Tinmerack Station, orbiting Ferrox VII, Mio system
Ferrox VII was predominately an industrial manufacturing hub producing smaller parts included in the construction of starships: engines, pumps, airlocks, control systems, arrays, etcetera. If a modern vessel needed it, it would be made somewhere on Ferrox VII.
It comprised three main continents, two almost entirely covered by industrial cities and complexes. The third in the north was completely overlaid by a monstrous mountain range, containing a bottomless supply of raw materials, a hive of gargantuan mines, some opencast, most underground, but all providing the raw materials for the planet’s predominantly metallurgical and composite-hungry industries.
Tinmerack Station hanging in orbit above, is over three kilometres long, an ugly conglomeration of mismatched habitation and commercial space engineering units. From a distance it appeared quite pretty against the backdrop of the blue planet. But once you got closer, the unsightly mix of differently shaped and coloured habitats crudely welded together in a completely random manner spoilt the romance. An odd medley of manipulator arms, docking clamps and differing designs of airlock casually littered the outside.
Then there were the ships, dozens of them; some reasonably intact, others stripped to bulkhead skeletons and everything in between, and all crudely attached to various docking clamps distributed haphazardly onto any solid surface. Basically a starship scrapyard. If you couldn’t afford a new part for your ship, this is where you came.
Menka scowled at the holomap with an expression of disgust.
‘Are you sure this is where the meeting is supposed to be?’ she muttered.
The navigator nodded as the pilot released the vessel to the station’s automated docking software. The cockpit became gloomy as they crept into the shadow of Tinmerack. Jagged sections of superstructure reached out, threatening to snag the ship as it passed alongside. Menka found it hard not to lean the opposite way, and she gritted her teeth so hard, it made her jaw ache.
The final bang and judder as the docking clamps closed home, almost knocked her off her feet.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ she carped. ‘Are they doing this deliberately?’
‘No, ma’am,’ said the pilot. ‘Just old technology.’
‘I’m beginning to have major misgivings about this meeting,’ she said. ‘But, we’re here now.’
‘Docking tube attached, sealed and pressurised, ma’am.’
She nodded and made her way through and down to the port corridor where two of her staff were waiting by the airlock. One of them gave her a tablet as the other opened the inner door.
‘You will remain here,’ she said, stepping inside and hitting the cycle icon.
‘But, ma’am…’
The inner door closed before he could object too forcibly.
When the outer door slid upwards, it wasn’t the grubbiness of the docking tube that repulsed her, it was the smell, a mixture of machine oil and human excrement.
‘Delightful,’ she muttered, striding the ten metres to the open outer station door.
It cycled as soon as she entered. If she thought the aroma was bad in the tube, it became acutely worse as the station inner door grated to one side, sounding like the bearings hadn’t been greased in decades.
Recoiling from the acrid atmosphere, she was greeted by two officious-looking female soldiers wearing full battle armour and carrying modern assault rifles across their chests.
Menka raised her eyebrows as she was scanned with a whirring handheld piece of apparatus. She’d already disabled their weapons, but left the scanner alone. Once they were happy she posed no threat to them, they turned and indicated which way she was intended to go.
Nothing was said, but Menka moved off as indicated, one guard in front and one falling in behind, their amour servos whining as they walked. She noticed a few faces peering out at her from dark corners and anybody they met pinned themselves against the walls at sight of the soldiers.
A small hidden elevator took them up countless levels and when the doors reopened, Menka breathed a sigh of relief. The stink was gone and in its place came fresh filtered air whispering out of vents near the ceiling. The floor in this new wider passageway was carpeted and led to a large entrance hall flanked with huge fluted pillars. Twin staircases led up in semicircles meeting at the top, and an oversize chandelier loomed above them, bathing the hall and stairs in a dim golden hue.
The soldiers led her to the left-hand staircase where a man dressed in a dark suit waited on the first step.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I hope you had a pleasant journey. If you would like to come this way, the lady will see you now.’
Hmm, thought Menka. Just who the fuck does this woman think she is?
‘Thank you,’ she said, hiding her displeasure well, as they left the soldiers and climbed the stairs.
At the top was a rather ostentatious set of ten-foot double doors. Inlaid carvings of ancient warriors fighting strange creatures decorated them, covered in what looked like gold leaf.
Menka rolled her eyes and shook her head, making sure the gesture was unseen by her guide. He meanwhile had reached the door and knocked three times.
It was opened by another female soldier, this one dressed in a light body armour. She nodded and beckoned Menka inside. The room into which she was ushered was surprisingly small considering the scale of the doors. There was a lot of shades of blue involved. Carpets, furnishings, walls, although for the first time on the station, Menka decided she quite liked the decor. She turned to admire large screens on the walls displaying beautiful planetary scenes, of where Menka could only guess.
‘My home planet,’ said a voice behind her.
She spun around to meet the arms dealer she’d come all this way to see. She was younger than she’d imagined, slim, long black hair and suspicious blue eyes.
‘Can’t go back there now,’ she added, a veil of sadness washing over her. ‘Warrant for my arrest, but then again, there’s one of those almost everywhere these days.’
‘You’re an arms dealer,’ said Menka. ‘Kinda goes with the territory.’
The girl flinched.
‘I prefer, defence facilitator,’ she said, strolling over to an ornate dark wooden desk. ‘Did you bring the item you wish to trade?’
Menka held up the tablet.
‘It’s all on there is it?’ the girl asked.
Menka turned the tablet on and flicked her hand from the tablet’s screen to one of the big screens on the wall. A menu appeared.
The girl held her hand up to face the screen and manipulated her way down the rows of icons, selecting one in particular and spreading her fingers out sharply. The file opened. It displayed a large piece of medical equipment and another list of files specifying its design schematics.
The girl smiled for the first time.
‘What’s your price for this interesting software?’ she asked, turning to Menka, her stern expression returning.
‘A ship,’ said Menka. ‘A fully armed warship, with cloaking and fast…it must be fast.’
‘And are you trading that hijacked freighter you arrived in?’
This took Menka by surprise. She hid it, but it reminded her not to take this kid for an idiot. She seemed to conduct herself in a manner beyond her years.
‘That can be included in the deal if I get a vessel to my liking,’ she said.
The girl sat at her desk and tapped on an inlaid screen for a moment, before pointing up at the ceiling.
‘Would something like this be of use?’ she asked, leaning back in her chair.
A hologram of an extremely large freighter appeared, turning slowly above them.
‘I wanted a fucking warship,’ Menka insisted, giving the girl an impatient glare.
‘Hmm,’ she grunted, pressing another icon.
The holographic ship suddenly began changing shape. Massive sections of its superstructure revolved or opened out to reveal hundreds of weapons pods and missile racks.
‘Fucking warshippy enough for you now?’ the girl asked, grinning.
‘Where the hell did you get that from?’ Menka asked, walking around the hologram as it turned in the opposite direction.
‘Originally an acquired Klatt battleship, with a minor makeover of my own design. It’s now stronger, faster, cloakable, and as you’ve seen, unassuming when in freighter mode.’
‘I like it,’ said Menka, turning back to the girl. ‘I’ll take it.
She handed the dealer the tablet.
‘When do I take delivery?’
‘How about this morning?’ she said. ‘From my personal dock, so you don’t have to walk amongst the great unwashed again.’
‘My crew?’
‘I’ll have them escorted along shortly,’ she said, standing and signalling the soldier who’d remained on guard by the door.
Menka nodded and turned to leave.
‘Thank you for your business,’ said the girl, sitting again.
When the door closed and Menka was gone. Ystolion Flast kissed Phil’s tablet Menka had given her and placed it almost reverently on her desk.
‘Got it all now,’ she said, clenching both fists and looking upwards. ‘We will soon have revenge, darling…and it will be absolute.’