Read Online Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework by Randolph Lalonde - Free Book Online Page B

“The next time Skydock comes
under attack, it’ll be from long range. There won’t be anything we
can do about it except get killed in the crossfire.”
    “That’s what I’d do if I were the Order,”
Slick said. “Or they’ll avoid the base until they could come at it
from planet side, from behind. Either way, we won’t be any use to
them patrolling these sectors.”
    “Exactly,” Minh-Chu said. “So, we launch and
return to our own slips, take the lower rate of pay.”
    “Commander McPatrick won’t like it, that’s a
big hit and a lot of busy work on the ground.”
    “Don’t worry about Oz, I’ll talk to him,”
Minh-Chu said. The elevator arrived and they stepped inside. There
were two maintenance workers within. They looked and smelled like
they had just finished crawling through a sewer line.
    Minh-Chu did his best not to retch as the
fragrance made itself at home in his mouth and nose before he had a
chance to seal the hood of his vacsuit.
    “I’m just finding it hard to swallow that
we’re going to war on a galactic scale,” Slick said.
    “Knowing much of the history myself, I can’t
see how it can be prevented. I only hope it’s short,” Minh-Chu
said.
    “Any words of comfort, Confucius?” asked
Slick.
    Minh-Chu chuckled then sighed. “About war?
Nothing comforting.”
    “But something,” Slick pressed.
    “Something.”
    “So?”
    “You don’t want to hear it,” Minh-Chu
said.
    Slick nodded and let the silence grow as
thick as the smell. The man knew Minh-Chu too well. He couldn’t
keep the thought he tried to keep from airing to himself after
being called to share. Not for more than a few minutes, anyway.
“War calls many, and rewards few.”
    The doors opened, and Slick said, “You’re
right, that’s no comfort at all.”

Chapter 8
Enforcer 1109
    There was no supervision by the Carthan
government aboard Enforcer 1109 as the ship was pillaged for
essential components. There was no need. The second most
frustrating thing to Jake about the operation was that they were
incapable of taking many of the larger, more important systems from
the ship and installing them into their settlement below.
    The most frustrating thing was that he had
to spend several days as a normal worker, unable to issue commands
or directions to other crewmembers while he was mixing in aboard.
The effort to hide amongst the crew was working; no one had been
attacked in all the weeks since they landed on Tamber, but it was
getting harder by the day.
    The half-lit, hundreds of meters long main
hangar was busy. Over half of the available manpower from their
settlement was working there, and Jake had been watching, making
sure that there were no surveillance devices or crewmembers he
couldn’t account for. Someone was dragging half a self-contained
shield generator, trailing cables behind and letting one end scrape
along the deck. Before he could jump to their aid, another
crewmember picked up the rear end.
    “Going to chance it today, Captain?” Frost
asked over a secure proximity radio channel.
    Jake finished loading a crate aboard one of
the Enforcer’s nine armoured shuttles and descended the embarkation
ramp. “The crew's slowing down, getting sloppier - it might be a
good time.”
    “Ayan will have your head if she finds out,
though,” Frost replied. “And she will find out.”
    Frost was in a loader suit,
undistinguishable from the other suits they had operating on the
massive hangar. The software in the machine was set to correct for
his limp so it was the only way he could reasonably hide.
    They managed to get two emergency generators
running aboard the Command Enforcer 1109, but it wasn’t enough to
make it useful. However, it was more than they needed for the five
weeks they would spend stripping the vessel of much needed
machinery, essential comforts, personal weaponry, and housing.
There was enough portable living space for three thousand.
    There were also intact ships – fighters,