The Phoenix Conspiracy (19 page)

The way Grady was talking, asserting
his ownership over Aleator One, made Calvin assume he'd moved up
the chain. He was a Rosco cousin, one of the family but not one of
the bosses, putting him maybe twelfth on the totem pole, or so it
had been last time. Calvin could only guess what Grady had done or
whom he'd rubbed out to climb the ladder to third or
fourth.

"I'm sorry, I don't have any
information. Maybe you can tell me how that many people could have
such powerful weapons on Aleator One."

Grady shrugged. "I have no idea. But I
promise you, when I do, I'll let you know. It's the least I can
do."

"Good," said Calvin, hoping to wrap
this up. "I'll be in touch."

"Wait," said Grady, sitting forward
urgently. "There's still a matter of unfinished
business."

This was exactly the reason why Calvin
hadn't told the Roscos he was coming... that and it would look bad
to the Fleet if they found out he had underworld connections,
especially if it was Summers Presley who figured it out.

"I already told you," Calvin
insisted. "We're even. You just saved my life, if anything
I
owe you."

"Don't insult me," said
Grady. "We barely manage to protect you from a bunch of two-bit
punks on
my
station, in
my
own house, and you call that a display of our gratitude? Oh
no, no, no. That's an embarrassment. It’s sad that we didn't get
those guys first. That's not thanks. And if it were, it still
wouldn’t be thanks enough, not even close. Not after what
he
did for us. The family
is very much indebted to you."

"Indebted to my father, not
me."

"We can't do anything for
him now, the debt passes to you. We owe him, so we owe you. He
would want what's best for his son. And we don't like being in
debt. Name anything and it's yours.
Anything
."

Calvin wasn't comfortable. He didn't
know the extent of his father's dealings with the premiere criminal
family in the galaxy and he didn't want to be associated with them.
He could be clever and underhanded if he needed to, like his
father, but he had too much of his mother in him to relish those
talents. He'd also grown up resenting Aleator and the Roscos for
stealing his dad from him. When his friends spent time with their
fathers, he hadn't even known his. The last thing in the world he
wanted was to validate that by benefitting from his dad's mistakes.
But he couldn't explain that here, and even if he found the words
to try... the Roscos would never understand or accept
that.

A part of him wanted to name something
random just to placate them, like a book collection, but he knew
they'd never accept his offer unless it was something grandiose,
and anything grandiose would draw too much attention. Plus there
was nothing in the galaxy they could give him that he couldn't
already get for himself.

"Ok, I know what I want."

"Anything."

"I want you to stop feeling indebted
to me. I want us to call it even. I forgive you the
debt."

"I can't do that."

"You said anything."

"Don't insult the Rosco honor, Calvin.
Let us do you a favor. Need us to muss someone's hair? Get someone
out of the way?"

"I'm sorry, there's nothing I
need."

"What about..." Grady lowered his
voice. "I understand you've developed a taste for some
magic."

About a year ago, Calvin had stayed
two nights on Aleator during a shore leave to meet an old friend
who was now an imperial fugitive. During that stay, he'd
accidentally left a bottle of equarius in his room. Apparently the
Roscos had done their housekeeping.

"What would you say," Grady continued.
"To a lifetime supply of that stuff?"

"No thanks." It would be bad enough if
Calvin were caught using equarius for recreational purposes, but to
have his drug-use linked to a well-known criminal outfit would be
even worse. "I already have a guy for that."

"We can take care of that too." Grady
took out his pistol and set it on the table. "Just say the
word."

"The word is no."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Calvin."
Grady sat back in his leather chair. "But I'm sure when you do
think of something, you'll let me know."

"Well there is one thing," said
Calvin, after a moment's hesitation.

Grady perked up and leaned
forward.

"This is off the record," Calvin's
eyes narrowed.

"Everything here is off the
record."

"I'm looking for a ship. I want to
know if it spent any time here in the last few days."

"What ship?"

"It's called the Harbinger. A big
ship, first-rate, Imperial crew, you couldn't miss it."

"Harbinger, you say..." Grady stroked
his goatee. "That would be Asari Raidan's ship, would it
not?"

Actually the real Captain was a woman
named Jane Simmons, but Calvin pretended otherwise. "Yeah, that's
right."

"Big spender, on time, uses cash,
doesn't ask questions. Not the kind of customer I'd have anything
to say about. We don't like to pry into people affairs, you
know."

Calvin resisted the urge to
roll his eyes.
I bet you don't.

"But you don't waltz into our system
with a first-rate stolen Imperial ship with a thousand crew and not
escape our notice."

"I thought you'd know something,"
Calvin wagged a finger at him.

"You understand that normally I
wouldn't be at liberty to say," Grady smiled. "But, seeing as
you’re a friend of the family,” he lowered his voice. “The ship
entered the system yesterday. It kept its distance and didn't make
port, but it launched a small shuttle with maybe twenty people
aboard. They spent some money, met up with some other people
discreetly, and left long before you arrived."

"Can you tell me where they
went?"

"Their heading was the Brimm System,
but if they changed course there's no way I could know."

"You didn't follow them, or
anything?"

"There was no need. Their money was
good, they kept the peace, followed the rules, and left without any
trouble."

Calvin knew the answer to his next
question, but wanted to see Grady’s reaction. "You knew the ship
was stolen. Had you reported its arrival the Imperial government
would have paid a handsome bounty."

"Reported it?" Grady laughed. "Not
interested."

It was like Calvin had expected.
Aleator wouldn’t get involved, not because the Harbinger was too
powerful to deal with—which it was, but because someone on the
station had a vested interest in Raidan’s welfare, or more likely,
Raidan’s money. But knowing Grady as well as he did, Calvin doubted
it was Grady himself.

"What can you tell me about the people
the Harbinger crew met with on your station? Can you give me their
names?"

"Yeah, I could, but it
wouldn't do you any good. They're all fake. Most of the people who
come here don't exactly have bona fide paperwork. That's
why
they come here," he
shrugged. "But I
can
tell you this, they were all ex-Imperials. No aliens, no outer
kingdom humans from god-knows-where inside the DMZ, and—of
course—no Roscos. Just former Imperials."

"Thanks," said Calvin as he stood up.
"Does that make us even?"

"No. But it's a start."

Chapter 13

When Calvin stepped back aboard the
Nighthawk's bridge, Sarah applauded. "Welcome back, sir, I heard
you took out a hundred men."

He laughed. "More like a thousand,"
then turned to Miles. "And how many did you tell her you took
out?"

"A million."

He'd met up with Miles on Aleator One
but had sent him ahead so he could discreetly obtain a datadisc
from Grady Rosco containing all the information they had about the
Harbinger's mysterious visit, and, after Calvin had asked for it,
everything the Roscos had on CERKO—which wasn’t much. Calvin held
out for more, but Grady insisted that was all he had to give—so
Calvin took it for what it was worth. But, not wanting to give away
his association with the Roscos—which would appear greater than it
actually was, Calvin kept the disc in his pocket intending to
analyze it later, on his own.

"Are you all right, Lieutenant
Commander?" asked Summers. She almost sounded concerned.

"Just a scratch," Calvin rubbed the
bandage he’d received at an Aleator medical clinic. He took out a
separate datadisc and tossed it to Shen. "Scan through that, run
those prints, and get me what you can on these guys. I want to know
who they are, where they came from, and how they knew we were
Imperials." It had samples and details regarding his mysterious
submachine gun-wielding assailants.

"How'd you get digital images of their
prints?" asked Summers as Shen plugged the disc into his
terminal.

"Cleverly," Calvin left it at that. He
wasn't about to admit they'd been handed over to him by the Roscos.
Part of him wanted to withhold that disc too, but he knew running
the prints and checking into the backgrounds of his attackers was
too much to handle in addition to everything else he was
investigating.

"We need to send a report to Fleet
Command," said Summers, "telling them about the attack against
you."

"We don't know who was behind it yet
or why. So there's nothing to report." Calvin didn't want the Fleet
to start digging for information regarding him on
Aleator.

"I think it's pretty obvious the Rosco
family is behind it," said Summers. "I've been reading about them
and nothing happens on Aleator without their knowledge and
permission. Especially something this big."

"I'm going to have to agree with her,"
Miles chimed in. "For once." He gave her a glare.

"It does seem likely," Shen
added.

"I'm not convinced," said Calvin. He
searched his mind for some excuse to give. He wasn't about to
explain that he knew the Roscos weren't involved because he knew
them personally. "I saw the attackers. They had custom weapons and
didn’t seem to know the area very well. That and they didn’t behave
like Roscos. They had to be outsiders." Calvin did think they were
outsiders, but everything else he'd made up. Part of him didn't
want to hurt their investigation by providing bad information, but
he needed some excuse to delay reporting to the Fleet. "So we're
going to look into it some more before making a report."

"Are you sure?" asked
Miles.

"Am I ever unsure?" Calvin became
annoyed.

"Whatever you say."

"Summers," Calvin turned to his XO.
"Did your survey of the system find anything?"

"Yes. The Harbinger was definitely
here. Engine signatures about five million mc's out. Also, the
ship's name was logged on the arrival manifest. But that's all we
have. We couldn't get a good enough footprint to determine where
they were headed for sure. Our best guess is somewhere in The
Corridor."

"The Corridor, you say?" Calvin took
his seat at the command position. "Let's try Brimm."

"Any particular reason?"

"Just a hunch."

"Based on what, Lieutenant
Commander?"

"We have to start somewhere and that
will do. Now, Sarah, set course and get us underway."

"Yes sir," she input the new
course.

"ETA?"

"Ten hours."

"So what do we do in the meantime?"
asked Miles.

Calvin looked from him to Summers. "We
check up on our friends in the infirmary.”

***

When Calvin arrived, he found the
infirmary locked down. He approached and two soldiers stood down
for him to pass.

The door whisked open and he stepped
into the infirmary. It was a medium-sized rectangular room crowded
with beds, computers, and all kinds of technology he didn’t
understand. In the far corner, Dr. Monte Blair was stroking his
thin grey beard while looking over an X-ray monitor and giving out
sporadic orders to some of the other medics.

"Hello there," said Calvin.

Monte looked up and, upon seeing
Calvin, ambled over. "What brings you here?"

"I want to know about our injured
soldiers," he noticed them on two of the beds. One still had his
eyes closed and appeared to be sleeping but the other was sitting
up, bent over and running a hand over his buzzed hair—he seemed
distant, almost unaware of his surroundings. They both looked much
better than they previously had. "They seem to be doing
okay."

"They've both regained
consciousness—don't let that one fool you, he's not asleep just
resting," Monte shook his head. "Neither are ready to return to
duty yet, however. Mitchell has some swelling and they both have
head and neck pain. Nothing serious, no spinal damage or anything.
They're going to be fine."