Junker's Moon: Blood of War

By Peter Salisbury

The Junker's Moon long range scanner picks up a ship flying under a notorious tag of convenience. The Lancer, owned by Captain Jack Hacket, lands with only fumes to run on and five hundred refugees on board, twice its registered capacity. When they leave the ship, Hacket's mercenaries enclose the refugees in a stockade and Junker's Moon finds it no surprise that Hacket is wanted for trafficking. When two ships carrying Hacket's associates show up inbound at high speed, Marshall is certain that his problems are about to multiply.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Salisbury
• Release date: Apr 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311307927

Peter Salisbury

I am a life-long fan of science fiction, and so when I had an idea for my first story, I wasn't surprised that it was in that genre. The first book took me ten years to complete, but I've got a little quicker since. I am pleased to say that I now have over thirty books published in my name. What next? So far I haven't run short of ideas for new stories, so there are several projects in various stages of completion, and I hope to be publishing the next story before too long, so please subscribe to my alerts. My profile picture is a portrait of the author as a young man, painted by my daughter Charlotte Salisbury who has also contributed to several of my book covers. Professional background In the 1970s I studied Chemistry at university and then spent over thirty years in classrooms across England teaching almost anything but Chemistry, including Photography, Communications Skills, General Science, Computing, and Information and Communications Technology. In the 1990s I spent ten years writing abstracts of chemical patents. This was a most exacting process but very rewarding to be reading about the very latest inventions in the field, and the abstracts were distributed world-wide to research scientists by subscription. Articles of mine have been published in magazines and I have written assignments used for assessing Communications Skills for a major international Examination Board. After retiring early this century I began writing in earnest.

Book preview

Junker's Moon: Blood of War

Copyright Peter Salisbury March 2015

Junker's Moon: Blood of War

Smashwords Edition 2015 March 08

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person or place is entirely coincidental. No part of this work may be distributed, printed, reprinted or copied by any means without the permission of the author.

Introduction

The long range scanner at Junker's Moon Scrap, Salvage and Maintenance Company picks up a ship flying under a notorious tag of convenience. The Lancer, owned by Captain Jack Hacket, lands with only fumes to run on and five hundred refugees on board, twice its registered capacity. When they leave the ship, Hacket's mercenaries enclose the refugees in a stockade. Marshall later learns that Hacket is wanted by the authorities for human trafficking. When two ships carrying Hacket's associates show up inbound at high speed, Marshall is certain that his problems are about to multiply.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: A Strange Request

Chapter 2: The Proposition

Chapter 3: A Tag Of Convenience

Chapter 4: The Message

Chapter 5: Imposter

Chapter 6: The List

Chapter 7: Breakout

Chapter 8: Victor And The Ape

Chapter 9: Summary Justice

Chapter 10: Witnesses

Chapter 11: Defence

Chapter 12: Verdict

Personnel

Previously on Junker's Moon

Introduction to Junker's Moon

More books by Peter Salisbury

Chapter 1: A Strange Request

To receive advance warning that Inspector Vanessa Robin was soon to descend on the Junker's Moon Scrap, Salvage and Maintenance Company made a pleasant change for Marshall Brion. The reason that the rogue employee of the Federal Bureau of Interstellar Space should undertake such a lengthy journey was not, however, explained.

'What's it about this time?' Debbi asked when Marshall had gathered his executive team into his office to break the news.

'That's the one thing she left out,' Marshall said, frowning deeply. 'But does she ever bring good news?'

'I shall never forget the first time she came here when she was the one intent on killing you Marshall,' Marianne said.

'I shall probably never forget that particular one, either,' Marshall said dryly.

'Sorry, Marshall, but Vanessa Robin, pirates, murder and robbery do seem to have a nasty habit of coinciding, one way or another.'

'Four times out of five,' Marshall said.

'And yet crises always come unannounced, in my experience,' Judith countered.

Despite the potential for Vanessa's message being a cryptic warning of some sort of danger, Marianne was still in a frivolous mood. 'Not the last time, when her deceased husband, Dirk Knight, sent his cousin and his cut-throat buddies here through his will. She gave us advance warning of that one.'

'Well, OK, usually unannounced, then,' Judith said in an impatient tone. 'Marshall isn't this rather a pointless discussion? When is she due to arrive?'

'We have around two weeks, but like I say, no word on why she has to come here.'

'It's a long way to come all the way from that base of hers on Lethe. There has to be something important,' Marianne said with a shrug. 'But it definitely doesn't sound like a crisis.'

'Those are also my assumptions,' Marshall said. 'If something bad was about to happen, she'd be here already, or there'd be pirates showing up inbound on the scanner. As you can see, it's clear.'

'Plenty of time for that to happen,' Judith said.

'Exactly. I don't like the sound of it at all,' Debbi said. 'It can't hurt to be prepared, can it Marshall?'

'I have no doubt that's what she'd expect, and it may even be her purpose of informing us in advance.'

Debbi refused to take the situation lightly. 'Just because she's not due for two weeks, doesn't mean we shouldn't get set up asap.'

'I'll initiate the weapons platforms on the Medallion and do any tweaking necessary on the targeting arrays,' Judith said. 'It doesn't have the fire power to knock out a ship the size of Vanessa's Bruiser but it will cope with anything else we've had to defend ourselves against so far.'

'I'll set up a coms laser in the second tug, the one with stealth mode, so it'll be ready to inject the control virus if we need to disable more than one ship.'

By the time Vanessa's ship bearing a FBIS tag appeared on Marshall's long range scanner, he believed that he had the Cymbeline system surrounded with enough defensive capability to deal with anything unpleasant. The planet, host to the Junker's Moon workshops, was indeed worthy of protection. It had been frequented over the years by a great many captains of prospecting ships and miners of rare minerals who relied upon it for high quality workmanship. An enclave of farmers kept the base amply supplied with foodstuffs and raw ingredients which were used to feed the many engineers and techs who worked on the ships which dropped by for repairs, maintenance, and calibration.

Two days later, when Marshall had expected Vanessa's Bruiser class ship, the Guardian, to squeeze its bulk out of the hyperspace pipe, a sleek FBIS cruiser appeared in the image from Marshall's orbital telescope. If he had bothered to check earlier, he would have observed that she was not travelling in her usual ship, but he had taken note of her name prominently displayed on its FBIS registration tag and ignored the rest of the information. The cruiser hove to at the holding station, and Vanessa greeted Marshall via the com in an unhurried manner.

'I notice that you've got the welcoming committee out for me, Marshall. Your DDT is at the ready I see, and that wavy patch of stars ahead will be where the Medallion is trying to hide itself in stealth mode.'

Vanessa appeared not to have detected the second tug concealed in stealth mode, and Marshall wasn't about to point it out. 'I thought the idea of forewarning me was to give us time to make arrangements to defend ourselves. FBIS only come our way when there's trouble brewing.'

'Not so on this occasion, which I have to add, is not wholly on Febis business. In fact I have a couple of favours to ask.'

'Then you had better land and we'll discuss your requirements over lunch with my executive team.'

'That sounds most agreeable, Marshall. I'll be there within the hour.'

Marshall watched the shiny, sleek black lines of Vanessa's cruiser descend smoothly onto the landing field and settle on its hydraulic landing gear. He called his team and asked them to meet him out on the field. Melanie completed the engine shut down sequence and powered the ship into standby mode in time for Marshall to meet Vanessa and Melanie at the foot of the ramp outside their main airlock.

'Good morning, Marshall, Deborah, Judith, Marianne,' Vanessa said.

Melanie dipped her head in greeting.

'You're very welcome, I'm sure,' Marshall said. He turned towards the depot, saying, 'Shall we go inside?' and the party began to move off.

'I imagine you're curious as to the nature of my visit.'

'Indeed we are.'

'You will see in a moment that there are good reasons for not having explained by any means other than in person.'

Marshall smiled. 'Well, now that you're here...'

'The cruiser has been given to me by Head Office.'

'And you suspect their motives?'

'Yes, precisely. So I can't use it without a number of risks which I have not as yet identified. But also, I cannot simply sell it or 'lose' it.'

'And so placing it with me at Junker's Moon would help in what way?'

'If any questions were asked, I can say that it is here as part