The Great Space (Scrapyard Ship Book 6)

by Mark Wayne McGinnis

  “These should brighten things up a bit,” he said good-naturedly. He had five large lights and stands loaded onto a flatbed trolley and several coiled up extension cords. He went to work setting up the lights around the perimeter of the truck and then ran the extension cords back to the generator.

  “Hey, Reese?” Nan said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Does Gus seem okay to you?”

  He stopped and looked back at her from the rear of the truck. “I don’t know. Not really. Guy’s sweating more than he should. You think he’s queued up to have a heart attack or something?”

  Nan shrugged, “I’m not a doctor, but yes, I kinda do. He must be pushing seventy. This is a lot of manual work for a guy that age … not to mention he’s carrying around a fairly substantial paunch.”

  From the other side of the building Nan heard an engine kick over. Sounds of machinery moving back and forth from one place to another echoed up to the metal rafters high above. Within several minutes, Gus arrived sitting atop a brand new CAT TL1055C forklift.

  Mollie was on her feet and strutting toward Gus. She gave the internationally known sign to cut the engine: a straight finger making a slicing motion across her throat.

  Gus did as he was told and leaned out, looking down at the impetuous nine-year-old. “What is it you need, missy?”

  “My name’s Mollie, not missy, and you need to come down here. You’re going to have a heart attack any minute.”

  Nan shook her head. She had to remember Mollie was like a sponge. Anything Nan said or did, Mollie soaked up. And added to that fact, Mollie was just about the bossiest person alive. Gus had left a multipack of water bottles for them earlier. Nan tore into the plastic and extricated one. She joined Mollie at her side and held up the bottle. “She’s right, Gus, a ten minute break. I insist … you’re going to get hydrated before you do anything else.”

  He looked ready to argue the point, but then shrugged it off and climbed down from the forklift. He took the water bottle, unscrewed the cap, and downed the bottle’s contents in one long swig. He patted Mollie’s head and took a look at the job Reese was doing with the lights.

  “What do you think?” Reese asked.

  “Good job,” Gus answered, and plugged the remaining cords into the outlet strip on the generator’s front panel. He turned the ignition key. The generator kicked over on the first try and the five high-power spotlights came alive. The truck and surrounding area were bathed in bright white light.

  At the front of the forklift Gus had loaded a pallet with the two remaining drums of grease. How he’d maneuvered the things onto the pallet by himself was a mystery to Nan. The guy was some super kind of worker.

  A loud screeching sound pulled everyone’s attention to the other side of the building.

  Mollie moved closer to her mother, while Gus and Reese looked at one another.

  “That sounded like the metal siding being yanked away from the building,” Reese said.

  “That’s exactly what it sounded like,” Gus said. He retrieved both his flashlight and his twelve gauge from the cab of the forklift and gestured for Reese to follow him.

  Nan waited for a moment and then grabbed Mollie’s hand and followed after them. There was no way she was going to be left there alone and weaponless with those creatures lurking about. They had to run to catch up to Reese. He looked back over his shoulder when he heard their approach.

  “I can’t see anything, Mom. Is there just one flashlight in this entire building? What’s that about?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll ask Gus for one as soon as we get a chance, okay?”

  Nan found herself closely observing every shadowy shape they passed by. She was quickly getting freaked out. So far they’d only seen the telltale straight lines of big road equipment.

  Mollie froze and screamed—the sound pierced the darkness and brought everyone down to a crouch. “There’s someone standing there. Right there! Can’t you see him? I think he’s pointing a gun at us!” The last of Mollie’s words came out more of a plea for someone to do something. She took Nan’s hand and never took her eyes off the dark shape. Gus rushed back and moved the beam of his flashlight across the dark landscape. The beam came to rest on a man’s face. The man’s unmoving eyes stared back. The smile on his face only added to his creepiness.

  Gus laughed out loud, then Reese and Nan started to laugh too. The manikin, positioned with a long metal pipe over one shoulder, was straddling a ditch and waving nonchalantly with his free hand.

  “It’s just a manikin, Mollie. Good that you’re being observant though,” Nan said.

  Mollie pulled away and stared at the immobile figure. She smiled and let go of Nan’s hand. Looking at Gus, she asked, “Why is it you have the only flashlight? How is anyone supposed to see anything?”

  Gus didn’t have an opportunity to answer—two more loud scraping sounds brought them all back to reality—somewhere close by, one or more molt weevils were trying to break into the building.

  “Let’s stay together,” Gus said as he retraced his steps to the front of the group. Behind him, Reese held his own handgun out, his arms extended. The flashlight beam was bouncing off the far wall ahead—they’d reached the section of the building where the noise had originated. They slowed. There the sound came again—metal was being ripped from structural girders. Reese tapped Gus’s left shoulder and pointed. “It’s coming from over there. Down at ground level.” Gus brought the flashlight beam to the left, but overshot an area where there was movement. He brought it in back again in a slow moving arc. The beam came to a halt where two corrugated steel panels met. They’d been pried open, pulled outward, at the lowest corner. Nan counted nine separate moving arms. They’d partially squeezed their way through an opening no larger a dinner plate. Nan brought both hands to her mouth. How many molt weevils had maneuvered their bodies into that one place?

  Gus stared for several more moments before turning around. “There’s nothing we can do here. The sheer fact there are so many of them has made it damn near impossible for any one of them to squeeze through.” He looked at Nan. “That metal siding won’t hold for long. We need to get you all moving out of here within the hour.”

  Nan nodded her head rapidly. “Or sooner. We’re okay with sooner.”

  * * *

  Nan took up a grease mop next to Reese, which freed Gus up to accumulate supplies for their upcoming trip. He scooted around the building with his forklift … stopping long enough to load up anything and everything they would possibly need. With a payload capacity of 400 tons, he wasn’t worried about overfilling the damn thing.

  Mollie sat up high in the cab of the Caterpillar 797F. There was no safer place for her to be. Nan and Reese covered virtually every inch of the huge dump truck’s exterior—tires, sides of the truck, even the undercarriage. What was once a new bright yellow Tonka toy-looking machine was now dingy and mostly blackish in color.

  With multiple trips, Gus used the thirty-foot lift range on the forklift to add multiple pallets of supplies and equipment into the big truck’s dumping bed. Reese, now up in the truck’s bed, used a hand truck to position the delivered items such as tarps, several diesel generators, two self-contained chemical outhouse units, fuel, sheets of plywood, steel struts, a hydraulic jack, and what remained in the grease drum. Also, food supplies from three different vending machines and two filled refrigerators, two of Gus’s hunting rifles, the twelve-gauge, and multiple boxes of ammunition and buckshot shells, lots of water, rope, and ladders, and large quantities of varied odds and ends. He also included the front lobby’s sectional couch, since only two adults could sit in the enclosed cab comfortably. Except for the one still being used, the big spotlights were doused and added to the payload as well.

  Nan was now sitting next to Mollie in the cab and watching the two men. Pushed to exhaustion, they finished the last of their pre-launch duties. Nan and Mollie were each given their own foot-long Maglite. Periodically, Nan pointed her b
eam back toward the area where the molt weevils had breached the walls. The screeching sounds had increased and she and the others knew it was only a matter of time before the creatures would pull a metal panel free and swarm into the building like ants invading a picnic.

  Everything that could be done was done. Gus and Reese were moving quickly, despite obvious exhaustion. Reese was the first to head up the metal stairway toward the cab, over two stories above him. Gus waited on the bottom step, catching his breath. Nan watched him, kept her eyes locked on him and wondered if he had the stamina and strength to climb the twenty or more steps before him.

  Nan stood, leaned over the steering wheel, and watched Gus, some twenty-five feet below her. The plan was for him to slop more grease on the steps below him as he ascended the metal stairway, leading up to the 797F’s cab above.

  Everyone stopped. A vibrating rumble shook the building’s metal siding. Heads turned this way and that. Nan pointed toward the back corner of the structure. “I think it’s coming from over there.”

  The rumble soon turned to violent shudders and jolts.

  Chapter 21

  The hour of jetting across open space in a battle-suit gave Jason time to think about their plan to board the dreadnaught. He also had time to take in the magnificence of the view—of Earth with her brown and emerald green continents and the contrasting azure oceans. The moon hovered in the distance like a watchful, unassuming, sibling.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a hail from Perkins.

  “Captain, a small schooner has left the command ship. Ot-Mul is on his way back to Terplin.”

  Jason saw a tiny white speck in the distance and used his HUD to magnify it. The schooner was now just another, albeit smaller, bug-shaped ship.

  “I’m sure that’s not the last we’ll be seeing of him.”

  Jason cut the connection and took in the bright spectacle of Earth before him. The planet filled most of his field of view. What was happening down there? Would the molt weevils eradicate the human race? Over the past hour he’d added both Nan’s and Mollie’s life icons to his HUD display. But his priority, his concentration, needed to stay focused on what lay ahead of him less than ten thousand miles away—that minimally modified Craing dreadnaught.

  Jason answered the incoming hail from Orion. “Go for Captain.”

  “We’ve all reached a distance close enough to phase-shift, Cap. I’ve instructed the others to wait; hold up at their current coordinates.”

  Jason slowed and brought himself to a stop. “Very good, Gunny.” So this is it, he thought. The moment had come that could determine the fate of Earth and, most likely, that of the universe. His confidence in the success of the mission had not increased one iota, but something else had: his willingness to fight the good fight regardless of the outcome. He supposed that’s what happened after spending an hour in space looking at something so magnificent, so precious, as Earth … his home.

  “Cap? You there?”

  “I’m here. And you’re going to put us all precisely in the right place? Are we poised to jam comms for ten seconds?”

  “Everything’s ready, sir. On your Go command we move.”

  Jason took another few seconds looking at Earth, and then at the boxy Craing dreadnaught not so far off in the distance. “Go.”

  Jason saw the dreadnaught’s big red icon on his HUD flicker once and then disappear completely. In mutual flashes of white light, he and the others were phase-shifted onto the bridge of the Craing warship. Everyone moved with well-practiced efficiency. Multi-guns had previously been set to stun. Jason and Billy fired, and within seconds they’d taken down the three senior officers on the raised platform at the back of the bridge. Jason had hoped these crewmembers would not have the tuft of black hair atop their heads, that they were, indeed, a last-minute replacement crew. To his relief, they were all hairless.

  The three Craing assigned to replace them—NaNang, Drig, and Rup-Lor—rushed forward, retracting their battle suits back into the small SuitPac devices worn securely on their belts. Medallions, as well as other distinctive pieces of clothing, were stripped off the inert Craing bodies and repositioned appropriately on their three replacements. As Jason and Billy grabbed up the unconscious officers’ bodies and moved them out of camera view, NaNang, Drig, and Rup-Lor took their seats on the raised platform. Rizzo and Orion worked with the same well-practiced efficiency, stunning key Craing crewmembers at their posts. As expected, there were far more remaining Craing bridge crewmembers than they had replacements for.

  As unconscious Craing crew were dragged away from their posts, Gaddy paced up and down the multiple rows of consoles. “No one move! You even twitch, you’ll die! Follow the orders given to you and you will live to see tomorrow. Do you understand?” she asked, speaking in Terplin. “Don’t move! Don’t attempt to contact the rest of the fleet! Keep your heads down … act natural.” Gaddy looked over to Jason and shrugged.

  Jason, Billy, Orion, Bristol, Rizzo, and Gaddy stepped backward and stood with their backs up against bulkheads at predetermined, out of camera view, positions. Orion quickly darted to her right. One of the unconscious crewmembers had an arm flung outward in full view. She flopped it onto the Craing’s chest and jumped back to her hidden position. Jason watched the mission elapse timer on his HUD and saw they were now at twelve seconds and counting. The dreadnaught’s red icon flickered back on.

  Immediately the comms station erupted in tones, which indicated there were incoming hails. The replacement Craing comms officer quickly glanced toward Jason and answered the first hail. Within seconds, Rup-Lor, wearing a gold medallion around his neck and sitting in the commander’s seat, began addressing the Vanguard fleet commander. Although he was speaking in Terplin, Jason’s NanoCom translated his words to English.

  A twangy, high-pitched voice filled the expansive bridge area. On the display screen, an angry-looking Craing officer with a patch of dark hair atop his head peered back.

  “Report! Why did all of your ship readings go totally dark? Explain to me exactly what your current status is. Answer me, Commander Cal-Mal.”

  “Yes, sir. I assure you, all is well. We have been experiencing multiple communications issues … sir. It was only by cycling our bridge communications station completely off, and then on, that we’ve been able to reestablish communications with the rest of the fleet. I apologize for this disruption. Our vessel has had multiple such issues in recent days, sir.”

  “I knew accepting a replacement non-Vanguard ship would be a big mistake,” the angry Craing commander spat. “What can be done to rectify this problem?”

  Jason could not have wished for a better reaction.

  “Just several more minutes to double-check the operation of that one station. We will be dark again for no more than two to three minutes, maximum.”

  The Craing commander looked as if he was going to blow a gasket. “Two or three minutes! Do you understand the importance here? All ships are to remain at battle stations on high alert. The command to attack could come at any second. You get this problem fixed immediately or you and your head will be separated by the edge of a warrior’s claxon sword!”

  “Yes, Commander. We’ll proceed with all due haste.”

  Again, with Orion’s silent OK back to The Lilly to start jamming signals, the dreadnaught’s icon disappeared from Jason’s HUD. Jason relaxed, realizing he’d been holding his breath. Orion rushed over to the tactical station. She was simultaneously communicating with Perkins back on The Lilly. Jason felt his heart rate double. He had to consciously slow down his breathing. Any mistake now would surely bring those big Vanguard guns to life. One misstep, a miscalculation, and not only would this ship be atomized in a millisecond, but Earth, too, would quickly come under attack. Orion was crouched next to the Craing sitting at the tactical console. Jason stood behind them both and watched the small display in silence.

  One by one the Vanguard dreadnaughts were selected and the precise coordinates of their m
assive plasma cannons targeted. A total of four times they went through the same routine of selecting a dreadnaught and targeting and locking on to their plasma guns. Jason heard Orion quietly murmuring—she was talking to Perkins. Undoubtedly, The Lilly was already locked on to the two dreadnaughts within their line of sight. Now it would be a matter of timing. The attack needed to come at precisely the same moment.

  Orion looked back over her shoulder and nodded her head. Jason looked up to see Billy had raised his visor and lit the stubby cigar in his mouth. “What do you say we kick some Craing ass, Cap?”

  Three minutes had passed since the dreadnaught had gone dark.

  “We have an open channel with The Lilly, Cap,” Orion said, looking up at him.

  “Fire!” Jason ordered.

  Chapter 22

  Jason was not prepared for the jarring recoil kickback the massive plasma cannon produced. As their stolen dreadnaught’s big gun continued to fire, the dreadnaught’s bridge relentlessly shuddered. Bristol had found an open post and soon configured the main screen to provide bare bones logistical information. Icons for each of the seven Craing dreadnaughts, as well as an icon for Earth, were displayed. Compared to the highly advanced Caldurian technology Jason was used to, this Craing ship’s display looked almost comically obsolete. The Lilly, with her unique ability to evade most ships’ sensors, was not showing up on the screen. It was only her own powerful plasma pulse readings that gave any indication the ship was there at all.

  The one area where Craing technology had always shone brightly was in their shielding capabilities. Bristol had been tasked with finding any and all weaknesses to their shield. As he sat at the console, his irritation grew. “Those other Vanguard ships … their shields … are a factor of five more superior to what this piece of shit ship has.”