The Veritian Derelict (Junkyard Dogs)

by Nolte, Phillip

  Assured that two other gymnasts were not going to be in her way, Carlisle attempted a far more difficult series of maneuvers. First, she coiled up against the wall and launched herself across the arena. Then, using the tether that was an integral part of the art of weightless gymnastics, she skillfully performed a pass that included an entire series of somersaults and twisting maneuvers that left the two younger athletes with their mouths agape. Carlisle performed several even more advanced level combinations before finally stopping to catch her breath.

  The two younger girls came up to her and began to ask questions about where Carlisle had gotten her training and where she had competed. The three of them spoke for several minutes before they shyly asked if Carlisle could give them some pointers. The Ensign was reluctant at first, but after about ten minutes, she found that she was actually enjoying herself. She would demonstrate a move and then coach the two girls on how to perform it. By the end of the session, which lasted at least an hour more than Carlisle had expected, the two girls were performing the moves they had been struggling with when the older athlete had joined them. The two budding gymnasts and their awestruck coach thanked her profusely and watched her depart with admiration in their eyes.

  Tired but feeling much better after the workout and the unexpected but ultimately very satisfying interaction with the younger girls, Carlisle treated herself to a water shower, wherein she used up two full rations of water, flopped down on the bed in her small quarters and fell asleep almost immediately.

  She slept better than she had in several weeks.

  Chapter 17.

  Deep space, somewhere in the Heard's World Star System, December 2, 2598.

  The shuttlecraft carrying the recently kidnapped Hanna and Caleb Jordan docked with a large private yacht a little over two hours after departing Heard's World. Out of one of the side ports, Caleb was shocked and dismayed to see that the yacht was accompanied by a battered old destroyer that bore Tunisian Navy markings. Seasoned former Navy man that he was, Caleb recognized the type immediately: an Islamic Alliance Dagger Class. This class of destroyer had been built in large numbers during the twenty years following the Succession war and there had been one version or another of the class in almost every space-going navy except the United Terran Federation during that time. A surprising number of the stout old ships still survived and many were still in use by the small navies of less affluent planetary governments. He had never heard of one being in the possession of a group of what he was pretty sure were outlaws before.

  The thought made him shudder.

  After the shuttle docked with the yacht, Caleb and his wife were ushered from the docking bay to a meeting room, one of many dedicated compartments onboard the lavishly appointed but obviously aging ship. Here they met with the leader of the small and well-organized force.

  "Greetings," said the leader, a tall, rather stout fellow with streaks of gray in his full beard and mustache. He was dressed in traditional Islamic robes and was wearing a turban. "I am the Sheik of Barsoom. Welcome to our humble accommodations, Mr. Jordan." His wide, handsome face wore a smile that was not reflected in his eyes.

  "I don't think that 'welcome' is the appropriate response," replied Hanna, hands on hips. "Seeing as how you kidnapped us!"

  "A mere detail," said the Sheik, sardonically, the false smile still in place. "We have need of your services. It seems that the destroyer that has come into our possession does not have working weapons. We are also informed that there is a Succession War cruiser in this system that contains the parts we need to get those weapons functioning again."

  "And just why should we help you?" asked Hanna.

  "Because if you help us, you will live. In fact, if you do as you are told, we will deliver you to a place of safety."

  "And if we do not?"

  "Mr. Jordan will help us because harm will come to you, dear Lady, if he does not."

  "You are nothing but a pack of thieves and murderers," said Hanna.

  "You will keep a civil tongue in your head, woman!" said the Sheik, almost shouting. His false smile was gone and the instantaneous shift from oily cajoler to angry despot was shocking as well as revealing. "You can as easily spend your time bound and gagged as you can free to move about. The choice is yours, it matters little to me!"

  Hanna still looked fit to be tied, but she closed her mouth and kept it shut. Resigned to their apparent fate and terrified that these people might actually harm his wife, Caleb Jordan agreed to help them without further hesitation.

  "Show me what you need me to do," said Caleb.

  "I commend you upon seeing the light," said the Sheik, reverting to his feral smile. "We will transport you over to the destroyer."

  Hanna was forced to remain behind on the yacht, locked into a small compartment while Caleb was herded back onto the shuttle. After a transfer that lasted about twenty minutes, the shuttle docked with the destroyer and he was introduced to Captain Noori, the newly appointed commander of the ship, and a man named Mohammad Jubayr, who was the new head engineer on the old destroyer. Jubayr, wasting no time, immediately took Caleb on an inspection tour of the ship's weapons systems. One look at the capacitor banks for the two single mount pulse beam weapons on the old destroyer convinced Caleb that the weapons had been disabled in a very competent and very thorough fashion. The components within the capacitor stack were melted and twisted into an unrecognizable mess and the paint on the walls, floor and ceiling of the compartment that contained them was scorched and blistered in several areas.

  "Whoever disabled these weapons knew what he was doing," said Caleb.

  "Yes, it was most unfortunate," said Jubayr.

  "How did it happen?" asked Caleb

  "Um...An inexperienced bridge officer mistakenly ran an emergency protocol that was designed to disable the main batteries. As I said, it was most unfortunate."

  Caleb thought the explanation flimsy but decided it was not in his best interests to question further. Instead, he walked the full length of the aft battery capacitor stack one more time. He shook his head. "These capacitor banks are absolutely destroyed," he said, shaking his head, "these guns will never work again without replacement components."

  "We have been informed that the secondary armament on the Excalibur Class cruisers were the same as the main armament on these destroyers. Do you know this to be true?"

  Caleb knew that the longer he could stall these people the longer he and his wife would remain alive. He did not entertain any high hopes about their future if and when this project was finished. He kept his response deliberately evasive.

  "That could be right, I'm not sure, we'll have to take a look."

  "We were informed that you were a gunnery engineer?"

  "I was," replied Caleb, "but I served in the Federation Navy and this type of ship was used by the governments of the Islamic Alliance. I'm not all that familiar with the Alliance technology."

  The Sheik's engineer shrugged. "I expect that the technologies are similar enough," he said. "You are to determine what will be required to repair these capacitor banks." His gaze narrowed. "I also think that you are more informed about Alliance technology than you are willing to admit. You will be guiding us to the moon in this system where an Excalibur cruiser was abandoned at the end of the Succession War."

  Caleb kept his expression deliberately neutral.

  "Do not play the fool with us!" said Jubayr, steel in his voice. "We were informed that you visited this ship just a short time ago and removed some weapons from it."

  After a long moment, Caleb nodded reluctantly but said nothing.

  "Good, I see that we have reached an understanding. I suggest that you take as much time as you need to look these gun emplacements over very carefully."

  Caleb took the man's advice and spent several hours going between the two emplacements, going over the layout, attachment points and what kind of manpower and tools would be needed to remove and replace the disabled capacitor banks of the fore
and aft main batteries. Without any sort of schematic or other documentation, he decided that this was going to be a fairly difficult task, even if he didn't try to stall the project.

  Which, of course, he fully intended to do.

  Chapter 18.

  "...From nearby space, the United Terran Federation Naval Reclamation Center is possessed of a unique and eerie sort of beauty. Some say it reminds them of a giant snowflake while others have described it as a gargantuan, spherical explosion that has somehow been frozen in place. The "Scrapyard," as it is often called, is essentially a huge cloud of damaged and obsolete warships jumbled together with a wide assortment of other space junk and debris. The planet of New Ceylon, orbiting the star Naccobus, (the home star system for the Reclamation Center) was only colonized in the first place because the system had a stable Whitney overdrive point; the planet itself is only marginally inhabitable. As had happened so many times in the past, a remote, nondescript, under populated locale became famous because an entire series of interrelated, chance events conspired to make the locale ground zero for a titanic and pivotal clash between human cultures. Thus was New Ceylon added to the list of names that includes Thermopylae, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Midway, Proxima Signis and Rigel's Gate. In this case, the region near the system's Whitney overdrive point was the scene of the largest and, some say, most important battle between space-faring navies in Mankind's long history of conflict. This same battle had provided much of the material that made up the Scrapyard..."

  Hartwell Wrist Comp reference note highlighted for further review by Amanda Steuben. Excerpt is from "The Scrapyard (second edition)." by Calvin Desjardins, Official Historian, UTFN Reclamation Center.

  New Ceylon Orbital Station, December 2, 2598.

  After several days of intense preparation, the Greyhound was finally packed, provisioned and ready for her journey to the Reclamation Center. With both of the New Ceylon system's cutters having been destroyed in the terrorist attack, each of the two light cruisers that had come a little too late to be of any real help had left their spare cutters. Since the cutters had both been backups, neither was of the latest design, but they would certainly be adequate for the job at hand. Kresge and half of the civilians were heading out to the Scrapyard on one of these cutters, while the remainder of the entourage, including Harris, Hawkins and, naturally, Helen Murdock were traveling out on the Greyhound.

  After traveling a safe distance from the planet using her reaction drive, the Greyhound executed two carefully programmed microjumps which brought her about three-fourths of the distance to the Scrapyard. Everything seemed to be going as planned until the old freighter executed her third and final microjump before the switch back to the ship's reaction drive to complete the remainder of the journey. Murdock was on the bridge while Harris and Hawkins were down in the engineering section.

  Something about the last jump hadn't felt right to Murdock. She called the two men on the intercom.

  "Hawk?" she said. "Is everything okay down there? I felt something at the end of that last microjump." The intercom was silent for several seconds before she got a reply.

  "Them terrorists must've abused this drive somethin' terrible," Hawk finally replied. "It should'a worked for at least another six months."

  "What's wrong with the drive, Hawk?" asked Murdock.

  "I hate t'be the one tellin' you this, Lass, but it be a good thing we're almost there. We'll nay be jumpin' with this unit..." he paused before continuing, "... ever again." Murdock was silent for a long moment as she digested the news.

  "Is the reaction drive okay?" she finally asked.

  "Aye, there be nothin' wrong with the reaction drive or the thrusters, we've just nay got a Whitney drive no more."

  Ever the optimist, Helen Murdock replied. "I guess it could have been worse. We were going to replace the unit anyway. At least she got us to where we had to go!"

  "Aye, Lass, that be somethin' anyway," came the reply.

  With her reaction drive operating normally, the ship continued on to complete the remainder of the journey more or less on schedule, including a planned stop to pick up a vital piece of hardware. A couple of hours out from the Scrapyard, they maneuvered the Greyhound into position to retrieve the Rover II, one of the two Naval-issue utility sleds that Harris, Hawkins and Ensign Carlisle had found to be so vital for their defense of the Scrapyard a month and a half ago. After the half hour or so required to secure the Rover II in the front hold, they continued on their way to the Scrapyard. Helen Murdock, sitting back in the command chair on the bridge of her old ship watched with growing wonder as the huge cloud of damaged ships, partially dismantled ships and other assorted space junk grew in the front viewports of the Greyhound.

  A few moments after they entered the scrapyard the Greyhound was completely surrounded by it. Above them, below them, and in every direction around them was a glittering array of harsh, intense reflections from the various surfaces of old ships, disassembled pieces of ships, and other assorted scrap in the huge junkyard. Points of light, straight and jagged lines of light, light reflected in any and all shapes imaginable, some recognizable, some not. The incredible variety of light shapes contrasted starkly with shadows of the deepest black imaginable. All of this was framed against a backdrop consisting of glaring starpoints in the pitch black matrix of space. Directly over their heads was the white river of stars that made up the spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.

  "I've seen video before, but it wasn't anything like this!" she said appreciatively.

  "Yeah, it does kind of take your breath away the first time," replied Harris, from the post he had taken at the navigator's station on the opposite side of the bridge.

  "Pretty easy to see why the Federation suddenly figured out that they need this stuff," remarked Murdock. "From the looks of things, you could repair just about anything with the inventory they have out here."

  "That's nay quite right, Lass," said Hawkins, from the engineering section, over the intercom, "you can be fixin' 'most anything, as long as it be around fifty years old or so!"

  "We have to use what we have on hand for the foreseeable future, Hawk," Harris reminded him. "There won't be any new equipment for anyone for quite some time and it'll be even longer yet before we get anything modern out here in this remote corner of Federation space!"

  "What are you proposing for the repairs to this ship?" asked Murdock. "Remember, this is a Mark I Bombardier Cargomaster. She's really old."

  "Well..., I been givin' this some thought, " mused Hawkins, "We've got nary a single Mark I but there be five or six Mark II's in that cluster to the right. I'm thinkin' that one 'o those would likely be our best bet. They didn't change the hulls much at all and the mountin' points for the Whitney drive should be pretty much the same. Our biggest problem will likely be gettin' the control systems rejiggered."

  "Where is Ensign Carlisle when we need her?" said Harris, to no one in particular. "She would've called up the schematics on two or three ship types on that wrist computer and we'd be off and running." He shook his head. "I've been going over the schematics for this ship for the last several days, Hawk, and it looks like the easiest thing to do will be to install the control room console as well as the Whitney overdrive unit. I think most of the wiring is the same or pretty close, we'll have a better chance of getting everything to work if we match the control computers to the new drive system."

  "Aye, Lieutenant, that be just what I be thinkin'."

  "We aren't going to get to the repairs right away though, we've got too many other things to do first."

  ***

  After carefully maneuvering through the clutter of the Scrapyard, they stationed the Greyhound right near the cluster of ancient cargo ships that were to serve as parts donors for the even older ship. Having come directly to the Scrapyard, Kresge and the others on board the cutter had arrived several hours earlier. After rendezvousing with the Greyhound, the cutter crew connected a docking tube between the airlocks of the two shi
ps and immediately began the transfer of passengers and gear from the cramped confines of the cutter onto the vastly larger cargo ship.

  After a day or so of setting up and organizing, Kresge commandeered the bulk of the workforce to help him fill a priority list of small but vital parts that he had been given by Central Supply courtesy of the download from the courier ship that had visited the system a few days earlier. Kresge had also managed to beg, borrow or steal a limited assortment of smaller utility craft, several two-man utility sleds among them, from the New Ceylon Orbital Station to enable personnel to get around and work in the Scrapyard. These craft were put to immediate use and the crews worked steadily to fill Kresge's parts list before the first pick up which was scheduled, probably somewhat optimistically, to take place in less than four days.

  Hawkins and Harris took the remaining workers and set about the task of upgrading several critical systems on the Greyhound to better prepare her for her new appointment as semi-permanent living quarters for more than fifty people. After spending the better part of a day -- and parts from two of the wrecked Mark II's -- upgrading the sanitary facilities and life support systems on the Greyhound to accommodate the large number of new residents, they had addressed some of the more immediate needs of the expedition. Many more of the minor details were to be handled as needed as people settled in and made themselves at home as best they could.

  Chapter 19.

  Onboard the Piedmont Mining Station, Catskill-Soroyan star system, December 2, 2598.

  Chris Hartmann and his team of security people had been monitoring their two trussed-up battle armor-clad prisoners for just over ten hours. Finally one of them began banging on the inside of his suit, presumably as a signal to his captors that he wanted out. Hartmann put a small hand-held loudspeaker, the kind used by security forces to address a small crowd, up against the chest plate of the captive's armor and spoke, "Is there something we can do for you?" he then put his ear to the chest of the suit.