Thrown Away Omnibus 1 (Parts 1-4) by Glynn James

Author:Glynn James
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Element 12 Ltd
Published: 2015-07-28T04:00:00+00:00

You Again

Expedition Control Centre

Lisa Markell wiped the sweat from her face and stared up at the mass of twisted metal in front of her. The huge Drover vehicle had arrived just an hour before, trundling along slowly, as they always did after being left behind to catch up. By the time it had arrived, the salvage groups had already left for their individual areas and the camp had gone into overwatch.

“Can it be repaired in the field?” she asked, looking at the aged mechanic standing just a few feet away, and then at the young trooper standing next to her. Hailey Simmons had been assigned to her expedition just a few weeks before, and Lisa hadn’t liked her at first but the young trooper’s can-do attitude soon stopped being irritating, and now Lisa kept her at her side constantly. The girl got things done, or brought things to Lisa’s attention much sooner than they otherwise would have been.

Take this drover, Lisa thought. The driver would have dumped this in the parking ground and walked away, leaving it for what? A day? Two days? Probably three days from now, when I’d want the damn thing hauling along the old roadway and clearing it for us, and we would have been delayed for repairs. Now we get the problem sorted before it’s needed.

“Ah, maybe. Yeah,” said the mechanic, rubbing his stubbled chin and looking at the debris jammed into the Drovers cutter. Drovers were originally designed for cutting tunnels in the earth, or even in rock, but they weren’t the most robust of contraptions, and when one became no longer of use to the mining sector, they were turned into road clearance trucks, and sent out to make long gouges in the hills and mountains of junk out in the Salvage Zone.

“Maybe?” asked Lisa. “Really?”

“No problem,” continued the mechanic, now looking flustered. “I can just cut that out and then we can get in to free the mechanism. Maybe a day?”

Lisa smiled. “Good. Very good. See to it, then. I need this three days from now, to clear a road to an abandoned facility we need to access.”

She turned and headed back to the main control centre, a large construction built from a dozen large trucks that could just park next to each other, lower their sides and become one enclosed building. She was relieved to step out of the blistering heat and back into air conditioned rooms. She headed for the control room, right at the heart of the building, and sat down at her desk.

“Did we manage to re-fill all the group vacancies before we left?” she asked, not even looking round to see if Hailey was with her. Lisa knew she would be.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Hailey. “I saw to it myself, as you asked. I picked out some healthy candidates and wrote out the cards last week. It took them a while to process, but we got the replacements just as we were leaving for this trip.”

Lisa looked out

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