Chapter 97

Mary and Jane were somewhat neglected for the next weeks as Cedric was, in addition to his missile targeting training, given the task of utilising the GEC 'puters' command module – the one that had been connected to a com to transmit on external command – to be the remote control of the freighters. That externally controlled com was left booby trapped and further isolated as Derrin and Cedric worked with Morg to make the connections, physical and remote. Morg had toyed with the idea of physically locating the Freighter Control on the bridge but it was either the expanded weapons position or the remote Freighter Control and that was a no-brainer.

As it was the physical limitations of the volume available on the bridge meant encroaching on the volume forward of the console available for the holo with the ancillary weapons positions located forward of the console but aft-facing. The Gennies who would be providing most of the extra bodies on the bridge were singularly unimpressed and ever so politely made their opinion known to their superior officers. They were equally politely told to come up with a solution – said officers were even saving their screaming fits until they had time to have them.

Central to the problem was the bridge; it was still the same dimensions as had existed in the treasure ship – because it was the bridge it was still the bridge but it had "growed". The increased numbers of the Tulips had meant that the volume around the bridge had been taken up with accommodation and messing, gym and guest quarters. That expansion had been enabled by the use of a mezzanine deck. The "kiddy" 'puter had been replaced with the GEC battle 'puter and relegated to the small simulator in C aft. The yacht command seats had been fitted taking up more space. The cabling from the engine room had been laid into the GEC 'puter and Derrin now had her own lines laid onto the bridge. Volume was at a premium.

Expanding forwards meant cutting through the number two transverse bulkhead and as it was the vertical spacer between the thickened magazine's horizontal armour belts, the combined opinion of the Gennies was that was best left alone. If they couldn't go forward, sideways or backwards, up was the only option. The Engineers were coaxed / wheedled / persuaded to provide their expertise. An EVA to the ULRV (underway light repair vessel aka the fourth FURS) turned into a mass exodus of Gennies who located the surplus stores they wanted – Orville's packrat mentality had been backed up by the robos which had taken stock so the search was quickly fruitful.

Lynettte and Georgina S.Downer had presented their solution to Morg who had to pass it up to Clare. Clare listened carefully and then inspected her bridge to assess the changes proposed. The Engineers were marched out of the engine room to give their reasoning to Clare. For their sins the Engineers were given two hours to produce an in-situ holo of the proposed alterations. Clare ordered several changes. The first was to still allow access to the armoury* and to the hardsuit stowage. The second was the elevation of the Captain's Command chair – she was damned if she was going to be looked down upon by her crew, and besides she got a better view of the holo without having to dodge about the heads of the two in the seats.

(* Later the armoury was shifted from the aft of the bridge to under the tiered ancillary positions of Missile Control.)

The six new positions were in place during the loading of the Missile Carriers at 'Pest and Shirley ran several exercises to prove them; and then stood over Cedric as the final connections were made.

Shirley's solution had been simplicity itself. On acquisition of the experimental 'puter, GEC had provided several sample discs. One of these had been for the weapon's position on the console and a programme on the disc was a simulated fleet action. Shirley had used that programme in the A aft simulator and had run the Middies through it numerous times using various scenarios. The last scenario had been the battle of Home Space. Lacking any idea of things that could not be done, the kids had twisted, distorted, maimed and mangled the original programme out of all recognition but it worked in every scenario Shirley's fertile if devious mind could present for solution.

It was that programme which Shirley had booted into Derrin.

...

"Clare, ye canna keep them ships in formation unless they're all powered." Orville was remonstrating with Clare "that is if ye wan' tay accelerate; the tractors will na hold the formation. Ballistic? Aye. Accelerating? Nay."

The "Starship" had moved into hyper from 'Pest and had begun accelerating with "Sundowner" providing the motive power.

The "Starship" formation began deforming as the outer ring began lagging stretching the tractor beams and before the way could be taken off, the ULRV had lost its after beam attachment and began sashaying about on a very attenuated forward beam.

It had taken some careful manoeuvring to reform during which TJ, Morg and Cedric had carefully examined the problem of co-ordinated control of acceleration of the components of the "Starship". The trio had very quickly agreed that humans could not co-ordinate worth a damn under the circumstances. Derrin was questioned as to whether or not she had available 'puter capacity to undertake the task.

"Certainly," she responded.

TJ who had the greatest experience with programming as opposed to designing 'boards, was a bit less accepting of such a bald statement,

"Under all circumstances?"

"Certainly not; I would have to prioritise and you would have to pre-programme."

Each of the trio could envisage scenarios in which it could prove embarrassing to suddenly find a ship's function drop off at the worst possible moment – the coffee urns going off line when the "Starship" was accelerating, thrusters' control ceasing while meeting the demands of missile control in a firefight and at other such trivial moments.

Sarnt had been with his superiors when the discussions had started.

The Middies always seemed to be around and their presence at discussion groups was unremarkable – part of their training. The kids had observed the XO's Eight O'clock Reports in which the XO brought the Captain up to date on the daily status of the ship and had instituted their own – making sure one of them attended Eight O'clock Report- and brought themselves up to date with events, an "eight thirty report". Because of their tendency to get into everything and with Hazel as a sort of co-ordinator of the next day's investigations / visits / duties the kids were the most informed persons on "Sundowner.

Sarnt put forward his solution,

"We don't really need the C aft simulator, most of the time it's just sitting there; the A aft is where most of the sim work is done and even then its not in full time use either. Derrin can slave the kiddy 'puter into Freighter Control and, when the "Starship" is formed, she can use the kiddy 'puter to co-ordinate the power settings. And for that matter whenever a formation is needed."

"That would do nicely" Derrin confirmed.

"Out of the mouths..." Morg muttered and then speaking normally "Suits, Derrin? You can cope with everything? At all times?"

"Yes. The shut down of non essential services during action stations is still in force?"

"As programmed?" Cedric queried "And what's the status of bandwidth?

"As per programme; and I will still have 'puter capacity spare even during combat. I do advise that com band width be assessed because of the demands made by the size of the salvos and the needs for situational updates."

While Derrin had been speaking, George Burgess accompanied by Shirley had joined the group in the mezzanine mess (now downgraded to "early morning" coffee lounge with the opening of the C fwd mess). George handed a disc to his father,

"Commander Wood says this might help..."and continued in response to his father's enquiring look " ... We found bandwidth was a problem when we gamed Home Space and the Commander wouldn't let us magic up more. So we got together and came up with a sort of solution...

Scenarios were looked at and we found that there was a certain number of common overall responses and a series of common secondary responses. We entered the primary responses using codenames and the secondaries as numbers...

You've got to code the key board, pointer or touch screen to firstly go to the missile enroute instructions programme and then as we are using two fifty six bit bytes get the codename, usually an uppercase letter of the alphabet but spoken as the scientific letter, alpha, beta, gamma etcetera, get the 'puter to recognise the letter as the first five bits and then the secondaries' numbers as the sixth to how many extra bits. Power settings require an additional two bits for each direction

"What about the missiles themselves?" Cedric asked.

Sarnt took up the explanation,

"There are only a few things a missile can do with its own thrusters and motors but in combination the variations are numerous but we found the pointing the missile at a specific target was the hardest as identity of individual ships requires very accurate EW resources and the Commander made us work with Mounty and Peep parameters – pure kludge!...

We took the tapes from the Sopac sphere and saw what our FTL active could do and it was magic. Why didn't you use the screen signatures for missile targeting?"

"Not detailed enough" Cedric explained. "Ship's signatures are unique."

Sarnt looked at George and they both looked at Shirley and then back at each other with slightly puzzled looks.

TJ picked up on it

"That's accepted wisdom in all navies..."

The looks on Sarnt's and George's faces should have been captured for posterity. It was a combination of respect for their fathers, respect for their superior officers and a "what planet are they living on?" TJ had watched the exchange,

"I am about to get my head handed to me but I'll ask. How can you identify individual screens."

"Err, well,..."George began.

"We only found out by accident" Sarnt went on. Morg waved them on and George continued,

"At Sopac, us middies were at the secondary directors position in the after end of the engine room showing the Engineers the FTL targeting and I ah ... forgot to tune the output frequency and the returns were all fuzzy. Simmo picked up on it and focussed the beam and the returns tightened up. After the end of the operation, Hazel grabbed the tapes so as not to leave our traces. At eight thirty's, we examined the tapes and saw the difference in returns and Simmo noticed the differences on an individual basis and we found the differences in the shields' signatures were more distorted that the hull signatures."

Sarnt took it up

"Simmo and Hazel got their heads together and thought they could pick out two patterns in the signatures. On our first make and mend day, the Commander was working with the Gennies on ship handling in one of the FURS, we got the Home Space tape, the electronic record not the vid, and really started looking at individual signatures..."

George interrupted,

"We were cross-eyed by the end of second dog but we found what we wanted."

"Yah" Sarnt agreed "we found every shield was different and unique. Sure there were patterns from same equipment but each return was unique. And we found the peculiarities were more pronounced if the return had bounced off a second contact. Home Space was filled with electronic beams and returns but we managed to sort it out. When we got the signatures we went back to the beginning of the tapes looking at the pure energy output of the defensive shields knowing what we were looking for and nailed each ship sufficiently well that it can be identified by its shield; if you know what you are looking for."