The Veritian Derelict (Junkyard Dogs) (6 page)

"I really don't know why you seem so surprised, Ensign," said the Admiral. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with your mind and all of the background information you've had to absorb for your dissertation means that you're actually about as well informed about Meridian and the Islamic Alliance as anyone."

"Um
...Thank you, Sir."

"This is your chance to silence your detractors, Ensign. Are you interested?"

"...Meridian Ambassador...Islamic Alliance...Naval liaison...,' she mumbled, eyes slightly glazed as she ran through some of the implications in her mind before her eyes refocused on the Admiral, "Count me in, Sir."

"Great
!" said Loftgren. "You need to get ready to leave immediately. You are to report to the
Asimov
at or before 2000 hours tomorrow night."

The admiral looked at her and nodded his head gravely. "I'm glad you've agreed to take on this assignment, Ensign. It represents a golden opportunity
for you. I also must emphasize that this is an extremely important mission. The level of unrest has reached crisis proportions in many regions of human space. In an effort to calm things down, the Ambassador is hosting an interdenominational meeting with a dozen or so of the most powerful religious leaders and politicians in the Santana Quadrant. These diplomats and their mission are vital to the interests of the Federation and the Islamic Alliance, not to mention continued peace. The conference is scheduled for the day after you get to the Santana Nexus Station. I suggest you use your time in transit to study up on each of the leaders and the politics they embrace. Don't let us down."

Carlisle gulped.

"I...I'll do my absolute best, Sir."

"I've no doubt that you will, Ensign. There are a couple more things."

Carlisle looked up expectantly.

"You were ordered to surrender your wrist computer before
your final examination. In spite of the importance of these people, or maybe because of it, there's way too much sensitive information on that wrist computer for us to risk sending it back out there with you. Since you've accepted this assignment, we are not going to be able to return it to you."

Carlisle's eyes grew wide as she
involuntarily looked at the empty spot on her left wrist. The wrist computer and its vast libraries of information and other unique capabilities had helped her and her companions to successfully get through their ordeal out in the Scrapyard and later, on the New Ceylon Orbital Station. She would be lost without it."

"
No need to look so down, Ensign. The Ambassador has graciously agreed to provide you with another wrist computer, an even later model. They'll have it loaded with information about Meridian and the Islamic Alliance that will be necessary for your assignment."

"New Ceylon…ship inventory…But, Sir, what about all the ship schematics and all the other related material? As far as I know, my computer contains the only backup of the current inventory of the New Ceylon Reclamation Center."

"The engineering department has prepared a download that contains most of the information you had, minus anything that they deem too sensitive. You are to make a copy and then give the chip to the Federation Commander at the Santana Nexus Station. She will get the information out to New Ceylon on the next courier."

She looked at the Admiral
and nodded silently.

"Remember, Ensign,
this conference is important. Without it, we may very well wind up at war in the very near future. A briefing of what you'll need to know about the religious leaders and the information on the Scrapyard, along with most of the schematics you had on your wrist computer, are on this memory chip. You can review it while in transit to your new assignment."

Carlisle stood up and numbly accepted the chip.

"On a more positive note, Ensign, we have decided to allow you to keep your prototype command spacesuit. They're going to produce the suits in just about the same conformation as the one you have, so there's no need to issue you another one. Besides, we don't have many suits of any kind in your size at the moment. Take it with our compliments."

"Thank you, Sir," said Carlisle. "I don't think we would have beaten those terrorists without that suit."

The admiral nodded in agreement, and then added short pep talk.

"For what it's worth, Tamara, I not only think you can handle this assignment but, because of what you've recently been through, I believe you're the best person we have for the job. Go out
there and do us proud! By the way, you'd better get busy with your preparations. As I said, the
Asimov
leaves tomorrow night and the last shuttle from groundside to the Naval Orbital Facility will boost out just after midnight tonight. Sorry, but that's the way it is in the Federation Navy sometimes. Good luck, Ensign. Dismissed."

Carlisle came to attention and saluted. "Thank you, Sir," she said and
numbly left the Admiral's office. There was no cadre of excited colleagues to greet and congratulate her as she went through the empty waiting room, only a bored secretary who got up and closed the door behind her.

Chapter
8.

Piedmont Mining Station, Catskill-Soroyan system, November 29, 2598.

Deputy Director of Security Hartmann waited
nervously with a group of seven other security personnel in the main airlock area of the Asteroid Mining Station. They were fanned out in defensive positions, concealed behind whatever substantial barriers they could find and each was armed with a pulse rifle in addition to carrying their regulation sidearm. All of them, including Hartmann, had donned the best defensive equipment that the security forces on this station had available, riot gear that consisted of light body armor and a helmet with a flip-up face shield and an emergency breathing system that was good for perhaps a half hour.

The chime that announced that the airlock door was about to open sounded, too loudly
to Hartmann's ears, in the stillness that had permeated the station for the five minutes or so since Hartmann had silenced the other alarms.

"Easy now, everyone," said Hartmann, "Let me warn them before anyone opens fire. Maybe we can negotiate our way out of this
somehow."

The airlock door cycled open, revealing two men dressed in full military battle armor
, each of whom immediately exited the airlock and took up a defensive posture on either side of the door. The airlock contained another five or six men and two others also dressed in full battle armor.

"Hold it right there!" said Hartmann. "I am
the Director of Station Security! I demand to know what you're doing on my station! State your business!"

In answer, one of the battle armor-clad newcomers brought
his pulse rifle to his shoulder and fired a short burst in Hartmann's direction. Having detected the somewhat obvious motion in plenty of time, Hartmann had ducked back behind the bulkhead and the pulses struck harmlessly on the wall behind him, leaving scorch marks in the paint. The smell of ozone mixed with burned paint immediately filled the air.

"Fire at the faceplates of their armor!" he shouted to his companions. Immediately, all of his security personnel opened fire with their pulse rifles, delivering satisfyingly accurate fire that scored several hits to
the head region of the two armored invaders. While the pulse impacts did not penetrate the battle armor, they did have the effect of disorienting and confusing the men within. Inside the airlock, the two additional armor-clad attackers moved to block the airlock opening, shielding the unarmored men who were setting up a very formidable weapon, a light-duty assault cannon, mounted on a tripod. Hartmann and his men continued to fire. In spite of the actions of the two armor-clad invaders blocking the airlock opening, one of the unarmored men in the airlock went down.

"Fall back, everyone!" shouted Hartman, "We
don’t have a prayer against that weapon here. Retreat! Protocol Alpha!"

Protocol Alpha was a Marine tactic that had the men
falling back under the cover of the two most rearward of their comrades. When all of their companions had retreated past them, now leaving them as the most forward pair, the formation would then continue the retreat under cover of the new set of rearmost defenders. The formation would leapfrog away from the threat in this fashion until all of them were out of the line of fire. Just after the last of his men came around the corner into the main corridor, Hartmann heard a sharp crack and saw a blinding flash as a powerful pulse from the assault cannon blasted down the now vacant corridor. The bulkhead containing the door to a maintenance room at the end of the corridor, made of stout station hull material, sprouted a hole a full five centimeters in diameter.

"Idiots!" exclaimed Hartman, "They could blow
a hole in an outside wall with that weapon!"

Hartmann took out his communicator and called the
security officer he had left back in the main office. Since the mining station was not a military facility, there was no standard protocol to repel boarders. Hartmann called for the closest thing they had.

"We
're being invaded by hostile boarders!" he said, into the communicator. "Sound the alarm for catastrophic life support systems failure!"

Alarm klaxons began to go off all over the station. Automatic systems kicked in to close and seal
all large apertures within and between levels. On the rest of the station, personnel who had been frequently drilled on life support systems failure procedures began to close and dog all manual hatches as well. Within the next two minutes, virtually the entire station was sealed up. Whoever these invaders were, they were going to have to make their way through this station one compartment at a time. That was only one of their challenges. Another was that over ninety percent of the station's personnel were Spacers, many of them, like Deputy Director Hartmann himself, former military.

***

Docking area outside the Piedmont Mining Station, Catskill-Soroyan system, November 29, 2598.

The
hijacked Tunisian destroyer approached the Piedmont Mining Station and the mining ship
Glendaloch
which was still docked in one of the station's transfer berths. The new Captain of the destroyer made a general call to all ships in the vicinity of the Station.

"
All ships in this area are to surrender immediately! Failure to comply will result in your immediate destruction
."

Seamus O'Connell keyed up a private channel between his ship and the
Glendaloch.
"Immediate destruction? With what? That ship doesn't have weapons anymore."

"
Yeah, they're bluffing, but we may be the only people besides them that know that, Seamus,
" replied Patrick, from the bridge of the
Glendaloch
.

"How much longer before you can get out of that transfer berth, Niall?"

"
I'm still gonna need another fifteen minutes at least
," came the reply. "
They've disconnected and pulled all the conveyors and the last of the supply people are getting out as we speak. We're securing hatches and bringing the engines online now.
"

"Looks like we might have to do something," said O'Connell. "They may be bluffing, but we don’t have to. I'm arming my mining laser; at this range I can do some pretty respectable damage
if they force me to it. I suggest you do the same, Niall."

"
Affirmative,
Donegal
!
"

At O'Connell's signal, several men on the bridge of the
Donegal
dashed over to man the mining laser control consoles, something that usually wasn't done unless the ship was actually in the process of mining an asteroid. Designed specifically for the unique demands of mining asteroids, the 10,000 gigajoule laser required a trained team to maintain the laser's focus and to monitor and alter the power outputs for the surprisingly delicate process of blasting rock. At full power and at a distance of only a few hundred meters, a mining laser, though not designed to be a weapon, could probably do a great deal of damage to a spaceship.

Another announcement went out to all of the ships near the mining station.

"This is Seamus O'Connell of the mining ship
Donegal.
There will be no surrendering today, whoever the hell you are. I happen to know that you no longer have any weapons. I suggest that you take your toothless prize and get your cowardly asses out of this system while you still can!"

"
Your belligerence is ill-advised,
Donegal," came the response. "
We are sending a shuttle to board you now. Consider it as a lesson to all the others!
"

The shuttle that had carried the new crew over to the destroyer from the
Carpathia
was loaded with another heavily armed boarding party set to reinforce those already on the mining station. With a slight change in plan due to the unexpected resistance from the mining ship, the shuttle turned towards the
Donegal
and began to accelerate gently in her direction.

"Bastards never learn
, do they," said O'Connell, to no one in particular, "Tony, target that shuttle and trigger the beam. No screwing around, full power, if you please."

"Aye, aye, Captain," came the terse reply. "Shuttle targeted, firing now!"

A ravening beam of intense blue flashed out from the bow of the
Donegal
as the ship's mining laser was activated. The shuttle full of would-be boarders was caught like a deer in the headlights of an onrushing ground car. Nothing seemed to happen for perhaps half a second. Then the bow end of the small craft actually appeared to melt for a split second before the entire craft was engulfed from bow to stern in a bright yellow-orange fireball. Two seconds after being hit by the beam, all that remained of the shuttle was a rapidly dispersing ball of plasma and charred debris.

O'Connell
then swiveled the bow of the
Donegal
towards the hijacked destroyer. At the almost the same time, the
Glendaloch
gently disengaged from the transfer berth and maneuvered to a position alongside her companion ship. Niall Patrick contacted his friend to make an announcement but made sure that all ships in the area could hear him.

"
The
Glendaloch's
laser is at full power, Seamus
."

"I will repeat my warning, whoever the
hell you are," said O'Connell. "You get take your ill-gotten prize and get out of here, now, or we both start firing."

Behind the defanged destroyer, two small freighters
took advantage of the diversion and departed for the hyperlink point using as much thrust as they dared.

***

Yacht
Capathia
, Piedmont Mining Station, Catskill-Soroyan System, November 29, 2598.

On board
his yacht, the Sheik, who had maintained overall command of the operation, was too stunned to be angry.

"Get the
Carpathia
out of here immediately," he ordered the Captain of his yacht.

"What about the men who are boarding the station, Sir?"

"They will have to get along on their own for a while. We have to leave; somehow that mining Captain knows we don't have weapons and those mining lasers are deadly at close range. Give the order to depart the system. Patch me through to those mining ships."

The communications tech routed the call.

"Very well, Captain O'Connell, we will depart but I assure you we will be back, probably within forty-eight hours. We shall see who has the upper hand then."

On board the
yacht, the woman formerly known as "Tiffany" looked at the Sheik of Barsoom.

"What are your orders regarding this systems long-range communications, Sir
e?" she asked.

"
We must prevent them from calling for help. We still have need of the wealth stored on this station. It seems we have little choice. Destroy the communicators, Fahada."

The Sheik's top
female operative triggered the remote detonator for the explosive charges she'd set earlier. The resultant explosion destroyed the Whitney communications console and heavily damaged almost everything else in the communications suite aboard the mining station that they were temporarily leaving behind.

***

Docking area outside Piedmont Mining Station, Catskill-Soroyan system, November 29, 2598.

The Captains of the two mining ships saw the flash of a powerful explosion and the resultant expulsion of debris from the communications suite on the top level of the mining station.

With destruction of the communications facilities of this system and those of several other nearby systems, the Stage II communicator onboard the
Carpathia
was one of the few remaining in this portion of the quadrant. The Sheik's terrorist group now had all but total control of communications for a vast area. They could continue their nefarious activities with virtual impunity. Leaving the situation more or less at a holding spot, the destroyer and the yacht left the system.

"
Damn! That was close, Seamus!
" radioed Patrick.

"Don't I know it!" came the reply. "All we did was buy some time though. We'd better figure out what
the hell we're gonna do next!"

***

Piedmont Mining Station, Catskill-Soroyan system, November 29, 2598.

Hartmann and his men retreated to the security office where they could regroup and consider their next
response. An hour earlier the hijacked destroyer and the mysterious yacht had been forced to leave the vicinity of the mining station. As the enemy was departing, Hartmann and his men had not only heard a muffled thump from the explosion that destroyed the communications suite, they had felt a sharp tremor reverberate throughout the entire structure
.
Alarms had begun sounding again and red lights had begun lighting up all over his security boards. On his bank of monitors, the ones dedicated to the communications suite had gone blank.