Nathan considered his options and then grinned. “Gather around. I think I have an idea.”
Chapter 20
Two hours later Nathan and Cole rooted around the storage lockers inside the Blue Moon Bandit. Cole thumbed the lock on one and it popped open. Nathan directed a flashlight into the metal storage bin. He saw three rifles, spare magazines and several cases of ammunition.
“Take all of it,” Nathan said.
“Of course, but just so you know, I’m low on some of the special stuff like Rolling Betties and sticky bombs.”
They loaded it all into a couple duffel bags. Nathan hefted them and walked them back to the top of the loading ramp. He turned back and yelled over his shoulder. “Don’t forget the shaped charges we keep for busting clamps loose. We’re going to need them.”
“I didn’t forget.”
Nathan walked down the ramp into the late morning sunshine. The Bandit had been yanked free of the runway end by a crane at dawn. He would have preferred to be here when they did it but the spaceport wanted their runway back in operation. Now it sat crookedly on a landing pad because the tires on one set of landing gear had blown out. Three of Eldridge’s trucks rested out in the scrub grass surrounding the landing pad. He heard a sound and shaded his eyes from the sun with one hand.
“How is it up there?”
Duncan and Eldridge stood on the uppermost hull. “I think we can do it,” Duncan said as he gripped the maintenance ladder and started climbing down. He took each step carefully and without rushing.
“I’m still not sure,” Eldridge said.
“Don’t listen to him,” Duncan said. “He’s just worried we’re going to bang up his trucks.”
Eldridge gripped the sides of the ladder and slid down with an effortlessness you only have in your twenties.
“I’m not just worried about my trucks. I mean, yeah, I’m worried about them but what you’re talking about is difficult. We have to synchronize three trucks together, lift this heap,” he raised his hands, “sorry no offense, and then get it up into orbit. Then we have to maneuver it to the Corkscrew and dock it.” He paused and shook his head. “It’s one of those ideas that sounds good when you sketch it out but in reality, it’s just really, really bad.”
Duncan smiled at Nathan and shook his head. “Don’t listen to him. We can do it.”
“I don’t know,” Eldridge said. “It just seems kind of risky.”
“Kid, there’s risk in anything you do,” Duncan said. “In our line of work, and in yours by the way, we constantly have to come up with original ideas and solutions. Sometimes there just isn’t a manual to look at.”
“There is a solution for this,” Eldridge said. “You get a tug out here and lift this thing up using a vessel designed to move starships. It’s not like this problem hasn’t come up before.”
Duncan waved a hand at him. “Stop worrying so much. ‘Oh, Duncan, you’ll break my equipment,’” he said, imitating Eldridge. “‘Oh, Duncan, it’s not meant to do that’ Hell, kid, I don’t even know if there is a tug on this planet and if there is, do you have any idea how expensive a tow into orbit would be, or how long it would take to get here? We need our ship in orbit before Dodger tries to finish us off. Nah, this is the better solution.” He leaned over and slapped Eldridge on the back. “Trust me, at the end of the day you’ll be glad you did this.”
“You’re crazy.”
Duncan threw him a wink. “No, but I have great stories and it’s because I have mad ideas like this. Now come on. Let’s get these things set up. We’re on a schedule.”
Richie walked around the rear of the ship. Nathan smiled. “Hey, I notice you’re taking the long way around. Why aren’t you walking under the ship?”
The machinist mate answered him without any humor in his eyes. “I was on this thing when it came down and I know exactly how hard we hit. No way do I trust that landing gear until we’ve done a proper inspection.”
“What did you do with the drogue chute?”
“Duncan and I disconnected it and stowed it in the number two hold. That’s something else that will need to be inspected. I hope you have good insurance, boss.”
Nathan grimaced. “Yeah, me too.” He followed Richie to the side of the hull outside of the starboard engine. Richie mounted a maintenance scissor lift and rose into the air next to the ship. He pulled out a cordless impact wrench and started removing bolts from an access plate.
“Is that where we’re hooking on with the trucks?” He said in a raised voice over the sound of the tool.
Richie leaned over the side of the lift. “Yeah, there are two hard points on this side and two on the other. We’ll bolt the trucks on and lift it right up. I got the other side earlier so whenever Duncan and Eldridge are ready we can get this show on the road.”
Nathan watched for half an hour as Duncan, Richie and Eldridge cleared the area of people and equipment. They all stood half a klick away from the landing pad. Nathan and Cole had nothing to do with this part of the operation and Nathan fidgeted with the binoculars hanging around his neck waiting for things to begin. He bit his lip to keep from asking the three of them what was happening. They all crowded around a rugged portable workstation Eldridge had set up. Finally he couldn’t take anymore.
“Are we doing this?”
Duncan held up a hand. “Calm down. We’re actually starting now.”
Eldridge made an adjustment on the workstation and one of the trucks lifted off above the scrub brush and flew next to the Blue Moon Bandit faster than Nathan would have thought was safe. Before he could acknowledge that fact, the truck adjusted itself parallel to the hard points Richie had accessed. A second truck rose up and moved equally quickly to the damaged port side. Both trucks extended landing gear and settled in next to the Bandit.
The trucks adjusted their position relative to his ship and Nathan went back to biting his lip. He wanted to ask questions but he trusted Duncan so he kept his mouth shut and let them work. He couldn’t contribute anything useful to the situation.
For several long minutes, he watched as Duncan made minute adjustments and the trucks completed their line-up. Duncan pointed to the monitor. “Come on and watch this.”
He looked over Duncan’s shoulder and the engineer said, “Go ahead, Eldridge.”
Nathan watched as large polished cylinders with thick notches extended from the truck and inserted themselves into the hard points on the Bandit. The cylinders rotated and locked into place.
Duncan inspected the connection on the monitor. He smiled at Nathan. “That’s one.”
The view changed to the damaged port side. Luckily the engine was inboard from the side of the hull so the hard points could still be accessed.
Nathan pointed to them. “Are you sure this side will hold? It’s pretty torn up.”
“It should,” Duncan said. “The damage all seemed contained to the engine and the engine compartment. The structure seems solid.”
“Richie checked the struts supporting this side? He’s our metal guy.”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s all good so stop worrying,” Duncan said. He checked the monitor and saw the cylinders slide home. “And there we go. All right, let’s lift this thing up.”
Nathan shook his head. “Okay, we need to be really careful here.”
Duncan put a hand on his shoulder. “I know, Nathan, that’s why this part is automated.”
“Really?”
“Don’t worry; I have complete confidence that it will work.”
“I programmed the sequence myself,” Eldridge said.
Duncan nodded. “Yeah, so if anything goes wrong, it’s on him.”
Eldridge raised his eyebrows. “It will work as well as anything else I’ve ever tried and didn’t adequately test.”
“Do it,” Duncan said.
Eldridge gave the wor
kstation a command and the trucks on either side of the Bandit fired their main thrusters. They rose a few meters off the ground with Nathan’s ship sandwiched between them. The landing gear on all three ships retracted and Nathan held his breath, waiting for the whole interconnected mess to fall to the ground. They held steady though, and moved as one unit toward the third truck sitting forward of the landing pad. With surprising grace the three vessels rose another few meters over the third truck and hovered above it. The computer made minute adjustments and the three vessels settled down, balancing on the third truck. Nathan let out a breath he hadn’t even been aware of holding.
Duncan fist bumped Eldridge and Richie. Nathan saw all three men smiling at each other. “Good job,” he said. “So we go up from here or what?”
The roar of thrusters from the linked ships answered him. Nathan watched as the most ungainly mess he’d ever seen rose up into the sky. The thrusters of all three trucks fired with a roar of noise and his ship rocketed toward space faster than he would have thought possible, born aloft by trash hauling trucks. A cloud of dirt and smoke washed over them.
Nathan stood shoulder to shoulder with Duncan at the workstation monitor watching the telemetry from the trucks. He pointed at the screen. “Watch your angle.”
“It’s good, calm down,” Duncan said.
The engineer calmly scrolled through the data and Nathan felt like popping from the stress of watching his livelihood screaming through the clouds with no one at the controls. “The rate of climb is a little fast.”
“It’s good, Nathan. The trucks have plenty of lift. The angle is right where it’s supposed to be.”
Nathan backed away and chewed on his thumb. The flight computers ran the show. Even Duncan and Eldridge watched.
Just when he thought he couldn’t take anymore, Duncan turned to him with a thumb’s up. “We have orbital insertion. I told you it would work.” The engineer slapped Eldridge on the back. “Still worried?”
Nathan thought so but the younger man nodded at Duncan and said, “It all worked.”
“Of course it did. Now let’s get it docked with your ship.”
Nathan watched nervously as the automated systems pushed the mess up to the proper altitude and matched the speed and trajectory of the Corkscrew. More slowly than he would have thought possible the live feed from the recycling ship showed the two trucks bracketing the Bandit break free and drop off the screen. The last truck, with his ship perched on it, moved slowly toward the open cargo bay. Then it silently slipped inside and a couple ‘bots moved to anchor it in place.
Duncan slapped Eldridge on the back again. “Good job, kid. You’ve got a real knack for making machines work together.”
Nathan walked over to Eldridge. “He’s right. You did a hell of a job.”
“Thanks. That was the toughest thing I’ve ever programmed.”
“Well, you did great,” Nathan said. He helped them pack up the gear and they carried it over to where Cole lay on a couple of large duffel bags with his eyes closed.
Nathan nudged him. “You awake?”
“Yeah,” he said. “How’s the ship?”
“All tucked in for the ride home.”
Cole stood up and dusted himself off. “Good. What are we doing now?”
Nathan picked up one of the duffels and they started toward the truck. Duncan and Eldridge followed them. “Now comes the hard part. We deal with Dodger.”
Cole carried the other bag. “Good. Do we need anything else?”
Nathan nodded toward a pile of gear in the back of the truck. “I had Duncan and Richie pull off a few other items.”
“Well, the bag you’re holding has the rifles.” He raised the other one and said, “I’ve got the charges.”
“Good,” Nathan said. “Let’s go see about attaching them to something.”
— «» —
“I said their ship is up here in one of our cargo bays,” Charlie said through the crackle of static. “They towed it up here with a few of our trucks.”
“When did they do that?”
“This morning, I think. Maybe a few hours ago. I’ve been kind of busy up here.”
“Come on, man, you have to be timely with this stuff. You have to tell us when things happen.”
“Sure, okay.”
Morris nodded at Dodger in the office of the strip club and said, “You want this guy to do anything?”
Dodger shrugged. “What else can he do? We crashed the damn ship and didn’t kill anyone. Hell, we locked them in that wreck out there and they’re still running around.”
“Maybe they’re just going to leave.”
“Maybe,” Dodger said. He gestured toward the mobi. “Tell that dumbass to hang tight and let us know if they do anything else.”
“I heard that,” Charlie said. “We’re on speaker.”
“Sorry,” Morris said. “Just give us a call if you see these repo guys or hear anything.”
“Whatever.” The call dropped and Morris put the mobi on his desk.
Morris suspected he didn’t look his best but Dodger had the appearance of a corpse left in the sun too long. There had been a time when the boss seemed vain. He would spend hours in the gym lifting free weights and doing cardio. Now, he had lost enough weight that his clothes hung on him and his face had a haggard beard. Chewing Diamond K turned him into the kind of guy you’d find living under a bridge.
They hadn’t heard anything about the repo guys yet today and he knew Dodger’s paranoia would get the best of him. Most of his men were still sleeping but a few patrolled the parking lot at Dodge Em’s and watched over the apartment building where they made the Diamond K. Being awake for so long and their natural tendency to be lazy, left Morris wondering how effective any of them could be. Dodger’s guys usually intimidated the local shopkeepers into paying protection credits or selling Diamond K to burn outs. They didn’t do a lot of independent thinking.
“Are they still out at the wreck site?” Dodger asked. He toyed with crystals on his desk, arranging them in patterns and then chewing one every now and again. Morris didn’t know how he hadn’t overdosed yet.
“Daryl said he thinks so, but if they are they’re laying low. He hasn’t seen them since they beat the snot out of Turtle. The trouble is he’s still out at his pile collecting our salvage and I haven’t had any spare men to give him a hand. If they are out there and are willing to leave, I think we should let them.”
Dodger stared at him for a minute. Morris didn’t know if he was considering what he’d said or if he was just stoned. Then he snapped to and said, “What if they come back with Protective Services from Earth? They know who we are, where we are and where our production facility is.”
“I don’t know if they’re as dangerous as you think,” Morris said. He held up a hand to stop Dodger’s objection. “Hold on, you’re right about the apartment building. We should move out of that. If nothing else, they can tell Chief Bell and then we’ll have him snooping around. As far as the club and us being here, who cares? This is where you’re supposed to be. It’s your business.”
“Moving production to a new place only solves half the problem,” Dodger said. “We still have to get the stuff off world. All Protective Services has to do is set up a quarantine and inspect the ships that come and go. They could do that with a few ships. No, I say we still deal with them tonight.”
“You want us to do them right there or bring them somewhere?”
Dodger thought for a moment. “Take them to the warehouse across the street from the apartment building and call me. There’s lots of room and no one around. Besides, I want to make sure you’ve got them all.”
Because you’re paranoid from chewing that shit, Morris thought. “Okay. I’ll round up the guys and we’ll get to work. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours.” He moved toward the door.
He turned back. “Yeah?”
“They know I’m here.” He had that crazy look in his eyes, the one that made Morris think he wasn’t processing information properly. “Take some of the guys from the apartment building. I don’t want them coming here while you’re out and seeing we’re light.”
Morris nodded. “Okay, sure.”
— «» —
Nathan and Cole moved toward Pile 4 and saw Daryl sitting tipped back in his usual chair with his feet up on a plastic storage bin. He had his hat pulled down low over his eyes and appeared to be sleeping as the ‘bots pulled apart equipment and sorted the individual components.
Cole moved behind him and kicked the legs out from under the chair. Daryl jumped up to face them but Nathan grabbed the back of his shirt and swung him around, pushing him back down to his knees.
“What the hell?”
Nathan moved back and forth in front of him and Cole circled around back, keeping him off balance. “We’ve got some questions for you,” Nathan said.
Daryl broke out a smug look. “I’m not saying anything to you. If you want to know something, go talk to Dodger.”
“That won’t work. I want to know about Dodger.”
“Oh come on, what are you going to do? You want to hit Dodger because of your ship? Let me give you some advice, just go.”
“How come you’re not acting tough like you were this morning with Ari?” Nathan said. “Are the two of us too much for you?”
He held his hands up. “I was just delivering a message. I really don’t care what you guys do. If you leave, Dodger can’t touch you. He acts like a tough guy but that’s just here in Bad Rock. You get off planet and most guys in the Syndicate don’t even know who he is.”
“They trust him enough to put him in charge of making Diamond K.”
Daryl gave them a little laugh. “Dude, anyone could do that. Dodger got the job because he isn’t good at anything else. Think about it; he sits out here where there’s nothing and no one. All he has to do is make sure Chief Bell doesn’t tweak to what’s going on.”
Bad Rock Beat Down (The Milky Way Repo Series Book 2) Page 23