Tales from the Service: The Fiddlehead Three

2953-04-02 – Tales from the Service: The Fiddlehead Three  

This week we have a curious story. I am not aware of any other outlet covering it, but Naval Intelligence has seen fit to let us publish it. Deserters are a part of nearly every conflict, including this one, but this may be a case of accidental desertion. 

The accused, a trio of enlisted spacers from the light cruiser Vincennes, claim that they did not desert deliberately – indeed, that they have no memory or record of the intervening days in which they were missing, during which their vessel departed the supply depot it had been berthed at - and there are some curious facts of the case that seem to back this up. 

Commander Gunther Lund felt every eye in the room on him as he eased his not inconsiderable bulk into the chair at the end of the long table. His assistant placed a slate in front of him, and he made a show of reading it, though it contained nothing he hadn’t read the day before. When it came to this sort of thing, it was generally beneficial to make the culprits sweat for as long as possible. They could imagine far more creative punishments than a station commander could ever mete out. 

The trio of station security officers standing behind the chairs of each of the three detainees had seen this treatment before, but they still managed to look uneasy and shift around nervously every time, as if this were new. Gunther appreciated that of them, but he didn’t know whether they were somehow nervously expectant every time, or if they’d figured out the game long ago and were playing along. It seemed inappropriate to ask. 

Fiddlehead Station was, as military outposts went, a tiny speck on a big map, little more than a hollowed-out asteroid. It had been built as forward resupply depot for patrols which the high command didn’t want to route all the way back to Sagittarius Gate, and it had gained few comforts in its two years of existence. Its permanent population was barely a hundred souls, and its recreation facilities were best described as bare-bones, though with capacity to entertain perhaps four times the normal population when a pair of large ships occupied the only two docking berths that had been built out from the asteroid surface. When there was gossip-worthy trouble on board, everyone knew of it in minutes. 

In the case of the trio shifting uncomfortably in their seats at the other end of the table, Gunther had heard the first rumor of their miscreancy more than an hour before the case documents had arrived on his desk, and that too had been nearly a full shift ago. Presumably, they’d been cooling their frenetic energy in the brig’s drunk tank since then. Gunther never bothered to ask about detention details; that wasn’t his job. 

After several long, silent minutes, one of the trio cleared her throat. “Our crew advocate isn’t present. According to Section 6-B of the Discipline Code-” 

“The Navy Code will be followed to the letter, Technician Visscher.” Gunther tried to look and sound bored, but really, he rather liked this part. “We needn’t be worried about anything in Section 6 today.” 

Visscher and her nearest neighbor, a rotund gunner by the name of McCormick, looked relieved in an instant. By contrast, the third member of their little group, a thin, hawk-nosed technician whose name was apparently Bodinsen, proved himself to be a little bit smarter; his concerned frown only deepened. 

Gunther was only too happy to let silence descend on the room again if the trio did not start talking on their own soon. When they realized this, they exchanged uneasy glances. Visscher, evidently, was their chosen spokesperson. “If this isn’t a disciplinary hearing, then can we go?” 

“Not a disciplinary hearing?” Gunther frowned and pretended surprised. “Why, I suppose technically it isn’t. But no, you may not go.” 

“Vincennes is due to undock in a couple of hours.” The smart one, Bodinsen, had a reedy voice matching his appearance. “Your toughs took our comms, but I’m sure the shift chief is screaming-” 

“Oh, I do hope he has calmed down somewhat by now.” Gunther shuddered. “Lieutenant Sparks was clearly under a lot of stress when we last spoke.” He wondered if he could play this game out any longer without impacting the rest of the day’s schedule. Probably not; it was time to play the other card. “That was nearly two standard days ago, though. When Vincennes headed back out on patrol.” 

“Two days?” McCormick tried to start to his feet, only for the security officer behind him to force him back down. “You had us in that hole for more than two days? They went on without us?” 

“Feigned outrage is no defense for desertion, you know.” Gunther tapped his pudgy fingers on the slate. “Under Section Eight, Subsection D, of the Navy discipline code, I am required to inform you that you are facing capital charges.” 

In the moment of shocked silence that ensued, all three faces paled visibly. Then they were all talking at once – Bodinsen was holding up his hands and trying to say something about how this must be a joke, McCormick was struggling to stand with fists balled and voice raised, and Visscher was shaking her head and muttering some sort of denial. Their associated security officers kept them all in their chairs – barely, in the case of McCormick – until all three protests subsided once again into silence. 

“In addition to the top-line charge, you are facing rather minor court martial charges for destruction of Navy property.” Gunther smiled slightly as he said this, as if smashing a packed strike frame worth nearly fifty thousand credits to worthless bits was a minor thing. “But this will obviously be dropped if capital punishment is applied to your case.” 

“That’s impossible.” Visscher’s voice was barely a whisper. “We’ve only been on this station a day, at most.” 

“In total, yes.” Gunther nodded sagely. “Station monitor systems reported that you came aboard for perhaps ten or twelve hours after Vincennes arrived, but you went off the monitors after that until they flagged you this morning in storage number nine.” 

“Wait.” Bodinsen held up his hand, struggling against the pressure of his guard. “Around what time did we... leave the station?” 

“The monitors last detected you on board at about four-fifteen, second shift.” Gunther tried to make this seem like a dull detail; in point of fact, it was something about which he had been quite interested in his reading about this case. “If you would like to get this inquiry started, you can tell me what you were doing around that time.” 

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Tales from the Inbox: The Treasure Hunter’s Competition

2953-03-19 – Tales from the Inbox: The Treasure Hunter’s Competition 

A chill evening breeze was blowing when Judith Stirling followed Derrick Kaluza down the boarding ramp onto the surface of the nameless world that held his prize. She had expected the place to be hot, so the chill brought her up short and took her breath away. 

Kaluza, unbothered by the wind that whipped his long brown jacket and disheveled his gray hair, strode down onto the rocky outcrop that served as a landing pad to speak to the Zakharov officer who had been sent to meet them. Judith wondered if the treasure hunter was bothered by the fact that the commander himself wasn’t waiting there, or if his dreams of the wealth of a Grand Journey wreck had driven such things entirely out of his mind. 

By the time Judith had caught up with Kaluza, the officer sent to greet them was pointing down the line of the ridge, toward the dark hump that dominated the darkening sky. Had Judith not seen orbital images, or the cam-feeds of the first few assault troopers who’d arrived on scene, she might have given this dark form little mind, mistaking it for a hill for which the ridge was only an outcrop. 

Kaluza turned to Judith and grinned. “This is it. At last.” He had to raise his voice to be heard, as Tarah’s shuttle which had deposited them took that moment to raise its engine power, signaling that it was moments from takeoff. “It’s mine.” 

Judith gestured away from the landing area, toward the distant lights and sounds of her mercenary company at work. “Do you really think anyone else will come to claim it?” 

As soon as they had hurried to a safe distance, Kaluza nodded grimly. “This is too valuable for the secret to be sold only once. Someone else knows. We just beat them here. By a day or two if I had to guess.” 

Judith grimaced. Kaluza had already given Zakharov what he knew about the other mercenary outfits his competition might hire, so there didn’t seem to be much else to say on the topic. Most of them were of no concern, but there was always the chance of someone hiring Sovereign and paying them enough money to move serious hardware back across the Gap to complete the contract. Given the theoretical value of the find, of course, that couldn’t be ruled out. 

As the shuttle lifted off, Kaluza started following the faintly glowing trail-markers that led from the cleared landing site to the base camp, where Zakharov’s troops had been setting up defenses for the better part of a local day. The bastion was close enough to the hulk for an easy walk from one to the other, but not so close as to risk damage to the prize if it should come to a stand-up fight. Soon the mercenaries would build an increasingly broad network of listening posts, sensor stations, and bunkers outside the main perimeter, rendering the position increasingly hard to assault from the ground or to reduce from the air. 

If any late-comers got a good look at Zakharov’s position on the ground and elected for an orbital bombardment, Sigismund and the strike squadron would be responsible for keeping them out of ideal firing positions overhead. Only Sovereign of the likely opposition companies had the kind of firepower to have a serious chance of pulling this off, so Judith considered it unlikely.  

The marked path brought the pair within the camp proper around the base of a lumpy rock outcrop, so they seemed in a single step to go from the gloom and wind of the ridge to the lights and noise of a camp of war. Mercenaries in beige fatigues or equally drab-colored armor-suits bustled about setting up prefab structures, weapons platforms, and other necessaries. A few suited troopers stood guard at various posts, floodlights on their shoulders scanning the darkness beyond the camp. 

Judith, who’d seen Zakharov set up numerous field bases like this one, identified the headquarters in a moment and gently guided Kaluza in that direction. Harlan Zakharov would be there, handling the inevitable complications had arisen since planetfall, and he would be entirely unhappy to see that their employer had elected to come down to the surface personally. That was his problem now. Under other circumstances, Judith might have delayed Kaluza as long as possible having him inspect the defenses and talk to the troopers who’d gone right up to the wreck and even poked their heads into the holes rent in its sides. Tonight, though, was payback for all the time she’d been forced to spend in Kaluza’s company over the last few weeks. 

They entered to find the short, thick-set Zakharov standing in front of a tactical holo-display. In addition to his normal trio of lieutenants, Judith was surprised to see a dark-haired, olive-skinned woman flanked by two armed Zakharov troopers. She was taller and thinner than Judith, and her simple white tunic without insignia gave no indication of who she was, or why she was present. Judith could only imagine that this was a stowaway who’d gotten aboard Sigismund back at Maribel and only just now discovered. 

“There you are.” Zakharov beckoned Judith and Derrick Kaluza in. “We have a problem.” He didn’t indicate the woman, but Judith knew instantly that was what her boss was referring to. 

Kaluza glanced between Judith, Zakharov, and the stranger, an irritated scowl already forming on his face. “Why are we bringing guests to a combat drop, Mr. Zakharov?” 

“We aren’t.” Zakharov gestured for the woman to step forward. “Miss Cathalain, this is my employer, Mr. Kaluza. The proper owner of the wreck by right of first claim. You’ll have to explain to him what you were trying to tell me.” 

Cathalain slipped away from her guards and approached kaluza. “I see.” She did not sound impressed. “You are correct that your hired guns were on location first. The legal claim is yours, if you can keep it.” 

Judith’s eyes widened. It seemed Kaluza had been right about company, and wrong about how long they’d have before it arrived. 

“If we can keep it?” Kaluza folded his arms, recognizing the implicit threat. “Who do you work for?” 

“None of your usual competitors.” Cathalain paused, glancing around the room. “Which is probably to your benefit, all things considered. As I was telling the mercenary, my friends set me down outside your perimeter a few hours ago to offer you a bargain.” 

Kaluza nodded, but his scowl and posture didn’t change. 

“You can’t use what you’ve got here, not the way my friends can.” Cathalain gestured up in the general direction of the wreck. “Sure, you’ll pry it to pieces and fill your cargo hold with the best bits, and make a fortune in the process. That fortune sounds pretty good right now, I’ll wager. But it would be a grand waste.” 

“A waste?” 

“You don’t know what that is. But whatever you think it’s worth, you’re low by a factor of a thousand at least.” Cathalain smiled. “But not to you and yours.” 

Kaluza was silent for several seconds. Judith, who had not seen this sort of bargaining tactic between mercenaries, was trying to work out who the woman worked for. It wasn’t Sovereign – for one, they never played coy and loved to strike fear into the opposition with those distinctive black and gold uniforms – but beyond that, she couldn’t think of any outfit it might be. 

Eventually, Kaluza nodded. “You want to buy off our claim.” He gestured to the tactical plot, where the angular stern section of the wreck was visible. “I don’t think there are enough credits in the Reach.” 

“Of course not. This is your claim to fame. Your path to a retirement of ease and influence.” Cathalain turned away from the treasure hunter. “In exchange for your claim here, my friends are prepared to show you wreckage of the same provenance on another body in this very star system. Not as intact as the vessel here, but equal in scale, and more easily scavenged.” 

Zakharov grunted. “She’s shown me no proof, Mr. Kaluza. Just empty promises.” 

“My friends in this matter are trustworthy to a fault.” Cathalain shrugged. “But they will not give you anything that could be used to find the other site unless your people depart this one.” 

“You expect me to fall for that?” Kaluza chuckled. “As if I was some freshly-minted-” 

“I expect you to fall if you refuse.” Cathalain spun on her heel and locked eyes with the man. “My friends will not lose this opportunity. It is too much to them.” 

Judith, who’d been silent so far, cleared her throat. “And who are your friends, whose word we are being asked to trust?” 

Cathalain looked at Judith for the first time, a smile tugging at her lips. “Have you not guessed?” 

“It’s not another treasure-seeker and his mercenaries. Or the government.” Judith held up her fingers and ticked them off one by one. “It’s not the Incarnation, nor the Hegemony, not this far Coreward. That leaves non-human interests, if I’m not mistaken.” 

Cathalain nodded, her smile growing. “Are there any of those you think your company can repel, if it comes to a fight?” 

Zakharov chuckled dryly. “We’d humble any of the Rattanai clans, and I don’t think Cold Refuge has any sort of ground-troops. Beyond those we don’t have a chance.” 

“Then you do not have a chance.” Cathalain nodded to Zakharov and returned to her guards. “I am not permitted to say any more.” 

Obviously, this strange envoy unnerved the mercenaries and their minder enough  that they did continue negotiations. By the tone of the account, it seems their claim was bought off, but that is not explicitly stated. If they ever discovered who it was who wanted what they had, it is also not included; I rather suspect they did not. 

[N.T.B. - This sounds too far afield for Kyaroh or Grand Journey intervention; my money is on this having something to do with the Reachers, but I can’t see why they’d want to get ahold of a wreck that wasn’t one of their vessels.] 

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Tales from the Inbox: The Treasure Hunter’s Prize

2953-03-19 – Tales from the Inbox: The Treasure Hunter’s Prize 

While it is not particularly common, mercenaries are in the business of fighting other mercenaries when their employers’ interests come into conflict and the situation does not permit one company to buy out the other’s contract. Normally these fights are not to the last man – one company or the other will decide the losses aren’t worth it and capitulate – but on particularly high-paying missions, the amount of death and destruction required to make mercenaries give up the fight can be extremely large. 

I have heard it told that many mercenaries fear fights with other mercenaries more than they fear any other sort of combat; pirates, knowing their fate if captured, will regularly fight to the death if they can’t flee, but hired guns spend all their free time thinking up tactics and tools to maximize the death they deal out at minimal cost to themselves. 

Derrick Kaluza drummed his fingers on the wardroom table, his eyes darting between the holo-display suspended from the overheads, his wristcuff display, and Judith Stirling, seated on her own halfway down the table.  

The other three people present, all Kaluza’s subordinates, did their best to avoid notice; they kept themselves busy on their slates, only occasionally glancing up. Judith hadn’t learned the names of two of them; other than Kaluza himself, the only person aboard Gretchen Tarah whose name she knew after two weeks aboard was the captain’s. Raiko Wallace, though new to Kaluza’s service, was a cool, confidence-inspiring man whose unflappable nature contrasted well with his boss’s excitability. He sat at the opposite end of the table from Kaluza, calmly watching symbols creep across the display. 

The planet depicted by a mottled orb at one side of the plot had no name, just like its stellar primary; it was an arid, barely habitable sphere with sparse native life which had been quite reasonably passed over for colonization. Despite the remoteness and insignificance of the place, Kaluza’s intelligence division had somehow gotten the impression that something valuable was to be found on the surface. That something was apparently worth hiring a mid-sized mercenary company to guard, if it was there at all. Judith had her doubts, but her company had worked with Kaluza in the past. He might be erratic, but he wasn’t often wrong. 

As the blocky symbol representing the mercenary carrier Sigismund approached the nameless planet, a handful of tiny symbols detached themselves from it. These were Zakharov Outworld’s light strike squadron departing on a probing fly-over of the target area prior to planetfall. Sigismund itself couldn’t land, of course; a trio of lumbering dropships would deploy the infantry, armored troopers, and support vehicles that made up the bulk of the company’s strength. 

Kaluza, almost quivering with anticipation, cleared his throat. “How soon will we know if it’s there?” 

Judith shook her head. “Can’t say. You gave us a location, but not much to look for. If your treasure was obvious from orbit, though, Survey would have caught it.” 

Kaluza scowled. “One would think.” He glanced back down at his wristcuff. “That’s why I hired your people.” 

Judith offered no answer; Zakharov forces would know in the next three or four minutes if they were the first ones to stake a claim on the treasure or not. Signals traffic would communicate that back to Tarah two or three minutes later. 

“You know it hardly matters now whether you tell us what we’re looking for.” Judith tried to sound uninterested. She was of course extremely interested in knowing the prize that a treasure-hunter like Kaluza was so interested in, but it hardly mattered whether he said anything; one way or the other, she was going to find out what it was in short order. 

“You know where.” Kaluza shrugged. “That’s all you need.” 

“No sense with the theatrics, Derrick.” Captain Wallace chuckled dryly. “There’s no HyperComm here. Let your mercs know what they’re looking for. It’ll help them find it.” 

Kaluza glared at his subordinate across the wardroom for several seconds. “I suppose.” He took in a long, deep breath. “There’s a ship there, mostly buried in the sand. A damned big one.” 

“A ship? You think someone tried to settle this place?” Kaluza’s education was in archaeology, so this tracked reasonably well. A big find of a lost colony expedition, well preserved, would make him rich and famous at the same time. The old style pre-2600 colony ships, especially the ones fitted out for going way out beyond the frontier, were often designed for one-way trips and safe landings, at the cost of never being able to take off again. It wasn’t unheard of for the colonists aboard these expeditions to find themselves trapped in a failing colony; that was, after all, the basis for the popular Frontier legend of the Silent Planet. 

“A non-human ship.” Kaluza didn’t seem to know whether to be pleased with himself, or annoyed with the need to explain himself. “It doesn’t match anything in the normal database, but I had some friends look at it, and they think it might be a Grand Journey ship. A really old one.” 

Judith’s eyebrows shot up. “In the Orion arm? Really?” Most every spacer had heard of the enigmatic Sagittarius xeno-polity Grand Journey, and a few had even seen the steady stream of Gilhedat diplomats who represented it passing through Maribel on their way to the Core and Confederated centers of government. The commonly-told story was that at least three species of sapient  composed the population of the Grand Journey, with each operating a different set of roles within society. Where their worlds were remained anyone’s guess; there were even stories that the polity was, like the Reachers, fully nomadic. 

“The images I could get from my source were limited. But there was no doubt it was alien. Whatever its source, it’s a find worth having.” 

Judith nodded, already tapping away a quick message to be dispatched ahead to Sigismund. “And a find worth killing to protect.” 

Kaluza nodded grimly. “That’s where you come in. If anyone’s got here before us, that will be too bad. For them.” 

Judith knew better than to add the obvious conclusion to this logic: that if those people had brought mercenaries, too, it might equally be too bad for Zakharov. 

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Tales from the Inbox: The Treasure Hunter’s Secrecy

2953-03-05 – Tales from the Inbox: The Treasure Hunter’s Secrecy 

As secrecy in mercenary contracts is nothing unusual, most of the breed is forced to become competent secret keepers by the strictures of the business. We get precious few submissions from mercenaries about their private contracts, with most mercenary accounts describing their war duty contracts, which are the farthest thing from secret at least after the fact. 

When we do get these stories sent to us, it is usually when the contract described has gone wrong in some way. This sort of occurrence is notably rare, but it does tend to absorb the lion’s share of the spotlight when one is discussing mercenary service, leading many to believe that double-crossing employers and being double-crossed is a regular part of the mercenary business. 

In turn, this over-focus makes both mercenaries and mercenary employers incredibly paranoid about conditions for a double-cross, which probably reduces the number of such betrayals yet further. 

“What is taking so long?” Derrick Kaluza paced up and down Sigismund’s cargo bay catwalk behind Judith Stirling and Harlan Zakharov as they watched the company stevedores shifting things around below. “We’re almost a day behind schedule.” 

“Things must be done properly.” Zakharov didn’t bother to turn around, but his deep, deliberate voice carried well over the whine of motors and the clamor of crew activity that rang the cargo bay. “We will need to unload quickly, so we must load slowly. Were it not for your lateness in delivering what you know of your foes, we could have been done three days ago.” 

Judith snuck a glance behind her at Kaluza, just enough to see his shoulders bunch up as this barb struck home. Kaluza was a regular employer of mercenaries, but that didn’t make him easy to deal with. The more she’d interacted with him in the last five days, the more she hoped the irritable salvage dealer would cancel the contract, pay them out their standard one-third no-fault fee, and go bother someone else. 

Unfortunately, Kaluza got control over himself before he turned around. “I cannot pass you intelligence I do not have, Captain Zakharov. Better to have it when we did.” 

“And better to leave three or four shifts late than to leave unprepared.” Zakharov gestured down toward the massive cargo airlock at the aft end of the bay. “Those three crate stacks will be sent to your vessel.” 

“Yes, yes.” Kaluza didn’t bother to look in the indicated direction. “Tarah has plenty of space for your spare baggage.” 

“It is not spare.” Zakharov finally turned toward Kaluza. “It will be needed, but not immediately.” 

As they glared at each other, Judith was, not for the first time, struck by how opposite they appeared; her boss was short and squat, with every facial feature round off like a stone outcrop weathered by eons of wind. By contrast, Kaluza was tall, slightly stooped, and angular in every sense of the word, with a sharp hawk’s-beak nose and high cheekbones. 

Kaluza sighed, but did not drop his glare. “Yes, yes, we will shuttle it over as soon as your bay has been unloaded on site.” 

Judith, who knew what was in at least some of those containers, looked away, lest her face betray something. Kaluza couldn’t be allowed to know that Zakharov had planned a rather significant failsafe into his own private plans for the operation. Hopefully, the failsafe would never need to be used, but Kaluza’s high-strung impatience had everyone in the know almost wishing it would be. 

“As long as you honor your end, we will honor ours.” Zakharov tapped on his slate. “We will be loaded and ready to depart in sixteen hours.” 

“It will have to do. What of your crew?”  

“Everyone who has read any of your sensitive information has not left Sigismund since doing so.” Zakharov spread his hands. “Some crew are completing shore leave, but these know only that we are in your employ. All will be aboard before we leave.” 

Judith wondered whether Kaluza knew enough about the euphemistic language of mercenaries to guess that several of the armored troopers in Zakharov’s combat detachment were at that moment sulking in the station brig. He probably did, but if so, he also knew this was fairly standard for mercenary grunts. Brawling with the locals, or drunkenness was the most common charge, but Zakharov’s troopers, being among the most unsubtle sapients in God’s creation, did sometimes get caught trying to purchase drugs or the services of a prostitute. They wouldn’t be released until the last possible moment before Sigismund departed. 

“Good. If any of them are approached by suspicious persons, let me know immediately.” Kaluza paused. “In the interim, I am going back to oversee preparations aboard Tarah.” 

“Of course.” Zakharov caught Judith’s eye and raised one heavy eyebrow, a glint of goblin mischief flitting across his lumpy face. “Do take Miss Stirling with you, in case there are other problems. She can access our comms-net and monitor progress without your needing to return before we depart.” 

Judith put on her best diplomatically neutral, helpful smile, but internally she knew she would have to find a way to make Zakharov pay for this. The man was as serious and businesslike as they came, but every so often, his sick, twisted sense of humor came out. 

Kaluza frowned. “A liaison? Shouldn’t I be leaving one with you, rather than the other way round?” 

“Send one of your people in exchange if you can spare.” Zakharov bowed slightly toward Judith. “But she knows how to help you monitor our operations.” 

“So I don’t need to ask you, eh?” Kaluza sniffed. “Well then, if you can keep me informed, Miss Stirling, come along. I’ll have someone prepare you a cabin aboard Tarah.” 

With one parting glare at her employer, Judith followed Kaluza toward the hatch leading toward Sigismund’s lift well.  

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