The Veritian Derelict (Junkyard Dogs) (26 page)

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.

A
fter 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 business 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.

H
awkins 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?"

The two young women
looked at one another and back at Kresge before shaking their heads.

"
Fine," said Kresge. "I'll need you to get started on this new project immediately. By the way, good work so far, both of you. Go on, get to it!"

The
two apprentice weapons engineers reported to Captain Nassar who handed them off to Lieutenant Commander Raghib, chief engineer for the
Istanbul.
Faiza knew the engineer fairly well but Amanda needed to be introduced. With Raghib leading, the trio went down into the inner workings of the ship. Using their cranial nets, they each maintained a constant interface with their wrist computers and with each other. They continuously compared the specifications of the
Cairo
against those of the
Istanbul
as they performed their inspection and discovered that there were a fair number of differences between the two ships, even though they had started out with identical templates.

"The
original design to route power to the forward 'A' and 'B' main battery turrets on this ship was to run one of the cables on the port side and the other one to starboard," said Raghib. He opened a hinged inspection cover to show the two young women a cable about a half meter in thickness that disappeared into the forward bulkhead of the section they were in.

"
I've looked this setup over hundreds of times" he continued. "The main power cables for the beam weapons are here, but I don't think the port side one is connected to anything. You know, of course, that the role of this ship was changed during construction."

"
Yes, they were almost finished building her when they decided to convert her into a diplomatic vessel," said Faiza. "It makes sense, by then it would have been way too much trouble to remove the cables, so they just left them in place. You say the port cable is not connected to anything. What about the starboard one?"

"
Ah now, that is a different kettle of fish," replied the engineer. "The starboard cable is connected to many, many different things.

"This
part of the setup looks a lot like the
Cairo
," said Amanda. "The schematic indicates that the power cables for the 'A' and 'B' turrets on the
Cairo
are about a half meter in thickness, just like this one. Can we look at the power plant itself to see what they did to the
Istanbul
that was different?"

"By all means," replied Raghib.
The trio proceeded aft through two large compartments, both of them packed with machinery, before stopping in the main power plant control room. At Raghib's request, one of the technicians opened a hatch that led rearward through the aft bulkhead of the control room. The trio went through the hatch into the engine room. A loud and deep-pitched hum filled the compartment. The group found themselves standing directly in front of the power plant. Amanda once again consulted her wrist computer schematics.

"Near as I can tell, th
e port cable should be connected to the power plant right about here," said the young redhead, raising her voice so she could be heard over the noise and pointing to the area in question. A half-meter thick cable was routed rearward through the bulkhead but it was not connected to the power plant. Instead, the end of the cable was covered with a blunt-ended cap, neatly clamped in place. A similar-sized opening into the power plant, where the cable presumably was supposed to have connected, was covered with a flat plate that had been bolted in place. Across the chamber, which ran the entire width of the ship, an identical cable disappeared into the starboard side of the power plant.

"
I assume that the connections for the cable are behind that plate," said Raghib, nearly shouting as well. "The power plant was installed very early in the construction process and it would have taken a major re-engineering effort to remove those connections. We will not know for sure until we remove that cover but I would be almost certain that the connections are still in place and could be utilized if we wished to do so."

"Commander Kresge
was wondering about mounting some of the secondary weapons from a light cruiser on the
Istanbul
," said Amanda. "Do you know if any of the secondary cables are still in place?"

"
Definitely. If we go up a couple of decks, I can show you," said Raghib.

On their way to the check on the secondary cables, the
trio passed through an area that was used by the small Marine contingent that served on board the
Istanbul
. Several men in Meridian Imperial Marine uniforms were relaxing in the compartment.

On one wall of the compartment was
an enclosed booth about two meters long, two meters high and a meter deep, with a sloped, transparent front panel. Through the panel, Amanda could see that the booth contained six pulse rifles and an equal number of pulse pistols. The rifles were racked neatly, butt end of the stock downward, and the projector end pointing upwards. Between each rifle was a small cradle that held a pulse pistol tilted nose downward with the pistol grip pointed towards the observers. Each of the weapons was connected to a module in the booth by an electrical cable about a centimeter in diameter. The cable plugged into the bottom of the handle of each of the pistols and into a receptacle on the side of each of the rifles. "What's this," asked Amanda.

"That is a weapons charging station," replied Raghib
. "We have several of them on board."

"
Cool," said Amanda. "I always wondered how you got those hand weapons charged up."

The three of them went up a couple of decks
where Raghib opened another sealed hatch and showed them into a small storeroom. Overhead, running along the inward side of the ceiling of the small room, were four cables, each about ten centimeters in diameter.

"
Those are some of the secondary weapons cables up there," said Raghib. "But in this case, the engineers made full use of them. Power for many of the staterooms and kitchens associated with the passenger role of this ship are connected to these cables, as well as the Ambassador's special communications suite with the stage II Whitney communications console. The starboard main battery cable is connected to the big ballroom and the special kitchen it needs. I can't tell you how many other things onboard this ship would probably not function if we decided to divert power from any of these cables for weapons."

"So, what are your thoughts on the feasibility of this project?" asked Amanda.

"Well, I certainly think we can try to arm the ship but it looks like the builders made full use of the starboard side main battery power cable and those intended for the secondary weapons as well. It's almost as if you'll have to use the port side cable originally intended for the 'A' turret of the main battery if you want to use anything. Trying to make use of any of the other cables would mean a lot of refitting and a lot of inconvenience. Besides, I don't think we have the time."

"We'll be sure to
include that in our report to Commander Kresge and to my father," said Faiza. "Anything else you think we need to see?"

"I think t
hat's about it," replied the chief engineer.

"Thank's Raghib," said Faiza. "You've been a great help."

The engineer smiled and gave them a slight bow. "It's been a pleasure working with you," he replied.

The two young women headed back to the bridge to report to Kresge.