COMBAT SALVAGE 2165 by A.D. Bloom Read Free Book Online

railing, and out of the mover. She fell a meter onto the smooth track with her helmet bouncing beside her. He looked back once more to see if she was okay and she gave him the finger.
    With Launch Bay 3’s doors closed there wasn’t much extra space for the modified 50-meter junk, Audacity . Her name was painted on the orange and white striped cockpit module that jutted out the bow, offset on the starboard side of the tensegrity frame onto which everything aboard a Staas Company junk was mounted. That frame was one, big hard-point for modules or ordnance.  
    Audacity had been configured for salvage ops. They’d swapped out the gunnery module slung under the frame for what looked like an expanded armored personnel and gear compartment. Tig thought they’d redesigned the landing gear until he realized what were folded up under the main module weren’t feet. They were long, metal, almost insectile arms with which to grip - four of them. Tig had seen junks with this rig at Sagan get pressed into service when there just weren’t enough real tugboats to service the haulers and barges.  
    A fat, reinforced and arching spine protruded on top where the arms for the jumbo maneuvering thruster nacelles had been mounted. They rotated fore and aft as the redsuit crew assigned to do the pre-flight checked them out like every other system.
    The one turret that remained on top swiveled with a whine, faintly audible behind the chatter and clanking in the bay. Tig looked for Horcheese. He saw salty red suits everywhere in that bay, but none of them was her.
    He found her at the aft of the boat, squeezed between the main engines, talking to Harry Cozen and a pilot in a black exosuit without markings...no rank...no insignia. The bug-eyed flight helmet under her arm said Burn over the visor. While a crew led service carts past them, Tig waited, not much more than five meters off, trying to stay out of the way against the bulkhead and not look like he was listening.  
    Horcheese couldn’t see him, but Harry Cozen could. He glanced at Tig once or twice. Looking back at the old man was uncomfortable, like staring down a needle close too your eye. Cozen didn’t lower his voice when he saw Tig, not even when it was obvious that he was, indeed, listening.
    Cozen said, "Burn will be the officer in charge. She holds the rank of Commander in the Staas Privateers."
    " You’re a fighter pilot," the Chief said. "You run the flight school."  
    "Ancient history . Now, I just fly. And today," she said, "I’m flying your junk."  
    " I’m going to tell you both flat out," Cozen said. "We don’t know how bad the damage to Tipperary is. The ship and her crew don’t respond. We don’t even know if they’re alive."  
    Horcheese said, "You know that none of us redsuits have ever worked on one of those ships. The full specs of the breaching ships are classified." Cozen nodded like he knew that. "It’s no great secret those particle emitters are reverse-engineered alien tech and our experts barely get it. I know you want to hear optimism, Mr. Cozen, but there's a better than even chance that breaching ship is down for the count. Tipperary is probably beyond repair without replacing half her critical systems. That wasn't meant to be done in the field."  
    " It gets better," Cozen said. "You won’t be able to requisition replacement parts because the spare parts for the breaching ships were all on board Luxor when the Squidies blew her up." Horcheese looked at Cozen then with her eyebrows raised so high that Tig could almost hear her incredulity. Cozen said, " We need that beaching ship operational, Chief. The battlegroup only has one left and we’re a long way from our rendezvous with Admiral Ming. If we lose our last breaching ship, then we’ll be stuck in whatever star system we’re in when it happens. The offensive will be over and there won't be much to stop Squidy from flooding into Sol from Sirius."  
    " Why can’t you cover us while we