Mission Zero (Fourth Fleet Irregulars) (39 page)

He could have got out of it, himself, very easily.  They had offered him a place on the shuttle, which would have got him back to Chartsey in eighteen days.  They wouldn’t be very comfortable days, admittedly.  The shuttle would be packed with four of them aboard.  There were no bunks so he’d have to sleep in a reclining chair.  There would be no privacy and they’d be living on self-heating tray rations. 

That was not why he’d declined the offer, though.  He was, after all, a prisons inspector and right now, this ship had prisoners aboard.  He had no direct responsibility in that but even so, he felt a professional obligation.  It was very important, he felt, to be able to show that there had been nothing untoward going on here.  So he had told them he would see it out, contenting himself with sending messages on the shuttle.

So, as the ship stood down from action stations, Mako went to see for himself how the prisoners were doing.  The man who’d shot at them, Rikado Marsh, was still in sickbay.  Both he and the skipper had been put through formal procedures to confirm their identities, then provided with a written copy of their rights and information as to what was going to happen to them.  They had also been issued with Fleet overalls and a personal hygiene kit each. 

Marlon Steppard was in the brig by then.  He seemed grateful for the opportunity to use a lavatory and get dressed, though Mako did not think from the smell of sweat on him that he had showered.  Mako noted, without surprise, that someone had already provided the Teranor’s skipper with a mug of tea.  Regardless of what they thought of him, Mako knew that their care of their prisoner would be faultless.

Mako had in fact supervised the preparation of the brig himself.  He could not take on any official responsibility for the prisoners as he had no authority to do so, but he had gone through all the regulations and provision to be made with Alex and Buzz and was helping as much as he could.  The number eight airlock had always been, officially, the ship’s brig, though it had not been used as such under Alex von Strada’s command.  Even when Jace Higgs had thumped Lt Simons, his detention had been purely nominal.  He’d been restricted to the mess deck, despite all Lt Simons’ demands for him to be thrown in the brig. 

Now, though, they had prisoners, so the comfy chair and tin of cookies had been removed from the time-out room.  Mako had ensured that it met not only Fleet regulations for the detention of prisoners but standards which would be acceptable to the LPA too.  That had not been difficult, in fact, since the provision was, in all respects but that of personal space, rather better than LPA standards.  The foldout bunks were flimsy looking but perfectly comfortable.  The shower and lavatory were of the same standard provided for officers and crew.  Catering was fine, with unlimited drinks and snacks available as well as the same food that the crew ate.

Mako’s only concern was that the airlock brig was rather small for two prisoners.  It was equipped as a survival pod with four fold out bunks.  Its life support capacity was rated for up to twelve people though Mako could not see how twelve people were even supposed to fit in there.  It would be crowded, he felt, with two prisoners, though comparable with the kind of personal space the rest of them had.  The prisoners would be permitted the use of what exercise facilities the corvette possessed.  

The corvette’s officers and crew were also, he was pleased to see, sticking rigidly to the letter of the Carpane Convention in not questioning their prisoners.  The temptation to interview the freighter’s skipper must be immense.  Even Mako felt that, longing to ask the man what had brought him to this.  Was it mere greed, all about the money and never mind the cost in human misery and devastated lives?  Was he one of those strange, conscienceless people Mako had met sometimes in prison?  Or had he been brought to this, somehow, even perhaps forced into it as Ty Barrington had felt pressured by desperation into stealing Fleet supplies? 

There was no doubt that he had been up to his eyes in it.  A ship could not spend six days diverting from route to swap out one container for another full of drugs without the knowledge of its skipper.  His reaction to being arrested, too, his total lack of surprise when the charge was put to him, made it very clear that he was guilty as sin.  Mako longed to ask him
why,
and the temptation just to try to talk to him about it, off the record, was extreme.

He could not, he knew, do that, because even to put questions to this man informally would be violating of his rights.

‘I saw about you on the holly.’  Marlon Steppard looked searchingly at him as Mako introduced himself and explained that he was an LPA inspector and would be monitoring his welfare whilst he was in custody.  ‘You’re in on this secret unit thing, right?  Covering it up?’

Mako gave him an affronted look. 

‘There is no ‘this’,’ he asserted firmly.  ‘There is no conspiracy here.  None of the parolees were even actively involved in your arrest.’

That was true too.  The members of the snatch party had been chosen from amongst volunteers.  Jace Higgs had tried his best to get in on the party but he had not been picked.  His role had been no more than manning his assigned action station as a damage controller.  Jok Dorlan had been part of the team looking after the Minnow’s own computers, very firmly in backroom support role.  Ty Barrington was now going to step up to running the galley while CPO Martins was away, but the most active role he’d had in the actual seizure operation had been helping to clear the mess deck when they went to action stations.

It was apparent from the look the freighter skipper gave Mako, though, that this cut no ice at all.  Marlon Steppard had woken up to find himself being hauled out of bed by silvery, anonymous figures looming like monstrous robots in the dim cabin.  It was going to be difficult to convince him, after that experience, that there had been nothing hinky going on.

‘Yeah, right,’ he said.  ‘It
was
those prisoners who raided the Teranor, wasn’t it?’

Mako sighed quietly, foreseeing that he was going to be spending a great deal of time over the coming weeks and months, even perhaps years, answering that question.

‘No, they weren’t,’ he told the prisoner.  ‘The team which arrested you consisted of Lt Commander Burroughs, the ship’s exec, assisted by Sub-Lt Tarrance and perfectly ordinary members of the crew.’ 

He did, admittedly, even as he said that, wonder, himself, whether the description ‘perfectly ordinary’ could really be applied to the Minnow.  It had been an extraordinary ship even before it had been moved into irregular service.  You certainly could not describe Alex von Strada as any ordinary kind of skipper. 

‘It was entirely legal.’  Mako assured him.  ‘A covert operations raid, yes, but perfectly legal.  They have, I believe, served you with all official paperwork including a written copy of your rights and specifics of your arrest?’

‘Yeah, right,’ said the Teranor’s skipper again.  A look of low cunning flickered over his face before it was replaced with a strangely artificial fear.  It was distinctly different from the genuine nervousness he’d displayed a little earlier.  ‘But that won’t stop them shoving me out an airlock.  These people are nutters.  There’s no telling what they might do.’

Mako felt a strange sense of déjà vu.  There was a particular kind of prisoner who just loved it when a prison was under inspection, spinning up the wildest yarns they could come up with.  He could see that same kind of calculated allegation here.  Marlon Steppard, he realised, was a player.  That did not come as any great surprise really, since simple, honest, straightforward people did not often end up running DPC at all, let alone by the container load.  He was, Mako could see, already laying the groundwork for a defence based on Fleet brutality.  Oh joy, he thought, recognising with that that he was going to be accused of being complicit in that too.

‘I do not believe,’ he said, ‘that you have any reason to fear any mistreatment or misconduct, Mr Steppard.  And you have, I hope, been properly informed that this detention facility is being continuously recorded.  Everywhere you are aboard this ship, throughout your detention here, will be a matter of full record, with that record being passed to the authorities on Chartsey.’

Marlon Steppard gave him a cynical look.  ‘Yeah, right,’ he said, for the third time, and added, ‘Film can be edited.’

With a sense of deep foreboding, Mako recognised what kind of impact statements like that were going to have on the already hysterical conspiracy theories being fanfared by the media.  This was going to get very frustrating before it was over.  At the same time, though, he felt an absurd desire to laugh. 

How stupid, he thought.  How stupid and, yes, contemptible; a cornered rat lashing out in pathetic desperation.  As he looked at the drug runner, he could only see him as a flabby man shaking in his underpants.  His manner remained professional but his eyes held scorn.  Seeing that, Marlon Steppard glowered back at him.

‘Well, if you have any complaints about your treatment,’ Mako said, noncommittally, ‘inform me and I will carry out all proper investigations.’

The freighter skipper snorted, this time, his favoured ‘Yeah, right,’ evidently not being strong enough to meet the case.  Mako just left it at that.  Marlon Steppard, he recognised, was going to be a right pain in the backside, but here was nothing to be done about that other than handle him with calm professionalism.  So he left him to it and headed up to sickbay to check on the other prisoner.

There, he discovered that Rikado Marsh was going to be even harder to work with.  He had come round in sickbay.  To be fair, that must have been quite a shock in itself, what with all the rainbows and chimes.  The holographic waterfall and birdsong wouldn’t have made it any easier for him to believe that he was aboard a Fleet ship, either.  It had taken some minutes for them to convince him that he was, in fact, aboard a Fleet corvette.

Mako took a dislike to him within the first minute of making his acquaintance.  It was a quality in the man’s eyes which made him feel an instinctive revulsion.  He tried never to be unprofessional, of course, in his relationship with prisoners, but he prided himself on being quite a good judge of character.  His impression of Marlon Steppard was that he was weak, rather stupid and definitely frightened.  He might be potentially dangerous if cornered and with a weapon to hand, but Mako’s impression was that he would always try to weasel his way out of situations rather than fight.

That was not the case with Rikado Marsh.  He was a man who would, when he heard a commotion outside his quarters, go out there with a handgun and start shooting.  He had not hesitated to do that even though the Teranor’s skipper had been in the line of fire.  Mako did not like to use the word ‘evil’ and he was even more cautious about allowing what he knew about someone’s offences to prejudice the way he thought about them, but of the two of them, he felt, Rikado Marsh was infinitely more dangerous than Marlon Steppard. 

He was being kept in sickbay for a while, under observation while he recovered from the effects of being stun shot, but he too had been provided with kit.  He had showered, taking trouble with his grooming.  He was wearing the Fleet coveralls they’d given him with obvious distaste.  The black and lilac satin pyjamas he’d been wearing when he was arrested certainly indicated a liking for opulence, if not taste, and one of the first things he asked was whether he was entitled to have his personal kit sent over from the Teranor.

‘You’ll have to ask one of the officers about that,’ Mako said. 

He felt uncomfortable, and was glad of the presence of Rangi Tekawa and the two crewmembers who were standing quietly just inside the door.  He would not have wanted to be alone with Rikado Marsh.  In fact, truth to tell, he would really have preferred for there to be a high security barrier between them.  ‘I am on board purely in a monitoring role,’ said Mako, feeling it to be important to distance himself.  ‘I only wished to introduce myself so that you are aware that I will be monitoring the conditions of your custody.’

He did not feel curious about this man in the same way that he had wanted to ask Marlon Steppard questions.  It was all too obvious who and what Rikado Marsh was.  Mako had met his type many times in prison.  He could only hope that he was going to be seeing this one in prison, too, for a very long time to come.

He said what he was obliged to, anyway, and went straight to see Alex von Strada.

‘I think you should bring the number six airlock into use and house the prisoners separately,’ he told Alex.

Alex looked questioningly at him.  The skipper was of the opinion that the brig was perfectly capable of holding three prisoners in satisfactory conditions, and they had only discussed the possibility of using the number six airlock if they found that they had more than that.

‘Why?’ he queried.

‘Instinct, experience.’  Mako explained.  ‘For one thing, it is apparent that Rikado Marsh shot towards Marlon Steppard with, at best, unconcern as to the fact that he was in the firing line.  At the point where Marlon Steppard
realises
that, which I don’t think he has yet, my feeling is that there is going to be something of a security issue between them.  For another thing, I wish it to be noted that I consider Rikado Marsh to be a high security risk.  He should be monitored very closely for such things as making or obtaining anything which could be used as a weapon, and treated with caution as someone I believe to be capable of extreme and sudden violence.’

‘Well, the fact that he shot at us would rather tend to support that.’  Alex agreed.  ‘And if you feel it would be best to keep them separate, Mr Ireson, I will be guided by your experience.  He’ll have to be held in sickbay till number six is secured and ready, but that shouldn’t be for more than a couple of hours.’