Troy Rising 3 - The Hot Gate (37 page)

And particles. Light got very strange as you started to push into “relative” space. Light started shifting. Ultraviolet, which was everywhere, started turning into microwaves, which could be very impolite. X-rays, which were common enough, turned towards gamma rays. The screens and the armor could handle some gamma but enough of it was going to kill you eventually.

Then there was the problem that calling space “vacuum” was being polite. Especially in the inner system there were masses of charged particles as well as micrometeorites to consider. The “maximum velocity” of a Myrmidon was based on the probability of survival of the boat if it hit something the size of, say, a human finger while going at a teensy tiny fraction of the speed of light. They had light screens but an impact at that sort of speed got dicey no matter how you cut it.

“Yeah,” Dana said. “That’s sort of the point. We can cut this run in half if we pull max thrust.”

“And if one of these over-worked boats loses an inertial compensator pulling four hundred gravs, the crew turns to mush,” Raptor pointed out.

“This is not a challenge when I say this,” Dana said. “But my division’s compensators are going to hold. We’ve been running checks the whole time. They’re good.”

There was a long pause before Raptor replied.

“Division Two has permission to detach from formation and return at maximum acceleration to Base,” the flight leader said. “Division will not exceed four thousand meters per second square of acceleration. Division will slow acceleration at the slightest sign of failure of any core drive, shield or inertial compensation system. Division will not exceed thirty million meters per second velocity. Division will, and let me make this perfectly clear, observe all safety and astrogational warnings. Gimme a readback on that, Comet.”

“Division will not exceed four thousand meters per second square, aye…”

* * *

“Booyah for attention to critical engineering imperatives!” Dana caroled as the Thermopylae came into view and the decel started to fall off.

Pulling three gravs—except for a brief turn-over—for four hours had been a bitch. But they’d managed to cut the same amount of time off of the run and that shower was practically in the bag.

“I can breathe again!” Vila commed.

“Now you know why I have you lazy asses in the gym every morning,” Dana replied.

And more importantly, to her personal way of thinking, the compensators and drives on the boats had worked like a charm.

“And why I had you guys sweating on repairs.”

“We take your point, Engineer’s Mate,” Palencia commed. “I am very much looking forward to my rack. And comming Sancho from the comfort of my rack to taunt him.”

“Division Two, Leonidas,” the Thermopylae’s AI commed. “Welcome back. You’re early.”

“We’ve been pulling max,” Dana said, stretching. Their spacesuits acted as G suits—compressing to keep blood from pooling in the legs—so she wasn’t in any real pain. But it had been uncomfortable as hell. “Looking forward to a shower. We are, sorry, pretty tired of the… Spartan lifestyle we’ve been living the last few days.”

“Good one,” Angelito said, laughing.

“Unfortunately, you’re going to have to wait on your sybaritic joys, DivTwo,” Leonidas commed. “We’ve got a hold on all entering traffic until we get Granadica in the bay.”

“Doh!” Dana exclaimed. “How long?”

“Not long, honey,” Granadica commed. “I’m through the gate and crawling up to the Therm now. Take a look!”

Dana swiveled her vision blocks to the indicated vector and squealed.

“Granny! Is that really you!”

The fabber was now a kilometer of pristine stainless steel with the exception of enormous laser etched script spelling out her name. She positively glittered in the light from the distant sun.

“You look fah-bulous!”

“Don’t I just,” Granadica replied. “I think I’ve only got about ten percent original parts what with the first major maintenance cycle and this last one.”

“Well, you are looking good,” Dana said.

“So are your boats,” Granadica said. “You’ve kept them very well. But did you really need to pull that much accel for four hours? You know that puts a lot of stress on the systems. They’re going to need to be fully certified as soon as you land.”

“There’s a standard maintenance cycle for high stress flight, Granadica,” Dana said. “We were going to have to do a thirty-sixty cycle on them, anyway, given how long we were continuously operational. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done the fast run. And it’s going to wait until tomorrow. I want a shower.”

“Those boats are your life, Engineer’s Mate,” Granadica said. “What if the Rangora come through today? We’re going to need them up and running!”

“Granadica,” Dana said, dangerously. “We have mandated crew rest for the remainder of the duty day. I am not going to have tired engineers who have been living out of their suits for the last four days pulling maintenance on my boats. I run a tight ship in my division, Granadica. Unless you can find some area where I am not performing to designated standard and condition, and good luck on that one, keep your sticky fingers off my division. We clear?”

“Yes, Dana,” Granadica said, meekly.

“Just so we’re clear,” Dana said. “I’m glad to see you. It’s good to have another friend around. And sometime I want to talk about the grapnels. I don’t think we came up with the right hypothesis at the talks. I think there’s something theoretically wrong with the design.”

“I was part of the design team,” Granadica pointed out.

“I know,” Dana said, hastily. “But I think it’s something…funky.”

“How funky?” Granadica said. “Hold that thought. I’ve got a tricky maneuver here.”

The fabber was a kilometer long and three hundred meters wide. The main bay doors of the Thermopylae were three kilometers wide on the exterior but only a kilometer on the interior. That wasn’t a tight squeeze, but the fabber wasn’t exactly maneuverable. It wasn’t really designed to move around a lot. The drive systems and maneuvering thrusters were more to keep it in a non-orbital position in deep space. There were tugs to help it move through the opening but from Granadica’s scathing monologue they were, in her opinion, less help than hindrance.

“I’ve got it, Leo!” Granadica sent over the open channel. “Have Tug Nine stop thrusting. I’ve got it!”

“You are approaching unsafe position on your aft, Granadica,” Leonidas replied.

“Watch your own butt, you pervert! See! Got through fine.”

“Internal safety is my responsibility,” Leonidas commed. “You shall allow the tugs and support ships to move you into position.”

“They’re gonna scratch my brand-new shell!”

“The grapnels have been covered in rubber, Granadica,” Leonidas replied. “And it was not a request.”

“It’s like listening to an old married couple,” Angelito said.

“And they barely know each other,” Dana pointed out. “This is going to be…interesting.”

“I checked the four-nine-eight,” Valencia said, in an exasperated tone.

Deb was doing her usual ghostly “walk” through the division, ensuring that all her little lambs were attending to their proper tasks. She paused by Twenty-Three, though, when she heard Valencia apparently talking to himself. She could hear him talking to himself because, unlike the conditions before she left for Wolf, the Squadron Docking Area was remarkably quiet.

Not, as had been the case for most of her tenure with the 143rd, because all the engineers except her division were ghosting in their rooms or the food court, but because they were all very busy performing actual maintenance. In their suits. Mostly with their helmets on. Per regulation.

If the squadron had experienced some shock at the arrival of the new “Norte” command contingent, not to mention Commander Echeverría and the clear and unmistakable threat of being removed from the Alliance “for cause,” the arrival of Granadica had been more along the lines of being hit by lightning. Repeatedly.

As Dana had suspected, Granadica took much the same approach as she had upon arrival. The difference being that Granny could “see” every action of every member of the unit whenever they were in monitored areas, find them when they were in unmonitored areas and nag them, constantly, about what they were doing wrong. Through their implants.

Two engineers had had to be sedated and returned to earth because “the voices in their heads” wouldn’t stop. The rest had discovered that if they just did the tasks, to standard, Granadica, generally, left them alone. If they didn’t, she was going to keep nagging them and nagging them and nagging them until…

“AIEEEEE! THE VOICES!”

Which was another reason Dana was mildly concerned that Vel had his helmet off and was talking to himself.

“You saw me check it,” Vel said. “It was a good check and it met specs… Why? It does? O-kay… Damnit. I just checked it. Why? How?”

“Vel?” Dana said, flipping through the hatch. The cargo bay was under gravity but she was used to that. “Everything okay?”

“Did you know that sometimes these things got out of spec because you’d adjusted one of the other plates?” Vel asked.

“Yep,” Dana said. “Rarely, but it happens.”

“It’s like chasing your own tail!”

“Not if you do it in the right sequence,” Dana said. “Unfortunately, the sequence depends upon which set of plates you’re working on. And I don’t know that there’s an SOP for it. Who were you talking to?”

“Granadica,” Vel said, blushing. “I…didn’t want to ask you if you were busy and…”

“And I didn’t have that much to do right now,” Granadica said. “I was not interfering, as I understand your meaning, in your Division, Engineer’s Mate.”

“No issues, Granadica,” Dana said. “Thank you for your assistance. Can I ask a question?”

“Any time, Dana, you know that,” Granny said.

“There isn’t a standard operating procedure on that evolution,” Dana said. “I’m not even sure why it occurs and it seems to be something you just run across from time to time.”

“It has to do with the specific gravitic frequency adjustment,” Granadica said. “The math is obviously complex but it occurs under predictable conditions. And there’s a straightforward adjustment series for it.”

“Which means there should be an SOP,” Dana said. “Unfortunately, I don’t know how you do an SOP.”

“You write it and submit it to your chain of command,” Granadica said. “You’ve seen them. You just follow the same outline. Who then, if it passes their review, submits it to BuShips through channels. BuShips reviews it and decides whether to make it a fleet-wide SOP or not. The issue is applicable to more than just the Myrmidons. I’ve had the same issue crop up in the Constellation we just received. Frankly, I don’t think much of the work that BAE did on it. Just terribly sloppy. They talk about my quality control?”

“The problem being, I don’t know why it occurs,” Dana pointed out. “You just run into it.”

“Well, obviously you’d need help with the math,” Granadica said. “No offense intended, Dana. I can’t think of more than three humans on earth who wouldn’t. And they’d need to run it through an AI for the simulations. But it’s old hat to me.”

“So you could write the SOP,” Dana said.

“Yes,” Granadica said. “But I don’t want to get promoted. And you brought up the fact that there needs to be one. Velasquez…”

“I understand the need for some discretion, Granadica,” the engineer said.

“In fact…” Granadica said. “Here’s how we’ll do it. EA Velasquez will actually write the SOP, supervised by EM2 Parker who will assure it is to standard outline. EM2 Parker will review it then submit it to me. I’ll fill in the math and how to anticipate the issue and rectify it based upon an equation that’s simple enough to run through an engineering board. The paper will be submitted as Parker as primary, Velasquez as primary writer with technical assistance by, well, me. Really, we’ll have to work together on it.”

“Works for me,” Parker said.

“When are we going to work on it?” Velasquez asked.

“You’ve got all those free hours after duty,” Parker replied.

“Oh, gee, homework,” Velasquez said. “Thanks!”

* * *

“I think we’re to the point of just moving commas around,” Parker said, looking at the completed SOP.

The Standard Operating Procedure, Anticipation, Analysis and Rectification of Interactive Gravitic Faults in Inertial Compensations Systems, Draft, had taken three weeks to write with input not only from Granadica but Chief Barnett who, it turned out, had been the “lead” author on four-hundred and twenty-three Standard Operating Procedures and “associate” on over a thousand more.

There had been some very frustrating portions. Granadica did not seem to have the concept of “keep it simple” and the SOP very much had to have her input and assistance. Barnett had kicked it back four times based on “the sort of wording the weenies in BuShips like.” And the procedure itself was not a simple evolution, no matter how hard Dana tried to make it one.

But in the end, she found she’d enjoyed it. She’d never been much of a student. Good enough that she could survive the math and physics portion of A school but not a natural scholar. This, though, was applicable to real life. Somehow that made it…better.

“I agree,” Granadica said. “I still say that we should include the Theta factor analysis procedure, though.”

“You yourself said that it’s so rare you’ve only seen it twice in eight hundred years,” Dana said, trying not to sigh. “And we noted that in the event of failure of this procedure, Theta Factor Analysis Procedures must be undertaken. We’ll write that up as a separate SOP and it will probably be classed as a depot level repair. Which means you get to do it,” she added with a malicious grin.

“What’s this ‘we’ll’ write it up?” Velasquez said. “You mean ‘Velasquez will write it up and we’ll tell him everything he did wrong!’ ”

“Think of it as preparing for your job as an officer,” Dana said. “It’s what officers do, right? Paperwork?”

“I was under the impression that it was swanking around the Officer’s Clubs,” Velasquez said, looking puzzled. “I mean, we officer class sign paperwork, but it’s enlisteds that do the writing. Right? We would not be so crass as to wield a pen for something as mundane as actual writing? Except to write to our families for more money because we lost on the horses again.”