Connection Unknown by Michael Chatfield

Author:Michael Chatfield [Chatfield, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MC Publications Inc.
Published: 2022-05-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter twenty-one

Chapter: 21

17, March 2242

Luke drank from his water tube as Fin finished walking around the dropship hulk in the middle of the outer city of Free Node.

“Okay, got it,” Fin said.

Luke, Jynx, and the other Legion members walked up as Fin pulled out a hologram of the ship. Green areas flashed over the blue glowing lines of the blueprint. “Looks like we can pull out the turrets on the left side, the top turret, and the main turret. Yank out the cockpit and the control areas—drain the fuel, ammunition. Power plant should be good to go. The seats on the left side of the hold and the left engines…”

“The seats—can we cut open the side and pull them out that way? The ramp’s a bit of a mess,” Luke said. The dropship had crashed on its right side and the ramp was buckled and warped, big enough for someone to crawl in over the lip.

“Yeah, that would be better than just the chin ladder,” Fin said.

Cheers came from the other side of the ship.

The group walked around.

Luke grinned. The mining ship that had warned them about the incoming Liquid Gold was in bad shape, with salvaged parts slapped together to repair it enough that it could get back to the node. It landed and people descended on it with repair tools and parts to bring it back to full functionality.

“All right, we’ve got this wreck to salvage,” Luke said.

Fin broke them up into teams and they set to work.

Luke climbed up the side of the wreck to reach the armored panels that protected the drop compartment. He used his repair tool to unlock the panels, disassembling it. He took the disconnected sections and carried them down to the ground to make a pile.

Another team of four worked on the massive tilting engines, removing paneling and unlocking bolts and lines. The unit came away in one section. Other groups came past and carried off the useful components and systems to repair marginally damaged ships.

Fin and Jynx worked on draining the fuel and removing the linkages to the power plant.

Luke was wrapped up in his thoughts as they and other teams dismantled the dropship. In just thirty minutes, only a thin skeleton was left behind.

“All right, time to cut it up!” Fin said.

They set to work with their repair tool’s torches, sectioning the ship into lengths that could be fed into a factory and turned into components.

Most of the debris had been cleared, and the city was nearly back to its original state, with a few more holes in the streets.

“Huh, that’s pretty smart.” Luke pointed at a group that had carved out ice boulders, sticking them into the ice and, using their torches, turned the edges into water, fusing it with the ground.

“They clean up quick,” Jynx said.

“They took the components over to the airstrips where all the ships have been corralled. Should get another two dropships out of this and a ton of materials,” Luke said.

“That reminds me. Mitch sent me a message asking for some help up at the mining base to assemble something,” Fin said.

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