Chapter 15

Larry, Rachel and Beth met in the employee cafeteria at 0415 on the morning of their first salvage expedition. They microwaved a quick frozen breakfast and carried it onto Lander to eat as they flew. While it wasn’t really necessary for any of them other than Larry to accompany Lander neither of the women wanted to miss the chance to not only go into space once again but to find and retrieve more technology.

Lander had fairly accurate orbit data for the larger pieces of the ship. As soon as they cleared atmosphere he headed for the largest section of the ship. Within thirty minutes of leaving the compound they had found and matched trajectories with the piece of ship they were searching for.

All three of the humans sat in the control room and watched the approach and matching of orbits on the forward view screen. Rachel sat and almost bounced with excitement as they came to rest relative to the section of the mother ship. She said, “My God. That thing was huge. Just this piece is as large as an aircraft carrier. How large did you say the ship was Lander?”

“It was as long as two of your largest aircraft carriers—2,210 of your feet or about 4/10 of a U.S. mile. Total internal volume would be equal of about eight of your aircraft carriers as it was 2210 feet long, 500 feet wide and 268 feet tall. At full complement there were 2,100 beings in the crew.”

“Over 2,000 crewmembers and they all died in the meteor shower? Are you absolutely positive of that Lander? How could so many die and yet have at least one piece of the ship the size of this one?”

“I do not believe they all died at once but yes, they are now all dead. I am positive of that. I have been unable to detect any life forms on the pieces of the ship I have scanned and there have been no attempts to communicate since the collision. Most, if not all of the crew died during the impact or shortly thereafter because of decompression. We had suits for many of the crew but, unfortunately, they are stored in locations away from where many of the crew were at the time of impact.”

“Why was that Lander? Surely you knew the meteors were coming in on a collision course. Why weren’t the crewmembers in suits in case of the impact?”

“I am afraid the captain relied on the shield protecting the ship and did not order the crew into protective suits. In retrospect, that was an error of monumental proportions and would have surely resulted in what you would call a court martial for dereliction of duty. No one could foresee the failure of the shields at the time of impact.”

“So some of the crew could have survived the impact? Why didn’t you try to rescue them Lander?”

“Several reasons, I’m afraid. For one, I was unable to take off because of damage for almost two of your weeks. For another, I was without a Commander and I cannot make any decision to move without specific orders to do so. I explained that to you before.”

Larry broke into the conversation. He said, “That is all water under the bridge now. Let’s get on with what we came up here for. How can we possibly salvage this huge chunk of the ship? Do you have the power to take it back to earth like you did the small piece of shuttle you salvaged before? If we get it back home, how will we ever keep it secret? That thing is much too large to hide at the campus.”

“No, Larry. I cannot move this piece of the ship alone as I could the smaller shuttle. If we can get it down to your compound, however, I can make it invisible to detection by any surveillance method your planet has with the exception of straight vision. I can even mask it slightly for vision by covering the ship with a hologram to make it look like an earth building. The problem with that is if someone comes into the compound and walks up to the hologram they can then see the ship piece. Also, it would not be logical to believe a building the size this one would have to be could be built overnight. I suggest we enter this section and remove some more important items for us to take home this trip and begin slowly working up a holographic building of a size to hide the ship when we do bring this section back to earth.”

“If you can’t move this section how do you propose to ever bring it back to earth Lander? And what do you expect to find inside now that we should salvage?”

“This section should contain at least a half dozen small craft of various sizes. I am sure at least a few of them are operable. I propose to fill them and the unused space within myself with equipment that will be beneficial to your settlement on earth. There should also be at least two larger reactors within the hull that we can bring back online. I propose to use the repair ‘bots from this section of ship to repair the AG Drive and hook it to the reactors for power. The ship will be unwieldy and not airtight but should be able to navigate back to earth and land at your compound after repairs are completed. Then we can strip all useable items from it and utilize the metals and other recyclable parts. This was the rearmost portion of the ship and also contains the Star Drive. If we can determine what went wrong with it and the AG Drive we might be able to, as you say, cobble together a smaller ship capable of returning to my home port.”

“I like the idea of salvage and like the idea of building a FTL ship even more but I do not like the idea of returning to your home port. What would they do about the technology we have been using and that we hope to use in the future? Wouldn’t they try to take the ship back and curtail our use of your superior technology?”

“Yes Larry I am sure they would. Of course, they can do nothing about the technology you have already disseminated to your world. I am sure they would remove as much of our tech base as possible however.”

“Well, right now at least, I don’t want that to happen. I want us to build a ship if we can but under no circumstances will we return to your base with it.”

“But Larry, we have to do so. Our orders were to observe this and eleven other developing planets and report back to base with our findings.”

“I understand that, however, you, or rather your prior Captain and crew failed in that mission. They are all dead. I salvaged you and assisted in your repair then we began salvage operations on the mother ship. You have said under your laws I now own the items we salvage as well as you. I refuse to relinquish my property to your prior civilization or mine.”

“Yes Captain.”

For the next two days Larry and one of the women moved around in the derelict as the small repair ‘bots removed some items and loaded Lander or one of the five small shuttles that were still operable. In compliance with Lander’s orders, each of the AI’s accepted Larry as their owner and Captain after they were salvaged. Larry then appointed Rachel and Beth as the Commander of the two largest ones to the women’s delight. The AI’s treated Larry as the overall Commander of the expedition much as an earth bound Aircraft Carrier Captain. The women were more on the order of a pilot of the smaller aircraft attached to the carrier.

Finally all the available space in the shuttles and Lander were filled with items Lander thought would be beneficial immediately. Of course, many items were left because of limited space in the small craft. The repair ‘bots were given the task of readying the large piece of the mother ship for return to earth and eventual landing in Larry’s compound. Lander and the five smaller shuttles returned to earth to await completion of the repairs to the large piece of the mother ship.

When Larry returned with five more shuttles and six loads of alien technology his employees went into an excited tizzy. They jumped at the chance to unload and begin learning about the new technology. Within days the technology was being used within the compound to make life easier for those now living there. They even had several more small ‘bots to use for more mundane tasks.

Lander and the other five shuttles began making trips into space and to other places on earth to bring back items needed for the continued growth of Larry’s compound. There were always at least two or three flights a day coming and going. None of the flights were ever detected by electronic surveillance or the mark I eyeball of the military now surrounding the compound.

It seemed as if almost the entire workday for Larry was taken up dealing with either news media or government demands and threats. One day after a particularly vehement conversation with the General commanding the siege troops (as that is what Larry and the group inside the compound called them) and a gaggle of people from several other Federal Agencies Larry pushed his chair back and stood with an oath. He grabbed his hat and detoured through the dining facility to pick up his late lunch and a six-pack of his favorite beer. He walked angrily down the path to his favorite spot beside the millpond he repaired not so long ago. He still found solace there and could relax from the pressures of dealing with the assholes from Washington as well as his other daily pressures.

He had been there almost an hour when Rachel found him. She first called Beth on her communicator and said, “I found him Beth. He was where we thought he would be. Grab another six-pack and come on down. He only has two left and I’m taking one of them.”

Larry looked at Rachel and sighed. “I’m almost sorry I found Lander. I’m sick of dealing with those assholes. I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s what we want to talk to you about Larry. We all agree something needs to be done. You and Lander are taking care of the ISIS, Taliban and Al Qaeda assholes fine. Almost every day there is another news item listing the death of one of the major commanders in one of the organizations. I can’t believe they still seem to think the deaths are a result of internal conflict or the host nation getting lucky and finding one of them. Now we think it is time to take care of the local problems.”

“Rachel, I can’t just begin killing our leaders! So far they haven’t done anything to me, to us. We are holding them off just fine. I’m just sick of dealing with them. I’m thinking about just ignoring them from now on.”

Beth wandered up with the new beer and some salty snacks. She pulled another chair up near the other two and took another swig of her half empty beer. Before either of the others could say anything else Beth said, “That’s not a bad idea Larry but we think you might even want to go a step or two farther. We have a little over 250 people here now including families of your employees. We’re a small town and have some of the same needs and problems of a small town. We are doing fine educating the children. In fact, we are doing better than fine. The children are soaking up knowledge like a sponge thanks to Lander’s teaching and their excitement about learning so they can be spacemen.

“We need to find something for all the spouses and significant others to do. Some of them are helping their spouse, others are working in some other position here but there are still some who just sit around all day bored. I suggest we open the training to them also and when they find what they want to do, train them for that and give them a job also. We need every occupation a normal town would have. The security team functions fine as a police force but we need street cleaner’s, refuse workers, builders and so forth.”