The Log of the Gray Wolf (Star Wolf Squadron Book 1)

by Shane VanAulen

  Martin Daley was a bit of a nerd, though a top runner, and yet he seemed to understand computers and technology even better than some of their professors. It was a surprise to many of his friends back home that he had decided to go to the distant Harpers Military College. He could have easily attended MIT or any one of the other Ivy League schools. When asked, his response was usually a shrug of his shoulders.

  Once, after a Saturday night of drinking, (which was absolutely forbidden by the Academy’s rules) he admitted that his grandfather was in the resistance during the Vorooshin Occupation of Earth. That was enough of an explanation for Mike, who never really questioned people on their motives for serving.

  Their group would meet on the weekends for dinner, a vid, or to work out whenever the seniors could manage to get a pass. The news that the three gave him about the school was just as grim. Commander Brian T. Weaver, Austro Navy, had made the school into his own little fiefdom, implementing his brand of education and discipline. Even the slightest infraction of the rules was met with severe punishment. Many of the off-world students were feeling the brunt of his displeasure.

  Most would have liked to leave, but with the web lanes closed, there was nowhere to go. Many of the businesses were no longer accepting the Confederation credit or even the Imperial dollar. In essence, they were trapped at the school. They were safe at least until their tuitions ran out, but then they’d be kicked out and onto the street.

  They were also being indoctrinated to idea that they should accept Austro Prime naval commissions upon graduation, being told that they would be interned if they sought a Confederation commission. Mike had been lucky in that he had not been offered an Austro commission and didn’t have to make a choice between serving the breakaway government or imprisonment.

  The one thing their group of friends agreed on was that they had to get off world and join the Confederation forces. There were others throughout the school that felt the same way, but they had to keep quiet because some of the native Austro students were being pressured to inform to Commander Weaver of any inappropriate actions. Most of the staff at the school kept their opinions to themselves, and tried to do their jobs to the best of their ability.

  Captain Hope was the one person most affected by the change. He was seen less and less, and the rumor was that he was no longer even coming to his office in the morning. In a place that was once alive with his energy and in which nothing went by without his knowledge or influence, he was now nothing more than a memory.

  Mike’s work at the station was also about the same. He had finished repairing the Sabre fighter and even test-fired its engines. He had wanted to take it out for a shakedown flight, but if he had been discovered, it would have probably gotten him shot down, or at the very least, his fighter would have been taken away, and he would probably have lost his job.

  Turning his attention to the second fighter, he started to make repairs, hoping that he would have enough parts from the third fighter to restore it. If he had to, he could have gone to the station’s parts stores and taken what he needed from there, but once again, he would have risked being discovered.

  He and Gunny Masters continued to play chess, shoot, and workout together. He was grateful that the old fellow was his friend. The salvage crew had completely stripped the Surprise over the last month. The old ship was now nothing but a gutted hull, fit only for the scrap yard. Most of her parts and systems had been placed in cargo containers for transportation to the Austro Navy’s orbital space station or to the surface to be sold at auction.

  At this time, Mike noticed several things that seemed curious to him. The salvage crew was now working around the clock. They seemed to be in a rush to get the old frigate stripped. What was funny was that the crews were still made up of the same old men from the first day. To him, they seemed tired and worn out most of the time, and yet, they worked like men half their age.

  The other thing that struck him as odd was that the containers of parts waiting to be shipped out were mostly damaged and unusable. He had found the better parts stored off to the side without shipping instructions. The last thing that made him suspicious, he discovered one morning after running a diagnostic of the maintenance robots.

  Everything seemed fine, except one of the robots had failed to return to recharge its batteries from the station’s central power grid. Activating the robot’s homing unit, he found it where it wasn’t supposed to be: on the Star Wolf.

  Sending a recall order, he waited until the robot rolled into the shop. It was a standard welder repair model able to magnetically hold itself to a ship’s hull and operate in a zero gravity environment. Checking the robot’s programming, he found that the unit had been reprogrammed to work on the Wolf.

  What was even more surprising was that the repair robot wasn’t taking the damaged cruiser apart, but was repairing a section of the ship’s hull armor. This didn’t make sense; all of the ships were ordered scrapped as per the terms of the Karduan peace accords. Checking the logs of the other robots, he found nothing unusual, but on a hunch, he used a recovery program to see if anything had been deleted from their service logs.

  To his astonishment, he found that all forty of the robots had been used for repair operations as well as salvage work for the past month. It seemed that whenever he went home, someone would reprogram the units and then erase their logs the next morning before he arrived for work.

  Copying the recovered logs, he closed up shop, headed to the maglev, and then to the security office. Stepping through the doorway, he saw that the salvage crew chief, a man they called the “Padre” because of his constant carrying of a bible, was once more in heated discussion with the gunny.

  “I don’t care, we haven’t much time left,” he said, not noticing Collins coming through the doorway. “We have to get an engine to install soon, or we don’t stand a chance.”

  Masters gave the Padre a stern look, silencing him without a word. The Padre turned and saw Mike in the doorway and immediately looked like the cat that had just eaten the proverbial canary.

  Mike ignored him and crossed the room, tossing his palm pad on the worktable. “Take a look at this, Gunny,” he said, staring down at the crew chief. “It seems someone has been reprogramming the station’s robots to work for them!”

  The old marine glanced down at the palm pad computer and then looked to the Padre. The salvage chief took a step back and awkwardly pulled an old revolver from inside of his red jumpsuit. “Don’t move, pup!” he said, aiming the pistol at Collins’ chest.

  It took Mike a moment, but then he moved and moved fast. Sidestepping, he cross-body blocked and grabbed the man’s gun arm, placing his hand over the shooter’s hand. Twisting his opponent’s arm backwards with his left hand, he struck him across the chest with a rigid right arm. The sudden shift and breaking of balance coupled with the breathtaking blow to the chest sent the Padre flying to the floor, where he landed hard on his back and smacked his head against the solid metal floor.

  Leaning over, Mike quickly recovered the old slug-thrower just as he felt a pistol barrel being pressed to the side of his head.

  “Drop the hog leg, son, and don’t try any tricks with me!” Gunny Masters ordered, pushing his 8mm automatic hard against Collins’ temple to emphasize his point.

  A few minutes later, he was seated across from the Gunny. Standing behind the retired marine were three more salvage crewmen. All of the workers were holding tools that could be used as weapons. Seated nearby was the recovering Padre, who was holding a reconstituted chill pack on the back of his head.

  “I’ve one question for you, Mister Collins,” Gunny Masters started.

  Mike smirked at him and the others. “Well, I’ve more than one question for you and your merry band.”

  The old marine ignored him and continued. “My question is: to whom are you loyal to?”

  “What?” Collins asked in response, his face grimacing in confusion.

  “Think about it: Who are you l
oyal to?” he repeated, staring the younger man in the eyes.

  Mike looked down at the table and to the chessboard. Reaching out, he grasped the black king from the board and held it in his hand. “I’m loyal to the King of America, who is our Emperor and the Confederation Senate,” he said, placing the King back on the board with a thump.

  The Gunny smiled, reached over, and smacked him on the shoulder. “I told you!” he said triumphantly as he looked to the salvage crewmen standing nearby.

  “Great, but will he join us?” a large worker asked, holding a gravity bar in his hand as if he was going to bat something out of the park.

  “Join what?” Collins asked, but the pieces of the puzzle were before him, and he was quickly putting those pieces together. “You’re going to steal the Wolf!”

  All heads around him turned and the workers started to mutter to themselves and each other. Gunny simply leaned back in his chair and laughed, “I told you he was smart!”

  The Padre got up from his chair and moved to the table, “But will he join us?”

  “That depends on what you’re planning on doing with her,” he said, having some trouble with simply stealing her for profit or salvage.

  The Gunny leaned forward, and the expression on his face became grave. “We plan on repairing her, escaping this system, and rejoining the Confederation fleet,” he said in all seriousness.

  Mike looked at them and started to laugh. “And you’re going to do that with a crew of what, forty old men?”

  “Forty-five retired veterans, you arrogant pup!” one of the workers said, sounding more than a little angry at his words.

  “Well, that being the case, I most certainly will join you and, in fact, I think I can get you a few more hands,” he said with a big smile, causing the collected old men to glance to each other with questioning looks.

  “I don’t know,” said the Padre, who turned out to be a retired Chief Warrant Officer CW-4. He was their ranking officer; the rest of the retirees were made up of senior navy and marine non-commissioned officers. There were even a couple old American army sergeants, but they had no commissioned officers with them. That made Mike wonder; technically he was a commissioned Confederation naval officer, and that would make him senior in rank, even if he were just an ensign.

  “Listen, not only can my three friends, who are all seniors at the academy, help us. But they can find out over the next month, while we get the Wolf ready, who else we can recruit from the junior, sophomore, and freshmen classes.”

  “The risk is too great!” the worker with the glowing red artificial eye said, shaking his head as he spoke. Mike learned later that he was jokingly called “Cyclops”, but his real name was Bell, and he had once been an Engineer’s Mate, Senior Grade.

  Gunny Masters had remained silent during their debate over whether or not to bring in Mike’s friends. “The risk is great, so we must wait until we are ready to go before we try to bring in any others from the Academy. We should also try those other options we discussed earlier,” he said, referring back to some unknown conversation that Mike was not privy.

  “That’s fine, but my three friends are absolutely trustworthy, and we could definitely use their help.”

  Masters nodded and looked to his fellow conspirators. “If the ensign says ‘that they can be trusted’ than that’s good enough for me,” he announced, giving Mike his full confidence.

  The Padre threw his hands in the air and muttered a quick prayer under his breath. “All right, bring them in, but I don’t know what they are going to be able to do to help. After all, they are in classes all day.”

  Mike gave them a big smile. “Oh, they’ll find a way to help, you’ll see.”

  The group looked doubtful, but the decision was made. All of the retirees knew that even if they could get the Star Wolf space-worthy, they wouldn’t have enough men to run her, let alone fight their way back to friendly lines. An additional dozen men, even midshipmen, would be a great help when the time came to make their break.

  “Don’t worry!” Collins said, smiling from ear to ear, feeling for the first time in months as if he was truly alive and part of something big.

  Despite his reassurances, the group “except Masters” looked less than confident.

  Life for Mike -- or Mister Collins” as the retirees called him -- was now quite different. It was no surprise to him that his three friends had jumped at the opportunity to escape and rejoin the Confederation. They had sworn themselves to secrecy, realizing that not only their mission but also their lives now depended on discretion. They worked on jump routes and recruitment, trying to figure out which underclassmen were sympathetic to their cause and could be counted on.

  For Mike’s part, he had started by reprogramming the station’s repair robots to work on the Star Wolf fulltime. Their main job was to repair structural damage and breeches to her hull. He then spent his time working on the ship’s systems and weapons. The majority of the retirees worked on her electrical systems, life support, and engines. They were still having problems with getting the damaged starboard engines back in shape, but they were making headway.

  The missing portside engine was another problem, one that Midshipmen Dover and Daley surprisingly had come up with a solution to. The retirees had realized early on that they would need a second engine if they were going to make their escape, but cruiser-size engines weren’t just lying around, or at least that’s what most people thought. Dover and Daley had stayed up nights running modification programs and simulations until they were sure their idea would work.

  It was on a weekend when the senior class was given a three-day pass that they decided to share their ideas. Instead of going home or to a hotel for a well-deserved rest, the midshipmen made their way to the transport shuttle station. Before they had arrived, they had stopped at Mike’s little apartment and changed into the same type of red jumpsuits as the salvage crew. Thus disguised, they blended in to the changing shifts with the rest of the workers. The retirees ignored them until they got to the station were they greeted each of them. They, too, were treated like the young gentlemen that they were, though in a more of an older-brother-to-younger-brother role.

  “I’m telling you that it will work!” Martin argued, downloading his plans from his palm pad to the station’s computer.

  The security office was filled with retirees anxious to hear the midshipmen’s plan. They were more than a little skeptical, but any shred of hope was something to nurture. The Padre looked grim, and Gunny Masters’ expression was equally serious.

  Martin nodded to Dover and activated the computer’s three-dimensional holographic screen. What appeared in a glowing greenish light were the images of the ISS Star Wolf and the fast-transport ISF Cape Town. Just as they had been taught, the midshipmen proceeded to brief the gathered crew on their proposed plan.

  “As it turns out, the ISF Cape Town has an undamaged engine unit that is close in size and output to the standard replacement engine. We have estimated, through computer simulations, that it will take 378 hours, or what works out to twenty-one eighteen-hour days to move and refit the Cape Town’s engine. A full modification list and a work schedule have been laid out for your inspection,” Dover said, his English accent making the herculean task seem as simple as a walk in Hyde Park.

  The room was so quiet they could have heard a pin drop, if anyone would have cared to drop one. All eyes were glued on the hologram or had turned to look at the chief warrant and the Gunny. The Padre looked from the hologram and glanced down to the palm pad in his hand. The work schedule even had a built-in fudge factor of ten hours. He was impressed and surprised that he hadn’t thought of the suggested modifications to make the freighter’s engine fit.

  “It could work,” he said to a roar of cheers from the collected crew. Holding up his hands, he called for silence. “But we are going to have to get to work immediately, and even then, it’s going to be close!”

  “Padre, what’s the rush?” Mike asked,
not understanding his hurry.

  Gunny answered before the Chief could. “We’ve gotten word that a Karduan liaison officer will be arriving by the end of the month to supervise the disarmament and destruction of these ships.”

  The room’s jovial mood quickly turned somber. They now had it before them, and each of them knew that he had to do his part and work twice as hard if they were going to make it.

  “Alright, let’s get to it!” Mike announced, breaking the men from their thoughts and getting them into action. It was funny, but he just did it, and the men -- the veterans of countless years -- moved.

  Chapter Three

  Work proceeded as planned for the next two weeks as the Wolf’s vacant port engine section was prepped for its new engine. In the meantime, the Cape Town’s engine was detached and removed by using the station’s remote thruster-assisted lift pods and tow cables to shuttle boats. Pulling the engine from its former housing was easy.

  They then left it in a stationary position next to its former ship while they made necessary changes to the engine mounts. Though the veterans were all seasoned space hands, they didn’t have the experience that the station’s original crew had. The real trouble came after a week when they tried to mate the two together.

  It had taken the better part of two days to get the lift pod thrusters into place and program them to fire in the correct sequence. It was all a matter of timing and correct programming, or at least that’s what they thought. On their first attempt, one of the lift pod’s magnetic clamps failed. It released from the engine and spun off into space.

  This mishap ruined the sequence and caused the whole of the unit to misalign. The Padre called out an abort order, but it was too late, and the engine, with the force of the pod’s inertia, slammed into the Wolf’s engine housing.

  Martin Daley rapidly made computer adjustments and reversed the thruster commands, saving the engine from more of a pounding. It took another day to repair the minor damage to the housing and the engine’s mounts. Another pod was retrieved from the station’s stores, followed by a full diagnostic of all of the pods. Unfortunately, the midshipmen had to return to the planet and head back to the Academy as their weekend passes had run out. Not for the last time, the old veterans scowled at the departure of their officers, for that is how they now saw them.