Chapter 5

BOABDIL STATION

Kelima Lasker watched the approaching vessel with more than a professional interest. It looked very much like a Families ship she had seen back during her training, the Viktor Leonov. She hadn’t known then what the Viktor Leonov did, and she had not learned much more since. All she knew for sure was that the Families Marines operated that ship. Could this really be the Viktor Leonov? It was hard to tell.

This one seemed like a relatively standard merchant. It had three cargo pods attached, which was normal enough for any merchant she had ever seen. What seemed different was the crew/drive module. Instead of a slender little cylinder surrounded by the cargo pods, this ship had a large bulbous design, with lots of room inside for crew or special cargo.

Kelima had heard of ships that were designed to carry people, not just cargo. The Families had once kept three of them in service shuttling between Home, Weon, and Setosha. Kelima thought she remembered those ships being retired when the Idenux had grown so much stronger a few years back. Travel for pleasure had lost its adventurous appeal. She knew that several of the big ships had been restored to service as Navy transports after K-303. Could this be one of those? If so, what was it doing here?

The Marines aren’t going to try to seize Boabdil Station, are they? She wondered how silly that idea really was. She thought about all the information she had sent to Families Intelligence these last few months. Maybe the idea wasn’t so silly after all.

Where’s the rest of the fleet? she wondered. There were six Imperial warships in the system, and they had to be dealt with. Two of them guarded the fueling depot out at Rilaena, and four of them orbited very near Boabdil Station itself.

The strange ship moved sedately towards the docking bays as if it belonged there. She hoped whoever had planned this party knew what they were doing and knew she was here. If something bad happened, there wasn’t much she could do to help. Or was there? Her personal capsule sat right in the middle of the station’s communications relays. If this was an assault and somebody wanted to shut down communications in a hurry, she could end up a casualty. Kelima had to trust her orders and believe no Families officer would do that to her. She could easily understand why they might not have told her about this attack. They couldn’t signal her without warning. Boabdil Station, there was an unauthorized listener attached to the central communications array.

She considered her options. She had weapons and her own way of getting around. She could very quickly scoot away from this position if things got too hot. If there were Families Marines on this ship and if they were trying to seize Boabdil Station, she might help them by disabling the communications relays next to her. Then again, she might mess up all their plans if she did something like that. What could she do to be certain?

When she had initially anchored herself at this location, she had placed her lasers so they were aimed directly at the multiplexor that controlled the communications links. One burst from her and Boabdil Station would go off the air for a long, long time. Should she, or shouldn’t she? She began warming up her lasers, just in case.

She pointed every passive sensor she could at the strange ship and focused her attention on all the most likely communications frequencies. She had asked for this job. She had told them she wanted to be a spy. Who was it that had warned her that this job would be 99% boredom and the rest hysteric frenzy? All she could do was watch, wait, and be ready to think fast.

On Boabdil Station, Watch Officer Jax Ricstander noted the arrival of a new ship. He was a little curious about it, but only a little curious. He watched the ship approach as his console chirped, beeped, and displayed a response to his standard Access Authorization inquiry. This visitor had flashed a valid Imperial Intelligence ID. Early in his career, Jax had learned that it wasn’t healthy to show too much curiosity about Imperial Intelligence ships. Imperial Intelligence had a solution for curiosity that worked every time.

“All right, Viktor Leonov,” he told the officer on their end of the commlink. “You are cleared for Final Approach. Dock in Bay 7.”

“Viktor Leonov, aye,” responded the very bored, very male voice. The man’s face glanced down in the vidscreen, and then looked up. “Docking Bay 7.”

Jax glanced at his signals security monitors. They were all green. He signed off on the Viktor Leonov’s arrival documents, sent them a copy, and turned back to his computerized training program. Of all the isolated, backwater, half-forgotten posts in the Empire, Boabdil had to be the furthest removed from any form of civilization. The only good thing about duty here was the Station’s comprehensive technical library. Every imaginable subject could be found somewhere in that archive. The station’s solitude allowed a smart young technical officer to save his pay and study literally any course, including some not normally available elsewhere in the Empire without special permission. And since you could learn it without using the educational drugs that every other school used, that meant you could bypass all of the trainee positions you ordinarily would have to qualify for. That was well worth the price of the solitude.

Almost everyone on the Station was taking an advanced course of some sort. They all understood the game. Spend a tedious and boring year at Boabdil, and you could qualify for a much more lucrative post on a civilized world anywhere in the Empire.

He briefly noted that the Viktor Leonov had quite properly docked in her assigned bay. He marked the appropriate box in his Shift Log, saved the record, and went back to the far more interesting subject of Class 3 Commercial Communications Protocols. An hour later, his shift was over. He signed the log and waited for his relief to show up. And waited. And waited.

He finally sent a message to his supervisor. There was no response. He tried to contact his supervisor directly. The comm rolled over immediately to the auto-answer system. Finally, with a last glance to make sure there was no system traffic, he left his post and went looking for someone in authority to report to. Everything was silent when he stepped out of the Watch Office. Even the Admin consoles in Security Reception were empty.

Had somebody called a meeting, and he’d missed the announcement? Tomason would space him for sure, this time. He had already been late to two other meetings in the last six weeks. There had to be serious consequences for a third offense. At the very least, he knew he would have another interview with Tomason. The last one had been bad enough. Tomason had spent most of the time making “observations” about Jax’s punctuality. He did not want to experience that sort of an interview again.

He hurried toward his supervisor’s office. There was a clerk Jax didn’t recognize sitting at the outer office desk. Jax stopped there for a moment. “Where’s Tomason?”

“Boss wants to see you, Jax,” the man replied tersely, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. He was sweating and looked around nervously as if expecting something to leap out of his desk and bite him.

Sweating himself, Jax followed the thumb. Demerits for sure, he thought. How did I miss the announcement? This had better not be some kind of joke. He put his hand on the latch and took a deep breath. He was probably facing a room full of coldly annoyed coworkers. He had another 30 days to serve on this contract, and they would probably spend the rest of his stay taking turns reminding him of this little lapse.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” He stepped into Tomason’s office and did not know whether to be relieved or worried. There was nobody sitting at the small conference table in the corner.

Tomason sat stiffly upright in his chair. His hands were spread and flat on his desk. His nervous gaze focused on Jax, then shifted to someone in the corner behind the door. Jax turned to look in that direction and froze. Worried is definitely the right choice, he thought, staring at the figure there. His eyes focused on the gun he saw. Terrified might be more appropriate.