Chapter 42
Shifting Focus
Carter smiled warmly as he stepped off the shuttle while Maxton and two of her heavies gave everyone the evil eye behind him. The Imperial Line Security Service employed only the worst. Maxton had been on death row for the kind of wanton murder that shocked even Carter, but a little training and a lot of money ensured her loyalty and turned a wild dog into a weapon.
Scanning the crowd of angry faces around him, Carter counted weapons. Ten rifles, one of which appeared to be empty if the charge lights flashing was to be believed. Not bad odds. His own armor was more than capable of stopping several shots, even without the personal shield he always carried.
“Mister DaVore,” Carter had to admit the man was large enough to worry even Maxton; worst of all, he stood like one trained in combat. “What a fortunate turn of events!”
“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing,” Brenda grinned at him from next to her brother. The bloodlust was clear in her eyes.
“It seems a rather unique opportunity has presented itself,” Carter ignored Brenda as he would any other well-trained animal. “The Imperial Line might be able to assist your colony after all.”
“Cut the shit,” Brenda snapped. “The bitch just thrashed you like the weasel you are. Your options are to grovel or die.” She was breathing heavily as her crew members smiled.
“Not quite,” Carter said, still looking at Duke. “Unless you consider the imminent arrival of our backup ships as insignificant?”
Brenda lost her smile.
“And we have to take your word for that,” Duke stated drily.
“Absolutely,” Carter smiled, a genuine one for once. “Isn’t that fun?”
He watched as Duke considered the situation. A trader’s life was not one that made the entertainment holo-vids, but that was only because people didn’t understand what it was like.
Right here, on the edge of life and death, a deal on the line? Carter lived for moments like this.
He saw Duke’s shoulders relax and felt his smile widen.
The deal was already done. Only the details to iron out.
“Shall we head somewhere a little more comfortable while my people hide the shuttle?” Carter asked, winking at the furious Brenda as Duke waved for him to follow.
The colony itself was a curious sight. It was clearly a newly built place; the conversion from ship’s compartments to housing not having been smoothed over yet. Most places got around to that after the first couple of years, so this was new indeed.
Given that newness, it was surprising in the extreme that it was already looking rundown, with many compartments clearly empty. Carter craned his neck around, scanning the place with exaggerated movements and waving at the few people who peeked out of doorways.
It never hurt to look friendly; it just made the threats all that more unsettling.
By the time they reached the end of the first street and turned towards the largest building he had seen so far, Carter was convinced that his initial impression was right. About one in three compartments was occupied.
Something bad had gone wrong with this place; a fundamental mistake had been made. He just had to figure out what that was in the time he had before the negotiating started.
Watching Duke and the others around him, Carter decided it wasn’t a massacre.
Sometimes, when people set these places up, two sides form, and before anyone knows what happens, blood flows in the streets. Carter had helped a few of those along when he was younger, still merely a regional salesman. The blood that flowed in the streets was always money to a man who knew how to profit from it, and it was something Carter had excelled at. The ones who did that always walked in one of two ways. They either hunched in guilt or strode aggressively around to try and convince themselves they were more animal than man and didn’t wake from nightmares every night.
Duke and his people did neither, walking carefully but confidently. So, it was not a massacre, and it was not a loss to native animals either. Those kinds of losses made people jumpy and anxious.
The final thread he needed to weave the picture of the colony came as they mounted the metal steps to the ‘Council Room,’ whatever that was. A chance glance to one side showed a collection of half-deconstructed compartments separated by material.
They were trading, at it wasn’t likely to be with the station, given their obvious enmity.
Cater carefully kept the smile from his face as he stepped through the ill-fitting door. Everything was clear now, and he had a very clear plan.
“Just exactly what are you offering, Mister Carter?” Duke said with no preamble.
Ignoring the question for now, Carter spent a moment dusting a chair at the table before sitting down and scanning the room. A simple metal table with ship surplus chairs seemed to be all the room held. The holo-generator was in one corner and powered down.
“I think me might better be served to wait for the full Council,” Hadrian said in a low voice.
“This is the full council, as of today,” Duke waved the man away. “Well?”
“Let me start with what I know,” Carter leaned forward, adopting one of his well-practiced earnest expressions. “And I will be entirely candid. It will save time.”
“Go on,” Duke said, crossing his arms.
“This colony is largely irrelevant to the Imperial Line. If you hadn’t taken our ship, we would not have bothered with a place this size. I say this as no insult, you understand. Merely a statement of facts. You and this place are clearly not going to make it.”
“Hold on,” Hadrian said quickly. “I hardly think you are able to judge that.”
“But I am. A colony needs three things to survive,” Carter said, counting them off on his fingers. “One, a safe place to set up, which you have. Two, you need a trading partner to allow for growth, which you do not have. And three, you need a large number of people. Again, you don’t have those people. You might have, before you split your colony, but now the best you can hope for is subsistence living. You won’t attract settlers, and you won’t replace your losses to age and accident. This colony, as it stands, will not survive.”
“What makes you think we split the colony?” Hadrian asked.
“It is clear as day,” Carter smiled. “And in so doing, it is damned.”
“I disagree,” Duke said stiffly. “We can recover the people we need.”
“Assuming you do, who is going to bother to land and trade with you when that station is a much more attractive offer?” Carter sat back and waited for them to come to the natural conclusion.
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“We can trade with them,” Duke replied after a moment, “But only on their terms.”
“Exactly,” Carter leaned forward again, looking each of them in the eye, “You are not a colony; you’re a victim.”
Silence reigned in the room while Carter waited for his moment. They had to realize the extent of their problems, yet not have long enough to figure out any options other than his.
A balancing act, in short.
Carter waited until the frowns began to ease a little—no need to let them think for too long.
“The Imperial Line can offer you a trading partner, we can offer you people, and we can offer you security. More than that, we can offer you protection. When our assault frigate arrives, it will wipe that ignorant woman from the system and everyone else with her. Unless, of course, we have an understanding.” Standing up, Carter began to pace back and forth, his hands behind his back. “In exchange for aid, the Imperial Line will cede the freighter to you. I’ll even have my people assist you in unlocking its more unofficial aspects.”
“What kind of aid?” Duke asked, his face a careful blank. “Be specific.”
“I require shelter and food for me and my people, but more than that, I need information. I want to know the numbers on the Clutch infestation, the positions of your forces, and information on this other colony.” Carter replied quickly, seeing Duke nodding along to each request, “I also want to know the number of ships this N.S.S. has and troop numbers as well. How many systems do they control? That kind of thing.”
He saw them exchanging confused glances.
“What?” Carter asked.
“They only have one ship,” Duke replied carefully. “As far as systems they control… none. Why would they?”
Carter stared at them for a while before returning to his chair. “How sure are you?”
“She ran a scrapyard,” Duke said, clearly puzzled. “In the sectors. They left because of the anti-nanite laws.”
Carter stared at them blankly for a moment before he started to laugh.
He had been conned.
What a wonderful day this was turning out to be.
===<<<>>>===
“You really don’t think they will be a problem?” Duke asked again as they sat down to dinner in what passed for a restaurant in this forsaken place.
“Nanites are a limited technology,” Carter said easily. “They were a fad; it passed.”
“They certainly don’t seem limited,” Duke was clearly doubting him.
Carter ran his eyes down the menu, grimacing. Barely a bit of fresh meat on there and not a sign of anything he recognized. He once more lowered his estimations of the relative comforts on offer.
“I am very sure,” Carter said once he had punched in his order, a spicy vegetable dish with some kind of bread on the side. It would be a culinary adventure. One he was certain to regret if their hygiene was as bad as everything else here. Still, it paid to be polite. “Nanites do things fast, but that is all. Some settlements and mining operations use them because they are cheap to produce but still limited. If your control interface breaks down, the entire swarm becomes useless. If regular machinery breaks, you just fix it.”
“I believe they have an AI,” Duke offered in a whisper. “A nanite one.”
“More fool them,” Carter said, poking despondently at the plate he had just been given. Burnt vegetables and a scorched loaf. It looked like it had already been eaten. Possibly more than once. “They are all half insane and, to the last one, arrogantly convinced of their own superiority. We had a couple on staff in one of the outer reaches; it didn’t work out.”
“You killed them?” Duke asked.
“No, we fired them,” Carter grinned. “It’s a nightmare to actually kill one of the things. Firing them, on the other hand, is just paperwork.”
“I see,” Duke huffed. “They are viewed quite differently in the Sectors.”
“I imagine they do,” Carter sniffed. “Backwaters are often superstitious.” He leaned back as Duke began to cough and splutter, not that Carter blamed him. This food could choke anyone.
“You consider the Sectors a backwater?” Duke said eventually.
“Of course,” Carter rolled his eyes. “They have a quaint charm, I suppose, but that is it. All that messing about with rulers and things.”
“Messing about?” Duke seemed irritated for some reason. Carter wondered what he had said.
“Sure, they ignore the obvious in favor of tradition.” Carter smiled kindly. It was a friendly smile, but he allowed a little smugness to creep in.
“And what is so obvious?” Duke growled.
“That who rules a place is irrelevant,” Carter said with a sigh. “All that matters is who controls the largest corporations.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Duke frowned.
“The Imperial Line rules no systems,” Carter went on, ignoring the big man’s irritation while he tried to chew a particularly undercooked vegetable. “But we OWN several. The rulers rise and fall, but always, there is the Imperial Line.”
Duke sat back, wiping his mouth with a stained napkin.
Carter insisted on an after-dinner stroll. He felt like he had swallowed a greasy lump of metal, and the fresh air and light exercise always helped. He had eaten some truly terrible meals while forming new business relationships, and a walk had saved many a night of agony.
As did shooting the cook, which Carter had worked into several of the arrangements, officially in some cases. Cultures varied widely, after all. Despite everything, Carter was warming to the big man at his side. A bumpkin by Carter’s standards, but a clever enough one if he could shake off some of the more archaic ideas someone had stuffed in his head.
They had spent the last couple of hours discussing the early times of this colony, and it would be painful to listen to if it weren’t so funny.
“See, now, if you had arrived as a corporate entity, none of that would have happened,” Carter said as they stopped to examine the well-stripped remains of the ‘Marshall’s Quarter.’ “Everyone would have had an assigned job from day one and terms of failure. Punitive measures could have been taken immediately should one of them be defaulted on.”
“I see your point,” Duke admitted, his shoulders now completely relaxed.
“It was noble of you to wish to rule via a committee but ultimately self-defeating,” Carter said with a small smile. “Not a unique mistake, and an understandable one.”
“Regarding Brenda,” Duke said as they ambled through the bare struts and supports. “I don’t want her to come to harm.”
“Naturally,” Carter fought the urge to roll his eyes. People needed to forget family ties if they wanted to get ahead in the worlds of business. He certainly had. “It does you credit, but, if I may?”
“Go on,” Duke said, his shoulders flexing slightly.
“Perhaps what is best for her is not total freedom but rather a well-defined role in your own enterprise. Once she is more seasoned, she’ll thank you for that.” Carter saw the shoulders tense and then relax again, which indicated he had phrased it correctly. People were touchy about family.
“I accept your point,” Duke said as they turned back towards the guarded compound that would house Carter and his people until their own forces turned up. “That does not mean I trust you.”
“Glad to hear it,” Carter said honestly. “Trust in business is built, not given.”
With that, the two of them said goodnight, and Carter went into the compound with much lighter steps.
===<<<>>>===
“Under Manager,” Maxton nodded to him as he came in.
“Persec Maxton,” Carter smiled at the large woman. He knew she hated the short form ‘Persec,’ a slang version of Personal Security popular in the leading trade lanes of the Imperial Line. Naturally, he used it as often as possible. “Report.”
“We have secured the shuttle in a vehicle hangar and set its internal defenses to full response. Anyone messing with it will die a horrible but quick death. I cleared this room twice, finding a monitoring device both times, as well as many more in the surrounding area.” Maxton replied as she began to unclip her armor.
“You missed one on the first sweep? I’m shocked,” Carter grinned. She made mistakes so rarely that he never hesitated to point them out.
“I missed nothing. A new one appeared,” Maxton glared angrily at him, hand stopping their movements as she did.
“We have nanites in the area,” Carter relented. “I imagine the little buggers are everywhere by now.”
“I see,” Maxton resumed stripping her clothes, revealing more and more flesh without ever actually becoming naked.
It was an old dance, one he never failed to enjoy.
“We have a deal with the owner,” Carter said, eyes roving openly over her well-muscled body. “He’s bright but backward. I will have no trouble controlling him.”
“One day, my contract will expire,” Maxton growled as she let the last of her clothes drop. “I will remember each and every one of these moments then.”
“Just as you always do,” Carter laughed. Maxton was on her third contract with him, and he always demanded more each time. And she always signed, despite a sizable personal wealth in her Imperial Line account. “Now say it.”
“Ravish me, oh great one,” Maxton said as sarcastically as possible.
“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Carter grinned as he walked toward her.
“I hate you,” Maxton told him.
“And yet, you will sign the contract again,” Carter said smugly. “Won’t you?”
“I will,” Maxton said, flushed with anger.
“Tell me why?” Carter asked his fingers millimeters from her taut skin. This wasn’t part of their game, but sometimes you just had to know.
“Because I hate you,” Maxton looked away, “But I want you.”
“Good enough,” Carter laughed, gently pushing her toward the table. “Good enough.”
Carter saw her smile, that rarest of gifts, and all else ceased to matter.
At least for a while.