The Santana Nexus (Junkyard Dogs Book 3) (40 page)

Chapter
61.

Santana Nexus Station, somewhere in the tenth ring hub, January 13, 2599.

Tamara Carlisle pushed the ventilation grate downwards and
shoved her body down out of the ductwork of the ventilation system. The pull of gravity generated by the station's spin this close to the central spindle was all but negligible. She was still in the ring ten hub area but her trip through the ventilator shaft had dropped her into a small compartment somewhere on the other side of the main corridor a goodly distance away from the prep room she had escaped into from the arena. Her wrist computer schematic indicated that this was a cargo storage area of some kind and therefore not likely to be occupied. In fact, the storage compartment she had emerged into was in an area of the hub that consisted of a whole series of such compartments and she was hoping that enemy personnel would be scarce, at least for a while.

She checked the schematic and found that she had made
considerable progress towards the central spindle area of the ninth ring but that she still had a ways to go. She pushed down off from the stack of lashed down cargo containers that nearly filled the small compartment and opened the hatch to let herself out into the corridor outside. As indicated by the schematic, the corridor was lined with compartments similar to the one she had dropped into. She checked the schematic again headed down the corridor in the direction that led towards the ninth ring hub. After she had proceeded about forty meters, she came to a junction. Here she hesitated for a moment. The schematic indicated that there was a larger compartment just a short way ahead. She cautiously headed down the corridor. If she could get past the larger compartment, she would have only a short way to go to access another ventilation duct that looked like it would take her northward into the spindle area of the ninth ring!

She peeked around the corner into the larger compartment area and was relieved to find that there were no enemy soldiers in the area. She headed carefully into the
compartment and had made it about halfway across the space when someone called out to her in a raspy voice.

"Praise the the Lord!
Perhaps my prayers have been answered. You are not one of the Sheik's soldiers, are you? Help me! Please! You must let me out of here!"

The voice was coming out of the shadows of a compartment that must have been used to house livestock for holding before transfer to a different ship before
the animals were transported out to some more distant destination. The wall of the compartment that she was looking at was covered by a force curtain that allowed air to circulate but wouldn't allow an animal, or a human to pass through it. It was a very effective jail cell.

"Who
's holding you here?" whispered Carlisle.

"A very evil and very intelligent man," said the voice. "He is the inventor of the Hyperzone damper and he has another device that he intends to use to destroy the Federation Navy."

"Destroy the Federation Navy? That's absurd! How?"

"He has a device that generates a huge hyperdrive jump zone that leads to nowhere. He
told me that he intends to use it in the Federation Naval yards near Old Earth. He'll kill thousands of people and destroy most of the ships! You must let me out of here! I have to try and stop him!"

Carlisle didn't have the codes to deactivate the force curtain but she did still have the quantum knife she had taken from Fahada.

"Stand back!" she said.

A meter and a half away from the control pad for the force screen, she
plunged the quantum knife into the wall of the compartment, creating a ragged, unpretty opening roughly a half meter square. She pushed the center of the "door" she had created into the cell. Then she helped the prisoner to get out into the central compartment. The man looked familiar...

Her heart fell
when she realized who he was.

"Ezra Hellfire Brimstone!" she exclaimed. She went into a fighting
posture, the quantum knife at the ready.

"Do I know you?" he asked. He looked her over. "Dark hair, short stature, Spacer tattoo. You must be Ensign Tamara Carlisle. It is a pleasure to finally meet you."

"It may be a pleasure for you, but I assure you I do not share the sentiment."

"You have no reason to trust me, Ensign Carlisle, but what I just told you about the two devices that were designed by this evil genius
is true."

"
Why do you care? I thought we were your enemies."

"The
Sheik's people aren't what I thought they were. They told me that they only wished to create an environment where they could live the way their beliefs tell them to. Instead, they are bent on taking over this Quadrant and everything else they can get their hands on. My own people will be destroyed or assimilated before they're through. I must do what I can to stop them!"

"I should take you back to the Federation authorities with me, to face justice, but I'm afraid that trying to do so would just increase the chances of both of us getting caught. I am going back to join up with the Federation fighters in the ninth ring of the station. You do what you
must, Brimstone, but you'll do it on your own!"

"That is all that I ask, little warrior," replied Brimstone. "I thank you for letting me out of that prison. Only now do I think I might be able to stop this mad
man!" He grew sober. "For what it's worth, Ensign, I am truly sorry for all the trouble I've caused."

"
Save it for someone who cares!" she replied. "Farewell, Mr. Brimstone, may your God help you!"

The two of them left the compartment and each headed in their own direction. Carlisle negotiated a few more corridors, ducked into a side compartment when a knot of the Sheik's soldiers
floated frantically by on their way to somewhere and finally found a spot where she could get back into the ventilation system and head northwards again.

Chapter
62.

Military spaceship docking area near the Santana Nexus Station, January 13, 2599.

As the Beastie lined up for her strafing run, th
e three destroyers of the Junkyard Strike force,
Asimov, Nasr
and
Perseus
, approached the
Cobra
, the closest of the Sheik's destroyer's to the Station. The three were deployed in a classic "line ahead" formation with
Asimov
leading,
Perseus
in the center position and
Nasr
bringing up the rear. The unsuspecting guard ship, distracted by the actions of the
Beastie
, did not seem to notice as the line of Junkyard ships used their classic formation to execute a classic maneuver: The three destroyers of the Junkyard Strike Force had "crossed their enemy's T." One of the most sought after advantages in modern or ancient naval warfare, crossing the enemy's T meant that all of the Federation ships could fire all of their main battery weapons -- their full broadsides -- at an enemy who could only respond with his front battery while facing multiple targets.

Just as the Beastie
opened fire on the line of parked destroyers, the
Perseus
came into position directly in front of the
Cobra.
Captain Nesbitt, in the lead ship
Asimov
, gave the order to open fire. All three ships of the attacking force began firing all four of their main battery pulse cannons at the hapless
Cobra
. The crew of the
Cobra
, belatedly realizing the danger, had managed to get her shields up but it was a matter of too little, too late. The concentrated fire from all twelve of the main battery projectors of the Strike Force team was just too much for her to handle. Her shields went down and her front battery was destroyed within thirty seconds.

With
Cobra
in a desperate state, Nesbitt accepted her Captain's offer to surrender. Having seen the carnage dealt by the
Beastie
and the efficiency with which the three destroyers had taken out their companion, the Sheik's remaining two destroyers surrendered soon after.

***

Santana Nexus Station, ring ten hub area, January 13, 2599.

As the
action out in the shipyards got underway, the men who had volunteered to monitor the release of the clamps that held the tenth ring onto the rest of the station had deployed to their respective stations. The interior space of the station's spindle was partitioned off with stout bulkheads delineating each of the areas where the rings attached. Around the central portion of the spindle was another cylinder made up of the stacked sections of the ring hubs which had become an ever-lengthening central cylinder as each of the successive rings had been added to the station. The spindle rotated along with the rings as the station was spun for gravity. The only parts of the station that did not rotate were the two huge receiving airlocks with their "force curtain" doorways. The big military airlock had been the final addition to the south end of the station when the project was completed. That airlock would remain attached to the tenth ring after the ring was decoupled from the rest of the station.

"That
strange-looking ship just attacked and ripped the hell out of five destroyers!" said Harley Earl, "Took the enemy totally by surprise! We are go to proceed with the separation! I repeat, we are go to proceed with the separation."

Earl was seated in the
master control room for the entire station, located in the hub of the fifth ring. Across the compartment from him, Jeremy Fenster sat at the console that controlled the Station's thruster systems, waiting for the order from Earl to activate the system. Within the corridor next to the latch disc for the tenth ring, eight of Earl's observers dressed in spacesuits had deployed to their respective positions to monitor the unlatching of the clamps that held the tenth ring in place.

Earl made
an announcement to his observers, "I am activating the decoupling motors in five, four, three, two, one...activating! All of you! Be sure to tell me when you have a meter of clearance between the lug and the clamping slot!"

A chorus of "ayes" greeted the order. With a series of loud "thunks" accompanied by the whirring of some very large electric motors, the threaded retaining rods began to slowly turn
, initiating the process of pulling the lugs outward and free of the latching disc. The volunteer clamp separation observers kept a close eye on the progress.

"How long is this going to take
, Harley?" asked Fenster.

"I'm not absolutely certain," replied Earl. "
These motors run at about five rpm. The pitch of the threads on the tension bars is pretty fine but that rpm should still lift the locking clamps out of the retaining ring in somewhere around five minutes or less. I can control each motor separately so each of the observers needs to tell me when their lug is clear of the retainer ring."

The process of loosening the retainer rods had been going on for about four and a half minutes before one of the
volunteers announced that their clamp had the necessary clearance.

"This is retainer six,"
came the announcement, "I have a meter of clearance."

"Roger retainer six,
cutting power to your motor...now! Head for your safety exit immediately!"

"Roger, Central."

Ten seconds later, team five announced that their lug would also clear the retainer ring. The other stations followed in rapid succession...

...
all except for station three.

"Central? This is retainer three.
My lug is still locked into the retainer disc! It doesn't seem to want to pull free!"

Earl cut power to stations four and one as their respective
lugs came into the proper alignment before responding to three.

"You
r lug hasn't pulled free?"

"No Sir, it's jammed tight. There must have been a moisture source or something, the
whole area is corroded something awful!"

The fastidious engineer
and station designer, so careful and precise, shuddered as he gave the next order.

"I
'll keep running the motor. Stand clear, and tell me immediately when the tensioning rod clears the lug. I mean immediately! We don't want that rod wobbling around after it comes loose. Do you read?"

"Affirmative Central."

A couple of minutes later, Harley Earl heard from station three again. "That's done it Central, the rod just pulled loose from the lug. Omigod! Cut the motor! CUT THE MOTOR!"

Earl quickly flipped the switch that
turned off the motor.

"Three? Is everything alright?"

"Roger Central, it's just that the tensioning rod started whipping around something awful after it came free. Scared the daylights out of me!"

"
You have about thirty seconds to get clear!" said Earl, "If you can't get out, use a tether to lash yourself to something solid, it's gonna get awfully windy in there for a while!"

Earl
called over to Fenster who had remained at the thruster control station.

"Initiate separation on my mark
...three... two...one...mark!"

Fenster tapped the "enter" key on the computer
display that controlled the ring ten thrusters. The eight thrusters arrayed around the ring began to fire simultaneously. After a hesitation of about ten seconds, the tenth ring began to slowly and majestically pull out of its moorings and away from the rest of the station. With so much mass to move, the separation itself was going to take more than a few minutes.

"Increase to one quarter thrust!"

Fenster complied as Earl continued to monitor the progress from his own displays.

"
Give me another five percent thrust on seven and eight, Jeremy. We don't want to let her get too far out of alignment." Fenster made the adjustment and the ring continued its slow progression outward.

"Good, perfect! The ring should be clear in another...twenty seconds."

After twenty seconds the tenth ring was indeed clear of the rest of the station.

As the tenth ring
achieved true separation from the rest of the station, all of the electrical connections, water and sewage conduits and all of the ventilation ducting were severed at designed-in break-away junctions and automatically sealed off within thirty seconds of the separation.

As the connections were severed, ring ten lost
main power and all of the lights went out.

"Okay, everybody," shouted Earl, "t
he ring is free! Keep those thrusters firing, Jeremy."

At a
slowly increasing rate, the tenth ring began to move away from the rest of the Nexus station.