Penance (RN: Book 2) (21 page)

It pleased the commander to note Canthouse working his tablet with the first officer giving him a nod as he finished. The medics were on their way.

“Chief. I have something I need you to do,” Denz casually strode to the engineer’s side as he spoke. “We’ll be putting into Border-20 the day after tomorrow and I’m half expecting a surprise inspection by Admiral Shiori Murasami, and, well, you know how she is.” Den smiled knowingly at the engineer who raised his bushy eyebrows in appreciation of the admiral’s reputation for demanding perfection.

The chief engineer chuckled to himself. “Yes, she’s an exacting one that one.”

“I need you to spend a few days going over the surgery to make sure everything’s ship shape as, as diligent as the medics are, you know what they’re like for pushing things under a blanket. And I need everything perfect.”

“Aye, sir. It’ll be my pleasure. I’ll show those bandaides a thing or two.”

A single medic arrived at that moment. One of the two who had carried away Avery and he must have been wondering what the hell was happening in engineering, as every call appeared to be to retrieve a mad man. Canthouse cleared his throat to attract his attention and surreptitiously tapped his tablet and then his left forearm. The medics glanced at a smaller slimmer tablet attached above his left wrist, his head bobbing as he scanned the display. When finished he gave the first officer a curt nod to indicate understanding.

“Chief, before you go,” Denz said in a chummy familiar way. “Who’s your best number two, as I don’t think we can leave engineering without a whip, can we?”

“Young Penton, sir.” He walked to the guard rail and pointed into the main bay. “That’s him there.” His pointing finger indicated an attentive, but serious looking greasy blonde haired petty officer of a medium stocky build, who stood looking over a tablet with a junior engineer either side of him. “Penton!” the chief called, and made a
c’mere
gesture with a finger when the man looked toward him.

Penton arrived on the deck within seconds, standing to informal attention with a perplexed expression as he looked about the many of the ship’s senior officers.

“Penton knows this ship as well as me, sir. He’ll see everything gets done. And if there’s anything he can’t handle you know where to find me.” The chief smiled broadly so his moustache looked like a black bird landing as he congratulated himself on a job well done.

“Thank you, chief,” Denz said with a nod.

The chief engineer strode to the door saying to the medic, “Right you, with me.” as he turned into the corridor.

Denz watched after him for a few seconds before turning to a thoroughly confused Penton.

“Penton, is it?”

“Yes, sir.”

The commander stared at the young second engineer for several seconds wondering how to phrase what he had to say, as simply saying
“The chief has gone mad and now you’re in charge
” seemed a bit abrupt.

“It may not seem like it but the chief engineer has suffered a slight lapse and has temporarily been removed from duty. And until we can reach Trent station I’d like you to assume the chief’s duties. If you’re willing, that is?”

“Lapse, sir?” Penton asked with something of an understanding countenance.

“Yes.” Denz said a little irritated that he received no direct answer.

“D’you mean the distance madness, sir?”

Denz’s eyes flicked to Canthouse who raised his eyes brows in surprise. “If you referring to distance dementia, then yes. That’s what the chief has. Were you aware of it?”

Penton shrugged matter of factly, “Yes, sir. Everyone in engineering knows he had it. Him and a few others.”

The news left Denz momentarily speechless. He stood unblinking, his mouth agape as he stared at Penton. “You mean to say you knew the chief engineer to be incapable of his duty, the chief and several others apparently, and you never reported it?”

Penton’s frame stiffened defensively, “But I did report it, sir. Both me and a few of the lads. Several times. Two of them officially.”

“And who did you report it to?”

“Mr Avery, sir. The last time not more than five days past.”

“And what did Mr Avery say he would do?”

“Said he would see it through, sir. But he never did. Not for the chief, nor for the others.”

Denz couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He glanced about the other incredulous faces finishing on Canthouse who just slowly shook his head, his look one of extreme disappointment.

“Thank you, Mr Penton, for that information.” Penton nodded. “To answer my original question, do you feel able to cover the chief’s duties for the foreseeable future?”

“Easily, sir. I’ve been doing his job since two weeks out when he first started acting strange. He mostly spends his time making models on the engineering display. Me and the boys have been fixing everything.” He noted Denz’s despairing look, “Mr Avery was fully aware –“

“Fully aware of the situation.” Denz said finishing the sentence with an understanding nod. He let out a deep sign and scratched his forehead as he considered the rogues den of circumstance he was oblivious to, and what else may be unknown to him. But this was no time for overt speculation, he needed to fix the ship.

“Are you aware of the problems the ship has. More specifically those preventing us from gating out?” Denz’s look bore a glimmer of hope that the major problems the chief reported may all have been in his head and the repairs less than imagined.

“Aye, sir. The reactors are OK, but the primary bus links are shot. Some sort of feedback blew the main couplers and they’ll take days to fix, but we’ve got men on it. We’ve got the emergency turbine for enviromentals, but that’s trickle feed only. No high energy systems. As for the gate engines, their power links are ok but two of the cells burst.. We’ve got people welding them over now and we’ll be ready for the fluid when it gets here.”

“Do we have enough aboard? The chief said we didn’t,” the commander almost crossed his fingers on asking.

“No, the chief was right about that. We don’t have any to spare. But that stuff will do.” Penton pointed at the scrolling display of the Jeremiah’s inventory. “I noticed it as you were talking to me,” the engineer offered by way of explanation.

“The chief said we’d need four of those vats,” Canthouse said scrolling the screen of his tablet.

“No, three’ll do. Two and a half at a pinch. But you’ll need the mag-lev to move them as they’re a good tonne apiece. You can leave them on the launch, too, as we can move the fluid using the refuelling lines. A little contamination won’t do it any harm.”

Denz glanced at Canthouse who nodded, his face elongated in appreciative gesture of the man’s obvious knowledge, something he could only agree with. The reduced fluid requirements along with the ability to unload via the refuelling lines would significantly reduce the time needed to refill the capacitors allowing them to leave.

“Very well,
Chief
,” Denz said followed by an acknowledging grin, “Lieutenant-commander Canthouse will take a launch for the fluid, so if you can start the preparations for receiving the fluid so we can get out of here.”

Penton nodded, “Aye, sir. I’ll get the lazy bleeders to it right now.” He left unceremoniously.

With the affairs related to the loss of two senior officers having eaten up valuable time, a sense of urgency struck Denz who turned to Canthouse, “Malcolm, I gather you’ve selected your teams?”

“Yes, sir.It’s a pity we need more than two vats as this means we need both launches. There’s myself in the
Brunel
and I’ve placed Stavener as officer responsible in charge of the
Baden-Powell
,” Canthouse continued to work his tablet as he spoke. “Both launches are refuelled and teams assembling.”

“Stavener!” Denz asked with mock surprise.

“He’s the only duty officer not currently occupied.”

Denz nodded, “Very good. Then let’s not detain you.”

Canthouse nodded and left.

“What’s left?” Denz asked the remaining officers. “Bearing in mind that we only need the immediates to keep us alive until we reach Trent station.”

“Primary life sciences are still offline,” said Stephenson from where he leant against the hand rail.“Power was severed to the primary electrolysis units so were using candles until they’re back. Individually they’re good for a week or so, and we’ve got six months of spares.”

“CO2?”

“The current scrubbers are good for another four days, and we’ve got plenty of spares which can also be recycled. Water filters are OK, but we’re reduced to vacuum packs until the galley has main bus power again.”

“Attractives?”

Stephenson slowly shook his head, his face creasing with grim speculation as he considered the question. “Unpowered, the gravity rotors should keep turning as long as we don’t move the ship too much, as gyro forces will stop them in a couple of hours. The book says that they’re good for a week, but they were never tested for zero power status, sooo …” He shook his head again.

“Don’t worry about it, Ben, as if we don’t leave here today won’t be alive in a week. Tactical and defensive?”

Hewton grimaced by way of bleak precedent to answering Den’s question.

“It’s not pretty, commander. With the main bus offline we’ve lost all the primaries and some of the secondary’s. Shields are intact but we can’t get power to the banding generators. Apart from the vertical launch system, which we can load manually, all the torpedoes are unserviceable due to the broken bus. The forward turrets are out, but I can give you one, maybe two of the sluts if we can use the chemical generators on the local rear bus. On the plus side, the close in systems are operational. I can give you Phallanx and grenades at a minutes notice, same for the flak turrets.” Hewton paused, an odd half smile cutting his face as he considered some amusing thought.

“What’s so funny, Tom?” Stephenson asked.

“You may not believe this but the LAW is still operational …of sorts.”

Denz gave the weapons specialist a questioning look, “What do you mean: of sorts?”

“Well, I know the LAW is responsible for this whole mess, but as a system it’s still intact. The attenuator may have reversed but the pressure released as designed, and the capacitors, charge couplers and its own direct bus all show as being serviceable. Look …” Hewton moved to the main display and one by one slid the red error flags aside to reveal several pear green markers pointing to the LAW system, on all of which scrolled a single word: Serviceable.

Denz gave a wondering chuckle as he watched the display. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“We can’t focus or direct it, but it’ll certainly scare the bollox off anyone following. Might even give us a bit of a push, too.” Hewton’s finger traced the LAW emission path along the previously covered channel to the rear of the ship.

The wonder dropped from Denz’s face as something critical occurred to him. “Tom, is the LAW totally useless?”

“As a practical energy weapon it’s beyond use due to the missing iris, why do you ask, sir?”

Denz gave a faint inward sigh at what was yet another obstacle, “My plan was to deny further use of the FTL core by punching it with the LAW a few times before we left.”

Hewton’s face scrunched with doubt as he listened, “To be honest, sir, I don’t think the LAW would do much to such a solid object. It pierced the meter thick targets during the test shots, but on something this heavy we’d probably suffer more from the debris dispersion than the FTL drive would, especially without shields.”

“Not even PFM, Tom?” Stephenson asked.

PFM
. Denz had heard this saying amongst weapons officers before but had no real idea what it meant, and he wasn’t about to reveal his ignorance now.

“Will PFM work?”

“Firing by
pure fucking magic
…I don’t think so. Not in this case.” Hewton shook his head as he considered, “Without an iris the beam has a natural focus point about two hundred and fifty meters out, but it’s still not pinpoint focused. More the size of a house than a tennis ball, and we’d need to be very close to try. Too close in my opinion. But, commander, if you really want to destroy this thing, there’s a much easier way. Just turn it on.”

Denz stared at Hewton in a state of mild perplexity. For whatever reason he had considered the FTL weapon disabled, but now he thought about it, why should it be? They had only attacked the ships not the weapon itself. “Turn it on?”

“Yes, sir. The drive unit is essentially a copper tube with a Thorium core, kind of like a pencil. I’ll show you …” Hewton swiped the main display until a schematic view of the FTL drive appeared. “These tubes that coil around the core are part of the accelerator drive system to form a fissionable reaction,” He indicated the drive coil wrapping around the Thorium drive core, which in turn was surrounded by several thousand tonnes of copper. The entire drive unit resembled an elongated corndog. “It’s all still there and connected. These goons wired it up as simple as could be. No overload sensors, no radiation safeties; nothing! All we need do is turn it on and leave it. Without a target to release the load and it’ll soon become super-critical.”