Chapter 18

Captain Anderson arrived in no time. She was a thirty-something year old woman with curly dark hair wearing a minimally decorated flightsuit. She held her helmet tightly against her side in one hand and saluted with the other. He saluted back and waved for her to sit down. When she did, he got a closer look at her.

Her eyes were steel grey and her face was firm and unbending; Calvin recognized her kind. A leader who meant business and wouldn't accept any grief for any reason. He wondered if Anderson and Summers would get along or if they'd see each other as rivals for tightass of the universe.

"Captain Anderson reporting as ordered, sir."

"Thank you, Captain, please take a seat."

She did and somehow managing to look less comfortable sitting than standing.

"I understand you were in charge of the action against the Harbinger. I have a few questions."

"Yes, sir."

"Who fired first?" Calvin paid close attention to her eyes, wanting to make sure she was completely honest with him.

"We did. We had orders from the top to follow a shoot-on-sight policy." She didn't hesitate. In fact, she didn't seem bothered at all. She was an officer doing her duty and felt no need to apologize for it. Calvin doubted she was knowingly involved in any kind of conspiracy, if there was one.

"Walk me through the whole engagement."

"The ship showed up at about 0400 L.T. and six million mc's out with a basic heading and speed, similar to a Winske approach."

"Toward the base?" asked Calvin who, not being a pilot anymore, wasn't sharp on his maneuvers.

"Yes, the Harbinger immediately activated its communication dampening technology and then flew directly toward the base where three Rotham ships were in a holding pattern. They'd just left the dock, you see, and were preparing to clear the system and jump to whatever their destination was. This was all scheduled."

"Do you know what their destination was?"

"No, that was classified."

Calvin frowned, he'd expected that. "Go on."

"When the Harbinger arrived, we had five sentry ships on a basic patrol pattern with three corvettes as support and that's all. The ships were in a cluster pattern supporting each other, so they couldn't cover a lot of area. I made that call, because knowing the Harbinger's firepower I felt that, individually, these ships were no match for it."

"Makes sense."

"I wish the General had been as understanding," Anderson said. Calvin resisted smiling, the ground forces always seemed to hate being subject to navy commanders for interstellar defense. "Anyway, the problem was that, when the Harbinger arrived, our defense force was patrolling the wrong side of the station. The Harbinger was able to close most of the distance before our ships could get around the planet and intercept it. By then, it was too late to cut through its shields and disable its engines, given the weak firepower of the corvettes and sentry ships. These aren't capital ships, sir. They just don't have the punch you need to get through those shields."

Calvin was more than familiar with the relative firepower of basic starships, but he humored her by not interrupting.

"So we scrambled our fighter divisions hoping to distract the Harbinger long enough for the Rotham ships to escape. They began an orderly and speedy retreat but we were outmatched."

"Is it your opinion," asked Calvin, "that the Harbinger knew about your position and chose to enter the system from the best angle to avoid your defense patrol?"

She was silent for a few seconds. "No. My pattern was whatever I thought of at the moment, random and unplanned. I don't like committing to maneuvers on paper for exactly the reason you suggest."

"Sometimes even the bad guys get lucky," said Calvin.

"But I think the Harbinger deliberately arrived right when the Rotham ships were scheduled to leave."

Calvin agreed, but wanted to hear her reasoning. "Please explain."

"The Harbinger headed straight for the Rotham ships and opened fire, like it knew they were there before arriving. I expected the freighters to be destroyed within seconds but, and this is strange, the Rotham pilots performed an evasive maneuver. A military pattern. With more skill than I would have suspected from civilian crews. And when they did take hits, their shields and armor took a beating consistent with modern corvettes. Much more than I'd expect from freighters."

Calvin smiled. This further supported his hypothesis that the ships were carrying something important, and that they shared a common link.

"Two ships were destroyed," said Calvin. "But the third Rotham ship survived."

"The third managed to get a bit further away and there was a kind of cat and mouse exchange. They moved in and out of our station's defenses for protection, looking for an opening to jump from the system but the Harbinger kept edging it out and closing that window. Eventually the ship was disabled. Then you showed up and the Harbinger withdrew."

"Is it your opinion the Harbinger was unable to destroy the third Rotham ship?"

"No, the Harbinger had more than enough firepower and opportunity. It was deliberately disabled and then ignored. I have no idea why."

"Do you know what its cargo is?"

"No."

"Let me guess... classified?"

"Affirmative."

“Anything else strange stand out about this engagement?” he asked.

“Yes, one other thing,” she said. “I don’t believe the Harbinger meant to cause any permanent injury to Imperial property or personnel.”

This also didn’t surprise Calvin. “Go on.”

“The Harbinger tried not to engage us. It did everything it could to out-maneuver us. Give us bad shots. It spent most of its energy boosting its shields and thrusters. The only casualties we took were a few fighters. But it's really hard to disable something as small as a fighter without blowing it up. I don't think the Harbinger shot at our fighters except when it absolutely had to, to protect its engines. I expect you know that some fighters, like most missiles, can slip through alternating shields?"

"I do."

"That was something we tried. But the dreadnought’s perimeter guns wiped out anyone who got too close. As long as we stayed outside its shields, however, no one was harmed. In total, fifteen fighters were lost and twenty-eight personnel were killed in addition to thirty-two others who sustained injuries."

"What about damage inflicted on the Harbinger?"

"Negligible."

“Thank you, Captain, you’re dismissed.”

She saluted and left. When she did, Calvin decided it was time to check in with his staff. But first—

He connected to Grady Rosco’s private line. "Have you got anything new for me, Grady?"

"Yeah a few people were persuaded into telling us who some of the fellas were that Raidan's team met with. We used their descriptions and ID’d a few of them. Mostly they were who we thought, ex-Imperials. But one of them was a guy named Yanal Kemmer. A hotel tycoon from Capital World who was here incognito. He transferred a very large sum of money to Raidan's team. And I mean very large. Like a billion q. We just checked through some of our... lesser known... you could call them 'banks', and it's true, that kind of money was moved through here about that time."

So now Raidan had a real motive for going to Aleator. He needed funding. Perhaps that was the purpose of the whole visit? Calvin honestly couldn't hazard a guess yet one way or the other. He wrote down the name Yanal Kemmer to research later. "So where is Yanal Kemmer now?"

"Vanished. I think he left the same time as the Harbinger. Nobody matching his description went aboard their shuttle but that doesn't mean he didn't go with them. Wherever he is, he isn't on Aleator now. I'm more than sure."

"So did you find out anything about CERKO?"

"Yeah, we nabbed a guy, the only survivor. And we got a little from him. He needed some encouragement too but eventually he talked."

Calvin knew what Grady meant. Calvin also knew that information extracted from torture was occasionally useful but often unreliable. People would say anything to stop the pain, even if they didn't know anything. Torture led to more bad information than anything else in the business, but try telling that to a Rosco.

"CERKO is being organized by someone outside the group's leadership. They're being paid to take jobs mercenary style and paid a lot. Not just in q but in weapons and equipment. They've been organized into cells and given discreet orders to do specific tasks. The guy here had never met or spoken with whoever's organizing this. Each CERKO member in a cell reports to a handler and gets assignments and pay from him. We don’t know the name of this guy's handler, but we did confirm his cell was equipped, hired, and transported to Aleator to kill you. And that the hit came from someone outside of CERKO."

So someone wanted him dead and it wasn't CERKO, though CERKO was more than happy to pull the trigger for the right price. Calvin also found it interesting that a protest group turned terrorist had now turned mercenary. Were they that desperate for cash or was someone planting a false flag? "I need to find out who's organizing them," said Calvin. "See if you can get the handler's name."

"Can't help you there, sorry."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean our source is dead. We were trying to get the handler's name when he keeled over, just like that."

And that was the other problem with torture. And though it may have been effective at getting something, it ultimately prevented them from getting everything.

"Well, thanks for what you did find out," said Calvin. "We're square now."

"Are you kidding?” asked Grady. "This is all just trying to make it up to you that you were attacked in my house. We haven't even begun to repay the favor we owe you."

Calvin expected that answer and decided it wasn't worth arguing. "In that case I'd like you to look into a guy named Titus Antony. He was on Aleator One using the alias ‘Jacobi’ when I was there. I played a card game at the Rodeo Den and one of the dealers seemed to know him. That dealer looked like—” Calvin thought back. “He was male, tan skin, mid-forties, large physique, about one-point-eight meters tall, short brown hair, big round face… that’s all I remember. He seemed to know Titus as Jacobi, and I’m looking for any connection between Titus and CERKO. That dealer may have been involved.”

“No problem, Calvin. Any particular reason why Titus is that interesting?”

“He died saving my life.”

“Ah. Well then, I’ll see what I can do.”

"Thanks." Calvin closed the comm and left his office.