The Spindle Station: Book 2 of the Alliance Conflict (37 page)

Chapter 17

Captain Solear looked around the bridge. It was clear that they were out of options. The ship was damaged and could barely move, let alone jump into hyperspace. The main power generator was destroyed and the second one was slowly failing.

Further, they were sealed inside the bridge and couldn’t leave if they tried. Possibly the most frustrating thing though was that they could not communicate with the rest of the crew. As a final insult, the passive scanner stopped working.

Everyone had been thinking the same thing. Ella finally vocalized it, “What do we do now Captain?”

Solear replied, “Really, there is nothing we can do now except wait to be rescued. Admiral Dolen should be back in Opron in six days. Then he will realize we did not return and send a ship to help us. We should be rescued in a week, 8 days at the most.”

“Captain,” Putat said silently. “You know that we only have 4 days of power. We will die days before the fleet gets here.”

Ella gently changed the subject by asking, “What do you think the humans will do?”

Solear answered, “Well, the remaining half of the Hiriculan cruiser still has power and air. They should fly over to the other ship and stay there until rescued. It really is the only thing that they can do.”

“It’s been a couple of hours since the last battle. The humans have probably already abandoned ship,” Putat theorized.

Clowy said, “I’m tired. We should sleep.”

Solear exclaimed, “That’s it. Clowy, you’re a genius.”

Clowy turned to him and said, “No, I’m tired.”

Solear smiled and said, “Computer. How much power would we save if we shut down all bridge operations and entered the cryostasis tubes?”

…Calculating. Current power usage is 10%. Shutting down bridge power and entering the cryostasis tubes will lower the usage to below 1%. The extra power will fully charge the ion cannon reservoir before the secondary generator has to shut down…

Solear said, “How long can the reservoir power the stasis tubes?”

…Approximately 720 days…

Solear said, “Clowy, what did you feel when you tested the stasis tubes?”

Clowy thought for a moment and replied, “It felt just like taking a 10 minute nap while being frozen solid.”

They exited the bridge proper and took the electro lift two levels down. Solear put Putat in the first tube, attached the restraining strap around his chest, and selected Advranki. He then loaded Ella, Clowy, and Lexxi into their tubes and selected the appropriate profiles.

As he was fastening Lexxi’s strap, she said, “If we die in here I am going to kill you.”

Fair enough Solear thought. He stepped into his own tube and said, “Computer, continue to monitor the secondary generator. Shut it off before it goes critical. Wake us if there is a significant change in the ship’s status.”

…Command recorded…

Solear said, “Computer, close my stasis tube.” He wasn’t able to fasten his own strap. Oh well, better to live and risk falling out of a tube than sit around for 4 days nervously waiting for the end to come.

……………………

Colin ran his hand along the surface of the perfectly smooth joint where the
Sunflower’s
main power generator was attached to the hull. He said, “It feels perfectly smooth.”

He continued running his hand up and down where the joint should be. It was perfectly smooth. There was the hull; then at a right angle there was the edge of the power generator. There was no transition from one type of metal to the next. One just flowed into another. More importantly, there was no seam indicative of a weld joint.

“Okay, so the aliens are better metallurgists than we are.” Colin instantly regretted saying aliens the moment it left his lips. He needed to lead by word as well as by example.

Thankfully, both John and Becky let the comment pass without issue. John replied, “You are correct. These two pieces are clearly different types of steel. They have somehow been fused together at a molecular level. The welding process is beyond our understanding or our ability to duplicate.”

Becky was at the engineering station reviewing what limited data was available. She said, “They call it photonic absorption.”

Colin replied, “A photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of light.”

Mike said, “What’s a quantum?”

Colin replied, “The smallest particle. A photon is a key element in light. A photon is the force that makes a laser work.”

Mike said, “Oh, so it must use a similar principle as their beam weapons then?”

Colin nodded in agreement and was about to explain further when Becky interrupted, “It says that a photonic absorption reaction needs an environment. Even if we knew how to do it, we wouldn’t be able to without air.”

Colin shrugged. It stood to reason that aliens could weld joints better than humans. After all, they had invented hyperspace drives, power generators, and a host of other amazing technologies. Heck, they were probably better dancers too. He briefly imagined Lexxi and Becky having a dance off to the Macarena (Los Del Rio 1994).

Colin was at heart a pragmatist. It really didn’t matter to him at this point what they couldn’t do. Colin replied, “Okay, can we cut it?”

John replied, “Yes. At least I think so. I mean this is really high quality alloy steel, but it is steel. We brought acetylene torches with us from Earth. They should be able to cut through the seam. Also, they have their own oxygen tanks, so they will work in a vacuum."

John had obtained an acetylene torch from inventory a few minutes earlier. He lighted it and tried to burn through one of the invisible seams that held the power generator to the hull. Fortunately, it worked. Colin waved to the three crew members to start torching other seams. After 30 minutes they had cut everything that was holding the destroyed power generator to the
Sunflower
.

Colin waved his arms in the air and yelled, “Okay, let’s give it a tug.”

Paul was waiting patiently in one of the fighters just off the side of the cruiser. He gently edged the fighter as close as possible to the power generator. They attached a heavy length of cable from the fighter to the generator.

Paul backed the fighter as slowly and carefully as possible; dragging the destroyed power generator out of the ship. Paul then backed the fighter well away from both ships, swung the nose half-way around, and released the generator in the rough direction of the system’s sun.

Colin inspected the area. The torch work was very well done. It looked great by human standards, but rather poor compared to what had been there. Oh well, better to have an ugly, functioning power generator than a beautiful, broken one.

Installation was going to be relatively easy. There were only two wires connected to the power generator – the main trunk line and a far smaller diagnostic line that led to engineering.

Colin realized that he was starving and decided to make a quick trip to the john. Mike, Ben, John and Becky, the other four engineers, joined him for a meal and a planning session.

Becky started the conversation by saying, “Switching the units is going to be the easy part.”

Colin thought that the swap was going to be anything but easy. He responded, “Removing the old unit was easy because the Hiriculans blew a giant hole in the side of the ship. We are going to have to remove a section of the Hiriculan cruiser almost as big.”

Becky waved her hand dismissively. She continued, “We have a bigger problem. The trunk line is too short to reach from the primary power generator to the ion cannon. Plus, the secondary generator is going to have to be turned off in a few days. That means we are going to have to wire the bridge directly into the main generator.”

Colin missed having the computer available through his communication pad. It probably could have estimated with a fair degree of accuracy how much time they had before being forced to turn off the secondary generator. The initial, and only, estimate he had received said 4 days. However, with the bridge lowering its energy consumption, they should have enough stored energy in the ion cannon to survive another day or possibly two.

Colin responded, “No. We can leave the trunk line where it is, connecting the secondary generator to the ion cannon. Then we only have to run the primary to the secondary. We can still flow electricity through the secondary to the bridge even if it is turned off.”

Becky responded, “You’re right. That could work. We cut the line and used the 1/3 portion. Now we can run the 2/3 section directly between the two generators.”

Colin checked the distance on the only active workstation. He noticed the clock on the workstation and realized that only 6 hours had passed since they entered Trilon. He couldn’t believe it. He nodded in agreement and said, “Yes. It should work.”

That problem solved, Mike started a new conversation thread. He said, “I inspected the hull. It is mostly intact, except of course for the places it isn’t.”

Becky commented, “Nice work Captain Obvious.”

Mike smiled at Becky’s comment and continued, “I believe that we can fix the huge hole on the starboard side by removing two large pieces from the Hiriculan cruiser and welding them to the
Sunflower
.” Mike drew a small sketch. There was a large piece that covered the majority of the hull and a smaller piece directly in front of the power generator.

Colin replied, “Smart thinking. By removing it in two pieces instead of one you can weld the first piece onto the hull without waiting for the power generator to be installed.”

Becky asked, “What about the inner hull. You are going to have to replace it before you can install the outer hull.”

Mike replied, “That will be extremely difficult. The inner hull is attached to four levels of flooring and is cross braced. We would have to torch for a week or two to remove it.”

Colin replied, “We have 96 hours to get the primary generator installed.” He left unsaid ‘before we all die’. Colin continued, “What else can we do?”

Becky answered, “Simple. Pull another piece of the outer hull and weld it to the gap in the inner hull. Also, you will have to weld new floors for adequate bracing.”

Colin asked, “What about the missing missile launcher?”

Mike replied, “I checked. We don’t have enough spare parts in inventory to build a replacement. It is possible that we can remove one from the Hiriculan ship, but we would have to modify the firing mechanism to allow it to use Alliance protocols.”

John added, “Further, we have no way of opening and closing the port in the hull. As you know, the nose of the cannon rests against the outer hull. When it is ready to be fired, an electromagnet slides a small piece of the hull aside. When it isn’t firing, the electromagnet holds it in place. It’s also possible that a small photonic absorption occurs to keep it airtight.”

Colin was frustrated. He really wanted a 10
^th
missile launcher. He said, “Okay, so the human equivalent is a manual slide with a giant spring lock. Just build that.”

The next four days progressed in an organized fashion. They were absolutely chaotic, but organized. They quickly fell into a routine – weld, torch, weld, torch, sleep, eat, and repeat.

They started by using the torches to cut a straight line from the top to the bottom of the ship. It was extremely dangerous. One false move and they could cut their suit or drift off into space. The line was too ragged, so they used the beam cannons from the AAU’s to blast the edges and make them as smooth as possible.

Now that they had a clean starting point, they switched to the Hiriculan cruiser. They first removed a section of the hull to allow access to the power generator. Next they removed a much larger section from the same side. Combined, the two pieces exactly matched the
Sunflower’s
missing section.

Finally, they removed a third piece of outer hull that was appropriately sized to cover the hole in the inner hull. One team began welding this piece to Sunflower’s inner hull while the second team continued removing the power generator.

Near the end of the second day, the floors were replaced, a Hiriculan missile launcher had been installed, and the inner hull was welded in place. The floor was stark, gray and had multiple weld lines running the entire length. The inner hull was crisscrossed with welding seams.

Colin inspected the work. It looked terrible compared to what had been there before, but it was functional. The new door that led from the inner to the outer hull looked strangely out of place. The door was critical because someone would have to go through it to manually release the spring and open the port that covered the 10
^th
missile launcher. He opened the door and looked out into space. It was a pretty view.

Day three was consumed with removing the Hiriculan power generator and welding the large outer hull piece in place. They started by TIG welding a 30 mm (1 ft) brace to the inner side of the existing outer hull. Then they carefully placed the new hull in the correct location.

One team then began TIG welding the brace to the new section of the hull while the second team used an electron beam welder to weld the outside of the hull to the brace. Unlike TIG welding that requires solder and leaves a bead, electron beam (EB) welding fuses the two pieces together by shooting high velocity electrons at the two materials to be joined.

The result of the EB weld is a seam that is smooth to the touch and is slightly discolored or burned looking. This type of weld was perfect for the hull’s exterior because the exterior needed to be smooth to allow the cruiser to easily fly through hyperspace. The drag caused by a TIG weld could potentially tear off the hull plating during hyper flight and destroy the ship.

On day 4 they completed the installation of the power generator, welded it into place, and welded the final piece of the inner hull in place. Colin wasn’t happy with the welds, so he ordered that they secure the generator with angle brackets and lag bolts.