090-1117 – Girar – Tlianke/Hinterworlds

5 Erbe 1117: Girar – Tlianke/Hinterworlds (1205 B645766-9 M Ag O:1104 A 322 Na M4V M5D)

I had a down day today. Saahna and half the crew had headed south; I used my Captain’s credentials to find out that they had taken the subshuttle to the lower latitudes and were now in a place called Hedron’s Crossing, but I didn’t push any further than that.

Do’rex and Varan were both still at the Starport; but Do’rex had always wanted the least he could to do with us while down and, after yesterday, I figured that Varan didn’t want to hang out with me either.

I wound up heading for Samone’s again and helped myself to a booth. Kanar stuck his head in long enough to drop off a Glitterbelt, some Tama Leaves, and some Icefish folds then left me alone. I put my remote onto the table and activated the scramble program.

Then I pulled out the notebook from that courier and started looking at it. It took a while, with me consulting my comp for docs on cryptography and to brush up on my Solomani, but I knew enough about forgery to figure out pretty quickly how to read the notes; I had just needed the push from Dr. Korvusar to dive into it.

Finally, I figured it out. It was a set of delivery schedules–pickups and deliveries–over a large part of the sector. Apparently, the unknown Solomani pilot had been running a side job while doing his already assigned clandestine deliveries.

I couldn’t tell what he had been dealing with because everything was identified by code phrases and nothing else. I suspected he hadn’t looked too closely at what he was delivering. But I had a list of systems and contacts of people needing discrete deliveries. That was something that could come in quite useful.

I had finished with my decoding, had transferred all of my conclusions to my comp and sent them back to the Grayswandir‘s main comp for safe-keeping, and was about to leave myself when the curtain opened. I was about to tell Kanar that I was leaving, then realized that it was someone else.

“Sorry, occupied,” I said.

The man standing there was wearing an obviously false smile. “I’m sorry, Captain Kodai. But… can we join you for a moment?”

My stomach clenched, He was wearing the usual Tlianke monocular and thighpad, but his companion was openly wearing a gauss pistol on her hip. I didn’t see another option than to go along. For now.

“Um… sure?” I gestured towards the seat opposite. “Join me?”

“Certainly!” He sat while his companion continued to stand in the doorway. “I am Director Jalen, of Tlianke Hegemony Security. We… have a few questions for you.”

I frowned openly. “Tlianke? We’re on Girar.”

“Yes, but they are part of the Hegemony so our authority extends here. We need to ask you about some cargo you brought here.”

I had known this was coming. “Of course. Though I’m not sure what cargo you are talking about.”

He smiled politely, then tapped something on his thighpad and flicked it towards me. “Did you accept this cargo?”

I pulled out my comp and looked. It was, of course, the cargo we had gotten from Kol’toti and Tahma back on Tlianke. “Sure. They paid me to carry a cargo here. I’m a Free Trader; I’ll never turn down cargo.”

“So… did you deliver it?”

“I sold it,” I said, trying to sound as matter-of-fact as I could. “I looked at it. It was nothing special. Nothing that someone here couldn’t get on their own. I didn’t feel like going out of my way to take it to some special location so I just sold it with the rest of our cargo. Done it who-knows-how-many times before. Why? What’s special about this one?”

“What broker did you sell it to?”

I made a show of looking at my comp and flicking through it. “Here it is; Bettis Nylan.” I flicked an… altered version of the transaction towards him. It wasn’t the first invoice I had edited to remove certain details and I was confident it would pass his examination.

I just hoped that Bettis had taken her own precautions, but I didn’t think Kanar would have sent her to me if she didn’t know what she was doing.

Jalen was staring into the distance, looking at something on his monocular. I suddenly decided that that was even more annoying than someone looking down and staring at their comp. Eventually, his focus shifted back to me.

“So… do you always sell the special freight someone asked you to carry?”

“Being a Free Trader is all about balancing risk and rewards. I’m not going to do something dangerously risky for a relatively minor reward.” I paused. “Besides, I was pretty sure it was a trap anyway.”

He tried to keep his expression neutral, but I saw a slight rise of an eyebrow indicating surprise. “What do you mean, a trap?”

I leaned back and shook my head. “You must have done research on us before you came here. You know we’re subsidized by Boilingbrook and so are part of their Alliance. And I know that the Alliance and your Hegemony aren’t the best of friends. I could see someone setting a trap to get us to do something that would get us in trouble.”

“Really, Captain? If we wanted to arrest you we could. For this if nothing else.” He tapped my remote, still sitting on the table. “That is a fairly impressive sensor scrambler you are running.”

Oops. “Thanks. It’s come in handy any number of times. Sorry, it was just me here but… a force of habit, you know.”

“Of course. You know I could arrest you right now for having this.”

“I’m only using it on the Starport, which is extraterritorial. I certainly wouldn’t use it anywhere I shouldn’t.” I managed to maintain an outward appearance of mild indignation; inwardly I was starting to panic.

He held my gaze for a bit too long but my expression didn’t change. He finally sighed. “Can you tell me what the cargo was?”

I gestured towards his monocular. “Check the invoice I sent you. Various foodstuffs, some entertainment cartridges, and a ton of ‘exotic spices’.” I shrugged. “I didn’t look to see what they were. Sorry.”

“Did you tell the broker you sold them too where you got them?”

I nodded. “Of course. Don’t want to antagonize someone I might have to work with again. I’m hoping to pick up some outbound cargo from her. I warned her that it may be stolen goods and my client didn’t want it traced back to them. Hurt the profit I got, but it wasn’t like I paid for them in the first place.” I smiled as I shrugged.

Jalen glanced at his companion, who stared at her monocular for a moment then shook her head. He turned back to me.

“Would you mind if we searched your ship?”

“Yes. Very much. But I suspect I don’t have a choice?”

“We can get authorization if you won’t give it to us.”

“Then get it.” I had been properly cooperative so far, it was time to start holding back. “I don’t let anyone on my ship who doesn’t need to be there.”

“We can get that authorization; it will just be easier on you if you cooperated first.”

“Easier? Why? Am I under arrest or something? I haven’t done anything illegal.” This was a negotiation and I knew he was bluffing.

“No, of course not, Captain Kodai. Just… if we find something it could go badly for you.”

“If you find something then let me know and I’ll get on whichever of my crew that brought it on board. I assure you, we’re clean.” We were, actually.

He continued to stare at me for too long, maybe hoping I would say something else, but I knew enough about negotiation to not say anything. Finally, he stood up.

“Do you mind if we question the rest of your crew?”

“Yes, I do. And I’ll file a formal complaint with the Merchant’s Guild if you do anyway. We aren’t Tlianke citizens and Tlianke has signed the standard reciprocal agreements.” I wasn’t worried; nothing I had said was a lie. Only Dr. Korvusar knew everything and I was sure she was better at this than I was.

He again held my gaze for far too long before abruptly turning away. “Very well, Captain. File your complaint. But we will talk to your crew.” He nodded to his companion and they both left without looking back.

I let out a long breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding and immediately pinged everyone, letting them know what had happened. I had to turn the scrambler off before the message finally went out.

As soon as I did Kanar came into the booth. “So… what happened?”

I shrugged. “You weren’t following any of that?”

He shook his head. “No. We shield these things from outside surveillance and that program you’re running blocks off our internal stuff. I guess things must have gone well since they didn’t arrest you.”

“I didn’t lie,” I said. “And technically I haven’t done anything illegal so there was nothing they could do.” Something suddenly struck me. “Wait… you listen in on these booths?”

He was flustered for a minute. “Well.. you know. It does help to know what is going on? We… let our customers know that no one outside of here can eavesdrop on them while they are our guests, but we never say anything about us doing some eavesdropping of our own. It’s… helped avoid a few problems in the past.”

“I’m sure,” I said, keeping my expression neutral. “But thanks for letting me know.”

“Sure!” He relaxed. “You’re a friend of Jestin, so we wouldn’t be listening in on you anyway. But, with Hegemony Security showing up, we were just…”

“Kanar!” A woman’s voice suddenly echoed from outside the booth. “You need to get back to the bar. I’ll talk to Captain Kodai.”

He jumped and spun around. “Oh! Samone! I didn’t know you were here!”

“Having Hegemony Security show up in the bar is something I try to avoid. Now, get back to the bar. And bring me a jinintonic. Heavy on the jin, light on the tonic.” She pushed the curtain further open and stepped into the booth, dropping into the seat opposite me.

She was overdressed for a place like this; she should have been in one of those exotic clubs which probably didn’t even exist at the Starport. She looked young, with a tightly-curled mane of hair that shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow as she moved. She looked young, but her skin had that slightly grainy appearance of someone who had been on anagathics for a long time. I wouldn’t even try to guess at her actual age.

“I don’t like the Hegemony showing up in my bar,” she said instead of introducing herself.

“I can’t say I’m a fan of theirs either. Talk to Darrin, when he comes through again. I’m Derek Kodai, by the way. You must be Samone.”

“I know who you are, Captain. I know everyone who comes into my bar. I’ll… talk to Kanar about his discretion.”

“I don’t care about your internal problems. I was just looking for a place to make a few discreet deals. Sorry I picked you.” My concern from when Jalen had turned into annoyance. You want to be a contact point but you aren’t prepared for what happens when someone checks in on you? Don’t get mad at me because you haven’t done your job. “I’ll go somewhere else next time.”

“You’re going to be observed no matter where you go on Girar; you know that, right?”

“Yeah. Not my first re-entry. I got it.”

“So… why are you here?”

I rolled my eyes. “I was doing a bit of research and didn’t want anyone intruding. I guess I picked the wrong place.”

Kanar appeared with her drink and another beer for me. He nervously glanced between us, then quickly left.

She seemed unphased by the intrusion. “What kind of research?”

“Nothing to do with here, or anything to do with Tlianke. Something I picked up a while back. Why?”

She took a sip of her drink. “Nothing. Just curious. Though I’m sure you won’t give me any more than than that.” She took another sip. “So… Am I going to have to worry about Hegemony Security showing up in my bar anymore?”

“Not if I can help it.” I was actually angry but did my best to not show it. Had she really not expected to attract attention?

“Good. Don’t.” Despite my best efforts, she must have been able to read something. “I can deal with questions about local concerns or about random illegal trades. You? You’re involved in things at the sector level. Or higher. I don’t care what Kanar told you. And I apparently have to reign him in. I don’t care who you work for, or what kinds of illegal deals you are doing as long as you aren’t doing something the actual government considers a threat. You’ve gone way past that. Yes… I’ve done my research on you. And I want you to leave. Now.”

That took me aback. “Wait… what?”

“I have my place here. Until today that place had been pretty much ignored, but I don’t need Hegemony Security coming by. Right now they’re looking at you, but they’re going to keep me under more surveillance than I really want for a while now. So… leave.”

“Wait, I wasn’t…”

“Of course you weren’t. I’m blaming Kanar, not you. He should have told me more about what kind of deals he was making. I’ll… make sure he understands.” She smiled a bit at that. “But, right now? You need to leave.”

“Fine.” I was angry but pinged the bar and pulled out my ident to pay.

She shook her head. “No. You’re good. We don’t want anything more to do with you. Just… leave.”

I took a deep breath and stood up, gathering my remote as I did. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“You are welcome. But you’ve also used up your share of that hospitality. Go.”

I nodded and quickly left.

—-

Back outside I stopped to collect myself a bit. That… had been different. Finally I headed over to Inversions again.

Once there I pinged the crew again and told them to avoid Samone’s. I didn’t explain further and no one asked. I hadn’t expected much different.

After the waitbot had delivered another Glitterbelt I checked the ship’s status again. Several passengers had appeared; what looked to be a couple sharing a medium and two highs that both looked like corporate types. With Dr. Korvusar that left us with two slots.

The timing was suspicious. We had gotten no passenger requests, then four at once; all after my meeting with Jalen. I was sure at least one of them was a plant. They were playing a game, but I had no idea what they were trying to find out. They knew what had happened on Tlianke, obviously. They also knew that we no longer had the cargo we had gotten–whatever it was–and hadn’t delivered it to our contacts. So… what did they want?

Make an example of us? To who? Hurt us for our association with Boilingbrook? They could have done that already. So… what was their game?

I was out of my depth. This was way further into the shadowy stuff than I had ever gotten. Had Captain Anna dealt with this kind of stuff? Again, I wondered why she had never included me in these things. I thought I had learned from her, but…

In the end, I just pinged Shelly to let her know that we had passengers for the next jump. I hoped she would be there. That had reminded me of the problems between her and Varan.

And again I asked myself, what was more important to me? My friends? Or my ship? I… wasn’t happy with my answer.

I paid my tab and headed back to my room.