“Doctor installed these mechanicals,” Spalding said with a frown and then demonstrated the way his new fingers could ignite into plasma torches, “had a little trouble with a reactor. Nothing I couldn’t deal with, but I’m pretty sure I looked worse than a parted out hover-bike in a chop shop after they got done removing all the damaged bits and pieces.
“That would explain it,” the Colonel said blandly and Spalding appreciated the way the other man refused to stare at his beady, red eye or chrome dome of head.
“I don’t have a lot of time for the social bits and graces,” Spalding said abruptly, “never had much use for them to start with. Anyway, I’m just here for a few personnel and to check up on how young Brence has been doing with the repair project I set him. So if you’ve got any questions, now’s the time.”
Wainwright grunted. “I see you’ve got the old Prince back into service,” the old Marine said finally, referring to the battleship the Engineer had just parked up against the Omicron’s second docking arm.
“Yes, she runs,” Spalding grunted, “but we’ve still got a bit more finish work to do before I’m ready to put the seal of approval on her.”
“Any chance you’ve got a relief force, or at least some reinforcements on board her,” Wainwright asked, sounding hopeful. “We’re somewhat thin on the grounded boots over here.”
The old Engineer heaved a sigh and shook his head, coming to a stop. “Afraid not,” he said.
“I figured as much,” Wainwright replied sourly, “had to ask, though.”
Spalding hesitated before deciding to throw the Marine a bone. “We’ve just started getting more personnel in the pipeline,” he said gruffly, “I find anyone who can’t cut it in engineering and I’ll see about sending some of them over to Marine country.”
Wainwright blinked and then scowled. “Engineering rejects for marines; is that what the Confederation’s come to?” he demanded.
“Maybe I’ll just see about sending them over to Gunnery instead,” Spalding retorted, meeting him glare for glare.
“Good thing we’re a Caprian unit then and not any part of all this Confederation nonsense,” Wainwright ground out.
“That’s what you think,” Spalding said in a rising voice, “but the fact of it is that most this here fleet’s Caprian, and I don’t see his Majesty James sending anyone to come and haul your sorry hind-ends out of this hole and back to the home world.”
“Doesn’t mean anything,” Wainwright growled, “travel times mean that back home might not have even had word yet of where we are.”
“Oh, they’ve heard,” Spalding said with an evil grin, “the Lady Akantha’s made sure of that by now—I guaran-blasted-tee it. I’m afraid you’re here for the duration, Marine.”
“We’ll see about that,” Wainwright disagreed with finality.
“Suit yourself,” Spalding turned away and headed for the exit to the receiving area, then he paused. “It’s too bad really,” he said casually.
“You think I’m that easy to manipulate? You really have been through the fusion reactor one too many times,” Wainwright said derisively and shook his head. “All right, I’ll bite: what?”
Spalding scowled at this latest bit and almost changed his mind before deciding not to. “It’s too bad really,” he repeated, “an engineer like me getting to go and finish sweeping up the last of the Omicron pirates…while Marines like you are stuck station-side on a garrison duty.”
“I don’t think so,” Wainwright said shaking his head, “try those kinds of psychological tricks on the youngsters, Engineer.”
The ornery old engineering officer shrugged and then cocked a grin. “Well, it was worth a try,” he said pausing to adjust his tool belt before heading deeper into the station.
“How many of these ships you got up and running yet, lad?” Spalding demanded, storming into the work bay.
Brence stood up from where he’d been working on a partially disassembled shuttle’s ramp hydraulic assembly. “We’ve got a dozen shuttles but only eight or nine of them are up and running at any one time,” he replied, deliberately answering a different question.
“Shuttles,” Spalding cried, “who gives two figs about a blasted shuttle? It’s landers and warships that are going to pull our big hairy chestnuts out of the fires on this one, Brence! Tell me about the ships I sent you out here to repair!”
Brence winced. “We’ve got a pair of armed freighters up and running that might qualify as Q-ship’s if we can ever get them to a full service yard and modify their hull profiles better than we can here,” he said, unhappy to be reporting what was essentially a mission failure, “but everything else is nothing but a bunch of floating space junk. I mean, until and unless we can get them to a real space-yard.”
“Armed freighters?” Spalding demanded chewing on his lip. “Hmm…might be I have a use for those,” he said after a moment’s consideration.
“Chief?” Brence asked hesitantly.
“Don’t you worry your head about it, Brence,” Spalding said, “freighters are going to be less than useless where we’re going.” He looked over sharply, “Thankfully for you I brought along a Battleship, a Corvette, and a Cutter. This freighter nonsense is not good—and I mean not good, Brence,” he snorted.
“Sorry, Sir,” Brence replied, “there just wasn’t a whole lot to work with. They stripped everything that would run when Lady Akantha pulled out of here. Either we need a yard or a Constructor, which is basically just a mobile shipyard slash factory complex when it unfurls itself, extends its builder wings and gets up and running.”
“I thought about that,” Spalding growled, “but it was hard enough getting that Minority Owner over to AZT, an uninhabited star system,” he slammed a hand against the side of the shuttle for emphasis. “I figured that forcing him to come over to a former pirate stronghold that might still have a few scavengers lurking around and lying in wait, as it where, would have taken more Lancers than we could spare,” he said with real regret in his voice.
Brence nodded, feeling more than a little surprised that the Chief Engineer hadn’t just forced the issue anyway.
“No,” the old Engineer frowned before his face lightened, “never fear, lad, I’ve got another auto-wrench in the tool box. Just you wait and see, ha!”
“A wrench, Chief?” the former wayward space had asked questioningly.
“It took more computer power than I’m entirely comfortable with, you understand,” Spalding said, leaning in conspiratorially, “but I’ve done it, lad!” He slapped Brence on the arm hard enough to rock the other man into the metal wall of the shuttle, “She’ll fly!”
“Sir…what works?” Brence asked with genuine confusion.
“Top secret, old Brence, me boy-o,” the old Engineer said, laying a finger alongside his nose, “you won’t winkle it out of me.”
Brence looked at the Commander more than a little uneasily. He loved the old Engineer—heck, the whole Department did—but the look in the old Engineer’s eye was half crazed. He had learned during his time under the old man that the crazier the old engineering officer looked and the less sense started making, was directly proportional to the amount of Hades that was about to be dumped on everyone.
“Not another Montagne Maneuver,” he asked half-seriously.
The Chief Engineer looked at him like he, Brence, was the one who was crazy. “O’ course not,” Spalding snapped, his voice full of condescension, “the Maneuver’s a completely different beast—besides which even you should know those kinds of things take time.”
Brence breathed a sigh of relief as Spalding continued, “Don’t worry, this new project is just a simple application of sound engineering principles,” the half borged-out old man said, his glowing red eye seeming to burn with the Demon’s own unholy light.
“Sweet Murphy,” Brence muttered, unable to help himself from keeping the words from slipping out. The last time Lieutenant—that is, Commander Spalding back before he was a Commande
r had invoked the phrase ‘sound engineering principles,’ he had lobbed asteroids at inhabited words!
“Eh,” Spalding said, sounding like he’d been lost within his own thoughts, “I suppose ye’re right. We can always use the Saint’s help. Remember his primary maxim, after all, since enough’s gone wrong already!”
“Promise me we’re not going to be throwing any kinetic strikes at Tracto,” Brence said fervently, very much mindful of Murphy’s primary axiom, ‘whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.’
“What are you blathering about, Brence?” Spalding stopped and gave him searching look. “Who said anything about trying to bombard…” he dropped his voice to an almost comical level—well, almost comical for anyone other than the Chief Engineer of the Lucky Clover—“the Lady Akantha’s home world! Tuck it in, lad; only a fool or crazy man would want to get on the bad side of a great Lady.”
Brence heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Sir,” he said with feeling.
Spalding shook his head at him disapprovingly before the other man’s face brightened. “Don’t worry, lad; we won’t be throwing around any kinetic weapons in Tracto. No, this will be much more dangerous,’’ he grinned, clapping the young Engineer on the arm, and once again knocking Brence up against the wall.
“That’s reassuring,” Brence said, giving his superior a sickly smile. Anything the old man thought was more dangerous than an orbital bombardment was enough to give any sane man nightmares.
“This is going to be great,” Spalding said, rubbing his hands together before his brow wrinkled and he leaned forward to glance at the partially disassembled hydraulic system in the back of the shuttle. “I think you need to pull the cylinder,” the Chief Engineer advised.
Brence glanced at it and nodded, “It’s on the repair list. We’re going to haul it out and take it back to the machine shop,” he replied and a long moment passed before curiosity got the better of him. “You said something was ‘great,’ Commander,” he finally broke down and asked.
“What?” Spalding muttered and then recognition seemed to dawn, along with a truly evil smile, “Caprian Procurement and the R&D Departments like to throw out anything halfway old technology and install a brand, spanking new model,” the Engineer opined, clearly getting onto a subject that was near and dear to his heart. “At least, they do on their top-of-the-supposed-line, Parliamentary ships, but do they ever stop and ask themselves if there’s a need to upgrade—or if it’s even possible that by utilizing some previously discarded technology, they could do the same job at half the cost?”
Brence nodded absently until realizing the old engineer was looking at him expectantly. “Um…no?” he hazarded.
“That’s blasted well right,” Spalding snarled, “those blighters never ask if something old could do the job just as well, or…or,” he stumbled for half a second before regaining his bearings before finishing triumphantly, “perhaps even better!”
“I don’t understand what’s so great about this,” Brence said, fighting the urge to cringe at saying something he knew was bound to do nothing but set off the other man.
“Of course you don’t understand,” Spalding growled, “no one understands what those blighters over there think they’re up to—except possibly lining their own pockets.”
The old Engineer started chewing on his lower lip angrily and Brence took a cautious step back, in the name of examining another one of the Shuttle’s hydraulic cylinders.
“No,” Spalding said with utter certainty in his voice, “we’re not going to win this thing by trying to beat them at their own game,” he declared.
“We’re not?” Brence asked before he thought it through, “I mean what game is that, Sir?”
“If we play by their rules, son,” Spalding said leaning close and speaking in a hoarse, angry whisper, “they’ll clean our clock and beat us every time. No, I say let them have all those shiny new toys,” he scoffed, “because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in a lifetime of engineering, it’s that there’s more than one way to stabilize a fluctuating hyper-drive or fusion reactor going critical!”
“You’ve lost me, Chief,” Brence admitted, “I don’t know what we’re talking about.”
“The war, son!” Spalding exploded. “Whatever else would I be blooming talking about?!”
Brence’s eyes went wide as his superior continued, “We’ve got to come at them from an unexpected angle, see,” the Commander Spalding hissed, his eyes casting about the work bay suspiciously. “And since the enemy’s got the market cornered on the shiny, new gadgets department, we’re going to have to get…” he paused dramatically as he again laid a finger aside his nose, “old school.”
“A good plan, Sir,” Brence said with a weak grin. Once again, and not for the first time in his career since meeting Terrence Spalding, he was wondering what the other man was going on about that the rest of them didn’t see.
“That’s right,” Spalding said with a nod as he seemed to lose a bit of his steam at the realization that no one was arguing with him, “there’s more gadgets and doo-dahs no one’s ever seen before ‘cause they retired the old stuff before anyone figured out what to do with it in favor of some shiny new toy. A shiny blinking toy! Came along while no one was looking and upended the apple cart, they did. But have no fear lad; we’re gathering up all those lost little apples and bringing them out of retirement. You just wait and see. No one—and I mean no one—will see this one coming. Old school, hah!” he scoffed, “why, when I’m done with them, they’ll be saying: ‘where does he get such wonderful toys,’ and you know what I’ll tell them?” Spalding demanded.
Brence was forced to shake his head by way of reply. “I don’t, Chief,” he said worriedly.
“I’ll say to those wasteful sprats, that I was just using the stuff they threw away,” Spalding finished by stomping his big, metal foot into the duralloy floor with punishing force. The resulting clank drew eyes from all the way around the room. “They never should have even thought about getting’ rid of and retiring that old stuff—they’re jewels, lad. Perfectly good jewels what’s been thrown away for want of a good polish!”
Seeing Spalding starting to stare off into space despite all the many eyes now locked on the two of them, Brence decided it was time to beat a hasty retreat. “Are you sure we should be speaking about all this here, Sir?” he asked, trying to give the old engineer a significant look. “I mean, somewhere not so many of the men could hear?”
“You’re a good lad, Brence,” the old engineer said, “quite right. This used to be a pirate station after all—the walls prob’ly have ears.”
Feeling ashamed at playing to the older man’s paranoia, Brence looked away before regaining control of himself and leading the Chief Engineer to a lift leading to one of the main docking spurs. Maybe a tour of what we’re currently working on would distract Commander Spalding, he thought.
“Oh, Brence,” Spalding said along the way.
“Yes, Sir?” replied the Warrant.
“Pack everything up and load whatever you don’t want to leave behind on the Prince or those freighters of yours,” Spalding said waving his arms at their surroundings.
“Where are we going?” Brence asked after Spalding’s words had a moment to sink in.
Spalding looked at him like he was stupid. “What we should’ve done months ago, Brence,” the Engineer glared at him, “we’re goin’ to get back the Clover!”
Chapter 50: Tracking the Mother-ship
“How are we doing, Helm?” I asked with some concern.
“So far, so good, Admiral,” DuPont declared, “the engine’s running smooth enough and I see no signs of overheating.”
“Where are we on our recharge cycle, Mr. Shepherd?” I asked, looking beside DuPont at our Navigator, “I don’t want to be caught with our pants down. With only one of our secondary engines up and running, it’s not only those Bug scouts that can outrun us, but the Medium Harvesters as well.”
“We are
doing our best to maintain our charge levels as close to 80% as possible without crossing the critical threshold and forming a hyper field,” Shepherd reported stoically, as if I hadn’t been asking for this same update every hour on the hour.
“Good man,” I said agreeably, leaning back in my chair and looking back up the main screen worriedly.
“Rather lonely out here,” Captain Laurent observed from my right elbow. I suppressed the urge to jump and instead frowned at him.
“We’re limping along on one damaged secondary engine, and have had to use our hyper drive twice just to stay ahead of the Mother-ship and her horde of Scouts and Harvesters,” I said evenly, “so if that qualifies as loneliness, then I confess to it.”
“I meant with just us out here, and McCruise and her Heavy Destroyer sent away,” he demurred quietly.
My frown became a scowl which I made no attempt to conceal. “We need eyes on Tracto System to make sure my uncle doesn’t do something unexpected,” I said sharply, “when we go for this snake I don’t just intend to cut off its head—I want to crush the head and destroy the rest of the body as well. Their piracy ends here.”
“I didn’t say I disagreed with you,” Laurent said, drawing back rigidly. “And I’m sorry if I gave that impression,” he added with a frown of his own.
“Sorry,” I muttered unhappily, “it’s just that McCruise sent off all her damaged ships, and then I had to send our only remaining escort to spread the word of the need to rally, which left either the Flagship or her Heavy Destroyer to picket Tracto outside the hyper limit. Needless to say, with us limping along and ready to cut and run at the first sign of that Bug Armada on our tail overtaking us, she’s not exactly my favorite person right at the moment.”
“It was a good call, Sir, to secure the gains and send the damaged ships back for repair,” Laurent said stoutly.
“Good or not, as events have proven out it was very much the wrong call,” I said disgustedly.
“Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” Laurent said philosophically, “we might never know for sure. An Officer makes his or, in this case ‘her’ best call, and moves forward from there. In this case, an experienced officer made a judgment call and I can’t say from here that it was the wrong one—remember that hindsight is always 20/20.”
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