Dragoon's Honor, page 15
Like Sovereign Nakhimov.
Someone else could build it later. Maybe make it bigger and better. They’d still be second.
“Three sets of slopes,” Javier nodded. “Basically one wide hillside, ranging from steep to shallow, and maybe different powder conditions you could generally control. Resort and operations tucked down inside the hillside, with ski-in shops and restaurants at various levels. Maybe only accessible from the slope side, but I’d include a quiet back door because not everybody is going to be a snow bunny. Build a big ring around the outside for folks to ski cross-country, with lanes for snowshoeing and reindeer sleighs. I haven’t gone deep on the technical side. You’d want to talk to Zakhar about that, as he’s former Concord Navy and something of an expert. But really, the only decision point at the front is how big do you want to be. That sets the limits on what you do later. And how expensive the construction will be. Once operational, I expect it to be a matter of advertising and quality of service. Hire the right folks and put them in charge. Give them equity over a long term, so they’re invested in success. Then have fun.”
He watched Taliesin’s eyes. Interestingly, Brissa Kifina, the other woman tycoon with them, had gotten a cagey look as well. Like she was running the numbers in her head.
Javier had originally thrown it out there as a silly idea. The sort of things that come up when people dream sideways. Now he could see an investment group coming together around him.
He turned to Amina.
“We’re money,” Javier said bluntly. “What does your business expertise suggest?”
Because she ran a casino resort larger than just about any Javier knew. Most of them were a single facility, surrounded by supporting businesses and staff. Here, everyone lived on premises, as it were, and she was as much governor of her own planet as floor boss of a casino.
“It will be expensive,” she said simply, nodding at the group. “Megastructures in space always are. Your basic design as laid out would be enough to hire a design firm to come up with things, then an engineering shop would need to get down to brass tacks. Lots of water in the form of snow means a great deal of mass, so the vessel would have to be built to at least warship standards, if you didn’t do something like my ship and hollow something out. Doable. Expensive, but most of you think on the scale of planetary budgets anyway, so then it becomes an ROI thing. What is your Return On Investment? I can’t answer that without seeing a lot more depth, but the human side wouldn’t be that difficult. Recruit from arctic climate folks, as frostbite and freezing to death are your great risks.”
Javier grabbed his wine glass and leaned back as the others started all talking at once, conversations every which way that he couldn’t follow but knew that Suvi would record and parse, if he needed to go back later.
Nyseth nodded to get his attention, so Javier ignored everyone else and studied the man.
The stranger nodded in the direction of Hajna.
“I didn’t see Jamie accompany us on the flight over?” he asked in a leading way.
Jamie?
Javier would tease her about it once, but figured he’d get punched the second time. Maybe Zakhar needed to step up there.
Javier had never imagined her as a Jamie. Even if it was the role she was playing.
“That’s right,” Javier nodded. “Kept half of the staff on the station, in case my other tourists needed assistance with whatever. These three are all functionally interchangeable, though I suppose Jamie might be the most dangerous, by however much.”
Not even Sascha or Hajna would argue that point. This was the Ballerina of Death they were talking about.
“Ah,” Nyseth noted. “Pity.”
Javier played poker. It was a game of psychology as much as chance. Knowing the other players at a deep, unconscious level. He wasn’t personally the least bit interested in Djamila, but Nyseth almost looked smitten.
Did he unconsciously react to her Neu Berne heritage? Or was it just lust for the unattainable?
And had he been hoping to proposition her here? Weird.
But Afia was running some gambit. And it didn’t involve breaking into the guy’s suite while everyone was on Excalibur, either. She had learned a few tricks from him along the way, after all.
No, he’d entertain everyone tonight for dinner and dessert. Piet and music for a brief concert after that, then Del hauling everyone back to the station to sleep in their own beds.
Javier noted the moment of disappointment on Nyseth’s face, then turned back to where the others were getting a bit wound up and enthusiastic about a ski vacation next.
And where they might go.
It helped, that Javier had a survey expert he could ask.
PART 2
Bethany wasn’t sure why Afia felt that she needed a librarian, but was here. Dressed down in the sorts of dark colors that she had come to associate with the station-side of operations, instead of customer support, who wore colorful stuff.
They were in a corridor down and back some off the flight deck, walking seemingly abandoned hallways as Afia navigated.
She followed the smaller woman around a corner into a dead end. Three doors, one of which unlocked with a clunk as they stepped close, entering without breaking stride and closing the door behind them.
“You’re probably wondering why I’ve asked you all here tonight,” Suvi’s voice came over the speakers quietly, followed by giggling. “Gods, I’ve always wanted to say that.”
“You are a dork,” Bethany reminded her. “All of you.”
“Guilty,” Suvi agreed, harmony coming from Afia’s pocket.
“I do have questions,” Suvi continued from the speaker overhead. “And having you here means I don’t have to route through other systems, most of which I haven’t tried to access yet for safety reasons.”
Afia pulled her palm reader out and plugged it in.
“Need yours, too,” Afia said, looking up.
Bethany had brought the messenger bag that was almost a part of her uniform these days, pulling out the larger machine she used when doing more detailed research. Suvi could put things on it, but had been playing it safe there as well by hijacking videos. Although, at some point Bethany needed to have Suvi download the original series for Paragon Grieving, just because the episode descriptions seemed so interesting, if somewhat ludicrous.
Later.
She handed Afia the device. Watched it get plugged into Afia’s in a chain.
“Okay, wow, so much more space to do things here,” Suvi announced overhead. “Kinda crowded back there, because some of their systems are almost smart enough to see what I’m doing and ask questions. Dumping data now.”
“Can you give me the originals of the show I’m supposedly watching, while you’re at it?” Bethany asked.
“Uhm, sure,” Suvi replied. “Kinda a hack job for writing. Or maybe I’m just not the right person to be a fan.”
“Probably not enough Bollywood dance intervals,” Afia muttered.
“Not denying that,” Suvi countered. “There. Okay, now, questions, since I don’t have my brain with me. Need you two. When we hit Shangdu, Javier was using the helmet as an excuse to access the storage vault, so that he could describe it to me later, when I needed to break in. Bethany, I know before your time, but I’ve found a general access map that shows eleven different banks, for lack of a better term, letting folks store things, scattered all over the place.”
“Eliminate any place where you don’t show footage of Nyseth walking within five hundred meters in the last several days,” Afia said immediately.
“Why?” Suvi asked. “Man, I hate being stupid. Okay, that makes sense. Done.”
It took Bethany a moment to understand. Suvi had all her personality, but hardly any of her history, as she’d said. Chapter titles, and nothing else, as it were, suggesting a stack of tables of contents ripped out of a book and left on the ground. It was almost one of those mental conditions where you could remember things in the last few days, but everything older than that was gone.
That must suck, knowing that you knew something, and unable to access it.
“Do we presume he’s using a similar scenario?” Bethany asked. “I’ve read up on the pleasure dome mission. Is it more likely that Nyseth is meeting someone to swap stolen goods, as Navarre was supposedly doing?”
“How could I tell?” Suvi asked, her rising voice showing a sharp emotional edge Bethany was certain non other Sentience she’d ever encountered could even understand.
“Customs records when he came aboard,” Bethany replied. “Those ought to be easier to access. Surveillance footage of him when his ship docked. Something. He’d have checked bags through, but those wouldn’t be important, because he’d have to assume a hotel porter touching them when he wasn’t around. Possibly unpacking them into his suite for him. What was he carrying?”
Bethany suddenly understood how Javier was able to place himself instantly at the top of the social structure around here. He didn’t carry anything. Didn’t even have pockets in his outfits.
He had people whose sole job it was to do that. Her and her messenger bag, for instance.
Businessfolks would have a briefcase or something. Second place on the ladder.
Huh.
Man, he was sneaky.
“I have a picture of a hard-sided case,” Suvi replied.
Afia’s reader blinked live, showing a still. Standard-issue, as it were.
“Anything in it stand out when you look at the inventory?” Bethany asked, wondering what records Suvi could access.
“Datastore on the larger end, but not terrible,” Suvi said. “Triple what you have on your clamshell for memory. No scan of contents. Cash and personal effects not noted in any greater detail.”
Bethany considered it.
“Bank’s a dead end, isn’t it?” Afia asked.
“Feels that way,” Bethany agreed. “Whatever he has, if anything, it is on that datastore. At this point, I couldn’t begin to hazard a guess. And again, we’re reading a lot of things into this that are possibly all fairy tales at the end of the day.”
“Yes, but the Dragoon’s locked on, so I think we need to proceed and see what it is,” Afia said. “Might be he’s blackmailing someone. Maybe he stole a bunch of critical information and is selling it on the open market. Without knowing, we can’t be sure the best way to take him down. And Djamila will not settle for anything less.”
Bethany nodded. Afia had never served in a military, instead enlisting in cargo young and eventually ending up with the rest of the crew on Storm Gauntlet. Suvi had been a Yeoman in her time, a senior enlisted sailor taking orders from an officer.
Bethany had been such an officer. Never in command, because most of her career had been dealing with temperamental admirals and captains. Still, she had the training.
“Suvi, maintain surveillance on Nyseth,” she ordered, trying to sound like she knew what she was talking about. “Include comms and messages, but do not attempt to open anything even slightly encrypted. Route it here and notify one of us to pick it up and we’ll handle it. Find out if Nyseth has friends or contacts he’s been talking to, outside the group that was at dinner last night or on the ship now.”
“You think he’s got a meet going?” Afia asked.
“I think we need to proceed as if we’re going to intercept such a thing,” Bethany said. “If he’s a criminal, then he’s out whatever he put into it.”
“Plus whoever is pissed at him for not having it,” Suvi added.
“And that,” Bethany agreed. “Maybe we can’t get him extradited. Maybe we can’t take him down ourselves because local laws will work against us. We can still hurt him for Djamila. And maybe there’s enough on that datastore to hurt him bad enough to make her happy.”
“Pretty sure he’d have to be dead for that to happen,” Afia muttered.
“Yes,” Bethany agreed. “But we don’t have to be the ones who pull the trigger.”
Bethany wondered what it said, the looks that Afia and Suvi gave her at that. That hint of surprise at her words.
Maybe this was growing up?
Maybe that unbloomed rose was starting to blossom, after all?
PART 3
Djamila had had a night to herself. Not done much. Gone out to one of the nicer restaurants by herself, then seen an acrobatics show that had impressed her. Things she’d been able to do at twenty, but not at forty, mostly from falling out of practice. Now, she was headed back to the suite to perhaps read. Or watch a show. Or just go to sleep early. Something.
But she was thinking.
Did she need to regain all that flexibility? Spend an extra hour each morning doing the sorts of complex yoga that would get her back there?
When was it okay to not be the most physically dangerous person she knew?
Alien thoughts, after her lifetime of focus. At the same time, she was having to play various roles outside her comfort zone, even after half a decade of knowing the Science Officer.
And maybe, just maybe, retiring from the combat business when this voyage was finally done?
Or was that too much to ask, with Javier involved? Probably, knowing him.
So she watched performers. Measured herself against them today, and twenty years ago.
Even enjoyed interested looks from strangers, though she wasn’t about to become involved with anybody, even for that little amount of time.
Who knew what friends Qadir might have secreted among the passengers? What he might be up to?
Best to maintain her operational security tight and let Afia and Bethany handle planning.
Both were present when she entered the suite. Sascha and Hajna had taken Tom and Heydar back to Excalibur, leaving Iqbal, Galal, Demyan, and Helmfried here, with the latter two on duty watching from a nearby lobby at present.
Security never took the night off.
Djamila approved.
Afia had a glass of wine in one hand. Djamila went to the refrigerator and got herself some juice, then joined the two women, when it became clear that they had news.
“We don’t have to break into a bank,” Afia began with a smile.
Djamila nodded. Better, that way, as bank jobs could be complicated and messy. Especially when you didn’t have the ability to get away quickly afterwards, more than a kilometer underground.
“We do, however, have to penetrate Qadir’s personal security,” Afia continued. “Well, you do.”
“What am I looking for?” Djamila asked.
She understood what that sort of penetration was likely to entail. And had steeled her soul to it.
“A datastore,” Bethany said, holding up her clamshell with an image on it.
Small enough to fit in Djamila’s palm, perhaps six centimeters by ten by about one thick.
Djamila nodded.
“Do we know what’s on it?” she pressed.
“No, but he didn’t appear to bring anything else aboard with him that stands out,” Bethany replied. “Presuming that he really is up to no good, and not merely taking a vacation where he accidentally crossed paths with you, this was the one thing that caught Suvi’s eye.”
Djamila wondered about that. Possibly the most likely scenario of all was that the man was honestly on vacation. At the same time, it didn’t change anything about her intent.
He’d stolen a lot of money. And ruined careers and lives far beyond that.
She owed him for what he’d done to dozens—if not hundreds—of people.
They would never know satisfaction, except what she could claim for them.
And perhaps she could convince Javier to detour home after this, that she could tell the people who needed to know.
“How do I get in?” she asked, looking back and forth between the two women.
Afia pulled a small vial out of her pocket. Clear liquid in a clear container. Perhaps thirty milliliters.
“He’ll drink this,” Afia said in a voice as casually deadly as Djamila had ever heard from the woman. “Five minutes or so later, he will functionally cease processing, though he should never lose consciousness in the process. Highly amenable to suggestion. No memory later of what occurred. And it should break down in his liver pretty quickly, such that he’ll wake up in the morning with a slight hangover. Anything he takes for said hangover will just break it down further, so a tox-scan by anybody short of Suvi should miss it. That includes the old device we had when we first met Javier.”
Djamila remembered that old medbot they’d gotten after firing the drunk Zakhar had originally hired as Ship’s Surgeon. And the first time she’d had to haul Javier in there and get him fixed from a concussion, because he’d mouthed off to her and she’d bounced him off the bulkhead.
How far they’d come since then.
“Five minutes?” she confirmed.
“Ballpark,” Afia shrugged grimly. “A lot of that depends on his uptake. We presume he’s good at handling such things, so this is a larger dose than a male of his age and mass would normally dictate. However, Suvi was guessing at a lot of things. It might not impact him sufficiently to erode cognition. It might trigger a medical event that requires professional help, at which point you probably get in trouble for drugging the man, presumably to rob him.”
“Not all that far from accurate, at the end of the day,” Djamila reminded him. “What happens without that data?”
“We have no clue what it is at present,” Bethany spoke up. “Might have no value at all, and this is another red herring we’re pursuing because our professional paranoia is that great.”
“Yeah,” Afia added. “Better safe than sorry.”
“Agreed,” Djamila nodded. “But I should be prepared for both ends of a wide spectrum of outcomes.”
“And there is nothing we can do at present to mitigate that,” Bethany said. “Are you prepared for that depth of verisimilitude?”
Djamila laughed. Couldn’t help herself.
