Junkyard Dogs series Omnibus

by Phillip Nolte

  "So it could be the experimental nature of these particular computers?" asked Kresge.

  "That's possible," said Faiza, "but we also did some experimenting with a truthseer practice sensor. That may have also had some effect."

  "I wouldn’t doubt that," said the Ambassador, "even a practice sensor sends all manner of information."

  "Have you any idea what the range is?" asked Kresge.

  "I was communicating with the two of them from the assembly room on the Istanbul earlier today, Commander," replied Carlisle. "We haven't had a chance to try at any greater distance but the Wrist comp network is supposed to have a range of at least a hundred kilometers."

  "Have you tried it while you're wearing your spacesuit yet?"

  "No, Sir," said Carlisle. "That was going to be one of our next experiments."

  "Aren't you and Harris going out into the yard this afternoon?"

  "Yes, Commander," said Harris, "we need to see about getting some different components for the Greyhound's pulse cannon power interface. We're supposed to meet Hawkins and Talbot in about a half hour."

  "Looks like a good time to test this cranial net in a suit and to check the range. I'll expect a report on what you find out. Meantime we all need to think about how we might be able to use this new found ability."

  Chapter 50.

  UTFN Reclamation Center, on board utility sled Rover II, somewhere in the scrap cloud, December 14, 2598.

  One hour later, Carlisle, Harris, Hawkins and Talbot were heading out on the Rover II to a remote area of the Military section to investigate some of the oldest wrecks in the Scrapyard. The salvagers were hoping to find a weapons module with similar compatibility but with a more robust power handling capacity than the unit they were currently using on the Greyhound.

  The projectile weapon-equipped Terrier was a Federation Orion Mark IV destroyer. The ship, and therefore all of her components, had actually been built during the decade before the Succession War started, well over fifty years ago. During the early days of the Succession war, there had been a somewhat awkward transition in weapons design and a few ships with hybrid armament had been built. Ships like the Belfast, the Orion Mark V destroyer that Hawkins had served on early in his career that were equipped with a mix of projectile and pulse beam weapons, were exceedingly rare, with only a handful of them having ever been built. Today the salvage group had set their sights on the UTFN Exeter, a light cruiser that had been completed just before the beginning of the Succession War and had the distinction of being the only ship in their entire collection that carried a mixture of projectile and pulse beam armament.

  Carlisle had left the cranial net on as she got suited up for the afternoon salvage operation. To test the range of their newly-found communications ability, she was going to periodically attempt to communicate with the two younger women during the time that the salvage group was out in the Scrapyard. Kresge wanted to find out how the communications ability was affected as Carlisle got further away and he wanted to know what happened if she was inside a wreck as well. So far so good, the device had worked perfectly the three times she had attempted to test it while in transit to the remote area of the Scrapyard that contained the wreck they intended to investigate.

  Harris docked the Rover II next to the wreck of the Exeter, the light cruiser on their very short list of possible donors. Unlike almost all of the other warships in the Scrapyard, the Exeter was in very good condition and displayed virtually no visible signs of damage, having spent most of the War as an escort vessel protecting cargo ship convoys. She had arrived in the New Ceylon system too late to take part in the final battle. After the War, she had been decommissioned and slated to be scrapped but she had never been dismantled. Before entering the nearly intact ship, Carlisle attempted another test message to Faiza and Amanda back in their quarters onboard the Greyhound.

  "Carlisle, here," she sent, "do you read me?"

  "Loud and clear," returned Faiza.

  "Ditto," added Amanda.

  "We're entering the Exeter now," sent Carlisle. "I'll try again in ten minutes."

  "Roger," Faiza and Amanda replied almost simultaneously.

  Carlisle entered behind her three companions who were waiting for her, floating just inside the airlock entrance. Since the ship contained no atmosphere, there was no need to actually operate the airlock and all that was needed to gain access to the ship was to open the doors on either side of the airlock chamber. Hawkins had brought along a small but powerful battery pack that, hopefully, could be rigged up to provide power to run diagnostics for control consoles, or whatever else they might encounter that could require power. Hawkins had already proved its worth by using it to open the airlock doors.

  "Could you be checkin' the schematics on this old girl for us, Lass?" asked Hawkins. "We need to be gettin' to the power module interface for the secondary batteries."

  The old cruiser had three twin-mount 3000 gigajoule main batteries mounted on its centerline but the salvagers were more interested in the four single mount 1000 gigajoule emplacements that were interspersed with four twin mount rail gun projectile weapons that made up the mixed secondary batteries of the old ship. Carlisle brought up a schematic of the ship's power network and set it to slowly rotate in front of the group. Having had some practice with the cranial net, she found that using it to interface with the wrist computer was getting easier all the time. She pointed to a spot on the diagram.

  "There should be a capacitor power module two decks down and slightly to starboard from here that routed power to both types of weapon," she said.

  "Lead the way," said Harris.

  Carlisle took one last look at the holographic display and led the two men towards their goal. Within five minutes they had opened and negotiated several closed hatches and found themselves in the long, narrow compartment that connected to the capacitor chambers for the starboard amidships secondary batteries. Hawkins located their target module.

  "This be the power module," he said, referring to a rectangular box roughly a meter square and half a meter thick that was attached to the bulkhead wall. A robust cable some ten centimeters in diameter came out of the bulkhead and went into one side of the box, while four smaller cables came out on the opposite side. Two of the four cables were noticeably thicker than the other two. The exiting cables were routed along the bulkhead wall before bending upwards at a right angle and disappearing into the ceiling. Presumably, each connected to one of the four capacitor stacks of the mixed secondary weapons. "It looks t' me like it's just bolted on," said Hawkins, "We should be able to take her out straight enough. If she still be workin' that is."

  "According to the specifications on these secondary batteries, it should be pretty close to what we need," said Harris. "The railgun mounts are the same as the main batteries on the Terrier and the pulse weapons are only a little less powerful than the unit we mounted on the Greyhound. Would you see if you have any information on how to check this module to determine if it is still working, Dr. Carlisle?"

  "Let me look," replied Carlisle as she consulted her wrist computer via the cranial net again. "Let's see, fire console diagnostics...capacitor bank charging...Ah! here it is. Capacitor charging module diagnostic. It's a subroutine in the gun control programing. We'll have to power up the capacitor control console."

  "I'll be gettin' on it," said Hawkins. He pushed himself over to the console in question with his battery pack in hand.

  "While you're doing that, I think I'll try another contact with Amanda and Faiza," said Carlisle.

  "Good idea," said Harris.

  "Carlisle onboard the Exeter calling Greyhound, do you read me?"

  "Coming through loud and clear," sent back Amanda.

  "It's good and strong for me too" added Faiza.

  "Please tell Commander Kresge that we have found a module that might work for the Greyhound's weapons system," sent Carlisle. "If it's still working, we're going to remove it from the cruiser and bring it back wit
h us."

  "Roger," sent Amanda, "We'll go and tell him now."

  A little over an hour later, the three salvagers had determined that the module was functioning properly and had removed it from the bulkhead wall of the Exeter along with generous segments of cable from either side and, after maneuvering their way out of the ship through several hatches and a narrow passageway, had secured their treasure to the Rover II.

  They returned to the Greyhound, Carlisle performing several more successful communications checks on the way.

  "We're back," she sent to the girls, "have someone meet us at the main airlock."

  Kresge himself was there to greet them.

  "You think you've found something that will work?" he asked.

  "I think there's a good chance, Sir," replied Harris. "It's a junction router module that serviced a mix of pulse beam and projectile weapons. We're going to go right to work getting it integrated into the Greyhound."

  "Time is of the essence," said Kresge. "The enemy could show up anytime within the next couple of days. We need this ship in fighting condition!"

  "We'll do our best, Sir," said Harris.

  Harris went to his quarters and changed into a work coverall before heading down to the engineering section. Hawkins, Carlisle, Talbot, Murdock and Caleb Jordan were there and already discussing the installation when Harris arrived. The two engineers and Captain Murdock were crowded around Carlisle who had schematics of the Greyhound and the Exeter rotating in the air in front of them.

  "Looks t'me like we be only needing to use one side of this module," Hawkins was saying.

  "Yeah, that makes sense," said Murdock. "I assume we're going to bypass the original module but leave it in place just in case this new one doesn't work?"

  "That's the plan," said Harris, as he joined the group. "Does anybody have any reservations about this? Any reason to believe that this modification shouldn't work?"

  They discussed a few more details but with none of them having any major objections to the plan as outlined, they set to work on the module transplant. For a change, the replacement went very smoothly, with nary a glitch. The new module had the same footprint as the old one but was about twice as thick. Fortunately there was sufficient space in the Greyhound's power room to stack the new component on top of the old module. They spliced the new module into the power plant and connected one of the module's two thicker outlet cables to the output cable that powered the capacitors for the Bofors turret. With the installation proceeding much more smoothly than expected, the group managed to execute the transplant in just under two hours.

  "Okay, everyone, we'd better double check everything before we try to test this new setup," said Harris. The group took another twenty minutes to check all of their connections and run some additional diagnostics. After resetting several parameters to slightly higher output levels on the power console, the new arrangement appeared to be ready for a live fire test.

  "It be lookin' ready to me," announced Hawkins.

  "Yeah, me too," replied Murdock. "I'll go up and tell the Commander. He'll be interested."

  "We'll double check everything again while you're doing that," said Harris.

  Another careful inspection still revealed no glaring issues and the group made ready to charge the weapons.

  Murdock returned to the engineering sector with Kresge in tow a few minutes later.

  "So you think this new setup is ready for a test?" asked the Commander.

  "Yes, Sir," replied Harris.

  "What do you think, Captain Murdock?"

  "I've looked it over myself and I can't see any reason it shouldn't work just fine." said Murdock.

  As the most experienced gunner by virtue of his previous career as a gunnery technician, Caleb Jordan replaced Carlisle inside the turret while the others manned the same stations they had manned before, during the battle in the Heard's World system.

  The repair crew knew that they still wouldn't be able to charge more than one capacitor sub-module at a time but they did believe that charging one capacitor sub-module and continuing to power the shields was possible.

  At least they certainly hoped so.

  They decided to start by individually charging the four sub-modules in the starboard capacitor stack without the shields powered, to see how the charging systems operated with the new power interface.

  Kresge took a station on the bridge. Harris was at the fire control console on the mid level of the Bofors turret. Hawkins and Murdock remained down in engineering, to keep a close watch on the power plant and everything else during the weapons test. Talbot and Steuben were in the lowest level of the gun emplacement supervising the manual switching operation of the capacitor modules.

  "Is everybody ready?" asked Harris.

  "Ready in the power room," said Murdock.

  "Ready in the turret," said Caleb.

  "Number one starboard capacitor module switched in and ready," said Steuben.

  "Bring power plant to one hundred percent power," said Harris.

  A deep, bone-vibrating growl permeated the old Cargo ship.

  "Power at one hundred percent," said Murdock.

  "Activating capacitor charging sequence in three...two...one...activated!" said Harris

  Immediately, the lights all over the ship dimmed but, unlike the last few times they had tried to charge the weapon, the lighting recovered to nearly full brightness after a couple of seconds and remained there.

  "Capacitor one at ninety percent...ninety-five...Switch in the number two capacitor!" said Harris. The now somewhat experienced gun crew threw the switches that brought the second capacitor online. "Number one capacitor at one hundred percent, switch out!" said Harris.

  The crew performed their tasks flawlessly and the group repeated the process for the other two capacitors, bring the next one in sequence on online just as the previous one was reaching full charge.

  "Capacitor number four is at ninety percent...ninety-five...one hundred! Shut down the power plant Hawk!"

  Hawkins did so.

  "Good job, everyone!" said Kresge. "That seemed to work pretty well." He looked over the readouts on the fire control console up on the bridge. "Everything looks good up at this end. How about you folks down there in the power room? Are you ready to try this with the shields powered?"

  "Be giving us a few minutes to be sure, Commander," replied Hawkins. He and Murdock carefully checked the readings on the power plant and then performed a quick diagnostic. Assured that all was operating normally, he finally responded. "Everything be fine, here," he said. "We can be trying the next stage."

  "It still looks good here as well," said Harris.

  "Well, what are we waiting for?" asked Kresge. "Give it a try!"

  "Bring the power plant up to one hundred and eight percent," said Harris.

  The growl and the vibration were both noticeably even more intense than before.

  "Power being at one hundred and eight percent," said Hawkins.

  "Bring shields to full power," said Harris.

  "Activating shields...Now!" said Kresge.

  The lights dimmed slightly and quickly recovered.

  "Charge number one port side capacitor," said Harris.

  The lights dimmed, even more than they had just a few minutes earlier, and then recovered to only about eighty percent of their normal intensity but, somehow, everything continued to function. The crew continued the test until all four of the portside capacitors were charged before shutting everything down to normal operating levels.

  "Report!" said Kresge.

  "The power unit be overheated but nay so bad as she could be," replied Hawkins. "I don't know how long we can be doin' that for. We'd still be within safe operating parameters for..." he consulted the instruments on the power plant, and shrugged,"...maybe another ten minutes.

  "The shields seemed to be holding up just fine," said Murdock. "Of course, we didn't take any pulse beam hits while we were charging the weapon."

  "C
an we fight this ship in her current condition?" asked Kresge.

  "I think so, Sir," said Harris. "We'll just have to make every shot count and maybe find a place to hide behind a big wreck or something while we recharge the weapons. Worst case, we may be able to use shields and charge weapons but I really don't know just how much margin we have before something shuts down or the ship suffers some damage."

  "It'll have to do," said Kresge, "Excellent work, everybody! Now get some more people up to speed on these weapons systems. We're awfully thin on experienced people!"

  Chapter 51.

  UTFN Reclamation Center, onboard Federation Auxiliary Vessel Greyhound, December 14, 2598.

  The captains of the two refugee mining ships reported to the Greyhound for a meeting with Commander Kresge and the rest of the Scrapyard command team to discuss the role of the miners in the defense of the Scrapyard. Because these men were strangers, Kelly and three of his marines were standing by near the main airlock as the two leaders came onboard. Both of the mining ship Captains sported an ornate Spacer tattoo on their left cheek. The four marines, Spacers themselves, exchanged nods with the miners.

  "Welcome aboard the Greyhound, gentlemen. I'm Commander Oskar Kresge, in charge of this... mess."

  "I'm Seamus O'Connell, Captain of the Donegal, and my companion is Niall Patrick, Captain of the Glendaloch."

  "Pleased to meet you, gentlemen," said Kresge, as he shook hands with each of them. "I must say that I'm glad to see you, though you may have come at a bad time. You're both aware that an attack on this system by a sizeable terrorist force could be imminent. As you can see, we have made some preparations to fight but I'm not totally sold on our chances. As a last resort, we're hoping that most of us can run if things get too bad. To be honest with you, you might be better off if you just kept moving."

  "With the Santana Nexus under enemy control, we really don't have too many places to go," said O'Connell. "A man can only run for so long. We'd like to do what we can give you a hand here."