Free Junkyard Dogs 1: The Scrapyard Incident by Phillip Nolte Page A

them much. He thought of Irene and a smile
came to his face. Don't know what a
gorgeous, intelligent woman like that sees in me , he thought, but why mess with a good thing? He saw
Jenkins and Allen joking with the security officials as he got on the elevator
that would take him down to the wheel section of the station.
    His gear was
waiting for him in the stateroom that had been assigned to him. He carefully
took out his dress uniform, which would be required for the diplomatic ceremony,
and hung it up in the small wardrobe before refreshing himself in the
ultrasonic shower. He donned a fresh set of khaki coveralls and headed out for
the day's activities.
    Everywhere he
looked was chaos. The station was preparing for a diplomatic event of no small
importance which meant that it had to be spic and span, even in the corners.
Since there had never been a ceremony of this magnitude held there, the
preparations were turning out to be a major project. Kresge frowned; he
couldn't imagine running a station in the haphazard manner that this one was
being operated. Over the years, lots of little things had been allowed to slip
by without proper attention. Now the station governor was paying the price.
Maintenance people in their gray coveralls seemed to be all over the station,
busy sprucing up the facility, painting, making adjustments and shuffling
things around. Many of the corridors were wholly or partially blocked. Panels
were open here and there, adding to the mess. Kresge had never witnessed such
confusion. On a station like this, with just the thin alloy walls between him
and vacuum, anything less than perfection was dangerous. It made him more than
mildly uneasy.
    He arrived at the
station governor's suite and was admitted immediately. The suite was located on
the upper level of deck one, the innermost deck in the station's ring and the
entire ceiling of the room was a huge viewport. The room was also about midway
between two of the spokes that connected the outer ring to the central spindle
of the station. Over his head, through the spectacular viewport, Kresge could
see the two spokes converging on the long, gently tapered cylinder of the
spindle.
    Governor Charles
"Chip" Larkin was a tall, trim man in his early forties with
perfectly-styled, slightly graying hair and handsome features. With him was
Captain Stefan Dortmunder of the FNS Boise . Dortmunder was a short, pudgy man
with a gruff and very self-assured manner.
    "Oskar,"
said the Governor. "Glad you could make it. Help yourself to
refreshments."
    "Thanks,"
said Kresge, as he went to get himself a cup of coffee. He also grabbed a small
cinnamon pastry before taking a seat.
    "Good
morning, Stefan." He nodded at the Captain.
    "Mornin' Oskar. Trip okay?"
    "Yeah, I
actually had time to catch up on some paperwork."
    "I envy
you."
    Kresge didn't
have a lot of respect for Dortmunder; in his opinion the Captain was an
incompetent whiner who ran a very loose ship. The station was a disaster, but
it was a civilian operation and some allowances were probably inevitable. The Boise , however, was military and there
was no excuse for the craft and crew to be in anything less than top condition.
The ship had been a God-awful mess the last time Kresge had been onboard it,
but he hadn't felt it was his place to say anything. He was certain that chaos
reigned aboard the destroyer as well as the Captain tried to get his ship into
the kind of shape it should have been in the first place. The governor and the
ship's commander were obviously feeling the stress of their respective
responsibilities and both looked harried.
    "I don't
know how we're going to get all of this ready in the time we have left,"
said Larkin. "I've got the cleaning crews working double shifts and still it
seems like we still keep finding something else that needs doing."
    Kresge took a
bite of the pastry and found it to be pretty good. The coffee, however, was a
major disappointment and not for the first time. He