"Then whoever ordered the attack was aware of the fact but ordered it anyway?" said Sondia.
"It would appear so," replied the Ambassador. "I suppose that the man could have acted alone but I strongly doubt that." He sighed, "We have suspected that there is an informant or two aboard for some time now but this is the first time that anyone has showed their hand since we left the Santana Nexus. I'll wager that the man we caught is part of the Black Storm as the last attackers were. I wonder how many more of them there are that we have yet to identify? If we can keep this one alive long enough to question him, perhaps we can find out. We will need your abilities to interrogate him."
"I'll be more than happy to help you probe him!" said Sondia, steel in her tone, "I do not think I will feel any need to be gentle about it either." She paused in thought for a moment. "How did he come to be loose in that part of the ship?" she asked.
"He was wearing the uniform of one of the kitchen staff," replied the Ambassador, "but his credentials belonged to someone who was trusted. We are attempting to locate the man the credentials belong to but I fear the worst; that the worker has been murdered and this would-be assassin took his place. We will have to go through the rest of the staff to ensure that there aren't any others." He shook his head. "This ship, with all of these different factions of people onboard, is almost impossible to keep completely under our control without risking some serious diplomatic issues. We shall have to keep our guard up at all times. They picked this time, while we're all distracted by the preparations for another attack to make their move on you. I...I'm sorry about Shawndra."
"Saad," said Sondia, her face grim, "I fear for our daughter. We must do something to ensure her safety."
"I cannot help but agree with you, my dear," replied her husband, nodding gravely. He thought for a moment. "Perhaps we could find quarters for both of the girls onboard the Greyhound. They would be a lot safer over there, I would think."
"I like that idea," said his wife. "Will you check for me?"
"Of course, my dear. As soon as we get through this current crisis."
Chapter 20.
UTFN Reclamation Center, onboard the wreck of the FWS Gibraltar, January 4, 2599.
The preparations on board the battleship wreck took on a new sense of urgency with the announcement that the enemy forces had entered the system and would be launching an attack within a short time, probably within the next two hours. Fortunately, with one of the Gibraltar's four power plants operating, the salvage crew was able to power up a number of systems on the old wreck that they hadn't been able to use on either the Terrier or on the Bofor's turret that had been transplanted onto the Greyhound, the fire control computers and the motorized drives for turret rotation and projector elevation adjustments.
They had also been able to restore gravity to most of the powered-up area, including the turrets. The location of the two gun emplacements, relative to the location of the power plant, meant that they were able to provide power, heat and life support to not only the engineering section that contained the power plant but also to the giant turrets and their adjoining capacitor chambers as well as the somewhat random block of interconnected compartments that linked the weapons to the engineering area. Essentially, the salvagers had restored power and function to a section of the wreck that represented about fifteen percent of the entire ship.
Carlisle, Caleb Jordan and Orville Steuben were back in the topside stern turret working with the newly powered up weapons controls. The fire control computer came satisfyingly to life when they activated the console. Within a few seconds of pushing the power button, the entire board had lit up and the targeting viewscreen came on as well. At the moment, the crosshairs that intersected the targeting screen were aimed at something that looked like part of a spaceship. Carlisle was sitting one of the operator's chairs and consulting with her wrist computer to get the basics on how to operate the targeting computer. Next to her, Caleb slid into the other operator's chair.
"This looks a lot like the consoles on the cruiser I was assigned to except, of course, everything is a whole lot bigger," said the former gunnery engineer, "Let me see, the zoom for the targeting module should be right here..." He twisted a dial on the console, one that had a series of fine calibrations etched onto it, to zoom the targeting view out to a lower magnification. As the view zoomed out, they discovered that the starboard gun was aimed at the wreck of a cruiser, one that was positioned clear across the scrap cloud. Caleb looked the control board over some more, further familiarizing himself with the functions.
"The turret controls should be this set right here," he said.
In the middle of the panel was the set of knobs and dials that controlled the movement of the turret and projectors. Near the exact center there was a large dial that mirrored the turret itself. The knob within the dial was of a slightly elongated teardrop shape with two distinct parallel marks, representing the twin projectors, etched into the point. The dial itself had a prominent center line running top to bottom with finer lines fanning out to either side of the center. There were no marks beyond 4 o'clock on the starboard side and beyond 8 o'clock on the port side. Carlisle immediately realized that those two terminal lines represented the extreme rotation positions for the turret and if the guns could even be aimed at a point further along the arc, they risked being aimed at some portion of the ship they were mounted on.
Caleb grasped the knob, which was pointed at the centerline mark, and twisted it clockwise to 1 o'clock. A loud 'ker-thunk' echoed through the turret as a huge solenoid in the motor compartment beneath them shifted gears into action that had not operated for more than five decades. Accompanied by the deep whirring sound of the huge actuation motor, the turret swung majestically to starboard, stopping at the one o'clock position. The sound of the motor ceased and the loud thunk of the solenoid kicking out announced that the gun had reached the requested position. Caleb then twisted the knob counterclockwise to the 11 o'clock position. The actuation of the solenoid again echoed through the ship and the turret swung smoothly to port, coming to rest at the requested angle. Ker-thunk.
They quickly moved on to experiment with projector elevation next. In this case the designers had graphically represented the projectors in a fashion similar to the rotation controls. Two identical dials with precision markings flanked the rotation control. Carlisle immediately grasped that one was for the port projector and the other for the starboard one. Apparently the gun crew could operate both projectors from this one console. She would check to make sure but normal military redundancy dictated that there be an identical console in the port chamber that could also be used to control both projectors.
The projector elevation dials had markings along an arc of just under ninety degrees. One extreme of the dial represented the maximum elevation that the projectors could achieve while the other extreme represented maximum depression. Caleb moved the starboard elevation control off from the maximum depression setting to a position partway up the dial, around twenty-five degrees. Another solenoid, this one with a considerably less authoritative presence than the one associated with the rotation motors, sounded off and the projector lifted smoothly to twenty-five degrees of elevation, relative to the "horizontal" of the ship. A moment later, the portside gun also responded to their commands.
It remained to be seen whether or not they'd be able to aim and fire the guns accurately, but for the time being, at least they knew that the machinery to move the emplacement and the projectors both worked.
Carlisle called Harris, still down in engineering to let him know.
"Lieutenant Harris?"
"Go ahead, Ensign,"
"We've got everything ready to go in this turret. I think we'd better get the gun crew up here."
There was a short hesitation before she received a reply.
"Gun crew?" came the reply, "There's no gun crew! All of the personnel who know how to operate guns are manning weapons in the Scrapyard. The three of you are going to h
ave to man that gun! You and Caleb and Steuben are the gun crew!"
Carlisle gulped, and mumbled, "Omigod!"
"What was that, Ensign?"
"Um...Aye, aye, Sir!"
***
Nacobbus system hyperlink zone, on board the former Jasmine Navy ship Sultan, January 4, 2599.
Having determined that any kind of meaningful long-distance reconnaissance was virtually impossible due to the sheer number of objects in the Scrapyard and the distance separating his ships from the cloud of scrap, Captain Shalhoub ordered the Revolutionary Strike Force to go proceed with the attack.
The Revolutionary Forces had learned a few things since the last attempt on the Scrapyard and were better prepared this time around. By recalibrating the sensor equipment on several of the El-Nashar destroyers, they were confident that they could detect the charged capacitors on most of the wrecked ships in the Scrapyard and thereby avoid or destroy many of the defender's weapons before the enemy even had an opportunity to use them.
"This is Captain Shalhoub, we have determined that the forces in this system have not been appreciably fortified. We will continue with our attack as planned. When we arrive at the Scrapyard, the El-Nashar destroyers, with their superior shielding, will seek out and destroy the charged gun emplacements before the enemy has a chance to use them against us. The other ships and the troop transports will hold back until we neutralize their weapons and will prepare to overwhelm the diplomatic ship. We will begin microjumping towards the Scrapyard in the next five minutes."
***
UTFN Reclamation Center, onboard the wreck of the FWS Gibraltar, January 4, 2599.
"Lieutenant Harris? Kresge here, several of the enemy ships have just gone into microjump. Are you in condition to engage them or not?"
"We still have to charge the capacitors, Commander. How much time do you estimate we have?"
"Last time it took them about two hours to get here after the microjump. Since several of their ships jumped to the Scrapyard last time around, they should have some very accurate jump coordinates and may be able to get even closer. If you can't be ready in an hour, I'd say we'd better think very strongly about aborting."
"Roger, Commander."
The battleship arming crew intensified their efforts.
As it turned out, the enemy was indeed capable of jumping in closer than they had during the previous attack. When the Strike Force had completed their microjumps, they were less than an hour and a half away. When all of the Strike Force ships had reassembled after the jump, the group began accelerating towards the Scrapyard. Within a disappointingly short time, the enemy ships were only 5000 kilometers away, in a matter of a few more minutes they would be approaching the extreme distance of their destroyer's pulse weapons.
With the enemy essentially breathing down their necks, the salvage crew's next desperate task was to see if they could get the capacitors for the topside turret charged up. Capacitor charging was monitored and performed at another console down in the capacitor chamber. Carlisle and Caleb Jordan left Orville Steuben at the turret controls and exited the aft main battery projector compartment of the turret, going downwards past the motor compartment and into the capacitor chamber. Forcing themselves to behave calmly, in spite of the almost overwhelming sense of urgency each of them was experiencing, the two of them set themselves to the task of meeting their next challenge as calmly as they could.
In this compartment there was another computer console with a couple of operator's chairs arrayed in front of it. This control interface was familiar to Carlisle from the similar, though considerably smaller, console currently in the Bofor's turret that had been transplanted onto the Greyhound. Carlisle and Caleb took seats at the console. The capacitor chamber was also split into two distinct compartments with the port and starboard capacitors partitioned into separate compartments by an armored bulkhead to isolate potential battle damage. Again, both or either capacitor system could be operated from identical, redundant consoles in either the port or starboard compartment.
"Okay, we've all done this before, on the Greyhound." Caleb Jordan keyed his spacesuit radio. "Rahgib? Run that power plant up to full power, we're ready to charge some capacitors."
"Roger, Caleb," was the almost instantaneous reply.
The salvage crew felt an immediate increase in the intensity of the power plant's vibrations. Caleb worked the controls at the capacitor console.
"Here goes," said the little weapons tech as he hit the button that would route power to the starboard capacitor."
The vibration deepened and within about thirty seconds, Caleb's console indicated that there was a full charge on the starboard capacitor.
"Starboard capacitor charged," he announced, "Charging port capacitor, now!"
Within another half minute, the charge indicator lit up for the port capacitor as well.
"Both capacitors charged," said Caleb, "We should be ready to discharge weapons!"
Carlisle and Jordan listened in while Harris notified Kresge and requested further instructions.
"Commander, Kresge? This is Harris. We have charged weapons, what are your orders?"
After a short pause, the crew on the Gibraltar received his reply, "Do you have fire control or will you have to aim and fire manually?" asked Kresge.
"The fire control computer is up and running, Commander."
"You'll still have a hard time hitting anything at the current range," replied Kresge. "I'm afraid we'll just have to let them get a little closer. Standby!"
"Roger, Commander."
"You should give Steuben a hand at the fire control console, Ensign," said Caleb, "We can at least have these guns aimed in the right direction when we get the order to fire. I can handle this console by myself."
"Good idea," replied Carlisle. She left Caleb at the capacitor controls and headed back up to join Steuben at the fire control console.
The two of them managed to locate the enemy formation on the fire control screen and operated the turret controls to get the big guns trained in the right direction. Carlisle picked out one of the lead destroyers and began following it with the starboard projector.
Everyone waited for a very tense twenty minutes or so until the enemy ships closed to within two thousand kilometers, very near the extreme range of the main batteries on the destroyers.
"You may commence firing any time you have a target," said Kresge at last.
Carlisle double-checked the aim of the starboard projector, made a fine adjustment and pressed the firing stud.
Nothing happened.
She pushed the firing stud again, with the same result
"Caleb? The damned gun won't fire," shouted Carlisle, "What do we do now!"
"Hang on!" shouted Caleb.
Caleb reset several of the controls on his console and shouted, "Try it again!"
Carlisle rechecked the aim of the projector, made a small adjustment and tried again. The gun still refused to fire!
"That's enough on the starboard system, Caleb," said Carlisle, "Quickly, we have to try the port side!"
They concentrated their efforts on the port gun but after a couple of attempts they came up with the same disappointing result.
Carlisle headed back down to the capacitor chamber where Caleb was frantically running through the control systems on the control console.
"Why won't the gun fire, Caleb?" asked Carlisle
"I think something's wrong with the connection between the capacitors and the projectors," said Caleb, "There must be a circuit breaker that's tripped or we missed a break in a cable. Maybe we can double check..."
"...Ship bottom...belly gun...There's no time!" said Carlisle, "Quickly, we have to head downward and see if the belly gun works. This late in the game, it's our best chance!"
Caleb nodded and got up from the capacitor console.
"Stueben? Get down here right away!" Carlisle shouted out to the electrical tech who had remained in the turret above where they had left him, ma
nning the fire control computer for the topside weapon. Within a few seconds, Steuben had joined them in the capacitor chamber.
"What's up?" said Steuben.
"Something's wrong with this projector system. We have to get down to the belly turret."
"I'm right behind you!" replied Steuben.
The three of them headed out of the capacitor chamber and made their way downwards through the interconnected compartments that contained atmosphere.
"Harris? This is Carlisle," said the Ensign over her suit radio as the trio was in the process of negotiating the maze of compartments that connected the topside turret to the belly emplacement.
"What is it, Tamara?"
"We got the capacitors charged up but we couldn't get the topside projectors to fire. We're heading down to try the projectors in the belly turret now. We should be there in five minutes or so."
Carlisle had her wrist computer displaying a schematic of the battleship and was using it to guide the three of them on the most direct route to the bottom turret.
"Let us know as soon as you get there, Ensign! We've cut back on the power until we hear from you again."
"Roger," she replied.
Chapter 21.
Deep Space, near the UTFN Reclamation Center, on board the destroyer MIS Sultan, January 4 2599.
In the meantime the enemy formation had gotten within easy range of the main batteries of his destroyers. Captain Shaloub was looking over the shoulder of his ship's sensor operator.
"Can you detect the charged capacitors?" he asked.
"Aye, Sir, these red areas on my display indicate places within the scrap cloud that are heat sources. Some of them are almost certainly charged capacitors. Ah! Here's one right now!"
The technician zoomed the view in on the wreck of a cruiser near the outside of the scrap cloud. Shaloub could see the dark outline of a main battery turret with a red blob glowing beneath it.
The Santana Nexus (Junkyard Dogs Book 3) Page 11
