A cart with the sensor torpedoes came rushing out from the side of the Star Queen ship and headed for the rear ramp with a half dozen torpedo bay crewmen. Mark started to walk out onto the ramp as he waited for it to drop and noticed that the sensor torpedoes were the size of missiles and not the big 21 inch by 20 foot long torpedoes he was expecting. Which surprised him as he already knew that from having to dig them out of A deck ’ s junk pile the week before so he knew their exact size already. Wondering where the hell his mind was. But it made finding room to tie them down between pallets of equipment and cargo a hell of a lot easier if they couldn’t get the damn cargo cleared out of the way.
And then suddenly the ramp was full of marines as one of the APCC’s backed up to the end of the ramp still hanging above the tarmac. Mark heard. “Clear the way.” And pallets of stores and equipment started sliding out of the hold and down the ramp into the APCC. Jumping to the side while trying not to fall off, he watch ed another APCC slide up to the stern of the Assault Shuttle next to the other APCC. The two APCC’s filling the 20 foot wide ramp as pallets quickly started slidding sliding into each of them.
It only took a few minutes and the cargo hold up to the tanks and down the sides of the SP gun was cleared creating an open empty deck down most of the cargo hold with only the SP gun and the tanks taking up space.
Raising his voice so he could be heard. "Ok gentlemen, get those sensor torpedoes aboard. We need them up here in front of the engine rooms." The engine rooms ran some 30 feet up each side of the boats double hull narrowing the rear section of cargo deck from 30 feet to only 20 feet wide. This made for a pair of drive engine rooms 9 feet wide by 30 feet long and16 feet tall. Plenty of room for a sub warp drive engine in each drive room. Leaving a 20 by 30 foot section of deck space to use as a large lock at the stern of the Assault shuttle boat’s 140 foot long hold when needed. Though Mark could not see a hatch to close the front end off but did not look that hard as he was a bit busy.
As a half dozen torpedo crewmen pushed the cart up the ramp and then forward Mark looked at the 22 foot long by 2 foot wide hatch just big enough to allow a full sized fleet torpedo to be slid sideways through the opening and taped the controls to open the long narrow hatch. Then realized that it was stupid to put sensor torpedoes the size of missiles in the torpedo bay just because they were named torpedoes. "Mickey will these fit on the missile launcher?"
"Yes Mark. That is where they are usually launched from."
"Ok , a nice little fact to find out now before I tried installing them in the Torpedo launcher." Mark shut the hatch and stepped forward to the much smaller and shorter missile loading hatch. Tapping out the code Mickey gave him, Mark lowered the hatch to form a platform with a cradle on it to put the missile on for the mechanism inside the missile compartment to grab and insert it into the magazine.
The Torpedo armorers started arguing about how they were going to lift the sensor torpedoes up to the magazine hatch when several marines in gorilla suits walked over and picked up a torpedo. The marine gingerly stepped between the torpedo men, picked up with a torpedo in his arms a . A nd smiled at Mark. “Where do you want this Commander?”
Mark looked up from the screen he was studying and shook his head. “Well it looks like we don’t have to take out any missiles to make room so just lay it on the cradle and we will see what happens.”
The magazine took that torpedo so Mark put another sensor torpedo in that side's missile rack. Then with the control screen telling him that the magazine on that side was full he took the other two over to put into the missile magazine in the other side of the hold. Turning around to thank the Torpedo men and marines for their help, he watched the last pair of torpedo crewmen disappear into a hatch through the inner hull just forward of him as the marines climbed back up onto the grate as a couple of APC’s backed into the hold. One of them had red crosses on its sides. Just forward of the engine rooms where the hold widened back out to 30 feet the APC’s , they one by one slid over to alternate sides one by one and continued to backup past the SPG grav-truck as more APC’s backed in.
Wondering where the other 4 torpedomen torpedo men got off to, Mark followed the two he saw go through the hatch into an alcove between inner and outer hulls in front of the missile magazine on that side and turned aft. Opening the vestibule ’s aft hatch into the front of the missile magazine Mark saw one torpedo man torpedo man sitting at the console on the forward bulkhead next to the hatch while the other inspected the missiles. "Ah... Gentlemen. If you are staying aboard you are going to have to get suited up. The suit pods are in the side locks at the front of the hold."
"Ya anything you say Commander." The woman inspecting the missiles on the rotary launcher turned and smiled at Mark. "These are Viper 12 missiles sir. I have never even seen a Viper before and here we have the English's newest and deadliest." Turning to the guy at the front panel. "I think I see an anomaly in the one on this work bench Harry. I think we need to tear this one apart to check it out don't you? Just to be on the safe side." Mark shook his head looking up at the rows of missiles stacked above, ready to be grabbed by carriages that ran up and down between the banks to be lowered and then attached to the rotary launcher at the bottom that held a dozen missiles ready to stick out the side and launched. The 4 foot diameter rotary launcher had an arm inside the drum for taking missiles from the loader on the inside hull as well as feeding missiles out through the hull air lock for launching. The arm was also used for grabbing or placing missiles off or onto the storage racks above the rotary launcher.
Mark could see a missile sitting on each of two narrow work benches along the inner and outer hulls forming the sides of the compartment below the loading and launching locks straddling next to the rotary rack with a narrow low overhead isle running down between the benches for maintenance access. He realized now what WB-1 and WB-2 had meant when he had placed two of the attack missiles there to make room for the two sensor torpedoes he had loaded onto the rotary launcher using the outside control panel. The benches contained everything you would need to check and repair just about any missile.
The woman had lit up like fireworks as she talked about needing to tear apart the missile. "Mark why is she lying?" Mickey asked perplexed.
Mark smiled as he turned to the rating drooling over the mi ssile and said out loud . "I don’t think so Reeves Sgt . You will get plenty of opportunity to tear these things apart later after you r have had time to read the manual and maybe even taken a maintenance course at least on line. Now go and get suited up or off the boat." Mark stepped back through the hatch and started to head back into the hold and stopped. Curiosity getting the best of him, he opened the hatch into the forward tween hull's compartment just to see what was in it. And found a void. Nothing but brackets and pannels panels lining the bulkheads was in the 2 5 0 foot long 5 foot wide compartment. The same fold down benches in the APC’s lined one side of the compartment. "Ok Mickey , what is supposed to be inside this?"
"Sorry Mark but it is just a storage compartment like the one above it and the ones just forward as far as my sensors can tell. The fittings are universal attachment points as well as plumbing for just about anything you would want to install militarily. I have found standard issue kits matching this size that are listed available for installation into all English Ships. Kits from birthing compartments, and casualty evacuation, to special operations. Though the fold down seats and racks can be used for holding additional troops or serve as casualty bunks or short term birthing without the kits."
"Ok. Don't tell me we did not order any kits. But then I don't have a clue what kits we could ever use except maybe long term birthing for the marines." Mark closed the hatch and headed for the torpedo room on that side notic ed ing similar hatches regularly spaced along each side of the forward hold. Mark headed for the torpedo room on that side just aft of the missile magazine. Entering the vestibule just forward of the engine room he stuck his head into the torpedo room and found two mor
e technicians checking the torpedoes. "OK guys. If you are staying aboard you need to get to the front of the hold and suited up now." Mark noticed only one of the same style of a much larger workbench on the inner hull side of the compartment though this one was empty with a more heavily constructed rotary launcher that held 4 of the 21 inch diameter heavy torpedoes crowded around it. Torpedos Torpedoes on racks stretched up each side of the narrow compartment with blast hatches every 3 torpedoes on the racks.
"Eye. Commander." The man just glanced at Mark and went back to scanning the torpedo at the front of the compartment. "Look at this warhead sir. It is a Trinary warhead. I had heard of them but I can't believe we actually have them. These warheads are half the weight of our old Mk. 48 torpedoes with 10 times the explosive power or about 20 tons of TNT and one hell of a lot safer. "Turning the scanner for Mark to see even though some 20 feet separated them ." The warhead has walls between the three liquid components of the try-mix. It takes hitting the target to rupture and mix the components to be detonated a microsecond later."
After Mark's stomach stopped dropping remembering his encounter with a tri-mix bomb the week a few days before (when a Pirate had tried to blow the ship up after Mark had discovered them planting a beacon and nerve gas ) , his get along smile turned sour. "I said get suited up NOW!" Mark bellowed without meaning to and left the compartment slamming closing the hatch behind him glad to put distance and a hatch between him and the warheads even if they were on the other end of the compartment. He turned and faced the engine room hatch and said. "Hell Mickey, we might as well as take a look right?" Mark opened the hatch and stepped inside to find an engineer sitting at a desk on the forward bulkhead with a tablet book in her hand reading. The torpedo compartment hatch opened behind him as the two techs slid out past him into the cargo hold and headed forward.
The woman tapped the side of the book to turn the page and looked up glancing at Mark.
Then with her eyes growing big , she jumped up and came to attention. "Ah Commander sir. How can I help you?"
Mark smiled. He had been caught reading on watch a few times himself but with a new unfamiliar engine sitting in front of the woman , the last thing she needed to be doing was reading a damn novel. As Mark 's smile at seeing the boats engine disappeared, turning to a stern frown. "Ok second Class Grissim. Tell me about our new engines or have you been too busy reading a comic book to do your job."
The woman looked down at the book and smiled. "Oh a no sir." Turning the book sheet around for Mark to see the page. "It is a tech book on this engine sir. This is some strange engine shaped like a big narrow U on its side. I was just reading up on it. Seems it has only 3 2 and not 6 fusion cores like on all engines I have ever heard of including our engines and these are strange cone shaped fusion chambe rs and not round balls . They are also hanging above the drive core's exhaust nozzle at the stern of the engine. The fusion plasma then goes forward along the top of the engine, then bends around the front." She pointed at the big U shaped group of coils that ran from some 12 feet above them to knee high off the deck in front of them. "And then runs down the bottom of the compartment and out the exhaust nozzle like normal engines. I can't figure out how it bends the high speed plasma around 180 degrees at the front end here and back down the core without burning up and coming out the front. I was hoping the tech manual would tell me something about how it does that Sir, but all it says is something about a special grav-warp coil reversing the flow."
Mark looked down the side of the engine at the plasma tubes running along the overhead up high coming forward from the round cone shaped fusion chambers similar to the Queen's old Main Engine cores before s he had just recently installed and then upgraded them to his new design. T as t he manual the rating had been reading started flashing onto his glasses. "Well now isn't that interesting." As he looked down the side at parts of the engine, the tech manual concerning that part was superimposed over them with Mickey explaining what each did and the important procedures and points associated with that section. Though Mark already knew the main points. Her voice and manual section breakdowns growing faster and faster as his concentration became more focused on her voice and the engine. The fact that she was not telling him anything new except for being a much more modern design , sped things up.
Walking down the engine having to turn sideways to get past much of the equipment, he repeated the important points for himself and the technician's benefit as he proceeded to tear the engine apart in his mind with Mickeys help. Marveling at all the new simplified yet sophisticated technology and metallurgy put into the engine. But then these engines were 200 years newer than what he was used to working on. Getting to the round cone shaped fusion chambers Mark started figuring ho w to change them over to his knew cone shaped cores was half expecting them to be using the advances the Ship’s the Queen’s AI Admiral and him had developed that not only doubled the power but cut fuel consumption to a fraction of what any other engine then known could do made . The injectors swirling the fuel down the cone with grav-mags focusing and crushing the streams into the fusion core that shot the stream of plasma down the engine to increase thrust and efficiency. B ut was half disappointed and half relieved when he found the old technology of the fuel injection nozzles simply shooting the streams of fuel across the chamber to collide with each other to atomize the fuel inside the high pressure fusion cone before the mass of plasma started streaming down the cone and out into the engine to be accelerated to a velocity many times the speed of light creating the thrust . Smiling, Mark realized that adding his new swirl cone shaped fusion core tech to this engine would make it a star ship instead of just a supped up boat restricted to star systems or at least operating from a ship.
“Mark, redesigning the fuel injectors and moving them from the sides to the ends as you did in rebuilding the Star Queen’s engines, would double the thrust of these engines while cutting the fuel used by 75% at least. Maybe more.” Mickey said boasting .
"Mr. Collins." Came the Captain's voice over his helmet com. "Are those sensors on board yet and where are the crews for the guns you insisted on picking up?"
"Ah sir; the sensor torpedoes are aboard and I will check on the gun crews sir." Turning , Mark smiled at the technician. "I hope that helped. It does make our shuttle and old ship engines look damn antiquated doesn't it. Even though we still can improve on the fusion cores." And left the engine room through the stern emergency hatch.
Walking across the stern ramp hatch with the hatch ramp still open to the world, Mark asked the Cargo Master that was just retaking his seat sitting in the little alcove next to the hatch at a control console after walking back up the ramp . "Anyone else but the torpedo crew come aboard Gomez?"
"No sir. I have kept the growing crowed of sight seers off the ramp but the longer we are here the harder it is g etting oing to be sir . The crowd keeps growing sir." The Cargo Master looked down the ramp and frowned at the crowed below as more people joined looking at the new Assault Shuttle s .
"Very well. As soon as they come aboard tell the Captain please." Turning, Mark looked up the hold and was surprised to find it packed with APC’s including a nother couple of APCC ’s up the center. Shaking his head Mark glanced up at the grated deck above that side of the hold at a half dozen marines grouped around a pile of amo ammo cans playing cards. Chuckling at the fact that as an officer he should break that game up but wasn't about to be one of those officers, he smiled.
Then as the Cargo Master left his little al cove to head for the end of the ramp telling the two guys that started up it to back off again . Mark realiz ed i ng that the marines y did have something better they should be doing. "Sgt . Turner." Raising his voice so the Sgt. could hear him above the noisy game." The Sgt. threw a hand full of money down onto the pot and turned to look down at Mark. Irritated at being interrupted. "Ya sir. This is a legal game for tokens not cash. What ya want?" Mark could see that was not the case even though he had lit up like a beacon as he procla
imed his innocence.
"I want you to form a detail and keep this ramp clear and the sight seers back away from the shuttle so they do not get harmed when we lift or damage the shuttle. We also need a clear corridor to and from the shuttle and ship . " Mark was thinking of adding more as the Sgt. disgustedly gazed down at Mark for several seconds before he turned to his buddies.
"Godstar Damn it. Just when I finely get a hand to clean all your butts.” Slaming Slamming his hand of cards down , face up. “Cards out now.” The marines around the can dropped their cards onto the pot. Most of them moaned and the Sgt. smiled. “My pot. You lucky bastards as I would have cleaned you all out on the next second draw . Now let ’ s go .” Grabbing the pot with one hand as he turned and started gathering up his equipment. The Sgt. was ready to go in seconds Turning he picked up his weapon . "Ok kiddies time to go back to work lets go . We have a job work to do." The Sgt. and his squad jumped down to the deck and clomped down the ramp. With the bots following them, Mark suddenly wondered if that was a good idea.
Watching with apprehension and t T o Mark's surprise, their new fond partner bots accompanying each of the marines m seemed to know what they were doing as they spread out around the ramp and shuttle. Politely telling the crowd to keep back. Still c C oncerned at first about the bots. Mark watched for a few minutes seconds until he saw a ships vender sitting up his cart on the edge of the crowd and started hawking his hotdogs and drinks . With the bots spread evenly between marines and not seaming to be threatening and the crowd taking them as normal, he decided all was well in ramp land after all. He noticed another vender cart headed down the ramp from the ship making him smile. "Never miss an opportunity."
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