He slipped into the booth and nodded politely to Sasha and her dining companion. He was a young man, at least in appearance, but Charlie could pick out the subtle clues that suggested that he was at least fifty years old, with an expression to match. Charlie pegged him at once. He had been passed over for promotion, not once, but many times, and wore his bitterness on his sleeve. His face might have been handsome under other circumstances — he suspected that he’d changed it in hopes of becoming more successful — but now, it had a worn, almost hangdog look.
“This is Peter,” Sasha said, introducing him. “Peter, this is Charlie, an associate of mine.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Peter drawled. His voice alone might have explained his lack of promotion. It was filled with a curious mixture of arrogance and fear, like a dog that expected to be kicked again. “Is he going to help me get promoted as well?”
Charlie couldn’t help himself; he checked, quickly, to see if the counter-surveillance field was operating. Even using it was dangerous, assuming that Admiral Wilhelm’s forces ran a security sweep, but there was an odd kind of security in the bar. Very few security officers, even the dreaded SD Troopers, would enter such a bar without heavily armed backup. The crewers might turn on them, secure in the sheer weight of numbers, and beat hell out of them. It had happened before.
“Don’t worry,” Sasha said, shooting him a glance. “We can’t be heard here.”
Peter, who had clearly been drinking heavily, kept talking with a surprising lack of discretion. It wasn’t hard to guess that he had been involved in several rackets to supply Imperial Navy technology onto the black market, nor that he knew most of the smugglers and criminals in the port personally. To hear him talk, he was a great successes at the gaming tables, but Charlie suspected that the truth was that he lost heavily and was deeply in debt to the local criminal fraternity. Admiral Wilhelm’s sweep, as soon as he’d taken overt control, had wiped out most of the criminals, but like cockroaches, they were very hard to kill. Enough remained to keep Peter firmly in their debt, even if they were keeping their heads down…
Idiots, Charlie thought, coldly. Imperial Intelligence had plenty of experience operating in such an environment. They can get us pretty much whatever we want.
He listened as Peter, his tongue loosened by all the drink, chatted away about everything and nothing. He was a second-level supply clerk — not even a Midshipman, as he complained — on the command fortress, but that was about as far as he could hope to rise. A properly-run organisation would have disposed of him long ago, unless there was no choice… and Admiral Wilhelm was clearly short of experienced crewmen. If he’d been on a superdreadnaught, he would have been discharged years ago, or sent somewhere where he could drink himself to death peacefully. He didn’t see it that way, of course. To him, his lack of promotion prospects was the result of conspiracy by his jealous superiors, who feared what he would do if promoted to higher rank. The irony, Charlie decided, was that they might have been right. A lowly supply clerk couldn’t do that much to rot away at the Imperial Navy, but someone more senior…
Or perhaps they want to keep their rackets to themselves, he thought, cynically.
“We are prepared to pay you ten thousand credits for services,” Sasha said, finally. They’d spent nearly two hours listening to him, learning much about the command fortress, but little of any real use. Charlie had seriously considered suggesting taking Peter back to their apartment and allowing Sandra to work her will on him, but that might have been revealing. “We require your knowledge of the local personnel.”
“Anyone,” Peter assured her, reaching for yet another drink from the robotic servitor. “You want anything, I know someone who can supply it, for a price. What do you want, lady?”
Sasha’s lips quirked into something that might have been mistaken for a smile. “Rebels,” she said, flatly. “There will be a rebel cell somewhere around and I want to meet them. Who are they?”
Peter stared at her, his mind numbed by the drink. “Rebels?” He asked, blearily. “You want to talk to rebels? Rebels on the command deck, what?”
Sasha merely looked at him. “Yeah, I can introduce you to rebels,” Peter said, finally. “Why do you want to talk to them?”
“That’s none of your concern,” Sasha said. Charlie allowed himself a moment of relief. Peter might have been so drunk that he couldn’t tell the difference between right and wrong, but once he sobered up, he might come to the right conclusion and start attempting to blackmail them for credits. Worse, he might blunder and bring the local security forces down on their heads. “I will give you ten thousand credits for an introduction to the local rebel cell.”
“Of course, of course,” Peter said. He pushed the last drink aside and stood up. “I will find you a rebel, great lady. Just you wait and see.”
Charlie frowned as Peter left the booth. “Are you sure…?”
“Yes,” Sasha said. “There were rebel cells everywhere, remember?”
Charlie nodded. Back at the start of the rebellion, just before the Battle of Harmony, Colin had sent a pair of messages though the ICN, using Geek-level software hacks to ensure that the message reached everywhere connected to the ICN, despite the best efforts of Imperial Intelligence. The first message had told everyone about the rebellion — which Admiral Percival had tried to hush up — and the second had told young officers just how to rebel. It had included practical advice on forming a cell, taking control of their starships and remaining hidden until it was time to strike. The message had spread far and wide, even into Cottbus itself… and the advancing Shadow Fleet had found rebel cells everywhere. They’d even been reinforced by new starships after the crews had mutinied and taken the ship.
And there would definitely be a rebel cell or more on Cottbus. It hadn’t been unknown for there to be several cells, each operating in ignorance of the other cells, to exist on a planet… and even though Admiral Wilhelm was respected, there would definitely be a cell on the planet. He doubted that Peter would know everyone in a cell, but he might well know one or two people who were involved with a cell, even if he wasn’t a rebel himself. The amount he drank, Charlie decided, suggested that any halfway sane cell would consider him a security risk.
He scowled as the waitress, a woman wearing only a bra and panties combination, came over and offered them both a drink, doing it in a manner that suggested that she could be bought, for a suitable price. He wasn’t too tempted. The patrons had probably had her already, in many places. She turned away, disappointed, revealing a shapely bottom, which was patted quickly by Peter as he came back with a young Midshipman. Charlie tensed inwardly. If Peter had made a mistake, their cover was about to be ripped away.
“I’m Midshipman Quinn,” the young man said. Charlie read his nametag and nodded. There was little point in trying to hide names when he was in uniform. “I understand that you wanted to see me?”
“One moment,” Sasha said. She called over the waitress, slipped her credit chip several hundred credits, and asked her to take care of Peter. Once they were gone, she turned back to Quinn and smiled. “We were told that you were the person we needed to talk to. You see, we’re from the Shadow Fleet.”