Tramp Wars: The Enemy

by Larry Roberts

  A throaty growl sounded across the office as Blackbeard pounded his desk. Jumping up and pacing around the tower he thought of calling up his secretary play toy but decided that beating a beautiful chick that would be missed was not a good idea here on the enemies home world. Pacing back and forth a few more times he finally calmed down as he watched another train leave for the new port. Smiling and counting the millions that single train was making him he sat back down and grabbed up the sheets of lists on the corner of the desk.

  Blackbeard glanced down the list of work requests from the ships in the planet's main spaceport. More out of habit as work requests with purchase orders of a ship along with the freight the port had listed to ship and what and when that freight was dropped from the list could tell a lot about what a ship was possibly hauling and where it was going. On any planet whether it was in toward the Core or out toward the Outback, it was essential to deciding which ones to take a closer look at and possibly plant beacons on after scanning them. The one thing he need never personally do again since he had banned taking any ship originating from England Prime itself. But habits where hard to break and checking the lists was relaxing and even fun for him guessing what valuables they were carrying. Puzzling out what a ship carried and where it was going and then comparing his predictions with what was published after the ship had long sailed. Smiling at himself for how accurate he usually was.

  Blackbeard’s eyes stopped on a tramp ship request for disposing of roughly a couple thousand tons of refuse from a cargo deck. Engine room scrap and a thousand square feet of 6 inch foam deck plate sections. A second report attached to the first said that this ship had also ordered enough supplies for what looked like well over 6 thousand people. A third report said the ship had engine upgrade kits delivered the day before. The ship also had enough repair parts for half a dozen ships delivered over the last week. It could only mean they were headed for the outback instead of turning around to head back into the Empire. Noting with satisfaction that the weapons listed for the Trampship was rather anemic but could pass England’s requirements, he decided to mark the ship for special consideration to track for eventually adding to his fleet in the outback since they were going to all the trouble off upgrading and overhauling everything for him. Saving him the cost and time. Then the name of the ship leapt out at him hitting him square in his gut.

  Twenty-one years before; Captain Andego Smith (now known as Blackbeard) starting his career as a pirate far from the Outback inside the Empire Core systems with little luck or skill, had taken a well maintained tramp transport with only a shot over the bow after shadowing it for a light year as it left a system. They found a huge pot of credits thanks to a traitor aboard the unarmed Tramp Ship that first told him about the hug pot of credits and then helped the pirate take the Ship’s Captain’s family hostages, forcing the Captain to lead them to the pot.

  What Blackbeard had not known was that with the pirates rounding up the Trampship crew and families, (picking out the ones that would sell well on the slaves auction block while the Gronks did their usual thing eating the worthless kids for snacks) and the Trampship’s Captain a hostage, the ship’s young Security officer was given command. She had proceeded to organize and arm the crew one step ahead of the pirates making their way through the big ship. Then in a matter of minutes to Blackbeard’s surprise, the suddenly armed Tramp crewmen managed to turn the tide on the Pirates, killing 90% of Blackbeard’s crew including his wife and children leaving him scared and half dead in his badly damaged ship. He barely escaped, but with most of the ship’s Pot worth hundreds of millions of credits still in his possession.

  He had taken the name Blackbeard to hide his true identity and to remind himself while hiding the ugly scar on his cheek he had gotten from one of the three Hostages he had used as a human shield to get off that damn ship and to always remind him that he still had a score to settle with that ship, Star Queen 52. The fact that he had gotten a couple hundred million credits from the tramp ship that he turned into this empire did not matter. After 21 years, that ship and all 6,000 piss-ants on it, were finally going to be his to wring his revenge for killing his family. The fact that he had planned on killing the remaining Tramp’s crew after taking slaves by using the Star Queen for his kids to target practice with was beside the point.

  Slapping the screen covering his desk Blackbeard pulled up the photo of the ship in question and could not believe his eyes. The rusting hulk before his eyes could not possibly be the ship that had killed his family. Slapping his desk again he started bellowing. “Get me my aircar out front this instant, I am heading for Central Galactic Port.” Stomping around in front of his desk and onto one of the discs on the floor he disappeared down and was standing in front of the building screaming because his car was not there yet. He was going to see for himself if that was the same ship or not. He would see it destroyed if it was the last thing he ever saw.

  .

  Chapter 6 Rejection

  Mark sat on the fan busses skirt, his feet propped up on the fuel station barricade, leaning back against the side of the bus. He watched one of the ship's cargo fantruck’s fly out the main entry hatch to his right and not disappear. A ghost of the fantruck flew around the ship's side and headed for the space port’s loading docks. The farther away it got the fainter the fantruck looked but amazingly he could still see it. “Shit!” He said to himself. As the plasma trickled into the busses storage bottle, he could hear a pair of voices talking in the distance but not quit make out the words as their voices echoed around the half empty truck deck. With nothing else to do but wait, he found himself trying to make out what they were saying. Not that it mattered. But slowly, he started understanding what they were saying and he realized that they were a maintenance crew working on old #9 fantruck arguing about fixing the front starboard fan one more time. They were not even in line of sight and were at least a hundred yards away on the other side of the ship’s outer hull with the hundred foot diameter inside cylindrical core hull housing the engine rooms between them.

  But as he concentrated with nothing better to do for the moment, he could definitely hear them now as if they were standing next to him. “Ok, know that is interesting.” he said to himself as he glanced in the direction he knew old number 9 was parked and saw a fuzzy outline of the two figures working imposed over the core hull’s solid plates. “Shit all mighty.” As his mouth dropped open. Turning to get a better look he sat down on the barricade around the fueling station, propping his feet up against the fan skirt.

  “This is a waste of time and you know it Pete.” One of the technicians stood up shaking his head as a tool clattered to the deck and the image sharpened. “That welded crack is not going to hold for more than a few flight hours. Why don’t we just replace it with a new fan?” With the clank of another tool the image sharpened again.

  Rolling out from under the fan the image sharpened again as his mechanics dolly squeaked. The man looked up at his partner and tossed a tool into his tool box with a clatter and Mark could suddenly recognize the two mechanics faces. The older one had spent years teaching him how to repair fantrucks as he was now doing to this kid. “You know as well as I do that we don’t have any new fan blades for this thing. The poor girl is a couple, well, three hundred years old at least. The last remaining fantruck that came with the ship. They just don’t make parts for the old girl anymore. Hell the flight computer is a mash of old and simi-new chips.” he said as he cleaned a tool with a rag and dropped it into the tool box with a thud. "It was supposed to be replaced 20 years ago but something happened and it is still here." The older man grabbed a meter out of his tool box and placed it on the skirt next to the fan and then gave the blade a spin by hand and watched the meter as a laser light spot started flashing onto one of the blades.

  “I did not say blade; replace the whole dam fan with a new one like you guys did the two rear fans years ago.” Mark realized that the young man was from the class of students some 4 years
younger than him and was working as a truck mechanic's apprentice learning the trade. Smiling, he finely remembered the young man's name and that his main occupation was electronics tech. Mark also remembered helping replace that rear rotating thrust fan the young mechanic was talking about.

  Stopping the fan the old mechanic rotated the fan blade bay blade until the laser light popped back onto a point on the tip of a blade. Tapping a button on the side of the little machine’s case a small clip popped out and he carefully placed it over the tip of the blade at the laser dot. Tapping it with a little hammer before dropping the hammer back into the tool box with a clank. Then he gave the fan another turn slapping it up to speed with his hand as he watched the meter. “Well now; the problem with that young man is that you cannot buy new heavy duty 4.1 foot diameter fans anymore without spending a fortune, all the trucks for the last 80 or a 100 years have used 5 foot fans to go with the 10 foot wide truck boxes and beds that are the standard now. The smallest market fans are exactly 4 feet and are not rated for trucks. At least in this part of the Galaxy.” Standing up he smiled as he grabbed the tester off the side of the skirt, Pete the old mechanic stretched before he carefully laid the tester back into his tool box and closed the drawer with a thunk, groaned as he stretched again and then continued. “We put a pair of 5 foot fans on the rear because the tail is designed with the fans on pylons that rotate down to the vertical for forward thrust allowing us to us the bigger more powerful fans and still clear everything. Even then it was a tight fit. There just is not room under the old girl for the bigger fans in the fixed rows under the bus. The blades would overlap. Oh by the way, you get to do the next blade all by yourself.” Pointing at the next set of blades in the row of fans.

  The ghost of Pete smiled and shook his head chuckling. “You should have seen the first flight with the new fans. The pilot was a showoff asshole to start with and slammed full power to the fans on the first flight and did a backward loop. The tail came up and over before the pilot could back off on the throttles. Luckily he had gained a bit of altitude and the sense to pull the throttles off completely as he went upside down. He rotated the rear fans to pushing as the ass came around to point down to keep from hitting the ground and then backed off when he got upright and level again. Talking about a wild ride. He was doing 50 MPH across the pit as he dropped the truck back down onto the tarmac to slide several hundred feet. Unable to rotate the rear fans back down for landing. He never did fly this pore old gal again even after we reprogrammed the flight computer to limit the lifting thrust of the rear fans.”

  Mark smiled as he remembered watching that very flight but realized that he should not be able to see them let alone hear them and shook his head in disbelief as he started talking to himself. “Ok, the round core hull is solid foam steel 3 feet thick on both sides in addition to the big main engines and tanks and all the other equipment in the drive rooms. Not to mention the partition between the engine rooms. There is no way I could be seeing that. What the hell is going on?”

  “Come on Pete. It is getting late and I have class tests in the morning.”

  “Hey you’re the one working off your demerits and this truck is needed in the morning. Get to work, the sooner you stop flapping your mouth the sooner you get done. Besides I did the hard one, that one shouldn’t take more than a half hour if you do it right the first time. Consider it a proficiency test. You can show the tab to your parents to prove you weren’t just screwing around for the last month when you get home. Tell you what, I will even sign off on an extra hour if you get an A on the test.”

  Mark smiled at that. Pete was good at teaching and had used the same technique on him. Using little incentives to not only make the long detention hours go faster but make you feel like you really did accomplish something besides simply working off demerits or just a stupid proficiency tab.

  “Sound waves.” Said a strange female voice. “By knowing the dimensions of the room and placement of equipment I can calculate the refraction of the sound waves bouncing off the walls to create an image.”

  Mark jerked his head around to look down both sides of the bus, over his head briefly and then leaned over trying to look under the fan casing. “You better come out of there before I start the fans to taxi or you will make good hamburger for dinner.” The gap under the casing was too narrow for anyone to crawl through but there was plenty of room inside under the blades. Remembering locking the fan skirt hatch on his post trip, Mark just could not quit figure out how she had gotten into the fan compartment to begin with and then her language hit him. “This is a compartment not a room and the walls are bulkheads. How did you sneak on board the ship?”

  “I am not under the fanbus Mark. And I did not sneak aboard. Thank you for clearing that up for me. I should have remembered to look up the proper Navel shipboard nomenclature.”

  Looking up over his shoulder he could see the ship's hull reaching the overhead deck and curving away to each side with no place for anyone to hide. He again rejected anyone being on the top of the bus some 10 feet away as a possibility as well as inside the bus as the windows in the fuselage were sound proofed and sealed shut. Besides the voice sounded like it was right in front of him, or above, or just someplace close like inside the fan compartment through the grill running down the side of the bus to allow plenty of air to reach the fans.

  What disturbed him most was the fact that she must have come aboard on his bus with one of the kids only to be abandoned by whoever did it. Trying to remember if there was a hatch inside the bus down through the deck. “Ok who the hell and where are you? You and whoever snuck you onto my bus is in big trouble." Mark realized that was probably not the right tact to take with a little girl. "Listen. Forget what I said. I promise you are not in trouble. I just need to take you home is all? What is your name?”

  “I am your Multitronic Investigative Construct Krystal Enhanced. And I am sitting on your nose.”

  “You’re what?” Mark tried to look cross eyed at the glasses on his nose but they were invisible to him. He could not see them or the rims. The way they curved around his eyes made it impossible to see any part of them since they had no frames to see. Mark reached up to take them off but trying to grab them again proved more difficult than he could believe. Digging at the side of his head he was finely able to gab the ear peace but it would not budge. Feeling something was terribly wrong he panicked; Mark grabbed at the other ear peace with his other hand and between the two, ripped them off.

  “NO MARK! PLEA…” fallowed by a loud ear splitting screech as sharp pains in his temples almost blinded him as he fell to the deck flinging the glasses away. Bending over he rubbed his temple for a few seconds as the pain quickly faded.

  “You want to tell me what the Hell just happened?” Looking down at his wet feeling fingers. The blurred image looked red. “Vampire glasses? What in Gods Star are you?” Wiping his fingers on his pants he rubbed his temples again but this time his fingers where dry and then looked around. “Hey! What are you anyway?” The fuzzy silent world surrounded Mark as he frowned. “Ok Hello! Talk to me will you….. HELLO?”

  With the plasma pump shutting itself off Mark tried shutting down the fuel systems but not being able to read the blob of the touch screen display he started looking around for the glasses. “Shit! How am I supposed to shut everything down and do the readings if I can’t even see the panel let alone read?”

  A bright flashing light finely got his attention coming from under the fan skirt several feet down the bus. Retrieving the glasses he tried to examine them. It looked like it was still in one peace but. “Why won’t you talk to me know? Did I break you? Tell me why you hurt me Ms. Magatronic Investigator Construct Kristal ahhh Enhanced is it. What does that mean anyway?” With no response after several seconds Mark frowned. “Tell you what. I need to put you on to do my job but if you hurt me again you are going straight into the incinerator and I will just wait for the good Doctor for my implants. Got that?” Starring at the f
uzzy blob of the glasses Mark hesitated for several seconds more before tentatively sliding them over his eyes again. He just hopped it still worked. Though he could do without the voice crap.

  It was like seeing for the first time again. Everything was so sharp and clear. Even being able to see in the shadows. Normally an impossible task with half the overhead lights out even with sunlight shining through the open hatch during the day and it was definitely dark outside when they landed in the pit next to the gang plank. Having the glasses off for s few minutes made him realize just how dark it was across the truck deck away from the light shining down around the plasma fueling station. He had not realized how late and dark it actually was with the glasses making it look like daylight. Even inside the cavernes shadow filled truck deck long after the sun had gone down.

  They had gotten back to the zoo in time for Jolleen and them to make a quick run through, seeing most of the bigger exhibits before it had closed down for the evening. Then on the way back from the Zoo (to Jolleen's and most of the kids delight and a certain teachers disgust and after getting proper permission from the Truck Chief), Mark stopped to buy all the kids a meal at a real Mickey Dee's hamburger joint that advertised the biggest play structures in the universe. The kids having a blast and taking a good 2 hours for them to finely wind down again after the short break sitting on the bus, then spending an extra hour in front of the falls so they and the kids could watch the light show the City put on for the tourists every evening. Most of the teachers along with the helpers and chaperons, oohing and aawing just as much as the children. Mrs. Hastings complaining and brooding the whole time. They had gotten back late but everyone seemed to have a good time with the parents that met the bus already well informed about the side trip. Mark could not help being proud as all the kids (even as tired as they were), could not wait to tell their parents all about their field trip the way only 3rd graders could tell it. Using more body language than he thought possible while at the top of their lungs. Competing to outdo each other in details as the group headed for the elevator. Mark was to tired himself to notice that none of the kids made jokes about him on the way back and could not believe when the little girl brought her parents over to meet him as she was going on about the trip, giving him a hug as they turned to leave. Mrs. Hastings hovering in the background ready to blow a gasket and started bending their ears as soon as they headed for the elevator. Mark hearing the little girls voice a few minutes later yelling, “No he didn’t you old witch.” Mark could only shake his head. He knew as vindictive as she was in school years before, Mrs. Hastings was going to make that little girl’s life hell in class from then on.