Cameron was sitting in his command chair on the bridge, awaiting final clearance from New Detroit's stationmaster. The ship's crew had been frantic with activity, as Dirk's delivery of SPC lines for the ship's guns had finally arrived a little more than two hours ago. He had said that he'd acquired them through a friend in the AMC, but Cameron had the sneaking suspicion that there was more to it than he was being told. He realized that he had told Dirk to get what was needed, and he hadn't wanted to be bothered with the details, but he hoped that however he did the job it wouldn't come back to bite them in the ass. His thoughts were interrupted by the stationmaster's voice on the bridge comnet.
"Jester this is New Detroit Traffic Control, we have received confirmation of your departure approval, and are routing tugs at this time. We will be disconnecting all ship-to-station connections momentarily, please acknowledge that all airlocks have been sealed." The NDTC officer paused, and Cameron looked at his own monitor, and over at Bao-Jian Shen, his pilot, who nodded in affirmation.
"Traffic control, this is Captain Marshall onboard Jester; I confirm, all locks and connections sealed, awaiting final release from moorings." He said with the confidence of long practice.
The ritualistic requests for, and volunteering of, information from the ship and the station played out over the course of the next 41 minutes and 19 seconds. When the station tugs finally uncoupled from the Jester, and they were finally allowed to continue under their own power, Cameron breathed a massive sigh of relief.
"Shen, put us on a least time path to the ND-Minotaur FTL locus, and start calculations for our angle of entry and transit time." He instructed, and opened a connection to the engineering department. "Engineering, this is the bridge, I'm going to need full power on the drives when we get out to 500,000 kilometers from the station, and I'll take as much from the manoeuvering thrusters as you can spare."
"We will be ready when you need it, Captain. Full power is available on all thrusters now, and the main engine will be on line in two hours." Answered Ludmilla Brostowski, his Chief Engineer.
He always experienced a profound satisfaction when his crew were able to deliver a superior level of performance the way they had today. In just over two hours from now, he would order his ship's pilot, Bao-Jian Shen, to bring the Jester's main sublight engine up to full power. The idea of being able to push a 347 meter long, 52,490 ton, starship at a constant acceleration of 147 m\s², up to almost seven percent of light speed, gave him a thrill like nothing else.
The hull of the ship vibrated when they were underway on thrusters, and like most longtime spacers, Cameron was aware of it at a subconscious level. He was in his private galley when it stopped, and he realized that he was waiting for Shen to call and tell him that the ship had reached the standard 500,000 km distance at which they could safely bring the main drive on line. That distance was called the Fusion Propulsion Boundary, and any ship that lit off its main fusion drive inside the limit was in serious trouble. The United Systems Interstellar Transportation Commission prosecuted violations of its statutes with considerable effort. More than one ship's master had been red-flagged, blacklisted, fined and imprisoned for doing so. In short, it was one of those areas in which he just didn't take risks. He didn't have long to wait, however, before the call he'd expected came from the bridge.
"Captain, we've crossed the fusion boundary, but engineering still has over an hour before the main engines can be brought to full power, shall I continue on thrusters?" Asked Shen, from his position on the bridge.
"No, cut thrust to station-keeping for the time being, we'll keep making headway until we can bring the main engine on line. Once Engineering gives you the all clear, put us up to 15 Gs and hold that accel until we hit the turnover point." He instructed, turning back to his lunch preparations.
The FTL locus out of the system to Minotaur was an Alpha-3, only 2.7 light hours away from New Detroit, and by his estimate, they would be transiting the locus in just over 78 hours from now. They would then have a 504 hour trip in FTL to look forward to. When they arrived at Minotaur, he would have to give the crew some shore leave, since their final port of call before heading outward would be Vulcanfall, and compared to Minotaur there wasn't much to recommend it. Vulcanfall was a marginally habitable planet, and one of the original mining systems. It had an overall population just north of 375,000, most of whom were miners, support staff, corporate personnel, or dependents thereof. Dry and dusty, Vulcanfall was not going to make anyone's list of favourite places to spend a vacation, but he had a contract to deliver cargo there and he would take the opportunity to top off the Jester's fuel tanks one last time.
He would take advantage of the time in FTL to catch up on planning how to find a huge derelict spacecraft, in a system for which they had no charts, without wasting too much of the limited time they would have before needing to turn back. He didn't doubt that his crew were up to the task, but there was a randomness to the universe that couldn't be predicted, and the number of unknowns on this job were not inconsiderable.
He finished eating and cleaned up, sticking his tray in the galley's recycling unit, then left his private office after quickly checking his desk terminal, and headed for the power room for the ship's dorsal railgun turret. He had to admit that Dirk had come through in spades on the problem of getting new lines for the railguns. The price he'd paid was lower than what he would have expected for two sets of Mark 33 SPC lines, plus a couple of spares for good measure.
Dirk truly had proven to be a valuable member of the crew. When he had first come aboard, Cameron had thought he was running from something, but he'd come to realize that Dirk had been unconsciously running toward something. He'd wanted to belong somewhere, and the military had no longer been his best option. Cameron respected two things about Dirk: His work ethic, and his privacy. He knew that he and Alex had paired off, and he heard about their occasional arguments, but he suspected that the two of them would be together for a while; Dirk struck him as that sort. His skills as a gunner and weapons tech, and his combat experience, however, made him an extremely valuable member of the crew. He had worked hard when he'd come aboard, and all things considered, Cameron had no complaints, but there was always a nagging feeling about the man that he couldn't put his finger on. The incident with the pirates, who had tried to jump them a couple of years ago in the Jefferson system, had been one of the times when he found himself wondering what sort of man Dirk really was.
He'd been at the gunner's console on the bridge when they hit the transit locus into the system; when the automatic proximity alarm had sounded its warning, he hadn't wasted any time asking bothersome questions, but had plotted a firing solution by using their own targeting radar against them. They had been lying in wait for passing merchant shipping, and they hadn't been prepared to handle a well armed privateer. The pirates' ship had no weapons heavier than autocannons; four, twin 30mm gun turrets would be enough to force an unarmed merchantman to surrender. The Jester had two, twin 76mm railguns, and once they had confirmation that the ship targeting them wasn't on anyone's registry, Dirk had made them see the wisdom of giving up without a fight with a single shot.
It only made sense to send him with the prize crew, since he had training in handling ship to ship boardings. When he had come back, after delivering the crew to the Jefferson Republic's authorities, he asked to speak in private; what he'd had to say wasn't pleasant. He had used his cranial interface's overrides to breach the ship's command network, and copied as much of the captain's personal data as possible. There were lists of payoffs to local officials, and out of system parties, involved in a wide range of criminal enterprises, but the worst had been the secret records from the pirates participation in trafficking human beings, there had been entries for children, some as young as ten years old. Dirk had put the information into his hands, and he had transmitted the information to the UniSys Police Force. Jefferson had almost no UniSys office to speak of, so it had to wait until they had reached their next stop.
Dirk was just where Cameron expected him to be, deep in the machinery of the dorsal turret's power room, and covered in a colorful array of coolant, lubricants, and greases. He waited until Dirk had extricated himself from the tangle of conduits, wiring, and - thank the Saints - new SPC lines, before speaking.
"Please tell me that I did not get screwed twice on this project, Guns." He said, offering the naval honorific for a ship's gunnery officer. "I would like to be able to defend my ship, if the need arises."
Dirk slid all the way out from under the coolant pump he was working on, and stood, pausing to grab a clean rag with which to wipe the dirt off his hands before he answered.
"Count on it, Captain; I scoped each one of the lines, and they were like new. We should see about a six to eight percent improvement in cycling time between shots." He replied.
"No offense, but eight percent doesn't sound like much of an improvement to me." Cameron said, and continued. "I would have thought we'd get into double digits, at least. Not that I'm not relieved, you understand, I just expected more."
Dirk paused, and tossed the used rag into the open top of his tool box before speaking.
"Buy some new guns, and I'll triple, maybe quadruple, those numbers. The ones you have mounted now were copied from Alliance Naval weapons by Freedom Arsenal in the FSL, and they're almost as old as the ship. I'm good, Skipper, not God. If it makes you feel any better, the Mk 33s are rated to 750 degrees Celsius for up to 20 minutes. The old linings would have melted in a quarter of the time at that temperature." He explained.
Cameron couldn't help thinking about the deal he'd made for those old railgun turrets. Even third (and possibly fourth) hand, they had been expensive, and the licensing for them had taken some doing. The Free Systems League was noted for its lack of energetic regulatory oversight when it came to selling starship weapon systems to private owners, but non-League buyers had to hold an officially registered letter of marque, either from a League member, or an allied system. His own letter was issued by the government of Nova Sol, and was limited in scope; restricting him to defensive action. If attacked, he could take prize possession of any vessel he forced to surrender, but he couldn't go looking for a fight. Which was fine, since the idea of risking the loss of his ship was not one that particularly appealed to him, and space still offered hazards enough for anyone. He had been jumped by pirates three times, and he'd come through more or less unscathed, but if it hadn't been for Dirk, things on the last might have gone the other way entirely.
"I can learn to live with eight percent, I suppose; there's no way I can afford new guns, or even newer guns, for that matter." Said Cameron, more to himself than Dirk, before continuing. "You did good Dirk, I'll see if we can't swing you a bit of real downtime if the big job works out. Although to be honest, if it doesn't, you'll be unemployed and I'll be broke, so you're going to get some vacation time either way." He finished with a smile.
"Gee, thanks Skipper. It's nice to know I'm appreciated." Responded Dirk in a dry tone. "I don't suppose you want to share with me just what that job entails? I mean generally, that is?" Dirk asked, now serious. "You were always the one who told me: Never take a job when you don't know where it is."
"I'll tell you this much, Guns; we're going to be pushing out to the edge of the mining systems, looking for a needle in a haystack, and if we don't screw up, then we're likely going to be very well off." He answered cryptically, and quickly made his way out of the room before Dirk could say anything else.
"Jester this is New Detroit Traffic Control, we have received confirmation of your departure approval, and are routing tugs at this time. We will be disconnecting all ship-to-station connections momentarily, please acknowledge that all airlocks have been sealed." The NDTC officer paused, and Cameron looked at his own monitor, and over at Bao-Jian Shen, his pilot, who nodded in affirmation.
"Traffic control, this is Captain Marshall onboard Jester; I confirm, all locks and connections sealed, awaiting final release from moorings." He said with the confidence of long practice.
The ritualistic requests for, and volunteering of, information from the ship and the station played out over the course of the next 41 minutes and 19 seconds. When the station tugs finally uncoupled from the Jester, and they were finally allowed to continue under their own power, Cameron breathed a massive sigh of relief.
"Shen, put us on a least time path to the ND-Minotaur FTL locus, and start calculations for our angle of entry and transit time." He instructed, and opened a connection to the engineering department. "Engineering, this is the bridge, I'm going to need full power on the drives when we get out to 500,000 kilometers from the station, and I'll take as much from the manoeuvering thrusters as you can spare."
"We will be ready when you need it, Captain. Full power is available on all thrusters now, and the main engine will be on line in two hours." Answered Ludmilla Brostowski, his Chief Engineer.
He always experienced a profound satisfaction when his crew were able to deliver a superior level of performance the way they had today. In just over two hours from now, he would order his ship's pilot, Bao-Jian Shen, to bring the Jester's main sublight engine up to full power. The idea of being able to push a 347 meter long, 52,490 ton, starship at a constant acceleration of 147 m\s², up to almost seven percent of light speed, gave him a thrill like nothing else.
The hull of the ship vibrated when they were underway on thrusters, and like most longtime spacers, Cameron was aware of it at a subconscious level. He was in his private galley when it stopped, and he realized that he was waiting for Shen to call and tell him that the ship had reached the standard 500,000 km distance at which they could safely bring the main drive on line. That distance was called the Fusion Propulsion Boundary, and any ship that lit off its main fusion drive inside the limit was in serious trouble. The United Systems Interstellar Transportation Commission prosecuted violations of its statutes with considerable effort. More than one ship's master had been red-flagged, blacklisted, fined and imprisoned for doing so. In short, it was one of those areas in which he just didn't take risks. He didn't have long to wait, however, before the call he'd expected came from the bridge.
"Captain, we've crossed the fusion boundary, but engineering still has over an hour before the main engines can be brought to full power, shall I continue on thrusters?" Asked Shen, from his position on the bridge.
"No, cut thrust to station-keeping for the time being, we'll keep making headway until we can bring the main engine on line. Once Engineering gives you the all clear, put us up to 15 Gs and hold that accel until we hit the turnover point." He instructed, turning back to his lunch preparations.
The FTL locus out of the system to Minotaur was an Alpha-3, only 2.7 light hours away from New Detroit, and by his estimate, they would be transiting the locus in just over 78 hours from now. They would then have a 504 hour trip in FTL to look forward to. When they arrived at Minotaur, he would have to give the crew some shore leave, since their final port of call before heading outward would be Vulcanfall, and compared to Minotaur there wasn't much to recommend it. Vulcanfall was a marginally habitable planet, and one of the original mining systems. It had an overall population just north of 375,000, most of whom were miners, support staff, corporate personnel, or dependents thereof. Dry and dusty, Vulcanfall was not going to make anyone's list of favourite places to spend a vacation, but he had a contract to deliver cargo there and he would take the opportunity to top off the Jester's fuel tanks one last time.
He would take advantage of the time in FTL to catch up on planning how to find a huge derelict spacecraft, in a system for which they had no charts, without wasting too much of the limited time they would have before needing to turn back. He didn't doubt that his crew were up to the task, but there was a randomness to the universe that couldn't be predicted, and the number of unknowns on this job were not inconsiderable.
He finished eating and cleaned up, sticking his tray in the galley's recycling unit, then left his private office after quickly checking his desk terminal, and headed for the power room for the ship's dorsal railgun turret. He had to admit that Dirk had come through in spades on the problem of getting new lines for the railguns. The price he'd paid was lower than what he would have expected for two sets of Mark 33 SPC lines, plus a couple of spares for good measure.
Dirk truly had proven to be a valuable member of the crew. When he had first come aboard, Cameron had thought he was running from something, but he'd come to realize that Dirk had been unconsciously running toward something. He'd wanted to belong somewhere, and the military had no longer been his best option. Cameron respected two things about Dirk: His work ethic, and his privacy. He knew that he and Alex had paired off, and he heard about their occasional arguments, but he suspected that the two of them would be together for a while; Dirk struck him as that sort. His skills as a gunner and weapons tech, and his combat experience, however, made him an extremely valuable member of the crew. He had worked hard when he'd come aboard, and all things considered, Cameron had no complaints, but there was always a nagging feeling about the man that he couldn't put his finger on. The incident with the pirates, who had tried to jump them a couple of years ago in the Jefferson system, had been one of the times when he found himself wondering what sort of man Dirk really was.
He'd been at the gunner's console on the bridge when they hit the transit locus into the system; when the automatic proximity alarm had sounded its warning, he hadn't wasted any time asking bothersome questions, but had plotted a firing solution by using their own targeting radar against them. They had been lying in wait for passing merchant shipping, and they hadn't been prepared to handle a well armed privateer. The pirates' ship had no weapons heavier than autocannons; four, twin 30mm gun turrets would be enough to force an unarmed merchantman to surrender. The Jester had two, twin 76mm railguns, and once they had confirmation that the ship targeting them wasn't on anyone's registry, Dirk had made them see the wisdom of giving up without a fight with a single shot.
It only made sense to send him with the prize crew, since he had training in handling ship to ship boardings. When he had come back, after delivering the crew to the Jefferson Republic's authorities, he asked to speak in private; what he'd had to say wasn't pleasant. He had used his cranial interface's overrides to breach the ship's command network, and copied as much of the captain's personal data as possible. There were lists of payoffs to local officials, and out of system parties, involved in a wide range of criminal enterprises, but the worst had been the secret records from the pirates participation in trafficking human beings, there had been entries for children, some as young as ten years old. Dirk had put the information into his hands, and he had transmitted the information to the UniSys Police Force. Jefferson had almost no UniSys office to speak of, so it had to wait until they had reached their next stop.
Dirk was just where Cameron expected him to be, deep in the machinery of the dorsal turret's power room, and covered in a colorful array of coolant, lubricants, and greases. He waited until Dirk had extricated himself from the tangle of conduits, wiring, and - thank the Saints - new SPC lines, before speaking.
"Please tell me that I did not get screwed twice on this project, Guns." He said, offering the naval honorific for a ship's gunnery officer. "I would like to be able to defend my ship, if the need arises."
Dirk slid all the way out from under the coolant pump he was working on, and stood, pausing to grab a clean rag with which to wipe the dirt off his hands before he answered.
"Count on it, Captain; I scoped each one of the lines, and they were like new. We should see about a six to eight percent improvement in cycling time between shots." He replied.
"No offense, but eight percent doesn't sound like much of an improvement to me." Cameron said, and continued. "I would have thought we'd get into double digits, at least. Not that I'm not relieved, you understand, I just expected more."
Dirk paused, and tossed the used rag into the open top of his tool box before speaking.
"Buy some new guns, and I'll triple, maybe quadruple, those numbers. The ones you have mounted now were copied from Alliance Naval weapons by Freedom Arsenal in the FSL, and they're almost as old as the ship. I'm good, Skipper, not God. If it makes you feel any better, the Mk 33s are rated to 750 degrees Celsius for up to 20 minutes. The old linings would have melted in a quarter of the time at that temperature." He explained.
Cameron couldn't help thinking about the deal he'd made for those old railgun turrets. Even third (and possibly fourth) hand, they had been expensive, and the licensing for them had taken some doing. The Free Systems League was noted for its lack of energetic regulatory oversight when it came to selling starship weapon systems to private owners, but non-League buyers had to hold an officially registered letter of marque, either from a League member, or an allied system. His own letter was issued by the government of Nova Sol, and was limited in scope; restricting him to defensive action. If attacked, he could take prize possession of any vessel he forced to surrender, but he couldn't go looking for a fight. Which was fine, since the idea of risking the loss of his ship was not one that particularly appealed to him, and space still offered hazards enough for anyone. He had been jumped by pirates three times, and he'd come through more or less unscathed, but if it hadn't been for Dirk, things on the last might have gone the other way entirely.
"I can learn to live with eight percent, I suppose; there's no way I can afford new guns, or even newer guns, for that matter." Said Cameron, more to himself than Dirk, before continuing. "You did good Dirk, I'll see if we can't swing you a bit of real downtime if the big job works out. Although to be honest, if it doesn't, you'll be unemployed and I'll be broke, so you're going to get some vacation time either way." He finished with a smile.
"Gee, thanks Skipper. It's nice to know I'm appreciated." Responded Dirk in a dry tone. "I don't suppose you want to share with me just what that job entails? I mean generally, that is?" Dirk asked, now serious. "You were always the one who told me: Never take a job when you don't know where it is."
"I'll tell you this much, Guns; we're going to be pushing out to the edge of the mining systems, looking for a needle in a haystack, and if we don't screw up, then we're likely going to be very well off." He answered cryptically, and quickly made his way out of the room before Dirk could say anything else.
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