Hawk Flight (Flight of the Hawk Book 3)

by Robert Little

  Shin Ho replied, “Load Balance cabinet.”

  The ‘woman’ led him through a series of questions that narrowed his area of interest to the specific issues related to failures of the system during periods of high demand. She – the female voice - had an accent, and it took Alexi a few moments to realize that she sounded like someone from Nasser, intriguing him.

  A hologram appeared, showing a list of nineteen potential solutions, graded by importance. Shin Ho specified the first one, and a full lieutenant appeared in the air in front of them. She briefly and succinctly described her situation. It was during the Civil War, her destroyer had been hit by numerous energy weapons and large energy spikes had brought down the ship’s power system. She described the frantic calls from the bridge to restore power to their energy weapons, knew that a number of enemy missiles were en route. She calmly described the manner in which she and an E-2 disconnected the heavy cabling from the load cabinet and draped it across the deck to the Output Array. She said, “We brought down environment, yanked the cable and connected the weapons cable to the cabinet. I then overrode all the alarms, told the Environment system that we had an emergency and commed the bridge. I told the captain that we had no more than fifteen minutes before the system completely shut down. Within fifteen seconds he was able to begin targeting the incoming missiles, and as soon as he informed me that we were out of immediate danger, I returned the system power to environment. Within another twenty minutes we restored power to drive and were able to rejoin the battle. The Load Balancing cabinet was a fused mess, and it took several hours to replace all the chips, but we survived.”

  Alexi shook his head, “That is not supposed to work.” Shin Ho smiled, “She is living proof that it did.”

  Alexi asked, “Is there…” Shin Ho nodded, “Yes. The Navy officially neither approves nor disapproves of this effort, believing it’s own Blue Book is all that it needs, but as her story reveals, there are times when conventional wisdom gets you killed. You will have to sit down with the software – it will take about an hour – and once you are in the system, you’ll be asked to make periodic reports on your progress, and on anything you may have learned that might help others. If you’ve brought your pad, and you’ve got the room, you will be permitted to download all the data on 2nd Gen destroyers. The class was built without major changes for over one hundred years, thus it’s a huge list, and so you might want to be a little selective. I suggest that you don’t limit it to Engineering – you’ll also benefit from the data on environment, communications, navigation and ship handling.”

  Alexi shook his head, “I’ve got so much to learn.” Shin Ho grinned, “Best start now. I have a friend, and she has a friend, so hustle that alleged butt. While you log into the system I’ll make a comm.”

  Alexi asked, “I know you’re not from Elyse, and you just arrived, so, have you been here before?” Shin Ho laughed, “Hell no! However, unlike you, I actually like people. I’ll be in the café for the next seventy minutes. If you show up after that, you’ll find I’ve jumped out.”

  Alexi finished the process in less than the estimate, and after filling up his pad went off in search of his boisterous friend.

  Shin Ho not only had a friend, she was attractive, as was the friend of the friend. Both were in uniform, and his first impression was that they were doing a rather good job of it. Alexi sighed in mingled nervousness and anticipation – perhaps being around uniforms wasn’t such a bad idea.

  Chapter 11

  Power Production Technician Second Class Elliot Kana,

  Federal Destroyer Défiance

  The chief looked over Kana’s shoulder – nobody called him by his first name, and few even knew it – and sighed audibly. Without looking up Kana said, obviously smiling, “If I had known that accepting a second stripe would mean I had to put up with bad breath at such close quarters, I would have refused the alleged honor.” The chief grunted, “If I knew that recommending you for a second stripe would mean you would become slow and stupid, I wouldn’t have lied about your ability, singular.”

  Kana grinned, “This is the first time you’ve ever admitted that I am – or at least used to be – fast and intelligent.” Chief Dahl snorted, “I’m still lying. How much longer? I’m only asking as we’re pursuing a confirmed pirate.”

  Kana hit ‘Enter’ and sat back, “It’s compiling. Five minutes to finish, and maybe thirty seconds to install it in the cabinet.”

  Chief Dahl asked, “Where did you learn that trick?” Kana shrugged, “While you’re chasing after Sergeant Cho, I read.” The chief smiled, “I no longer chase the good sergeant.” Kana turned and looked up, “Oh? She kick your butt – again?” The chief blushed, “Well, yeah! However, that’s not what I meant.”

  He was still blushing and Kana turned back to watch the readout, “So. Good. I like Sergeant Cho, and I think she’s good for you, if for no other reason than to give you the false impression that you’re intelligent. Thanks to her influence, you’ve been somewhat easier to be around, due no doubt to all those concussions. Plans?”

  The chief said, “I don’t know. She’s due to transfer in three months.” Kana was watching the readout, but commented, “Opinion?” Chief Dahl assented and Kana said, “Marry her.” The chief asked, “Serious?” Without looking back, Kana simply nodded.

  Chief Dahl didn’t comment, but did ask, “Well?” Kana grunted, “Three minutes ago, I said it would take five minutes.” Chief Dahl said, “You usually lie about how long things take.” The console beeped and the chief added, “…Such as for instance, now.”

  Kana pulled the block and walked over to the cabinet. He slid it into position, closed a contact and locked it into place. He returned to the console and watched in silence as Chief Dahl powered up the target acquisition system. It flashed through a self-test and beeped. Kana returned to the cabinet and reconnected a heavy power and data cable. He waved a hand and Chief Dahl commed the bridge, “Sir, we’ve got acquisition back up. I recommend that you re-align the system.”

  He turned to Kana, “I’d like you to spend the next few minutes checking systems for any possible problems. We’ll be going to battle stations in an hour, and we need to ensure that the suits are charged. I pressure tested them two days ago, but if their batteries are dead and Engineering loses its’ atmosphere, we’re insurance checks to our next of kin. Check to make certain we have replacement chips for Load Balancing, and dupe that block you just created. While you’re doing that, I’ll grab something to eat, and then you can get something.”

  Almost precisely an hour later the bridge commed Engineering and told the Engineering officer, whose battle station was his own department, “We’re going to battle stations in a few moments; we’ll jump into position ahead of their ship, and let them come to us, but be prepared for heavy demands on your systems.”

  The commander acknowledged and slammed his hand on a large red contact plate. All over Engineering lights began rapidly flashing, with an intermittent red, denoting battle stations rather than an emergency, which condition could be announced in any number of potentially fatal ways.

  Of the three watch standing officers he was supposed to have, he was short two, and the one JG he did have had turned out to be largely useless. As a result, he’d put that officer in the Bottle Room, the location where he could do the least amount of harm, assuming he was able to do anything.

  He had his chief in the capacitor room, and after long thought, had decided to put his new 2nd class with him. The two men worked extremely well together, and if they did have to work on separate problems, they could get to any spot in Engineering within seconds.

  While the lights flashed, his men and women raced to don their suits. They were designed to protect the wearer from short-term loss of atmosphere, extremes of temperature and bolts of energy. In practice, they sometimes performed to design.

  While they were still putting on their suits, the entire ship went to battle stations. A klaxon blared and the
n a recorded voice of a very calm woman announced what was already obvious.

  The jump capacitors were already nearly fully charged and within moments they discharged their enormous energy into a small black box located within engineering. The ship seemed to shiver for a brief moment.

  The commander was strapped into his couch and stared avidly at the readout. He announced over his local comm system, “We’ve jumped into position. Bridge misjudged a bit, but we’re now dead ahead of the ship. Bridge is reporting it to be a 2nd gen destroyer, but we have no ID on the drive. Chief, give the jump capacitors priority, I want them back up as soon as possible. Kana, I want you to stay on top of Load balancing. We can expect a single warning shot, but if they respond with missiles, we’re close enough that weapons and drive will require virtually everything we can put out before we can repower jump.

  By this time everyone was suited up and the alarms were silenced. The coolant pumps spun up to speed as bridge increased power to the drive. Simultaneously, a single energy mount flashed an intense bolt of light at the distant ship.

  Kana watched the readouts on the cabinet while keeping an ear peeled for the sound of the coolant pumps. One of them was slightly out of sync with the others.

  Chief Dahl yelled, “Can you hear that?” Kana yelled back, “Yes, it’s on the port bottle, but from here I can’t tell which one.” The chief said, “Number 3.”

  The chief commed the female PowTech, “Pull a fusion coolant pump from the locker, stow it next to port pump 3, along with the tools, and make certain to secure them. Don’t change out the pump unless I tell you.”

  He commed the Commander, told him of the possible pump problem and in answer to the logical question said, “Sir, if necessary, we can change out the pump in ten minutes. So far, it’s holding.”

  The ship went to maximum acceleration and an officer on the bridge commed Engineering, “They’re running. We’ll be in missile range within fifteen minutes, and of course, they will too. In case of a problem, give preference to weapons. We’ve now got a good ID on their drive, and they’re deep enough inside the planets’ gravity well that they are at least thirty minutes from the earliest possible safe jump point, meaning we can force them to shut down. How many minutes to power up the jump system?”

  The commander said, “As long as you don’t require energy weapons, fourteen minutes.”

  The bottle cooling system gradually went to maximum as the system poured energy into the straining drive, maintained power to environmental controls and fed whatever was left over into the jump capacitors.

  At twelve minutes the commander commed the bridge, “Sir, we’re up to eighty percent on the jump system, all energy weapons are fully charged and we can shift power from jump to weapons.”

  Over the next few minutes the system maintained power to the drive and completed charging the jump system. At one point the bridge commed to inform them that the enemy had launched a spread of missiles.

  Chief Dahl immediately went into the bottle room and listened to the noisy pump. He unsealed his suit and put his naked hand on the housing, and immediately yanked it off. The pump was very hot. He commed the commander and told him, “Sir, that pump is running extremely hot. I want to shut it down and replace it before it freezes up. We’ll need about ten minutes from whenever you approve it.” The commander promptly told him, “Do it now. We’ve got missiles coming, and we’ll need that pump.”

  Chief Dahl manually shut down the pump and voided that section of coolant while Kana got into position. The chief waved and Kana used a power tool to begin removing the bolts. It took him thirty seconds. He grunted with effort and lifted the housing up out of its’ slot. He dumped it onto the deck, turned the replacement onto its side and carefully ran his fingers over the gaskets. Satisfied that they hadn’t been nicked or damaged, he heaved it up and slid it down into position. The PowTech handed him the bolts, and he manually started all eight. Two minutes later they were torqued down. He opened a valve to vent any air in the system and as soon as coolant began streaming he shut it down and waved to Chief Dahl, who restored power. A moment later the pump began spinning up to speed.

  Chief Dahl commed the commander, “Sir, we’ve replaced the pump. Seven minutes flat.” The commander replied, “Just in time. Watch the bottle temp and put Kana on load balancing. First priority goes to weapons, second to environmental, third to drive.”

  Less than two minutes later the destroyer’s energy weapons began lasing the incoming missiles. The fusion bottles were now at eighty-nine percent of original rated power, the capacitors were singing as the energy mounts discharged bolts of light, causing slight fluctuations to the drive.

  The ship shivered as it launched it’s own missiles at the fleeing destroyer. Kana ached to be somewhere where he could at least see what was happening. Almost as if on cue, the Load Balancing system overloaded and froze. Kana flipped open a cover, and manually set the system priorities to weapons, environment and drive, and watched as the cabinet routed stupendous amounts of power through the ship.

  As old as that class of ship was, and as common as the failure of this system was, Kana thought it was extremely disquieting to find that it hadn’t been updated. He commed the commander, “Sir, Load Balancing went down. I’ve manually set the priorities, but Weapons isn’t using as much as anticipated, and power to the drive has increased.”

  The commander looked at the numbers on his console and ordered Kana, “Leave it as is. The bridge tells me that there is only one missile left, and their defensive systems are proving inadequate. As soon as that final missile is destroyed, I’ll comm you to wait until Weapons capacitors are charged and then readjust power as needed.”

  Ten minutes later the All Clear was sounded, and the captain ordered the shuttle to launch to search for survivors.

  Chief Dahl went into the bottle room to look at the Load Balancing cabinet. He asked, “It went down?” Kana nodded, “Yeah, but the new programming kept it from burning out the logic center. It locked down the last settings, and allowed me to manually make changes. As soon as the power demands dropped back to normal, it came back up. It’s not a good fix, but it’s better than being a small part of an expanding cloud of plasma.”

  Chief Dahl shook his head in mingled resignation and respect, “Write it up. Your changes, plus the log to back up how they worked ought to be worth a stripe.” Kana smiled, “Meaning, more bad breath?” Chief Dahl grinned, “Absolutely.”

  The commander entered the space and joined the two men at the cabinet. He raised his eyebrows at the chief who told him what Kana’s changes had done. The commander asked, “Is this something you found in the Blue Book?” Kana shook his head, “No sir, the best information I found there referenced efforts to try to prevent burning out the controls, and how to change out the control block. I have a copy of data on 2nd Gen destroyers, downloaded from the Dubois library. In one of the entries, a lieutenant talked about losing the cabinet, and speculated that it might be possible to code in language that would sense an impending overload and failure. I’ve been spending some free time working on the problem and developed a subroutine that was able to forestall the loss of function and freeze the settings, keeping power up to the three main systems, plus allowing for manual changes. It also had the added benefit of returning automatic control back to the cabinet once power levels dropped. I tested it in the simulator and it worked. We added some lines of code that would ensure the changes themselves didn’t crash the box, and we were in the process of testing the system when we went to battle stations.”

  His expression mimicking cold granite, Commander Bharadwaj looked at Chief Dahl, “Next time, you talk to me first. This could have blown up in our face.” The chief didn’t back down, “Yes sir. However, for the record, the cabinet did malfunction, but petty officer Kana’s changes prevented the loss of power to weapons, and possibly prevented the ship’s destruction. I apologize for not bringing our work to your attention, but we are terribly shorthanded
and the modifications were only made within the last few hours.”

  The commander blinked, “You just made the change?” Chief Dahl nodded, “Yes sir. Additionally, the modifications were done in such a way that no changes were made to the performance of the system, short of an impending breakdown. Under that one single circumstance, the modifications became active, prevented the burnout of the processor, maintained the last power settings and allowed for manual changes, which in fact petty officer Kana made, at my direction. Sir, this system is the weak link in Engineering, but with this change, we can maintain and even manually adjust power to Drive and Weapons.”

  Commander Bharadwaj nodded, “Chief, you took a chance, but under the circumstances, I’ll overlook it. I want this written up and on my desk by end of watch. I’ll want to see your test results, and I need to look at the actual performance. If all is as you describe, we need to pass this to the Fisk and Tillotson.”

  The commander turned to leave, but paused, “If you can come up with methods to return our power to design levels, I’d be interested. I know the Zerohm cabling is old, but that only accounts for some of our losses.” Chief Dahl glanced at Kana, who offered a slight shrug of his shoulders. The chief prodded, “Kana?”