WCGW Chpt 242

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==Chapter 242 - What Could Go Wrong==
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Linden (Former Outworlds System)
1st October, 3046
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Reginald Traveline and his small group had asked to remain behind and study the Shipyards construction to better understand how to dismantle it for transport. They had carefully logged all the connection points which was actually most of the station, even the construction bay was designed with a docking collar. They had been surveying the station for over a week and calculated they could move the station with 12 collars. The power feeds were easily accessible, if you knew where to look. They were aided in their efforts by Jimmy Bulkwater, the computer wizard who had initially helped unlock some of the station's secrets, who had located the stations damage control schematics and assembly plans after much of the survey had been completed.
Today was different, he had taken his team over to the Olympus Recharge Station, though it had long ago lost the ability to recharge anything when the locals had removed the massive recharge Batteries from its hull. The now vacant voids had been filled with manufacturing machinery and even metal smelting equipment. Over 400,000 tons of heavy equipment. Over 15,000 people called the Olympus home and had protested any effort to leave the Olympus behind when they moved. This had led to some very long discussions with Chief Engineer Vincent Zuniga, himself and his team, along with several of the local experts on how to accomplish such a movement. While Chief Zuniga's initial plan, made long ago, had held promise, it had also called for some serious demolition work.
It would take quite a while to remove the heavy machinery to free up weight. And then they would need to remove all at least 10,000 of the standard quarters that had been constructed over the years, the small craft bays and Aerospace bays, all the lifeboats and escape pods, plus empty the fuel tanks to get the weight down to 87,000 tons. But this would leave the Olympus itself intact with the pressurized repair bays still installed. Aided by the local experts, hundreds of computer simulations had been run and there was a 93% chance to successfully move the Olympus Station back to Boulsi via KF Boom. They could then reassemble the removed items once back at Boulsi. There had even been discussions of hauling the Recharge batteries back to Boulsi also, though this was not a priority.
But that also brought on a new problem, with no fuel aboard, they would need to shut down the reactors. That meant the 15,000 plus people would need to be moved by another method. They could not ride the Olympus like they were using the Habitats, and they had only conducted two jumps, once to the Zenith Jump Point and another back to the Nadir Jump Point to make sure it was a feasible idea anyway before they had departed. Until they returned, no one knew if even the Habitat ride was safe. If they had all the Linden Dropship assets, 4 Jumbo and 5 Mule, fully loaded with the heavy machinery, that only moved 74,000 tons of equipment. Add their own Mammoth Cargo Dropship and that put them at 104,000 tons being moved per trip. Still, that was five trips to haul all the stuff away. With work crews having to stay behind to continue prepping the Olympus for the jumps. He wanted to err on the side of caution and reinforce the stations framework to handle the stress of a jump thru hyperspace. That also added in the delay as the heavy machinery was just starting work on producing the requested frames, which would then be stored on the hull of the Olympus until they had removed all the interior stuff so that they could install the bracing.
It was going to be a tremendous amount of work and there was no way around that. Then the problem of the weight of the additional frame would put them over their target weight. That would require another 3,000 quarters to be removed to shave off another 20,000 tons to account for the metal framework. The task just kept growing the more the problem was studied, and plans were made.
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