Knight's Move
Page 42
***
Starships open portal gateways into hyperspace to travel faster-than-light. As hyperspace is a dangerously high-energy dimension, most crews prefer to avoid actual fighting within hyperspace. Navigation is aided by a series of navigational beacons that can be detected within hyperspace, allowing starships to triangulate their position.
Hyperspace is marred by storms caused by gravity wells and random energy fluctuations. The Great Wall (preventing a direct passage from Earth to Fairfax) appears to be permanent, others come and go as the fancy takes them. The Federation Survey Service monitors the progress of storms within Federation space and beams warnings out to spaces. Most ships prefer to avoid storms entirely; brave crews can shave hours off their journey time by skimming the edge of storms.
The Federation Communications Network beams messages through hyperspace, using a network of communications beacons (linked to the navigational beacons). It can still take days to get a message from one end of the Federation to the other, despite the most advanced AIs in service constantly massaging the network. Among other things, a message cannot be sent through a storm.
***
In normal space, starships fight with phase cannons, quantum disrupters, pulsars and antimatter missiles. Starfighters are armed with tactical phase torpedoes, which can penetrate a starship’s shields if fired from sufficiently close range.
Planets are defended by Orbital Battle Stations and Planetary Defence Centres, which are protected by powerful force fields. In order to capture a planet, the orbital defences have to be reduced and ground forces landed to take the PDCs on the ground. Battering them down from orbit is possible, but it does untold damage to the planet’s ecosystem (which didn't stop it happening during the war).