In Earth's Service (Mapped Space Book 2) Read online

  “They’re bringing it aboard now.”

  “We’re leaving as soon as the last Nisk is off the ship. We’ve got an errand to run.”

  “A profitable errand I hope.”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Got anything to do with the blood on your jacket?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He chuckled. “And you said this trip would be boring! I’ll start preflight.”

  If I made the reason for the trip a payback for an unprovoked assault, Jase wouldn’t ask questions, he’d just want a part of it. Ories were funny that way. They’d cross the Orion Arm to repay a personal slight without a second thought. Not people you want as enemies. Izin would simply assume I was satisfying a basic human need for revenge. Neither would wonder what the real reason for our detour was – at least not for a while.

  I was about to switch off the intercom, when a thought struck me. “Have you been keeping an eye on ship movements out of here?”

  “Always.” Watching who took off ahead of you was a good way to spot potential ambushes as you boosted to orbit.

  “Who launched while I was away?”

  “One Ascellan, a Minkaran, two high tech numbers I couldn’t identify and a human freighter.”

  “When did the human ship launch?”

  “Two hours ago.”

  Time enough for Trask’s team to get back to the spaceport after eliminating Sorvino. If they hid their weapons, they could have walked past the dim witted drones in the terminal without suspicion. “You get its registry?”

  “Sure did. It was the Merak Star, but I didn’t get that from her transponder. It was off the whole time. I read it off her hull.”

  No transponder meant the Society office wouldn’t have even known she was here. “What type was she?”

  “Gaur class.” They were medium transports, four times the size of the Silver Lining with good carrying capacity, but slow.

  “Any other human ships in or out of here since we arrived?”

  “Only one, a small transport. She landed next to the Merak Star while you were away. Same deal, no transponder. She was on the ground twenty minutes, just long enough to pick up a passenger from the Merak Star. I didn’t get the transport’s name. Her hull had been scrubbed clean.”

  “Did the Merak Star drop any cargo?” I asked.

  “I saw one drone carry off a half tonne container. That’s it. And three people got on, just before she launched.”

  It was enough sugar for the Nisk to grant landing rights and permit a crew transfer, but not nearly enough to justify sending a ship that size here. So the freighter had come to drop off a passenger where no one would see, except the Nisk, who wouldn’t care. It was the same ship Trask’s hit squad and Sorvino had come in on, but something had happened to blow Sorvino’s cover, after he’d gone dirt side. If it had been before, Trask would never have let him off the ship alive. And Jase had seen Trask’s team reboard her about the time the Nisk were reconstructing my skull.

  I accessed the astrographics database, spent time looking at a dozen worlds I had no intention of visiting – just to keep any nosy Nisk guessing – then I called up the planet at the data block’s coordinates. It was a primeval world in a remote system. The only human presence was a tiny corporate trading post I’d never heard of. From what limited data there was, I could see no reason why such a planet would rate an aleph-null security classification.

  Yet, that was exactly what Tiago Sorvino had given it.

  Two minutes after we bubbled and were safely beyond the reach of Nisk spy-tech, I slid Ambassador Singh’s data chip into the reader on my desk. Singh’s search of the DNA codes had produced dossiers on all three who, no surprise, were ex-military.

  And all were from Jase’s homeworld – Oresund, mercenary capital of Mapped Space.

  Virtually every Orie child, male or female, went to military school. They could shoot before they were six, operate heavy weapons by ten and were piloting combat vehicles and fighting suits by fifteen. Most joined one of the four Earth militaries while some, the reckless types, turned merc for the money and adventure. That’s where Jase had been headed before I convinced him otherwise. And then there were the stark raving mad, hard core types – the elite – who stayed on Oresund and joined the planet’s own professional military, the Oresund Force. O-Force was widely regarded as the best special forces unit ever produced in human history, the result of a stern culture that valued martial virtues above all else. They worked closely with Earth’s four major ground forces, particularly the Union Regular Army with whom they had ancient historical links.

  Now I understood why Sorvino had ordered me not to shoot. Trask’s hit squad were all O-Force veterans. At the first sign of a weapon, they’d have cut me to pieces without breaking stride.

  Domar Trask, the only one of the three on my EIS wanted list, had been a Battle Force Commander, court martialled for killing a URA superior officer in a bar fight on New Liberty. He’d done it in the heart of Washington Base, the URA’s largest training facility outside the Solar System, in front of an army of witnesses and the base’s surveillance system. The court martial had been a formality, but it had taken four military police, two assault troopers, and an angry barman with a gee-bat to subdue him. Two of the MP’s woke up in hospital for their trouble. Showing no remorse, Trask got twenty to life in a military prison. He escaped nine months later, killing one guard and maiming another in the process. Wanted by the URA, O-Force and two ex-wives, he’d turned merc – definitely not the kind of man we wanted having anything to do with alien cultures, not unless we wanted Access Treaty problems.

  Trask’s two companions had less colorful histories. Stina Kron and Julkka Olen were both O-Force vets, honorably discharged. No trouble with the law, but long associations with Trask before his fall from grace. After leaving their planet’s service, both had disappeared from sight.

  Olen, the stocky former master sergeant who’d shattered my skull, was a heavy weapons specialist who’d served alongside Trask for more than a decade. Before teaming up with the O-Force Commander, he’d done several stints in the brig for minor infractions. He had a hot temper and a mean streak, but after coming under Trask’s influence, his record had been clean, even commendable. He’d even received a commendation for bravery for putting down a bloody insurrection on Yalis.

  Stina Kron was a fighting suit expert. She’d served as a specialist instructor with both Indian Republic and People’s Federation of Asia forces and had more than sixty orbital training jumps to her credit, most from Earth Navy ships. Unlike her two companions, her record was exemplary. The PFA had tried to recruit her and O-Force had even offered her a commission, both of which she refused.

  When I’d finished studying their dossiers, I had more questions than answers. Foremost among them was why three former Orie spec forces types had murdered an EIS deep cover agent on an alien planet, popped off two of the locals who’d got in their way and managed to escape under the noses of technologically superior local law enforcement. Trask was a bad seed, but his two accomplices had solid records, even if Olen required a short leash. Was it personal loyalty to Trask that had dragged them down, or something else?

  Whatever the reason, I hoped to find it in the swamps of Novo Pantanal in six days.

  Chapter Two : Novo Pantanal

  Permian world

  Qesari System, Outer Draco

  1.09 Earth Normal Gravity

  937 light years from Sol

  124 Humans

  The Silver Lining unbubbled at minimum safe distance from Novo Pantanal’s gravity well a day before the date in Sorvino’s data block. In the time it took Jase to deploy our sensors, a yellow hulled ship with a triangular engine configuration jumped in on top of us. Her transponder was broadcasting and her weapons were hot, although it took them a few seconds to get a lock on us.

  “Gutsy move,” I said, “jumping in on us blind.”

  We could have fired before they got their s
ensors out, if we’d been looking for a fight and if our single cannon had been charged. The sentry ship had thick armor and four medium range weapons, not nearly enough to take on a navy frigate, but a serious threat to any raider and more firepower than we carried.

  “She’s a merc escort,” Jase said, studying the transponder data, “licensed to the Rafha Corporation.”

  Rafha was one of the thousands of small Second Caliphate operated trade companies proliferating Mapped Space and according to the Society Register, the owner of the trading post down on Novo Pantanal. Tradeco’s were a step up from solitary free traders. They tended to stick to the major long haul trade lanes, often hiring armed ships to protect their cargo vessels and occasionally attack their competitors, but Novo Pantanal was a long way from the nearest trunk route.

  “They want to talk,” Jase said, accepting their hail.

  A middle aged man with an elaborate moustache and a red satin turban appeared on screen. “Identify yourself.”

  I nodded to Jase, who activated our transponder.

  When he saw who we were, he said, “State your business Union trader.”

  My mind raced. Novo Pantanal was a nowhere planet with only a tiny trading post stuck in the middle of a swamp world at a primitive stage of evolution. If that was all it was, it didn’t rate a merc escort ship for protection.

  Beside me, Jase quietly pointed to his sensor console. He was tracking more than two hundred ships on the ground, clustered close together on the planet’s surface. That told me everything I needed to know.

  “We’re here for the floating souk,” I said.

  It was a guess, but if I was right, this escort was working for the Rashidun, the Rightly Guided, a secretive Second Caliphate syndicate that operated a notorious black market, the Rashidun Souk. The souk moved from one remote planet to another, always staying one jump ahead of UniPol and Earth Navy. There were many souks scattered across Mapped Space, all elusive, all appearing at certain times and places, then vanishing after a few weeks only to reappear at a later date somewhere else. Catching them was like grasping at smoke, but as they tended to deal only in smuggled goods, the EIS paid them little attention.

  “What do you have to trade?”

  “Nine thousand five hundred grams of niskgel.” It was the only cargo of value we carried, not exactly contraband, but a good swap for an illegal load.

  “What do you seek?”

  It was a trick question. If I named a cargo, it would prove I didn’t know how this game was played and he’d open fire. “Right guidance and privacy.” It told him I knew this was the Rashidun floating black market and I reserved my right to conceal what I was looking for.

  The escort commander nodded. “The Rashidun Souk welcomes you. After landing, deliver two percent of your niskgel to our factor.” It was their cut for running a market where anything could be bought and sold without questions.

  “Two percent?” I said. Prices had gone up since my last visit to a Souk.

  “UniPol activity has been increasing,” he said. “Extra sentries cost money. Keep a constant comms watch. We will broadcast one general warning should Earth Council forces arrive, then our escorts will abandon the system. Disable your transponder after landing and do not reactivate it in this system if the Souk is terminated.”

  The Rashidun wanted everyone to run, hiding their identity, making it harder for Earth Navy or UniPol to track down the participants.

  “A sensible precaution.”

  The escort commander closed the channel, then his brightly painted ship turned away. By now we had detected four more merc escorts patrolling beyond Novo Pantanal’s gravity well, ensuring only genuine black market traders were allowed to approach the surface. Much further out were picket ships, ready to jump in and warn the Souk of the arrival of Earth Navy or UniPol ships at the edge of the system.

  “Will those escorts fight if the Brotherhood show up?” Jase asked.

  “Depends what the Rashidun are paying them.” Trade company escorts would attack Brotherhood ships on sight – that was their job – but Rashidun gunships would only risk battle if they’d been hired for a stand up fight. These mercs looked like they were only on traffic control and picket duty.

  While the escort moved off, we headed for Novo Pantanal, a dark green world with low mountain ranges, shallow oceans, thousands of lakes and endless white clouds. It was a hot and steamy world, where the highest life forms were insects and reptiles and while the plant life was abundant, the soils and water were uncomfortably acidic for human needs. On the sunward facing side, a continent sized shimmer reflected off a vast expanse of shallow water lying beneath the greenery, hinting at the great swamp dominating much of the planet’s surface.

  Small footsteps sounded behind us as Izin entered the flight deck. He climbed up onto the acceleration couch behind mine and Jase’s and focused his bulging blue-green amphibian eyes on the screen. My tamph engineer normally stayed in engineering tracking the ship’s vitals, especially during atmospheric insertion, but Novo Pantanal had piqued his curiosity.

  “Told you there was lots of water down there,” I said.

  “Just because I’m amphibian, Captain, doesn’t mean I have any particular fascination for watery planets,” Izin replied through the triangular vocalizer over his small mouth.

  “Doesn’t remind you of home?” Jase asked.

  “Earth is not a swamp,” Izin declared, “nor is my people’s birth world.”

  Izin had never seen the Intruder Homeworld and Earth had no contact with the Intruder Civilization, but the Tau Cetins had given us enough information to understand tamph origins. There were risks allowing the tamphs to stay, but the decision had been made millennia ago after a wrecked Intruder ship had crashed on Earth. The tamphs were the descendants of the survivors and they’d been on Earth long enough that we weren’t about to kick them off now.

  “It is Earth,” I said, “as it was three hundred million years ago.”

  “Its biosphere is comparable to the Permian Era,” Izin conceded, “although both Earth and my ancestor’s homeworld had more varied topography and more complex life forms at this stage of their evolution.”

  “So, no swimming?” I asked.

  “The astrographics register indicates the sea life, while primitive, is highly aggressive.”

  Jase turned to him genuinely surprised. “You’re not going to let a few angry fish frighten you, are you?”

  “I doubt the creatures down there have evolved the capacity for anger,” Izin said. “I simply have no desire to exterminate primitive aquatic life forms in order to get wet.”

  Jase and I exchange amused looks, imagining Izin wading naked through Novo Pantanal’s sprawling wetlands with a gun in each hand, blasting every ripple, then the Silver Lining slid onto the guide beam and nosed into the atmosphere.

  We followed the beam down through white clouds toward a tropical jungle teaming with primitive life. The only cleared dry land was located on a low island close to the equator. When we dropped below the clouds, a squalid collection of buildings came into view. They were closely packed, separated by narrow alley ways and dotted with photon collectors and communication arrays. According to the astrographics database the town, if you could call it that, was named Kedira. The Rafha Corp owned trading post most likely harvested biomatter from the surrounding wetlands, but the real source of its profits would be its periodic hosting of the Rashidun Souk.

  Surrounding the town in all directions were several kilometers of cleared land where the ships we’d detected from space were parked. It was unusual to see a spaceport encircling a town. Normally they were located a safe distance away, but this was no standard spaceport. Surrounding the ships were tents and marquees where black marketeers offered their goods for sale or barter. There were so many tents that they had merged together, creating a ring around Kedira Town, a sure sign the Rashidun Souk had been going for some weeks and was almost full to capacity.

  “If you wan
t to sell your neutron rifle, Izin,” I said, “this is the place.”

  “Only if I could find something better, Captain.”

  “Better than a flesh melter?” Jase said. “Good luck!”

  There were several landing areas at the edges of the Souk large enough for the Silver Lining. Wanting to avoid attention, I picked the smallest one on the southern side, where we could squeeze in between several large ships and the edge of the forest. I circled wide and came in over the trees so I could put her down without knocking over our neighbor’s tent stalls.

  “Jase,” I said as soon as we landed, “Drop our belly door, set up an awning and offer a kilogram of niskgel.”

  “What do you want for it?”

  “Anything we can offload in a legitimate port without getting arrested.”

  Jase scowled, certain anything he could pick up in a Rashidun Souk would get us thrown in jail. “You’re not joining me?”

  “No, Izin and I are going to separate out the signatures of every ship here. See if there’s anyone we know.”

  Considering there were several hundred ships to choose from and no transponders active, it would be no easy task.

  Mapping each ship’s neutrino signature proved more difficult than I expected because the ships were so close together and many had similar energy plants. All were idling in prelaunch modes, ready to run should the merc escorts give the word, but even with strong signals, we couldn’t identify half of them because they were full time smugglers not listed in the Society’s recognition catalogue.

  “The men you’re looking for could be on any of those ships,” Izin said as he stared at his six screens, each filled with rows of white boxes containing wavy green energy signatures.

  “Or none of them. We are a day early.”

  “It’s three hours to midnight.”

  I stood, stretching my legs. “I’m going to get some sleep. I’ll deliver the niskgel to the Rashidun factor tomorrow. Maybe I can get something out of him.”