by James Edward
“Okay, anything else at the moment?” Ray asked.
“Only that Sergie has asked for your presence tomorrow at Pandora for a demo on something,” Lydia said.
Ray was astonished at the progress that had been made at Pandora. It was now a functioning laboratory with test areas. The labs and test area disappeared in the distance. The cavern was more than ten kilometers deep now with all the failsafe features installed. The area in front of the offices was set up for bicycle and electric bikes. Ten kilometers was a long walk, so the electric bikes were the cleanest and best mode of transportation. They did have some really heavy antigravity electric trucks to haul materials to the required labs. Near the entrance to the cavern was a set of forges and foundries, all going full blast to make and manufacture the required alloys and parts and pieces. On the other side, residences were springing up. Ray even saw some shops.
He knew expansion was done mostly by the nanobots now that Sergie had developed them to do practically everything that was done manually. Some were so small and specialized that they could change the molecular structure of materials, and some just worked hard to do a preprogrammed task. The possibilities of using the nanobots were endless. It was amazing that they were made in huge containers now. From these containers, they were decanted into other containers of different sizes, and these were moved to a programming booth. There they were programmed to do whatever there was a need to do. When they finished the task assigned, they either returned to the container for reprogramming or self-destructed, turning into dust.
Ray looked at the test area and could see way off in the distance a starship engine that was being prepped for a test. Huge overhead cranes shuttled parts and pieces back and forth. The area was the most efficiently run industrial area he had ever seen without a great pawl of pollution, smoke, smell, and noise. He really had to give Sergie credit in his development of this site for the industrial scale, and of course Devon Askew, the planet administrator, for smoothing out most of the bumps and setting up residences, getting food and materials, and more. Both of these men and their subordinates should get a medal. As he was musing this, he saw both the men coming toward him.
“Ah, Sergie. Devon. Good to see you both,” Ray beamed as he shook their hands. “You both have done wonders here. It’s amazing to see what happened here in just three months since my last visit.”
“Yes, it’s been a while since you were here putting out fires.” Sergie laughed. “It was a difficult stage of development. I must admit that Devon with his engineering background was the right person to take over the planets administration and still understand our needs, wants, desires, and wishes.”
“It been a very challenging position, but I love it!” Devon said. “We are approximately five years ahead of our project research right now and three years ahead in development.”
“Wow, that much!” Ray whistled. “I am impressed. You obviously have made a breakthrough in some field, or I wouldn’t be here now.”
“More than one,” Sergie beamed. “Jump into the cart, and we will go down into the testing pits.”
Ray joined them and chatted about the developments on the outside—that he was expecting a visit soon from some unfriendlies and about the shortages of manpower, which was everyone’s complaint. He was briefed as they traveled as to what projects were under way and what projects were still on the drawing board. Eventually they arrived at a medical building that was more of a vet clinic than a medical facility. When they went inside the building, Ray was surprised that it was an identical copy of a ship’s medical bay. The difference was that the bays were manned by medical robots, and the patient was a sheep.
“This is a major breakthrough.” Sergie beamed. “The sheep has been anesthetized so that it doesn’t feel any pain, but watch the demonstration.”
Sergie removed a blaster from the slot in the bench and shot the sheep in the chest. The shot was a through and through, as the beam exited the other side and struck the wall. The sheep dropped but was kicking, and quickly Sergie picked it up and put it on the table. The robot immediately scanned it and injected it with a large syringe. The sheep lay there for a few moments, and then there was a marked increase in the vital signs of the sheep.
“The syringe was full of medical nanobots. The robot did a scan and injected the nanobots. The older nanobots needed to be programmed, but the new ones will reconfigure themselves for any medical malady. That bad back of yours can be cured with an injection, no more sicknesses, broken bones will knit fast. This is the medical breakthrough of the century!” Sergie almost shouted in excitement. “Our space battle injuries will be reduced or healed faster. We can maintain a working, viable population. The nanobots will cure anything abnormal in a person, and they stay in residence. Although traumatic injuries will require an increase in nanobots and medical personnel. Everyone on Panhandle has been injected, and some have shown an increase in their physical abilities.”
“This will be great for the ship’s sickbays. We should also make sure that the marines get a load of them. They are going to do training on the new base they want on a moon orbiting Darnet. The marines have named it Hardship, and I imagine that is what it is going to be,” Ray said. “How do you get an injection of those nanobots?”
“Hold still, and I will fire them into your neck,” Devon said. “I understand that there will be some debate over the religious and ethical reasons some might opt out, but for the most part, this is going to help us with injuries. The nanobots are self-replicating; they extract the minerals and metals they need from the body on a micro-molecular level.”
“Well I am feeling better already. Make sure that every ship in the fleet except the freighters gets this. All of our fleet ships’ medical bays should be equipped,” Ray said. “What is the possibility of the PRC or AGW reverse engineering this?”
“Almost impossible,” Sergie said. “As soon as they hit atmosphere, they destruct and turn to dust. So they would be hard to recover. Even then it would take a lot of research on their part to be able to identify and isolate the nanobots. Also if the bots are taken out in a direct blood transfusion, they won’t react in another’s system; they will go dormant… useless.”
“Okay, someday all of humanity will have the technology but not right now. Definitely make sure that Lyn and the recruiters get a shot of them. You had another thing to show me?”
“Yeah, we need to go to the ceramic manufacturing area for that,” Devon said.
At the ceramics lab, Ray was ushered into a set of large bays holding large sheets of ceramic plates. Sergie explained that they were the same as the plates that were poured onto the ships to coat the hull. The ships were then flown close to the sun, which cured the ceramics and made them practically impenetrable. The ceramics were made up of special silicones, mineral clays, and crystals.
“Ray, this is the next generation of ceramic armor plating.” Sergie said, holding back his excitement. “This armor is infused with shaved crystals. These crystals were shaved by the construction nanobots to micro thicknesses. That allows the crystals to be embedded in the ceramics at odd angles, which deflects the beam weapon’s fire breaking down their concentrated power. Millions and millions of wafers all at microscopically set different angles almost render a direct hit useless. That was the plan when we started, but with the nanobots, we have been able to make greater strides until we achieved this.”
Sergie nodded at a technician. “As you know, the laser gun there is actually a mining laser. It is approximately the equivalent of a battleship laser in power because the amount of power required to fire a monster laser. We are lucky that this gun is hooked up to our eight planetary reactors so it has ample power. Go ahead, Mark. Fire the gun.
Mark fired on the plating. “As you can see,” Sergie said over the hum of the laser, “the ceramic crystal armor is deflecting the fire from a powerful laser, but let’s just keep it on the same spot. This would be alm
ost impossible, as in a fight we are moving, jigging, rolling, and turning our ships. But let’s just say that someone gets lucky and gets a direct, extended hit with a big gun. As you can see, it is almost twenty-three seconds and still no noticeable damage, but sensors embedded in the armor are showing super-hot temps and some liquefying beginning to happen. Ah, there we have a hull breach. Now watch the spot of the breach.”
Ray looked closely at the burn spot and was amazed as the hull began to repair itself. Over the course of an a few minutes, the hull was completely repaired. “Wow! Amazing! Will that also work for missile damage?”
“Yes, at a slower pace, but it will repair any hull breach providing it isn’t the size of the plate itself. Then the bots lose their continuity and stop working. As well, the bots cannot be extracted for study. If a piece of plating is blown off or the ship has a core breach and detonates, all the opposing parties will get is a ceramic armor plate piece; the nanobots again self-destruct if they are removed from the hull. The hull sets up a minor electric field that all the bots feed off of, and when that field is interrupted for a length of time, the bots shut down. But we have another surprise for you! A by-product of the crystal infusion.
“Mark, if you will activate the shield cloak. We will demonstrate what we discovered by accident.”
Mark threw a switch, and the plating disappeared. In the sensor screen, there was a slight signature of an object but a negligible signature if it was viewed over thousands of kilometers.
“What the hell!” Ray shouted.
“The same crystals that diffuse beam weapons also diffuse sensor scans.” Sergie laughed at Ray’s look of astonishment. “We discovered that by accident, but it was deemed as plausible by our think tank before testing.
“This is the best though. We were able to embed in the hull all over the ship emitters that work in concert with the shielding computer. The shield computer tells the emitter to read the background where it is and project that to the emitter directly opposite on the other side of the hull. That emitter then displays that scene on the shield. It also reads its background and sends that to its opposite sensor. So the shields display the opposite background, effectively making the ship disappear. Even if a ship passes by on the starboard, it will be displayed on the port. The plate you saw disappear is still there; you are just seeing the background projection. This makes our ships almost untraceable except for engine signature. But we are working on that.
“Oh by the way, the battleship Cul Dar needs to be sent here for this second-generation plating and cloaking. We have some improved weapons and hull structural supports to install. When we are finished, the Cul Dar will not even resemble Endora. The boys working on power plants have made a few strides as well. We were once limited to hyper six when we jump; we can, with the new engines, do hyper eight. So travel from here to Cappa Tauri instead of taking a week will now take eighteen hours.
“In a month, the weapons boys will have new and improved long-range missiles for you based on the cloaking system that we have for the ships. They are trying to develop it into the missiles too. Imagine launching a Tiger and having it hit a ship without warning. It would be devastating. The problem is developing shield emitters that will work on the missile without compromising size and speed. They believe that they are very close to a breakthrough.”
“Excellent, Sergie, Devon. I am very impressed. Get started on all these improvements. When Lyn comes through, make sure that the black ship is cloaked and she has the medibots. Send the medibots to everyone that wants them. I am so stoked with this improvements, guys,” Ray said.
They spent some time working over some problems with the growing pains of an expanding community. Over lunch, Ray brought them up to speed on what was happening in the rest of the system. Sergie suggested that they get Guard One plated and cloaked as soon as possible and that the priority should be the guard platforms, then the ships. System protection was more important than warships right now. They worked out a system for getting the guard platforms to Pandora. Ray decided to interrupt the move of Guard One and send it to Pandora. The destroyer and corvettes would just have to maintain station at the jump gate for now. He had also asked Sergie to get on with researching communications. If they could build relay satellites that were cloaked, they could hide them in all the AGW systems and have almost instant communications. That was a bottleneck now.
Three days later, Guard One arrived at Pandora and work began on getting her coated. Cul Dar would pull it around the star, as it was the only ship large enough to pull an entire weapons platform and beat the gravity of the star. Once the ceramics were cured, Cul Dar would take it directly to the jump gate. He was told that it would take at least a week to coat the station.
It was almost two weeks later, and Cul Dar was just taking Guard One for its star run. There were complications with the ceramic coating that needed to be solved, but for the most part, the extra week was good as they were able to get more interior improvements installed and a good coating on the outside. The trip around to cure would involve two passes, so they would be gone for another week before they could travel to the jump gate.
CHAPTER 9
Pirates
EVERET NEILSON, CAPTAIN OF THE destroyer Mercy, sat in his chair going over the daily reports on ship’s fitness and responses from yesterday’s war game with the two corvettes Larch and Birch. He wasn’t totally pleased with the results. Larch had managed to get a couple of missile hits in on the Mercy that shouldn’t have happened. So a review was in order and some revising of the tactical responses. There was another match today, and he was determined to prevent damage to his ship this time. A steak dinner was at stake, and beef was rare here.
“Sir, sensors. We have an unidentified gate opening. Three ships coming through—two corvettes and a cruiser-sized ship that is not in our database. All ships appear to be military,” the sensor operator said.
“Red alert. All personnel to battle stations,” Everet said. “Raise shields and contact Larch and Birch to do the same. Coms send a report to Conrad Base.” There was a flurry of activity as everyone ran to their respective stations and got buckled in. Everet heard the stations reporting in. “Coms, hail them.”
Seconds later, video screen flashed on, showing a large, brutish man standing in front of the camera. “This is the captain of the exploration ship Dark Runner. You are blocking our way. We are mandated by the AGW to explore this system. Any resistance to the directives of the AGW will result in a direct confrontation.”
“This is the captain of the destroyer Mercy. You are in violation of entering a non-aligned system. The AGW has no jurisdiction here, so back off or there will be consequences. Access to this system is through application at our embassy on Cappa Tauri only,” Everet said. He had open communications with the Larch and Birch, who were watching the video feeds.
“Unacceptable, Captain,” Dark Runner said. “Stand down or be fired on. We have legitimate orders to investigate this system, and that is what we will do. Tell your puny corvettes to pull back or they will be engaged by my ships. You have one minute to comply or you will be considered in violation of the AGW standing order and will be removed by force. Captain, you don’t have the firepower to resist me.”
“Dark Runner, one more threat will be considered an act of aggression. All communications of this incident are being recorded and beamed through the gate to our embassy on Cappa Tauri. This incident will not be doctored.
“If you do not turn around and depart the gate, your ships will be seized as part of the non-aligned agreement and you will be prosecuted. I can see that you are not wearing a fleet uniform, so your employers will have to pay a rather substantial fine to get your ships back.
“If you decide, foolishly, to engage us, please understand we have system support and you will have severely damaged ships. Also do not attempt to scan our system, as that will also count as an act of aggression. Yo
u have one minute to respond.”
“Captain, I do not believe that you have system support or that you have communications with the capital. This is a direct violation of access to us acting on the mandate of the AGW. We will depart for the moment, but perhaps we will return with the support we need to follow up on our directive.”
“Captain of the Dark Runner, please forward the papers from the AGW, and we will forward that onto our embassy for investigation. I would suggest that you don’t try to bring back a larger force, Dark Runner. Just more people will die. Now leave.”
“Sensors and tactical, the Dark Runner and the two corvettes have turned around, sir. Plotting their course and setting up tactical response if this is a feint,” the sensor operator said.
“Coms, I am not getting any communications from the Dark Runner. Continuing to jam all frequencies,” the coms operator reported.
They watched as each ship entered the jump gate and flashed out of existence there. Everet started to relax. That confrontation was minor, and the Dark Runner captain was bluffing, but it showed that they were generating interest from the outside. Five more days and they would have a guard platform on station, and those ships would be heading for coating while they were replaced by three or four others.
On the pirate base Last Run, Orville “Dog” Roth, captain of the Dark Runner, sat at a bar table with four other men. They were all evil-looking men, armed, scarred, and cold eyed.
“I say we go back with our big ships and raid that system,” Orville grunted. “They were running a bluff. One old destroyer and two older corvettes. They didn’t have anything more or they would have been at the gate too. The captain I talked to was ex-Fleet, so he had some fighting knowledge, but three old ships shouldn’t be a problem for our raiding fleet.”
“Why waste our resources on a system that reportedly isn’t even habitable?” the blond said. “We take some damage to get what? A couple of tankers of fuel, very few slaves to be taken there. Not worth the trouble.”