Airlock

By Roy Hayward

James Grey and his AI companion Jeeves take a salvage contract. This should just be another routine assignment to survey and tag items with value. When they get to the salvage, they encounter something alive in the salvage. Soon there is a struggle for survival.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roy Hayward
• Release date: Mar 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370813667

Roy Hayward

Roy Hayward loves to read. He spent much of his years growing up holed up in well lit corners of libraries reading all of the fiction that he could find. There were many times that one librarian or another would recommend a book, and Roy would have already read it. As a result he decided that he would be a writer at a young age.Roy graduated from high school in Fairfield, Iowa. He served two years as a missionary in Seoul Korea. He attended college at Rick College in Rexburg, Idaho, and then the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. Started out studying Chemistry, but switched majors to Political Science.After college, he got a job and discovered that he was more interested in the computers he used than the job he used them to do. A year after college he was working doing tech support for a printer company. He bounced from job to job working his way up in skills and position. He is now a programmer managing a team of Web Developers.In Rexburg, he met his wife Beth. After stealing her away from his roommate, they were married in the Idaho Falls Temple and began their life-long adventure. They had seven children of their own and then became foster parents. As of this writing they have adopted five children from foster care and are still fostering children.Through all of these adventures, Roy has continued to read, and to write. And to share his love of good books with others; his friends, his family, and random people on the internet.

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AIRLOCK

rhayward

Copyright © 2018 rhayward

All rights reserved.

This story is dedicated to all of the young readers looking for books to bring them joy.

Login Accepted. Welcome back James Grey. Grey removed his hand from the palm reader and began tapping through the menus on the terminal to reach the salvage jobs he had the credits for.  From time to time the female voice of Sara, the stations A.I. would prompt him with updates and information.

    Bidding on salvage jobs was a competition that didn't always pay off. Reading the job details was helpful in making sure you bought profitable jobs.  But good jobs didn't last long, so the best ones always seemed to be taken before Grey could read the details.

    The list kept getting shorter as Grey tried to find a good opportunity. A new job popped onto the list. Grey read, Alien, Wreckage, Salvage Class One. And he punched the Buy Job button. Then he waited. Congratulations, you have purchased a new salvage claim. And Sara transmitted the details to his account.

    The clock on his claim had started and the sooner he got there to tag some valuable material and tech, the sooner he could get his credit balance back onto the positive, and begin affording better class of jobs than salvage runs all the time.

    Salvage jobs were always needed, but they mostly just broke even on the cost to profit equation for independent operators like Grey. Salvage helped find and recover materials and technology needed to keep the human empire of expansion growing. But they weren’t the best paying jobs available.

    Grey went straight to the launch deck and launched the scout craft that was part the salvage contract into formation around the station. "Station Administration Regional Authority, this is James Grey requesting jump clearance.

    Stand by And Grey waited. As he waited he began to daydream of what treasures he might find in the remains of an alien crash site. Finding a forgotten or lost treasure was also one of the things that kept experienced men coming back to do salvage jobs as well. It was an addiction that had to be balanced against the realities of business economics.

    Grey, the advance probes have given the 'All Clear' for you to work this claim.  You will be out of communication for 36 hrs before the salvage cargo ship arrives. So whatever you do, don't damage the scout ship. The voice from Sara said over the communicator jarring him from his thoughts.

    Understood and acknowledged. Grey looked down at the destination transcript. Then he pushed back into the inertial field so that he was ready for the next order.  

    Grey, you are cleared to jump.  

    Grey acknowledged, Jumping in three, two, one. Jump. On the command to jump, his scout ship winked out of space-time from its position in formation with the IGSF and at the same moment winked into space-time in a solar system within 350 light years of the location he had previously been.

    Grey checked the coordinates.  Activate AI.  

    Jeeves, at your service.

    "Okay Jeeves, I need a course plotted to orbit the fourth planet and the