Sky Hunter (21 page)

The zone beyond the checkpoint looked like a
larger version of the elevator hub on the station. The climber
loading deck was more tightly guarded and armed guards walked among
the rows of containers awaiting shipment. She walked around the hub
to a service area and presented the card Major Trakkas had given
her.

The clerk glanced at it and then nodded to
his left. “Go see Srilk. The Caspian over there.”

She nodded and followed his direction. The
woman he had pointed out was busy overseeing some sort of repacking
of one of the containers. She turned her long, densely furred head
when Nova approached. Her yellow eyes were watering even in here.
Caspians wore clothes only where custom or policy demanded it but
Nova suspected that this one was glad for the coveralls that kept
the dust from her intricately patterned hide.

“
Sergeant,” she said and showed her
card again. “Trakkas asked me to pick up a package?”

“
And about time,” the woman said and
dug through some of her pockets while walking away from the dock
workers. “Can’t wait to get rid of this.”

Nova followed her, baffled by this process
and the soldier’s lack of manners toward an officer. The Caspian
found what she was looking for and slapped a flat metal case into
Nova’s hand. “Those guys are paid far too well for easy work, if
you ask me. Tell Beryl his bag is in—”

“
Srilk,” a harsh voice barked behind
them. Another guard, this one Centauri, glared at her. Nova had no
trouble recognizing him as one of Beryl’s associates. The last time
she had seen him had been with her gun to his throat at Rim
Station. “Whiteside,” he said pointedly. “Moonlighting again? You
just can’t keep your ass in your Kite, can you,
Lieutenant?”

The Caspian’s short intake of breath told
Nova that a different sort of courier had been expected here
today.

“
Got to keep things interesting,” she
said and flipped the container into the air before dropping it into
her pocket. “I’ll tell Beryl you said hello.”

Having no other place to go, Nova walked
quickly across the garrison’s central square and to the mess hall
where she asked for cold tea. Her hand explored the lump in her
pocket while she sipped. Payment for what? What was Beryl up to?
She frowned, rejecting the idea that he and his men were behind the
recent sabotage. They were rotten to the fibers of their
pharmaceutically enhanced bodies but they were in this for
themselves. She doubted that any of them had the necessary interest
or concentration to work for the rebels.

Smuggling was the most likely reason for this
payment. If they themselves weren’t smuggling goods past the
checkpoints, they were allowing shipments to go through
uninspected. With Beryl’s men in control of security at both the
base station as well as the hub on the ranch, not a difficult feat.
And of course, Major Trakkas seemed to be in charge of it all,
adjusting duty rosters to place his men where they needed to be to
keep the goods moving.

Nova tapped her com unit to contact the
tower. “Boss, how long till the transport from Siolet arrives?”

“
Hours yet, Lieutenant. Still
grounded.”

Nova considered. Technically, she was on her
own right now, with her commanding officer somewhere in orbit.
“How’s the weather to Rim Station?”

“
Clear. Storm’s heading
west.”

Nova signed off, gulped the rest of her tea
and hurried to the vehicle depot where she borrowed a skimmer for a
trip to visit a friend at her former base. No one seemed to care
very much. She remembered to let the clerk at the administrative
building know where she was going before jumping into the car and
heading out into the flats north of Shon Gat.

An hour of zooming over the barren salt flats
brought her to where the base nestled among the foothills. Drab and
storm-battered, it resembled any of the Air Command stations on
planets like these. If she imagined the dusty ground red, this
might be Targon. If she pictured more sand and less rock, it might
be K’lar. She pulled into a filling station and left the hangars
for the base interior.

“
Welcome, Lieutenant,” she was greeted
by a mechanical attendant at the entrance to the base clinic. Her
profile was already displayed in front of the Bellac medic at the
main desk when she got there. He greeted her as well but only to
inform her that she was not due for an appointment.

“
I’m here to see Doctor Soren,” she
told him. “Could you ask her if she’s available,
please?”

“
I will. Please wait here.”

Nova paced around a bit and then stopped to
run her hand through a scanner provided for self-assessment. “Ah,
I’m Human. Good to know. And indeed a healthy specimen.” She
slapped the top of the display. “Shots? I’m not due for my shots,
you snoop.”

“
Lieutenant?”

Nova turned.

“
Doctor Soren said that she can see you
for a moment.”

Nova smiled politely and followed his
direction to the doctor’s workspace. Soren came to her feet when
Nova entered, a concerned look on her face. “Hello, Lieutenant. I
hadn’t expected to see you back here so soon. Is… is everything all
right?”

“
Yes, I’m fine,” Nova assured her,
realizing that the doctor worried about some lingering effect from
her encounter with Captain Beryl. “Everything working as it should.
I need to talk to you about something else.”

“
Oh?” Soren’s curious expression was
guarded.

Nova sat down and gestured for the doctor to
do the same. “I want to ask you something about the previous crew
here. I think you know who I mean.”

“
I guess I do.” Soren let the door
slide shut before taking her chair again.

Nova wondered how to approach this. Now that
she was here, the whole thing suddenly seemed a lot more delicate.
“I’ve got reason to suspect that Beryl and his gang are involved in
some smuggling at the elevator,” she said finally, as so often
choosing the most direct route to get to the point. She made a
mental note to look up the talented gossip at the ranch to find out
how to start conversations with non-coms.

Soren said nothing for a moment. She looked
out of the window, thoughtfully tugging on the purple tips of her
white hair. “What do you want me to add to that?” she said
finally.

“
What you know about it.”

“
I can’t.”

“
You won’t?”

“
Maybe.”

Nova sighed, having half expected this. “I
think they’re smuggling
mince
. I’m pretty sure they’re using
it, too.”

Soren frowned. “What else would you smuggle
out of this place? Half of his thugs are chewing that garbage.
Makes things hurt less and it covers up the rest of the dope they
use when I test them. The sort that I have to report or the system
will do it for me.”

“
What else are they using?”

She shrugged. “You don’t get to be that size
without some help. Certainly not the Centauri. They’re not built
for carrying around all that muscle. They didn’t get it from me, if
you’re wondering.”

“
I’m here to ask about the
mince
. I’m guessing they’re smuggling the stuff up to the
station and from there onto commercial ships heading
elsewhere.”

“
It’s much bigger than that. They’re
just paid off to look the other way when the shipments arrive. To
make sure they’re not searched for contraband. Believe me, the best
present Major Trakkas ever got was when General Ausan moved the
whole outfit to the elevator. Before that they only had the supply
ships that came by here.”

“
Could they be gun running as
well?”

Soren shook her head. “I can’t picture it. I
can’t think of a life form lower than those men but they look down
upon rebels as the scourge of the galaxy. They live to destroy them
and take pleasure in finding interesting ways to do that. Beryl’s
squad doesn’t take prisoners. The only reason to smuggle guns is to
get them to the rebels. They’d never consider that.”

Nova nodded. “And Major Trakkas is steering
this whole thing?”

“
He takes a cut but he lets Beryl do
the work. It’s why he let them hound you off the base.”

“
Because of who I am. Because of my
father,” Nova said, mostly to herself. “They didn’t think I’d
bend.”

“
Probably. Not like some of
us.”

Nova looked into Soren’s face, seeing little
more than shame there. She leaned forward and placed her hand on
the woman’s arm. “You can help to stop this,” she said urgently. “I
have some proof, but not enough. I can’t just point a finger and
hope Beryl doesn’t break my leg for that. You can come forward and
tell what you know. What you’ve seen.”

“
Including what he did to
you?”

“
Yes. Including that. This isn’t just
about smuggling. It’s about people getting hurt if they get in the
way. We can’t let this happen. Not in the Air Command that I want
to work for.” Djari’s angry face passed briefly through her mind.
“This is the sort of thing that makes people distrust the Union.
Hate Air Command presence.”

“
What proof do you have?”

Nova reached into her pocket for the parcel
she was to deliver. “I’m guessing that’s money in here. Maybe
instructions, messages they can’t broadcast. Trakkas told me to
take this up to the station. The woman who gave it to me let a few
things slip about where it’s going.”

“
So?” Soren smiled sadly. “Trakkas will
have a million reasons for whatever he’s doing. They’ve been in
this for a very long time.” She took the box and stood up to run it
through an analyzer. “No organics. No dope in there.”

“
Trakkas has no reason to send money up
to the orbiter unless it’s pretty damn personal. We don’t deal in
hard currency, if that’s what’s in there.”

“
Maybe it’s a pretty bauble for his
girlfriend. Even if it isn’t, he’d find a way to make sure that’s
your
dope. Or
your
money. You have nothing.” She
looked over the results of the scan again. “The only DNA on that
thing is yours. I don’t even see a Caspian on that.”

“
She wore gloves.” Nova recalled taking
a curious glance at the woman’s six-fingered hands. “Can we tag the
box somehow? That way we can trace it to Beryl after I deliver it
to supply.”

Soren laughed. It was a brittle, cold sound.
“This is a clinic, not a Prime Staff lair full of gadgetry and dark
schemes. Leave the spying to the agents, Lieutenant. Go to your CO.
If you need to expose this, tell him what you suspect and walk
away.”

“
Is that what you’re doing?” Nova said
softly. “Walking away?”

“
Yes,” Soren said, equally subdued.
“Because the things that’ll happen to you if Beryl is even just
questioned are not something I want visited upon me.”

* * *

It was not the best of moods that
accompanied Nova as she left Rim Station and headed back into the
flats. She flew manually, mulling over Soren’s words and very clear
warning. The only thing accomplished here was to update her
immunization shots, giving her a throbbing arm and another reason
to have visited the base. She doubted that anyone had even noticed
her absence.

She watched the rocky ground pass silently
beneath her vehicle as she raced over a landscape too lacking in
interest to distract her from her thoughts. Was Soren right? Was it
once again simply the best choice to stay out of the fray? Avoid
getting hurt again? Certainly, the doctor was right in that Nova
had little evidence for her accusations. Some vague mumblings from
a stranger, her assertion that Beryl was possibly impaired while on
duty, some orders from a superior officer that weren’t entirely
protocol. So what?

And what if more people were involved? What
about Dakad? What about the station master in charge of the
shipping traffic? There was no way to know. Perhaps Djari was
right, all along.

Nova’s eyes shifted to the horizon when she
thought about Djari. His work took him down into the shipping level
as new supplies for the grow rings arrived daily. Was he aware of
something going on? Perhaps he had seen something, heard something
that would offer more evidence.

She brought the skimmer to a halt so abruptly
that it nearly crashed the short distance to the ground instead of
settling gently according to its design. She opened the canopy and
leaped out of the plane, pacing away only to turn around to pace
back again.

Djari! She recalled his unheard conversation
with Beryl in the corridor. What about that trip to the surface he
had not bothered to mention and that his supervisor knew nothing
about? Those boxes in his room? With all the equipment available in
the grow rings, why would he clutter up his quarters with those
analysis tools? Nova leaned against the skimmer, feeling her
stomach churn. Could it be? Djari a smuggler? Djari as part of that
miserable gang of louts?

So stupid! Nova glared into the direction of
the distant elevator, invisible in the haze above the flats. She
wanted to storm up there right this very minute to confront him
with what she had found. She wanted to shout and rail at him for
disparaging the Union’s ethics while all along playing his own
games. She swore loudly and in several languages, her voice unheard
in the empty afternoon desert. Most of all, she wanted him to deny
all of it and show her that none of this was true. Maybe all of
this was only a series of coincidences, a chain of small events
that really didn’t fit together.