Tramp Wars: The Enemy

by Larry Roberts

  Chapter 31 Wrecked Beyond Repair

  Captain Summers dropped onto the landing platform to boat lock number 3, with portable lights making the lock bright enough to hurt her eyes after being used to the dark of the night sky. With all the medical APC’s and several fighters already on the ramp she had to park all the way out at the end. Climbing out she walked down the packed ramp weaving her way around the vehicles (getting annoyed when marines refused to get out of her way) and into the lock. She could not believe what she was seeing as she watched the officers and technicians cutting remains out of the deck. Not that she had never seen Flash fusions before but the seen was seriously damaging her opinion of the ship she had decided would save the English State even if they did not survive that long.

  Slowly Captain Summers worked her way towered the wreck at the far end that had once been a fighter, now crawling with Doctors and technicians and a priest standing on the long narrow sloped bow praying. The lock seemed to be a madhouse. She almost ran into a padre reading last rights to a foot and leg bones fussed together sticking out of the deck. Then she turned to almost step on a team of officers knelt around several bones in a pool of light from several quarter inch thin stickswith basses magnetically locked to the deck, reaching up from the deck circling the group, with bright button lights at the tops shinning down onto the bones. Measuring, logging, recording the details and marking the deck for future references. A marine stood nearby watching their every movement. She finely realized that a Marine stood guard on each set of remains flash welded or simply vacuum glued to the deck. She was used to death and remains but found it unusual the reverence they were giving each and every spot that could even possibly be remains. Shaking her head in disbelief until she realized that she would have stepped or tripped over several already if not for the marines, she finely spotted Mark kneeling with a group of planetary and ship technicians in a bright pool of light around a complex group of rags and mummified bodies welded to the deck in mass as if they had been huddled together for protection. The group trying to figure out the best way to cut them out and whether to separate them into the obvious individuals or not and if they even could.

  “My God, it is a whole infant sunk fused into the deck!” A marine in the line of marines slowly walking shoulder to shoulder in line abreast toward the outer hatch, checking every inch of the deck as they slowly walked with their heads down staring at the deck, some with scanners. The marine had said loud enough for half the lock to hear and then retching holding her hand to her mouth, she ran the short distance to the platform outside the lock where she grabbed the safety rail as she puked over the edge and onto the crowd far below. The other marines still lined up across the lock continued to scan the deck and bulkheads inch by inch as one took up guard duty over the infant until the woman marine that had found the infant’s body buried flush with the deck, staring up out at anyone that looked. The Marines stomach finally empty, relieved the other, tears streaming down her cheeks as she stood stone faced straddling the infant with her weapon at port arms ready to defend the spot to the death.

  The Planetary Defense Captain tying to be as inconspicuous as possible finely found a good alibi helping a woman logging boxes sitting in the middle of the hold and settled down to watch the rescue efforts on the fighter and study Mark as he worked, as well as the Star Queen’s crewmen and officers as they came and went. Some of the flag officers that showed up looked around the lock, said a few words to Mark or not and then left. Some asked Mark what they could do and then did what he suggested or just started helping where they could. A few Officers had come storming in and started giving orders and where ignored completely by the marines standing guard and the Doctors and medics working on the ensign or deferred to Commander Collins who either approved, agreed to do it as soon as some one was available or was politely but firmly told it was not a good idea and would list several reasons why.

  One officer even came in with a couple of Ship’s Patrol corporals and told Mark he was under arrest. Mark stood up stretched and chuckled, telling the officer that he was a bit late and pointed to the Chief Sgt. at Arms cataloging a pile of remains not far away. He looked back at the fighter still swarming with medical technicians and doctors, frowned and then bent back down to continue planning the removal of the complicated set of bodies with the Priest, another officer and several cutting technicians. The officer starred at Mark for several seconds and then stomped over to the Chief Master at arms and demanded that he arrest Mark immediately and take him to his quarters under cabin arrest. The Chief did not even bother standing up but simply looked up at the officer and told him that Commander Collins was the officer in charge on the scene and that he would stay that way until he was properly relieved.”

  “Very well Chief I am relieving Mr. Collins so you can now arrest him.” The officer was very proud of himself.

  The Chief Sgt at Arms carefully laid his note book down on the deck and stood up. “Mr. Dickens sir. You do not even have a clue as to what is going on here, let alone who is doing what and what has still to be done yet. That means that you are not qualified to take command and relieve Mr. Collins unless you go through a lengthy briefing and to put it simply; Mr. Collins does not have the time at this time to brief you without endangering the life of Ensign Abraham sir. Now, unless you can get 3 of the half dozen or so senior officers in the lock at this time to agree with you, I suggest you either help or leave sir. I am sure we need another officer to form another remains logging team or to supervise a cutting team of any of a dozen other jobs that need to be done. Please see Commander Collins for an assignment sir.”

  Mark walked up. “Executive officer Dickens. Sir. Please come with me for a second sir.” Taking the confused officer by the arm he nudged the officer up the deck towered the outside ramp walking past Captain Summers as she bent her head down to her work. The officer bitching all the way telling him that the Captain had ordered him arrested until Mark interrupted him. “Technician teams are cutting the remains out of the deck using carbon loops that allows us to cut under the remains without cutting the entire 6 inch thick plate out.” Waving a cutting team over that had just finished a cut as a pick up team carefully started to bag, tag and box the remains. “This is Sgt. McGuire, Dupree and Grey.” Walking over to the bulkhead he saluted then asked the marine to step aside. “This Mr. Dickens: is a pair of bodies fussed into the bulkhead. The problem is not only cutting them out of the bulkhead but separating them if it is possible. No one here has the faintest idea how to do it and with your engineering back ground and knack for salving difficult problems, I was hoping you could take command of cutting these and all the other bulkhead remains out Sir. The few we have tried to cut out of the bulkhead so far has not gone well. Disastrously in fact.”

  As Mark pointed the Exec looked over at a team trying to hold the cutter up against the bulkhead to cut a single arm bone out. “No wonder! Get me some mechanics with drills torches and welders and we will fasten the cutters up to the bulkhead on a frame. Does no one have a lick of sense around here?”

  “Yes sir. By your command sir.” Mark bowed. “I will go and get you your mechanics and leave separating the bulkhead remains in your capable hands sir.”

  Mark spoke into his com unit briefly and several Mechanics working out on the landing deck stood up threw the tools they were using into a cart and came running into the lock pushing the cart ahead of them to report to the Exec.

  Captain Summers bent down to look at a laser burn grove in the deck running her finger over the melted surface hiding her face as Mark walked by. She was in a Planet Defense Command Captain’s uniform with her hair down instead of up as she had been when wearing the Mechanics overalls’ at the station and she had good make up heavy on the lips making sure he would not recognize her but she did not believe in pushing her luck and really did not want to talk to him personally quit yet. She was having too much fun just observing and learning about the boy. A surprise seemed to be around every corne
r.

  Mark stopped and turned around. “Captain Summers, can I talk with you please.”

  The Captain froze for a second before she stood up. Taken back by Marks surprising recognition of her or was he just taking advantage of a warm body he just came across. But then wondering how the hell he knew her name but recovered quickly and smiled. “Yes Commander. How can I help you?”

  Mark looked at her for a few seconds and then smiled himself. “Well that makes sense finely. Was the Chief a Captain too?”

  Her smile faltered for a second and her impulse to lie since he did not need to know, almost made it out of her mouth before thinking better of it. “He is a Vice Admiral in special operations on the Supreme Admiral's staff.” She told him more than he asked for, to see his reaction.

  “That finely makes perfect sense. I could not understand how a Chief could get all that work done as well as the reservation to the lounge. Did you both know the fighter was brand new out of your storage Depoe?" Mark paused as he looked away for a few seconds and chuckled. "No? Not brand new out of storage but 5 years old and 2300 hours of mission time. Well with a brand new red paint job it looked like a new fighter. So why did you let me keep it?" Shaking his head and groaning. "Well, later. We don't have time right now." Narrowing his eyes at her. "Oh. You were at the auction in the back row as well, now that I think of it and when that moron thought he wanted his money back. So how did you know I was going to the station? I didn’t know until I hit the execute key. And why were you following me in the first place?”

  “Coincident. We were checking out your crew and the Admiral was headed for the station for a dinner meeting and wanted to hear our report on the way and then you filed a flight plan. We just followed. It was a big surprise when the station traffic control AI sent you to the military locks.” Looking at him as she talked a question suddenly entered her mind. “Did you have anything to do with the Traffic Control AI. changing your landing lock?”

  “Hell no Captain, all I wanted to do was have a nice dinner with Dian. Besides how the hell was I supposed to do that? I didn’t even know about the military locks until we landed in that damn trap. Scarred the hell out of both of us.” Turning to look at fighter. “It was one hell of a shock when you guys took the recon Mustang as unfit for duty and not repairable and scrapped it.” His eyes narrowing. “Did you have anything to do with that?”

  “Not even a bit. But I have looked at the readout and your fighter would not have survived re-entry. I am surprised you did not pick one of the shuttles. Why didn’t you. I have looked at your shuttles and they are pieces of junk.”

  “Hell, all I was trying to do was replace what the damn machine had stolen from us. Taking one of the shuttles would have been steeling. Besides all the shuttles it offered were a lot bigger than the ones we have now and too damn big to fit into the lock.”

  “Actually Commander the smaller of the shuttles would have fit, though it would have been tight. It would have gone a long way to covering your lifeboat requirements to get your Out Back Permit. As big as your crew has grown you need the extra lifeboat capacity.”

  “Okay….” Pointing down the lock. “Well, it is setting there and I don’t think you have to worry about it anymore. It is pretty much a piece of junk now. But you already knew that. Everyone else knows so it has to be something else.” Mark turned to gaze out the hatch and across the landing ramp hanging out into the open air. He finely looked down and smiled. “Yes, that's the simplest explanation.” Turning back to Captain Summers. “Before you start asking about Mickey, would you mind taking charge of the landing ramp? It is getting pretty crowded with all the boats APC’s and fighters and the survey crew is about done with the lock and will be headed for the ramp. They are good marines but I would really like someone with your abilities in charge of them out there. A couple of them like to take risks and are a little too enthusiastic. Not a good combination on a ramp 700 feet in the air with civilians below and questionable safety devices that have not been maintained or tested in 20 years. The pair of rails in the deck the shuttle mounts are attached to and the end 20 feet is part of the lock and the hatch and may have remains on them. The 10 foot wide sides are roll out segmented decking from just inside the hatch that should be clean. You can also park vehicles down the center 20 feet of the lock that again is roll out decking segments without being in the way of the cutting teams. Thanks Captain.” Mark smiled then walked away without waiting for an answer.

  The Captain started to complain that the Marines were ships Company but decided that half the men the Commander was giving orders to where not ship's crew anyway and all of the aircraft on the ramp were English. “Damn he is good.” and walked out onto the packed ramp and started organizing the mess. Getting the medical shuttles and craft transferred into a row down the center of the lock according to the need of the medical staff and out of the way of the teams that needed to work while sending most of the fighters home. That is the ones with pilots she could find. She finally wound up moving several herself.

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  Captain Meyer’s comm beeped as he was just standing up from bending over after helping the Ship’s Executive Officer and the mechanics put together a frame for cutting the remains out of the bulkheads. Stretching the kinks out of his back he had decided he was getting too old for spending long hours working on new cutter handling equipment though if it worked as good as it look he would have to forward the design to have it produced for the fleet. Taking a deep breath as he looked around the lock, he was simply glad that the 20 year old remains did not stink like he remembered fresh bodies did during the war and tapped his ear piece. “Captain Meyers here.”

  “Captain, I need a preliminary report on what is going on over there as soon as possible. Just the basics, you can follow up with the finer details when you get time later and include it when you submit your flight log report. Do you have everything you need?”

  Captain Meyers looked around and realized that he had a good 15 minutes or so until the Exec and the cutting team was ready to test the machine they had built. Taking another breath. “Yes we have enough. Things are starting to settle down though the life of the ships crewman is still up in the air. I will have you the preliminary report in 15 minutes Admiral.”

  “Good, I will be waiting for it Captain. Out.”

  Captain Meyers pulled a PDA out of his thigh cargo pocket and started dictating to it. With the silent mic activated, no one but the PDA could hear what he was saying even though they could see his lips moving. His words appearing on the screen even though he was not looking at it as his gaze wondered around the lock cataloging what needed to go into the report. The only time he looked down was to change screens to the different sections that were needed for the preliminary report. He was actually glad he was taking a few minutes to do the preliminary report at that time. Getting things down then would save him much time later trying to figure out details in hind sight, allowing him to add snippets of video and photo’s to explain details that would be hard to come up with later.

  Then after submitting the brief report he tapped up the damage reclamation screen. After years of front line service he had long ago learned that the sooner he got damage assessments in on his fighters, the sooner he could get parts for repairs or even replaced. It had simply become habit even though the fighter in question was not his. Without thinking about it as he studied the fighter as he walked up to it making dozens of damage assessments on the systems as he filled out the form on the screen he had used a thousand times before. Adding the ships damage control report on the lock, he sent it off to the supply directorate.

  A few minutes later, he was examining the cutter as it worked on the remains in the bulkhead talking with the ship’s Executive Officer. The Cutter frame was doing a better job than he had even hopped. A tech started placing slender light rods on the deck around the next spot of remains, activating the magnetic base and turning on and adjusting the bright lights to focus on
the remains welded the Bulkhead. The Captains PDA beeped demanding attention again. Puzzled, he took it back out of his thigh cargo pocket and looked at the screen. He saw a form he had never seen before from the Supply Directorate. On the top of the form the name Star Queen 52 was printed with (Reserve Auxiliary Cruiser) in brackets below the ships name. Several blank lines were flashing down through the form. The top flashing line said. “Number of operational F-35 Attack Torpedo Bombers per hanger lock?”

  Captain Meyer’s frowned as he looked around the 150 foot long 60 foot wide lock. Reaching up he ran his hand through his short hair. “They have got to be kidding.” He said to himself as he looked around. He was very familiar with F-35 fighter bombers but the Torpedo bomber version he was not. Though he was starting to train on them. Flying and knowing how much room they needed for operations was two different things. Shrugging his shoulders trying not to laugh he tapped the line in question and trying to be conservative, said. “6 F-35 fighter attack bombers plus corresponding required maintenance equipment.” He thought that maybe 4 of the bigger torpedo bombers would fit operationally but he was not sure so he had told the form what he knew. The biggest problem being that the lock had only one hatch restricting how many fighters could be maintained and rapidly launched. Limiting the number of operational fighters it could handle. Turning he looked at the hatch and realized it was not equipped with an Air-curtain requiring that the lock be dropped to a vacuum anytime they wanted to launch a fighter. Which meant greatly hampering operations when the fighters would be needed the most and the ability to rapidly land, refuel, rearm and get back into a fight could be the difference between winning and losing. Turning back to the screen. “Addendum, lock equipment priority. 20 by 40 air curtain required.” Smiling as one of the Medic APC’s lifted off the ramp outside the lock and was carefully flown in past him to land in the center strip not far from the now junk fighter. “Note, New Mk-1 ramp deployed air-curtain 170 by 50 would double number of deployed operational fighters per lock. With an experienced Navy fighter handling crew he thought the lock could handle twice that again but it was better to stay conservative. Though he knew the ship would never be given even the minimum conservative numbers of fighters he had put on the report, let alone worry about the possible maximum.