The War for Profit Series Omnibus (50 page)

“Sure, that would work. Let me go down stairs and tell my wife about the trip, but not the lifters, of course.” Robert left.

Tad said, “I really don’t think we’ll need that many tanks or guns. I think we can get the job done with six tanks and two guns, and the second gun is only there as back up.”

“Break it down for me, Tad.” Galen said.

“The two battalion headquarters tanks, we need them for their comms gear, with one heavy tank platoon, that’s more than enough fire power, that’s six Hercules tanks. That leaves the gun carriages. We only need one but better to bring two, just in case.”

Spike said, “That means we’ll only need twenty lifters. The rest of the heavy tanks can get on the line to support the indigs.”

Galen said, “Could we bring a light tank company along to support the guns?”

Spike said, “I’d suggest bringing a Cav troop instead. Much more flexible.”

Tad said, “Take the whole Cav battalion. Once past that hill they can attack from the flank. They can punch right into what’s left of the Mosh rear area and that’s the end of the fight right there, no need for bombardment from space.”

Galen said, “We’ll see. It’s something we need to game out a few times before making a decision. But I do agree with just twenty lifters. The less there are, the easier it is to keep them secret.”

Robert returned. “All right, we can leave right away. But you better have me back here in less than ten days or Nan will have your hide.”

Galen stood. “I have more good news. We only need twenty lifters.”

“Good,” said Robert. “We can discuss my compensation along the way.”

Galen said, “I think a consulting fee is in order, for one technical thing or another.”

“We’ll work something out.” Robert winked.

Chapter Five

The next morning Galen, Tad and Spike met Robert at the Jasmine Panzer Brigade machine shop on Mandarin. Galen unlocked the door and stepped inside. The machine shop was built on to the side of the Brigade’s ordinance-level maintenance bay and was normally staffed with machinists, technicians, engineers and mechanics but Galen had given them the week off with pay and placed the building off limits. Six Hercules heavy battle tanks and two Hercules tank chassis with turrets removed and particle cannons mounted took up most of the bay space.

“Just the four of us?” said Robert.

“That’s right. The fewer people who know about this the better and the four of us already know about it.” Galen looked around. “I hope you can live on field rations, it’s all we got. Nothing in or out until we’re done.”

“Might as well get started,” said Tad.

Robert said, “Then let me direct your attention to the vacuum chamber. Inside is everything you’ll need to assemble the lifters. Suit up and get in there and I’ll take the pressure down to zero.”

Galen said, “You heard him. There’s only room for you two in there. It won’t take long.”

Galen helped Spike and Tad pull on vacuum suits, very similar to the combat suits they wore as tank crewmembers. They entered the chamber and Galen closed the door behind them and spun the wheeled handle to seal the door nice and tight. Galen and Robert then stood at the control panel and looked through the thick ballistic glass window.

Galen turned on the comms. “You guys hear me okay?”

“Roger,” Tad gave a thumb up with a gloved hand.

Spike adjusted the volume by turning a knob on the left side of his helmet. “Good now, was a little loud before.”

Galen said, “Well you have excellent hearing. The suit’s usual occupant is probably half deaf from working in this noisy shop.”

Robert said, “Okay gentlemen, I’m lowering the pressure so just stand in front of the window facing me and let me know if there’s a problem with your suit.” He flipped a switch and turned a knob and watched a gauge as its reading went to zero. “You guys still good?”

“Roger.” Tad

“Check. Just fine,” said Spike.

“Face about. Directly in front of you are boxes. Open them all now.”

They did, twenty cardboard boxes.

“Now one at a time, remove the cylinder and remove the plastic sleeve. I’ll talk you through the first one, then you can work from there and ask me questions if you get confused.”

“Works for me,” said Tad.

Robert cleared his throat, “Okay, take that cylinder and stand it with its open end up on the table.”

The first cylinder was more like a solid thirty centimeter long section of bar twenty centimeters across weighing four kilograms. Its open end showed a two centimeter wide hole drilled into it. The depth of the hole was twenty five centimeters.

“Next, reach across the table and get a small box and open it. Inside it is the controller assembly. It’s a rod made of carbon 14 nanotubes assembled… I mean, just be careful to insert the end with the insulative seal first, and press it firmly but slowly into the cylinder until it stops and then ensure its end is a centimeter below the surface of the hole.”

They did as directed and showed their work to Robert through the window.

“Okay, now for the fun part. Take the beaker on the table and hold it under the valve of the liquid hydrogen one tank to your right. Fill it about half way, and then pour that liquid into the cylinder, all the way up to the top.”

Spike handled the liquid hydrogen. He set the beaker aside, some liquid still in it.

“Good job, you’re a real pro.”

Spike gave a hand salute. “Now what, professor?”

“Now you will reach to your left and secure a length of insulator. I’ve already cut them to length, you should see a carton full of lose, rubber-hose looking things…”

Tad held one up. A section of orange tube twenty centimeters in diameter, paper thin, thirty centimeters long.

“You got it. Now slide that over the cylinder.”

Tad and Spike both put on insulative sleeves.

“Now it really gets fun. To the far left, beside the crate of sleeves, is another stack of boxes. Open them. Good, now take out one cylinder and slide it over the first cylinder.”

The second cylinder was five centimeters shorter than the first one and the wall was only four centimeters thick but the end was ten centimeters thick. There was an insulative cushion in the bottom, five centimeters thick but spongy. Tad slid the second cylinder over the upturned end of the first cylinder.

“See the press on the right, by the door? Stand the cylinder in there and press its top down to sixty kilos pressure per square centimeter. Then tilt it level and insert it into the round hole of the crimper and give it another sixty kilos to crimp the thing together real good, and you’re done with your first lifter.”

They did, putting the completed lifters into the first set of boxes. They continued working, the task simple enough they didn’t ask for more instructions. Galen and Robert watched them intently the whole time. In just under an hour, the work was done.

Robert said, “Gentlemen, I’m going to slowly raise the pressure. Keep your suits on. If there is any problem with the cylinder’s seals we’ll be able to see it from here, so stand away from them please.” Robert took ten minutes to let the pressure in the chamber normalize slowly. The cylinders were fine. “Congratulations gentlemen, you are now the only experienced lifter assembly line workers in the known universe. Galen, you can now open the chamber door and let them out.”

Galen spun the wheeled handle and pushed the latch and opened the door. Then he helped Tad and Spike out of their suits, and hung up the suits up for them.

“Bathroom,” said Tad. Spike followed him to the motor bay’s latrine.

Robert went into the chamber and grunted as he grabbed a lifter and put in on the table. He took it out of the box and inspected it. “Perfect.”

Galen said, “I should hope so. Want to eat before we test these things?”

“Sure. I’ve never eaten a military field ration before.”

“Oh, you’ll love them. Everyone does at first.” Galen walked over to the break area, a small room with a small, high window. A single light strip, stained gray in places, was glued to the ceiling right above a meter-square steel table bolted to the floor. It had four worn out metal chairs around it, scratch marks on the concrete floor from where the chairs had been slid thousands of times. A case of rations sat atop a rusted refrigerator. Galen pulled two single-serve boxes of shelf-life milk from the refrigerator, grabbed two rations from the box and handed one of each to Robert before taking a seat at the table. “Enjoy.”

After lunch, they set about the task of installing the lifters.

“So, where do we start?” said Tad.

Galen said, “I want to start with the gun carriages. Get the hardest ones out of the way and learn the hardest lessons first.”

“You’re the boss,” said Spike.

Robert walked over to the front of the first gun. “Here you have the intended lift point, shown by the towing shackle. What we’re going to do is remove these bolts, remove the towing shackle, drill all the way through the hull, install the lifter in a rated bracket on the inside, push longer bolts through from the inside, and then re-install the towing shackles, and put crown nuts on the exterior, drill across the threads and insert cotter pins to prevent loosening. Got it?”

“Got it,” said Galen. “But don’t we still have to test the lifters?”

“Okay, I forgot. We’ll do that now. Bring the lifters out and line them up over by the load-test weights.”

Robert chose the twenty one ton load test weight, a block of concrete that had an eyelet imbedded in each corner that held the ends of steel cables running diagonal across the block, equal slack in each. Tad, Galen and Spike carried the lifters over to the load test block and installed the mounting brackets to each lifter so that it could be hooked to the cables. Then Robert hooked the first lifter to the block and ran a power lead off the back end of the gun carriage to power a control unit. Then he ran one wire to the lifter’s larger end along the edge and soldered it in place with a small soldering gun he pulled from his pocket. He soldered another wire to the smaller end, in the center. Then he hooked the loose wire to the control unit and said, “Stand back.”

“Why the weak solder connections?” said Galen.

“It’s a fail safe. If the lifter is stronger than I predicted and snaps the lifting cables, the wires pull off easily so we don’t have a lifter taking off onto orbit or beyond.” Robert turned a knob and the slack came out of the cables. Then he gradually increased the lift until the concrete block was suspended ten centimeters off the floor of the bay. He studied his wrist chronometer, and then after a full minute had passed he set the block back down. “That one’s a go.” He pulled the wires off it, removed it from the cables, wrote “OK” on it with a paint pen and set it aside. He then put the next lifter on top of the block.

All three mercenaries watched, fascinated by the power of the lifters.

Testing complete, Robert said, “Enjoy the show?”

“I could watch this all day,” said Tad.

Robert said, “Well I’m a worn-out old man. I need a break. You young fellers can get started installing them. When you get this first one done come get me and I’ll check your work.”

“Roger,” said Galen.

Robert went to the shop foreman’s office and stretched out on the couch for a nap.

“Let’s do this,” said Tad as he applied a breaker bar with a reinforced 90mm socket to the leftmost bolt of the front left towing shackle mount. He pulled up hard and grunted. “Good lord that’s tight!”

Spike had a two meter long pipe, just big enough around to accommodate the handle of the breaker bar. “Let me show you a trick I learned in the military.” He slid the pipe over the handle of the breaker bar, gripped the very end furthest from the socket with one hand and pushed down. The bolt broke loose with a ‘tink’ sound. “Righty tighty, lefty loosey.” Spike then removed the socket from the bolt and turned it by hand to screw it out. “After they break loose, the big bolts are finger-tight.”

***

Two days later, Galen stood in front of the Brigade classroom. The assigned crews of the eight modified vehicles sat at the desks. “What you have in front of you is a non-disclosure agreement. Read it and sign it and pass it to your right for Major Koa; he’ll collect them up and then get out of here. What we have to discuss is none of his damned business.”

The mercenaries read the papers carefully and then signed them and passed them over to the right. Galen waited until Koa left the room. “Now that you’ve all been sworn to secrecy, I could drop my pants and whack off and you couldn’t tell anyone about it. But I wouldn’t do that to you, some things are humanly impossible to keep secret and that is one of them. No, what we’ll talk about today is a bunch of technical crap you wouldn’t want to tell anyone about anyway, it’s too boring. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the Advanced Traction Control System, or ATCS.”

Galen pulled back the curtain that had been covering the erasable board covering the flat screen at the front of the room. “The control for the ATCS is located in the cupola of the commander’s station of the Hercules tank, and just under the lip of the commander’s hatch of the mobile gun chassis. I didn’t have them put in front of the driver because the driver’s job is too involved to mess with a new gadget, and there isn’t room on the dashboard for it anyway.”

Galen pointed at a sketch on the board. “It has a single knob with a mark on it. Press the knob until you feel a click to turn it on, the mark will illuminate green. Press it again to turn it off. Point the knob straight up, the center of gravity of the vehicle is normal. Twist it right, and the center of gravity shifts to the front. Crank it to the left, the center of gravity shifts to the rear.”

Galen knew that, technically, it was true. He looked around the room. “Any questions?” Silence. Galen used the palm of his hand to erase the drawing. “Now I think that if you wanted to drive up a steep hill, up to an eight hundred mil angle, you’d want to shift the weight to the front. And if you were trying to cross soft ground without getting stuck, shifting the weight to the rear would keep you from getting stuck by keeping your nose from sinking into the ground. On soft ground turn the knob left, and to go up hill turn the knob right. Otherwise, leave it straight up or just turn it off.”

A hand went up. A troop stood up and said, “Sir, I’ve been driving tanks for a couple of years. I think you have it backwards.”

Galen smiled. “Troop, you can think whatever you want; it’s written in your contract. Maybe I do have it backwards, or not, it doesn’t matter. What matters is you learn how to effectively use this ATCS gadget. So this afternoon we’ll be out on the test track so you all can get the hang of it. And no ‘I told you so’ afterward, whether it’s you or I who has it backwards. The important thing is we all understand it before the next fight. That’s what matters. All I ask is you try it my way first, I think that’s fair. Any more questions?”

Galen counted to ten inside his head. “Very well. I’ll see you all inside the test track motor bay, mounted in your assigned vehicles no later than 1300 hours, duty uniform plus commo helmet. Until then, you’re dismissed.”