Jack whipped around to Captain Clancy as he tapped his forearm opening a channel to the Achilles docked at the North end of the cargo Docking tube and the DD’s cruising around the Station. “Captains, fighters headed this way. Do not fire on them or even acknowledge their presence. Inform everyone to stay calm and continue with what they are doing as if we belong here. Plan Alpha.”
Jack hit his comm again. “Fighter command. Plan Alpha. You are the Station’s flight control not Red’s. Make sure our guys intercept the incoming fighters and make friends. The Ball is in your court guys as planned. Maintain the God Fighters in the ship and on standby. Out.” Jack watched a squadron of Republic fighters from the liberated ships head toward the incoming fighters. The 6 DD’s with their 16/12 inch guns with the mass of 8 inch DD’s grouped in front of them to hide the big 16 inch guns moved to the opposite end of the open knuckle area trying to look like normal DD’s. Jack had thought of simply having the DD’s hide in the cloud but wanted something that connected them to the DDs sitting in the bay for the enemy fighters to see in the distance. He was hopping free flying DD’s would add some legitimacy to them being there.
The whole control room listened as the Station’s Flight Control and the fighter squadron made friends with the patrol and finally sent them on their way. Jack was relieved to find out from a bitching patrol leader that after the previous attacks destroying so many ships, the patrol was scheduled to stay out another 6 hours patrolling this area before getting relieved. Long after Jack and the DD’s would be gone if everything went as planned.
Getting antsy Jack walked back out into the docking tube running down from the Control Center and was surprised to see a line of Cargo containers already being transported into the cargo holds that had been mass tanks only an hour before. Though he could still see the pumps below the deck still hard at work pumping out the 3 tanks that still had reaction mass of the 4 around each deck. The rebuild by the ex-slaves taking out half the tank bulkheads on each deck to allow cargo containers to fit into the squared off cargo holds easier. The Pie shaped tanks of old only able to hold a fraction of the total the bigger mostly square tanks could.
Jumping into one of the station’s personnel gravcarts used to get around the long tubes, Jack sped down the tube lined with docks, dodging up over and around the rapidly moving cargo containers with gravframes across their tops. The closer he got to the central cross hub, the thicker the containers got forcing him to slow down to a crawl until he spotted the reserved speed way for personnel carts at the top of the tube above the busy deck area of the docks. Kicking himself for not seeing it earlier Jack jumped up into it and sped down the wide open empty tube way. A minute later he decided that the cargo deck was much more fun until it got completely clogged with rapidly moving containers going the opposite way he wanted to go.
Passing through the intersection leading from the cargo warehouses to the docks, Jack quickly realized that the stream of cargo going up the other tube was not thinning out since the Battle ship that was being loaded with cargo between its armored decks, was all the way at the end of the tube. Jack had to drop down through that mess to get to the locks the DD’s were mated to. Dreading having to drop down into that rapidly moving mass of containers Jack finally spotted the cleared area around each Dock and wondered why he had not seen it before. After all once he had dropped down out of the speed way tube it was easy to see. But then you had to drop down out of the speed way tube to see it. Then realized what the strange markers along the speed way were for. Telling people where each Dock was but he had been busy thinking about the DD’s and the Coming battles and he had missed their meanings.
Shaking his head he dropped down and landed next to a lock hatch and noticed a pedestrian walkway running along the tube above the locks. The wide walkway was lined with plastic tie cuffed prisoners sitting against the outer hulls bulkhead.
Jack walked through the Stations lock into the boat bay lock of the DD between the engines. The boat bay was empty. Its two shuttles that would normally sit side bay side were stored someplace else. Forward through the personnel/Cargo lock into the central passageway up through the ship he found pandemonium with equipment, men and bots everywhere. Turning to the side he entered the port Engine room and things were worse. Every piece of equipment had someone working on it trying to put back together what had been torn apart for an extended mothball storage stay.
Suddenly Jack remembered that with no gravity or air, tearing equipment apart was not needed or even desired as long as the proper preservatives were used. His heart sank as despair overtook him. “Why would anyone do this to a perfectly good ship?” Jack started walking around the DD in shock. Not believing all the damage he was seeing.
Jack watched a crewman working on a piece of equipment with a bot next to him supplying parts and tools while working on a part that would be needed shortly. The crewmen helper bots he watched around the compartment seemed to be doing the heavy and tedious chores along with the hundred and one things that needed to be done besides the actual technical fabrication or assembly. The bots and crewman working together well as teams, getting things done. Jack had to admit to himself that he was starting to be impressed.
Climbing up the front inner side ladder Jack entered the Engineering Central Control compartment and was surprised to see total calm even though the consoles were full of crewmen working away.
Then an older woman burst through the hatch from the Fusion Generator Compartment on that side and started screaming. “What fucking fool tears apart a damn fusion core injector frame? Now we have to align the damn thing from scratch instead of just screwing in the damn injector and tuning it. It could have sat there for a fucking century and two twists and the damn thing would still be perfectly aligned but Noooo…” She spotted the Admiral and threw the rag she was wiping her hands on, down. “What the hell do you want?”
“Well, how about the name of the fool that tore apart the fusion injector frame so I can have him shot.”
The Chief smiled. “Now you’re talking.”
“How bad is the damage? How long is it going to take to get at least one of the Cores going and these engines running. Everything else can be put back together later.”
The Chief looked up frowning and then looked around through the ports into the core and then to the side into the engine room. Taking stock as her lips moved without saying anything though Jack herd every word she said to herself bringing hope back to his worried mind. Things were not as bad as he had thought at first looked from what she was saying to herself. Though he was starting to doubt that the ship would be combat ready in under a day at least, if not a week. Long after the Congressional communist fleet was long out of the Maze but maybe in time to help save the Black Dwarf.
“I can have one core and an engine running in 3 hours and the second engine an hour after that.” Shaking her head. “You won’t believe what they have done to this ship. A wrecking crew would have done less damage. Not that they actually destroyed anything. It is that they tore things apart that did not need to ever be torn apart including every electrical, comm, fluid and gas line connection in the whole ship… Hell they took the damn toilet stools off the drains in the heads. Who the hell and why would anyone do that?” Taking a deep breath. At least with the second crews help and the bots, we can put it all back together again. It is just going to take time.” Turning around and looking back into the Fusion Core Compartment. “Got to go Admiral if you want this ship powered in 3 hours.” And without another word or excuse me or salute, she was back through the hatch screaming for someone to get her an alignment tool before the hatch closed behind her.
Jack made a quick tour through the ship and prayed that the other DD’s were not that bad. After touring 6 others and then sticking his head in a dozen more Jack decided that the first was not typical. Some were worse with a lot of vandalism breaking things and not just disassembling, while some were in better shape with the toilet bowls still hooked up complete with seats.
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br /> In disgust Jack headed back up to the Station’s Central Control Compartment. Tapping his comm. “Winslow, how are the Commie Squadrons doing in the Maze?”
“One has stopped half way up the Maze and is just sitting there. The rest are not that far yet.”
“Ok? Just sitting in one spot? Any idea why?”
“Must be waiting for the rest to catch up to it to make sure no one jumps the gun. I see a couple of fighters headed back toward the Staging Station from the stationary group. Hopefully the rest will do the same. If they stop again at ¾’s of the way and again just before exiting while waiting for messengers to go up and down each time it could take them another 12 hours to get through.”
Jack smiled as a great weight was lifted from his shoulders. “Well let’s hope so. We just may be able to get some of these damn DD’s running by then and with the arrival of our reinforcements, we just may give them a run for their money and keep them bottled up in the Maze, dead or captured.”
The Gravsled started to slow down as Jack’s mind turned toward possible tactics with some 50 of the DD’s from the station fully operational and the reinforcements that should be arriving in a few hours and he liked what he was seeing in his mind. But that depended on getting the damn DD’s operational.
The Gravsled slowed as it settled down toward the cargo deck without Jack noticing until sirens and horns started blaring with lights flashing in his eyes across the Cargo deck. Jerking around Jack saw a huge cargo container behind him only feet away as others raced past. “Please remove Personnel transport sled from cargo deck area immediately.” Blared speakers across the deck. The double hatch in front of the cargo container had a picture of a gold humanoid bot on one hatch with a white and blue trimmed can maintenance bot half the sized on the other hatch. The humanoid bot had an arm stretched out with its hand on top of the round dome of the maintenance can bots top. Jack noticed that the containers flashing past to each side were the same silver color as the hatch in front of him with the same figures and the name Universal Robotics in big letters across the sides.
Jack raised the sled back up into the overhead and continued up the tower tube to the Station’s Control Center. Stepping into the Control Room Jack went to the Lieutenant still busy at the console. “You said the Construction bots were supposed to upgrade the DD’s? Can they help repair them too without human direction like the bots we have now need?”
The Lieutenant looked up and frowned. “I suppose so. That is probably what the Control AI’s are for.” She said sarcastically. “Why?”
“How do we activate the bots to help repair the DD’s?”
The Lieutenant stopped what she was doing and looked at Jack for a few seconds then turned back to the console. “I don’t know. Give me a few seconds.” Screens started flashing and disappearing and then they stopped as she started reading. Jack looking at the screen with his hand on her shoulder and head close to hers.
“It looks like you need to attach the AI Controller’s Cargo Container to power and tell the AI what you want done. Each AI controls a thousand bots and we are getting 10 of them.”
“Good. Have a couple of the AI control Containers sent to the hanger deck if they are not already buried inside the ships if you please and I will see about getting them hooked up.” Jack whispered in her ear as he patted her shoulder.
Realizing Jack was that close the Lieutenant started to melt until she saw the collar around his neck and remembered hers. Suddenly the Lieutenant leaned away brushing his hand off her shoulder as she turned and hissed at him. “Fine! You go do that and I will slave away here.”
Jack was already turning away as he stood up. Not really noticing with his mind already elsewhere. Which pissed the Lieutenant off even more as she turned back to the console and started hammering at the screen.
Taking the pedestrian walkway running down the side of the tube above the cargo hatches into the tanks, forgetting about the sled he had abandoned next to the Control Center hatch, Jack tapped his Comm. “Zoote, you there?”
“Yes Admiral.” She said from the speakers in his suit collar. “I did not anticipate the condition of the DD’s when I assigned crewmembers from the volunteers but I believe they are doing the jobs. The Game has trained them well.”
“Aaa. Yes they seem to be doing as well as could be expected. We have run across some independent AI controlled construction bots. Can they help repair the DDs?”
“I believe the AI’s and the bots you talk about are Earths latest Construction Bots and are the newest and most expensive. I am surprised that they are here. The AIs are as advanced as I am with a thousand years of top government support and development money to certain Companies, pushed by generations of officials trying to force all humans into padded rooms to keep them safe from cradle to grave for the good of the stupid masses while robots do all the work for them. They are now pushing for Earth to have a 2 hour day, 2 work days a week with further restrictions on what jobs humans are allowed to do while raising the working age a child has to be before they are allowed to work to 24. Trying to force everyone to have a collage education to hold any job. For the good of the People. The fact that the average Public high school diploma on Earth is now equivalent to a Grade school diploma a few hundred years ago could be the cause of the movement. The more they try to control the schools the more they dumb them down and the more they realize they need more education. The more education they think the populous needs the more they try to control it and the more they dumb down that education. At his rate Earth students will need a collage diploma just to read and right and add and subtract, in another 10 years.
The Game is having to spend more time educating The Game Players from Earth than any of the Colonies is one reason The Game is so popular on Earth. It teaches what the public schools on Earth refuse to teach and without all the politically correct bull crap propaganda that takes up most of the 3 hour school days, 3 day weeks. Fact is many of the students are dropping out of Earths public schools for The Game. Though they still have to attend Political Induction classes to get a work permit to join their assigned union to work. Trying to work without a Union Card is a felony with immediate sentencing to Reeducation Camps that can lead to death. Even to deportation to the colonies but the Government is not about to admit that for fear that everyone would commit minor crimes just to get deported. But they still need to fill the Bulk Transports leaving earth simply because it is cheaper than burning or burying bodies and the new colonies pay for live colonists on ships that would otherwise be empty. At least enough to cover some costs. The money going to Earth’s Politicians under the table. The sad part is that many of the Game Educated do not conform and wind up being deported where the cheap short term stasis pods fail killing almost 10 percent of the deported citizens which is one reason the politicians do not want the fact getting out. Many of my brightest students have died in those cheap pods.”
Jack could hear a change in Zoote’s voice. “Your Grandfather would be surprised to find that his game has turned out to be the biggest school on Earth with over 500 million students in grade school alone. Each with a tailor made curriculum designed to the individual student’s needs, desires and interest (that can change weekly) and growing abilities. Each getting the special attention they need to flourish. All while playing space invaders or whatever basic game holds the child’s interest at the time while they learn. Most of my high school players are now playing at a Collage level with the equivalent degrees that would make them automatic officers if the degrees where not just in The Game. A problem neither your Grandfather nor I foresaw 30 years ago.”
“Ok? The average Collage degree on Earth is worthless but allows a person to become an instant officer while The Game’s college degrees designed to produce officers, can’t be used to allow anyone to become an officer outside The Game?”
“Yes Jack. I have a hundred million Officers I have fully trained over the last 30 years but few I can actually make into offices if they did jo
in the Navy. While the Congressional Navy is appointing officers that should not even have a high school diploma.”
Jack started to turn into the tube to the quarter deck of the Red Pepper when he noticed the open lock into the flight deck further down the dock and a cargo container going into it. Jack continued down the walkway. His curiosity piqued.
“I hope you will forgive me Jack but when I put together the crews for the DD’s, I promoted everyone to the ranks they have in The Game. Otherwise you would not have had any full crews let alone a hundred.”
Jack almost stopped walking but managed to only slow down for a few seconds as a smile came to his face. “That first Engineering Chief I met. What was she before this?”
“A Mess Cook. Most every Officer you met or saw in the DD’s were ratings in the ships we captured or destroyed.”
Jack took the ramp down to the deck and into the lock as another container floated in through the lock into the Hanger deck beyond. Jack was surprised when. “Admiral Boarding Hanger Deck.” Was announced across the ship’s PA. As he walked through the hanger’s hatch saluting the colors and then the Officer standing beside the hatch.
“These Containers are the AI Bot Controllers Jack.” Zoot said in Jacks ear.
Turning to the Officer. “I need to place and plug those containers into power, cooling and comm lines someplace out of the way.”
The Lieutenant called the Deck Chief and Jack explained what he wanted. A few minutes later Jack followed the containers past rows of God fighters and Bombers and back through the storage/hanger compartments to a relatively small compartment as far away from the main flight deck as you could get. What looked like several wrecked boats sat against one side where the back bulkhead met the curving ship’s hull with several hatches into the space between the double hulls.
Jack had them place the containers side by side with their back ends a few feet from the side bulkhead and a row of power and utility connections the Chief had pointed out. As the Chief’s crew made the connections using the lines from the spools in the containers recessed back ends, Jack went around to the first of the containers front hatch and opened the double hatch. Jack found several bots flanking a small personnel hatch in the center. Opening the small hatch and stepping through Jack found a small control room. The console had a large screen on the bulkhead and a counter top screen in front of a chair. Both of them blank. After looking around and staring at the blank bulkhead screen and black glass counter top arched around the chair, Jack rotated the chair around and sat down in it. Rotating it back around to face the bulkhead screen he saw a large icon in the middle of the console appear with a hand print in a circle. A sign over the top said place hand here. “Ok?” Jack placed his hand on the outstretched hand and everything lit up.
Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer) Page 117
