Read Online The Santana Nexus (Junkyard Dogs Book 3) by Phillip Nolte - Free Book Online

a professional diplomat.
    " Thank you, Excellency." Kingston turned to Kresge. "What sort of assets do we have here in the Reclamation Center?" she asked.
    " I suppose it could be worse," said Kresge, "As far as military spacecraft we have the two ships that you came with and we have the Perseus , which was damaged in the battle with the Sheik's forces. There is also this ship, the Istanbul , but she's kind of a special case. For civilian craft we have two mining ships, the Donegal and the Glendaloch , and three freighters, the City of Darwin , the Dingo and the Greyhound ."
    "Can we fight?"
    "Not without some significant repair work," replied Kresge. "The Perseus has lost her forward battery, the Istanbul is a heavy cruiser converted to a diplomatic ship and has no weapons. Neither do the City of Darwin or the Dingo . The mining ships have their excavation lasers but you have to be right up close to your target for them to be effective. The Greyhound has been outfitted with a Bofors rapid-fire turret and her power plant and drive systems have also been upgraded with components from a Succession War destroyer. She's a stout old ship, and she's done well in combat but..." He took a moment to look back and forth at his Scrapyard comrades, "... I'd be a fool if I didn't add that we've been lucky, so far."
    "You fought off an attack by three enemy destroyers and several support ships with THAT?!"
    "Not quite, Admiral. Don't forget we have the entire inventory of this gigantic scrapyard to work with. We used the Istanbul to charge up the some of the main battery weapons on six of the wrecked cruisers. Took the enemy by surprise. The Perseus was actually one of the enemy ships, we took out her front turret with a coordinated attack and that precipitated a...change of leadership on board."
    "A mutiny?"
    "If that's what you call it when the crew takes back their ship after the command staff has defected to an illegitimate government. Well over half of the crew hadn't approved of the defection in the first place. When they got a chance they acted."
    "Remarkable," was all the Admiral could say.
    "Yeah, I don't know how things would have turned out if that ship hadn't surrendered. The rest of the attackers began retreating soon afterwards. Just to finish up, we also have several cutters and two utility sleds." Kresge paused for a moment before redirecting the discussion. "What about your forces, Admiral?"
    " The Asimov has some minor damage where we nicked the shuttle bay door with the cutter during our escape from the Nexus," said Kingston, "but, as you can see, some of the higher ranking officers assigned to her were not able to get back onboard ship before we were forced to get out of there. As a result, the Asimov's command staff is somewhat...," she stopped to search for a word that wasn't too derogatory and came up with, "...inexperienced." She took a deep breath and sighed before continuing, "I don't think the Xerxes is going to do much more fighting, Commander. It might be best if we just parked her right here in your Scrapyard, it's kind of where she belongs."
    "She 's the same class of ship as the Perseus ," said Kresge, "and it appears that her front battery is intact. Perhaps we could use parts from the Xerxes to repair the Perseus, bring her back to fully functional?"
    "That would be up to the Meridian authorities ," said Kingston. "What do you think, Mr. Ambassador?"
    "I say proceed with the repairs! We need all of the warships we can get right now!"
    "We'll get to work on it right away," said Kresge.
    "Thank you all for the updates," said Kingston. She paused a moment for effect. "Now I have to tell you about some other recent developments. As some of you know, the Asimov is outfitted with a Stage II communicator. We spoke to Federation Central Command back on Earth just before we came over for this conference."
    "When can we expect reinforcements from Earth?" asked the Ambassador.
    Kingston took a deep breath and let it