Junkyard Dogs series Omnibus

by Phillip Nolte

  "Heavens No, Ma'am!" exclaimed Carlisle, somewhat appalled. "But what I have read was...as you say, alarming."

  "The man is a professed atheist, do you think we can trust his judgment?"

  Once again, Carlisle looked thoughtful.

  "I...I don't know about that, but during our run in with the terrorists out in the Scrapyard, we were able to access the log of the old destroyer we were holed up in. We found out that some of his more controversial theories regarding the capabilities of two types of ship and the tactics that were used in the great battle, turned out to be absolutely true. Of course, it didn't hurt that he was assigned to one of the destroyers and actually took part in the battle, but I would approach his other teachings with the attitude that he may be on to something."

  "That's what we are afraid of. This attempt on Saad's life by a fundamentalist Christian group in an alliance of convenience with a Muslim radical is most alarming. I keep thinking that mankind will somehow and someday grow beyond all of the petty bickering that has plagued us for all of history, but more and more I fear that day may never come."

  "Why is Talbot so important?"

  "Because he says another war is probably coming."

  "I read that, but I don't know whether to agree with him or not."

  The Lady Sondia shook her head gently. "You don't know how bad things are getting in many corners of human space, my dear. Saad and I, and others, agree with Talbot that another war of some kind is inevitable. The question is: which side will Meridian take in such a war?"

  "You think there could be another War of Succession?"

  "No, but this could be every bit as bad. If the tensions between the Federation and the Alliance are not eased, we could be looking at Jihad -- a holy war. The fundamentalists who launched this attack out here, with their vile teachings of ethnic purity and cleansing of the human race are playing right into the hands of those in the Islamic world who have exactly the same attitude."

  "You paint a very grim picture, Sondia."

  "The truth is often difficult, my dear. My husband and I, and my father, believe that the future of the Islamic Alliance and, indeed, the future of mankind lies in mutual understanding and mutual respect between cultures. What you and your fellow warriors have done out here to thwart this ill-advised attack on us is an act of incalculable value! Your actions will go a long way to help us. Your bravery is to be commended!"

  "Thank you, Sondia," said Carlisle, blushing again. "We only did our duty."

  "And you did it well. Unfortunately, there is yet more to do." The woman looked earnestly at Carlisle. "I may be able to be of some help."

  "...Anything you can do would be greatly appreciated," said Carlisle, "but what can you do from on board this ship, a hundred kilometers away?"

  "That is a Hartwell Wrist Computer you're wearing, is it not?"

  "Yes," said Carlisle with a puzzled look.

  "Let's try a little experiment." The Ambassador's wife got up and went over to her dresser. She placed her right index finger on an unobtrusive bit of an ornate molding and pressed it inward which opened a small hidden drawer. She reached into the drawer carefully and pulled out an object about half a centimeter in diameter and two millimeters in thickness.

  "This device is a remote Truthseer sensor net generator," said Lady Saladin, "and it behaves just like any other computer-linked device. Here, let me show you. Put your wrist comp into receive mode."

  Carlisle spoke the command softly.

  Lady Saladin touched her index finger to the tiny device. "Connect to nearest receiver," she said softly. Within two seconds, Carlisle's wrist comp gave notification that someone was attempting to communicate.

  "Hartwell wrist comp connect query received from peripheral device. Do you wish to connect?"

  Carlisle looked at Lady Saladin. The older woman nodded her head.

  "Connect," said Carlisle.

  "Hartwell wrist comp connected to peripheral device. Data can be stored or transmitted to another location. What would you like to do with the data?"

  "Have it send the data to my personal computer; I'll put it into communication mode."

  The Lady Saladin went over to the computer console on the other side of the room and typed in a command.

  Carlisle's computer gave her another prompt.

  "Hartwell Wrist Comp connect query received from unknown computer. Do you wish to connect?"

  "Yes."

  "Connection activated."

  "Transmit data from peripheral device to personal computer," said Carlisle.

  "Communication initiated, data transferring..."

  Lady Saladin's computer display began to show a series of ever-changing readouts that appeared to be nothing but endless streams of numbers to Carlisle. Up in one corner of the display a line wavered lazily across the bottom end of a graph of some kind.

  "These are your own physiological parameters, Tamara, as they are currently being read by the net that this device is generating."

  "This is interesting, but how is it important?"

  "Let's try a another little experiment. I'll need to ask you some questions. Let me see, something very innocent but perhaps very revealing."

  "Okay..." Carlisle wore a doubtful look.

  "This handsome young Lieutenant Harris that you have been serving with; are you romantically involved with him?"

  The readouts on Lady Sondia's computer began scrolling down with increased speed and the sine wave up in the corner graph was punctuated by a sharp spike.

  "...Um...No...," said Carlisle.

  Sondia consulted the readouts and nodded her head. "The question took you by surprise but your answer was truthful. Let's try another question. Would you like to be?"

  The readouts continued to scroll rapidly and the sine wave jumped again.

  "No," said Carlisle firmly.

  "Ah...," said the truthseer, "Interesting..."

  "What do you mean, interesting?"

  "The readouts indicated that you are not sure of your answer."

  Carlisle blushed again and looked very uncomfortable.

  The Lady Sondia chuckled goodnaturedly. "I am sorry if I have embarrassed you, my dear, but for my demonstration to be effective it was necessary for me to ask you something very personal that I knew would make you uncomfortable." Her demeanor turned serious. "Please accept my sincere apology. For someone with my training, the attraction between the two of you is obvious." Carlisle gave her a questioning look. "You couldn't tell? Oh yes, my dear, he is quite attracted to you. As you are to him, not so?"

  Carlisle hesitated before reluctantly giving her a somewhat embarrassed nod.

  "Be at ease, Tamara, I assure you that none of this information goes outside this room. Now back to business. You asked me how I could help. We can use your wrist computer to send sensor net data to me, here on board the Istanbul. I can give you truthseer readings on whoever is within a few meters of this sensor net. Of course, my decision won't be quite as reliable as it would be if I could also get input by being in the actual physical presence of the subject, but it would be vastly better than nothing at all."

  "How close does it have to be the subject?"

  "Within five meters."

  "So you didn't need the veil you were wearing when you questioned us and Caleb Jordan?"

  "The veil works a lot better for multiple subjects and I also use it for official occasions or for the times when I wish for those I'm questioning to know that they are being subjected to a truthseer inquiry. For covert situations, I use less obvious net generators, like this device."

  "What would you like me to do?" asked Carlisle.

  The Lady Saladin handed the device to Carlisle.

  "I want you to take this device with you and have it nearby whenever you're questioning someone that you think a having truthseer reading on would be valuable. If you could somehow get it near enough to the terrorists or, better yet, into their possession, we could get a lot of useful information."

/>   "Are you sure this will work?"

  "Yes, I'm quite sure. The signal generated by the sensor net has a range of several kilometers. You should be able to get the signal on your wrist comp from just about anywhere on the orbital station. I don't know if you knew this, but your Wrist comp has a range of several hundred kilometers, you just need to set the parameters."

  "How do you know that?"

  "My daughter has one. She's constantly showing off its capabilities."

  She looked directly at Carlisle. "Now that you see what I have in mind, do you still want my help?"

  "Yes, Lady Sondia, I think we do."

  Chapter 63

  New Ceylon Orbital Station, October 10, 2598.

  The Istanbul's cutter approached the southern end of the New Ceylon Orbital Station on a vector parallel to the spin axis of the station. The Meridian pilot skillfully aimed the tiny ship directly at the south pole of the station and brought the ship to a stop, relative to the station, about ten meters below the point of the spindle. After a few minutes, the door to the main airlock on the cutter opened. Almost simultaneously, the airlock door on the side of the station opened as well. A space-suited figure waited in the station airlock. Three more suited figures, one of them in a graceful, skintight prototype suit, made their way carefully from the cutter towards the open airlock on the orbital station.

  They crowded into the limited space; the auxiliary airlock was barely large enough for four people in space suits. The door closed.

  "Welcome aboard! I'm Salvador Vasquez, currently the acting second-in-command for station security. We'll be entering the station right near the old communications hub. Commander Kresge and the others are waiting for us."

  The airlock cycled and the inner door opened. The group exited into a small chamber with a side room that had provisions for their spacesuits. They worked the seals on their helmets and removed them and then set to work getting out of their suits.

  A few minutes later, Vasquez led them down the short corridor to the old communications hub. The hub and the surrounding area, which wasn't all that spacious to begin with, was crowded with people. Kresge's face lit up when he saw his old compatriots.

  "Harris, Carlisle, Hawkins!" exclaimed Kresge, with a smile that threatened to split his face. "I can't tell you how good it is to see you guys! You must've had a hell of a time out there!"

  "That doesn't begin to describe it, Sir" said Harris. "Although it sounds like it hasn't been any picnic on this end either. We're told you still have a bit of a problem."

  "You might say that. In fact, we'd better get right to work."

  After a brief series of introductions, they did exactly that.

  "We told the leader of the terrorists that he could talk to the Ambassador shortly after the Istanbul got here," said Kresge. "We'd better make that happen as soon as we can."

  At that moment, Carlisle's wrist computer gave a short vibration indicating a message waiting. She gave Harris a questioning look and voiced the command to bring up the message in a holo display.

  "Welcome to the Hartwell Wrist Comp Network. There is another user within a thousand meters. Do you wish to attempt contact?"

  "Network... connect...user?" she mumbled. "This is strange, I'm getting a message that there's another wrist comp somewhere nearby. These things are still pretty rare. Does anybody know anything about this?"

  "You've got to be kidding," said Kresge. "Governor Larkin gave one of those to his kid for a birthday present a couple of days ago. You don't suppose that's who the contact is?"

  "What if it is?" asked Carlisle. "Should I attempt contact?"

  "I don't know," said Kresge. "They might have taken it away from him. You could wind up talking to one of them."

  Steuben spoke up.

  "Now that you mention it, the few times we've seen the hostages, it seems like the boy is fiddling with something on his wrist. Whatever it is, it looks to be about the same size as that thing. If you ask me, I'd say the kid still has his wrist comp."

  "Maybe they think it's just a game console," said Tresham, "and they let him hang on to it to keep him quiet. I do that sort of thing with my kids all the time."

  Kresge thought for moment and seemed about to say something when they were interrupted.

  "We're ready to patch the Ambassador through to the terrorists," said Jenkins. "Just give the word."

  "I'll be right there," said Kresge. He frowned in thought a moment longer and came to a decision. "Wait until the Ambassador is talking to the terrorist leader and then attempt to initiate contact, Ensign. Maybe the call will provide enough of a distraction that you could contact the kid without them noticing. If you get a hold of him, tell the boy not to let on to his captors that you can communicate with him." Kresge thought again for a moment. "Has that thing got video capability? Could we use it to find out where the terrorists are located and where they're keeping the hostages?"

  "Yes, and maybe," said Carlisle. "These things are very complicated and if the boy is the operator, he's only had the unit for a short time. Let me try to make contact and we'll take it from there."

  "Yeah, you're right. I mustn't get impatient. Jenkins, patch that call through. Carlisle, prepare to attempt contact."

  Chapter 64

  New Ceylon Orbital Station, October 10, 2598.

  Angus Hawkins and Helen Murdock made their way out of the auxiliary airlock over to the Meridian cutter. The plan was to take a route to Murdock's ship that took the cutter out of sight of the orbital station. They would then approach her ship on a vector that placed the ship between them and the station so that they could arrive and board the ship without the raiders seeing them. The journey took a little over an hour.

  Upon arrival, Hawkins and Murdock made their way over to the Greyhound while the cutter retraced the route and headed back to an eventual rendezvous with the Istanbul. After boarding through the airlock, which was also fortuitously shielded from the view of the orbital station, they shed their spacesuits and made their way down to the engineering area. Hawkins, with his engineer's eye, took in a multitude of details about the old ship as the two of them moved through it. Evidence of past makeshift repairs were everywhere.

  "Are you knowin' when this old girl was being made?" asked Hawkins as they made their way through the ship.

  "About eighty years ago," said Murdock.

  "Pardon my sayin' so, Lass, but maintenance nay looks to have been kept up too well."

  "I know. It's kind of embarrassing. My father wasn't too keen on that sort of stuff. He'd just patch or rewire or reroute until he got things to work well enough to get by. I've been trying to get her back in shape for a couple of years now, but she still needs a lot of work and I just don't have the money. I was hoping to get in a couple more runs back to the Santana Nexus before I had to do anything major to her." She sighed. "Maybe I should just sell her for scrap."

  "No need for that, Lass," said Hawkins. "I'll be wagerin' we've got everything you be needin' right out there in the Scrapyard. Be this a Bombardier Mark II?"

  "I wish! She's a Mark I."

  Hawkins whistled. "Can nay be too many of these old girls still runnin'."

  "Probably not. Of course, this one isn't running right now either."

  They arrived at the engineering section. Hawkins did a quick perusal of the area.

  "I see you be gettin' the inspection cover off. Let's be seein' how bad it is. Usually it just be a matter of gettin' 'er back in balance. Are you havin' a Helgeson ion flow meter?"

  "I...I think so."

  She went through a door crudely marked "Tool Room." Hawkins heard her rummaging around and cursing before returning a couple of minutes later with a dust and grease-covered case. Hawkins opened the case to reveal a meter that looked to be at least as old as the ship.

  "They were usin' this to be doin' Whitney realignments?" he asked.

  "Yeah. According to the ship's maintenance logs, the last time it had an alignment was just before I took
possession of the ship five years ago. That was several hundred hyper jumps, near as I can figure it."

  Hawkins depressed the switch on the front of the device. The needle on the analog gauge face moved off from zero.

  "Well," he said, "it might be ancient, but it looks like it still be workin'. Let's be gettin' to it."

  Murdock sat down at the engineering console, about two meters away from Hawkins, and carefully powered up the various circuits in the Whitney Overdrive unit as he requested. After an hour of making adjustments and then readjustments as bringing one system into spec meant that the ones he had worked on before needed further tweaking, Hawkins moved away from the Overdrive unit, mopping his brow with a greasy rag.

  "Okay, I be givin' up!" he exclaimed. "That be about the best I can be doin'. As worn out as she be, there's nay any more room to make adjustments. It's nay as good as I'd like to see it, the harmonic compensator still be about two units off, but it'll have to be doin'."

  "Will she jump?"

  "Aye, that she will. For a while anyway. I'd say she'll be workin' for several dozen, maybe fifty jumps before she'll be goin' too far out of alignment again. You could probably still be makin' a few jumps after that, maybe two or three, but they'll be rough. After that, you'll risk jumpin' into nowhere. How far off from the Overdrive point were you bein' on the last jump in here?"

  "About five thousand kilometers."

  Hawkins whistled again.

  "You be lucky, Lass. That be way above the error margin."

  "I know. I just didn't have any choice."

  Hawkins turned away from the Overdrive module and looked across the engine room at where Murdock remained sitting at the engineering console. Her head was bowed and her shoulders slumped. The tough old ship owner looked as though she was ready to admit defeat.

  "You alright, Lass?"

  "I don't know... I was hoping to get the Greyhound operating again and make a few more runs before I had to do something expensive to her. Now it looks like these terrorists will just take her. This ship is all I have!" She put her head in her hands.

  "You mustn't be takin' it so hard, Lass," said Hawkins. "Commander Kresge will be petitionin' the Federation for you. If they wind up takin' her, you'll be compensated. You might even be getting' this old girl back again. I'll be givin' it even money that they abandon her after a couple jumps. Every Federation ship in the quadrant will be lookin' for her if those guys be takin' her."