Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

September 2nd, 002 SDE:

Countryman stepped into Engineering to find it a hive of activity. Yet Richards wasn’t too busy not to notice him entering. She let out a breath, centered herself and put a smile on her face.One that was just a little forced, he could see the signs that she hadn’t slept. As she drew close enough for a chat, he said, “I heard you finished the assessments?”

“The Umikaze will be easier. She took 47 hull breaches but all primary systems are intact. She lost an observation deck on her port side and some sensor modules. I can have the breaches patched by the end of the day. It will take another couple of days to fix all the armor damage and I can replace the lost sensors by the end of the week.”

“What about the Coto?”

“Most of her damage is on the dorsal plating—one hundred and ninety-three hull breaches. Twelve turrets took direct hits, four offline and one completely destroyed. Heavy damage to secondary power relays and dorsal AIF field generators. In addition, the dorsal energy web projectors were damaged. Three weeks minimum to repair.”

He let out a breath, “Well good thing we are in the middle of nowhere. Plenty of time to conduct repairs.”

She nodded, “Assuming no one else decides to stop here, but given the nearest star is seven lightyears away that seems unlikely and that is after spending a full week at warp five to get here.”

They were nearly twenty lightyears away from the previous battle and with the nearest star being over two days away at warp five it did seem quite unlikely for someone to stumble on them out here. “Agreed, which means we will have plenty of time to practice working on ships in deep space. Consider it a practice run for building them in deep space.”

“It does,” she let out a breath, “Anyway I have things squared here and I could honestly use a break.”

“Certainly, I have just the thing in mind.”

She smiled and followed him out of the room. As he took her down to a lounge to relax. Although he figured she would need a bed before long and he had a few ideas to get he there. Ones that didn’t involve flat-out ordering her to bed. He had heard stories about how poorly that often worked out and it just wasn’t his style. Besides he had plenty of experience getting exhausted scientists to bed when they were so focused on making a breakthrough. He figured some of that would apply to an exhausted engineer.

The older woman settled into her seat and glanced at the footage. The clan wasn’t happy with the results of the battle. Not many would be considering they had engaged with a large numerically superior fleet and all the aliens had to field were three unshielded starships. Yet those three ships had proven able to smash an entire battle fleet. Sure it wasn’t the size of the armadas here in the home systems, but it was still a sizeable detachment of ships. Including three heavy cruisers, one of the hardest hitting ship types in service. It was a disgrace and they had precious little to show for it.

Glancing to the person at the head of this meeting, she inquired, “So what did you find?”

They sighed, “Sadly not much. The good news is that they aren’t invulnerable, but I have no idea how their torpedoes are passing through our shields.”

“What about their shields?” said someone.

“Those aren’t shields, not in the traditional sense anyway. Rather instead they are a network of high-intensity laser beams, electromagnetic fields, and charged particles. Any projectile that attempts to pass through will be disintegrated, while in the case of our plasma torpedoes their containment field is disrupted resulting in premature detonation. Based on sensor data and battlefield observations, I’ve determined that they adapt to incoming projectiles, adjusting the intensity to ensure optimal results. Just about nothing short of a massive volley would get through. We aren’t geared to put enough torpedoes on a target for that, but we did find a weakness. The sheer intensity of the laser beams means the net can only be maintained for a few seconds before it must shut down to recharge. As such a staggered volley has proven more effective at penetrating the screen. Sadly this period of vulnerability is brief only about three seconds.”

“That’s not a lot of time.”

“More than enough to get a volley of warheads through their shields. Their armor is tough but not immune to torpedoes.”

“Yes well I’d rather have something that doesn’t rely on getting through a narrow gap in their defense screens.”

“That will be tricky since the only other option is heavy cannon, we have a new weapon system in the works that shows promise but we are still months away from fleet-wide implementation. Without those, we will need to use Heavy Pulse Cannons which have proven unable to penetrate the heavier armor on their flagship.”

“Can anything? I saw that footage, nothing was getting through that armor.”

“Nothing currently in service, but with Project Yinta Two several years out we will have to seek other targets. With that in mind, may I introduce Project Cutter.”

“I’m not familiar with that, what is the project?”

The older woman interjected, “As I recall that project was started a few years back for a next-generation fast-response Destroyer.”

“Correct, the ship in question is nearly complete. She is a smaller design 342 meters long, with twenty-four decks. She is armed, with type II pulse cannons and Tri pulse plasma torpedo launchers.”

“Tri pulse?”

“What does that mean?”

“Tri-pulse launchers are designed to fire more torpedoes per shot. One of the biggest problems with modern launchers is a lack of saturation. The more focused launchers coming online now are better able to penetrate shields and we translated those advantages to the new launchers, but instead of firing one torpedo per launcher, these new ones fire three. That means triple the torpedoes per volley. Sadly, they do take a little longer to recharge after each shot. About 38 seconds between volleys, but the ship can fire an astounding three hundred and sixty torpedoes per volley. Although compared to our friends that seems a bit low.”

“Yes their launchers were faster and fired comparable volleys per shot.”

“Actually per launcher, they were getting better volleys,” interjected one person as they manipulated the footage. Showing a launch, slowing it down clearly revealed it was a single launcher that fired in triple, five times in rapid succession. Per volley, they fire fifteen per launcher. It just sounds like the Cutter has more launchers packed into its frame.”

“That would be the case, during the design we focused on packing as many launchers as we could. The idea being they would serve as its primary weapon.”

“Interesting, I doubt we were building these with the Refuge in mind, who was the enemy?”

“Well the clan was worried after our rivals made a deal with the Cathamari and the brewing tension between the Cathamari and the Krall had them really worried. So we made a few deals with the military and foot the bill to design a new destroyer. Given the lack of destroyers in the fleet they were more than happy to have one. The Cutter was intended to fight the heavily shielded ships of the Krall in the event we ever went to war. Our new generation plasma torpedoes were developed in the same project.”

“The Krall? I wasn’t expecting that.”

The older woman interjected, “I didn’t hear anything about defenses.”

“Well obviously she doesn’t come stock with point defense systems. They weren’t needed before, a good shield array has always been better. The type six was certainly a good pick, but after the recent battle its clear we need a better weapon to use for the PD systems on our ships. In the meantime, we will have to keep using the type six. As for shields, I have much better news. We fitted the Cutter with a very robust main power drive, allowing us to equip her with the same shielding found on a cruiser. In fact she has better protection than the mainstay Ophera class of cruisers.”

Glances were shared, “Impressive. Will that help?”

Countryman stepped into the lounge with Richards to the sound of singing. Music was playing in the background. This lounge had a stage and several girls were currently using it. Dancing along to the beat as they added their voices to the music. Countryman didn’t recognize the song. The lyrics were talking something about the fires of chaos but it sounded pretty.

As soon as they stepped in, the bartender smiled, “Lemonade sir? Right?”

He smiled, “You know me well.”

Richards walked up and settled into a chair, “So what kind of alcohol do you have?”

“I have a few options including some nice wine. Just its a little pricy since the local distillery is only producing a few basic options. So best to spend on it now while you have the chance.”

“Oh? How bad is the alcohol supply?”

“Not that bad, we have enough for a few years yet, but you never know.”

Countryman nodded, “Yes that tracks with the supply reports I signed off on last week.”

Richards turned to him, “I knew the supply issues extended beyond engineering, but I wasn’t aware we had a supply shortage of...”

“Alcohol? Not really, its more of a production issue. Just like we have issues with coffee, cheese, and real meat. Not to mention the issues with dairy production.”

“Tell me about it, one of my ensigns was telling me about the family a couple units down from her was using breastmilk in place of milk.”

Countryman chuckled, “Yeah they aren’t the only ones.”

She frowned, “Why? The synthetic milk is pretty good.”

“Yes well not everyone agrees and I remember a time when it was crap.”

She gave him a look, “Of course you do, you are a relic afterall. You’re what? Two hundred years old?”

He glared, “A hundred and ninety-three, which you well know.”

She laughed, “See practically two hundred already.”

“Very funny.”

Richards glanced at the stage, watching the girls dance for a moment, then turned to order. After a moment she spoke up, “Anyway I guess these supply issues won’t fix themselves so easily.”

“Well maybe not today, but they will with time. Project Hammer would help with the Engineering ones.”

“Oh? Does that mean you are going to give the go ahead for it?”

“It’s still a thought exercise at this point. Although Hammer would have to be big, likely comparable to the Enterprise in size. Which means she would be a major investment, so we will need to be sure before we lay the keel. Same thing with the other projects.”

“Yes I am aware, Project Saber is the most affordable right now and we are still talking a large ship. A major investment in time and resources, you know the Enterprise only has fifty module construction bays, a mere fraction of what a full shipyard would have.”

“I’m aware, if we had followed the original vision I had for the ship she would have had more.”

“You know, I’ve never heard what the original vision for it was. What would it have been?”

He sighed, “Well the Enterprise was envisioned to be a ship of exploration, but given the slow speeds we expected for interstellar travel we knew it would take months or even years for a follow-up ship to arrive. Our experiences with the Colonies highlighted the issues we would face with extrasolar colonies. Not only that, but supply issues would only be expected with long range exploration. So I proposed a large capital ship able to cross interstellar distances, carry a host of survey vessels and able to resupply in the field, but most importantly she would be able to build outposts and infrastructure with which to accept colonists. The war simply required us to reinvent the project, but the bones are still there.”

“Not all that different from what we have now alright. Just less industry and more weaponry.”

Countryman shrugged, “Well its what the military wanted and they took over after the ship was half built. Part of why the Enterprise is so unusual of a ship.”