Junkyard Dogs series Omnibus

by Phillip Nolte

  "And that is?"

  "How many personnel does it take to operate the power plant on a battleship?"

  There soft buzz of several individual conversations swelled up slightly as the personnel in the considered the suggestion. Kingston looked at the Ensign in open-mouthed wonder.

  "Once you get it started and stabilized?" asked Harris, who was the first to react, but then he probably had the most experience of any of them in dealing with Carlisle's unorthodox thought processes.

  "Of course."

  "I can't believe it would take more than ten people, maybe eight if they were experienced."

  "How many personnel to operate one of the main battery turrets?"

  "That I don't know," said Harris. "Caleb?"

  "Usually it takes at least eight to ten people," said Jordan. "You could get by with less, I'd say three or four would be the bare minimum and your rate of fire would be pretty slow. Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting, Ensign?"

  "I was thinking that we could power up one of the battleships and use it to defend the Scrapyard. I'm not saying that we actually try to operate the ship, mind you, we'd just need to position it someplace where it could cover any threat coming in from the Whitney jump zone. We'd only have to run one of the power plants to operate the systems we'd need like the main batteries, life support and shields but we'd only need to power up and pressurize a portion of the ship."

  "Something like we did with the Terrier, right?" asked Harris.

  "Exactly, Lieutenant, we pressurize and heat up only the necessary compartments."

  "I think I see what you're going for," said Kresge. "There isn't any ship type in this entire quadrant that has the range and power of a battleship. We could pick off bad guys at more than twice the range that they'd need to be within to do any harm to us at all, even if they brought that heavy cruiser."

  "What about missiles?" interjected Kingston, demonstrating that she wasn't completely ignorant of modern Naval warfare, "Those destroyers and the cruiser will almost certainly have missiles,"

  "That's a good point Admiral," said Kresge, "but if this plan worked, they'd have to be firing them from a long ways away. We should have plenty of time to react to any kind of long range missile attack. We have three destroyers of our own. Granted, the Perseus doesn't have her front main battery but all of our destroyers have operational point defenses. Besides, with all of the potential targets in the Scrapyard, a missile would have a hard time getting a lock on anything important. With the destroyers providing point defense and the battleship holding the enemy at extreme distance, they would never get near us. If we had battleship firepower protecting the Scrapyard, they'd think twice about ever attacking us again."

  "There is one major problem though..." said Kresge.

  "And that is...?" asked Kingston.

  "Where in the hell am I gonna find twenty men to spare to run the power plant and the main batteries on a battleship?"

  "I'm thinking we could maybe put Lieutenant Harris in charge of the power plant detail," said Carlisle.

  "There's also Steuben, he worked electrical systems on the New Ceylon Station," said Harris

  "Don't forget we also have the crew of the Larkspur," suggested Captain Helmsford.

  "On the weapons end, we've got Caleb," added Harris, "He was a weapons tech in the Federation Navy and he worked on the big guns."

  "Oh, I'd be counting on him," said Kresge.

  "There is also the crew of the Xerxes, she isn't in any condition to fight or even operate without some major repairs," added Kingston, getting into the spirit.

  "I wonder if we could get a few people from the Xerxes and combine them with some of our own and carry through with this plan?" said Kresge.

  The Ambassador spoke up from the viewscreen, "That last attack was a near thing," he said, "With more ships probably on the way, I agree with that we'd better be doing something more aggressive! I rather like Dr. Carlisle's suggestion."

  Kresge made a decision, "I propose a multi-part plan. We go ahead and make preparations to defend the Scrapyard as we did before, with charged cruiser weapons and ships hidden as well as we can hide them but we also need to check into the feasibility of this new option. Harris and Carlisle, you are in charge of checking this plan out with the intention of implementing it. Remember, we only have a couple of days to get ready."

  "We'll get started immediately!" said Harris.

  Another voice came from the viewscreen, "Do you have any objections to having me go with you?" asked Rahgib, the head engineer for the Istanbul, "Before my assignment to the Istanbul, I was on a crew that ran the main power plant for the Meridian Orbital Station. It was a very large power plant, much like the ones that power battleships."

  "I certainly don't," replied Harris. "Excellency? Do you mind if we borrow your head engineer for a while?"

  "Take him with my blessing," replied the Ambassador. "We'll get the rest of the crew back to work charging up gun emplacements. If you and your team are successful, perhaps we won't need them."

  After Kresge handed out some other assignments, the meeting broke up with everyone dispersing, intent on getting their assignment done in the little time they had remaining. Admiral Kingston, left behind in the hold, shook her head in wonder at what she had just witnessed. These people, these "Junkyard Dogs" as they called themselves, were...simply put, nothing short of amazing! They had just been presented with what looked like an insurmountable problem but they had somehow shrugged it off and then teamed up to tackle it head on, brainstorming their way through the major issues to come up with what was an outrageous plan but one that just might work! She actually began to believe that they had a chance of survival.

  It had not escaped her attention that it had been Admiral Loftgren's misfit Spacer historian who had come up with the defense plan.

  That one would bear keeping an eye on!

  Chapter 15.

  Santana Nexus Station January 3, 2599.

  The Sheik of Barsoom was addressing his ship captains as the Revolutionists made their final preparations for the attack on the Federation's thrice-cursed Scrapyard. The Sheik could see Captain Kassab of the cruiser Hercules scowling at him from the back of the room

  "We will be sending eight destroyers and five transports. The attacking forces will be led by...Captain Shaloub."

  The Sheik had known that this announcement would not be approved by all present. As expected, Captain Kassab of the Hercules came immediately to his feet.

  "Captain, Kassab?" said the Sheik, "You have something to add?"

  "You are not sending the Hercules? This is unbelievable! You leave your most powerful ship here, moldering away at guard duty?"

  "Easy, Kassab," responded the Sheik, who could be very diplomatic when it suited him to be so, "With all due respect, you have not been to this accursed Scrapyard; I have. The sheer number of wrecks and their density will render a large ship like the Hercules far less useful than you think."

  "But, as the highest ranking officer here, I should be leading this attack, not Shaloub!"

  "All in good time Captain Kassab," replied the Sheik, still using his most soothing tone, "You must not labor under the impression that your apparent inaction is in vain. We need your ship to power that special module. Indeed, it is your ship that is keeping the dogs of the Federation from interfering with our takeover of the Jasmine government!"

  "I think you're making a mistake, but so be it," said Kassab. Be at ease, Kassab, he told himself, You've made your point. Allow the old fool to fail at this, it will only strengthen your legitimacy for the leadership role when the time comes.

  The Sheik finished outlining his plans and proceeded on to make ship assignments. Kassab remained in the room but was only half paying attention.

  He continued to plot his eventual move against the Sheik.

  Chapter 16.

  UTFN Reclamation Center, January 3, 2599.

  It was early in the morning of the next day when t
he utility sled Rover I brought the first members of the hastily assembled battleship resurrection crew ever closer to a row of battleship wrecks located in outer fringes of the Military section of the Scrapyard. Harris, who was piloting the sled, along with Carlisle and Raghib made up the advanced team. On the deck of the sled, which was open to the vacuum of space, the two men wore standard issue military spacesuits while Carlisle, feeling very much at home, was back in her special prototype command suit. The Perseus was about ten minutes behind the sled because, as a full-sized ship, it was taking her considerably longer to maneuver safely through the scrap cloud to her destination.

  "I read somewhere that most Navies don’t operate battleships anymore," said Rahgib, "and the ones that do only have one or two of them."

  "Yeah, I think I heard that too," replied Harris.

  "Any idea why?" asked Rahgib.

  "...huge cost...large crew...logistics nightmare...I do," said Carlisle, "They're so damned expensive to build that only the wealthiest governments can afford them. After you've got one built, you have to man it and keep it fueled and keep it provisioned. Space travel has never been easy and space warfare is even tougher. The sheer cost to run the ships and the logistics nightmares just continue to spiral upwards exponentially as the ships get bigger. If there isn't an active war of some kind going on, it doesn't make sense to operate anything that big, that complicated and that expensive. Hell, even operating a heavy cruiser is a pretty expensive proposition these days!"

  Carlisle noted, with some relief, that her energy levels had perked up considerably as she had been up and around over the last day and a half or so. She knew she still wasn't at one hundred percent but it felt really good to be able to at least make a minor contribution towards the defense of the Scrapyard. Because of her proven expertise with her wrist computer, her presence was declared to be vital to this defense mission and she had been allowed to go along in spite of the fact that she had just gotten out of the infirmary and was still considered to be recovering. As a precaution, Harris was supposed to be keeping a close eye on her for any signs that she was overdoing it.

  "I imagine that's why we never see battleships very far from some kind of base either," ventured Harris.

  "That's one of the reasons," said Carlisle.

  "They certainly do capture the imagination though, don't they," said Raghib, as they drew closer to the line of wrecks. By the time they got up within a few meters of the ship on the end of the row, the wreck had grown impossibly large.

  "As some of the most powerful weapons ever developed by mankind, they certainly do," responded Harris. "Heads up, everyone, we're here."

  The trio ended their discussion and got back to contemplating the problem at hand.

  "Do you know how many of these ships made to the Scrapyard under their own power, Dr. Carlisle?" asked Rahgib.

  Carlisle interfaced with her wrist computer using the link provided by her cranial net.

  "Just about every one of them," she said after a short consultation.

  "Okay, how many of them with working weapons?" asked Harris.

  Carlisle spent a considerably longer time consulting her wrist computer before replying, "There were only three of them that had more than one main battery that was operational by the end of the final battle. I say we identify the ships that look to be in the best condition and see what we can do about getting one of them up and partially running."

  She continued to consult her wrist computer display.

  "Actually, this first ship in line here looks to be in as good a condition as any of them."

  They had come upon the ship almost directly from the bow end. Harris took them on an observational tour down the starboard side of the wreck.

  The ship in question, the FWS Gibraltar, was one of the very last to enter service during the War of Succession. Completed during the war, she was armed with some of the most powerful main batteries ever developed, along with some of the most effective shielding available at the time. With these advantages having worked in her favor, she appeared to have escaped much of the catastrophic damage suffered by some of her sister ships. She was still a somewhat sorry sight in spite of that, holed in many places with several of her secondary batteries obviously damaged and several others outright missing. As the survey team passed alongside them, the massive turrets of her front batteries appeared to taken some pretty heavy damage as well.

  As they continued their tour towards the stern, however, the condition of the ship improved dramatically. The huge, twin projector main battery turret mounted on the stern of the ship and the unconventional "belly turret" in the center of her 'ventral' or bottom surface, which was one of the hallmarks of the ship class, were still intact, both visually and according to Carlisle's inventory information. The position of the ship at the end of a row of similar wrecks located in the very outer portions of the scrap cloud, meant that they might only have to clear a few items out of the firing line of the big projectors to have a clear shot at enemy ships coming in from the direction of the hyperlink point. This was a huge advantage as it meant that they would not have to move the big wreck at all before they could put it to use.

  "Wow!" exclaimed Carlisle, as she continued to consult with her wrist computer while Harris secured the utility sled to a spot near the extreme stern of the wreck. "These were some of the most powerful pulse beam projectors ever developed, they were rated at 50,000 gigajoules apiece! Even the most modern ships don't pack that much power."

  "With that kind of power, they must have some pretty impressive range," observed Harris.

  Carlisle again consulted her wrist computer. "A fifty thousand gigajoule projector bolt still packs more than fifty percent of its punch at a range of over 10,000 kilometers. No ship known to be in this quadrant has a main battery that's lethal at over 5,000 kilometers. These guns should be able to provide protection for the Scrapyard from just about anything the enemy can throw at us from a range where they shouldn't be able to hurt us at all."

  "Provided we can get them to work!" said Harris.

  "Time to get to work on that," said Carlisle, as they prepared to leave the Rover for some early reconnaissance of the battleship wreck.

  "Right behind you," said Harris. "Hang on a minute. Perseus? This is Harris. We're near the stern on the starboard side of the first ship in the line of battleship wrecks. You should be able to see the sled without any trouble."

  "Roger, Lieutenant, we have you in our sights already. Be there in about five, over?"

  "Roger that," said Harris, "see you in five."

  Chapter 17.

  UTFN Reclamation Center, onboard the wreck of the FWS Gibraltar, January 3, 2599.

  After the Perseus arrived, Harris, Hawkins, Talbot and Raghib immediately headed for the engineering section of the wreck to start working on getting the power restored. While they performed their initial inspection of the engineering area, the crew of the Perseus went to work on their part of the operation. She was to be connected to the old battleship to provide power to selected portions of the wreck during the beginning stages of the resurrection attempt. The Junkyard Dogs wanted some portions of the wreck to be habitable before they attempted to restart the battleship's reactors.

  It took almost two hours to get the damaged Perseus moved over close enough to the wreck of the Gibraltar to run some cables into the huge hulk of the battleship wreck. The Perseus had received major damage to the front turret of her main battery during the skirmish in the Scrapyard just a week or so earlier and would be down to only half of her normal firepower until the unit could be replaced. That couldn't be helped, there simply wasn't the time or the personnel to get her repaired in time for the imminent battle. After some minor repairs and some recalibration, however, her power plant and the rest of the ship's systems seemed to be operating just fine.

  In the meantime Carlisle, in her special suit, along with Caleb Jordan and Orville Steuben went to inspect the two intact turrets that housed the huge projector
s that made up half of the old ship's incomprehensibly powerful main batteries. There was no need to go much further with this project if the weapons systems themselves were too badly damaged to function.

  The small team gained access to the interior of the wreck the same way they had entered so many wrecks before, by entering through a hull breach that was a consequence of the battle that had been fought so many years earlier. Once inside the hulk, they made their way to the aft or "Y" turret first. This turret was in a conventional topside-mounted centerline position.

  Until some kind of power was restored, everyone working on the battleship wreck was going to have to deal with zero gravity and would have to be using either suit lights or supplemental lighting. As a Spacer, Carlisle had more experience with zero G than practically every other officer at the Scrapyard which was another of the reasons that she was considered to be vital to this mission. As she examined the huge enclosed space in the illumination provided by her suit lights, Carlisle was amazed at the sheer size and bulk of the components in the main battery turret. The turret itself, at a full twenty five meters wide and some thirty meters long, was largest she had ever been in by a wide margin. One look at the mechanisms that elevated the projectors and rotated the turret told her that they had better get the automated, motorized systems for the guns to work or they would have a devil of time aiming the projectors. There were actually some provisions made to allow manual operation of the gun emplacement but it looked to her like these systems required a team of twenty men or more to operate and any attempt to actuate the guns using these manual systems would be slow, tedious work.

  The turret was divided into two distinct compartments by a stout center bulkhead that ran down the length of the turret from bow end to stern end. This compartmentalization practice had been adopted centuries ago by the wet navies of Old Earth, to keep the weapons separate from one another and allow continued operation of one of them should the other receive severe enough damage to take it out of commission. An airtight hatch, currently secured in the open position, connected the two chambers.