Next morning Tommy went to the dock to look for Simon and found him working on the first fighter.
-Simon, I need your help with something and if it works then we can get more power to the magnetic harpoons.
He said with excitement in his voice.
Simon was speechless for a moment when Tommy started talking really fast about his idea.
-Wait a moment Tommy, what are you talking about?
He held his hands up to stop the younger man from talking for a moment and it worked.
-Take a breath and start over but slower so that i can understand you.
Tommy listened to him and took some deep breaths to calm himself.
-Listen, I need your help with something and if it works we can supply the magnetic harpoon cannons with more power.
Simon got very interested in hearing the later part.
-Ok give me a minute to pack my stuff and let's go to the central area to talk.
Everyone who was in the dock got a bit shocked when they saw Simon leaving .
They all knew that he never missed a day at work.
When Tommy and Simon reached the central area they sat down and Tommy started to explain his idea.
-You see I need to find the schematics for this station and get some parts from the fighters in the dock for this plan to work.
-The schematics you can access from the engineering as for the parts you need to tell me exactly what you need or even better show me and tell me how to remove them without breaking them.
Simon said.
- But first explain to me, how do you plan to get more power from those items?
-First I need the parts from one of the fighter engines and two or three of the smaller electric engines that are placed in their hauls plus some scrap pieces to make a frame for the device I want to build.
Then I need the schematics to find a way to connect the device so that it can supply the power to the cannons.
Simon listened to the idea and he liked it but he didn't understand how to get the power from a fighter craft engine.
-Listen, I know you want to help but we don't have the fuel to start an engine of a fighter to produce more power.
Tommy smiled and said something that made Simon speechless.
-We don't need any fuel and we don't need to start an engine.
In every small scale space engine like that of a fighter there are small turbines that generate power for the whole ship that's why most small craft need to jump start their engines or use internal batteries to get the power required to start the engine.
My idea is to get two of those turbines and to connect them with the small electric engines and jump start them.
When the electric engines start up they will start moving the turbines which then will generate enough power to not only keep the engines going but also excess power that we can send to the cannons.
When he finished speaking The look on Simon's face was priceless.
It took the big guy quite a long while before he regained his composure.
- So basically you want to build a power generator that doesn't require any fuel, just a jump start and then it'll work on its own,
Is that even possible?
Simon asked with some doubts?
-In theory it is possible and if I'm right we can get a free source of power until it breaks from the material fatigue.
Tommy answered.
-Ok I'm sold, lets try and build it, we have nothing to lose if it fails and quite a lot to gain if it works.
The big guy smiled and felt excited for the first time in a long time.
-I'll go and stop everyone from dismantling those engines for now and you go to the engineering and find out where to plug it in.
Simon said and went back to the dock.
While Tommy only nodded and went to look for the schematics.
The next two days went by so fast that Tommy barely paid attention to it.
He found the schematics and it took him only 6 hours to figure out where to plug in the generator.
It turned out that every cannon had its own capacitors built into them so plugging the power to them was easy, all it took was some cables.
The next part was a little more complicated.
Not everyone was happy when Tommy and Simon started to strip the engines on the second fighter.
Despite Simon claims that they needed the parts for a project that if it was successful would allow them to get more ships next time.
There was some grumbling but no one dared to obstruct them.
So after two days of work Tommy and Simon were ready to start the device.
It looked clunky but it was ready and waiting.
They were in dock two which was almost 50% bigger than dock 1 in which the rest of the exiles worked.
Dock 2 was also equipped with two cannons but unlike dock 1 it had a tractor beam array.
Unfortunately tractor beams required a stable supply of massive amounts of energy to work,and there was no way in hell their small generator could supply that much power.
After hooking everything up they were ready to test their device.
Tommy took the battery pack they found in the fighter and charged it up from the station power grid. Fortunately it didn't use that much power to recharge it and luckily it still worked after spending gods knows how long in space.
When he connected the battery to the first electric engine,at first nothing happened but a few seconds later the engine started to spin.
It was slow at first but with every moment it spun faster and faster and with it the first turbine came to life after that the next two engines started to move each one connected to a turbine.
When all the engines and turbines were working Tommy disconnected the battery and the generator was now working on its own power.
He went to look at the console of one of the cannons and Simon went to check the other one.
When he got there all he saw was a blank screen which indicated no power.
But a moment later there was a quiet beep and the console came to life showing a targeting reticle, some information he was not interested in for now and the power bar in the upper right section of the screen which displayed charging in progress ,current charge 0.1%.
Seeing this he started laughing and jumping with joy,Simon was doing the same indicating that it worked on both cannons.
It was then that he heard clapping only a quiet one at first but right the next moment it was loud as all hell.
Only then did the both of them see that over 50 people were watching as they started up their generator wanting to see if they succeeded or failed.