by Chris Hechtl
Jerrica frowned but didn't stop the ape. The questions were bound to come out, and the answers would have to hit the scuttlebutt grapevine eventually.
“Okay, so … no navigational slot. Gotcha. But a ground pounder? Really? I mean, at least you found your way back here, and I know it must have been a bi … um,” the ape grimaced, rubbing a hand under his helmet when he glanced at Jerrica. “I mean hard,” he said lamely. “What with all the limited slots and stuff. But to wait this long?”
Jerrica turned a curious look on the selkie. He cocked his head this way and that, then wiggled his whiskers before he seemed to brush the questions off. “I'm here now, that's what matters, right?”
“No seriously man, well, whatever, you should stick to what you’re good at, great at. Not just for you but for us as well. We need everyone we can get at their best,” the deck ape said before he departed.
“I agree,” Jerrica murmured quietly.
Deja froze then turned back to her to study her carefully. “I'll think about it, ma'am,” he mumbled then brightened after a moment. “But I still want to play with this shiny new beauty,” he said indicating the new assault shuttle.
“Says you,” the deck chief said shaking his head as he ducked under the wing and came up behind them. “She's shiny now, one good ram or meteor storm and she'll be all scratched up and dinged up, a fare-thee-well. Buffing ‘em out is going to be a stone bitch.”
The Helghast class assault ship was a hundred-meter long space assault vehicle, designed to ram into enemy ships and then open up a central boarding ramp inside. It had shields and a wicked double bow. Each bow had a compartment for a squad or armored marines. She was a no-nonsense design of Veraxin origin. Her pilot compartment was on top of the massive drive in her stern and heavily armored. She had short stubby wings to mount ordinance on. The wings could be folded for easy storage on the deck.
She was slow in the sims and handled like a brick in the air. Hopefully, it wouldn't be that bad in space since the void didn't have air to react to. They'd only gotten a few very brief test flights out of her, and Deja had only conned her once. He wasn't up to conn her again until the Kitty was out in deep space again.
He'd skipped a lengthy liberty to be there with Jerrica and the crew, even though most of the crew were off on liberty or in temporary housing in the Annex.
He would have much rather had an Osprey attack bird or a Karakter class assault boat. The Karakter lacked the ramming ability of the Helghast, but it was modular and smaller with more parts that could fold up. She could only carry a squad or marines versus the Helghast's four, but that was fine with him. He was still coming to grips with the idea of ramming a hostile ship. And where were they going to get the extra marines? The marine compliment on Kittyhawk wouldn't fit one of the birds let alone all six!
Someone had goofed somewhere; he knew it. Not that he was going to complain about the mission. He'd do it until they fixed their snafu and rack up what time he could in the cockpit. His eyes roved the brick for a moment. In the tight confines of the escort carrier, that was looking to be an important thing. He had a feeling they wouldn't be brought out often, and they definitely couldn't practice ramming a ship!
“Avionics okay, Chief?” Deja asked.
“She's good on that side. I'm just making sure. I want to make a shadow copy of her OS and data drives to compare it to her later in case I need to do a rest. Same for this side.”
“And so you can load the software into something else if needed, Chief?” the CAG asked.
“Yes, ma'am,” the plane chief said, grinning. “I like to see how the software evolves over time in the birds. It's cool to see.”
“If you say so,” she replied dubiously. Looking at millions of lines of code and picking out what changed wasn't what she considered a fun hobby.
“How the hell are we going to test this beast anyway? Anyone have a clue?” the plane chief asked, one hand on the bird. “It's not like we have a planet hanging around here right now. We won't be able to test that part until we get to Agnosta or somewhere else I suppose.”
“You are fishing, Chief,” the CAG teased.
The chief shrugged. “Can't help a guy for trying I suppose, ma'am,” he said. She snorted.
“Probably set up a test on a derelict or something. Not our problem,” another deckhand said shaking her head as she came over with the chips the chief was waiting for. She handed him the chips, still in their packaging then had him sign a tablet for delivery. “Ours is not to reason why, just follow and do as we're told.”
“Whatever,” the deck chief said shaking his head. “Don't you have anything better to do?” he demanded, eying the group.
“I am, Chief. Once I get the shadow copies finished, I gotta calibrate this crate's sensors before Deja here takes her out. And I need to swap her IFF for this new box,” the plane chief said, holding up a new IFF beacon he'd had tucked under one arm.
“Lovely,” the chief said and then waved. “Get to it then; we don't have all day.”
Jerrica nodded. “Good catching up with you, gentlemen,” she said, taking herself off.
Deja watched her go thoughtfully for a moment, then turned to the other craft he was assigned to. He was only a copilot or backup crew for the others, but he didn't care to let himself slide and not keep tabs on a crate he might end up flying.
While he was waiting, the selkie checked out the other two shuttles. The SAR was near, ready for launch in case of an emergency since there were work crews all over the exterior of the ship. He'd already checked out on it. It was okay, a utility shuttle with no frills. Just the way it should be. She was built for the long haul, with robotic arms all over it to grapple with derelict craft, cut them open, or lock them to her hull so she could tow them back to the mother ship.
He looked around for Hurranna's ground assault shuttle then remembered and looked up. Her ground assault shuttle as well as the shuttles for the incoming personnel were hanging suspended from the ceiling. There were five others, each a nasty looking thing with wings and hard points ready for weapons. Hanging there like that they looked in flight. He was excited to get his hands on the control yokes; they looked like fun to fly. He hadn't had much atmo sim time, but he was eager to get some if only to see something blow up the first time he or his copilot pulled the trigger.
He looked around, but none of the crew were around or at least in eye sight. He had a crew for that shuttle now, a copilot, and a JOAT of a crew chief. It was taking a little getting used to.
“Sir, if you are going to stick around, do you mind getting me my electronics kit? I left it on the cart inside. And I'll need someone inside to keep tabs on the controls and read back to me what's going on,” the plane chief said. “Oh, and work with PRIFLY and the boss to integrate that IFF and encryption module,” the chief said.
“Sure,” Deja replied with a nod as he headed for the cart.
“Thanks. We really need to finish this and get her hung up so we can clear the deck. They want to do some more work on this deck by next shift,” the plane chief said, voice sounding distant as Deja moved away.
Some other time, he thought, looking at the craft's stern as he found the cart and pushed it to the plane chief's position near the nose.
== ^ ==
Eight days later the ship was laid up in dry-dock for her in-depth refit. The crew and pilots were rotated. Some went on liberty; some continued to work with the yard dogs to refit the ship. Jerrica took a few weekends for liberty but stuck close to the ship. She'd carried through with her threat to keep the bottom tier to work on the ship. Much to her amusement and Kedson's ire, he'd come in near the bottom.
It was tiring backbreaking work, but it was also fulfilling. The ship was changed to almost new as parts were swapped out or plugged into place. Her drives alone meant she wouldn't need a tow to get around the star system at faster than a snail's pace.
Once the engineers turned their eyes to the flight deck, the craft was off lo
aded and the pilots had nothing to do. Jerrica arranged for her returning pilots to train in the simulators at the naval annex. Frequently they took on the OPS force to the new recruits and even some of the trainers. Some of her brood complained, they wanted to be laid back, to ease into their old jobs and to continue their liberty party. She refused to have it; she wanted the rust blown off and the pilots firing on all cylinders the moment they got back in a cockpit for real.
A simple warning to the group that those who didn't do well in the sims would get bumped down the ladder shut them up. None of the pilots wanted to draw cargo shuttle duty or LSO again if they could help it.
Jane worked her ass off in the sims to keep up with the best. Kedson had come in cocky; after a couple bad starts, he was taking the process far more seriously. Jane watched the stat board like everyone else did. They hazed anyone at the bottom but were ever aware that someone had to be there. It was impressive that some people were only a half a point apart in the standings.
Even with the threat of not flying or being stuck in the sims for longer periods, the pilots were coming together, at least in her estimation. She appreciated that Rabid had allowed everyone, even those like Kedson who tended to coast and occupy the bottom 10 percent, a chance at liberty, however brief. And some needed the extra time to keep up with the naturals.
To her and the experienced pilots, it was a surprise a marine aviator took top slot on the coveted and dreaded scoreboard most of the time. Deja turned out to be a natural pilot in whatever craft he took on. He also didn't take much liberty since there wasn't many places to go. His marines tended to stick to training more than the regular navy pilots, which induced the navy pilots to take more of an interest in sheer self-defense.
She wondered briefly if Jerrica had set it up that way as she finished suiting up for her next sim session. It wasn't so long ago that she was on the other side, the recruit trainee scared shitless of failing and getting washed out. She felt for the kids, but damned if she was going to be bottom man on the totem pole!
== ^ ==
Just finding a place to put all the warm bodies when they weren't in flight was proving difficult, Jerrica found out once they moved back on board a month after the refit began. On leave it wasn't a big thing, but as pilots returned from their liberty, they came home to find their bunks occupied, which had led to a few altercations and even a couple write-ups.
Harry “Apeman” Manning had apparently gotten into a bit of a tiff with one of the chimps from the bomber squadron. Either the ape didn't know that the lieutenant was his squadron commander or had taken umbrage at the older man's call sign. He'd come close to losing it totally. Not good for a pilot.
They said pilots had more balls than brains and didn't back down from a fight. The ship MPs had gotten on the scene before it had become a fight but it had been a close call. And separating them was out since they shared the same compartment.
She shook her head. She'd told and told and told Harry and the old guard returning that it was going to happen—in one ear out the other apparently. He'd seen someone in his old rack and had either gone into hazing mode or indignant mode on his side and gone downhill from there. She exhaled noisily.
Since it was a big snafu, she was doing her best to keep it out of the captain's hands. Nax tended to be pretty good about a captain's mast, but she didn't want anything going on any formal records. It just meant more headaches and bad blood later. Convincing all parties involved to let bygones be bygones had been tricky but trotting out her bitch mode and reminding them she wasn't the one they wanted to piss off tended to get her point across to the children to make up and share.
And share they were. The pilots were crowded. There was no helping it. She had a lot of warm bodies. Each of the fighters were single seat, but the marine shuttles, bombers, and the support squadron each took two people in the cockpit and one to two in the back. They just didn't have the A.I. support for the ships, or there was something there about an A.I. playing crew on what amounted to an expendable asset. She wasn't sure, nor did she care to dredge it up.
And then there were the support personnel problems. The deck apes were already twitchy about their extra hands, let alone trying to keep up with multiple aircraft. Each had to be assigned a chief to keep it in line and flight worthy. She shook her head. BOSSMAN wasn't amused, and he was stalking around like a bear with a sore tooth and hemorrhoids.
She winced at the analogy. It wasn't all that far off actually, she thought, reminding herself to stay out of his reach and keep as much trouble from finding him as she could until he settled down.
Not that she would have much luck doing so, but it was the thought that counted she reminded herself sagely.
== ^ ==
There was no new commissioning ceremony, though some of the crew had called for one. Instead the crew had attended to her undocking in full uniform. The captain took the time to address the crew after leaving the repair dock for their initial working-up exercise before releasing them to their duties.
“There is an ancient saying: there is no such thing as bad ships, just bad officers. I take exemption to that since this is my ship and damned if I haven't done my best to get her in shipshape despite everything that has been thrown at us. Some said we launched too early last time, and they would be right. But through our trials and tribulations we learned a lot about this ship, about carrier ops, and about ourselves and each other. This ship proved that statement wrong, but now that we've gotten her straightened out, there are no more excuses. We are wiping the slate clean and starting over—no more excuses, no more crap. We are a Federation Naval Warship. We will conduct ourselves accordingly.”
That sentiment had lasted an hour. Fifty-nine minutes after his address, engineering ran into a problem balancing the newly installed engines and the newly installed dumb A.I. Ensign Orville had trouble handling PRIFLY and juggling the duties there. He got into a tiff with his partner, Ensign Wilbur, who was handling the ship ops side.
Something locked up the rotating forward LIDAR array, a speck of dust, meteor; it wasn't clear from the repair crew who had gone out to check the problem out. Nor could they fix it without tearing the entire array apart.
Problems with converting the ceiling of the hangar/flight deck into a second, yet upside down deck had persisted, though the additional space was welcome to the flight deck crew, in theory. The upper deck had gravity fields in opposition to the fields under the floor decks. Where the two met was a level of interaction that put heavy stress on the emitters themselves. Getting the equations right was something the A.I. Orville was still working on.
Getting personnel, cargo, and craft up and down from the ceiling deck was also a problem. In larger carriers they had the room to allow the elevators to flip. There was no such room in the escort carrier. Assumptions that the crew would figure out a way to deal with it were hopelessly optimistic, though the designers who pushed for the change insisted it would work given enough time. They just needed to get the kinks out and write the correct procedures.
They had given up attempting to add additional catapults on the ceiling deck like those mounted on larger carrier classes. There was no room in the deck nor in the deck below it for the hardware, nor did the small reactors have enough reserve capacity to power them. That meant craft still had to be loaded onto an elevator, flipped, and then dropped down to the main deck for launch, though they could recover on the ceiling deck. There weren't many pilots crazy enough to volunteer to be the first to do it.
The lighting was also an issue. With the ceiling in use, the lights in the compartment had been moved to the walls. It left deep shadows in the center of the room and odd moving shadows when a person or craft passed in front of a light emitter.
Jane Darling had been up on the number two catapult when an electrical fault in the hangar door had kicked the safety on, freezing its motors and locking it in place. Orville had scrubbed her launch at the last minute before the deck BOSS or anyone organic coul
d step in. It had been a close call; one Jane wouldn't forget. Her ship had jerked and bucked like a wild thing for a half second. Had the catapult launched early before the doors had been fully opened, it would have been a disaster for her.
They returned ingloriously to dock to take their medicine all over again, something that was bruising egos and had more than one person in a fit about. The good feelings and swelling pride had evaporated in a flash boil.
Jane shook her head. Hopefully it would be the last time they had to do so. She had her doubts though.
== ^ ==
Teething issues continued to plague the ship, but she still had her chin up Jerrica thought as she made her way through the corridors and companionways to the pilot's ready room. She had the morning brief and wanted to get a head start on it when she heard voices coming from the open hatch.
“Cheap shot. What's the ship coming to when we let people who can't even see over the HUD fly a damn plane. Are we that desperate?” A familiar snide voice wafted down the companionway, making Jerrica grimace in distaste. Apparently Kedson was in one of his moods. She came into the room and noted his latest target was Hurranna. Typical, Ezra had to pick on the smallest marine because he thought she was the weakest. He really needed to get his head examined she thought.
Hurranna's eyes flickered in amusement. “I still waxed you, didn't I?”
He sniffed in disdain. “Lucky shot.”
“Right, sure it was,” the lynx drawled, checking her nails. Milkman didn't see it as intimidation though, pity about that Jerrica said as she poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Glad you agree. A warrior doesn't fear a trained opponent; he fears the idiot just starting out because he doesn't know what the fool is going to do,” Kedson said with a butter wouldn't melt in your mouth expression.
“What's that supposed to mean?” Hurranna growled, wrinkling her nose. “What's the matter, don't like it that a hairball toasted you in sim combat?”