Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-One
Too Much Data, Not Enough Proof
Colonel Austin Burnell
With my newly acquired downtime and a clearer focus on my goals (where previously I couldn't see the forest for the tree), I've started by taking up a task that I'd laid aside months ago, when my promotion suddenly made my days too full for idle speculation and the gathering of intelligence simply to satisfy my curiosity.
I begin by calling up the footage from a secret camera I placed months ago when I decided I needed to know more about what Commodore Tucker was getting up to in the Dead Zone on the upper west pylon. The camera was motion-activated and could hold a thousand hours of footage with audio, so I left it there until just last week. Less than ten percent of the storage capacity has been used. I'm not surprised; there's not much that can be done in the weird little nexus of overlapping EM fields that causes a blind spot on the stations sensors. The few components that are actually housed in that area are already on routine maintenance schedules, so the commodore isn't spending his valuable time working on them; and there are enough other, more comfortable areas in the station that he can lock down with his security code that he wouldn't be hiding in there to review reports or approve duty rosters in peace. He can only be going there to do something that he didn't want captured on the station's surveillance.
I'm not going to watch seventy-five hours of footage in one night, but I do start with the first entry. It's all of ten words.
"Brother to Lizzie."
"Lizzie here."
"One to transport."
"Transporting…now."
Then the commodore twinkles out of existence.
Well, I don't need to look at any list to know the Imperial Fleet has no starships named Lizzie nor any ships that could be appropriately nicknamed Lizzie, though now that I think about it, perhaps Lizzie Borden wouldn't be such a bad idea for a name for a ship.
Then the rhyme pops into my head:
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her father forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her mother forty-one.
Don't suppose the Empress, the Mother of the Fatherland, would be best pleased by that. She's certainly intelligent enough to recognize the irony, but I don't think she has the sort of sense of humour to allow herself to appreciate it properly.
So, Lizzie is not a ship of the Imperial Fleet. I check the registries of civilian cargo, passenger and colony ships. Six match my criteria, including one named Lizzie Borden (and I hope for the owner's sake the wrong person never finds out about that one – now that I think about it, an overzealous prosecutor could argue that it comes dangerously close to sedition), but none of them were even in the Solar System at the time in question, let alone within transporter distance of the station.
I know some crews (if their captains are amenable) will name their shuttlepods, but as far as I know, we have yet to find a way to equip a vessel as small as a shuttle with a power plant capable of generating the enormous amounts of energy necessary to rip living flesh apart at the molecular level and reassemble it correctly elsewhere. Besides, I can think of no reason why the commodore would need to transport onto a shuttlepod belonging to one of the docked ships surrounding the station anyway. Jupiter Station has its own shuttles. Granted, he's Commodore bloody Tucker and has enough clout around here to do what he wants when he wants, but usually his behaviour, while often unorthodox, still makes some degree of sense. Nevertheless, I set up a background search of the commodore's logs and the logs of all the station's pilots and all the pilots who were on ships docked here on the date in question.
Three, perhaps four years ago, then-Commander Tucker requested then-Private Amanda Cole to be transferred to his command to serve as a dedicated pilot for a shuttle transporting equipment and materials for the various secret research projects on the station. At the time, I was proud of and pleased for her because she was due for a promotion and more than deserving of one, but I simply didn't have a spot to offer her. So I completed a deep background investigation, increased her security clearance, recommended her promotion and approved her transfer.
It's the work of seconds to isolate the woman's voice on the video footage and compare it with a file copy of a standard passage Cole read aloud at the end of her basic training. It's SOP to collect just such a file for security purposes like this, and when the computer confirms she is the second speaker on the video clip, I grow even more curious.
I replay the clip. The commodore did not say 'Tucker to Lizzie', he said 'Brother to Lizzie'. With the log search still running, I dig a little deeper into his personal background.
I'd discovered months ago that his brother, a lawyer, had married a doctor and that they both spent a great deal of their time looking out for those whom the commodore would undoubtedly call 'the little guys,' but I hadn't investigated beyond that because my increased workload following my promotion hadn't allowed me the time. The lawyer brother is founder and CEO of one of the Empire's gutsiest and most successful victim's advocacy law firms, and he's probably only alive now because he wins his high-profile cases often enough to convince the people that justice can prevail in the Imperial Courts but not so often that The Powers That Be feel particularly inconvenienced by the financial losses and minor embarrassment that comes with losing a class action suit. In addition to his charity clinic, the doctor brother-in-law is Chief of Staff and Chief Trauma Surgeon at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas – his alma mater and one of North America's top teaching hospitals.
Six years ago, the farming co-operative his father headed joined with more than two dozen other agricultural organizations to form the Southeastern Agricultural Co-operative Coalition, which represents all the farmers and ranchers in the Southeastern United States, and Tucker Senior won a hotly contested election to be its first president. The Coalition encompasses eight states, the eastern third of Texas, southern Arkansas and about half of Tennessee; these eight states, which comprise the bulk of the organisation, also control North America's entire Atlantic Coast south of Baltimore and two thirds of the Gulf of Mexico. With Charlie Tucker in charge, the SACC negotiated the best contracts any of the members had seen in nearly a century, and now, Charlie is halfway through his second term, which he won by a landslide.
The commodore's sister Rachel, with help from his mother, runs a home and school for orphans and foundlings which is funded primarily by donations solicited by his other sister Sarah, a marketing executive (full partner in her firm, no less) who donates her time and skills to the orphanage. The three women have set themselves up as child-advocates and take turns travelling abroad to speak to provincial and regional governments on the necessity and benefits of facilities like their Live Oak Children's Home. After fifteen years in business, they have enough longitudinal data to support their claims, which, I'm sure, if they have anything like the commodore's charisma, is enough to get people's attention. They never go anywhere uninvited – though I suspect they solicit invitations more often than they wait for them to arrive of their own accord – and they're careful not to criticize the system already in place lest they be accused of sedition, but whatever they're saying, it seems to catch on about ten percent of the time, and there are now more than a dozen affiliated children's homes around the globe following the same model and calling themselves the Child Care Alliance.
Their position seems to be that these children can become more productive, more valuable citizens who'll earn more money and pay more taxes if they're nurtured and educated than if they're sent to the work camps where they'll live neglected and abused and grow up ignorant. Having spent three years of my own life in a work camp between the ages of six and nine, I can see the validity of their argument. My parents had incurred a mountainous debt due to complications following the birth of my younger brother. My older sister was grown and on her own by that point, but she couldn't afford to take me in. No one would have the baby, and my parents couldn't afford to care for us both.
In retrospect, I realize sending me to the work camp was the best they could do. At least there, if I could stand up for myself, I wouldn't starve. I was beaten, abused, and worked to the bone. I didn't starve, but most nights I went to bed hungry, and every night, I fell asleep wondering what I'd done to make my parents hate me so much. When the debt was cleared and my parents came to collect me after three years, they had to drag me home kicking and screaming – I suppose I'd rather have continued a miserable life where I knew what to expect than go with them and risk being abandoned again. I returned to school, and with a lot of help from some kindly teachers and a lot more hard work of my own, I gradually caught up with the rest of my year and graduated on time. I was sixteen when, after years of seeing how hard my parents worked to care for my brother and me, I asked why they'd sent me away. After hearing their explanation, it still took me a few months to understand that they hadn't chosen my brother over me; they'd simply had no choice, because my brother was an infant at the time. Considering my position in the world now, I can't say those three years in the work camp were too terribly damaging in the long run, but it might not have taken quite seven years for me to reconcile with my parents if there'd been a more nurturing, less brutal environment.
I often do a lot of free-association when I'm investigating something that I don't understand, looking for threads that might lead me to an appropriate conclusion. It's a trick that Jignesh taught me: Occam's Razor is all well and good, but sometimes you need Sherlock Holmes to solve a case. In other words, the simplest answer is usually the best, but, when it isn't, after you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
When my search of log entries comes back, I scan them quickly. There are a little more than a hundred entries, most of them in the commodore's logs referencing a sister whom he seems to miss a great deal. The others, from various pilots on Jupiter Station and the ships that were docked here at the time of the transmission, are all referring to wives and sweethearts, siblings or other relatives. Not one single reference to a ship.
But the commodore would have to be transporting to a ship, so how in bloody hell do I find a ship that doesn't seem to exist?
I start skimming through files of different kinds of sensor logs, hoping one of the file names will twig and give me an idea of what to do next. Imperial protocols require meticulous record keeping about almost everything a person says and does on duty. Every time they log in or out of a system is notated down to the nano-second. If they need a tool from a cabinet or toolbox, they have to submit their thumbprint to gain access. On every ship, orbital station and planetside facility, turbolifts record the moment a person presses the call button, the level they request, and the moment they exit the lift, at which point, internal scanners track them to their destination. Everyone knows they're almost always on camera, even in their private quarters, and that those cameras usually record audio; but I don't think anybody apart from General Reed and myself realize just how much information is passively collected on individuals. If I wanted to, I could use the internal sensors to find out how fast Mike Rostov's heart beats when he fucks Julie Massaro and how often she fakes her orgasm when he does.
On my first starship assignment as Chief of Security, we had a rash of drug overdoses that killed thirteen crew members in less than twenty-four hours. One of the victims, one of my own subordinates, had died in my arms. This is uncommon in the Empire because, now that we have found a reasonably reliable cure for addiction, most recreational substances are legal, regulated, and perform predictably. There are no prohibitions against using them in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, so long as the user is unimpaired while on their regularly scheduled duty shifts. Of course, the Empire only legalised such substances in order to tax the hell out of them; so once in a while, if someone becomes addicted and is too ashamed to admit their own shortcoming and seek assistance from their ship's medical officer (or even if they're not hooked, just trying to save money because the tax is more than half the cost of most substances), they'll attempt to find a cheaper supply by buying them illegally.
In civilian life, a first-time purchase for personal use is a misdemeanour punishable by a fine of a few thousand credits. In the military, the convicted is docked one day's pay and spends one day in the brig and one hour in the agony booth per gram. Distribution, on the other hand, of more than a single gram (because the exchange of one gram could just be one friend getting high with another, but more than one would be supplying the buyer with drugs for future use), is a felony, civilian or military, punishable by up to life in a prison work camp, and, in the military, with the addition of dishonourable discharge, the stripping of rank and loss of all military medals, awards and benefits for the convicted and his or her dependents. When illegal drugs cause a user's death, the supplier is charged with first degree murder, an automatic death sentence.
Analysis of the substance found in the victims' blood showed it was illegally supplied. The ship I was on was a supply carrier, so our personnel had a lot of contact with people posted to the various stations and planetary installations we serviced. If it had been just one victim, I might have assumed that he got the drug for his personal use at our last port of call, but the fact that there were multiple victims was proof positive that we had a drugs smuggler on board.
It took me two solid days (during which time the deaths fortunately stopped), but I got my man. By backtracking the timeline, I identified the most likely point at which the drugs would have been brought on board. Then I called up a roster of the personnel who'd actually left the ship, thinking a face-to-face exchange would have been easier since the weights and contents of the containers we were bringing on board had already been scanned, recorded and transmitted to our manifest and any change between now and when they were offloaded would send up an alert. Using what I knew about the nineteen people on my list, I ordered my suspects from most to least likely, and dug a little deeper.
My prime suspect was identified because he was the only member of the supply crew who left the public areas of the station to visit a member of the staff in her quarters, presumably for a quick shag. A little more digging revealed that his connection with her went back several years prior to their current assignments. Further research into his personal logs led me to review his reading habits, which revealed a fascination with organized crime in the late Twentieth Century, particularly the Drug Cartels. Having held one of the victims in my arms (one of my own subordinates), as he fought for his life, seized briefly, and then went still, I found the evidence damning, but thin; it might struggle to hold up at court martial. Then a quick study of the transportation methods used by the drug kingpins who fascinated my suspect led me to a review of internal sensor data, which gave me the proof I needed.
As surprised as most people in military service would be by the amount of information collected on them, I think they would be even more disgusted by the nature of some of the data that is recorded. In my search for a way to find 'solid' evidence of my suspect's activity, I learned that inputs and outputs need to be carefully managed in order to keep a ship's waste reclamation system functioning efficiently. Too much input and the system backs up; too much output, and the biological and chemical reactions that neutralize contaminants and dangerous microbes and reduce everything to sludge slow down, causing a different and far more disgusting type of backup. Different systems might use slightly different mixes of chemicals and microbes to process waste, but the organic waste processors all consist of roughly the same hardware components: a centrifuge for separating solids from liquids, holding tanks to store the waste until it can be processed, a processing tank where the material is combined with various microbes and chemicals to break it down into its constituent parts, a filtration and distillation system to separate the constituents and route them directly to storage tanks if they have reached their final forms, to sterilization and evaporation tanks if they need the additional processing or need to be stored as solids, or to a different processing system for the random bits of tech and hardware junk that mysteriously find their way into the plumbing and settle to the bottom of the tank, and finally, a water tank for the reclaimed, sterile water. To help maintain the delicate balance necessary for the efficient functioning of the entire system and to identify the source of problems when they crop up (one instance I can recall from shortly after then-Commander Tucker took charge of Jupiter Station is when the seal on a bulk protein storage tank failed allowing atmospheric microbes to get in and contaminate the protein, and rather than call the sanitation crew to dispose of it, the old chef simply pumped the entire contents down a disposal chute and overwhelmed the system), all inputs are measured by weight and volume at the point of entry. This means there are sensors on every trash chute, sink and shower drain, beverage dispenser overflow tray, shuttle bay and fabrication shop floor drain (because the ships and their parts sometimes require washing), custodial closet utility sink, central vacuum inlet port, and yes, every bloody toilet, on every ship, orbital station, and self-contained planetary facility in the Empire. Armed with this information, I checked the sensor logs from my suspect's bathroom and found a 676.8 gram 'input' that only weighed 176.8 grams by the time he flushed. The bastard had smuggled onto the ship within his bowels 500 grams of the drug that was killing our crew.
We could have convened a tribunal then and there. The smuggler would have been convicted and shot out an airlock within the hour, but, arguing that thirteen people had died and we could only kill the maggot once, I convinced my captain to let me contact the Judge Advocate General to offer a possible plea agreement in exchange for the names of other people in his network. If he pleaded guilty, the JAG agreed to reduce one charge of first degree murder (which implies an intent to kill and under Imperial Law is proven by the very act of supplying illegal drugs) to first degree manslaughter (which carries a sentence of twenty years to life and implies only criminal negligence) for each offender discovered and convicted by his testimony. After all thirteen counts of murder one had been reduced, he'd be allowed to serve one sentence concurrently with the initial twenty-to-life for each additional conviction. In the end, our smuggler exposed a network of more than two dozen people including a starship captain, two cabinet ministers, and a member of the Imperial household staff. With the concurrent sentences, his total time was reduced to sixty years to life, with a chance for parole in thirty; so he could be out in another seventeen years, if he lives that long, though given the conditions on Rura Penthe, I doubt he's still alive today.
But I'm looking for a ship. The commodore's bowel habits are not going to help me find it.
A ship, presumably in orbit of the station, because if it was docked with the station, he could board her via the docking hatch and not need to transport.
I know what I'm looking for now. I pull up three files of sensor data to search alongside the time signatures of my seventy-five hours of transmissions, set the parameters of my search, and let it run while I go back to reading about the commodore's family.
A cursory check of tax records shows me that the Live Oaks Children's Home and the Child Care Alliance have submitted all the appropriate records and documents since the home was initially opened, including the proper tax payment records for the value of volunteer labour and non-monetary donations. Whether the figures are correct is another matter, but frankly, it's not my job to worry about that. If the Imperial Revenue Service want to look into it, that's their prerogative, but I'm not about to request an audit. If you ask me, some institutions should be tax-exempt, and I doubt that the commodore's sisters' charity's tax records will help me in my investigation.
After a moment's hesitation, I pull up my bank's interface and arrange a small, anonymous donation. The work camp might not have hurt me in the long run, but it was a terrible experience that nearly wrecked my relationship with my parents. Rachel, Sarah and Elaine Tucker and their associates are doing good work, and I want to acknowledge that.
Sarah's twin brother, Samuel, has followed in the commodore's footsteps to a degree. He's an engineer and inventor, specialising in agricultural machines and produce processing equipment, with more than a dozen patents to his name already. His work is funded by his father's co-op, which, by contract, gets exclusive rights to his inventions for two years and then gets half the profits of the sales of his inventions in perpetuity, most of which is funnelled back in to Samuel's work. I'm no financial planner, but if he manages his money wisely and keeps producing profitable ideas at the rate he has done since obtaining his degree, the young man will probably be able to retire within the decade and live off the residuals with no change in his standard of living. On the other hand, if he's anything like the commodore, he'll probably continue working until he drops.
Rachel's husband, Edwin, is, at least on paper, just a farmer, but I'll eat my pips if the commodore's father isn't grooming him for a leadership role in the SACC. They raise and educate their two children along with the orphans and foundlings at the Live Oaks Children's Home, and, yes, a quick check confirms they pay the appropriate rent for their small family apartment within the home and the appropriate tuition and school fees for their kids. As far as I can tell, Sarah Tucker is still single; Samuel is dating a young paralegal in his brother's law firm.
Finally, I come to the last page of the commodore's personal file and yes, there she is! His youngest sister, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Tucker, an award-winning architect in her mid-twenties with three Imperial contracts to her name already. She was making quite a name for herself when she was killed in the Xindi attack on Earth, which sheds more light on the commodore's melancholy log entries referencing her name. Whether he's using it as a code name for Amanda Cole or as the name of his mysterious ship or shuttle, this has to be the Lizzie he is honouring.
Gobsmacked, I sit back from the monitor. Until a few hours ago, I'd had no idea who the commodore's family really were or how much influence they held in their respective fields. Even young Lizzie had reached a point in her career where she had connections she could tap into when she needed an advocate to help her win a bid for a contract or negotiate her way through an especially complicated zoning ordinance or construction code. Knowing what I do now, I have to conclude that brilliance, modesty and humility are some sort of heritable family traits that have been transmitted to the brother-in-law. I have heard it said that genius begets genius, but Lawrence, Nelson, Churchill, Wellesley and Montgomery did not all branch off from the same family tree.
The cold realization hits me that, if the commodore were to make a play for the Imperial throne and somehow succeed, he and his family could potentially form a dynasty so popular – loved, even – and powerful that they might rule for a thousand years, rivalling the Plantagenets! I Of course, he'd need military support to cement his position of power, but given his considerable people skills and the fact that he's shaken the hand of every engineer in the fleet for the past five years and many of the captains', that might be easier than expected.
Or is that what he's angling for with General Reed?
I can't imagine the general throwing his support to the commodore, though, even if they seem to have learned to share Jupiter Station, going as far as dining at the same table in the mess hall once or twice, without tearing each other's throats out; their mutual contempt for one another would seem to preclude any alliance that placed one of them above the other, and even if it didn't I imagine the general would sooner advance himself to the throne than support anyone else who tried to claim it. On the other hand, given what I've discovered about the Tucker family, I can't, in all honesty, say with any degree of certainty that I wouldn't deliver the MACOs myself if the commodore somehow circumvented the general and asked me for help. For one thing, at least at first blush, it would seem to be good for the Empire to have people like the Tuckers in charge; for another, it would let me bypass the general and assume control of the MACOs, putting me one step closer to the throne.
I wonder why the commodore hasn't made a move to grab for power yet. Does he not realise how close he could be to taking the throne? Is he so risk averse that he just doesn't want to take the chance? He hardly strikes me as a coward, but as one who has already let a golden opportunity pass him by through an abundance of caution, I can easily see how another might do the same. It's inconceivable that he would propose to elevate the general and rule through him. Even if they didn't hate, loathe, and despise one another, the general would never tolerate being used as a puppet; if he ever did, I'd personally ensure he didn't live long enough to be of any use to anyone.
Of course, one other possibility does exist, though that, too would require them to get over their mutual mistrust and detestation. It's conceivable that they might form a coalition. A Duo instead of a Triad, the two of them ruling together from behind the throne with the Empress as a figurehead. It's not like there wasn't widespread (though very quiet because it was blatantly seditious) speculation that it was exactly what was going on with the Triad. If their history is any indication of what their future is likely to hold, it's hard to imagine them letting bygones be bygones in order to collaborate well enough to obtain and maintain that kind of power for any significant length of time; but I know the general is capable of keeping up elaborate subterfuges for a very long time, and if I'd ever had any doubts about the commodore's skills in that regard, they've been dispelled in recent months…
I shake my head. One of the drawbacks of free association is the tendency to go off on tangents. The potential of an alliance between Commodore Tucker and General Reed to overthrow the Empress is certainly a matter worth investigating, and I will, beginning tomorrow. For the moment, I still haven't found that bloody ship, let alone determined what it's used for!
My search of the sensor logs is still running. Its results might prove revealing, but not for several minutes yet. The old detective's adage follow the money comes to mind, and I spend about half an hour checking the Tucker family's financial statements and tax records for the past several years, but to no avail. The most damning thing I can find is the commodore's retirement account, but in actual fact, when one considers his pay grade, the balance is no more than one would expect from wise investing and prudent financial management. Some might find the simple fact that all of their tax records for all of their personal, professional and charitable affairs are in order, but that's not illegal; and considering how they tend to operate just barely inside the lines of the law, with all of them being deeply involved in some philanthropic endeavour or other, it's not in the least surprising to me that they would take extraordinary care to make sure their finances are properly handled. In the grand scheme of things, it's a very simple thing to get right because there's a form for everything, and they'd be fools to let their lives unravel by neglecting some paperwork.
I put a pin in their tax records, deciding I'll have a forensic accountant look into them more carefully if I turn up nothing elsewhere.
If I can't find out where the money is going, maybe I can determine where it is coming from. Of course, I've no reason to believe the commodore is involved in any financial wrongdoing. There could be any number of legitimate reasons why he was sneaking off the station, but most clandestine ops, even legitimate ones, usually involve the movement of large amounts of money.
A quick review of the station's ledgers reveals nothing, not that I really expected it to; the commodore's much too clever to be that obvious. But Jupiter Station moves a tremendous amount of materiel – everything from nuts and bolts to scanners and tools to raw materials like antimatter to fuel the ships built here and massive duranium ingots for the fabrication bays – that has intrinsic value of its own which can be sold or bartered. What's more, I don't even have to compare inputs and outputs to see what's happening with the goods moving through the station. Every department in every ship and facility, governmental or military, throughout the Empire, is required to file a monthly loss report. Of course a certain percentage of loss is permitted to allow for human error – someone might occasionally miscount, put a piece of equipment on the wrong trolley or even park a trolley in the wrong storage bay – but any time a department's losses exceed the allowable maximum more than two months in a row or more than four months in a rolling twelve-month period, an automatic alert is sent to the appropriate agency and that department is audited.
In my entire time here on Jupiter Station, I can't recall any department ever being audited, so I'm going to have to personally review the loss reports looking for patterns that might have escaped the automated monitoring. I pull up the last five years of reports and try not to think too hard about what else I could be doing with my downtime.