HBWnovel Chapter 254 - Two Eleven Accelerated Refit
Chapter 254 - Two Eleven Accelerated Refit
August 1st, 008 SDE, Anchorage:
Countryman leaned over the railing a bit and watched the work crews. Following the news that a war was brewing, Countryman had kicked things into high gear. The council discussion had gone long that day, but in the end, they were accelerating their schedules. More hands-on the job only helped so much, but they were making progress.
Down below he could see numerous engineers as they worked together to finish the modifications to the bridge. The module was already nestled in place, the recently replaced bulkheads having been most of the effort. Now they were simply reinstalling the outer armor, the bridge-specific armor was already in place as well. That was how he'd designed the bridge module. Hell, the entire module was technically a small ship in and of itself.
The bridge was protected by twelve meters of outer armor, followed by a series of reinforced bulkheads before you reached a secondary armor belt six meters thick around the entire module. The module itself consisted of two decks, with the upper bridge, his office, the officer conference room and a small corridor making up the entirety of deck one. Deck two was the lower bridge, a mess hall, a few emergency bunks, a bathroom, an arms locker, a tool closet, and even a small medical bay.
The module also had two tiny engines, so that it could function as a giant oversized escape capsule. Not that anyone wanted to use that function. With the refit, he'd had that internal secondary belt, and the bulkheads replaced with the new alloy. Internal blast doors and bulkheads had also been updated. With the improvements, the bridge was going to be one of the safest places on the ship, despite the problems presented by being so close to the outer hull. Of course, it was a rather small target and rarely did it get targeted, most hits were usually directed at less vital areas. Then again, it was already a heavily armored section, most critical areas were hardened to ensure that even a penetrating hit would have to get through more armor.
He couldn't see it at the moment, but he was quite aware of the state of the ship's sensor array. Every sensor cluster on the ship had been ripped out for modifications. Hundreds of crewmen and women were working on them at this very moment. Some of the array was already coming online and Ruri was conducting test scans.
Elsewhere they had the entire Vulcan fleet on the ground, while they added the new Heavy Pulsar turrets to the ships. The only vessel actually on patrol right now was the one Captain Dykes was in charge of, the Avalon. Avalon afterall was the only Vulcan class ship equipped with pulsar projectors, and he didn't want to risk them being attacked without a warning.
Preparing for this war, however, was pretty much the first thing on his list right now. The Drifter cargo vessels had brought with them much-needed supplies including a large number of photon warheads. They were not as powerful as his own, but with a little modification, they could be converted to Mark II specs. He'd delivered them to Smith and she was busy running them through the factories for conversion into torpedoes and missiles he could use. The additional materials were a welcome stockpile for this coming war and he had a feeling it was going to be something.
He'd read the intelligence, the Raiders and their allies had a significant advantage in terms of ships. More interestingly the Drifters had heard rumors of the Raiders employing drone technology, there were also rumors about the Cooperative working on that tech. Countryman was inclined to believe both rumors, but he wasn't too worried about drones. The Enterprise was well equipped for fighting such light vessels and she had manned fighters, piloted fighters, especially with cybernetic enhancements. Many of his pilots had basic implants for just that reason, part of why they had such high combat scores. They wouldn't still be here without some talent.
With such an advantage, Countryman was naturally worried that they would mount an attack on Anchorage. The facility was vital to their survival here, it would be a hard blow if they lost it. Not irrecoverable, but the losses in material would be hard to recover from and they'd be unable to repair any hull damage without a new port.
Given those concerns, he'd also accelerated the deployment of additional DP-12 platforms, ones upgraded with Pulsar launchers. In a few weeks, they'd have a network of dozens of platforms, along with additional surface emplacements. Countryman, Richards and Smith had discussed that extensively, they'd directed as many hands as they could to get that done. Anyone who wasn't helpful on the ship were fortifying Anchorage or preparing it for war in another fashion. The idea for the surface emplacements, included additional armor arrays, both for power generation and limited protection of the asteroid's surface. While for weaponry, they were going to mount photon launchers and high-yield particle cannons on the surface. Pulsar launchers would be added as the weapons became available for installation. Each defense station was also going to have a localized fusion generator, just enough for backup power during a battle. Primary power was to be supplied by the armor paneling on the surface.
Footsteps closed in, "I was told I'd find you here."
He turned to see Felki, "Ah Captain Felki? What brings you up here?"
"The Stormwolf is about ready to depart, we've offloaded all the cargo we brought, and we need to get back to patrolling near the Lodge. I'd like to stay a little longer, Delfi's been having the time of her life, but it takes twenty-one days to get back to the lodge from here."
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"It's a fair trip, I wish you a safe journey."
"Thank you, Captain. I'll send you a message when the Raiders declare war."
"Hopefully we have time to complete our preparations. Fortunately, we don't have very many ships to mobilize, so we can be ready soon."
"Right, you never did tell me how many ships you have.
"Our entire fleet is pretty much here, we have the Enterprise, twenty Vulcans, three hundred and forty assault shuttles, and seventy-two strike fighters. We used to have a few destroyers but they sank years ago. Unfortunately, we haven't had the time or the materials to replace them."
"I see," she replied, then she shifted, "hopefully that will be enough."
"We can build more, fighters, combat shuttles and Vulcans aren't that expensive. Anything bigger would be harder for us to manage. Doesn't help that our species is endangered, we just don't have the manpower the other factions do."
"I think you said something about that, but you never told me how many of you there are."
"Counting both species? A hundred and twenty thousand."
"Both?" she took another look around, "I don't see two species?"
"I know we look very similar, and we can interbreed but there are in fact two species on my ship."
"I hadn't noticed," replied Felki.
"Well aside from skin color it's hard to tell," said Countryman as he turned to escort her, leaving unsaid the part about it getting harder to tell the two species apart. Robins had noted among certain individuals the presence of gene markers belonging to the other species, yet these markers were in individuals too old for interbreeding to be the cause. Chief Robins had his theories on why, but research on the subject was still ongoing. Just one more project for the genelab, and while interesting it was one that fell a little lower on the priority tree. Figuring out the mutations and fixing their gender skew problem was much higher on the tree. It was mainly being looked into to see if there was a correlation with the other issues.
Taking the stairs, he led her down the various walkways and towards the docks. Busy workers passed them as the conversation shifted to other things. "I see Delfi is still with you."
"I'd like to leave her somewhere safer, especially since the Stormwolf is about to go to war, but I know she won't like being sent anywhere."
Countryman chuckled, "You've got a real problem there."
"What about you? You mentioned having a daughter."
"Yeah, Rika, she's turning four this month," he sighed. "Recent events seem to be casting a shadow on that though."
"Four? Ouch I imagine she can be a real handful."
"Well I have Rose to help look out for her, she's done a really good job of it actually."
She stopped, "A helper? Oh I wish I had one, maybe they'd keep Delfi out of trouble."
"I don't know, kids tend to find ways to get into trouble regardless."
"Guess you might be right."
"Now with Rika, I'm planning to put her into school. She is old enough now that she could do with interacting with kids her own age. We've got plenty of them on the Enterprise."
She chuckled, "Strangely you aren't the only warship around with kids onboard."
"Guess not, does that mean we will be shooting at kids with the Raiders?"
"Sometimes, but people do try to keep the kids away from harm, many of them will be left behind on the various colonies we've built out here."
Countryman sighed as they moved onto a different walkway skirting a few kids playing with their younger siblings, "That's nice, but I'll have to keep it in mind."
"I wouldn't worry about it."
"That's an option too, but it does cast this war business in a new light."
"We aren't the aggressors here, sure we are mobilizing, but that is preparation to defend ourselves."
Countryman nodded, but did not reply as the Stormwolf came into view. Drawing near the gangplank, he stopped, "Well, then this is where I leave you. I must say it's been a pleasure having you."
"Farewell then, may we meet again," she replied.
"Oh I'm sure we will, only next time we will be allies on the battlefield again."
Felki sighed, "Right, can't say I'm looking forward to it."
"Things look grim, but they could always be worse. We may yet prevail."
She grinned and nodded, saying something quickly in reply before taking the gangplank into her ship. Countryman turned and walked away, his mind already on other duties.