by Rodney Smith
Kelly leaned forward to get the feel of the simulator. The screen was concave and gave him about 180 degrees horizontal and 120 degrees vertical. He found the screen to cover just to the edge of his peripheral vision. It was almost like the forward view out of an F-53 cockpit. The yoke fit his hand well and the triggers fell just where his index fingers naturally landed.
“Sir, I’m going to give you slow targets so you can get the feel for the turret first, then I’ll speed them up as you get proficient. This should be a snap for a fighter pilot like you.” Chief Pennypacker winked slyly to Chief Watson behind Kelly’s back.
Kelly got ready and scanned for the first target to show up. It came in from lower right. An indicator arrow in the center of the screen pointed toward the target. Kelly tracked onto it, fired, and watched it erupt into a fireball. A series of single fighters came at him from all points of the compass and he readily finished them off. Chief Pennypacker increased the frequency of single fighters and still Kelly dealt with them. His training as a fighter pilot came in very handy. Chief Pennypacker then started throwing two at a time at him. It was a little harder, but he still kept them from getting closer than 50 kilometers to the notional ship. Four-ship groups got Ensign Blake sweating. He got most of them, but a few got through to firing range of the ship. At this point the lights came up.
Kelly uncoiled from the simulator and said, “Sorry, Chief, I guess I’m going to need some more training. I think I would have caused some holes in the side of the ship by letting those last groups get in to us.”
“Sir, that’s okay. You just became our best gunner. You even outshot my best score. Can I get you to help me train our gunners?”
“Really? I did that well? I think with a bit more practice with the system, I could have gotten those last two four-ship groups.”
“Sir, you were doing so well, I ran the full three turret scenario at you. If the other turrets had been manned, they would have picked off the ones you missed. You did real good.”
“Thanks, Chief, I think I need a shower now.”
Both chiefs burst into laughter, and Chief Watson led him back out into the hallway.
“Come on, sir, let me show you to your office.”
The two walked back down the hallway to the anteroom outside LCDR Timmons’ office. Chief Watson walked around the Yeoman’s desk, opened the door in the back of the anteroom, and held it open as Kelly walked past. The office was small, but adequate. There was a desk with built in terminal, a couple of chairs, a wardrobe, and a door to his right. A large window overlooked the shipyard. Kelly saw two large crew bags in one corner. He assumed that was his ship equipment. Chief Watson walked over to the door on the right. He opened the door and said it was the hallway to the command group head. Kelly looked in the head and saw it was equipped with a toilet, sink and shower.
Cushy, thought Kelly. He didn’t think he’d be using the shower much, but it was nice to have it there, anyway. He saw three more doors into the hallway and assumed they went into the main anteroom, captain’s and chief’s offices.
“That’s about the end of the grand tour. When you and the captain go over to the ship after lunch, you’ll meet more of the crew. I’ll leave you to get settled in. One last thing, sir, I don’t know if you’re aware Armstrong is on a 27 and a half standard hour clock. Be sure to allow for the difference in your schedule. It usually throws off newcomers until they adjust. The yeoman runs the coffee fund for us, keeps track so we pay our share, keeps the pot fresh, and will even bring it to you if you wish. I’ll be just across the anteroom if you need me, sir.”
Kelly thanked the chief and looked over his new office. His office on the Bolivar had been a shared desk in his four-man cabin. He looked out over the shipyard at the classes of ships being worked on. He saw at least two Scout-class ships, and wondered which was the Vigilant. As he looked closer, he realized that one of the Scout ships had double gun turrets and the other still had the single gun turrets. The one with the new turrets must be the Vigilant. He also saw three assault landing ships. They were big, clumsy, almost prehistoric looking things, when compared to the Scout-class ships.
The Vigilant was black and sleek, almost deadly looking. It was so black it seemed not to reflect any light. Faintly tubular in shape, it looked a little like a triangular bar, but with the corners rounded and tapering slightly toward the front. The turrets were mounted on this rounded corner part. He saw the glass windscreen at the nose of the ship and liked that feature. Fighters were one of the few classes of space-going craft that still had glass in their cockpits. Most other ship designs had foregone the glass viewports on the bridge for sensor arrays feeding internal monitor screens. Kelly liked the ability to use his eyes, as well as the ship’s sensors. As he looked just aft of the bridge, he saw two protrusions on the top and the bottom of the ship’s side facing him. He assumed there was a matching one on the opposite side. Those were the particle cannons. All along the sides of the ship were strange antennae, blisters, and protrusions. Those must be the sensor array. It would take him a while to feel about this ship the way he did about his fighter, but he thought it would grow on him.
Remembering what Chief Watson had said about the local time, he checked his watch, which adjusted to local time automatically on worlds with centrally broadcast time. He had over an hour to go before lunch. He logged onto his desktop terminal to check messages. He found copies of his orders assigning him to the Vigilant, his clothing and equipment issue record, orders for six additional duties he’d assumed as the Executive Officer, and an expert turret gunner certificate from Chief Pennypacker. He chuckled inwardly at that. There was an invitation to Admiral Craddock's quarters for evening cocktails on Saturday. He’d have to make sure his new mess dress uniform was squared away for that. At the end of a long list of Base administrative announcements, about things for which he had no use, was a message from Ensign Tammy Nielsen.
He opened the message and Ensign Nielsen’s sunny face appeared. “Ensign Blake, I’d like to invite you to a party we are having in the junior officers bar at the O Club on Lunaday. If you haven’t figured it out by now, Armstrong has an eight-day week. The extra day is wedged in between Saturday and Sunday. We call it Looneyday here. Saturday is a workday and the weekend starts on Looneyday. The party starts at 2000 hours. I’d really like you to come. You’ll have fun. We have a pretty good group of junior officers here. I think you’ll fit right in. Dress is very casual. Let me know. Bye!”
Well, his social calendar was filling up fast. Drinks with the admiral on Saturday evening and drinks with his peers and a cute blonde on Looneyday. “Sounds like a winner to me.” He took a moment to send a message to Tammy that he would be coming to the party.
In the time he had before lunch with the captain, he pulled up the reference documents for all his additional duties, scanned through them, and downloaded them into his pocket terminal. He had a lot to learn.
Chapter Three
“Damn, you are a slow eater. Do I have to wait on you all the time?”
The captain had a big grin on his face.
Kelly was astounded. LCDR Timmons had blasted through his meal while maintaining his end of the conversation during lunch. Blake had barely made a dent in his food. Once again, he had to wolf down a few bites and follow LCDR Timmons out the door.
“Come on. Let’s go meet the Vigilant.”
Kelly had a hard time keeping up with LCDR Timmons. The captain had a broad stride and a quick pace. Kelly was almost running to keep up.
“Keep up, Exec! You’ll have to get used to this pace with me. I’m not in my twenties any more and I need to exercise to keep myself from turning into a butterball, especially as much as I like to eat. We spend a lot of time in space and there is no room for jogging on the Vigilant. Treadmills bore me. So I push myself while planet-side.”
They walked along for about a mile to reach the gate to the shipyards. Kelly was breathing heavily by this point. He was only slightly amus
ed to see that LCDR Timmons was, too. At the gate they presented their ID cards to the guard and were admitted. They walked by a row of six warehouses, dodged a few man-lifts moving about, and reached the dock holding the Vigilant.
They opened the dock door and stepped in. As formidable looking as the Vigilant had been from the office window, she was immensely more impressive in person. She was matte black, with no shine at all. She looked, no, she was deadly. She was 30 meters tall and 100 meters long. The semi-triangular shape was evident from this angle just outward of the forward landing gear. The port turret with the dual particle cannons looked particularly lethal. Kelly could see this ship as home.
“Come on. Let’s go see Chief Miller.”
They moved aft of the forward landing gear and up the gangway into the ship. The ship’s interior could best be described as utter chaos. Workmen were everywhere. Major ship components were strewn about. Packing material and stray bits of wiring occupied almost every other remaining space. There was only a small pathway through the clutter, so Kelly followed close behind LCDR Timmons. Chief Watson joined them there.
“This area is fire control, or at least it will be once they get all this stuff installed. That gray box there is one of the new gun control servers. It will increase target acquisition and speed up slew rate on the turrets. This way.”
They moved aft through the fire control area and into an area of small cubicle-like spaces.
“This is the sensor control center. As you can see from the lack of clutter, these systems are pretty much installed. Our sensor operators work from these cubicles. Our old sensor suite was pretty good, but these new sensors are even better. We have the normal assortment of spectral receivers, magnetic anomaly detectors, infrared sensors, electro-optical sensors, chemical sniffers, and also the new mass optical array. It will give us a real advantage out in dark space where, sometimes, the only indication of another ship is when it passes in front of a star.”
“We had something like that on the F-53.”
”Right, it’s the same principle, but this one extends over the entire skin of the ship. The resolution is supposed to be unreal. The Vigilant will be the first ship equipped with it. It wasn’t ready for installation on the Valiant during their last refit. We get to test it for Fleet. That means we’ll have several specialists on board for our first patrol. They will run the tests while we conduct our normal patrol. At various points along our patrol path, other ships will be positioned to test the system’s sensitivity and resolution. Come on, let’s go see Engineering.”
They continued aft, through what were obviously crew spaces, up to a large iris hatch. It opened as they approached and they entered a completely orderly space. The components were arrayed neatly next to the spaces they would occupy once installed. There was no packing material anywhere. The floor was immaculate. It almost looked polished. In the rear of the space was a Chief Petty Officer watching two shipyard workers moving a component into its place.
“Now don’t go banging it against the sides as you slide it in. Watch out for those connectors! That’s better. Keep it coming. Keep it coming. Good, now plug it in and lock it down.”
He looked over at the two of them and said, “Hello, Captain, this is the new engine synchronizer. No more manual balancing of thrust. This device does it all automatically.”
LCDR Timmons smiled and said, “But Chief, it was always so entertaining to hear you curse the engines. What will we do for amusement now? Ensign Blake, this is Chief Machinist Mate Miller.”
Kelly extended his hand, “Glad to meet you, Chief.”
Chief Miller wiped his hands on a rag and took Blake’s handshake. “Glad to have you onboard, sir. Welcome to the Vigilant.”
LCDR Timmons said, “Chief, you’ve done a great job in here organizing the engineering spaces. When are you going to do the same for the rest of the ship? It’s a mess out there.”
“Captain, Engineering is the most important space on the ship. If the engines don’t work properly, nothing else on board happens. I’ll get around to the rest of the spaces as soon as I get this area finalized.”
“Come on, Exec. Let me show you the rest of the ship.”
Kelly said, “Good to meet you Chief,” then had to hurry to catch up with LCDR Timmons. Chief Miller chuckled to himself as he watched Kelly almost run after Timmons.
They moved forward past storage compartments, through the crew quarters, the galley, past sensor control, all the clutter in weapons control, and into chiefs’ country. Each chief had a small suite with a sleeping area and a small desk space. Each cabin was equipped with a fixed bed and a drop-down bed that opened out from the wall above. Kelly’s quarters would have the same arrangement. Only Chief Watson’s and the captain’s sleeping areas were singles. Chief Watson’s space also had a small conference room attached.
A common head would divide the chiefs’ country from the two officers’ quarters. At the moment, though, there were no officers’ quarters, only a space where they would be. Both captain and executive officer spaces were missing, while several shipyard workers installed pipes and cable raceways. The captain’s stateroom would be on the port side and the exec’s to starboard.
As he remembered from the diagrams, the captain’s stateroom also had a conference room as well as sleeping area, private head, and office space. The exec’s was smaller by the lack of a conference room, but was incredibly spacious in comparison to his quarters on the Bolivar. It would be pretty classy if they ever got it re-installed.
They moved forward through another large iris hatch and onto the bridge. The bridge was in pretty good shape. Most of the major components were installed. Several smaller components still needed to be installed. Even though there was a lot still to be done, Blake could get a feel for the layout. It was wedge shaped, with the pointed end of the wedge forward. There were two positions forward and two steps down. Helm was to starboard and, he assumed, navigation was to port. The positions looked like two fighter cockpits side by side. Aft and one step up from those two positions were weapons control, sensor control, and engineering. Blake remembered from his research that the whole ship could be controlled from the bridge. Each position had an integral seat with four-point harness.
Aft and one step up from these three positions were three more. The center position was the captain’s. The port side position belonged to the senior chief, Chief Watson. Kelly’s position was to starboard. Each position had a multipurpose workstation, capable of controlling any function of the specialized consoles. Kelly was especially happy to see full flight controls and weapon controls at his workstation.
The captain asked, “What do you think of the bridge?”
“It’s pretty roomy, compared to an F-53 cockpit. It will take me a bit to get used to it. I like the layout. It’s logical and I like the redundancy in the three command positions. I like the way that the three position sets are terraced. Each level has an unobstructed view out front, to the sides, and above. Coming from fighters, I appreciate having a glass view screen.”
“This is a slightly different layout than we had before refit. They implemented some of the recommendations we made based on our patrol experiences. Before, only the captain’s position had a multifunction terminal and flight controls. Because there is a traditional hesitance to sit in the captain’s chair, that position was wasted during all watches that I wasn’t present for. Our solution was to make all three positions identical. That way we have redundancy on top of redundancy.”
“Now let’s get out of here before the yard chief gets on our butts for keeping his crews from working.”
Chief Watson spoke up. “Sir, I’m going to stay here and see what Chief Miller is doing in engineering. There were a few things back there not quite in accordance with the schematics. You know how he likes to tinker. I’d better go see what he connived out of the yard crew.”
LCDR Timmons headed down the gangway and back into the dock. “Come on, let’s take a walk around.”
Kelly trailed Timmons as he pointed out various components on the ship’s exterior.
“This is our new dual particle cannon turret. Each cannon has a rate of fire of one blast per second. The cannons are set to fire consecutively. That gives each turret an effective rate of fire of 120 blasts per minute. Come forward.”
Kelly followed him toward the nose of the ship.
“If you look right above your head and you look real close, you'll see part of the sensor grid. They’ve done a pretty good job of blending it into the ship’s skin, but you can just make out the circular indentions where the sensors were faired in. Now, if we move to the bow, you can see the three forward-firing plasma cannons. When they first laid out the plans for this refit, these three cannons were left off. I convinced Admiral Craddock that even though we live by stealth, we die by lack of firepower if stealth doesn’t work. So, we have a little more sting. It gives us a bit more flexibility in tight situations. We don’t always have to hide with pride.”
“I can see where that could come in handy. Tell me sir, is there a simulator for this class of ship on the base?”
“As a matter of fact, that's our next stop. Come on. This is all there is to see here for now. We’ll do a more extensive walk around when they finish the refit.”
They left the warehouse area around the yards and proceeded to a three-story, squatty-looking building near some hangars.
“Exec, this is the flight simulator facility. They can build you almost any bridge of any ship in the fleet. The Vigilant’s new bridge is ready for a test flight. Come on in.”
Kelly followed Timmons inside, where an attractive female Chief Electronic Technician met them in the entrance. Her name tag said Blankenship.
“If you’ll follow me, Captain, I’ll get you both set up in the simulator.”