Missing Carrier 2
Inspector Montgomery ended up working with a fellow Inspector. She was in her office looking at Inspector Montoya. They had come up through the ranks of the Inspector General's office and both were very good at their jobs. He tended to specialize in earth based cases. Many of them were espionage or counter-espionage cases, "How do you want to handle this Inigo? I have some of my agents off planet currently. I don't want to sound untrusting but knowing all the governments have probably been infiltrated concerns me. I am not trying to say or indicate I don't trust you in any way. It is simply I have been ordered to keep this as classified as possible."
Inigo gave her a wide smile which showed his gleaming white teeth. They were a contrast to his dark Mediterranean skin, "Not to worry, I understand and share the sentiment. Not against you but those lower than you. We've come up the system together and I do trust you. I think what might be best if we keep our missions separate from those lower than ourselves. We only share information between us and Admiral Montgomery. Anything else we discuss before passing it down the chain. As you know I have been assigned to look into the Earth side of things. I have five agents I trust. I am keeping them separated from each other as best possible. Not sure if that will suffice but we can only do so much. Right now, I have one attached to Scotland Yard and the case with the shooter who almost killed the Ambassador. The next two are carefully digging through all the records related to the breakers. Not just this ship but all ships in the last twenty years. Financial records, those in the chain of command, who gave questionable contracts and such. The last two are digging through the records of all senior officers to see if they can find anything."
She rattled a pen on her desk since there was a certain overlap in their investigations. She also had people working on the records of the breakers and officers involved. There were civilians involved as well, "I have some of my agents looking into similar aspects. The rest are off world and looking into the records of the yards the ships were sent to. The carrier is one example. We have full documentation she was demilled and broken up for salvage. That obviously didn't happen since we found wreckage indicating she hadn't been broken up. Since this is our first meeting I am going to schedule one every Monday at 0800. After that we can create the brief for the Admiral. Right now, I am still gathering information. It is going to take some time to get the information we need without letting those being investigated know."
Inigo made a face, "I know the feeling. I was just called in and it is going to take some time to get started. I will see you next week and hopefully we will have something we can use. I do have some information from a reliable source. Don't know who they are but it was provided by the Admiral. It is going to take some time but I will let you know what I find." He stood and with a nod and a flip of his thick black hair he left the room.
~~~
Swiss release some pirate information
The Swiss had organized the information they had received from the pirates. It was a massive amount but the question was how reliable was it? Some could be trusted to an extent since it dealt with the types of ships they had. Others such as where the bases were located was far harder to verify. To verify the information, they would have to dispatch even more ships to the locations. That could be done but it was going to take time. They were going to have to pass the information on to the other hegemonies for processing.
That was something the Swiss wasn't comfortable with since they didn't trust everyone. It didn't matter if it was the American, Russian, or Chinese hegemony, they all had their own priorities. They did trust the American and Russian's more than the Chinese simply because their cultures were easier to understand. With the Asian cultures, they were vastly different in how they looked at people and how they were treated. Their culture was more inclusive and less independent than many other of the western cultures. It wasn't wrong but it was different enough they occasionally had trouble guessing how they might react to certain issues.
Eventually what they did was to break what information they into as discrete sections as possible. Once that was done they passed portions of the information which applied to the hegemony it most closely applied to. There was some carry over which they had planned. The information given to each hegemony had been adjusted and tailored so that if there was a leak it should be possible to track where it had come from. They knew the others would expect such but what portions had been modified they wouldn't know. The chances of the three-hegemony's sharing this information was slim which would help. As leaks were identified they would be plugged as best possible.
Since the Swiss had come to trust Admiral Demopolus he received an unedited copy with a request to keep it secure and to himself. This was another test to see if he was as trusted as they thought. It was somewhat of a cold method but based on what they knew, the Organization had penetrated many layers of the governments.
~~~
Scout ship finds pirate base
The captain of the scout ship had remained in the system for several days in case he received orders. During the entire time, he had kept the ship at Emissions Control, EmCom, just in case. They hadn't picked up any indications there were others in the system. It didn't mean they weren't but he wasn't taking chances. Eventually he ordered the ship to slowly accelerate. They were leaving the system and continuing their cruise. Their orders were to find the pirates if possible, or some of them and if possible the enemy.
He wasn't going to hold his breath since space was vast but places which worked to park ships were somewhat rare. Most places stations were located had a gas giant for fuel, maybe an asteroid belt for resources, and hopefully a green zone planet. It would give food, water, and even some R&R for the crew. What the enemy might want he wasn't sure but he was going on what he knew since they were alive.
The travel to the next station took just over a week. Much like the previous location he dropped out of warp well outside the Oort cloud and coasted into the system. They fired off a number of probes but ended up not being there all that long. Nothing caused their passive sensors go off and the probes didn't pick anything up. It still took them a week to scan the system and collect the probes. Once they were done and everything came back clean they jumped again. For the next system, it took them two weeks.
Even before they dropped out of hyper their sensors were recording some hyper traces. Due to this they translated out very slowly and moved into the system at a pace which was slower than normal. The captain was watching the data received very closely. Once he realized the hyper traces were Terran he accelerated slightly. The probes were sent out from a distance and were locked down to passive only. This location was showing as unoccupied which indicated this was probably a pirate base.
For this they actually spent some time going through the system. It was obviously occupied and based on the readings they were trying to be stealthy. His IT and Intelligence department had easily mapped the system and quality of stealth. It was old though not in bad shape. It just wasn't up to the quality of his systems. After two weeks, he slipped out of the system and sent off another hyper drone and again gave it the highest encryption. The same Admiral would get the information. From there it was up to what the military would do. For now, he was going to sit on the edge of the system and watch. It would allow him to collect even more data on the comings and goings.
