The Santana Nexus (Junkyard Dogs Book 3) (4 page)

"
Sorry, Faiza and Amanda," said Kresge speaking to them from the viewscreen on the wall of the conference room, "but I won't be able to spend more than few minutes with you today. I've duties to attend to. We'll meet again tomorrow if I'm not still up to my ears in Scrapyard affairs. When we do meet again, I think we should begin some discussions about literature. How about I make it easy for you? We'll start with Science Fiction. Be ready to talk about some of the classics. Check your email, I've sent you some materials to get started. Be ready to tell me about authors like Mary Shelley, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. I also want you to pick one or two of the early authors that sound interesting to you. That's all I have for you today. Carry on!"

The viewscreen went blank. The two young women looked at each other and shrugged.

Chapter 6.

Santana Nexus Station, tenth ring hub area, January2, 2599.

The Sheik of Barsoom took a seat in the observation gallery of the weightless gymnastics arena
located in the Santana Nexus Station Spindle. He had come there specifically to watch several of his best operatives compete with each other using weightless combat techniques. These exercises could be somewhat time consuming and occasionally people got hurt but the Sheik condoned them anyway, the strenuous physical activity kept his men sharp and required them to work on their weightless combat techniques with the extra edge of competition thrown in.

The gruff old man sat in
his customary spot in the front row of the gallery. Located in the spindle of the Station, down near the tenth ring, the arena was used for a variety of sports in addition to weightless gymnastics. It was also used in the manner that the Sheik's people were using it at the moment, for military combat training. Currently in the arena were two of the Sheik's Marines. One of them was a savvy veteran and the other a much younger, green but eager recruit.

Overeager, it seemed
. The Sheik watched as the younger man came after the wily veteran with his padded practice weapon, took a powerful but ineffective swing with it and received a whack on the back of the head that sent him careening into one of the padded walls of the arena. That was the third time that the younger man had received a sharp blow over the ten minutes that the two men had been going at each other and the veteran called a halt before the younger man suffered some kind of permanent damage.

"That's better," the Sheik heard the veteran say, "But you're still too
impatient. That and you're still swinging too hard. Don't worry, you'll get it. We'll try this again tomorrow."

The two men exited the arena and two more combatants entered it. One of them was a lean, lanky young soldier
who was dressed in a silver competition skinsuit. On the other side of the arena the entry portal opened to admit a woman. Also attired in a skinsuit, the definition of her honed muscles could clearly be seen through the fabric. Her name was Fahada and she was the apple of the Sheik's eye. With her jet-black hair and nearly black eyes, Fahada was an exotic and beautiful woman by any measure. Though she was not a particularly large woman, she was one of the most deadly people that the Sheik had ever known. She was also the main reason he was at the arena in the first place; the Sheik had come to watch her fight.

Fahada squared off with
her sparring partner, he with his legs coiled up against the North wall of the arena and she similarly poised against the South wall. Today the two of them would be fighting with short blades. When either of the practice weapons wielded by the combatants made any kind of contact, the suits that each of them wore were programmed to light up conspicuously in the area where the contact had been made, highlighting the position and the nature of the wound.

This particular form of fighting owed much to the sport of weightless gymnastics and both of the combatants w
ere outfitted with two of the same retractable tethers that were used by gymnasts to maneuver in zero G. The grappling pads on the tethers would stick to almost anything and the pads could be released by remote control and the cable reeled back in less than a second.

On a signal from the control room, the
combatants launched at one another, heading straight for the center of the arena. Just as they appeared about to collide, each shot a tether out to make contact with one of the walls and gave a skillful tug on the tether to alter their course. The Sheik smiled. He could see that Fahada had waited until after her opponent had committed to what he was going to do before she deployed her tether in response. She was remarkable to watch at this game and the Sheik had never seen anyone better at it.

As the two combatants passed each other in the center of the arena,
the young man found himself to be just a tiny bit out of position. His practice blade found nothing but air. When the two of them caught themselves on the wall opposite where each of them had started, the young man's blue suit was highlighted by a red, ten centimeter-long slash that ran along one side of his torso. It was not a killing blow but one that would have been very painful and would certainly have greatly affected his ability to fight.

The two of them
took a short moment to realign themselves and launched at one another again. With similar results. This time the young man, taking a page from Fahada's book, decided to wait until his opponent had committed to a direction before responding. That tactic didn't work either, Fahada, a wicked smile on her face, just calmly deployed her tether and struck her opponent while his own blade again found nothing but air.

When they contestants realigned themselves for another pass, the young man's suit had a new red slash, this time from a navel to sternum. That
strike would have been fatal. The two contestants did three more passes before the younger player finally managed to make a small mark on Fahada's upper left arm. Unfortunately, his own suit bore the mark of yet another fatal strike for his troubles.

"Good job, Hakim, that's the first time you've been able to touch me," said Fahada.

"A touch, yes, but I am dead four times over!" lamented the young soldier. "Your skills are remarkable, Fahada!"

The two of them exited the arena
dicussing the match with Fahada giving the young man some pointers on how to improve his technique. As one-sided as the match had been, the Sheik's number one assassin had actually been holding back. She could easily have killed the young man with her practice blade had she needed or wanted to.

The entertainment over, the Sheik of Barsoom made his way
out of the spindle to the command center of his steadily growing revolution, located in the tenth ring of the Santana Nexus station. The area of the station formerly occupied by the United Terran Federation Navy, in fact.

"Have any more ships arrived?" he asked
as came into the command center.

"Yes, Sire," replied the
communications tech on duty, "three more destroyers are on their way in from the hyperlink point. They should be here in another half hour or so."

"Excellent! That brings us up to the number I need to protect our interests here on the Nexus
Station and to go out and eliminate the opposition in that cursed Scrapyard. Tell all of the Captains that we will be meeting at three o'clock this afternoon, to start formulating our plan of attack."

"Captain
Kassab of the
Hercules
has called for you twice, Sire."

"I know
. He wishes to lead the attack. He will not be pleased but I must have him remain here to keep our defenses strong. I was at that Scrapyard just a little over a week ago and I know that a large ship such as his will be worse than useless out there anyway. The smaller ships, like our destroyers, are what we need to navigate in that cursed scrap cloud. I will, no doubt, have to calm him down but I think it best if he remains here."

Chapter
7.

UTFN Reclamation Center, on board Meridian Imperial Diplomatic Ship
Istanbul
, January 2, 2599.

Tamara
Carlisle, who had finally been released from the
Istanbul's
infirmary, went straight to her quarters. The
Istanbul'
s doctor had just cleared her to start using her Hartwell Wrist Computer again and the first thing she did after pulling it out of her locker was to slip the device on around her left wrist. The automatic tensioning system in the meta-kevlar band clamped the computer firmly but gently in place. The familiar weight and presence of the virtually indispensable little device was very reassuring. After running through a few basic functions to assure herself that the device and her brain were both working properly, she pulled the quantum drive unit that she had removed from the bridge computer on the Veretian derelict a couple of weeks ago out of the box she had been storing it in. She intended to head down to the
Istanbul's
space suit maintenance room to check on her special spacesuit but she wanted to get the investigation on this computer drive started first.

Carlisle's newly
minted Ph.D. was in Military History and for her dissertation topic she had specifically focused on the final battle of the Succession War. The wrecked ship that the quantum drive had been salvaged from was a veteran of that final battle and she wanted to find out if there was anything on the drive that would help her to understand more about the battle and more about the derelict itself. The Veritian derelict was a rare find, an Opposition ship from the Succession War, and only a few such ships had ever been studied in any detail.

But that wasn't all.
In addition to the historical significance of the derelict, there were a number of other mysteries surrounding the battered ship. Who was on it and how did they escape from the battle? How had a ship that badly damaged been able to make the journey from the New Ceylon system to its final resting place on the tiny moon in the Heard's World system? The journey would have required several microjumps and at the very least a single macrojump but the damage to the wreck was so extensive that these operations should have been all but impossible.

She went to the engineering section of the
Istanbul
and sought out the help of the ship's chief engineer, Commander Isma'il Raghib. At least a half dozen workers were attending to their various engineering duties and everything within the section looked to be calm and orderly. One of the engineers politely showed Carlisle into the engineer's small office. Raghib was frowning at a schematic on his computer monitor as she came into the tiny compartment.

"Ensign Carlisle,"
said Raghib. He pushed his chair away from the display on the monitor before coming to his feet to shake her hand. "It is good to see that you are recovering from your injuries. We all owe you a huge debt for your part in turning back the attack."

Carlisle blushed. "
I...I was only doing my duty."

"As you say," said Raghib. "I thank you anyway.
What brings you down to engineering?"

Carlisle held up
her prize. "This is an old quantum drive that I removed from the wreck of that Opposition cruiser when were went to Heard's World a couple of weeks ago. I need someone to help me power it up and access it, to see what sort of information it contains."

"Ah yes," replied Raghib, "
For that we will need to go and see Heskim, he is our chief electronics and computer tech. I think you'll like him, he is very knowledgeable. I must warn you, Ensign, that he is...rather a little strange as well."

"A little strange?"

"Well, he is a computer tech..."

Carlisle nodded in understanding. Raghib led her
forward through a bulkhead hatch and down a short corridor to another hatch. He indicated that she should go inside. She ducked to negotiate the opening and found herself in a narrow, low-ceilinged compartment. A work table ran the length of one entire wall.

At the table
was a short man in a chair concentrating intently on an electrical component that he was holding in his lap and prodding at with a tool of some kind. With the
Istanbul
currently more or less parked and not expected to be performing any maneuvers, the technician could simply lay out his various projects without worry that something might shift around due to ship movements. The little shop appeared to have several projects that were being simultaneously worked on and a number of electronic components were heaped up on the long table. Exposed wires were sprouting from several of the objects, and the entire area generally looked disorganized and chaotic. Carlisle realized that on a ship of the size and complexity of the
Istanbul
, there were bound to be a number of computer and electronic systems that were going to require attention at any one time.

"
Welcome to our electronics shop, Dr. Carlisle," said Raghib, as they entered the room. "Heskim, I have brought someone I'd like you to meet."

"Please put whatever you need repaired in that open space over there," said
computer tech, barely even looking up. "I will get to it when I can."

Carlisle looked
at the table but didn't see anything that looked like an "open space" to her.

"Where?" she asked.

Upon hearing the feminine voice, the little man finally tore his concentration away from his current task, scanned the work area and rather sheepishly said. "My apologies, I forgot that I put that translator module in the cleared area earlier this morning." He laid his forearm down on the workbench in front of him and carefully swept the remains of a couple of other obscure projects to the right, clearing a space large enough to hold the component he had been working on. Reaching down into his lap with both hands, he transferred his current project to the newly cleared space before standing up and facing his visitors.

"
Heskim, this is Dr. Tamara Carlisle," said Raghib, "She has brought a computer drive that she needs you to take a look at."

"I am pleased to meet you, Dr. Carlisle," said Heskim as he shook her hand. "Please accept my apology
. There is so much to do and I confess that I easily get absorbed in my work. Let me see what it is that you have brought for me."

Carlisle noted a few gray hairs and some facial wrinkles
that hadn't been apparent at first glance and concluded that the little man was probably somewhat older than her first estimate had suggested he was.

Carlisle handed him the drive.
"This is a quantum drive from an old ship's bridge computer," she said.

Heskim took
the proffered drive and carefully turned it over several times. He whistled. "This is old...," he turned it over yet again, "...very old. I haven't seen one of these for more than ten years and this one looks to be a great deal older than that last one was!"

"
You're absolutely right," said Carlisle, "the drive has to be well over sixty years old. I pulled it out of the bridge computer on a Succession War Opposition cruiser. The ship was badly damaged and then abandoned after it escaped the final battle of the Succession War."

"What
would you like me to do with it?"

"Can
you power it up and transfer the data on it to a more modern computer?" She pointed to her left wrist, "I have a Hartwell Wrist computer, could we transfer the data to it?"

"Possibly," replied the tech, "
Much depends on what kind of condition the drive is in. This one doesn't appear to be too badly damaged but we won't know until we try to access it."

Heskim
spent some time looking at the connections for the drive, "I might be able to do something. It could take some time, though. I'll have to rig some special leads to get power to it. Connections like these haven't been used for decades. I might have some adaptors in one of these drawers but more likely I'll have to fabricate something." He turned the device over in his hands yet another time. "How soon do you need this?"

"I don't know that it's terribly
urgent except that I have a bit of free time over the next few days."

"
Old computer gear of any kind of has always been of interest to me. I'll see what I can do right after I finish this translator module. Why don't you stop back later today?"

"That would be
great," replied Carlisle, "I have some other things to do myself. Thanks, Heskim. It was nice meeting you."

"My pleasure, Dr. Carlisle, "Retrieving data from a drive this old c
ould turn out to be a real challenge. Maybe we'll get lucky."

"
I certainly hope so, Heskim," she replied, with a smile, "I'll check back with you later today."

Carlisle left the engineering section and went to check on her spacesuit.

When she got down to the compartment where the space suits were serviced she was relieved to find that her special suit had been carefully racked and appeared to be undamaged. She coerced one of the suit technicians into helping her put the suit on and perform a few routine tests to make sure that there were no leaks and that everything still worked.

The suit was
a technological wonder, form-fitted and less than half as bulky as a standard Naval-issue spacesuit. It appeared to be made of a smooth, slightly textured fabric, almost like the skin of a primitive, Old Earth fish called a shark. Though the color of the suit's fabric could be altered to match any background, Carlisle usually left it on the default color setting which was a non-reflective, white matte finish. The helmet was also an advanced design and could be programed to alter its color just like the rest of the suit. While she was still experimenting with the suit to make absolutely sure that everything was in working order, she received a text message from Commander Kresge on her wrist computer."

"
Command staff meeting at 0930 in the big conference room on the
Istanbul," It said. "
Admiral Kingston will be presiding."

Carlisle couldn't suppress a frown as she
extricated herself from the suit and carefully placed it back on the rack.