2954-06-10 – Tales from the Inbox: A Deal For the Zenith Treader 

This is the end of the account provided. The participants are promising that they will never speak of the events again, yet it was submitted to this embed team, and has no obvious textual indications of being altered for privacy (changing the nature of the cargo or its resulting security breach, for example).  

None of my contacts could come up with anything that it might refer to in the Navy’s records, but of course, if it is true, the Navy would have locked any records behind every layer of secrecy clearance it has. 

The Navy officer that appeared in the main display wasn’t doing a good job of hiding his fury. “Zenith Treader, desist from communicating with the station at once, except for regular traffic.” He leaned forward, glowering. “Our inspection party is assembling now.” 

Ellia Kossner sniffed dismissively. “There is no section of the Law of the Spacelanes that prevents personal comms traffic during an inspection stop, and that cutter’s not carrying enough gear to jam us anyway.” She arched one eyebrow. “My crew and I have nothing to hide, Lieutenant. Do you? Send them over without delay.” 

“In times of war, comms discipline-” 

“Are you accusing us of espionage, sir?” Ellia absently tapped a few controls on the side of her command chair. “I will inform the station constabulary of the need for a tribunal. My legal counsel can be reached-” 

The man’s eyes flashed. This interaction clearly wasn’t going the way he’d intended. “I am not accusing you or your crew of anything yet.” He said slowly. “But you are acting quite suspiciously.” 

“By communicating with my business partners on the Sprawl?” Ellia shrugged. “It would be more suspicious if I did not explain the delay. Do send your inspection team.” 

In a flash, Gareth Glass realized what all the obfuscation, the refusal to explain, and the needless delay were about. Hurriedly, he tapped out a text message to send over to the skipper’s display. He didn’t dare glance over his shoulder to see if she noticed it. 

“These things take time.” The lieutenant growled. “Your schedule is not my concern.” 

“But yours is.” Ellia chuckled. “I can afford the wait.” 

Gareth winced; they couldn’t, not really. Sure, Ellia’s credit reserves were robust, but they weren’t robust enough to time out a whole contract delivery and miss out on the return cargo as well, especially if the station inspectors found something on Treader that needed overhauling before they went back across the Gap. That, of course, was the least of their problems right now. 

“You are making your situation worse.” The Lieutenant gestured to someone out of view. “You will be lucky to still have a single hull panel still attached to that miserable hulk when we’re through with it.” 

Ellia nodded, tapping on her controls again. “My panic would make your job that much easier, would it? If you actually did any of that, right under the nose of the Sprawl, you’d be scrubbing the heads on a prisoner transport by next weekend. Sure, I’d be dead, but you’d wish we’d swapped places before long.” She tapped the side of her nose. “I know what’s got you so twitchy, bud. What you really, really don’t want on the record. I wonder how many of your ship’s crew know?” 

The officer’s face darkened. “Know what?” 

“I know what you think we have. What you Navy dolts let slip this far. And if I were worried about going down for it, I’d be shaking in my little boots, but lucky me, I’m not your smuggler.” Ellia leaned back and held up a finger. “One button press, and all of Sagittarius knows. Unencrypted, emergency band broadcast. It’s all set up, all I have to do is hit this little red button, unless...” 

Gareth hunched his shoulders, half expecting a cloud of railshot to cross from the cutter to Zenith Treader and perforate its unprotected hull in that instant. No hail of death came, however. 

“I’m listening.” The officer scowled. “Make it quick.” 

“Smuggling is bad business.” Ellia held her hands up, away from the controls. “Especially smuggling of the sort you’re looking for. I’ve got a neat little package for you, as well as a full set of our datalogs so you can try to back-trace it in Maribel. Turning over criminals, that’s free. Transparency is our policy. But secrecy? That’s expensive.” 

The lieutenant considered this for a long moment. “Is that so.” His jaw tightened. “Hold one.” 

With that, the screen blanked. Again, Gareth expected weapons fire, but once again, he was disappointed. Ellia cracked her neck and stood up, pacing back and forth in front of her station. 

“Is this going the way we want?” Sung sounded little less nervous than Gareth. 

“Hells if I know.” Ellia chuckled nervously. “Got to bank on them not committing an atrocity in full view of the station. In any case, I’ve changed our emergency broadcast, in case we’re fired on, so he loses if he shoots.” 

“Assuming secrecy really is this important.” Gareth shuddered. 

“We have to assume that too.” The skipper nodded. 

Less than a minute later, Sung announced that the cutter was hailing again. Ellia took her seat, propping one leg up on the arm of the big command chair, and waved for the transmission to be put on the main display. 

“What does your silence cost?” The lieutenant asked. He’d apparently calmed down a little; his face was far less red than it had been. 

“We dock at the station and hand over what you want, plus a convenient culprit and all the data we have. The Navy makes good the late-fees we are currently building up.” Ellia held up a finger. “After that, we will never speak of any of this again as long as we never hear of it.” 

“You expect me to take your word for this?” 

Ellia shrugged. “Yes. I’m sure you’ve seen my psych-profile. Do you really think I’m in the business of breaking contracts?” 

The lieutenant clenched his jaw. “And what’s to stop me refusing?” 

“We will cooperate fully with your search, of course.” Ellia spread her hands. “But its object will be announced to station officials, and its progress transmitted to legal counsel, as is my right.” 

The officer nodded stiffly. “We can do it your way, Zenith Treader. We will send you a course and a docking berth shortly.” 

Gareth released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding when the screen blanked again. Ellia, too, slumped into her chair. 

“Good show, Skipper.” Sung got up and went to a locker at the rear of the command deck, and produced two handguns. “Come on, Glass. We need to get your little girlfriend ready for her big show.” 

Gareth looked at Ellia, who waved toward Sung wearily. With a sympathetic nod, he took a gun from his shipmate and followed her down to his cabin.