Star Force: Ambrosia (SF6) Read online

  What was the point, after all, of training for years when one stupid shot cold take you out in a space battle? All your skills were basically for naught, and in a situation like that numerical superiority would usually prevail. Yes, Paul and the others had learned to how dodge some enemy fire at range using small, nimble ships, but naval warfare was predicated on slow, massive ‘Capital’ level ships slugging it out with each other.

  It had begun to look like he and the others would have to be expendable in battle, which was something he just couldn’t stomach…which was why he had toyed with the idea of using remote controlled warships that could take hits and be destroyed without losing any crew…but there was a problem with that approach. First of all, control signals could be jammed, which would require a very impressive comm system for any remotely reliable use. Second, the control ship could be targeted, and with a one shot kill scenario all the enemy would have to do is run past the other ships and take out the controller.

  The kill power of the rail guns was linked to momentum, which was mass coupled with speed, so the only way to defend against them was to find a way to reduce their speed. Paul had briefly considered the idea of inflatable shields that could soften an impact until he ran the numbers and saw how pointless that was. It might work if he had a kilometer thick blanket around the ship, but then that wasn’t going to be very useful for a 50 meter long vessel.

  Armor plating offered some defense based on its density and thickness, which the incoming slug would be smooshed against, but at the type of speeds the rail guns fired the shape of the mass didn’t matter. Even a blunt object would be too much for the armor’s structure to hold up against and it would tear into and through it…and often out the other side of the ship.

  The armor would be effective against the lighter rail gun rounds, even when fired at a similar speed because their mass was so much lower, but they would eat away at the plates like a hungry beaver and tear through them with the efficiency of a chain saw on wood if concentrated to a small area on rapid fire. That at least wasn’t a one shot kill, but the rail gun’s superior kill power couldn’t be ignored even on the small scale.

  Paul’s entire defense philosophy had been to reduce the slugs’ speed, because the mass part of the equation couldn’t be altered…but he now realized that it could be countered. Early on he’d considered creating anti-rail gun rail guns to shoot down incoming slugs with their own…but the mathematics didn’t work given the insanely high speeds. Missiles were bad enough to hit, but shooting a bullet with a bullet was virtually impossible, even in a controlled environment, but if the aiming factor could have been worked out, the mass vs. mass concept would have proved successful.

  The trick of speed was that it was a relative measurement, based on either the spectator’s point of view or the combination of velocities at impact, meaning Paul’s ‘bullets’ could be fired at zero speed and still intercept the targets…if his bullets were in fact the ship’s hull.

  Zero speed could cancel out the incoming speed 50/50 for equal mass, meaning that a slug coming in at 2 miles per second when, hitting and merging with an equal mass object at zero speed, would split the difference and continue on at 1 mile per second. Increase the mass of the object and the ratio would diminish, assuming that a merger occurred and the projectile didn’t just vaporize the target on impact.

  Armor plating, while massive in weight, was never enough to completely counter the incoming speed…which technically would result in a slight shift in the entire ship, if the armor held integrity enough to transfer the momentum throughout the entire hull…which it never would.

  But what if you not only blocked the slug with armor, but with an entire ship, much like the TF Battleship that had one ship inside the other?

  Paul knew that with enough sheer mass in the way of the slug speed would be diminished as it passed through deck after deck and as the slug malformed from the impact it would increase surface area and slow further. He knew it would take A LOT of mass to completely stop a medium round, let alone a large one, but it could be done if you didn’t mind poking holes in your ship during battle.

  And that was the second part of the inspiration. The TF Battleship was two ships in one, with the sphere holding the crew and the ring holding the droids…lifeless droids that were expendable.

  It would have to be big, Paul knew, really, really big, but if he could get a control ship that wouldn’t pop on the first shot then they could explore the remote-controlled warship angle for their smaller designs.

  But making a fat ship wasn’t the whole solution to the problem. Rail gun rounds could still be super accelerated by fast moving ships up to virtually unlimited speeds, meaning that any amount of blocking material could possibly be countered with a precisely set up attack run, which could be discouraged by the presence of an escort fleet, but Paul needed the crew…especially if it was him on the ship…to have a fighting chance rather than simply being a sitting duck hoping that the shot missed.

  One of the other defensive possibilities that he’d explored was deflection, which required much less structural integrity than an abrupt stop that armor plating attempted, but the problem with the deflection was that the round had to hit the hull at an angle to potentially skip off…and even then the material that it hit had to be super dense otherwise the slug would just eat into it as if it were nothing more than paper.

  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 t
he 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 upper 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, poking 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.