The Spindle Station: Book 2 of the Alliance Conflict

by Jeff Sims

  Now that they had a clean starting point, they switched to the Hiriculan cruiser. They first removed a section of the hull to allow access to the power generator. Next they removed a much larger section from the same side. Combined, the two pieces exactly matched the Sunflower’s missing section.

  Finally, they removed a third piece of outer hull that was appropriately sized to cover the hole in the inner hull. One team began welding this piece to Sunflower’s inner hull while the second team continued removing the power generator.

  Near the end of the second day, the floors were replaced, a Hiriculan missile launcher had been installed, and the inner hull was welded in place. The floor was stark, gray and had multiple weld lines running the entire length. The inner hull was crisscrossed with welding seams.

  Colin inspected the work. It looked terrible compared to what had been there before, but it was functional. The new door that led from the inner to the outer hull looked strangely out of place. The door was critical because someone would have to go through it to manually release the spring and open the port that covered the 10th missile launcher. He opened the door and looked out into space. It was a pretty view.

  Day three was consumed with removing the Hiriculan power generator and welding the large outer hull piece in place. They started by TIG welding a 30 mm (1 ft) brace to the inner side of the existing outer hull. Then they carefully placed the new hull in the correct location.

  One team then began TIG welding the brace to the new section of the hull while the second team used an electron beam welder to weld the outside of the hull to the brace. Unlike TIG welding that requires solder and leaves a bead, electron beam (EB) welding fuses the two pieces together by shooting high velocity electrons at the two materials to be joined.

  The result of the EB weld is a seam that is smooth to the touch and is slightly discolored or burned looking. This type of weld was perfect for the hull’s exterior because the exterior needed to be smooth to allow the cruiser to easily fly through hyperspace. The drag caused by a TIG weld could potentially tear off the hull plating during hyper flight and destroy the ship.

  On day 4 they completed the installation of the power generator, welded it into place, and welded the final piece of the inner hull in place. Colin wasn’t happy with the welds, so he ordered that they secure the generator with angle brackets and lag bolts.

  Once the last piece of inner hull was in place and the generator was firmly attached to the ship, Colin began the checklist to start the power generator. Colin announced, “Deuterium, check. Polonium, check. Generator is aligned. Harmonics, check.”

  It was now the moment of truth. If it started, they could begin filling the ship with air and attach the final piece to the outer hull. If it didn’t start, they would die in a lifeless system far from home. Colin signaled to Becky and she used the engineering panel to initiate the startup sequence.

  ………………..

  Captain Solear awoke suddenly and stumbled out of the stasis chamber. He almost fell down, but caught himself on the side of the pod. He watched as everyone else woke up and stood safely strapped in place. Solear collected most of his wits and unstrapped the other 4 bridge members.

  He said, “Computer, how long have we been sleeping?”

  …Four days, seven hours, seven minutes…

  Solear felt a surge of panic. Four days wasn’t long enough. Admiral Dolen couldn’t possibly make it here for four more days at the earliest.

  Solear asked, “Did the secondary generator fail?”

  …Yes, per your order, the secondary generator was shut off before catastrophic failure occurred…

  “Is there another ship in the quadrant?” Solear tried.

  …Neither active nor passive scanners detect any other ships save for the Hiriculan hulk sitting beside us...

  “Is the ion cannon still charged?” Solear attempted next.

  …Affirmative. It is fully charged and operable. All systems show ready...

  Solear was tiring of asking questions and the computer wasn’t making any sense. Finally he asked, “So, why did you wake us? You had explicit instructions to let us sleep until rescued.”

  …You are being hailed. Please return to the bridge...

  Solear shook most of the remaining fuzziness from his mind and ordered everyone to the bridge. They took the electro-lift up two levels and everyone took their respective stations.

  Ella checked her panel and announced, “Captain, you aren’t going to believe this but I have a green board. Sub-light engines are primed and ready. The hyperdrive is on-line and ready for activation.”

  Solear yelled, “That isn’t possible. We have a giant hole in the side of our ship!”

  Clowy reported, “The hull shows completely intact. The ship is filled with air. The emergency bridge lock-down has been deactivated.”

  Putat said, “Communications are back on-line. Both active and passive scanners are functioning. Initiating a scan now.”

  Lexxi said, “Shields are scrolling up. All 10 missile launchers show active and ready to fire.”

  Solear spun around and looked at Lexxi. He said, “You are saying that we now have 10 launchers again?”

  Lexxi replied, “How should I know. Ask whoever it is that’s hailing you.”

  In the commotion since returning to the bridge, Solear had completely forgotten about the hail. He said, “Putat, put our mystery caller on the main monitor.”

  Colin said, “Captain. There you are. We were beginning to worry when you didn’t answer the hail.”

  Solear immediately noted that Colin was no longer wearing the gloves or helmet to his smart suit. He could see three other people in view just behind Colin. None of them were wearing their helmets either. Solear responded, “Sorry, we were all asleep. What’s your status?”

  Colin waved his hands in a grand gesture and said, “We are ready to go rendezvous with the fleet.”

  Solear looked behind Colin and saw silver. Colin followed his line of sight and said, “Yes. We stripped the parts we needed from the remains of the Hiriculan cruiser.”

  Ella input the coordinates for Opron, double checked them, ran a simulation, re-ran the simulation, and finally declared, “Captain, the ship is clear to jump.”

  Solear thought that he was probably still dreaming. He slapped his arm to try to wake himself up from this fantastic dream. Nothing changed, except that his arm hurt.

  He said, “Ella, Set course for the Trilon – Opron hyperspace lane at .01 light. Jump when we are in position.”

  Ella replied, “Yes Captain. When we reach Opron, do you want to micro-jump to the Opron – Conron hyperspace lane?”

  No. Use the sub-lights. Plot a straight-line course directly through the system.”

  Ella thought for a moment and responded, “So that if a ship exits hyperspace, their passive scanners will immediately identify that we are in the system. Smart decision Captain.”

  He continued, “Putat, figure out why the communications equipment now works. I thought we had a hardware failure.”

  Putat replied, “I already have that answer. It appears that when the secondary generator failed, there was a momentary loss of power until the…uh…replacement generator came on-line. When power was restored, the system fault was cleared.”

  Solear replied, “So, basically you turned it off and back on again?”

  “It would appear that was solution to the problem,” Putat replied.

  Solear turned to Lexxi and said, “Arm two ship buster missiles and fire them at the Hiriculan cruiser right before we jump. We don’t want them to know whatever it was that the humans did over there.”

  Lexxi held up her perfectly manicured finger in protest and Solear responded, “Replace the activation switch with a palm button.”

  Solear activated the switch to open the door and exited the bridge. He immediately noted that the caribou corridor was in perfect condition. The force field immediately snapped shut behind him. For some reason, the ac
tivation led his eyes to the force field directly across the hallway.

  It didn’t look right. He found the correct symbol on his communication pad and activated the force field.

  Nothing.

  Solear tried every other force field in the caribou corridor. All had the same non-effect. He took a step closer to the other door and studied it closely for a moment. Just as he had suspected, the force fields and the gas canisters have been removed. He supposed he couldn’t blame the humans.

  He walked to the back of the ship and entered engineering. He saw that about half of the floor had been replaced. He also saw the Hiriculan power generator and 3 Hiriculan engineering work stations. The room was occupied by three humans.

  Solear prepared himself for the strange greeting ceremony. However, this time it was vastly different. All three stood up in place and began clapping their hands. They continued clapping for a several long seconds and then stopped.

  Colin said, “Well done Captain. Great job in Trilon.”

  Solear realized that the humans were congratulating him for winning the battle. He remembered that they cared little about life or death and celebrated victory above everything else. Solear felt very uncomfortable receiving recognition for his actions. Oh well, when in a ship filled with humans, do as humans would do.

  Solear answered, “Excellent job repairing the ship. I can’t believe you were able to repair it.” He had stopped the sentence, but quickly added, “So quickly.”

  All three said, “Thank you” simultaneously. Colin added, “We had little choice. We had a very strict dead-line.” Colin overstressed the word dead for comedic effect.

  Becky reached over and smacked Colin on the back of the head.

  Solear watched the display in silence. He wasn’t sure what just happened, but figured it was a mating ritual or something. He asked, “How did you weld without atmosphere?”

  Colin replied, “We used a human technique that can be performed in a vacuum.” Colin pointed at the floor and continued, “For this weld we used oxygen stored in a tank.”

  Solear completed his tour in relative silence. He looked at the Hiriculan missile launcher and even went through the new door to the outer hull. Solear tried to move the lever to open the exterior panel, but wasn’t strong enough. One of the humans demonstrated for him.

  Solear thanked everyone for their ingenuity and sacrifice and returned to the bridge. There is no doubt that this is truly a human ship now, he thought.

  ………………….

  Jim Donovan was angry. Over the course of the last 16 hours he had gone from happy to sad to intensely angry to sad to desperate and back to angry. This was quite possibly the worst day of his life. The day had started with some excitement when they transferred to the Exemplar and became part of the mission to the Influenla.

  However, it quickly became apparent that Admiral Donovan had no intention of using them in the vanguard for the upcoming battle when they landed and discovered that they were on a supply ship. In fact, their role was to guard the Exemplar far away from the action. Even this was laughable because they would literally have to push the fighters off of the deck one at a time to launch.

  The crew of the Exemplar had followed Admiral Dolen’s instructions to the letter. They locked themselves in the back half of the ship and had no interaction with the pilots, save the brief communications that informed them when they were entering and exiting hyperspace. The captain had also been nice enough to send the pilots a live feed of the battle and all of the sensor data.

  Then, they exited hyperspace in Influenla and watched helplessly for the next two hours as the Hiriculans outsmarted and outclassed the Alliance armada. They yelled in vain at the monitor that the course change back toward the station was too obvious.

  Jim assumed there were massive weapons hidden on the station and the Hiriculans were leading the Alliance fleet directly toward them. He was slightly surprised that the ion cannons were located on the asteroid. Either way, the battle was effectively over once they passed within the weapon’s range.

  Jim knew on a rational level that if their two squadrons had been on the Guardian or the Dandelion they wouldn’t have made a difference. In fact, it had been a purely ship battle; neither side’s fighters had even launched.

  If they had been there, they would have been captured like everyone else. Jim supposed that he should be thankful that they weren’t prisoners, but right now he simply angry. The other pilots were inconsolable as well.

  They Exemplar stayed in Influenla long enough to record the entire battle, then began the 7 hour jump back to Opron. Once in hyperspace, the captain of the Exemplar told Jim that they were returning directly to Conron.

  The captain explained that their first priority was to tell the Alliance Senate what had happened at the Spindle Station. Jim knew that this course of action seemed valid, but the prisoners would be moved from the station long before they could return with a fleet to rescue them.

  So, they had 7 long hours to sit and think about what went wrong. Jim created a simulation of the battle, but no one really felt like trying it. Winning that simulation wouldn’t change a thing. He also wasn’t sure what losing it would prove either. Jim later deleted it*.

  *Technically, he took the flashdrive cube, smashed it into a wall, and ground it into dust.

  Some of the other pilots, notably Russ and Blaze spent the time inventorying all of the spare parts and equipment on the ship. It seemed pointless to Jim, no one was going to need replacement parts now.

  Kip walked up and said, “We are just about to exit hyperspace, right back where we started.”

  Jim asked, “Do you think anyone will be there?”

  Kip replied, “Yes. Hopefully the Sunflower and a spare Alliance fleet will be waiting for us in Opron.”

  The joke made Jim’s residual anger lessen for a moment and he briefly chuckled. He responded, “Yes. That would be nice. Actually, make it two fleets.”

  Although only 16 hours had passed for the pilots, 142 hours (5.9 days) had passed in real-time since they jumped for Influenla. Jim often found the time dilation effect difficult to fathom. For instance, the Sunflower should have completed its mission to Trilon and spent the last 4 days patiently waiting for them in Opron.

  The Exemplar exited hyperspace in Opron and ran a passive scan. Jim checked the results on his communication pad. He looked at Kip and said, “Sorry, no fleet.”

  Kip could have checked the results on his own pad. Instead, he asked, “And the Sunflower?”

  “No. Nothing, it’s not here.” Jim responded.

  The Exemplar made three micro-jumps around the outskirts of the Opron system to align with the ship with the Opron – Conron hyperspace lane. They scanned the system one final time before jumping back to Conron.

  This time the scan showed a lone ship traveling in real-time on a direct line course from the Trilon hyperspace lane to the Opron lane. Jim queried traffic control and discovered that the Sunflower had indeed recently entered the system and was traveling to Opron.

  The captain of the Exemplar readily agreed to wait 3 hours for the Sunflower to rendezvous with them before jumping back to Conron. Jim suspected that the crew would be happy to be rid of them.

  When Jim announced the news everyone shouted for joy. Somehow, knowing that the Sunflower survived and they would soon be reunited lightened everyone’s mood, at least for the moment.

  The mood changed from joy to stunned disbelief as the pilots watched the Sunflower dock with the Exemplar. Jim whistled slightly under his breath.

  Gus yelled, “It looks like it married a Hiriculan cruiser.”

  The Sunflower carefully docked its hangar bay with the Exemplar’s main loading bay. Colin and the other humans were standing on the flight deck and waved and cheered.

  Once the two ships were secured together, they pushed the fighters across the conjoined hangar bays and back onto the Sunflower. They put 20 fighters back into the elevator storage unit and l
eft the other 20 on the flight deck.

  Russ and Blaze approached Jim and said, “We have an opportunity for you.”

  Jim was standing next to Colin. Clearly the opportunity was military related or they would have approached him in private. Jim responded, “I’m listening.”

  Russ said, “They don’t stock missiles on the supply ship, just the raw materials. Then, they build to order whatever missile each ship has used. Efficient use of storage space I suppose.”

  Jim asked, “The machines they use are just like the ones we took from Waylon?”

  Russ simply smiled in response to the question. He continued, “I downloaded the programs for all of the missile types. Our machines can build the important ones – ship and shield busters and defensive missiles.”

  Jim was already waving for them to move the components to the Sunflower. Jim asked, “How many missiles?”

  “1,000.” Russ answered.

  As they were loading the extra supplies, Colin gave Jim a tour of the back section of the ship and told him about their adventure in Trilon. They started in the former crew quarters. The walls creating the individual quarters were gone. Now, the entire area was one large room.

  There was a straight, welded line on the floor transitioning from the existing deck material to new. The new floor was broken into 1 meter square tiles that were welded on all 4 sides. It looked like a one-colored chess board.

  Jim looked at Colin and said, “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  Colin replied, “Yes. We were bored and thought we would remove the back half of the ship and redecorate.” Colin pointed in the general direction of engineering and said, “The Hiriculans were even nice enough to give us a power generator.”

  Jim asked, “What did Captain Solear say?”

  Colin chuckled and replied, “He was…impressed with our resourcefulness.”

  The rest of their conversation was cut short when the both received a summons to the captain’s conference room.

  Chapter 18