The Veritian Derelict (Junkyard Dogs) (22 page)

"
Let's face it, right now the
Greyhound
is not even a proper ship. She's got no interstellar capabilities at all. All she's got is an outmoded reaction drive. I suppose we could throw in the towel and just use her to provide us with living accommodations, but with our almost total lack of ships out here and another war apparently on the way, I'd say we need to see this ship fully operational again. I support going ahead with the transplant."

"
I support the upgrade as well," said Kresge. "How soon can we start?"

"
We can be ready to go in less than half an hour," said Harris, with a glance at his two companions. Carlisle and Hawkins nodded in assent.

"
I'll start getting people transferred to the
Istanbul
and the
Dingo
so they're not here when we take the power off line," said Murdock. "That might take a half a day or so."

"I don't see any need to
for further delay," said Kresge. "Get on it!"

***

Harris, Carlisle, Talbot and the other personnel they had selected for their team met in cargo hold three of the
Greyhound
where they loaded additional tools and other paraphernalia onto the
Rover II
. They then headed back out into the scrap cloud to where the
Terrier
was positioned. They pulled the
Rover II
up next to the old destroyer and used several of her assorted power tools to remove a large panel on the underside of the ship, right below the engine room. The one-piece panel, made out of double thickness hull material, was about ten meters wide and twenty-five meters in length. Once the panel had been removed, they could begin the task of removing the power plant and drive system.

At the same time, another crew, headed up by Hawkins and Murdock
and equipped with the
Rover I,
began the task of dismounting the power plant and the ruined drive systems from the old cargo ship. Norbert, Steuben and Nate Hawthorne, another member of the team that had defended the Orbital Station and also a skilled electrician, made up part of the team.

Chapter
29.

UTFN Reclamation Center, on board Naval cutter UTFN C1033 newly arrived from the New Ceylon Orbital Station, December 4, 2598.

The cutter
carrying Irene Marshall and the other evacuees from the New Ceylon Orbital Station arrived at the Scrapyard midway through the following day. The little craft was probably the last transport that would be coming out from the planetary facilities for the foreseeable future. The passengers made their way over to the
Greyhound
through the cutter's temporary docking tube which had been connected to the airlock door on the old cargo ship. With nearly everyone at the Scrapyard busy working on various projects, the group's arrival came and went without much fanfare. The newly arrived passengers were instructed to wait in the front hold of the
Greyhound
to await further directions. They had only been waiting for a few minutes when Helen Murdock, taking a quick break from her repair duties, came in to greet them.

"Hello, Helen," said Irene. "I certainly didn't expect to see you so soon again."

"These are perilous times, Irene," said Murdock. "Is anyone left on the station?"

"
Kathy and Sal and a few other brave souls, just enough to keep the place running."

Murdock looked ar
ound at the group of new people.

"First off, I
suggest that none of you get too comfortable for the time being. The
Greyhound
is undergoing a major refit and everyone is going to have to go over and spend a couple of days on the
Dingo
while we complete the repairs. Okay?"

The newcomers nodded or murmured their consent.

"Good. On to business," Murdock continued. "Irene? With your permission, I can put you in with Oskar, he has a small private room." Irene smiled at the prospect and nodded. "Allison? I think we still have a spot where I can get you and Orville in a private room as well." Murdock went efficiently through the rest of the personnel, assigning a berth to each. The majority of them would be accommodated on the
Greyhound
, after the repairs were completed, but about a third of them were to be housed on the
Dingo,
at least for the near future. Finally she looked at Amanda Steuben, the only person left without an assigned berth. "Now, where are we going to put you, young lady?" Murdock thought for a moment. "I hate to put you right to work right off, Irene, but will you see what you can do get these people transferred over to the
Dingo
for the time being? Amanda, Allison? Come with me. We're going up to the bridge. "

There were very few people in the
Scrapyard entourage that were younger than twenty years old. Some, like Hawkins, Talbot, Murdock and many of the delegates who had come unexpectedly with the Ambassador were considerably older than that. In fact the only other person who was in the same age group as Amanda was Faiza, Ambassador Saladin's daughter. Amanda and her mother stood by while Helen called the Ambassador. After a short discussion, it was determined that suitable quarters were not only available but that Amanda was welcome to stay onboard the
Istanbul
.

***

Amanda and her bundle of gear were transported over to the Ambassador's ship on the
Rover I
during a quick run to the diplomatic ship on Scrapyard business. Sondia and Faiza met her at the main airlock. The two young women had barely been introduced before they discovered something important that they had in common.

"
That's a Hartwell wrist computer, isn't it?" said Faiza, right after the introductions. She peeled back the sleeve of her coverall to reveal her own device. "See. I have one too!"

"
Have you had it very long?" asked Amanda.

"Father got it for me about three months ago."

"Three months? That's like a lifetime with one of these!" said Amanda, looking somewhat relieved. "Irene Marshall just gave this to me yesterday. I'm doing okay with it, but I could really use some pointers." Her look became serious. "She told me I had to get as good with it as Tamara Carlisle!"

"We can start lessons anytime you want," said Faiza.
"How about if I give you a quick tour of the ship and then we settle in somewhere and get started?"

As is often the way with youth, the
two of them were chatting like old friends within a few minutes.

"
A short tour is fine," Sondia interrupted. "In fact, I think it's a good idea but afterwards I suggest that the two of you stay out from underfoot. There are a lot of busy people on this ship!"

The two girls bobbed their heads in unison, barely seeming to hear her.
Amanda had a small overnight bag slung over her back as the two young women excitedly left the main airlock area of the
Istanbul
to make their way through the ship. Sondia smiled to herself
.
The youngsters seemed to be getting along well which was good since the two of them were to be roommates.

After Faiza gave Amanda a short tour of the diplomatic ship, t
he two of them disappeared into what had been Faiza's private quarters but was now home to the two of them. While this somewhat unorthodox arrangement may not have been workable under normal circumstances, the start of a war and the lack of other suitable quarters made it necessary. Amanda stashed her gear and made a few other arrangements to get herself settled in before the two of them sat down on one of the beds.

"The first thing we need to do is link the two computers," said Faiza, "then we can communicate with each other from almost anywhere. It's also supposed to make them even more powerful because they combine their computing power." After they paired up the
two computers, Faiza then spent most of the next hour showing Amanda some of the more advanced features of the device that she had experimented with during her longer experience with it. Amanda caught on very quickly and was soon performing tasks that had seemed way beyond her abilities just a short time earlier. Finally the two young women moved on to other topics of interest.

"So, your mom is a truthseer?
" asked Amanda. "Do you know anything about it?"

"I'll never be as good as she is, I don't
think I have near as much natural ability, but she has given me some of the training. Would you like a demonstration?"

"Sure!"

The two young women experimented with a truthseer training device that Sondia had given Faiza in the hope that it would help her daughter develop the skill. Faiza tried a doing a reading on Amanda with modest success. After getting a few pointers, Amanda tried to do a reading on Faiza. Either of them may have had some ability, but neither had any of the rigorous training. Mostly they amused themselves for the rest of the afternoon.

It seemed like harmless fun at the time.

Chapter 30.

UTFN Reclamation Center, December 4, 2598.

The
replacement of the
Greyhound's
drive system was going to involve more than just the replacement of the drive modules. In order to take advantage of the more powerful, military-grade drive systems and shields of the
Terrier
, the team would also be replacing the
Greyhound's
aging
fusion power plant. After checking the specifications and then actually measuring the power plants of the two ships, the group determined that the military and civilian units were actually based on very similar templates. Since the two ships were of roughly similar vintage, this discovery wasn't overly surprising.

Replacement
of the power plant was going to be, essentially, a bolt-in operation. The most challenging part of the transplant was going to be making provision for the military-grade drive systems, which were far more robust than their civilian counterparts. Even this situation shouldn't cause too much of a problem as the team determined that the drive bay of the
Greyhound
, configured as it was to accommodate a range of different drive systems from a range of competing manufacturers, was of a proper size and shape for the
Terrier's
drive systems to fit. The systems would fill up all of the available space, but they should fit.

***

With the
Greyhound's
nonessential personnel temporarily evacuated to the
Dingo
, the actual repair operations could finally begin. To the surprise and relief of all involved, the power plant and drive system swap went about as well as could be expected. The integrated fusion plant and drive systems from the
Terrier
, after some expert cursing, jockeying around and the fabrication of mounts to adapt the new systems to the old ship's mounting points, were installed without major incident. The control systems were a mixed bag. The drive and power plant consoles from the engineering section of the
Terrier
, along with the special wiring harnesses required were, again, fairly simple, bolt-in replacements.

By far their greatest challenge was to
install the control systems from the
Terrier
onto the bridge of the
Greyhound
. The military equipment was not only more bulky than the original consoles on the ancient cargo ship but there were also a number of systems on the cargo ship that could not easily be integrated into the military units and necessitated keeping the original consoles. Their only choice was to install several additional consoles onto the
Greyhound's
bridge. Since the bridge area of the old ship wasn't overly large to begin with, things were going to be a more than a little cramped on the bridge after the modifications but the situation couldn't be helped.

Th
e new control systems on the bridge necessitated the installation of a wiring harness that ran from the control console on the
Terrier's
bridge down to her engine room. Unfortunately, the cable from the warship, while somewhat thicker than the equivalent cable on the freighter due to the presence of wires that were both more numerous and more robust, was also substantially shorter. After considerable head scratching, Talbot came up with the idea of removing a portion of the same cable from one of the
Terrier's
sister ships and splicing the two pieces of cable together.

The level of damage to the
Fairmont
, Talbot's old ship, was severe enough that salvaging the needed cable from her was actually easier than it would have been from the more intact
Osage
. Talbot helped out with the removal of the cable but it was obvious to his companions that working onboard his old ship was very difficult for him. Far too many painful memories, apparently.

The need for an extra length of cable
actually worked somewhat to the repair crew's advantage as they were able to thread the cable through the freighter from two different directions and conveniently splice the ends together up in a remote corner within one of the minor holds of the cargo ship. A generous glob of space-rated sealant, another of the materials abundant in the Scrapyard, finished off the splice.

***

Onboard
Greyhound
, UTFN Reclamation Center, December 7, 2598.

About
twelve hours after Harris' optimistic forty-eight hour estimate, the repair team was ready to power-up the fusion plant and test the new drive system. Down in the engine room of the
Greyhound
, Talbot was manning the engineering console and Hawkins, with an inspection panel propped open, was stationed at the controls for fusion plant itself,. Carlisle was monitoring the power up process via a link from the
Greyhound's
computer to her wrist computer and had several 3-D displays open and floating in the air in front of her. Harris stood ready to abort the entire process in case something went terribly wrong. Such occurrences were exceedingly rare but the current installation was far from a routine one.

"Okay, Hawk,
are you ready?" asked Harris, unable to keep all of the tension out of his voice.

"Aye, Lieutenant, that I be."

"Start the power up sequence. Keep your fingers crossed, everybody."

Murdock
reached over Talbot's shoulder and flipped the lever on the engineering console that initiated the power up process. The team then worked steadily on the step by step power-up process for the next hour and forty-five minutes. At the final step, the old ship shuddered gently before the plant settled down to normal operation. The soft thrumming sound that emanated from the newly installed power plant, while a considerably deeper tone than the original, was the welcome sound of a fusion plant operating normally.

Every
one in the engineering section of the old ship watched their assigned readouts for the next five minutes, daring to hope that everything was alright. That milestone came and went without incident. When they hit the ten minute mark, with no problems of any kind, they dared a small celebration. Harris participated along with the rest of them as they congratulated one another before making an announcement.

"Well done, everyone," he said
, "but that might have been the easy part. Now we have to see if the drive systems are going to work!"

A generous
measure of sobriety returned to the group. During the installation procedure, Hawkins had carefully checked the various components of the drive system to ensure that all components remained within specifications and, to the best of his ability under the circumstances, everything was properly adjusted. With the power plant operating again, the drive system was, as far as any of them knew, ready for its first test as well.

"Helen, you need to go up to the bridge and
contact Kresge to let him know what we're about to do," said Harris. "Hawk, you need to come over here and man this drive system console. Run those diagnostics again while we wait to hear back from Kresge." Murdock left for the bridge, taking Carlisle with her.

Kresge, temporarily on board the
Dingo,
quizzed Murdock from the
Terrier's
viewscreen for several minutes before giving the next phase of the project his blessing. Hawkins was just finishing up a complete set of diagnostics, with all systems checking out, when Murdock called down from the bridge, "Kresge says 'go' for a test run but to be really careful."

"Will do," said Harris. "Okay, crew, l
et's take the ship out a few hundred kilometers as a test for the reaction drive and then have a go at a short microjump towards the hyperlink point. We should be able to get all of the jump parameters programmed on the way. Any questions?" Seeing no response, he looked around the small, crowded engineering section at his companions. He took a deep breath and let it out with a long sigh. "Good job everyone. Now let's get on with this next step. Is everybody ready?" Seeing that no one had any issues, he relayed the information to the bridge. "All systems go down here, Captain. Take her out!"

Up on the bridge of the
Greyhound
, Murdock took the Captain's chair and, with Carlisle at the navigation console, activated the reaction drive, giving the ship's drive her customary ahead one quarter power request. The old ship lurched unexpectedly. Hawkins' voice came over the intercom.

"Easy, Lass, this military unit
be a lot more powerful than the original drive system. What was being the thrust level you just used?"

"I set it on
ahead one quarter, just like I always have," Murdock replied, somewhat sheepishly. "I guess I wasn't thinking."

"Aye, no harm done, but you'll have to be rethinkin' your whole approach to movin' this old
girl."

As they experimented with the
more powerful reaction drive system on their way towards the point where they were to attempt a microjump, Murdock's attitude became more and more upbeat.

"I can't believe how much more power this military unit has! This ship has never been this responsive before."

"We figure it has at least two and a half times the power of the original unit," replied Harris. "As Hawk was saying, you'll have to recalibrate your entire approach to piloting this ship. With the extra thrust, you could shorten your in system transit times considerably. Of course, if you do, she'll use more reaction fluid. On the other hand, if you simply kept to the transit times you're used to, your fluid consumption might even be less than usual, because you're using the drive at that much lower of its capacity."

"Either way," said Murdock, "I'm liking this already!"

A half hour later, they approached the point where they were to attempt their first use of the newly-replaced Whitney hyperdrive system.

"Approaching microjump point," said Murdock.

"There's no rush here," said Harris, calmly. "Double check the jump coordinates and then double check everything else."

All of the personnel
involved checked carefully over their list of assigned responsibilities. Then they checked everything again. Each reported in that their respective system was up to spec. The extra checks took a good half hour.

"Everything looks fine, Lieutenant," said Carlisle.

"Looks like it's time to try a microjump," said Harris. "The ship is yours, Captain Murdock."

"Hang on everybody," said Murdock, and after a short hesitation for everyone to brace themselves, she hit the drive button. The old ship with the new old drive phased smoothly into microjump mode. Ten seconds later the ship phased just as smoothly back into normal space.

"What have you people done to my ship!" exclaimed Murdock. "She's never jumped that easy before. There was always some kind of lurch. With this drive, I won't even spill my coffee!"

"It gets even better, Helen," said Carlisle
, scanning the readings on the navigation console. "I just checked our position relative to the projected phase-out point and we're within less than a thousandth of a percent of where we're supposed to be. You'd have to have the very latest civilian drive out there to do any better. That's damned good, in fact, it's as good as most of the ships in the Federation Navy!"

"The only thing left now is to try a macrojump,
" said Harris, "but I don't know that we should do that until we have to. I don't have any doubt that she'll jump just fine, but right now the
Greyhound
is just too important to our mission here to risk it."

The crew of the
Greyhound
double checked everything again before turning the ship around and executing another microjump back towards the scrapyard. Again, the old ship with the transplanted drive performed perfectly.

All involved treated themselves to a small celebration.
They shared around a couple of bottles of Champagne that had been shipped out as part of the smuggler's remaining inventory. After the modest festivities, the occupants assigned to the
Greyhound
transferred back from the
Dingo
. With a notable lack of enthusiasm,
Carlisle gathered up Talbot and the two of them headed back to their duties on the
Istanbul
.