by Chris Hechtl
“Ah.” He nodded. “I've heard of such things.”
“The problem is centuries ago someone got it in their bright head to replace some of the hardware with electrical since it is easier to produce and run in a ship. Some of the oldest ships have real copper or aluminum wire, not superconductive at all.” She shook her head at such primitive notions. “So, one of the bottlenecks for refitting ships, at least from the electrical standpoint, is pulling all this crap out and replacing it with ODN and optical electronics. They are faster, require less parts and materials, but they are harder to produce. Hence, the reason for using the primitive stuff up until now.”
Theo nodded slowly. “Okay, I see where this is going.”
“What I'm proposing is we find a source for parts and just continue to patch the existing hardware until we have the time and resources for a proper refit. That would cut a lot of our refit time by 30 percent.”
He blinked at her as that registered. She was talking about a major impact in the refit cycle, something he and his staff had been looking high and low for without finding it. “Did you just make that number up or …?” he paused as she shook her head and turned to grab a tablet on her desk. “Okay, you don't need to show me. I just thought finding the cracks and the other refit issues took up more time.”
“You've never run wire then, Admiral. Trust me, it's not easy. We can pull equipment out and plug in replacements. We can strip reactors down, but when it comes to running wiring, it's not that simple. And the more fittings you have, the more points of failure crop up. Soldering and using heat shrink tubes helps but not always. If you have a ripped cable, it is a pain to track down where each line goes to on either end, then splice them.”
“Ah.”
“I put out an email to production to have them start labeling wiring, but the wiring harnesses use the same wire. So, I put it in to them. They need to label everything. Not just on the ends,” she pointed to the wire model. “But also print the label at strategic points on the wire itself. That's tedious I admit, but I found a printer that can do it. You just tell it what to print and then let it rip, and it'll print the label every meter or whatever you set. Then you put it in the jig,” she said, indicating the jig. His head turned to it and then back to her. “That saves time in the field when engineers have to run down a problem. That's in the yard and for the ship's crew,” she said.
He nodded. He could see why Malwin liked the woman. She did have a way of getting things done. He could also see why she needed a star. She had the ideas but no one was willing to listen to her. Well, that would have to change.
“If we just order replacement parts like the amplifiers, we can swap them out or have the crew do it or have a repair yard do it. Finagle produces some good basic electronic components. Garth does as well but the duchess set the prices higher … well, anyway,” the young woman said, waving a hand.
Theo hid a brief smile at her cutting herself off. Apparently, she wasn't completely politically tone deaf.
“We ordered every ship to come here and expected to have plenty of time to refit them as they came in on a case-by-case basis. But, the yards held up to train the personnel involved and to ramp up production of the parts, plus there were issues finding enough supplies of the parts in question,” Elvira stated.
“I know all this,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” she said, bobbing a nod. “What I'm saying is we've got trained personnel. If we also run apprentices through, we can set up temporary slips to do some of the work. Or we can send a core of retrained personnel to the shipyards in the empire.”
“Which we've done with Dead Drop and Garth,” Theo pointed out.
“With respect, sir, those aren't the only yards. I know from my family that there is at least one civilian yard of some sort in every sector. Many have been stripped, but some have been used by the Gather Fleet to keep their forces in the area functioning instead of trying to get them back here.”
He grimaced but nodded once more.
She brought up a holographic image of the galaxy. He was surprised to see it was a sector map. “We have gone as far as the Psi sector, sector 17 along the Centauris arm. On the arm here, we've gotten to Nu, sector twelve. Lower, we've gotten to sector twenty-seven.” She didn't say the T'clock name.
“On the other side of the core, we've gotten to sector 19, Xi, and Sector 14, Lamda. That is nineteen sectors all told. A lot of territory to cover.”
He nodded.
“There are three yards in our possession here in Rho. I don't know of any in Tau or Upsilon. I do know there is one yard in Sigma; one of my distant cousins found it. There are two more in Pi I believe, though I think one was stripped.”
“I was about to ask how you knew,” he murmured. He nodded and made a continue motion as he crossed his legs and sat back.
“Each time we upgrade a yard, we have to upgrade the personnel, equipment, training, plus the supporting infrastructure. It is a major investment in time and infrastructure. It also takes time for the personnel and equipment to get there, especially over these distances,” she said, waving a hand. “Now, each time we do so though, it is an exponential change. One becomes two or in this case three,” she pointed to the three yards they had control of. “And each of those yards can train personnel and supply equipment so three can become six and so on,” she said, waving a hand to the rest of the galaxy.
“Correct. Unfortunately, not all yards are the same. We have yet to find a full military yard.”
“Other than El Dorado you mean, sir?” she asked impishly. His eyes flashed. “I've been cleared and granted access to it. I only know a little detail about it, nothing major.”
He nodded slowly.
“You are right though, sir,” she said, turning pensive as she considered the problem. “We have to understand the history involved to understand how they got that way. Most of them were civilian grade facilities that had been abandoned in haste during the war instead of upgraded. The people around them thought they would be a target. They were right. Apparently, the Xenos had never gotten around to destroying them however. Or, they'd thought they'd do it later or that the yards would serve as magnets for people to … well anyways,” she said waving an impatient hand. “Needless to say, since they were yards, they were prime targets so everyone had avoided them.”
“Let's not forget that some of those yards had been sabotaged, Captain,” Theo reminded her. “There is good reason to avoid them. I can tell you of at least one story of a shipyard that had been found and had turned out to have a Xeno virus in it that had woken and had infected our ships. The crews had been forced to destroy themselves and the yard. It was heroic but unfortunate that it had happened.”
“Yes, sir. Just one of many problems we need to overcome. That is why we're cautious with places like El Dorado.”
“Indeed.”
“But the yards are only one part of the problem; the other is the supporting industry. Which means we need it close, and we need the proper materials, plus trained personnel for the factories, and so on. Plus, we need industrial plants to produce parts for other things like fighters.” She grimaced. “And places to assemble them too.”
“Don't get bogged down in the big picture, Captain,” he warned softly.
“Oh, I'm not, I'm just defining it and then breaking it down into chunks we can work on.”
“Ah,” he said with a nod. He had to admit, he was enjoying himself. “I understand you worked on fighters?”
“I still am, sir,” she replied, turning to pull up a model of a fighter. “We have serious problems with force emitters still, which is why our shields suck. It is why the enemy has an edge on us. One technological edge among many. The decision to focus on Raptor class fighters since they were modular, easy to produce and cheap was sound before we ran into the Federation. Now however …”
“It isn't so easy to change horse midstream, Captain,” he warned. “Not when we're just getting the tools and factories workin
g on them. It isn't easy to retrain the workforce either,” he warned.
She nodded. “Oh, I know, sir. I'm working on finding ways to redress the force emitter problem in my spare time. The problem is scaling them to the fighter, they require very tight tolerances, specific power inputs and so on,” she said with a grimace.
“Ah,” he said with a nod.
“But, I think we need to focus on more than just the Raptor. The enemy has bombers. We need to find a way to take them out but also produce our own bombers too,” she ventured, eyes lost as she stared up at the ceiling.
He cleared his throat. It took two tries to get her to come back to him. “Sorry, sir,” she said sheepishly.
“Not a problem. What were you thinking of?”
“I was trying to find a cheap modular bomber design from history and see if we can adapt it to our own uses.”
“Ah. Well, let me know how that goes. In the meantime, what do you recommend as a follow-up fighter? I understand fighter command has been lobbying for E class fighters.”
She shook her head. “If we can't produce the parts to fit in a Raptor, how can we even hope to do that with a ship that complex?” she said disparagingly. “We're talking molecular armor, molecular electronics, A.I., grav emitters, tight fusion or antimatter reactors …”
“Okay okay …”
“Not to mention weapons …”
“Okay, Captain, I get it. What do you recommend then?”
She blinked and then frowned. “Oh, um, the enemy is on the right track with the Cobra and Cutlass fighters. If I had to choose, I'd go with the Cutlass. It is simple and easy to produce. It is an honest craft and modular. It was specifically designed to be easy to mass produce without using a replicator system.”
“Ah,” the admiral replied as he made a note in his implants.
“I know it isn't as flashy as some want, but it is an incremental step up from the Raptor. For the moment that's what we need, small achievable steps,” she stressed. He nodded in grim agreement. “As for a bomber, a Mitchelle like the one they are producing is smart. I'm thinking they are deliberately going for the low-hanging fruit to ease their own production headaches,” she mused.
He raised an eyebrow but made a note to ask about that. It made sense.
“If we could, I'd go with a gunship, an HK. Obviously not a drone like a Shogun class, but something else. Something space only for the time being. Easy to make. Small crew.”
“A gunship?”
“It allows us to produce the ship with parts from the small ship production line or even retool them. I honestly don't see a need for the Apollo class corvettes, sir. Not with the way the war is turning. We might find an opportunity to use them in numbers but they are too slow, their range in hyper sucks and …” she shrugged helplessly.
“Point. Okay, good idea. I'll have someone look into that.” He made a note in his implants. Damn, she was good he thought.
“Retooling the Apollo lines will take a little time. But if we do it right, we won't need the small hyperdrives at all. The personnel there can be shifted to open hyperdrive part production facilities for the larger ships which will give us more logistic supply there eventually. Though the materials …”
He snapped his fingers just as his implant timer went off. “Okay, sorry, but I've got to go.”
“Oh yes, sir,” she said, rising to her feet.
“We'll definitely have to do this again sometime. Malwin was right; you do have a way of thinking outside the box. Keep it up, Captain.”
“Yes, sir,” she stammered as he left. Slowly she sank into her chair and wondered why the sudden interest in her. She instinctively liked it but knew it could be dangerous.
Since he'd mentioned the bombers, she pulled up everything she'd researched and her decision tree and sent it off to him and then replayed their conversation mentally and began to fill his inbox with various points they had touched on, plus supporting material. She wasn't certain if it would hurt her or help her, but if it helped the empire, it was worth the personal risk.
:::{)(}:::
“So, how did it go?” Malwin asked.
Theo snorted. “I admit, she gave me a run for my money,” he said. “She's a good bridge between techno geek and practical people like you and I.”
“I know.”
“She did give me a couple ideas and some points to bring up with Elijah in the near future.”
“The vizier of industry? Really?”
“Yes. I think she had a few telling points, both in our discussion and in the emails she sent after it,” Theo said with a trace of wry amusement in his voice.
Malwin chuckled. “Yeah, she does that.”
“Yes, she does. She happily jumps from one thing to another, but follows up on a lot of it. That's good. But, back to what I was saying. You said she thought of sending Gather ships to Garth and Dead Drop to be refitted. I've put out orders to backstop ships in Sigma, and we've got orders for ships to go to staging points in Sigma to be moved to El Dorado from now on.” Malwin nodded. “She brought up a point about the mothballed ships we've got here.”
Malwin grimaced. “Most of them are civilian ships. We've stripped them to the frames.”
“Exactly. What I'm wondering is, can we use that? Either use them for material for the worst ones or ship them out to other yards to rebuild? Or, could we go and outfit them with the minimum kit to get them mobile again and then send them under their own power?”
“You are talking about a major investment in resources, Theo. Why? They won't help the war effort,” Malwin said.
“Most of the ships we've got, the tens of thousands we've accumulated over the centuries, they are civilian ships granted. But we need more parts here as she said. Here and at the other yards. If we get them moving again, then we can get more than one or two freighters a month bringing parts in.”
“It hardly seems worth it, but I suppose we can get someone to look into it. You'd need Elijah and Anslem though. The good duke is likely to balk at the costs involved.”
“Trade is the economic life blood of any economy. He and Ascot have been harping about it often enough, remember?”
“That was when we had the time and didn’t have the Feds breathing down our necks. I admit, it is a long-term goal. Getting more logistics flowing is vital if we're going to have a hope in hell of catching up to them.”
“Exactly,” Theo replied with a nod.
Malwin thought about it and then shrugged. “Okay. Divide and conquer. We can send survey teams on the mothballed ships. Anything overlooked we can use. But I know the teams that stripped the ships were pretty thorough.”
“For equipment. Not wiring and equipment built into a ship,” Theo warned.
Malwin nodded. “Point. Okay. We can get someone to try it. I suppose we might find some hardware we can plug into the yards and warships too.”
“Point. But we also do not have many support ships. Remember that mousy IG who pointed out how Cyrano blew through so many missiles in one engagement? We need support ships too. They are almost as precious as warships. We're not making any. So, we need to get more moving to supply the front too,” Theo pointed out.
Malwin froze and then nodded slowly. “Also a good point. Do you have a written proposal yet?”
“I'm having my staff look at it now.”
“Send it over when you're ready. I'll sign off on it.”
“Good.”
“As long as it doesn't undercut our rebuilding efforts or the new construction.”
“It won't. I'll make sure of that. Besides,” Theo shrugged. “Remember all the parts we pulled out of them? Some we couldn't use and are still in inventory. Others are being replaced with military hardware. I'm sure we can look into reconditioning them and reinstalling some. If it takes the parts from ten ships to get one functional again, I'm okay with that.”
“Agreed.”
Chapter 51
B-102c
Galiet Bailey tried to acc
ess the ansible to see if the latest papers from the hyperspace academia community had been published. She was keen to find out if Professor Newtonian was right about the spatial anomalies causing a compression issue when they were in close proximity in real space. His hypothesis that the objects were parent and child was intriguing, but he hadn't backed up the statement with tests to confirm it. She had suggested he try testing the hypothesis by comparing an asteroid's hyperspace shadow in hyperspace, then breaking it in pieces and getting data from that, and then trying asteroids that had nothing in common as a control.
He was supposed to have gotten the instrumentation installed and on a navy ship to try it last month. Unfortunately, that was the last she'd heard of it. The damn ansible was still being monopolized by the incoming data stream from Antigua.
She frowned as she tapped out an inquiry. Nope. She sighed in exasperation. Like the admiral was going to be able to read the gigs and gigs of data that was coming in. She shook her head in frustration and then did her best to focus on something else.
Commander Lefluer had agreed to allow her the resources for a series of six probes of the rapids. It had taken a bit of convincing. Her lips twitched in fond memory of just how she'd convinced her hubby, but she'd gotten him to work out most of the engineering in his off time. Clennie hadn't been too happy about his preoccupation, but he had done a bench test and it had worked. Now he just needed to put the probes in production.
She frowned, her tongue tip tracing her teeth as she tapped out a series of simulations on how to best deploy the devices.
