Chapter 68

That register contained the names of eleven warships plus numerous attached vessels which no one had heard about.

Wayne Burton Avers had built new warships but based on centuries old concepts long forgotten.

The three hulls were retrieved from where they had been abandoned in space when the raid had begun. They were taken to the GmBH fitting out yards and the real work began. The three were later joined by the fourth hull and the Hermoine.

Wayne had realized that even eight let alone six fission piles were considerably smaller than the fusion battles planned. The lack of bunkerage gave much added space. Although the yard's 'puters had been destroyed, sitting innocently in the "Trader's" Crew Mess sat the "black 'puter" onto which had been downloaded the Naval architecture files. He had quickly blocked out on the 'puter the amended power plant space. He cast a very acquisitive eye over the surviving equipment available on the planet and found BC (N) 'puter systems. Cowboy's favoured twin laser point defence weapons were available as were CL gun mounts. But most of all he lusted after the Cruise missiles. The upgraded HACS (Armed Cutters) did not have Cruise missile controller capability but some unmanned vehicles were powered cruise missile controllers and Hugh had five of them on hand.

Compromise, compromise,

"Shriek" wiring was the basis for the added runs in the harnesses already to hand. A local manufacturer ran them up and then blended them with the planned harnesses.

The counter missiles remained as planned.

Point defence laser twin turrets replaced the slower firing single tube weapon of DDs – there was almost too much power available – which comment had amused Polack no end.

There was the space for almost a heavy cruisers' missile load except they were Cruise missiles.

The boat bays expanded to take the Armed Cutter, just. Denny, Slow and Polack visited and consulted while McCock kept his hours in command spread over his various charges. Polack and McCock worked on the hull tuning until they realized that any improvement over hole-in-space shields would be marginal and they wouldn't have the time to iron out the problems. Go with what is proven. Standard Period active scanning was fitted. Tabes was up graded to FTL.

In space, the Flock had turned on Felix and subjected him to a four on one Crusher course. Felix accused the Flock of being denizens of the underworld. He satisfactorily completed it but he claimed after that he must have been listening to tapes while he was asleep as he didn't remember being awake for the four months of it. Even while patrolling, the spacers were driven hard and to show potential was only to be driven harder.

The crews of the Privateer Fleet were approaching peacetime establishment when "Grendel" was launched and their compliments plummeted as they were stripped for "Grendel's" crew. There were numerous minor defects discovered during the trial which were corrected; the biggest one was that Wayne had literally forgotten to mount a KeyHAC on external davits. He had the remote contols for it in the simulator. This restricted its use to simulations but fleet exercises and single ship operations could be performed without them – and they were.

The lessons learnt were implemented in the next constructions.

During the last of the shortened trial McCock sent "Washton" in for a six month overhaul and refit. Polack and McCock then continued the work up of "Grendel" out in home space on patrols.

"Washton's" crew had a month's leave and were, on return, spread among the others.

Recruiting was becoming harder as the Navy Yard began to soak up the unemployed.

Polack and McCock wrote the manuals for the 'Grendels' to follow and Polack took command of "Grendel".

Two Harbourian light cruisers, wanting no trouble, visited to see what had happened to their rear guard.

"Vance" was on patrol to the south west just about to return on that leg,

"Target one seven zero, zero eight zero, one point five mega k unidentified tracking two zero zero level two hundred gravs."

"Captain we have unidentified target to the south west at slow speed"

"Captain on the bridge"

"EW, any more?"

"Sir, identified as two Harbourian light cruisers in tight company; I've also got "Grendel" off to the south at extreme range."