Junkyard Dogs series Omnibus

by Phillip Nolte

  Sondia Saladin was on her way to her chambers after another of what seemed to be an endless string of diplomatic meetings. This last one had been particularly demanding and she was relieved to be able to stand down from the intense level of concentration she had maintained for most of the last three hours. She had been interfacing with one of her stealth truthseer net generators again and had been able to gain valuable information regarding several of the diplomats but, as was usually the case, the effort required left her exhausted. The sometimes unexpected movements of the ship as the Istanbul jockeyed into position to charge the weapons on several of the wrecked cruisers as part of the plan to protect the Scrapyard, just added another level of stress to the situation.

  Now it seemed that their battle-weary little band was about to come under attack again.

  Sondia walked slowly, occasionally stopping to brace herself against the corridor wall with her right arm as she headed back for her quarters. The Ambassador had remained behind at the meeting since he had more business to conduct and would not be able to disentangle himself from the group of disgruntled diplomats for at least another half hour.

  Sondia's personal servant, Shawndra, was about three meters in front of her as the two of them made their way through the Istanbul from the conference room, which was near the ballroom in the bow of the ship, towards Sondia's chambers which were on the deck beneath the bridge area. They came to an intersection of corridors and Shawndra, still a short distance in the lead, crossed the intersection. Behind her servant, as she stepped into the cross corridor, Sondia caught a movement out of the corner of her eye in the shadows to her left. There wasn't supposed to be anyone in this area of the ship besides the Ambassador's personal guard and even in her fatigued state she knew this was very suspicious behavior. She dashed across and out of the intersection as quickly as she could and called out to her servant as she began to run.

  "Shawndra," she exclaimed, "Someone is in the side corridor! Run!" She then shouted at the top of her lungs, "Guards! Guards! Come quickly! There is an intruder!"

  Instead of running to safety, her loyal aide turned around and ran back past her ladyship, intending to use her slightly shorter but wider body to shield the Ambassador's wife from what could be a possible threat. A stranger appeared at the intersection just as Shawndra sidestepped back to block the middle of the corridor after having dodged to the left to get around Sondia. Something flashed in the poor light and Shawndra cried out as the handle of a ceramic throwing knife sprouted out of her chest. With her face twisted into a grimace of pain, Shawndra grabbed at her chest with both hands and turned involuntarily to brace her back against the wall of the corridor.

  Mumbling a curse, the attacker disappeared back down the cross corridor.

  A horrified Sondia turned around, covered the two strides between her and her servant and was able to catch Shawndra before she could fall and make what appeared to be a serious injury even worse. The older woman immediately slumped against her employer. Sondia wrapped both arms around her beloved servant but she was unable to handle the limp and unexpected weight of her wounded companion and the two of them collapsed to the floor, with Shawndra partially on top. In an instant, Sondia's hands and the front of her robes were slick, covered in Shawndra's blood.

  Moments later, two of the Ambassador's personal guard came running up from the corridor behind the two women and immediately began to attend to Sondia and her wounded servant. Four more guards arrived just a few seconds later from the corridor ahead and immediately gave chase down the cross corridor after Sondia pointed them in the direction that the attacker had fled.

  Within a matter of a few minutes, the two guards and Sondia had contacted the ship's Doctor, transferred Shawndra to a hastily procured gurney and taken her to the sick bay of the Istanbul where the wounded woman was receiving medical attention. Sondia, who had remained remarkably calm throughout the entire ordeal, suddenly found herself shaking violently in a delayed reaction to the traumatic event. The Ambassador, having cut short his meeting as soon as he heard about the incident, was in the sick bay within the next few minutes.

  "Sondia, Love of my life! Are you alright?" His concern was well founded, as his wife was shivering and covered in blood!

  "I'm fine, Saad," she replied, with a noticeable quiver in her voice, "but Shawndra was badly wounded."

  "What happened?" asked the Ambassador.

  "We were going back to my chambers and a man attacked us with a knife at the junction with the corridor that leads towards the dining room. She... Shawndra...she shielded me with her body! That knife was meant for me!" The strongest woman the Ambassador had ever known burst into tears. He took her in his arms to do what he could to comfort her. She buried her face in his shoulder and continued to cry softly. He closed his eyes and held her tightly. After no more than a minute, she drew her head back and looked her husband through tear-stained eyes, her brow furrowed in worry.

  "Will she be alright?" asked Sondia, her voice was soft but steady again as she found herself regaining some control. "What does the doctor say?"

  The Ambassador looked towards the surgeon who had been attending Shawndra and had just then entered the waiting area of the sickbay. Having overheard the question, the Doctor nodded his head in the affirmative.

  "The Doctor says she will live," replied the Ambassador. Sondia gave her husband a firm squeeze before kissing him on the cheek and extricating herself from his embrace. She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief and ran her other hand through her hair.

  "Did the guards catch the attacker?"

  "Yes, they managed to stun him as he attempted to escape through the dining room," replied the Ambassador, "He will be bound and watched until he wakes up and we can question him."

  "Do we have any idea who was behind the attack?" asked Sondia.

  "We do not as yet."

  "What do we know?"

  "Well," mused the Ambassador, "he was obviously a fanatic of some kind because there was no way that he was going to be able to pull off an attack in that part of the ship without getting caught or killed."

  "Then whoever ordered the attack was aware of the fact but ordered it anyway?" said Sondia.

  "It would appear so," replied the Ambassador. "I suppose that the man could have acted alone but I strongly doubt that." He sighed, "We have suspected that there is an informant or two aboard for some time now but this is the first time that anyone has showed their hand since we left the Santana Nexus. I'll wager that the man we caught is part of the Black Storm as the last attackers were. I wonder how many more of them there are that we have yet to identify? If we can keep this one alive long enough to question him, perhaps we can find out. We will need your abilities to interrogate him."

  "I'll be more than happy to help you probe him!" said Sondia, steel in her tone, "I do not think I will feel any need to be gentle about it either." She paused in thought for a moment. "How did he come to be loose in that part of the ship?" she asked.

  "He was wearing the uniform of one of the kitchen staff," replied the Ambassador, "but his credentials belonged to someone who was trusted. We are attempting to locate the man the credentials belong to but I fear the worst; that the worker has been murdered and this would-be assassin took his place. We will have to go through the rest of the staff to ensure that there aren't any others." He shook his head. "This ship, with all of these different factions of people onboard, is almost impossible to keep completely under our control without risking some serious diplomatic issues. We shall have to keep our guard up at all times. They picked this time, while we're all distracted by the preparations for another attack to make their move on you. I...I'm sorry about Shawndra."

  "Saad," said Sondia, her face grim, "I fear for our daughter. We must do something to ensure her safety."

  "I cannot help but agree with you, my dear," replied her husband, nodding gravely. He thought for a moment. "Perhaps we could find quarters for both of the girls onboard the Greyhound. They
would be a lot safer over there, I would think."

  "I like that idea," said his wife. "Will you check for me?"

  "Of course, my dear. As soon as we get through this current crisis."

  Chapter 20.

  UTFN Reclamation Center, onboard the wreck of the FWS Gibraltar, January 4, 2599.

  The preparations on board the battleship wreck took on a new sense of urgency with the announcement that the enemy forces had entered the system and would be launching an attack within a short time, probably within the next two hours. Fortunately, with one of the Gibraltar's four power plants operating, the salvage crew was able to power up a number of systems on the old wreck that they hadn't been able to use on either the Terrier or on the Bofor's turret that had been transplanted onto the Greyhound, the fire control computers and the motorized drives for turret rotation and projector elevation adjustments.

  They had also been able to restore gravity to most of the powered-up area, including the turrets. The location of the two gun emplacements, relative to the location of the power plant, meant that they were able to provide power, heat and life support to not only the engineering section that contained the power plant but also to the giant turrets and their adjoining capacitor chambers as well as the somewhat random block of interconnected compartments that linked the weapons to the engineering area. Essentially, the salvagers had restored power and function to a section of the wreck that represented about fifteen percent of the entire ship.

  Carlisle, Caleb Jordan and Orville Steuben were back in the topside stern turret working with the newly powered up weapons controls. The fire control computer came satisfyingly to life when they activated the console. Within a few seconds of pushing the power button, the entire board had lit up and the targeting viewscreen came on as well. At the moment, the crosshairs that intersected the targeting screen were aimed at something that looked like part of a spaceship. Carlisle was sitting one of the operator's chairs and consulting with her wrist computer to get the basics on how to operate the targeting computer. Next to her, Caleb slid into the other operator's chair.

  "This looks a lot like the consoles on the cruiser I was assigned to except, of course, everything is a whole lot bigger," said the former gunnery engineer, "Let me see, the zoom for the targeting module should be right here..." He twisted a dial on the console, one that had a series of fine calibrations etched onto it, to zoom the targeting view out to a lower magnification. As the view zoomed out, they discovered that the starboard gun was aimed at the wreck of a cruiser, one that was positioned clear across the scrap cloud. Caleb looked the control board over some more, further familiarizing himself with the functions.

  "The turret controls should be this set right here," he said.

  In the middle of the panel was the set of knobs and dials that controlled the movement of the turret and projectors. Near the exact center there was a large dial that mirrored the turret itself. The knob within the dial was of a slightly elongated teardrop shape with two distinct parallel marks, representing the twin projectors, etched into the point. The dial itself had a prominent center line running top to bottom with finer lines fanning out to either side of the center. There were no marks beyond 4 o'clock on the starboard side and beyond 8 o'clock on the port side. Carlisle immediately realized that those two terminal lines represented the extreme rotation positions for the turret and if the guns could even be aimed at a point further along the arc, they risked being aimed at some portion of the ship they were mounted on.

  Caleb grasped the knob, which was pointed at the centerline mark, and twisted it clockwise to 1 o'clock. A loud 'ker-thunk' echoed through the turret as a huge solenoid in the motor compartment beneath them shifted gears into action that had not operated for more than five decades. Accompanied by the deep whirring sound of the huge actuation motor, the turret swung majestically to starboard, stopping at the one o'clock position. The sound of the motor ceased and the loud thunk of the solenoid kicking out announced that the gun had reached the requested position. Caleb then twisted the knob counterclockwise to the 11 o'clock position. The actuation of the solenoid again echoed through the ship and the turret swung smoothly to port, coming to rest at the requested angle. Ker-thunk.

  They quickly moved on to experiment with projector elevation next. In this case the designers had graphically represented the projectors in a fashion similar to the rotation controls. Two identical dials with precision markings flanked the rotation control. Carlisle immediately grasped that one was for the port projector and the other for the starboard one. Apparently the gun crew could operate both projectors from this one console. She would check to make sure but normal military redundancy dictated that there be an identical console in the port chamber that could also be used to control both projectors.

  The projector elevation dials had markings along an arc of just under ninety degrees. One extreme of the dial represented the maximum elevation that the projectors could achieve while the other extreme represented maximum depression. Caleb moved the starboard elevation control off from the maximum depression setting to a position partway up the dial, around twenty-five degrees. Another solenoid, this one with a considerably less authoritative presence than the one associated with the rotation motors, sounded off and the projector lifted smoothly to twenty-five degrees of elevation, relative to the "horizontal" of the ship. A moment later, the portside gun also responded to their commands.

  It remained to be seen whether or not they'd be able to aim and fire the guns accurately, but for the time being, at least they knew that the machinery to move the emplacement and the projectors both worked.

  Carlisle called Harris, still down in engineering to let him know.

  "Lieutenant Harris?"

  "Go ahead, Ensign,"

  "We've got everything ready to go in this turret. I think we'd better get the gun crew up here."

  There was a short hesitation before she received a reply.

  "Gun crew?" came the reply, "There's no gun crew! All of the personnel who know how to operate guns are manning weapons in the Scrapyard. The three of you are going to have to man that gun! You and Caleb and Steuben are the gun crew!"

  Carlisle gulped, and mumbled, "Omigod!"

  "What was that, Ensign?"

  "Um...Aye, aye, Sir!"

  ***

  Nacobbus system hyperlink zone, on board the former Jasmine Navy ship Sultan, January 4, 2599.

  Having determined that any kind of meaningful long-distance reconnaissance was virtually impossible due to the sheer number of objects in the Scrapyard and the distance separating his ships from the cloud of scrap, Captain Shalhoub ordered the Revolutionary Strike Force to go proceed with the attack.

  The Revolutionary Forces had learned a few things since the last attempt on the Scrapyard and were better prepared this time around. By recalibrating the sensor equipment on several of the El-Nashar destroyers, they were confident that they could detect the charged capacitors on most of the wrecked ships in the Scrapyard and thereby avoid or destroy many of the defender's weapons before the enemy even had an opportunity to use them.

  "This is Captain Shalhoub, we have determined that the forces in this system have not been appreciably fortified. We will continue with our attack as planned. When we arrive at the Scrapyard, the El-Nashar destroyers, with their superior shielding, will seek out and destroy the charged gun emplacements before the enemy has a chance to use them against us. The other ships and the troop transports will hold back until we neutralize their weapons and will prepare to overwhelm the diplomatic ship. We will begin microjumping towards the Scrapyard in the next five minutes."

  ***

  UTFN Reclamation Center, onboard the wreck of the FWS Gibraltar, January 4, 2599.

  "Lieutenant Harris? Kresge here, several of the enemy ships have just gone into microjump. Are you in condition to engage them or not?"

  "We still have to charge the capacitors, Commander. How much time do you estimate we have?"

  "Las
t time it took them about two hours to get here after the microjump. Since several of their ships jumped to the Scrapyard last time around, they should have some very accurate jump coordinates and may be able to get even closer. If you can't be ready in an hour, I'd say we'd better think very strongly about aborting."

  "Roger, Commander."

  The battleship arming crew intensified their efforts.

  As it turned out, the enemy was indeed capable of jumping in closer than they had during the previous attack. When the Strike Force had completed their microjumps, they were less than an hour and a half away. When all of the Strike Force ships had reassembled after the jump, the group began accelerating towards the Scrapyard. Within a disappointingly short time, the enemy ships were only 5000 kilometers away, in a matter of a few more minutes they would be approaching the extreme distance of their destroyer's pulse weapons.

  With the enemy essentially breathing down their necks, the salvage crew's next desperate task was to see if they could get the capacitors for the topside turret charged up. Capacitor charging was monitored and performed at another console down in the capacitor chamber. Carlisle and Caleb Jordan left Orville Steuben at the turret controls and exited the aft main battery projector compartment of the turret, going downwards past the motor compartment and into the capacitor chamber. Forcing themselves to behave calmly, in spite of the almost overwhelming sense of urgency each of them was experiencing, the two of them set themselves to the task of meeting their next challenge as calmly as they could.

  In this compartment there was another computer console with a couple of operator's chairs arrayed in front of it. This control interface was familiar to Carlisle from the similar, though considerably smaller, console currently in the Bofor's turret that had been transplanted onto the Greyhound. Carlisle and Caleb took seats at the console. The capacitor chamber was also split into two distinct compartments with the port and starboard capacitors partitioned into separate compartments by an armored bulkhead to isolate potential battle damage. Again, both or either capacitor system could be operated from identical, redundant consoles in either the port or starboard compartment.