Junkyard Dogs 1: The Scrapyard Incident (3 page)

Kresge
paused in thought for a moment before seeming to
make a decision.

"What I am
about to tell you must be kept strictly confidential, Lieutenant. Do you
understand?"

Harris
nodded,
his expression serious.
Kresge
continued, "Maybe it's best that you know some of this of anyway. You've
probably already guessed that our new Ensign is a Spacer." Harris again
nodded in understanding.
Kresge
continued, "As
you know, outside of the Marine Corps, we don't get very many Spacers in the
Navy or any other branch of the Service for that matter. The Brass would like
to change that. She was selected out of a group of a dozen or so candidates for
admittance to the Academy on a special program. As you might expect, there were
some issues at the Academy, hazing and other sorts of
harassment,
that
got her into a bit of trouble. To tell you the truth, I don't think
much of what happened was her fault but the perpetrators were crafty enough
that they never got caught, leaving her to take all the blame."

"Typical, Sir,"
said Harris. As a sort of 'nontraditional' student himself, he had been the
subject of similar treatment while at the Navy's Engineering and Technical
Institute though he had never gotten into any real trouble over it. "So,
where do we come in?"

"Well, it's
obvious that she won't get much 'valuable command experience' working with this
lot. She's supposed to be a pretty good strategist and an absolute genius when
it comes to tactics. As I was saying, they didn't want to wash her out but they
didn't know what to do with her either. That and they desperately want this
program to work so they talked her into going to the Academy graduate school.
She's working on an advanced degree in Military History and HQ thinks her
research project on the construction and capabilities of some of the Succession
War ships in our collection is important and will help her mature a bit.
Admiral
Loftgren
, current Dean of Graduate Studies at
the Academy, asked me personally to help her out."

"Sounds like
it might even be interesting duty," said Harris. He paused for a moment.
"If you don't mind my saying so, Sir, damaged goods or not, she sure is
easy to look at."

"Watch
yourself
, Lieutenant,"
Kresge
said, grinning. "Not only is she smart, she was also at the top of her
class in hand-to-hand combat, and her dossier indicates that she is also quite
proficient with small arms!"

"You needn't
worry, Sir. I doubt she'd be interested in me. Besides, how do you talk to a
woman that smart, with that kind of background?
With a bad
temper to boot?"

"I'm sure
you could think of something," said
Kresge
,
still grinning. Then his look became more serious. "Don't sell yourself
short, Harris. From what I've seen, you're a lot better than you give yourself
credit for. You've never had any problem getting people to work together and
your other command skills have improved considerably over the last year or so.
Not only that, you've been here long enough that no one knows their way around
the Scrapyard better than you do. That's part of the reason I think you're
better suited than Perkins for this little babysitting job. The other part is
probably even more important. Not only do you know quite a lot about these old
ships, you're actually interested in them. No, make that obsessed!" He
winked. "I think that's just what this project needs, a little
passion."

"I'm
flattered, Sir."

"You want my
advice, Harris? Have a little fun with this assignment. You might even learn
something. Pack up some supplies in the morning and take Ensign Carlisle out to
the Auxiliary Station for a few days. You can base your inspection tour from
out there."

"Thank you,
Sir. It'll sure beat loading up those two
NITrans
cargo ships that we have scheduled for tomorrow afternoon!"

Nacobbus
Interstellar Transport --
NITrans
-- was one of the largest and most prosperous businesses in the system and
handled most of the exports and imports to and from New Ceylon, including
coffee, spices, and, of course, materials from the Scrapyard. Their fleet
consisted of nearly thirty ships, making the
NITrans
logo a familiar sight throughout the system.

"That's not
a problem," said
Kresge
. "I'm sure they
won't need you. Most of the cargo is packed into modules already and they can
load the rest of the modules and get the bigger stuff ready in the morning.
With Perkins operating the utility sled and this new batch of recruits handling
the cargo, they should be able to tackle the job in a few hours."

"Simple is
good, Sir," said Harris. "We need something uncomplicated to break in
all these new people. Perkins doesn't have a lot of experience himself, but
he's solid and he's careful; they can handle it. Besides, I'll only be an hour
or so away if they run into anything serious."

"As I said,
I'm not the least bit worried. One more thing before we go for dinner, Harris.
Not that I really think you need a chaperone, but appearances are important.
Take Hawkins with you. We can spare him for a few days. Carlisle has requested
our help in trying to access the
ship's
electronic
logs, too, if any are still intact. I can't think of anyone better than
Hawkins. With nearly forty years in the Navy, he knows more about these old
ships than anyone. It still amazes me how he manages to coax this old, frozen
machinery back into some kind of function. It also won't hurt to have another
set of eyes out there. I don't need to tell you to be careful, Harris; these
old wrecks can be dangerous, especially for someone with zero experience!"

"Count on
me, Sir. I appreciate your confidence."

"No problem,
Harris, just help her get her information and get her back here in one piece.
Enough of this, let's go eat."

Chapter 4

...As spaceships equipped with Whitney
overdrives and thus capable of interstellar transport became more common, the
search for inhabitable planets in star systems within reasonable distances from
the Earth-Sol system began in earnest. Such planets are quite rare and, for
better or for worse, there has never been a shortage of volunteer (or
otherwise) colonists eager to immigrate. While most inhabitable planets are
sized within twenty-five percent (plus or minus) of Old Earth, the vast
majority of them have much smaller percentages of human-inhabitable surface
area. As a result, even with carefully regulated numbers of immigrants, the
human populations of these worlds all too often reach levels that surpass the
capacity of the fragile planetary ecosystems to sustain them. With the advances
in medicine that took place in the late twenty-second century available to all,
and the resultant low death rates, dangerously high human population growth can
occur with shocking speed, often over a few generations. Growth rates can be
especially rapid if there is a tendency towards large families, a common custom
among the members of the many religious sects who made up the vast majority of
the first and second waves of migration outward. As is ever the case with
humanity, the limited availability of land and resources leads to conflict,
strife and outright war as well as further waves of migration. It is a cycle
our species seems doomed to repeat...

Hartwell Wrist
Comp reference note highlighted for further review by Tamara Carlisle. Excerpt
is from "Cycles of Human Conflict: Are They Inevitable?" by F.C.
Talbot, CEO of
The
Talbot Institute.

New Ceylon Reclamation Center, Officer's
Mess, October 4, 2598

The officer's
mess was about three-quarters full, with the regular officers and the new
recruits banded together at segregated tables. The room was alive with the buzz
of numerous competing conversations. Kresge and Harris found Carlisle sitting
alone at an otherwise empty table. Eyes glazed, she was staring at nothing in
particular and speaking very softly.

"Destroyer...projectile
weapon...battlecruiser...shields...pulse beams..." She frowned, drumming
her fingers on the table. "Doesn't work...what's missing?"

"Ensign
Carlisle," said Kresge, with a slight bow. "Do you mind if we join
you?"

She snapped out
of her near trance and looked up at them. Her eyes widened and her cheeks
flushed slightly when she saw who they were.

"Um...
No, not at all, Sir.
Please."

The two more
senior officers sat down next to each other, leaving the young woman alone on
her side of the table. Seeing the base commander take a seat, the steward came
over immediately with coffee and tea, and followed soon after with platters of
the evening's offering. They fell into conversation as they ate.

"So,
Ensign," said Kresge, "it has been brought to our attention that
you're a student of military history. What exactly are you studying?"

"The...final battle of the Succession War, Sir," said the
ensign, somewhat warily, glancing from one man to the other.

"You must
have some kind of new angle," said Kresge. "That battle has been
worked over pretty thoroughly by the historians."

"You're a
student yourself, Sir?"

"Not a
really serious one, but I did take some time to get up to speed before I
assumed command out here. I read Cheshire and Newcastle's 'Naval Battles of the
Succession War' and Admiral Stig Lambert's 'Succession War: The Official
Account of the Final Battle,'" replied Kresge. Carlisle nodded in
appreciation.

"I grew up
on New Ceylon," said Harris. "The final battle is a big part of our
heritage. Every school kid gets a thorough education on it out here. I couldn't
have been more than five or six years old when I first heard the stories. Tales
about the military, ships, battles, glory! The subject fascinated me then and I
still can't seem to get enough! It's probably the reason I got into the Navy in
the first place. If you've got something new, I'm all ears."

This revelation
was rewarded with a tentative smile. Her eyes met his and lingered for a
heartbeat as if she was really seeing him for the first time. It was also his
first really good look at her and he couldn't help but like what he saw: short
brown hair in a flattering, but not fussy style, perfect skin; a small mouth
with full lips; a small, slightly upturned nose; and large, beautiful eyes that
were a remarkable sea-green color. The Clan tattoo that swept across her left
cheek and tapered off a couple of centimeters before it reached her ear had
been executed entirely in black ink and looked, if anything, like some kind of
ancient symbol of Old Earth Celtic or possibly Egyptian origin. Harris
concluded that she was, in fact,
very
good looking. She remained nervous, but she seemed to relax a little as she
sensed that the two men might be really interested in her project. She had
already displayed some odd characteristics, so Harris wasn't sure what to
expect, but when she engaged them in conversation she came across as pretty
normal, except maybe for the fact that she was really, really smart. That and
she had tendency to start sentences with disjointed words.

"..References...archives...
Yeah, it has been pretty thoroughly worked over. I've collected more than four
hundred references on the battlecruiser engagement alone."

"So what's
your angle?" asked Kresge.

"...
Arthur...Jannsen...controversy...," she began, haltingly, and then
continued more smoothly, "Probably the most misunderstood maneuver in the
entire campaign. Commander Tobias Arthur has been roundly condemned by almost
all of the analysts for recklessly committing his destroyer force. As you know,
the destroyers took a horrible pounding and casualties were extremely heavy.
Arthur himself didn't survive the battle. There is a rather obscure naval
historian named FC Talbot, who makes a case that Arthur's suicide mission was
actually a brilliant tactical move that turned the tide of the battle.
According to Talbot, if Arthur and the other destroyer captains who followed
his orders hadn't sacrificed their ships to buy time for Jannsen's
battlecruisers to deploy, the Federation might have lost the battle and the
War. I think Talbot might have been right."

"That's a pretty
tall order, Ensign," said Kresge.

"Don't I
know it,
Sir!
"

"What do you
expect to learn by coming out here?" asked Harris.

"Well, you
can only learn so much by looking at schematics and naval architectural
drawings. Even 3-D holos, as good as they are, have their limitations. I need
to inspect some of the ships first hand to get construction information and
other details that will help me refine my estimates of just how much punishment
the different classes of ship can take and dish out.
Especially
the destroyers.
The biggest problem with Talbot's angle is that most
experts dismiss the entire premise as ridiculous; the Orion Class destroyers
couldn't have stopped the Succession battlecruisers because their outmoded
projectile weapons couldn't deal enough damage. That and the destroyers
couldn't have withstood the power of the main pulse beam batteries of the
battlecruisers long enough to carry off an attack. If I could prove them wrong,
I could confirm, or at least advance, Talbot's theory. That would be just a
start,
he has several other theories that are just as
controversial."

"Like
what?" asked
Harris.

"Well, there
are a number of assumptions that have been made regarding the root causes of
the war that Talbot disagrees with. He believes that some of the tensions
between different societies that led to the war were badly misunderstood and,
according to him, many are still simmering out here in this part of
space."

"Really,
such as...?" asked Kresge.

"Well, he
suggests that overpopulation is one of the main driving forces but that long
standing religious disputes may be even more important. Take the Meridians, for
example."

"Meridians?"
asked Harris.
"How so?"

She thought for a
moment before replying.

"As a native,
you would know that New Ceylon and Meridian were on opposite sides in the
Succession War. What you may not know is that Meridian itself had been deeply
divided before they got involved in the war."

"We were
taught that," said Harris, "It got so bad there was nearly a civil
war in the Meridian system. Those problems effectively took them out of the
Succession War, a month or so before the final battle. It was much more than
just political. The orthodox Islamic minority wanted out of the War and they forced
the issue. Meridian effectively became a neutral planet."

"Very good,
Lieutenant," said Carlisle.
"Although 'Orthodox
Islamic minority' doesn't quite fit anymore.
They currently make up over
sixty-five percent of the Meridian population. Talbot maintains that the same
tensions are still operating on Meridian and on other worlds of the Islamic
Alliance as well as in the Federation itself. He doesn't think it would take
much to set off some renewed aggression."

"Radical
stuff!" said Kresge. "Good luck proving any of it, although I must
say that I agree with you and Talbot about one thing: there's a lot of
political and religious tension in the air these days."

"Thank you,
Sir. What would really help is an intact ship's log or two from any of the
destroyers. If I had the actual blow by blow descriptions of the battle by any
of the destroyer captains I might really have something. Trouble is
,
there was just so much destruction in the battle. After it
was over and the War with it, who would've cared about a handful of badly
mauled destroyers?"

"We might
still have some wrecks out here," said Harris.
"Intact
logs?"
He shook his head. "We'll just have to see. I'd say the
chances are pretty slim, it's been a long time!"

"Actually we
think that there are at least three destroyers from the last battle out here in
the Reclamation Center, Lieutenant Harris," said Carlisle.

"We?"

"Oh, sorry, Sir."
She tapped a device on her
wrist. "I brought along a list of all ships known to have participated in
the final battle. Lieutenant Perkins helped me check the Scrapyard inventory
and I matched up three of the destroyers. You'll have to help me find them, but
I can't wait to get out into the Scrapyard and have a look."

Kresge finished
his dinner, but didn't have time to linger as he had a number of duties to
perform, including preparations for his trip to New Ceylon the following
morning. He got up from the table.

"You'll have
to excuse me," he said. "I have to meet with a man looking for some
cargo ship parts and then I have to get some packing done." After glancing
back and forth between the two younger officers, his gaze came to rest on
Harris. "I trust that you two can find something to talk about?"

Harris colored
slightly. "No problem, Sir. Have a safe journey tomorrow."

"Thanks,
Lieutenant. Goodnight, Ensign."

"Goodnight,
Sir."

Kresge made his
way out of the mess area, stopping for short conversations with the occupants
of several tables before exiting.

Carlisle wondered
briefly about the Lieutenant's mild, but noticeable reaction to Kresge's
seemingly innocent question, but decided it wasn't worth pursuing.

"So,
Lieutenant Harris, we've talked quite a lot about me, what about you?"

"Ryan,
please. Not much to tell, I grew up in Darwin -- that's on the southeastern
edge of the big continent. My dad was orchard manager for a coffee plantation
until he retired four years ago. I worked there myself for five summers, while
I was still going to school. I went to the New Ceylon Technical College and
joined the Federation Navy two months after I finished my engineering degree. I
attended boot camp and officer's training at the Navy's Technical Institute on
Old Earth for a couple of years and then came back here."

"You came
right back here?"

"It's not as
bad as you think. I requested it. My dad was having some health problems and it
was good to be close by."

"Is he
okay?"

"He is now,
but it looked pretty bad until he began to respond to the treatments. I should
request different duty, and I probably will, eventually, but I find that I
really like this place. It grows on you. It's also good for my profession, if
you can believe it. I get to see a bunch of different ways of solving
engineering problems by examining the entire spectrum of approaches that the
designers used on these old ships."

"I know what
you mean. I've been studying different classes of ship as part of my research.
I can see where it could get addicting." She took a sip of her coffee.
"If you had your pick, what sort of duty would you like next?"

Harris thought
for a moment.

"To start
out with I'd like to be an engineer on one of the new destroyers or maybe even
a light cruiser, if I could swing it, and work my way up from there. What about
you?"

"Well...I
have to finish this damned degree before I can do anything else.
 
I seem to be pretty good at tactics...I would
hope that I could get a post somewhere...," she trailed off.

Harris recalled
Kresge's reference to Spacers, personality quirks and undecided academy brass
and sensed that this subject might be a little sensitive, especially since they
barely knew each other. He changed the subject.

"That device
on your wrist... Is that one of the new Hartwell wrist computers?"

Her face lit up.