Prison Planet (THE RIM CONFEDERACY Book 3) (7 page)

”XO, you got that?” Tanner said as he looked at his senior officer.

“Roger, Captain, coordinates received, and yes, the documents also received. Thank you, Commander,” he said and nodded to the man as well.

“Right, then, Commander, we’ll be picking up this—wait, wait a minute, Commander,” Tanner said and took a step forward toward the Station chief.

“Exactly why is that last convict not ‘here?’ Everyone knows we were due here today, and your planetary weather controls should have known these storms were on their way. So why wasn’t the convict shipped earlier ... what I’m feeling now, Commander, is that something is not quite right—either with this convict, or the village of Newton, or worse, here on Trannis, Commander. Something smells,” Tanner said and he shook his head

The commander looked down at his boots and scuffed the floor with the tip of one. He appeared to be at a loss for words, but then found something to say. Tanner watched as the commander squared his shoulders to face him.

“Captain, the storms were so bad, so unexpected, that they took that whole southern hemisphere quadrant by surprise. In fact, the storms hurt not only our fishing economy but also the transports, the fishing factories, the shipbuilding economy too. We got caught, Captain, and heads will roll over in the weather system department. But that is not our concern, Captain. The last convict is being held in Newton awaiting transport, and you and your shuttle will be there, pick up same, and be back before dinner.” The commander stared straight ahead, not meeting Tanner’s eyes but appeared to be honestly stating his case.

“Sir,” Lieutenant Sander said as he gently placed his hand on Tanner’s arm, “could I have a minute?”

As the
Marwick
Adept officer, an Issian who wore the ringed planet badge on his chest, his job was to be the officer who helped his captain by any means possible. And being a mind reader could often help anyone if the reading was true.

Tanner moved away from the group at the bottom of the landing ramp, and he and his Adept officer moved aside by quite a few feet. Facing each other a moment later, the two lowered their voices.

“So, Bram ... got something for me?” Tanner said and waited.

“Sir, all I can offer—as the commander is pretty talented at hiding what he knows—is that there is something more to this story than weather system failure and storms. And that convict? Something extra there too. I am sorry that I have so little, but as we know, taking you aside for this talk will make the commander think he’s let too much slip, so when we go back, I will try to glean more. Something is not right with this pick up, Sir, that I can confirm,” Bram said and then stepped back to let his captain consider the information.

Tanner strode away a few meters and then stood to watch the landing port action around the
Marwick
. Over a pad or two lay a couple of Leudi trader ships, their cargo holds being filled with frozen pallets of fish and other seafood too. As well as cargo, there were some tech sleds parked at one of the service panels at the side of one of the starboard wings. On the other far side of the port, distant but still within sight, a Duchy ship, the DS Triumph, a frigate, lay as it was taking on fuel and perishables. Beside it the last ship on the landing port, a Barony Cruiser, the BN Whitney, also was taking on supplies and perishables, and Tanner noted that her Barony logo, the twin crowns in blue and red, shone even this far away.

And life goes on, he thought. All life, and that would include the missing convict down in Newton. “Let’s get going,” he said to Bram, “but let’s also not jet into this unaware either.”

He nodded to Bram and they joined the group at the landing ramp escalator.

“Okay, Commander, we’ll take your word for this. We’ll leave first thing tomorrow at, say, 0900 hours, so please notify the authorities over in Newton that we should be there before their lunch hour to pick up that last convict. We’ll check in once we’re back, though, Commander, just to ensure that all our ducks are in a row. Understood, Commander?” he added and stared directly at the station chief in front of him.

“Roger, Captain, I’ll Ansible myself to the Newton facility to ensure a smooth transaction, and I’ll make it a point to be here when you return with the other convicts for transport then too. Thank you for your kindness on this, Captain, and I’ll be sure to include it in my report back to the admiral too.”

The station chief commander saluted and then spun on his heel to march off and away from the
Marwick
team, who then also turned to take the escalator back up to the ship.

As he moved up the escalator, Tanner watched the retreating commander and his aide and noticed the aide clapped the commander on his back a couple of times. While he couldn’t hear what was said, that in and of itself was a bit of a jolt to Tanner, and he wondered what had just happened.
Oh well,
he thought,
I’ll know tomorrow ...

#

The Barony frigate, the
Sterling
, moved down from low orbit over Ttseen in that slow vertical landing path glide, powered by her ImpulseDrive, and yet it was not fast enough for the Lady Helena St. August. While the frown on her face made what would normally be considered a pretty face something that not a single bridge crew member wanted to look at, her captain had to do just that.

“Ma’am, yes, I know we’re not moving at what might be considered ‘optimum’ velocity, but we are at the top range of the speed we were assigned by the Ttseen landing control officer. Ma’am. Sorry, Ma’am,” he said as he looked at her, and his bushy eyebrows almost met in the center as he awaited what he knew was coming.

“Captain Flannery—while I appreciate what makes one Navy man try to cover for another—you, Sir, are not to be deferential to any ‘landing officer’ requests. Note please that I said deferential—any landing officer on any planet who requests a Royal ship to comply can simply be told NO! Am I clear?” she shouted at him from the chair that she always took just to port of the captain’s chair. Her left foot was tapping on the floor as her hand held her teacup inches away from her lips, showing what might be called mild irritation, but Flannery knew what would happen if he tried to point out that all ships were under firm orders to comply with any landing officer on any of the RIM planets. No exceptions. No excuses. A landing officer controlled all access to their planet and knew the various ships attempting to lift off, touch down, and jockey for space too. Reminding the daughter of the Baroness under whose two-crown flag the Sterling flew would not be a smart career move.

He nodded.

“Aye, Ma’am, noted,” he agreed and nodded a few more times to ensure she received the message that he understood.

“Sir,” Lieutenant Richmond over at the Helm said, changing the focus smoothly, “we have permission to move to landing pad number nineteen, which is over at the far eastern side, Sir. Closer to the LRT, Sir,” he said, trying it appeared to the Lady to smooth things over.

“We’ll take that pad, Lieutenant. Quickly too, I might add,” she interrupted her captain who sighed to himself, and he waved his okay to the helmsman.

Still standing on her tail, the
Sterling
suddenly sped up as she drifted to the left and moved down at higher velocity. Three minutes later, the clouds wisped away and the towers of buildings surrounding the landing port here on Rhiclur, the capital city, were slowly rising around them.

Big, tall, wide, and what could even be called spacious, the Ttseen towers were all the architecture rage in the past few decades. The façades were usually decked out in the local equivalent of variegated marble, but were heavier with the reds and bronze stripes of native minerals from the local quarries. Windows here were transparent, as in all cultures, but here they used transparent aluminum, so tough that it was said no Ttseenian could ever break a window, but they still tried. Rite of passage some called it, though to her knowledge, no one ever had been able to do that. She sniffed and sipped the final drops of her tea and rose.

“Captain, I’ll be disembarking with the first group. Please ensure that we can get over to the LRT with ... with little ... more irritations, Captain,” the Lady said and turned to leave the bridge. Taking the stairs, she went down one deck to the twenty-ninth to her owner’s quarters, and after a quick outfit change, she moved over to the lift and dropped down to Deck One. She noted as she walked toward the boarding escalator entrance that four of her EliteGuards, black uniforms and shining blue boots and all, dropped in behind her. One she nodded to she thought she recognized but then remembered there were more than eighty EliteGuards on board. What were the odds, she thought.

“Ma’am,” one of them said, “we have been told that there may be a slight delay—“

“Royals are not ever delayed,” she said and, she strode right through the boarding area and then mounted the top of the escalator ramp as the guards struggled to keep up. Ahead of her on the landing pad, there was no waiting transport to get the party over to the LRT station hundreds of yards away. What was waiting though at the bottom of the ramp was the usual group of bureaucrats, most likely Customs, Heath, and Cargo officials, with their tablets or clipboards of papers and forms. Ttseens were short and looked like boxer dogs. When you put a few of them in a circle, they looked more like a pack of dogs awaiting someone to throw a stick.

At the bottom of the escalator, she paused and stared at the tallest of those bureaucrats and simply raised an eyebrow. Flanking her, her EliteGuards moved into formation around her side and back, each standing at the ready, one hand on their sidearms, those Needlers that demanded respect. That tallest bureaucrat paled as his whiskers trembled, and he mumbled something that she could not hear, and she waved him closer. He trotted over closer, and as he came closer, she spoke.

“Yes, I will need transport over to the LRT. Can you arrange that, please?”

The Ttseen, a Customs officer, quickly spun around to search the landing tarmac behind him and then wheeled back around with a small leap. His face was the typical Ttseen mottled brown and white furry muzzle, and his whiskers pulsed as his lips pulled back from an impressive set of teeth. A small line of drool sat in the corner of his mouth.

“Ma’am,” he said, “I know nothing about any transport as I’m with Customs—“

“Then you’d better learn quickly, Mister Customs man, what can happen to someone who is not helpful to a Royal, and as the daughter of the Baroness of Neres, I will one day sit on the RIM Council ... so ...” the Lady said and tilted her head at him.

Her foot tapped against the tarmac concrete, and in heels it sounded ominous. The Ttseen Customs officer turned and ran back to the small Jeep that had brought the agents out to the
Sterling
. In a moment, he’d jumped on the microphone off the dash, and as he barked into it, she could tell he’d spoken to someone.

A short time later, a larger powered bus pulled around a corner from the main building to the east and drove straight toward the
Sterling
, and they boarded it quickly to move to the LRT. Twenty more minutes and she was leaving the lift up on the top floor of one of the Ttseen towers, the one that housed the Barony Embassy, and she clicked her heels loudly as she marched down the corridor to the ambassador’s suite of offices. Behind her, the EliteGuards pushed by the Provost Corps Embassy soldiers that tried to cut them off, but they were having none of that. Reaching the closed door, the Lady rapped her knuckles on the door sharply, twisted the door handle, and walked right in.

Behind the door, a Provost sergeant stepped up quickly and seemed to want to block the way but was quick to slink back against the wall as the Lady St. August strode into the outer offices. She looked neither left nor right but pushed ahead directly through the large open double doors inside the private office of the ambassador. As he tried to stand up behind his desk, she waved him back down.

Small man, she noted, as the ambassador slowly took his seat and seemed like he was somewhat surprised at her presence.

“Surprised, Ambassador Drummond?” she said as she too sank down on one of the chairs facing his desk.

He quickly shook his head as he wiped his chin and almost stammered his answer.

“No, Ma’am, no, we had been told you were expected, just not for another hour or so. My apologies as we had not yet set up transport—“

“Yes, I suspected as much, Ambassador. But I am here now. And I need to ask why I was summoned here and for what?” she said, her toe tapping once more.

“Ma’am, I know not why—but that as soon as you arrived, I was to give you this office for an EYES ONLY with the Baroness herself,” he said as he rose and twirled the monitor screen on the corner of his desk to face her after keying in some typing.

“Leave,” she said curtly and then watched the twin crowns of red and blue on the screen slowly dissolve into a view of what she alone knew was her stepmother’s private office on Neres, more than forty light-years distant but with Ansible in real time. The room was empty and she turned her attention to the screen once more.

The Baroness appeared on screen and came over to sit at her desk to speak to Helena. No love lost, Helena thought, but if I ever want to sit at the RIM Council table, then I’d best know how to comply for now.

As if the Baroness read her mind, she started by stating the obvious between them.

“Helena, we have an issue that we need to speak on, about the future of the Barony, and that future will one day be your own,” she said.

Blonde, tall, and with a physique that meant only body shaping by the finest bio-surgeons, the Baroness had come up to sit at the top of the Barony by using what God and money had given her. She had met the Baron more than a decade earlier inward past Pentyaan space and past the systems beyond at a pleasure world and had captured his heart—not to mention his Barony too—when they had married immediately.

A couple of years later, the Baron had died due to overwork and living far too much like a younger man, and the Baroness had become the head of the Barony, a realm of nine worlds—soon to be 10 Helena knew as soon as Throth became a voting member of the Barony once the Ikarians were settled in. From renting a room on a pleasure world to owning nine planets, the Baroness had excelled, and Helena knew this was a formidable force here on the RIM.