by Frank Carey
Linka crushed her glass in her hand. Luckily, hers was a metal goblet and empty. The waiter suddenly appeared with a fresh drink.
"Was that the elf or the Tyen expressing her displeasure?" he asked.
"Both. I am overly protective of my friends and family."
"Yeah, I know the feeling."
Sana returned. "We have a situation," she told Harm while giving Linka a pointed look.
"Look, we need her," Harm said, "so I'm deputizing her into the Ventosian Secret Service."
Sana place the back of her hand against his forehead. "No fever. Harm, we don't have a secret service."
"Oh, that's right. Linka, weren't you read the riot act when you left OffSec?"
"Yes..."
"And there's a reactivation clause, right?"
"Yes..."
"Well, consider yourself reactivated. I'll square things with Ciara later, but for now, you're working for me. So, Sana, tell us about the situation."
"That was Space Command on the line. Someone hijacked the transport carrying Venecian artifacts. They stunned the crew and took only the crates from Venecia. Space Command thinks it was an inside job."
"It's always an inside job," Harm and Linka said in unison.
"What is so plarking important about these artifacts?" Linka asked.
Harm explained.
Linka gasped. "I have to contact my superiors..."
"How about we wait on that for a bit," Harm suggested, "at least until we confirm all of this is connected. As much as this looks like a conspiracy, we are still missing one key ingredient."
"And that is?" Sana asked.
"Proof. Frasier could just be an asshole. OffSec could have its wires crossed. The hijacked shipment could just be a hijacking. Was any of the crew hurt?"
"No," Sana admitted.
"Ex-operatives usually kill the crew to make it look like pirates. Like I said, we need proof."
"So, what do we do with all these pieces," Linka asked, a worried frown marring her runway-perfect brow.
"Sana, you need to brief the teams and Mother. Linka, I assume you have a team of people you trust?"
"Of course."
"Brief them and see what you can find out from your end."
"What about you?" Linka asked.
"I'm going to brief Marta, then get to work on your station's fine computer system."
"Doing what?" Sana asked.
"What I do best when I have a question. I am going to mine for data."
"Do I want to know the details," Linka asked.
"Absolutely not. You may end up arresting me before the week is out."
Sana smiled, but stopped when she saw Linka's look. "He's kidding, right?"
Linka and Harm shook their heads, for the week was still young and there was much to do.
Chapter 24 - Parts
I set the scanner to high-resolution before panning it around the inside of Brenda's interior. "Found it," I yelled while pulling a stabilizer transtator module from the left-torso control unit. I crawled out of Brenda and walked the module over to Trent and the bench-mounted test unit. Unlike the hand units, the bench unit would pick up components that crossed back and forth between marginal and broken. I handed the transtator to him and watched as he placed it in the machine.
"Yep, intermittent failures during high loads. You can feel that?"
"Yeah. It’s like something pulling on that side anytime I got into the groove. Damn distracting."
Trent reached into a box and pulled out a fresh, brand-new module which he handed to me. "This should fix you up," he said.
"Great. Thanks," I said as I headed back to Brenda to install the new part. I glanced over at Christa's station and saw her bent over a microscope with a micro bonder in hand. Bobby, meanwhile, was running tests on his. Ah, the suit fighting team's work is never finished. I turned and nearly ran into Harm who suddenly appeared behind me. "Do I need to get you a bell?" I said, startled. The guy could move as silently as a wraith.
He reached over with his tail and plucked a small bell off the workbench, gently dropping it in my hand. Now, why the hell there was a bell there is anyone's guess. "We need to talk...alone," he said. I looked over and saw my three-team mates were engrossed in their own tasks, so I ran over, installed the module, and took my husband by the arm. "I'll be back in five," I yelled as I led him out into the corridor.
"Urmph," Christa grunted back with a half-hearted wave of her free hand.
"What's up?" I asked as the door closed behind us.
Harm explained what had transpired.
"Dammit! I should have known that Frasier was neck-deep in hog shit." Yes, I am demure when I'm angry. "Can you trust Linka?"
"Yes," Harm said. That's all I needed to hear. Harm's trust sensors were notoriously accurate.
"I assume the team and I are to continue as planned while the rest of you work on figuring what the hell is going on."
"I know you hate it, but any change in your routine could tip our hand. Plus, you need to focus on the upcoming final match. I promise, we'll keep you in the loop every step of the way."
"Fine," I said, giving him a kiss for good measure. He's right; I needed to focus. He and the others were more than capable of handling the espionage without me...
This time.
###
The kids and I worked, tuned, and adjusted Brenda until we could do no more. Twenty-four hours after we had started, Brenda was finished, at least as finished as we could get her. With two days to go, we shut down the power, turned off the lights, and left the stall, locking the door securely behind us. Harm showed up and escorted me to our suite while the boys took Christa back to her room. I was exhausted.
After a shower and some food, I sat down on the couch and curled up next to my elf, basking in his warmth as he set about doing his nefarious work. As I watched, all warm and cuddly, he ran complex searches through the various Tralaskan and League databases, looking for any data or record that was out of place.
He found only one instance of impropriety--Team Nina had made massive payoffs to Team Luciana's driver and network engineer just prior to their leaving. Typical, Team Nina didn't even try to hide the fact. How surprised they must have been when Bobby's family showed up and kicked their Tralaskan ass.
"Well, that was a waste of time," I said, unwilling to move from my island of elf-warmth. "What about Frasier's Rebirth connection?"
Harm typed as his hacker ball pulsed. "He was a low-tier member, but exited the group after the Martok Incident. By the way, the funds he got from the Seque insurrectionists went to rebuilding his house."
"I thought Ventos Security found all that money."
"Not surprisingly, they missed a few million credits."
"Not surprisingly?"
"Yeah, they didn't have me working for them. That gives me an idea. Perhaps we're looking at this through too high a power lens," he muttered as he typed more commands. The screens shifted as the border of the screen went gray.
"What's happening?"
"I've changed InterWebs and the terminal is informing me that I'm a fool.
"I'm not following you," I said as I watched complex code dance across the screens while the hacker ball pulsed red.
"As you know, there are the military and civilian InterWebs. Most people play on the civilian one while you and I also dip our toes in the military one."
"OK, that's pretty much common knowledge."
"What you may not know is there are three other InterWebs--finance, research, and security. Finance is used by banks for funds transfers, research is used by academia and commerce for data exchanges, and security is what OffSec uses to exchange data between facilities."
"You're kidding me. Five InterWebs?"
He nodded. Security and research have petabit per second bandwidths while finance has some of the strongest encryption imaginable. Security and finance have separate router nodes while military and civilian share hardware with research. It is truly a w
onderful system."
"So which one are you in now?"
"The sixth one, known as gray by its users. It is the home of scoundrels, hackers, and criminals. It is where much nefarious work is done."
"Like the Dark Web on earth?"
"Exactly. Every League member planet has a version of the Dark Web and many of those have connections to the Gray InterWeb."
"I take it not many people know about this Gray InterWeb?"
"Billions know of the legend, but only hundreds know the truth."
"Great, now you're a poet." I stole a chip from him on the way to his mouth. "What is down in the Gray InterWeb that we can use?"
"Tools and direct access to the financial web via a number of portals which connect the gray to all the other InterWebs. I can use the computers and fast interconnections to run pattern searches of all the accounts associated with the families involved with suit fighting."
"You're looking for payoffs?"
"Yes. During your last practice session, I read the history of the Suit Fighting League. Did you know the League has been around for over ten years and this is the first time the semi-finals or the final was held off Tralaska? Now, why spend the money to build a huge arena and attach it to this little, Podunk station out in the middle of nowhere?"
I hadn't thought of that. A substantial fraction of the League is out there in parking orbits around the station. The station, itself, is woefully inadequate to take care of this many ships and people, a fact made apparent by the number of vendor ships--food truck, facility, and repair ships--making their way through the flotilla. "Come to think of it, you're right, this makes no sense..."
"Unless there is something of interest associated with suit fighting."
"What, the jewels?"
"No, that was too last minute. There's something else, something we're missing, and that something is directly related to suit fighting. What's on the schedule between now and the final?"
I grabbed a datapad from the table and brought up the competitor's data site. "We have a meet and greet scheduled for tomorrow. All the teams will be there, showing off their suits and equipment. Nominally, it is an attempt at gathering sponsors for next year. Team Kimbra and Team Luciana will be in the center ring."
"Reps or full crews?"
"Reps and equipment. Drivers are asked to make an appearance to press the flesh. We're reped by our agent, Naala Finn, whom we have not met yet. She's away working a deal with a major manufacturer of sportswear, but is scheduled to return this afternoon," I said after looking up at the master chrono on the wall. It was past midnight station time.
The terminal bleeped as a table of names and numbers appeared. Harm ran his fingers down the names in the left-most column. "This is the list of all accounts sending money into the SFL General and Special Fund accounts. The computer has flagged accounts which it thinks fall into the 'iffy' category."
"Based on what criteria?"
"OffSec database of known criminal elements..." He came to an entry and swore.
"What's wrong?"
"I recognize this account. How the hell..." He stopped in mid-sentence as he typed something into the keyboard. A window appeared with the Cube logo spinning in the middle of it.
"What is it?"
"Special Projects, specifically an account only used by Muntz."
"Devlin! Who the hell... Harmon? Do you know what time it is?" Ciara asked. She was sitting on the side of bed with the covers pulled to her neck.
Harm pressed a key, presumably sending the table over to her terminal. "Recognize entry eighteen?"
She squinted followed by her eyes getting wide. "That's impossible. Muntz is dead and that account was closed years ago. I know because I saw him die, and I closed that account personally."
"Well, it's a live, and three months ago, someone transferred fifty million credits from it into the SFL general fund."
"Could someone explain what the hell is going on?" I asked.
"Tell her while I make some calls," Ciara said as she got out of bed, forgetting her covers in the process. The woman looked damn good I had to admit. The screen returned to the rotating logo.
"So, explain," I demanded.
"The Cube has its own bank which it uses to keep things off the normal books. SpecPro had several accounts, one of which belonged to Muntz. It was what he used to finance really special projects, like me and the quads."
"You looked it up, didn't you?"
"Yeah, after the incident on Ith. I found out a lot of things, all of which I told Ciara. SpecPro was financing a lot of damage from that account until she closed it down. Now this. How the hell did they reopen a sealed account? I thought they may have created a new one with limited funds, but not this." He typed in more commands. "My gods, there's a hundred trillion dollars sitting in there."
"Harm!" Ciara yelled as the screen lit up with an image of her back on the bedside, this time wearing a modest fuzzy robe.
"Yes, boss!" he replied out of habit. Ciara had that effect on people.
"Heads are rolling right now. We've put tattletales on the account. What the hell is going on there?"
He explained. "Any word on the missing artifact?"
"No, nothing. Can any of this be related?"
"Was a survey done of the space around Mimbres, Venecia, or Maranta Five?" I asked.
They stared at me. "What are you thinking?"
"Each was the location of a gateway. Why those planets. Why did Dr. Thia and his Nochmarist cult choose Mimbres in the first place?"
"Go on," Harm said.
"Well, maybe someone knows something we don't know. Maybe they want to activate a bridge, but they know it won't work unless it's near something, and maybe that something was found on Maranta Five, Venecia, and Mimbres..."
"And the same something might be close to the station, or reachable from the station?" Ciara speculated. "Sure, it's possible, but what does any of this have to do with the SFL final?"
I got nothing, and from the look he was giving, neither did Harmon. "Can you get back to us with those surveys?" I asked.
"We're on it. Give me a few hours. What are you going to do?"
"I've got a show to attend." I said, referring to the meet and greet."
"I will be attending as well, though I plan to do some snooping around. Speaking of snooping around, do I have your approval to bring Linka in on this in an official manner?"
"Unlike the unofficial manner you've already done?"
"She called you, didn't she?"
"Yes, she did, and yes, you can. Just keep me in the loop."
"Roger that. Good night."
"Good night," Ciara said as she reached over and killed the connection.
I looked up and saw Harmon staring at me. "What?"
"I would have never thought of the connection with the other gateway planets."
"Think it's kinda sexy?"
"Yes, very."
I can sleep when I'm dead.
Chapter 25 – Another Meet and Greet
I performed a final check in the hallway mirror. A left turn followed by a right. Yep, looking good. I chose a lovely, form-fit red cocktail dress with matching red stilettos. Yes, even a general wears stilettos. I stopped when I heard a whistle. "How do I look?" I asked.
"I am not worthy of your love, my queen," Harm said as he hugged and kissed me.
"Damn skippy," I replied while hugging him back. "Shall we proceed to the soiree?"
"Yes, lets," he said while checking himself in the mirror. Unlike his usual formal attire, which I call pirate chic, he chose a black, fitted, sharkskin suit over a black cotton shirt and white bow tie. His shoes were impeccably polished black oxfords.
"Do I need to bring a blaster to keep the girls off you, Stud?" I asked in all seriousness.
"No, silly woman, I only have eyes for you."
I know this, but the reassurance was appreciated. With a final check, we headed out the door.
###
Everyt
hing went silent when Harm and I entered the room. "It's the dress," he whispered as he took my arm. "I feel so underdressed."
I cuffed him as I smiled at the crowd. This seemed to be the way to restart the conversation, thank God.
"My Prince, it is an honor to finally meet you," a young Tralaskan woman said while curtsying. "My name is Naala Finn."
"Ms. Finn, it is an honor," Harm said while kissing the back of her hand. "Let me introduce the driver for Team Luciana, my wife, General Marta McMurphy."
Naala curtsied again, followed by shaking my hand. The hell with it, I hugged her. "Hey. Bobby and Trent told me about you and the fine work you're doing. Have you met my daughter yet?"
"Yes, Bobby and Trent introduced me to her just after I got in. It’s so strange to see someone who is Bobby's identical twin."
"Wait until you meet the other two, Shenda and Torren. You'll give up drinking."
She smiled as she relaxed. "I've never met a prince before, or a general."
"You get used to it. By the way, Bobby is technically a prince."
"By the gods!" she blurted out. "And Christa is a princess. I... I..."
I took her by the arm. "You're doing fine. The elf loves to get a rise out of people, don't you, Lucien?"
He took her other arm and nodded while we let her lead us through the hall.
"Look, Christa and Bobby don't care much about the prince and princess thing and neither do the rest of the kids, so no worries, OK?"
She nodded while visibly calming. "Thanks. Why do the kids call you Harmon?"
Harm shrugged. "It's a long story. I was kidnapped, adopted, then eventually found my sister at a party, so now I go by Harmon and I go by Lucien. Just use Lucien; it'll make it a whole lot easier."
Poor Naala, she stared at him slack jawed for a moment before turning to me for help. "He's kidding, right?"
I shook my head. "Welcome to my world. So, what can you show us?"
We spent the next hour walking amongst the displays with Naala introducing us to the other Team Reps, the occasional driver, and reps from the equipment companies. At each table, Harm would stop and ask questions, much to the delight of the reps who loved the opportunity to discuss their wares with a knowledgeable, potential customer. Finally, we came to a familiar face standing behind the Elven Industries Limited table.
