Free Starship Conquistador (Conquest of Stars Book 1) by Sid Kar Page B

up from his slumber by a
continuous beep on his dashboard. He turned off the sound and saw that a
message had arrived from VC Remus. He had sent an encrypted message to him
asking him to search for Boutrous Golus using his authorization codes because a
vice-chancellor could literally access every database of the republic. But when
he read the message he had to rub his eyes to make sure that he was fully
awake.
        Remus: No person named ‘Boutrous Golus’
found.
        How could this be? Someone who had
access to a government database but wasn’t in it? This was a dead end Jag
thought. Then something clicked in his mind and he realized there was one
possibility he could try. He changed the destination coordinates on his
spaceship and reprogrammed them to the nearest orbital station that the ship
had in its database.
        A few hours later his spaceship had
docked at a scientific research station orbiting an uninhabited ice planet. The
scientists were taking measurements of the ice samples to analyze the
composition of the planet and they returned to the orbital station for their
residence.
        They were accommodating and let him
access a computer that was connected to the Nestorian InfoNet – a network of
communications and private databases. He went on a paid Q&A communications
channel and loaded 1,000 credits of Nests. He probably wouldn’t get officially
reimbursed for it but VC Remus had promised to pay any expenses arising from
the investigation out of his own pocket.
        He sent the question out there on the
communications channel with 1,000 Nest of reward for whoever answered. This
drew the attention of professional questioners, experts who spent their entire
work day answering paid questions and a few of them had made a big fortune from
it. Someone answered him in five minutes.
       
        Creditor: Who is Boutrous Golus?
        Mr. Botanikus: Was.
        Creditor: Who was he? When did he die?
     
        Jag felt a tinge of excitement as well
as a little bit of guilt. Poor Mr. Golus was dead but that meant the
conspirators were covering their tracks. But the answer threw cold water on his
hopes.
     
        Mr. Botanikus: He was the founder and
chief engineer of my company. He had been dead for five years when I joined the
company 40 years ago.
        Creditor: What company was that? What
did you guys make?
        Mr. Botanikus: Golus Gravitron Company.
We were the first company to make and install long range gravitron scanners for
our frontier bases.
       
        Jag jumped up with joy and this
startled the other scientists in the computer lab. He whispered ‘sorry’,
approved the thousand credits for whoever Mr. Botanikus was, and left. In no
time he was back in his spaceship and back on track for the original
destination.
        In a second he had realized how the
culprit had accessed the information for Remus’s spaceship in Beacon’s
database. If Mr. Golus was the original engineer of gravitron scanner he
obviously needed full access to the database to make sure that the scanners
were working properly and catching all the spaceships. For all he knew, it was
his company itself which had made the database. Perhaps he had a master account
that had just remained in the database.
        Now the question was who knew about it?
Perhaps someone in the company? But he would inquire into that later. He had a
second line of inquiry to take care of.
     

Chapter 10: Starship
     
    Commodore Raptor Warwyk could not believe
his new starship. It was new and shiny and long. It was twenty-five miles long
on its longest axis and was the biggest spaceship that Sixth Frontier Fleet had
ever received by a far shot. His own previous ship Victory was fifteen miles
long and that was the standard size for frontier starships give or take a
couple miles.
        It was also very beautiful. It was painted
in a shiny metallic silver coat that would be its permanent color. But the
color could be changed to