Chapter 6

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up By Nathan

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

20 September 3046

New Circe system

The Styx and her brood of DropShips were busy and full of people in non-stop motion. Everyone had gone home for some much-needed time off, but no one took the entire offered fourteen days of R and R. There was a lot of excitement about getting ready for the second part of the mission.

Somehow, word had gotten out about the recovery mission to the planet below. It was not as big of a news story as there had been when they had brought the carrier Kaga back to the system, but the news of a ship thought to be un-salvageable being brought in had people talking. The crew of the Styx had passed their first hurdle with flying colors, and were eager to get on with things.

The JumpShip crews had trickled back into deep space using the scheduled supply Raptor runs. The Hard Hat had been relieved of her towing duties by another tug, and she returned back to a hard point on the side of the Styx. After a couple of days back aboard ship the crew had started to get restless.

So far no one was saying exactly was going to happen to the Scout they had recovered. Nor had there been news about the DropShip the Scout had been carrying. Speculation among the crew ran wild.

This time Captain Copeland did not have to have a face to face meeting with his boss to receive his orders. This time they showed up through a resupply Raptor in the form of a standard SLDF secure storage disk. Robert found that he missed having a meeting with Commander Xi. Still, it was nice that operations seemed to have become more routine.

There were very few differences in the planning between the upcoming run and the first shakedown. It would be longer run at a little over a thousand light years each way. Despite the distance, the familiarity between the crew and the new drives meant that there was little that required his direct attention.

The one major change would be the lack of escort. Higher Command had decided that the next operation would take the Styx too close to the Inner Sphere. A ship the size of the Titan might be spotted there and draw undue attention. Accordingly, Copeland and his expedition would be on their own. Xi had added a note to the effect that he should be used to it. It was as close to a joke as she normally allowed herself, and Copeland found himself smiling.

The travel time was set for just ten days each way, another ten days would be spent in a system designated PHX 3345. A little bit of time was set aside for any unforeseen emergency, but the whole idea for this phase of the trip was meant to test the crew's endurance during long transit times.

Passing this stress test would be the last hurdle in determining this experiment's success. If the Styx did not return by 25 Oct to New Circe, then a Scout mission would be sent out to find them. Like the last mission various waypoints were given so that the Styx would plan to be at locations at a certain time, so that she could be more easily located in the event of a failure.

Protocols to preserve the location and identity of the home system were to be observed at all times once the expedition departed. They would not be relaxed until the final jump back to the home system. This crew was the one that Copeland intended to bring with him to the Inner Sphere, though most did not know it yet. His life and theirs might depend on whether or not they could keep to protocol, and he intended to be sure that they would.

While Copeland was certain of his JumpShip crew, the status of the DropShip crews was less certain. Copeland knew that almost everyone on the Hard Hat and White Skies wanted one of the few coveted slots for the upcoming expedition. They had no idea of what type mission they would be going on, but it was an active command in the SLDF navy and those were rare as hen's teeth even with a war going on around them.

Almost without warning the order was given to prepare for jump. Every crew member on all of the ships was ready to go for round two of the Styx experiment. When the order was given for an estimated departure time, they were more than ready to go.

As Copeland expected all stations reported ready for departure. This was passed along to higher command on the planet. Exactly at 0900 on 20 Sep 3046., the SLS Styx left for her final exam with two DropShips attached to her sides.

The Captain and XO had worked personally with the navigator on the planning for this run. The JumpShip had to cover a hundred light years on average per day of travel. This time though the worked hard to limit the total number of jumps, so as to avoid stressing the ship and its operations more than necessary.

They also wanted to get the jumps over quickly, so only one hour was set aside between each of the twenty light year jumps. This level of operational readiness seemed insane. Before the arrival of the Colonials the idea of a jump less than an hour from the previous jump would have been unthinkable. Copeland intended to make it routine.

The final jump each day would arrive at a safe or standard jump point around that day's designated star. The Star would provide the needed power to run the ships other systems, without using the limited supplies of conventional fuel for the fusion engines. It also would give the crews of all three ships time to get over any jump sickness and perform maintenance.

It was noted that when they used the Colonial made systems that jump sickness, better known as Transit Disorientation Syndrome or "TDS", was a little worse than when they did a double jump. It wasn't too much worse than a standard jump, but it was enough of an increase that it had been noted by all of the travelers on the last test run. Robert knew at least one SLDF sailor who was particularly affected by it. He winced slightly as he thought about how this new paradigm in interstellar travel would be treating the poor man.

Exactly ten days after the Styx had left New Circe it reached PHX 3345. Their time there would not be spent idly. As before, there was a ship here to salvage.

This system's survey was even more out of date than the one where they had found the Scout. Accordingly, they had a larger area to search. Robert didn't even bother with a passive sensor sweep this time. They were on a time table, after all. Instead he ordered his crew to go active immediately, looking for their quarry.

This time it was so hard to find that it was not found until late into the night shift rotation, almost a full twenty-four hours from the time they started looking. By the time that the next shift was on duty the target was firmly sensor locked, and a least-time course was plotted out for the Hard Hat to make it there.

When Captain Copeland came on shift, early, he pre-cleared the Hard Hat to launch when she was ready. The vessel pulled away from the Styx just as the tug completed its own shift change. The Hard Hat made a hard burn for the first four hours at almost a full 2g before lowering the thrust to a more bearable 1g burn for the rest of the day. Everyone was eager to complete the recovery.

The Hard Hat had had an upgraded optical telescope added after a suggestion from the crew after the last mission. Early the next day the telescope was able to get usable images of their target, a lost Merchant-class JumpShip. The Merchant had settled into an eccentric orbit around the system's primary that had made her so difficult to locate.

The orbit was still had the JumpShip close to the null gravity zone around the star, but nowhere near what anyone would have called a jump point. By noon on that day the Hard Hat was getting very good detailed imaging of the ship. Any abnormality fist-sized or larger could be made out at this distance.

The JumpShip had two hard points on her hull. Both were occupied, and the Hard Hat's crew nearly cheered when they saw the bounty they would be salvaging. Nothing could be made of the ship's small craft bays at this distance, but the crew was hopeful.

The docking point closest to the JumpShip's bridge was occupied by a Trojan-class DropShip. Surprisingly, she looked to be fully intact and maybe even airtight. The second hard point had what was left of a Mule-class cargo DropShip. That ship looked like someone had taken an ice cream scoop to its center. Some of the systems aboard ship might still be intact, but an impact had gutted whatever the ship might have been carrying long ago.

As the tug closed in on the derelict ships, its telescope reveled what had happened to the JumpShip that had forced to keep it to this one system. The ship's hull was visibly twisted. The front of the ship was almost twenty degrees out of alignment with the aft section.

There had been very few recovered ships that had undergone a misjump. All of the ones that had been found so far had been recovered with a warped spine. Such a deformation meant that the jump core could never be repaired.

Since that was the case, the kid gloves could come off. This recovery was going to be done fast and nasty. The captain of the tug broke the bad news to Copeland via a much time delayed radio conversation. Then it was time to get to work.

The Hard Hat needed to first attach herself to the aft section of old JumpShip with her odd shaped nose. After that they could start reducing the momentum of the larger ship, until it was at a standstill relative to the Styx. The attaching of the two ships could not be done at full speed, but the Hard Hat still hit the JumpShip while it was moving at a little over one meter per second relative velocity. That was about twice the recommended speed for a combat docking to a JumpShip, but still low enough to avoid damage to the tug.

Once all the arms and towing equipment was attached and safe, the tug fired its huge main engine. A Merchant JumpShip without any DropShips attached out massed the tug by a factor of around six times. That is a lot of mass to have to slow down. It can be done, but it takes a lot of fuel and raw thrust to do the job safely.

With the jump-core already ruined they could be a bit more cavalier than last time. When the tug fired its engine, it could ramp up the thrust quickly. It went from .01g to one full g of thrust in less than an hour. After a quick check on all of the systems, the DropShip upped its thrust and soon it was pushed to 1.5gs for one and a half hours. This was just a little over three quarters of the overthrust setting for the tug.

After the ships had reached what was considered a stable orbit, the Hard Hat radioed to the Styx more details about the status of the Merchant's jump drive. With the scanning systems on the JumpShip and the radio fix from the Hard Hat it was a relatively easy math problem to jump the Styx closer to the salvage using the Colonial made drive. This cut the amount of time needed to attach the two JumpShips together. The Merchant might never jump again, but that had never been a part of the plan.

The Styx had not deployed her sail upon arrival to the system. The last time, it had made the job of attaching the salvage ship harder for the pilot of the Hard Hat. This time they had done away with that problem.

Both the Styx and the Hard Hat fired their smaller station-keeping drives in a complex dance. They started only about a couple of hundred kilometers apart following the Styx's jump, but in only a few hours the ships were only tens of meters apart. That would be close enough for now.

After conferring with the Hard Hat. Captain Copeland ordered a halt to the whole operation until all of the crews could get some rest. This job might require less care than the recovery of the Scout, but there was still little room for the errors brought on by fatigue. They were ahead of schedule and had the time to do things right.

Following the rest period, the crews began inspections of both the salvaged merchant and the Styx. Once it was determined that no unforeseen issues had arisen, the lead pilot for the Hard Hat began the multi-hour process to soft dock the JumpShip hulk to the transport JumpShip. Before lunch of that day the two ships where touching skin-to-skin. The tie-down cables were attached to each ship by space suited figures and the two vessels were now bound together.

While the securing of the hulk was going on, the surveyors and inspection crews boarded the wreck. After the salvage of the Scout they steeled themselves against what they might find inside. That vessel had been purged when someone had tried to take the bridge. This vessel had been twisted by cosmic forces that had warped space and time. No one knew what damage that might have wreaked on the crew.

The Merchant had lost the ability to hold atmosphere. Once aboard, inspection teams found that the hull breach had been what killed the crew, and quickly. All of the crew died from the explosive decompression, each still floating strapped into whatever station they had been in during the ill-fated jump.

The twisting of the JumpShip had also crimped the DropShips to the two docking hard points. This had prevented them from escaping the wreck. Their crews would have been doomed regardless, as there were no habitable planets within the system.

It was undetermined if the Mule had been damaged in the jump, or later. No bodies were recovered from what was left of it. The salvage teams were trying to work out what had caused the damage to it. In the limited time that Robert intended to stay in the system the might not be able to find out.

The Trojan was entirely a different story. It had maintained its structural integrity, so the crew had slowly gone insane after the accident. Surveyors found a dozen crewmembers that had ended their own lives in some inventive and gruesome ways. The cabins of all but one the crewmember had been sealed shut from the insides. Each survivor had done that before they had ended their own lives, and probably not long before.

All showed signs of starvation. Most showed signs of poisoning and malnutrition. Damage to anything onboard that looked like it might have been made of organic matter indicated that after the crew had used up their rations. They had tried eating anything they could bite through.

The expected crew for a Trojan was eighteen, so the salvage team quickly found out that six bodies were missing. Robert hoped that they had never been on the ship at all. Somehow, he didn't think that this crew was that fortunate.

The salvage crew only needed three days to clean up what they could and survey the three ships from bow to stern. The list of needed repair parts was extensive, but it appeared that aside from the destroyed jump drive the Station and its support factories could fix all of it.

With all three of the "found" ships attached to the Styx, some repairs could be started to the wreck from on-board stores, but it was mostly busywork till they could get back to New Circe. The Trojan was as close to perfect working order as possible. The damage to the Merchant was almost entirely structural. The Mule was almost certain to be sent to the breakers.

On the 6th of Oct the SLS Styx prepared for departure. The colonial jump engine was spun up, and the patched together mass of metal and men disappeared from this haunted section of space. Most were very hopeful that it was for the last time they would see this star system.

It would be a long ten days for the JumpShip and her cargo to cover the thousand light years to get back home. They were making "only" fifteen light years on each jump provided by the civilian spec Colonial drive. But they did this every hour, for between eight and ten hours a day. They settled into the routine that they had established on the out-bound leg of the trip, and Robert found that he was satisfied with his crew's performance under such a stressful itinerary.

Robert had ordered them to keep a wary eye on the systems they passed through. His crew had taken the order to heart. In every system the Styx had performed as detailed a survey at it could in the hour, they remained in any one spot. During rest hours the bridge watches had performed more detailed surveys of the places they stopped for the night.

Two days before their return to New Circe, Robert welcomed the chief of data systems into his ready room. To his astonishment the chief told him that these scans needed to stop.

It seemed the Styx was nearly out of disk space.