it done.”
Scott looked thoughtful, and the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. “I suppose you’re right, but what sort of fleet will I have to work with?” He looked at Brock and Pete, seeing them smiling, each thinking of the slab-sided, ugly monstrosities they’d first cobbled together.
“You’ll have one battleship, two small fighter carriers, four heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, sixteen destroyers, and thirty-two corvettes, plus ancillary vessels, a supply train, oilers, colliers, and other specialized vessels. Is that enough?” Tony asked.
“Ye gods, you have been busy.”
“You could say that. Not all of us get to take a vacation in sunny climes,” said Gunny Brock.
“Sunny climes, have you stayed in England during the wint— What on Earth do I need oilers and a collier for?” That brought a chuckle around the table.
“Have you forgotten everything already?” Brock said. “It’s a generic term for the ship that carries fuel, water, coolant, gases, extra missiles, food stores, and torpedoes in this case.”
“Oh! I get it.” Scott felt himself color slightly at his forgetfulness of the older terms for the fleet train. “How the hell did you manage it?” he asked, wondering what sort of ships these were. He imagined another cobbled-together fleet out of whatever was handy.
“That English design engineer you brought back turned out to be a genius,” said Pete. “The moment he saw the potential of the heavy manufacturing facilities in orbit, he went crazy organizing them into a smoothly functioning whole.”
It wasn’t just that. The corporation that dominated Earth’s business world had no need for large ships. The biggest were the ore carriers that transported refined ore from the asteroid belt and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn to Earth, but they couldn’t be considered real ships. They were more like a giant wheel-like gantry with a control module at one end, and a gravity drive unit at the other. The ore bins were simply slid into the “spokes” of the gantry, one after the other, stacked end to end. That wasn’t to say that the solar furnace and gravity-forging systems weren’t capable of producing anything the size they needed; they were. Devon Hawking had just reorganized them a different way and expanded on their capacities. Now the crucible at the center of the solar mirror beam was five times the size it had been, and capable of processing enough pure nickel iron to form into huge, six-foot-thick plates up to a hundred feet long and fifty feet wide. If the scuttlebutt was halfway correct, Devon was looking to build something much bigger so he could form the complete hull of a cruiser-size ship in one forming. That would go a long way to speeding up the production of larger warships.
“So the design team managed to settle on a design and everything?” Scott said.
“They did, in conjunction with Jeff Turner and his team,” said Tony.
“And the device?”
“Oh that, yes it did turn out to be a very interesting bit of engineering,” Pete said. “It’s a navigational system. We duplicated it, tested it, improved on it, and it is now installed on every ship of the fleet, along with the translated nav information.”
“That won’t do us much good until we can get out in this system,” Scott murmured.
“True to a degree, but we now know where, and how they’re entering the solar system. We can at least mine the entrances, or put a blocking fleet there to stop them escaping,” Pete answered.
“That presupposes that we can build sufficient mines, or ships to act as a blockage in the first place,” Scott observed, seeing them nod. “What’s the estimated completion date for the fleet?”
“Essentially it’s ready now,” Pete replied. “Most of the ships are in the final fitting stage or under run-up trials and the crews are already aboard—”
“The new
Scott looked thoughtful, and the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. “I suppose you’re right, but what sort of fleet will I have to work with?” He looked at Brock and Pete, seeing them smiling, each thinking of the slab-sided, ugly monstrosities they’d first cobbled together.
“You’ll have one battleship, two small fighter carriers, four heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, sixteen destroyers, and thirty-two corvettes, plus ancillary vessels, a supply train, oilers, colliers, and other specialized vessels. Is that enough?” Tony asked.
“Ye gods, you have been busy.”
“You could say that. Not all of us get to take a vacation in sunny climes,” said Gunny Brock.
“Sunny climes, have you stayed in England during the wint— What on Earth do I need oilers and a collier for?” That brought a chuckle around the table.
“Have you forgotten everything already?” Brock said. “It’s a generic term for the ship that carries fuel, water, coolant, gases, extra missiles, food stores, and torpedoes in this case.”
“Oh! I get it.” Scott felt himself color slightly at his forgetfulness of the older terms for the fleet train. “How the hell did you manage it?” he asked, wondering what sort of ships these were. He imagined another cobbled-together fleet out of whatever was handy.
“That English design engineer you brought back turned out to be a genius,” said Pete. “The moment he saw the potential of the heavy manufacturing facilities in orbit, he went crazy organizing them into a smoothly functioning whole.”
It wasn’t just that. The corporation that dominated Earth’s business world had no need for large ships. The biggest were the ore carriers that transported refined ore from the asteroid belt and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn to Earth, but they couldn’t be considered real ships. They were more like a giant wheel-like gantry with a control module at one end, and a gravity drive unit at the other. The ore bins were simply slid into the “spokes” of the gantry, one after the other, stacked end to end. That wasn’t to say that the solar furnace and gravity-forging systems weren’t capable of producing anything the size they needed; they were. Devon Hawking had just reorganized them a different way and expanded on their capacities. Now the crucible at the center of the solar mirror beam was five times the size it had been, and capable of processing enough pure nickel iron to form into huge, six-foot-thick plates up to a hundred feet long and fifty feet wide. If the scuttlebutt was halfway correct, Devon was looking to build something much bigger so he could form the complete hull of a cruiser-size ship in one forming. That would go a long way to speeding up the production of larger warships.
“So the design team managed to settle on a design and everything?” Scott said.
“They did, in conjunction with Jeff Turner and his team,” said Tony.
“And the device?”
“Oh that, yes it did turn out to be a very interesting bit of engineering,” Pete said. “It’s a navigational system. We duplicated it, tested it, improved on it, and it is now installed on every ship of the fleet, along with the translated nav information.”
“That won’t do us much good until we can get out in this system,” Scott murmured.
“True to a degree, but we now know where, and how they’re entering the solar system. We can at least mine the entrances, or put a blocking fleet there to stop them escaping,” Pete answered.
“That presupposes that we can build sufficient mines, or ships to act as a blockage in the first place,” Scott observed, seeing them nod. “What’s the estimated completion date for the fleet?”
“Essentially it’s ready now,” Pete replied. “Most of the ships are in the final fitting stage or under run-up trials and the crews are already aboard—”
“The new
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