Fatal Containment

Fatal Containment - Chapter 14

"This is a poor forgery for a Kantian communication," he said.

"And why would you say that" she asked. She already knew the answer but wanted to hear him say it.

"The Kantian government would never offer payment for something that they can steal. Nor would they send a message in such an open format. Your message headers show that the level of encryption was of the lowest caliber. In another life, I was involved in Kantian intelligence work, and this would never pass for a Kantian secure message."

Cheryl leaned back and folded her arms. "Petty Officer Larson came to the same conclusion," she said. "She could tell by the sidebands that this is improperly formatted and encoded. She also broke the encryption in just under twenty minutes (which was untrue—she had actually deciphered it in less than twenty seconds). But I happen to know that true Kantian codes are much, much harder to crack." She bluffed.

This peaked Tyrell's interest. "And how would you know what a Kantian coded transmission looks like, Lieutenant?"

Cheryl flushed but recovered quickly. "You haven't answered my question. Why are we are being followed by a ship that wants to make a buy."

Tyrell leaned forward and glared at her. "I think there's more that you are not telling, Lieutenant."

Cheryl diverted his comment with a question. "The ship shadowing us is undoubtedly Kantian." she left it unsaid how she knew that. "They have been sending out a communication signal which we intercepted. A signal that was intended for you. Why go to all that trouble if you're not the intended audience?"

Tyrell looked at the message again, with more intensity. After a few moments he shrugged. "Okay, let's say this isn't a Kantian communication. Who might want to buy our technology?"

Cheryl tilted her head in thought. "There are several belligerent colonies that might want to get their hands on it, but most are too small to have any use for it. That means, it needs to be one of the larger confederations."

Cheryl stood up to think as Tyrell reached for a sandwich on the tray in front of him and took a bite. She turned and faced Tyrell as he chewed.

"Kantians are certainly the biggest suspect in this quadrant, but they tend to stay out of the empire's way as a matter of self-preservation. I would think this is more likely to be the work of the Orions or the Abarthian Hegemony. Both have significant fleet elements that could seriously oppose the empire given this new technology. It would effectively shift the balance of power in the quadrant. Besides, if the Orions wanted this technology, they would wait until someone else took it and then simply steal it from them," she said.

Tyrell swallowed and took a sip of water.

"What do I care? And why am I being held? I didn't do anything."

"Our captain is holding you for a scapegoat," Cheryl said. "We found the murder weapon in your cabin, hidden on top of a bookshelf and the security video outside your cabin shows that you were not in your room at the time Dr. van Helm was murdered."

Tyrell suddenly looked furious and sat down his sandwich, his appetite apparently fled for the moment. He spoke in angry, clipped sentences.

"Okay, so let's suppose I am the killer. Why leave the weapon in my own cabin for you to find? I'm a nanotechnologist. There are dozens of more efficient ways to kill someone, none of which involve using a hand blaster. And even if I had, I would have disassembled the weapon and hidden the pieces in every corner aboard your ship. Or I would have had it dissolved. You would never have found it."

Cheryl stared at him for a pair of heartbeats and continued. "I believe you, but you are still our chief suspect."

"That may be true, but do you know the time of the murder?" he asked.

"We do now. It had to be between 2200 ship's time and 0120 when Willow came on shift."

"A rather small time window, wouldn't you say?"

"I suppose."

"And did you check the security recordings of the high vacuum lab?"

Cheryl frowned. They had been over this before. "Of course we did. They showed nothing."

"Because they had been deactivated, am I correct?"

"Yes," she conceded, "by someone familiar with our security systems."

"And what of the security recordings of the other compartments, for example, the one where I was working on connecting up my nanotech equipment to your inferior computing system most of the night?"

Cheryl hadn't thought of that. If he had been there the entire time, the security feed would clear him.

"I'll check that immediately," she said.

"You can also check my computer logs. They'll show you the complete listing of everything I did during that time. I'm the only one qualified to run those programs—they wouldn't even be accessible to anyone else."

"Alright, I'll check that too." Cheryl was beginning to feel uncomfortable about how thin their evidence for holding Tyrell really was.

"Anything else?"

Tyrell picked up a peach from the tray and studied it, apparently unsure if he wanted to resume eating or not.

"Yes. You might want to check to see if you have any security recordings on Candice. I understand she retired early that night."

"That is certainly easy enough to do. In the meantime, I want you to consider whether or not she or Sandy Doval would have any motive to have Dr. van Helm killed. I plan to question both of them."

"You do that, lieutenant. And while you're at it, you might think twice about trusting your security systems. You need to ask yourself who had access to turn those off without leaving any traces. Whoever killed Maxim had help from your crew."

And with that, she stood up and left.