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

repair her?"  
    " You’ll be getting one gunnery junk and a single UNS destroyer for cover, the Duer . She’s got four tubes and a dozen warspites on board."  
    "I ’d feel better if w-"  
    Cozen cut her off. "If we slow down and stay while you work on Tipperary , then we won’t be able to rendezvous with Admiral Ming’s task force in time to reinforce him as planned. Neither we nor Ming have the firepower to make the drive through the defenses in the Squidies home systems alone."  
    " You’re gambling, Mr. Cozen. If you think we can repair that ship with what we’ve got, you should know that bet is a real longshot."  
    " That’s right. It's a gamble, Horcheese. I’m betting on you and your redsuits. And I know what I’m asking. Board Tipperary . Repair my breaching ship. Bring her to me, Chief."  
    "If we’re successful," Burn said, "How are we supposed to catch up with the battlegroup and the convoy?"
    " You can’t. But if that ship can breach space, then I want you to transit from here and rendezvous with us at Mizar. We’ll be snaking a course through that sector to disguise our intentions and draw the enemy away before we will double back on our way to rendezvous with Admiral Ming at Beta Tauri. By the time we steam through Mizar the second time, it should be thinly defended. Your orders are to open the Algol-Mizar transit and rejoin the convoy as we traverse that system in 22 hours time."  
    " What if she can’t be repaired?"  
    " If she can’t breach space, then you power up her reactors and her gravity and you tuck her safely down in the atmo of the second planet, where the Squidies hid their task force before the last assault. A convoy might risk passage through Algol in two days to reinforce us. Lay low until then if she won’t breach space, but I can’t stress strongly enough how much we need that ship."  
    " I’m going to the cockpit," Burn said. "Thanks for the suicide mission, Harry."  
    Tig didn't think anyone called him Harry. If she was out of line, Cozen only grunted as she walked away. Then, Tig flashed with mild alarm when the old man nodded his chin in Tig’s direction and pointed him out to Chief Horcheese who now turned to see him standing there for the first time. He wished he could walk away, but his feet wouldn't move.
    " What is it, cherry?"  
    " You’re going to repair Tipperary ," Tig said. His voice sounded too excited and made him want to wince. "You have to take me with you."  
    She didn’t look amused. "Why would I do that? You’re three days out of training."
    He said, "You don’t have anybody with experience on these systems. Nobody on any of the crews has worked on those before, I mean. If you’re talking about making something work and you don’t know exactly what it is, then I’m your guy. Unconventional rigs are my specialty. Now, I've never been on a breaching ship, but I know 90% of the parts its made of backwards and forwards because they’re on other hulls. If it flies, I’ve ripped it, stripped it, modded it, and sold it."
    " You talk like a docks chopper," Horcheese said. "Rip it, strip it, sell it."  
    " I’m no hack job. I mostly worked on record breaking custom rigs for, ya’ know, anonymous buyers. I’m from Staten Island City, Space City USA."  
    " Cherries stay in the bay, slick," she said, "Where’s your supervising 03 at?" Cozen winked at him then. Once Tig accepted that it wasn’t some hallucination, it seemed like Harry Cozen was actually goading him on, encouraging him to push his luck. What Tig was about to say would probably have him scrubbing glow-pecker latrines for a very long time. But he said it.  
    " Chief Horcheese, you’ve got me in a bay shadowing F-151 and QF-111 maintenance with Raleigh. That’s a waste. I can fix 151s and 111s blindfolded. I can do a lot more than that. Way more. I can make anything run and if it runs, I can make it run faster ."  
    "Just today, Raleigh said you’re the shiniest cherry