“This area is fire control, or at least it will be once they get all this stuff installed. That gray box there is one of the new gun control servers. It will increase target acquisition and speed up slew rate on the turrets. This way.”
They moved aft through the fire control area and into an area of small cubicle-like spaces.
“This is the sensor control center. As you can see from the lack of clutter, these systems are pretty much installed. Our sensor operators work from these cubicles. Our old sensor suite was pretty good, but these new sensors are even better. We have the normal assortment of spectral receivers, magnetic anomaly detectors, infrared sensors, electro-optical sensors, chemical sniffers, and also the new mass optical array. It will give us a real advantage out in dark space where, sometimes, the only indication of another ship is when it passes in front of a star.”
“We had something like that on the F-53.”
”Right, it’s the same principle, but this one extends over the entire skin of the ship. The resolution is supposed to be unreal. The Vigilant will be the first ship equipped with it. It wasn’t ready for installation on the Valiant during their last refit. We get to test it for Fleet. That means we’ll have several specialists on board for our first patrol. They will run the tests while we conduct our normal patrol. At various points along our patrol path, other ships will be positioned to test the system’s sensitivity and resolution. Come on, let’s go see Engineering.”
They continued aft, through what were obviously crew spaces, up to a large iris hatch. It opened as they approached and they entered a completely orderly space. The components were arrayed neatly next to the spaces they would occupy once installed. There was no packing material anywhere. The floor was immaculate. It almost looked polished. In the rear of the space was a Chief Petty Officer watching two shipyard workers moving a component into its place.
“Now don’t go banging it against the sides as you slide it in. Watch out for those connectors! That’s better. Keep it coming. Keep it coming. Good, now plug it in and lock it down.”
He looked over at the two of them and said, “Hello, Captain, this is the new engine synchronizer. No more manual balancing of thrust. This device does it all automatically.”
LCDR Timmons smiled and said, “But Chief, it was always so entertaining to hear you curse the engines. What will we do for amusement now? Ensign Blake, this is Chief Machinist Mate Miller.”
Kelly extended his hand, “Glad to meet you, Chief.”
Chief Miller wiped his hands on a rag and took Blake’s handshake. “Glad to have you onboard, sir. Welcome to the Vigilant.”
LCDR Timmons said, “Chief, you’ve done a great job in here organizing the engineering spaces. When are you going to do the same for the rest of the ship? It’s a mess out there.”
“Captain, Engineering is the most important space on the ship. If the engines don’t work properly, nothing else on board happens. I’ll get around to the rest of the spaces as soon as I get this area finalized.”
“Come on, Exec. Let me show you the rest of the ship.”
Kelly said, “Good to meet you Chief,” then had to hurry to catch up with LCDR Timmons. Chief Miller chuckled to himself as he watched Kelly almost run after Timmons.
They moved forward past storage compartments, through the crew quarters, the galley, past sensor control, all the clutter in weapons control, and into chiefs’ country. Each chief had a small suite with a sleeping area and a small desk space. Each cabin was equipped with a fixed bed and a drop-down bed that opened out from the wall above. Kelly’s quarters would have the same arrangement. Only Chief Watson’s and the captain’s sleeping areas were singles. Chief Watson’s space also had a small conference room attached.
A common head would divide the chiefs’ country from the two officers’ quarters. At the moment, though, there were no officers’ quarters, only a space where they would be. Both captain and executive officer spaces were missing, while several shipyard workers installed pipes and cable raceways. The captain’s stateroom would be on the port side and the exec’s to starboard.
As he remembered from the diagrams, the captain’s stateroom also had a conference room as well as sleeping area, private head, and office space. The exec’s was smaller by the lack of a conference room, but was incredibly spacious in comparison to his quarters on the Bolivar. It would be pretty classy if they ever got it re-installed.
They moved forward through another large iris hatch and onto the bridge. The bridge was in pretty good shape. Most of the major components were installed. Several smaller components still needed to be installed. Even though there was a lot still to be done, Blake could get a feel for the layout. It was wedge shaped, with the pointed end of the wedge forward. There were two positions forward and two steps down. Helm was to starboard and, he assumed, navigation was to port. The positions looked like two fighter cockpits side by side. Aft and one step up from those two positions were weapons control, sensor control, and engineering. Blake remembered from his research that the whole ship could be controlled from the bridge. Each position had an integral seat with four-point harness.
Aft and one step up from these three positions were three more. The center position was the captain’s. The port side position belonged to the senior chief, Chief Watson. Kelly’s position was to starboard. Each position had a multipurpose workstation, capable of controlling any function of the specialized consoles. Kelly was especially happy to see full flight controls and weapon controls at his workstation.
The captain asked, “What do you think of the bridge?”
“It’s pretty roomy, compared to an F-53 cockpit. It will take me a bit to get used to it. I like the layout. It’s logical and I like the redundancy in the three command positions. I like the way that the three position sets are terraced. Each level has an unobstructed view out front, to the sides, and above. Coming from fighters, I appreciate having a glass view screen.”
“This is a slightly different layout than we had before refit. They implemented some of the recommendations we made based on our patrol experiences. Before, only the captain’s position had a multifunction terminal and flight controls. Because there is a traditional hesitance to sit in the captain’s chair, that position was wasted during all watches that I wasn’t present for. Our solution was to make all three positions identical. That way we have redundancy on top of redundancy.”
“Now let’s get out of here before the yard chief gets on our butts for keeping his crews from working.”
Chief Watson spoke up. “Sir, I’m going to stay here and see what Chief Miller is doing in engineering. There were a few things back there not quite in accordance with the schematics. You know how he likes to tinker. I’d better go see what he connived out of the yard crew.”
LCDR Timmons headed down the gangway and back into the dock. “Come on, let’s take a walk around.”
Kelly trailed Timmons as he pointed out various components on the ship’s exterior.
“This is our new dual particle cannon turret. Each cannon has a rate of fire of one blast per second. The cannons are set to fire consecutively. That gives each turret an effective rate of fire of 120 blasts per minute. Come forward.”
Kelly followed him toward the nose of the ship.
“If you look right above your head and you look real close, you'll see part of the sensor grid. They’ve done a pretty good job of blending it into the ship’s skin, but you can just make out the circular indentions where the sensors were faired in. Now, if we move to the bow, you can see the three forward-firing plasma cannons. When they first laid out the plans for this refit, these three cannons were left off. I convinced Admiral Craddock that even though we live by stealth, we die by lack of firepower if stealth doesn’t work. So, we have a little more sting. It gives us a bit more flexibility in tight situations. We don’t always have to hide with pride.”