Karadon (Fourth Fleet Irregulars)

by S J MacDonald

  Responding to a question about why he was so focussed on the drug trafficking and had made no mention of the piracy that was also notorious around the station, Alex merely replied, “One thing at a time.”

  Finally, in answer to questions about whether he’d intentionally set out to scare tourists off the station as a means to put pressure on ISiS Corps, he delivered the knockout punch.

  “It is not my intention to intimidate any innocent people,” he said. “And any distress they may be experiencing is regrettable. However, I do feel that those who’ve left the station have made a good decision. There is strong evidence linking drug trafficking here to the Landorn drug cartel on Dortmell. The Landorn cartel has been linked with at least forty six deaths and disappearances in the last five years alone. It is certain that whatever criminal organisation is behind the drugs trafficking here will have shotguns on scene, protecting their investment. I have reason to believe that there are armed, dangerous people on that station, who are only going to become more desperate as the net closes in on them. It certainly isn’t somewhere I would want to go for a holiday, myself.”

  Chok tried, at first, to keep people on the station. They had already been hit hard by people believing allegations about drug trafficking and even piracy at Karadon, with bookings down and many cancellations. Footage of a mass exodus of visitors fleeing the station would take years to recover from. If they could just calm people down, he felt, they could at least minimise the damage.

  White Star and Red Line, however, had their own customer relations and public image priorities. They were being bombarded by passengers demanding to come back aboard their ships. Normally, both companies would charge people hotel rates for that, as they didn’t expect to have to cater for passengers while their ships were at the station. Today, though, both issued statements saying that in the circumstances, they would allow any passengers who wished to do so to return to their liners, free of charge. They had even laid on extra shuttles to bring them back aboard. To Chok’s distress, the last three hours had seen streams of people heading from their hotels to the airlocks. As so often with crowd psychology, the more people left, the more other people followed them. There had been pandemonium for quite a while.

  There still was, at the main Customer Services centre. Liners were only prepared to take their own passengers back aboard, and that left a couple of thousand visitors who were waiting for connecting ships. Several hundred of them had descended on Customer Services, demanding to be evacuated. Attempting to assure them that there was absolutely no need for evacuation had got Chok howled at. It was clear that the station’s management had lost all credibility with many of their customers.

  Chok found it incomprehensible that they believed Alex von Strada. Even the media had changed the tone of their reporting, describing von Strada as “a man obsessed with justice” and “fanatical in his pursuit of drug traffickers”. These people, very evidently, believed that there were tons of drugs being trafficked on this station, and they wanted off. Attempting to point out that there were no ships to evacuate them to had not gone down well. The best Chok had been able to do had been to tell the staff to offer all of them upgrades to the Central, Karadon’s most exclusive hotel. Just about everyone else who’d been staying there had already left, after all.

  “Oh, good thinking!” one of the more vocal customers said bitterly, as some of them looked as if they might be pacified by that. “Get us all together in one place so it’s nice and easy to take us all hostage!”

  As panicky voices rose again, Chok’s wristcom gave the “urgent call” buzz.

  “You will be perfectly safe at the Central,” he said, soothingly, “You’re safe anywhere on this station. There is no security issue, here, the Fourth is just scaremongering. Ms Rivers…” he indicated Chantalle, who was looking more indignant than reassuring, “will see to your transfers.”

  He excused himself, leaving Chantalle to do her best with the customers while he stepped through a staff-only door to take the call.

  “Mr Dayfield,” the caller was Ambit Persane, supercilious as always, “I think you need to know you’re losing staff.”

  “What do you mean, losing staff?” Chok asked, so focussed on the customer crisis that he thought for a moment that the intern meant that staff were going missing.

  “I mean they’re quitting,” the intern told him. “More than four hundred of them. They’ve just walked off the job – they’re all trying to get berths on the liners and freighters.”

  Chok swore, but only in his head. Outwardly, he kept his cool. He consoled himself with the thought that they would be the lowest grades of service staff, hired from amongst the scores of wannabe-spacers who turned up on the station every week. It would be a nuisance to have to replace them, but a single advert on Therik would have thousands of applicants beating at the airlocks for the chance to work here. In the meantime, the remaining staff would just have to cope. It wasn’t as if the station was going to be very busy, after all.

  “All right.” He considered, briefly, trying to call the defectors together and appealing to their loyalty in this time of crisis, but decided that they just weren’t that important. “Tell Personnel to issue a standard letter,” he instructed. “Tell anyone who quits without notice that they’ll forfeit their pay, accommodation and food entitlements with immediate effect. Mention that we’ll state in work references that they walked off a job without notice, too, and stress the adverse effects on future employment. For those who still insist on going, issue severance and tell them to move out of staff quarters.”

  “Yes Mr Dayfield,” the intern’s tone made it apparent that he hadn’t needed to be told what to do. “Personnel is already doing that. But the thing is… it’s Marto. He’s quitting and taking all his staff with him.”

  Chok closed his eyes. Celebrity chef Marto was one of Karadon’s star attractions. He was A-list famous, a household name across the League. There was an almost permanent presence of production teams filming documentaries about him. The opportunity to eat in his restaurant was something even first class passengers aspired to.

  Mere wealth would not get you a table at Marto’s. Nor would fame or high social status. He had shot to intersystem fame after an incident on Chartsey. His restaurant there was already a great success and the most exclusive, fashionable place to be seen dining. It had become even more so after Marto had turned away the Vice President because he didn’t like his shirt. You had to woo Marto, to win the privilege of his agreeing to cook for you.

  “Where is he?” Chok opened his eyes again, calling on all his reserves of professionalism in order to stay calm.

  “Packing up his kitchen,” Ambit informed him. Chok gave a nod that was rather curter than his usual manner, and broke off the call as he headed, with purpose, to the Temple.

  This was Marto’s restaurant. It was located in prime position on Atrium One, the showpiece of Karadon Leisure. Chok felt a physical ache in his chest as he walked through it. At this time of day the leisure atria should have been thronging with customers. Chok liked to come here when liners arrived, whenever he could, just to see the expressions on people’s faces as they came into the central atrium. It was stunningly beautiful here, hugely spacious and glittering, a cathedral of duty-free pleasures. It should have been humming with happy people, shopping and deciding where they would have lunch. Instead Chok’s footsteps rang hollow on the deserted concourse. The only other movement was a little autobot, picking up a water bottle somebody had dropped and trundling it slowly towards the trash disposal point.

  Nobody would be having lunch at the Temple. It was unlikely that the privileged few who had a booking would turn up, anyway, but if they did they would be greeted by a sign taped onto the door. It read, “Closed” in large print, and then beneath it, tersely, “For obvious reasons.”

  There was nothing to be seen through the privacy glass and no sound from outside, either, but when Chok used his managerial master-key to open the d
oor, he could hear Marto’s voice.

  Chok went through to the kitchen. Marto was, indeed, packing it up. Or rather, standing in the middle of it directing as his staff did so. Marto’s staff was almost as famous as he was himself. Though different faces came and went, they were part of the show, part of the legend. They were known as Marto’s Army. Marto drilled them like a shrill sergeant major, shrieking at anyone who did not meet his perfectionist standards. All of his team were celebrity chefs in their own right at the global level. They came to work for Marto to widen their intersystem profile. The resulting clashes of publicity-seeking ego had entertained billions of viewers across the League.

  “Marto,” Chok started, and then saw the cameras. Of course, he remembered. There was a production team from Neuwald following the latest arrival to Marto’s Army, a hugely temperamental Neuwaldian chef hired as the new patissier. He’d forgotten all about them in the crisis. Part of him noticed, even then, that for the first time ever in his dealings with them, Marto and his Army were working together without a hint of conflict. Chefs who would normally throw hissy fits at anyone who touched a ladle in their bit of the kitchen or break down weeping because another chef had sneered at their cabbage julienne were working with quick, efficient teamwork. They were all, clearly, of one mind. They were getting off this station, fast. Being chefs, however, they were not about to leave their kitchen tools behind. They had two half crates in the middle of the kitchen, packing all the cooking gear into them while Marto called out imperative directions.

  “Put the thermometers inside the stock pot,” he instructed, and got a “Yes Chef!” and instant obedience.

  They were scared, Chok realised. They were scared and overwhelmed, and right now, just for right now, Marto represented a very reassuring, familiar authority. The look on the face of the producer filming this was one of sheer bliss. He had had no expectation, realistically, of the reality-doc he was filming having any market to speak of, beyond Neuwald. This, though, would be picked up by network after network, broadcasting across the League.

  Noticing Chok at the same moment Chok noticed him, the producer glanced urgently at his camera tech, a flicker of relief showing on his face as he saw that the tech was already on it. One of the three floating cameras he was controlling had already turned to focus in on Chok. Another filmed busily as Marto turned to face the station’s executive director, his face darkening with rage.

  “You!” Marto’s voice rose in his trademark shriek, and Chok held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. It didn’t help. Advancing in rapid strides, Marto got much too close in Chok’s personal space and glowered up at him ferociously. “You creature!” He shook his fist under Chok’s nose. “I am off! Do you think that I, I, Marto, would stay in this place which is trafficking in death? Do you think I can cook, here, delights and wonders, with the picture of a dead child in my head? What kind of monster are you, to expect me to do this?” He stopped shaking his fist, but only to shake his finger in Chok’s face. “The Queen of Cartasay is due in two hours! I am on that ship! We are on that ship!” He prodded at Chok in unison with his words, for emphasis, “We – Are – Leaving!”

  Chok did not attempt to tell him that the Queen of Cartasay would not be able to take them aboard. Marto knew as well as he did that the liner would find room for them, even if all their incoming passengers refused to get off. Liners were adept at squeezing more berths in as needed. For Marto and his Army, complete with attendant documentary team, the Cartasay’s captain would probably give them his own quarters.

  “Honestly, Marto, it’s not true.” He could hear himself fluting, his voice in a slightly false register as it tended to be when he was very tired or exasperated. His look of calm, charming professionalism felt like it had been glued onto his face as a rigid mask. He shifted his tone to one of earnest appeal, and looked imploringly at the chef, “You’re not going to let them drive you off the station, are you?”

  He would never know how that discussion would have turned out – even as he was speaking, he could feel the particular buzz on his wrist that told him Director Torres was calling him.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he apologised to Marto, feeling that the timing just could not have been worse. “One second!” he begged, though he knew that was pointless. Marto howled with outrage at the sight of Chok stepping back and taking a call. “Yes, Director?” A short silence as the incoming call was set to go straight to his earclip. Chok’s face changed, becoming a thin mask over desperation again. “Yes, of course,” he said. “If I might just be a few minutes – I’m at the Temple, you see. I’m afraid Marto is thinking of leaving us.”

  Another slight pause, and a flicker of dismay. “Of course,” he repeated, and ended the call, looking at Marto. The chef was actually swelling, his face a mottled red. If Chok walked away now, there would be no way to persuade Marto to stay. Probably there hadn’t been, anyway, but he would never forgive the insult of Chok walking away from him, as if there could be anything more important going on. Chok looked at him and knew that there was nothing he could say.

  “Sorry.” He heard the note of weary defeat in his own voice, and with that, turned and left, pursued out of the restaurant by the camera and by Marto’s shriek.

  He went straight to the boardroom, trying to compose himself as he went. Director Torres’ words when he’d told her he was with Marto kept repeating in his head. That isn’t important, she’d said, and her tone made it clear that the chef was welcome to leave the station or drop down dead as far as she was concerned.

  To Chok, Marto’s departure was a calamity. He found it hard to imagine how anything could be more urgent than that. Fear spurred his steps, though, as he approached the boardroom and it suddenly occurred to him that the Fourth might have boarded the station. That would be urgent enough to justify Director Torres calling him away from attempting to pacify Marto.

  Director Torres, however, was having a cup of tea in the boardroom when he arrived. Ambit Persane was there and had obviously just brought her the tea. It was just the way she liked it, properly made in a china pot and presented in an elegant tea service. Ambit had added some biscuits on his own initiative. As Chok went in, the Director was studying these, and after considering, took a butter-crisp and nibbled at it genteelly.

  Chok stared at her for a moment and then remembered his manners. “Director,” he greeted her, and went to sit down.

  “Have some tea, Mr Dayfield.” She gestured at Ambit without looking at him, and the intern murmured acknowledgement, going over to the refreshment bar. Chok was about to say no, sheer stress levels about to say that he didn’t have time to drink tea, but then he caught the Director’s eye. Without her needing to say anything, he understood that she was telling him to calm down. He also realised that it was now nearly lunchtime and that he had been up and dealing with a very demanding crisis since five in the morning, on only one gulped cup of coffee.

  “Thank you.” He hadn’t realised how thirsty he was till then, but focussed on the Director, sure that she had not called him here merely to have tea and biscuits.

  “There is,” she told him, “a development.” She drew his attention to the boardroom’s screen, and activated a control. “This has just gone out to all the ships in port.”

  It was a recording of a message from Alex von Strada. He was pictured sitting at a desk, his manner the stone-faced one he adopted instinctively in public or formal situations. Another officer, a genial-looking man Chok vaguely recognised as somebody Burroughs, was sitting next to him.

  “All ships,” Alex began. “You already know, I am sure, that the Heron is here on operations to tackle drug trafficking. You will be aware that we have, this morning, seized a quantity of Class 3 drugs aboard the freighter Fancy Free, arresting its skipper and engineer. Evidence that came to light in the course of that seizure and in subsequent interviews with Skipper Tomas Sutherland and Engineer Murgat Attwood has revealed that some of you almost certainly have Class 3 drugs aboard your sh
ip of which you yourselves are unaware. I feel it is important for you all to see the evidence of that, from the Fancy Free, so I am releasing footage of that operation into the public domain.

  “Before I do so, however, I need to be very clear as to your options in response to this. The information that we have is that at least three of the ships currently in port have DPC aboard. If we have to come to you, issuing and serving search warrants, I will have no choice but to arrest you and refer the matter to the Prosecution Service. I would prefer not to do that unless I have to. I am, therefore, going to hold off on the service of any further warrants, allowing a grace period of ten hours for any ships remaining in orbit, giving you the opportunity to ask for inspection.

  “As you will see in the footage, we are able to employ a new nanotech scanner that can identify the contents of a cargo crate, accurately, without breaking the quarantine seal. We are offering to come aboard, at your invitation, and use that scanner to check any crates you may have concern about.

  “It is important to be clear, in that, that we are absolutely not interested in minor discrepancies on your manifest. If the manifest says it’s a G-12 import and it actually turns out to contain cindar or tetracitrine, we will not even comment. You have my word on that. You also have my word that if a crate you have asked us to inspect does turn out to contain drugs, there will be no charges brought against you. We will seize the drugs, of course, and you will be asked if you are willing to make a statement about how you acquired them, on absolute assurance of immunity from prosecution for that, or for buying heavy cargo.