Junkyard Dogs series Omnibus

by Phillip Nolte

  "Where the hell am I?" she said, her voice little more than a croak.

  "In the sickbay of the Istanbul," replied a familiar voice. "Don't try to move, you took a real beating. You've got a concussion and maybe some broken ribs."

  Some coherence began to trickle back.

  "Harris?...Ryan?...Is that you?"

  "Yes, Tamara, it's me."

  "What happened?"

  "Against all odds, we won! Thanks to you and your father."

  "My dad?" More recent memories phased in. "Oh, yeah, I remember now. They were here when we got back from Heard's World?"

  "He used the mining laser on the Donegal to destroy the front turret of the Perseus. The Perseus surrendered shortly afterwards. Meanwhile, you managed to hit the Skorpios twice and overloaded her shields so that Kresge and the Greyhound could do some real damage. The Skorpios won't be bothering us anymore."

  "So we're all safe?"

  "For now."

  She lay quietly for almost a minute. Harris thought she had gone back to sleep when she spoke again.

  "I'm hungry," she said, softly.

  "That's no surprise, you haven’t eaten anything since we had lunch yesterday. I've signaled the doctor, I'm sure they'll give you something as soon as they've taken a look at you."

  She reached for his hand.

  "Will you stay? I hurt and I'm tired but... it feels good having you near..."

  "As long as you need me, Tamara, I'll be here."

  ***

  Santana Nexus, December 17, 2598.

  Lester Dobbins slipped into a booth in an obscure corner of crowded bar on the Santana Nexus Orbital Station. Had the station still been under United Federation control he could not have come within ten light years of the establishment. As it was, however, with the rogue forces of the Sheik of Barsoom's Revolution in charge, Dobbins had remained unrecognized and had encountered no problems with security during the several weeks he had been hiding out on the station. He was dressed in nondescript clothing though anyone observing him closely would have immediately noticed that he was very nervous, constantly checking his surroundings as though looking for threats. Dobbins was also known by his Veritian Brotherhood name "Ezra Hellfire Brimstone," but upon going into hiding after an abortive attempt to kidnap the Meridian Ambassador just over two months earlier, he had been forced to cut off his distinctive Brotherhood Mohawk and had dyed what remained of his blond hair to a dark shade of brown. He was in the bar because he was running short on resources and his many creditors were breathing down his neck even harder than usual. Dobbins was badly in need of a large infusion of cash!

  Dobbins ordered a non-alcoholic drink and drank it slowly while he waited. He had been waiting for about twenty minutes when a strange man slid into the seat next to him. The man was wearing some kind of robe with the hood up and he too kept his head moving, as though he were nervous about something.

  "You are Dobbins?" the man asked, his voice a raspy whisper.

  "Who's asking?" replied Dobbins.

  "Serendipity," came the reply. It was the code word that had been agreed upon.

  "I never trust to luck," Dobbins returned the correct response.

  The stranger seemed to relax.

  "Come with me," said the stranger. "There is a place nearby where we can conduct this business."

  Dobbins looked around at the crowded bar and nodded his head. "Lead on," he said. He downed the last fourth of the drink he'd been nursing and got up to follow.

  The man led him out into the main corridor of the first level of the station's second ring and the two of them walked for perhaps five minutes before the stranger turned and led them down a short corridor. He stopped in front of a door with the words "Authorized Personnel Only" stenciled on the outside. The two of them were momentarily alone in the short corridor. The stranger produced a keycard, disarmed the lock and motioned Dobbins through before following him inside. They found themselves in a dimly lit maintenance room. A voice came out of the shadows in the most remote corner of the room.

  "Have a seat, Mr. Dobbins, or should I say 'Mr. Brimstone?'"

  Dobbins narrowed his eyes at the utterance of the name of one of the most wanted men in Federation space. But, of course, these people would know who he was. It was a risk he had been forced to take. Warily, he took the proffered seat at a small table. The unknown speaker remained in shadow while the side of the table where Dobbins now sat was lighted but only dimly.

  "I understand that you have certain...merchandise for sale? Is it not so?"

  "I might, for the right buyer at the right price."

  "What you have is a difficult thing to move, is it not?'

  "I haven't been trying to sell it for that long."

  "It will take a special kind of buyer."

  "Yes, it will. A very wealthy one."

  "Enough of this banter, I will offer you five million credits, cash."

  The man's offer was more than twice what Dobbins would have been happy with and he had a very difficult time disguising his shock. He thought briefly about trying to get even more but he was alone and the mysterious buyer was accompanied by several very large and, most likely, very well-armed companions. After a short pause he said, "It appears I have found that special kind of buyer! I accept!"

  After a few more minutes making arrangements for transfer of the merchandise and the money, the same hooded stranger accompanied Dobbins back to the bar. They did not go back inside. Using a nearby public computer terminal, Dobbins checked his secure bank account and, when the money had been transferred, handed the stranger a claim slip for the item in question.

  Just before they parted the man spoke.

  "You will not see me again. I do not know what you have sold to that man for so much money but I feel I must give you some advice."

  "And that is?"

  "The individual you have just done business with is a brilliant scientist who has made his fortune by making refinements to Whitney overdrive technology. This work has made him very, very wealthy."

  "That much is obvious."

  "You should also know that he is stark, raving mad!"

  Dobbins was speechless.

  "Farewell, Mr. Dobbins," said the stranger as he turned on his heel and strode swiftly down the corridor.

  Dobbins watched the man until he turned a corner and disappeared. Now you've done it, Lester, he told himself. You've gone and sold a thermonuclear bomb to a lunatic!

  The End.

  Junkyard Dogs Book Three

  The Santana Nexus.

  by Phillip Nolte

  (pnothing44@gmail.com)

  Cover image by A. Wirth. (wirthles2@hotmail.com)

  Dedication.

  This book is dedicated to our two feline housemates, Ozzie and Hanna, who kept me company and generously shared their warmth during many of the hours that went into creating the Junkyard Dogs series...

  Special thanks to good friend and artist A. Wirth for her stellar artwork.

  Prologue.

  "...My worst fears have been realized. The Santana Quadrant has disintegrated into chaos as organized terrorists have taken over many of the poorly guarded outposts and disrupted communications throughout the Quadrant. All of this hostile activity has to be leading to something, but what that might be isn't clear yet. The Enemy claims that this is the dawn of a new day and is referring to these collective acts of terrorism as a "Glorious Revolution." Naturally, rumors are running rampant. Some people are saying that this self-appointed Sheik of Barsoom wishes to install himself as the Emperor of Jasmine, abolishing the democracy that has flourished there for the last fifty years or more. Beyond that, he may have ambitions regarding the takeover of the Islamic Alliance itself! I don't know that I believe any of it but I will say this: While such a scheme would have seemed laughable only a short time ago, there is nothing funny about the success that this Sheik and his forces have enjoyed over the last several weeks!

  ...We have fared far better than I had ho
ped out here in the Reclamation Center. We were able to fight off an attack by a formidable group of the Sheik's forces, actually succeeding in destroying one of their three destroyers and forcing another to surrender before the rest of the attackers fled the system. Our casualties were relatively light, with only five killed and another dozen wounded but our numbers are so small that even these few represent such a substantial reduction in our forces that we will be hard-pressed to sustain such losses...

  ...If we are to maintain some kind of presence out here in New Ceylon, we are going to need more of everything: more ships, more supplies, more weapons, but most of all more personnel. Thank God we have the entire inventory of the Scrapyard to draw from but what I really need now is more people..."

  Excerpt from the personal log of Oskar Kresge, United Terran Federation Naval Commander and commanding officer of the UTFN Reclamation Center near New Ceylon.

  United Terran Federation Navel (UTFN) Reclamation Center, onboard Federation Auxiliary ship Greyhound, January 2, 2599.

  Irene Marshall and Allison Steuben were in the belly hold of the ancient freighter Greyhound, performing a mundane but necessary task. They were taking inventory on the supplies that remained to the personnel of the United Terran Federation Naval Reclamation Center, a huge floating spaceship junkyard also known as the "Scrapyard." Irene, a stunning, elegant woman with shoulder-length auburn hair, currently dressed in a smudged khaki coverall, looked up from the tablet she was taking notes on and said, "This is the last item on our list, Allison. There should be a case of irradiated beef Burgundy." Her deep blue eyes looked over at her companion in expectation.

  Allison Steuben, a slender, fortyish brunette currently on her hands and knees in a remote corner of the hold pulled a carton out of the specially designed cargo shelving that lined the hold of the ancient freighter. "Yeah, here it is, 'Le Ritz Extra Fancy Beef Burgundy.'"

  "Is it all there?"

  "It's still sealed," said Allison. She tipped the carton on its side. "The box says there's twenty-five servings inside."

  "We could feed everybody for a couple of days with that if we stretch it with the pasta we have left," said Irene.

  "We could, but why not just serve it with potatoes?" asked Allison, "Seems like we have more dehydrated potatoes than we do of anything else."

  "Or we could make both and let them have a choice," responded Irene.

  "That could work."

  Irene sighed and shook her head as she set the tablet down, "I suppose we should stop trying to fool ourselves. We're running out of food and almost everything else. The sooner we admit it and start doing something about it, the better."

  "I can't disagree with you, Irene," replied Allison, as she returned the carton to the shelf, "You'll talk to Oscar?"

  Commander Oskar Kresge was the commanding officer of the Reclamation Center and was also Irene Marshall's fiancé. Until recent events intervened, Irene had been the Undersecretary of Commerce on the New Ceylon Orbital Station, a station in close orbit around New Ceylon, the inhabited planet in the small, remote star system that was also home to the Reclamation Center. The Scrapyard had been established in the L5 point of New Ceylon's orbit around the star Naccobus which meant that the huge cloud of wrecked ships followed the same orbit as the planet but remained perpetually locked into a position some one hundred and sixty million kilometers behind it. As a businesswoman and a trained diplomat, Irene's skills were perhaps somewhat underutilized in the current setting but the assorted amalgamation of people taking refuge in the Scrapyard had come there for survival. While in survival mode, no job is trivial and the two women were performing a vital task.

  "Yes, I'll go and talk to him," said Irene, "I almost hate to burden him with even more bad news though; he's got so much on his plate."

  "I know it's not the best way to start out a new year," said Allison, "but putting it off will only make it worse. I know how you feel, but it's gonna get pretty tense out here if we don't do something about this food situation right away."

  "I know," Irene sighed again, "I'll do it as soon as we're done down here."

  "I'll finish tidying up," said Allison, "You should go talk to the Commander now."

  "You're right, of course. Thanks for all your help, Allison."

  "No problem, Irene."

  Chapter 1

  Onboard Meridian Imperial Destroyer Nasr, on patrol in the Oneida system, January 2, 2599.

  Captain Araman Bishara, in command of the MIS Nasr, a Meridian Imperial Navy Destroyer, received an urgent call from Lieutenant Commander Amir Salib, the overall commander of the four-destroyer strong Islamic Alliance patrol force that the Nasr was a part of. The three other ships in the small fleet were all from the Republic of Jasmine. Together, the four ships were making a sweep through several of the smaller star systems in a remote area of the Santana Quadrant. Because he was the most junior of the four ship Captains and his ship was the only one of the group originating out of Meridian, Bishara had been assigned the least glamorous duty available and that consisted of maintaining station near the Whitney hyperlink zone of the remote Oneida star system.

  Guarding the hyperlink zone had been mostly routine duty so far with the only activity of any note over the last two days being the arrival of a Federation destroyer into the system just a couple of hours ago. Bishara had exchanged routine formalities with the FNS Larkspur and allowed them passage to the inhabited planet to service the system's orbital communications platform. The Larkspur was bringing in a fresh crew to relieve the technicians who had been on duty operating the communications platform for the last thirty days.

  The somewhat frantic call to the Nasr, which means "Eagle" in Old Earth English, requested immediate assistance with some kind of unspecified emergency near the single sparsely inhabited planet of the system. Bishara instructed his bridge crew to execute a microjump towards the planet with all possible speed. With the jump completed, the Nasr was still a good half hour or so away from the planet and the other ships of her patrol. After giving his crew a couple of minutes to recover from the aftereffects of the jump, Bishara gave the order to continue the journey towards the planet as quickly as possible.

  He and his bridge crew watched and listened in horror and disbelief at the scene unfolding on the viewscreens of their ship. The Larkspur, the United Terran Federation Navy destroyer that Bishara had greeted just a couple of hours earlier, was attempting to fight off a coordinated, combined attack by the other three of Bishara's fellow Islamic Alliance destroyers. The Larkspur was in an impossible situation, with attackers coming at her from extremely close range and from several directions at once. The shields of the Federation ship were blazing with a dangerously livid violet glare from repeated and relentless pulse beam strikes.

  The captain of the Larkspur was exhorting her adversaries that she was on a peaceful mission and that the Jasmine destroyers should cease their attack.

  "Jasmine forces, this is Captain Jennifer Helmsford of the Larkspur, we are not your enemy! Cease fire! I repeat, Cease fire!"

  "You Federation dogs have dictated to us for the last time!" came the reply. "Prepare to die!"

  "This is Larkspur, I warn you; if you continue with this illegal action we will be forced to retaliate."

  The enemy reply was another salvo. The Larkspur's shields were now blazing even more ominously. Bishara had heard rumors of how capable the new Fletcher II class of Federation destroyers were and he was immediately impressed by how well the ship was shielded. True, the Larkspur's shields were failing, but he knew that his own ship would never have held up even half as long under the pounding that the Federation ship was absorbing.

  The last salvo forced the Captain of the Federation ship to take action, finally. Instead of attempting to respond to all three of her attackers at the same time, the Federation captain concentrated her fire on a single ship, the one closest to her. Bishara couldn't help but feel a sense of admiration as he watched the Federation ship fire multiple salvos
from all four of her main battery pulse beams at the single target. The rate of fire from the Larkspur's powerful main batteries was...simply astounding! These new Federation destroyers were indeed formidable! Perhaps defeating this one Federation ship was going to require even more than three of the Jasmine ships! No wonder the leader of the Jasmine forces had called the Nasr in for backup!

  The recipient of the Larkspur's barrage had not been destroyed by the onslaught but she was badly damaged with her hull holed in several places, damage which immediately took her out of the fight. With a single stroke, the Federation Captain had lowered the odds against her ship considerably!

  The turrets on the Federation ship began to rotate to target one of the other two attacking ships. But it was too little too late for the brave Captain and crew of the Larkspur as the odds finally caught up with them. As Bishara and the Nasr came within the range of their own pulse beam weapons, the remaining two Meridian ships, perhaps taking a page from their adversary's book, coordinated their attack and simultaneously fired both pulse beams from their front turrets, striking the Federation destroyer amidships from two different directions with four powerful pulses. The shields on the Federation ship flared to an impossibly bright searing white before winking out completely.

  "In the name of the Sheik of Barsoom, prepare to die, Federation dogs!"

  The Federation ship, which from Bishara's point of view had almost certainly been victim of a surprise attack, was now helpless.

  "This is Captain Helmsford. I still don't know what your game is but the Larkspur surrenders, I repeat, the Larkspur surrenders!"