by Aer-ki Jyr
On the outside of a ship you couldn’t select your angles…but inside was another matter.
Paul pulled up the design program center table and created a sphere representing the crew ‘ship’ and began encasing it in a massive armor coat that stretched out to needle point on opposite ends. The armor’s volume exceeded that of the sphere, but if a round happened to impact along the needle points then a deflection was probable…or even if it didn’t the meters of armor might catch the round before it made it to the sphere.
The other attack angles were vulnerable until Paul flipped the double needle ‘case’ up into a vertical position then began encasing it in a much larger ship, similar in design to the TF Battleship’s ring, only this one completely covered the interior sphere all the way up to the needle points, making it look like a non-holed donut.
Not convinced, Paul yanked the structure off the needle with his fingertips and ‘threw’ the wireframe mess into a virtual trash bin at the bottom of the table, then went back and built a larger one that literally swallowed up the needle on the inside.
On a sudden impulse Paul created little pointed ‘rocks’ of armor and suspended them mid donut at strategic points surrounding the needle like boppers in a pinball game, with the idea of deflecting rounds away from the midsection of the needle where it was vulnerable, given that a 45 degree attack angle would bypass most of the donut’s protective ring and come down on the center sphere from the side and hit the needle at too heavy of an angle for deflection.
With the density of the bumpers and needle case equaling their best armor, Paul set the rest of the ship’s internal ‘structure’ as a blan solid material with low density, given that he couldn’t design actual decks and equipment on a whim. Lastly he covered the outer hull with 20 meters of armor the entire way around the mile wide ship.
It was all overkill, but Paul needed to test the theory and there was no point in skimping. He took the primitive design, designated ‘Donut 1,’ and fed it into a simulation program. With the four Star Wars ships seemingly watching from the edges of the table, Paul fired various sized rail gun rounds at the ship from multiple angles while setting the center sphere as the mission end target. If even one shot nicked the sphere the simulation would auto terminate.
Paul started with light rounds and watched as they slowly burned through the armor plating, then ate away at the internal structure through the holes, but none of the rounds made it anywhere close to the needle, let alone the sphere, having them all stopped by the ‘filling’ of the donut before Paul called a halt to the simulation. With sufficient time they could eat into the center, but it was going to take hours, so that part of the defense plan held up…but then again he’d expected as much.
Next he set the auto turrets to fire medium slugs and mentally crossed his fingers. All of a sudden he saw impacts on the armor but no penetration. Repetitive hits on the same locations eventually broke through and little streaks of damage sunk into the ‘filling,’ but none of them were making it all the way to the needle. They were trashing the hull and whatever else was in their way, but the mass of the ship was completely bleeding off their momentum before they could get at the needle.
Paul nodded, satisfied that something was finally working, and increased the rounds to heavies.
The first few to hit almost made it all the way through the armor, punching giant dents into the hull instead of boring through. The broken plates in the craters flew apart on successive hits and the rounds eventually made it through all the way into the core of the ship…but there they stopped. A few managed to tap the needle, but not enough to damage it. Paul let the simulation continue to run a while before he was convinced that the defensive tactic was sound.
Which meant he’d succeeded…the ship was huge and probably could barely even move with the strongest Star Force engines, but it wasn’t a sitting duck for a one shot kill, and that’s what he needed. From there he could begin to tweak the prototype and get something workable to send off to the engineers for consultation.
Paul didn’t move. Something inside him said it wasn’t enough. If he was attacking this behemoth he knew what he would do, so he reset the parameters and upped the rail gun slug’s speed by a factor of 10 and hesitantly tapped the commit button.
The first round punched right through the 20 meters of armor and cored through the interior, then hit one of the bumpers and successfully deflected, angling off through the ship’s interior before finally stopping just inside the armor plating on the far right side.
The next few rounds did the same, either hitting bumpers or missing the needle altogether. It took more than 50 shots before one finally did hit, deflecting off the angle and missing the center sphere. It took 563 more simulated shots before it the crew section was finally hit.
Paul’s fist clenched up into a ball and he gently fist pumped the air.
“Gotcha,” he said, walking off in a hurry and heading for the stairs.
In the lounge below most of the others were preoccupied with games, vids or datapads and barely noticed Paul come in before he shouted.
“Roger, Liam! Get your asses upstairs. We’ve got work to do.”
Both turned away from their screens at the sound of his voice, but didn’t drop their controllers until they saw the expression on his face.
“You got something?” Roger asked as everyone else stopped what they were doing to see what was going on.
“Yep,” Paul answered loudly.
Liam and Roger exchanged glances then jumped out of their seats, eager to see what he had come up with.
Sara watched them hurry up the stairs and disappear from the lounge, smiling to herself as she hopped over the back of the couch and took Liam’s seat and controller.
10
September 7, 2045
Jason was sprawled out on the floor of the martial arts training center stretching out as he waited for Paul to finish his run in the new deflection chamber, where the user had to block incoming balls with the narrow, round blade of the stun sword knockoffs. The whole exercise reminded him of Jedi blocking blaster bolts, but it was proving extremely effective at honing their speed and precision movements, though none of them had yet progressed to the point of blocking multi-directional attacks or actually bouncing the wannabe tennis balls back at the mounted targets.
Two other new chambers had been installed, with four more still on the construction cue, but Jason was having more than enough of a challenge working on the existing ones with the heavier sword. Whereas he had been quick and nimble before, he felt sluggish and painfully inept with the weighty blade, though he’d been making gradual improvement over the past weeks, but he was far from recovering his former scores, which now seemed impossible to attain.
Still, Jason hadn’t given up and gone back to the standard sword as many of the others had. In truth they were still using them for part of their training, but Jason had promised himself he was going to fully immerse himself in challenge and had been using the arm numbing rod exclusively since Vermaire had delivered them two months ago.
Paul had taken up a similar training model, and was even now trying the deflection chamber with the heavier sword…something that Jason knew better than to try yet. He was going to wait a while until his arms adjusted a bit more and had spent most of his time on the basic drills, essentially relearning everything at slower speeds.
The door opened unceremoniously with a weary and sweat-soaked Paul slogging his way out into the middle of the chamber and dropping down next to Jason, letting go of his sword and leaning back on the rubberized floor at he stared up at the ceiling lights.
“Ouch,” he mumbled.
“Told you so,” Jason said with more sympathy than sarcasm. “You done for the day?”
“No, I just need a break for my arms to reattach themselves.”
Jason had to laugh at that, but his face suddenly blanked when he saw Vermaire walk in.
“Hey, look who finally came back…” Jason said, p
oking Paul.
Paul rolled over on his side so he could see. “That’s him?”
“Yep,” Jason attested as the giant began walking his way. “I was wondering when he would show up again. Guess it’s time to see how much improvement I’ve made.”
“He’s here for you?”
“I’m the only one he’s sparred with, and that was just the one time,” Jason said, standing up. Paul was a bit slower to follow.
The Black Knight walked up within a few strides and pointed two fingers at them, then one finger off to his left at the large sparring ring.
Jason nodded, then elbowed Paul. “Let’s go.”
Paul picked up his sword, his arms complaining but his mind not caring. He was grateful to get a chance to spar with the bastard, now that he was out of his armor.
They followed him over to the ring where he pulled out a pair of the lighter training swords and tossed them at Jason and Paul before grabbing one for himself.
The pair caught them and Paul dropped his heavy one on the floor outside the white circle that defined the ring. He spun it about with little resistance, his muscles almost grateful rather than further perturbed. Jason did likewise and went through a 7 second warmup flourish, then stepped into the ring where the Black Knight was already waiting. Paul waited outside, watching intently.
“Both of you,” Vermaire said, waving Paul inside.
The two adepts exchanged smiles as everyone else gathered around to watch, then Paul stepped into the ring and began to circle around behind the giant, taking up a similar position to the last time they’d fought…only this time he was much more prepared.
Jason struck first, with Paul moving a split second later as the Black Knight swung to block Jason’s attack. His blade came back faster than he thought possible, but Paul managed to deflect it in time and pulled back a step, then jumped back in as Jason took his attention away again. They exchanged blows for more than a minute before Vermaire locked up Paul’s blade and stepped in to slam his left hip against his chest, knocking the adept to the floor.
Jason struck immediately, but it wasn’t fast enough. As Paul picked himself up off the floor Vermaire succeeded in knocking Jason’s sword out of his hands.
To his surprise, Paul saw the Black Knight stop and wait for him to pick it up, then he waved his left hand tauntingly at them to continue.
Paul smiled and brought his light sword up in front of his face on guard, studying his opponent intently. He was still better than them, and far faster than he’d imagined, even after Jason had described their first encounter…but it seemed as a pair they could hold their own against him, at least for a little while, and that was definitely worth exploring.
Paul ran two steps forward and swung at the Black Knight’s shoulder, setting off a chain reaction of blows and counter blows as the pair alternately nipped at the giant, and he in turn fended them both off at once, never seeming to be in serious jeopardy.
They continued on for many minutes longer, with more than a dozen other adepts watching the sparring match with interest, rooting for their teammates but also learning from the display of skills.
From that day on Vermaire would make weekly visits to their training center, continuing to test and press Jason and Paul’s skills, barely ever saying a word during their bouts, but teaching them a great deal none the less.
Two days later a pair of Jaguar-class starships arrived in orbit around Luna, rendezvousing with the now complete starport in orbit and offloading 8 lunar dropships each, all of which were unloaded so as to keep down the mass off transit. They docked at the starport in turn, taking on crew and the first of the supplies that had been slowly accumulating on the space station via regular cargo shipments from Earth. When the first of the spherical dropships was loaded it detached from the starport and began a descent burn, slowing its speed and dropping down towards the grey cratered surface of the moon.
The giant golf ball dropped low over the surface then fired its internal engines again, killing more speed while maneuvering into a stable hover before losing its final meters of altitude and extending its landing gear from hidden compartments around the engines. The eight massive landing legs sank into the dusty surface a moment before the engine thrust shut down amidst a light debris cloud kicking out around the giant white sphere as if the ‘golf ball’ had just fallen into a sand trap.
Within minutes the cargo bay doors opened and a landing ramp extended down past the legs to the surface, with a pair of manned rovers driving down hauling wheeled cargo sleds behind them. The pair split up on opposite sides of the dropship and began depositing crew and cargo around the perimeter.
Hank Ronald stepped out of the passenger compartment of the second rover onto the ground, making him the first Star Force representative to set foot on Luna, and only the 46th person in recorded history, though that number would be passing the century mark within a couple of days as the dropship fleet would begin making continuous trips up and down from the starport, relaying the unending stream of supplies from the starships continuously ferrying them in from the Earth starports and the various Star Force orbital factories.
Ronald walked awkwardly in the 1/6th gravity in his hard plated space suit, but found his footing quickly enough as his muscles and mind suddenly seemed to remember the extensive low gravity training he’d gone through prior to this assignment. He grasped the controls of a portable lifter from the cargo compartment on the back of the Humvee-like lunar rover and extended its retractable third wheel, driving it over to the tractor trailer bed and beginning to unload crates onto the level piece of ground where they had parked.
Off in the distance a few kilometers another dropship landed softly and began disgorging supplies and personnel that would establish a second impromptu landing site and warehouse. When Ronald’s ship had fully unloaded it took off back into orbit leaving him and four others behind as they were busy at work assembling a command center that had been expertly designed into six canisters of equipment that unfolded like a giant tent and connected together like children’s toys.
Once it was fully erect they used variable pylon struts underneath to level the two-story high complex before attaching the oxygen canisters and power supply and ‘warming’ up the facility as they waited for the next shipment of supplies, which came down only a few hours after the first.
In that next dropship came more crates and two dozers which Ronald and another worker began using to scrape up the lunar surface and gently bury the command center to provide extra protection against radiation and meteorite impacts. After 14 straight hours of setup work and seven O2 tank refills/restroom breaks, Ronald retreated to the command center and stripped out of his suit, glad to be rid of the protective carapace. He showered in a small compartment, watching the water droplets fall peculiarly slow while trying not to hop into the top of the ceiling with every reflexive step.
He caught a restful 8 hours of sleep in the shared bunkroom then suited up again the next ‘day,’ redonning his hard suit and taking up the next shift on the round the clock construction site as Star Force quickly and firmly established its presence on Luna, putting more equipment down on the surface in 12 hours than all the nations of Earth had done in the past 75 years.
With their two crude spaceports established, the army of engineers and other specialized workers began creating roads and setting up prefabricated mono-rail tracks out to several predetermined sites for the construction of permanent startup facilities, the first of which would be a proper spaceport that would be marginally operational inside of two months, with a small mining facility coming online not long after that.
Hank Ronald, along with hundreds of other Star Force employees, took up residence on the moon for the next several years, with occasional trips up to the starport for normal gravity shifts to maintain some of their physical strength, making them the first unofficial Lunar colonists as they worked day in and out to build the habitats for the official denizens that would follow later.
As they worked the nations of Earth watched from surveillance satellites, gaining newfound respect and trepidation for the space agency, with a few of them rethinking their future plans and realizing that they had more to gain by working with Star Force than opposing them.
A great deal more…
Fabrication
1
February 2, 2047
Paul jumped over an angled fallen log, just barely clearing it with his left leg before his feet came back down on the moist jungle floor. He returned to his running gait within two steps, just in time to duck under a low branch before making a sudden left turn and busting through a wall of plants and off the trail.
The sharp spines of the grass-like leaves tried to cut into Paul’s body, but the light armor he was wearing deflected them harmlessly off the dull gray plates as he crashed into a small ravine and rolled headfirst down to the bottom…then was back up on his feet and running again in a flash as he heard the hum of the flying rovers closing in on him.
A small break in the canopy resulted in three stingers pelting the ground just behind his feet…the auto-tracking programs on the insect-like rovers were having trouble keeping up with Paul’s movements as he ducked in and out of the cover, but there were several of them, how many exactly he didn’t know but they were dogging his every step, tracking him via a small chip implanted in his armor so that he had to keep moving rather than hide from the stupid machines, which wasn’t all that hard.
His armor was equipped with a prototype IR disruption coating, masking most of his heat signature while covering him head to toe in the ‘scout’ version of the armor that the adepts had designed and been experimenting with. It restricted Paul’s movements, as was expected from any armor, but the light, thin plates had been augmented with flexible pads and stretchable sections to maintain as much agility as possible. It was still a work in progress, but without the basic protection the plants in Atlantis’s jungle park would have cut him to shreds as he ran through them, trying to evade the pesky rovers.