Fracture Lines (The Glass Complex Book 2) (22 page)

Steg triggered the comunit. “Kirby, the skipper and his Xesset friends are stalling. Get ready to penetrate the hull.” His instructions were private, delivered only to his teams. Then he returned his attention to
Djamu
officer and said, “Banner, stop stalling. Take us to the cargo pods, now.”

The
Djamu
skipper and his two crew members at first did not move, despite Steg’s instruction. One of Steg’s men, Cerpio, a heavyworlder, grabbed the freighter’s captain and lifted him effortlessly out of the way of the mercenaries. The crew members turned and ran back along the corridor.

“Let them go,” Steg instructed.

To Steg’s surprise, the freighter skipper shrugged off the mercenary’s restraining hand, turned, and headed down the corridor. He said to Steg, “Very well. Follow me. We’ll go to my cargo master’s office.”

Steg beckoned to his men to move forward. He wasn’t confident the Xesset would let them access the cargo—there was going to be a confrontation, he was sure.
Djamu’s
skipper took them along empty corridors, past heavy bulkheads, onwards through what seemed to be the core of an almost deserted and badly maintained starship. Steg thought the crew were in hiding, unwilling to catch his or his team’s attention. He didn’t blame them. The skipper stopped at a door that was signed Cargo Master, knocked, and opened the door. Steg looked past the man into an unoccupied work cabin. It was untidy with papers piled high and spread all over the single desk, with some on the floor. A work unit was also on the desk; the keyboard was sweat-stained, and the case was fractured in places.

“My cargo master’s office. The man is a coward,” cursed the skipper. “I’m going to have search for details myself.”

“You can waste your time if you want. I’m not wasting mine. I want access to your container hold, now.” As Steg spoke, he felt a tremble in the structure of the starship. Banner looked startled and then alarmed. The starship was under way.

“Did you order this?”

Banner said, “No. Someone—it’s probably the Xesset. I’m losing control of my own ship.”

“I think you’ve already lost control,” muttered one of the mercenaries.

Steg instructed Kirby, “Blast away. Get to the controls in the engine room and stop this freighter.”

“Counting down,” Kirby said.

Steg visualized the directional explosive device, which Kirby’s team had put in place—all its force was targeted to penetrate the hull of the freighter. Seconds later the exploding device created a different tremble in the structure of the starship. Sirens blared, and emergency locks slammed shut, triggered by air venting out of the ruptured hull.

“What—what’s happening?” Banner glared at Steg, his alarm morphing into panic. “You, you’ve done something to my ship. I must get to my bridge.”

At Steg’s signal, Cerpio stepped forward and again restrained the skipper. “No,” the heavyworlder said. “You’re staying with us.” Banner struggled for a moment and then seemed to inwardly collapsed, perhaps realizing he could not escape.

“Captain Banner,” Steg said. “The attempted departure of your vessel while undergoing customs inspection is a breach of inter-system trade regulations and of our laws. You and the freighter are now under arrest; we’ll formalize all of this after we inspect some of your containers. Restrain him, Cerpio. Kirby, how’s progress?”

Kirby provided a running commentary of his progress. “We’ve penetrated the hull, as you probably can tell. Emergency lock doors dropped into place as they’re supposed to, preventing atmosphere evac. No one’s in sight, nothing’s here to stop us. We’re through the emergency airlock. We’re now at the engine room. There’s only an engineer and two stokers here. They’re unarmed. We’re about to cut power to the drive, brace yourself.”

The freighter shuddered and jarred as it came to an uncontrolled halt. Dust fell from stanchions and out of unseen crevices. Small items, fragile, fell and broke, shattering on the gray plasteel floors, while other items, hardier, thumped and bounced when they hit the floor. Steg and his men braced themselves against the walls of the corridor while the starship rippled and flexed, until finally everything settled. Banner was thrown to the floor by the shock wave. The silence was startling. Except for a hiss of air as the ventilators continued their function, the freighter was still, silent, stationary.

Steg assisted the shaken freighter captain to his feet. He asked, “How many of the aliens are on board?”

“Aliens?”

“The Xesset? How many are on your ship?”

“Just—just three of them. One is always on the bridge, and one—protects—me. The third one’s in charge.” He gave a short laugh that almost turned into a cry.

“Did you hear that?” Steg asked Kirby.

“Yes. I can leave Riddell with seven or eight men in control of the engine room and join up with you, if you like. The pilot’s got our shuttle locked down onto the hull, and I’ll leave two men to support him. I can bring the rest with me.”

“Good. Tell Riddell the three Xesset could prove to be tough opposition if they decide to try to regain control of the engine room. We’ll head to the nearest cargo pod. Hold on for a moment; let me confirm our destination.” Steg had details of the freighter’s layout from earlier records provided by Monty. He looked at Banner. “Lock 14F—that accesses the nearest cargo pod?”

“What?”

“14F—that’ll allow us to access cargo?”

“Yes, yes.” The man seemed to be pre-occupied. “The Xesset will try to stop you, though.”

“Let me worry about them,” Steg replied. “Kirby, 14F is confirmed. We’re heading there now. I’ll bring the skipper. Join me.”

Steg watched while Banner made two attempts to key in the pass code. Both attempts were failures. He tried again, this time taking care to control his shaking hands. The retaining bolts clicked and the pneumatics controlling the huge door into the cargo pod slowly slid it open. Lights switched on, revealing row after row of containers. Each container, Steg estimated, was fifty feet long, and fifteen high by fifteen wide. They were stacked in blocks, four containers high with two rows, each row five containers long, so that a block held 40 containers. He counted ten blocks in the pod.

“There must be hundreds of the damn things,” Kirby said. He and his men had met up with Steg a minute or so after he had reached the access lock.

“About four hundred in this pod,” the skipper clarified.

“How many in total?” Steg asked.

“We have five cargo pods, so two thousand containers.”

“All full? Two thousand fully loaded containers?”

“Yes.”

“Hell—someone’s serious about starting a war. Very well. Tell me what these contain?” Steg indicated the nearest block.

“There’s a detailed manifest recorded at the front of each of the blocks,” the skipper said. He reached for the compad for the first block and handed it to Steg.

He read through the summary. For some containers, the contents list was a simple description, one line. Others were more complex.

“So this first one, here,” Steg tapped the container, “contains three-inch bolts? With packaging? Now why wouldn’t your customer use 4D printers to manufacture whatever bolts they required?”

The freighter skipper was even more nervous. “I—I don’t know. They ordered bolts, we received bolts, we’ll deliver bolts.”

“Not munitions?” Kirby queried.

“Munitions? Of course not. We’re not gunrunners,” the skipper protested.

Steg said, “I want my men to open that container. If you don’t have keys and the combination, my men will cut off the locks.”

“No-no, they’ll kill me—”

“Who’s they, and why will they kill you?”

“The Xesset. It’s my death sentence if I allow you—”

“You’re not allowing us. We’re doing that entirely on our own. Go ahead.” Steg turned to two of his men and pointed at the container lock.

Seconds later the door was open. One of the marines tugged at a heavy carton and tore it open. He pulled out a box; it contained an ammunition belt with .50 caliber bullets. “These are strange bolts,” the man said, trying to hide his smile.

“Well, Banner?” Steg asked.

“Come to my cabin, and we’ll discuss this,” the skipper offered.

Steg laughed. “Oh, no. This is a non-bribable situation. We can discuss whatever we need to, here and then on your bridge.” Steg looked at the details displayed on the compad for other containers. He tapped on the door of the next container. He said, “I suppose this contains heavy weapons, not farm machinery? And the next one doesn’t contain irrigation piping—perhaps ground to air missiles?”

“I don’t know!” the skipper almost shouted his protest. “It must be the Xesset—the aliens and my cargo master—they’ve conspired to bring a container of weapons on board. I knew nothing about this, nothing.” He was almost in tears.

Steg decided the man was an excellent actor. “So if we examine some of the other containers, we won’t find any more weapons?”

“How would I know, I’m only the skipper? No one tells me anything. I’m innocent, I tell you. It’s those aliens, it’s all their fault.”

Steg instructed his men to examine three more containers further into the cargo pod. They contained weapons or other military materiel. Steg communicated his findings to Dean, still on board
Wasp
.

“It sounds as though they have enough there to start a war,” Dean said.

“I suspect that’s the intention,” Steg agreed. “We’ll place guards to prevent access to the pod access locks. I’ll take Banner to the bridge. I need to go through the formalities for his arrest and for taking possession of the freighter. I’ll let you know if we need help.”

“We can send more men, if you need.”

“Good. We’ve enough men for the moment. As a precaution, though, you could get a company prepped and armored. I’ll let you know if we need them—it’ll only be if it starts to go pear shaped,” Steg said.

“Okay. I’ll report your situation to Gillespie; she asked to be kept informed.”

Steg turned to Kirby. “I want you to set guards on the access locks to the cargo pods. Four men for each. Check if the locks can be blocked off. Set up a barrier for protection. You know the rest.”

“You think the Xesset might try to take control of the cargo?” Kirby asked.

“Well, more than take control, once they realize they have few alternatives. If the Xesset decide to detonate some of the missiles, for example, that’ll ignite the other explosive materiel and we’ll have a complete disaster on our hands. We may not survive it. They could detach the pods; we’d be exposed if we attempted to recover them.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of that.”

“I need to take control of the bridge and complete the formal arrest process. I’ll need a small team to come with me. Join me there once you’ve organized your teams to guard the cargo pods. When you get to the bridge, we’ll set up our watch—I’m not sure I want to trust Banner and his crew. Oh, and we’ll have to arrange for a full search of the freighter to find the aliens; we can’t continue to operate safely with three Xesset on the loose.”

Minutes later Steg reached the bridge with Cerpio and Jonash escorting the freighter captain. Three nervous crew members were on duty; they remained silent, avoiding eye contact with Steg. They did not protest his presence or his statement that the starship was under arrest.

The Xesset were conspicuously absent. None of the bridge officers knew the whereabouts of the three aliens. At least, so they said. The Xesset had disappeared, and whether they were planning to take back control of the engine room, were communicating with the starship, or plotting some other action, Steg was not prepared to guess. They would need to search the freighter; in the meantime he needed to complete the arrest formalities.

Steg addressed the skipper. “Captain Banner. I’m recording this conversation, both video and sound. You can request a copy if you wish. Your customs declaration—here’s a copy, it has your signature—lists your cargo as farm equipment, building supplies, and general construction materials. We examined a random selection of ten containers against their manifests. The contents did not match the manifests. The containers we inspected in your presence contained weapons and military supplies of one kind or another. I’m adding images of the sampled contents to this interview file. I suspect the contents of the remaining containers are similar. In light of this unlawful act, I’m authorized to arrest you and to take control of this starship. Banner, as skipper, you’re now under arrest. According to Eos law, I have to read this to you.”

Steg extracted a document from his documents case and read aloud the formal arrest statement. He added, “When we find your cargo master, he’ll also be placed under arrest. The same will happen to anyone else who the authorities at our way station prove is involved in this smuggling attempt. The more you assist, the lighter the penalties. Do you understand?”

The now despondent freighter skipper nodded his head. He said, “Yes, I understand.”

“Very good. As I said,
Djamu
is now under our control, as authorized by our government. We’ll transfer you and all your crew—plus the Xesset, when we find them—to
Wasp
, where you’ll be held in the brig until handover at the way station.”

He looked at the bridge officers in turn and said, “If you can prove to the Eos authorities you’re not involved, you’ll be set free, I’m sure. However, the freighter and its illegal contents are now the property of Eos, to be disposed of as the authorities see fit.”

Commander Gillespie looked at her Weapons lead. “Are you certain?” she asked.

“Yes, Commander. The Xesset escort is moving towards the freighter, which places it at risk. If the aliens fire a missile at
Djamu
we won’t be able to stop it from here.” She used her holo-marker and indicated a position on the display between the symbols representing
Djamu
and the Xesset ship. “I recommend we move immediately to this position. That way, we’ll have some chance of preventing a disaster.”

“Very well. Go to full shields, now. Helm, get us relocated as quickly as you can. Weapons, prepare for action—if the Xesset attempt to engage us or the freighter, I want you to take them out.” Before the bridge officers completed acknowledging her instructions, Gillespie hit the comunit button for a ship-wide announcement. “All hands. Hear this. We’re now at condition red, with ship-to-ship action imminent. Captain Dean, report to the bridge.” The commander sat back in her command seat, confident her officers and crew would carry out their well-practiced duties.