The Santana Nexus (Junkyard Dogs Book 3)

by Nolte, Phillip

  The Navy had been the vehicle that had propelled him off from Old Earth and out of the crushing poverty of his native South American country. The education he received on behalf of the Federation Navy had been eagerly received. With his quick intelligence and his driving work ethic, he had excelled at the Navy's training programs and his advancement through the ranks of enlisted men had been rapid and well-deserved. The travels associated with his stint in the Service had taken him all over Federation space but, as fate would have it, his final transfer had been to a ship that had settled in to an extended tour performing patrol duty between the Patagonian and Catskill-Soroyan systems.

  Over the course of two years, during which he frequently took shore leave in the Patagonian system, he had met a lovely and charming Patagonian girl and had fallen in love with her. He had also fallen in love with the energy and the passion of the Patagonian people, many of whom, like himself, had originated from the South American regions of Old Earth.

  After finishing his stint in the Navy, he had eagerly returned to Patagonia, gotten married, gotten involved with his wife's family business and had slowly and steadily carved out a pretty good life for himself. Now all of these gains were threatened by the Sheik of Barsoom's revolution.

  Juan Carlos explained what had happened.

  "After that attack, we had to figure out what to do if there was another. We've got almost everyone left in the system inside the asteroid. With all this rock around us, we found out that if we shut everything down to the absolute minimum, there isn't any sensor footprint."

  "It sure seems to work, we thought the colony was abandoned," said O'Connell.

  "Come on over to Nova Tierra," sent Juan Carlos, "We'll turn the lights back on!"

  "We're on our way," said O'Connell.

  Juan Carlos was to meet with the two mining ship Captains at the main port of call for Patagonia which was inside a hollowed out asteroid that the colonists had named "Nova Tierra del Fuego," after the historical region of South America where some of them had originated and the unusual red-colored rock that much of the planetoid was made up of. The formerly iron-rich asteroid had been hollowed out years ago by a speculative mining venture that had removed the richest deposits and then moved on to skim the easiest pickings from somewhere else.

  The original Patagonian colonists had pooled all of their financial resources and converted the asteroid into a large enclosed habitat. Most of the habitat was sealed up inside the asteroid, but portions of it were built within the rim of the ancient crater that housed the artificial opening into the asteroid.

  After parking their mining ships near the asteroid and transporting to an intact airlock, the two Captains were ushered into one of the colony's few remaining undamaged above ground facilities. They were left by themselves for a few minutes. O'Connell and Patrick used the time to inspect their surroundings.

  The view from the above ground facility that they had been brought to must have been spectacular before the terrorists had come in and pretty much destroyed anything that appeared to have any value. The facilities were located in a system of caverns that had been laser evacuated within the solid rock of the rim around the crater where the temporary mining station had been anchored. Through large viewports in the walls and ceiling, mounted right into the rock of the artificial cavern, there was an expansive view of an open starscape visible above; while arcing outward from either side was a spectacular panorama of the rim around the opening into the asteroid, encrusted with more habitats like the one they were in. Visible below was the opening into the interior of the asteroid with the blue glow of the now reactivated "force curtain" airlock, easily large enough to admit starships. The view was marred by the obvious damage from the terrorist attack to many of the habitats within the rim.

  Juan Carlos met the two mining Captains with his usual enthusiasm and a huge smile on his handsome face. He gave them each a hearty handshake while he greeted them.

  "Captain O'Connell, Captain Patrick! It is a pleasure to see you again. As you can see, we have managed to recover from the terrorist attacks, at least somewhat. I must take the time to thank you once again, we could not have recovered this quickly without your help."

  "It was the least we could do," said O'Connell.

  "It has been over two weeks since you were here, Captain," said Juan Carlos, "how did the rest of your travels go? Were you able to contact the Federation at the Santana Nexus?"

  "We found the Federation authorities," replied O'Connell, "but we didn't get to the Santana Nexus. Things didn't go quite the way we'd planned..."

  The mining ship Captains related the events that they had been a part of, including encountering the stronghold at the Scrapyard and the ensuing events, including the two separate victories over the terrorists while defending the New Ceylon Reclamation Center.

  "This is best news we've heard in weeks!" exclaimed Juan Carlos. "These terrorists were starting to believe they couldn't be defeated."

  "They were also fought to a standstill and forced to evacuate from the Piedmont mining station. We're beginning to think that most of their success has been due to the surprise element. They have been attacking unsuspecting systems without any warning. By hitting quick and taking out the long range communications, most of the system governments aren't able to get any kind of warning sent off. Seems like if you know they're coming, and have some time to get prepared, they aren't nearly so tough."

  "That is good to know," said Juan Carlos. "Come, sit." He motioned towards the large meeting table in the center of the room. O'Connell and Patrick sat down next to each other. "Would you like a refreshment? I have sent for coffee?"

  "Some coffee would be nice," said O'Connell. Patrick nodded his head.

  "Ah, here it is now," said Juan Carlos. He poured three cups and grabbed one of them before taking a seat himself across from the two Spacers. He glanced back and forth between his two guests. "I am certain you did not come all the way back here just to chat. How can we help you?"

  O'Connell decided on a direct approach. "We need people who are willing to fight," he said, "We're trying to put together a force strong enough to recapture the Santana Nexus."

  Juan Carlos didn't say anything but his expression said he was interested.

  O'Connell continued, "Most of the Sheik of Barsoom's forces have been concentrating there and if we figure if can defeat them at the Nexus, we can break the back of this 'Revolution' before it gains any more momentum."

  "I have been to the Santana Nexus on many occasions, Captain O'Connell," said Juan Carlos, "That station is a very big place with many places to hide. It will be difficult for this Sheik to run any kind of military operation there."

  "We're well aware of that, Juan Carlos, in a way we're kind of counting on it. Besides that, the enemy has been occupying the facility for a only short time, just a few weeks. The Nexus itself has over fifty thousand people on it and we're pretty sure that only a very small minority are pleased with the sudden change in government. However, the longer we allow the Sheik's forces to consolidate their grip on the Nexus Station, the harder it will be to root them out. If we're gonna, we need to move on them as quickly as we can before they get any more settled in."

  "We still have much rebuilding to do out here after their attack on us," said Juan Carlos, "but we lack the resources to do very much. Our progress is likely to be very slow. I have men, Captain O'Connell, perhaps even a lot of men, who do not have anything to do at the present time. We filed a request for full colonial status with the Federation just over six months ago. So far we have heard nothing. If we help the Federation, perhaps they will help us in return, no? "

  "We will do what we can to help you plead your case, Juan Carlos, but I think you need to make your concerns clear to Admiral Kingston, she is the highest ranking Federation officer in the Quadrant."

  "We have a loosely organized militia and I have the authority to commit several hundred men, Captain O'Connell, many of them former military and mos
t of them not long out of the Service. There is nothing I would like better than to see this terrorist scourge wiped from the universe! What do we do next?'

  "We will be returning to the New Ceylon system as soon as we conclude our business here. At that time we'll take stock of what we've got for men and warships and start formulating our plans to retake the Nexus Station. It would be very helpful if you could come back with us, Juan Carlos. You're the one who knows the capabilities of your men and your input will be badly needed as we finalize our attack plans."

  "My wife will not be happy, but it is obvious to me that I must attend this meeting!"

  O'Connell looked thoughtful for a moment.

  "Why don't you bring her along?" he asked. "The Meridian Ambassdor's wife is at New Ceylon and Commander Kresge has his fiancé there. Both of those women are leaders in their own right, just like your wife. Having her along might actually make things go even better."

  "I'm certain she will see the wisdom of your request," replied Juan Carlos. "When do we leave?

  "I'd like to get underway as soon as possible but I can certainly give you a day or so to make some preparations."

  "Sounds good. I'll go and get ready. Ah...after I have convinced my Rosa of our need to join up with you!"

  Chapter 45.

  UTFN Reclamation Center, January 11, 2599.

  The small fleet returned from the Secret Scrapyard and over the course of the next twenty-four hours was joined by the Asimov and the Dingo, now laden with supplies for the Scrapyard, from Heard's world. As the supplies were being distributed and packed away, Corporal Donahue personally delivered the computers and drives recovered from the Veritian Derelict to Ensign Carlisle. With Kresge's blessing, she took them immediately to Heskim on the Istanbul who accessed them for her and loaded the output onto her wrist computer as he had done with the data from the original computer drive. She then went back to her quarters on the Greyhound to run the decoding software and see if there was additional information concerning the Veritian Derelict's special passenger.

  She attempted to access the information from the quantum drive that had been taken from the Command post computer on the auxiliary bridge of the wreck as it seemed to be the most obvious place to start. She noticed immediately that this drive hadn't contained nearly as much information as the one from the bridge had yielded. That made sense because the auxiliary command station had only been used for few days, no longer than a week, before the ship had been set down on the moon in the Heard's World system and then abandoned. She found a concentration of files in the download and set her translation software to work decoding it.

  As had been the case with the first drive, the download contained several days worth of routine, mundane, clerical information. This material was translated quickly. Carlisle scanned the information to see if it contained anything important while the translation software churned away at another of the large concentrations of information that turned out to contain another of the Veritian Captain's video logs. She accessed the file when the software announced that the conversion had been completed. Another video featuring the Captain Josiah Dobbins dictating his log came up.

  "...This is Captain Josiah Dobbins of God's Almighty Sword reporting. With the help of the Almighty, we have managed to escape from the New Ceylon system. We could not have cut our departure any closer; a major battle had just begun as we translated out through the hyperlink point. As we were hoping, the badly damaged state of our ship and the fact that the damage had been inflicted by non-Federation warships meant that we were welcomed and essentially hustled through the jump zone by the ships on guard there.

  We jumped directly into the Heard's World system and will be abandoning this ship as soon as I can reach a suitable spot to hide it. The damage inflicted by our allies to convince the enemy forces that we were on the side of the Federation was almost too thorough. All of the ship's vital systems are still working but I don't know for how much longer.

  I have been able to glean a little more information on our special passenger. He is not allowed to interact with myself or any of my crew but I overheard one of his handlers refer to him as 'the young Prince.' I can't know for certain but there is a distinct possibility that we are transporting none other than Prince Merrikh of Jasmine himself! I cannot think of anyone else that my former allies would have gone through so much trouble for.

  Dobbins out..."

  That turned out to be the last entry contained in any of the downloaded material. Over the next two hours, Carlisle looked through the remainder of the files that Heskim had been able to pull off from the other Veritian computer drives but she was unable to find any additional information. To her immense frustration, the recorded logs from the Captain of the Veritian derelict concluded at this tantalizing but ultimately inconclusive point.

  The brief reference to "the young Prince" was not the definitive proof she was looking for but it was the strongest evidence to date that Prince Merrikh may have survived the final battle. He wouldn't have been killed when the Alexandria was destroyed because he had no longer been on the ship. She rolled these thoughts and others around in her mind while she went to find Kresge.

  She found him at his customary station on the bridge of the Greyhound. Irene Marshall and Allison Steuben were with him again and the three of them were tallying up the wealth of badly needed materials that had just been brought into the system by the two freighters from Heard's World.

  Kresge looked anything but unhappy about the intrusion.

  "Ensign Carlisle," he said, "What can I do for you?"

  "I have some more information on my special research project, Commander."

  Kresge turned to his fiancé, "Can you excuse me for a few minutes?"

  Irene smiled at him and with a twinkle in her eye said, "With all due respect, Commander, we can probably do this better without you! How about Allison and I finish this up and give you a full report afterwards?"

  Kresge tried but couldn't completely hide his relief. "Carry on," he said as he got up from the station. He turned to Carlisle, "Let's go to my ready room."

  The two of them went the short distance down the corridor to Kresge's office. He closed the door behind them and they both took a seat.

  "Okay, show me what you've found, Ensign," he said.

  Carlisle brought up a holo projection with her wrist computer and showed him the short video containing the new information. They both sat in silence for a few moments after it had finished.

  "Not the rock solid proof you were looking for," said Kresge, finally, "but it certainly brings all of what we think we know about the Prince into question."

  "These videos seem to answer a lot of questions," Commander," said the Ensign. "How and why the Veritian derelict escaped. Too bad the information on the mysterious passenger is still too vague to be really useful."

  "The fact that we have the strongest evidence to date that the Prince actually survived the final battle is still pretty big news, Ensign. Maybe if we check into some of the reports regarding the Prince from after the war that were dismissed because he was thought to be dead, we can find some new leads."

  Carlisle still looked disappointed.

  "But it seemed like I was so close..." she said.

  "Don't worry, Ensign, something else will come up. By the way, I have been discussing the Succession War with Amanda and Faiza as part of their studies. You should tell them what you just found out. They'd probably find it really interesting."

  "You know, I haven't talked them for quite a while. I'll go and do it right now," said Carlisle.

  The two of them got up and left the ready room.

  Kresge, following the explicit orders he had received from his fiancé, did not return to helping with the inventory.

  Chapter 46.

  "...Not everyone who has the capability to be a great leader is willing to take on the responsibility. On the other side of the coin, not everyone who wants to be a leader, has the capability. Sadly, I'm afr
aid, we have always had too many leaders who fall into the latter group.

  Far too many!..."

  Hartwell wrist computer note highlighted for further review by Tamara Carlisle. Quote is attributed to Dr, F.C. Talbot and was recorded during an interview with Rebecca Tyndall of the Intergalactic Digital Press

  Santana Nexus Station, ring ten, level one, January 11, 2599.

  Gazwhan Kassab, Captain of the defected Jasmine Republican Navy Cruiser, Hercules, was responding to a request to attend an audience with the Sheik of Barsoom on the Santana Nexus Station. He was only too happy to do so. The mind-numbing routine of presiding over a ship lying parked near one of the Santana System's hyperlink zones, essentially doing...nothing, was becoming oppressive. Though Kassab would grudgingly admit that maintaining power to the device that was cutting off transportation between Sol-Terra and the Santana Nexus was an important task, there was little glory in it. Perhaps this private meeting with the Sheik of Barsoom would provide an opportunity for him to get closer to the action he craved.

  Kassab always traveled with his own armed guards and today, onboard the Santana Nexus Station, was no exception. He and his two men were directed to the Sheik's private offices but when they arrived, the Sheik's own guards, posted at the door, informed the Captain that they could not permit him to enter without surrendering his sidearm. His personal guards were told they would have to wait outside as well. After handing over his pulse pistol, Kassab gave his men a nod, to assure them that it would be alright. Only after all of these preliminary precautions were completed was he admitted into the Sheik's presence.

  Kassab had only met the Sheik a few times and had never actually spoken with the leader face to face, with just the two of them present. The fact that Kassab had possession of the most powerful ship in the Sheik's fleet and it was this ship that was currently keeping the might of the Federation out of the Santana Quadrant meant, in the Captain's mind anyway, that the two of them would meet as equals.