Echoes of the Storm

Chapter 17

"Thank the stars for that." Costarossa glanced toward the corridor, and then lowered her voice. "You know, Chief, I can understand why Norse is bent on finding Ford. But this thing with the FE's nephew," she checked the corridor again, "it almost seems like an obsession."

"That's absurd," Berg scoffed.

"You wouldn't believe the things the guys in the barracks are sa—"

"Enough!" Berg exclaimed. "We have orders and I expect them to be carried out. The Gamble piece of this puzzle is outside the scope of those orders. He is not our concern."

"Isn't he?" Costarossa asked. "We're handling twenty to twenty-five transports a day at the spaceport. That's up by about fifteen from the previous two weeks. Gamble could be on any one of them." She stood and stretched, keeping her back to the medics preparing their prisoner for transport. "It's making for some long days, Chief. Our teams are grumbling. Colonists, we don't have enough people to sniff out the underground and watch for Gamble, er, I mean Riga infiltration."

Densiger chuckled. "Our men would be grumbling no matter what, Costarossa."

Berg forced back a grin. His security teams could bellyache all they wanted as long as they got the job done. "Gives them something to talk about in the barracks before their heads hit the pillows." He cleared his throat. "I haven't seen yesterday's report. Beside the grousing, what else do we have?"

"One C400 freighter, registry in the Dalmora system. She had a shipment of medical supplies. According to the manifest, it was meant for New Mars. It accidentally got unloaded here, or so says the ship's supply sergeant. We're holding him for questioning. The captain wasn't aware of the contents."

"Is that Saul Menaca's ship?"

Costarossa nodded. Menaca was the son of extremely wealthy and politically-connected Dalmorans, a system aligned with Corona. The League depended heavily on them for financial survival. Saul was bored one day so his father bought him a shipping line. Saul decided to captain one of the ships in his fleet himself. Rumor had it he spent most of his time drinking.

"The med supplies have been impounded at the warehouse," Costarossa said. "Saul wasn't happy. I explained it was standard procedure with his questionable cargo. He'll have to come back with authorized sigs to get it out."

"Sounds like our grumbling crews are doing their jobs," Berg said. He imagined the Corona on New Mars wouldn't be happy about the delay receiving their medical supplies. "Tell them to keep up the good work."

Berg scrubbed his face. Saul's supply sergeant hadn't accidentally unloaded those supplies. They were intended for the resistance. And he knew just the carrot to entice them.

"We're having technical problems with the cams." He looked pointedly at Costarossa.

"We are?" Densiger started to check his digipad.

A little frown pinched Costarossa's mouth, but then she got it. "I need to place a special order to get the part we need. Told you a year ago those old cams should have been trashed for newer models. This'll take days since the parts are manufactured offworld."

"Take care of that, would you?"

Densiger grinned, now on board with Berg's little plot. "A couple of extra guards?"

Costarossa nodded. "I'll put two more on duty."

"We don't want to arouse curiosity by posting additional sentries," Berg said. "Assign our best SEC team to the repair crew. That should cover us when the traitors try to move in to pick up their supplies."