McCambrie's Army

By Kalifer Deil

McCambrie Corporation had a monopoly on off Earth mining of vital materials. Their armed space force dwarfed that of the UN so they where almost impervious to Earth law. U.S. President Thorton wanted to rein in MacC as it was called. Her spy, John Crowley, had a rough start but soon fell in with Barbara Makowitz who seem to have a penchant for sex, murder and mayhem.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kalifer Deil
• Release date: Oct 27, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452316802

Kalifer Deil

Kalifer Deil is the pen name of Gary Feierbach a Silicon Valley computer software and hardware engineer. His technical publications are under Gary Feierbach. All others are under Kalifer Deil. He has a BA in Physics and Mathematics and an MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.He has worked on computer architecture, design, engineering management, and systems and application software for NASA, Intergraph, Sun and Apple.He has only recently devoted most of his time to writing. Most of his works would be classified as hard science fiction. Hopefully it is in the spirit of Issac Asimov but generally a bit more gritty and less inhibited. Please visit his website http://www.kaliferdeil.com for some free stories, poems and other oddities or go to http://www.speculativescience.com for more information

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McCambrie’s Army

By Kalifer Deil

Published by Speculative Sciences Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Kalifer Deil

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold of given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The characters and their portrayal are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

Second Edition, Revised 9/20/2012

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Table of Contents

Life on Phobos

The First Step

The Hindi Connection

Europa

Io

Hotel Noctis

Amanda

Acidalia

The Suit

Mr. Kurtzburg

Reunion

Back to Noctis

The City Of Noctis

Breakfast with Barb

The Trip

MetroLuna

The Interviews

The Clone

Violent Resolution

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Life on Phobos

John Crowley was a pot licker for McCambrie Corporation. That’s the pejorative for those who clean out the radioactive storage kegs and prep them for reuse. McCambrie Corporation, MacC, was not too concerned with the health and welfare of its workers. When high fines were levied against MacC by the World Health Organization they just moved their operations off planet.

MacC had a well-armed space fleet twice as strong as the UN fleet. That combined with the usual UN indecision meant MacC could continue operations unfettered. Interrupting supplies of these rare elements and isotopes was not at all popular with Earth based corporations who depended on them. This empowered MacC with a strong hands-off lobby.

US President Carol Thorton had a different idea and took it upon herself to bring down MacC. John Crowley was her undercover man on Mars, well Phobos, he hadn’t quite made it to Mars. John knew, if he didn’t get out of his present dead-end job, he was going to die of radiation poisoning. At the moment survival was more important than the mission.

Jake Krabbits, his supervisor, was an SOB of the first order and carried a meter-long metal club with him at all times. He was fond of poking people with the club and inflicting pain. Those who fought back, there weren’t many, had an unusually short life span. John noticed that Jake’s superiors didn’t like Jake much either; he should be able to exploit this somehow.

Recently, another Corporation, or gang would be a better term, broke off from MacC to compete in this lucrative market. This outfit, Highway L Corporation, nicknamed MacHell by the public, had infiltrated and sabotaged many of MacC’s operations killing many. The head of MacHell was a Colonel Jam Black, he was a colonel in MacC’s private army before breaking away. John’s recollection of this gave him an Idea.

The first step

John had been on Phobos for only three weeks but it already seemed like three years. His state-of-the-art miniature BTC (Bell’s Theorem Communicator) allowed him to keep in touch with President Thorton with no speed-of-light delay. This helped keep him sane in this crazed place but now he would have to sacrifice this and risk total loss of contact.

Bac! Bac Torr! I, I must talk to you! John feigned a stammer. Bac Torr was the district mining manager.

Jake wheeled around with his club in hand, Don’t bother Mister Torr! Mister! Get it! He jabbed John in the stomach with the club to make his point. Whadda YOU want with him?

After John caught his wind, he noticed he had caught Bac Torr’s attention. Mister Torr! I must talk to you! It’s about Jake and Jam!

Jake raised his club and came down with intent to kill on the back of John’s skull. John expected this and was able to move with the blow and merely get a light skull fracture. Better than dying of radiation poisoning.

John awoke in a hospital on Mars two hours later and Bac was by his bedside with a couple of other important looking people. What were you going to tell me? John feigned fear, easy under the circumstances and looked around as if to try to find Jake. Don’t worry, Jake is in custody at the moment and can’t hurt you!

Well, I saw him talking to this little thing about the size of a pencil erasure. I could see him from the worker dorm portal in his pod through his portal. I don’t know what he was talking about since he was turned away most of the time but for a short period he turned in my direction and he addressed the person he was talking to as Colonel Jam. I heard about a Colonel Jam before coming here and thought you ought to know. It may be nothing.

You must be lying because sound doesn’t carry in a vacuum!, The voice came from a stout greasy looking fellow behind Bac.

Oh! I guess you don’t realize, ... I, I can read lips. My sister was deaf and dumb and I went to lip reading and signing school with her to keep her company and be her translator. I have a natural ability learning languages in general, I know six fairly well but no one seems to care about my ability, perhaps it’s because I ... I’m not too smart in other areas. I’m terrible with numbers.

If you’re right, I think we can find something for you to do that will be mutually beneficial. With no parting words, Bac and his entourage turned and left.

John head hurt intensely but he thought his misery on Phobos a good trade for a headache. Moreover, he knew the headache would be temporary. He had hidden the communicator in Jake’s living pod while he was in the galley. He had to hide it in a place where Jake wouldn’t find it but where a thorough search would turn it up. He put it in a box of Kleiss Flakeless Crackers under the plastic liner.

A day later John was getting nervous. He had heard nothing. Did they find it? Would they tell him anything? If they didn’t find it, what would happen to him? He had images of someone coming in the middle of the night and dispatching him to oblivion.

Two days later Bac came back with a new group of people he hadn’t seen before. Is this the device you saw? He held up the tiny communicator.

I, I think so. It is the right size

How did he hold it?

Like this! He held up his right