Fool's Gold: Carson Lyle's War - Part One by Thomas J. Rock Page B

took, they all would have been incinerated in the blink of an eye. Typically, dock jockeys were all about production; unload fast now…unloading right was subjective. But they were definitely being uncharacteristically cautious.
    After standing there for a couple of minutes, he could see he was starting to draw attention to himself. They had to know that the ship outside belonged to him. What did they think of that? He wondered.
    Lyle finally made it to the viewport, by the airlock. He peered through the port and got and got a sick feeling in his stomach. The damage looked fairly extensive. He had to get out there for a closer look at her.
    He remembered where the pressure suits were stored from when he was here last and went to a room adjacent to the airlock. The suits were still there.
    Lyle suited up, mounted and attached the air supply, then made his way to the airlock.
    This time, there was someone waiting for him. He was olive complected, and shorter than Lyle, but looked physically fit through his grease-stained coveralls.
    "Where the hell do you think you're going?" He said.
    Lyle looked the man over. The gold trim on the third rank strip indicated he was the dock chief. He pointed to the airlock, as if it wasn't obvious.
    "I need to see my ship."
    "Give me a minute to suit up. I have to go with you."
    The Chief suited up quickly. When he emerged from the dressing room, Lyle heard a crackle in his helmet then; "Comm check, testing...one, two, three, Copy?"
    "Copy," Lyle replied, out of instinct.
    The Chief walked over to the airlock control and shifted a lever to cycle it open. Amber warning lights around the door strobed and loud alert klaxon sounded letting the entire bay know the airlock was cycling. There was a whoosh of rushing air moving to fill the vacuum inside the airlock when the door split open across its vertical center. That door closed behind them, and the next door opened, releasing that air pressure into the void outside.
    They stepped out of the airlock and out into the cold vacuum of the asteroid's surface. There was a transition from the artificial gravity of the cargo bay to the natural gravity, outside, that measured one-third of standard. This was rather strong for a planetoid of this size. Astronomers thought it may have been a small planet that didn't complete its development, for one reason or another. There were a number of similar asteroids in the outer territory which was appealing to the military for setting up various operations.
    The Chief led Lyle out to the dock where the ship was moored. Walking in point-three G was more like an extended skip. The pressure suits had lead weights in the boots to help its wearer be more stable while moving.
    Lyle saw that the unload crew was busy detaching the last two containers. Without a load, the ship looked bare-boned across the gut of the fuselage to the point where one would have thought it was starving, if it were a living thing.
    The Chief motioned him to the bow and pointed to a mangled mess of metal and exposed circuitry. "You see, there?"
    "Yeah," Lyle said, imagining credits just flowing out of his wallet and into space.
    "That whole sensor array is gone."
    He continued the tour on toward the rear of the ship. And every point where the Chief stopped and pointing out something that was a problem, Lyle felt the sick feeling in his stomach getting worse and worse.
    'Earn my keep'? I'll have to formally reenlist to cover this , Lyle thought.
    "The boosters are also in rough shape," The Chief continued. "The good news is the structural members are still straight and solid."
    "Really?" Lyle said, amazed. "Seeing the extent of the rest of the damage, I'd have thought her back would have been broken too."
    "It's all fixable, but it'll take time. It all depends on how many people Colonel Mann puts on it. Parts might a problem for some things given the age of the ship, too. We'll have to see what we can do without and go from there."
    "So will you be