Surbius was munching on the last of his food as he entered Johns cubicle with the bulky secure SSCU under one arm. John lived in a double compartment together with Waldoze, both bachelors, and both rarely at home. The "apartment" had seen a lot of parties, the last one was the one they had held after the bar had closed at Mor Isils one. It showed. Surbius disregarded the blonde nurse as just another catch o' the day that was about to leave, and looked squarely at John.
"I brought the unit," he swallowed, "now, what was it you wanted to tell?"
John looked at the blonde girl and asked her to tell. Surbius looked confused at first, but when she started speaking he recognised her as councillor Chi.
"I only have a couple of observations really. I noticed two things that he said."
With a move of the hand Surbius stopped her "Wait, who?"
John broke in. "Hortan, she woke him up and questioned him." He lifted his hands palm out, defensively as Surbius was just about to explode with anger. "He is ok, and he was willing to talk. He knows Ms. Chi after all, and I think he trusts her more than most of the rest of us." He turned and nodded at Chi. "Go on, tell him."
Surbius crashed on a chair in preparation for more shocks.
"Good, the first thing is that the EVA marines were wearing obsolete suits. We changed the mark on them from the shoulder to the chest about two months ago. Now they are woven into the suits from side to side." Surbius nodded, he had seen the new suits, horribly flashy in his view.
"The second thing, and this is where I may be telling you stuff I am not supposed to, is that we knew about the EAPRS installed in Hortans ship. We are fully aware that the EAPRS triggers upon life support failure instead of catastrophic ship failure. What I am trying to say here is, if we wanted him dead, he would be dead." Suribius nodded, and looked thoughtfully at her. Little did she know that Ecka didn't fly with it. But he could see her point.
"Lastly, and this is maybe grasping at straws, but I am willing to do that. Hortan didn't recognise a single name of the PA pilots. Not one."
Surbius protested immediately. "Surely he recognised Mick, I mean it says so right there on the holo."
"No, it says [PA]Mick. Normally it would have been [PA] Mick. I am aware that is is a subtle difference, but somebody used the name [PA]Mick, and not the Mick affiliated with PA. Besides, Mick would rather die than pilot anything but his Vulture"
Surbius looked at Chi, then at John.
"Ok, we say that I buy it, then what?"
John pointed at the SSCU. "That is why you brought that one. We need confirmation of a couple of things, and for that we need NP"
Surbius nodded and opened the unit. He punched in his own code and initiated contact with NP.
Surbius, John and Chi entered the silent OPS room. Only Ecka was inside, and he was brooding, staring at one of the screens where the holo from Hortans XC ran on repeat. He looked at the trio as it entered.
"So, you figured something out. I can tell on Johns smug expression that you are about to spring a surprise." He poured a wee fourfinger dram and leant back. "Spill the beans"
Surbius opened the SSCU and activated NP's holo.
"As he has just as much credit for the solution, I brought him in via conference." The trio sat down and waited for the holo to stabilise. The PA chief of CIA looked slightly bored until the picture stabilised entirely, as if the reception on his side wasn't established. Surbius looked at Ecka, took a deep breath and started.
"Fact, PA is our allies. Fact, they would have nothing to gain from attacking us. Fact, someone did in fact attack and destroy that convoy. Fact, that same somebody did attempt to murder you, as it was supposed to have been you leading the convoy as a publicity stunt. Now, the rest is interpolation and reasoning. We have pretty good intel that it wasn't PA that attacked the convoy, and that they were being set up to take the blame." Ecka grunted in agreement. He had never really believed that PA would do something as that.
"The evidence points to something even worse. As far as we with NP's help have been able to establish, is that the false navpoint was inserted by a certain Cennoth Plabaru, the pilot that didn't show up if you remember. He has died by the way, somebody shot his head off and torched his place. What is interesting is, that he was paid one million credits in the form of one Corvus credstick. This is where NP comes into the picture. He has been able to trace the money back to an UIT government account. And what is even more interesting, is that the same account was used to buy another Corvus credstick that is in the possession of the PA. This credstick was used to buy some surplus EVA suits, nine in all. Now, we are trying to find out how many sticks were bought, and where they are. But the question is, why is the UIT paying to kill off a combined TGFT and TPG convoy, while hanging the blame on PA?"
"Assuming that the track stops there" the holofigure said. "I need to investigate further, and for that I need time and maybe some of the famous TGFT resources. I suggest that we keep this amongst ourselves for now and see what we can flush out. As I see it, a state of war exists in" he glanced at his watch "three hours and fourteen minutes. I suggest we honour this and play the cards that we have been given. And Ecka, if you could please stay in the OPS room and play dead?" NP smiled at the ancient miner.
Ecka grunted. As long as he had his whisky, he would be ok. So that would leave them with about, lets see, two crates of 18 bottles, some ten days. They better hurry.
