45. Viewpoints

“Mr. Pier, I need some proof, DNA sample, and…”

Giant of the Stars — concept by Greg

“Mr. Pier, I need some proof, DNA sample, and…”
“You can do that later. We have more to discuss.” — Victoria cut off John as he was about to erupt. — “No recording of this meeting. Room secured. You check yourself.” — her eyes piercing John’s increasingly open iris.
“Everything off the record.” — his measured voice like a mask, an extension of a well practiced poker face. As he turned a physical switch off on his glass frame and tucked neatly into his jacket, facing inside toward darkness.
“I suppose your team has a hypothesis already.” — Victoria continued as John nodded — “However, better if I start to share this time.” — and she thrown a data recorder onto the coffee table sitting between the trio.

One metal cling, a tiny slide and the object came to a rest.

“It’s very old school. Why not share securely on private channels?” — Vince leaned forward, arms under him, knowing well whatever is on that chip, is not meant for him.
“No channels are secure enough for this. Sever your net connection and isolate the storage when you read it.” — she aimed her last comment to John.
“I don’t have a data port.”
“Didn’t mean now.”
“Sure, mind you, what is on it? Evidence?” — John leaned back in his armchair, seemingly relaxed, yet muscles tense, ready for an olympic jump.
“Not particularly. But I need help, from an investigator who would not raise suspicion by sniffing around.”
“So come again, what is on the chip?”
“Contraband manifest files. Describing Alcubierre torpedoes.” — first the frozen silence clinging between the trio.

Vince opened his mouth, when realising not a single word can come out, he close it. Repeated the seance once or twice. John tried controlling his own expressions, fighting a losing battle. Finally he broke the ever longer stalemate:

“Why do you need my help?”
“The question that actually matters. Because the signature code is military.”
“Take it to the internal affairs. I am sure you have a hotline for misplacing weapons of mass destruction.”
“Not that simple, and it wasn’t misplaced.”
“How do you know that?”
“The signature is from an admiral. Can’t process, search or analyse it or do anything without the admiralty offices tracing it immediately. And whoever is in on this, would shut down internal affairs before they even start.”
“You want publicity then? What would the colonies think if the federation smuggles WMDs to their worlds? This could trigger a war in this situation…”
“John, when did you start to care so much about periferial politics?”
“When my job started to hang on it a few hours ago.”
“Thought you were not as easy to intimidate by Mr. Coldman. I may have chosen wrongly to involve you.”
“No, just…” — John could not finish his thought, ran out of words. Something in him pushed for helping her. He felt she is on the good side, even how tough she acted, sent people to their death. — “How did you get the chip?”
“On the Giant, downloaded from the computers. Vince told me a passenger he met risked his life to decode the data.” — Victoria stretched and leaned back like she told a bedtime story — “I went down with you to recover this passenger’s remains and the data. When I got separated from the second team, it gave me a lucky chance.”
“Wait, you used me and the investigation as cover story?”
“Yeah, I suppose you can say that.”
“Why did you even do that?” — Victoria wasn’t fooled by John’s calm voice, seeing his redness building up.
“I could not know who to trust. Michael was the only one I could.”
“Then why is he not here if you trust him that much?”
“Who do you think is securing the room and the nearby corridors right now?” — Victoria’s ruckus smiley was too tempting to not join in. Taking away all edge of the situation.
“We are all too deep in the weeds. What is at stake?” — Vince looked around to meet everyone’s graze. She spoke first:
“A Casus Belli for the colonies to secede. A central government full of warmongers circling like vultures to jump on the secession. A civil war.”
“A PR nightmare, companies sacrificing people on the altar of profit. Taking smuggling jobs to further those profit. A cycle of destruction.”
“That is your team’s hypothesis?”
“Yes. Evidence shows under-maintenance and procedural complacency are the main contributing factors, except…” — John taking a deep breath — “A normal Ring blow-out could not slow down the ship. It must have been something else at play. Those torpedoes based on the same principles…”
“What are you getting at?”
“If we could, test some assumptions. It may have been a rare interaction with dark matter. A particle explosion from the operating ring inside a dense dark matter field. The rings are just mobile particle accelerators. Mathematically…”
“In the common language please…”
“We need a large ship, an older cruiser or a freighter would do. But one that we know went through the same dark matter field. Speed it up, detonate the ring by injecting matter directly into the particle stream, and we can prove the immediate deceleration. And the existence of dark matter.”
“Just that? And how would you know if the ship went through the same field?”
“Most ship must have passed through the field en route to the Giant’s help. Even months later. However, the best would be the first one to arrive, would have the most chance to experience the same environmental factors.”
“No. No… Nope.” — Vince jumped up like thunder struck his spot. After a second he remembered his superior sitting in the room and saluted in a stiff upright position.
“At ease. No-one will force you to give up the Perseus Train.” — Victoria quick to calm down her protege.
“I thought the Perseus Train was destroyed.” — John’s curiosity subsided all his previous feelings about being used.
“Technically it was. However, only one section was destroyed entirely, the another structurally damaged. When we arrived a few hours after the Bendeghuse was destroyed by the pirates, we found the section Vince commanded still floating. It’s a miracle he could be saved, the only survivor. Unfortunately nothing we could do for his family.”
“They were on the other section.” — Vince whispered as he saw John’s confusion.
“Unfortunate, that ship could be the solution for the case. If so damaged, no way we could use it, right?”
“Right, I won’t let you. Am I dismissed?” — as Victoria nodded, Vince was already out of her room in a blink of an eye.
“What was that about?”
“His ship is in our dry dock. The remaining half, he restored it in his free time. I think you can understand, it is his last piece of home.”

Vince unable to return to his cabin, rushed down through a tube, feeling less heavy as he progressed toward the spine docks. His personal ID opening bulkheads. It opened to a small dry dock, pressurised for easier work in low gravity.

He climbed and floated, in no time he sat in the captain’s chair, looking around to broken screens, scratched surfaces and dangling cables. Even in this state of his home, slowly rebuilt main systems, he felt at home.

At ease, alone with his memories, when he had all that mattered to him.

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