by Chris Hechtl
“That …”
“It would allow you to network, something you are incredible at, interview people … put people in the right places, make contacts, trade favors, fix problems …”
She nodded slowly. It did fit with her idea of building his; their portfolio. “I can consider it,” she murmured.
“That's my girl,” he murmured, hugging her to his side and rubbing her bicep in support.
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Ensign Slatterly felt more than a bit frazzled with her job. Frustrated, but on many levels fulfilled by the challenge … even if she lacked the ability to take it all on at once.
She felt buried in the raw data to process; the latest stuff from the Kill Force was just one example among many. Her computers in the naval base, as well as those she'd “borrowed” in the fleet were backed up for weeks with processing work. She didn't have enough processors, and it was just her doing most of the grunt work.
And that was just what data she had on hand. She wouldn't be getting another bank of servers for another month she knew, no matter how much she tried to wheedle the engineers to make it sooner.
Her other dream project was more complex. She had proposed platforms to be set up near the Tortuga jump point to try to catch EM traffic, even though the star system was light years away.
The commodore had approved the plan but had pushed it back to Phase 4. That was going to be a year or more. Granted it would give her time to catch up on her processing … if more data didn't come in.
Instead of the dedicated platforms, the commodore had let her coordinate with CIC in the picket ships to listen to radio chatter from Tortuga, plus use their telescopes to try to peer into the rogue star system. The distance was high, trying to get clear images of ships that far away were almost impossible; the ships were far too small. But they had managed to catch some tantalizing snatches of radio chatter, some of it encrypted, some of it in the clear. Enough of the chatter allowed her to confirm that the pirate base was indeed there. The watching ships also saw the occasional burst of light from a ship arriving from hyper. The sensor techs had tried to clean it up and get an idea on where the jumps were at in the Tortuga system without much luck. They had also tried to get a hard ship number and an idea where the base was in the star system … also without much luck.
Her new proposal was to have a light cruiser jump three light years along the path to Tortuga and then sit and wait and see pulses of arrival from the past to better triangulate the jump point locations and get a better clearer look at the star systems defenders. If they took the time to look from different locations to get a hard vector and more intelligence, it would be even better. She had given up lamenting about not having a Prowler on hand, nor the ability to make one.
She finished her mission plan up and then scanned it. She was tempted to run it past some of the other officers but wasn't certain who to do that with. She didn't give herself good odds on the commodore signing off on the mission anyway.
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Lieutenant Fixer used her flashlight and a handheld spotlight to peer into the dark recesses around the pump module to inspect the equipment. She even got down and looked under the equipment, using a fiber optic scope and a mirror to get in where her Mark I eyes couldn't.
“What I'm looking for are obvious signs of problems as well as less obvious ones. Cracks, leaks, those can be dead giveaways or subtle things. But I'm also looking for wet spots and a shine from a possible leak. We've got one here, so this needs to be rebuilt to find out why,” the T'clock said, documenting the damage.
She had a class of natives with her. They used a chain hoist to pull part of the assembly apart once it was unbolted. However, they ran into a series of stuck bolts, so the T'clock brought out a cheater bar.
“A cheater bar is an open pipe that is used to slip over the handle of a tool to get additional leverage to break the lock on a stuck bolt. A breaker bar amounted to the same thing but tended to break off the bolt, usually along the threads inside the block,” she explained. Her mandibles clacked as she pulled a bolt out, and sure enough, it was sheered a centimeter away from where it should end. “Now we have to drill and tap out that hole. But for the moment the parts are loose,” she explained as they winched the top of the pump manifold aside.
The T'clock lieutenant continued to give her students lessons on mechanical leverage and mechanical fixtures, as well as the importance of regular inspection and maintenance. “See here?” she asked, showing them a scratched up bearing race. “Not good. It looks like the oil in this went bad. Someone didn't keep up with the maintenance. It makes me wonder what else we're going to find,” she said.
She explained how bolts with rolled-on threads using oil under presses and then repeatedly heat treated were the best over cast or even replicated bolts. “Bolts stretch under torque, which is why some can't be reused,” she stated. “Then there is thread lock, which is glue used to keep a bolt from working loose. Which …,” she stopped and grunted as a bolt proved to be stuck but the parts were loose. “We're not seeing here,” she observed.
She switched to a can of spray to use the lubrication spray to soak into the metal and then break the rust bonds to loosen some of the stuck bolts.
“And I see here we also have a thread matching problem,” she muttered. She increased the student's education in T'clock cursing as she worked at a bolt that didn't belong. “Cross threaded too,” she buzzed angrily.
She continued to curse as she noted the head of the bolt was worn too badly for the wrench to grab it. “Which means we can cut it off, not something I'm in favor of, use a torch to try to get the metal to expand … or …,” she went to her tool kit and pulled a special tool. The tool had little fingers that dug into the sides of the bolt head to allow it to grip better. “Or we get creative,” she muttered as she worked on the bolt.
Once it was loose, she pulled it out and showed it to her students. “That's why it wore loose, see the threads are crumbled and torn up? It's why this part came loose and wiggled around causing all the damage. For the want of a proper bolt, we get a full teardown and well, this,” the T'clock said.
Her students passed the bolt around, muttering quietly about it.
“Some bolts are deliberately given a counter thread rotation so they won't back off if the thing they are holding in vibrates or spins in the opposite direction,” she explained. “And yeah, some nuts have castles, little nubs that allow you to wire them shut. I see someone neglected to use cotter pins here. They probably thought they'd fall into the engine or something,” she muttered. “You use a cotter pin to wire the nut and bolt together so they can't work apart,” she explained.
Once they had the pump apart, cleaned, and inspected, and new parts assembled, she walked them through the re-assembly. She showed them the dowel pins in the block to help align the parts. She showed them how to use stems over bolts since they held the manifold parts together better. When it got to the part where she was working with gaskets, she paused to check the first one.
She wasn't taking any chances; she was using lube plus new gaskets. But that didn't mean she didn't go through an inspection first.
“Always check your gaskets for rips and nicks. Always handle with care; you might not have a spare.”
“What if it has a nick?” a Veraxin student asked.
“Find another one. Or find a way to fix the nick. Don't put it in or it'll eventually wear and you'll be right back here tearing this entire thing apart again. Trust me, you don't want to have to do something twice, and you definitely don't want to have to do it in a hurry if there is an emergency,” she warned.
Once the manifold was together, she showed them another trick. She showed them how to torque the bolts in a pattern to keep the gasket level. “Go around once at one spec, usually half the final one, then go back at the higher level using the same pattern. That way you get it right and don't crush the gasket to the point where it doesn't work anymore,” she explaine
d.
“Lieutenant Fixer,” a familiar Tauren bass voice rumbled.
“Yes, Chauncy, what is it?” she asked, pausing her lecture. Chauncy was one of the Taurens that had come from Antigua. He was young but eager to learn and had become something of a special apprentice to her.
“We've got another complaint. Well, actually a bunch of them, all from the same place. These ones are coming from Delta Fourteen. They say among other things, they are missing a backup generator, parts for a life support module, a pump, some computer parts, and their number four life support module is down.”
“Did we do inventory with them before we left?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And they signed off on it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And I believe we have supporting documentation everything was where we said it was when we left, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “They also signed off on the number four module. I triple checked it with you. It was running perfectly when we left.”
“Okay, let them know they signed off on everything, and we don't go back once we're done a job. If they need the parts, then they need to find out who took them. There is no warranty on anything we install unless they can prove it was broken when we were there, and we made certain it wasn't. Forward all correspondence to Lieutenant Black including supporting documentation,” the T'clock said with a buzzing growl in her voice as her antenna bobbed.
“The Lieutenant Black is the JAG officer, correct?”
“Yes. And copy it to Mister Muggs in case they complain.
“They are already complaining,” the Tauren grumbled.
“That's why we back everything up with inspections with the locals, sign and document everything in triplicate. If someone gets cute or light fingered after we leave, it is on them.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Tauren said with a fatalistic sigh as he hung up.
The T'clock turned to her audience. “I know you caught part of that conversation; I won't pretend you didn't. So, the lesson in that is to make damn certain everything is right the first go-around because I'm tired and cranky and don't give second bites at my ass or time. So, where were we,” she said, turning to the pump assembly. “Ah, okay, let's get this thing back up and test her out,” she said.
Her native students looked at each other warily then nodded.
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Fred grimaced as he read the missive from Delta Fourteen. He rubbed his brow. “As memory serves, I just got a missive from Lieutenant Fixer's office,” he said as he pulled up the report. He had been surprised that the D14 colony had gone so far as to send a representative to him to argue their case. Of course, he also knew it was much harder to tell someone no face to face than over the radio.
“Okay, here it is … you folks signed off on her work … the inventory, I have a picture here of the items you mention are missing …”
“We need those parts!”
“As I understand it, you are given a repair of your colony bringing it up to what it once was. No spares are provided, though the Lieutenant was kind enough to reservice the spares you did have or recondition the parts she pulled off or in some cases gave you spares from kits that she didn't need,” Fred said, reading the report almost verbatim. This wasn't his first complaint; he knew what was going on. The natives were dealing with theft as well as some black market dealings, plus some were getting lazy and wanting more than what was agreed on in the contract.
The Tauren snorted. “We have a contract.”
“That stated, we were completed with your rebuild when you signed off on it. Here are the signatures for each line, including inventory,” the Neochimp said, pointing to the contract and forms. “Do you know what happened to those missing parts?”
“No. They were never there I'm telling you!”
“Well, according to this, they were. She even provided documentation. There is a Tauren in the background here …,” the Neochimp pulled the images up and then scrolled through them. He pointed to the missing parts, all neatly arranged in packaging and labeled on the shelves.
“That's my cousin.”
“Okay, well, he was there. Was he the person who signed off on them?”
“Yes but …,” The Tauren snorted angrily. “This is bullshit! You've got replicators, just make more!”
“Why? We already did the first time. If someone stole them …”
“No one stole them!”
“Then where are they?” Fred riposted. The Tauren didn't say anything. “Ah. Well, we can't and won't help you. We did the job. As far as the broken-down components, they were tested and signed off as functional.”
“So you are saying you'll do nothing?” the Tauren demanded. “I came all this way for nothing?” he demanded.
“I'm sorry you spent so much time in transit when a simple call could have cleared this up. As I said, the military has fulfilled their part of the contract. Where the missing parts went after they left your colony is up to you. What broke … that is a bit less of a black and white area. If you provide documentation …”
“We want it replaced! A brand new one!”
“Well, if you can document it is broken, we can ask the engineers to take a swing by to look at it. If it is broken in a way that they overlooked, I'm certain they will make arrangements to fix it.”
“New! We'll keep the old, we can recycle it …”
“If it is not in place when they revisit, it won't be touched. They'll just go on. Everything has to be documented.”
“Why?”
“Because unfortunately too many misunderstandings occur when people do not have documentation to back up things. Which is why I have it here,” the Neochimp said.
The Tauren snorted. “Damn it …”
“Just between you and me, I don't know who dreamed this up, but it wasn't going to work. We've bent over backwards to help you. Taking advantage of us, well, as you can see, there is a limit to our generosity.”
“I see that,” the Tauren said grudgingly. “I'd appreciate some help with the generator and life support module.”
“Send us the diagnostic files, also any images and video you have. I'll find an engineer to troubleshoot them for you.”
“Understood,” the Tauren grumbled. His massive jaw worked. “I told them this wasn't going to work,” he muttered under his breath.
Fred didn't let the light of amusement at overhearing that hit his face. “Since you are here, can I show you around? Perhaps we can round up an engineer and you can explain the problem?” he offered.
“Yeah, I'd like that,” the Tauren said with a huff as he rose from his chair.
Chapter 42
Tau-1183 Lebynthos
ME Mahoney and Shrill Kill made a flat-out run in the middle octaves of Gamma band for home, arriving in the Tau-1183 star system in a short three weeks. The Arboth class destroyer hadn't taken any damage to her hyperdrive fortunately. Once they were in real space again, her engineers swarmed her exterior to survey and then begin to make what repairs they could while still underway on their run across the solar system.
Shrill Kill's stern damage was extensive, knocking out one of her main sublight drives. Her crew did their best to work around the damage, cutting away the scrap, and then either using it for raw material to patch the gashes or kicking it off into the void.
As they passed through the star system, they made a radio call warning the population of the massive hostile ship and her escorts coming in their wake to Governor Shaver on Lebynthos. “We can't stop them, I'm sorry,” Captain Fowler, on the tin can warned. “We're too outgunned,” she said.
“Understood. Given the number of enemy ships you and Cupid reported coming, I'd be surprised if you could. Besides, I know Mahoney is a hospital ship,” Governor Shaver replied twenty minutes later. “Thank you for getting us the warning.”
“Will your people be okay?” the T'clock captain asked worriedly.
“We've been throug
h this before, recently just a few months ago after you passed through. A pirate ship coming from what we believe was Kingdom Come paid us a visit. I'm surprised you didn't run into them. Our star system has been something of a busy intersection as of late,” the governor replied twenty minutes later.
“We're downloading the messenger buoy's log now,” Captain Fowler said in a side channel to Captain V'z'xx.
“Your courier Cupid, the cruisers and destroyers earlier, a bunch of other hospital ships, and even a Conestoga that apparently your people liberated,” Captain Shavers stated.
Captain V'z'xx looked at the data as it came in from Shrill Kill. He clacked his mandibles in relief at the news of the warships passing. “We are going to need all the help we can get to take down that monster,” he said.
“Indeed,” Captain Fowler said in agreement. “I'm concerned about this Mercy Flight 1 and 2,” she said. “I'm uploading orders to the buoy to warn them to haul ass and avoid the area,” she said. “We can't do anything about Flight 2 damn it, but at least we can give Flight 1 some warning.”
“Hopefully they will be okay,” the governor said worriedly.
“My hopes and prayers are with them as well,” Captain V'z'xx said. He had his crew look into the timing carefully. They might, just might squeeze by, he noted. If Lady Luck's blessings were with them.
Given the past history he had his doubts.
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Ten hours out from the Tau-1929 jump point, the ships were surprised at the arrival of another ship at the Tau-23IX22 jump point.
They called the planet to warn Governor Shaver and then worked on speeding up their withdrawal, certain that somehow the enemy had caught up with them. That certainty changed when the courier ship Blitzen's IFF broadcast reached them.
“You scared the bejeezers out of us,” Captain V'z'xx scolded, then waited for the reply. While waiting, he ordered his ships to hold on the jump point.