Guardians of the Galactic Sentinel 1: The Deimos Artifact (7 page)

The two men arrived at the galley of the
Capri
and Zack demonstrated that he could indeed do a commendable job of preparing something edible, not that there was anything in the galley that was going to require any particularly sophisticated culinary techniques. Sandwiches were one of Zack's specialties anyway. He got out a sleeve of Lehman's starbread, and put four of the pre-sliced rounds in the flash toaster.

Lehman's starbread was made from a proprietary strain of genetically modified, vat-grown yeast and was a starship staple. The stuff had decent texture, would keep forever and actually tasted pretty good, especially if you toasted it. He slipped the bread out of the toaster and did his best to doll up a couple of sandwiches with the limited supply of ingredients and condiments available, neatly slicing them in half before serving. Cliff was about halfway through his sandwich when Zack sat down with his own plate and joined the engineer. Cliff waited until Zack had taken a couple of bites before starting a conversation.

"Your uncle put a lot of money into this ship over the last few months. We were gonna get the thrusters overhauled next, but then he...got killed."

"It's a bad business."

"I'm really glad that you didn't decide to sell this ship out here at Haven."

Zack stopped just before taking another bite of his sandwich, "You knew that I was thinking about selling the ship?"

"I ain't stupid, Zack. I know I can't keep this gig forever. Thing is, if someone had decided to do a full inspection on her out here, there's a good chance that we could have gotten into some...legal issues. "

So Cliff suspected that the ship might be up for sale? Zack felt a measure of relief upon having crossed that bridge so easily, but what was this other stuff? "What do you mean by legal issues?" asked Zack, mildly concerned.

Cliff looked a little troubled himself but was shrewd enough to know that the new owner of the ship needed to know exactly what he had taken ownership of.

"One of our last stops was a spaceship wrecking yard out near Titus V," he said, "You can get systems for your ship there that aren't exactly...conventional if you've got the proper connections and the right amount of cash."

"What are you getting at?" asked Zack, his concern intensifying.

"Look, Zack, your uncle and me took this ship to some pretty rough places in the last couple of years. More'n once we were only able to get out of a bad situation by good timin' and better luck. Marv wanted be able to protect himself so..."

"So, what?"

"He had a war-surplus pulse beam cannon system mounted on the top side of the ship, aways aft of the bridge."

"A cannon system?" asked Zack, "How can that be? I didn't see anything on this ship that looked like a weapon."

"You wouldn't have. It's a twin projector system in a retractable turret. It was originally designed to be mounted on units like planetary patrol craft and such that had to operate part time in atmosphere. When it's retracted, it sits flush with the hull and you can't see nothin'. Marv had them top it off with the round section of hull plate that they cut out to mount it in the first place. If you know what you're lookin' at, you can see the seam. It looks more like some kind of a special cargo port than anythin' else."

"Until a couple of weeks ago," said Zack, "I was the commander of a Mark VII Marine hovercraft. Before that, I was the back-up gunner. Legal or not, I'd really like to see this gun system!"

"You're a real-live gunner?" replied Cliff, eyes wide, "That's fantastic!" The little engineer appeared to be lost in thought for a moment, "There's more, Zack; I don't think the weapon has to remain illegal."

"What do you mean?"

"I think that Marv had the guys out at that wrecking yard file some paperwork with the authorities back at the Central Planets."

"What kind of paperwork?"

"You know, permits and such. As far as I know you'll just have to pay some processing fees back at Central, sign a few papers and it'll all be legit. The authorities out here at Haven wouldn't have had any record of it yet. It's probably for the best that they didn't find out about it."

"I'd have to agree on that," replied Zack "I just hope I can afford it!"

"I know," said Cliff, "No matter where you go, it seems like there's always somebody with his hand out."

Zack rolled his eyes as he nodded in agreement.

"Thing is," Cliff continued, "we'd better check on those permits right soon after we get back to Central."

"I'll put it on my list," said Zack.

"To compensate for the extra power demand, he also had the main power plant upgraded to Bombardier Mark IV specs. We have about twenty-five percent more power than a standard Mark II."

"Yeah, I overheard when you told Beth," said Zack, "The extra power makes good sense. No point in having a weapon if you can't use it without overloading your power plant or severely weakening your shields."

"I thought so too, but the power plant mods are one more reason why the ship is so finicky. I'm still getting everything dialed in."

"Good thing we've got you aboard, then."

"Thanks. Meantime, why don't you finish up and we can go and have a look at the weapon? Wouldn't hurt if we brought our pilot along so the both of you can have a look at the layout of the ship while we're at it. Believe me,
Capri
ain't anything like a normal Mark II. Oh, and we should get the two of you squared away with a place to sleep too."

"Sounds good," replied Zack. He swallowed the final bite of his sandwich as he got up, looked over the spread of ingredients he'd gotten out to make the sandwiches and said, "If we're going up to the bridge, I'd better take Beth something to eat; she said she didn't want to get too far away from the controls and she has to be hungry."

Chapter 7
. A Secret Weapon.

Deep Space, Barnard's Star System, July 5, 2676

Zack whipped up another sandwich, taking some extra time to fancy it up even a bit more, this time cutting it into quarters. The two men finished cleaning up the galley after their light meal and Zack grabbed a water bulb before the two of them headed up towards the bridge area of the ship. Moments later, they found Beth at the command console, going over the current readouts for the ship.

"The Chief Cook has prepared a repast for your pleasure, Madam Captain," said Zack, offering the plate to her with a mock flourish.

The pilot hadn't realized that she was hungry until she saw and smelled the food.

"Ah yes...thank you...Cook," she said, matching his jest with an exaggeratedly regal air as she accepted his offering.

"Your wish is my command," he replied.

She immediately set the plate down in her lap and tucked into the sandwich.

Zack made a show of looking over the readouts on the first officer's console for the few minutes it took Beth to finish her sandwich.

"So, what are you two up to?" she said after she had downed the fourth quarter of the sandwich along with half of the bulb of water, "By the way, that sandwich wasn't half bad."

"Thanks," said Zack, "Wait until you taste what I can do with reconstituted eggs."

Beth gave him a skeptical look. Unfazed, Zack continued, "Cliff was going to take me on a tour of the ship and I was thinking that it probably wouldn't hurt if you came along too."

"I'm with Zack, Ma'am," said Cliff, "you really ought to come with us, that way you can get a look at some more of
Capri's
custom layout and we can inspect some of the modifications that Marv ordered up."

"So, Madam Captain," said Zack, "can you leave the bridge for a few minutes?"

Beth gave him another skeptical look before going over the readouts on her command console and concluding that she could probably get away for a few minutes.

"It should be okay. We've still got an hour so before we shift into sublight. I'll get a warning over my tablet if anything needs my attention. Lead on."

The trio, with Cliff leading and Beth bringing up the rear, went through the hatch on the aft bulkhead of the bridge and down a short, three-step, inclined ladder to a compartment that was some four meters long under a ceiling just over two meters high. There was a generous-sized cabin on either side of the chamber with the one to port marked "Captain," and the other unlabeled.

"This is deck three," said Cliff. "There's two more decks below, except when you get forward of the first main bulkhead and aft of the fourth one. These were Marv's quarters over here." He motioned towards the unlabeled cabin, "I expect you'll be takin' them over, Zack. The other big cabin's for you, Cap'n. The two of you might want to get your gear stowed up here before too long."

Beth took a quick look inside the Captain's quarters, "Nice!" she said, noting that it was very well appointed and even included a small commode area that doubled as an ultrasonic shower stall. As she came back out, her attention was immediately drawn to something unconventional about the aft bulkhead, "What's with all the oddball hatches? I saw a couple of them earlier and wondered what was going on."

The hatch in the aft bulkhead, usually centered on ships of this type, was noticeably offset to port. The spot where the central hatch would normally have been had a patch welded over it and the entire bulkhead had been freshly painted.

"Why don't we have a look?" said Cliff, as he went through the non-standard hatch, "Follow me."

Beth and Zack went through the hatch right behind him, immediately discovering that the corridor wall to their left angled inward at a forty-five degree angle, back towards the center of the ship, where it joined up with what must have been the original central corridor of the deck. Ignoring the angled section of wall for the moment, Beth went over and looked down the length of the rejoined central corridor, estimating that it ran aft for at least another twenty meters, "Is this entire level nothing but accommodations?"

"Pretty much," replied Cliff, "Marv's wife used the ship to entertain clients and stuff. There were eight cabins on either side, but after this latest mod, there's only six left. Behind that far bulkhead is all engineering stuff."

"And what's behind this angled wall?"

"For that we need to go down to the deck two," said Cliff.

The three of them went back through the angled corridor and headed down a rather long ladder that ran diagonally across the ship from port to starboard on its way down to deck two. They came down into a good sized L-shaped chamber. The long arm of the L ran forward along the starboard side of the ship and doubled as a small waiting area and a corridor that led to another diagonal ladder that went down to deck one. The hatch in the aft bulkhead was offset as well.

"More offset corridors?" said Beth.

"Yeah," said Cliff, "only this stuff was part of the original design. Marv's wife had this area of deck two outfitted so she could host business meetings when the ship was docked."

On the port side of the waiting area, a couple of meters apart, were two doors, one marked "Gentlemen" and the other "Ladies."

"Are these restrooms?" asked Beth, "They're huge!"

"Yeah," replied Cliff, "but they only work when the ship is hooked up to a docking bay. We never use 'em so we just keep 'em locked. Marv had plans to take 'em out and put something else here, but we never got around to it."

"Amazing!" said Beth.

"There's more," said Cliff, "Follow me."

The trio went through the starboard hatch to the corridor that led aft, "Down here to port is the meetin' room. She wanted it to be as big as they could make it, so they put this corridor clear over to starboard. The room had seating for fifty people and all kinds of audio-visual equipment." Cliff led them down the corridor and through a hatch that opened into the middle of the large boardroom. "We figured we'd never need room for that many people, so we sacrificed part of the meetin' room for that...!" Cliff touched a panel on the wall that turned on the lighting and pointed forward.

Zack and Beth were confronted by a rather large cylinder that ran up from the floor and disappeared into the ceiling. The cylinder, marred only by a hatch opening, took up perhaps a third of the original space in the room. As they approached the cylinder, Zack estimated that its diameter was something around four meters or so. He could also see that it was securely attached to the bulkhead by a couple of meter-wide plates that were welded floor to ceiling to the cylinder and to the bulkhead. Cliff opened the hatch on the cylinder and motioned them inside.

Zack squeezed through the hatch and was confronted by a narrow aisle that ran between two identical banks of heavy duty electrical components that filled the space from floor to ceiling. Headspace and shoulder room within this layer of the compact turret was limited and Zack had to remain slightly stooped over. Beth and Cliff, who were shorter than he was, could both stand up straight, though only just. Having served onboard a number of Naval warships, Beth recognized what they were looking at immediately.

"These are pulse beam capacitor banks," she said, incredulously. "Do you mean to tell me that this old tub has a pulse beam weapons system?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Marv had it installed a month or so ago, just before we returned to Haven for him to settle affairs with some of his creditors. We...ah...haven't got all of the permits we need yet, so it's best we keep this among ourselves for the time being."

Zack climbed up the short central ladder to the projector compartment above. Beth and Cliff followed right behind him. Space in the upper compartment was a little more generous and even Zack could stand up straight. Just behind the central opening was the gunner's chair, flanked by a couple of gun control consoles, each of which was in easy reach of a person sitting in the chair.

"I haven't seen one of these retractable types before, Cliff," said Zack. "What happens to the projectors when you retract the turret?"

"They fold down vertically into slots on the front of the turret. Then they extend and lock into place after you deploy the emplacement."

Zack climbed into the gunner's chair and immediately found himself in familiar territory. He slipped his feet into the stirrups of the foot controls that regulated turret movement and projector elevation. His hands fell naturally onto the hand controls that were used to make fine adjustments in the aim and the thumb buttons that actually triggered the pulses. The controls were all well-worn, as though the emplacement had seen heavy use at some point in its past. His two companions watched him while he tested the controls.

"Why in Space did you think you'd need a pulse beam weapon?" asked Beth.

"We've been in some pretty dicey places with this old girl," replied Cliff, "Marv wanted to be able to fight back if we had to."

"Well, this system should do the trick!" said Beth.

"If it works," said Zack, "Have you tested it?"

"Not in actual battle, but we did fire a few pulses with it right after it was installed. Marv was gonna get some more practice with it, but then he...had his accident."

Beth couldn't help but notice how familiar Zack seemed to be with the weapons system, "You look pretty comfortable in that chair," she said.

"Among other things, I'm the back-up gunner for my hovercraft unit," said Zack, still choosing to remain somewhat vague regarding his current status within the Marine Corps. "The emplacement on my hovercraft isn't near as big as this one, but the operation is pretty much the same. I ought to be able to operate it if we need it."

"Maybe we can continue this tour later, but for now I'd better get back to the bridge," said Beth, "After our first hyperjump, we'll have several hours on reaction drive before we go to sublight again. Traffic is usually pretty thin out in the system we'll be jumping into. You might be able to practice with the guns a bit after we jump if you're careful where you aim them. What's the range on these weapons anyway?"

"These are thousand gigajoule projectors, aren't they, Cliff?" Cliff nodded in agreement. Zack continued, "On full power, in vacuum...they'll dissipate to pretty much harmless after a couple thousand kilometers or so."

"I'd still hold off doing any shooting here in Haven space. The people on the orbital station would be able to detect something out of the ordinary and they might start asking embarrassing questions. If we want to keep these weapons a secret, I wouldn't be doing any test firing until we're out of this system."

"Makes good sense to me," replied Zack.

The three of them threaded down through and out of the gun emplacement and out into the offset corridor.

"How long until we go to sublight?" asked Cliff.

"About a half hour," replied Beth.

"I'd better get back down to engineering and check that sublight system over one more time," said Cliff. "I'll see you two later."