Chapter 13: More Unwelcome Visitors
Scrivens, with no option but to continue to cooperate, accompanied Marshall to his ship. On the way past Mo's, where music was playing loudly, they stopped long enough for Marshall to put his head round the door and summon Greg and Big Dave. The four of them then made their way to the service hanger. The cargo bay of Scriven's ship was wide open and the engine covers were lying on the concrete floor, where they had been put to allow access for tuning the engines.
'Let's see these pipes, Scrivens,' Marshall said, indicating that Greg should follow them with a lift truck.
The cargo bay seemed much larger than necessary for carrying the relatively small amount of mining equipment they found inside. But then, Marshall reasoned, if you were in fact trying to smuggle gold away from pirates, you probably wouldn't want or need to be carrying a great deal else. On the other hand, you would rather like to have your engines in tip-top condition.
'Over there,' Scrivens said, pointing to a bundle of twenty-four, sixteen foot pipe sections. Each end of the pipes was covered with a black plastic cap to protect the screw threads which allowed one section of pipe to be joined to the next. The bundle sat on an over-sized wooden pallet and the whole lot was fastened to the deck plate by steel chains.
'You have the key to release the chains, Scrivens?'
The man nodded and went over and released the chains, which Big Dan lifted off and dropped, clanging and clattering, onto the deck just as Greg manoeuvred his lift into position. Greg extended the arms from his truck and applied lift. The truck motor ground and strained and in the end all that happened was that the rear wheels of the truck lifted off the deck, while the pallet stayed where it was.
That's not just a pallet of steel pipe you have there,' Greg said, retracting the lift arms.
'Dan, would you mind unscrewing one of those plastic end caps.'
As he moved to do so, Scrivens began to speak. 'Oh, er…'
'Yes, Scrivens?'
'Well, it's just that those end caps have an official seal on them.'
'Official? You mean you found a way of re-affixing the seal after you'd put the gold inside?'
Scrivens shuffled his feet, muttering, 'I don't suppose it's going to matter now.'
Greg took the lifter back out into the hanger while Dan removed the seal and unscrewed the four inch diameter cap. Filled right to the end of the pipe was a yellow substance, shining with the unmistakable glow of solid gold. Dan took out a knife and found he could easily mark it with the blade. 'Soft enough to be twenty-four carat, more than likely,' he said.
'OK,' Marshall said. 'It would not be a good thing to have this ship in our hanger when our next lot of visitors arrive. Would you two men please see to towing it out?'
'No problem, boss.'
'Scrivens, you stay with your ship. I advise you very strongly to wait on the flight deck and not to try to disappear anywhere.'
Twenty minutes after Scrivens's ship had been towed out onto the concrete apron in front of the service hanger, a FBIS interceptor squeezed itself out of the hyperspace pipe and held station next to The Black Medallion. The FBIS ship scanned the pirate ship, and attempted to make contact with it but received no reply.
Marshall re-entered his office just in time to reply to a hail from the FBIS ship.
'This is Inspector Garrett calling Junker's Moon Scrap, Salvage and Servicing Company.'
'Call received. This is Marshall Brion owner of Junker's Moon.' Too late, Marshall remembered that it was always best not to claim ownership of anything, until pressed. However, by then it was too late.
'Mr Brion, This is Inspector Garrett of the Febis interceptor ship you see on your screen. It is my duty to inform you that this conversation is being recorded and that anything you say may possibly be used against you in a future investigation.'
Marshall restrained himself from smiling at the implication of guilt until innocence had been proven in the inspector's statement. 'Thank you for reminding me of my rights and responsibilities, inspector.' Many times throughout his childhood he had been told of how politeness when dealing with FBIS usually went a long way, so he added, 'How can I help you?'
'Firstly, Mr Brion, in having admitted ownership of the Junker's Moon Company, you have accepted responsibility for any misdemeanours committed by that company and any employees of it.'
'I run a tight ship here and am not aware of any misdemeanours committed by my employees. On the other hand I accept no responsibility for the actions of any ships or personnel visiting this system.'
'Your comments are noted, Mr Brion. You will see on your scanning equipment that I am parked next to a curious-looking vessel, which I am hoping you can tell me something about.'
'I would be glad to, and if you wish to remove it along with its captain and crew, I would be even happier still. By their own admission they are pirates, and the vessel you refer to, according to its captain, is The Black Medallion.'
'And the captain's name?'
'He didn't see fit to give it. He was too busy firing missiles at us.'
'That's strange in itself. These pirates generally like to boast of some fancy name or other.'
'No, he didn't give one, as I say, he was too…'
'Yes, I heard you, too busy firing weapons.' Inspector Garrett's eyes narrowed. 'And on that subject, I'd like to move on to my next observations. There is a particularly odd hole in The Black Medallion's tail fin. The vessel appears to be running on minimum systems, and its coms system is not transmitting audio.'
'The ship arrived covertly using some sort of stealth technology and so gave little warning of their arrival. I believe you must have similar equipment.' Marshall looked directly at Inspector Garrett to see that his point had been noted. He then continued, 'I was lucky enough to have a salvage team on the moon when the pirates came out of the pipe. I say lucky because when I was showed reluctance to cooperate with the pirate's demands, they fired two missiles, firstly at my orbital telescope, which I use for verification of the ID tags of ships when they enter the system, and secondly at the rear of the base down here. You will be able to check these statements by the recording from the orbital telescope, whose sensor was blinded for some minutes, and by the blast damage on site.'
'You say you were lucky, Mr Brion?'
'Yes, my salvage team were close to a ship obtained by my grandfather almost two hundred years ago. It was one of the earliest Febis ships, I understand. Although there is little left of it now, they managed to operate one of the guns and fired a shell which turned out to have a dud warhead, hence the hole in The Black Medallion.'
'You fired on the pirate ship?'
'A clear case of self-defence, I would say, under the circumstances.'
'Circumstances I shall make it my business to investigate. Can you account for The Black Medallion running on minimal systems and for the lack of operation of its coms?'
'I can only guess that when our shell penetrated the rear of their vessel it caused a pulse cascade in their equipment, which disabled it. If the shell had landed amidships and had detonated, it would have suffered catastrophic decompression and they would almost certainly all be dead. Given a choice, I would prefer to be still alive on a disabled ship, than blown to pieces.'
'So, Mr Brion, did you know that the shells had non-functioning warheads, or were you hoping for the more dramatic ending?'
'After around two hundred years in near total vacuum, I assumed the shells might not even fire, let alone detonate when they reached a target.'
'And yet you ordered your employees to fire all the same?'
'That is correct, as I said earlier, it was a clear case of self-defence. The pirates had fired two warning shots but were obviously just as capable of firing deadly ones.'
The conversation batted to and fro going over the same ground for another hour or so, during which Marshall gave details of the pirate's demands and the discovery of smuggled gold aboard a ship he had in for service. He wa
s very keen to point out that he had no idea of the nature of the ship's cargo right up until captain Scrivens confessed to being in possession of gold, which the pirates claimed was theirs.
Inspector Garrett stated that he would need to see the recordings of the interview with Scrivens and have unrestricted access to the ship and all Junker's facilities.