“What do you have, Val?” Gelrayen asked cautiously.
She brought her camera pod around slowly. “The primary and two secondary impulse cannons in the shock bumper fired. There was no reason; they were not powered up nearly far enough to pulse.”
“Something slipped?”
“Nothing on my end,” she insisted. “The power levels should have held the impulse cannons in standby condition. I cannot see yet how the fault could have been at my end. The cannons discharged prematurely.”
“No one is blaming you,” Gelrayen told her, since she sounded almost as if she was on the edge of panic. “Forget the cannons for now; we should just consider ourselves lucky that it was only the three forward cannons. Tell me about the condition of the bay.”
“I was not greatly damaged by the concussion itself, and my hull is open closest to the blast,” she reported, calmer. “That suggests to me that the damage is not great. I was hit by a hull plate that got away from a tender during the concussion, but the plate defected off with minimal damage and has drifted away. I cannot say what has happened to the construction crew because I am blind to the front. Station control has called me, but I have not yet been contacted by bay control or the observation deck. Would you like to go outside and check conditions for me? I would appreciate it.”
“Yes, I suppose that I should,” he agreed pensively. “I would not expect any response from the observation deck, since those windows were only twenty meters or so away from the primary impulse cannon. Do what you can.”
Although she had not been specifically invited, Captain Tarrel followed quickly as the Starwolf Commander stalked off toward the lift. Once the doors were closed, Gelrayen looked far more annoyed and concerned that he could have afforded to while his ship could see him. He was being protective of Valthyrra, trying to be attentive and commanding enough to make up for her own deficiencies. That made Tarrel even more concerned about what she had just seen.
“Commander, your ship was rattled,” she told him. “Valthyrra was scared to death, and she nearly froze up.”
Gelrayen frowned fiercely. “She was just concerned that she might have been responsible for damage and injury, all the more so because she knows how important time is right now.”
“I certainly hope so,” Tarrel said guardedly. “If that really is her reaction to danger, then you cannot take this ship into battle. She has a lot of growing up to do.”
The first thing they discovered was that the docking tubes had been ripped away by the concussion. Gelrayen stepped through the airlock and out to the broken end of the tube, then gently propelled himself over the side. Tarrel followed his example with only marginal hesitation; there was no gravity in the bay except for the final two meters or so above the floor, and that final drop was small enough that even she made it easily. At least that gentle descent of over a hundred meters had given them both time for a good look about the bay.
As Gelrayen had predicted, the concussion from the primary impulse cannon had taken out the observation deck and the bay control room, although the nose docking bracket was built heavily enough that it had survived unharmed. The two secondary cannons had added their own power to the blast, and the concussion had swept along the length of the bay and out the main doors. At least the doors had been open at the time; the shock wave had been intense enough to blow out the containment field for a brief moment. There had been two tenders in the bay at the time. One, just coming in, had been kicked back out again. The second tender had already collected one of the immense hull plates, but that had been ripped from its hold by the concussion and had slid along the Methryn’s upper hull until it too passed out the containment field. It had already been collected by the first tender.
Most of the bay crew had already gone to the construction facilities to help prepare the Methryn’s armor. The dozen or so left had all been Kelvessan and hearty enough to survive more than this. Some had very minor injuries due to being tossed about by the concussion or else being hit by debris. There had fortunately been no one in the bay control room or the observation deck at the time; even Starwolves would not have easily survived that. All in all, things could have been worse. If the bay doors had been closed, the entire concussion would have been forced into the station corridors.
Of course, things could have also been much better.
Tenders continued to carry the hull plates out of the way, although a full hour passed before two of the little ships returned with replacements for the docking tubes which had been ripped away. These had simply been disconnected from another bay, but another hour passed before these new tubes were rigged in place and normal traffic in and out of the carrier could resume. By that time, most of the debris from the misfire of the impulse cannons had been cleared away. That was also more than enough time for Fleet Commander Asandi to arrive.
“Do you know yet what happened?” he asked. “I was told that the scanner malfunctioned.”
Gelrayen nodded solemnly. “Valthyrra was powering up the system to see if everything was responding. She says that the cannons pulsed at a much lower power level than anticipated. They should have only been at standby status.”
Asandi frowned at he stared up at the carrier. “I hope that this business does not involve a long delay.”
“Valthyrra says not. According to her expectations, some minor mechanical changes and a primary computer control modification should correct the problem completely. She says that we should close up the hull and take the ship out just as she is, although she recommends certain design changes on the next impulse scanner we build.”
“That sounds promising,” Asandi agreed. “I still want to check everything through the research and design team first, though. Better a delay at this phase than having to bring the Methryn back in later to start over.”
Gelrayen looked up at the new docking tube, which appeared to be complete. “I suppose that I should go back aboard. We have to get to work on finding out just why those cannons fired prematurely.”
“Tell Valthyrra that we really do not need these delays,” Asandi declared. “Her first battle damage, a result of shooting herself in her own construction bay. This is not a promising beginning.”
“Send Dalvaen and his friends in research over and have them tell us why their cannons discharged this much energy at standby level,” Gelrayen responded.
As it happened, Dalvaen had already taken his team of research scientists and engineers onto the Methryn’s hull to look at the impulse cannons, and they had their answer soon enough. The projection coils in the cannons were cooled to very low temperatures within a matter of seconds by solid-state coolers, and the designers had seriously underestimated the increase in efficiency from the super-conductor coils. Power levels that should have held the cannons ready to pulse on command, instead caused them to discharge. That was by no means bad news. Any system that could deliver the same performance on half the power input was an advantage to any ship, and especially so to a fighting ship. Valthyrra simply had to reprogram the automatic systems in the scanner control to feed a reduced power curve to the cannons.
The Methryn had been somewhat more damaged by the concussion than she had first thought, although that damage was still not serious. She was designed to take far worse punishment than she had just received, and the damage was mostly limited to some of the more delicate equipment exposed by the missing hull plates. Wiring and major power leads had been ripped loose from several shield projectors, scanner receivers and perimeter cannons set in retractable turrets within the ventral groove. None of the machinery itself, however, had been damaged, and everything was easily repaired by reconnecting or laying down new wiring.