Chapter 14: Titans

Main Conference Room, Design Office
Phobos Shipyard, Mars Orbit
Tuesday, February 16, 2151

“Admiral, thank you for coming,” said James Rutter.

“You asked to see me,” replied Matt Belting.

“And anybody you thought might be helpful.”

Belting smiled. “I think you know most of us but let me make sure. Captain Brett Ingram is in charge of our stealth squadron and Captain Ron Bales is in charge of our anti-stealth squadron. Lieutenant Commander Jane Harbaugh is the captain of Fat Bastard. She’s one of the two tankers we captured from WestHem before Martian Justice. She was part of the prize crew that brought her back and has been her skipper for the last two years. She docked a few days ago and is unloading her cargo before heading back to Saturn.”

Rutter’s face lit up and he reached out to shake Harbaugh’s hand vigorously. “I am so glad you’re here, Commander! I so want to talk to you!”

Belting snorted out a laugh. “That’s why she’s here, James. You can have her until Fat Bastard has to leave.” He continued around the group, introducing several other officers and aides. “Now, you told me you wanted to show me your designs and plans for a new tanker class you think we can build...”

“That I know we can build!”

“Okay, show us.”

Rutter had the others sit around the table and dimmed the lighting. Then he grabbed a remote and activated the largest monitor in the room.

“Here goes. This is a standard WestHem interplanetary tanker.” He put a picture of a gigantic metal ball on the screen. “There are about a half-dozen different classes of ship, but they only differ in the age and minor refinements.” He used a laser pointer to highlight features on the ship. “Notice how the engines and crew compartment are built into the main globe of the ship. Commander Harbaugh’s ship is one of these - and I so want to talk to you! - and EastHem’s tankers are almost identical. They are purely civilian vessels and are owned by Jovian Gases, Standard Fuel Supply, and A&C Hydrogen. Several hundred of these are owned by WestHem and EastHem; we own two. They are big, slow, and very efficient at carrying hydrogen and nothing but hydrogen.”

“That’s very true,” said Jane Harbaugh. “The difference is in how we operate them. WestHem and EastHem tankers are run at minimal manning levels as cheaply as possible. They are owned by the corporations. Our two tankers are owned and operated by the Navy. We run them not just as tankers but as training ships. They are overmanned and overofficered, but the best way to learn about the Navy is on a ship.”

“Wow! Really? I never knew that!” exclaimed Rutter.

Belting smiled. “Focus, James.”

“Right, sorry.” Next, he threw a picture up of a smaller ship. “This is a typical Pegasus-class WestHem fleet tanker. Note the differences. Unlike the civilian tanker, the Pegasus has a long central crew and engineering hull. At the rear end is the engine compartment with two California-class engines. At the other end is this large bulbous section for gas storage. Then, all the way forward, is a small bridge area.” The picture looked much like a hot dog with an inline gigantic sausage at the end.

The others all nodded. Fleet combat officers, they were all familiar with WestHem naval designs.

“This design forms the basis of the WestHem Condor-class fleet freighter. That design has never really taken off, so to speak, since they use the Panamas for transporting Marines, and civilian ships for other needs. The Condors have many of the same positive and negative attributes as the Pegasus models. A Pegasus carries about thirty million metric tons of hydrogen and the central storage section is designed to allow a ship to approach from the side to refuel, but the layout of the gas storage area is less than optimal. That would be the globular structure of the civilian models. Further, separating the bridge from the crew and engineering section is a throwback to the days when you had to put the bridge of a ship in front. Still, a Pegasus is a decent and functional design. They were optimized to travel with a fleet and allow ships to quickly transfer hydrogen to other combat ships, and thirty million tons of fuel is a pretty fair amount. I am not going to say they don’t work.”

“And you have a different design in mind, James?” asked Belting.

“Yes! Let’s consider a totally new design.” He threw a new diagram on the screen. “Superficially, it looks a lot like a Pegasus, but it’s not. It’s totally different! We’ve gone to a completely modular approach. We’re calling her the Titan.” With that, he clicked the remote and the Titan split into three pieces, a chunk near the rear of the ship, the main crew section, and then a front piece that consisted of the oversized tanker area. “Here is the main central crew and engineering section. This is the bridge, too. There is absolutely no reason to put the bridge somewhere else.” He outlined various sections of the ‘hot dog’.

A couple of the officers looked at Lieutenant Commander Harbaugh. She nodded. “With modern instrumentation and sensors, there is zero reason to separate the bridge from the rest of the ship. It’s a pain in the ass, actually.”

“Oh, we have to talk!” reiterated Rutter.

Belting rolled his eyes and smiled. Rutter was in love! “Keep going, James.”

“Right!” He focused in on the rear of the ship. “This is the engine compartment. A standard Pegasus has two California-class engines. A Titan can have different engine configurations. We can have two, three, or four.” He put several different diagrams on the screen. “Maybe more! And they all have a standard connection to the main hull.”

Next, he focused on the tanker end, the ‘giant sausage’ part of the ship. “Now, let’s consider the tanker. It looks like the Pegasus, but it’s not.” He clicked the remote and the exterior skin of the tanker section disappeared. Inside were three globes, all inline with the main hull. “Each of these storage globes holds ten million tons of hydrogen. In other words, we can change the storage capacity of a Titan by increasing the number of globes!” The next diagram showed different configurations, where the tanker section were different sizes.

“It gets better! Since the tanker section is separate from the main hull, we can increase the number of tanker sections. Imagine a four-engine design with a double tanker section! This is a Super-Titan!” A much larger design flashed onto the screen. “Here’s another possibility. WestHem doesn’t do this, since they have civilian freighters, but we don’t. If we need a freighter, swap out the tanker section for a freight section.” Another design popped up. “See how we can modularize the entire design. We also talked to a couple of I-Owl officers about other possibilities. Here’s a possible fleet auxiliary. We combine a small tanker section with a small freight section. We can carry parts, extra torpedo pods, maybe a shuttle or two, you name it.”

Ingram and Bales looked at each other. Both had serious combat experience. They nodded with approval.

“Finally, here’s a really wild idea. One of the guys we talked to had served on a California. Why not turn the freight section into an attack craft section? We’d have the room in a freight section to put an F-22 fighter wing on board!”

Belting looked at the others. “Well, James, you’ve really looked forward. I just wanted some tankers.”

“Admiral, I am looking forward. I know we have another invasion coming up, but I believe in you and General Jackson. We’re going to whip WestHem’s ass again, and we all know that. After that, what? Let’s make the Martian Navy the toughest navy in the Solar System!” replied Rutter.

Belting smiled. “Okay, but I still want some tankers as soon as I can get them.”

“Yes, sir, and that’s what’s great about this design! It’s totally modular! I sent a California engine down to Ares NP to see if they could build one. They can, but not at a capacity we want, so they sent it over to their Ore City facility. They can build one every two weeks. I checked with Mars Halcyon in Ironhead. They built all the orbital landers we use, and they have a freighter design that can carry an engine to orbit. The civilian yards at Triad can build the tanker and freighter sections; there is nothing classified or proprietary about them. The only thing we need to do here at Phobos is build the main hull and put it all together!”

There was an interested murmur around the room. Bales asked, “So you can convert a ship from one to the other by just bolting on different pieces?”

Rutter shrugged and made a wry face. “Yes and no. It’s not just bolting on new pieces. Where the sections join is a major load-bearing junction. Yes, we could separate the pieces, but they are both bolted and welded together. It would probably take a month or more.”