Junkyard Dogs 1: The Scrapyard Incident (7 page)

Chapter 10

...The New Ceylon Orbital Station was a
facility that was way oversized for the planetary system that it served.
Another leftover from the failed Delphi Investment Group L-5 project, the same
group responsible for the Scrapyard, the station had defaulted to the planetary
government when Delphi imploded. The facility was a spoked ring a full two
kilometers in diameter, spun to simulate gravity. The ring itself was a flattened
rectangle in cross section, with the long side of the rectangle parallel to the
spin axis. Within the rectangle were five decks with deck five being the
outermost and deck one the innermost...

...The orbital station was large enough to
house some eight thousand people; more if they didn't mind a little
overcrowding. This particular station had never housed more than about three
thousand as the amount of commerce and other activities required in the small
system didn't merit the expense of having more people in orbit. Many of the
people onboard the station at any one time were in transit, awaiting transport
to Meridian and other systems off in that direction of the Quadrant. Often
these people would have to wait several weeks before their connections arrived...
 

...Orbiting some five hundred kilometers
above the planet, the New Ceylon facility had only a single ring, but the basic
design could be expanded dramatically by simply adding more rings. The Santana
Nexus Station, for instance, followed the same basic design parameters but
consisted of ten rings...

Hartwell Wrist
Comp reference note highlighted for further review by Tamara Carlisle. Excerpt
is from "The Scrapyard" by Calvin Desjardins, Official Historian,
UTFN
Reclamation Center.

...Naturally, newcomers to the station will
find things to be a little confusing until they learn a few simple guidelines.
As you probably noticed on your way in, the station is spinning. The spin is
necessary, partially for the stability of the platform, but also to provide
simulated gravity for your comfort and safety. The simulated gravity means that
what you feel as "up" is inward from the outside rim of the station
towards the spindle.
 
'Down', of course
is just the opposite. We use the traditional terms 'North,' 'South,' East' and
'West' to describe other directions important for navigating the station and
maintaining your orientation. The 'North' end of the station is the end that
has the large airlock that you entered through. 'South' is just the opposite.
When facing northward in the station, the rotation occurs in a clockwise
direction. 'East' takes you in the direction of the spin and 'West' is movement
against the spin of the station. Each level is clearly marked with Arabic
numerals on conspicuous wall areas throughout the level. Compass symbols to
provide directional orientation are embossed into the floor material and are
clearly visible at most corridor intersections...

Hartwell Wrist
Comp reference note highlighted for further review by Tamara Carlisle. Excerpt
is from an orientation video available for download and as a hardcopy pamphlet
prepared by the New Ceylon Orbital Station authorities for distribution to
tourists and other visitors to the station. No author is listed.

New Ceylon Orbital Station, October
6, 2598.

The Naval
Reclamation Center cutter docked with the huge New Ceylon Orbital Station at
just after 0600 hours. Kresge went through the formalities with station
security at the entrance to the station and headed for his temporary quarters.
With any luck, he wouldn't be using them much. He thought of Irene and a smile
came to his face.
Don't know what a
gorgeous, intelligent woman like that sees in me
, he thought,
but why mess with a good thing?
He saw
Jenkins and Allen joking with the security officials as he got on the elevator
that would take him down to the wheel section of the station.

His gear was
waiting for him in the stateroom that had been assigned to him. He carefully
took out his dress uniform, which would be required for the diplomatic ceremony,
and hung it up in the small wardrobe before refreshing himself in the
ultrasonic shower. He donned a fresh set of khaki coveralls and headed out for
the day's activities.

Everywhere he
looked was chaos. The station was preparing for a diplomatic event of no small
importance which meant that it had to be spic and span, even in the corners.
Since there had never been a ceremony of this magnitude held there, the
preparations were turning out to be a major project. Kresge frowned; he
couldn't imagine running a station in the haphazard manner that this one was
being operated. Over the years, lots of little things had been allowed to slip
by without proper attention. Now the station governor was paying the price.
Maintenance people in their gray coveralls seemed to be all over the station,
busy sprucing up the facility, painting, making adjustments and shuffling
things around. Many of the corridors were wholly or partially blocked. Panels
were open here and there, adding to the mess. Kresge had never witnessed such
confusion. On a station like this, with just the thin alloy walls between him
and vacuum, anything less than perfection was dangerous. It made him more than
mildly uneasy.

He arrived at the
station governor's suite and was admitted immediately. The suite was located on
the upper level of deck one, the innermost deck in the station's ring and the
entire ceiling of the room was a huge viewport. The room was also about midway
between two of the spokes that connected the outer ring to the central spindle
of the station. Over his head, through the spectacular viewport, Kresge could
see the two spokes converging on the long, gently tapered cylinder of the
spindle.

Governor Charles
"Chip" Larkin was a tall, trim man in his early forties with
perfectly-styled, slightly graying hair and handsome features. With him was
Captain Stefan Dortmunder of the
FNS
Boise
. Dortmunder was a short, pudgy man
with a gruff and very self-assured manner.

"Oskar,"
said the Governor. "Glad you could make it. Help yourself to
refreshments."

"Thanks,"
said Kresge, as he went to get himself a cup of coffee. He also grabbed a small
cinnamon pastry before taking a seat.

"Good
morning, Stefan." He nodded at the Captain.

"Mornin' Oskar.
Trip okay?"

"Yeah, I
actually had time to catch up on some paperwork."

"I envy
you."

Kresge didn't
have a lot of respect for Dortmunder; in his opinion the Captain was an
incompetent whiner who ran a very loose ship. The station was a disaster, but
it was a civilian operation and some allowances were probably inevitable. The
Boise
, however, was military and there
was no excuse for the craft and crew to be in anything less than top condition.
The ship had been a God-awful mess the last time Kresge had been onboard it,
but he hadn't felt it was his place to say anything. He was certain that chaos
reigned aboard the destroyer as well as the Captain tried to get his ship into
the kind of shape it should have been in the first place. The governor and the
ship's commander were obviously feeling the stress of their respective
responsibilities and both looked harried.

"I don't
know how we're going to get all of this ready in the time we have left,"
said Larkin. "I've got the cleaning crews working double shifts and still it
seems like we still keep finding something else that needs doing."

Kresge took a
bite of the pastry and found it to be pretty good. The coffee, however, was a
major disappointment and not for the first time. He made a mental note to ask
Irene why, with the source of some of the finest coffee in Federation space
right next door, the Governor of the orbital station allowed such a dreadful
brew to be served. He turned his attention back to the discussion.

"We're
finally getting a little ahead of the game," said Dortmunder. "We
just need to get everything put back together. I'm thinking maybe twenty-four
hours at most. I might be able to lend you a few of my men after that."

"Thanks,
Stefan, anything you
can do would
be much
appreciated."

"I take it
the ceremony will be held in the station assembly room?" asked Kresge.

"Yes, I hope
they finish repainting it today so it has some time to dry. Don't know if we
can do anything about the smell, guess we'll just have to live with it. Maybe
if we crank up the ventilation...," he trailed off absently.

"I expect
the Ambassador will want to tour the station?" asked Kresge.

"Yes,"'
the Governor replied, a note of resignation in his voice. "I don't know
how we can avoid it. We'll have to be selective about where we take him. There
just isn't time to get the entire station ready."

"Think
you'll stay on decks one and two?"

"We
certainly will! There's just too much unfinished when you get down to the
fourth deck and below. There's even a rumor that some black market agents have
made up a kind of storage facility and headquarters area somewhere down on deck
five. I don't know if it's true or not; we haven't been able to find it if they
have."

"We've tried
scanning for it, Chip," said Dortmunder, "but the thickness of the
ring alloy and the damned anti-radiation coating blocks our scanners."

"I
know," said the Governor. "We'll have to try something else. They
must have somebody working on the inside, but
who
?"

No one had an
answer.

Kresge continued
the briefing. "You say things are going okay over on the
Boise
?" he asked Dortmunder.

"We'll be
able to take the Ambassador on a limited tour if he requests it," replied
Dortmunder. "There are a lot of restricted areas on a warship anyway.
He'll be expecting that."

"What do you
need me to do?" asked Kresge.

"Maybe you
could be available when he arrives and then for an hour or so before the
ceremony, at the end of all the planned tours," Larkin replied. "He
might have some interest in our famous Scrapyard and you'll be just the person
if he has any questions. I trust that you'll be present for the ceremony and
that you'll be able to join us for the official dinner in the evening. I've
already asked Ms. Marshall to attend and she says she's looking forward to
it."

"Great,"
said Kresge and, in a change from the usual situation with these two men, this
time he meant it. He continued. "Who's coming up from the planet?"

"Um... the President and his wife, the trade secretary, and
delegations from both houses of Parliament.
They'll start heading up
here when the Ambassador's ship comes through the Whitney Hyperlink
Point."

"Sounds like
this could be a pretty good show," said Kresge.

"We
certainly hope so," said the Governor. "I'll just be glad when it's
over."

"Shall we
meet again tomorrow?"

"Not unless
you have something really important. Just be at the assembly room on time. I
trust you can bring Ms. Marshall?"

"Yes, I
think I can handle that."

"Oh, one
more thing," said the Governor. "What do you think of this? It's my
son's birthday today and I thought it would make the perfect gift."

The Governor laid
a small rectangular box down on the table and removed the lid. The other two
men gathered around to look.

"You got
that for your kid?" asked Kresge, not sure whether to be really impressed
or really horrified. "That's a Hartwell wrist computer. Those are worth a
lot of credits!"

"I know. It
was pretty expensive for an eleven-year old, but he's been getting really good
grades and he just completed the training sessions on the new Cyberdex keyboard
system that these things use. You only need one hand! Kid seems to have a knack
for that sort of thing. That and he really
takes
good
care of his stuff."

"If he
masters that rig, he'll be ready for anything!" said Dortmunder.
"Those things are state of the art. Kresge's new Ensign...What was her
name, Oskar?"

"Tamara
Carlisle," said Kresge.

"Yeah, Carlisle.
She toured the
Boise
a few days ago. She's got one and she can do almost anything
with it."

"I sure hope
he likes it," said the Governor. "He asked for a new holovideo game
and I bought him this to play it on."

"Might be a
bit of overkill, but that rig will definitely do the trick!" said Kresge.
"I got a birthday coming up myself, Chip! Do you need the date?"

All three men
laughed.

"We'll see
you at the festivities, Oskar," said Larkin, still smiling. "Stefan,
can you give me about a half hour? I need to give this to my son. I have no
idea when I'll get home tonight."

"No problem,
Chip. I'll just go over these reports until you get back. There's more than
enough to keep me busy."

Kresge left the
two men to work out some more of their mutual problems and threaded his way
through the chaos back to his quarters. He checked the time.
Two
more hours until his lunch with Irene.
He reached for his computer,
confident there was just enough time to finish the report he had been working
on.

Chapter 11

...Interplanetary and interstellar transport
both have been made possible by the now ubiquitous Whitney Overdrive. Invented
and perfected by Hiram Whitney, the drive generates a spherical field around a
spaceship that temporarily phases into Wu-Chang multi-dimensional space (often
referred to colloquially as 'hyperspace') when power is applied. Depending on a
myriad of factors, the most important of which are the proximity of gravity
wells, the vector of the ship applying the drive, the amount and the duration
of power applied to the field, and the masses being transported, the ship will
rephase with normal space some appreciable distance away from its starting
point. Since the distances covered are often farther than light can travel
during the same amount of time, the Whitney Overdrive is often referred to as a
'Faster Than Light' or 'FTL' drive, but this description is inaccurate since
the ship never actually exceeds the speed of light but in fact retains whatever
intrinsic velocity it was experiencing before the drive was activated.

...When operated at energy levels below
Henckel's limit, the Whitney Overdrive can be used for relatively short distance
travel (fractions or multiples of Astronomical Units), like those encountered
when traveling between the planets of a star system.
These
short duration, short distance phase shifts are referred to as 'microjumps.' To
execute the 'macrojump,' transport over long, interstellar distances (fractions
or multiples of parsecs), power levels above Henckel's limit are required and
the ship must be within a zone called the 'Whitney Jump Point' which is a
special region of normal space wherein the gravity wave harmonics make possible
the longer duration phase shifts required for this mode of travel. With the
proper amount of power applied and the Whitney field generator tuned to the
proper frequency, the ship will then rephase within another Whitney jump point.
Tuning the field generator to the 'resident frequency' of the destination jump
point is critical to executing a successful macrojump. Travelers do experience
some level of time dilation as several standard days will pass for each hour
spent in macrojump mode and some jumps may require several hours of subjective
time. Most of the usable Whitney Jump Points are located within an astronomical
unit or two of the star in systems with G or K type stars. Jump Points in red
or blue giant star systems are often dangerously close to the star or in some
cases actually located within
them ...

Until someone comes up with a better system,
spaceships must still rely on reaction-type drives for maneuvering and for
matching velocity with their destination planet, orbital station or other
construct. Since microjumping to or from distances closer than a hundred
thousand kilometers of an object with the mass and gravity of a planet is still
not possible, even with military grade Whitney drives, interplanetary travel
times are still measured in days, weeks or, in some cases, months...

Hartwell Wrist
Comp reference note highlighted for further review by Tamara Carlisle. Excerpt
is from "The Whitney Revolution: Engine of a New Destiny for Mankind"
by Melvin Patterson.

Onboard cargo ship
Greyhound
, near the New Ceylon Orbital Station,
October 6, 2598

Helen Murdock
cursed as the wrench she was straining against slipped on the bolt she was
trying to loosen and she skinned the knuckles of her right hand on the
framework of the Whitney Overdrive module. Murdock was the sole proprietor of
the aging cargo ship
Greyhound
, which
may have been an appropriate name in the ship's earlier days but was maybe a
little optimistic given her current condition. The
Greyhound
had seen better days, that much was certain. The ship was
nearly eighty years old and had made countless cargo runs throughout the
Santana Quadrant during that time. That was before Murdock had inherited the
ship from her father -- who had himself been the fifth or sixth owner -- when
he died a little over five years ago.

Gambling on the
premise that the New Ceylon system was set to become more prosperous and more
populous as a result of the coming trade agreement, Murdock's plan had been to
nurse the old ship along for a few years, making a modest income by running
some of the cargo that NITrans didn't deem profitable enough and using the
proceeds to refurbish or replace the old ship at some point in the
not-so-distant future. She had returned to New Ceylon a week earlier and had
delivered her cargo and a couple of wealthy passengers who had opted for
passage onboard the
Greyhound
as
opposed to more regulated carriers. Murdock didn't know what she had
transported for them and she hadn't bothered to ask. The sealed containers had
been addressed to Doebermann's Specialties, the big department store and
outfitter located on the first deck of the station, so they could have
contained almost anything. With their papers in order, her passengers had
unloaded their cargo, transferred money into her account at the Santana Nexus
Bank and been on their way.

Unfortunately,
Murdock had heard something go "clunk" in the vicinity of the Whitney
Overdrive unit on the old ship as she phased out of the final microjump on
route to New Ceylon from the hyperlink point. On the bright side, the wrench
had slipped because the bolt had broken loose and she could now remove the
cover from the Overdrive unit. After a short inspection, she realized that she
lacked the expertise to make repairs. Murdock was a first-rate backyard
mechanic, but she quickly realized that she was going to need some expert help
to get the old ship going again. Repairs were also likely to require a lot more
credits than she currently had.

First things first.

"New Ceylon Orbital Station?
This is Helen Murdock,
Captain of the cargo ship
Greyhound
calling."

After a short
pause, a security person from the Station came onto Murdock's viewscreen.

"New Ceylon Orbital Station Security, Salvador Vasquez here.
How can I help you, Captain?"

"My Whitney
Overdrive unit just went on the fritz, Mr. Vasquez. I know you folks want
everybody out of here within the next twelve hours, but I don't think I'm going
to be able to do that."

"Let me
check with the Director of Security, Ms. Murdock. I'll call you back...,"
Vasquez said, looking at his wrist chronograph, "...within the next
fifteen minutes."

"Thank you,
Mr. Vasquez."

Murdock waited
patiently, occasionally sucking on her injured knuckles. No permanent damage had
been done, but the injury was still painful. True to his word, Vasquez called
back in just over eight minutes. After another obligatory exchange of
formalities, the security man had good news for Murdock.

"Mr. Harmon
says that you may remain here provided you allow a security inspection. He
would also prefer that you not be onboard your ship during the Ambassador's
visit. Are these conditions suitable?"

"Ah...yes,
of course. When can I expect the inspection team?"

"It won't be
like that, Ms Murdock. We'll simply have the
Boise
run a scan with their military scanners to see if you're
carrying anything dangerous or illegal. Since you gave your permission a minute
ago, they're probably running the scan right now."

"I didn't
know they could do that," said Murdock.

"It's the
military, Ms. Murdock. You know how they love their secrets."

There was a short
pause.

"The results
are coming in right now. One person currently onboard, no contraband, no
weapons...looks like you're clean, Ms. Murdock."

"I didn't
have any worries on that account," said Murdock, glad she hadn't contacted
the authorities while her unknown cargo was still on board.

"For your
information, the scan also went over your ship's status. It looks like your
Whitney Overdrive unit has gone out of alignment and will need some major
adjustments before it will be safe to operate again. Do you need some help with
that?"

"Eventually.
I have to find the funding first."

"Let us know
if you need further assistance, Ms. Murdock."

"Ah...Yeah.
Could someone pick me up? I don't have any
way to get over to the Station on my own."

"I'll
arrange for the
Boise's
cutter to
pick you up on one of their next runs. I suggest you be ready on a few moments
notice."

"Thank you,
Mr. Vasquez."

"No problem,
Ms.Murdock. I hope you enjoy your stay at the New Ceylon Station."

The screen went
blank.

Murdock breathed
a sigh of relief. Fortunately, the docking fees for remaining at the New Ceylon
Orbital Station were pretty reasonable. She should be able to stay for several
months before her resources ran out. Her three crew members, all temporary
hires, had disappeared onto the orbital station shortly after the ship had been
unloaded. They weren't likely to wait around until the
Greyhound
was repaired. She would almost certainly need to hire a
new crew and that could be a problem considering the remote location of the New
Ceylon system. She sighed. Oh well, she'd cross that bridge when she came to
it. At least they were going to let her leave the ship in her bay at the
docking facility. For security purposes surrounding the Meridian Ambassador's
visit, the authorities had cleared the schedule for cargo deliveries for a
week. There were to be no ships in the near vicinity except those that were
authorized to be there.
Could have been worse, much worse.

She went to do
something about her injured hand.