T. Finnegan, Junker

[TFinnegan]

THE SEXTANT and the SPYGLASS part1

"Cap'n...this is odd....its, what the bloody...I think ye'd best see this."
"Murph, what are ye yammerin' on 'bout? Ye get me out o' me chair fer nuthin lad, an' Ill toss ye a 3-6-9..."

Tim Finnegan strode to the helm station, straightening his kilts and glaring at his unruly pilot, Murphy.
As he peered over Murphy's shoulder, he could see the comm console was acting funny. Normally green ship names against black, the comm panel had taken on a kaleidescopic blue and yellow twist, and was skewing rapidly left and right. It hissed loudly and crackled like a fire when Murphy opened the hailing frequencies. He shrugged and looked sheepishly at his captain.

As he did so, the screen twisted as if someone were stirring it, and then resolved into a blue-black silhouette of a face. An unrecognizable face, backlit and wearing solar goggles.

"Finn, you old dog," said the face, his voice distorted by some kind of scrambler into unrecogizibility. "I've got sumthin here for ya, but it'll cost ya."
"An' who the bloody hell are ye whats screwin up me comms?!" Tim shouted, as Murphy waved his hand and covered the ear Tim had just shouted into.
"Now, If I told you, I'd have to..."
"Lad!" Tim interjected, "Try ter be more original. Yer threats mean nothin' and yer joke dinna amuse me. Get on wi' it, or shut yer gob!"
The silhouette smiled, a lopsided smile that seemd to contort his face out of shape.
"Fine Fine. Yeesh, blasted Scotsmen..." Said the face. "I've heard through the grapevine that you just hauled your millionth slave to Malta. Congratulations."
Again Tim interjected, "Get bloody ON WITH IT!"
"Right." replied the distorted voice. "I am a Lane Hacker. You don't know me. I have an offer for ya. Am I goin' too fast for ya?"
Tim slammed his fist into the console hard enough to make it ring.
"Shut this bloody fool up, Murph! I tire of this." he shouted as he threw his hand up and stalked back to his chair in the center of the bridge. "Kelley, you get an inklin' of where this bugger is, ye blast 'im, aye?"
As Gunner Kelley focused his attention to the battle screen and opened his mouth to reply, all the consoles and screens on the Wake lit up with the stranger's face.
Tim braced himself, combat boots at shoulder's width, his hands on his hips.
"Did ya miss the part where I said i was a Hacker? Don't make me vent the atmo' to get yer attention." Shouted the faces in unison from every speaker Ion the bridge. "Now. here's an account number." Eleven numbers flashed on the screens below the now calmer blue-black face. "You go ahead 'n put twenty million creds into it, and I'll see that it's worth your time. I can't say what it is. No channel is secure, least of all this one. Who designed your comp-security anyway? Amateurs!"
Tim scowled, crossing his arms across his Gordon tartan. "This sounds like piracy, lad. A game I dinna play." He looked at Murphy and Kelley who shrugged stupidly in unison.

Engineer Sinclair strode onto the bridge at that moment, his red face a study in fury.
"Who's got the bloody stones to encrypt MY systems! I'll have yer blasted neck!" Looking at Finnegan he said "Cap'n this signal's not comin from outside!, I've killed the arrays. Just who is this son of a..."
"Ah!" announced the unknown face. "Connor Sinclair, I mighta known it was you. You make my work easy, son. A fantastic shipwright and designer, sure. Security engineer," he shrugged "not so much."
Sinclair stooped his tall frame over the security console, working quickly to dissemble it and expose it's innards to his master's touch.
"I'll fix this bugger Cap, give me half a minute.."he mumbled into the nest of wires and tubes.

All the screens flashed and the stranger glanced quickly to his right then back to the screen.
"I'm afraid I'll be done before you root out my signal, boys." announced the stranger. "Time's short. On
Allentown you'll find a gift left in the care of your gal, Tess, captain Finnegan. It will prove my intent is honorable. When you are satisfied that it is, please proceed with the deposit I requested. Your reward will then await you someplace obvious on Invergordon. I will not repeat these instructions, so I hope you boys aren't 'in your cups', as it were." The face again glanced to the side, then leaned in so that all resolution of shape vanished, replaced by the flash of reflected light on solar goggles. "You have the thanks of the Lane hackers for your work in Liberty. Let's let that be enough, shall we? Good day Captain."

With that the signal abruptly cleared, and all consoles returned to normal, amid the shrugs of the bridge crew and the cursing of Sinclair as he looked at the wreckage he was going to have to repair on the security console.

Days later on docking with Allentown, Tim was greeted by his flame-haired wife Tess, who handed him a brown paper-bound package she'd said had been left in the tavern one night at cleanup. A tag hanging from it addressed it to 'The Honorable Captain of the Wake'. Inside was a Charred piece of blue-grey metal and a brass telescope, a small one like the ones used by old earth sailors to navigate the seas. The paper itself bore an inscription on it's inside, "For your continued work in making a shambles of Liberty's laws. Look closely." It was a micro-fische, and under an electron microscope it contained portions of technical readouts for what Sinclair deduced as a powerplant of enourmous size and hull panel composition of an alloy he'd never seen. Also broken fragments of bulkhead layouts, wiring systems, and an enormous crescent shaped bridge with work stations for twenty crewmen. The metal, upon examination turned out to be unique, and try as he may, Sinclair was unable to find any junker anywhere who recognized it, though it matched the alloy composition on the paper perfectly.

Tim, after half a bottle of whiskey, a few pints of porter, and the urgings of his fascinated engineer, made the deposit. When he thought to check the registered owner of the account, he found it gone, and no record of it having existed, other than the 20 million cred debit on his own account. Loading up on mining machinery, he made ready to embark for Invergordon. He'd not been home in some time, despite his other wife Sheila's constant rants and pleas for him to return. He had Murphy procure some flowers and chocolates before they cast off from Philly station.

After a few jumps, and a pirate who wished he'd never tried to stop the Wake, Tim berthed her at Invergordon, sold his mining machinery, then proceeded to berth his wife. Days went by, and Shiela wondered what it was he was waiting for, and why he'd spent so much time at 'home' this time around. Eventually, as Tim had had his fill of Shiela, and Murph had gone into hiding after stripping more than a few junkers of a year's pay in games of dice and pazaak, the time had come to depart. Feeling as though he'd been duped, Tim grumpily prepared to make for Liberty space and another load of, well, passengers.

Striding onto the bridge, he found another paper-wrapped package on his Captain's chair, tagged with the simple line 'Told ya I was honorable'. After berating Invergordon security and his entire crew for the lax oversight, he and Sinclair retired to the engineering bay while Murphy slid the Wake out of port and pointed her nose at the Pennsyvania system.

This time the package was filled with wonders. The paper again was micro-fische, and contained the missing
portions of the schematic. The Spyglass schematic. They boggled. Sinclair about fell out of his chair.
"Cap, this is, well, this shoudln't be." he stammered. "Hackers wouldn't sell this for eighteen systems and a shipload of dancing girls..."
Finnegan could only nod. The Spyglass was one of the best kept secrets in the entire Sirius system. While Sinclair poured over the schematics, piecing them together on the draftingcomp, Tim looked over the items found inside. There was another piece of the charred metal, this one had a blueish hue to it and was extremely lightweight, almost featherlight. Also included was a Data disk which, when placed on the reader, showed glowing circles of light over certain debris fields in various Liberty Systems. These cirlces were tagged digitally with the names FRAME, POWERPLANT, TRANSFER SYSTEMS, JUMP DRIVE, and other critical ship systems. Also on the disk were complete rundowns on the mystery alloys, with chemical equations and specifications on how to fabricate, repair, and fuse said metals.

Finally, there was a holo-jector, and a handwritten note. The note read;

Tim,
As requested, Portable Bay 19 has been undocked and placed within working distance of Culebra Smelter, within the cloud nearby. You also have access to some of our new assembly bots, as well as unfettered access to the smelter's processors, provided your orders do not conflict with Congress orders. Thank you for your payment of 20 million credits. I can't wait to see what you're doing to the wake, but your orders were precise, so I'll not peek until you're done. Again thanks,
Jaques Martin, Dockmaster, Vieques, Puerto Rico.

While the Wake slid through the California system, Tim called his bridge crew into the onboard pub and locked it down for the viewing of the holo. While Murphy tapped his latest keg of cider-porter, Tim placed the holo-jector on the billiards table and grabbed his half empty bottle of whiskey, slumping soundly into the easy chair near the fireplace.

In the greenish glow of the 'jector's field a face appeared. The same goggled, shadow-hidden, backlit face that had plagued his bridge weeks before. It smiled that crooked smile again, and spoke its electronically muddled voice at the crew.

"Ho, Tim Finnegan! Thanam an Dhul!" it said in the ancient Celtic tongue.
"I've learned never to assume anything, but I can guess that you've looked over my gifts. I'll make this simple. The Spyglass, I mean, OUR spyglass, as you know was developed clandestinely by the Liberty Navy," here the face sneered. "and stolen by our glorious ex-patriarch. Bound evermore to serve the Lane Hackers and the Hellfire Legion. Now, noone ever builds just ONE working prototype. Frames and alloys need to be stress tested, mockups of drive systems need to be built and rebuilt until they perform to specs, and so on. Those Liberty dogs went to great expense to destroy and hide all of the early work they'd done before they built the Spyglass prototype."

"I've gone to great expense to undo thier labors. I've done so outside of the" *cough* "permission of the Hackers, because I beleive our goals are mutual."

"Rare few have sold so many of Liberty's citizenry into the fields at Malta, I mean, over a million? you're a
bastard, you know that right? Anyway, I digress. Rare few also have poisoned the children of Liberty with
cardamine as you have. I'm impressed. And it takes alot to impress me. So I give you a gift."
"You'll wonder why I didn't turn this data over to Hacker command, and that's a simple explanation. They'd destroy it. I think you can do more harm to Liberty with it than without it. Im sure in the end my superiors will understand. Of course, you'll be having to deal with them soon enough, as word of this leaks out, as all information does eventually."

"In the meantime, I have included a map for finding the lost pieces of the prototype vessel. I have included schematics taken from what was thought to be lost and forgotten databases belonging to the LSI and LNS. I have added sample alloys and instructions on how to fabricate and repair these parts. The powerplant, I leave in the capable hands of your engineer, Sinclair. The one you'll find was eventually scrapped and a new, more appropriate one was built for the final version of the 'Glass. You may have some problems there, as it would certainly be my head were I to reveal OUR powerplant specs, but I've seen your resourcefulness. I'm not worried."

"As to the payment rendered, you'll see I'm no pirate, and it was immediately transferred to Vieques for the use of a platform in which to begin your salvage op. The only profit for me is to see great, pompous Liberty flat on it's face."

"This holo-jector is erasing the message as it plays, so that this will not come back upon me. You're on your own, and the Lane Hackers will come down on you like holy thunder if word of this leaks out so keep it quiet. Not to mention what Liberty's bound to do if they catch wind of it."

"Anyway, good luck to you and yours. I hope to one day, with the approval of my superiors, share a pint and a laugh onboard your new flagship. I'm sure one day they will see the reason and purpose in what I have done. I'm also sure you won't dissapoint me and throw all this in the recycler." Here the face leaned into the camera, and filled the air above the billiard table, as gold light danced across the surface of the goggles. "Don't try 'n contact me. Don't even look. I'm a friggin' ghost. I'll find you. Good day to you Captain and crew of the Wake."

The 'jector made a popping sound as the light went out and a greasy grey tendril of smoke drifted up from it. The crew sat dumbfounded, thier beers barely touched and getting warm. Tim's whiskey bottle slid from his hand to smash on the floor. He stood, straightened his kilts, and looked intently at his crew.

"Lads! Double time! Stations!" He shouted.
"Kelley! Get me the Lobelia, the Cassus-Belli, and those blasted AI rats on the comms! Call the Zodiacs, tell 'em we've got a job for 'em. And get me the Ambassador!" He yelled at the scrambling crew.
"Sinclair, I dinna care ter see yer face 'till ye've done with those bloody plans."
"Murphy! Set course for Puerto Rico, and call those Rogues at Niverton, tell 'em we won't be showing up terday!"
He slapped his hand on the intrcom panel and shouted, "All hands! Prepare for salvage cargo! Stow the cargo bay life support and prepare to lay in supplies for an extended tour!"

With that, a wide grin spread across ol' Tim Finnegan's mug, as he surveyed the now empty pub. He decided he'd best call his wives and make excuses.
"Well now," he said to himself as he poured a pint from the tap, "Look's like it's gon'be a banner year 'ere fer us spacedogs. I wonder jus' how much trouble I've gotten meself into now...."

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