“Don’t count on it slime bucket. Ignoring a summons gets you time in my country club.” The Chief jerked him around toward the elevator again.
Mark spotted the Old Man standing off to one side. He had been watching from the sidelines as Mark organized things. “Pop, you want to make sure the guys don’t get side tracked? I swear Jolleen and Tom would argue over the color of your cat.” Mark was trying to slow the Master Sgt. down as he talked to Pop. Wanting to talk over a few problems he could suddenly see with Pop before he left.
“Ya sure Mark.” Pop chuckled. “You just get back here as soon as you can boy. I ain’t no baby sitter but I will make sure everything gets up there safely.”
“Sorry Pop but it’s going to be a long time before he gets back anywhere after making me turn out my security department reserves including the damn marines to look for him.” Dragging Mark back around toward the elevator. “Now get your butt moving. You have wasted enough of my time today.” Punching a key on his shoulder phone the Sgt. spoke into the air. “All units I have the subject Mark Collins in custody. All units will stand down and return to previous assignments. Out!” As he threw Mark into the elevator he turned around to punch the medical deck emergency icon on the elevator’s screen.
Mark leaned against the back corner of the elevator and let his back slide down until he was sitting on the deck and closed his eyes. “Oh that feels so good Chief.”
“You aren’t going to feel good once I get done with you." Glancing over his shoulder. "What the hell is your problem boy?”
“I don’t know Sgt. It’s just that I felt so good a couple hours ago after getting a few minutes sleep. But now that I can relax a few minutes, I feel like I have been run over by a truck. Oh and your daughter sure packs a wallop; knocked the breath right out of me and kept saying something about hearing a rumorI was dead. For Godstarsake. At least my new glasses stayed on during the fall. Maybe the next time Chet and his friends try beating me up, I will stand a chance defending myself if these things will stay on then too.” Taking a deep breath and groaning as he rubbed his chest. “Ehh...I have been beaten up enough by Chet and his friends over the years that I was beginning to think I was immune, but I can see I was wrong about that as well as thinking the Captain really wasn’t going to clean out the hold.” Chuckling to himself. “I may feel like I am the walking dead right know but it is still rumors?” Mark smiled.
“Crist boy there is so many rumors floating around the ship about you right know I can’t keep track of them.”
“Rumors about me? Why would anyone talk or you care about rumors about me, let alone track them Chief?” Mark yawned.
“Rumors usually have some basis in fact and finding the facts can tell you much about what problems are developing aboard a ship before they become problems or in worst cases how to take care of problems after they do become a problem and before the Captain has to take official notice of them. And the Captain hates to have to take official notice of problems.” The Chief Master at Arms turned around proud of the little speech he had just given to find Mark sitting on the deck leaning against the corner of the elevator, snoring. Shaking his head.
Before the Master at Arm Chief could do anything, the hatch opened with a Doctor standing ready to enter with a medic behind him. With a clip board in his hands he said loud enough to wake the dead. "Who punched the Medical emergency on the…" Until he glanced down to see Mark slumped down in the corner and then bellowed. “What the hell! Chief! What did you do to the boy?” Tapping his pocket phone he said. “Code 5 in the north elevator medical deck, stat! This is no drill.”
Before the Chief could move or explain, a half dozen Doctors and medics where crowding into the elevator. Within seconds they had Mark on a Gurney and were rolling him back out of the elevator. Shaking his head as the boy disappeared into the maze of the medical deck, the Chief punched in the security deck number and sighed. He had a report to wright on justifying all the overtime after calling up the night shift and the marines to search the ship for that boy. And he was not looking forward to it at all.
At least he did not have to worry about getting all the containers from A hold’s deck cleaned out. They had all seamed rather happy at getting the cargo containers moved out with plenty of help showing up to do it. Though he would have to send someone down now to make sure they had a large enough area set aside in the pit to put them since they seemed determined to move them themselves. And here the Captain had warned him, thinking it would cause a riot or worse, but it had to be done one way or another.” He chuckled as the elevator hatch opened on the legal deck to a group of unhappy Sargent’s and Ship’s Patrolmen demanding that they get overtime pay for wasting their time coming in during their off duty hours. They were not going to take comp time for an answer either while not giving the Chief Master at Arms time to answer. The Chief was definitely not a happy camper but was pretty much stuck trying to find the credits to pay them with the majority hanging together.
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The man walked out of the bright red sunlit yard into the greasy shop. The smell of old burnt oil and grease mixed with recent welding fumes greeted him as he stopped in front of a big fantruck loader half torn apart in the middle of the shop. High pressure canisters littered the floor around it. “What do you mean you can’t find any more places to hide more canisters?” It was bad enough that Blackbeard had made him bid the damn job so far under his costs to haul crap out of the Trampship’s hold and then give the damn ship twice the going rate for its scrap foam steel that he would be lucky if he didn’t go bankrupt if Blackbeard doesn’t come up with the credits he was promised. But to also make him add more canisters to his loader to plant on the ship. That just added insult to injury. He did not care if the damn ship's crew was twice the size of the ships they normally took and needed twice the tanks of sleeping gas to knock them out. It was just asking for trouble and increasing his risk.
“Look for yourself.” Said the mechanic.
As his boss took the clue and looked the loader over the Mechanic asked. “Hey boss. What ever happened to not shitting in your own back yard? Isn’t that one of Blackbeard’s own rules?”
“Don’t you worry about it. Besides this is a tramp that won’t be missed once it is out of the system.” Have you tested all the sensors and canister releases on the loader yet for planting them in the hold? It has been awhile since this old bitch has been used and the last time a bunch got stuck and would not release.”
“I’ll have it working by tomorrow morning but if we are going to start setting up takes on this planet, I don’t see why we don’t just bring in one of the new loaders we have working on most of the other outback planets? It would be a lot easier and safer. You can’t tell them apart from the stock loaders.”
“We don’t have time. Blackbeard wants this ship scanned, tagged and baited tomorrow. No time to bring in one of the ones from the outback and the newest one from the factory just went out a couple days ago. Bad timing.” Stepping back to get a good look at the loader the man shrugged. “And Blackbeard assured me that this is the only one we will be doing here. But for now get to work on fixing that loading grapple. The last time it was used, a canister fell out of the jaws as it was being planted. Luckily no one was in the hold when it happened. I will think about the extra tanks in the meantime. Maybe the trucks can bring more in when you load them.”
Walking back out into the sunlight he wished again that the stupid ship had rejected the ridicules reapplication of their original losing bid since they had already selected another company even if they had not signed them yet. But greed rules the roost and this greed was going to cost this ship dearly. The shame was he had liked the ship and crew when he had originally visited the ship to bid on the job. They had gone out of their way, (as much as a tramp could) to make him feel part of the family. But business was business and he just hoped some of the junk he would be hauling off was worth something. He just could not get over
the feeling that this business was going to end badly for him as well. For Blackbeard was not the forgiving kind of guy at all and would go to extremes’ to cover his tracks at the slightest excuse. Which meant that he had to go to extremes to cover his tracks.
Turning back around he jumped up on the top of the cab and checked the sensor scanning package to make sure the self-destruct tri-mix bomb was in good shape and not armed yet. He did not want it going off while the mechanic was welding on the frame. Hell, he did not want it going off period as it would take out the whole junk yard but it was nice to have as a backup in case something went wrong on the ship to cover his tracks. Just in case. The fact that it was big enough to blow a hundred foot hole in most tramp ships was beside the point. It would definitely cover his tracks if something went wrong. The only problem was that the damn bomb cost more than he could ever hope to make from any single job. Hell, it cost more than most of his equipment combined but as long as the canisters did not start leaking it was perfectly safe from accidentally exploding or from detection by any known sensor as long as it had the shield around it.
The bad thing about the damn tri-mix bomb was that any gun fire around it could Pearce the individual tri-mix tanks dispersing the chemicals before they had time to mix rendering the bomb useless. Though he had seen the results from a bomb the same size that been blown up and the chemicals mixed in the air in one long blow torch reaching a thousand feet into the sky as the unmixed and unburned acids spread over the surrounding area eating everything and everyone that came into contact with the clouds into piles of gue or puddles or simply killed them depending on which cloud and how long they were exposed to them. Luckily the chemical acids were heavy and rapidly settled to the ground within a few thousand feet but fumes from the acids eating most anything they touched were almost as bad.
Shaking the thought out of his head he turned back to the loader to make sure the gas canisters were properly hung on the side of the loader so they could begotten at and hung together up out of sight inside the target ship’s cargo hold.
Chapter 10 Kicked Out the Lock
The Cargo Master and Chief Master at Arms walked into the Captains day Cabin. Having been summoned. “Well gentlemen; is A-Hold ready for the scrap monkeys tomorrow morning?”
The Cargo officer smiled sickly, worry written on his face. “The hold is ready with the squatters off the deck. If that is what you want to call it.”
Looking at the stone faced Chief Master at Arms and then back at the Cargo Master the Captain frowned. “You don’t look happy. Just what does that mean?”
“Maybe you should have a look for yourself Captain?” Said the Master at Arms.
When the Captain started to bring up the security hold cameras on her desk the Cargo officer interrupted her. “Captain; maybe you should take a personal walk through look.”
The Captain was baffled but got up from her desk and lead the way to the elevator without saying a word.
The elevator slid into the decks parking slot and the hatch opened to reveal a mostly empty deck (ignoring the piles of garbage) void of all personnel and all the container boxes except for the Greedly’s maxi container and relatively quiet though she could hear distant clomping and muffled talking coming from somewhere. Nothing but garbage, junk cars and scrap metal piled around the hold greeted her eyes. Even the personal aircars where gone. Walking out into the hold.
“Ok great, this is what I wanted. I did not have to come down here to see this. Why did you not just tell me?” They continued walking out into the hold. “I have to admit I was sure that we would have a riot before we got these people to abandon their junk in here so we could move the containers out. Now to see it empty without any problems and the containers already gone is a credit to you Chief and your men. Tell me; did you have to get into riot gear or just how did you do it?” Then the Captain heard something screech and clang out toward the main cargo hatch and then children laughing and running along some kind of grated deck somewhere. Glancing around baffled but not worried as she continued to walk the old boulevard down the middle of the hold that separated the piles of junk with alleys still branching out to both sides empty of cargo boxes and aircars. Not even noticing that it was relatively dark around her while bright a ways ahead.
“Actually Captain.” The Chief Master Sgt. at Arms just shook his head. “I did not have time to do anything. It seems Mr. Mark Collins had already taken care of that problem while we were looking for him this morning. What I am afraid of is that he has created a much bigger problem for us that I cannot take care of without your orders.” The Master at Arms Chief pointed up as he starred at the Captain.
Perplexed as another child squealed in delight like a ghost close by but nowhere to be seen. The Captain looked from the strange familiar contraption that seemed to be making its way across the overhead above just inside the cargo hatch with a container suddenly dangling below it. Followed the Chief’s finger looking up to finely see the cargo containers lined up against the overhead forming a solid overhead except for the open see through deck grates between the containers with the overhead hold lights shining down through them. And then she looked through the grates. Children came running along the grates chasing each other as they played make thunking noises as they clattered around on the grates above the Captain and the Chief’s heads.
Already half way across the hold Captain Cook quickly walked out into the lighted area where she could clearly see the containers attached to the overhead with grates forming a walkway between them. A man came out of one of the end containers and stopped when he saw the Captain down below walking out from under the decking. “Hey Captain this is great. Thanks for letting us put these together up here. We could not ask for a better arrangement. It is clean hospitable with everyone clustered together to make a very nice community. Instead of scattered around all the garbage hold like a slum.” The man thought for a second. “A kind of town Captain.”
“Ya this is great Captain.” said a woman as she walked out of another container. “Yes. It is a town. A Tramp Town.”
Several more people walked up from shops in the process of setting up. “Yes. Tramp Town this is.”
A council member clomped up with a hand full of food from a vender down the walkway set up in the front of one of the containers and peered down at the Captain. “Yes this is a great Idea Captain. We should have thought of this years ago.” And then turning to address the gathering crowd. “Welcome to Tramp Town everyone.” What was just a radio playing music in a container suddenly was brought out and turned up and people started dancing and before anyone could say anything else, a party was in full swing.
As the word spread that the Captain was in the hold, more and more people came out to thank her. In shock, all she could do was wave returning their greetings with a stern faced grin as she fought to keep from exploding. When she saw men and women that would never in their lives have come down here amongst the garbage, walking the deck and stopping to buy something in one of the just opened shops, her mouth dropped opened in disbelief. “What the hell.”
“It seems Captain that with the boxes pushed together and walk ways between them they have made it into a bazaar with more crewmen showing up by the hour as they get off work and the word spreads. I am afraid that if we try to shut it down now we truly will have a riot on our hands.” The container she had been puzzling over a few minutes before came rumbling over head from the open Cargo hatch to clump up against the end container with a resounding clank as the latches locked it to the overhead rail and box next to it. A grate was already attached to the front with a sign saying Big’s Berger's, Fry's and Spirits. Captain Cook just stood there in shock as it opened for business a few minutes later even before another container had been attached across from it.
"No! No. Stop that!" She yelled as she ran towards the new container waving her hands. But she was not heard over the sound as the clanking sparking crane slid up to place yet another container. Workmen quickly started
securing additional grating supports on the containers that had just been placed. Bridging the gap between containers to continue the Boardwalk.
“Who the hell authorized anyone to do this Damn it.” The Captain yelled as her voice carried across the hold in the sudden silence as the overhead crane stopped to allow another new box to be locked onto the rail.
“Mark Collins put the first one up and organized the placements of the rest. Come on up Captain.” Shouted a woman far above. “Mark had them put in a winch lift over to the side of the elevator until a ladder can be put in from the deck above. We should have a hatch and elevator stop installed in a few days. The engineering department is working on that now.”
With her face turning red, her gaze followed the woman's arm to watch a woman ride down to the deck and get out, then walk over into the just vacated elevator not far from the basket some hundred feet away. The 4 people that came out of the elevator stepped into the basket and it started up. The Captain started walking as more people showed up to thank her. The basket with an overhead bracket and big enough for 4 people standing, hung down from the overhead attached to a clamped on the crane support rail. A switch was bolted to the inner hull to bring it down when empty and another on the railing above to bring it back up empty, with a pair of up and down switches on the basket.
The Captain had no intention of riding that contraption with the firm plan of calling an emergency meeting with her department heads including the Master at arms and Cargo Chief walking with her to decide on the best way to get rid of the crap on the overhead. "Hell why wait." She decided something had to be done before it was too late.
Tramp Wars: The Enemy Page 31