“Not with this mod, Tet. You might bruise some tissue, but it won’t rip open or cut easy, and our bones don’t break. I’d say punch away. It might hurt some, but the actual damage should be slight.”
“Let me call Maggi, to see if she has an hour to spare. I want her to be Debilitater ray proof, before we enter Empire Space again.”
Rafe smiled knowingly. “We already had a med lab set up for you, and we can do another one for Maggi.”
Not surprised at that admission, he told them, “I want you to scale up for mass mods. We’ll free as much capital as it takes to provide this for every Kobani. I don't know how difficult this would be to do for nonhumans, probably impossible for a Torki. At least discuss it with them, even though they’ve turned down our other offers. I think our rippers might consider this, since it isn’t a hunting advantage if a rhinolo still has the strength to kill them with its horn.”
“Oh. And let me tell you how proud I am of you two. We ducked Debilitater attacks on Tanner’s by staying in armor, and the orbital lasers there were new to the Ragnar, so they kept the Stranglers away from the cities they attacked, intending to knock those batteries out first. The population had fled their homes and towns ahead of them, so not very many suffered from that weapon, but the couple of hundred that did, died very badly. With this new nanite tech, I’ll bet even a Normal human might want to be protected by this mod. I’ll ask Stewart to bring up the subject of this protective gene mod with the PU ambassador, when he arrives. At some point the dam will burst, and waves of Normals are going to want what we have.”
****
Mirikami was well behind on his scheduled visit to the physics department. “Sorry I’m late, Blue, Coldar. I’ll apologize to Max later. I understand he had somewhere else to go. Like I mentioned by Comtap, our gene lab solved the problem of Kobani vulnerability to Debilitater rays. Maggi will be in a med lab for another half hour. Aldry is already immune to the radiation, and Rafe is about half done growing the same nanotube radiation shield. Maggi and I let them initiate the mod for us, and it only takes six or seven days to achieve complete protection. Excuse me if I seem preoccupied with rubbing my skin today, there’s a temporary side effect while the nanites do their work.”
The Raspani understood human gestures fairly well now, and he shook his head to portray a human representation of the dismay he felt. “Many times you have seemed brilliant and highly rational to me, Tet. Then you display the group insanity that humanity is well known for, doing something incredibly dangerous to yourself, or for your species. This is a gene modification from an alien animal, transmittable to your offspring. To my people, that represents a greater risk to your species longevity than the problem you faced. If the enemy discovered you here, Kobani survivors could flee to a distant region of space and start again.”
Mirikami wasn’t the least receptive to that suggestion. “How well did that tactic work for the Olt’kitapi, some of whom ended up hiding in the Empire, or as captives of the Thandol. Would running have helped the other species that faced the Krall, if they had eventually spread throughout the entire galaxy, as they planned to do? In the Sagittarius Arm, besides the Thandol presence there, we know there are the Ragnar, Finth, and Thack Delos. No matter where you go, a warlike species will eventually find you.
“What would you do for the preservation of your species? When there is nowhere left to hide from aggressors? We humans would rather stand our ground here, where we have all of our resources. It’s our best chance at victory. We’ll win any way we can, or we’ll die fighting.” He scratched his arm.
“Or die itching.” Coldar observed, provoking a laugh from Mirikami.
“It’s temporary, and preferable to a torturous and permanent death.” He rubbed in the skin cream he’d been given, but only on his bare arms. He didn’t drop his pants to do his legs, or the equally uncomfortable private regions.
He damn well didn’t want to hear alien comments about his ridiculous need for clothing and modesty, in the face of what they claimed was excessive human interest in non-reproductive sex. To their way of thinking, his going naked would reasonably complement that odd human preoccupation.
He needed to speed them up, to get back on schedule for the rest of the day. “Where is this new rail gun you want me to test against enemy ships?”
Coldar’s rigid crab features didn’t reveal his confusion, but Blue’s suddenly smoothed forehead, and sucked-in plump lips revealed his lack of understanding. He asked, “What new rail gun? It isn’t electromagnetic at all, which would spoil your stealth anytime it was used. I suppose you could call it a gravity tube gun.”
“Uh…, OK,” Mirikami said. “Thad saw one of them uninstalled, and said it resembled a very long rail gun.”
“Oh. I guess there’s a slight shape similarity I suppose.” Coldar admitted. “Although, it’s much longer than those rail guns you use on orbital defense platforms. Ours is almost as long as a Scout ship, and runs between the two gravity projectors, which will accelerate the projectile through the vacuum tube. The tube Thad saw didn’t have a rail gun’s coils around the barrel, no fusion bottle for power, or any surrounding magnetic shielding to suppress its signature when fired.”
“A gravity gun? Can that deliver much velocity? Gravity is the weakest force. I mean, a child’s toy magnet lifts a metal button against the gravity of an entire planet.”
Blue seemed amused. “Were the Olt’kitapi gravity projectors too weak to disrupt planetary cores?”
Mirikami, who knew the two scientists too well to make an unpleasant accusation, started with what little he understood. “Well, the projectors didn’t directly tear the planets apart with gravity. They formed a small Jump Hole inside them from a distance, with core metals trapped inside. Somehow, they allowed tachyons to leak in gradually, converting that matter into energy in the form of ultrahigh energy gamma ray photons. Those photons in turn would spontaneously form pair particles of matter and antimatter. By some probability manipulation that we don’t understand, possibly using the fifth force they discovered, they caused more antimatter to form than matter. The opposite of how matter formed the leftover excess in our Universe after the Big Bang. They preserved the gradually accumulating antimatter excess until it was allowed to rotate into Normal Space. That’s what tore the cores apart, not gravity.”
Now he wanted them to explain this unsettling reference to tearing planets apart. “I thought we didn’t know how to do that, and we all agreed that we didn’t want to learn how, as part of a weapons system.”
The shocked reaction displayed by the two aliens would have been apparent to anyone, even if you knew nothing about the Torki or Raspani.
Coldar dropped his carapace to the floor with a thump, as if his eight legs couldn’t support his weight. The Raspani flinched, his upright torso drawing back, arms crossing over his face as if Mirikami had moved to strike him.
Instantly apologetic, Mirikami said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult either one of you. But Blue, you implied a gravity projector had the strength to destroy a planet. How is that ability going to launch a high velocity projectile? By forming antimatter for propulsion energy? If we create antimatter, eventually our enemy will as well.”
The Raspani relaxed, replacing his previous expression with one of bemusement. “How would we make antimatter, and why would we do that even if we could?” He shivered, a reaction that was the same as in humans.
Only a suicidal human could even have contemplated such a dangerous possibility, Blue thought, as his shock passed.
With Mirikami’s concern understood, misplaced as it was, Coldar said, “Please allow us to explain what we actually can do. Max Born’s design for the new gravity projectors can accurately focus a gravity field around an object, say an asteroid of a few tons, located millions of miles away from the ship, to move it, or even to form a small Jump Hole and rotate it into Tachyon Space for towing transport if desired. How small do you think we can focus an artificial gr
avity field within the length of a Scout, say between the projectors?”
“Uh…, I don’t have a clue.” Mirikami admitted. “Gravity isn’t exactly my specialty.”
“No,” Blue said, “but tactical and strategic thinking are your strong points, and we believe you can make use of what we can offer you. The focal region can be made miniscule at such a short range.” He held a thumb and finger up, with a gap between them that scarcely showed any separation.
“We have excellent focusing close to the projectors, and very precise control over where the center of that focal point is generated. We can shift that focal point with considerable exactness and speed, to move it along a straight line between the projectors, and even outside of the ship, although with less exact precision as the distance away increases to hundreds of miles. The straight line we would use inside a Scout is the centerline of the evacuated launch tube we plan to install along the long axis of the ship, mounted near the ceiling, just as long as the spacecraft. A half-meter long dense metal projectile will be accelerated along that tube, in vacuum, by the gravitational attraction of our focused point of gravity. There is no propulsion force pushing it, just gravitational attraction.”
He directed Mirikami’s attention to a gleaming silvery rod sitting on a table, sharply tapered at both ends, perhaps a half meter long and no thicker than his thumb, with what appeared to be a thin glass coating.
“That is one of our projectiles. Neither the gravitational focal point, nor that rod, must make contact with the tube during launch. Until the rod leaves the tube it is magnetically levitated to avoid contact, and the magnetic field we use is shielded from external detection because the tube doesn’t extend beyond the stealth effect of the ship’s hull.
“The rod is accelerated from the center part of the tube in either direction, exiting at the ship’s front or rear, depending on the command given to the Scout’s AI. You’ll use the AI’s navigation steering control to aim the Scout towards, or away from a target, but gravitational steering and acceleration continues after launch, by continuously shifting the gravity field focal point in front of the rod. Initially, there will only be four projectiles held in a replaceable, pre-evacuated magazine, which can slide reload projectiles into the center part of the tube. If this system proves as effective as we hope, then larger magazines can be produced, and multiple launchers can be installed on our larger ships.”
Mirikami was surprised at how the two scientists, both from non-aggressive species, had voluntarily considered the details of making a new weapon. Clearly, humans were having a bad influence on previously pacifist races. Except, his gut told him that such a low energy propulsion system couldn’t make it as effective a projectile weapon as a rail gun, or as the sliver gun sniper rifle, both of which used magnetic acceleration coils. Nevertheless, he respected their desire to contribute to the defense of the Federation.
Blue wasn’t finished yet. “For a quicker magazine change, the launch tube has two vacuum seals, near the center of the tube, to allow a new magazine to be inserted. Any air that leaks into the tube must be removed, which is vital, and those molecules are flushed out by several fast cleaning runs, using a weaker gravity field, clearing both ends of the launcher before you can fire the next projectile. Does that make sense to you, Tet?”
After his previous error in judgment concerning his two friend’s research, Mirikami answered carefully, using more tact this time.
He began with compliments. “You’ve done a remarkable job of studying the requirements for this weapon, and outside of the complex gravity projectors required, which already exist, it’s an incredibly simple concept, with the only moving physical part being the projectile, which due to levitation, never touches anything, so it’s as frictionless as a rail gun projectile. The shifting focal point for the gravity field isn’t anything material, so there’s no heating or wear and tear on the launch tube, which I’ll admit is superior to a rail gun that suffers from overheating.”
Now, he eased gently into his critique. “To be effective against an enemy ship or orbital platform, a projectile weapon like the PU’s railgun platform sends hundreds of massive slugs at orbital velocities, and spreads them out to overwhelm a target’s ability to avoid them, or to use their lasers to vaporize them. The sliver gun, the spec ops premiere sniper rifle, isn’t fast firing, and uses a one and a half gram, tungsten carbide and cobalt covered sliver of metal, fired at a velocity of around ten miles per second.”
He summarized their advantages and shortcomings. “The PU’s rail guns send two pound slugs of dense depleted uranium, in large enough numbers to do significant physical damage, but they can be detected and avoided, or hit by defensive lasers, and they kick back the gun platforms. The sliver gun fires an ultrafast tiny projectile with great accuracy, and the far higher velocity makes it impossible to intercept or avoid. However, the tiny sliver only has enough energy to do localized damage, although with considerable penetration. And they also have a recoil problem.” Now he provided practical details, to let them figure out on their own why their weapon wouldn’t measure up to either of his examples, let alone be an improvement.
“Your longer rod probably has four or five times the mass of a rail gun slug, but the PU rail guns send hundreds of slugs at a target in seconds, with a closing velocity of eighteen or twenty thousand miles per hour, comparable to orbital velocities, because the platform is also in orbit. When there are a lot of guns and thousands of slugs, they’re harder to intercept with lasers, and a spread of them is difficult for a ship to avoid. In spite of that, good armor, as most warships have, will reduce the damage when they do strike.
“A sliver gun’s needle is traveling much faster than a rail gun slug, about ten to twelve miles per second, depending on the power setting, but it has little more mass than a fly. It does impressive damage, penetrating deep for its tiny size, and is impossible to track and hit with a laser. Against a ship or a space dock, it’s a mere insect bite.”
He waited for their logic to deduce what the limits and vulnerability would be for a low rate of fire weapon, with a slow moving massive projectile. They had brilliant scientific minds, so it wasn’t a long wait.
Coldar said, “I have never heard of a sliver gun. That was a curious comparison, although I think one that is completely inapplicable to our current project.” He was capable of some degree of tactfulness.
Blue was less tactful, to the point of uncharacteristic bluntness. “Those are altogether pointless comparisons. Our heavier projectile will reach over a hundred miles per second before it even reaches the end of the launch tube, and increases its velocity by at least a factor of ten after that. Unlike your examples, it can receive guidance after exiting the launcher, to improve accuracy if your aim wasn’t too far off from the optimum impact point. The rod will strike its target with perhaps a million times the force of a smaller rail gun slug, and arrive with a vastly higher velocity than does the sliver gun’s projectile. Would that do significant damage?”
To say Mirikami was taken aback would be a gross understatement. “How in hell can you combine their features, and then increase the best aspects of both of those examples, high mass and high velocity, with a weapon you told me is powered only by gravity?”
Coldar asked a basic question, hoping to add a measure of scientific understanding to Mirikami’s misunderstanding of gravity. “Could your new ship, the Mark II, lift off from the surface of a neutron star, assuming it could have survived the landing without being crushed to a smear of atoms?”
“I…, well I don't know. I never gave something like that any thought, or ran a calculation. The Normal Space drive is all that would be available to my ship in that deep a gravity well. We would need a high energy tachyon, caught prior to entering the gravity well, with a mass energy equivalent to or greater than that of the neutron star.” He saw what was being implied, and offered a counter point.
“There isn’t any ship, or crew, that can survive a projected gravity field
with the mass of a star inside the volume of its hull. We’d collapse into what would become a black hole, at nearly the velocity of light, not even rotating into Tachyon Space since we’d fall into that from outside the event horizon.”
Blue looked at Coldar, who rotated one eyestalk towards his cohort and said, “Our friend seems to have the capacity to understand the forces involved, but I believe his everyday physical experience with gravity is obscuring his ability to extrapolate.”
Mirikami was annoyed, being talked about as if he wasn’t here. “Blue, your friend has the capacity to listen to you if you’d bother to explain it to a nonscientist. I keep telling everyone that I’m a simple Spacer. Explain to a Spacer how gravity will push a rod out of that launcher at thousands of miles per second.”
Coldar modified his explanation, to draw on the experience of the only Spacer in the room. “First, there is no push involved with gravity. If the Mark was at the surface of a normal sized G class star, could its Normal Space drive pull it away?”
“Again, no one would deliberately try that as a test, but I know that it could.”
Blue pounced on his admission. “Excellent. I’m confident you can tell us why the Mark could pull away from the surface of the G class star Coldar described, but probably not from the surface of a far smaller neutron star. What is the difference in those two cases?”
“The force of gravity, naturally. It’s proportional to the square of the distance from the center, and the total mass involved. Closer in, the greater the force, or the greater the space-time curvature, if you prefer. But there can’t be that great a concentration of mass placed close to, let alone inside a ship. How do you propose to do that?”
“Tet, we didn’t say the mass would approach the mass of a star, or even of a planet while the focal point is within the ship’s hull. That was your assumption, because in your everyday experience strong gravity comes from large masses with considerable physical size, and you normally walk on the surface of a planet, far from its center of gravity. Collapsing Koban’s sun into a black hole wouldn’t affect the orbits of its planets. They would be subject to the same curvature of space-time, keeping them moving in their present orbits. As you would agree, you can’t get too close to that event horizon or your Normal Space drive can’t pull you away.”
Koban 6: Conflict and Empire Page 36