Sector Commander Tayvis cut an imposing figure as he stepped off his ship onto Viya Station. His flawlessly pressed black uniform drank in light. The muted sparkle of gold at his throat only underscored the air of authority he radiated. His boots, polished to a high gloss, clicked across the docking bay to where the station master, Gervon Tiyl, and his assistants waited nervously. Malcolm Tayvis had arrived in style.
Master Tiyl rubbed his hands up and down his thighs, his eyes darting around the dock like tiny fish around a shark. Dock workers scurried about their tasks, not lingering in any one place. Patrol uniforms prowled through the muted chaos.
Tayvis stopped a pace away from the shorter master. Frown lines bracketed his mouth.
The station master waited, twitching at every sound.
Tayvis let the silence stretch, deliberately baiting the other man. Nervous men said things they didn’t intend, and Tiyl was very nervous.
Tiyl wiped sweaty hands down his thighs. “We put them in the guest suites, under guard of course. Their ship is being repaired. We aren’t quite sure what to do. You came awfully quickly.”
“Who?” Tayvis asked, confused.
“The Sessimoniss,” Tiyl replied. “You were sent to deal with the situation, weren’t you?”
Tayvis studied the man for a long moment. “I’m here in pursuit of a suspected smuggler.”
Tiyl swallowed. “But the Sessimoniss. I don’t know what to do with them. I sent messages to the Patrol base at Tebros. You didn’t get them?”
Tayvis forced a smile. “I’ll see what I can do for you. May we discuss this in your office?”
“Of course,” Tiyl said with obvious relief. “Right this way, Commander.”
The dock workers watched with unconcealed interest. Tayvis left quiet orders for his assistant. He needed information; Tiyl didn’t look like he’d provide much.
“Everything was normal yesterday morning,” Tiyl began after escorting Tayvis to his personal quarters.
Tiyl’s secretary scrounged through the kitchen, searching for something suitable to offer a high-ranking Patrol officer.
“Mostly,” Tiyl added thoughtfully.
“Explain,” Tayvis prompted when the man paused.
“It’s difficult, so much has happened. Viya is normally the most peaceful, quiet post in the Empire. It was just all so sudden.” Tiyl’s anxious look begged Tayvis to understand that Tiyl was not at fault for any of it.
Tayvis nodded, pasting a look of sympathy on his face to mask his growing irritation. “Yesterday? What happened?”
“I knew about the raid on Belliff’s offices, of course. Admiral Shoonis came a week ago, warning me about it. Someone tipped off the Patrol that Belliff was behind smuggling in Praxi Sector. They apparently had more connections with the underworld network than just that. I heard Belliff’s owners were part of the Targon crime family and that’s how they got into the smuggling. I was shocked to learn that they were actually using Viya as part of their route. We were suspicious of them all along, of course. I had station security watch their offices very closely. Admiral Shoonis was most grateful.
“It’s absolutely awful what those crime families get up to. The sector governments do nothing about them because most of them are on the family payroll. Admiral Shoonis assured me all of them will answer to the Emperor before too long, it’s just a matter of collecting the incriminating evidence until they can’t possibly buy their way out of the charges. That’s exactly what happened when Captain Fenris was arrested. He just bought off the government and they dropped all charges of piracy even though he was guilty. It is a crime, don’t you think?”
Master Tiyl paused only because his secretary proffered tiny sandwiches and drinks.
“What happened yesterday?” Tayvis ignored the refreshments.
“Yesterday?” Tiyl gulped his drink then handed it back to the secretary for a refill. “Oh, yes, yesterday.” He picked a sandwich into tiny crumbs. “Well, the Patrol was moving in for the raid when one of Belliff’s couriers arrived. We put our whole operation on hold so we could net the courier as well, or possibly put a trace on the ship. They can do that, but of course you would already know that, wouldn’t you?”
“The raid?” The courier could only have been Dace.
“Yes, the raid.” Tiyl popped the sandwich crumbs in his mouth, chewing noisily.
Tayvis tapped his fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair.
“It seems someone tipped off the courier. There was some garbled transmission from the ship, something about the ship being hijacked. It sounded awful. There is a tape of the whole thing if you want to listen to it.” Tiyl gave Tayvis a pained smile, which made him look like a constipated rabbit.
“Later. Tell me what else happened. The ship was hijacked?”
“It sounded dreadful. The ship engines started up while it was still docked. We tried to get them to shut back down, but for some reason, they couldn’t. It isn’t very clear. So I had them dump the ship, emergency undocking procedures, just like we’re supposed to. We could have lost the entire docking bay if we hadn’t. Well, they just flew away, ignoring the Patrol orders to stop. Then the Sessimoniss showed up, demanding we return some kind of stone.” Tiyl swallowed again, his fingers squeezing sandwiches to pulp seemingly by themselves. “The courier was your smuggler, wasn’t it?”
Tayvis nodded. The ship had to have been Dace’s. No one else could start so much trouble in so little time.
“Someone started shooting. The Sessimoniss ship was disabled. We had to tow them to the station and then lock them up. They were really being quite appalling about the whole mixup. I couldn’t let them hurt anyone. We had to arrest them.” His voice trailed off into miserable guilty silence. He cleared his throat twice before resuming his story. “They had guns. They were shouting. We tried to treat them nicely. I know how difficult relations with other sapients can be. But I really didn’t have much of a choice. The Patrol commander, the one with the fleet out there, he wouldn’t do anything. He told me it was my responsibility.”
“Someone will be here soon to deal with them,” Tayvis promised, mentally crossing his fingers and hoping he was telling the truth. “What happened to the courier?”
“Oh, it slipped away during the fight. It’s gone.” Tiyl folded in on himself. “Did you come to relieve me of my post? I messed everything up.”
“You did just fine. If I could see the records, I can mention in my report how well you handled the Sessimoniss.” He pasted a smile on his face and projected calm, even though he didn’t feel it.
“Would you? Do you really think I did all right? I just couldn’t think what to do with the Sessimoniss so I locked them away where no one could get hurt. We’ve tried to keep them comfortable.”
“You did just the right thing. I don’t have much time, so if I could see those records soon?”
Tiyl picked at his fingernails with one hand. “I’ll get Darl to pull them for you.”
The secretary set the plate of food in front of Tiyl. “If you would follow me.” Her voice was quiet, efficient.
Tayvis shook his head as he joined the secretary at the door. He suspected the station ran mostly on her quiet efficiency.
She led him through the station to a hushed office behind the busy controller’s area. She turned on a monitor with a touch and used a combination of voice commands and typed passwords to access files. “All of yesterday’s records are here. I removed the locking passwords. If you need anything else, call me.” She gave him her access code. The door slid shut behind her.
Tayvis quickly scanned the list of recordings. Most of them were the usual docking procedures and course corrections. He found the file for an emergency undocking, clicking the command to play the recording.
Dace’s voice filled the small room, shrill with panic. Tayvis listened intently until the transmission abruptly cut off. He stared at the monitor, his mind conjuring horrible scenes to accompany the voice recordings of Dace, locked in a tiny ship with a murderous maniac. Tayvis replayed the recording, wincing at the screams and shots. He played it over a third time, listening more closely. Why would Dace panic, telling the controller she was scared of a man with a gun? It didn’t fit the Dace he’d known on Dadilan.
Tayvis tapped his fingers on the screen, thinking. There had to be more clues. He accessed files, sifting through the entire mess of complicated records. Lowell had left him with a wide-open account. He was going to use all of it trying to track her down, if she left this kind of chaos in her wake everywhere she went. He couldn’t wait for problems to multiply, though. He had to find her.
“Where did you go, Dace?” he muttered as he started once more on the files.