Captain Scarlett vs The Scrapper

Dirty Pool

Danger at the Speed of Stationary

©Copyright 2024 by Duleigh

Dedication:

To Curtis, who had faith in me and convinced me to publish my stories, and Tom, who has followed me since day one and actually got to talk to my hero, the inspiration of two of these stories - Isaac Asimov

Chapter 1

SS Garriott, June 1, 2161

High planetary orbit over Saturn

The "scooter," an open style space truck with four spacemen in full environment suits and the two zero G forklifts, had returned to the parking bay of the SS Garriott, a Livyatan class freighter like the SS Peake, and like the Peake it was named for a friend of Alan Scarlett that was murdered by Eastern Bloc thugs in captivity after the Battle of Venus Prime.

This day was a red letter day. The men and women of Scarlett Water Systems were officially two weeks ahead of their schedule on the Luna Hydration project. The last N-52 engine was installed on Saturn CXCVIII (Saturn 198), known to Scarlett Water Systems as Big Berserker 03, and the wiring was half done on the eight engines installed on Saturn CLXXXIV (Saturn 184, Big Berserker 02). There is still more work to be done, but the hard parts were over.

Big Berserker 02 and 03 were two moonlets of solid ice, a cubic kilometer in size and if their calculations are correct, in about a month they will fire the engines they installed on each moonlet and shove them out of orbit. Why not? Big Berserker 01 was three times more massive, and it's already laying on the surface of Mars.

Carl White, the chief field engineer, and his assistant Scott Anders were excited about this one. Two ice moonlets, about a cubic kilometer in size were outfitted with eight N-52 engines on each moonlet, and in about a month, those engines were going to fire up and the little moons were going to move out of Saturn's orbit and eventually enter Earth's orbit at Lagrange point 4 and Lagrange point 5, on either side of the moon. The ice there will be used for colonies, orbital stations, and provide reaction mass for deep space exploration.

And there was more planned for the future. The chief engineer for Scarlett Water Systems was Roy Bridges. He was the man who designed the 'ice ships,' was back on Earth at their company headquarters, working on a new plan to move an even bigger ice moon to Mars to fill the Jezero crater to the brim. That would provide Mars with water for centuries. He was also working on a covert program to move a small ice moonlet to the Sol/Earth Lagrange point 3 on the opposite side of the sun from Earth. There's only a few people who know about that one, and it may be the project that finally gets Alan Scarlett back into space.

At dinner that evening, the mood was jovial among the crew. The SS Garriott was rotating on its axis, providing 0.5 g of gravity for their celebration dinner, and to map several other moonlets which Mr. Scarlett may want to gather for future water projects. The minute they landed Saturn CLXXII (Saturn 172, Big Berserker 01) on Mars, they realized that the sky was the limit. They could provide water in the form of ice anywhere in the solar system and charge whatever they had the guts to ask.

Scott Anders turned to Gene Cernan, the primary equipment engineer. Gene could fix anything, which is why Mr. Scarlett keeps him close. At that moment, he was chuckling to himself. "What's so funny Gene?"

"Just a funny thought," said Gene. "Could you imagine the look on the Eastern Bloc and the Western Alliance if we showed up heading straight at earth with two moons and Mr. Scarlett forgot to let them know?" The gang around the dinner table roared with laughter.

"I guaranteed delivery in six months, I didn't guarantee anything about stopping," said Carl White to even more laughter.

Trying to emulate Alan Scarlett's Martian drawl, Scott Anders said, "I have one for this bunch of assholes, and one for that bunch of assholes. Now, who's going to write the biggest check?"

That didn't draw as much laughter. In fact, it was a wet blanket. The owner of Scarlett Water Systems absolutely despised the Eastern Bloc and would not shed a tear if they were slaughtered in a firestorm. They took so much from him, put him through a living hell, and killed all his friends. He wouldn't blink if he found the button to press that would slaughter the Eastern Bloc. He really had no love for the Western Alliance, either. They stood back and let the eastern bloc butcher his friends and torture him. And their involvement in the politics of his beloved Mars angers him to no end.

"He's going to be President of Mars," said an engine specialist. "Mark my words."

"He can't be president of Mars," said a co-worker. "He lives on earth."

"His Uncle Ray Clark is president of Mars, and he spends half the year on earth himself," said one of the fliers assigned to Fighter Escort.

"That's where the Joint Committee on Homeland Authority is," said Gene Cernan. "You're right though, the minute Alan sets foot on Mars they're going to elect him against his will. You watch. It's going to happen." All the men and women in the room were told to address Alan Scarlett as Alan. Gene Cernan has worked with Alan for over a decade, and he was the only one who felt comfortable doing it.

"Well," said Carl White with a sigh. It was Carl White's brilliant mind, along with Roy Bridges, that made this silly idea work in the first place. "Let's just hope we can slide these two little moons into their Lagrange Points with no problem and we can all go home very, very, Very rich."

Scott Anders raised his glass. "I'll drink to that." The entire table joined him in a toast to their success.

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Mars, June 4, 2161

Perseverance City

Winston Scarver was what a past political failure would call "A real bad dude." He was the embodiment of crime. There wasn't something he didn't commit on earth. Murder, theft, kidnapping. It was all in a day's work to Winston Scarver. He was deported from earth and sentenced to work in a mine in the asteroid belt. That lasted until the day that Winston Scarver disappeared, and three guards were found floating naked outside of the barracks. Their frozen corpses told the complete story.

Winston Scarver stowed away on a freighter headed for the Deimos Steel Plant in orbit around Mars and was next seen in Perseverance, the capital city of Mars. There he found Dr. Franco Aldini. Franco was a professor at the Martian Institute of Technology until he started talking about armies of robots that were being built on the "dark side of Mars" and were going to take over earth. He was hysterical about it and in the end the University decided that Franco needed rest. Franco was given a full pension six years earlier than he normally would have received, and he disappeared.

Not long later, Winston discovered what Franco Aldini was working on and went to visit him. "I hear you have the perfect weapon."

"It could be used as a weapon, si."

"I'm willing to invest if it's a worthwhile invention," said Winston with his Million Dollar Grin. That grin has opened doors for Winston, and it's closed morgue drawers on others.

Franco led Winston to a room where a pool table and a complicated device waited. The professor walked around the billiards table, explaining relative motion and speed differentials. All of it was lost on Winston Scarver, who only understood blunt weapons and sharp blades. Standing at one end of the table was a two foot by two-foot piece of steel that was three inches thick. On the steel plate hung a paper target like you would see at any shooting range. At the other end of the table was a device that looked like a dental x-ray machine. The machine pointed down at the center of the table. "This is a weapon?" asked Scarver.

Dr. Franco Aldini nodded. "Very much so." The old man walked slowly to the device and patted it. "The device generates a field where items that enter the field come to an immediate halt."

"Like a bullet, if that was fired into the field would it come to a halt?" asked Scarver.

"Absolutely."

"It stops…" Scarver shook his shaggy head. "Just how the fuck is that a weapon?"

"Watch." Aldini slowly turned on his machine and it illuminated a circular spot in the middle of the pool table. He placed the cue ball on the table where he had made a chalk mark, and took a stick, then bent over and carefully tapped the cue ball and sent it slowly towards the illuminated field.

"Doc," snarled Scarver, "if this is some kind of scam you're running I'll…"

Just then, the ball entered the illumination field. There was a bark and a roar, and the ball was gone. The plate of steel fell to the floor with a clang and a cue ball size hole opened on the wall. Another cue ball size hole also opened on the exterior wall and air was leaking out with a roar. A repair robot slapped a patch on the hole and went outside to patch the exterior of the laboratory.

"Holy shit!" cried Scarver. He looked at the three-inch-thick steel plate. It had a perfect cue ball sized hole cut through it as did the paper target, which was smoldering. "How fast was that ball moving?"

"It wasn't moving. It was perfectly motionless."

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Chapter 2

Mars, June 16, 2161

Lake Jezero

The Scrapper made her living by not existing. Her reputation was a living thing. It moved from the Asteroid Belt where it was born, to Venus Prime, to Mars. Everywhere that Captain Scarlett went, this scrapper followed, poking and prodding her way through the flotsam and jetsam of war that Captain Scarlett and the Strike Force Berserkers left behind. The Scrapper doesn't even exist to those that traded in goods that were gotten through "creative means." The Scrapper worked through front men, a cadre of loyal followers who helped the Scrapper convert the goods that she "found" into cash through a network of receivers and movers. Middlemen who resell The Scrappers finds, do it for a percentage. The Scrapper keeps the best of these men close, because strong fences make good neighbors.

Even the fact that the solar system famous scrapper is a female is not known to anyone, even to the fences. Every now and then a slim young woman would contact a fence and hand him "something daddy found," and would tell the fence, "there's more where that came from." Who would believe that such a skinny little waif could sneak into restricted areas and loot the area of the finest stuff the Earth's Military Industrial Complex could crank out.

The battle between The Holland Company and Zendaya Smelting LTD. was where the legend of the scrapper was born. The battle had raged across the "Top End" of the asteroid belt, from one mining camp to the next, and was eventually brought to heel by the Strike Force Berserkers. Eventually, space was littered with derelict space craft and barges filled with ore. There were tools and test equipment to be resold to fledgling asteroid miners who wanted to start a mining company with good equipment sold at bargain basement prices.

The Scrapper followed Captain Scarlett and his men around the solar system. She provided a valuable service to the spacemen and their families through the solar system. Somebody has to pick up the mess, right?

Not every battle location was gold for her. The Battle of Himalia, a battle for mining rights on Jupiter VI, the largest irregular prograde moon of Jupiter, had the potential to be a huge windfall. Several mining companies battled it out until Captain Scarlett's squadron stopped the fighting. The battle left high end mining equipment scattered across Himalia. Most of it looked like it was in good shape. It didn't work out well for The Scrapper, however. She ended up losing money and time traveling all the way out to Jupiter for a shipload of contaminated tools. The radiation that pours out of Jupiter contaminated everything and she was lucky to get out of there without serious damage to her DNA. She returned in time for several smaller battles around the solar system, including a battle at Lagrange Four in the earth/sun orbit.

Then came the big one, The Battle of Venus Prime. Ships of all shapes and configuration drifted above Venus. So did bodies. She grabbed everything she could from environment suits (empty or full) to fighters! There were several hangar decks full of Eastern Bloc fighters that were catapulted into space when the first bombs hit the vast space station and she towed a dozen away. Floating not too far away were two abandoned destroyers, and a burned out carrier, she wisely avoided them. Good thing too, because they were soon towed off to the Epps Whitson Shipyards for rebuilding and refitting.

The Scrapper made millions off that haul. The cache of side arms she collected alone was worth a fortune. Each dead Venusian she found was armed to the teeth with two pistols, a rifle, and several knives. The Scrapper also found several MA-2A fifty-caliber machine guns floating in space, and belts of space rated fifty-caliber ammo floating free. She wanted to hold on to those. She had ore barges full of items from Venus to fence, enough to last her a lifetime, but a couple of years after Venus Prime she heard of another big score, the Jezero Crater. There were rumors that the Eastern Bloc had built a huge base in the bottom of the Jezero crater on Mars, and Captain Scarlet somehow covered it with ice.

She couldn't resist. Slipping through Martian radar and early warning systems was easy. Mars was a pacifist planet dedicated to scientific research. No wonder why the Eastern Bloc could build an enormous base on Martian soil. They even made up a cover story of pirates building the bases. She set down her tiny freighter, the Fey Gang (Eastern bloc lingo for Scrap), on the outside of the crater and hopped into her "scooter" to investigate.

In the small, open space craft, The Scrapper crested the edge of the crater and gazed out on an ocean of crystals. Chunks of ice the size of footballs filled the crater and glinted in the weak sunlight. She got closer to the crystals and studied them. She knew from what she heard of the mission that these crystals were all ice, frozen water. It was just hard to believe. The Scrapper was born on Luna and spent her life in space, and she always had a hard time believing descriptions of Great Lakes, Seas, and Oceans. To her and many other people born and raised in outer space, water is precious because of its rarity. It's hard for them to picture water in vast amounts.

As the Scrapper swept over the field of ice with an electromagnetic field disruption sensor (metal detector) slung under her scooter, she heard the beeps of metal devices that were buried under the ice, but something in the distance caught her attention. Something that was moving. She scooted to the east end of the crater; the end that faces the area called the Heinlein Plain. There was a medium-sized facility built on the inside of the crater wall. The Scrapper saw that attached to the building was a long, jointed, mechanical arm with an enormous claw at the end. As she neared the facility, she watched the claw lift huge scoops of ice, swing around, and drop them through a chute into the facility. The facility crushed the chunks of ice into fist size pieces then poured them out onto a conveyer belt that would carry the ice to Perseverance where a melting, purification, and bottling plant waited.

She got off the scooter and walked up to the facility and found that it was unsecured. She entered the airlock, and once inside she found that the facility was airtight, but it was cold and noisy. The ice crushing machines industriously crushed the ice and sent it on its way, and the shavings that were left over from the crushing process were bagged and the bags were placed on the conveyer as well. There was going to be no precious water being wasted.

The Scrapper took off her helmet; the atmosphere was oxygen rich but extremely cold. She began poking around in an office, but she wasn't paying attention. She sat behind a desk and was reading some notes scribbled on the desk blotter when an angry voice said, "What are you doing here?"

She looked up and saw that there were two Western Alliance Marines blocking the entrance with their bodies and with their guns. The thief was caught! The Scrapper had been flitting around the solar system for years and she's never been caught. They never came close. She mentally kicked herself as a thousand pre-made excuses streamed through her head. The scrapper winced as she realized her sidearm was still in its holster on her scooter. She tried to select the best excuse, but the best she could come up with was, "Hello boys."

"Ma'am!" they shouted.

She looked up at the Marines. They both snapped to attention and saluted her. "Uh, I was…" she returned the salute sloppily, the way she figured arrogant officers returned a salute.

"Ma'am, it's good to see you again. We got word that if you turn up here, you're supposed to be transported home immediately."

"Home?"

"Yes ma'am. We can get you on a high-speed shuttle to earth immediately."

"Earth?"

"Yes ma'am. The marine insisted.

This was good. These jamokes think they know her, so if she makes a run for it, they probably won't shoot. She won't get far on Mars on foot, however. Then again, she has never been to Earth. "The captain insisted on earth?"

"Yes ma'am. Thundering Waters." Thundering Waters was a favorite honeymoon location for newlyweds, and a popular vacation retreat for the wealthiest Martians. Now a third marine joined them, and he too snapped to attention.

"Sounds cool. Let's go."

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Chapter 3

Armstrong Station, June 29, 2161

Lagrange point One, 35,000 miles above Luna

"The Scrapper has been seen again," said Captain Lutz. "We have reports from the 5th Intelligence Corps that The Scrapper was responsible for the Adira Dolenz."

The Adira Dolenz was a class four heavy ore freighter inbound to Deimos Steel Plant in Martian orbit when it was found with a hole in it. A 57mm hole was found on one side of the bridge, and a 57mm exit hole was found on the other. The crew that wasn't killed when the atmosphere was vented into space tried to patch the holes and failed. They eventually climbed into escape pods and were never seen again. That's the official story. The SS Adira Dolenz had a crew of 14, six were found dead on the bridge, and ten of the twenty escape pods were launched. The numbers don't add up.

"Why would we be blaming the murder of fourteen men and women on a trash picker?" asked Admiral Hilmers. "I mean, other than convenience?" Admiral Dolf Hilmers didn't like Captain Lutz in the least. Lutz was smart and good-looking, but he had tunnel vision when it came to resolving issues.

"It fits the scrapper's M.O."

"The scrapper has never killed anyone, he's never shot a hole through the bridge of a ship underway," Admiral Hilmers' voice was controlled but powerful. "The scrapper has never taken a shot at anything, nor has he actually stolen anything. He just picks up debris floating in space. I don't think you understand what M.O. means."

Just then there was a beep and the video screen came on, displaying the Western Alliance Navy Logo on the screen. "Sir, priority transmission from Berserker 04."

"Send it through," said the Admiral. In a moment, the video screen was filled with the deep space tug, the SS Kregal. Deep space tugs are used to pull ore barges and container barges between worlds where the big atmosphere shuttles can take the goods and products to the planet's surface. Kregal was still half connected to the series of barges it was hauling, the big six engine tug was drifting at a crazy angle compared to the barges.

"Berserker 04, this is CINCORBFORCEOuter, tell me what you are looking at." CINCORBFORCEOuter means Commander In Chief, Orbital Forces outer, meaning he commands all Navy forces outside earth's orbit.

"Something actually hit this ship sir," said Commander Jim Dutton, who was filming the investigation. He was out of his F-733 fighter and drifting toward the SS Kregal. "You can see a perfect two-inch hole in the side of the command deck. There's a hole in the other side as well. They didn't have a chance, sir."

"Commander, could that have been caused by a laser?" asked Captain Lutz.

"No sir, there would have been burn marks on the edges of the hole. These holes are clean through and through. What gets me sir is how they got into the barge." The barges are only accessible at each end. The SS Kregal was connected to its barge, blocking entry access. "They cut the couplers on the left side with a torch, not a laser but a torch. I'm guessing oxy acetylene torch."

"Why is that weird, commander," asked Admiral Hilmers.

"Because they punched such a perfect hole through the bridge, then they cut the couplers and cables like a bunch of unexperienced pirates, it doesn't make sense."

"Commander, could this be the scrapper moving up in the world? Did the scrapper get tired of waiting and decided to make something happen?"

That was a preview of Captain Scarlett vs. The Scrapper. To read the rest purchase the book.

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