Hellfire (THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY)

by Jean Johnson

  Those lit up in beige and yellow respectively, scattered throughout the ship, though most appeared on the middle decks. Between them lay a strange, blank section, as if the ship were hollow down the center, almost like a straw. Nothing filled that blankness; no lines indicated bulkheads, pipes, or passages, not even section seals. Ia ignored the anomaly as she continued her introduction to the ship.

  “We will all become very familiar with these manufactory bays. What parts we cannot acquire during our brief resupply stops, we will have to be able to craft ourselves. Main engineering is located in the aft section, though each sector is being fitted with a redundant emergency engineering station,” she stated, as a patch of the second-to-last segment of the ship turn a brighter orange. Paler peach colors indicated the backup posts. “You will also note a secondary engineering bay in the bow sector, one almost as large as the main. That is because this ship has been equipped with OTL hyperrift generators, in addition to FTL.”

  Spyder choked. He wasn’t the only one to cough on his own spit at that, but he was the nearest, and the first one to rasp out, “—Choo gotta be kiddin’ me, Lieu—er, Captain,” he corrected himself, staring up at his former fellow Marine. “OTL, onna ship this big? ’S’bigger than th’ Liu Ji, an’ y’know bloody well whatchoo did t’ that ship, three years back. Beggin’ pardon, an all tha’, sir, but tha’s shakkin’ crazy.”

  “I don’t deny that the Hellfire is longer than the Liu Ji, Lieutenant Spyder,” Ia admitted with a dip of her head, acknowledging his concerns. “But it is not fatter than the Liu Ji. In fact, its radial cross section is considerably skinnier. When it comes to hyperrift travel, the single most important physical consideration is the diameter of the ship in relation to the hyperspace rift’s aperture when combining other-than-light interstellar travel with faster-than-light-sized ships. There is, of course, an upper limit on what the length of even a skinny ship can be, but our current vessel does not exceed it.”

  “If you say so, sir,” he muttered. “’S’long’s it’s not comin’ outta my pay cheque…”

  Ia grinned, amused by the reference. “Nor, indeed, out of General Sranna’s pay cheque this time around.” She sobered a bit and turned back to the rest of their Company. “…The incident Lieutenant Spyder refers to is how my old Company arrived at the Battle of Zubeneschamali fast enough to effect the rescue of our commanding officers and fellow sergeants, back in my Marine Corps days. Rest assured, most of the OTL-FTL surfing we will be doing will be done under much more controlled circumstances.”

  “I’m surprised Commander Harper wasn’t the one choking.” The muttered dig came from Doctor Mishka, seated on the other side of Bennie from Ia. With Spyder breaking the silence of the officers, she apparently felt it was alright to speak up as well. “Since he’s supposed to be the chief engineer, shouldn’t he be more concerned about you mangling this ship?”

  Harper gave Ia a sardonic look before leaning forward just enough to look past her and address the other woman. “I’ve already seen it working properly, Doctor, via the Captain’s precognitive efforts. This ship can take it, once properly retrofitted.”

  He did not say anything more, let alone anything about how or when. Harper just sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. Like most of the other officers, he was clad in Dress Greys with his full glittery of service pins, awards, and medals—most of them Compass Roses for outstanding feats of engineering—pinned to his chest. He looked well, if sullen. Dangerous, where her concentration was concerned.

  Pulling her attention back to her work, Ia continued. “In terms of sheer tonnage, approximately forty percent of this ship consists of fuel compartments. In that regard, we are the equivalent of one of the Beluga-Class tankers. However, we have as many hydrogenerators as a high-end battle cruiser, or a low-end battleship.”

  Those sections of the ships turned blue, revealing that much of the ship was indeed dotted with storage containers and pipes for carrying purified water to the ship’s hydrogenerators, displayed in a darker shade of blue. Most of the tanks were clustered around the edges of the ship, just beneath several layers of hull plating, sensory equipment, the L-pods and P-pods, and the projectile-weapons bays. Most of the hydrogenerators were clustered around that curiously blank inner core, which ran most of the length of the ship—far more hydrogenerators than what a ship of similar size should have needed.

  After a moment, Ia electrokinetically shifted the schematic colors from the blues of hydrotechnology to the bright reds of projectile weapons and the darker reds of laser cannons. There were a lot of red dots on the hull.

  “Some of our energy requirements will feed the dual engines and other shipboard needs, but the majority is reserved for the weapons. In terms of sheer firepower, if we exclude the main cannon, this ship qualifies as a high-end cruiser or low-end battle cruiser. Each and every manned post, L-pod or P-pod, will actually be operating anywhere from one to five slave-interfaced weapons pods at any one time, depending upon the severity of the current mission. Of the P-pods, we will be manning up to sixteen projectile posts during those missions, which means we will be firing from a bare minimum of sixteen up to a total of eighty P-pods staggered radially around the ship,” Ia informed her crew.

  She had to pause while several people whistled softly. Others blinked in shock, and a few of the enlisted who specialized in gunnery posts whispered to each other. Just as they died down, she held up her hand…waited…circled her hand impatiently…and nodded as yet another rasping shudder rumbled through the bulkheads. It ended with a very loud thunk, and a brief dimming of the lights before they brightened again.

  “…For those of you wondering what all that noise is, I’ve requested the fitting crews to install additional lifesupport bays, manufactory equipment, and other odds and ends we will be needing later on,” Ia told the men and women around her. “The fore, aft, and amidships sections are more or less complete, but they’re literally still rebuilding the interior bulkheads around us here in the bow and stern sections, after having ripped half of them out. This chamber was actually supposed to be a storage bay before I had it partitioned and reinforced into the company boardroom, with extra hydrofuel tanks beneath your seats. Above us is the OTL engineering compartment, and aft of us is one of our two shuttle bays.

  “The original boardroom, located in the fore sector and sized to fit the original crew of five hundred, has since been redesigned into a recreation deck.” The schematic changed colors again, briefly illuminating each section. Returning to the discussion at hand, Ia relit the drawings of the ship with bright and dark red dots. “At the moment, this ship has only the barest minimum of lifesupport supplies, and no armaments beyond the laser turrets and a few installed projectile launchers. Rest assured, we will be fully fitted for war before we leave dry dock.

  “Each ship sector also has four portable hydrogenerators, which can be converted within three minutes or less into catalytic payloads…and which can be launched from a standard P-pod bay, for a total of twenty nonradioactive hydrobombs, with payloads ranging from ten to fifty liter-tonnes. That’s enough power per hydrobomb to completely destroy any major modern supercity, such as Tokyo—both Upper and Lower Tokyo.” She let the gravity of that sink in, then added, “We will be using them in the future, and we will be using them on Salik targets. We cannot and will not stop the coming war…but we will be doing our best to break the most critical components of their war machine.”

  For a moment, even the muffled sounds of construction outside the boardroom were absent, leaving them in grim silence. No one contested her statement. Each person in the room was a soldier, even the chaplain; they knew the Blockade wouldn’t hold forever, and most had heard of Ia’s efforts to stem the resumption of the old Salik War, at the Battle of the Banquet. She and the other escapees had killed many of the highest-ranked generals two months ago while trying to escape, but the enemy’s war machines were still out there somewhere, just waiting for strong enough le
aders to reseize control.

  Ia waited for a couple of faint thumping noises, then spoke. “Moving on to the laser cannonry, this ship has twice as many L-pods as P-pods: twelve Swordstrike-, twelve Skystrike-, and eight Starstrike-rated cannons. I am, of course, referring to the manned L-pod stations,” she added. “That means we can have anywhere from twelve to sixty Swordstrike-, twelve to sixty Skystrike-, and eight to forty Starstrike-rated laser cannons capable of firing at any one point in time. That is what rates this frigate-sized ship as a battle cruiser in its weaponry.

  “However, under normal circumstances we will not be firing all weapons,” she cautioned the others, holding up her hand to forestall the grins on some of the faces before her. “The object is to hide our extreme combat capability via retractable weapons pods and pretend to be nothing more than an oddly elongated frigate, possibly even a small destroyer-class starship. This is because we will be going deep into enemy territory. If they know what we are truly capable of, they will try to hit us with everything they’ve got from the outset. I’d rather use a minimum of resources to get a particular job done so that we can conserve fuel, supplies, and personal energies for future engagements.

  “In addition to the standard and hidden armaments, we also have mechsuit bays in the bow, fore, aft, and stern sections of the ship,” Ia explained, highlighting those areas in brown. “Plus two transport and cargo shuttles in the bow and stern shuttle bays, and two boarding podships in each bay. The Infirmary is located in the amidships section, along with the main bridge; there is an auxiliary bridge in the stern section, but it probably will never need to be used as such. There may, however, be a skeleton crew sitting watch in there at certain times, depending upon the damages we take from combat.

  “Over the next two months, all five lifesupport bays will have their tanks and hydroponic systems filled, balanced, checked, and double-checked. Before we leave dock, the manufactories will be loaded with raw stock, the storage holds loaded with food, clothing, toiletries, and various spare parts, and the projectile bays loaded with various types of missiles, some standard, some nonstandard. You will be expected to help load supplies in whatever spare time you might have, particularly toward the end—and once we leave dry dock, you will be the only crew permitted on board, particularly when it comes to loading or off-loading supplies. That is one of the reasons why everyone will be fitted for mechsuit armor, so that it can double as a stevedore suit.

  “Of the various other facilities on board this ship, their maintenance cycles, so on and so forth, please consult your Company manuals; those things can be learned in due time,” Ia directed the patiently listening men and women arranged around her. “We’re almost done, so please bear with me just a few more minutes. The last thing I have to say at this time about our new ship concerns its main weapon.

  “Many of you may have noticed the rather obvious blank section along the core of this ship. The reason why it has been left blank isn’t because it’s hollow,” she told her fellow soldiers. “It has been left blank deliberately because its contents are Ultra Classified. There are four people on board this ship who have a high enough clearance to know exactly what lies in the axial core. Three of you are enlisted engineers who have actually worked on this ship, one per duty watch, and the fourth is myself. The rest of you do not need to know.”

  The central core of the ship schematics turned black. Orders flashed down the secondary screens, marked with the unsmiling face of a middle-aged, Asian woman: the Admiral-General herself.

  “As you can see, your standing orders are as follows,” Ia stated, reciting them for those who couldn’t be bothered to read the text. “Should any of you discuss the nature, capabilities, or mission of this ship, and in particular anything associated with its main cannon, with anyone outside of your fellow crew members, our immediate superiors, being Admiral John Genibes, then Admiral-General Christine Myang herself, without our permission, you will be automatically accused of Grand Treason. This accusation includes discussing it near any open comm pickup, and includes discussing it with any member of the Terran United Planets Council, all the way up through both the Secondaire and the Premier.

  “I would far rather fill out the paperwork resulting in my shooting you preemptively, than suffer the required execution alongside you, should you be so asteroid-headed,” Ia warned them dryly. “Any query into the nature of our main cannon by any outsider who is not either Admiral Genibes or the Admiral-General herself needs to be noted, logged, and reported. Not only are you to log the time and identity of your questioner, if you are queried, you are required to answer, ‘I’m sorry, but I am not authorized to discuss such subjects at my level of clearance.’ At that point, you will pass that person and their query up the chain of command to me, so that I can handle it for you.

  “Make no mistake about this: I am the only person on board this ship with the authorization to discuss this ship with outsiders,” she finished bluntly. “That’s why a slip of your tongue is to be considered treason in the eyes of the Command Staff. Some of this, you need to know so you can grasp just how much firepower and thus work we have ahead of us. Some of this, I really shouldn’t be telling to any of you because it is so heavily classified.

  “But since we’re all Human, I’m giving you permission to discuss this among yourselves, so you don’t burst with unspoken curiosity. Just don’t do it near any open comm links or active airlocks. Any questions so far?”

  A hand tentatively rose, roughly one-third up the tiered seats from the officer’s stage. Ia recognized the owner as Private Helia Dixon, one of her former crew members from her Navy days. The last Ia had seen of the other woman in person had been a final visit with her in the infirmary of the Mad Jack, before Dixon had been packed off for regeneration and reconstructive surgery of her combat-lost leg just over one year ago.

  “Private Dixon, it’s good to see you again,” Ia acknowledged, pointing at the other woman. “You have a question?”

  “It’s good to see you, too, sir. Um…are we allowed to query you about this main cannon, sir?” Dixon asked her. “Does it pop out of the ship or something?”

  “I’m sorry, Private; that’s one of the things I can’t tell you much about,” Ia apologized. “I can tell you that the cannon does not ‘pop out of’ this ship like one of the pod turrets. Instead, this ship was built around the main cannon. We will be living and working in the outer housing for the barrel of a gun so large and powerful, the design team nicknamed it the Godstrike cannon. I cannot tell you the exact energy conversion rate at this time, nor the exact power output generated by it…but I can say that if you compare a pocket-sized holdout pistol to a Starstrike-class laser cannon, that’s what the Starstrike is to the Godstrike cannon.

  “For those of you who are curious on how a ship-sized laser could work with an OTL nose cone,” Ia continued, carefully distracting the crew from further inquiry attempts with a couple of facts, “the Hellfire has been retrofitted at the bow with three moveable, combat-redundant hyperarrays, which will be stored in armored housings just beyond the edge of the of the cannon’s aperture. They will be swung into place when we are ready to travel via other-than-light. We have also been fitted with an identical OTL nose cone at the rear of this ship.

  “All four arrays can be detached and moved to any of the other mounts in the event one is damaged…which they will be at some point. But I’m hoping to outmaneuver most incoming enemy fire. Because of her streamlined silhouette and the way the FTL warp panels and insystem thrusters are aligned, the Hellfire is capable of immense acceleration in an emergency despite her seeming mass—in fact, we can accelerate at three-quarters the speed of a Harrier-Class ship,” Ia stated. “We can also accelerate two-thirds as fast while flying backwards, too.”

  That earned her several startled looks. Having served on a Harrier-sized ship on Blockade Patrol, Ia knew very well the Hellfire was at least seven times as long and twenty-five times as massive. She nodded slowly, confirming he
r words.

  “Yes, we can move that fast. The Hellfire has been fitted with the absolute latest in dual-use FTL/insystem thruster panels. She has also been fitted with cross-aligned thruster panels so that we can slip sideways at very fast speeds—the only thing we cannot do fast is swap ends. In fact, the designers almost named this class of ship the Dragonfly Class for its maneuverability,” she added, a fact she had learned in her dips through the timestreams. “But with the coming war, they decided on the Harasser classification.

  “As you can guess, the Lock-and-Web Law of shipboard life is particularly vital on this vessel. For most instances, I will be able to give everyone fifteen-, five-, and one-minute warnings before any such sudden maneuvers must occur,” Ia admitted. “Unfortunately, even I can be blindsided by low-probability rolls for things happening sooner than anticipated, so it’s best to secure as you go. There are many redundant interior safety-field nodes on board, but a pen can still be turned into a deadly weapon by even a mild change in speed or direction if it happens abruptly.

  “So. This concludes your introduction to the starship TUPSF Hellfire and its cadre,” Ia told them. “For all other questions regarding the capabilities of this ship, as well as the locations of your berth and work assignments plus copies of your instruction schedules for the next two months, please consult the Company Bible…which your Platoon sergeants will now hand out to each of you.” She tapped a couple of buttons on her command bracer and gestured at the three sections of tiered seats. “Your Platoon assignments are being streamed to your arm units now; please position yourselves accordingly, with the 1st Platoon to your left and the 3rd to your right.

  “Each manual has been tailored very specifically to each one of you—I will state right here and now,” Ia added, “that I expect each and every one of you to obey my orders to the fullest, because the vast majority of them will come backed with the weight of my precognitive abilities. I also expect each and every one of you to think for yourselves, and to discuss the needs of your jobs with each other.