Lt. Reilly 2321

Chapter 8: Mr. Carplex

“Waller Gabriel Carplex," Captain Mitchell said from the other side of the security forcefield in the brig. I was sitting on the floor with my back to the wall and my mind somewhere else.

“What?" I asked as I turned to see her standing there, her face bruised and a three-inch bandage on her forehead.

“Based on the information you gave the Captain last night we were able to put some of the pieces together. Wallar Carplex is the man Ms. Johansson overheard Gerald talking to about the illegal transportation of active camila rods."

“Active?" I said with some surprise as spent rods were dangerous enough, but active ones were so hazardous that only military and government ships were allowed to move them. “Are you sure?"

She nodded and continued her explanation of the facts that confirmed my assumptions. “Mr. Carplex made his fortune during the war as an arms and defense merchant. He would cozy up to the governing officials on many of the outlying worlds of the Alliance and convince them that the military was spread too thin to protect them if the Serken ever made it to their worlds, despite the fact that the Serken Empire was nearest to the other side of the Alliance. He made a fortune selling weapons, ships and shield generators to dozens of worlds that didn't need them. Most of which found their way into criminal hands, which made policing this part of the galaxy much more of a challenge. We thought when the war ended, so would his business, but despite the modest size of his legitimate business ventures, he is still living the life and status of a multi-billionaire. We know he's dirty, but have been waiting for the evidence to prove it."

“And this is the smoking gun?" I asked.

She nodded, “Two weeks ago an Alliance Freighter was compromised."

“Compromised?"

“Their navigation, life support, and defensive systems failed as they were preparing to leave the Bellas System, right on the edge of a dense asteroid belt. It collided with several of them and ended up on the surface of a moon-sized rock. The crew had to evacuate to escape pods, but their Captain was smart enough to keep his pod within sight of the wreck. He and his bridge crew witnessed a small black ship show up, cut into the side of the vessel with a laser that was too powerful to be a standard bulk cutter, pull out two of the cargo containers with two tons of active camila rods with a magnetic tractor, and then tow them away."

I thought about that for a moment and put in my two cents. “Even the strongest magnetic tether can't be used at greater than 80 meters. If the crates had active rods, the radiation would disrupt the tether within an hour. So they couldn't get them very far."

“Our people had the same thought and assumed that they must have hidden them somewhere in the asteroid belt, but our searches came up empty.Yet we are confident they couldn't have taken them out of the system without a cargo ship with a QSG drive."

I smiled as everything was coming together. “There are only a handful of civilian ships that are equipped to transport hazardous materials, and you would have kept a close eye on any of them that entered or left the Bellas system. So Carplex would have needed to find a cargo ship with a Captain stupid enough to take on the job. That explains the bonus for getting the job done in under a week."

“Yes, but that was the one part of this I didn't understand. Why did it have to be under a week?" she said as she was agreeing with everything I was saying.

“Even in insulated containers, the radiation from those rods would leak out and fill the ship. The entire crew would start getting sick after about three or four days. Everyone would be dead within 10. On a ship as old and run down as the Glacier, we wouldn't have lasted the week."

For a moment her expression looked as if the idea made her slightly sick, but she nodded in agreement, “Well considering how efficient Carplex is at covering his tracks, that would have worked out nicely for his plans."

“So now that we've gotten all of this cleared up are you here to get us out of this wonderful cage?"

She shook her head, “Until we are able to get consensus from the JAG's office in this sector, we have to proceed as if nothing has changed. Plus, it would be prudent to keep you two under as much protection as we can provide."

I didn't consider being confined in a cage to be the safest option, but so long as those who wanted us dead believed that we were still being delivered to a given location without the ability to run, they would be more likely to wait for us to be delivered.