The Veritian Derelict (Junkyard Dogs) (4 page)

Chapter 6.

"...Asteroid mining factories are a highly specialized type of space station. Configured to be anchored to the asteroid that is being mined, these facilities are constructed from smaller modules that are brought through Whitney jumpspace individually and assembled in place. Star systems that contain asteroid belts are quite common but not all asteroid belts have deposits of valuable metals that are concentrated enough to make mining the rings economically feasible. When a suitable asteroid belt is identified, a mining station is transported, assembled and anchored to an individual asteroid which then becomes the home base for the system. Miners live in the station but work inside the asteroid that the station is attached to. The ores that are mined are then partially refined using the efficient solar-powered facilities built into the station before final transport to the huge refineries that orbit some of the more industrialized worlds. When the asteroid is mined out, the facility is simply moved to another suitable rock and the process starts over. Candidate asteroids cannot be any smaller than ten kilometers in any dimension. Populations on mining stations tend to be measured in the thousands...

...
Asteroid mining ships are a different thing altogether. These large, ungainly-looking craft roam the belt in search of smaller asteroids which contain valuable deposits. When a suitable deposit is identified, the ship and crew go about the business of removing the valuable bits and storing the ores in one of several holds. When the smaller asteroid is mined out, the ship moves to another suitable planetoid. This process is repeated until the ship is fully loaded. Loaded ships periodically bring their treasure back to the anchored facility for crude refinement. While at the stationary facility they empty their holds before re-provisioning and heading back out in search of additional asteroids to mine..."

Hartwell Wristcomp reference note highlighted for further review by Amanda Steuben.
Excerpt is from: "An Introduction to Asteroid Mining." By Sterling Hancock.

On board the Yacht
Carpathia
near the Piedmont Asteroid Mining Station in the Catskill-Soroyan Star System, November 29, 2598.

The Sheik of Barsoom looked over the shoulder of his female operative as she went through the information contained in the download stolen from the Stage II communicat
ions console onboard the Piedmont station. Most of the material on the chip was of little use to them, personal greetings between family members, routine business transactions and the like. A further portion of the messages were coded Federation Naval business and could not be deciphered by them no matter how much they wanted to do so. Hidden amongst the personal mail was the information they were seeking, a coded message from one of their team members who had somehow managed to infiltrate the Naval facilities on the Santana Nexus.

"
Is that the message, Fahada?" the Sheik asked the woman who had been known as "Tiffany" to those onboard the Piedmont Mining Station.

"
Yes, my Sheik," she replied, eyes intent on the computer screen, "but I must decode it. It will take a few minutes."

"
Take whatever time you need, my Dear," replied the Sheik.

She ran the message through a special computer program and the two of them watched while individual words popped up, one at a time, on the video monitor. The message was short and concise:
"
Saladin summit meeting scheduled for December 2-4, at the Santana Nexus
." While it was no particular secret that the Meridian Ambassador had called a meeting, the timing and the location had been kept a secret until the last possible moment for security purposes. With the number of important personnel involved in the meeting and the scope of their beliefs and passions, it was no surprise that someone was more than willing to give up the information regarding the meeting. With the time and the location of the meeting in his possession, the Sheik and his allies could now start making plans of their own.

"
We need to send this information to all of our forces. Inform the Captain of the
Minotaur
. We will rendezvous with him and the others near the Santana Nexus in three days. Our raids out here and elsewhere will have drawn off the Federation forces and our attack on the Nexus should face little opposition. We must now proceed with our current task. Go now, Fahada, and get prepared for this next mission." The old man gave her a half-amused look. "And for the sake of my sanity get rid of that hideous tattoo on your face!"

Though it looked genuine,
Fahada's Spacer tattoo was actually only temporary and could be readily removed with the application of the proper cleansing solution.

"
As you wish, my Sheik," said the woman.

"
And do be careful," added the Sheik.

She said nothing but smiled at his concern as she left the bridge of the old man
's yacht and went to clean her face before getting suited up.

***

Two hours later another of the Sheik's bold plans was put into action. A load of provisions and other cargo items was scheduled for transfer to the Tunisian destroyer. Security on the loading docks was somewhat lax at the remote outpost, even on a good day, and the cargo access codes that Fahada had obtained enabled the entire operation to proceed without sounding any alarms. The additional insurance of a bribe negotiated with an underpaid dockworker had also eliminated any number of complications. One of the dockworker's previous clients had provided Fahada with contact information. The dockworker had been told that he was helping to smuggle unauthorized goods on board for transport to the destroyer's next port of call. Such transactions were not at all that unusual, corruption ran rampant among the workforces at many of the small stations and, indeed, within many of the Navies of the smaller Governments in the Quadrant as well.

That was the cover
. In fact, there was a highly trained squad of five heavily and lethally armed men and one woman concealed in one of the shipping crates with the express purpose of capturing the small warship. The timing for this operation had been carefully planned. Roughly half of the destroyer's normal crew was enjoying shore leave, leaving only about twenty-five men currently manning the ship. In addition, it was very early in the morning at the peaceful, remote station tucked away in an obscure corner of the quadrant and none of the crew would be particularly vigilant, let alone armed. Against the small group of stealthy and dedicated fighters the skeleton crew would have little chance.

Provided everything went according to plan.

***

Mining Ship
Donegal
, outside Piedmont Mining Station, Catskill-Soroyan Star System November 29, 2598.

O
n the bridge of the
Donegal
, Captain Seamus O'Connell was running through a preflight checklist in preparation for his ship's departure back to the zone in the system's extensive asteroid belt where he and his companion Captain Niall Patrick of sister mining ship
Glendaloch
were currently mining. While the ship's computer was running through a series of subroutines as part of the pre-flight check, he absently watched a loaded transport utility sled as it docked with the old Tunisian destroyer. It was maybe a little early in the day for such activities but ships could and did transport out of the system at all hours and it didn't strike O'Connell that anything particularly unusual was taking place. He continued with his preflight preparations.

***

On board New Tunisian Warship,
Mahdia
, outside Piedmont Mining Station, Catskill-Soroyan Star System, November 29, 2598.

Within minutes after the crate containing the infiltrators was shoved over into a corner of the dimly lit cargo bay
of the destroyer, the invaders within had shed their spacesuits and readied their weapons. The top of the crate tilted silently up and shadowy figures flowed up and over the lip of the container before fanning outward. In the weightless hold of the destroyer, the woman operative launched herself at the single Marine guard from behind, wrapped powerful legs around his head and silently broke his neck with a lethal scissoring motion of her legs. The three bored cargo handlers, one of them the very man who had been bribed, were the next to die. All three were dispatched swiftly and silently. No alarm had been raised.

The deadly ensemble then began
moving stealthily through the rest of the ship, killing as they went. Several solitary crew members were approached from behind and had their throats cut before they could make a sound. In two crowded sleeping rooms of six men each, a canister of deadly gas rolled into each of the rooms followed by the closing and sealing of the hatch swiftly accomplished the grim task.

Everything had gone
like clockwork up to that point. But no plan is perfect nor can any plan be perfectly executed. As the intruders approached the bridge they had their first brush with trouble. The officer on watch was young and eager, new on the job, and he had not only remained alert but he, along with the other two personnel on the bridge with him, was staring intently at the monitors of several of the bridge computers. They were about halfway through the process of running a complete ship's diagnostic.

"Thruster circuits, normal," the young
Ensign read from his display. "Reaction drive?"

"Everything in order, Sir," replied his assistant on the engineering console.

"Whitney overdrive?"

"Overdrive readings normal as well, Sir."

"Okay," said the Ensign, "that completes the drive systems. Now let's run the diagnostics on the weapons systems." He and his two companions prepared to begin the routine.

"Sir?"
said the communications tech, frowning at one of the displays. "Something isn't right. I've got security cameras going down all over the ship!"

The young Ensign went over to check the
security display. Indeed, within the last few minutes about a third of the screens had gone blank. As they watched the screen from one of the cameras that was still operating, he and the communications tech saw a crewman frantically running down the corridor only to be cut down by a pulse beam bolt from a hand weapon. Seconds later, an armed and masked intruder calmly looked into the security camera before it too ceased to send a coherent signal.

Suddenly all was confusion
on the bridge as a perfectly aimed pulse from a silenced pulse pistol took out the man at the communications console. The young officer belatedly recognized that his ship had been boarded and was under attack from within! The man at the navigation console was also cut down before he could react. The Ensign ducked down behind his command console and reached up to key the ship's intercom. "The ship has been infiltrated!" he shouted. "Emergency Protocol number 333A!" He barely got out the order before two well-aimed pulses from Fahada's pulse rifle silenced him.

Though the
young officer's warning came too late to save any lives, dedicated crew members stationed in the pulse beam weapons emplacements on opposite ends of the ship had time to initiate "Emergency Protocol number 333A" before the infiltrators broke in and dispatched the gun crews as well. The bewildered attackers could do nothing but watch as the capacitor banks for both fore and aft main batteries cycled up to full charge and released the pent up energy internally, fusing the vital capacitor banks to worthless slag. The capacitors for all of the secondary batteries sequentially destroyed themselves in similar fashion shortly afterwards.

***

Mining Ship
Donegal
, outside Piedmont Orbital Station, Catskill-Soroyan Star System, November 29, 2598.

Seamus O'Connell, still concentrating on preflight preparations
, was brought out of his routine by an audio alarm as his sensor panel recorded several intense pulses of energy that seemed to emanate from somewhere within the old destroyer he had been casually observing. He thought that was more than a bit unusual and he immediately called Niall Patrick, his counterpart on the other mining ship.

"Niall? This is Seamus. Are you on the bridge right now?"

A reply came back in the time it took for Niall Patrick to key the communications toggle next to the Captain's chair on his ship. "
Yes, Seamus, I got back about twenty minutes ago. Did you just record some energy spikes from that old destroyer?
"

"That's what I was calling about. It looks like something
out of the ordinary is going on over there. Should we be ready to lend a hand or something?"

"
I haven't heard any kind of distress call or anything. It could be some kind of drill, for all we know. Maybe somebody just hit the wrong switch or something
?"

"You're probably right, no need to get overexcited unless there's a good reason. How long until you can be ready to d
isembark?"

"
Not for quite a while yet. I've got hatches open and conveyors connected all over the ship. That and we've barely started to transfer supplies. We'll need an hour just to disconnect everything. You?
"