Craing Dominion (Scrapyard Ship Book 5) Read online

  A proximity alarm sounded in the cockpit, returning Stalls’ focus to matters at hand. He moved back into the cockpit and sat at the controls. He surveyed the outside surroundings.

  “Huh … It’s amazing what one can find floating in space these days,” he said aloud. Stalls kept the shuttle on its current course, at the edge of Earth’s solar system, as it approached an accumulation of space debris. He slowed the shuttle until it was barely moving. Obviously, an incredible battle had taken place in the area.

  What amazed him the most was that no one had thought to round up the tons of metal and raw material now floating around him. “There’s more than a little money to be made here,” Stalls exclaimed aloud.

  Four Craing heavy cruisers were adrift together in various states of embattled deterioration. In the distance, two smaller light cruisers looked to be in somewhat better shape. But not by much, he thought. Stalls maneuvered forward slowly. Hearing clanging against the shuttle’s outside hull, he activated the ship’s shield to its lowest setting, not wanting to scuttle into deep space any of the debris around him—his potential future profit-makers. He came to a full stop, tilted his head forward, and smiled. Now we’re talking!

  Shaped like a bug, it was a Craing light cruiser. The vessel looked to be in relatively good shape, and it had power. At both tips of its stubby wings, placed starboard, were a series of blinking amber lights. Stalls hummed quietly to himself as he brought the shuttle around the stern of the cruiser. Both drives look to be okay …

  Coming around the far side of the vessel, he saw the damage: a scorched opening, more than twice the size of his shuttle. Strange. The jagged metal edges were protruding outward. An explosion from the inside out. He stopped and idled there … Deciding. He massaged his bruised cheekbone and continued to stare at the pitch black gap. Why not?

  He throttled the shuttle’s small engines just enough to coax the little craft into the ragged hole. He flipped on the running lights, as well as the shuttle’s primary forward-placed, directional spotlight.

  He estimated he was in the engineering part of the ship—specifically, its environmental systems area. He began to get a rough idea of what had occurred here. But what happened to the warship’s crew? he wondered. Perhaps it was more of a fluke, than anything else? Stalls positioned the shuttle’s spotlight to illuminate the dark, cavernous inner confines of the vessel.

  Then he spotted it in the distance. The missile was metallic—long and lethal-looking. It had failed to detonate, cutting through three bulkheads and coming to rest where it now sat, held suspended, half in and half out of a very large electro-mechanical device. Apparently, it had caused a massive burst of pressure to vent out the way it had entered. He could clearly see that the missile had also taken out row upon row of oxygen transfer filters. The crew, those who weren’t vented into space, must have slowly asphyxiated. But why hadn’t the AI sent out warnings? It should have alerted them they needed to get their asses into environmental suits—like immediately! “Their loss—my gain,” he chortled.

  Maneuvering the shuttle around in the confined area was becoming problematic. He’d have to leave the shuttle and investigate further in an environment suit. But at least from the look of things, there didn’t seem to be any other substantial damage.

  Another alarm sounded and he felt his anger rise again. The shuttle’s remaining oxygen levels were dropping fast. He needed to find a viable air supply within the next hour or he, too, would be floating lifeless among the rest of the space debris.

  “What the hell?”

  Stalls tapped at the console and sat forward in his seat … looking at the display for several moments. “Not possible,” he said aloud. The shuttle’s sensors were showing multiple life signs. Not in this vessel but in the next ship over. Where there’s life, there’s oxygen.

  Stalls maneuvered his vessel back out the way he’d come in—into open space. The other light cruiser, no more than ten miles off his starboard, was in far worse looking shape. Half its hull seemed to be missing, blown away in what must have been a catastrophic explosion. Stalls approached warily, bringing up the shuttle’s shields to their maximum level. He didn’t want to take any chances. Too many times he’d witnessed the devastation a warship like that could reap. Damaged vessel or not, he wasn’t taking any chances. He maneuvered around to the cruiser’s away side and stopped all forward movement. This area of the ship was in better shape. Three flight deck hangar entryways sat open to space. A small drone fighter awkwardly hung halfway out of the center opening—one of its landing struts caught beneath deck plating. Soft light emanated from inside the flight deck.

  Stalls glanced at his flashing low-oxygen warning indicator. He goosed the throttle some and entered the light cruiser’s flight deck. He heard his engines rev up, compensating for the added gravity within the compartment. He slowly skirted the perimeter of the deck and decided to set down close to one of the ship’s primary bulkheads, at the forward section of the compartment. He shut down the engines and sat there, listening to the clicks and ticks as the engines cooled. All life sign icons were behind the bulkhead, less than thirty feet from the nose of his shuttle. He counted twenty-five of them. There was no way to tell if there were armed beings there or not—the little shuttle had nowhere near that level of technology.

  Stalls rose and made his way to the locker where he’d stored his environment suit and weapons. He looked the suit over, inspecting it for wear … for any tears or holes. It had seen better days, but it looked to be in once piece. Certainly fine enough for the thirty-foot trek across the flight deck to the hatchway situated there.

  With the environment suit now on and his helmet secured, new warning lights flashed on the suit’s primitive HUD. Terrific. He had about a ten-minute supply of oxygen left, if he didn’t exert himself too much. Grabbing up a plasma rifle, and clipping on five power cartridges to his belt, Stalls also checked the plasma pistol at his side and saw that it had nearly a full charge. He used the small, two-man airlock and climbed down to the cruiser’s flight deck. As he approached the smaller Craing-sized metal hatchway, Stalls wondered if he’d be able to open it. For certain, they’d have locked this place up tighter than a drum.

  Ten feet from the hatchway, Stalls stopped and listened. Something was happening. There was a series of metallic clangs and the hatchway began to open. Stalls looked left and right: nowhere to take cover—nowhere to hide. He brought his weapon up and was poised to fire. Three Craing appeared, wearing environmental suits. They stood there, staring up at Stalls for several moments, until one of them gestured with a hand: come in.

  Stalls didn’t move. He looked back at his shuttle and realized he had no choice. Suffocation was a really bad way to go. He moved forward, following the three Craing. The hatch closed and secured behind him. He was in a large airlock. The Craing began removing their environmental suits while talking among themselves. He removed his helmet but kept his suit on. He knew enough of the Terplin language to understand the gist of what they were saying. Then it made sense: they’d wanted to be rescued, preferably by the Craing, but anyone would do at this point. They’d been marooned here for the past year and Stalls was their lifeline out.

  Chapter 4

  Jason wanted to talk to Chief Petty Officer Woodrow in private, before Mollie arrived for her morning class. Billy had worked with Woodrow on and off over the last few years and had earlier provided Jason with an overview of what the man was like. Apparently Woodrow’s reputation was twofold. As a trained wartime sniper/killer, his capabilities were most impressive. Ruthless and determined, it was a given his skills with handheld weapons also went unmatched. But he was also characterized as obstinate and self-absorbed, and thought, by some, to be a borderline psychopath. Was he the type of person Jason wanted influencing his daughter, whose life had been so ripped apart by the brutal attack on herself and her mother?

  Mollie was different now. He’d seen it, the moment he’d returned, in her standoffish manner. She dressed in dark clothes and wore her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. Everything about her screamed she’d been hurt and she wanted to hurt back. Her present life revolved around intense training with this Navy SEAL combatant, who had spent the majority of his life perfecting the art of killing.

  Jason had been very explicit with his father, and with the rest of the crew: Mollie was not to be told her mother was alive back on Earth—that there were now two Mollies: herself, and a second Mollie, who was living at the scrapyard with their mother. How the hell do you tell a young girl, barely coping with reality, that her world would be shaken up again?

  Woodrow looked up as Jason made his way across the gym mats. The man stood at attention and gave a proper salute.

  “As you were, Chief Petty Officer.”

  Woodrow relaxed and nodded toward Jason. “Good morning, Captain.”

  “You know what I’m here to talk to you about, Woodrow?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Let’s start with the why.”

  Woodrow hesitated, then continued to speak. “I could say that I was simply following the orders of the admiral, sir. But soon after meeting your daughter, seeing the condition she was in, I decided to do what I could to help her.”

  “You’re not a trained psychologist, are you, Woodrow? Have some kind of child counseling capabilities I’m unaware of?”

  “No, sir, nothing like that.”

  “Then what gave you the special insight to know what’s best for my daughter?” Jason asked, his voice sounding stern and measured.

  “She asked me a simple question at the onset of her training: could I help her to not feel so much like a victim. She wanted to have some sense of control over her life again. No, sir, I’m not the one for her to turn to for emotiona
l coddling. But I can help her get her confidence back. I can relieve her of some of her fear.”

  Jason listened to what Woodrow was saying, but more than his words, he was surprised by what he saw in the man’s eyes: kindness. Understanding. He truly cared about Mollie.

  “But at what cost, Woodrow?” Jason asked. “Come on … she’s a little nine-year-old girl, who’s already hardened … even cynical.”

  “And how would you have me handle that? Teach her how to slit a man’s throat, while encouraging her to feel really bad about doing so? No offense, sir, but isn’t that your job?”

  Jason didn’t answer. Didn’t know how to answer.

  Woodrow withdrew a solid-looking metal pipe from the top shelf of a cabinet. He gripped it and slapped it into his open palm several times. “We’re the end result of the events that occur in our lives, Captain. Made up of an accumulation of stuff … good stuff, bad stuff. My job, as I see it, is to keep more of the bad stuff from happening to her. If you want me to stop coaching her, no problem. There are others on this ship wanting my expertise. And I have my other duties.”

  Mollie and Teardrop entered the gym. Her expression quickly turned to one of alarm.

  “Dad! What are you doing here?”

  “Hello to you too, little one.”

  “I don’t like it when you call me that,” she said, glancing over to Woodrow as if a secret part of her had been revealed. A part she did not want her teacher to know about. “Can’t you just call me Boomer, like everyone else does?”

  Jason felt stung, reprimanded by the most important person in his life. He smiled and nodded, “I can do that, Boomer.”

  “Thank you. And you’ll have to leave now. This is a closed training.”

  “I’m leaving. Come right back to the cabin when you’re done. I need to talk to you. Do you understand?”

  She shrugged but didn’t say anything. Stretching, she looked at her father and then at the exit.

  “I’m going, I’m going.”

  * * *

  When she arrived back at the cabin, she was eating an ice cream cone.

  “You stopped off at the mess?”

  Mollie shrugged. “What was your first clue?”

  “Knock off the smart mouth. Throw it away and sit down next to me.”

  She hesitated, took several large licks, and did what she was told. She sat down at the far end of the couch while continuing to stare down at the floor, looking bored.

  “Is this how you want it to be? You want to push me away, make me angry? What?”

  She shrugged, as though indifferent, and started to rapidly tap her foot against the leg of the couch.

  “There’s not one person alive more important to me than you. There’s nobody I love more, or want to spend more time with. I would die for you a thousand times, Mollie. I am, and always will be, your biggest fan. So tell me why you are so hell-bent on hurting me right now?”

  Her eyes filled with tears and the tough, hard-seeming little girl transformed back into the Mollie he knew.

  “Why are you always leaving me? Where have you been for the last week?”

  “Well … You might not believe me if I told you.”

  “Why wouldn’t I believe you?”

  “Suppose I told you I was fighting dinosaurs in Montana, and cavemen in South Africa.”

  She stared at him with a sideways look that said stop kidding me.

  Jason then proceeded to tell Mollie about his past week and his encounters with different realms of time on Earth. Within two minutes she was sitting at her father’s side, listening to every word he spoke—interjecting comments, asking questions, prodding for more detail. By the time he finished she was smiling and exuberant. Eventually, she became quiet and rested her head against his shoulder.

  “Do I really have to call you Boomer?” he asked her.

  “No. But I do kind of like it.”

  “Listen. I have something to tell you, Boomer. It’ll be the real truth; I’m not kidding or making anything up here. Understand?”

  She looked up at him and nodded, her forehead scrunched into little lines of concern.

  “You know how I told you about the time realms on Earth? How, at the end of everything, Earth was locked into a time period several weeks in the past?”

  Mollie’s eyes went wide, her mouth fell open … “Oh my God … Oh my God!!! Please tell me she’s alive … please, please, please …” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she held her hands together, as if praying.

  Jason’s heart opened and melted. She looked at him impatiently, waiting for him to confirm the most miraculous possibility in the history of the world.

  “Yes, your mother’s alive.”

  The shriek that emanated from Mollie’s mouth was ear shattering. Tears flowed down her cheeks. She was up on her feet and strutting around the cabin “I don’t … Oh my … When … When can I see her? Can we go now? Please?”

  Jason laughed and nodded. But now for the tough part. “Very soon … tomorrow. Sit back down, okay? There’s more. Something else.”

  She sat back down, her expression showing deep concentration. She wanted to figure this out on her own, for some reason—find the last remaining puzzle piece. Her expression turned to something else. Was it concern? Or indignation? Then it changed again to something unexpected … was that curiosity?

  “Wait. If Mom’s still alive then there would be two of … me?”

  Jason didn’t know which emotion to express to her. Should he be sorry? Sorry she was no longer his only daughter? But apparently there was no need for concern.

  “Dad! She’ll be like a sister? I have a sister, right?”

  Jason nodded light-heartedly, but with guarded optimism—he was in totally uncharted territory. Hell, never had there been a conversation like the one they’d just held.

  “I’m the big sister. Since Mom and Mollie are living two weeks in the past, I’m older. Right?”

  “That makes sense. You would be the big sister. Are you okay with all this?”

  “I’m okay. It’s weird, but I’m okay. Now you’ll definitely have to call me Boomer. Two Mollies would be confusing. Do you think she’ll like me? I hope she’ll like me …”

  Chapter 5

  Later that day, Jason and the admiral entered Her Majesty’s bridge at the same time. Seeing the modified luxury liner’s helm only confirmed Jason’s doubts about the upcoming mission. The admiral turned and surveyed his surroundings, only to be startled by the hopper standing close by to his right.

  “Christ almighty! Make some noise or something, will you?” the admiral admonished.

  The hopper hissed, clicked and flicked its long black tongue, then brought its attention back to Brian, who was lying on the deck, half-buried under a console. Next to Brian was another pair of legs. No one else could be that skinny. Had to be Bristol, Jason thought.

  Brian brought his head out from under the console and looked up at Jason and his father.

  “Admiral. Captain. Welcome aboard Her Majesty.”

  The admiral put his hands on his hips and gestured for his son to stand up. Brian disappeared again and in a muffled voice said, “Don’t forget, we need to mirror this same modification to each of the other consoles.”

  Another muffled, higher-pitched voice replied, “You think? It was my idea to do this in the first place.”

  Brian pulled himself free of the console and stood. “Last minute mods. But let me assure you, she’s tiptop. We’ll be ready to shove off within the hour.”

  “Let’s talk about this mission,” the admiral said. “Jason’s been out of the loop, so why don’t we spend a few minutes reviewing the mission’s key objectives.”