All That Glitters Ch. 16

Liea laughed, as they headed out the door, Lissette and Kim following.

"Pallanders has a few issues with engines harmonics that they are trying to defuse," Liea explained. "The ship did one day in the test circuit and went straight back to the barn because of it. We made it up to seventy-five percent light when the harmonics put an end to the testing that day.

"The ChEng says it reminds her of when the engines have been exposed to a near miss during a battle, the engines are a little out from each other and can't seem to bring themselves into alignment without some manual guidance. However, new engines should not do that, so, they are looking to see which of the engines is out vis-à-vis the others to see where and why the harmonics is starting.

"Once they find the source, correcting is should be fairly simple, and we'll be back in the test circuit," Liea told them with a smile as the ladies and Fayad headed for the central control.

NS Churchill, Pallanders Orbital Shipyard, Liramor Prime, Liramor System

As an all-hands exercise, including the captain, it had taken the crew of the Churchill and Pallanders workers seventeen days to strip the casing, take off the old sub-light engines, remove the old FTL drive and replace it with a new and improved version, strip all of the power wiring and control wiring harnesses, and remove the old Marilon generators. As Pascal Dejeu had predicted, the hardest part was stripping out the old power wires and control wiring harnesses for the ship's systems, and the removal of the Marilon generators because of the heavy shielding.

All the weapons turrets had been pulled from the vessel and completely rebuilt and replaced, while the missile/torpedo magazines, feeding cradles, loaders, and launchers had also been broken down, cleaned, repacked with proper grease, and rebuilt.

Now the ship had new wiring, new and far more capable M/A generators, a newer and more capable FTL drive, new and improved military-spec sub-light engines, new Nav, command, and fire control comps, new monitors throughout the ship, an upgraded internal and external sensor array, upgraded shielding, upgraded weapons capabilities, and Pallanders had even upgraded the kitchen.

The crew was working to replace the external casings and ready the ship for space, while the Pallanders workers were finishing the installation of the new sub-light engines aft.

All of this work had been done at breakneck speed, but with extreme attention to detail. Each substandard piece that had been removed, was carefully inspected by a ship certification officer not associated with Pallanders, imaged, sent to a lab for analyses, and a definitive chain of evidence was always kept under control. The navy would have enough detail to make every claim they needed to against the slipshod work that had been done previously.

But Cdr. Seldon did not care about that. What he did care about was getting his command back into space and having it certified space worthy once again. When the final bolt was torqued into place, the two crews let out a collective sigh of relief. It had been a hectic time, but they had done an amazing job. The crew would return to the ship on the morning, but for tonight, they would party!

Construction Bay Eight, Liramor-23, Piscium System

The navy supply ship, The Rowther, was unloading supplies into Construction Bay Nine for the NQM. Most of the supplies were destined for the new ship, though there were still some that would go to the other ships in Fiona's little defence fleet.

The Supply Officer had requisitioned an extra bay for the Marines and their material, so that he could place it where they needed it, but the best he could do was to share a bay. It turned out to be a good call on his part as the Marines were loaded down with equipment. This way, they didn't have to constantly come to him to get at their own material.

Several Combat Shuttles left the Rowther and slipped into bay eight. Their hatches opened and Marines in full combat EVA suits stepped out bringing sealed boxes into the bay. They locked them down on the deck while waiting for additional shuttles.

The Marines had thought that they had the bay to themselves, but several odd looking small vessels were parked in the bay. As they waited for more material, two more of the vessels sailed into the bay and set down near the inner wall. Their hatches opened and miners slipped out of the vessels and headed over to the airlock. The newcomers had to pass in front of the Marines to get to the airlock.

That's when the Marines got their first shock. The Marine squad of eleven had two women, but the remainder were men. They could clearly see three women and one man moving toward them. As the sun visors were up, they could all see the pretty faces of the three women. But what surprised the Marines was painted onto the miner's EVA suits.

On the man and one woman, was a rendition of the Medal of Bravery, painted onto their chests. Painted around the other pair of women's necks, was a rendition of the Cross of Bravery.

The four waved to the Marines as they passed and slipped into the airlock.

"Did you see that?" David 'Buzzard' Buzzle, asked of his teammates.

"Come on Buzzard, you've seen women before," 'Roz' Guellar mocked her friend.

"And they is pretty women, Roz," Buzzard acknowledged, "but that foursome was sporting two Medal of Bravery and two Cross of Bravery amongst them."

"Your shitting me, Buzzard," 'Cat' Catchette, came back.

"Nah, take a look," Buzzard told them and replayed the scene from his holo-suite to the team.

"Damn, this place got stories!" someone quipped.

"Can the chatter out there!" the squad sergeant sent his team. "Start breaking out the equipment that can be opened in vacuum," he ordered.

The squad had been anticipating the order and placed those boxes closest to the shuttle. They started placing items into, and onto their shuttle to prep it for its combat missions as other Marine shuttles slid into the bay.

NS Churchill, Test Circuit, Liramor System

Cdr. Seldon ordered his ship sealed and brought to pressure while Pallanders testers were all over the hull looking for leaks. None were found. Air was drawn from the bay in increments and no leaks were seen. Finally, the main doors to the bay were opened and the ship checked once more.

When he got the OK from the Pallanders team, he had the ships pilot lift the Churchill off the deck and slowly turn her around. She was pointed at the open door and her manoeuvring thrusters pushed her gently out into space. Once she was far enough from the station, the ChEng brought the sub-light engines online. The ship was ready for testing.

With Pallanders reps on board to fix any problems the ship went through a set of manoeuvres to ensure she responded to the basic commands. Power was pushed through the system and the ship was slowly brought up to half her old speed.

At forty-two percent C, the ship was put through a set of turns to test command and control. The ship brought her turrets online and locked the fire and control comps with the targeting comps and ships external sensors. A few minor glitches were noted, but the Pallanders team advised the captain, that these were easily rectified problems. The new shielding system was engaged and found to be working properly.

They brought the ship's speed up to and well past the old mark at eighty-four percent C, and continued to climb until they hit ninety-five percent C. At that speed, they experienced some significant buffeting from light torque, but the Pallanders team indicated that this was only a matter of balancing the engines.

The ship returned to the maintenance bay where the Pallanders team worked the ChEng to correct the noted problems. The external hatches were opened, and her missiles and torpedoes were placed back into the ship's magazines. The ship only had six 150cm tubes, but she carried twenty-four torpedoes, twelve missiles, and six configurable FTL probes.

The ship had one significantly upgraded three gun, Mk-30 pulse cannon turret on the dorsal deck and Pallanders had swapped out the outmoded, small plasma turrets on the lateral line for a twin gun fifty millimeter rail guns, one to each side. They were full sized turrets and could carry 12,000 rounds per gun in the turret. The auto-feeder could be reloaded via canisters from inside the ship. The ships magazine held a further 48,000 rounds to reload all the guns as required giving the ship a total of 96,000 rounds for its immediate use.

The ship might be small, but NS Churchill had teeth. Escort ships were designed to go into harm's way and kick ass.

The next day, the ship went through all the same tests and this time the light torque buffeting was considerably more under control. They pushed the little ship until she made ninety-seven percent light, where she maxed out. Cdr. Seldon was happy, that was a significant improvement in max speed, and they could get to their max speed much faster.

The Churchill went to the navy's firing range and engaged her guns. The targeting comp and fire and control comp work together with the sensor array to lock on and fire on targets at various speeds from a slow thirty percent light to their max speed. They never missed once, even with drift from the rail guns having to be taken into consideration.

They fired an FTL probe from each of the six tubes and set about retrieving them, not an easy task in space. In future, FTL probes would be retrieved on Liramor-23, a much easier task.

They continued their evaluations for a week, until they were satisfied with their systems. They were now ready to engage the new FTL drive.

Cdr. Seldon brought the ship up to max speed and had the FTL vanes opened to determine how drag would affect the ship. The drag was significant at max speed, but it would only influence the ship during a jump, and only where a solar wind or a nebula concentrated gas.

When the crew was ready, Seldon had the ship come to ninety percent light and engaged the FTL drive for a five light year leap. The ship winked out of existence and appeared exactly where she should be an instant later.

Doing an FTL jump was relatively easy, but you had to place yourself on a stream of energy. Dark Matter Energy was everywhere in the universe. It was how the Marilon generators got their immense power. The drew the dark matter energy through the generator and basically got free electrical power out. But the amount of dark energy needed to create power was not what was needed to make an FTL jump.

Dark Matter Energy tended to clump on or near gravity wells, in other words, stars and star clusters. If you looked at a map of Dark Matter Energy, you saw bright clumps with long shimmering strings running between them and fields of dark energy all around. The bright clumps were the stars.

In order to make an FTL jump, you had to find a string and line yourself up with it. If a string was on a direct line of sight, you could max out your leap along the one string. If not, you might have to move along to an intersecting string to bring you to where you wanted to go. This action was costly in power but got you to your destination.

This far out from the galactic center the strings were fairly long, allowing even the Princes Class ships with sixty light year leaps to make full use of their capabilities in a direct line jump.

Determining the jump in point and the jump out point was the most difficult part of the Nav Comps calculations. The better the comp, and the more precise the initial jump point was, the more precise the predicted end point could be. In this case, a short jump of five light years was an easy calculation for the comp, and the ship came in exactly where they expected it to be.

The ChEng indicated that the M/A gens were ready to do another jump as the short jump was well inside her max estimated leap of forty-five light years. Pallanders engineers advised the captain that he could do a thirty-five light year jump immediately, if he wanted, so they did.

Cdr. Seldon looked around the bridge at his navy crew. Their faces all said the same thing as his. They could short jump and then jump immediately. They could use this to their advantage during an engagement.

They were advised that it would take the M/A gens an hour to cycle and be ready for a max jump.

One hour! Thought Seldon. We could have used this in previous engagements with pirates.

An hour later they were ready to jump again and the ship did a max jump in the reverse direction which temporarily flattened the FTL generators, but Pallanders advised them they could use the power from the sub-light engine generators to do a short jump back to the orbital shipyard. They successfully did just that.

They would conduct a further week of tests, but they had already established that they could successfully short jump and still use power from the FTL generators to jump again. They confirmed their max jump distance and they successfully pulled power from one system to another to allow for near simultaneous jumps. All in all, Cdr. Seldon was a very happy camper.

Golf Level Gym, Liramor-23, Piscium System

Liea, Lissette and Kim, decided to get in some light sparing while they waited on developments. The knew that the G Level gym was the only one large enough to have a multi-use mat for their needs. They got to the gym at an hour when they thought no one else would be there, only to find a dozen people, eight men and four women, sparring.

"Oh, look, Kim!" Liea said with a grin. "Sparring partners!"

That brought a smile from Lissette and Kim as they took in their bosses' enthusiasm with the new crowd.

"Sorry, ladies," one of the men in a group of three quipped. "But we're a little too much competition for you."

Kim moved, so fast that those on the mat could not follow her. All three men suddenly found themselves flat on their faces on the mat.

"I didn't say you were competition," Liea returned. "I said 'sparring partners'."

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY PEOPLE!" a tall black woman shouted from the door.

"Nothing yet," Liea confirmed. "As long as they behave themselves."

"I am Lieutenant Ululla Mbibo, and these are my people," she snarled at the three ladies. "You don't come in here and push my people around!"

"I apologize if we have upset you," Liea said contritely. "We only came down to spar a little, and one your men made a comment that we couldn't let go by."

"Really? So, you put them on the mat for the comment?" Mbibo asked, looking harshly at the three men. "These are my best fighters."

"If you say so," Kim said from the mat.

Mbibo snarled and advanced onto the mat. She reached behind her and pulled two extendable fighting sticks, snapping them into place. She began to move her arms in circles, the sticks whirling around with gathering speed as she moved in on Kim.

Kim did not retreat. She waited for Mbibo to reach a certain spot then moved. She slipped in under her circling arms and struck out hard at nerve points on each of Mbibo's wrists. The sudden sensation of shock to her arms and hands caused the Lieutenant to drop the sticks.

Kim launched into a series of kicks and blows that Mbibo managed to block, but she was also trying to identify a pattern of attack to the lightning fast smaller woman. When she thought she saw it she struck out at an anticipated spot, only to find the woman wasn't there and her arm was now locked as the smaller woman took her to the mat.

Mbibo was shocked at the smaller woman's speed and style, or lack of it. The woman seemed to be going on instinct rather than on a pattern or plan of attack. For now, Mbibo decided to use her height and strength to her advantage and lifted her arm, the smaller woman still attached to it, into the air and brought it back to the mat hard.

Kim couldn't believe how hard the blow was as she impacted the mat. This woman was strong! She felt herself being lifted once more and thought to her herself, Nope, I don't need that again. And let go of the arm stepping away as the taller woman rolled out and stood up ready to defend against any move Kim made.

Mbibo suddenly became the aggressor as she swung through a series of punches and kicks that were blocked with considerable force by Kim, the sounds of the impacts reverberating throughout the gym.

Kim saw an opening and hit Mbibo in the gut. It forced a grunt from her opponent but was like hitting a brick wall. The strike did not seem to phase Mbibo at all. The taller woman stepped forward and Kim grabbed her extended arm and flipped her over herself, sending her to the mat, or trying to as Mbibo rolled with the throw and came back up facing Kim.

Mbibo changed tactics, she started using Marine fighting techniques, meant to maim and to take down an opponent quickly. Surprisingly, each move she used was successfully countered by the smaller woman. This woman had some serious skill!

Mbibo stepped back and raised her hands palms out.

"Are the other two ladies as good as you?" she asked of Kim.

"No, they are my students, and have only been under instruction for a few months," Kim advised.

"Shark," Mbibo called out. A woman advanced onto the mat. "Try not to hurt anyone," Mbibo told her.

Liea smiled and moved onto the mat. "It's alright, there's a good hospital on the platform," she said with a snarl. One thing Kim had taught her, was that psychological warfare often softened an opponent before the fight. Not this time though as Shark, well used to shit talk, just smiled in return.

The two started a flurry of punches and kicks. It became obvious to Mbibo that the younger woman was not a match for Shark, but she was tenacious and refused to be controlled by the older woman. Mbibo was impressed all the same. She stopped them after three minutes.

"Only a few months you say?" she asked of Kim.

"Yes, I've only been employed by her for six months," Kim confirmed.

"Employed?" Mbibo asked.

"Kim is my bodyguard," Liea confirmed. "They set me up with her after an incident in a bar."

"Someone try to molest you?" Mbibo asked.

"Lissette, actually," Liea confirmed. "My PSec stopped it, but it was decided we needed more direct security and Kim was brought in."

"Sounds like a story for over a beer. You'll be buying of course," Mbibo said with a grin. "If you can afford a bodyguard and a PSec, you can afford the bar tab," Mbibo said noticing the look that Liea briefly gave her.

"Now, I have some training to get to," Mbibo stated, "but I could always use a few pointers," she told the three women, though mostly speaking to Kim.

The group ran through a series of drills, Kim and Mbibo leading at different times. The squad thought that Mbibo was tough, they got a shock when Kim started them through their paces. By the end of the session, they were all exhausted.

"Damn, girl, if I were capable, I'd get a hardon the way you were working us," Mbibo said with a smile.

"Have to keep the bosses happy," Kim told her. "You're going to our ship, and I want to make sure only the best are on it."

"Wait, your ship?" Mbibo asked.

"You are going to The Wanderer, right?" Kim asked.

"I cannot confirm nor deny that," Mbibo said, getting cagey.

The three ladies laughed.

"Lt. Mbibo, meet your boss, Liea Samson," Lissette told her. "Half of the partnership of Clark and Samson, co-owners of The Wanderer, well, with the navy they co-own the boat."

"You are our boss?" Mbibo asked, a little confused.

"Yes," Liea smiled. "Sorry to disappoint you. My partner is Capt. (N) (Ret'd) Raymond Clark," she said, pulling up an image of Raymond. "We are billionaires and made a deal with the navy because Raymond didn't want to quit but effectively didn't have a choice."