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Alternity 2 - Chapter 15
When they arrived at the station Harkness walked into it as if he owned it, the security guard simply waving them all in which told Beka two things. One Harkness was known and respected by the station police and two the police station badly needed their security upgraded. Just because someone looked like Harkness didn't mean that it was Harkness, a thought Beka kept to herself since it might be useful sometime in the future.
"What did you find, Zachariah?" asked Harkness as soon as they entered O'Riley's office.
"The lab boys got the box open, Mike, "said O'Riley as he got up from behind his desk. "It was booby trapped just like you suspected but they were able to bypass the trap."
"And?" asked Beka.
"There was a memory chip in it. The lab is trying to read it now. It's encrypted and they're having some trouble breaking the encryption. There's one more interesting thing. The box was made out of ulanium."
"Ulanium?" said Beka. "Why do I keep running into that stuff?"
"What do you mean?" asked Harkness. "The stuff is virtually impossible to obtain. If that box is pure ulanium it's probably more than half the total amount of ulanium on the planet."
Beka we explained how several years ago the Maru had been attacked by pirates and then later rescued by the Andromeda, that the pirates missiles contained traces of ulanium in them and that later when they smashed the pirate organization run by Jarvits they discovered more ulanium in the pirates missiles.
"That's interesting," said O'Riley, "but where would Drummond acquire a ulanium strongbox.
"Probably from the same place the pirates acquired theirs," offered Harkness. "From what those two just told us," he gestured with his head towards Beka and Tyr as he said 'those two', "the pirate outfit must have been pretty widespread. My guess is that after Jarvits was taken out one of his underlings took over the operation. I bet Drummond is one of their members."
"That would explain the images of Captain Valentine and Mr Anazazi," agreed O'Riley. "He was tipped off by someone who knew you were en route here. It would seem Captain Valentine that you have a mole within your organization.
"At the moment I am more interested in the message we have waiting for us," interrupted Tyr. "Perhaps Captain Valentine and I should read it before it becomes a historical footnote. I understand you have a secure comm system we can use to access the message."
"Point taken," admitted O'Riley. "It's this way." The police lieutenant led them into a small room located inside the building and protected by several layers of both human and electronic security. As son as they entered O'Riley shut the door and activated the comm system using both a pass key, a password and his palm print.
"It's all yours Captain Valentine," he said as he stood to one side allowing Beka access to the machine.
The message was from Dylan. The Andromeda had been attacked while in space dock by an intruder who seemed to have the ability to become immaterial at will. When it had appeared that the intruder might succeed in destroying the Andromeda Dylan had cast the Andromeda free of the dock and headed out into clear space to prevent damage to the space dock should the intruder succeed. In a move born of desperation rather than genius he had ordered the Andromeda into the slipstream. It turned out that the move could have been taken for genius because the intruder's ability to become immaterial ceased to work while the Andromeda was in the stream. The intruder was killed but not before a substantial number of crew were slain and the Andromeda herself sustained significant damage.
"That phasing sounds just like what Drummond was doing when you fought him," said Beka to Tyr after she and Tyr had finished reading the message, momentarily forgetting that O'Riley and Harkness were in the room with her.
"What do you mean it sounds like what Drummond was doing, when he fought him?" asked O'Riley. "What was Drummond doing?"
Deciding that a Harkness and O'Riley would probably know if she was lying, Beka briefly explained the fight between Tyr and Drummond and how Drummond had somehow made him self immaterial so that Tyr's fist passed through him and then later walked through a closed door.
"You mean," thundered O'Riley, "that you knew Drummond had some way of making himself untouchable and you didn't bother to tell me so I could warn the men looking for him."
Beka glanced at Tyr who looked back at her, his expression saying 'Dylan put you in charge. You can do the explaining.'
"I didn't think you needed to know," said Beka her explanation sounding lame even to her.
"When it comes to the safety of the men and women in my command it damn well is something I needed to know. Just why shouldn't I..."
"Zachariah," interrupted Harkness, "let's you and me talk for a minute, in private. Captain Valentine, Mr Anazazi why don't the two of you wait in the outer room while Zachariah and I talk." He put a hand on both Tyr and Beka and herded them out of the communications room shutting the door as they left.
A few moments later the door opened and Harkness and O'Riley came out of the communications room, O'Riley still looked angry but he had his anger under control. "Ok," he said. "Mike's convinced me to let this one slide but if we're going to continue to work together no more secrets, agreed."
"Agreed," said Beka thinking that O'Riley and Harkness didn't need to know about the Worldship as it had nothing to do with Drummond.
A few minutes later Beka and Tyr were in their rented vehicle which had been brought to the police parking lot from Le Chat Noir and were heading towards Venst's vacation home. Harkness had given them the coordinates to the house but had begged off accompanying them saying that he needed to go over some things with O'Riley and would come along later in his own vehicle.
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