Junkyard Dogs 1: The Scrapyard Incident (11 page)

Chapter 19

UTFN Reclamation Center,
outside the wreck of the
FNS Terrier
,
October 6, 2598.

Hawkins and
Carlisle were on the port side of the
Terrier
right next to the main airlock that opened into the deck just below the bridge area
of the ancient destroyer. Hawkins had tethered himself to the railing on the
side of the sled nearest the ship and Carlisle was gently maneuvering the sled
close enough for him to attempt connecting a power cable to the docking port.

"Just a wee
bit higher, Lass. There - that be it!" He made the sled fast to one of the
docking rings near the airlock before grabbing a heavy cable with the proper
electrical connector on it from the selection of cables coiled neatly on the
sled. He pried open a small, hinged cover on the side of the old ship and
twisted the connector into the receptacle underneath.

"Here goes
nothin'," he said as he used his thumb to punch one of the two round
buttons within the receptacle, just above the connector. The two salvagers allowed
themselves a small celebration as the door cycled open.

"Come on,
Lass, let's be havin' a look!"

They went
cautiously into the airlock and opened the inside door. They were greeted by a
very gentle puff of escaping atmosphere. There shouldn't have been any
atmosphere remaining on the ship after more than fifty years and although there
wasn't very much, that little whisper of air was a very good sign.

"Well,"
said Carlisle, "that would seem to answer our question of whether or not
she'll hold air!"

"I
be
tellin' you these old ships was tough!"

With only their
suit lights for illumination, they made their way through several more bulkhead
doors, all of which had been sealed, but each opened with a minimum of effort.
After ascending a short ladder and opening another hatch, they found themselves
on the bridge. Carlisle swept the compartment with her suit lights and
immediately began to get excited.

"Look at
this bridge, Hawk. It could have been abandoned yesterday!"

The bridge area
of the old warship wasn't equipped with viewports like the civilian cargo ship
they had been on
earlier,
instead it had an impressive
bank of video screens, all of which were blank. The ship was also equipped with
a large periscope that provided three hundred sixty degree visibility as a
backup if the viewscreens were to fail during battle. The periscope could be
used to guide and even fight the ship if necessary. Because anything was
possible in the heat of battle, the periscope also had provisions for being
operated while the user's head was encased in a space suit helmet. Periscope
operation was totally manual and no power was needed to make it function.
Hawkins flipped the helmet adapter into place and showed Carlisle how to use
the periscope. He looked out over the scrapyard, brought the tracking station
into view and magnified the image. He then moved out of the way so Carlisle
could have a look.

"Damn!"
exclaimed Carlisle, as she looked through the eyepieces. "That's
impressive! I see why Harris thought we could use this!"

The
better-than-expected condition of the bridge on the old ship was very
encouraging. Carlisle, in her far less bulky suit, flitted around the bridge,
shining her helmet lights into every corner, examining anything and everything,
all the while thinking out loud. Hawkins grinned as he watched her nearly
frantic explorations.

"Command
console...sanitary facilities...control center...ventilation grill..." She
stopped and repeated, "...ventilation grill?" She came back from her
private world and spoke up. "Hawk, shouldn't there have been an emergency
life support module that served the bridge area on this ship?"

"Aye, Lass.
If this ship be anythin' like the one I was on, it ought to be in the center of
the deck we came in on. Or it might be on the next deck down, they did some
rearrangin' of the deck layout on the Mark V 'cause of the bigger power
plant."

She stopped for a
minute and her face got the blank look it got when she was consulting her
computer.

"Look it up,
Tamara...let's see...Orion Mark IV... bridge area...emergency life support...
"

"Aye, that
be
it."

She snapped back
to the present again.

"Huh?"

"That
be
it."

"Oh, good.
Well, as near as I can tell...," she
said, pushing over to a spot near the center of the bridge, "...according
to the schematics, that module should be right below where I'm floating right
now. Hawk, we have to go and have a look!"

"Okay, Lass.
We'll just be headin' back the way we came."

They retraced
their route to the deck below and made their way through two bulkhead hatches
heading towards the center area of the deck.

"There
should be a curved pylon about two meters across with an oval access panel in
it," said Carlisle.

"Aye, Lass,
here it
be
." Hawkins centered the access panel in
his suit lights and, after a short inspection, produced a hand tool and went to
work on the Dzus fasteners that held the panel in place. In less than a minute
he had the panel off and was inspecting the space behind it.

"This area
be one of the main conduits for electrical and ventilation for the upper
decks," he said. He shined his suit lights inside the compartment.
"Those
be
banks of emergency air bottles and
that," he said, shining his lights on a refrigerator-sized module,
"that be the emergency life support module. It looks to be in good
shape."

"Do you
think it might still work?"

"I won't
be knowin'
for sure until I try it, but it just might. These
be intended to work in the heat of battle and the cold of space and they're
bein' built to take a lot of abuse. We may just need to be gettin' some power
in here."

Fortunately, as
Carlisle had pointed out earlier, the old destroyer wasn't a particularly large
ship. Even winding a power line around and through the four hatches between the
utility sled and the emergency life support module would only require about 30
meters or so of electrical cable. Hawkins wound cable off from a reel on the
aft portion of the sled and, with Carlisle's help, snaked it through to the
maintenance pylon. The damage to the ship's hull actually worked to their
advantage as they were able to run their rigged power cable into the life
support module through the damaged area of the hull and didn't have to
interfere with the airlock function by running a loose cable through it.

"The module
be
hookin' up to ship's power through these connections
here," said Hawkins, pointing to a small access panel on the module.
"If you please, Lass, could you be shinin' your suit lights right here and
be stayin' still for a couple minutes while I be gettin' this hooked up?"

"No problem,
Hawk," she replied. She stabilized any further movement by grasping the
edge of the opening and aimed her suit lights at the area in question. "Is
this okay?"

"That
be
great! This should only be takin' a few minutes."

He removed an
access cover and loosened the screws that held the original cable in place.
Paying careful attention to the pattern of the wires, he stripped several
individual wires in the cable they had snaked in and connected them to the
module.

"Okay, now
we'll be goin' out and hookin' this up to the sled and see if this old support
module still be workin'."

They went back
out to the sled where Hawkins cut the makeshift cable to length and stripped
the same colored wires as he had done in the maintenance area. He then
carefully hooked them up to a power board, reexamined his work, and looked at
Carlisle. "With your permission, Lass, you'll be stayin' here and flippin'
this breaker when I
be
givin' the word," he said.
"But be ready to flip it off in a hurry if I say so."

"
This switch, Tamara...turn
it on when he signals...turn it
off if he hollers..." She looked at Hawkins. "Okay, got it," she
said. He could hear her softly repeat the instructions to herself as he made
his way back to the maintenance area.

Hawkins called
her on the suit radio a couple of minutes later.

"Okay,
Ensign, flip the switch."

Carlisle closed
the breaker and, to her relief, didn't get an immediate warning from Hawkins.
About a minute later he called her again.

"I'll be
damned!" he said. "It looks like it might be workin'! These things
are bein' pretty much automatic. All we got to do is go inside and be closin'
some hatches. The system should direct air into the sealed areas and shut down
the ventilation in any part where there
be
leaks."

He came back out
to the sled and examined the readouts.

"From the
power drain, it
be
lookin' like the heat be workin'
too. Let's be
goin
' in and
shuttin
'
some hatches!"

They headed back
up to the bridge and on their way back out closed off an area that included
seven compartments, the largest of which was the bridge itself. The life
support system seemed to be working, but an hour or so would probably be needed
before the sealed area would be habitable and even more time would be needed
before it became comfortable. The
Rover I
would have to remain connected to the life support module so Carlisle called
Harris to request transportation back to the tracking station.

"We may have
gotten lucky, Lieutenant," she said. "It looks like the emergency
life support systems are working, but the area won't be ready for us for at
least a couple of hours. Can you come over and pick me up?"

"Yeah,"
Harris replied, "I've got this console pretty well ready to go now. I'll
be over in about half an hour."

Harris arrived
five minutes early and accompanied the other two survivors on a quick
inspection tour. They did not try to enter the newly-pressurized area, but the
gauge on the inside of the airlock indicated a very encouraging, and rising,
level of pressure inside the sealed area. It was getting warmer inside as well.

Hawkins stayed
with the destroyer to continue monitoring the pressurization while the two
officers went back to make preparations for the pending move.

Chapter 20

New Ceylon Orbital Station, Smuggler's Lair,
October 6, 2598.

Having worked out
a few tentative ground rules, Kresge took an appraising look around the hideout
on the fifth deck. "This place will be damned hard to find," he said,
nodding his head in approval. His gaze came to rest on Gibbons. "Have we
got any weapons?"

"Not
many," said Gibbons, shaking his head. "Some nightsticks and a few
stun rods. No pulse beams. You get mindwiped if you use one while committing a
crime." He looked pointedly at Irene. "In this business we occasionally
need to rough somebody up, but I'm proud to say that my people have never
killed anybody."
 

Irene nodded but
looked more than a little doubtful.

"Commendable,"
was her terse reply.

Over the next
five or six hours, a few more small groups of people filtered into the hideout.
Kresge, Irene, and a still-reluctant Daniel Gibbons requisitioned one of the
sturdy tables and used it as the centerpiece for a temporary command area while
they took a little time to question each of the refuges as soon after arrival
as possible. Everyone had a slightly different take on what had happened and
gradually an overall picture began to emerge.

The personal
communicators that nearly everyone carried, that were so much a part of everyday
life for all of them, had ceased to function around a half hour after the
raiders boarded the station. The raiders had either shut the network down or
destroyed the equipment.

Gibbons had
Steuben rig up a viewscreen over in one corner of the hideout. People gathered
there for the latest developments, such as they were.
The
initial announcement from the governor advising everyone to go to and stay in
their quarters and requesting that Kresge and Irene to report to the governor's
office was being rerun every five minutes or so.
Gibbons commissioned a
couple of older men to watch for any new announcements while he and Kresge
continued to question people about what they had seen before they came to the
hideout.

Myra
Collingsworth had been working right down the corridor from the governor's
suites, as a salesperson at Doebermann's Specialties, when the attack had come.
She had narrowly escaped.

"They just
broke down the door and shot Gordon Harmon," she said, still teary from
the experience. "All he had was a stun rod and they shot him down right
there in front of us. Then they grabbed the governor and started dragging him
off. In the commotion, I slipped out the side door and I ran. One of them took
a shot at me but he missed. This is just awful, we have to do something!"

"We're doing
what we can," said Irene, patting the distraught woman on the back and
guiding her over to one of the tables where the other refuges were gathered.
"Sit down over here and try to relax. We may need to ask you some more
questions." Irene resumed her position at Kresge's side.

The next refugee
was a tall, very fit, balding man with an impressive moustache. Kresge
performed introductions.

"Daniel
Gibbons, Irene Marshall, this is Clancy Davis-Moore." His companions shook
the newcomer's hand. Kresge continued, "Glad you made it out, Clancy. What
did you see?"

"I was in
one of the Galaxy Hotel suites with rooms on both the first and second levels,
Commander. After I saw the attack on the destroyer, I turned off the lights and
watched through an opening in the curtains. After about twenty minutes, I heard
pulse rifles and then a troop of invaders came past the corridor window. I
counted fifteen, maybe sixteen of them, all in battle armor, and another four
or five that came behind, in regular space suits. I didn't dare wait any
longer. I grabbed my stuff, went downstairs to the second deck, and headed for
the nearest stairwell."

"You're
saying you saw somewhere around twenty raiders?" asked Kresge.

"Yeah,
that's about right. There was also one person in a smaller suit; maybe a woman.
Sorry I don't have more information. I had to be careful, they were shooting
people!"

"Clancy
Davis-Moore, from IBGS," said Irene, "if this attack hadn't come, you
were supposed to be my last appointment today."

"That's
right, Ms. Marshall, to make sure I had all the permits and other legal
documents that I needed for my trip to the planet. Looks like I won't
be needing
them for a while."

"Permits?"
asked Kresge.
"What for?"

"A rich
man's hobby," said Davis-Moore. "I came here as the advance member of
a group called Interstellar Big Game Stalkers or IBGS. We're a hunting club. We
planned to go out into the Highlands and hunt some of the big game species
native to the planet. I was headed down to the planet tomorrow to get the
arrangements completed for the arrival of the rest of the group next
week."

"Big game
hunters, eh?" asked Kresge.

"Yes, but
that's only part of it. Obviously we're in it for the sport, but there's more
to it than that. Some of the better specimens of the animals we harvest are
sent back to the Smithsonian back on Old Earth for their xenobiology
collection. I do hope I can be of some use to you."

"Glad to
have you with us, Clancy," said Kresge. "Looks like you had time to
pack. What was so important that you had to bring it with you?"

"Well,
there's this." He pointed to the black hard case that he had so carefully
carried with him out of his apartment and through the station.

"And what
exactly is that?"

"It's a
replica of a five-hundred year old sporting rifle from old Earth. They were
still using projectile weapons exclusively back then. That's one of the main
attractions of our club -- we hunt dangerous game animals with ancient weapons.
It's quite sporting, really."

"Let's have
a look," said Kresge.

Davis-Moore
proudly slipped the rifle out of the case, opened the action, and handed the
weapon to Kresge. A small group had gathered around. The rifle was a thing of
exceptional and functional beauty, with a beautifully-engraved barrel and an
ornately-carved stock made of real wood.

"This is
impressive," said Kresge, as he inspected it carefully. "You say it's
a replica?"

"Oh yes,
there're no originals in this kind of condition. Assuming you could find one, a
museum or a collector would pay a fortune for it."

"I assume
you have ammunition for it?"

"Oh, yes.
I've brought several hundred rounds. "Davis-Moore opened the small case
with the shoulder strap to reveal rows of shiny brass cartridges, each a little
over eight centimeters in length, "I know you've got other people waiting,
but give me a couple of minutes and I'll show you how this thing works."

"For this,
I've got time," said Kresge.

Just then Maggie
Simmonds came over and pulled Irene aside. They talked briefly.

"Oskar?"
Irene called to him. "Maggie says we need to get the women organized.
These people all have to sleep somewhere and we need to figure out how we're
going to feed everybody. I'll get back with you later."

"Okay,"
said Kresge, "let me know if you need anything." Irene nodded and
headed over to an area where a group of about twenty women had gathered.

Davis-Moore gave
Kresge a run down on the ancient rifle replica.

"This
particular model was called a 30-06, after the type of ammunition it used.
Weapons like this, with the self-contained cartridges, were used extensively on
Old Earth for war and for hunting for at least three hundred years.
Very powerful and very reliable.
The cartridges go into this
magazine here," he demonstrated, "and you extract a spent one and
load a fresh one by working this mechanism." He worked several cartridges
through the rifle. "They called this particular type of cartridge
exchanger a bolt action. There were other mechanisms that changed cartridges
faster, but these bolt actions were one of the most common and the most
reliable."

"How close
do you have to be to hit your target?" asked
Kresge.

"Not very,
really," said Davis-Moore. "I can put ten rounds into a ten
centimeter circle at a hundred meters, but it's supposed to be deadly at over a
thousand. Of course," he added, "the telescopic sight helps a lot.

"Will it
penetrate battle armor?"

"I honestly
don't know, Commander. We'd just have to try it."

"Maybe
you'll get a chance to find out. Things could get rough around here."

"I am at
your disposal, Commander."

"You may get
more than you bargained for, Clancy. Besides me, you're the only person who's
come down here with any kind of real weapon, so far, and you're the only one
who knows how to handle that antique. I have a small pulse pistol. I don't know
how much good either weapon would be against battle armor."

"Just like a
big-game animal, the enemy must have weaknesses," said Davis-Moore.
"We'll simply have to look for them." He carefully worked the bolt to
empty the firing chamber and ejected the magazine containing the remaining
cartridges before beginning to put the rifle back into the hard case.

"Later,"
said Kresge. "We've got more people to talk to."

"No
problem," said Davis-Moore.

Kresge and
Gibbons continued with their interviews. The same routine was repeated with
several more small bands until they realized that they had interviewed
everyone. Kresge looked around for Irene and spotted her across the room,
standing behind a group of women. A woman Kresge hadn't met yet was up in front
and talking to the group at the moment. He headed in their direction.

From the nature
of the questions that the woman was answering, it was immediately obvious to
Kresge that the living arrangements and other domestic necessities for all of
the people that had gathered in the hideaway were going to present some
significant challenges. Two women had brought babes in arms and several others
had brought toddlers. There were three or four teenagers. A few of the women
had come with their husbands, but a goodly number had come without. Several of
the married ones were distraught because they didn't know where their husbands
were. Unaccompanied men were everywhere. At the very least, everyone needed a
place to sleep and food to eat.

Kresge went over
next to Irene and put an arm around her waist. She stiffened slightly at his
touch but didn't pull away.

"How're
things going over here?" he asked quietly.

"This whole
arrangement makes me really uncomfortable!" she responded, also quietly,
but he could tell she was upset. "I know what I said about handling the
legalities later, but most of these people are criminals! How do I go about
working with them?"

"Take it
easy," said Kresge soothingly. He considered his reply carefully.
"Let me put it to you this way: based on our interviews, the invaders
killed somewhere around thirty people while taking over the station. At least
five of them were members of Dan's group. Like it or not, Irene, we're all on
the same team here. Right now I need you -- we all need you -- to pitch in and
do your best. As you said, we'll just have to deal with the legalities
later."

Seeing that she
still looked uncomfortable, he added. "These people can't be any more
crooked than some of your current business contacts!"

From her look,
Kresge could tell she hadn't considered that angle. Finally she took a deep
breath, gave him a somewhat exasperated smile, and nodded her head. Then she
relaxed and put her head on his shoulder. Kresge decided that was his cue to
change the subject.

"How're things
going with the living arrangements?"

"I think we
have a lot of people here who are going to need a lot of care!" she
replied.

"Who's that
woman?" Kresge asked, referring to the slender, forty-ish brunette who was
competently addressing the group.

"That's
Allison Steuben," Irene replied.

"Steuben's wife?"

"Yes, and he
has a daughter around here somewhere too."

"Can't wait
to meet them both," said Kresge. "What's this?"

Gibbons was standing
up on the command table in the middle of the room. He spoke loudly to get
everyone's attention.

"All of
you,
gather around, I have some announcements to make."

Gibbons waited
until all of them had done so and then motioned them to silence.

"Most of you
know me, but I'll introduce myself anyway. My name is Daniel Gibbons and I am
the head of procurement for Doebermann's Specialities. I guess it's also no
longer a secret that I have... other responsibilities." This last brought
a few chuckles. "The haven you find yourselves in was not authorized by
the station management. I'm not sure they even know about it." He looked
at Irene and Kresge.
"Until now, anyway.
In light
of what's happened, I think that's a very good thing. I wouldn't have
apologized for this haven before, and I sure as hell won't after today."

There was a small
round of applause.

"Next item:
does anyone here have any idea of who it was that attacked us and why?"

"I don't
know about that," said one of the men, "but I was watching out of the
big viewport up on deck three and I saw one of the two cargo ships blast off
right after they unloaded about ten guys in battle armor into the upper cargo
bay."

"Which way
were they headed?"

"Kinda hard
to tell; they circled around and I lost sight of them."

"So they're
down to one ship?"

"That's what
it looked like before I decided I'd better get out of there!"

Kresge filed the
information for later reflection.

Gibbons
continued. "Okay, more organizational matters. Maggie and Allison come on
up here."