list of numbers on his console and went back to the first one he’d examined. “This one’s detecting about ten to fifteen percent more radiation. It doesn’t show on the screen because it’s too small a raw number. Our eyes can’t pick up the difference between this one and that one.”

  “Is it generating more power?” Oscella asked. “And would that make a difference?” She looked at the chief.

  The chief’s head already swung back and forth. “No,” she said, drawing the syllable out. “Unless the fusactor’s case is damaged. The power draw might make the generator portion run a little hotter, but radiation? That’s not how they work.”

  “Where is that fusactor, Maurice?” Oscella asked.

  “That’s the one we checked manually. It’s across the street from the security barracks just off Main Street.”

  “That’s going to be a problem,” the chief said.

  Oscella paled. “What do we do about it?”

  “First, we take a deep breath,” I said. “Dr. Dumaurier, can you tell when that sensor started registering the higher value?”

  He shook his head. “More than eighteen months ago. It’s probably in the last backup, but my window into the past cuts off at around eighteen months.”

  “Is that significant?” Oscella asked.

  I shrugged. “Might be if you have surveillance video of that building during the period when the value changed, but at the moment, we don’t know if the change is significant.”

  The chief nodded. “It’s a relatively small change and it’s been constant. A different manufacturer, a different production run, or even the age of the unit could account for a change like that.” She looked to Dumaurier. “It’s still below health and safety levels, right?”

  “Oh, certainly.”

  “So, there’s no immediate threat,” I said. “If it’s been there that long, I don’t know what might change the status quo. Especially since we need to go out, leave this can, get the other can, and bring it back.”

  I spotted the flaw in that ointment as soon as I said it. The look on the chief’s face told me she’d spotted it, too.

  “What?” Oscella said. “Something happened. Both of you know something.”

  “We only have to deliver the can,” the chief said. “We don’t need to bring one back.”

  Oscella’s mouth made a silent “Oh.”

  “It would probably work in their favor if we just disappeared out there,” I said.

  “It would be easy to do,” the chief said. “Might set them back a few months without the income but an easy solution to implement.”

  Oscella’s expression went from shocked to incredulous. “You’re talking about getting killed and how much that would set back your killers?”

  “Sure,” I said. “We’re getting to the stage that our risk analysis needs to step up.”

  “All right,” the chief said. “Priorities. We need to get a look at that fusactor without anybody looking sideways at us. Got some maintenance jumpsuits?”

  Oscella dropped us at the dock. “I’ll get the coveralls couriered over. It may take a bit.”

  “Hurrying isn’t something we need to be doing right now,” the chief said.

  Oscella nodded and wheeled her cart around, zooming back up the docking gallery.

  “She seems like a nice girl,” the chief said with a sly smile in my direction.

  I chuckled and keyed the lock open. Al waited at the brow with Torkelson. “You could have, you know, let us know what’s going on once in a while.”

  “Log us in, if you would, Ms. Torkelson,” I said and beckoned Al to follow us up to the cabin, stopping at the galley for mugs of coffee on the way.

  “Here’s what we found,” I said, settling into my seat. “That somebody hacked a lot of environmental sensors, that the environmental sensor net does not actually cover the whole station, and that there might be a nuke leaking radiation near one of the municipal fusactors in the middle of—well, I guess we’d call it ‘town.’ We think that the hacked sensors are there as an early warning system to let whoever’s behind this know when somebody starts looking for them. We’re not sure. It might just be some juvenile hijinks on the part of hackers-in-training.” I paused and took a sip. It had been a long day and the coffee tasted wonderful. “Did I miss anything?”

  The chief shook her head. “I think that’s about it. We still don’t know where Pip is, nor do we know for certain if a bomb even exists.

  “We pretty much washed out this afternoon,” I said.

  “We had some successes,” the chief said. She shook her head. “I could wish we had a little more success finding Pip.”

  “Are we going to look in the abandoned cargo warehouse?” Al asked.

  “Eventually,” the chief said. “We need some more information about how that’s managed. Normally, because it’s cargo, I’d say Pip was our go-to for that but ...” She shrugged. “That’s a problem.”

  Al sipped her coffee and frowned into the middle distance. “The can’s not here yet. Which I find odd, since it was supposed to be here in time for us to leave and we would—normally—expect to leave sometime tomorrow, right?”

  I nodded. “The longer it takes to get here, the more time we have to find Pip.”

  “If they wanted us to deliver the goods, it would be really helpful if we had them,” Al said.

  “True.” I pondered for a tick or two. “In a little over a stan, the chief and I are going to go see a man about a bomb. We’re expecting a package from the chandlery before that.”

  “A bomb,” Al said. “You mentioned that before.”

  “Something doesn’t look right. We don’t know it’s not a bomb. It could be just a damaged fusactor radiation casing. It’s very low level. Hardly noticeable.” The chief took a good pull from her coffee and sighed.

  “We’ll go in as maintenance workers and look it over,” I said.

  “I’ll get you a tool box to carry,” the chief said.

  “Do I need one?” I asked.

  “No. In fact, you probably won’t even open it, but nobody looks at maintenance with a tool box.”

  “Don’t you need one?” I asked.

  “Don’t be silly. Supervisors don’t carry toolboxes.”

  Al sighed an
d took another swig of coffee. “What can I do?”

  “Keep the ship from leaving without us?” I asked.

  “I like that idea,” the chief said. “Can you find out what the watch schedule is for the abandoned cargo warehouse? Or if there is one?”

  “I can try,” Al said. She pulled up her tablet. “Should have an hours-of-operation note somewhere. It’s a start. Do you really think Pip is in there?”

  The chief didn’t look up from her coffee. “No, but I want to rule it out.”

  “Do we need to revisit the ‘tucked into a ship’ scenario?” Al asked.

  “We may need to,” I said. “First things first. Make a general announcement that we’re going to be laying over another two days. Extend liberty.”

  Al nodded. “I can do that.”

  “If anybody asks, it’s because we’re waiting on a cargo to be brought over.”

  She nodded again. “No story’s easier to keep straight than the truth.” She peered at me over the top of her mug. “Is that the truth?”

  “Well, we’re going to need that can before we can leave anyway, but I’m hoping we’ll be able to round up our missing cargo master in that time. CPJCT will be pissed if we go back to the High Line without him.”

  “When’s the waiting period up?” the chief asked.

  “Tonight around 1800,” Al said.

  “We should make a formal report,” the chief said. “Anybody’s watching, we need to at least behave like we want him back.”

  “Don’t we?” Al asked.

  The chief laughed. “That you even thought to ask that makes me happy.” She nodded. “Yes, Al. We do. He’s quite often a pain in the butt, but he’s our pain in the butt.”

  “He’s also an officer in the company, so that’s a complication,” I said.

  “Isn’t he CEO?” Al asked.

  “Chairman of the board, I think,” I said.

  “I thought that was Alys,” the chief said. “She’s the one that approved the additional stock issuance.”

  “Oh, maybe.” I shook my head. “I’ve lost track.”

  “You should probably figure that out. I think we’re due for an annual stockholders meeting soon,” the chief said.

  I hunkered down over my coffee. “He must be. We had a conversation about the CEO and the captain not being the same person,” I said. “Alys would never forgive me if I lost Pip.”

  “The orphaned freight storage facility is open during working hours seven days a week,” Al said. “I’ll wait until about an hour after and ask the chandlery about getting access to a cargo we lost last week.”

  “Won’t they just tell you to wait?” the chief asked.

  “I can be persuasive if I need to be,” she said. “We’re leaving tomorrow and we mixed up the captain’s grav trunk with a crate of machine parts. We really need to get that grav trunk back before he skins me alive.” She took another sip. “Besides, what I’m hoping they’ll say is ‘There’s not even anybody in there now. You’ll just have to wait.’”

  The chief nodded. “Might work.”

  “Also lays the ground work for when I go over there and pound on the door.”

  “You sure you want to retire?” the chief asked.

  Al’s glance flickered to me and back to her cup. “I’m still evaluating it.”

  The chief’s eyebrows gave a little dance before settling down to a frown. “I see,” she said.

  I was pretty sure she did. I grabbed a swig of coffee and savored it. It kept me from putting my foot in my mouth.

  Chapter 30

  Dark Knight Station: 2376, March 12

  The maintenance jumpsuits came with ball caps. I pulled mine down low on my forehead while the chief cheerfully parked hers on the back of her head and flipped the bill up like a flag.

  I looked at the cap and frowned. “Really?” I asked.

  She chuckled and led the way out of the security barracks. “You’re looking at the hat, not my face.”

  Shifting the toolbox to the other hand, I took a few long strides to catch up with her as we crossed the street. “I’m going to feel pretty silly if we’ve gone through this charade and there’s nothing there.”

  The chief glanced at me. “I’m going to feel pretty relieved.”

  “We still won’t know if there’s a device somewhere on the station.”

  “That’s true, but at least we’ll know it’s not here.”

  I had to grant her that point, but I couldn’t help but wonder what we’d do if it was here.

  She stepped back so I could shoulder the door open for my “boss.” The inner door needed the badge key that Oscella had given me. I swiped it and the door buzzed.

  We pushed through into the vacant building. Our footsteps echoed against the plas-crete bulkheads. The heavy equipment emitted a low hum that vibrated my diaphragm. I spotted the fusactor crouched in the corner, a control pylon rising from the deck beside it. “Holy Hannah,” I said. “That thing’s huge.”

  The chief laughed. “You’re too used to shipboard systems. This isn’t even one of the big ones. Kondur saved himself some credits and increased his power grid’s resilience all at the same time.”

  “More fusactors scattered around instead of one big point of failure?” I asked.

  She nodded and crossed to the pylon. She folded her hands behind her back and examined the gauges on the surface. She shook her head and frowned. “There’s a Geiger counter in that box. Break it out, would you?”

  I put the box on the deck and flipped the latches. I found the meter and pulled it out, flipping it on. I crossed to the chief and handed it to her.

  “Thanks, Skipper.” She walked the Geiger counter around the side of the fusactor, disappearing behind the green behemoth only to appear on the other end. By the time she rejoined me, her head was shaking back and forth so fast I wondered if her eyeballs rattled. “This isn’t right,” she said. “These readings are exactly what I’d have expected to see for a normal fusactor of this size.”

  “Isn’t that good?”

  Sighing, she gave me a shrug and handed the Geiger counter back to me. “Yes and no. Yes because it’s operating within normal parameters as far as emissions go.”

  “No?” I asked.

  She stepped back and put her hands on her hips, her gaze raking the fusactor from one end to the other. “No because the readings we got from Dumaurier’s environmental sensor are about twenty percent higher here.”

  “There’s nothing else here,” I said, my words echoing from the far wall. “It’s a big empty building.”

  “Nothing else here,” she said looking up at the overhead. “But the sensor can’t tell us where exactly here is.”

  “What are you thinking?” I asked, tilting my head back to look at the girders above.

  She pursed her lips and gave me that sideways tilt to her head. “I’m thinking we need to look on the roof.”

  My tablet bipped and I pulled it out of my pocket to read the message. “Oscella,” I said. “She must be watching.”

  “What’s she say?” the chief asked.

  “Ladder in the corner nearest the fusactor. Goes to the roof.” A new message bipped in under the last. “I can hear you.”

  The chief grinned up at the nearest security cam and then struck out for the ladder. “Bring the box, would you?” she asked.

  I slotted the Geiger counter back in the tool box, secured the lid, and followed the chief.

  The ladder was, in fact, a ladder. One of the vertical kind. A real ladder as opposed to the handrail-equipped sets of stairs we called a ladder on the ship. The chief was already a third of the way up when I got to the foot and wondered how I was going to climb and hold a toolbox.

  She looked down at me. “Coming?”

  I stepped onto the ladder and grabbed an upright with my free hand. Climbing one-handed felt really awkward but it worked. When I got to the top the chief reached down and took the box from me so I could use both hands to crest the ladd
er and step onto the roof.

  “You all right?” she asked. “You’re a little red in the face.”

  “I should spend a little more attention on physical conditioning,” I said, looking back down the ladder. “That was a long climb.”

  She laughed and I didn’t like the sound.

  The roof of the building was less roof and more deck-without-a-railing. In the station itself there wasn’t a lot of need for weather protection, so the usual stuff I’d expect to find on a space designated as roof didn’t apply. Several boxy outcroppings dotted the area. One of them fired up with a roar and I realized they were environmental units, probably helping to control the atmosphere in the barn under us.

  The chief had the toolbox open and the Geiger counter out. She paced her way toward the first unit and squinted at the counter. She walked all the way around it before moving to the next. Every one of the half dozen units on the deck looked identical but she repeated the walkaround for each. She scanned the last one and frowned.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Not here.”

  “Something’s here,” she said, walking back to one of the middle units. She showed me the read-out. “This is the baseline level. It’s whatever’s around up here plus the fusactor under us. We’re right over it so it’s almost the same as it is down there.”

  “I’m with you so far.”

  “When I walk over here, look.” She crossed to stand next to one of the units and held the read-out. “If there were a bomb up here, I’d expect it to be higher. It’s not. Just here, it’s lower.”

  “Not by much,” I said.

  “Yeah but that’s the thing. It shouldn’t be lower at all.”

  I looked at the decking under us. “This isn’t right,” I said.

  “That’s what I'm saying,” the chief said.

  “Not that. This.” I pointed to the deck under us. “This is new.”

  She frowned. “It’s a different color.”

  “There’s a seam here that isn’t on any other section of the deck up here.” I walked around the unit. “It goes all the way around.”