The Veritian Derelict (Junkyard Dogs)

by Nolte, Phillip

  ***

  Docking area outside the Piedmont Mining Station, Catskill-Soroyan system, November 29, 2598.

  The hijacked Tunisian destroyer approached the Piedmont Mining Station and the mining ship Glendaloch which was still docked in one of the station's transfer berths. The new Captain of the destroyer made a general call to all ships in the vicinity of the Station.

  "All ships in this area are to surrender immediately! Failure to comply will result in your immediate destruction."

  Seamus O'Connell keyed up a private channel between his ship and the Glendaloch. "Immediate destruction? With what? That ship doesn't have weapons anymore."

  "Yeah, they're bluffing, but we may be the only people besides them that know that, Seamus," replied Patrick, from the bridge of the Glendaloch.

  "How much longer before you can get out of that transfer berth, Niall?"

  "I'm still gonna need another fifteen minutes at least," came the reply. "They've disconnected and pulled all the conveyors and the last of the supply people are getting out as we speak. We're securing hatches and bringing the engines online now."

  "Looks like we might have to do something," said O'Connell. "They may be bluffing, but we don’t have to. I'm arming my mining laser; at this range I can do some pretty respectable damage if they force me to it. I suggest you do the same, Niall."

  "Affirmative, Donegal!"

  At O'Connell's signal, several men on the bridge of the Donegal dashed over to man the mining laser control consoles, something that usually wasn't done unless the ship was actually in the process of mining an asteroid. Designed specifically for the unique demands of mining asteroids, the 10,000 gigajoule laser required a trained team to maintain the laser's focus and to monitor and alter the power outputs for the surprisingly delicate process of blasting rock. At full power and at a distance of only a few hundred meters, a mining laser, though not designed to be a weapon, could probably do a great deal of damage to a spaceship.

  Another announcement went out to all of the ships near the mining station.

  "This is Seamus O'Connell of the mining ship Donegal. There will be no surrendering today, whoever the hell you are. I happen to know that you no longer have any weapons. I suggest that you take your toothless prize and get your cowardly asses out of this system while you still can!"

  "Your belligerence is ill-advised, Donegal," came the response. "We are sending a shuttle to board you now. Consider it as a lesson to all the others!"

  The shuttle that had carried the new crew over to the destroyer from the Carpathia was loaded with another heavily armed boarding party set to reinforce those already on the mining station. With a slight change in plan due to the unexpected resistance from the mining ship, the shuttle turned towards the Donegal and began to accelerate gently in her direction.

  "Bastards never learn, do they," said O'Connell, to no one in particular, "Tony, target that shuttle and trigger the beam. No screwing around, full power, if you please."

  "Aye, aye, Captain," came the terse reply. "Shuttle targeted, firing now!"

  A ravening beam of intense blue flashed out from the bow of the Donegal as the ship's mining laser was activated. The shuttle full of would-be boarders was caught like a deer in the headlights of an onrushing ground car. Nothing seemed to happen for perhaps half a second. Then the bow end of the small craft actually appeared to melt for a split second before the entire craft was engulfed from bow to stern in a bright yellow-orange fireball. Two seconds after being hit by the beam, all that remained of the shuttle was a rapidly dispersing ball of plasma and charred debris.

  O'Connell then swiveled the bow of the Donegal towards the hijacked destroyer. At the almost the same time, the Glendaloch gently disengaged from the transfer berth and maneuvered to a position alongside her companion ship. Niall Patrick contacted his friend to make an announcement but made sure that all ships in the area could hear him.

  "The Glendaloch's laser is at full power, Seamus."

  "I will repeat my warning, whoever the hell you are," said O'Connell. "You get take your ill-gotten prize and get out of here, now, or we both start firing."

  Behind the defanged destroyer, two small freighters took advantage of the diversion and departed for the hyperlink point using as much thrust as they dared.

  ***

  Yacht Capathia, Piedmont Mining Station, Catskill-Soroyan System, November 29, 2598.

  On board his yacht, the Sheik, who had maintained overall command of the operation, was too stunned to be angry.

  "Get the Carpathia out of here immediately," he ordered the Captain of his yacht.

  "What about the men who are boarding the station, Sir?"

  "They will have to get along on their own for a while. We have to leave; somehow that mining Captain knows we don't have weapons and those mining lasers are deadly at close range. Give the order to depart the system. Patch me through to those mining ships."

  The communications tech routed the call.

  "Very well, Captain O'Connell, we will depart but I assure you we will be back, probably within forty-eight hours. We shall see who has the upper hand then."

  On board the yacht, the woman formerly known as "Tiffany" looked at the Sheik of Barsoom.

  "What are your orders regarding this systems long-range communications, Sire?" she asked.

  "We must prevent them from calling for help. We still have need of the wealth stored on this station. It seems we have little choice. Destroy the communicators, Fahada."

  The Sheik's top female operative triggered the remote detonator for the explosive charges she'd set earlier. The resultant explosion destroyed the Whitney communications console and heavily damaged almost everything else in the communications suite aboard the mining station that they were temporarily leaving behind.

  ***

  Docking area outside Piedmont Mining Station, Catskill-Soroyan system, November 29, 2598.

  The Captains of the two mining ships saw the flash of a powerful explosion and the resultant expulsion of debris from the communications suite on the top level of the mining station.

  With destruction of the communications facilities of this system and those of several other nearby systems, the Stage II communicator onboard the Carpathia was one of the few remaining in this portion of the quadrant. The Sheik's terrorist group now had all but total control of communications for a vast area. They could continue their nefarious activities with virtual impunity. Leaving the situation more or less at a holding spot, the destroyer and the yacht left the system.

  "Damn! That was close, Seamus!" radioed Patrick.

  "Don't I know it!" came the reply. "All we did was buy some time though. We'd better figure out what the hell we're gonna do next!"

  ***

  Piedmont Mining Station, Catskill-Soroyan system, November 29, 2598.

  Hartmann and his men retreated to the security office where they could regroup and consider their next response. An hour earlier the hijacked destroyer and the mysterious yacht had been forced to leave the vicinity of the mining station. As the enemy was departing, Hartmann and his men had not only heard a muffled thump from the explosion that destroyed the communications suite, they had felt a sharp tremor reverberate throughout the entire structure. Alarms had begun sounding again and red lights had begun lighting up all over his security boards. On his bank of monitors, the ones dedicated to the communications suite had gone blank.

  He and his small security force had immediately gone to the communications suite, on the opposite side of the station from the security offices, to survey the damage and secure the area. Discovering that the communications suite was now open to space, they sealed off several compartments adjacent to it to provide a pressurized buffer between the damaged area and the rest of the station.

  "Why in Space would these bastards want to attack a mining station?" asked one of the men as they made their way back towards the security suites.

  "For starters," said Hartmann, "they wanted to hijack t
hat Tunisian destroyer."

  "They hijacked a destroyer? Are they mad?"

  "Maybe, but they appear to have succeeded. Seamus O'Connell watched it happen out of the front viewport of the Donegal. It looks like the crew managed to disable the weapons first, though."

  "But why attack the station itself? And why did they blow the communications equipment?"

  "I can understand them destroying communications," replied Hartmann, "we won't be able to contact anyone outside of this system for help."

  "Yeah, I guess that makes sense," replied the man.

  That and there are a lot of other things of value on board a mining station," continued Hartmann. "We have a lot of partially refined ore that's waiting to be shipped back to orbital smelting facilities. It's a little bulky but it could be worth something to them. More likely they're after something more compact and more readily exchanged. Every now and then the miners find a big chunk of something really valuable. I think there was more than a kilo of gold, several kilos of cobalt and smaller amounts of platinum and titanium in the big vault on the lower level."

  "So you think they're looking for some spoils that are easily converted to credits to help bankroll their operations?" asked one of the other men.

  "Probably, these people are almost always short of cash, no matter how fierce they appear to be. There's also the NITrans supply ship that's only about half unloaded. Any terrorist organization would be more than happy to get their hands on food, medicine, liquor and other goods that they could put to immediate use or also convert to easy credits."

  "It makes a lot more sense, now that you explain it."

  "Yes, it does, doesn't it? Are the transfer berths secured yet?

  "Yes, we got right on that as soon as the Glendaloch undocked, Deputy Chief."

  "Good, that takes care of one major concern. The station is pretty well locked down at the moment; those terrorists up in the airlock area aren't going anywhere anytime soon. I had the cargo handlers transfer those pure metals onto the Glendaloch just before she undocked. No sense in giving these terrorists any chance of getting their hands on anything that valuable. Now have the workers secure that NITrans supply ship. The freighter was headed to Patagonia and then to New Ceylon after they got done here. I have half a mind to send the mining ships with her and see if the Federation can send us some help. We should be fine for the time being though. With two months of supplies on hand, we can hold out here longer than these terrorists, I would think. I'll talk it over with O'Connell and Patrick, but first I think we should see if we can get some more information on what these terrorists are up to."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean we need to interrogate some prisoners."

  "How are we going to go about doing that?"

  Hartmann gave the man a wolfish grin. The grin, combined with the Spacer tattoo on his left cheek, gave him a particularly sinister look "We have plenty of weapons and we also have a fair amount of riot gear. I think I know might know a way to take on a soldier in battle armor."

  Chapter 9.

  New Ceylon Orbital Station, November 29, 2598.

  Helen Murdock was sound asleep when the com unit in her posh hotel room softly announced that someone was trying to contact her. It was early, only 0530, and the man sleeping next to her, Engineering Technician Second Class Angus Rory Hawkins, did not awaken. Murdock smiled as she looked over at him, still a little overwhelmed by the intensity of a love affair that had united the two of them so late in life.

  She slipped on one of the plush, full-length robes that came with the expensive hotel room. Murdock and Hawkins, key players in the successful defense of the New Ceylon Orbital Station just a few weeks ago, were guests at the hotel, compliments of the Station Government. After fluffing up her kinky medium-length hair, she sat down at the com unit and pushed the "accept communication" key. The screen showed a handsome, immaculately groomed, dark-haired man in a Federation Navy uniform with Commander's insignia on the collar.

  "Commander Kresge," said Murdock. "It's early. What can I do for you?"

  "I received some disturbing news from last night's courier ship communication, Helen. As of yesterday at about 1800 hours, the Federation has officially begun to mobilize. Intel says that several of the more militant Islamic Alliance governments have been quietly building up their own forces for several months now. No one is willing to say just where they think this is all heading but I have been ordered to mobilize our forces out here, such as they are, and prepare defenses. I suppose we should have seen this coming, but it's still kind of a shock."

  "Not good news, Commander, and I sure do appreciate the personal call to warn me, but what can the Skipper of an eighty-year old Bombardier freighter possibly do to help the Federation Navy?"

  "I've been ordered to get the Scrapyard back up and functioning," replied Kresge. "Your ship looks to me like a good temporary solution to the problem that we no longer have a main living facility. It's my understanding that you had intended to bring the Greyhound out to the Scrapyard anyway for replacement of some of her propulsion system components. She could act as accommodations for us while the repairs are done. Naturally, I am authorized to pay you a reasonable fee for the use of your ship. The fees would be in addition to whatever equipment is required to be installed and calibrated on the ship. The Navy has already agreed to donate the parts and labor."

  Murdock had listened quietly while Kresge made his proposal, nodding her head in understanding.

  "I don't know how to refuse, Commander, my finances aren't in the best of shape. In fact this sounds almost too good to be true. What's the catch?"

  Kresge sighed, "There is always a catch, isn't there?" He took a deep breath before continuing. "We don't know how long it will be until the Navy can get a new main facility transported out here. I was originally told we should have a new facility within a month. Since that was around six weeks ago, I'm not holding my breath. The Navy is woefully short of just about everything right now. To be brutally honest, we might be needing you and your ship indefinitely."

  "I see." Murdock made her decision without wasting any more time. "I don't really have any short term plans, Commander, and hauling freight could turn out to be a pretty dangerous occupation for the near future. The Greyhound is at your disposal."

  "Thanks, Helen. I assume that Hawkins is with you?"

  "Yes he is, Commander, but he's still sleeping. Should I wake him?"

  "Not necessary. Would you be so kind as to tell him to report to the briefing room later this morning? I'd like you to come too, I have a meeting scheduled for 0800."

  "We'll be there, Commander. Anything else you want me to do?

  "I'd get packed up and ready to spend some time aboard ship out in the Scrapyard, Helen. We've got a lot of work to do. Kresge out."

  The screen went blank.

  Chapter10.

  "...The so-called Sheik of Barsoom is known to be ruthless and violent as witnessed by the alarming number of atrocities that have been strongly connected with him and his followers. He and his group have taken credit for many more acts of terrorism and his penchant for boasting and exaggeration make him, if not a desirable figure, certainly one of the more colorful of the Muslim dissidents. His origins are not known with certainty, though credible accounts indicate that he may actually be the son of nobility as his title implies, but it is every bit as likely that he comes from more common origins. His whereabouts remain unknown, and interplanetary authorities consider him and members of his group to be armed, extremely dangerous, and very unpredictable. Recent holographs of the Sheik and a physical description are included in this pamphlet. If you have any information about the Sheik of Barsoom or his followers, please contact the United Federation Terrorism Task Force (UFTTF) at the number listed below. Your communication will remain strictly confidential...

  Urgent December Update: The UFTTF has received reports from reliable sources that an individual believed to be the Sheik of Barsoom was recently sighte
d on an orbital station in the border region between Federation and Meridian Space. If you see this man, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO APPROACH HIM! Instead, contact Federation authorities immediately. A reward is offered for substantial information. Once again, your communication will remain strictly confidential..."

  Hartwell Wrist Comp reference note highlighted for further review by Tamara Carlisle. Excerpt is from "Known Muslim Terrorists and Dissidents: Midyear Update." Short video download and hardcopy pamphlet prepared by the UFTTF for screening and distribution to travelers headed to the Meridian planetary system. No author is listed.

  On board the New Tunisian Warship Mahdia, an obsolete destroyer recently stolen by the Sheik of Barsoom, somewhere in the Catskill-Soroyan Star System, November 29, 2598.

  The Sheik of Barsoom was livid as he paced the small bridge of his stolen destroyer. He and his formidable battle group had been forced to flee in disgrace from two battered old mining ships. Mining ships? And he had a destroyer in his possession!

  "Mining ships!" he ranted. "We had to run like cowardly dogs from two mining ships! How was it that those accursed gunners were able to ruin the pulse beams?" he shouted. "What are we to do now? We are supposed to rendezvous with the others in just a few days. This ship was to be part of the attacking forces! Now I must divert forces to finish the takeover of that accursed mining station as well!"

  Two of the three people in the compartment with the Sheik chose that moment to study the tips of their shoes. The third man, a little older than the others and a cousin to the Sheik, ratcheted up his courage and volunteered a possible solution.

  "I know that it is little consolation, my Sheik, but Captain Hassad should still have more than sufficient forces to accomplish his mission at the Santana Nexus. It is a great pity, but we will simply not be able to take part in the glorious attack."