Dark Fate, Chapter 79

Chapter 79 – Military

“Welcome aboard the Hellspawn, Master.”

I smiled at Captain Elalana as she greeted me, stiffly. She was still unused to the whole ‘being enslaved’ thing, and it showed, but that ship had sailed, and now she was trying to make the most out of a bad situation. The fact that I was wanting her people to fight pirates helped, of course.

“Thank you, Captain. Have you put the ship through its paces yet?”

“Yes, sir,” she nodded, as she led the way from the airlock my shuttle was attached to, heading towards her ready room. “The ship was System-bought, yes?” When I nodded, she said, “I could tell. Everything was too crisp to have come off a manufacturing line. Still, it makes the shakedown part of things easier.”

“Explain.”

“Well, System ships are known for melding the systems they were purchased with seamlessly, without any potential problem areas, like discordant programming in different sensor systems, due to them coming from different manufacturers. This means that looking for problems and troubleshooting them is simple, because everything on the ship is by the book. The problems arise from the fact that everything is by the book.”

I nodded, seeing where this was going. “And if everything is ‘by the book’, then you don’t have any of that extra wiggle room if you need more power all of a sudden. And the ship hasn’t picked up any of the habits that tell you when something is about to go wrong, but it hasn’t, yet.”

“Essentially, yes. Also, I’ve never known a Chief Engineer who is happy with a ship running ‘by the book’. That just means no one has given the ship the proper attention, according to my Chief.”

I chuckled. “Well, let the Chief know that they have permission to do any tinkering they want, so long as the Hellspawn is able to stay on station, and do her job. Anything that would require longer downtime, like retuning the engines, or other such things, need to wait until after we have the first of the new torpedo boats off the line, so there’s some coverage.”

“New ships, Master? I don’t think I’ve heard of torpedo boats before.”

I waited until we were ensconced in her ready room, and threw up a schematic on the screen. “This is the Renegade-class Light Attack Craft. Two-person crew, primarily in-system, stealth capable. Secondary weapons include point defense laser turrets, and twin forward-facing ion cannons. Standard fare, there. The primary weapon, however, is something truly nasty.”

“Pulse torpedo array? I can’t say as I’ve heard of that weapon system before. What kind of weapon is it?”

“Well, it is a custom design thanks to one of the Fimaazro designers I purchased. She figured out a way to harness antimatter and effectively weaponize it with far less chance of blowing the ship up. Basically, it uses magic to create a magnetic bottle, fills it with antimatter, and then shoots it at the enemy. The result is very unfortunate for whoever is on the receiving end, I’m sure.”

Captain Elalana hissed as she sat in her chair. “Antimatter? At least it won’t be on my ship. Stuff gives me the creeps.”

“As it would any sane person, Captain. But don’t worry, the test runs will be done before the upgrade pack gets installed on the Hellspawn.” I smiled at the look she gave me. “It simply has too much potential as a weapons system to ignore. I would be a fool not to put it on my strongest ship, once it has been proven to work effectively.”

“I see. And how many of these torpedo boats are expected to join us on patrol, here?”

“I’m thinking twelve to start, in flights of four. One on patrol, one on standby, and one on rest and maintenance. That will give us enough firepower to ensure that any engagement against a single ship will be over before the torpedo boats have to break off and recharge their weapons, and against fleets, they can do hit and run tactics.”

“Those little things are FTL capable?”

“Yes, though the lack of amenities basically means that any interstellar cruise would be done entirely in their flight suits, with meals consisting of emergency rations. It could be done, but probably not something to do on purpose.”

Elalana nodded. “But for something designed for in-system work, that’s not a problem, and it would allow the torpedo boats to rapidly reposition themselves.”

“Exactly. And, if the science works out like the designer says it will, even the fact that much of the torpedo’s explosive force will be lost is not necessarily a problem. For one thing, the explosion won’t be perfectly spherical, as the particles are in motion, rather than stationary. And since the explosion only happens when matter and antimatter meet, there will be a bit of expansion at the impact point, due to the mass not being a solid object, and the particles at the rear still having momentum.”

The captain shook her head. “I must confess, Master, that I know enough about antimatter to stay away from it, but not enough to understand what you mean by that.”

“That’s fine, I only understand because I purchased enough skills to let me speak science. But effectively, the idea is like a missile exploding in flight. Most of the shrapnel and explosive force will continue forward, even though the weapon itself did not have a shaped charge. Simple momentum, yes?”

“I think I understand. What impact will this have on armor and shields?”

“Well, on shields, the effect will increase overall damage from the blast slightly, directing more of it into the shields, over a wider area. That could drain shields more effectively, and possibly overload shield generators.”

I grinned wickedly, “Against unshielded armor? Well, that’s going to be even nastier. And on top of any damage caused by the reaction, you’re going to have a shotgun blast of gamma rays shooting forward. If there’s even a small gap in the shields, due to the explosion, it could fry technology and cook crewmembers. Even if the outer hull survives a shielded hit, it is going to be irradiated to hell.”

Elalana whistled softly. “That would take out most of the sensors in that part of the ship, for certain. Might take down major internal systems, depending on what was nearby. Even most external weapons in the affected area would likely be inoperable, or at least needing to get some serious maintenance, due to such a high intensity gamma burst at that range.”

“Right,” I nodded. “At any rate, your standard corvette or frigate isn’t going to be exactly happy after taking one of those on the chin. Now, a flight of the Renegades, when they’re operational, would be able to launch eight of the things before needing to fall back and recharge.”

“By the gods! How fast is the recharge time on those things?”

“Well, this is the first generation of the weapon, and the size of the reactor powering it is limited based on the space. Two shots every thirty minutes, per Renegade. When Hellspawn gets her upgrades, you’ll be able to fire two shots forward and one aft every ten minutes. My crazy engineer over there even put together plans for converted freighter hull, up-armored and armed with ten pulse torpedo launchers on each broadside. That beast will be the bane of dreadnoughts, if it gets close enough.”

“Ten? Oh, sweet maker!”

I waved off that concern, and said, “Anyway, that’s for the future. For right now, I need to know what you need to carry out the duties I’ve assigned you. Namely, making sure any unwanted visitors get blown out of space before they can try and escape, or damage Earth.”

The captain recovered her professional veneer in the bat of an eye. “Well, the Hellspawn is more heavily armed and armored than a normal ship of its type, but it is still just a single corvette. There isn’t much we could do if a whole fleet showed up, except try and harry them as much as possible, picking off the weaker ships, and hoping that the others decided to chase us, rather than just pressing on. Until the ship is refit with this pulse torpedo upgrade, then we are limited in our reach.”

I nodded slowly. That thought had been haunting me, as well. My contacts at Boeing said that reverse engineering the tech in the pirate ship was going well, but it would still be a while before anyone was able to field a prototype warship. Pulling out a datapad, I made a quick note to suggest that they might try and refit existing ships. Finding a way to seal up an existing ship, and then putting shields and gravity drives on it, would limit the amount of hull work needed. Then, you would just need to upgrade the weapons. It wouldn’t be pretty, but it would work, until they could get something better.

Looking back to the captain, I said, “The upgrade pack to put in the fore and aft torpedo launchers would take up the remaining two upgrade slots on the Hellspawn. However, there are four external hard points that weapons could be mounted to. Any ideas?”

“Well, there are a few things. An Inhibiter Module would be a major help in interdicting hostile traffic. Essentially, it is a module that spoofs the special sensors used in FTL travel, and convinces the computer that there’s a gravity well in front of it, aborting the jump. Those interlocks are on the hardware level, and not even the most suicidal pirates circumvent it, because that would keep you from stopping if you even slightly miscalculated a jump, and found yourself about to hit something at superluminal speeds. That would be extremely hazardous, to all involved.”

“Sounds like a good add. Will it affect the ship’s stealth profile to mount it on the hull? I don’t want to ruin the ship’s stealth capabilities if I can help it.”

She shook her head. “No, not if you pay a bit more to have the coating put on. The module is designed to lay close to the hull. Keeps it from being an easy target.”

I made a note. This is why I had experts on hand. I might have a second time around to give me more knowledge, but they had actual experience in their fields. They knew what was needed better than I did.

“And for the other three hard points?”

She paused, considering. “Well, we have a pretty solid mix of offensive weapons, but we are short on utility. There are three standard kits the Stellar Confederate Navy uses for stealth-capable ships like the Oscuns. If you look in the System Shop, you’ll find them under a list of standard mods for the SCN Oscuns-class.

“You would want to get the Multi-grapple Package, for sure. That will let us actually grapple enemy ships after they’re disabled, or tow in hulks we’ve destroyed. Multi-grapple means it has multiple grappling systems, so that it isn’t reliant on certain conditions. While not in use, there is no change to the ship’s stealth rating, but deploying the grapples will make us more noticeable.

“Next, the Active Jamming Package. Like the Multi-grapple, this is for when the time for stealth is over, to prevent enemy ships from talking to each other. Turning it on will make us a target, of course, but it will scramble any sensors and communications besides tight-beam lasers for a light-hour. Even quantum entanglement devices and communications spells will suffer the interruption. Atmosphere attenuates the effect enough that the range is reduced to a thirty-mile radius.”

She paused, and said, “Finally, there is the Phased Travel Array. While it is still experimental, last I heard, it can allow the ship it is on to phase slightly out of reality. Not really dimension hopping, but putting things just enough out of phase that it can pass through solid matter. Or let solid matter pass through it. The PTA can only be used for short durations at a time, no more than a couple minutes, and it requires a recharge time equal to twice the active time before it can be used again.”

“What happens if the array stops working while the ship is inside an object?”

Elalana gulped. “Nothing good, Master. At least, that’s what rumors say. The only time they tried it, the test ship was never heard from again. No one knows what happened to it, or the crew.”

“Well, we’ll have to avoid things like that. Very well, Captain, I’ll speak with my associate in the System Shop, and have the modules ordered, with the stealth coatings. I trust your engineering staff can handle the installations?”

“Yes, Master. Frankly, they would be glad for the opportunity to put their skills to use, at least until we get time for Chief Virmys to do a full overhaul on the engines, and make sure everything is up to his standards.”

“Of course. Now, let’s go through the details of your shakedown cruise.”

“As you wish, Master. First, we…”