Junkyard Dogs series Omnibus

by Phillip Nolte

  "Be givin' me another five minutes, Lieutenant," said Hawkins.

  Harris and Murdock heard Hawkins call something out to Talbot who was presumably somewhere down in the capacitor chamber of the gun emplacement. A few minutes later Hawkins poked his head onto the bridge.

  "We be ready, Lieutenant. As soon as Frank be gettin' down to engineering, we can be givin' it a go."

  As if on cue, Talbot's voice came over the intercom. "We're ready down in engineering, Captain!"

  Hawkins returned to the beam weapon control console and, after a short countdown, threw a switch. The lights on the bridge dimmed way down for about three seconds and ... went out completely. All of the ventilation fans stopped. Everyone became weightless as the artificial gravity cut out as well. After a few more seconds, emergency lighting flickered on.

  "What the...?" exclaimed Murdock.

  "Hawkins? What in Murphy's name is going on?" shouted Harris.

  The bridge crew could hear Hawkins mumbling something, it sounded like cursing, but whatever it was, it was unintelligible to the people on the bridge. Again, Hawkins poked his head through the hatchway onto the bridge.

  "I be mortified, Lieutenant," he said, his anguish evident from his tone and his expression, "We must've tripped somethin'. main power be down. We need to be getting' down to engineering to be givin' Talbot a hand. Might you be comin' with me, Sir? Ah...the Ensign too, if you please."

  "Let's go," said Harris.

  "Do you have any idea what's going on, Hawk?" asked Harris as he and Hawkins and Carlisle made their way aft towards the engineering section of the ship.

  "Nay, Sir, I don't," replied the old technician. "It should'a worked just fine."

  Minutes later the three of them arrived in engineering.

  "What's going on, Frank?" asked Harris.

  "It's got me baffled, Lieutenant," replied Talbot, glancing up only briefly while he continued to work feverishly at the main engineering control console.

  With Carlisle consulting the information on her wrist computer, it took the team a little over five minutes to determine, to their great relief, that the power plant was fine. Something having to do with the gun emplacement had caused the main circuit breakers protecting the power plant to shut the system down. The engineering crew would have to initiate a partial restart.

  "Are the capacitor systems for the gun disengaged from main power?" asked Harris.

  "Aye, they are," replied Hawkins. "That were the first thing we did when the power be kickin' off."

  "So, if we let things cool down for another ten minutes or so, we should be able to restart the power plant?"

  "I don't be seein' why we can't," replied Hawkins.

  "I'll let you know as soon as the temperature gets low enough," said Talbot.

  They waited for almost ten minutes before Talbot's readings indicated that it was safe and initiated a restart of the Greyhound's power plant. Everything proceeded normally. There was a collective sigh of relief as the machinery settled in to the familiar, deep-throated hum they had all grown accustomed to hearing from it. After a long and harrowing forty-five minutes, the main lighting for the bridge area flickered again before coming back on and the whir of the ventilators resumed as well. Hawkins carefully phased the artificial gravity back on.

  Harris, Murdock, Carlisle, Talbot and Hawkins met on the bridge shortly after the power was restored. Hawkins looked more than a bit embarrassed. He also appeared to be more than a bit shaken by the incident.

  "Like I said before, I be mortified," he said. "That were unexpected."

  "What's going on, Hawk?" asked Harris.

  "I'm not being sure Lieutenant. We be connecting the pulse beam system to the same power outlets as the projectile weapons were hooked up to. It must be having something to do with that interface. It's a mite bit close, but we should be havin' enough power to charge the capacitors. This power system just don't seem t'be very well matched to these weapons."

  "Are we going to be able to get it to work at all?"

  "We'll be makin' it work, Lieutenant, but it'll be taking some more experimentin'. I just wished I knew how Caleb made those big pulse beams work on those freighters."

  "I don't need to remind you that we're a long way from home and we are in the presence of an unknown enemy out here, Hawk," said Harris. "I want those guns working as badly as you do but we don't dare try to charge up those capacitors until we're absolutely sure that we aren't going to lose power again. Meantime, we aren't totally without teeth. We can get Kelly and his marines with their assault cannon ready to go in the front cargo bay. Just keep at it. Let me know as soon as you think you have any kind of solution."

  "Will do, Lieutenant. Be comin' with me, Dr. Talbot. I be thinkin' that between the two us we can be makin' this old equipment work."

  "Lead on, Mr. Hawkins," said Talbot. The two old engineers left to resume working on the gun emplacement.

  Chapter 37.

  UTFN Reclamation Center, onboard Meridian Imperial Diplomatic Ship Istanbul, December 10, 2598.

  Amada and Faiza had been in their quarters studying diligently for more than two hours when Amanda used a hand gesture to switch off her holo display and got up from the bunk where she had been lying on her stomach while reviewing what seemed to be an endless supply of files.

  "I need a break," she said, as she stood up and stretched. She rolled her head back and forth to work the kinks out of her neck.

  "As do I," replied Faiza, looking up from her own display.

  "Have you ever tried the cranial net that came with your wrist computer?" asked Amanda.

  "I put it on once but I never activated it," replied Faiza. "It's supposed to take about an hour to calibrate and I never got around to initiating the setup. Here are the instructions." Faiza brought up the file in question in a holo display in front of them. "It says to wear the net while using the computer normally for a half hour and then to begin using the net for the next half hour. It sounds a little vague but, apparently, you just 'think' the commands. The more you use it, the better it's supposed to work."

  "I'm going to try it," said Amanda. "We're going to be using these computers for hours every day from now on. The cranial net looks like it could make things go a lot easier. I could get it calibrated before we break for lunch."

  Faiza helped her put the net on, adjusting it until the fit was comfortable and then activated the device by pushing a small, flat button positioned over Amanda's right temple.

  "I should do it too," said Faiza, "Give me a hand getting this on, please."

  Amanda helped position Faiza's cranial net and pushed the button to activate it.

  "Do you feel anything?" asked Amanda.

  "It tingled a little bit right after you turned it on," replied Faiza, "but I don't feel anything now."

  "Yeah, that's the same way it was with me," said Amanda.

  The two of them went back to work. The cranial net accessory was very comfortable to wear, since it weighed practically nothing and neither of the two young women could feel anything unusual after the initial slight tingling sensation that each had felt when they first put the device on.

  After having spent at least an hour "calibrating" her device, Amanda tried interacting with her wristcomp using a thought command. She took a deep breath and concentrated on bringing up the same holo schematic of the Istanbul that she had accessed several times during the morning already. To her surprise and delight, the holo came up immediately.

  "Faiza," she said excitedly, "look at this!" The image of the converted cruiser rotated slowly in the air in front of Amanda. "This is really cool, I just thought about it and the image came up and then I made it rotate. You should try it!"

  Faiza attempted to bring up the image she had been studying and was delighted when she achieved the same result with a schematic of the Dingo some thirty seconds later. The two of them then played around with their newly discovered capability for about a half hour before returning to the busine
ss at hand. For the rest of the morning, the two young women went back to performing their studies but they were now using a combination of voice, manual and thought input. As suggested by the instructions, use of the cranial net did get easier and more fluid the more they used it.

  Shortly before lunch, Amanda tried another experiment. She attempted to contact Faiza using the wristcomp net system. She very clearly and deliberately formed the words in her head. "Faiza, it's time for lunch."

  "Yes, it is," Faiza replied, out loud in a normal voice response, "I'm getting hungry...," she paused and gave Amanda an astonished look, "What did you just do?"

  Amanda was ecstatic over what appeared to be yet another new found capability.

  "I talked to you just by thinking the words!" she said, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice."Now you try it," she messaged again, using the net system.

  "...Yes...I...Think...it's...time for...lunch!" Faiza sent back to Amanda.

  The two of them danced around the room in their excitement.

  "What kind of range to you suppose this system has?" asked Faiza.

  "Let's check," replied Amanda. "You run down to the galley and I'll stay here. See if we can still talk as you get further away."

  Faiza left the room and headed for the dining facilities. The two of them kept up a steady stream of back and forth communication until Faiza got to her destination.

  "Okay, I'm in the galley now," Faiza sent.

  "Still coming in loud and clear," replied Amanda. "I'm on my way to join you."

  Amanda arrived in the galley a few minutes later. The two of them continued to experiment with their new found communication capability as they ate their lunch.

  "From my room to the galley," Faiza sent, "That's pretty good, don't you think?"

  "We might be able to do a whole lot better," Amanda sent back. "Your mother was able to communicate with Tamara Carlisle on the New Ceylon Station from the Istanbul while they were more than 100 kilometers apart. If one or the other of us gets out into the Scrapyard sometime in the next few days, we should see if we can still communicate while one of us is out there."

  "Let's not tell anyone about it until we have more time to practice," Faiza sent.

  "Yes, I agree," Amanda sent back.

  They finished their lunch and headed back to their shared quarters to begin the school portion of their day. The ability to communicate almost telepathically made their studies go very well indeed.

  Chapter 38.

  "...Parkinson Capacitor Discharge Pulse Beam Weapons Systems Part 1: The Basics.

  The Parkinson capacitor discharge beam weapon system was a huge breakthrough for the space-faring navies of the various factions of the human race. Consisting of a capacitor bank to store the huge reservoir of energy that is released over the space of a few microseconds into the pulse chamber at the base of the associated pulse projector, a capacitor bank can hold a charge almost indefinitely. Contrary to popular belief, the pulses produced by these weapons are not beams of light but rather are a hyper-activated plasma discharge. As such, the pulses travel at nearly the speed of light but they will eventually dissipate, becoming less focused and therefore less powerful the further they travel before encountering a target. The more powerful the pulse, the greater the range at which the beam can still be destructive...

  ...Smaller and less powerful weapons naturally have a shorter range. For example, the ubiquitous 2000 gigajoule "light duty" pulse cannon utilized by the Federation Navy has an effective range of around 1,000 kilometers. Smaller weapons, such as the 50 gigajoule units are only effective to around a quarter of that distance..."

  Hartwell Wristcomp reference note highlighted for further review by Tamara Carlisle. Excerpt is from the UTFN Military Weapons Training Manual.

  On board UTFN Auxiliary Ship Greyhound, somewhere in the Heard's World star system, December 10, 2598.

  Hawkins and Talbot came onto the bridge of the Greyhound. "Lieutenant?" said Hawkins. Harris looked up from where he was watching the navigation plot over Murdock's shoulder.

  "Yes, Hawkins, what is it?"

  "We be needin' to talk about why the guns be kickin' the power off, Sir."

  Harris and Murdock both turned their attention to the two engineers. "Okay, let's talk," said Harris.

  "We be havin' some o' the same issues as the raider ships that attacked the Scrapyard must have been havin'" said Hawkins. "The capacitor banks be needin' almost the full output of the power plant for chargin'. We were knowin' that goin' in. Problem is, the capacitors on these pulse beams be connected to the same weapons output module that the old projectile weapons were bein' connected to and these be needin' to draw way more power than the projectile capacitors did."

  "According to our estimates, we should still have adequate power," said Harris.

  "That's true, Lieutenant," said Talbot, "but there's a safety override in the weapons output module that we connected the capacitor banks to and it kicked the entire system off when the power demand exceeded the override's capacity."

  "So what do we do?" asked Murdock.

  "If we can be bypassin' the blasted override, or be figurin' out how to increase the power cut off level, we think we can be chargin' the capacitor bank," said Hawkins.

  "This Bofors unit is a relatively a low input pulse beam system," added Talbot, "but even at that, these capacitors won't charge up unless you channel a fairly high level of power to them. There is an upside, though."

  "...and that is...?" asked Harris.

  "Once the capacitor bank be fully charged," said Hawkins, "we should be able t'be firin' four pulses per gun before they need chargin' again."

  "So if we charge up the capacitor banks beforehand, we would still have full operating capability with the ship and as many as eight shots?"

  "That's what it looks like, Lieutenant," said Talbot.

  "Well, let's figure out how to charge them up!"

  "Beggin' your pardon, Sir, but we could really be usin' your help with this project."

  "Let me change into something more suitable. I'll join you in five minutes."

  "Thank you, Sir."

  Chapter 39.

  UTFN Reclamation Center, onboard, Meridian Imperial Diplomatic Ship Istanbul, December 11, 2598.

  Back at the Scrapyard, Commander Kresge, his command post now situated in the unlikely location of a Meridian diplomatic ship, was discussing the prospects of arming said ship. The Ambassador was present as were Sondia and the two wrist computer-equipped young women.

  "As Ensign Carlisle pointed out, the Istanbul is based on a Meridian light cruiser design," said Kresge. "Amanda, Faiza, tell me what you've learned."

  "The ship is just over ten years old, Sir," said Faiza, reading from the wrist computer display in the air in front of her. "The Meridian Government started building her to be a Cutlass class light cruiser but decided to make her into a diplomatic vessel before her construction was completed. When the Iranian crisis was solved diplomatically, the Meridian government came to the realization that they needed to put more of their resources into diplomacy. The ship was originally designed for a weapons package normal for her class, but she was never armed. Do you have the schematics, Amanda?"

  The two young women had been working on their presentation for this meeting most of the previous night. Early on in their partnership they had discovered that each of them had different areas of expertise regarding how they dealt with information. Faiza was especially good at ferreting out written information while Amanda did much better with graphics and visuals. Amanda used her own wrist computer display to bring up two schematics, one of the Cairo, a fully-armed Cutlass-class cruiser, and the other of the Istanbul itself, as she took over the presentation. She was obviously a little nervous but her voice remained firm as she referred to details of the two schematics.

  "When you put the Istanbul side by side with the Cairo, Sir, you can see the places where the warship has gun emplacements and the diplomatic ship has
something else, like extra staterooms. The big ballroom on the Istanbul, for instance, takes up much of the space on the two outer decks that would have been dedicated to the two forward main battery emplacements. We can't tell from these files whether or not the builders ran any of the power cables that would have been needed for the big guns before the design changes were implemented. We'll have to look."

  "What about the secondary armament?"

  "There are twelve secondary battery emplacements on the Cairo, Sir" said Faiza, as she made a motion with her hand and the secondary emplacements on Amanda's schematic became highlighted in red. "These are the corresponding locations on the Istanbul." Another wave of her hand and the corresponding areas of the Istanbul lit up as well." She looked at the Commander. "Once again, we don't know if the power cables for any of these were ever installed or not."

  "Next question," asked Kresge. "What have we got for weapons out here in the Scrapyard that could work on this type of ship?"

  The two young women looked at each other. Faiza spoke up. "We can't be totally sure, Commander, but near as we can tell, we think the weapons on the Essex class Federation ships are probably the closest thing we have here in the Scrapyard. How many are there, Amanda."

  "According to Tamara Carlisle's last inventory, there should be ten, maybe twelve, ships in good enough shape to have some operational weapons."

  "From this report I think it's fairly obvious that it would be a major undertaking to mount anything like a main battery emplacement," said Kresge, "it would take a Naval refit facility. Maybe we should concentrate on some of the heavier secondary batteries. We'll have to send someone out to have a look. I want you two" -- he glanced back and forth between the two young women -- "to be ready to go out there with them but this afternoon I want you to check with Captain Nassar to find out the Istanbul’s current situation regarding the power cables and connections.” He glanced at his wrist chronometer. “Let's say we meet back here as soon as you finish. I know that neither of you have all that much experience with warships or weapons so take video, lots of video. I'd go myself, but there's just too much that I have to do here. Any questions?"