Battleship Destroyer (24 page)

"But 2nd Class Turner, I can't do anything until the tank finishes draining."
He said slinking down into his chair.

"Bullshit, find out why the tank is not draining
and take care of it Maggot." Jack shook all over as he balled up his fists. Not in rage, just trying not to let himself run screaming in fear waiting for the 3rd class to punch him.

"But it is wet?" Looking at Jack for a few seconds he started sealing his suit to his boots
as he tried to slide out the other side of the cart from Jack.

"What are you doing 3rd Class Danie
ls?" Jack backed off straightening up as he crossed his arms across his chest as Daniels looked up at him baffled and confused. "You have a half a dozen Spacemen in your crew. Tell several of them to check the drain moron. Start with Bigfoot there. He hasn't done shit today yet."

Daniels looked shocked for a few seconds as he
straightened up starring at Jack. Then comprehension dawned on the 3rd class as a smile suddenly grew with the realization that he was a 3rd class petty officer and actually had some power after all. Turning to the crew spread out watching the water drain either leaning on the squeegees or goofing around. "Bigfoot, Dempsey! Get over there and clean out that damn drain now!"

Bigfoot
dropped his squeegee with a clatter (making Jack wince with nerves already strung tight but he was still so pissed at Bigfoot that he did not care if he got beat up or not and then he suddenly realized that he had been given self-defense classes in boot camp. He could defend himself even if he got hurt. Hell he was going to get hurt anyway so why not hit back and he just may get a few good hits in himself. Giving Jack the evil eyes Bigfoot started wading into the water pool.

Dempsey followed reluctantly.
"Damn it, Second Class Turner, it was going down eventually."

Bigfoot
growled. "Hell, I bet it is some asshole's rag like last time."

Dempsey tried to walk on the water raising his legs up above the surface but only made more of a splash with each step especially when the water started getting deep.
Splashing up into his crotch.

Jack stood there
as his mouth dropped open. He could not believe it as he watched the two wade in without even questioning the 3rd class or him let alone retaliating. Jack suddenly felt disappointed. He wanted to get some retribution with a few good punches into that smug face even if he got beat up in the process. Turning he went to take care of the  other developing problem on the other side of the tank while giving the guys that had already started to head for the hatch to take a break a close eye stare until they turned around and went back to work. He immediately started chewing out the 3rd class sitting on his butt wondering why he had not done this weeks before. Suddenly realizing that he had to do the same thing every once in a while in The Game as well. The years of training in The Game at handling men and getting jobs done came flooding back suddenly making it hard to tell which was real.

Over the next week he found
using his years of experience in The Game on how and what orders to give the 3rd classes to run the crews, he started getting the three tanks cleaned in plenty of time each day. Letting the crews off early many days making him very popular with most of his crewmen. The best part was being able to sit in the hatchway of the tank and study while he kept an eye on the work and everyone doing their job with only an occasional order to one of the 3rds. And then after repeating the same order several dozen times in several deferent tanks he finally in desperation explained why he was having them do what he had been ordering them to do over and over and suddenly he stopped having to repeat orders for the same thing over and over. Not that he hated giving orders since he did hate it, but the time it took for things to get bad enough for him to notice the problem and have to issue the order. Was wasted time.

Then one day Jack heard one of the crew talking about The Game and suddenly he realized that if it was not for the reality and the boredom,
he felt like he was in The Game. Maybe he should get back into The Game. But then under which name. Was he even allowed to use his name from the Turner Joy or did he have to use the game name the Navy had given him? Well it did not matter since he had too much studying to do every night as it was.
 

Jack talked to the division
Chief one muster asking him if he could promote one of the tank squeegee crew's spacemen to 3rd Class not that he needed additional drain crew supervisors but that the man was a hard and smart worker and deserved the recognition and that was the only way he knew to give it to him. Jack had expected to be told no and to quit trying to be so lazy.  But the Chief told him to have the ones that wanted to advance take the simple 10 page test on basic Gravity coils and command responsibilities and it would be done. And then to Jack's shock the Chief frowned at him. "Why haven't you turned in the 1st class test I gave you?"

"I. Ah I
...” Jack just stared at the Chief as his mouth dropped open. "I Ah did not think it mattered."

The Chief shook his head and then patted Jack on the shoulder. "I expect you to have that test on my desk within a week. Part of an officers job Turner is training his crew to be the best they can be.
I am glad to see you are trying to advance your crew up the chain, just don’t' forget yourself."

While the 3rd class test turned out to not be that hard after the second class test experience, he still took a couple of weeks to school his best candidates in the 3rd Class tests subjects while starting his two 3rd classes on the 2nd class test sheet. Though getting his own test completed in a week was a little bit more difficult and again after putting in a lot of late nights. He had the test in the Chief's hand late in the evening of the last day of the week shortly before lights out. Then once the two Spacemen had gotten their stripes several more of his two crews wanted to take the test and he suddenly found himself spending more and more time holding classes for not only his crews but the other tank crews. Giving him even less time to study.

After getting his 1st Class stripe he suddenly found he
had plenty of time as he put his new second classes in charge of each of the two crews doing the tanks. Leaving the vacuum cart running third classes to concentrate on their jobs. Again the time to clean a tank was reduced. Jack was starting to feel his life was more and more like The Game even though he had no time at all to play it. That is except that the real life game was so damn boring while working his ass off without the constant breaks between game sessions.

Then one day
as the rest of the crew were finishing up a tank with his second classes doing all the work, Jack wondered over to the tank next door they had dried out the day before. It now had several large gravity coils on pallets around the hatch. He walked in to find a crew with several panels off the sides and deck of the tank. Their head lamps making them look like miners as they climbed in and out of holes in the deck and bulkheads. Looking into the nearest group of holes he discovered First and Second Class Gravity coil maintenance tech's working on disconnecting a coil inside the middle open hole. "Ah. This… This is a brand new ship. Why are you having to repair solid-state coils already?"

"What. Who the hell are you
?" Said the First Class Grav tech running a scanner over a coil as she looked up from the hole next to the one that was being disconnected by a couple of second classes.

"Gravtech Turner. I dried
the tank out yesterday. Evidentially so you guys can get in here."

"Oh, well
, I am Gravtech Willis." Though he already knew that from the name over her uniform breast pocket and the patch on her shoulder and the fact that she was scanning a gravcoil. Not to mention that he saw her most every morning at muster though he had never talked to her as she stood with her crew down the Grav Tech muster line. "For some reason the coils keep burning out." Pointing at the coil in the next open bay that was half disconnected and then the one she was scanning. "The one that burned out seems to have damaged this one as well." Pointing at the blackened streaks on the coil. "See, the coil windings on the side closest to the dead coil and the opposite side look partially burned. It does not make any sense. It is happening on more and more of them not to mention that we had one that we replaced six months ago just go out last night." She turned the scanner so Jack could see the screen and the carbon starting to form deep in the windings in the coil she was examining.

"Ok
, that is not good." He said as she went back to scanning the coil. Jack looked around. His eyes were getting used to the dark of the tank with the only light in the tank from the head lamps of the techs. The flood lights standing outside the tanks hatch had not yet been brought in with the new coils still on the pallets outside. He was used to the vacuum carts lighting up the tanks he was usually cleaning with not only their headlamps but they also had tall towers with lights pointing in a 360 degree arc for the rest of the crew as they moved around the tank.

He slowly became aware of a dim glow around him not from the head lamps down the holes. Looking around he could see several brightening glows from spots across the tank
far from the open holes with the tech crew in them. The deck and bulkheads started glowing softly as well. Turning he looked down into the hole at the tech unfastening the coil as his light shown into Jacks eyes when he looked up to place a bolt on the edge of the hole. "Hey do you see...” Jack started to say, turning around and pointing. The tank was black again.

The Tec
h looked at Jack and then back down the hole. "Ya I see water that drained into the mount when we opened it up. You need to do a better job guy. I have to mop that out and make sure it is dry before we seal it back up."

Jack looked around the midnight black tank. Trying to figure out if he was crazy or not.
It was one thing to see energy and gravity waves across the planets and space but this did not make any sense. Shaking his head he turned back to the tech who was again busy down inside the hole. "Sorry I will see what I can do to make sure we get all the water from now on."

Turning to leave he looked up into the tank again and stopped as he stared. Three spots around the tank in the darkness
seemed to start glowing again. As he watched they became brighter as the deck and bulkheads of the tank again started to dimly glow as before as the spots became bright beacons. "Shit. What the hell?"

Taking a few steps away from the open holes and the lights he realized that the basic glow around him was not solid but a bunch of lit rings in the deck below his feet
and around the compartment. Walking up to the nearest of the bright beacons a good hundred feet away he realized it too was a  bright ring only it was a little bigger than the rest and seemed to be trying to grow as the brightness seamed to expand the coil. Starring at the coil feeling like he was going crazy, he realized that he seemed to be seeing lines of haze converging on the bright coil from a ring of rings around the tank. With each hazy line going from the outer ring to coil to coil and getting brighter as it neared the center coil with the energy from them all making the center coil a beacon. The hazy lines seemed familiar, damn familiar. Like the hazy lines he saw out the bridges ports running the Gravity board on the Turner Joy. Studying the haze, he realized it was full of beautiful colors he usually never saw unless he was looking at system suns and even the intermix during sunsets or rises. "Damn."

Looking around the tank he realized that there were three other beacons around the
tank each with their own rings at about a hundred feet and where the outer most rings of each beacon met the other beacons rings, he could see the dead coils the techs were working to replace. Getting over the shock of what he thought he was seeing it finally dawned on him that it looked damn familiar. Like something he had read or seen in one of his books sometime in the past so long ago.

Shaking his head he suddenly realized that it was not that long ago.
He had restudied it not more than a few months ago in one of the basic grav courses and then pop's lecture to a 10 year old ideate many years before came popping back into his head.

Walking back to the hole in the deck Jack bent down. "Grav Tech Willis. I know what is wrong.
"

"Yes Turner I know what is wrong
, the damn coils keep burning out."

"No mam. Aha
” Jack suddenly stopped, trying to think of a way to tell her without making her mad or thinking he was crazy so she would listen. Shaking his head as she placed the scanner down on the side of the open pit and bent back down to pick up something she had dropped.

Jack picked up the scanner and scanned the tank
with it as he started smiling, he held it down for her to look at. "See the hot spots scattered around the middle of the tank and the faint rings around them. Your burned out coils are at the intersections of the faint rings. The interference where the rings meet is what is burning out your coils."

She looked at Jack as he ran the scanner around the tank. "You have only been a first class for only a few weeks. You have not even been to grav tech A school." She pointed to the little ribbon on her chest. "What the hell could you know about gravity coils?"