by Chris Hechtl
There were a lot of rocks and hulks though and only so many techs. The admiral had sent along every EOD tech they'd had available other than those attached to the Corps of Engineers and the Special Forces. The way things were shaping up they might need them too.
Based on exterior scans, the hulls were pretty well picked over. They were already prioritizing ships and supply caches dependent on their vicinity to Prometheus but he was fairly certain that would change.
“The liner is clear … no, scratch that, we just found another explosive in the water treatment compartment. It's a small one. We'll have to rescreen for something like that,” a tired technician said.
He wrote an email outlining his concerns over organic fatigue and the heightened risk of making a mistake due to that fatigue. He sent it to the captain and then returned to his duty.
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Ayumu was on the third boarding party to survey the liner the brass had designated as a possible habitat. It was a good choice in his opinion, though he did note that the place had been stripped. Even the finery had been taken. He'd been confused by that until an offhand comment by a chief had mentioned the idea that the pirates had probably plundered it for their own ships and Tortuga.
The good news for him was that he was only working in compartments fully cleared of explosives or traps. And they'd set up a temporary lock so he could unsuit on board.
The bad news was that he might be camping out for a while, which meant living in his suit for a while. The giant ship had just been cleared to be moved to the vicinity of Prometheus. Not too close of course until they were absolutely certain nothing was going to get near the tender.
Until then his job was to expand on what some were calling base camp. His work party cheered tiredly when they got the small portable power plant up and running. That meant they didn't have to use the batteries, though they did need to monitor the power plant's fuel.
But it was a step in the right direction he thought as he went to the chief to look into the next problem on the list.
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Cynthia smiled in satisfaction. It had taken a week but they were finally picking up the pace. The liner had been cleared and was in use as a habitat. A Tauren bulk freighter had been docked to it to serve as additional work and storage space. Their first and second customers were lined up and a steady stream of people and craft were moving between the ships and hers. Someone had mentioned something about a well-oiled railroad. She wasn't sure about that but they were doing better.
Ships or materials listed for disposal began to work their way to Prometheus by the tugs she dispatched. Once the ship or structure was cleared by EOD, work parties went on board to strip whatever of value remained and then sent them to a clear space to allow a warship to cut them up. Only fifteen of the ships or components had been allocated as not worth salvaging and had therefore been sent to the breakers. She hated it but they needed the material too.
The twelve warships in the boneyard had been lovingly rigged with explosives. Two were still being blacklisted as quite possibly impossible to crack though her EOD techs insisted there had to be a way. Well, if they couldn't figure it out, she would eventually have to have both ships sent to the breakers.
Once the parts of the ship were in smaller chunks, the tugs went back in, catching them, stabilizing them and then carrying them to Prometheus's waiting maw for recycling in her molecular furnaces.
And Prometheus sent out pallets of equipment created in her replicators. Cynthia didn't have the keys to make hyperdrives and such. She just had the four with her, but that didn't mean she couldn't produce other parts. And Shelby had loaded her ships up with a lot of parts for them to get started with.
They were generating a long list for parts they'd need the admiral to make though. The list was getting longer by the day. Hopefully, once the first ship made it back with her prize crew, a supply ship would bring the crew back along with a down payment on that parts list.
That was the plan at any rate, Cynthia thought as she checked on the status of the first ship.
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Three weeks after Prometheus had arrived, almost to the day, the Remarkable task force arrived at the Tau-1252 jump point.
Cynthia put a call in to Captain Rogers. She couldn't help it; she had to check in. But the first thing out of her mouth was her surprise at his force's speedy arrival. “Wow! You are really hauling ass!”
“Yeah, we're not fooling around,” Captain Rogers replied with a chuckle.
Cynthia noted the ships had already settled on a heading to cross the star system to the next jump point. Apparently Zeb wasn't going to have much of a lead time on them. Hopefully, he didn't dawdle or get caught up somewhere. “Well, give ‘em hell!”
“We intend to,” Captain Rogers growled.
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Captain Rogers recruited Captain Corbin and Strike in the Dark to join his force when he arrived at the jump point. He transmitted the orders from the admiral.
“Understood, sir. I thought I'd be stuck here as station commander. Apparently not?”
“No. I requested you after reading your record.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“We can do something about integrating you into my chain of command on the run up to the target. You hopefully have been resupplied?”
“Yes, sir. Topped off sixteen days ago.”
“Good then. Let's get moving.”
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Cynthia was a bit put out when she found out Strike in the Dark had been tapped to go with the Remarkable force. No one had informed her. System defense should have fallen on the next cruiser captain, but she wasn't sure if she outranked Captain Loggins over on Puglia. They had both received the bump to full commander when Rho Mercy Mission I had come in.
But, she'd been assigned the Tortuga mission. That meant she was senior officer. But she had to manage her ship as well as the recycling effort. She put a call in to Captain Rogers for clarification.
Belatedly Remarkable transmitted her logs and files to her just before they jumped out. They included the orders for Strike in the Dark as well as a recording from Shelby that Hudson would be coming to replace the cruiser as soon as she was ready to do so. For the time being, she was in charge of the salvage efforts while Ed was in charge of security from Puglia.
“Well, better late notice than never I suppose,” Cynthia grumbled as she watched the task force charge their hyperdrives and jump out of the star system.
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Asterion IX
Governor Iapx was surprised when another ship was reported at the Tau-X3301 jump point. The ship squacked the IFF of a courier from Rho. When he put in a call at when his people said the ship was at its closest to his world, he found out the ship couldn't stop for a visit; she didn't have a shuttle on board.
“Pity about that,” he said, writing them off mentally.
“Yes, sir. They didn't find the room in our ship. She's a class 2, and boy, is she fast! Go like a raped ape if you can excuse the expression,” the captain replied with a grin in her voice.
“How fast is fast?” he asked.
“Can you believe epsilon?” He whistled. “Our ship class is the first in ages to consistently hit that band. Of course, we've got a hell of a lot of A.I. support plus an all water-dweller helm team. They are good.”
“They'd have to be to get that high and stay there! Of course, I've only just started to read about that stuff. Are we going to be seeing more of your kind? Should I see if we can buy a shuttle or something?”
“That would be nice, Governor. I don't know how many more like Runner you'll see. But for those of us in the courier service, we'd sure appreciate any effort you put on our part. We need a break too and of course provisions. But unfortunately …”
“I understand. Fortunately, they've got the facilities in Lebynthos, so I won't keep you any longer. Safe sailing, Captain.”
“Thank you, sir. For what it's worth we didn't see ma
ny ion trails coming from the known jump points leading to pirate territory. Nor did we get any reports of recent pirate activity. That's not to say something might have slipped past us, but no news is good news.”
“I see. Well, I thank you for that as well. I believe the pirates have taken the hint and are hunting elsewhere. At least I hope so, though I pity the poor sods who are their latest victims.”
“I do as well, Governor,” the captain replied.
“Well, again, safe sailing, Captain.”
“Catch you on the flipside, sir,” the captain replied and then signed off.
Chapter 37
Tau-1252
The Pensacola incident made the news when the judge assigned to the case ordered the navy to hold off on mining the rock until the case was heard. Admiral Logan considered citing Federal law over local law but decided to allow the local laws to be used since Lieutenant Black was confident of an easy win.
Knox News picked up on the case and ran with it. Miss Trejo was ordered by corporate to play up on the navy taking food from the mouths of the natives. She wondered if it had anything to do with the recent falling out over Miss O'Neill.
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The Pensacola court case was finally heard after weeks of it building in the local press. The case was initially to be held for trial by a jury, but the judge insisted on hearing the initial case first before sitting a jury. The plaintiff had hired the services of an attorney to represent him. The navy had sent JAG Lieutenant Black to handle the case.
Captain Sorely through his lawyer demanded that Captain Cooper be in the courtroom, but that demand was rejected. She has other more important matters to attend to according to Lieutenant Black, and the judge agreed.
Building up to the case, the navy had released proof of their claim of the rock. They had also submitted all of their evidence to the court in advance, including certified proof of a lack of a claim in the official documentation and databases of the star system government.
Captain Sorely's attorney had presented a more flimsy case. The judge sifted through the evidence and then looked at the attorneys.
“Captain Sorely, just because you saw something in the distance doesn't mean it is yours. By law you have to document when you surveyed the rock, place a beacon on it, and claim it in the official registries of the star system. And you didn't do that, Captain Sorely. In fact, what documentation you have provided is questionable at best. The time codes are clearly doctored and are still well behind when Pensacola first claimed the rock. Also, your claim report and initial survey copies some of the material from the defendant's report and public statements verbatim.”
The captain snarled, fists clenched.
“In final, I have to rule for the defendants and am dismissing the case. The plaintiff did not make the prima facie case. If you wish to appeal it, you have thirty days to do so.”
When the captain got out of the courthouse, he snarled to the reporters. “It was rigged! Rigged I tell you!”
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Shelby paused in her work uploading the next batch of keys for tomorrow to hear the verdict. It wasn't technically a verdict, more of a dismissal with prejudice. From the sound of it, the judge needed to brush up on her law and court protocol. Not that she was going to complain … unless of course the plaintiffs tried to use that against the navy.
She wondered briefly if the plaintiff had thought the judge would side with him due to their both being native. If he had hoped so, he'd been sorely mistaken. But she couldn't touch the rock, at least not yet.
There was a bit of back and forth in the media. The lawyer was threatening to appeal, but when a legal expert asked about the fabricated evidence, the lawyer started to hem and haw and then backpedal with mutters about how the material had been provided by his client.
Shelby snorted. He didn't have a leg to stand on but was making a fuss in order to try to get the navy to give him something in order to go away. Tempting as that impulse was, she wasn't ready to give into it.
She also wanted to blackball the miner from doing business with the navy in the future but decided he was just making an ass of himself in public. Not to mention wasting time and money he could be using towards finding another rock.
Boni put up a string of social media posts. Sorely indeed! More like sore loser! That hash tag and meme were already hitting the social sites.
Once she finished with the keys, she shut off the video feed and dug into something she'd been holding off on long enough.
She put the finishing touches on the deployment orders Boni had drawn up for her. Xiphos would be heading south and then run from Tau-1929 to Tau-X3301 and then back. She had already cycled the corvette in Tau-1929 twice; she would need to do so again and possibly upgrade the cache there into a full station at some point. Governor Lor had requested a full space station and had offered basing rights. She was sorely tempted by that.
“Good work with this,” she said as she signed her signature.
“Thank you, ma'am,” Boni replied with a small smile.
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Phoebe ignored the hoopla around the miner case as she visited the growing star system capital. She'd hitched a ride with Fred; he was supposed to go to a series of meetings with Governor Adrienne. They were still barely on speaking terms and not sleeping together.
She'd intended to do a little shopping but that panned out rather quickly. It just wasn't that much fun for her to do alone. She frowned, wondering if one of the things Fred had said the day before had been right. She refused to admit that he'd been right about her needing a hobby. But she had forced herself to come along when she'd noticed the bathroom scale. She'd put on weight and didn't like that.
She nodded politely to a Tauren in passing. He had an engorged left ear, quite unsightly. Hopefully, he'd get it fixed soon.
She texted her husband around lunch but he was doing a working lunch. He invited her to join him, but she demurred. She instead found a small sandwich shop to eat at and watch the few other shoppers.
The capital complex was growing steadily as modules and even other colonies were added to it. When Fred had mentioned the new mall, it had been enough to get her interested in it. He'd muttered something about spending money to get back at him and get her out of her apathy but she'd ignored it. Well, not ignored it totally, she'd pay him back for it of course, but she hadn't deigned to lower herself to his level at that particular moment.
She was curious about the job market so she bought a download and scanned it as she ate. There were quite a few job listings so Fred had been right there. But from some of the history tags, some were old. Clearly something needed to be done; someone needed to interface and run that properly.
She frowned and then bit her lip slightly. It might be something to look into. Maybe.
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Fat Ear might have looked like a fresh country bumpkin off the boat but his early background allowed him to get a basic job within a day of his arrival and a place to stay at the next pay period. It hadn't been easy to stretch his coins until then but he'd managed.
He wanted something more though, something that would give him access to more information and for him to actually do something other than manage a kitchen. He checked the post daily looking for someone in the want ads. He considered taking a job with Captain Sorely's mining outfit but the exposure was too great.
He shook his head, feeling his engorged ear hit his cheek. Annoyed he brushed it aside. It hung there for a moment. Sorely … what a name! Worse than his. Not to mention that the man was an idiot. Anyone would have known the case was a lost cause and losing proposition. He should have cut his losses and spent more time trying to find another rock. He didn't want to work for someone like that, a whiner.
Instead, he used some of his spare change to post a pick up on the social ads as he'd been trained. He wasn't sure where it would lead, but it seemed the best course of action short of hanging out in the local bars and pubs and trying to figure o
ut who else didn't belong.
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ONI had a series of bots monitoring the public boards and postings. Thousands were checked daily, filters occasionally popped a few for further review. One of the A.I. would normally take a closer look and then either pass on the file or pitch it to someone else for more closer monitoring.
The posting by Fat13Ear had some of the criteria of an intelligence operative. It was also by a newcomer to the star system. The post was copied as well as any data on the being that made it for further review when the A.I. had sufficient resources to spare.
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Miley watched the news for a while and then went to exercise.
As a prisoner with probation, she had more privileges. For instance, she had her own suite. She could also interact with the sailors and crew of the habitat she was in. She had even seen someone casually leave a weapon behind. She'd scrupulously reported it. Only afterward had she realized it had been some sort of a test, one she'd apparently passed.
The ONI interviews were coming with less frequency. She was occasionally drawn in to speak with a prisoner but not as often as before. They hated her. The last two had been restrained to keep them from trying to hurt her.
She no longer identified herself as a pirate. She wasn't sure where she belonged. As the saying went, neither fish nor fowl.
After her evening exercise, she went to her room and watched some more news before she shut it off and logged into the net to surf and maybe play a game. She had to admit, she might be pampered but really she was bored.
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