Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (48 page)

“How about something under the radar, and more forceful than you can apply with the regular PU army troops under your command? By the way, doing what you suggested would cause a storm of diplomatic problems with other Rim Worlds, and get your ass fired. Military action by you would be perceived as coming from the PU, not from a reactionary Poldark general. Which you know you are.

“It would be worse politically than what Medford’s public statements in front of the Capitol stirred up with the Rim Worlds. It was aimed at Koban, but her words and sentiment applied to any Rim World. It might spark Rimmers to buy arms, and get belligerent over perceived PU interference in their affairs. We don’t need border wars and skirmishes over this.

“The Kobani, on the other hand, are enjoying a spate of respect and sympathetic coverage by the news media. Why don’t you Comtap Haveram and Tet, and have a joint conference? With you away on K1, it’s a perfect time for something to happen to Khartoum that clearly leaves you, and Poldark, clear of suspicion and will please public sentiment here at home and other planets along the Rim.

“Tet has proposed an interstellar Kobani police force, or defense pact. This is the opportunity to do something good, which will be popularly supported. When leaked to the news with details, it could get the decent Rim governments interested in hiring Kobani for protection from bad behaving neighbors, and generate moral support from Hub world populations for such an independent police force.”

“Ah Ha. I like your devious mind Howard. You’ll make a good partner with Haveram. I’ll get back to you.”

****

“Khartoum Defense Command, this is Captain Haveram, owner and operator of the freighter Falcon, Poldark Registry, requesting permission to land at Khartoum City Spaceport. Here is my digital registry and manifest.” The electronic documentation was then transmitted.

It was several minutes before there was an answer, in an accusatory and distrustful voice, but speaking Standard without the Arabic accent expected. “Falcon, this ship’s previous visit here was over three years ago. The primary owner then was Malcom Trakovic, and the Captain was Miljan Pasternak. Who the hell are you?”

Haveram answered calmly, “I just told you. I’m the current owner and operator of the Falcon, with no partners. I bought the ship from Trakovic three years ago, when the war made his business difficult and unprofitable to operate on Poldark. Things have eased here now, the navy is gone and travel and shipping is no longer restricted. The local law isn’t able to provide as much inspection as did the navy. I have some unusual cargo. I want to renew a business relationship with the sheiks of Khartoum’s Destiny, like that Trakovic had.”

“We don’t know you, and therefore there’s no relationship to renew. I doubt you’re a Muslim, so that’s a strike against you here.”

“Neither was Trakovic or Captain Pasternak, but I will render all the proper respect. Perhaps you should ask Sheik Abdul Sayed if he would like his prize cargo that he expected to arrive with the Delta Dawn. Not to mention future services from me that the other ship provided for him and other sheiks, out in the Rim region. I guarantee you the Dawn and crew aren’t coming back from Poldark, and it was the news of its very public capture three days ago, which stirred me to inquire about expanding my business. I can offer Sheik Sayed something he wanted very much that was on the other ship.”

There was a long pause, then a short transmission. “Hold your equatorial orbit above five hundred miles. Don’t shift to other latitudes by more than ten degrees or descend more than fifty miles. I’ll have your ass blasted out of space with heavy plasma bolts if you do. We have batteries placed completely around the planet.”

“Hey, I read the published standard arrival instructions. I know what the hell I’m supposed to do, I hope you do.”

He didn’t get the snappish reply he half expected from the controller on duty. The man was more than just a space traffic controller at this low traffic world, and working at the Planetary Defense Command meant that if he said you couldn’t land or deviate, he could back up his threat.

It was six minutes before the previous speaker returned to the frequency. No other space traffic was heard in that entire time, indicative of how limited traffic here was. “Sheik Sayed says your manifest doesn’t say you carry what he wanted. The Dawn had a specific cargo he ordered. If you have that, he’ll talk to you. On the ground. Otherwise, leave or get burned.”

“I’ll admit, the rare animals I carry might not sound as truly exotic as they are, and they aren’t anything the Sheik ordered. In fact, they aren’t even aboard for him or any Sheik. Nevertheless, the item labeled as
one fair-haired colt
is only for the Sheik. Everything else is speculation cargo I already had, to see what might be of interest to possible buyers on other planets.”

“A horse? The Sheik didn’t mention that, asshole. He has hundreds of them. You best have something more to offer him.”

“No. That item is something that he definitely wanted, and had been waiting for it this month, waiting for several years in fact, but he’ll know what I mean when you tell him that it isn’t really a colt. I’m not discussing this over an open unencrypted frequency. Tell him.”

The kidnapped boy was what the Sheik had ordered procured for him. The only son of a former business partner, from before the war. The father was heir to a third of the Christoph family business, and had screwed the sheik out of some investments when he arranged to launder some of his billions in dirty money through front companies on Poldark. The start of the war had ended the lucrative relationship, and the father of the boy had kept the cleaned money, originally earned by the sheik from human trafficking and smuggling among various wealthy Rim World and New Colony purveyors of young innocent flesh, illicit drugs and arms. Sayed had wanted to obtain clean Hub credits for legal investments and purchases, which were blocked for him by using Khartoum Rials or certain other Rim World currencies he received in payment. Rim worlds had a history of dealing with the sheiks, but they would only accept Rials at a very steep exchange rate.

Haveram knew all this from the minds of the captain and first mate of the Delta Dawn. The dead boy had been sent to private schools and lived in a guarded and sealed family compound, half a world away from the Krall invasion. A powerful AI, and security guards, kept the Christoph family safe from outsiders, and their pictures out of the news and off social media. The names of the four dead children were still being withheld from the news and families, or even that deaths had occurred. Nevertheless, the boy’s family had powerful connections and might find out at any time. The Governor couldn’t hold off notifying them very long. The Khartoum operation would have to move fast.

The captain of the Delta Dawn had used a Poldark contact kept on retainer, who had watched the Christoph family compound for several years. When the targeted boy reached puberty, he started sneaking out to have adventures with local girls, who didn’t know who the rich, good-looking blonde young man was. The contact didn’t have a picture of the lad he was looking for, but his age, and a physical description that resembled his father, was convincing. He was seen coming and going from an inconspicuous locked side entry from inside the walled Christoph family compound. It was enough for Sheik Sayed to act.

Even if he was the wrong boy, he had a market value, and if the right boy, he was nearly priceless to the sheik. Either as an object of ransom and financial ruin for his father, or for pure revenge. There was financial evidence that the father, heir to part of the Christoph family fortune, had made some poor personal investments in attempted war profiteering schemes, and might not be able to pay his full debt to the sheik. In that case, a very sexually and physically abused young man would be returned home, near death, with no tongue, and too crippled in mind and body to communicate.

The boy’s father would get to see the worst that human trafficking did to its victims, and be unable to reveal his connection to that trade, to explain why his own son had been deliberately selected, despite far easier and less conspicuous targets. He’d have no proof anyway. The rumors that it was bad business to cheat the sheiks of Khartoum’s Destiny would be circulated in the small illicit circles that did business with them.

Minutes later, the answer was delivered. “He wants you to land and turn over the property for prompt payment. You are cleared to make an approach to Khartoum Spaceport now.”

“Not so fast. I’m not about to turn this item over to anyone but Sheik Sayed in person. The actual value may prove to be far greater than it appears on the surface. I want a deal that offers me either a set percentage of this deal, or a longer term service arrangement for my ship and myself with the sheik.”

“Who do you think you are to dictate terms to one of our most powerful men? You’re just a smuggler.”

“I’m the smuggler that got him what he has wanted for years, and that he had the patience to wait for it to arrive. This is my calling card and an introduction to other things I can achieve for him. He entrusted his original deal to a man who was captured, and then spilled his guts to the Poldark authorities. That’s how I learned of this agreement, from my high-level contacts, and managed to fulfill the contract the Sheik had with Captain Khalid Mubarak. Thanks to me that deal remains a secret, since the dead can’t speak.” At least it was unknown to the public on Poldark. For now.

“Sheik Sayed should hear that I know the
real
name of Delta Dawn’s captain, and the unimaginative alias he used here was Ali Baba. That’s proof of what I learned from my contacts. Mubarak will never speak of secrets he knows about Sheik Sayed, or of Khartoum’s Destiny to gain his freedom.”

The last statement was probably true, because Captain Mubarak hadn’t spoken a word of any of what Haveram had learned from his unguarded mind, and he had no intention of talking. The inference was that Haveram had killed the man, or ordered it done, to prevent his earning his release by revealing the kidnapping plot and other deals with the Sheiks of Khartoum.

Suddenly, an authoritative accented voice broke in. “Give him the coordinates for the pad near my family compound and palace. Have his ship escorted.” Sayed had obviously been listening in on the conversation.

“It will be done Sheik Sayed.” There was a pause then the controller spoke to Haveram.

“Captain, I just sent the coordinates to your navigation computer, and a cutter is lifting shortly to follow you. Wait until the pilot contacts you with instructions before leaving your present orbit.”

“Will do.” He disconnected.

Haveram turned to his companions, who flickered into view on the Bridge as they deactivated suit stealth. “At least we don’t have to shoot our way in. The Falcon is built for speed, not a slug match.”

“Looks like we’ve been invited to tea.” Sarge said with a grin.

Thad shook his head. “Can’t trust the buggers. They may act polite at first, and then cut your throat.”

Haveram nodded, “That was the impression I got from a crook on New Australia, who had tried twice to get in bed with these people. His first contact team never came back, and another one was sent packing with the front man’s throat cut. That thug thought the Falcon meant I had the same connections as the previous owner of this boat. Keeping the same registry name might have helped us get a foot in the door now.”

“Once Sayed has the kid in hand, he may decide he doesn’t need a new partner. Getting the kid out, and rescuing your butt might take more than a few minutes. You’d have to hold them off.” Sarge noted.

There sounded a harsh tone of dissent, from a voice pitched somewhat higher than the speaker had intended. “This damn kid has a name you know, and he can get himself out of a jam, especially when matched up against these Normal scum buckets.” 

The remark came from the baby-faced ringer for a dead boy, who had been hurriedly T-cubed Jumped from Koban to Poldark two days earlier. He’d arrived late on the same day that Delta Dawn and her crew had been captured.

Bill Saber, who constantly tried to get friends and family to stop calling him “Billy,” was a former classmate of Cory Martin, who was Dillon and Noreen’s youngest son. He could probably pass for as young as fifteen if need be, although he was actually eighteen, by only a few weeks. He’d gone on the final K1 raid by sneaking aboard a ship at Koban, avoiding the age eighteen limit Mirikami had set for participants in that fight.

Now, the brash chip-on-his-shoulder youngster felt that he had been adequately blooded after fighting multiple Krall close up and personal. He was slightly built, as was his older brother Fred, and his small features, good looks and blonde hair, had made him a passable stand-in for the dead sixteen year old he would pretend to be. Getting him to act frightened and insecure might take extensive acting lessons.

“Bill…,” Thad barely remembered to knock off the ending, “Being faster, smarter, and stronger, doesn’t fully counter being outnumbered and unarmed on an unfamiliar planet, where many of the people only speak Arabic.”

“Don’t worry, colonel. I’ll play the helpless frightened victim as long as needed. I practiced with the extra sets of hand restraints you brought from Poldark, and I can snap the links between the cuffs easily, and then twist the cuffs to slip them off. I could kick asses even with them on, for that matter. They’re Normals, if that term applies to slavers.”

Haveram offered a caution. “It’s not the problem of getting your hands free; it’s where they may incarcerate you. You can’t as easily get out of a metal walled cell. They may also swap out the restraints. Slavers surely have their own shackles, with perhaps electronic monitoring and shock application if you act belligerent. You’re a piece of meat to them.”

“A
valuable
piece of meat, until they discover there’s no ransom for me.” The boy certainly knew the limits to his value to the Sheik.

Sarge nodded, “Then it’s a good thing we have some heavier firepower behind that nearby ice giant, if you and the Chief need a distraction in a hurry.” Hiding behind the next planet out, there were four ships with a couple hundred Kobani waiting for a Comtap call if they were needed.