Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

Countryman stepped out of the room. He felt good about the recent meeting. It wasn’t much but every ally secured was important, and he had a feeling those two would prove helpful to their cause. Those two at least seemed to be trustworthy. The Confederation as a whole was more of a question mark. The Valorians were known to be peaceful traders, but he already knew that some of them were trigger-happy. He had spoken with a few of them since he picked up the current host of ships he was escorting to Cantra. It seemed they had their own issues to deal with, and from the sound of it the government wasn’t all that keen to act. Piracy apparently was a big concern to many of the Valorians he had spoken to, but outside of the core sectors little had been done about it. He’d found their feelings on this somewhat mixed, and honestly given their backgrounds it was not surprising. Reia’s crew were frustrated and wanted to act driven by worry about their clans, while Neira’s crew had a more mixed opinion. On one hand they were worried for their clans, but on another, they were enjoying the influx of contracts the piracy brought with it.

The floor shook underneath him, reminding him of his more immediate concerns. The storm was already raging full force outside his ship. They were bunkered down to wait it out, and while Countryman had every confidence in the Enterprise being able to survive that did not mean he was not worried. It would not do to outwardly show it, however. He started for the bridge. It was about time he checked in with the bridge crew, and he needed to see how the ship was holding up. The shields were being tested in a way they hadn’t, and the ship was being buffeted by the raw fury of space storm. In many respects, this was a true test of what he had built.

Reaching a lift, he keyed in his destination, and soon he was being carried at a rapid pace up to the bridge. It took only moments for the lift to deposit him in the short corridor behind the bridge on deck one. The corridor that contained a single conference room, his ready room, and the upper deck of the bridge. He headed straight for the bridge, and nodded to the pair on duty guarding the entrance.

Sweeping into the room, he quickly took his station, and immediately took stock of the situation. Neira’s damaged cruiser was holding up well in the Enterprise’s shadow, and Reia’s ship was fine her powerful shields holding against the fury of the storm. His attention quickly focused on what he was most worried about, the shield grid. It was indeed being strained to its limits, and as he feared radiation levels aboard ship had spiked. They were however well within tolerable limits, as between the shields, and the hull lining most of the radiation was kept at bay. It was however something to keep an eye on, but at these levels they had nothing to worry about. Aside from a few effects from prolonged exposure, but that was treatable. In fact medical was already distributing inoculations for long-term radiation exposure.

It was looking like they might be fine, honestly. The ship shuddered, and the shields flickered. Assuming those energy screens held, they were blocking a huge portion of the neutron radiation the storm was bombarding them with.That was the big worry, they needed the shields to hold, a thought that felt weird since usually it was the armor that mattered not shields.

Reia made her way down the hall. The captain’s dinner was over, but thanks to the storm she could not return to her own ship. That left her with a bit of a conundrum. What was she going to do with her time? The floor shuddered under her feet, a reminder that the ship was in the full fury of the storm by now. How well it would hold up, she didn’t know. Space storms have claimed many a ship in the past, and even modern Valorian ships have occasionally been destroyed by a strong storm. A brutal reminder of how dangerous the great frontier of space could be, yet it was also a realm of untold wealth. New worlds, and new civilizations brought forth new ideas, and new riches to fill the coffers of the clans.

She didn’t know how the people of Sol had approached this problem however. Reia knew they relied extensively on the hull armor of their ships, which she did admit was remarkably effective. Far more effective than any other armor scheme she had ever seen. Even the more advanced powers like the Krall lacked armor as effective as theirs, but she knew nothing about their shields. That left her with questions of how well those would protect the ships.

Rounding a corner she came upon a pair of alien girls deep in a conversation. One of them looked younger, and was rather petite perhaps a 150 centimeters tall. She had long black hair that she wore loosely, and a cute face. She wore a torn and patched lab coat, and a dark shirt under that. None of which really hid her figure, and Reia noticed that there was a patch in her shirt which just barely prevented her modest chest from being exposed to the air.

The other woman was gorgeous with piercing red eyes, and fiery red hair. Her figure was a bit more full overall, and she was clearly more atheletic as she was toned, yet not overly so. The result was a rather striking impression.

“What? Where is this coming from!?” shouted the redhead.

“Well, Jac said that if I really wanted a child I would need a plan to care for it, and he is right I’m not really mother material. Ideally the father would raise it, but Jac would be way to busy for that with running the ship and all that.”

Reia blinked, What had she just walked in on?

“So naturally you thought of me, as a babysitter?” said the redhead.

“Well of course, you have plenty of free time when you aren’t working on the ship, and you get along with Jac, and I. Not to mention you used to do babysitting for a living, you’re perfect!”

The other girl turned red, “That was years ago! I did that for extra spending money, not cause I wanted to!”

The black hair girl pouted, “Please! Do it for me!””

She sighed, and then shook her head, “Honestly I don’t know what to do with you. Can we talk about this later? Preferably when the ship isn’t being battered by a storm?”

As if to underscore her point the ship shook.

“Oh, it will be fine. The real concern is us, and weather or not the shields hold. I’m sure they will,” the ship shook, “mostly sure anyway.”

Reia couldn’t help but interject, “I have been wondering about those shields, anything you can tell me?”

The younger girl looked over, frowned, “One of our guests yes?”

She nodded, “Yes, I’m Reia.”

“Ruri, and I can tell you some. They aren’t a critical system, nor are they classified. At least no one told me they are.”

The other woman interjected, “They aren’t, and if you will excuse me, I’d like to run some checks on the forward shield generator.”

Reia blinked, “Forward generator!? Don’t you mean forward generators?”

She didn’t answer, as she left. Ruri on the other hand did, “No that is quite correct, the Enterpise has a grand total of two shield generators, one forward, one aft. Each one is linked to a series of emitters that were integrated into the hull plating to produce an energy field around the hull and produces a shield bubble that extends about 250 meters away from the hull.”

Reia felt a lump form in her belly, “TWO!? You’re joking right!? Please tell me this is a joke?”

Ruri cocked her head, “Why would I joke?”

“A ship this size shouldn’t have a mere two shield generators, the general rule of thumb is that a ships should have at least three generators per facing to ensure sufficient system redundancy. A ship this size has more than enough volume to mount the required number of generators, where as a corvette or frigate might have to make do with few generators.”

Ruri blinked, “That would make sense if the shields were a primary system, but they are more of a novelty than anything else.”

“A novelty, not a primary system? How could such a valuable system be relgated...”

“I’m sure you noticed, we don’t exactly use shields the way you and the Cathamari do. They are useful in certain niche applications, but if you must take a hit you are much better off with good armor. Shields are way too easy to defeat if you know what to do about them.”

Reia frowned, she had heard shields described in many ways, but never easy to defeat. “Easy? A good shield can stop just about any attack, and protect a ship from the hazards of deep space such as this space storm.”

Ruri chuckled, “Well it is true that standard ship to ship particle cannons aren’t particularly effective against an energy shield, but there are other ways to deal with them. In general that falls in two lines of thought, penetration, and disruption. Well techinically there is a third, overwhelming firepower, but thats not really a solution.”

She nodded, “I’m familiar with those three lines of thought. Penetration doesn’t really work, without knowing the exact modulation of an opponents shields, and as for disruption, Ion cannons are quite good at disrupting early shields, but later designs have been hardened against them. Against any modern ship they are virtually useless. Only real way to deal with an energy shield is to overwhelm it with high energy weapons fire, plasma weapons are a prime choice as they are particularly effective against both shields, and hull.”

Ruri nodded, “that does line up with the Cathamari school of thought on the subject. We disagree. An ionic blast is good for saturating a shield, especially if it hasn’t been hardened against such a weapon, but there are other ways to disrupt a shield. As for penetration, we have a few tricks for that. Its not too hard to get a torpedo through a shield.”

The ship rocked, and Reia commented, “What other ways?”

“A specially charged, and calibrated ionic plasma stream can overcharge, and disrupt the integrity of a high intensity energy field such as a shield causing the generators and emitters to shutdown or overload. In either case, the shield will collapse leaving the outfitted ship vulnerable to standard ship to ship particle cannons, torpedoes, and other weapons.” replied Ruri.

The ship rocked again, and she stood there staring trying to comprehend what she was talking about, “A what?”

“Well if you don’t understand, perhaps it would be better if you saw the weapon in action?” she sighed, “Of course knowing our luck that will be sooner or later.”

Reia had questions, but before she could ask the lights turned red. A siren blared, and the ship shook hard. An announcement followed, “ALL HANDS report to Battlestations. I repeat all hands report to Battlestations. This is not a drill!”

The ship rocked, and Ruri grabbed her arm. “Come along, this way. Can’t stay here.”

“What in the galaxy is going on out there? Who would be shooting at us in the middle of a storm?