He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) (31 page)

“As of now, once we leave port I want all tubes loaded, and safety tags placed on the fire control.”

“Sir?”

“Chief, I know what you are thinking, but this is a new ship, new everything, so let’s start with new procedures.”

“If you say so, Skipper.”  The tone of the man’s voice said he didn’t approve.

“Chief...” He stopped for a moment, seeing the look.  “What's your first name, Chief?”

“Alfred, sir, but most people call me Alfie.”

“May I call you Alfie?”

“Yes, sir.”  His eyebrows lifting in surprise.

“I’m going to tell the rest of the crew the same thing, and that is, that I want you to find new, better ways of doing things.  Forget how you use to do it, or what the naval manual tells you.”  Mike saw a slow smile spread across Chief Dell’s face.  “You and I both know there are way to improve efficiency, so work with CPO Conner and put in your recommendations.”

“Yes, Skipper.”

“Also, putting some of those fish in the tubes will give you a little more sleeping room.”  He said, looking around the compartment.

“Aye, Skipper, that is would.”

Due to the number of torpedoes they’d taken aboard, they’d lashed many of the fold-down bunk up into, their storage position, and the space taken up with torps.  Now they wouldn’t have to double up and have three men using the same rack.  His next stop was one deck up to the forward main battery fire control center.  Here he ran into his first major problem.

“How’s it going, Chief?”

“Not good, Skipper.”  Chief Parker announced after saluting.

“What’s the problem.”

“It’s the forward battery, sir.  I’ve had three fitters up there polishing the crystal housing for a week.”  He sighed in frustration.  “Just when we work it down where the crystal fit, we find out that it’s the housing, it’s out of alignment.”

“Damn!”  Mike muttered.  “And the other two?”

“They’re fine, Skipper, the crystals fit perfectly and the alignment is right on.”

“Any problems with the second main battery?”

“No, Skipper, all three units are working perfectly.” That meant that he only had two working weapons on the lower forward battery.  Not critical, unless they got into a major battle, he still had the second main battery and his aft battery, if he could get them into position.

“What’s your solution, Chief?”

“Take the whole damn thing out and machine a new housing.”

“Time?”

“Shouldn’t take more the three days, Skipper, if they have the machine shop up and running that is.”

“I’ll check, and have CPO Conner get back with you.”

“Aye-aye, Skipper.”

“Anything else?”

“No, sir, just the usual glitches in the fire control system, but we have most of those worked out.”

“Good, I need my main weapons on line as soon as you can, Chief, but don’t kill yourself, or your crew doing it.”

“Aye-aye, Skipper, will do.”  After Mike and his party left, Chief Parker sat down with a sigh.

“Well, what do you know about that.”

“Shit!  I thought he’d have a shit fit when you told him.”  Leading Seaman Daniels commented.

“Guess it’s like CPO Blake said, this one’s not like any officer we’ve ever met.”

“Christ, you can say that again.  Anyone else would be screaming his bloody head off hearing that.”

That was how it went for most of the inspection, just small glitches in the system, and only one or two major, but solvable problems.  Mike gave each crew Chief a clean hand in solving the problem, and never berated a man for it, that wasn’t his way.  His last stop was the stern torpedo room, and thankfully, they didn’t have a single problem.  He gave them his by now, worn out speech and headed for the Wardroom and a well-earned cup of coffee.

“That should do it, Chief.”

“Not quite, Skipper.”

“Oh?  What did I forget?”

“The Environmental chamber, sir.”

“Oh no I didn’t, I’m going to leave that in the capable hands of Mr. Standish-Owen.”  He chuckled.  Pete looked at him over the edge of his coffee mug and lifted one eyebrow.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m suddenly the low man on the totem pole?”

“Have to train you for the Captain’s seat, Pete.”  Mike chuckled.

“Oh, right,”  he growled, “just what I need, more on the job training.”

“You can also check on the quality of the um...  ‘Engine cleaner’ they’re brewing down there.”

“Shit!”  Pete brightened up.  “Forgot about that.  The last time I sampled engineering’s supplement to the ship’s cleaning fluid I had a headache for two days.”

“Well, Chief Petty Officer Conner Blake.  How is the ‘engine cleaner’ coming?”  Now it was Conner’s turn to get a little red around the collar.

“Um... well, sir, we’ve only been away for a short while, but the last time I checked it was more like paint remover than parts cleaner.”  He did wonder how the Skipper knew about the illicit still.  Chief Macgregor had it up and running within two days of signing on, but he still needed to improve his stock a little.

“As long as the Chief keeps it within bounds, I’ll do the Nelson bit and turn a blind eye.”  Mike raised his mug to the Chief and smiled.

“Aye-aye, Skipper, I’ll pass the word along.

The XO inspected environmental, and reported back that everything was in working order, but the ‘part cleaner’ still needed a little aging.  Hydroponics had a good crop of algae growing to supplement the air scrubbers and they were all ready passing the recycled air through the chamber.  In his spare time, Mike continued reading up on naval history and, until one day, something struck him.  He immediately buzzed Engineering and asked Adam to come up and see him.

“What’s up, Skipper?”  Adam asked as he knocked and entered.

“Pull up a chair, I need to run something by you.”  He did, after Jenks placed a mug of coffee beside him Mike passed the book over, pointing to a passage, and for a few moments, Adam read in silence.

              Submerged U-boats employed several devices to evade allied pursuers equipped with sonar. These consisted of decoys, which resembled a submerged submarine and noisemakers to black out the pursuer’s listening device. 

              Bold Canisters – are a metal canister about 3.9 inches in diameter, filled with calcium hydride, which gave off large quantities of gas when mixed with seawater. It was launched from a special tube and on release, seawater seeped into a special valve, which reacted with the chemical. The valve would open and shut, causing the canister to stay at a certain depth until the compound was depleted in about 20 to 25 minutes.

              To underwater locating devices such as sonar, the resulting bubble cloud could resemble a submerged U-boat, and unless the sonar operator was especially skilled, it was often difficult to distinguish from a real target. The allies called this a “Submarine Bubble Target” (SBT). BOLD was widely used from 1942 onwards, with new and improved versions being developed until the end of the war. The last was BOLD 5, and was intended for use at depths of up to 200 meters.

              Sigmund was an anti-sonar device, which emitted a series of deafening explosions, and were intended to blackout the enemy’s listening gear. The U-boat would make its getaway by altering course or running at high speed during this short period…

“Okay?” He asked in a puzzled tone, putting the data pad back on the desk. “Interesting concept, and so?”

“As far as I know, neither the Royal Navel, nor the Sirriens are using anything like that, so I was just wondering if there was any way we could do something similar.”  For a moment, Adam looked at him then started to laugh.  He stopped when he saw that Mike was serious.

“You mean it, Skipper?  You want me to put a smokescreen down in space?”

“Yes,” he waved his hand, “I know we can’t put a smoke screen down in space, but can we put out something similar.”

“Never thought about it before, Skipper, but now you mention it, everyone, including us relies on their sensors to ‘see’ what’s around them.”

“Right, a vision port wouldn’t do much good out here, not with the distances and speed involved in space combat.”

“So, if everyone is relying on what their sensors are telling them what’s out there, it's a question of finding a way to blind them, or make us invisible.”

“Right, I read that during what they called the ‘Second World War’ they used aluminum foil to confuse enemy radar, and later, radar guided missiles.”

“Um, that’s a point.”  Mike saw Adam get that far away look in his eye and pull out his doodling pad.

“Submarines used specially constructed tanks of air they could launch to put out a false profile of the sub-as a means of distracting incoming torpedoes.  They could essentially vanish once they were under the waves.  Aircraft used magnesium flares to do the same thing.”

“Oh, that I can do.”  He chuckled.

“You can?”

“Yes, sir, it just a question of making a torp or missiles ‘hotter’ than the ship, or with a larger radar signature for the torps or missiles to go after.”  He began unconsciously scribbling on his pad.

“What bothers me is why no one has thought of using a similar technique nowadays.”  Adam muttered.

“Maybe they have and it just hasn’t been incorporated into any of our warships.  Or it’s been ‘killed in appropriation’ like most of the R&D projects.”

“Where have we heard that before?” Mike mused and looked off into the distance for a moment. “You know, sometimes we get blinded by our own technology.”

“How do you mean, Skipper?”

“Take the mounted Samurai for instance. The Japanese bow is designed to penetrate their armor, so instead of trying to make stronger armor, one imaginative Samurai came up with a simple solution. When riding away back to his own lines, he deployed a simple silk parachute attached to his back that billowed out behind him, and guess what, it stopped the arrows by simply absorbing their energy.”

“I’ll be dammed. I see what you mean. Sometimes the best solution is the simplest, not the most complex, or advanced.”

“Exactly. Over the years, we’ve forgotten the simplest lesson, and got all wrapped up in the offense verses defense argument. Stronger armor to beat more powerful weapons, and so on.” Mike could see Adam thinking by the faraway look in his eyes. “When you have time, get with Gable, and see if you can come up with something like those old subs did. I’d like to be able to vanish as well.” He chuckled at the expression of Adam’s face.

“Yes, sir, it might be good to have an ace or two up our sleeve and a way to augment our ECM and ECCM system.”

“If you and Gable can come up with something, that is.”

“Yes, Skipper.”

“I wonder what a small mass of water spread out over an area the size of this ship would look like on sensors?”  Mike mused.

“Ice crystals you mean, sir, that's what it would turn to the moment it’s exposed to vacuum.”  Adam had that far away look in his eyes again.  “The only one way to find out, sir.  I’ll see if I can rig up an explosive device to dissipate it correctly.”  He stuffed his data pad back into his pocket and pulled out a paper one instead.

“Let me know what you come up with.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”  He answered absently, scribbling away and making small drawings all over the page as he walked towards the hatchway.

“How are things in engineering, Adam?”

“Great, sir, we have all the supplies we need now, and then some, and the engines are purring along like a Swiss watch.  Apart from a few small bugs, I don’t have any immediate problems.”

“Good, I hope it stays that way.”  They chatted on about this and that for a while, then Adam excused himself, and went back to the Engine room to work on the problem of a smoke screen.

For once, Mike didn’t have any paper work to do, and his log was up to date, so he wandered down to the Wardroom, but it was empty.  He could have gone to the Bridge, but there was no need.  The ship was running fine and he didn’t need to get everyone nervous just because he was bored.  They had plenty of entertainment chips, but he didn’t feel like watching any.  Instead, he read the daily reports, and did a crew, review, making notations in each person's record.  He was pleased to see that the Marines were settling into their new positions as ship's gunner and Torpedomen even better than he expected. 

That brought up the critical issue of how best to use his available crew. He pulled up Chief Conner’s original crew list and undated it.  The hard part would be working out a solution to their critical crew shortage on each watch.

So far, they’d just muddled along, putting people where they were most needed at a given moment.  That was all right while they were puttering about, but wouldn’t do in a combat situation.  People had to know their duty assignment and battle station. 

The problem broke itself down into two separate sections, normal duty, and combat. The first was mealy having enough people to cover each watch station, some critical, some not so.  The main areas of concern were during a normal duty cycle were the Bridge, engineering, and environmental.  He took each in turn and played around with names and numbers, looking for the right combination.  He tried a four hour watch schedule, but this didn’t leave much time between watches for anyone to do anything except eat and sleep, assuming they slept for 8 hours. Then he tried a six hour watch with more success.

That brought the total up to 80, excluding the Marines.  He had to keep them in reserve for combat situations, and they didn’t have the necessary training to run the ship.  It left some area, such as damage control critically short, but they have to make do until they received more crew.  With a new vessel, general maintenance shouldn’t be a problem, other than bugs or glitches in the system.  So far, they’d been lucky, and the ones that did show up were fixable.  Catering would only have one cook on duty during the evening and night shift, and he’d let the Petty Officer in charge work out his own shipboard schedule.  As on most ships, the cooks started a lot earlier than the rest of the crew, for obvious reasons.  It was tight, but workable, and he added that in his report before finally turning it. 

He lay back in his bunk and watched Ann’s video chip again, for the fifth time, just to hear her voice, and watch the play of expression on her face. He still felt a little bemused that such a beautiful woman was his, and drifted off to sleep thinking of their last night together, the one he was awake for.  The next morning he passed his duty proposal to Pete.