Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

Captains Log July 28th 002 SDE:

The last week and a half, since we packed up our mining operation, has been rather uneventful. Ruri is rolling out her new Pulsar torpedoes for use in the fighter fleet and production on the modified “Sparrow” X-1208 star bombers is underway. We are building two squadrons of the ship for testing. Stowing them will be interesting since this will put us over bay capacity. The current plan is to ‘mothball’ two squadrons of 1204s in the cargo bay. Stuffing those fighters in the cargo bay would solve the storage issue, but we also won’t be able to easily deploy them if needed. A plan to refit our two X-1212 class destroyer escorts with a full fighter bay of their own has also been put forward. It wouldn’t be too difficult of a refit. Most of the facilities are already there. What’s needed is a proper fighter stowage, catapult assembly, and of course an ordinance locker for the fighters. Her standard shuttles don’t carry torpedoes or bombs.

I’ve already reviewed the plan. It calls for modifying the auxiliary hanger storage bays and a cargo bay under the hanger into proper facilities for these purposes. Along with installing a catapult assembly. To power it would require some reconfiguration of the ship’s power grid and one of the backup capacitor banks for the aft cannons would be repurposed as the primary capacitor for the catapults. The proposed plan would require minimal alterations to the class. Aside from a couple of obvious sacrifices. I have yet to make a decision on this and have Richards and her staff reviewing the viability of the upgrades. If they sign off on them being viable I will be approving them immediately. The advantages of being able to deploy fighters from our escorts will be more than worth a few lost storage bays and minor inconveniences that may come with the plan.

The idea of ‘mothballing’ fighters in the cargo bay does however have some interesting applications. Unlike traditional mothballing, we don’t have to worry about the elements. As such a properly stowed fighter could sit in the bay and later be pulled out of storage with very little required work. This would obviously allow us to quickly replace lost fighter craft. Assuming of course we didn’t lose the more valuable pilot. Unfortunately, it also means we will be using up valuable cargo space to store a spacecraft we aren’t really using. As the cargo bays just aren’t fitted to be used as hanger storage. Sadly there isn’t much we can do to expand storage without going into a major refit, the kind we just can’t afford.

More immediately important, we are approaching a new system. The Isa system. According to our resident Valorians, it’s a rather isolated system with few resources of note. It does however have a habitable world. The fourth moon of the fifth planet is a rather large moon whose presence near a gas giant helps fuel significant geothermal activity. The planet is apparently covered with miles of glacial ice, but has significant geothermal vents along the equatorial ridge There is also a major subsurface ocean warmed by geothermal venting. On the surface limited sunlight and geothermal vents provide for local life. Most local lifeforms are concentrated near the warm vents on the equator. The planet is apparently home to a few small enclaves of colonists as well, who manage to eke out a living on its harsh surface.

Its isolation and the presence of those colonists is however our main interest in the world, seeing as Reynolds captured a fair number of Valorain Pirates after they helped a Voskar ship escape. Shame that we could have used more answers, and their cloaking technology is certainly interesting. In any case, we have little use for the pirates and our Valorian guests don’t much like their brethren either. Low opinion of piracy and all that. As a result we plan to maroon our guests on this harsh world and leave.

Reia and her sister joined Sali in the hanger bay who was looking around confused. She noticed them as they took up positions near her and with a frown on her face, “So um, any idea what is going on?”

“Did you hear about the prisoners we recently picked up?”

She let out a breath, “Sadly.” She paused, distaste visible on her face, “A few of them ended up in the cell across from mine.”

“I take it they are poor neighbors.”

“You could say that, but I think it was rather tasteless of them to take up piracy.”

Reia nodded, “I know what were they thinking?”

The other girl let out a breath, and said, “I just wonder what I did to end up sharing a brig with pirates. Care to do anything about it?”

Her sister interjected, “We’ve been talking about that. Sadly the council has no interest in reviewing your case. Not for another four years.”

Reia nodded, “Yeah we ran into a wall with the council.”

Sali sighed, “Typical.”

Neira stretched, “Well it could be worse. The council back home was a nightmare.”

“Yes, well, the local Officer’s Council isn’t much better.”

“At least it is functional.”

Sali interjected, “We seem to be drifting. What’s going on?”

Neira spoke first, “Well today’s the day we get rid of the pirates. They are being marooned on the ice world we are orbiting.”

“Oh? We are marooning them? Well, I guess they do deserve it.”

Reia responded, “Yeah the council was discussing what to do with them. Today’s the day they leave. It’s turning into a bit of an event, they even organized a trial.”

“Oh? Those are shams, more of a show. Trust me, I’ve been through it.”

Neira frowned, “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh you don’t know? Around here, everything important is decided before the trial.”

“You’re um, joking right?”

Sali shook her head and opened her mouth to reply, when a familiar male voice interjected, “Young Sali is correct. We decide things before the trial these days. As I told her, that's been tradition for a century.”

Reia frowned, “what was it like before that?”

“Well... a mess. There is a reason we moved away from the old style. Certain groups had a long history of abusing the old system. With the fall of the old powers, the new powers did away with the old system. There is more to discuss in regards to that, but nothing I would care to talk about. Not right now, but if you are really curious I know a few library files you might consider reading. They are fairly insightful on the period in question.”

“I, uh see.”

Sali glanced out over the hanger, “So, why am I here? I don’t see how this trial has anything to do with me?”

Countryman responded, “Oh? That was my doing. I figured you needed a break and this would be a good chance for us to talk. I have something I want to discuss with you after the trial and marooning of these pirates.”

“You have something you want to discuss with me?” Sali replied, trying to figure out what. For the life of her she couldn’t guess what. She knew Countryman well enough, they would meet every once in a while and he would ask how she was doing. At first she wasn’t sure how to feel about the check-ins, but now she was starting to see that he seemed to genuinely want to know how she was doing. Not that she was sure why. The others didn’t seem to know why, judging by their reactions and how they were now asking.

A clamor broke her thoughts and she realized the trial was about to start as a bunch of prisoners were being marched into the room. Someone took up the podium calling for attention. Countryman chose that moment to interject, “I’ll catch up with you after the trial.”

With that he left her with the other two. With nothing else to do, she joined the two sisters and watched the proceedings. All the while thinking back to that time a year ago when she stood on trial herself. To think that much time had passed and she was still here...

Ruri walked down the corridor. She’d been informed that the team working on Project Sparrow were ready to unveil their prototypes. They had been working hard on building these new 1208 variants. Outfitted with an updated engine scheme and heavy power plant, these small ships promised to be quite powerful. The X-1208 Sparrow featured twin tri-core pulse wave engines, a dual micro fusion plant. The combination would give the little ships an impressive ability to maneuver, but they would need it. The bombers would have 35 centimeters of armor and a loadout of heavy weapons. The design featured twin heavy particle cannons and a rear-mounted triple turret, along with a bomb bay and four launcher tubes. The other prototype version would replace two of the tubes in favor of an electro-cannon mount. The result was a vehicle roughly the same size as a 1204, but much heavier in mass. In fact it was slightly larger than the 1204.

The specific particle cannon on board wasn’t the kind of heavy particle cannon used on capital ships, but a fighter version. Developed by Star tech industries and improved by her this was a heavier version of the weapon mounted on the 1204 and rated for about five times the effective yield but had a longer recharge period between shots. The result was a weapon better suited for tearing into heavily armored capital ships than a dogfight. The Sparrow didn’t have missile ports either, so its only real protection against fighters was escorts and that single rear turret.

Reaching the construction site, a nice lab near the hangers. It had previously been a storage bay, but now it was fully equipped for the construction and development of small ships like fighters, bombers and shuttles. Stepping through the large doors, she was immediately greeted with the stubby frame of a 1208 dominating the room. It was shorter, but overall larger than the 1204. It needed that extra size for its power plant, engines, and weapon load out. It was also why the team proposed mounting an electro cannon on one. The ship had both the size and power for it. That was also why, she had designed a heavier version of the pulsar torpedo, specifically designed for the 1208. Same basic hardware and principles. No real change in effective range, but the yield per shot was quite a bit higher. Tests did show a slight drop in recharge time, but that was acceptable. The 1208 Sparrow was armed for taking on Capital ships, whereas the 1204 was a space superiority fighter intended to take on fighters, shuttles and smaller starships if needed.

One of the team, a younger man noted her entry. He smiled, “Chief! Glad you could make it. We were just about ready to deliever this to the hanger for testing.”

She took a few steps closer, “So how does she look so far?”

“Well all the preflight tests went well. All that remains is to test her in actual flight. The modified dual engine scheme works in simulation, but...”

“I noticed, there are a few potential problems. Yet this configuration promises to make a very agile ship out of the Sparrow, one almost as agile as the 1204.”

“Yes, well speaking of the 1204 I had a few thoughts on improving that. We all did. Sadly we kept coming up against either space or power limitations with all of them. Making the ship a little bigger like we did with the 1208 would solve both, but making the ship larger also makes her a bigger target. Not mention more expensive to produce and she is already a costly fighter to build. We did manage to come up with a scheme that would fit in the current hull, but power limitations make it not feasible.”

She knew engines could be rather power-hungry devices, but she felt impressed that they could fit a dual-engine scheme on the 1204. It was originally designed for only a single dual-core engine. This was a high-efficiency engine scheme fitted for range and lower power draw. The 1208 had originally been envisioned as mounting a double version of the same engine. This team had done two things, they adjusted the original mounting configuration and they increased the core count of both engines by one. It was very rare for fighters to have a triple-core configuration. As the extra core did require a beefier power plant, and most fighters that did have a third core in an engine, usually only had one, not two. Something that made the new 1208 rather notable and she figured someone would consider upgrading the 1204 for a triple-core engine soon enough. It would mean reduced range, but would improve agility in combat. A worthy trade-off, as the loss in range would be largely negligible.

“So you don’t think a double engine configuration is viable for the 1204?”

“Well, no. Not the one we used on the 1208 anyway, too much power draw. It requires we dedicate the entire main fusion generator for ideal performance.”

“Hmm, look into it anyway. I can think of a few applications for a faster version of the 1204 hull. Dropping the missiles in favor of an extra reactor and maybe a beefier sensor array. Replace the torpedoes with a probe bay and I would say that makes an effective scout ship.”

He blinked, “I didn’t think of that. Yeah, the hull is modular enough, would only maybe take a few hours to make the changes. We can look into that.”

“Excellent, now I think there is a trial going on, but it should be about over by now. Just might be a good idea to check on the hanger status before we transfer her to the bay for testing.”

“Agreed, I’ll check the intercom.”

She turned back to the heavy bomber as he walked off. Looking over its sleek armored lines, and robust frame. Ruri couldn’t wait to see how the new 1208 performed. The old version was noted as being a little sluggish, but it was fairly resilient. Not to mention it was fairly fast once it got up to speed. The new configuration promised to be almost as agile as a current-gen 1204, which was certainly promising.

The young man closed the door and watched as the Valorian pirates clutched their coats tightly. He was just here to drop them off. It was up to them to survive, but they had water, food, and clothing now. Everything they needed for a few weeks of survival. Even tools for making shelters and a map. There were a few settlements not far from here as well. They might just be able to make it out here and honestly he had heard that Valorians were well adapted to the cold. He figured they would be fine. With that in mind, he turned and signaled the pilot to take off. They were done here.