The Living and the Damned - Part X
01 Jan 2018Jellicoe
Deep Space, Tjakiri System, The Pegasi"So the first question is, after what happened last time we were here, do we get aboard Claire Dock without Black Omega blowing us to bits?" Stannis Jellicoe asked his most rusted friends. He was tense and on edge, despite himself he missed Kira and despite knowing better he worried about her and also worried that leaving Harry Soames to watch her back would weaken the crew in hostile territory. Showing the crew his concern though would suggest weakness and so the mask was firmly in place, good humoured imperturbability and absolute self confidence, he had worn it for so long now he sometimes wondered where the mask ended and he began, if he could still really feel anything anymore. Questions for another time, right now there was a job to do.
"More easily than we thought by the looks of things." Claude Marsaud, first officer and computer expert replied in his usual measured, thoughtful way. "There's no price on our heads and they aren't looking for us, it's as if they don't even know we exist."
"How?"
"Probably the fire destroyed the evidence. There was a lot of flammable materiel in that bar, not a lot would have been left of the bodies and of course," Here he smiled slightly. "It would have looked like a complete accident."
"We disappear the same day Darrin dies and that didn't set any alarm bells ringing?" Jellicoe asked.
"Why would it? Claude replied. "This is the Pegasi, people vanish all the time, chances are they just assumed we died in the fire, if they even thought about us at all."
"There could be another reason." Vik said quietly. "We've always thought that we were working for Darrin, that Darrin was calling the shots and Hogan had gone native, but suppose it was the other way round? We know now who Hogan was really working for and it was way above FIS. What if it was him that turned Darrin? It would explain why they've no record of us."
"All very interesting," Jellicoe put in. "But as long as we can dock it doesn't really matter. The next question is how do we find the girl? Have you got anything Claude?"
"No solid leads, as I said before their computer security's very good so I've tried to narrow down the search as much as possible. She was almost certainly brought to Claire Dock to be sold on it's what happened to after that that matters. She's small and not used to physical work so unlikely to have gone to the mines, heavy industry, agriculture or the like, administration maybe and there's always prostitution but we do have another intriguing possibility."
"Which is?"
"Black Omega's leadership seem to want to drag the Pegasi into the 34th century, leave the superstition and blood feuding behind them and start making serious money, and as part of that they're trying to establish Tjakiri as a high tech hub for the whole region, and high tech ecconomies need scientists."
"Mhera?"
"Could be. They've already recruited one of the Empire's most brilliant neuro-scientists and set up a research centre for him, maybe they want Mhera to do the same in her field?"
"How did they get this Imp on board? Money or the same way as Mhera?" Vik asked.
"Neither," Claude said with a wry smile. "He might be exceptional in his field but he's broken almost every ethical rule in the book. If he shows his face anywhere in the core worlds he'll be seeing the inside of a prison cell rather than a laboratory."
"There can't be that many disgraced scientists out there though, and if they do see high tech as the way forward it's the only possible lead we've got." Jellicoe said thoughtfully before flashing the others a broad grin. "Get your shoes polished and best suits out chaps, we've just become potential investors."