Junkyard Dogs 1: The Scrapyard Incident (21 page)

Chapter 36

UTFN Reclamation Center,
onboard the wreck of FNS Terrier, October 8, 2598.

Tamara Carlisle
was awakened by the sound and vibration of the
Terrier's
airlock operating. Harris, speaking softly but urgently,
called out to her.

"Ensign,
someone's coming in through the airlock! It's not one of us, Hawkins just woke
me up. There must have been some survivors from that ship. Stay hidden!"

Her small stature
worked very much to her advantage in this instance. She did her best to make
herself even smaller as she huddled in shadow inside the empty locker, waiting
to see what would happen next. The mystery invader was already on board, so
there was no time for any kind of defensive strategy. Hawkins grabbed a couple
of large wrenches out of the toolbox they had brought in and pitched one over
to Harris, keeping the other for himself. There were four hatches between the
airlock and the bridge, three on the deck below the bridge and an additional
one between decks above a short ladder. These minor obstacles wouldn't hold an
invader for long. Since Hawkins was closer than Harris to the opening that led
up from below into the bridge area, he took a station above the deck hatch,
hoping to have an attack on the head of whoever came through. Harris waited in
full view with the wrench hidden behind him. The wheel on the hatch began to
turn.

"Here he
comes!" said Harris, just above a whisper. "Don't come out unless I
tell you to, Ensign!"

To their dismay,
the figure that squeezed through the hatch was dressed in full battle armor,
and even worse, he was carrying a pulse pistol. A second figure was likewise
clothed, but didn't seem to be armed. Harris could see immediately that
attempting to put up a fight was very likely to be fatal; they had no choice
but to surrender. He put his hands above his head, with the wrench in plain
sight.

"Don't
shoot, we're unarmed, we surrender! Hawk, come away from the hatch."

As Hawkins moved
to do so, the first figure spotted him, grabbed him and pitched him roughly
towards Harris. As he sailed across the bridge, Hawkins' shoulder made heavy
contact with a control console, but he managed to catch himself before
suffering any further injury. The first raider held the pulse pistol on the two
would-be defenders while the other began working the fastenings on his helmet.
Helmet off, the second man, in armor that was obviously way too large for him,
then tucked the heavy, armored helmet under one arm and held the gun clumsily
in his other hand while his larger companion removed his own helmet. The big
man wore the distinctive
mohawk
hairstyle favored by
the Veritian Brotherhood of Christ Resurgent. The smaller man didn't have the
Mohawk, but he wore his light brown hair long, tied up into a pony tail. The
smaller man almost eagerly returned the gun.

"Keep your
hands where I can see them!" said the big man. "Caleb, tie their
hands."

His shorter
companion found a spot to stow the two helmets and selected some zip ties from
Hawkins' tool box. The smaller man's movements in the bulky, oversized battle
armor were painfully slow and clumsy. He proceeded to question the bigger man.

"Are these
the pirates, Jessie?" he asked as he secured the hands of the two Navy
men. "They don't look like pirates to me, those are Federation Navy
uniforms. What would pirates be doin' in the Scrapyard? Why would we be
attacking the Scrapyard? Why would pirates be wearin' Federation
uniforms?"

"Shut up,
Caleb!" said the larger man, gruffly. "It's all part of Ezra's plan.
Now check the rest of this area."

The smaller man
took a few minutes to go around the bridge. He looked right at the locker where
Carlisle was hiding, but failed to see her cuddled form in the dim light.

"You heathen
scum!" the big man scowled in anger while he raged at them. "My
brother and two of my cousins were on that ship! You killed them! Give me one
good reason why I shouldn't just space both of you?"

Harris thought
quickly, forcing himself not to panic.

"Um...Because
we had to jury rig some systems to get the atmosphere and heating units
operating on this old ship," he said, reasonably. "We have to check
them every hour or so to...um see if they need adjustments."

"Silence!
You live.
For now.
I
don't much like your attitude, though. It won't be hard for me to change my
mind."
 

The smaller man
appeared to be very agitated.

"Ezra's plan
or not, you're gonna tell me just what's going on here, Jessie." The
smaller man began fumbling with the clasps on the battle armor he was wearing.
"After I get out of this suit!
I never wore armor
before and I never had time to get anything hooked up right when I put it on. I
got to get to a bathroom!"

"Alright,
damn it, go ahead, but give me a minute to get out of mine."

The two men took
turns covering their captives again while each removed his suit. The man called
Caleb made a beeline for the bathroom, closing the door behind him. The other
invader looked his two captives over with narrowed eyes. Just then, the
ventilation system kicked on, causing a gentle movement of the air on the
bridge of the old ship. The raider sniffed and wrinkled his forehead.

"What's that
smell?" he asked, turning his head from side to side and sniffing some
more.
"Perfume?
Have you boys got women on board?
Maybe this wait won't be so bad after all!"

"No, I
swear, there aren't any women here," said Harris.

"Yeah?
Then what
am I smelling
?"

"I can't be
sure, but it might be the air freshener we used, it smelled pretty
bad
in here when we got the systems back on. Isn't that
right Hawk?"

"Aye, that
would be it, Lieutenant. Jasmine, wasn't it?"

"You're
lying, both of you!" The big man braced himself on one of the control
consoles and backhanded Hawkins roughly, snapping the technician's head back. A
small trickle of blood appeared at the corner of the old man's mouth.
"Tell me the truth! Now! Or this man dies!"

He pointed the
business end of his pulse beam pistol at Hawk's head.

"I'm not
foolin'. You have five seconds... Five...Four..."

Both defenders
remained stubbornly silent. "...Three...Two..."

A small feminine
voice came from across the room.

"Don't shoot
him, I'm coming out. Please... please, just don't' shoot anybody!"

Carlisle came out
of her hiding place, green eyes wide, looking very small and very frightened.
She was wearing only the full-body skintight undersuit garment that she had
been sleeping in. The garments were designed to be worn inside a space suit to
prevent chafing and aid in handling perspiration in addition to providing some
function as a pressure suit. Harris noticed that she had either undone or had
not sealed off the very upper portion of the garment. Carlisle was not a
large-bosomed woman but, in this instance, what she did possess had a dramatic
effect. The slight swell of her small, well-shaped breasts and about a
centimeter of bra were visible in the open "V" in the top front of
the undergarment. That subtle come on, intentional or not, combined with the
perfection of the rest of her athlete's body in the skintight suit, created an
overall effect that was beyond provocative. From the angle she was approaching
the men on the
bridge,
Harris noted that none of them
could see her Spacer markings. He wondered briefly if that weren't intentional.

"My, my,
aren't you a beauty! Come on over here, we're gonna have a real good time!
Caleb, hurry up in there! I need you out here!"

A muffled voice
came through the door of the bathroom.

"Hang on,
Jessie, I ain't feelin' too good! I gotta have a few more minutes!"

"Damn it!
Oh alright, no sense in rushing a good thing."
He
beckoned to Carlisle. "Didn't you hear me, honey? I said come on over
here.
Now!"

Carlisle, looking
like a deer caught in the running lights of an onrushing ground car, began to
move slowly towards the men. Their antagonist held the gun on her two
companions, but couldn't keep his eyes off from the stunningly alluring woman
approaching him.

"I
be
thinkin' you'll nay want to mess with her," said
Hawkins. "She'll be havin' an awful temper." That brought him a
second backhand slap. With the raider occupied for a vital second or two as he
roughed up Hawkins again, Carlisle silently mouthed "
Distract him!
" to Harris. Then, seemingly spooked by the
violence, she withdrew slightly and hunched up high against the bulkhead wall,
almost touching the ceiling, before turning towards their antagonist, again
without revealing her Spacer markings. Harris noticed that she had coiled her
legs under her and her lips were moving like they did when she was intent on
something, only this time she wasn't making any sound.

Carlisle looked
calculatingly at her two companions and then back at the big raider, refusing
to let fear take over. As she looked at the scowling face of their adversary,
what she felt was...not fear...no, it was anger! It hadn't been that far below
the surface and as she felt it welling up within her, she reached out to
embrace the righteous, invincible power that it promised to bring with it. She
had a lot to be angry about! The undeserved and generally negative reactions
she sensed from most Federation citizens regarding Spacers for one, cruel and
malicious behavior on the part of some of her fellow students at the Academy
for another, and now this latest provocation. Carlisle fed the anger associated
with each of these offenses eagerly into her consciousness, like fuel to a
fire. She looked intently at the big man with the strange hair. So, this
racist, fundamentalist son of a bitch thought he was going to rape her and kill
her companions... her people... her team! Over her dead body! With an effort
she managed to sound scared...and harmless.

"Please.
I'll cooperate," she pleaded. "Just don't hurt them."

"Don't do
it, Ensign!" said Harris. "You keep your hands off from her, you big
oaf!" He stretched out full length and lashed out with his right foot at
the raider's gun hand, striking the man sharply in the wrist. The pulse pistol
spun slowly upwards in the air between them.

"Now that
was really stupid!" the big man bellowed. "You'll pay for that!"
The gun continued to float upward as the man braced himself and drew back to
really give Harris a wallop.

That was all the
distraction Carlisle needed.

Involuntarily
releasing a sound halfway between a scream and a snarl, she lashed out, as
swift and as deadly as a cornered cat. She exploded off the bulkhead directly
at the big man. The hapless raider turned his head back in response to her
primal scream and her blazingly fast, totally unexpected movements, Harris and
the floating gun momentarily forgotten. With her lips drawn back, her teeth
barred and her Spacer markings now in full view, the raider was shocked to see
that the pliant, helpless woman he had been eager to exploit had been
transformed into some kind of savage and ferocious beast! He froze in confusion
for a vital instant. With her body fully extended, like a vicious white
leopardess in full attack mode, she grabbed the top of the control console
between her and the raider with her outstretched arms and added a full strength
pull from both arms to her already considerable forward momentum. This maneuver
also provided the leverage for her to draw up into a ball, pulling her legs in
front of her body so she ended up hurtling towards the man feet first.

With timing that
would have been the envy of any martial arts master, Carlisle snapped both legs
straight, and landed a vicious double-legged kick that caught the big raider
full in the face with the heels of both feet. There was a sickening snap as the
man's nose broke and his head recoiled sharply. With nearly all of her momentum
absorbed by the violent contact with the raider, she found herself all but
motionless about two meters off the deck. With a short stretch, she snatched
the pulse pistol out of the air and twisted around to face the wounded raider.
The big man was stunned and in pain, but was already beginning to recover and
still very dangerous. He fumbled a bit with the sheath on his belt before
sweeping out a big utility knife, a murderous snarl adding even more menace to
his ruined face. With no time to think, Carlisle simply reacted. Wearing a look
worthy of the feral beast she had temporarily become, she brought the pistol up
and, instinctively using the red tracking laser of the weapon, snapped off a
three-pulse volley into a two centimeter circle directly in the center of the
big man's chest.
The raider spasmed violently before going
totally limp.
The entire incident was over in less than ten seconds.

"Jessie? Is
everything okay out there?"

Moving quickly,
Carlisle swiveled around to shove down from the ceiling and across the room,
where she grabbed a sidecutter from Hawkins' tool box and cut Harris free.
Leaving him to free Hawkins, her next motion carried her across the bridge to
the restroom door. She put a pulse bolt through the latch on the restroom and
violently wrenched the door open. The other invader had managed to pull his
pants up, but he was in no condition to defend
himself
,
let alone be a threat. Carlisle pointed the targeting laser unwaveringly at the
center of the man's bare chest. Over her shoulder, he could see the floating
body of his now-dead companion. His eyes grew wide.

"Give me any
reason to shoot, you God-damned Veritian pig! Maybe I don't even need one! Come
out of there! Now!
Move!"