*****
The ore hauler Kilteddin had come to a stop. The six-kilometer-long vessel was transporting iron and chromium ores to the space docks at Andreus IV. I prepared for a standard inspection search as I piloted the Daunte alongside. The powerful, sleek, Alpha sector detective’s cruiser was immediately lost against the grand exterior of the Kilteddin, one of the newest haulers from the Betagen shipyards. The Daunte set down in a docking bay just below the forecastle.
As I stepped out onto the deck, I was met by Alda Kondore, the ship’s captain and manifest administrator. “Mr. Beutcher, welcome to the Kilteddin. I have prepared the manifest logs for your perusal. If you would like to follow me to our guest lounge, you may look over the logs at your leisure.”
“I appreciate the offer, Mr. Kondore, but I prefer to walk the ship as I perform my investigation, or should I say— inspection.”
Alda Kondore, a Medorian, struggled to reach a meter in height.
Kondore gazed up in wonder at my two-meter-tall frame. “If there is any way I can assist you, Mr. Beutcher, I am at your service.”
I noticed a twitch in Kondore’s forced smile as he made his offer. It was a tell that immediately aroused my suspicion.
I held up my arm with a holo-display of the Kilteddin’s storage-bay structure showing just above it. “I am most interested in the areas underneath these two bays, Mr. Kondore. What can you tell me about them?”
The administrator had an uneasy expression on his face. “Those are for ballast, Mr. Beutcher. This vessel is capable of setting down on a planet’s surface if a sufficient water dock is present.”
I nodded. “I understand that to be the function, Mr. Kondore. I would, however, like to see and inspect those spaces. Believe it or not, we have found it to be a popular hiding place for smuggled contraband.”
As we walked the half kilometer toward the ballast compartments, Alda Kondore became increasingly nervous. I smirked to myself at how bad the common citizen often was at concealing the fact they were breaking the law. It was the cool and collected, hard-core criminal I feared most. A man in control of his emotions was a man who when cornered would take unanticipated and severe action. Three inspectors in the Alpha sector, to their detriment, had found that out during the prior twelve months. One of those individuals, Mar Hougis, I had known for twenty-seven standard years.
As we walked, a call came over my comm. “This is Beutcher. If this is not an urgent need, I would prefer to return this call after the inspection is complete.”
It was the dispatcher, Hela Gruend. He had been with the communications office for fifteen years. “Sorry, Mr. Beutcher, the captain wants you to drop what you're doing and report to his office at once. He says it's important.”
I stopped as I replied, “Tell the captain I’m in the middle of an inspection. I will return as soon as I’m finished.”
Hela pressed a button on his console that set off an alert on my holo-display. “Sorry, Knog, the captain insisted that you come now, as in immediately. Inspector Hambrik will be following up with the Kilteddin.”
I let out a grunt in frustration. “You tell Hambrik to make sure he checks the ballast tanks under bays five and six.”
I looked over at Kondore, taking notice of an expression of relief. The contraband, whatever it was, would be hidden away elsewhere or jettisoned into space long before Hambrik arrived.
“Scratch that last thought, Mr. Gruend. Just ask Hambrik to be thorough.”
I stepped close to Alda Kondore and scowled downward at his upturned face. “Looks like it’s your lucky day, Mr. Kondore. I've been called away. Just keep this in mind though, as you move around whatever it is you're hiding. I am out here 24/7, I now know this ship, and I know your name. I’ll be watching for you, Mr. Kondore. Have a good day.” I turned and walked back toward the Daunte.
Shortly thereafter, I arrived in the captain’s office. Captain Paq Wendell was a fair man. He was now a bureaucrat. He had risen through the detective ranks because of his hard work. In the Detective Corps, he was one of the few officers I had respect for.
The captain said, “Knog, have a seat. Coffee?”
I moved to a chair, “Yes sir on the coffee. I've been having trouble finding it in the stores. I’m running out of it on the Daunte.”
The captain poured an extra-deep cup. “Price of this stuff has gotten outrageous. I think these new alliances between the families have a few trade kinks to work out. I don’t know about you, Knog, but I have a hard time functioning without my morning shot.”
I looked around the captain’s office. His walls were covered with merit awards and news articles of some of the arrests he made as a junior detective. His favorite article was from the bust of a ring of smugglers who were sneaking Garronet Carrots into the colony at Meloso Prime.
A cargo bay had exploded due to a methane buildup from rotting contraband. A subsequent news photo of a star shower over the colony, caused by the carrots, sat in a gold frame that his coworkers had put together for him. The captain was well liked, and his sense of humor only added to his popularity.
“The crew of the Kilteddin was smuggling, Captain. The administrator—”
Paq Wendell held up his hand as he walked to the traditional coffee pot in the corner of his office. Seconds later he handed me the freshly poured cup. “I’m doing you a favor here, Knog. The Kilteddin belongs to the Motlin Corporation. And the Motlin Corporation belongs to Governor Salton’s grandnephew Pietrus. You cause trouble on one of their boats, and you run the risk of a career-ending mistake.”
The captain moved back behind his desk, taking a seat in his high-backed leather chair.
I blew the heat from the top of the cup, “Captain, the Governor’s family should not be above the law, sir. If their crews are knowingly running contraband, they need to be caught and brought before the courts.”
The captain set his mug down on his desk as he leaned back in his squeaky, well-worn, but comfortable chair. “The Saltons are the law now, Knog; they own the courts.”
Paq leaned forward and lowered his voice. “We have to face reality here. AMP is dead, and it's not coming back. The Saltons own the Alpha sector and all who reside here. You're the best at what you do, Knog, but you need to wise up and play the game, or at least pretend to, or your ass is going to end up out in the Omega sector with Calloway and Hollerhan. Heck, Calloway lost thirty-six years of pension because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”
I sipped at my cup for several seconds before responding. “I appreciate what you're doing for me, Captain, but I can’t turn my back on the law just to save my skin. The law, even under the Saltons, says all cargoes must be inspected, and all items not listed on the manifests are considered contraband. If the Saltons don’t want me rousting their ships and crews, they need to change the laws.”
The captain rolled his eyes as he held up his hand. “Fine, Knog, you go do whatever you want to. Keep in mind that your actions also reflect on those around you. Actions have consequences, even when you're doing the right thing. Just don’t be so pigheaded that you end up taking others down with you.”
I set my half-full cup down on the edge of the captain’s desk. “Is that all you have for me, sir? If so, I would request that I be allowed to return to duty.”
The captain scowled as he pressed the comm button on his arm pad. “Major Dentor. Mr. Beutcher is heading back out on patrol. See to it that he doesn’t have any Motlin ships on his schedule of inspections.”
The captain looked up at me as I stood. “We go back a long way, Knog. If you make my life difficult after we just had this conversation, I won't be there to back you up if you get in a pinch. Chief Detective Jamia has already let it be known that she has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to perceived harassment of Motlin ships or crews. If she brings down the hammer on you, know that she will be swinging it hard.”
I walked out of the captain’s office with a poor attitude. So, this was it? This would be life unde
r the Saltons? I had spent my entire adult life keeping order. It was a mission I enjoyed and a mission I looked forward to doing every day. I would not be compromising my principles for some self-appointed dictator and his family. This was my sector and I played by my rules, the rules of right and the rules of the law.
As I stepped up into the Daunte, another call came over my comm. “Mr. Beutcher, your next assignment is to inspect a Hargrave salvage trawler. The Belwitz is on its way to the Thalimus colony.”
I shook my head in disgust. A salvage trawler heading to Thalimus? I wondered if this was what I could expect going forward. It was an inspection that would normally go to a detective who had not yet earned his first star.
I looked down at the three stars on my shoulder patch and wondered... why I had earned them? What were they worth now? A pay bonus? They certainly had not earned me assignments out to Thalimus. As it was it barely qualified as a colony anymore. A decade of riots had stripped it of all productivity.
I replied to the comm, “Thank you, Hela. I’ll be expecting a data packet with information on the Belwitz.”
Hela was silent before his response. “I’m sorry, Mr. Beutcher. We have nothing on the Belwitz except its registry. She hails from the Gamma sector, sir. The Morden family runs that now, and they no longer release ship records. You will have to wing this one, Mr. Beutcher.”
I shook my head and offered the deckhand on Bay-8 of Security Station V an indignant look as the ramp-way pulled shut and sealed.
After a short taxi out into space, I brought Portal Transfers up on my console. “This is Beutcher, F4558992-34, sweep me out to Thalimus Colony, please. Authorization code is VX722-B0KK.”
A transfer portal swept across the Daunte, leaving the ship fifty thousand kilometers from Thalimus and in line for an intercept of the Belwitz. I picked up my mug and stared at the empty bottom.
I grunted. “Well, mug, at least we still have our coffee, even though it's running low. How about I fill you up and we do a records search on the Belwitz for public documents. I don’t like boarding a ship blind, and you, you couldn’t care less; you're just a mug.”
Ship inspections could be a lonely job, and I often found it would break the monotony of an assignment if I had fake conversations with inanimate objects. Passing the time while keeping one's sanity was an everyday occurrence in the corps. An intercept and inspection of a large vessel could often take days.
As I sat waiting I glanced down at my shoulder. With my third star, I had earned the right to bring my family aboard the Daunte. The ship was one of the newer cruisers in the fleet, and the accommodations were first rate, but deep space was no place for a family, especially when the criminals I chased were sometimes hostile. Besides, with a wife and eighteen Grunta offspring, the Daunte just wasn’t big enough.
A document search on the Belwitz returned a hundred fifteen items of interest. Most were nothing more than transition logs when jumping from the Alpha to the Gamma sector, or when coming through to Alpha from the other way. The three search items of most interest were from prior inspections.
Two of the inspections records showed minor infractions. Crew members had smuggled aboard banned items in their personal gear. A Pelomoni skull, the smallest of the Alliance’s species, was found in a hygiene container, and a lizard-like creature from Deltan VII was kept in small box under a bunk.
The kexa, when cut in half, would grow into two such animals. They were voracious breeders and eaters. Within a year of their introduction on two new colony planets, the colonies had to be abandoned. The kexa had been responsible for the destruction of their fauna. With little foliage remaining, oxygen levels at each had begun to plummet.
The third inspection yielded a result that caught my attention. The Belwitz had been caught carrying five hundred liters of bleurgh. Bleurgh was a highly addictive intoxicant that had become popular with colony miners. It was often brought in by the owners of those mines. One side effect was that a worker would often stay on station for days on end.
Bleurgh had been outlawed in the AMP for centuries, but had made a comeback under the ruling families. I had often wondered if those families were not fully responsible for its return, as the market for bleurgh among factory workers and miners made its trade extremely profitable.
The prior search and subsequent arrest of the Belwitz’s captain had been dismissed over a technicality. A typo in the ship designation code allowed a suspect judge to dismiss the case. Captain Jergem Meyers and his crew of five had been released, and the ship, with the contraband cargo still aboard, returned to service. The arresting detective swore he had entered the code correctly; his demotion and loss of his first star said otherwise.
If the Belwitz’s captain was again carrying bleurgh, I planned to bust him hard.