The Santana Nexus (Junkyard Dogs Book 3)

by Nolte, Phillip

  "My pleasure," said Harris as he got up to leave. "Later..."

  ***

  Elsewhere onboard the Istanbul, Amanda Steuben and Faiza Saladin, the two youngest members of the Scrapyard family or the "Junkyard Dogs," as its members had officially taken to calling themselves, were just receiving their latest homework assignments from Commander Kresge. Amanda was the sixteen-year old daughter of Orville and Allison Steuben while Faiza was the daughter of the Meridian Ambassador, Mohammad Saad Saladin and his wife Sondia. Though the two young women were about the same height and of the same age, any physical similarity between them ended there. Amanda was a slender girl with somewhat unruly red hair, deep blue eyes and a pale, clear complexion. Her coloring had been inherited from her father, Orville Steuben, who was a crack electrical technician drafted by the Junkyard Dogs from the New Ceylon Orbital station. Faiza, with her nearly black eyes, clear olive skin and jet black hair, took after her mother, with a physique that tended more towards voluptuous. Even at her relatively young age, she was already quite curvy and well on her way to developing into a full bosomed, statuesque women like her mom was.

  The two of them had been roommates for several weeks now onboard the Istanbul and had also become good friends. It didn't hurt that they had several more important things in common including extremely high intelligence and the desire to enlist in the Naval officer's training programs of their respective government's Navies. Both of the young women were also equipped with Hartwell wrist computers, just like the one that Ensign Carlisle had been missing so badly.

  Since the two young women had each voiced an interest in pursuing a Naval career, Commander Kresge had designated them as "cadet apprentices" and had proceeded to give them research assignments to give them a taste of what lie ahead. Some of the material was basic information that any officer in training would need to know. Other material was of a more immediately practical nature. Several times in the last few weeks Kresge had put them to work on subjects that he needed more information about but didn't have the time or the means to ferret out himself.

  The Commander had also decided that his two students needed to study subjects outside of Naval affairs. He had given them some outside reading assignments including material on the art and literature of the western cultures that had been the forerunners of the United Federation and the Arabic/Islamic cultures that had blossomed into the Islamic Alliance.

  Kresge had ordered them each to download portions of the extensive library of literature that was part of the inventory loaded into the computer banks of the Ambassador's ship. As a diplomatic vessel, the personnel onboard the Istanbul were required to be knowledgeable about many cultures and one could never be sure what sort of information might come in handy. The great works of art and literature that are valued by individual cultures can reveal a great deal about the personality of the culture that produced the artists and writers who, in turn, capture not only the imagination of the public but the spirit of their times.

  Amanda had been reading the Arabian Nights while Faiza was reading about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Both were finding the reading entertaining even if neither could figure out how such information could ever be of any use to them.

  There was a small conference room on the Istanbul a short distance from the quarters shared by the two young women that they used for studying and interacting with Kresge, who usually remained on board the Greyhound.

  "Sorry, Faiza and Amanda," said Kresge speaking to them from the viewscreen on the wall of the conference room, "but I won't be able to spend more than few minutes with you today. I've duties to attend to. We'll meet again tomorrow if I'm not still up to my ears in Scrapyard affairs. When we do meet again, I think we should begin some discussions about literature. How about I make it easy for you? We'll start with Science Fiction. Be ready to talk about some of the classics. Check your email, I've sent you some materials to get started. Be ready to tell me about authors like Mary Shelley, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. I also want you to pick one or two of the early authors that sound interesting to you. That's all I have for you today. Carry on!"

  The viewscreen went blank. The two young women looked at each other and shrugged.

  Chapter 6.

  Santana Nexus Station, tenth ring hub area, January2, 2599.

  The Sheik of Barsoom took a seat in the observation gallery of the weightless gymnastics arena located in the Santana Nexus Station Spindle. He had come there specifically to watch several of his best operatives compete with each other using weightless combat techniques. These exercises could be somewhat time consuming and occasionally people got hurt but the Sheik condoned them anyway, the strenuous physical activity kept his men sharp and required them to work on their weightless combat techniques with the extra edge of competition thrown in.

  The gruff old man sat in his customary spot in the front row of the gallery. Located in the spindle of the Station, down near the tenth ring, the arena was used for a variety of sports in addition to weightless gymnastics. It was also used in the manner that the Sheik's people were using it at the moment, for military combat training. Currently in the arena were two of the Sheik's Marines. One of them was a savvy veteran and the other a much younger, green but eager recruit.

  Overeager, it seemed. The Sheik watched as the younger man came after the wily veteran with his padded practice weapon, took a powerful but ineffective swing with it and received a whack on the back of the head that sent him careening into one of the padded walls of the arena. That was the third time that the younger man had received a sharp blow over the ten minutes that the two men had been going at each other and the veteran called a halt before the younger man suffered some kind of permanent damage.

  "That's better," the Sheik heard the veteran say, "But you're still too impatient. That and you're still swinging too hard. Don't worry, you'll get it. We'll try this again tomorrow."

  The two men exited the arena and two more combatants entered it. One of them was a lean, lanky young soldier who was dressed in a silver competition skinsuit. On the other side of the arena the entry portal opened to admit a woman. Also attired in a skinsuit, the definition of her honed muscles could clearly be seen through the fabric. Her name was Fahada and she was the apple of the Sheik's eye. With her jet-black hair and nearly black eyes, Fahada was an exotic and beautiful woman by any measure. Though she was not a particularly large woman, she was one of the most deadly people that the Sheik had ever known. She was also the main reason he was at the arena in the first place; the Sheik had come to watch her fight.

  Fahada squared off with her sparring partner, he with his legs coiled up against the North wall of the arena and she similarly poised against the South wall. Today the two of them would be fighting with short blades. When either of the practice weapons wielded by the combatants made any kind of contact, the suits that each of them wore were programmed to light up conspicuously in the area where the contact had been made, highlighting the position and the nature of the wound.

  This particular form of fighting owed much to the sport of weightless gymnastics and both of the combatants were outfitted with two of the same retractable tethers that were used by gymnasts to maneuver in zero G. The grappling pads on the tethers would stick to almost anything and the pads could be released by remote control and the cable reeled back in less than a second.

  On a signal from the control room, the combatants launched at one another, heading straight for the center of the arena. Just as they appeared about to collide, each shot a tether out to make contact with one of the walls and gave a skillful tug on the tether to alter their course. The Sheik smiled. He could see that Fahada had waited until after her opponent had committed to what he was going to do before she deployed her tether in response. She was remarkable to watch at this game and the Sheik had never seen anyone better at it.

  As the two combatants passed each other in the center of the arena, the young man found himself to be just a tiny bit out of position
. His practice blade found nothing but air. When the two of them caught themselves on the wall opposite where each of them had started, the young man's blue suit was highlighted by a red, ten centimeter-long slash that ran along one side of his torso. It was not a killing blow but one that would have been very painful and would certainly have greatly affected his ability to fight.

  The two of them took a short moment to realign themselves and launched at one another again. With similar results. This time the young man, taking a page from Fahada's book, decided to wait until his opponent had committed to a direction before responding. That tactic didn't work either, Fahada, a wicked smile on her face, just calmly deployed her tether and struck her opponent while his own blade again found nothing but air.

  When they contestants realigned themselves for another pass, the young man's suit had a new red slash, this time from a navel to sternum. That strike would have been fatal. The two contestants did three more passes before the younger player finally managed to make a small mark on Fahada's upper left arm. Unfortunately, his own suit bore the mark of yet another fatal strike for his troubles.

  "Good job, Hakim, that's the first time you've been able to touch me," said Fahada.

  "A touch, yes, but I am dead four times over!" lamented the young soldier. "Your skills are remarkable, Fahada!"

  The two of them exited the arena dicussing the match with Fahada giving the young man some pointers on how to improve his technique. As one-sided as the match had been, the Sheik's number one assassin had actually been holding back. She could easily have killed the young man with her practice blade had she needed or wanted to.

  The entertainment over, the Sheik of Barsoom made his way out of the spindle to the command center of his steadily growing revolution, located in the tenth ring of the Santana Nexus station. The area of the station formerly occupied by the United Terran Federation Navy, in fact.

  "Have any more ships arrived?" he asked as came into the command center.

  "Yes, Sire," replied the communications tech on duty, "three more destroyers are on their way in from the hyperlink point. They should be here in another half hour or so."

  "Excellent! That brings us up to the number I need to protect our interests here on the Nexus Station and to go out and eliminate the opposition in that cursed Scrapyard. Tell all of the Captains that we will be meeting at three o'clock this afternoon, to start formulating our plan of attack."

  "Captain Kassab of the Hercules has called for you twice, Sire."

  "I know. He wishes to lead the attack. He will not be pleased but I must have him remain here to keep our defenses strong. I was at that Scrapyard just a little over a week ago and I know that a large ship such as his will be worse than useless out there anyway. The smaller ships, like our destroyers, are what we need to navigate in that cursed scrap cloud. I will, no doubt, have to calm him down but I think it best if he remains here."

  Chapter 7.

  UTFN Reclamation Center, on board Meridian Imperial Diplomatic Ship Istanbul, January 2, 2599.

  Tamara Carlisle, who had finally been released from the Istanbul's infirmary, went straight to her quarters. The Istanbul's doctor had just cleared her to start using her Hartwell Wrist Computer again and the first thing she did after pulling it out of her locker was to slip the device on around her left wrist. The automatic tensioning system in the meta-kevlar band clamped the computer firmly but gently in place. The familiar weight and presence of the virtually indispensable little device was very reassuring. After running through a few basic functions to assure herself that the device and her brain were both working properly, she pulled the quantum drive unit that she had removed from the bridge computer on the Veretian derelict a couple of weeks ago out of the box she had been storing it in. She intended to head down to the Istanbul's space suit maintenance room to check on her special spacesuit but she wanted to get the investigation on this computer drive started first.

  Carlisle's newly minted Ph.D. was in Military History and for her dissertation topic she had specifically focused on the final battle of the Succession War. The wrecked ship that the quantum drive had been salvaged from was a veteran of that final battle and she wanted to find out if there was anything on the drive that would help her to understand more about the battle and more about the derelict itself. The Veritian derelict was a rare find, an Opposition ship from the Succession War, and only a few such ships had ever been studied in any detail.

  But that wasn't all. In addition to the historical significance of the derelict, there were a number of other mysteries surrounding the battered ship. Who was on it and how did they escape from the battle? How had a ship that badly damaged been able to make the journey from the New Ceylon system to its final resting place on the tiny moon in the Heard's World system? The journey would have required several microjumps and at the very least a single macrojump but the damage to the wreck was so extensive that these operations should have been all but impossible.

  She went to the engineering section of the Istanbul and sought out the help of the ship's chief engineer, Commander Isma'il Raghib. At least a half dozen workers were attending to their various engineering duties and everything within the section looked to be calm and orderly. One of the engineers politely showed Carlisle into the engineer's small office. Raghib was frowning at a schematic on his computer monitor as she came into the tiny compartment.

  "Ensign Carlisle," said Raghib. He pushed his chair away from the display on the monitor before coming to his feet to shake her hand. "It is good to see that you are recovering from your injuries. We all owe you a huge debt for your part in turning back the attack."

  Carlisle blushed. "I...I was only doing my duty."

  "As you say," said Raghib. "I thank you anyway. What brings you down to engineering?"

  Carlisle held up her prize. "This is an old quantum drive that I removed from the wreck of that Opposition cruiser when were went to Heard's World a couple of weeks ago. I need someone to help me power it up and access it, to see what sort of information it contains."

  "Ah yes," replied Raghib, "For that we will need to go and see Heskim, he is our chief electronics and computer tech. I think you'll like him, he is very knowledgeable. I must warn you, Ensign, that he is...rather a little strange as well."

  "A little strange?"

  "Well, he is a computer tech..."

  Carlisle nodded in understanding. Raghib led her forward through a bulkhead hatch and down a short corridor to another hatch. He indicated that she should go inside. She ducked to negotiate the opening and found herself in a narrow, low-ceilinged compartment. A work table ran the length of one entire wall.

  At the table was a short man in a chair concentrating intently on an electrical component that he was holding in his lap and prodding at with a tool of some kind. With the Istanbul currently more or less parked and not expected to be performing any maneuvers, the technician could simply lay out his various projects without worry that something might shift around due to ship movements. The little shop appeared to have several projects that were being simultaneously worked on and a number of electronic components were heaped up on the long table. Exposed wires were sprouting from several of the objects, and the entire area generally looked disorganized and chaotic. Carlisle realized that on a ship of the size and complexity of the Istanbul, there were bound to be a number of computer and electronic systems that were going to require attention at any one time.

  "Welcome to our electronics shop, Dr. Carlisle," said Raghib, as they entered the room. "Heskim, I have brought someone I'd like you to meet."

  "Please put whatever you need repaired in that open space over there," said computer tech, barely even looking up. "I will get to it when I can."

  Carlisle looked at the table but didn't see anything that looked like an "open space" to her.

  "Where?" she asked.

  Upon hearing the feminine voice, the little man finally tore his concentration away from his current task, scanned the work area a
nd rather sheepishly said. "My apologies, I forgot that I put that translator module in the cleared area earlier this morning." He laid his forearm down on the workbench in front of him and carefully swept the remains of a couple of other obscure projects to the right, clearing a space large enough to hold the component he had been working on. Reaching down into his lap with both hands, he transferred his current project to the newly cleared space before standing up and facing his visitors.

  "Heskim, this is Dr. Tamara Carlisle," said Raghib, "She has brought a computer drive that she needs you to take a look at."

  "I am pleased to meet you, Dr. Carlisle," said Heskim as he shook her hand. "Please accept my apology. There is so much to do and I confess that I easily get absorbed in my work. Let me see what it is that you have brought for me."

  Carlisle noted a few gray hairs and some facial wrinkles that hadn't been apparent at first glance and concluded that the little man was probably somewhat older than her first estimate had suggested he was.

  Carlisle handed him the drive. "This is a quantum drive from an old ship's bridge computer," she said.

  Heskim took the proffered drive and carefully turned it over several times. He whistled. "This is old...," he turned it over yet again, "...very old. I haven't seen one of these for more than ten years and this one looks to be a great deal older than that last one was!"

  "You're absolutely right," said Carlisle, "the drive has to be well over sixty years old. I pulled it out of the bridge computer on a Succession War Opposition cruiser. The ship was badly damaged and then abandoned after it escaped the final battle of the Succession War."

  "What would you like me to do with it?"

  "Can you power it up and transfer the data on it to a more modern computer?" She pointed to her left wrist, "I have a Hartwell Wrist computer, could we transfer the data to it?"