Wreckers: A Denver Boyd Novel by George Ellis (ebook reader ink .TXT) 📕

“You don’t.”

Ah. She understood me now. I turned to the guys on the other side of the room and told them to prepare for a little steam. “We need to drain the core of some fumes,” I lied. They had no idea what the hell I was talking about anyway. Just as I was about to give Romy the signal, the door to the engine room opened.

A thin man with glasses and a full head of white-blonde hair was pushed inside. He nearly tripped over his feet, but recovered in time to avoid the blood puddle with a gasp. It was Marcum.

Griss stepped in behind him.

“If you have any technical questions, he’s here to observe,” Griss explained. “He’s the one who screwed this pooch in the first place.”

Despite being visibly scared out of his mind, Marcum defended his actions, saying his area of expertise was in installing the device into other types of ships, at which point Griss cut him off. He gave him a look as if to say he better not divulge any more about what was under the tarp.

“If they have questions, you answer them,” Griss snapped.

“They?” Marcum asked.

Romy, out of instinct, popped her head out from behind the open area of the wall. Marcum’s eyes went wide and for a moment, I thought he was going to get us killed with his next few words.

“What is it?” Griss asked, noting the look of shock on Marcum’s face.

“Nothing. She just surprised me appearing out of nowhere like that,” he said, recovering.

Griss raised his eyebrows and exited the room. Marcum looked warily at the men in the corner by the tarp, then stepped over the blood trail toward me and Romy.

“I’m Denver,” I said, extending my hand.

Marcum shook it and introduced himself. Then I went through the unnecessary process of introducing Romy as my apprentice. I noted a small twinkle in his eye and grin at the idea that Romy had something to learn from a mechanic like me.

Romy looked at him. “Got any tips for us?”

Chapter 21

Marcum went down with the other two guys. There was no way to warn him, but I did catch his body as he passed out. I eased him to the floor. The taller of the men guarding the warp drive landed face first on the metal with a sickening splat.

Romy climbed out of the wall opening with her mask in place. She had released a small amount of the Halothane locally to buy us more time before we knocked out the full crew.

I grabbed a pair of zip ties from my toolbox and secured the hands of the Rox men just in case they woke up earlier than expected.

Then I pulled the tarp away to look at the drive. I was shocked at how compact it was. The whole thing couldn’t have been more than five feet long. It looked like a series of concentric circles folded in on themselves and then splayed out at one end, like a horn. What wasn’t made of metal seemed to be glass, or perhaps lucite, filled with clear plasma.

“This is it?” I said aloud in disbelief. Simply put, it just wasn’t that impressive. Romy sidled up next to me and inspected the device.

“I’m not going to say the days of purely mechanical propulsion systems are over,” Romy commented, her voice slightly muffled by her mask. “Just that you may want to keep an open mind.”

I looked at the drive again, this time seeing it for what it was: a device that was beyond my understanding. My whole life, I’d had a knack for understanding how ships worked. Their turbines. Their gears. Their electrical systems. This warp drive was going to change that. In the not too distant future, wreckers like me would be obsolete. There was no wrench that could fix this thing.

I was so lost in thought, it took Romy two nudges to get my attention. I finally looked at her. She gestured to suggest we needed to hurry.

“The room and drive are secure,” I said into my handheld. “Preparing to push the gas into the main ventilator. Stand by.”

“How’s it look?” Batista asked, referring to the drive. Her mechanical curiosity had been piqued as well.

“It looks fake. Stay off the air until I give the signal.”

Before dosing the crew, Romy and I had to get Marcum onto the lower level of the cart so we could take him with us. It took a few minutes to pull him onto the platform and his legs would still drag as we pushed him across the ship, but it was manageable.

Once I was satisfied that the drive and the genius were secure, I sent Romy back into the wall to find a duct that would disperse the gas into the air recycler. As she searched for it, I watched the door, nervous. I didn’t want any more intrusions. I just wanted to stroll out of the ship with the utility cart and get the Stang disconnected as quickly as possible.

“Found it!” I heard Romy yell.

* * *

I’ve been told, most recently by Edgar and Batista, that Halothane was a cheat. Kind of my get out of jail free card. And I think that’s a load of bull, really. It wasn’t my fault nobody else used sleeping gas to their advantage. It seemed like an obvious way to protect yourself against capture.

So when I rolled the cart through the corridor of downed Rox crewmembers, I didn’t feel bad at all (except for my shoulder, which made me wince with every step). Mentally, I felt perfectly fine with my tactics. Edgar took point, keeping an eye out for any early risers, while Romy trailed behind me.

Batista was off looking for Avery. I’d been very clear we were leaving when the timer ran down, with or without them.

Edgar put up a fist and stopped walking. Romy and I stopped, too, remaining quiet. Edgar leaned around a corner and then pulled his head