Salvage Fleet

by Kevin Steverson

  “Well,” Mike said, “that ship you warned me about came back around and launched several fighters and a dropship of some kind. They got close, and actually burned a section of the clear-steel door out, and landed the dropship in the big bay. Spit out about forty of those dang Krift, termite-looking things…ok, maybe ants. Anyway, I led the Tralge, and we hit ’em hard. That’s when we found out lasers bounce off their shells, unless it’s a crew-served laser.

  “We don’t need to go firing those things in the bay, so we had to figure something out. Then they fired their lasers at us, and they learned their lasers bounce right off the personal shields the Tralge use in close combat. In the end it was all hand to hand…or leg or whatever.

  “Actual being on being?” Harmon asked. “If it was, don’t tell Captain Rogers; he’ll be disappointed they weren’t involved.”

  “It was,” Mike confirmed. “The Tralge had their horns, stabbing and slashing, and I pulled out my hatchets. It’s been a while, but I can still whip them around a bit.”

  “What was Bradford doing?” Harmon asked.

  “He was smashing them onto the deck with Stomper,” Mike informed him. “And he’s cleaning it up, too.”

  “Nasty,” Harmon said, picturing the mess.

  “Yeah, right?” Mike said. “Anyway, how did we do? You’re calling me, so I take it we kicked ass?”

  “Do Squilla have asses?” Bradford chimed in on the call. “Nobody ever tells me anything. Hey, Tim! Get a bucket and some mops.”

  Harmon was still processing what he had just heard when Clip called him. “Harmon.”

  “What’s up buddy?” Harmon asked. “You good down there? How’s Jayneen?”

  “That’s why I’m calling you,” Clip said. He sounded concerned.

  Harmon stood, prepared to sprint to the Defensive Bridge, fearing the worst. “What is it?”

  “Jayneen says she’s detected something on that dreadnought, and it’s not good,” Clip explained. “I’ll let her tell you.”

  “Harmon,” Jayneen said, “I’ve detected nuclear activity on the dreadnought. I’ve pinned down the location using the ship’s sensors and some programming modifications I just completed.”

  “All ships have fusion plants, Jayneen,” Harmon said, confused. What’s she saying? he asked himself.

  “No, Harmon,” Jayneen explained, making herself slow down. “I’m not talking about fusion used in power plants; that type of technology is relatively safe after centuries of refinement and innovative discoveries. I’m talking about a nuclear weapon.”

  “What!” Harmon shouted. “Where?”

  “I think it’s in the bay of the dreadnought,” she replied. Harmon was at a dead sprint to the lift to take him to the flight deck. He called from the lift comm on the way down and told them to prepare to open it.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Harmon suited up faster than he ever had before and started Hauler up. He ordered the doors opened, and he eased Hauler out of Salvage Title. When he did, he got a good look at her. She was banged up pretty well, as were several of the ships around her.

  “Cameron?” Harmon called. “Can you hear me?”

  “Sure,” Cameron said.

  Harmon put it on the main screen. “Good. I need a ride.”

  “Huh?” Cameron was confused. “A ride?”

  “Yes,” Harmon explained. “I need to lock Hauler to your ship and have you take me to the dreadnought. It would take me too long to get there, since it’s drifting. This thing is slow.”

  “Oh, ok,” Cameron said, grinning. “We’re on our way to you.”

  “Dustin,” Harmon called next. “Can you hear me?”

  “Aye, Harmon,” Captain Rogers said. “You’re coming in clear, lad.”

  “I have a mission for you,” Harmon said. “I need to get into the bay of that dreadnought, and they couldn’t open the bay for me even if they agreed to. The ship is powerless.”

  “If it’s a door you’ll be needing, you’ve come to the right place,” answered the Rincah warrior.

  Captain Rogers gave the orders to his crew, and the Rincah ship turned, accelerated to ramming speed, and Basher earned its name. By the time Harmon detached from the hull of Sweet Pea, the Rincah ship was backing away from a huge hole in the dreadnought’s bay doors.

  Inside the bay, Harmon could see suited Rincah warriors fighting against several Squilla Marines, or their version of Marines. It didn’t last long, and they were taken prisoner. Harmon eased Hauler through the hole into the bay itself, landed, and locked the struts in place.

  He exited the ship and walked, using his magnetic boots, over to the Rincah warriors holding the four Squilla at gunpoint. When he got there, he could see one of them had several ribbons on its suit. It had to be a leader.

  “What’s your name?” he asked through the external speaker.

  “I am D’Varote. I command,” the speaker on the outside of the Squilla’s suit said.

  “Not anymore,” Harmon said. “I’m only going to ask this once. If you don’t answer, I’ll have your suit torn off of you.”

  “Ask,” the Squilla said, standing straighter.

  “Where’s the nuclear device?” Harmon asked, stepping closer.

  D’Varote stepped back. “How did you know? Who are you?”

  “I’m Harmon Tomeral,” Harmon said. “Now answer me.”

  Realizing he was facing his worst nightmare, the Squilla commander deflated and spoke quietly. “It is behind that panel. There is nothing you can do. It cannot be opened, and it will go off in less than an hour. Even if you got to it, any attempt to open it will set it off. We are all going to die.”

  “Chinto squat!” Harmon exclaimed. “I’m not going out like that.”

  Harmon sprinted for Hauler, ran up the ramp, and closed its bay. Several minutes later the ramp dropped again, and Harmon walked out in his mech. He walked over to the panel that D’Varote had indicated.

  “Cameron,” Harmon called over the mech’s comms, “get ready to give me another ride in a few minutes.”

  Harmon engaged the cutting torch mounted on the arm of his mech and started burning through the panel. Its lock may have been permanently sealed, but he didn’t need it to get to the compartment behind it. In a few minutes he had made a hole big enough to wedge the mech’s claws into and peel back the panel.

  Inside sat a device about four feet square. There was a timer counting down, but Harmon couldn’t read the number system on it. He called Jayneen.

  “Jayneen,” Harmon said. “Look at what I’m seeing and tell me what it says.”

  “It’s counting down,” the AI said immediately. “There are exactly twenty minutes left. Now that you’ve opened the panel, I can get more readings. It’s very large. If it goes off, it’ll destroy everything in that ship. It’ll vaporize it. Harmon, you shouldn’t be there.”

  “I know,” Harmon said. “We studied it at the Academy. Nuclear war nearly destroyed several civilizations. There’s a reason it’s a gate-closing offense, which is why I don’t understand why this idiot initiated the countdown. The Bith will isolate the entire Squilla system.”

  “I do not have the answer for you,” Jayneen admitted. “Do you have a hunch?”

  “Oh, Frost!” Harmon exclaimed, realizing the intention of the Squilla. “If it goes off and destroys the biggest warship any system has ever faced, the Bith will believe we did it to the Squilla.”

  “Harmon, you have to do something, man,” Clip exclaimed. “Get out of there!”

  “No,” Harmon said, resigned. “I can’t let it destroy anything. I’ll load it on Hauler, catch a ride with Cameron, and let it go off in deep space, away from everything. What can go wrong?”

  “Dude!” Clip exclaimed.

  “Creator, preserve us!” Jayneen said.

  Harmon picked up the device in the mech’s claws and carried it over to Hauler. He loaded it inside, shut the ramp, and dismounted the mech once t
he atmosphere stabilized. He then ran to the operations control room and fired up the ship. Once he eased out of the bay, he settled it onto Sweet Pea again.

  “Where to?” Cameron asked him.

  “Out,” Harmon said. “Out into empty space, fast.”

  “Ok,” Cameron said. “You heard him, Ralph. Hit it.”

  Harmon felt G-forces like he never had before. Not in the Zax fighter; not anywhere. His vision tunneled, and he was on the verge of blacking out for several minutes. He kept his leg and arm muscles flexed the best he could, trying to keep the blood flow to his brain as much as possible. Just when he felt he couldn’t hold on, it eased suddenly, and his vision came back, though he saw stars, and not the ones of deep space.

  “Squat,” he said, “I’m never doing that again. Cameron, when I detach, you head back in-system.”

  “We can wait for you,” Cameron said, curious. “What are you going to do?”

  “Captain Cameron,” Harmon said sternly. “Fly Sweet Pea back in-system now. That’s an order.”

  “Yes…sir,” the young Lormell said reluctantly. Harmon watched as the ship quickly shot away.

  Harmon set the controls in Hauler on auto, checked the shields, and raced to the bay. He quickly climbed into his mech, fired it up, and walked over to the bay controls. He hit the button with a claw, and when it opened, he hit the control button again. As the door was halfway closed, he pushed the device out, and a second later his world rocked. Hauler was thrown violently away from the blast. Harmon, inside his mech, was bounced around the bay like a pebble in a bucket. Warning lights went off in the mech, and everything went black.

  Sometime later, Harmon came to. He hurt all over. The cut on his forehead had reopened, and one eye was matted shut. He checked the operating panel with his good eye. There was damage to one arm and the thruster on the mech’s left boot. He turned on the outside lights on the mech, and only two of them worked. He raised the mech’s arms. One claw was missing completely.

  The inside of the bay was a mess. The fuel tank for the Zax had ruptured, and fuel floated everywhere. Hank and Stan’s tool rack had been crushed, and tools floated all around. Harmon saw the missing claw embedded into the bay door. Harmon tried to call Clip on his comms. There was no answer.

  Harmon pushed off from the wall, and the mech shot across the bay to the bay door. He lowered his legs and engaged the magnetic strips on his boots. He was surprised that one of them actually worked. He stopped beside the door and reached down with the arm that was still intact, and he pulled the claw out of the bay door. There was a hole; the door had been breached.

  Harmon wedged the claw back in and began working it back and forth, enlarging the hole. Once it was big enough, he grabbed the large pry bar from the brothers’ tools as it flew past and kept at it. Using various tools, Harmon was finally able to rip a section of the door away with his working claw. He wished he could have used the cutting laser on his arm, or the brothers’ cutters floating around, but he couldn’t risk setting off the fuel floating everywhere.

  Pushing more and more of the door away, Harmon was able to squeeze the mech out. He fired the one working thruster and moved to the top of Hauler, where he locked the boot down. He tried his comms again. No one answered. Harmon had no idea if the electromagnetic pulse had fried it, or if being thrown around had damaged it.

  He knew that a nuclear explosion in the vacuum of space made the device almost useless, but if it had gone off inside the dreadnought, it would have caused massive damage using the atmosphere inside the huge ship to build a shock wave.

  If he had pushed it out a few more seconds earlier, he could be headed back to the system piloting Hauler now. Instead, he was standing on top of the damaged hauler, in a damaged mech, wondering what to do next. He wondered how bad it would have been if he had not had Zerith install the shield generators from the defensive platform back in the Grithelaon system on Hauler. That had been a hunch that paid off.

  Just then, a shadow crossed over him. He adjusted the cameras on the mech to compensate for the low light, then panned the cameras up and saw the frigate Skrittle not fifty feet away, matching Hauler’s drift. It was upside down, and he looked into the clear-steel portals of the bridge. Hank and Stan were waving at him with grins that showed every tooth in their mouths. Harmon shook his head and laughed out loud.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Harmon lay back with his hands behind his head and watched Hank and Stan attempt to race the edge of the waves to shore. Cameron and Ralph were right there with them, and all of them had dark goggles on in the bright light. Cameron and Ralph kept cheating by flapping their arms; their wings had them gliding over the waves. Hank threatened to hit them with a ball of sand if they kept doing it.

  It had been a week since the battle had ended. Harmon had extended the invitation to the Mikes, but they had opted to stay on Cube and gather salvage. Mike said they needed it to replenish missiles and build parts to repair ships. They hadn’t become rich by not taking advantage of opportunities. Cameron had already inquired into repairing the damage to Sweet Pea. Bradford said there was no way he was ever working on a ship named that, no matter what it paid.

  They would be down in a few days, since the system was going to give out medals and honorary citizenship status to all involved. For the Kashkal, this was something never offered before, and Rick was considering it, as opposed to continuing the search for somewhere that did not exist.

  Seated under a tent, Mayla, Kyla, Vera, JoJo, Evelyn, Sara, and Aleethra were talking about…whatever women talked about. Twiggy said they were probably complaining about men. Gunny agreed, though he kept eyeing Mayla Opawn. Marteen was just glad to be back on a beach. Zerith had talked Big Jon into climbing a tree to get him some beach fruit to snack on.

  “Now, tell me again why you don’t want to go with us to wipe out the shipyards in Squilla and Krift?” Harmon asked Clip.

  “I’m working on a theory,” Clip said. “It’s complicated. That’s why I need Jayneen to go with me. She said she would.”

  “What are you taking?” Harmon asked. “Salvage Title is needed for the mission, and Hauler is months away from being usable. That thing is parked in the bay of Cube right now.”

  “We have other ships,” Clip said, shrugging. “I’ll take one of them.”

  “Well, the atmosphere miner is in the best shape, and it’s similar to Hauler,” Harmon said. “Take it, but take Brickle with you…and Clyde. We can all leave the system around the same time next week.”

  “Cool,” Clip exclaimed.

  “You know, I finished the videos last night,” Harmon said, changing the subject. “That’s the worst part about being a commander. The videos to the families for the ones who didn’t make it.”

  “Aye, lad, but it goes with the territory,” Captain Rogers agreed. “I’ve sent many myself.”

  To get off that subject, Harmon changed the topic. “I guess we take the prisoners with us when we go to the systems to destroy the shipyards. President Benter mentioned it.”

  “It makes ssense,” Zerith said. “Though I sstill think they sshould get what they desserve. Of course, footing the bill for their incarcceration makes no ssensse either. Good riddencce to them.”

  “Captain Tomeral?” a voice said. “Could I speak with you, sir?”

  Harmon recognized the voice, and he saw Big Jon leap to his feet. The staff sergeant recognized the person who spoke. Harmon stood and turned.

  “I’m listening,” Harmon said to the large man in front of him. The man had a shimmering tattoo of lightening covering one side of his face.

  “I…I read you were visiting the beach here, and I just wanted to ask your advice,” the gang leader stammered.

  “Go ahead,” Harmon said, now more curious than wary.

  “Well, for the last few months, me and my guys and their families have been straight,” he said. “We haven’t broke no laws. We only drink a few and don’t do
no more drugs. That sucked for a while. Anyway, now that we can get out of the city and look around and see what Tretra is really like, we thought we would like to do our part to help protect it or something. Maybe make some honest credit and see other places, you know? I even have a translator, see?” The man pointed to his ear.

  “Actually, I know what it’s like to want to see other places,” Harmon said. “Go on.”

  “Well, we went down to the recruiter’s office for the Fleet,” he continued, “to be a Marine or something, and they laughed at us and said we could never join because of regulations or something about tattoos. I was wondering if you could talk to somebody.”

  “Really?” Harmon asked. Harmon looked over at Marteen and his green hair and winked. “Well, the fleet can be a stickler for haircuts and tattoos that are visible.”

  Gunny looked at Big Jon and smiled. They both looked at Harmon. Harmon thought for a moment and said, “I’ll tell you what. You have three weeks to get yourself ready, then these two will put you through a four-week boot camp. You and your guys. If you make it through that, I’ll hire all of you as security personnel. You interested?”

  “I am,” said the man without hesitation. “But I need to ask my guys. I don’t make decisions for them anymore. That’s not right. Unless I’m like, officially in charge of them or something. They have to make their own decisions.”

  “Good answer, boot,” Gunny said in a voice Harmon had never heard him use. “Meet me on the tarmac at the military museum three weeks from today at 0600. Am I clear?”

  The man hesitated slightly, and Big Jon jumped in. “Gunny asked you if he was clear, boot! Answer him with “Sir, yes sir,” or by the Creator, I will put my boot so far up your ass, you will taste leather! Do you hear me?”

  “Sir, yes sir!” came the immediate reply.

  “Move out!” Big Jon said, and the man ran off. It wasn’t even in the direction he had come from.

  “Man, I’m so glad I outrank you two,” Clip said.