Pirates of the Outrigger Rift (7 page)

The haggard remains of Blue Team hesitated.

“What’s the problem?” Larson asked.

One of the men gestured at the sea of people between them
and their car. “Are you kidding? We can’t get through that crowd.”

Larson sighed. “Why do I always get the incompetents?” He
moved to the edge of the crowd. “Security! Make way, people! Coming through!”

Nobody moved.

He yelled again, but still no one moved.

“I don’t believe this.” He pressed a button on his comlink. “Green
Leader, this is Red Leader. We’re having trouble reaching you. It’s going to
take some time for us to get there. Do you have the situation handled yet?”

“Hell no, it isn’t handled. I lost three men when a roof
collapsed, and the target got away. We’ve lost her.”

Brock couldn’t keep the grin off his face. Professionals—what
a joke. This assignment was over. They had promised him that if he showed
aptitude on this task, he would be moved up the ladder. Brock suspected that the
fact that he was the only one who wasn’t an idiot on this backwater planet
would be enough. He needed to get closer to determine the true power structure
of Thorne’s organization. So far he had been shuffled through a series of
flunkies and middlemen. He’d been given Grid contact addresses and drop boxes. But
nothing had given him much insight.

He was due to report to his Confed handler soon. Obviously
this event on Raken was more than a simple act of corporate theft. Thorne was either
controlling or actively cooperating with Nebulaco Security. That connection was
deep and obviously hadn’t died with Director Casey. What was the courier
carrying? What was the connection with Thorne? When he returned to his vehicle
he’d prepare a coded transmission. Maybe Confed Secret Service could sort it
all out.

CHAPTER SIX

N
ebulaco Security Director Maxwell sat at the head of a
conference table surrounded by the holographic forms of Nebulaco’s Council of
Lords. Their ghostly images interacted with each other in the shared virtual
environment of the cathedral-like room and were now engaged in heated debate.

The council consisted of Lord Oke, a young man with a weak
chin who seemed more interested in how his hair looked than the problem at
hand; Lady Hemming, a big-boned middle-aged woman with steel-blue eyes and a
stern countenance—as always, she was in outrageous costume, today appearing in
a pith helmet and bush jacket, but because she was a corporate lord, Maxwell
knew better than to tell her how foolish she looked—and finally, there was Lord
Randol, who seemed the most focused and reasonable of the group.

Maxwell smiled calmly.

Randol looked at him. “What exactly have you been doing,
Maxwell? Sitting in your new office all day counting your new salary? Why hasn’t
progress been made in the hunt for this missing data that you insist proves
Casey’s guilt?”

“Milord, I have confirmed that former Director Casey had an
elaborate intelligence network within the corporation that was assisting him in
his clandestine pursuits. I’ve just begun interrogations on one of his agents,
who has already admitted that he stole the data per Casey’s standing order. I
have every confidence that we shall retrieve the data as the investigation
progresses.”

“What possible motive could Frederick Casey have for
preserving data after his death?” Randol asked.

Maxwell shrugged. “Obviously it wouldn’t help him, but
perhaps it was a mutual agreement he had established with his accomplices. There
are almost certainly more conspirators involved in this plot. A quick removal
of the evidence would facilitate their escape from justice.”

“And what of Thorne?” Randol asked.

“Thorne is not some sneak thief or pickpocket. He has
excellent resources and, apparently, the ability to vanish without a trace. Even
our reward money hasn’t enticed anyone to provide information concerning his
whereabouts.”

“And why is that? How is it that a vicious pirate could win
the hearts of the common people? You’d think they’d jump at a reward,” Randol
said.

“Either through loyalty or fear, no one seems willing to
provide credible leads.”

“Could it be that our security personnel are bullying the
people too much and Thorne seems to offer an end to that harassment?”

“Lord Randol, in one breath you accuse me of being too lax
in my duties and in the next you claim that I am too forceful. Could it be that
I am neither?”

The other lords laughed. Oke stood and spoke, his voice
feminine and detached. “Well, I for one am in favor of the methods used by our
new security director. He has produced commendable results. If nothing else,
his exposure of Casey is laudable.”

Randol scowled. “I still have concerns.”

Hemming adjusted her pith helmet and rolled her eyes. She
was conferencing from a jungle on the planet Zaan, where she was on some sort
of hunt. “Gentlemen, let us also remember that it was Maxwell who originally
brought this Thorne to our attention and practically begged us to provide him
with more resources to fight the problem at its onset. Now Thorne has grown
from a minor annoyance to a major threat.”

“Milords, the situation also appears to be unique to our
corporation. Since we are being specifically targeted, perhaps this is an
indication that our competitors may be financing Thorne,” Maxwell said. “Galaxia
Inc., Asta Enterprises, Three Star … none of our corporate rivals are
suffering as we are.”

Oke spread his hands. “Let’s face it: Thorne has brought us
to our knees. We are as diversified as possible. We manufacture everything from
spaceships to lingerie, but unless we can get our product to market, this
corporation does not make money. My financial advisers report to me that some
divisions of the corporation will become insolvent soon if the situation doesn’t
change. In order to stay in business we need to maintain safe shipping lanes.”

“The Confed is supposed to provide that protection. We
certainly pay enough into the system,” Hemming said.

Maxwell shook his head. “The Confed has regular patrols, and
they have expanded their escorts, but there are simply too many shipments to
protect.”

“Strange that the ships under escort are never the ones
attacked,” Randol said.

Maxwell turned to look directly at Randol’s avatar. “Milord,
you wouldn’t think it strange if you factor in a corrupt security director who
was obviously providing the details of which shipments would be guarded.”

Randol shook his head. “I still don’t believe it. And I won’t
believe it until I see this so-called proof that you can’t seem to locate.”

Maxwell smiled. “I’m confident it will be obtained soon. With
the traitor gone, we can continue to utilize the Confed, and we can also hire
private mercenary ships as guards without fear that our plans will be exposed. However,
the larger issue remains, as Lord Oke pointed out, that we need an influx of
capital. Heavily armed convoys are expensive.”

Oke stood to
take the floor. “We really only have one option. In order to raise the
necessary capital we must simply sell off some of our stock holdings. While it’s
true that we shall hold less, a small sell-off won’t matter. No one has a block
of stock that can compete with our holdings or we would have heard of it, and
certainly no one person has enough to claim a lordship on the council.”

“But our
dividends will diminish as well,” Hemming said. “We have a certain living
standard to maintain.”

“You’re both
being ridiculous,” Randol said.

“We won’t
have any dividends at all if we keep losing money,” Oke said. “This gives us a
chance to reinvest, and it buys some time to eliminate Thorne. Hopefully, when
the company recovers we’ll be receiving larger dividends than we do now, even
with fewer shares.”

“Interesting,”
Hemming said. “How much are you proposing?”

“Perhaps a
five percent block from each of us. Does that sound acceptable?” Oke
said. 

“You want us
to give up fifteen percent of the corporation?” Randol said. “Are you insane? With
the outstanding shares already out there, that would leave us owning less than fifty
percent of the corporation. Utter stupidity.”

Oke turned red. “Lord Randol,
there is no reason to be insulting. It’s a reasonable suggestion. Although the
stock may be out there, it is dispersed among throngs of minor investors. There
is no credible threat to our authority.”

 “This sounds like an excellent opportunity,” Maxwell said. “A
massive influx of capital would solve many of our problems.”

Randol glared at him. “Director Maxwell, please limit your
comments to the subject of your expertise, which is simply security. You are
not a lord and have no right to an opinion on this matter.”

“Please accept my abject apologies, Lord Randol. I meant no
offense.” Maxwell lowered his eyes and bowed to him.

“Lord Oke, when you have more information, we’ll discuss
this further,” Hemming said. “Until then, is there any other business to discuss?
I have a hunt to attend.”

Helen Randol
sat before the information terminal in her cabin aboard the
Aurelius
and
examined her schedule yet again. It seemed that she was destined for the next
two years to be saddled with a never-ending series of classes consisting
primarily of useless material.

It was well
understood that as the only daughter of a lord, and therefore a future lady
herself, Helen did not need to bother with a formal education in order to live
extravagantly. However, if she wanted to one day lead the corporation rather
than simply be a leech who drained the coffers of her apportioned share, she
knew she’d have to apply herself to her education.

Her father
took such things seriously, and so did she, which made it doubly frustrating to
see the litany of worthless courses such as Rigelian Comparative Anthropology. Could
they actually be serious? How would that be of any use in running the affairs
of a corporation?

She turned
off the course schedule and chose some music. Soft blues tones filled the
cabin. She lay down on her bunk and sighed. She stared through the viewport
next to the bed into the darkness. She dimmed the lights in the room until the
fainter stars became visible.

She would
endure her time at the university. She would suffer the pompous nattering of
her fellow students as they went about their daily nonsense, the vacant
flattery of those trying to win her favor, and the machinations of those trying
to rise on the social scale by bringing her down. She would endure it because
of her father. She needed to be strong to take her place in the corporation so
she could prevent it from falling under the influence of idiots like Oke and
his ilk once her father was too old to continue.

Ever since
Helen’s mother died, she had tried to take care of her father, and she had learned
early on that the best way she could do so was by learning how to succeed him. The
corporate world was brutal, and it had taken its toll on him over the years. He
had survived buyout and takeover attempts, controversy and treachery. But the
biggest threat so far had been the pirate Thorne and his raids on their
shipping lines.

She knew her
father and former Security Director Casey had suspected that there was a
traitor in some prominent position within the company, and they organized an
internal investigation to identify him. Somehow everything had turned upside
down with the loss of Casey. Part of her wanted to delay attending the
university, but her father had argued against it.

“So do you
think there will ever be a time when there isn’t a crisis? What then? Will you
ever go?” he’d said.

She had agreed,
begrudgingly. But as she lay on the bunk in her dimly lit cabin and faced the
prospect of the next two years, she had second thoughts.

The sound of
music was suddenly replaced by the blare of a warning klaxon, and a red
emergency light flashed in the room.

Helen looked
out the viewport. She could see something flash, then flash again, and she
realized that it was a rapidly approaching ship firing upon the
Aurelius.
A ball of plasma engulfed the ship, turning the viewport white. The ship
shuddered and Helen was tossed across the room.

The lights
went out and the normal sounds of cycling air and the hum of ambient engine
noise ceased, leaving behind a cold, empty silence. Helen crawled back to the
viewport and watched the ship close in. It was mottled and pieced together,
armor plating sloppily welded here and there across the bow. Pulse cannons and
plasma guns bristled from every available mountable surface. Someone had
smeared black and white paint on the nose. It was a nod to an earlier time, a
classic calling card—a skull and crossbones.

Pirates.

Helen had
been trained from childhood how to deal with attacks. As the daughter of a lord
she was always at risk. She kept a handgun and a jump bag in her cabin. She
grabbed them immediately, racing along the passageways toward the life pods. Often
pirates would ignore those who escaped in pods because there was no profit in
retrieving them and no gain in destroying them. Occupants of the pods might
rest in suspended animation for years before being found, but Helen was sure
that her father would send a Confed search party for her. If she escaped in a
pod before the pirates realized she was aboard, they would likely be happy with
capturing the yacht.

No one
challenged her as she rushed down the corridors. As she approached the engine
rooms she heard someone in a side corridor ahead. She drew her pistol and
cautiously went forward. There was a man in the coveralls of a crewman picking
up the contents of a bag he had just spilled. It contained gold ornaments and
silverware. She pointed the gun at his back. “So, helping yourself, eh?”