Rust Bucket (35 page)

      I also took a copy of it to my father-in-law and sat in front of him as he read it in his disk reader. The looks on his face told almost the whole story as he stopped once or twice to look at some fact sheets he received from Supreme Headquarters. Not a word passed from his lips until he finished reading. Then he finally set it down with shaking hands and looked at me.

      He said, "Son, you better get me some more copies of this disk soon. There's some people whom I want to have a copy of this. I'm going to take your advice as far as Beulah is concerned if only because my daughter and grandchildren are here. We'll not be caught napping. If you have any more ideas like this, I want to see them, too. By the way, that other treatise you wrote was one fine piece of writing. I hope it gets adopted before hostilities break out. Yes, I think they will, too."

      I answered, "Yes sir. I'll get you more copies. All you want. Just let me know how many."

      He said, "For now, get me twenty copies. No, you better make that forty. That will do for my purposes. Keep at it, son. You're going to go far when this war breaks out."

      I replied, "Yes sir. By the way, have you seen Annie's Cavern?"

      "No. First I ever heard of it. What is it?" he asked.

      I said, "Annie found a tunnel behind the waterfall across from the house. It leads to a deep cavern on our property. I'm going to instruct Annie to head there in the event of an attack. I'm going to have part of it reinforced and supplied with everything she and the children might need."

      He replied, "Good for you. I'll remember that in case I go looking for her in your absence."

      I said, "I know you would. That's why I'm telling you about it now."

***

Bill's word was good. He took steps at his base to make sure that his people weren't going to be surprised. Training was stepped up. It wasn't unusual for patrols to be out under the guise of training in the near sectors of space to Beulah. Because of my job, I was able to notice the stepped up activity from the base. That alone sufficed to make me feel easier about Annie and our children being on Beulah. It was our home. I wasn't interested in giving up it or any other part of the Union to some alien-come-lately who thought he could bully his way about and have what he wanted without a fight.

***

For my own part, I suggested to Penny in the head office of the company that the gunships perform some practice when not on runs. She saw what I was actually after since she was the Sarge's wife and had seen both of my treatises. She gave me the go ahead to conduct practice with all three gunships. That was all I needed to further develop and practice the wingman concept as it might be used later in war, especially when I required my ship and the wingman ship to go at a slower speed than the gunship pretending to be the enemy. We practiced at least once every two weeks for a few hours until we learned how the wingman concept worked and could defeat the faster ship in our mock battles with regularity.

***

Despite the fact that the politicians were beginning to run the military once more to the advantage of the rich families, there were enough combat veterans inside the military from the recent war at all levels of rank who saw what was happening or were reading my treatises. Some of them were practicing with the techniques I re-introduced during the last war. Others were trying to make other things happen in research and in the development of better ships and weapons. They were all racing against time since none of us knew with any certainty when the war would break out. We did have a definite idea of where and how it would break out since we were on ground zero, so to speak.

***

The Ape-oids continued to transgress at almost regular intervals into our government's spacial territory, moving their ships close to our ships, threatening commercial ships, and shadowing military ships, taunting them to do something. More and more the military was disgusted with not being allowed to blast apart the transgressing ships.

***

I should have realized that the practice I was doing with the wingman concept and not being as fast as the enemy would pay off in my job. After all, part of my pitch to Penny was that we might someday run into a pirate with a faster ship. That someday also came a lot sooner than I thought it would.

      We were on the Gabriel run when we spotted the first pirate in months. Because we were taking out to Gabriel a shipment not worth a pirate's efforts to steal it, we weren't bothered. The pirate moved away from us at high speed, giving up valuable information inadvertently.

      "Did you see how fast he moved?" asked Ed at the sensors.

      "He did appear to have legs. How fast was he going?" I asked.

      Ed said, "Better than we can do at top speed. He's an entire factor faster from what I'm reading on the sensors."

      I said, "I wonder how much firepower he has?"

      Ed replied, "I couldn't determine anything about that."

      I said, "Communications, call the office. Advise them that I'd like one of the other two gunships to meet us on the way back from Gabriel. Tell them the circumstances and that I believe we're going to be in for a rough one."

      The rest of the trip to Gabriel was uneventful. At Gabriel, we picked up a flash message from the home office advising us that the
Theodore
would be joining us and was already on its way. Our freighters were unloaded. A day later, they were loaded with a cargo a pirate would definitely consider worth the risk. Meanwhile, I kept my ship in orbit and conducted drills with the crew. There was no way that I intended to give up my convoy without a fight.

***

We left after two days at Gabriel and spotted the pirate a day out from the planet. He stayed on the edge of our sensor area where he seemed to be trying to decide if he was going to take us on or not. Despite his clear advantage in speed and unknown firepower, I was looking forward to the engagement. If nothing else, that was my job to do and, though it was a dangerous job, I liked doing it and the pirate was giving me job security. He shadowed us for almost a day when the
Theodore
joined us.

      That must have convinced him that we were worried about being able to take him. He moved in at high speed on an attack run towards us. I pulled out to meet him with the other gunship taking position on my wing, so to speak. As soon as we neared extreme weapons range for the Mark IV quads, both ships opened fire on the pirate. It took the gunners a while before they were able to pick up on the pirate with his better speed. By then, he had closed enough distance on us that his weapons were vibrating the ship. I could tell that he considered my larger ship the more dangerous if only because we had more powerful weapons.

      It wasn't much of a fight as he twisted out of the gunners' sights and tried to get behind us. We jinked about to keep him from getting a clear shot on our engines to disable us. The other gunship weaved about behind us spoiling his shots as we maneuvered into a position where we could again defend ourselves. Finally, we caught him in a maneuver where we were able to disable him.

      The
Theodore
remained behind to guard our new ship, since we owned salvage rights to it, while my ship continued to escort the freighters back to Beulah. When we arrived, I walked into the office with a smile on my face, knowing we had done our jobs well, even if my ship's crew would have to share the bonus money with the crew of the
Theodore.

      "How'd it go?" asked Jim.

      I replied, "Rough, but the tactics we developed and practiced did the job. I'm sure now that we probably would have lost if we didn't have the
Theodore
with us."

      He said, "Okay. That's good to know. We'll get the new ship refurbished and start watching to see if anymore pirates have these faster engines and where they're getting them from. Enjoy your time off."

      I replied, "I will. Thanks again for sending the
Theodore
out."

***

The
Theodore
returned with the salvage crew and new ship to have it refurbished into a new gunship for the company. We were lucky when we disabled the pirate. We didn't hit the engines. We hit the controls and those were easy to replace. Our hits also penetrated the hull, so some work was required to seal it again. All in all, the pirate ship took three weeks to put back in service as our newest gunship, the
William.
As with our other gunships, its hull was allowed to rust gracefully.

***

It seemed like there was a new transgression by the Ape-oids every month. Still our military was kept leashed. No response was made to the Ape-oids other than through diplomatic channels. Then the Ape-oids just shrugged the complaints off as meaningless while they complained about how little space they had for expansion. Despite the fact that they could easily expand in the opposite direction without conflict or complaint from us, they continued to complain about needing to expand in our direction.

***

With the addition of a new gunship, Pennyweight began using two gunships on the more valuable trade routes. We weren't taking chances now that we knew there was a faster engine available and that pirates were already getting them. It seemed like there were more pirates around than before. Most avoided our convoys when they saw two gunships on the valuable cargoes instead of the usual single gunship. Other shipping companies weren't as fortunate.

      After awhile, we were travelling more often as we were leased out to escort other company freighters on their routes. If nothing else, I was really accumulating some bonus money from the work we were doing in either fighting off or destroying pirate ships. I was also getting in a lot of practical exercise for my ship and crew in using the wingman technique. We managed to destroy a few more pirates, whose ships went to the companies to whom we were leased, though we were still paid bonuses by them as part of the contracts. Some of the other companies accumulated enough salvaged and rebuilt gunships to once again handle their own convoys with two escorting gunships in a similar manner to what we were doing. After a few months, we were mostly escorting only our own convoys.

      Still no one knew where the pirates were getting the faster engines from or who was making them. We were glad that we had captured one of them since it was now the only gunship we felt could carry small valuable cargoes by itself on fast runs among the planets while the rest of our gunships were outclassed in speed by some of the pirates.

***

Summer was approaching. I looked forward to a long vacation with Annie, William, and Angelica, our first daughter. To tell the truth, we really weren't going anywhere. In fact, William and Angelica were going to be looked after while Annie and I disappeared from sight for a few weeks in our underground hideaway to do nothing much, except maybe have a lot of sex. If nothing else, besides our children, we had a great sex life aside from a few interruptions when they needed caring for.

      By then, Annie was noticing the frequency of the Ape-oid trespasses and how belligerent they were behaving. I was off for a few days between convoy runs when she brought it to my attention. "Dave, there's going to be another war, isn't there?" she asked.

      I answered, "Yes, there will."

      "It's going to happen soon, isn't it?" she asked.

      I replied, "I think so. So do some other folks I know."

      She asked, "How soon?"

      I answered, "I don't know how soon for sure, but it could be anytime within the next year from the looks of things."

      "Will you be going back into the Navy?" she asked.

      I replied, "Probably. It depends on whether the Navy calls me up. If they do, I'll report in. I think I'm needed."

      Her eyes were filled with tears that hadn't fallen yet as she tried to reconcile the strong possibility of my going away again to war. It would be different this time since we were married. We had bonds between ourselves. We knew our bonds could survive a war. I could tell that she was more concerned about whether I would survive a war. If nothing else, she knew that I would be in the thick of it. That's how it was for me the last time. She and I both visualized it happening that way the next time.

      At the same time, I didn't want to mention to her that I thought that Beulah would be attacked. She knew that I had put a number of boxes of things inside the cavern, but, as far as I knew, she hadn't gone through any of them. Had she done so, she probably would have asked about a war happening before then. I wondered if I should bring up the idea of running to the cavern in the event of an attack. I truly didn't want to worry or scare her. However, I thought suddenly of her being confused and unsure of what to do if I wasn't home when an attack came. It could very easily happen while I was away. The thought of coming home to find the house smashed and their bodies in a morgue or already buried almost made my blood freeze. I said, "Annie, there's something else you need to know more than anything else."

      She asked, "What, Dave?"

      I told her, "I've been putting survival supplies inside the cavern. That's what's inside those boxes. There's a strong chance that the Ape-oids won't restrict the war to space this time. If Beulah is attacked, you should take William and Angelica with you into the cavern. It's deep enough under those hills and there's enough protective rock that you'll both be safe. I already told your father about the cavern in case he should come looking for you after an attack. I guess I figured until now that you would naturally head for a safe place like the cavern. Now I want you to be thinking about it ahead of time."