by Vann, Gregg
Added together, that equaled a shit-storm of unparalleled proportions, and a fire fight back to our ship if the Cartel owning this section finds out before we’re gone.
“Mendoza, grab a floatpad and secure that Sentient. And I mean secure. If it comes back around, it’s going to finally answer my questions.”
“Yes sir,” she replied, then set off to search the hangar for what she needed.
I turned to Stinson, “Jeff, I need you to access this hangar’s security grid and destroy any video or audio recordings. I’m going to tie up our guests—hopefully it’ll give us enough time to get off this station before this gets out.”
“On it,” he said, then went to the security junction on the wall—stopping along the way to pick up a pry bar from an open tool bin.
Mendoza found some rubber coated bailing wire, and I used it to bind the mechanic’s hands behind their backs. Despite their protestations that the ship might collapse, I tied them to it as well; the ship was stable, and those two weren’t going anywhere.
I hog-tied the bodyguard’s hands and feet together, and left him lying on his stomach. He started swearing at me as I walked away, so I found a nice oil soaked rag to shove in his mouth.
Mendoza used the bailing wire to tie Del to the float, and sighed loudly when I double checked her work.
“Better safe than sorry,” I told her.
Despite its tremendous strength, I didn’t think Del could get out of the restraints without our help. But after what we just saw…
Stinson joined us at the floatpad, “All evidence of our visit has been destroyed.”
“Good,” I said.
“What about our witnesses?” Mendoza asked.
“They don’t know who we are,” I assured her. “And do you think anyone is going to believe a fight happened between two Sentients?”
“Probably not,” she agreed.
I put the mask back over Del’s face, closed up the coat to hide his body, then started pushing the floatpad out of the hangar.
“But just in case,” I said. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”
*****
We found ourselves back in the crowded docking ring, pushing the floatpad through an even greater mass of people than had jammed the area just a few hours before. The air was thick with the smell of perspiration and perfume—the telltale scents of various drugs intermittently adding to the mélange of odors.
It was clear that even more ships had arrived, disgorging their passengers to join in the growing festivities. I lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, slowly exhaling and putting forth my best apathetic attitude—projecting what I hoped was an ‘everything is normal’ aura. With luck, it might help us get to the ship without having to answer too many questions about our overly burdened floatpad.
I needn’t have bothered.
Getting past customs, if it could be called that, was far too easy. In any other port in the galaxy, an apparent corpse might elicit at least a cursory examination. On Harrakan Station, it was simply:
“What happened ta’ im?”
“He got sick and died.”
“Hey! It’s not contagious is it?”
“Nah”
“Fifty creds for the lot of ya.”
“Here you go.”
The customs ‘officer’ took the money and shoved it into his pocket, stepping aside and grunting assent to pass. We made our way back through the foul smelling docking tube—passing two guards Stinson had posted at the hatch—and then boarded the Babylon.
There is something to be said for a no questions asked policy, I thought.
There would soon be more than enough questions when the events at Bitra Mechanicals came to light, but I hoped to be far, far away by then. Mendoza took over pushing Del, taking the Sentient to one of the med-bay slips in the ship’s small infirmary. Stinson and I went to the bridge.
“Dead end?” Stinson asked, falling into his chair.
“Not at all,” I replied. “I’m now certain that the Sentients are up to their asses in this case. What good it does us—I don’t know yet.” I brushed a hand through my hair pulling several loose strands out of my eyes.
“Please have the pilot undock, and move to the outer edge of the system while I figure out our next move.”
“Yes sir.”
I laced my fingers together behind my head and leaned back, trying to piece together what we had so far in my mind.
Obviously, Woz was responsible for the blackout module being placed in the ship, but why didn’t it leave when Evans was taken? You don’t kidnap someone and then stay behind to get caught.
Del was either not involved, or killed Woz to hide its own part in the crime. But if so…why? So it could continue to tag along with us? None of it made any sense, and every answer came with even more questions. My thoughts were interrupted by a loud, rapid tone emitting from my pad; the signal for a priority communication from Sector Security.
I keyed up the device and saw a message with multiple attachments from the Cipher Division. They had finally cracked the code.
“What is it?” Stinson asked, sensing my excitement.
“Cipher got into the file,” I said, scanning the attachments quickly. “It contained her secure communications information, including the codes to access her tracking device. Well this is interesting…she sent the signal to turn off the tracker.”
“What?” he said incredulously. “She turned it off herself?”
“Apparently, there is an unsent message to Breth explaining that someone broke Val’s DNA coding and was tracking her movements. She turned it off right before she was taken; the signal came from her remote link while she was still on her ship.”
“Too late,” Stinson said, shaking his head. “They must have been right on top of her by then. Well that solves the mystery of why we can’t track her signal; anything else?”
“Yes. But Cipher can’t make heads or tails out of it. It’s just a name in a simple text document—more highly encrypted than anything else in the files. They haven’t been able to trace or tie it into any of Miss Evan’s activities.”
“What name?” Stinson said, rising to get a drink from the ship’s dispenser.
“It just says, Marie Elisabeth.”
Stinson’s face blanked and he fell back into his seat. “What?”
“Do you know this person?” I asked.
“Elisabeth,” he said, “is my daughter’s middle name. Marie Elisabeth Stinson.”
Well that certainly was interesting. “Why would she have your daughter’s name secreted away in her most impenetrable database?”
“I have no idea,” he almost whispered.
I held up my hand to keep him from speaking further; I didn’t want anything interrupting the thoughts coming together in my mind.
“You told me that she sent physicians to cure Marie when she was suffering from a childhood illness, right?”
“She did, and the therapy worked perfectly; Marie’s been healthy ever since.”
Son of a bitch. That’s it!
“They took samples of her DNA to devise the cure, Jeff. They kept samples of her DNA.”
His mouth slowly started to move, the truth dawning on him. “Evans used Marie’s DNA to code her tracker. No one would ever make that connection. Unbelievable.”
Val Evans was indeed a genius. Who would think to check the DNA of that one girl, out of the millions that Evan’s had helped over the years?
Almost no one, I thought. But someone had put it together, and used that information to track her down and kidnap her. They chose the moment when Evans away from the dome and its inherent safety, striking when she was alone and vulnerable. Or maybe they’d been forced to act ahead of plan, striking when the tracker went dead and they knew they wouldn’t be able to follow her anymore. Great, more questions.
“It’s a shame that tracker was disabled,” Stinson said. “It would have been so easy to find her.”
“Captain Stinson,” I sa
id, drawing his full attention. “We have the communication codes obtained from the personal files and the DNA crack. We can remotely control the tracker now. If you will kindly have your daughter forward a copy of her DNA profile, we will reactivate the device and find Miss Evans.”
His smile was as genuine as it was large; he triggered a com panel to send the transmission, “Immediately, sir.”
Real progress at last. If this worked, we’d at least be able to answer the most important question of all.
Where was Val Evans?
Chapter Four
Stinson obtained the information from his daughter and I promptly forwarded it to Sector Security. While the Babylon headed further out of the system, away from Harrakan Station and any possible complications from our recent visit, Cipher Division was running a plethora of decryption algorithms—attempting to track down the code to reactivate the tracking device. As we waited for those results, I went to visit our prisoner, seeking some answers of my own.
Del woke up angry, at least it looked angry to me; the restraints did nothing to help its mood I’m sure, but after the events of the past twenty four hours, I wasn’t inclined to take any chances.
Two guards were stationed outside the infirmary, and I instructed Mendoza and the ship’s physician to leave the room and join them. The pair had been running scans on Del, trying to learn everything they could about Sentient physiology while they had the chance.
I pulled up a chair and sat down next to the floatpad, its oversized frame stuck out of the slip and into the room.
“Tell me everything, Del.” I said sternly. “Why did you need Val Evans?”
“Release me!” it barked, struggling against the restraints; I could see the wire digging into its flesh. The rubber coating had already frayed off, exposing the bare metal underneath.
“Release me now,” it repeated.
“Not likely,” I said.
Del breathed in deeply calming itself, then stopped straining against the wire. Leveling an intense gaze at me, it said, “I will cooperate if you release me.”
“You will cooperate….period,” I clarified, returning the stare.
Del looked at me hard, as if trying to decide whether slicing off its own hands might be a decent tradeoff—if it could beat me to death with the bloody wrists. “What do you want to know?” it said.
“Why Val Evans?” I repeated.
It remained quiet and motionless for a few moments, considering just how much information to reveal I suspected. “We needed her help with a medical condition afflicting our people.”
It stopped speaking, as if that were enough information to placate me.
“What condition?” I prompted.
“A virus disrupting the inter-functionality between our organic and inorganic systems; the fatality rate is one hundred percent.”
“I can see where that might be a problem,” I agreed. “Was she successful?”
“After six months of research and experimentation, she was close to discovering a cure.” It stared off into the distance, forcing itself to say the next words. “Val Evans was returning to the dome with a final biological test sample—the one that held the key she said—when she was taken.”
“Taken by whom?” I asked. Now we were getting somewhere.
“I don’t know,” it said. “If I did, I would be on my way to retrieve her now instead of strapped to this pallet.”
“Woz was obviously involved,” I said, lacing my voice with as much insinuation and accusation as I could manage.
“There is no doubt that Woz facilitated her capture,” Del acknowledged. “I recognized its energy signal on the blackout module, just as I detected Harrakan Station’s.”
“Back on Evan’s Moon!” I shouted. The guards leaned in through the door to investigate the outburst and I waved them back to their stations.
Jumping up from the chair, I leaned over the floatpad—face to face with Del. “You didn’t think that was important enough to mention? We could have nailed Woz then and there.”
I leaned back and slapped both hands against the floatpad. “You were protecting Woz.”
“No!” it said forcefully. “I needed to know why it was involved—discover who it was working with—I thought the trip with your group might draw it out and reveal its plan. Without my presence to restrain it, I reasoned that Woz might make a revealing move.”
“Oh Woz revealed itself alright,” I said.
Del paused, choosing its words carefully again. “Yes. Woz went to Harrakan Station to remove any witnesses and destroy the evidence; fortunately we got there first.”
“Or we would have found a bunch of dead bodies, a burned out hangar, and no clue as to what really happened.”
“Indeed,” Del said.
“How important is this cure, Del? Has the virus infected many Sentients?”
A long, uncomfortable silence filled the room. So long, in fact, that I feared Del’s body might have seized up again. Finally, its head turned to the side to look at me, its powerful metal eyes meeting my fragile organic ones, “All of us, Commander. We are all infected.”
I realized then that Del had resigned itself to offering up its deepest secret.
“Every Sentient has the virus, Commander. We are facing extinction.”
The implications were staggering, not just for the Sentients who would disappear from the galaxy, but also for humanity. Many people, some very well informed at the highest levels of government, believed that the danger posed by the Sentients was the only thing that kept humanity from going to war again. We Special Inquisitors agreed.
If the Sentients were gone, and that entire area of space was suddenly opened up to humanity, what Sector would claim it? All of them probably. Could it be equally and equitably divided through consent and cooperation, or would it be fought over in a conflict that would make the Diaspora War seem like a minor skirmish?
No question. It would be war.
The Sentients needed Val Evans to save them from extinction, and I needed her to cure them; to stop a devastating war that was certain to occur after they were gone.
I’d been using my pad to record the interrogation, placing it on a countertop in silent mode so there would be no interruptions. Through the confusion of thoughts prompted by Del’s startling revelation, I heard the device buzz across the hard surface—the vibrations causing it to slowly inch toward the edge of the counter.
Tearing my shocked face away from Del, I walked over and picked up the pad before it made its way to the floor. A new message had come in from Sector headquarters. Using Marie’s DNA, they had cracked the encryption and forwarded the access code to the tracking device.
Finally, some good news.
“I wouldn’t give up just yet, Del,” I said, trying to reassure both of us at this point. “I think we are about to find out exactly where Val Evans has been taken.”
Calling Mendoza back into the room, I directed her to release the Sentient; an order I had to repeat twice to finally squelch her protests. I also ordered the doctor to treat Del’s wounds—if he could devise how—and with Del’s consent of course.
As I stepped through the hatch, headed back to the bridge, I heard Mendoza utter some choice invectives under her breath; I decided to send a couple more of Stinson’s security guys to the infirmary to make sure things stayed civil.
*****
I brought Stinson up to speed in a quick briefing, describing Del’s admission about the virus, and Sector’s discovery of the tracker key, then I directed the pilot to tie the ship’s directional array into my pad. That would speed up the location results greatly—opposed to my small device trying to process all the navigational data.
Once the two systems were synced, I entered the code to Evan’s personal data-net and logged on. Calling up the main menu, I located the tracker program—fittingly placed under the security settings—then opened up the submenu and searched the directory until I found the enable command. I triggered it and a p
assword box opened.
I carefully input the string of seemingly random letters and numbers sent by Sector Security and held my breath. I hit the enter key far harder than necessary and the display went green immediately.
Yes!
Shuffling back to the main menu, I hit the location command. It seemed to take forever, but I knew it had only been a couple of minutes. Finally, my pad spit out the coordinates, displayed on a galaxy map far larger than I was used to seeing. I’m not a stellar cartographer, but I’ve travelled enough to know that these were coordinates were unusual.
“Hmmmm.”
“What’s wrong?” Stinson asked.
“Nothing,” I replied, “yet.”
I sent the coordinates back through the ships navigation controls and waited, frowning when the results came back the same as before.
“Now something’s wrong,” I said. “The good news is that the readout indicates she’s alive and well.”
Stinson steeled himself for the rest, “And the bad news?”
“She is on a small planet, a little over a day’s Transit from here…on the other side of The Verge.”
“Oh Shit,” he said. “She’s in Sentient space.”
Stinson swearing? Things must be bad.
“What’s our plan?” he asked.
“My plan is to contact Sector Security for consultation. If we are going to start a war, I would like to get their input first.”
“I see,” Stinson replied. “And what is your plan?”
“I would like to go in no matter what, but it would be foolish to ignore any valid advice.”
“I thought as much,” he said, unsurprised. “I’m going to go send a message to my wife and daughter—just in case things turn out to be as dangerous as I think they are.”
I nodded solemnly.
He saw my gesture for what it was, acknowledging the importance of saying goodbye while you still can. For me, it was even more than that though; it was just another reminder that I had no one left to say goodbye to.
I composed a detailed data-surge for Sector Security and the Regent, with copies sent to the Office of Sentient Affairs on Prima, and Inter-Sector Cooperative Defense as well. If our next actions might bring every human Sector into conflict—they should all have a say in our actions.
