At about 19:30 hours on 03 October 2008, I was flying to Freeport 2 in hopes of meeting Dave Gamble, a paid informant who also happened to be assigned to station security. Earlier in the day he sent me the following text message to my personal comm unit:
Christian, I have something you might find interesting. Meet the usual place.
Flying my personal ship so I wouldnt attract attention, I landed at Freeport 2. Hopping down from the cockpit to the flight deck, I walked across the launch bay. The familiar smell of ship fuel and coolant filled the air. Mech robots scurried about carrying parts to a number of ships being repaired. I approached a door in a far corner marked Security. I opened the door and walked in.
Dave Gamble sat at a desk watching a holo-vid. He nodded as I entered the room.
Take a look at this, he said.
The video on the screen showed the outside of Freeport 2. Time stamp showed it was 10 minutes before the time of the robbery at the shipyard. It showed a Junker in a CSV leave the station and enter the tradelane to Texas. Two minutes later, a large transport ship passed the station without docking. It had come from the direction of Hamburg.
Freeze the video, I said. Can you enlarge the image of that transport to show the ship ID on the hull?
The image zoomed. The transport ship filled the screen.
Can you make out the ID? said Gamble.
Looks like R Ex 868, I said. Looks like a RepEx ship, number 868 to be exact.
Will this help you? said Gamble.
It will, I said. The pilot of that ship would have seen who was at Alster Shipyard right before the time of the robbery. Im willing to bet he saw something.
Time to pay up, said Gamble. A greedy smile plastered on his face.
I paid Gamble and undocked from Freeport 2 heading back to New Berlin. The trail was getting warm. All I needed now was to find RepEx 868.
Ill report in after Ive finished speaking with the captain of that ship.
For the Gottkanzler.
Christian Reinboth
Rheinland Federal Police
Church of the Green Eagle
