Tinkerer Ship

By Terry Compton

Kita, an ex-president of the Charter Alliance, looked at the spread sheet sitting on her view screen. She had a tinkerer ship ready to make parts with plenty of orders pouring in, only the crew knew next to nothing about any of this.
Then came the four young boys who owned three more of those tinkerer ships with their green crews to her rescue. The names of those ships, Galactic Chaos, Galactic Mayhem and Galactic Bedlam gave Kita her clue about what to expect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terry Compton
• Release date: Feb 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005903732

Terry Compton

Terry Compton has raced stock cars, rode horses across the Scapegoat Wilderness, fished and hunted most of his adult life while working at several different jobs. He is an Air Force veteran and served in the Air National Guard for several years. He is currently retired from being the owner, chief welder and installer for an ornamental iron business where he has made several award winning metal creations and is now turning this creativity to writing.Terry loves to read science fiction, westerns and mystery stories. Some of his favorite authors are Clive Cussler, Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, Andre Norton, Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, Louie L'Amour, Zane Grey and Anne McCaffery. He is currently learning about 'indie' authors who are publishing e-books.Terry currently lives in Montana with his wife and a dog who thinks she is a short furry people.

Book preview

Tinkerer Ship

Terry Compton

Published by Terry Compton at Smashwords

Copyright 2021 Terry Compton

Cover images courtesy of Freestyleimages | Dreamstime.com

Cover by Terry Compton

Kita, an ex-president of the Charter Alliance, looked at the spread sheet sitting on her view screen. She had a tinkerer ship ready to make parts with plenty of orders pouring in, only the crew knew next to nothing about any of this.

Then came the four young boys who owned three more of those tinkerer ships with their green crews to her rescue. The names of those ships, Galactic Chaos, Galactic Mayhem and Galactic Bedlam gave Kita her clue about what to expect.

This is a work of fiction. All characters or incidents are a figment of the author's imagination and any resemblance to any incident or any person living or dead is purely coincidental.

Chapter 1

Kita ao Te Kinobala sat in her office on the big tinkerer ship with a frown on her face. The data she looked at made her feel she had missed something, but she couldn't find it. She glanced at the monitor to see the first of Josh Gunn's traders landing near the domed city below. Her gaze shifted to the other monitor to see the other ship hanging back near the outer reaches of the solar system.

She didn't like to waste time for the two traders, but Josh had insisted everyone traveled in threes now. Kita knew he was right, but seeing two ships sitting and knowing how much it cost to run those ships went against her Dar Es Salaam Trader training.

Her eyes drifted to the monitor showing the planet rotate below her as Ketua, her ship, orbited the planet. Sanshange, a desert planet with three small seas and very few lakes, had plenty of mountains. Kita watched as a dust storm roared across a plain, up the mountain face and down the other side.

The swirling dust made interesting patterns of red, yellow and brown. Kita estimated it covered an area five hundred miles across. The swirling dust and dirt paused for a moment, then slid across another short plain before dipping into the deep valley. The remains of a sea lay at the bottom of that valley. Kita's eyes widened and her hair started to wave like a basket full of snakes. She knew what had been bothering her.

She tried to call up the computer, but remembered that Josh hadn't had time to put an AI in the ship. Kita pulled out her tablet and made some changes to the sensors on the ship. Another few keystrokes also changed the programming for the other satellites orbiting the planet.

The results brought a grin to her face and made her hair wiggle again. She moved to another program to change what the remote detectors would scan. After a few minutes she grew even more excited.

Thirty minutes later when the scans began to come back, she even stood to her feet and danced. Speaking to herself, she said, Now to negotiate a treaty. I so love being a Trader.

After sitting back at the desk, she called the planet to schedule a time to speak to the head of state. They talked a few minutes and the leader agreed to see her in two hours. As soon as she had the coordinates to land at, she called for her shuttle to be readied and her escort to be on standby.

Kita flew the shuttle down with escorts sitting in full armor. As she landed next to Josh's trader, she saw one person coming to greet them. Leading five of the escorts off the shuttle, Kita saw a creature she had never seen nor heard of.

Nothing indicated whether the being might be a male or female, but it gruffly said, Owe one hundred credits for landing. Pay now.

The tall Dar Es Salaam Trader touched her comm to transfer payment, but the being only held out its hand. Kita had to dig to find a hundred credit coin. When the rude official started to turn away, she said, I need a receipt for that.

When the official kept moving away, she drew her blaster and said, One more step and I'm going to blow your leg off and claim you robbed me.

The official whirled around, raised its hands and froze. After she asked again for her receipt, the official led her inside the terminal. The being's face looked like they had chewed on something like a green persimmon, but Kita got her receipt.

The Trader walked into the domed city and headed to the building she had been directed to. Her gaze went down the street where she noted the pavement covered with a fine layer of sand and dust. Some of it had drifted into bigger piles against the buildings and curbs.

As vehicles went by, dirt blew off of them and stirred the street covering into swirls of choking grit. Kita moved a little faster so she wouldn't have to breathe as much of it. Any people she met moved by like they didn't even see her.

Inside the building, everyone she had contact with were gruff, almost bordering on rude. Her hair gave an indication of the anger building, but no one here understood that. Eventually, Kita sat in front of an individual who could answer her questions.

A scowl greeted her first question, Do you have any need for parts to be made for your machinery?

Of course, we do. Everyone that has machinery needs parts. But we don't have credits to get the new parts.

I might have a solution for you. My ship out in orbit has several sizes of replicators —

We have replicators as well. But it costs too many credits for the schematics to make the parts we need.

Who said anything about credits? I'd trade some parts for mining rights and land.

No land around here and no water. It takes all we can find to support us. You want land and mining, go to other hemisphere. Don't care what you do over there.

Why aren't you using that water out there in that big body?

Too salty. Used to be big ocean, but now almost dried up.

I can offer a desalination unit that would give you ten thousand gallons of water per day. It would make that water usable.

What do you want for it?

A signed treaty for all the land on the other hemisphere and all the mining rights.

Done. Bring unit and treaty.

Kita leaned back with a small smile. Give me a day and I'll make it, then land it at your spaceport.

Just remember, you get nothing from us here. Air too high in carbon dioxide for most to breathe.

That's OK, I'll think of something.

The being looked at her suspiciously. Kita stood and left the room. She called the ship as her escort guard joined her. They made it back to the shuttle a short time later. By the time she made it back to the ship, the crew had a desalination unit ready to go.

Kita sent it and the treaty down with some crewmen while she studied the scans again. Her grin got even bigger than the last time. As soon as the crew returned, she checked the treaty over. Satisfied everything had been done correctly, she moved the spaceship to orbit over the other hemisphere.

Josh's other trader ship, the Doosa, lifted off the planet and soon joined her there. The captain came over to meet with her. A few minutes later, he sat in her office with a tablet in hand. Ma'am, they don't want to trade for anything. I didn't see any manufacturing, so what are they up to?

I'm not sure, Captain Ketua. Were they rude with you?

Yes. And the ones that weren't seemed like they just wanted us to go away.

But they needed fresh water. Hmmm, Captain, send down some remote sensors and snoops. Spread them around inside that city. I want to know what they're up to. I think we can make a lot of money here – if we can work uninterrupted.

Make money how, Ma'am?

Kita pulled up a couple of scans. The captain's eyes widened in surprise at the results. Do you think those city people know this is here?

No and that makes me even more curious. These are military scanners, so they might be better than anything they have, but why stay in this place if they're not after the minerals?

I don't know, but everything about this stinks.

We'll be watching them, but I need you to take my three mining robots and put them here, here and here. I wish I hadn't traded off all the others now.

Can you make more?

Yes, but I need raw material. That's what I'm hoping these three will find.

The captain left for his ship and soon maneuvered it closer to Kita's so they could transfer the three mining robots. A short time later, Kita watched on the monitors as he dropped the first one and set it in motion. It didn't take much longer to get the other two in place and mining. Then the wait began.

Kita opened the feed to the snoops and remote detectors in and around the city. Nothing about the activity stirred any unease, but Kita still didn't feel comfortable about it. An alert from one of the mining robots drew her attention to it.

A grin spread on her face as she read the alert. She moved the robot to a spot twenty miles closer to the small sea. The third robot chimed. Her grin grew wider and she left that robot to dig.

A small frown crossed her face as she looked at the scans again. She called the third ship sitting out in the asteroid belt. Captain Gality, good morning. Did you scan any of those asteroids as you parked out there?

No, Ma'am. Do you want me to do it now?

Yes, but be very discrete about it. I want you to stay hidden.

What are we looking for?

Kita said, I need a smaller asteroid that's mostly iron and nickel. I have to build some things here and I need a bunch of iron.

We'll get right on it. What's happening with that city down there?

We don't know and that's why you need to stay hidden.

Several small pings lit up Kita's ship's sensor over the next three hours. The captain called back to let her know that he had found one for her, but that it was pretty big. She asked if he could tow or push it to her and he affirmed that he could. She told him to start.

Kita called Captain Ketua to ask him to move to the outer part of the system and hide there while the Minat pushed her some raw material. He had barely started when a ship jumped in. She told the Ketua to wait to see what it would do.

Hours later, the ship entered the atmosphere and landed at the city spaceport. Kita contacted Ketua to go and hide. She turned to her monitors to watch the city. Her snoops at the spaceport saw several medium sized plastic crates moved out to the ship.

The crew inspected the contents of three of the boxes, but Kita couldn't get a look to see what they contained. Then the crew moved three smaller crates that were obviously very heavy out to the planetary cargo handlers.

A short time later, the spaceship crew had the medium sized crates loaded and flew off the planet. The ship didn't even seem to notice the captain pushing the asteroid to Kita. A few minutes later, Kita did see a comm message from the ship to the city though.

She forgot about the message after the asteroid arrived. Going to the