WCGW Chpt 114

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==Chapter 114 - What Could Go Wrong==
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8 December 3042
Sornath (Former Outworlds System)
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With days to kill, Chief Warrant Officer Vincent Zuniga did more studying and calculations since his academy days. He studied everything he could find on the Olympus Recharge Stations, which was actually quite a lot since First Lieutenant Davis was like a packrat when it came to stripping out data drives from everything they came across. At some point, Davis had either gotten aboard the Olympus at Joshua or had gotten a tech team to do his dirty work for him. Either way, Chief Zuniga had the stations full engineering drives and damage control dives to work with. Luckily, these were perfectly readable by his own computer, and he would not have to beg Colonel Mitchell to order First Lieutenant Davis to let him into Davis's little kingdom.
Using the damage control drive, he could see every frame of the Olympus Station. From outer hull to inner bulkheads. He had already worked out the theoretical calculations using the engineering drives. Each Storage Battery weighed 100,000 tons and the Olympus had eight of them. That was 800,000 tons from the stations max weight of 1,000,000 tons. Strip the cargo bay clean and that was another 136,375 tons gone. That put the Olympus Station at 63,625 tons. Suck the fuel tanks dry and it was now 53,625 tons. Just a huge shell that theoretically should be able to be transported via a Jumpship. They would need a KF Boom and someone who knew how to program the damned thing to talk to the Jumpships computer and KF controller so that it could take into account the actual size of the station being transported. But now, he had to figure out a way to get those batteries out of the station itself.
Studying the plans and diagrams, it was easily clear that they were never meant to be removed anyway not easily. But, with enough time, enough cutting fuel, they could cut away the entire bottom of the station where those batteries were mounted and use the tug to pull them out and set them adrift or placed somewhere they could be recovered later if there was a way to actually do so. On that he had no clue. He needed another set of eyes on this and the only one that knew any sort of Orbital Station was that Paul Orlean fellow. 
Three hours later, both Chief Zuniga and Paul Orlean were huddled over the notes and drawings he had made during his studies. It did not take long for Paul Orlean to point out something Chief Zuniga had missed.
"The Storage batteries themselves only weigh 90,000 tons. There is actually a KF Boom setup that weighs 1,000 tons just for those batteries. It mounts to it clean as can be for a hookup to a Jumpship. It is then removed prior to installation. The other 10,000 tons is all the cables, wiring and power controls to transfer power from the sails to the battery and from the battery to Jumpship. Since one is useless without the other, it is all rolled into the weight calculations." Paul Orlean said
"Well shit, that put me back over the 100,000 ton mark. We would have to strip all that wiring out to get the weight back down. All that work for nothing." Chief Zuniga replied 
"Where does that put us at exactly?" Paul Orlean asked
"I got 133,625 tons." Chief Zuniga replied
Paul Orlean moved so he could see the display of the Olympus Recharge Station on Chief Zuniga's computer. He studied for a few minutes before saying "Okay, well, it would take some doing, but we can still get under the 100,000 ton limit. It will be a ton of work. Weapons, all the shuttle bays, ammunition, remove the repair bays, yank the transit drive, yank all the life boats and escape pods, rip down all the crew quarters and the dropship collars and that should save you another 38,000 tons. Gives you 5,000 tons almost exactly. The KF Booms for the Snowden weigh 2,000 tons. I am pretty sure we could modify one of those to work, it is mainly all about the computer programming. I have had to do it on some of our stations that have had modifications done to them over the years. It is mainly all about making sure the KF field knows how far to extend to take in the docked station. The Olympus is not that much longer than the Snowden, but it is much wider, by like over a kilometer. But we had a station that had a permanently attached orbital factory which changed the width by another 160 meters. I know where to make those changes in the program for the KF Boom computer."
"Jeez, by the time we strip an Olympus down it will be nothing but a hollow shell." Chief Zuniga said
"Then the other option is to yank out all the recharge wiring and power controls." Paul said tracing his finger down the displayed diagram "See, those are designed to be replaced and such. Even have access hatches and what looks like a central walkway between the bundles. Heck, cut both ends loose, attach it to a Dropship and yank it all out in one go. Might be messy and create some sort of navigational hazard, but they will damn sure pull out. It gets you your 80,000 tons back. Those batteries are massive, but not that expensive, about 2,000,000 each."
"If they actually make something to replace the batteries then why the hell did they make it so hard to replace one." Chief Zuniga said more to himself.
"Probably the same reason it is so hard to replace a Jump Core. The things are made to last a long-damned time, like hundreds of years." Paul Orlean said
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