Battletech #39 - The Hunters by Thomas S. Gressman

Author:Thomas S. Gressman [Gressman, Thomas S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, General, High Tech, Space warfare, Interplanetary voyages
ISBN: 9780451456243
Publisher: Roc
Published: 1997-11-28T06:00:00+00:00

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At the opposite end of the Truth's 839-meter length, a complex dance of man and machine was beginning.

In response to a series of commands, the ship's powerful maneuvering engines came on line. Slowly, the massive vessel began to swing around her head, until her nose was pointed directly at the star below. The thrusters fired a second time, bringing the starship to a stop. Thereafter, the drives would be used sparingly, only enough to keep the battle cruiser on station.

No sooner had the Truth ended her orientation burn than a complicated series of servomotors, myomer bundles, and hydraulic systems began to deploy the ship's jump sail.

To the uninitiated, the term "jump sail" was confusing. Not really a sail at all, the immense disk was a complex machine. Sandwiched between thin layers of plastic and wire mesh were sensitive collectors designed to gather solar energy, which would be transmitted, via specially designed power conduits, into the ship's jump drives.

With a diameter of nearly one and a half kilometers, but a thickness of only a few millimeters, the Truth's sail was delicate in the extreme. Unfurling the high-tech gossamer was no job for fools or the impatient. Though many Jump-Ships now mounted a bank of lithium-fusion batteries that could be used to power the vessel through a single jump, damage to the sail could be a death sentence, particularly for a ship operating alone and in the void between inhabited systems. A damaged jump sail would inhibit the ship's ability to recharge its engines. If the sail was destroyed, the jump drive could only be recharged by drawing power from the ship's massive fusion engines.

This particular process, while just as efficient as sail recharging, had its own peculiar set of problems. If power from the ship's fusion engines was sent too quickly into the jump drives, the delicate Kearny-Fuchida systems could be damaged beyond repair. Starship captains had been known to use this so-called "quick charge" technique, especially in a dangerous situation, but most preferred to rely on the safer method of recharging their drives using the jump sail. The thought of being caught with spent engines and a badly damaged sail was enough to give the most hardened spacer nightmares.

That was why it was ninety minutes after Beresick gave the command to begin recharging the Truth's engines that the report came back, "Sail is deployed. Recharging is underway."

Morgan looked across the bridge at a visibly relieved Beresick. Not being a spacer himself, he didn't have quite the dread of a damaged jump sail that the Commodore did.

"I really hate to add to your problems, Commodore, but maybe we'd better think about launching a BARCAP." Morgan smiled as he gestured at the holographic representation of his task force, floating above the glowing mass of the star, tails up like a school of some bizarre kind of gigantic, bottom-feeding fish.

Beresick grinned in return and passed the order to the primary flight control center. Several decks below, in the compartment by naval

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