Pay Me, Bug!

Chapter 38

WHEREIN the Woods, Learning Something is Amiss, Endeavor to Pursue

Commodore Mavis sat in his office and waited for word from the planet below.

Someone was making a play for something on the station. If the Viceroy was right, and Mavis suspected he was, then it was for the mysterious artifact sitting on level 5 in Ur Voys. Only now, the artifact was not in fact sitting on level 5 in Ur Voys, it was being moved to another location. One that wasn't compromised.

Someone had compromised the security at Ur Voys.

The breach was, in truth, clumsy: the robots had moved too brazenly, too openly, and were deactivated before anything was accomplished. Still... the very idea that someone had managed to cause a breach on such a scale… incredible.

"Commodore." Katryn Valdyrs' voice emanated from the intercom. "Station commander Hallek Andros, on a secure channel for you."

"Very good. Patch him through here."

Mavis' terminal blurred, and Andros' face appeared.

"Commodore," Andros said, "I have good news."

"Report."

"We've just received word from the last of the transports. All shipments have been handed off to their second convoys without incident. All security codes were validated."

Mavis relaxed slightly. "Very good, Andros. When will we receive confirmation that the items are secure in their new locations?"

"I estimate within the next six hours."

"Good. Very good..." Mavis drifted off into his own thoughts.

"Sir?" Andros peered at him through the terminal screen questioningly.

Mavis blinked, eyes refocusing. "Have you made any progress as to the cause of this breach?"

Andros shook his head, frowning. "Not yet. But I'll let you know the minute I find anything at all."

Mavis nodded. "Thank you Andros. Keep me informed. Mavis out."

He turned off the terminal and sat back in his chair, drumming his fingers on his desk. This was good news. It meant that the artifact was out of the environment the thieves had planned to compromise. That said, Mavis was deeply troubled. His instincts told him this wasn't over, not yet. And, despite all evidence to the contrary, his instincts told him that Vindh was behind it.

Mavis shook his head and tried to dismiss the notion. It made no sense. Captain Vindh was a clever man, perhaps even ingenious in his own way, but he simply didn't have the resources to do something on this scale. His crew was competent, but they didn't have the skills or the equipment to reprogram the robots of Ur Voys en masse.

Mavis pressed the button for his private intercom. "Ando."

Ando Fargus, Mavis' first officer, responded on the other end. "Aye, sir?"

"Is there any speculation as to how the security in Ur Voys was compromised?"

"Well..." Fargus hesitated. "Nothing we can pin down, sir, but there are some irregularities."

"Oh? What are these irregularities?"

"Well sir," Fargus said, "I did a little checking and spoke with the commander of Ur Ados. Ur Ados is the facility that services the robots that work in Ur Voys. A few weeks ago there were a few irregularities in station security. None of them were irregular enough to raise suspicion at the time, but they're being revisited now."