The door slides open, and I'm hit in the face by a medley of smells. Premaratne's hobby is cooking, mostly food from his native Sinhalese culture, and most of his personal luggage consisted of portable cookers, pans, utensils, and a copious supply of ingredients. He peers at me through the spice-scented steam over a bubbling pan, and his green eyes are unreadable as ever.
Premaratne is... not an attractive man. He is squat and heavy, wide-hipped, with a vast belly, stout legs, and gangling muscular arms. His heavy jawline and thick jowls make his head a truncated cone, with thinning black hair slicked down across his scalp. His dark skin is pitted by old acne scars. He moves towards me with a rolling, spread-legged gait, and there is a trace of a smile on his thick lips. In his quarters, he wears a lurid purple tie-dyed sarong. He gestures at the cooker and says, "Mee goreng. Would you like -?" His voice is deep and gravelly and somehow obsequious.
"Not now, thank you," I say.
"You are sure?" He points to something else on a plate. "Pol sambola. It would give you an appetite -"
"I just called to tell you we've come out of warp. We're currently in the approach pattern for the Rikilsa Array. Estimate docking in two hours."
"Ah." He smiles. But not with his eyes. One of them is brighter than the other, but they are both expressionless as chips of glass. "That is most satisfactory, Captain Quon. Two hours. Very good." He waddles back to his cooking. "There will be more delay before we can see the station administrator. Unavoidable. I will require secure communications to arrange that meeting." He seats himself at the room's small table. It's covered with the remains of his last meal. "You should accompany me to that meeting, I think. It will add weight to my request. To have a ship's captain in attendance, it will add gravity to my appearance, I think."
"I'd be glad to do that." Because, that way, I might get to find out a bit more about Premaratne and his mysterious errand. He's been talkative about Sinhalese cooking all through the journey, but depressingly reticent when it comes to what we've actually been hired for.
"Excellent. Thank you, Captain. Well, if you do not intend to partake -?"
I step back through the door. "I'll talk to you after we've docked."
"Satisfactory." And he turns his attention back to his food.
---
Beauregard slices through space in the brilliant light of a distant B-type star, weaving an intricate pathway that has my navigator not so quietly cursing at her station.
"I cannot understand the reason for all these course changes," Vekna says. She is tall, very dark, very Klingon. She doesn't like the approach pattern for the array.
"It's to avoid collision with any of the array elements," I say, calling up the docking procedure on the command repeater.
Vekna snorts. "I can see asteroids and I can dodge them, without all this bobbing and weaving."
"The asteroids are one thing. The wires between them are something else." Vekna shoots a brief, doubtful glance at me. "The Rikilsa Array uses a large number of distributed elements," I explain. "The sensor platforms on the asteroids are only part of it. There are graphene filaments, doped with exotic elements, strung between asteroids in a stable configuration. They're too fine to register on normal navigational sensors. So, we have to be constantly updated on which bits of the - lacework - we need to avoid at any given moment."
Vekna pulls a face. "Complicated."
"It works for them," I say. The Rikilsa Array has been probing the limits of the observable universe for some forty years, now, and its widely distributed antenna elements give it a very wide baseline to work from.
The central station is just about visible, now, an asterisk of metal hanging in deep space. The nearest asteroids are no more than dots, at this magnification. "Comms," I say.
Rissmo looks up. "Standard channels are open," she says. "Our passenger has finished tying up the secure bandwidth. Ready to contact the station any time you like."
"Now is as good a time as any. Let's say hello."
The screen goes blank for a moment, then displays a green Orion face. "Rikilsa Station. USS Beauregard, you are cleared for final approach...." Confusion shows as the details of my bridge, and my crew, register. "You're a Federation starship...?"
"We will be." I smile a lazy smile at him. "When they build these Ouroboros-class raiders, in the future, everyone will be part of one big happy Starfleet."
"That's one of the temporal anomaly ships?" Curiosity wins out over manners. "How'd a mercenary captain get hold of one of those?"
My smile gets broader. "I have connections."
"You'd have to." His voice turns brisk and businesslike. "OK, you are past the inner perimeter now. You have a clear run in to the station from here - you're assigned to docking bay 3-F, the beacon should be on your nav screen now."
I glance at Vekna; she nods. "Then we'll be with you in moments," I say to the traffic controller.
"Yes." He glances at something off to one side. "You're cleared for an appointment with Station Administrator Kharoz, too. Soon as you dock, in fact."
"We won't waste any time," I assure him.
----
Premaratne has changed, into a simple one-piece shipsuit in neutral grey. I stalk behind him as he waddles down the corridors. I am dressed in Klingon-style leathers, a knife at my waist, an Omega Force carbine slung across my back. Premaratne has no weapons showing at all, unless you count the waft of spices that accompanies him everywhere.
Administrator Kharoz is a glacially gorgeous Orion matron. Perhaps in order to have her station's scientific mission taken seriously, she is modestly dressed, for an Orion, in a gown of blue silk. Her office, too, is plain, dominated by a huge display on one wall, showing the intricate dance of the array's components around the station. She watches Premaratne as he takes a seat before her desk. I stand, behind him and to one side. Let her think I am a bodyguard or some such.
"I have received your proposition, Mr -" She frowns.
"I am Mr. B.T.P. Premaratne." His obsequious growl never varies. "I hope that the terms are satisfactory, Administrator Kharoz." He pronounces the Orion name perfectly.
Kharoz's perfect mouth contorts into an ugly shape. "I have serious doubts about this, Mr. Premaratne." No hesitation over the name, this time. "This is well outside the parameters of our normal operations."
"It is within the capacities of your establishment," Premaratne says. "We have made checks, and determined this is so. It is outside your normal mode of operations, true, but -" His bulky shoulders move in a shrug. "Yours is a commercial operation, yes?"
"And we would like to stay a commercial operation," Kharoz snaps back. "If anything were to go wrong with this - this - whatever it it, it could burn out the whole array! We can't stay in business if we have nothing to offer! Even if we did accept your proposal, we can't pre-empt the currently running research programmes we've already been paid for -"
"Compensation could be arranged," says Premaratne. "Money is no object. We can pay the fee suggested, and cover any penalty clauses in your existing contracts. My principals -"
"And that's one more thing that makes me suspicious," says Kharoz. "You're willing to spend anything, it seems. Pay for the array! Pay compensation to our other clients! Even if you have enough money to do all this -" She leans forwards, over the desk, her eyes fixed on Premaratne. "Why would you be willing to spend so much? What is worth this money, this small fortune, to you? What is so important, Mr. Premaratne?"
Premaratne's voice never changes. "I am not authorized to disclose these details, Administrator. My principals merely desire that certain events should take place. They have authorized me to act on their behalf, to ensure that these events do take place, with a minimum of inconvenience to all concerned."
Kharoz leans back. "There will be no inconvenience, Mr. Premaratne. Not to us, at any rate. Your proposal is not acceptable."
"I am authorized to offer additional payment -"
"No. Not at any price." Kharoz presses a button on her desk. "You are trying to drag me into something I don't understand, Mr. Premaratne. And I refuse to be dragged. Your proposal is not acceptable." Behind her, a wall panel slides open, and two burly Orion enforcers step out. "I believe that concludes our business."
Premaratne puts his hands on the armrests of the chair, and heaves his bulk out of it. "You have made your position very clear," he says. "I take it there is no objection if I return to my ship?"
"None at all. Good day, Mr. Premaratne."
Premaratne nods, slowly, sadly. "Come, Captain," he says to me. I follow him as he ambles out of the office.
In the corridor outside, he sighs heavily, and holds up his hand. "Wait here," he says to me, and turns back, towards the office door.
I feel myself tense up. "What are you going to do?" I hiss at him.
"I will make a final appeal to Director Kharoz's scientific curiosity. Wait here," he repeats, and goes back through the door. It shuts behind him.
I wait. From behind the door, I hear - nothing, at first. Orions don't care for casual eavesdroppers, their places of business tend to be heavily soundproofed. But, as I wait, I start to hear... vague sounds. Low, dull sounds, as of... impacts.
The door hisses open again. Premaratne comes through. I try to look past him, into the room, but he grabs my elbow and hustles me quickly away. "We must return to the ship," he says.
"What did you do?"
"Arranged for the minimization of an inconvenience." His grip on my elbow is very strong, his waddling gait deceptively fast. He raises his other hand a moment, and looks at his thick, blunt fingers. The skin over the knuckles appears to be broken. A clear fluid is oozing from the cuts, but there is no blood. "We must return to the ship and depart at once."
This does not sound good. "What have you done?" I demand.
"No talking. Not now." And, indeed, at the speed he's moving, I need my breath.
We reach a turbolift, head out to the docking bays. The Beauregard isn't a big ship, she fits quite comfortably inside bay 3-F. I'm hoping she won't be trapped in bay 3-F. The set of Premaratne's heavy jaw indicates he has no intention of answering any questions. The lift comes to a halt, and he hustles me out, through the double safety doors, into the bay, up the access ramp of the ship. My skin is crawling from anticipation.
We reach the bridge. "Immediate launch," I order. Premaratne doesn't contradict me.
"What about clearance?" Rissmo asks.
"No time." I glance at Premaratne, who nods. "Just get us the hell out of here, and quick."
Rissmo and Vekna both start punching their consoles. I slump into the command chair. Beneath me, the deck quivers as the thrusters spring to life.
"Go to alert status," I order. "Discreetly." I don't want station security any more warned than they are already. What the hell am I mixed up in, here, anyway?
"Traffic control is hailing," Rissmo reports.
"Ignore them. Go."
And Beauregard goes, blasting out of the docking bay on full impulse, proximity alarms squealing as she corkscrews around the station. Premaratne, completely unfazed, is entering something onto a datapad. My attention is on the tactical displays. Which are already showing hostile blips, Orion corvettes converging on our location.
"Vekna. Stand ready to dodge the array components -"
"That will probably not be a factor," says Premaratne. He hands me the datapad. "You should harden your ship's sensors against radiation on these wavebands."
I glance at the pad, and my eyes go wide. "That'll leave us three-quarters blind!" I protest.
"Nevertheless. Do it." His voice admits no argument.
I upload the data to the ship's computer, and try not to bite my lip in worry as the tac display shuts down. We're simply not getting enough information, through the sensor filters, to track those security ships. The only way we'll spot them, now, is when they start shooting at us -
And then the sky lights up. On the main viewer, sizzling lines of light criss-cross space, a dazzling cat's cradle of radiation. I blink. The actinic glare has scored after-images over my retinas.
"Sufficient, I think," says Premaratne. "Reconfigure the sensors for normal operation."
I key in the commands. "What did you do?"
"Eliminated an inconvenience." Is there a faint edge of satisfaction in the low growling voice. "The array has been used in the manner desired by my principals."
The tac display comes back. The Orion corvettes are wandering, randomly, their drives shut down. Whatever just happened, it burned out their sensors - would have burned out ours, if I hadn't taken Premaratne's orders. No chance of pursuit, now, until they make repairs. All we need to do is thread our way back out of the array itself.
Except we don't even need to do that. There is debris on the scanners. Not much, but enough to show what's happened. Carbon residue and traces of exotic elements.
I turn to Premaratne. "You burned out the array?"
"That was always a possibility," he replies with complete equanimity. "Compensation will be arranged. What matters is that my principals' requirements were met - without excessive inconvenience." His mismatched green eyes regard me closely. "The Orion business ventures behind this facility will now prove hostile to you, until they are fully recompensed. We will factor this into your own compensation, Captain Quon. Our mission here is concluded." The flat growling voice brooks no protest, no interruption. "We will now proceed to our next scheduled destination."
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