Enemy of my Enemy (Horatio Logan Chronicles Book 1)

by Chris Hechtl

  "It looks that way," Sprite said. "I don't envy him. We didn't know the snake pit Bek was going to turn into."

  "Yes, Yorgi failed to mention it," Admiral Irons snarled, clenching and unclenching his fists. "He said it would be tricky, but this is bullshit. They are disobeying my orders and hassling Horatio. Hell, they ran him out of the star system!" he shook his head.

  "Stubborn," Sprite said. "And apparently, set in their ways. The question is, what do we do about it?"

  "I can't just order them to comply obviously. They haven't been interested in listening to my other orders," the admiral growled. "And their hardware is set to listen to them, not me."

  "True. Never give an order you know won't be obeyed. So …"

  "So, I have to send someone. Yorgi is needed here. Remind me to have a chat with him and Secretary Sema," he growled.

  "We're not getting the full story," Sprite warned, "Just one side."

  "And I am biased into believing Horatio? Is that what you're doing by playing devil's advocate, Captain?" the admiral demanded.

  "It's part of my job," the A.I. replied.

  "Point," the admiral growled as he paced. "We're going to have to send someone with the rank to deal with this and get them sorted out."

  "You are out. You are needed here. That leaves three candidates. Admiral Sienkov, he knows the players and the field they are on, Secretary Sema, or Admiral Subert. But Admiral Subert is needed where he is at. He also lacks the rank."

  "And I need Yorgi where he is, not burning time getting there and back," the admiral sighed. "Damn it," he growled.

  "You don't want to send the secretary?"

  "I know she's still setting up her command. I realize she's a bit underutilized at the moment but …"

  "I think it would be a wise idea. Perhaps with Admiral Subert or another flag officer to help kick-start things."

  "Subert …"

  "Has been making noises about a new command off and on. Well, we have a couple Bekian flag officers in Pyrax now. We could turn command over to one of them, the senior-most officer. Then he'd be free. The problem is he's a rear admiral, only a step above Commodore Logan. They'd most likely still tell him to pound sand."

  "True, or I could send the new officers they just shipped us backpacking orders to replace the current administration, which is tempting. They need a good swift kick in the ass it seems. I want to find out what the hell is going on. Which means we need to sit them down and pick their brains before we go off half-cocked."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I'm glad Horatio is doing something … proactive, but he's sticking his neck out. I can't back him from here, so he damn well better be careful," the admiral said. "But this changes our models. It throws our estimates of Bek's ability to help us by a year, at least a year. And if this trend continues …"

  "At this point we're getting officers and enlisted out of them. I'm now wondering why," Sprite stated carefully.

  The admiral paused in his pacing to cock his head at her avatar. "Looking at it politically?" he asked.

  Sprite nodded. "We'd have to ask, but I now think Admiral Sienkov was about to retire anyway, had no prospects for life after retirement, so chose the risk of coming here. He's building a new life here," she said. "I'm wondering now about the other officers. We need to do some discrete inquiries. It wouldn't surprise me if they were on the out or were bucking the system in some way," Sprite said.

  The admiral nodded thoughtfully. "Another thing to find out," he said in disgust as he flopped down into his chair.

  "And unfortunately, you have a full dance card right now, Admiral," Protector interjected. "So, if your consult is finished for the moment, I need to get you back on track."

  "Right," the admiral exhaled noisily. He knew Bek wasn't over, but … he shook his head as his door opened. The yeoman looked at him in apology as the two senators came into the room. He rose from his chair and extended his hand. "Senator Falconi," a pleasure," he said as they shook hands.

  "For me as well, Mister President," the senator said smoothly as they shook hands.

  Chapter 43

  While the tugs whisked through the void to the first earmarked ships to be salvaged, the crew got to work on the start of the station construction. The basic station core was to be made up of transfer modules and truss segments forming a long shaft. At the top was a transhab command and control center.

  For the first two shifts, the crew fumbled at the unfamiliar task. Most of them were unfamiliar with building a space station. The captain had focused his training on ship operations but not the factory and tug side. It was difficult working in space since the ship was underway still. That meant everyone and everything had to be secured to the ship's hull at all times. It was a very hazardous situation.

  Horatio realized they were facing a learning curve. That was okay; he'd anticipated it. With the tugs deployed, they had a little bit of breathing room inside to do some of the subassembly work in relative safety. He sicked Leo on overseeing groups that were assembling subassembly sections of trusses and transfer tubes while he kept an eye on the big picture. By the second day, they had the routine down, and the pace began to pick up a bit to make up for lost time.

  The first salvaged ships were those nearest to where Horatio and Fly by Night designated where the station would reside. The station would be tidal-locked in place in a polar orbit above the star, halfway between the rapids and the two jump points.

  While they started the basics and got their feet under them, the first survey team found ships that the commodore had designated as prime real estate. One of them was a derelict liner. Her silhouette pegged her as a Quantum class. Based on the glittering lettering on her hull, she had been the Anthem of the Star Lanes, a long lost member of Dolphin Stellar Tour Groups.

  Manned and unmanned tugs and a lighter were deployed to dock with the derelict, arrest her tumble, and then push her to where they wanted to set-up the space station. Horatio had noted her sublight drive nacelles had been torn to shreds. Her starboard nacelle pod had been ripped away. Her keel one was a mess. There was no way they could repair that sort of damage. That was fine; he had special plans in mind for her.

  Fly by Night estimated it would take them roughly two weeks to get the derelict to the station. The star liner was further away than some of the other derelicts, but it was in better shape. But Horatio had a second team deploy to bring in a small Cygnus class freighter that had been battered heavily. The ship wouldn't be very usable, but it would serve as good practice for the crew until the liner arrived. Based on the Delquir's estimates, it would arrive at the station five days before the liner did.

  Once they got what they wanted, she would serve as raw material for the hungry smelters.

  ~<><{<^>}><>~

  By the end of the first three days in the star system, teams of tugs and lighters had been deployed to recover a dozen ships. Dozens more were drifting out there in the dark void, so they would have plenty of work for the foreseeable future.

  Some ships were further out, so they would take awhile to get to the ship and then get her back to the station. A few of the ships nearest them were lower priority. The tugs deployed to secure them arrested their tumble.

  Once they were scanned, the tugs oriented them to the station, then gave them a push to be on their way. It would take weeks or months to get to the station; it all depended on their mass and how much energy the tugs imparted on them to send them on their way. That was fine with Horatio. They would send tugs out from the station to capture and arrest their headlong flight and then orient them for docking later.

  Whenever possible the tugs and robots vampired any fuel or water from a wreck that they found in order to extend their stay in space and conserve Ilmarinen's dwindling resources.

  ~<><{<^>}><>~

  The first ring of truss and transfer tube berths were established just in time for the first ship to arrive. It took a bit of finagling to get the small dead ship into her designated moo
ring point just right for the airlock tube to extend and mate up with her.

  However, it wasn't docked for long. The Cygnus freighter was docked long enough for a work team to board and then for teams to go through her and scan her for Xeno viruses. They used portable battery packs to power up the ship's computers to scan for any signs of a problem.

  Once they were finished, they handed the ship's exploration over to another team. That team split into two groups. One worked on downloading her computer files into secure databases for later analysis, the others split up and surveyed the ship for salvage.

  When the computer team was finished, the salvage team went to work. Two of the teams had worked in the Bekian breakers, so they showed their colleagues what to do. They took out any parts designated as salvage, sometimes cutting the parts out in their haste.

  After the third shift, the ship looked even more battered. Horatio signed off on her final death warrant, and the crew turned loose the cutting teams to begin cutting her up into scrap for the molecular furnaces.

  By the time the ship was ready to go to her final if inglorious end, the liner and a line of other ships were ready to take her place.

  The liner didn't dock in a berth however. She was scanned by survey teams and then carefully maneuvered in parallel to the central shaft before she was docked. Then work crews went to work securing her for her next evolution as a part of the space station. Truss segments were welded to her frame, lines were run and tied into her systems as work parties inside her went through the process of mapping her damage and prioritizing it.

  By the time they had her fully secured and tied into the station, a second and third ship were ready to be attached as well. Horatio kept them down to just the three ships for the time being. A series of docking rings, gantries, and storage modules would be built below the three ships when they had the material, time, manpower, and power to do so.

  ~<><{<^>}><>~

  The survey teams continued their work despite all the seething activity around the ship and growing station. They used telescopes, probes, and automated sky search software to map the star system. Each pass added material for the sky search software to pick through. They found a steady stream of debris and derelicts along the path of the jump point and into the rapids.

  Teams of engineers went through the salvage in between ships. They were falling behind however; there just wasn't enough time to process it all. They also quickly ran out of space on the ship to store most of it. Horatio had the construction crews change priorities for two shifts to assemble a pair of empty warehouse modules using material from the scavenged ships. But one quickly filled up.

  Lieutenant V'r'x seemed to handle the situation. After a meeting, the Veraxin reset the quality check team’s priorities to focus on sensors and components they needed right off.

  The sensor modules were each given a check. When the team leaders admitted they were a bit out of their element, sensor techs from Ilmarinen were drafted to lend them a hand.

  Within a week they had added the sensors from the first scrapped ships to the station. They also turned over a few of the smaller sensor platforms to the factory in order for it to use them in the network of satellites they were building. The satellites needed to be powered however. Horatio had considered using beamed power from the space station, but in the end he bit the bullet and had solar panels fabricated.

  “They were lucky they got out at all,” Leo said when they saw a particularly nasty wreck on its way in. It looked like colander. He was tired but elated by the progress they were making.

  “Clearly not lucky enough,” Mack said dryly in response, sadly eyeing the ships.

  Leo looked at the situation slightly different and then nodded. “Oh,” he said in a subdued tone of voice. He shook his head. “I don't envy Gemma, having to pick through the bodies with the medics and fix the life support.”

  “I don't either. I'm not happy about the possible threat of infection,” Mack growled. Leo glanced at him warily. Mack shrugged. “We can't do much now. I know most pathogens would have died out after being exposed to the plague, but you never know. It's just something I'm adding to our report,” he said.

  “If you have a concern, sir, you should check on it. See if something is done that we don't know about. And if it isn't, make a suggestion. It's our ass on the line too if something turns up,” Leo reminded him.

  “Don't remind me,” Mack growled. He frowned thoughtfully and then nodded.

  ~<><{<^>}><>~

  The B-102c Harbor Station grew like a porcupine, with gantry and transport spines sticking out from the central shaft below the three ship habitats and derelict ships attached to them. Each ship had been carefully surveyed before it had been allowed to dock. If it was not repairable, it was designated for the breakers.

  Work crews of bots and space-suited personnel would descend on the wreck after the survey was completed. They would strip it of useable hardware. They would then begin the labor intensive process of cutting the wreck up into usable pieces to feed to the molecular furnaces or into chunks to be used as is for the station.

  Quickly the station began to take shape. Initially it was a shaft, a spindle with three ship hulks attached along its shaft. One of the three ships was a medium-sized blue and chrome trimmed liner with its engines long since lost or torn apart. Its habitation decks had been holed, but they were repairable. The personnel on the station and ship would be grateful for the recreational facilities once they were put back into service. Just replacing the pipes that had burst when the water trapped within them had frozen was going to be a monumental task Horatio knew.

  The water park would have to wait he mused.

  Below the three ships, a ring of docking ports was formed, along with truss gantries to support equipment and dock hardware to. There ships were connected bow or flank onto it.

  Gantry wires, truss segments, hoses, wires, radiators, solar panels, transhab modules, equipment lockers, bays, and transfer tubes were made and put into place. The station grew organically. It wasn't pretty, but it was functional.

  Any extra water, fuel, or chemical mix found was carefully sucked up if it was liquid, moved if it was ice, and then warmed, filtered, and stored before reuse. The hoarded material, especially the fuel and water, were precious commodities. Every little bit helped, and the water in the life support system was of course recycled. But no system was 100 percent perfect; losses always occurred, especially on ships that had been battered and twisted. Every drop they got helped them; every drop lost to the vacuum of space hurt them and Horatio's long-term plans.

  Still, what fuel and water they recovered wasn't enough to complete the ambitious job as he had planned. That meant he was more likely going to have to rely on his fallback plan to send the first salvaged and rebuilt ship back to Bek for a resupply.

  ~<><{<^>}><>~

  After getting a suggestion from Admiral Irons, Horatio turned cleaning robots loose on the wreck. They were initially not very popular with the crew, but when Horatio showed the team leaders the map of the ship the cleaners had generated, along with identified problems, their grumbling shifted a bit. When they noted they didn't have to form KP parties to clean sections of the ship, the grumbling ended and a grudging truce with the robots came to pass.

  That was fine with Horatio. They needed to learn to work with self-guiding robots. There was enough work for everyone.

  Work parties were split on missions. Some were designated to repair hull breaches ahead of the interior work parties. They would go out in suits and carefully cut away the jagged material and then shape the cut into a square hole, scan it for sizing, then move on to the next one. When they finished a section, they would return and small automated tugs would move hull patches from Ilmarinen's factories or her stores to them to weld into place.

  Once a section was ready, the life support techs moved in. They had the grisly task of clearing out any dead bodies before they powered the section up and tested for leaks. Once the lea
ks were patched, they would fully pressurize the section and then begin work on fixing the interior.

  Specialists would follow behind them to address problems with EPS conduits, ODN lines, electrical lines, and the plumbing which was the largest headache.

  Water exposed to vacuum or low atmosphere and temperature in the torn pipes and containers flash boiled and evaporated away in the vacuum of space. Water trapped in the pipes or tanks, however, froze and thawed as they were exposed to the varying temperatures of space. Each time the section of the ship was in shadow, the temperature plummeted and the water froze. When the water froze, it expanded. If there was no room to expand, it burst the pipes and fittings.

  Tracking down such problems was a pain in the ass. His work on the filtration and pump systems had made them find all sorts of leaks, some of them in the bulkheads. A few of those were in hard-to-reach areas. He hated the civilian design, they hadn't thought about such things as easy maintenance in cases like that. They'd had to tear out entire sections, wiring, plumbing, and so on to get at what was a simple fix, and then put everything back in order the way it was, then test.

  Unfortunately, they found that sometimes the loose water had also shorted some of the wiring. They were still dealing with that. It couldn't short an ODN conduit though of course.

  ~<><{<^>}><>~

  Horatio was not afraid to get his hands dirty. Some of the Bekian officers were scandalized by that. When Horatio got tired of waiting around and supervising, he dived into a project he knew he could handle. When Captain Clayton found out about it, he went looking. He found the commodore in a gray work coverall covered in grease in a smelly life support room in the bowels of the liner.