Shadowdancer
First Post
Chapter XXXIV
Date: 174-993
Location: Aboard the Bray Keaven and inside the Stork & Sons repair yards
At 1300 hours, the Bray Keaven undocks from Outer Dock 2. Again, a cutter is assigned to shadow the far trader as it makes its way to the Stork & Sons yard. This time, the transit is nicely boring and routine. Kevon smoothly settles the Bray Keaven into the repair cradle in Stork & Sons Repair Bay 2, an enclosed and pressurized berth large enough to comfortably hold a 400 dTon subsidized merchant.
After the far trader is locked into the repair cradle and the berth is repressurized, Clay Stork (the Stork & Sons representative who initially made the bid), meets the crew at the port airlock. "Yahhh, looks like you did some damage to the ship bumping the other ship. We can do the repair for you if you like. Have you unloaded your cargo yet? If not, you’ll need to get the cargo men to come and move it before we can get to work."
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Martha asks if she can help with the initial diagnosis. Clay replies, "Yahhh, sure, you can help. Egg will probably like the help."
Egg turns out to be a rather tall and vacant–looking man in his mid–20s. Martha’s initial impression is rather dismissive, but she quickly changes her mind as she and Egg do their initial inspection and diagnosis. Egg sounds and looks like someone who isn’t very bright, but his analysis appears to be spot on the mark and in line with Martha’s analysis even though he has almost no experience with the ship’s quirks.
Martha is grudgingly impressed. She and Egg end up being quite chatty with one another by the time that they complete their initial diagnosis. Egg doesn’t appear to have much upstairs and is fairly socially awkward, but he is friendly and appears to be quite gifted when it comes to identifying things that don’t work or what needs to be done.
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There are four exits from the repair berth. The main one is to outside the highport (i.e., into space). There is one across from it that leads to a highport corridor for cargo loading/offloading only. There is one going to the next (smaller) repair berth for moving equipment. And there is an airlock that goes to the Stork & Sons office.
The Bray Keaven is in a repair cradle that keeps it elevated about 3–5 meters above the floor. There is an external lift by the starboard airlock to allow for personnel and light cargo loading/offloading. Heavy cargo offloading will be done with a larger lift.
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The next hour and a half goes by fairly quickly as the crew cleans up their staterooms and other areas. Interestingly, the crew receives no message from Sare de Salui No. 2.
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While the crew readies the ship for service, Aidan continues his research into the Markov’s Daughter and the Marellia Landing. He easily discoveries background information into the ships’ recent movements and registration, but nothing in the SPA computers seems of particular relevance or interest.
The Marellia Landing appears to just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Markov’s Daughter is registered out of Liar’s Oath and appears to be within five years of being paid off. Niles Markov is the original owner, and the note on the ship is only a 20-year note, so Niles Markov must have had a considerable down payment. There are only a couple of minor traffic infractions noted on the record for the ship.
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Vasilii retires to his stateroom. Doc Saro goes to check on him and briefly hears him talking to someone through the door, but by the time Saro knocks and Vasilii answers, he appears to be alone, and not using the comm, if that is what he was doing. Vasilii still appears to be distracted and not paying attention to much that is going on around him.
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Martha considers talking to the Doc about Vasilii’s erratic behavior during the emergency, but then decides to wait, more interested in and absorbed by the ship’s diagnostic and repairs than dealing with a merchant’s hang-ups during an emergency.
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Since Vasilii didn’t arrange for the cargo transfer, Vargas does so. First available transfer is at 1700.
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A little before 1500, the crew gathers in the lounge again to prepare for Holly Clegg’s visit to pick up the other cube.
Kevon says he would prefer that the transfer take place on the ship, away from prying eyes. He also suggests that the suppression gear stay with the cube, and that they should instruct Holly to leave it on until she is sure the cube is completely secure. "No point in our keeping the suppression unit once the last cube is gone."
"Since we have plenty of room inside the repair berth, I suggest we do the exchange there," Swann says. "We won’t be visible to prying eyes, and both sides will be more at easy since an ambush will be more difficult to pull off.
"We should leave the cube under wraps until Ms. Clegg and her crew show up. Ian and I will meet them at the door to the berth. Ian will escort them to the ship; I’ll keep watch in the berth along with one of Ms. Clegg’s representatives.
"Kevon and Aidan should be waiting outside the ship when they arrive. Once Ms. Clegg verifies she has the money, then Vargas and Vasilii should bring out the cube, if Doc thinks Vasilii is up to it. If not, Doc or Martha can assist Vargas. Whoever is left should keep watch from the ship. Just make sure all business takes place where it can be observed by one of the ship’s external cameras."
Saro snorts. "I don’t think Mr. Kugiikiishshi is up to it, but since when has that stopped him from running around?
"I don’t care where this takes place, I just want this over with. I'm tired of all this secret hidden cargo crap. I’m sure that as soon as we’re done with these damned cubes we’ll find the ship’s waste recycling facilities are crammed full of counterfeit Imperial credits."
Saro shakes his head in exasperation and annoyance and goes back to his brooding, a sour look on his face.
Swann looks at the others. "How does that plan sound?"
Ian nods his head while listening to Swann’s plan. "Sounds like a fine plan to me. Let’s git’er done and be rid of this troublesome cargo."
"Excellent plan, Swann," Aidan agrees. "Let’s get this transaction over with."
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"Out-voted again. I should just stop coming up with ideas," Kevon thinks. With that, he heads to his temporary cabin to get ready for the meeting, deciding that if should ever get paid, he needs to go get a couple more civilian outfits. Of course, Kevon also is wondering how Captain Clegg will frell them over. Just about everybody else has.
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For the meeting, Swann wears his flak jacket, a revolver on his hip, plus an autopistol with two spare clips in a shoulder holster. He places his body pistol in a pocket, and carries a loaded shotgun.
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Ian straps on his cutlass along with an extra clip of ammo for his gauss pistol. He places his M856 ACR and two clips just inside the ship’s hatch for easy access — just in case.
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Aidan also retrieves his sword to wear to the meeting.
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Just before Holly arrives, Kevon, Swann, Ian, and Aidan prepare to meet Ms. Clegg and her crew inside the repair berth. Inside the ship, Vargas and Saro prepare to move the cube out while Martha is monitoring from engineering. Vasilii appears to be just resting in his cabin.
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As Saro stands by the cube with Vargas waiting to be called to bring it out, his thoughts turn grimly to Vasilii. "That boy’s gonna be the death of me. I swear, why can’t he just stay in bed like a good little patient? I bet when we’re done here, I’ll return to find him in training for an iron-man marathon. And now he’s getting to be as high-strung as Martha was a while back. At least she’s doing better."
Looking at Vargas, he sighs and comments, "I’ll sure be glad when this thing is outta here. Then maybe we can rest easy while the ship is being repaired.
"I doubt it, though," he mutters to himself under his breath.
"I heard that with my bad ear," Vargas says. "Well, there’s always hope, I guess."
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At 1502, Clay Stork escorts Holly Clegg and two men inside the repair berth from the office airlock. Holly is dressed in a dark blue ship jumpsuit and has a pistol of some sort in a belt holster on her right side.
The two men are a bit of a study in contrasts. One is a short, rather round fellow with curly brown hair. The other is a very tall, gangly–looking fellow with very short blond hair. Both are also wearing dark blue ship jump suits and have shotguns slung over their backs.
All three appear to be wearing flak jackets.
Clay says, "Kevon? Captain Clegg said that she has an appointment with you, yahh. Here you go." Clay wanders off.
After Clay gets out of earshot, Holly smiles and says, "Hello, Kevon. I’d like to introduce my engineer and astrogator to you. This is Ezra," indicating the taller fellow, "my engineer. My astrogator is Keith," indicating the short fellow.
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Ian examines the three carefully. Ian feels fairly comfortable with Holly and her two crewmembers. They appear to be confidant and a touch wary, but not anxious. Ian identifies Holly’s pistol as a Marine gauss pistol. He briefly catches a glimpse of the shotguns. They appear to have been well used but well maintained.
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Swann also examines Holly, Keith, and Ezra. He also feels that the three are on the level. Certainly much better than some illicit transactions from his past. Swann also notes the gauss pistol and shotguns.
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Martha observes the situation from within the ship, recording the scene onto removable media, in case things go wrong. However, she honestly isn’t expecting anything to happen, and is very happy that they are soon to be rid of this particular albatross. She’s eager for this to be done so she can get back to working on the ship.
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Kevon introduces each crewmember with him.
"Pleased to meet you Ms. Clegg, Ezra, Keith," Ian says, looking at each one as he speaks. "I’m looking forward to a smooth transition."
After Kevon’s introductions, Holly pulls a credit chit from her left breast pocket and says, "I have your million–credit chit here. So, shall we conclude this transaction?"
Swann says, "Although we don’t expect any interruptions, Ms. Clegg, given the interest our cargo has generated, we feel it is prudent to post some guards. I will be keeping watch of the berth’s entries. If you would like to send one of your crewmembers to stand watch as well, he would be more than welcome. Two sets of eyes are always better than one."
Holly raises a questioning eyebrow at Kevon and then says, "That sounds like a good idea. Keith, why don’t you accompany Swann and keep an eye on the door for us?"
Keith replies, "Sure. Shall we, Swann?"
Swann and Keith take up position underneath Kevon’s old cabin and sort of behind one of the repair cradle supports. Keith swings his shotgun off his back and places it on a flat part of the support. Swann props his against the support within easy reach.
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Once Swann and Keith step away, Kevon nods to Holly. "Certainly, let’s make the exchange," he says, pulling out his commlink. "Vargas, we’re ready."
As he waits for Saro and Emile, Kevon shoots Ian a quick, inquisitive glance to gage his take on the situation. Ian catches the look from Kevon, gives him a small, quick nod and a hint of a smile.
Kevon receives a reply from Vargas: "We’re on our way." To pass the time while they are waiting, Kevon, Holly, and the others engage in polite chitchat.
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Ian steps a little away from Kevon in order to have a clear view of the office entrance and the starport entrance as well as Swann’s position.
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In port engineering, Martha keeps a watch on the spaceward door and the transaction using the Bray’s external vid cameras, recording everything.
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Onboard the Bray Keaven, Saro and Vargas are maneuvering the cube — with transponder suppression unit intact — down the transverse corridor from the port to the starboard side of the far trader. As they reach the lift, they see Vasilii exiting the lift. The Vilani merchant walks up and rests his arm on the cube, thereby stopping Saro and Vargas.
Vasilii looks off at nothing in particular as he speaks to Vargas and Saro. "Now, I’m just thinking out loud here, but I’ve got this idea in my head. Kind of a hypothetical really, but I’m having a hard time letting it go.
"See, I keep coming back to the fact that the cubes were onboard the Keaven when it first came from Alief on the last run from the previous crew. Now, technically, the cubes could have already been aboard when the previous crew went to Alief, but I’ve been trying to play out in my head what was happening on Alief when the ship left there, and it’s been giving me a bad feeling about these cubes for a while now.
"I mean, the way I see it, if you were the head of the KGL, and you’ve got a bone to pick with Bromley, and you can’t get conventional weapons or troops past the blockade, you have to start getting creative to find an edge. One of your people suggests a bio–weapon. They pitch the idea that all you need are just a few viable samples of a germ or a virus, along with its counteragent, and you can make all the rest you need planetside in your own labs.
"But it’ll take some genetic engineering to make the plan work. Sure, you could use bio–weapons you’ve manufactured yourselves, but Bromley probably knows about them, so it’s too easy to point the finger back at you. Solution: Go offworld to a higher–tech bio–engineering outfit that can modify an existing virus on your planet, and do the job with no questions asked, for the right amount of money. You tell them you want a virus, and it’s counteragent, that reproduces quickly, is highly lethal, and lethal in a very short time, so in all the confusion, your troops can move in and take over without firing a shot.
"BUT — after the bio–engineers are done, the samples have to be transported." He looks over the remaining cube as he talks. "If you ship them in several packages, you could make each of them pretty small, to make it easier to smuggle them past the blockade’s cargo inspectors.
"It also wouldn’t do to have the infection break out prematurely before the virus reaches Alief, or before the KGL’s people are inoculated, so the container would need to be hermetically sealed, and durable enough to stand the abuse of transport on a starship. Ideally, it would also be sealed well enough so if it DID get found, it's not easily opened to verify it’s contents. Preferably they can’t be opened at all except by the intended recipients, and then by a fairly complicated procedure.
"And there aren’t many cargoes that would require being sealed like that, so the only markings that are put on the containers is a serial number, and then a warrant is forged, ‘issued’ from someplace far away that can’t easily be contacted to verify the warrant, to declare that the containers are safe for transport, while glaringly omitting any description of what’s inside the containers.
"Enter into this arena the middle man. He’s either from the bioengineering operation, or was the initial contact offworld. In either case, he sees the kind of money the KGL is willing to shell out for this virus, and he figures correctly that there’s other disgruntled people in the Imperium who would shell out similar money for it as well. He gets three, maybe four containers of the viral and anti-viral samples from the bio–engineers, but hangs on to a couple of them for himself, to sell on the side.
"But this middle man wants to see if the virus works as claimed, AND needs a couple things to work a plan to cover his own tracks, so he hangs out planetside at Alief for a while to see how things play out.
"Now, fast forward. The KGL gets its samples. They open the one or two containers that they get, and start work on making more of the virus and the counteragent. They inoculate their own people via the soda, of which our hypothetical middle man grabs some to inoculate himself, and then when all the KGL’s pieces are in place, they cut the virus loose on Bromley a few months later.
"Problem: The doctors and scientists in Bromley aren’t slouches. And the virus does exactly what the KGL asked for it to do, but it does it IN SPADES. The infection doesn’t start slow like a naturally–occurring new infection, with just a few people initially exposed and then slowly progressing from there.
"No, this little bugger takes off like wildfire, millions start dropping dead overnight. The scientists in Bromley send up a flag that this isn’t behaving like a naturally–occurring bug, especially since the KGL isn’t being affected, and they tell the Marquis about their suspicions.
"But the Marquis only planned for the blockade to stop conventional weapons from getting through, he’s got nothing to deal with investigating a bio–weapon. He’ll have to return to Sentry and get some people and equipment together to do that. And that’s bad news for our middleman -- that means the blockade will be even tighter than before, and therefore more difficult to get through. He’s gotta move fast to get the last samples of the virus past the blockade and the quarantine before security gets tightened.
"He contracts a small freighter to get the containers offworld, a freighter that can smuggle small cargoes and is in need of money, and offers the crew enough money to deliver a few small, unmarked secure transport cubes, with no questions asked, to Sentry. The middleman shakes the captain’s hand, reminds the captain that discretion is of utmost importance, and the freighter lifts off and easily coasts through the inspections and makes the jump out to Sentry.
"What the freighter captain isn’t aware of is that the middle man is intending that NONE of the crew are to reach Sentry alive, and that the captain’s just been infected with the virus by the middle man, who inoculated himself months earlier and can’t be affected by the virus, and covered his hand with a sample of the virus shortly before shaking hands. That way, the crew would survive just long enough to get the ship into jump, and are long since dead by the time the ship reaches Sentry. No witnesses left to connect the cubes to Alief or to him, or the KGL for that matter. He probably had someone like the Oser crew waiting for the ship when it arrived at Sentry, to come aboard and grab the cubes before anyone would find the ship just drifting with a dead crew.
"But there was a fly in the ointment: Martha was still alive, and radioed a Signal GK when the ship dropped out of jump. Other ships were responding, and the Keaven could still maneuver on its own with Martha piloting. The Oser crew, or whoever, couldn’t grab the cubes, especially once the authorities got hold of the ship. Aidan and his cronies had to come up with a new plan.
"The rest is history, with the addendum that Aidan was probably the mystery patron who got word to us through the Bromley soldier, and wanted to meet with us at the restaurant in town while we were all at the Bromley airport. I wouldn’t put it past him to have wanted to try the same stunt with us that he probably tried with the previous crew of the Keaven."
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Outside, Kevon and Holly make polite chit chat for a few minutes. After a few minutes more of waiting without anyone appearing, Holly raises her left eyebrow and asks, "Kevon? Is there anything wrong?"
