Troy Rising 2 - Citadel (17 page)

“That's it,” Ramage said. “Out, Lassie.”

“Aye, aye, Lance,” Lasswell said. But he kept looking over his shoulder on the way out.

“What was that about?” Dana said as Thermal climbed through the hatch into the cargo bay.

“You're joking, right?” Hartwell said.

“Oh,” Dana said. “Men. You're born with Johannsen's.”

“This place is . . .” The Horvath hadn't actually left that much mess. But there was enough that it was going to take some tidying. And the dead one had left an unpleasant pile of goo.

“Hmmm . . .” Dana said. “I seem to remember it's the engineer's job to clean up the shuttle.”

“And you're an Engineer First Class,” Thermal said. “Not an Engineer Mate.”

“Damn.”

“EN Parker,” CM1 Glass commed.

“EN Parker,” Dana said, looking at Hartwell quizzically.

“Report to Flight Bay for debrief.”

She looked at Thermal and shrugged. He made a face then shrugged and nodded.

“Report to Flight Bay for debrief, aye.”

“Thermal,” Glass commed. “You too. Clean-up will wait.”

“Oh . . . crap.”

“First of all,” Glass said, looking at Hartwell and Dana, “we're not even going to try to do a PIR right now. The PIRs on this day are going to go on for months. And I can foresee all sorts of things interfering. Parker, unless you didn't hear, your fascinating entry technique to the main bay made the news.”

“We destroy an entire Horvath fleet and all they can do is bitch about an entry?” Hartwell said, shaking his head.

“The parameters of the entry got distributed pretty quickly,” Glass said. “Which means that you came out, in the media, smelling like roses, Parker. To the media. I, personally, think you did a damned fine job. That's the second thing on my agenda. I caught some flak for suggesting you for a coxswain position and my professional opinion, as well, is that I made a good choice. From what I'm looking at, now, you did everything exactly right. There were no good choices and you picked from the array of bad and chose the least bad. You delivered the mail. From my point of view, as the chief coxswain NCOIC of your flight, you performed the mission and did so to the very best of not only your ability but the best anyone could do in a screwed up situation.”

“Thank you, CM,” Dana said.

“That said,” Glass continued, “that's a hot-wash analysis. That incident is going to be folded, spindled and mutilated by people who weren't there. Being in the news is, therefore, a bad thing. Because people are going to be looking to stick a knife in your back over it. My job, and the CO's job, is to keep that from happening to the best of our ability. You job is to keep your head down and do your job. Let us handle the flak.”

“Roger, CM,” Dana said.

“You wouldn't believe how far up this got kicked,” Glass said. “But the decision has been made to retain you on flight status. Unfortunately, we lost Boomer, Spade and AJ on Columbia Thirty-Two so we're down two cox and an engineer. We've got spare engineers. So we're going to put you through full coxswain quals. You will be acting as a temporary coxswain until you're full qualified.”

“Yes, CM,” Dana said, trying not to grin. Among other things it wouldn't be very polite considering that the flight had just lost three people. But that was hard to grasp at a certain level, call it denial at which she was very well trained, and grasping being a cox was easy.

“Now we start the debrief,” CM1 Glass said. “Were you insane . . . ?”

“Boo-yah,” Price said, sticking his head in Butch's quarters. “Time to go make the man his money, baby!”

As soon as the battle alarms went off, pretty much everything civilian shut down and the welding crew, which had been working on installing a power circuit on one of the horns in the bay, headed for their quarters. The quarters were not only deep in the wall of Troy, they were sealed in case there was an “environmental breach.” And although they were tight, that was also where they kept their personal suits.

“What's up?” Butch said, turning off the video of some crazy assed pilot screaming across the main bay.

“Salvage, baby!” BFM said. “The Troy just created enough salvage to keep us busy for a year!”

“Okay!” Butch said, grinning hopelessly. He had no idea why the team lead was so happy.

Butch had completed his initial probationary period without being transferred, incurring a major incident or killing anyone. As such, he was now an apprentice welder and earning a pretty good buck.

The problem being, there wasn't much to spend it on the Troy. There were some bars but he had learned that if you got too heavy on the sauce you were going to get grounded. There was even one titty bar but with women in short supply, you sort of got tired of just looking. And the girls weren't exactly great.

Pretty much what he'd been doing for the last three months was working in the main bay, taking as much OT as he could grab, eating and sleeping. Since the work was hard but not really . . . what was it called? It wasn't really aerobic, he was starting to figure out why everybody on the crew had a beer gut.

He'd actually been sending money home. God knows Mama and Papa could use it.

He enjoyed the work more than he'd thought he would at first. The main bay was pretty cool. But he didn't know why BFM was so excited.

“Oh, you poor clueless newbie,” BFM said, shaking his head. “Get into your suit and head for the sleds.”

“Suit and sleds?” Butch said.

“Salvage, dude,” Price said. “Going to be FOD all over the place. But the nice part? The really sweet, oh this is so sweet, part? We get a cut of everything we salvage. I was on the salvage job when the last Horvath attack came through the gate. Four ships. Five hundred guys cutting. I made as much in a month as I usually do in two years. And, dude, there are forty ships just waiting to be plundered!”

“I am so in my suit,” Butch said, sliding out of the bunk.

“Okay,” Butch said. “I get salvage being valuable. But this is just crazy.”

The sleds had been attached to the Paw mining ships and headed out into the Dark. Butch had only worked in the Dark one time before so it was pretty unnerving. Especially when they got dropped off near the target.

Ships and pieces of ships were drifting all over the place near the gate. The gate was sort of a circular backdrop for what looked like the biggest scrapyard in the history of the world.

It wasn't the ships that were the problem. It was the pieces. Small, large, fracking huge, the FOD, foreign-object-debris, was all over the place. Their starting target was a Horvath destroyer that had been cut in half by the SAPL. Most of the rear was in good shape but the forward part had blown up. It was the debris from the blown up part that was making the area dangerous as hell.

The rear portion was also spinning slowly in a corkscrew rotation. Getting into it was going to be tricky.

“Okay, people,” Purcell commed. “I know you're all pumped up on plunder, but let's stay safe, here. I want to make sure we've got good solid team communication and stay with a buddy. This FOD has a will of its own and it will kill you. The destroyer, what's left of it, has been cleared by the 142nd and the Marines. There should be no Horvath aboard. If you see any sign of Horvath, back off and call in the Marines.”

“How we gonna do this?” Vlad asked.

“Carefully,” Kosierowski commed. The laser tech was the replacement for Gursy and as phlegmatic and uninterested in games as BFM was crazy. They got along great as long as BFM concentrated on making the lives of the probes hell.

“Gonna go in the part that's already cut,” Price replied. “Move forward slowly and it will come back around to us. Then adjust our delta to its and enter.
Drac, you're with Kos. Butch and me the other team. What we're looking for is, in order, major electronics, power systems, transfer systems, laser emitters, mass drivers and grav plates. Hotstick the ship when you get close. It's gonna have a bunch of potential. And if you find anything interesting, make damned sure it's not live before you go to cutting it out.”

“And when we've got it cut out?” Drac asked.

“Pull it out, slow, and drop a beacon on it,” Price said. “Paws'll pick it up later.
Kos, you done this before, right?”

“Not anything this big,” the tech said. “But, yeah.”

“Just take it slow.”

The big man was as good as his word, taking the initial approach at a snail's pace.

The “cut” end of the destroyer was still sparking, meaning there was still active power somewhere. It was also slagged. Armor, bulkheads and main support beams were melted and Butch's temperature indicators said that some of them were still over a thousand degrees, Celsius.

“Got a corridor over to port,” Kos said. “Nice and wide.”

“Nother one to starboard,” Price said, slowing. “Beginning entry.”

“Roger, that,” Kos said. “Same back.”

The corridor was about three meters wide, not particularly “nice and wide” for the two meter wide sleds. But it was the best of the lot. Most of the rest was open compartments. And none of them looked like they had anything recoverable.

As soon as they got in the corridor the faint light from the sun was cut off and Butch hit the sled lights. The rack of lights illuminated the corridor if not like day than pretty well. Better than he expected cause . . .

“Why are we getting scatter?” Butch asked. He wasn't nervous exactly. It was a mixture of nervous and excited. But anything unexpected was causing a bit of increased stress. “No air, the lights shouldn't scatter.”

“Still enough breathable to scatter some,” Price replied. “Not enough to survive as that guy found out.”

A Horvath, his suit ripped open and the squid-like body bloated up and out so it was hard to recognize as one of the ETs, was floating in the corridor.

“What do we do?” Butch asked.

“Pull it out,” Price commed, snatching the slowly spinning body. “Put a beacon on it. Somebody'll pick it up later. Not like he's going anywhere.”

The team lead used the waldoes to hand it over to the probe.

“You okay with that?” Price asked. “You're not going to puke or anything?”

“I'm good,” Butch said. In truth it was hard to think of the twisted bit of freeze-dried meat as a sapient being. It looked like a dried clam.

“Take it to the entrance, slap a beacon on it and just give it some minor delta,” BFM commed. “I'm gonna sit here and do a survey for power sources.”

Butch carried the Horvath to the entrance, put a radio beacon on it and sent it spinning slowly into the void.

“Bit of a navigation hazard,” Butch said as he headed back up the corridor.

“Anything hits it is going to slag it and not get slagged,” Price replied. “According to the plans, this thing's got a power room up ahead to starboard. Let's go see if it survived.”

They made their way, slowly, down the debris filled corridor. Debris was floating everywhere in the microgravity. Butch couldn't even put a name on most of the stuff. Some of it appeared to be food packs. There were what might be tools or eating utensils. Clothing. He hadn't even known the Horvath wore clothing.

“Should be behind this bulkhead,” Price commed, slowing his sled to a stop. They were having to continually adjust delta to the spinning ship, since if they didn't the centripetal force would “push” them out, and Butch was having a lot harder time with it than the experienced team lead. His sled “pranged” lightly on the top of the corridor.

“Careful,” Price commed.

“Trying to get my balance, lead,” Butch said. This wasn't anything like working in the main bay.

“Gotcha,” Price replied. “Just, seriously, be careful. The potential around here is high. I think the power's still on but shorting into the hull.”

“Right,” Butch said, getting his vector adjusted so he wasn't hitting the bulkheads or the deck or the overhead. And then he had to adjust it again. “Lead, I'm having a hard time maintaining stable formation.”

“Grab that hatch coaming,” Price commed, pointing to the hatch to the engineering section. “No way we're fitting through that hatch. Neither is a power plant. We're going to have to cut the bulkhead.”

“Right,” Butch said, grabbing the coaming. That got it.

“When we do, the plate's going to want to get away from us cause of the spin,” Price commed. “I'll lock the plate. You do the cut. Don't cut my waldo.”

“How big a cut?” Butch asked. He stuck out another waldo that had a small grav plate on it and locked it on the far side of the corridor, giving him a really stable platform.

“Top to bottom,” Price commed, getting an equally stable position and locking two grav points to the bulkhead. “About four meters wide. If that's not enough to get the power plant out, we'll cut it wider.”

“Right,” Butch said, pulling out his high power laser head.

“Low power,” Price commed. “Use about a forty millimeter beam.”

“Low power,” Butch said, switching heads. “Right.”

“You know you say ‘right' a lot?”

“Right.”

“Whoo-hoo,” Price commed as he got the plate fastened down and out of the way. “This sucker's live, all right.”

The power plant, the center of which was a meter wide ball of iridium, was in the middle of the large compartment. The rest of the compartment was secondary power transfer systems and a mass of electrical relays which were spitting sparks all over the place.

“Salvage control, team fourteen alpha,” Price commed.

“Fourteen alpha, SC.”

“We've got a live plant in Sierra Seventeen. Looks like it was at full power when the ship got hit. Room is energized. How do we turn this sucker off?”

“Stand by, Fourteen Alpha.”

“Gotta check the manuals,” Price commed.

“Right.”

“Fourteen Alpha, SC.”

“SC, Fourteen Alpha.”

“Best bet seems to be to cut the fuel lines. Fuel line enters from the port bulkhead. Can you access that?”

“Stand by, SC,” Price commed. He panned his lights around the room. “Not from our primary entry. I'm not going in that compartment and primary entry is to starboard. Download a schematic and I'll see if we can get around to port.”

“Roger, Fourteen Alpha. Download on the way.”