Mike snapped his wrist and back-fisted the traitor in the face sending him flying back the way he came. Darden landed in loud thud his nose clearly broken and it was obvious that he was knocked unconscious.
“It seems your young friend doesn't like my methods?” Bie-Tor remarked unmoved by the beating of her human servant.
“He doesn’t like those that betray their own,” Alexander said nodding towards Darden.
“And what about what you are doing?” she asked curious of how he perceived himself.
Collins looked away from the traitor’s motionless form and back to the old station mistress.
“We are pirates,” he stated and then added “we were pirates before this war and we will be pirates even after this war.”
“In other words, we have betrayed no one as we are not on any side but are own,” Peter explained.
“Well spoken,” she commented thinking of her own House’s attitude towards the war. “Perhaps your young friend and you would like a tour of this facility?”
“Sure but after we set a price for that fancy white sword,” Alexander announced.
“What do you want beside the repair of the Vanguard?” she inquired not meeting his gaze as she continued to stroke her pet’s head.
“A destroyer,” he quickly answered.
Bie-Tor stopped stroking her pet’s hair and placed her hand on top of the Dog’s head. “You must be mad or are you suffering from some form of head trauma to think I’d give you a Karduan destroyer.”
Alexander laughed, “That sword is worth at least that much but instead of a Karduan destroyer how about one of those two Confederation light cruisers that I saw parked off your station?”
“Perhaps, I will have to think about that,” she said “follow me and I will give you an inspection of my station. I have done much to be proud of and have so few visitors to show it to.”
Mike and Peter stepped after her leaving behind the commander who now answered to the name of Dog and the unconscious traitor.
Bie-Tor took them through the hallway to the lift which then took them down several levels. When the doors opened they found themselves looking out onto a floor of busy prisoners.
“This is where we salvage parts from ships and broken ship sections that have had too much damage to be repaired. The sections are brought in from our salvage yard, stripped and then tested before they are used,” she explained casually walking out onto the floor.
Mike and the pirate followed after her, observing that the workers were all human and most of them were in the soiled uniforms of Confederation servicemen. Many of them kept their heads down and didn’t even bother to look up as they passed by. Fully armored and armed Karduan guards stood nearby as supervisors walked up and down the aisle inspecting the prisoners’ work.
As they walked down an aisle a dark haired man no more than nineteen wearing a torn and dirty naval uniform looked up. Mike could see it in his eyes. The young man was broken but more than that he was at the point where he had nothing left to lose.
A second after this revelation the young specialist grabbed a tool from the table he had working at and charged their group. Mike grabbed his extension sword from his belt unsure what he was going to do if the man reached them.
His dilemma was short lived as the young dark haired man’s shock collar activated and he collapsed to the floor in a heap. There he laid his body quivering as his collar continued to shock him even after he was rendered unconscious.
Bie-Tor causally stepped around him as the human workers continued to do their jobs. Again most of them barely looked up.
“Quite an efficient set up you have here,” Mike commented.
“Such outbursts do happen but they are quickly handled and some are even made into special examples for the others,” she remarked as they reached the other side of the floor.
Taking a lift located on the other side of the floor, they went up a level and found a slightly different setup. On this floor they looked out to see an area full of star fighters. There were all types present from SF-86 Sabres to SF-18 Hornets. Most of the fighters were in various forms of assembly. Some were just frames while other were all but completely finished. Again fully guarded and supervised humans and some Blue males were busy working on their repair.
“Unlike some of the other Houses, I see great use in these small attack ships,” the station mistress commented as they walked across the floor.
“Then you must have also embraced missile and torpedo technology?” Alexander asked having never been taken on a tour like this before. Most levels when he had come to the station had been forbidden to him and his men.
“But of course, the next level up is a production line making just such devices,” she answered her voice sounding almost musical to the ear as she spoke.
Mike saw the frames for SF-37 Firestone strike fighters that would carry anti-ship missiles, SB-41 Typhoon heavy star bombers and even a SF-44 Tempest strike fighter. One class of star fighters was clearly not represented on the repair floor and that was the old LN-28 Wasp. He kept this information to himself, glad in the knowledge that they hadn’t discovered the use of the little fighter and their Trans-Poly Aluminum frames.
“So, no new fighter production?” he asked to keep her talking.
“No not here, but the House of Tor is working on such ships,” she commented as they enter the lift and went up two levels. “I find your fighter ideas with their retractable atmosphere wings very limiting.”
“What would you propose instead?” Alexander inquired curious about her ideas.
“Instead of cylindrical, I would propose spherical fighters using gyros and omni-directional thrusters,” she replied having thought out several new designs.
“Where would the pilot be?” Mike asked probing for more information.
She laughed, “No pilot would be needed as computers are much better equipped to fly such a craft.”
Mike was a bit surprised as the Confederation stopped using drones after the Karduans had hijacked them at one of the earliest battles of the war. Since then most fully automated drone fighters had been either mothballed or retrofitted for a human pilot like the SF-18 Hornets.
The lift stopped and the doors opened. Following the station mistress out of the elevator they saw a floor divided into two sections. The left side had damaged ship hull plating. Prisoners were busy moving sections, cutting out battle damage and preparing sections for use. On the right side of the room there seemed to be more machinery for the production of new hull plating.
“This is very impressive,” Alexander remarked and added “I didn’t know you could actually make plating here. I always thought that you just used salvage hull sections to make repairs.”
“Salvage is easier but as you might have noticed we have been working on a special project -- an attack cruiser. Such a ship has special hull plating that has both sensor dampening and even light bending properties.”
“You managed to recreate stealth plating?” Collins questioned trying to keep his question sounding casual.
“Beside having once been an accomplished Fleet Mistress, I’m also a very competent scientist and engineer. That is one of the reasons why my House gave me such a posting as this, to analyze new technologies here at the front lines and acquire them for our use.”
Mike wanted to ask her why they needed such technology as the House of Tor was not fighting in this war. According to Cmdr. Bannon, Tor and three other Houses were sitting out the war as they had been the losers of the Karduan Civil War. All four Houses were either unable to fight or unwilling to help those who had beaten them. Instead of asking this, Collins stayed on the topic that was more relevant to his needs and his current mission.
“Can you make stealth plating?” he asked being a bit more direct.
“Yes but only in a limited fashion,” Bie-Tor replied, “that’s why it is taking so long to repair that attack cruiser. Though it will be soon, as its repairs are very close to being com
pleted.”
“Now that is very impressive,” Alexander said as he thought of what mischief he could do with a ship capable of stealth operations.
“Come, I’d like to show you my private workshop and get your opinions on some of my other projects,” she said hurrying to the far lift.
“What’s on the upper levels?” Mike questioned having noted that the floors they had visited were all below the central level where they had started.
“My station is actually two repair stations and the upper levels have similar facilities,” the station mistress answered.
Mike already knew that the station was two smaller repair bases that had been married together. What was new was her confirmation of its capabilities.
The lift stopped on the central level and they walked across the large common area quad. The floor was empty and almost seemed serene except for the pillories by the far doorway and the whipped feet of the two human navy men trapped there.
Walking past the pillories without even slowing down they followed her through the doorway into the corridor where her office and gardens were. Instead of turning right they made a left as she led them to the far end of the hallway. There she activated the door with a wave of her hand. Entering behind her they could see a long rectangular room with numerous work benches with tools and various projects strewn about the room.
One table had various types of Confederation weapons broken down into nothing more than parts. At another station there were dozens of suits of combat armor that someone was clearly using for target practice to test their reliability and vulnerabilities. One corner of the room consisted of four tables that looked like a full blown chemistry lab. Along the side wall was a regeneration tank completely filled with green looking liquid. An auto surgical center was on the far side. On one table was a Mark IV hardwire unit laid out for analysis.
Mike paused to look at the same hardwire that he possessed as he tried to take it all in. If he had to guess he would have said that the hardwire unit was taken from someone as it had damaged over its entire length. He was also sure that its former owner would not have survived its removal.
“Come I want you to see this,” Bie-Tor called from the other side of the room.
Collins nodded and hurried to catch up with her and the pirate captain.
Passing more tables, he saw one that had sets of Templar armor and extension swords. He was fairly sure that his poly-carbon blade had once been with those other examples.
On the other side of the regeneration tank he was surprised to find a suit of fully powered battle armor that was hanging from the ceiling by two heavy chains. It had been out of sight from the doorway having been blocked from view by the regeneration tank. He saw that it was an older bulkier suit, recognizing it as a D-4 model. It had clear signs of battle damage with a cracked torso plate, and pockmarked divots covering its surface. It was also missing its main armament which had probably been a man-portable fusion rifle.
Mike had trained in a similar suit when he was still a midshipman at Harpers Military Academy. A soldier wearing such armor was like having a mini tank on the battlefield. It had short range flight capabilities, enhanced powered strength and heavy armor. It was all but impervious to small arms and could easily pick up a small grav car and toss it for fun.
He wondered if the chemical fluids that made up the part of the suit’s armored defenses had leaked out when it was cracked? Some powered suits had a liquid body armor system that once an electromagnetic field was generated would change the liquid to a solid in less than a millisecond.
Powered armor suits came with various weapons packages tailored for different missions including rocket launchers, flame throwers, heavy gauss cannons or even fusion or plasma rifles. Though this was an older model there were more advanced units which were capable of starborne planet fall operations. Fully sealed a soldier could survive almost any hostile environment for at least a week without leaving the suit or being resupplied.
Next to it was hanging an even greater surprise. At first It looked like another set of powered armor but it wasn’t. Glancing at it as he passed he could see that it was battle robot. Though the battle bot looked in even worse shape than the armor having severe battle damage to its arms, legs and head unit. The torso was cracked open and it looked as if some kind of energy weapon had hit it or it could have had an anti-tampering device that fried the insides of the robot.
What made this such a surprise was that warbots had been outlawed ever since the Apocalypse War where they were first developed for combat. The Confederation Senate made it illegal for anyone including colonies, member worlds or even nations to create such robots or droids. Of course there had been illegal sources and underground fighting leagues but prior to the Karduan War punishments were very severe. He had heard that there was talk on the Senate floor to allow war droids in combat but he hadn’t heard if they had lifted the sanctions.
Trying to give the suit of powered armor and the fried robot little notice he hurried by them catching up with his party. They were waiting by two science stations complete with computer monitors and scanning devices. On a table off to the left was a section of hull armor that had been taken apart and analyzed. There was also a stack of damaged hull plating piled nearby. This was probably where the station mistress had discovered how to reproduce the Star Tiger’s stealth armor.
On the table workstation to the right was a different project. There sat a glowing bluish silver sphere which was suspended in an anti-gravity field. It floated there, emitting blue and silver light as the science station’s computers continued to try and analyze its functions. It kind of reminded Mike of a small basketball in size but that’s not what made him worried as he recognized what the glowing ball really was.
“Have you ever seen such a thing?” Bie-Tor questioned as she stared at the glowing blue ball in awe.
“No,” Mike lied and then asked “What is it?”
“It is my most important prisoner,” she commented absently while not taking her eyes from the globe.
“A prisoner?” Alexander questioned not exactly following along with the conversation or understanding what the sphere really was.
“Why yes, don’t you know what we have here?” she remarked looking away from the sphere and at their questioning faces.
“No, what is it?” Mike asked playing along with his part of this game.
Her pale alien eyes blinked once hard before she answered.
“It is the central core of an attack cruiser’s computer system,” she revealed.
“It is a computer?” Alexander said not seeing the big deal that she was making.
“No, it is a computer’s brain!” she announced still staring down in wonder at the sphere.
“It's the Star Tiger’s A.I. core,” Mike finally said tired of their banter.
“I thought those things burned themselves out if the ship was captured?” Peter Alexander said having heard that it was a safety protocol for all warships equipped with a central computer that had an artificial intelligence system.
“Not this one,” she replied and added “Unfortunately, it did shut itself down and I have been unable to reactivate it.”
“Doesn’t the crew of the Star Tiger know how to do that?” Peter pointed out. He thought this would be something easy to discover for a telepath.
“It seems that the captain and his first officer were the only ones with that knowledge. One is dead and the other is the thing we call Dog,” she said glumly.
Mike looked about the large room and noticed two things that seemed odd.
“Where is your staff that helps you with reverse engineering all of this Confederation tech?” he questioned realizing that it seemed like there was a lot of half completed projects lying about the room.
She shook her bald head.
“I have no assistants as I do all of the scientific work and research myself,” Bie-Tor answered with pride at her sole accomplishments.
“Why? That
would take a lot of extra time as well as slowing down any breakthroughs?” Mike remarked shaking his head in wonder.
“That way you don’t have to share in the rewards,” Alexander stated understanding her thought process as it was very much like his own.
“Precisely!” she exclaimed. “I was once a fleet mistress and now I’m reduced to being here. Yet, I serve my House loyally and with the technology I’ve accumulated not only can I help my House advance but I can also once more help myself back to the greatness I once had.”
Collins moved away from the mystery of the A.I. computer core and walked towards the back wall. As he moved he passed a table full of cybernetic implants. He wondered how many servicemen were once attached to these implants. He also thought how many of their squadron’s crewmen including Commander Hutton who could use them right now.
Passing the morbid table, he stopped at the back wall and saw that there was a hidden door. It was only noticeable when you were up close as you could just make out its edge.
“Where does this lead?” he asked turning back to look at the station mistress.
The Blue shook her head at him.
“No, some things we shall save until later,” she stated turning towards the door that they had entered through and moved to leave her private lab.
Mike followed her and the pirate captain back to the door that they had entered by. As he passed the table with the Templar equipment he saw a partial disassembled extension sword with its blade extended. Next to it was a gold Templar’s signet ring. He knew that there were several types of Templar rings depending on a knight’s rank and station. The two most common were of a red cross on a white field and that of two knights riding a single horse. This one was of a shield with the red cross and white field. Picking it up he examined it for moment, looking for an indication of the who the knight was. Looking inside of the gold band he saw that it was engraved.
“Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam!”
Collins shook his head recognizing the common Templar motto from his earlier research of the secretive military order. It said – “Not unto us, o Lord, not unto us, but unto your name grant glory!”
Wolf's Run: The Chase of War (Star Wolf Sqaudron Book 2) Page 45