by Jeff Sims
The Sunflower could fire 10 missiles every 30 seconds, maybe even every 25 seconds if they really tried. Over the course of the next minute they could fire a grand total 30 missiles. Their enemy could only fire once every 3 minutes. However, the five ships combined were capable of firing 84 missiles at a time.
Normally, Jim used the fighters to protect the ship by shooting the on-coming missiles out of the sky. Without them, the Sunflower could not stop enough of the missiles to make a difference.
Launching the fighters right now was not an option. Correction – launching the fighters clearly was an option, just not a very good one at the moment.
They had now been in the system for 58 seconds. During that time they had continued forward 1,500,000 kilometers; dropping the distance between the Sunflower and the battleship to 2 light seconds or 600,000 kilometers.
Correspondingly, this reduced the missile travel time to 10 seconds and that number was continuing to drop. At this point the enemy’s missiles could reach the Sunflower long before he could launch a single fighter to stop them.
Russ said, “Eight seconds to the turn.”
Colin said, “The battleship is facing us now, we aren’t going to make it.”
Russ yelled, “Look.”
Jim spotted it at the same time. The cruiser above them was charging forward and downward faster than it should. As a result it was slightly out of position.
Jim said, “Change course to 105.2 next 154.6, execute now. Becky, ion cannon.”
“Charged and ready to fire.” Becky responded.
Jim replied, “Watch your trigger finger, the metal ring surrounding the button split my fingernail once.”
The Sunflower immediately jerked almost straight up and slightly to the left. The maneuver put its bow on a direct line with the underbelly of the enemy cruiser. At this angle they would collide with the enemy cruiser in 8 seconds. However, it would take light less than a second to span the distance.
Becky carefully placed her finger in the center of the ion cannon activation button. She left it resting lightly on the button. She looked over at Jim and waited.
Jim shouted, “Fire!”
Becky aimed for the leading edge of the enemy cruiser and pressed down the button the rest of the way down. The Sunflower emitted an ion cannon burst at almost point blank range. The enemy cruiser didn’t have a chance to detect the shot or adjust course before the beam of polarized light struck it.
(Clarification – they were at point blank range for light. Light travels at a speed of 300,000 kilometers per second (187,500 miles/sec). Technically, the Sunflower was 150,014 kilometers (93,759 miles) away from the enemy cruiser when Becky fired the ion cannon.)
The highly focused beam sliced through the enemy’s shields just forward of the bridge and just behind the hangar bay and tore a massive hole through the middle of the ship. The effect was far more stunning though; there was no tearing or shearing or anything associated with ripping. The ion cannon just disintegrated everything in its path.
Quite simply, one instant the enemy cruiser was intact; the next instant there was a giant gaping hole extending from the bottom to the top of the ship. If the ship had been stationary when it was hit, it probably would have survived. However, it was traveling at .125 light when it was struck.
The ship’s high speed put a tremendous amount of strain on the superstructure surrounding the hole. Two seconds after the blast the structure folded outward and collapsed; causing the back half of the ship to ram into the front half of the ship.
The collision caused all of the missiles in the storage bay to explode. The back continued pushing forward; forcing the explosion to rip through the entire ship from front to back. The explosion reached the power generator. It quickly lost containment and added its mass to explosion. The ship essentially devoured itself. There was nothing left bigger than a grain of space dust.
The Sunflower zoomed up through the area previously occupied by the enemy cruiser and out of the trap. They then performed a half loop and steadied back out on a straight path leading away from the other ships.
Jim said, “We’re free. Set course for the Conron – Earth hyperspace lane at full available power. Begin random maneuvering.”
Russ said, “Course set. We are accelerating hard and will reach our maximum speed of.16 light in 4 minutes.”
The Sunflower moved up, down, left, and right at a random pattern. The pattern, or technically the lack of a pattern, was designed to keep the enemy ships from being able to target the cruiser with their ion cannons.
“How long do we have until we reach our destination?” Jim asked.
Russ replied, “It would take us 10 hours and 4 minutes to reach the hyperspace lane if we maintain this speed throughout the system. We need another 80 minutes until we have enough energy stored in the capacitors to micro jump.”
Alliance warships have one energy reservoir that is shared between the ion cannon and the jump drive. Therefore, firing the ion cannon meant that the Sunflower could not jump to hyperspace for approximately 80 minutes - the amount of time required to recharge the reservoir enough to jump. It took 4 hours (240 minutes) to completely recharge the energy reservoir.
A tremendous amount of initial power is required to create a hyperspace window. Once open though, the window takes a negligible amount of energy to maintain. As a result, ships used the stored energy in the reservoir to create the window and then recharge the energy reservoir during flight. This system works perfectly well for long jumps; however, for micro jumps it doesn’t work nearly as well.
Colin said, “Correction, we need a little under 3 hours or exactly 160 minutes because we have to charge the capacitors enough for two jumps. If we only charge for the micro jump, we will have to wait beside the traffic control station for another 80 minutes before we can jump out of the system.”
Jim said, “Computer, display an 80 minute countdown clock in minutes and seconds on the tertiary monitor.”
Becky said, “The two destroyers and the cruiser are turning to chase us. They are currently 1.2 million kilometers (750,000 miles) behind us. They are well within powered missile range. A shot fired at this distance would take 22 seconds to hit. The battleship is remaining at the hyperspace lane.”
Colin said, “Makes sense. They have to fire their ion cannon since they charged it. Besides, they probably want to leave at least one ship to guard the hyperspace lane.”
Jim said, “Computer, can the enemy ships catch us?”
…This enemy ships have the same acceleration and same top speed as the Sunflower. However, each time this ship maneuvers it slows down a small amount. If the enemy vessels stay on a straight line they will overtake the ship 1 minute before it can jump to hyperspace…
Russ said, “But they will stay in missile range the entire time.”
Jim commented, “We have to make a 2 hour slow motion chase across an entire system just because we fired our ion cannon. This seems ludicrous. When we design our own ships we need to make sure that they are not limited by this, this … limitation.”
Colin pretended to take a copious note. He looked up and said, “Aye-aye cap –i-tan. Well stated by the way.”
Jim ignored the jape and said, “Colin, is there any way we can get more power out of the plasma reactor?”
Colin replied, “Did you seriously just ask your chief engineer for more power?”
Colin brought up the primary generator display on the main monitor. It was showing at maximum sustainable power.
Becky said, “We could realign the warp coils.”
Jim looked at her suspiciously for a moment. Becky looked back at him with an absolutely straight face. He thought that she seemed to be trying too hard to maintain the expression after giving what could be a potential solution to their problem.
Jim replied, “We don’t have any warp coils, do we?”
Colin replied, “No, we do not.”
Jim said, “Well, the fact remains that we really could use more p
ower. What if we push the primary generator above maximum sustainable levels?”
Colin replied, “We could, but it wouldn’t be sustainable.”
Jim studied the monitor of their immediate surroundings again. He scrolled back to view the passive scan of the entire system. He counted the enemy ships at their present locations, or at least where they were several hours ago.
Jim was almost right with his guess about how the Hiriculans were going to defend the system. He guessed correctly about Altian and Advranki, but had missed Solaria and obviously Uselon. There were 5 ships stationed near the Altian hyperspace lane, 5 near the Advranki lane, 5 near the Solaria lane and of course 5 near the Uselon lane. The remaining 3 ships were near the Conron Naval Supply Depot and Shipyard.
The light from the battle would reach the naval space station in about 30 minutes. It would reach the ships stationed at the other hyperspace lanes in about 4 hours. Not that it mattered though.
The enemy fleet had been stationed right next to a hyperspace communication device. More than likely they had already used the device to send the results of the battle to the rest of the fleet.
That meant the enemy would be able to quickly figure out their destination and have plenty of time to micro jump around the system and beat them there. Having three ships chasing them was bad, having another 10 – 15 waiting for them at fort would certainly qualify as worse.
Jim said, “We need to distract them temporarily. How long would it take to reach the Conron Naval Supply Depot and Shipyard?”
Colin said, “Smart. If we make a course change to the Conron Naval Station we may be able to fool the rest of their fleet to jump there instead of our actual destination. ”
Russ replied, “Provided we remain at .16 light, we will reach the station in 3 hours and 31 minutes. Fortunately, the station is roughly in the same direction as the hyperspace lane.
Jim said, “Change course to the Conron Naval Station.”
Colin said, “Great, we are going back home. I think I left my pencil in one of the lecture rooms. Maybe we can stop and try to find it.”
Becky said, “Yeah, maybe the Hiriculans will let us see more of the station than the Advranki did. We were there for what, 3 months while they rebuilt the Sunflower and they let us see maybe one-tenth of the station.”
Colin protested, “Hey, I’m serious. It was the nice one with the fake rabbit’s foot attached to it on a little chain.” He waved his hand in the air to draw the pencil.
Russ donned the pilot cap and programmed the new course. He really didn’t need it for this course change, but he wanted to make the turn as absolutely smooth as possible so that they didn’t lose any time.
Depending upon how poorly the ships chasing them turned, they even had the possibility to slightly increase their lead. Plus, at their current high rate of speed, they didn’t want to stress the hull with a tight course correction.
The Sunflower went through a wide, sweeping left turn and was now pointed directly at the Conron Naval Station. Russ calculated the course and said, “We will reach the station in 3 hours and 27 minutes.”
A couple of minutes later Russ reported, “All three enemy ships have turned and are following us. We gained over 2 minutes on them.”
Becky said, “The turn must have made the enemy mad because they are hailing us again. Computer, translate and play.”
…Alliance warship. You have violated section 41.22.19, sub-paragraphs 1 – 20, sections 44.11.2 and pretty much all of section 27. As we are civilized beings we will still allow you to surrender. Please know that we will destroy your ship if and when we choose to do so…
Jim laughed and said, “Well, that sounded promising. It seems like they want to talk.”
Russ replied, “I thought Shole said that the Alliance had fallen.”
Colin said, “Computer, run a quick search. Are there any recent news stories that can confirm that the Alliance has indeed fallen?”
…Scanning. There are multiple news stories that confirm the old Alliance has been disbanded by all three participating races. Each planet overwhelmingly voted to join a new Federation of Intelligent Beings with the Hiriculans and Neto. Elections for Federation senators are underway now…
Russ said, “I wonder if they are going to call their elected officials fibbers?”
Jim said, “Computer, translate into Hiriculan and send the following message. Hiriculans, the Alliance has been disbanded. Therefore, we are not in violation of the aforementioned sections of the Alliance treaty.”
Becky said, “A minute ago you said chain. That just gave me an idea. We could use the secondary reactor as a daisy chain to charge the capacitors faster.”
Colin responded, “That could work. The main conduit leading from the secondary reactor to the ion cannon capacitors is still intact. It was simply not worth the effort to remove it. I believe that both sides are still attached to diverters.”
Colin looked over and saw that Jim and Russ looked slightly confused. Colin had temporarily forgotten that they were not on board the Sunflower during the battle of Trilon and the subsequent reconstruction.
Colin continued, “A diverter is basically an A/B switch. It allows us to send power from either the primary or secondary reactor to charge the jump batteries. The diverter is set to receive power from the primary reactor unless there is an emergency. However, we could uncouple the secondary trunk line and feed it directly into the capacitors.”
Jim responded, “Meaning it should cut our charging time in half?”
Becky said, “Yes. Well nearly anyway. We would have to split the capacitors into two separate banks. The primary generator would charge one bank and the secondary generator would charge the other.”
Jim said, “How long would it take?”
Colin brought up a schematic of the ship. However, he quickly realized that the schematic had never been updated to include many of the modifications they had been forced to make in order to save the ship. He cleared the animation and said, “10 minutes, 15 tops.”
Jim said, “Go!”
Colin contacted John and Ben and told them to abandon their posts at missile launcher number 9 and meet him in engineering. Colin and Becky jumped up out of their respective chairs, left the bridge, and raced the caribou in the main corridor to the main engineering control room. A few seconds later they were joined by John and Ben.
Colin briefed the other two engineers on the plan as they grabbed a few necessary tools. They then split into three teams; Becky headed to the secondary power generator, Ben went to the relays, and John and Colin ran to the middle of the ship where the ion cannon reservoirs were located.
Becky ran about halfway back down the caribou corridor and reentered the bridge. She waved at Russ and Jim as she ran past and took the electro lift down three stories to the lowest level of the bridge. This level contained critically important equipment such as the computer core, the communications equipment, and the secondary power generator.
It was kind of a strange set-up. The original secondary generator was destroyed during the battle of Trilon. During the repair process, Kolvak replaced it with a series of five transporter generators connected together in a daisy chain. Or at least that is what Becky thought Kolvak did when he replaced the generator.
She briefly examined the flow of electricity out of each generator. She quickly realized that they didn’t form a series as she had previously thought. Instead; each mini generator was actually independently wired into a large junction box. The junction box contained a step-up transformer that combined all of the lower voltage electricity into one high voltage trunk line that fed the rest of the bridge.
She said to herself, “That must mean that each level of the bridge has a step-down transformer to draw the correct amount of current from the main line. That seems rather inefficient.”
She made a mental note to tell Jim Donovan that the Sunflower was not wired very efficiently. Then she realized that they were not going to duplicate th
is design so she promptly cancelled it. She did however reserve the right to mention it at a later date should someone propose the idea.
She opened the junction box and stared inside for a moment. She saw that there were two trunk lines exiting the junction box. One went upward toward the bridge and the second went directly through the wall. There was a manual lever that switched the electricity from one junction to the other.
Becky said to herself, “Kolvak didn’t connect the secondary power generator to the trunk line properly. If I pull this lever the entire bridge will lose power.”
(Note: that technically wasn’t what she said. Her actual comment started with ‘That stupid asshole’ and she rapidly denigrated the entire secondary generator set-up and she said a few choice expletives about Kolvak’s design and quite possibly insulted the entire Advranki race.)
She sighed heavily and walked back the nearest power generator and turned it off. She repeated three times; turning off 4 of the 5 generators. She then verified that the four generators were not producing power and the lone remaining generator was still producing enough power to electrify the bridge.
She went back to the junction box and pulled the circuit breakers for the four non-powered generators. She then rewired them so that they bypassed the lever and fed directly into the auxiliary trunk line. Now, only one generator was capable of powering the bridge.
She checked her communication pad and noted that 14 minutes and 2 seconds had passed. She was rather surprised that she was the first one to finish. That probably meant the task wasn’t nearly as easy as Colin had hoped.
She contacted Ben and Colin and said, “Ready to shuttle power to the trunk line on your command.”
Colin and John ran about halfway back through the caribou corridor and then turned into the maintenance area. This was the primary area for most of the maintenance activity and was usually a hub of activity. It was abandoned at the moment because everyone was either sitting in a fighter or stationed at a missile launcher.
They grabbed a spare junction box out of storage and then ran across this room to the electro lift on the opposite side. They took the electro lift up one story and jogged back across the upper maintenance bay to the passageway for the ion cannon / jump drive reservoirs. Colin opened the access door and they crawled through to the energy storage area. John followed.
