by Kal Spriggs
Lucius frowned a bit at that. He really should have made time to visit before now, it was just that things were so damned busy. “Not a problem. I'd like to meet with those two engineers that General Mira loaned us, but I should have made time for this before. I'd assume you have some kind of presentation prepared?”
Matthew gave him a smile, “We could do that, but I figured you'd want to see what we're working on first hand. For that matter, I think the workers would like to see you.”
Lucius gave a nod. “Sounds good.” Matthew continued down the corridors and Lucius took a silent moment to study the man. On Lucius's first arrival to the Faraday system, Matthew Nogita had run a machine shop and small ship construction facility which barely scraped by, plagued by the monopolistic competition which sought to cut him out. Lucius had partnered with the man as a method to produce his fighters from other resources. Since then, the man had continued to impress him with his abilities. Matthew was taller than Lucius, of average height. His skin was pale from time spent indoors or working here on the new station, his dark hair was cut close and his green eyes still held the same confidence that had made Lucius trust him. He walked with a purpose, his shoulders back with pride and set with determination. Matthew was not one to let a job set idle... especially not an important one.
The station was a product of that determination, Lucius knew. Matthew Nogita had taken over the project, coordinating between the Faraday contractors, the various refugee businesses, and the military engineers of the Dreyfus Fleet. They had put together the first pieces of the station only weeks after they recaptured Faraday. It had since expanded to include the nascent shipyards. From what he'd heard, there were plans to establish defensive systems, to include a defense screen and interceptor systems as well as a fighter bay. The constant expansion had required an authority figure to oversee... and Matthew filled that role perfectly.
Matthew paused outside, “Baron, I've got a few things to set into motion, but as soon as you finish up here, have one of your escort comm me and I'll be right down.”
Lucius gave the other man a nod and then turned to his Marine escort. “Wait out here. Make sure we're not disturbed.” The Marine NCO frowned at that, but he gave a reluctant nod. The station was one of their most secure areas, everyone aboard had been vetted through multiple levels of security. Lucius should, in theory, be safe in a room with anyone aboard.
Lucius stepped into the conference room and gave the two engineers a smile. “Thank you for meeting with me, gentlemen,” Both looked tired, but they smiled in response. Lucius hadn't yet met either of them, though Shaden had told him they were both very good at what they did.
The first man was short, had receding brown hair, and blue, bloodshot eyes, “Yes, you see, I'm very glad we've finally got the opportunity to talk to you. You see, there's so much more effort we could use on this project.” He had a high pitched voice for his frame, heavyset without being obese.
“Rory, You should tell him about the issues with power generation,” the other one said. He was taller, skinny, and with lank, brown hair. His voice was monotone, with a heavy Centauri accent.
“Don't interrupt me, Feliks,” Rory said sharply.
“Fine, don't tell him about the power generation issues,” Feliks muttered.
“I will tell him about the power generation issues... if you'll let me get to it!” Rory said, with a tone of exaggerated patience. “Sorry, sir.” He took a deep breath, “As I was saying, it's excellent that you finally have the time to meet with us so that we can discuss the project.”
Lucius frowned. “Which project is this?”
Rory gave an exasperated sigh, “Haven't they passed on my briefings? I spent sixteen hours preparing the last one.”
“Sixteen hours?” Lucius asked. He looked between the two men. “Look, before we get into this, I'd just like to ask a simple question.” He frowned, “Do either of you know a man named Reginald, who may work with General Mira and possibly Kandergain?”
“With Kandergain?” Rory asked. “Wow, that's a vague question. She's always zipping across the universe. She's a cute one, you know? I once helped her out to repair her ship, she had an issue with the shadow space drive. Really interesting woman...”
Feliks cleared his throat. Rory let out a sigh, “Yes, right, uh, Robert... doesn't ring a bell.” He looked expectantly at Lucius, “So, about this project...”
Lucius rubbed at his eyes. Of course, the engineer they sent would be attracted to the mother of his child. “You're certain you haven't heard either of them talk about a Reginald?” Lucius asked.
Feliks frowned, “The name does sound familiar.”
Rory shook his head. He sounded exasperated when he spoke, “No, Feliks, you're thinking of Roderick, you know, the strike team leader?”
“No, that's Roger,” Feliks said. “And he's a pilot.”
Rory cocked his head, “You know, I think you're right.” He looked back at Lucius and snapped his fingers, “Now I got it! Reginald, odd fellow, works with Kandergain!”
“So he does work with Kandergain?” Lucius asked.
“Yes... well, I think so,” Rory frowned. “He showed up one time just before a battle at Sigma Six...”
“Corthan Five,” Feliks interjected.
“It couldn't have been Corthan Five, because we didn't have the Mark II phased radar systems on the fighters yet,” Rory said. His tone of exasperation seemed only words away from meltdown.
“Right,” Feliks said, “Because you retrofitted them on for the battle at Sigma Six, because the Mark I didn't work against the Balor jamming.”
Lucius cleared his throat.
Rory looked back, “Yeah, right. Um, so... Roderick.”
“Reginald,” Lucius said, his voice level only with intense concentration.
“Reginald!” Rory nodded. “He dresses really odd... which isn't too unusual for psychics, I think they're all a bit loopers, even Kandergain, cute as she is.” Lucius silently reminded himself that he needed the engineer and that venting him out an airlock, while rewarding in its own way, would be counterproductive. He wondered, though, if Shaden had left him the pair as some kind of joke. “Well, anyway, he dresses almost medieval, with a red overcoat and big black boots.”
“Oh, sword,” Feliks said.
“Yeah, and a sword, what's up with that?” Rory asked.
Lucius sighed. “Okay, thank you.” He turned to leave.
Rory hurried over and blocked his exit, “Wait, what about the project?”
Lucius grimaced, “You've got five minutes. After that, whatever you can fit in while Matthew Nogita gives me the tour.”
“Right,” Rory said quickly. “So we're working on salvaging and repairing the Balor ships. Some of them are in remarkably good shape, other than damage from the boarding crews. I mean seriously, your Marines should almost be brought up on charges for what they did to some of those ships...”
Feliks moved up next to Rory and nudged him. “Yes, as I was saying, they're in great shape. We're pulling out all the stuff we don't need, we're working on repairs, which are a lot easier than you'd expect.” He held up his hands and gestured excitedly, “You see, the ships are almost organic in nature. Given a supply of power and input raw materials, they can repair a lot of their own systems over time. It's actually quite funny because when we pull some systems out, we have to counter their repair mechanisms or else they'll try to eject our modifications...”
Lucius cleared his throat impatiently.
“Right, time,” Rory said quickly. “So we're doing the repairs and modifications, making them functional for human crews. Which is not an easy task. Different air mix, adding lighting, adjusting all kinds of control systems, since the Balor are psychic and we can't even link with their neural networks without going insane...” He shook his head, “Trust me, that's a bad idea. Really bad headache. Anyway, everything is underway... but we're running into some issues with the Balor power plants.”
; “What about them,” Lucius asked.
“Well, they're not like ours. I have this theory that they tap directly into shadow space and use the energy differential between normal and shadow to power... well never mind. They're much more powerful than anything we've got. Way higher energy density, higher even than antimatter. Which wouldn't be a problem, except...”
“The Balor reactors are all damaged,” Feliks said.
“I was getting to that, thank you, Feliks,” Rory snapped. “But yes, he's right. Now, see my theory is that because the ships are self-repairing that given enough power the reactors could repair themselves.”
Lucius frowned. “How much power?”
Rory shrugged, “Well, quite a bit actually. Almost the full output of your solar array as it is now...”
“To repair one of the reactors,” Feliks muttered.
“But that should allow us to bring that reactor online fully to repair that ship much more rapidly, perhaps even get it up and functioning,” Rory said quickly.
“Have you brought this up to Matthew Nogita?” Lucius asked.
“Well, yes,” Rory said. “He suggested I run a simulation to show the results.”
“Don't you have more empirical evidence?” Lucius asked. “I mean, you've repaired that Balor battlecruiser of Shaden's right?”
Rory and Feliks both held up their hands defensively, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on there. Now, granted, we got that ship up and running, but its damage was way less than any of the ships your men hit. All of them suffered damage to their reactors, either from battle or whatever your Marines did boarding.”
Lucius frowned, “So, you don't know that this will work?”
“The theory is sound,” Rory said, his light voice nervous. “I would say there's a ninety percent–”
“Fifty percent,” Feliks muttered.
“Seventy percent chance of success,” Rory said as he waved a hand through his thinning brown hair.
Lucius frowned. “Run your simulations past Matthew. If he's satisfied, we'll go from there.” He paused in thought. “I'm not entirely clear on what salvage you're working on or what your priorities are. You said you prepared a briefing?”
“Yes,” Rory said. “If you have four hours, I can give you the short version.”
“I don't,” Lucius said. He suddenly realized just why he hadn't seen anything on their project. “For that matter, I don't have anymore time here. Get with Matthew Nogita, he'll direct you what kind of report I have time to see. Thank you,” Lucius said.
“I told you, you should have made the report shorter, two hours would be enough time, Rory,” Lucius heard Feliks mutter as he left the room.
***
“Hey boss, find out the information you wanted?” Matthew asked as Lucius stepped into his office.
Lucius snorted. “Yes. It was something of an experience though.”
“I bet,” Matthew shook his head. “Those two are smart, smarter than your old engineer, Harbach, but it's like wrangling kittens to keep them on track.” He frowned, “Have they told you about the Balor ships?”
Lucius nodded, “Yes. I hadn't realized there was the the issue, however. What's your opinion?”
“Boss, I don't think we know enough about those ships and tech to make a decision like that right now,” Matthew said. “Everyone else, including Harbach, who has looked at those power plants think that the reactors are either in standby or low on whatever fuel they have.”
“Are there fuel tanks?” Lucius asked.
“We don't know,” Matthew said with a grimace. “My theory, which is also James Harbach's theory, is that the reactors are like the antimatter plants in the Dreyfus Fleet. They have some finite power capacity, like a battery, and they slowly run down.”
Lucius cocked an eyebrow. “All of them at once?” he asked.
“That's where Harbach and I disagree. He says they used up significant power when we attacked, maybe as a result of the impacts on their shields they were drained at a rapid pace,” Matthew said. Lucius frowned at that, it made a sort of sense, but that would mean their shields were extremely energy intensive, perhaps pointing to a critical vulnerability that could be exploited. “My theory is that the crews drained the power plants so the ships would be useless if we managed to capture them.”
“Why not just scuttle them then?” Lucius asked.
Matthew licked his lips, “That's what I discussed with Rory and Feliks. They mentioned how small the Balor fleet is... and from what it sounds like, they would hesitate to destroy any of their own ships if there were any chance they could recapture them.”
“Okay... I'll buy that. So what's the downside to hooking up their reactor to our solar array?” Lucius asked. He could see how each of the theories sounded plausible. What he lacked was the expertise to chose one. This is why I hate alien artifacts and technology, Lucius thought. The human race had come across the ruins of a half dozen alien civilizations, some of them more advanced than humanity even at the peak of Amalgamated Worlds. Artifacts from those civilizations ranged from pottery shards to complex weapons. There were stories about alien ships that came to life at a touch after ten thousand years of inactivity and fantastic weapons that worked once before crumbling. Lucius would prefer to stick to technology that humans understood... or at least, that they could reverse engineer.
“Well, that's the issue,” Matthew said. “We don't know what's going on inside those reactors. We can't open them...” He saw Lucius open his mouth and raised one hand, “Trust me, boss, we can't. We've tried everything up to and including shaped high explosives charges. We can't even put a scratch on the outer containment core. Application of anything more powerful might well destroy what we're trying to see... or worse, react with whatever is inside.” Matthew sighed, “Boss, since we don't know what's going on inside, we absolutely don't know what charging it with the power from our solar array might do.” He shrugged, “It might charge it like a battery, or jump start it like Rory said... or it might react with whatever is inside and cause a critical failure.”
Lucius nodded. “Okay, I guess I can understand your reluctance to do that.” He would bet that one of Dreyfus's military engineers might be more willing to experiment if they needed to. But since they were working ship design and construction, he didn't want to pull any of them away. For that matter, Dreyfus had mentioned his covey of scientists, perhaps this was a project for one of them. “None of those ships are the main priority, right now. Well... not beyond studying them and implementing any improvements we can make in our next generation of ships, anyway,” Lucius said. He glanced at the cluttered desk, “How are the other projects?”
Matthew snorted, “Busy. Very busy.” He went to his desk and took a seat. “The main issue is balancing infrastructure against repairs and new construction. We just finished overhauling the Crusader's decoys, thankfully that wasn't a lot of work.” Lucius nodded at that. The Dreyfus Fleet's Crusader-class ships each mounted three decoy drones, each good for around ten minutes of continuous operation or longer when staggered as part of a jamming and defense plan. Each of them was the size of a cruiser... which meant that they were still positively tiny against the bulk of one of the Crusaders. Each of the decoys mounted enough drives, power plants, emitters, and even limited defense screens so that they appeared identical in emissions to one of the huge ships. Only a visual scan or a very detailed emissions scan could tell the difference for the short duration that they could operate. Given that the Balor's sensors were psychic based, the decoys had gone entirely unscathed during the Third Battle of Faraday, which meant that their limited power sources needed to be replenished and some of their power conduits replaced. Having those back meant that they could be used against a foe more likely to be fooled by them during an engagement... and anything that drew fire away from their precious ships was good. “We've got the civilian yard finished and we've laid down the first hulls already.”
“Really?” Lucius asked. He would have expected
the priority to be military hulls.
“Really. Mining ships and ore transports. They'll be harvesting the wreckage of the various Chxor forces first, then go to work on the Balor wreckage too small to salvage,” Matthew said. “After they finish all that off, then they'll work the asteroid belts. We're going to need a lot of raw materials, not just for your military ships, but also for rebuilding on Faraday, establishing a strong merchant marine, and building more infrastructure.”
“Sounds complicated,” Lucius said. He had heard there was a push to privatize a lot of the infrastructure that they had accumulated. While he knew that would make sense economically, he felt uneasy about letting those resources go while engaged in a war of survival.
“It is,” Matthew said. “But that's why you pay me the big bucks.” He frowned, “I'm slowly shifting my work load over to the civilian side of things. Some of that is personal preference... but some is friction with the Dreyfus Fleet personnel.”
“Oh?” Lucius asked.
Matthew shrugged, “It's not personal. I get along with them, well enough. But there's this tendency on their parts to view our stuff as inferior. Some of it is, but a lot of our tech is perfectly functional... just not the way they're used to. For that matter, I swear the weapons tech from Nova Roma is better than their energy weapons... but it's a fight that I can't win on my own.”
Lucius frowned. “I thought you and Harbach were involved in the military designs?” That was what he and Admiral Dreyfus had discussed, anyway.
“We were, but we kept being overruled, sometimes in some rather odd areas,” Matthew said and Lucius heard an edge of frustration in his voice. “Little things, at first. Power conduit designs, redundant communications...” Matthew said. “By the time we got to the serious systems design... it was like we were shut out.”
“I see,” Lucius frowned. “I'll look into it.”
