Chapter 4: Orbital Drama
Bob from Boeing Space Works had requested Wilson meet him at The Trena Earth Thonian Space Yards. The Yards, as they were called was a great space dock for building and repairing all types of space and star craft. The Yards were also reworking everything that could to be made interstellar space worthy. The Yards ways contained hundreds of space and star ships being made ready for service. Some were container ships ready to take the millions of container that the kingdom was getting ready to ship to Home. The yards were working full out to build bare bones transports. As Wilson’s landing craft approached the Yards he could see no less than twenty ships being built. Each one could hold ten thousand containers. Wilson had been continuously impressed by the ability of Bob’s people to get this type of work done. They had designed and built a proto type, tested it and flew the first one all within one month from knowing they needed it. The only problem was that the ships were not meant to be used more than once or twice. They were crewless, and completely automated with a rather dumb autopilot.
Next to the carriers were the nearly finished passenger liners. The liners had been on contract to Royal Trena Cruise Lines. The cruise ship line had contracted to have twenty ships built for their excursion and charter business. Only a couple of the ships would have been used for their traditional cruise ship business. At first the ship yard did not want to work on them at all. Their construction had been abandoned when it was found that the owners had fled the planet taking every last credit in their corporate treasury with them. But Bob had persuaded the Yards to continue working on them to make them into refugee ships that could carry a couple thousand people for the short trip from Trena to Home.
Marshal Wilson wasn’t certain what Bob wanted to discuss with him. Bob usually didn’t waste his time. In fact Wilson often felt he wasted the manufacturer’s time, so he had a tendency to try to not bother the man unless it was important. His people had been pulling off miracles; he owed them a big debt of gratitude.
Bob met him just inside the air lock at the main administration habitat. The small balding man was alone, and seemed not to be as harried as one would think he would be.
“Lord Wilson!” Bob called, “Welcome to the Yards!”
“Hello Bob,” Wilson returned.
“I have a conference room nearby where we can meet,” Bob replied, “How’s your beautiful wife these days.”
“Pregnant with Twins,” Michael said smiling, “she thinks I don’t know we’re having twins, but Doc Klond let it slip before she left so I’ve got to be fully surprised when she tells me.”
“Jonesy,” Bob said, “Please send Lady Wilson a dozen roses and have the card say congratulations on your pending wonderful event. I trust that the great adventure you are participating in will be enjoyable and not too stress full.”
“It’s done sir,” Bob’s personal assistant AI reported.
“Bob you don’t have to do that!” Wilson said flattered.
“I most certainly do skipper,” the man said, “Years ago during a ball game my oldest broke her shoulder and your Lisa was her therapist. Lonie is married and presented me with a grandchild a year or so back. It’s the least I can do!”
Wilson didn’t argue any further. He had noticed that Bob’s people skills were much better than any he would ever have. Bob let him into the conference room. There he found several people he didn’t know.
“Marshal these are the owners of the Yards, plus the owners of a couple of the other space stations nearby. They want to run something by you,” Bob said.
“Marshal,” a largish woman spoke up from down the table, “I am the manager of the Trena Off World Industries. It’s a small space station about 30 degrees west of the capital. A couple of us were talking. We got to discussing the orbital infrastructure and how it will be impacted by asteroid field. We think we can survive it.”
“We have batted this around in staff meetings,” Wilson acknowledged, “My people are divided on your survivability. Some feel that the smaller stations that are easier to move can be moved out of harm’s way. The bigger stations may be able to fend off most of the larger asteroids. Yeah. You might be able to do it; but a place like The Yard there is no way it is going to survive.”
“Marshal we think that we can protect the yard by mounting heavy beam and missile weapons. We also have turned loose some astrographers we think we have some of the bigger pieces tracked and can take them out. Not enough to prevent planetary damage, but enough to prevent major damage to the orbital infrastructure.” the first woman said. “We know that the yard is history. We also know that this is going to be a tough thing to maintain; but we’ve got so much invested here and the fact of the matter is sir we still serve the purpose of a transship point. The asteroids will only shut us down for maybe three months we’ll be back in business.”
“Marshal,” a young man down the table spoke up, “if we abandon these facilities is the crown prepared to make good our losses?”
“No we are not,” Wilson said.
“Well then sir,” The young man continued, “we of the orbital community may no longer be able to continue to support the efforts of the evacuation. So far everything we have given the people of Trena has been at no cost. From this date forward if you will not compensate us for our losses, the Evacuation Command will be charged at market value.”
“I see,” Wilson remarked, he drummed his fingers on the desk, he was about to say something when Bob spoke up, “I see also. Well I have been expecting this. Go ahead do what you have to do. Marshal lets go.”
Wilson said nothing and followed the executive out. Bob put a finger to his lips and did not say a word until they were back in the Marshal’s landing craft.
“I have been hearing rumors of this for a month or so Sir Mike,” the CEO said. “They really feel that they can protect some of their installations and are quite prepared to sacrifice the people on Trena to do it. I was hoping it was only a few hot heads. But everyone in that room controls some part of the evacuation’s orbital infrastructure.”
“Most of the orbital fabrication we’re done with,” Jonesy image popped into view over Bob’s communicator, “Now all we have to do is to get the stuff out of their hands.”
“That’s not going to be to terribly hard.” Bob said, “Jonesy, activate Case Capture!”
“Activating Case Capture,” The confirmed the order.
“Jonesy has been doing most of the programming on all the ships built in the Yard. She has for lack of a better word put her children in the ships AI’s. So what the yard doesn’t know is that they only think they have control of the freighters, and liners they have built here.”
“Bob that’s not legal is it?” Michael asked.
“Lord Wilson,” Jonesy spoke up, “I wrote every one of those contracts and every one of them includes a phrase, Boeing SpaceWorks of Trena Inc. shall provide the program for the ships AI’s. That allowed me to put my children aboard them, and then there is a phrase in the contract that the ships built by The Yards are to be delivered for testing and final shake down to the crown by Boeing Space Works, and that Boeing Space Works will be the sole entity to determine if the ships are ready for delivery.
“So Sir Mike,” Jonesy tartly said, “I own those ships. Besides do you think I am going to let those barbarians have my children?”
“No, I guess not,” Mike replied, pulling his communicator out, “What else do we have to be built up here in this yard?”
“The militia has a small repair facility in Geo over the mountain.” Jonesy said, “It doesn’t have the capacity as The Yards do, but it can handle the one or two jobs I need to do there. I have a special ship being built for the Queen, and her staff. I also have a special command and control ship being built for Home. These are high security jobs so I want them built there. I also have a couple of moth balled Theocracy and Republic war ships in storage there. I don’t want civilians getting their hands on those. The base ca
n handle most of what we need from here on out. It would have been nice to use the space stations to transship our people; but we can always dock directly to the liners coming and going. It’ll be bad but we can handle it.
“Excuse me I have some ships to move” Jonesy said, “hey boss would you call Evac Command, and let them know what I am doing they might get a tad excited.”
He activated his communicator and said “Evac Command this is Evac 1."
“This is Evac 2,” Mylea’s voice came over the communicator, “Marshal.”
“You will be seeing a movement of vessels out of the Yard.” Michael said, “We have just taken custody of them. Coordinate with Boeing Space Works control to get them into an orbit that doesn’t conflict with anything. Then get the Queen’s Attorney on the line we uh might have some legal problems.”
“Aye sir,” Mylea replied.
“Yeah skipper,” Lord Mercer’s face popped up on the landing craft’s main view screen.
“We’re going to have some legal problems with the orbital engineering facilities. They are going to want to be paid for the loss of their services to the crown, and for the loss of their orbital infrastructure. They are also saying we’ll have to begin paying them for the stuff we’re getting from them.”
“Okay,” Mercer said, “I’ve been expecting this. The Declaration of Emergency gives you some wide powers including the nationalization of any resource needed to end the emergency. As for the loss of their facilities they need to talk to their insurer Lloyds on Earth. Far as I know Lord Wilson, the insurance companies on Earth are going to compensate anyone who has a loss. So are the Trena Companies. So I don’t see their problem. Except that maybe they want to stay in business. You know Marshal there’s nothing to stop people coming back and salvaging anything they think they can. And truthfully as we have discussed; it is an even bet as to what will be left in orbit. On Trena there will be things left that won’t be destroyed for years, but with all the planetary damage it might be rough salvaging things; but in orbit it won’t be. They might have hatched a deal to act as brokers for salvaging the planet.”
“I see,” Wilson said, “Okay get me a brief on the interstellar law of salvage. Then we’ll see about issuing some salvage contracts.”
“It’ll be ready in a couple of hours,” Mercer signed off.
“Bob,” Mike turned to the Boeing CEO, “The crown owes you big time.”
“No more than the crown owes all of us,” Bob said, “You know I hate greedy dishonest business people. My company is losing money helping the crown. But it can’t be helped. If my company doesn’t help the crown and doesn’t help the people of Trena, the company will lose big time. Boeing SpaceWorks is history on Trena. But we might be able to put it together on Home; but only if our good name isn’t tainted. That’s what those good business men and woman we just left don’t understand.”
“They’ll most likely get some of the salvage contracts,” Michael said seeing the reality.
“Oh yeah, they can have the salvage rights,” Bob said, “It’ll be the hardest crown that they will ever earned.”
Wilson said nothing deep in his thoughts of what he had to do to get the job done. Every time he turned around it was getting more and more complex. From the simple scheduling of the departing families to making sure that all equipment they needed on Home got taken there also. He was continually amazed at what this job constantly threw at him. Between the Theology, and some of the nobles, and now add Hozenbur he sometimes wondered how he managed to keep his sanity. He was also continually amazed at how lucky he had gotten with his staff. It wasn’t just Mylea, or Langtree, or Liz, it was people like Bob who were not only good at what they did but had the moral courage of their convictions to make their will known. So far he didn’t have a dud on the team.
“Bob,” Mike said as the pilot started his approach to the Palace Pad, “Have you gotten anything started at Home yet?”
“What do you mean Sir Mike,” Bob asked.
“Bob,” Wilson said, “I want you to build Home’s space craft repair facilities. Send me a proposal and I’ll have Langtree look it over. Jonesy?”
“Yes Lord Wilson?” The sultry sounding AI called from Bob’s Communicator.
“Pack your bags beautiful, you’re moving to Home to manage the space yard.” Wilson said.
“Aw shucks boss,” Jonesy responded, “I was expecting to retire to some old lady’s yacht and flirting with her crew.”
“You’ll enjoy flirting and corrupting the yard dogs,” Bob said, “Like you have every male in my office.”
“Who me,” She said so sweetly that her voice sounded like someone had poured raw honey into it.
“Yes you!” Both men said as the pilot landed the landing craft on the palace pad. The AI said softly, “Bob you’re running early for the production meeting. You might have time to slip home and have lunch with Louise.”
Every Last Mother's Child Page 113
