Broken Wings (John Hardesty Z04 Book 3) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Moore Books by Clay Moore

  Kidnapping A

  Broken Wings

  Welcome, to snake eyes, Mister Hardesty

  Interlude one

  Resupplied

  Entering the Dragon

  Interlude two

  Moving up the ladder

  The meeting of the four families

  Interlude three

  Rolling snake eyes

  Interlude

  Rolling thunder

  Interlude

  Do or die

  The end of the long road

  Broken wings

  BROKEN WINGS

  Clay Moore

  Copyright © 2017 Clay Moore

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:10-197961850X

  ISBN-13:978-1979618502

  This book is dedicated to Pamela Clark

  John Hardesty Z04 Series

  License Secured

  Fallen Angels

  Broken Wings

  John parked his grav-car in his personal spot at the service parking lot. He got out of his car and scanned the area around where he parked. One could never be too vigilant.

  It was unlikely that people would know he was here. He only came in the evening on the Narwhal with Iris. The flight from Faraway had come with good news on a particular criminal's whereabouts. The crew of the narwhal had felt the sting of criticism by their captain when they did not move fast enough on the request by John. As soon as he arrived in the real instead, it will be to their benefit they sent off two frigates. These frigates were trying to follow the shuttle. Tracing ships through hyperspace is possible. You had to use the particles that came from the ship's engine. When a ship went into hyperspace, it went straight line. That meant that you could figure out where they were going by stretching out a line along that course. The two frigates knew that they had reached the point of termination when they send the message that they had come to an end. When John heard what planet he ended on, he knew that he had the criminal. But because A also gets information from the fleet you would let A inform him.

  He was whistling a favorite song as he passed the doorman. This was a little different than John was usually known to pass through the checkpoint. He walked down the transverse hallway. John came to the area that A took as his base. He had the same administrative assistant by the name of Mrs. Kleist. Her name sounded German, and she enforced A's rules with an iron fist. Every time she looked at him, she gave him a look that a school teacher gives the class clown. He mouthed a kiss at her. She just looked more disgusted.

  “You are next in line to see the chief."

  "That's fine. I am ever at the service of A."

  "I understand that you have a new toy."

  "She is no toy. If she has me, I expect her to be mine."

  "That will be interesting the self-described bachelor getting hitched."

  “Now you see here, bitch. A couple of years ago I was married to someone 10 times your value. If you want will come up in the records her name was Vivana. So, I can marry, and I did so once. This time I believe it will last. She is in the middle of a fleet, and not dancing around on a maglev train where a sniper put a bolt through her chest."

  "Forgive my insensitivity. I thought you were just an ordinary Z agent. For my tastes, Z agent population runs around as if the entire galaxy is their playground."

  "It's that expansiveness and friendliness that can be the greatest talent they have. If you're laughing with one of the Z-GENT at a bar, you won't expect them to shoot you in the back when you come out of the bar."

  A tone came from the two color annunciator over A's doors. It went from red to green. That was his way of getting Mrs. Kleist to bring the next person and his office.

  She looked up at John. She pointed at the doors with her Slate stylus. "He's ready for you. Good luck."

  John settled in front of the doors. He took in a calm and breath. Then he opened the door into A's office. John walked into that room. A was sitting behind his desk. He was notating some things on a slate. His usual stack of file folders was on the left-hand side of his office. When he finished with the notation that he was making in his slate, he began his debrief of John.

  “You were asked to determine if the fallen angels were indeed genetic robots. If they were, then you were supposed to destroy the factory for that genetic robot production. Which you did. In addition to that, you also found the most hated and wanted criminal in the human galaxy, Anton Hecton. Why did you not put a blaster bolt through his chest, John?"

  "I still did not know that that was Anton Hecton. I had to go and see for myself. When I went there, it all happened so quickly that I still think it was not. However recent swabs of that office proof that the genetic material in it belongs to Anton."

  "And that is the reason why you are not up on charges. We are not murderers that kill people on a whim. We need to make sure that that really was Anton Hecton, then we could kill him.

  "When you were saved by the fleet that brought me to faraway, you had the presence of mind to order the naval rating to put his sensors to following his shadow. When he did this, he did the best thing for us and the galaxy. The two frigates that Admiral Jernwel sent. I will admit I don't quite understand what those two frigates could do in finding out where he went.”

  "You do know that a starship utilizes Radamite jet engines for thrust and power. Those jet engines put out a stream of particles. If you know what you're looking for you can follow that stream of particles. Utilizing the navigation system among ships you can even make a guess as to where they went.”

  "That's right you are a spacer as well. You would understand this. Apparently the last bit required a little bit of that intuition that you have. The people of Snake Eyes have him. He is in the world of Snake Eyes."

  "You mean the casino world?"

  "Yes, the casino world. Our man in charge of station S has actually seen Anton. You are going to get to know the head of station S. You are permitted extreme sanction on this. In fact, it would be beneficial to Eridani that Anton not survive. It appears however that he has an organization built up around him. You may have to deal with that before you can kill Anton."

  "How much time do I have to do this?"

  "All the game theorist and other experts say that it's going to take you three or four weeks. I tend to agree except that you have a tendency to complete jobs quickly.

  “I now have a surprise for you. When you first join this organization you were told that you will not pilot a starship again. That was a little premature. If you follow me, we will ride in my limo to the services Starport."

  John followed A through the door that only he walked through. It led to a hallway that led into a room where the two guards were always waiting. They formed up with them. John turned back and noticed that the largest of the guards had a polished wooden box about the size of what was used to be a cigar box.

  The cavalcade walked through the passageways until they came to a private garage. Waiting for them was a modern limo. John and A entered the rear of the limo. The two guards stood on the running boards and held a handhold. After making sure that A and that John was belted in the chauffeur push the thrust bar for the forward. The limo blasted out of the building and was above the limit of driving and was now flying.

  “On broken wings, I fly,

  Higher than the sky."

  A looked at John quizzically. "I didn't know that you are a poet."

  "I'm not a poet. I think it someone called Clay Moore."

  “Why would he write about broken wings."

&
nbsp; "Most of the light freighters have their Radamite Jets on stubs extending from the fuselage. The stubs do not look like wings. In fact, they looked broken. So the first two lines of the poem on or about those broken wings."

  "When I saw your starship, I thought it was a rather old vessel."

  "You do your maintenance, and eventually the entire fabric of the ship's equipment will be made of new equipment. It is your own skin that you are risking if you do not maintain your ship."

  "What happens if you don't maintain your ship."

  "If you do not maintain your vessel, you may find yourself the victim of a missed jump. That means that you can actually take a year to travel the distance that you are expecting to travel in three days. If you do not contain enough emergency rations, then you can starve to death. Another one is to find yourself in the middle of some structure or mountain. Some people have missed jumped and ended up at their target destination after day. Those people spend their days trying to figure out how they did that trick."

  "What is the benefit to having a starship in our business?"

  "If a target takes to the spaceways, an agent with a starship could follow him or her."

  "We are cleared for landing at the Starport. There are no current takeoffs. So if you want you can tour the facility in your limo." The chauffeur had a rather pleasing voice. John expected a more gruff voice. Just goes to show you that you cannot assume anything in the service.

  "Okay, Otto. Go ahead and bring us anywhere we had that discussion before. There is no need to do any touring of the Starport facilities."

  "Our Starport facility is completely 100% covered. That means if you take off from this facility you have to wait while the roof is retracted."

  "What you be if I take off this facility. I have no starship anymore."

  "Let's go into the first care and see what's there."

  John stared at A. It always is a warning bell to him when someone starts being cryptic. Everyone knows that he lost the starship when he lost Vivana. John was able to get Vivana off the manual of at the first stop station. He grabbed a grav-car and drove the rest of the way to the central city. There John found a light fritter pilot who was only too happy to take two people to Eridani. No doubt from Eridani he received a bunch of contracts to move goods.

  They climbed up the stairs to 1/3 level entrance. A indicated for John to put his finger on the fingerprint lock. What John complied was not surprised when the door lost its seal and opened, sliding into the left wall. Jan did check the door and found it to be gas tight. This building was definitely in an area where families lived. John wanted everyone to survive if he had a problem. Guess type endorsement that any runaway operation on any Radamite jets would be contained within the building itself. Then John thought about the political ramifications of what he figured. He probably told the local government that nothing would occur of a severe sort. To prove that to them he had all of these gas type doors installed. John always liked the way A was doing business. He followed A into the building.

  They walked out into a landing slot. In the landing slot was a starship. It seemed to be broken down into two parts. The forward parcel shaped like a diamond. The aft part looks like to relatively large Radamite jets shrouded with a metal and ceramic shroud. The diamond-shaped part of the ship appeared to be the actual freighter. Below the boat, the cargo ramp was down. It seemed to go up and seal the first area with the second region. That had to be the ramp to the cargo hold. The more he was looking the war he realized this had to be a nor burn D-80A. One very similar to this one. This one was painted differently. True, it had the twin Naval 40 mm Rotary cannons.

  John followed A to the cargo ramp. John stopped at the cargo hold when he noticed something that no other D-80a had. On the port, the bulkhead was a set of racks. These racks allowed John to carry smaller cargo and to keep track of them. What was the use of having a computer on the starship if you couldn't use it for business?

  A stop at the airtight door between the cargo hold and the part that holds the people. "I think you are very familiar with this part of the ship."

  "Is this my ship?"

  "How did we fail to make this look like a different ship?"

  "I pretty much had a standard ship. I added a few non-standard things because I wanted them. These racks to hold small cargo or packages were things that Vivana designed and put up for me. Because I hand those on board, I could get more cargo to go to another planet."

  A said: "what things did you add to the ship?"

  "In the captain's cabin, I installed a recyclable water shower. I worked very hard to get that recyclable water shower to work. I added the Autodoc in the captain's office."

  "Why did you do that?"

  "If you have a good Autodoc, then you can do a lot of business with people who need the use of an Autodoc. I hardly charged anything at all for the use of the Autodoc. I made more than enough money in moving cargo that I could simply charge five or 10 credits."

  "I need you to understand that if you get to use the starship, you cannot have people using the Autodoc. If you're using it on something that you been told to rescue than that is permitted. If you are using it on a criminal, who is going to give information that is also permitted. We can't afford to have people think that your ship will give free medical."

  "How about if I charge for it?"

  "This is a matter of your cover. If you lose your cover, you lose the element of surprise, and you may lose your life."

  "Very well. I started to keep the existence of the Autodoc confidential. This is just you and I coming up with the same idea."

  "All you're looking at now is just the crew members quarters. One asked about all of those sealed plastic shirts?"

  When I was out for myself, I wanted to give something to people that would help them remember me. I wanted to provide them with literally the shirt off my back." John walked over to the bottom bunk on which were some 25 shirts. He took one and brought it over to A.

  "This is a knit shirt. How is it advanced enough to be called 24th century."

  "Are you telling me that every single woman out there where's clothing that has something special about. There are some clothing that claims to have something special, but the specialness is usually inside the woman. This is a knit shirt, the same kind of knit shirt that used on golf courses Eridani wide."

  A read from the shirt. "The Rose ANR-267. ANR 267?

  "Auxiliary naval reserve Hall number 267."

  "This was Eridani's attempt to have a reserve of lift capability. I read that they wanted to be able to lift the entire Marines in one swoop. What would that have done to any kind of battle."

  "The Marine Corps is called a core for a reason. It can have multiple divisions. If the entire Marine Corps is lifted off Eridani and headed for wherever you are talking at least 20,000 battle suited men and women."

  "If you were to participate in said maneuver, how many battles suited Marines could carry here?."

  "If I cause them to a hot rack, and I put in some bunks in the cruise lounge. And put some bumps in the cargo bay I could move a platoon. When I reached whatever planet we are doing this, so they are going to be nasty. Nobody likes to do what I would have to do to get them there."

  "I haven't seen this cruel lounge. Is it through this hatch?"

  "Yes, sir. Go to the hatch, and you will be in cruise lounges."

  "When you operated alone did you use cruise lounge."

  "There's a point in a hyper where you have more time than things to do. Being able to sit in the lounge, have some coffee, and a bit of food base to eat. All too soon the moment of reflection is over, and you're back told running around the ship getting ready for entering normal space."

  The group entered cruise lounge. They saw a huge circular table with a booth type seat surrounding most of the circle. There were three cheap aluminum tubing and plastic cushions chairs. Against the hull that this room shared with the cargo hold was a small machine and a group of molds. The d
evice moves food base into those patterns. The other and underneath the invention essentially cooked the food base into the shape of the frame. There was a wide variety of flavors which could make the molded food base taste like steak or banana ice cream. Some people in the world claimed that they had never eaten any food base. That is not something that the average citizen can say on Alphacent. Part of your training in the Eridani High Guard was eating food base and using some of the tools to make it more palatable. John always thought that the original food base was delicious. It had the vanilla flavor.