The Veritian Derelict (Junkyard Dogs) by Nolte Phillip

Author:Nolte, Phillip [Nolte, Phillip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

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With the Greyhound's nonessential personnel temporarily evacuated to the Dingo, the actual repair operations could finally begin. To the surprise and relief of all involved, the power plant and drive system swap went about as well as could be expected. The integrated fusion plant and drive systems from the Terrier, after some expert cursing, jockeying around and the fabrication of mounts to adapt the new systems to the old ship's mounting points, were installed without major incident. The control systems were a mixed bag. The drive and power plant consoles from the engineering section of the Terrier, along with the special wiring harnesses required were, again, fairly simple, bolt-in replacements.

By far their greatest challenge was to install the control systems from the Terrier onto the bridge of the Greyhound. The military equipment was not only more bulky than the original consoles on the ancient cargo ship but there were also a number of systems on the cargo ship that could not easily be integrated into the military units and necessitated keeping the original consoles. Their only choice was to install several additional consoles onto the Greyhound's bridge. Since the bridge area of the old ship wasn't overly large to begin with, things were going to be a more than a little cramped on the bridge after the modifications but the situation couldn't be helped.

The new control systems on the bridge necessitated the installation of a wiring harness that ran from the control console on the Terrier's bridge down to her engine room. Unfortunately, the cable from the warship, while somewhat thicker than the equivalent cable on the freighter due to the presence of wires that were both more numerous and more robust, was also substantially shorter. After considerable head scratching, Talbot came up with the idea of removing a portion of the same cable from one of the Terrier's sister ships and splicing the two pieces of cable together.

The level of damage to the Fairmont, Talbot's old ship, was severe enough that salvaging the needed cable from her was actually easier than it would have been from the more intact Osage. Talbot helped out with the removal of the cable but it was obvious to his companions that working onboard his old ship was very difficult for him. Far too many painful memories, apparently.

The need for an extra length of cable actually worked somewhat to the repair crew's advantage as they were able to thread the cable through the freighter from two different directions and conveniently splice the ends together up in a remote corner within one of the minor holds of the cargo ship. A generous glob of space-rated sealant, another of the materials abundant in the Scrapyard, finished off the splice.

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