Author's note:
-This is another background chapter. It deals mostly with technology development. Please hold on, the story is coming.
Devaro Ayanami Beta's note:
-I'm sure some might find all this technobabble confusing or boring, but bear in mind this is an Alternate Universe, and some of the things that happen down the line are going to be different from the original series. These chapters here at the beginning give background for those changes, and allow the author to keep the Tech-speak to a slightly lower level later on.
Chapter One
Earth – Earth Alliance
Earthforce Research and Development Division
October 10, 2233
"OK people. Please be seated. We have a lot to cover today." said Dr. Masaru Shouri, Head of Earthforce Research and Development Division. He was standing near the main presentation screen, which was currently displaying the name of the division, with the logo of the Earth Alliance in the background. "As you all know, Earthforce has been granted a permanent and constitutionally binded budget of nine percent of the Gross Alliance Product. Research and Development had been assigned with eight percent of that budget or point seventy two percent of the Gross Alliance Product " he pressed a button and the main screen displayed logo was replaced by the research subdivisions.
"Our research will be divided into four Main subdivisions with several joint secondary support subdivisions. In order of importance, they are the following," he said while pointing to the first main subdivision in the screen, "Warship Subdivision with fifty five point five percent of the research budget. Mothership Subdivision with twenty two point two percent. Defence Satellite Subdivision with eleven point one percent and Fighter Subdivision with eleven point one percent."
He pressed a button and the screen changed to Support Secondary Subdivisions, "Earthforce has placed a new directive in procurement programs. They require that every single design gets the most out of it. We are not going to design two reactors when we can have one. Every design must be kept with this parameter in mind. If a Nova Dreadnought uses four reactors, we may use, for example, one of the same type of reactor for a defence satellite and, I don't know, maybe twenty for a mothership. The intention is to make the most for every design so that we can make bigger leaps in technology development by investing in other projects."
"We are initiating with eight support secondary subdivisions, they are, Energy systems, Propulsion systems, Detection and Navigation systems, Offensive systems, Defensive systems, Data processing systems, Life support systems and ground combat systems. If the need arises we'll add more support subdivisions as necessary."
He extended his arm with an open hand to one of the Doctors seated in the front. "Doctor Douglas McCluskey, will be head of Warship Subdivision." He moved his arm to a second Doctor, but kept looking to the rest of the assembly, "Doctor Caroline Ohrn, will be head of Mothership Subdivision," He pointed to another doctor, "Doctor Inder Lloyd, will head Defensive Satellite Subdivision." He pointed to the last Doctor, "and Doctor Alex van Trotsenburg, will head Fighter Subdivision."
"Every Subdivision head will be appointing one of you to the post of management representative, one for every Support Secondary Subdivision, you will report directly to your corresponding head and your task will be to guarantee that your division's requirements are met by the support secondary subdivision's programs."
Dr. Shouri continued explaining for several minutes the new procedures that were to take place in Earthforce Research and Development Division and answered several questions, before dismissing everyone but the heads of subdivisions. He directed the Doctors to an adjacent meeting room, were they all seated around a relatively small round table.
"As I've already said. Earthforce has been granted a nine percent budget, but only three percent has been assigned. We are still restructuring our force structure after the war and we still have a healthy budget, but it will slowly decrease to that three percent if we don't pick up the pace in essential procurement programs. So let's assign priorities and then we'll start from there to assign new directives. We require to upgrade the Nova Dreadnought into a Multi purpose vessel, We need to make the Nova class starfury able to reach orbit, handle stress of re-entry and to be able to land in a gravity environment, and a mothership design able to be fielded in less than a year."
"Impossible! Masaru, there is no way I'm going to be able to deliver a mothership design in one year. Ten maybe, one impossible." Caroline said, but was stopped by the raised hand of Dr. Shouri.
"I know, and we'll not deliver a one-million-people-in-capacity-self-sufficient-mothership. The problem is Earthforce can't wait ten years for a design. It will lose two percent of the Gross Alliance Product budget, and that is a hell of lot of credits, and more if you make that by ten years. Also the Joint Chiefs are not happy that the senate rejected their proposal of shipbuilding industrial backup capacity. Now the good thing, is that they allowed Earthforce to integrate that capacity into any Mothership design. We are going to use any resources we have available to do just that." he paused and looked at the Swedish Doctor and added. "Caroline, We need a self-sufficient Mothership with enough population capacity to make it viable, with an integrated shipbuilding function, and that we are able to build in sufficient quantities so that they are able to handle a twenty five percent war budget by the time the new mothership design is available. And it has to enter production in one year at the most. What do we have developed that we can meld together to accomplish this?"
"I hate you. You know that right? Am I in time to quit?"
Masaru laughed, "Yeah, sure you can quit, but after you give me a solution." he smiled to her and added, "Come on Caroline, I know you love this. That's why I selected you for this post."
She smiled back, "Did I say I hate you? God you know me too well. OK I'll do it." she took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling before lowering her head again. "What is the minimum population Earthforce will consider to make the station viable?"
"At least thirty thousand, and that will be pushing it too low." Said Dr. Shouri
She thought for a moment before answering, "I'll require to join four Orion Class Space Stations." she was resting her head on her left hand with her elbow on the table and in deep thought. "We could remove the hangar section and install a propulsion unit, and let that structure prolong all the way through the four stations and beyond. We can join the Orions with magnetic bearings to this structure and have them counter rotating in relation to each other. This way we can eliminate asymmetrical torque. This will give us a mobile self-sufficient space station with thirty two thousand people." she paused again before continuing, "How many Novas could you produce per year with the extra twenty five percent war budget?"
"A little more than two thousand four hundred extra vessels per year."
"OK. Let's say it takes me twelve years to develop a one million population capacity mothership, and I have one year to design this one. That'll give us eleven years to build it. If I estimate the cost of this station at four times an Orion, then we could build twelve of them per year with the Mothership budget. That's a total of one hundred and thirty two." she continued making numbers with her datapad calculator and added. "We'll have to build eighteen novas on each station per year, and I haven't place the cost of installing an eighteen ship strong shipyard and manufacturing capacity. It can't be done Masaru."
"There must be a way Caroline."
She was looking at the table in deep thought, after a few seconds, she looked up again and said, "We could compromise."
"What do you mean?"
"We know that it took us nearly three years to ramp up production to reach twenty five percent budget capacity during the Dilgar War. If we have one hundred and thirty two of this stations. I could design a shipyard from standard models with an eighteen ship slot capacity and the required industrial facilities to build them, to be place in front of the station as an add on, but never built. If we are at war. All the stations could immediately start using the war budget to start building this shipbuilding add on, which could be ready to start producing warships between six and eight months of the start of a war."
"There must be another way."
"Yes, but we'll have to reduce the population capacity from thirty two thousand to eight thousand and use a single modified Orion."
"No that won't work. Eight thousand are too few to sell it to the senate."
"I don't see another way. Every other option will require a lot of research and testing. Impossible to achieve in one year."
"We'll have to compromise then. Give it a priority. I'll talk to the Joint Chiefs, we'll see if they prefer a smaller number of motherships with full shipbuilding capabilities, or the one hundred and thirty two with the compromised solution."
"OK. I'll get on with it, as soon as we finish this meeting."
"OK. Douglas. About the Nova Dreadnoughts: You already know that we need an enhanced defence grid to replace its escorts, and we need to give it a range at least thirty percent superior than our Hyperions. Also the Joint Chiefs are complaining about fire arcs. They would like, all of the plasma cannons able to fire on the forward arc. Any ideas."
"Yes, We started working on a solution since you informed us last week. Range can only be increased with fuel capacity, as we don't expect considerable increases in efficiency, because the Nova's plasma engines are state of the art. As you know the Nova is divided in six blocks, the engine, reactor and fuel tank block at the rear, followed by two missile blocks, each with twenty four missiles, followed by the command and control and housing block, followed by another twenty four missile block and followed by the hangar and sensors block."
He passed his Data pad to Masaru. It contained the schematics of the Nova compared to what would be the Nova II and added, "As you can see, the Command block on the Nova is a little bigger than the missile blocks. We want to increase the size of the missile blocks, to the same size of the command block on the Nova II. That will give us enough space to add a fuel tank that goes all the way from the engine block to the forward missile block. Those modifications are easy to make, including the one on the command block. The amount of space added will allow us to nearly double the fuel capacity and increase range by more than fifty percent compared to the Hyperion."
He extended his hand and touched a button in his data pad and Masaru could see a new page that showed weapon rearrangement, again compared to the standard Nova, "The Nova has four dual plasma cannons on each missile block, two dual plasma cannons on the command block, and four dual plasma cannons and two plasma mortars on the hangar block. As you can see of the eighteen dual plasma cannons only eight can fire through the forward arc. Now check the Nova two. The rear missile block guns are now mounted on higher support structures, the rearmost block has the guns near the corners but mounted on the starboard and port sides without obtruding the missile launchers, while the block that follows has the guns near the corners but mounted on the dorsal and ventral sides. No gun blocks another from firing. The forward missile block and the command block have the same configuration but on lower mounts. The hangar block is unchanged. We are actually adding two more dual plasma guns, and all twenty can fire through the forward arc."
He straighten up in his chair and continued, "As you already know, the Nova's reactors can generate a total of 90.05 Peta watts of power, but only forty eight percent can be used by the weapons systems without compromising plasma generation. The forward Plasma mortars can channel the entire plasma output of the reactors in two, 10.8 Peta Joule bolts per second for each gun. While the dual plasma cannons can fire four bolts per second for the whole dual arrangement with a power output for each bolt of 3.6 Peta Joules. That gives the ship enough plasma output to operate just three dual plasma guns, without the use of the plasma mortars. That is why the eight forward firing guns of the Nova were enough in a constant fire situation, but considerably compromised its alpha strike capability even with the two second firing capacitors, requiring that the vessel cut its engines and reposition itself to open up the arcs of the other guns. With the Nova II, the ship will be able to keep its forward momentum while firing all guns in an Alpha strike, and either continue firing with three guns or recharge again all weapons for another Alpha strike and with the two second firing capacitor for every gun and plasma mortars, that's a 662 Peta Joules, two second long, Alpha Strike. Even if it takes a full fifteen seconds to charge all guns and weapon capacitors, there isn't a single known vessel out there that can resist that kind of punishment, guaranteeing victory for every one on one engagement."
Douglas made a hand gesture to Masaru to advance another page of the data pad and continued, "We are keeping the same E-Web system, but we are considerably increasing the number of Mark two defence grid energy projectors from eighteen to seventy two. Twenty deployed on top of the dual plasma cannons, ten on the hangar block, eight on each of the missile blocks, the same number on the command block, and ten on the engine block. This configuration gives the Nova II, a total of thirty interceptors able to fire on the forward arc, compared to the eight on the Nova, and the rest can start firing thirty degrees from the forward vector. Now, if we add the thirty six fighters it already had, I believe that with the added modifications we'll make the Nova II a very good and powerful multi purpose vessel."
"And the Joint Chiefs will love it." added Masaru, while returning the data pad to Douglas. He turned to Dr. Alex van Trotsenburg and said, "Alex?"
"It'll be a simple upgrade. We don't expect any major modifications. The structure can perfectly handle re-entry stresses and heat. We'll use a commercial air breathing engine, so the only design we have to make, is the engine mount and connection node, which shouldn't take more than four months. The engine pod will be easy to dismount for starship based fighters, so those on fleet deployment won't have their performance reduced. The pod will include its fuel supply, and will only be used for space access and the terminal stages of atmospheric re entry, and even though we don't need it, it is designed with enough power and fuel to be able to take off and land from a one point eight gravity planet, so it shouldn't have a problem in any of our colonies."
"Great then. That settles our primary development requirements. Lets continue with our secondary requirements. Earthforce is giving us no time constrains for the moment, but I can guarantee you, that us soon as we finish with the priority developments, they will start pressing us with results, so lets be ready for them. The entire second phase of development is centered in the fact that the Dilgar war showed that our long range engagement strategy is flawed. Currently we rely on missiles and fighters for our long range punch. Our actual Global Orbital Defence Satellites, use missiles for this requirement and plasma cannon for short range work. Our simulations and several engagements during the war showed that if an unmovable defensive position launched missiles to engage enemy forces at long ranges, it gives the enemy enough time to re enter hyperspace, recharge their engines and returned, making our missiles a very expensive show of fireworks and if we launch them in small numbers to avoid this, they are easier to intercept and destroy."
He stood up and stretch himself and started walking around the table speaking, "We captured a lot of technology on wreckages during the war, that suits this requirements perfectly, but it will take a lot of time to study them and develop prototypes, so Earthforce is going for a very well known and tested Earth Alliance technology so solve this problem, even though a bit cumbersome. We are to devote our resources in developing a very long range and powerful Particle Cannon, based on our particle accelerators. It has to be able to out range the longest range weapon known to us. The Hyach Spinal Laser. Why? Because if it doesn't, and we encounter an enemy with a similar weapon system, they just have to stay beyond our weapons range and snipe us at a distance."
He went back to his seat and continued, "Earthforce wants this weapon system able to be integrated into Defence Satellites, Warships and Motherships. It has to be designed as the backbone of our orbital defence systems, able to be fitted into a Nova dreadnought in replacement of the plasma mortars and installed in movable turrets for our Motherships. Now, as you already know, plasma based weaponry dissipate with distance travelled, but particle weapons don't. They will lose the energy containment field used to make a coherent stream of particles, but the particles will continue travelling until they hit an obstacle. So we could make a small weapon and still be able to hit a target at long ranges, so the real problem is in our detection, tracking and engagement capability. Again, the technology we captured in the Dilgar War in the way of Hyach and Abbai sensors and computer systems, could solve this problem, but it will take years to be able to understand that technology, and decades to implement it, so again we are stuck in finding a solution in good old Earth Alliance technology.
"The Dilgar were able to jam our transmissions and sensor systems, but that wasn't a concern, because, when we got in range of our weapons, our systems were strong enough to detect them, but if we would have been using long range weapon systems, without internal sensors as a missile or fighter, we would have been blinded. So, what do we have to solve that? In short nothing. Our sensors, even state of the art, are relatively easy to jam at long ranges. We would need very big and powerful sensors to solve this, and that wouldn't guarantee a solution. The only unjamable sensor systems we had during the war, were our passive Electromagnetic Spectrum, Search and Track systems or EMS/ST. They detect radio, microwave, infra red, visible, ultra violet, x-ray and Gamma ray emissions.
"The problem with almost all passive sensors, is the difficulty to precisely identify a target's position through triangulation, because the triangle at long distances is very long and thin and that makes it difficult to precisely determine the angles of the detected target. We can search for emissions and we can track their relative range and speed, but we can't lock to a target. We could fire, but we'll most likely miss at those ranges. The solution we are suggesting to Earthforce, is to increase the base of the triangle to make lock on targets at long ranges possible. So, we are going to use a kind of interlinked interferometry. We are going to use the sensors of all units in a given area to allow for precision triangulation. Obviously, this will be useless for single units, or small numbers of closely packed units, but still, it's a solution until we can design and deploy a better type of sensor system. We have to create the EMS/STL or Electromagnetic Spectrum, Search, Track and Lock system."
"So, our support secondary subdivisions will focus on upgrading the EMS/ST into the EMS/STL, and on creating a Heavy Particle Cannon. We'll talk about the specifications later. Of our Subdivisions, only Fighter Subdivision will not intervene in the secondary requirements, but Warship Subdivision, has to focus on the Nova III, which will deploy the new particle cannons, in replacement of the plasma mortars, and the EMS/STL. Mothership Subdivision, will add to the new design, the turreted particle cannons and the EMS/STL system, and Defence Satellite Subdivision, will create a new G.O.D. satellite, that incorporates a long range particle cannon, secondary medium range plasma cannons, short range interceptors, and standard high yield missiles, as well as the new updated sensors. Any doubts so far?"
"So we don't have a time table for this requirements?" asked Dr. Inder Lloyd
"No, our development priority are the exo-endo fighter, the Multipurpose Nova and the stopgap Mothership, and they must all start fielding one year from now at the most. Secondary requirements will most likely get a time table, when the priority projects are deployed, but all secondary requirements are tied to the development of the EMS/STL and the particle cannon, so it would be good to have designs and if possible prototypes of these two systems one year from now. If we take into account standard timing for major project's prototyping, demonstration and validation phases, We could have these designs being implemented into our units in approximately seven years."
"Aren't we going to implement some of the technologies captured during the war on our new units." asked Dr. Caroline Ohrn
"No, Caroline. Not yet. We still have a long way to go to understand many of those technologies, and that is precisely the subject we'll discuss on our tertiary requirements. So if there are no further questions? Shall we continue with them?"
"Sure," "OK," "Yes," "Of course." answered the four Doctors simultaneously.
"OK. Tertiary Research and Development requirements, are focused on captured alien technologies. We have been given the task to develop our own systems based on those technologies and start upgrading our units with them as soon as possible. Earthforce won't design new units until these technologies have been researched, but once that's done, we are to design new Warships, Fighters, Motherships and GOD satellites from the ground up to incorporate them. Until then, we'll have Nova fours, fives, sixes, etc."
"What do you mean by Nova fours, etcetera, etcetera." asked Doctor Douglas McCluskey
"That you will upgrade the current units with these technologies until all have been developed. When a capture technology is ready for implementation, you can add it to a Nova IV design, and wait for another one to be implemented on a Nova V, and etcetera. We are not going to design new units, if new developments are going to make them obsolete before leaving the shipyards. We'll wait until we have them all researched before doing that."
"OK, I understand."
"So, for the Energy Systems Support Secondary Subdivision, we have the gravimetric enhanced fusion reactors captured on Dilgar ships. The Propulsion Systems Support Secondary Subdivision have the gravimetric enhanced fusion drives from Dilgar ships, and the non Newtonian gravitic drive of the Dilgar Sekhmet class. Detection and Navigation Systems have the advance Hyach and Abbai sensors and navigation systems recovered from Sekhmet wreckages from the battle of Balos and some Hyach and Abbai ships from the battle of Omelos. Offensive Systems have Dilgar Bolter cannons, Dilgar particle lasers, Hyach lasers, Brakiri Gravitic Lances and Abbai lasers. Defensive Systems have the Abbai Shields and the advance armor of the Sekhmet. Data Processing Systems have the advance Hyach and Abbai computers again recovered from the Sekhmets and Abbai and Hyach ships. Life Support Systems have Dilgar, Abbai, and Hyach artificial gravity systems, and Ground Combat systems have the Dilgar spectres cloaks, and several minor level technologies. Those are the technologies to be develop and implemented individually on our units as our tertiary development requirements."
"I understand that many of those technologies are non operational as they were mostly recovered from wreckages, but every single technology that I mentioned is at least good enough for reverse engineering once we are able to study systems from different wreckages. It'll be a tough job, but we have to do it. Any doubts?"
"Yes. What about Vree components and systems. Weren't we capable of recovering something from the wreckages of the Battle of Omelos?" asked Caroline
"No. As you know Vree ships use antimatter reactors, and are lightly built, so every ship that lost antimatter containment was destroyed, and almost all heavily damaged vessels suffered from lost of containment, If there is a Vree ship out there that was crippled but wasn't destroyed, is not in our hands, and technology recovered from other League worlds, are not superior to the ones we are to research, so they were not mentioned." answered Masaru
"OK." said Caroline
They ended the meeting with a lengthy discussion into specific systems requirements, capable of being implemented on the designs of every subdivision.
Earth – Earth Alliance
Starfury Training & Production Facility
20 km below Himalayan mountain range
Jammu and Kashmir Region
May 7, 2234
For several months, a 50 meter in diameter tunnel boring machine, advancing at a steady pace of 1.7 meters per minute, had created a 420 kilometers long tunnel, that was 40 meters in diameter and had a 5 meters cylindrical military grade armoured wall. The first 400 kilometers of the tunnel descended at a 3 degree angle, and reached a depth of 20 kilometers, where it levelled and advanced for another twenty kilometers. In this last track was installed a highly automated fighter production and training facility.
The tunnel before the production and training facility was divided in three sections, The lowest one, was 10 meters in height and was designed to move raw material, via magnetic rails. The top section was also 10 meters in height and was designed to transport finished fighters to the surface. The middle part of the tunnel, was 20 meters in height and 40 meters in width, both borders of this section were use to store finished fighters, with enough space for two years of production or 42,000 fighters and was to be used once the surface bases had been fully deployed, with the difference that this huge warehouse was designed only to replace battle losses, and will not have people trained to manned them. On the center of the section, there were two types of transporting systems: on the floor, the traditional two way vehicle highway, and on the roof, a two way monorail magnetic system, but with the trains connected at the top. On one of this trains was a group of recently trained gropos, that also had basic flight training. They were on their way to becoming engineers and certified combat pilots.
"OK, people. Listen up." said an instructor, at the front of the small magnetic train, "You are going to be the first squadron of exo-endo atmospheric Nova class Starfurys. Just to get your bearings, you are going to be deployed into a five hundred and twelve fighter strong base, with thirty two squadrons of sixteen fighters each. Yes you heard correctly, sixteen. Our planetary based squadrons are being ramp up from twelve to sixteen fighters. This people is the first exo-endo squadron to be deployed worldwide, the first of your base, the first of this production facility, and the first under my responsibility. I'm not a drill sergeant, I'm a contracted civilian engineer, but I'll demand and expect the same result as if I were one.
"In a few minutes we'll be arriving at the production and training facility. You'll receive an orientation tour, and tomorrow you'll start your practical and theoretical training. After two weeks of intense practices, the facility will initiate operations, and each unit of four will follow their unit's fighter, throughout all the production run. Every twenty five minutes a new fighter will initiate production. You will follow it through 20 assembly points, that will take more than eight hours, the fighters will reach an accumulation strip, that will allow you to rest until the next day. At the start of the next day, your fighter will reach a second 20 unit production assembly point, which will again last twenty five minutes each. You will do this for nearly five days, until your fighter is completed. You will then proceed with it to the surface, were you will receive your advance flight training, most of it in simulators. The best pilot of each unit, will have the privilege of taking their fighter to base."
The first squadron composed of 64 people, first of many to come, arrived at the complex to begin their training. They started with their orientation tour, and followed by two weeks of intense engineering practices, that will allow them to provide basic maintenance to a starfury, and provide understanding of the production process and advance engineering training they'll be subject for the next five days.
During the starfury production process, they were present in every part of the construction, from material processing, through component manufacture, to system integration. They went through nearly one hundred assembly stations, in which they not only understood the science required in producing a starfury, but comprehended the basic needs of every component integrated in the design. If they were to be put in a fighter at this moment, they would most likely know the source of every noise emitted by the starfury.
After nearly three weeks of intense engineering training, they went back to the surface to begin their advance flight training, a 96 hour, two week long simulator course, that will certify them as exo-endo atmospheric starfury pilots, and will allow the most qualified of them, to bring the starfury to full deployment at its permanent base.
Two weeks later and after the most intense simulator based flight training, the 16 most qualified pilots, walked their way through the tarmac, to their designated fighter. The starfuries had their cockpits facing to the sky. They were resting on the outermost enlarged thrust vectoring vane, mounted on each plasma engine, which had been reinforce to resit landings on 1.8 Gs planets. There was a land vehicle mounted ladder, from which each pilot reached the cockpit.
"TPF Tower, Starfury one eco foxtrot delta one, holding short for V/TOL take off for westbound departure, over."
"Starfury one eco foxtrot delta one, TPF Tower, cleared for immediate V/TOL take off and westbound departure, over."
"Roger, one eco foxtrot delta one, cleared for immediate V/TOL take off on west bound departure."
The sixteen starfuries, acknowledged their clearance and throttled their four plasma engines at full power, they didn't take off as their space rated plasma engined didn't have the power to lift the starfury, but will certainly help the air breathing plasma engine pod installed, which was started moments later by the pilots. At first the engine provided thrust by direct release of engine plasma, but as the air intakes were opened, the engine sucked air and compressed it in a plasma mixture chamber, which brought the air close to a state of plasma, and the expanded gas was released through the tail pipe, providing thrust in excess of the combined output of the other four plasma engines.
The sixteen starfuries lifted off the Training and Production Facility airfield. They started climbing slowly into the sky, and were about to reach an altitude of 80 km.
"Orbital Command, Starfury one eco foxtrot delta one, requesting clearance for suborbital insertion, and Geneva airspace approach, over."
"Starfury one eco foxtrot delta one, Orbital Command, cleared for minus one hundred and twenty kilometers suborbital insertion, Geneva airspace notified of your approach, over."
"Roger, one eco foxtrot delta one, cleared for minus one two zero klick suborbital insertion."
Geneva was relatively close of the TPF airfield, so a full orbital insertion was unnecessary. The sixteen starfuries cut their engines an let inertia do the job. They were taken through a parabolic route out of the atmosphere and back again by gravity, they re-entered the atmosphere with their four plasma engines at full power, but on their forward engine vectors, which help the starfury decelerate into Geneva airspace.
"Eco Foxtrot Delta one Tower, Starfury one, requesting permission to dock at sierra hotel one through sixteen, over."
"Starfury one, Home base, cleared for docking at starfury hangars one through sixteen, welcome home boys."
"Roger, first squadron, cleared for docking at sierra hotel one through sixteen. Its good to be home."
The starfuries turned 360 degrees and ignited their air breathing plasma engines, and then released their fighters for automated landing control, which slowly vectored every fighter into their V/TOL hangars. It was a block with a total of 512 armored V/TOL hangars, separated by several meters from each other, and protected by interceptor batteries for anti air and anti ground engagements. The sixteen starfuries, slowly approached the first sixteen of them, and safely entered its protected confines. The starfury was lowered inside, and a heavily armored sliding roof closed on top of them.
The first exo-endo atmospheric starfury squadron was operational, and many more were to follow.
Sol System – Earth Alliance
Asteroid Belt – Earthforce firing range
August 18, 2234
EAS Clitemnestra was clearly seen above the missile tubes of the light grey painted vessel. Several blast cannons, and light lasers, protruded from the surface of the ship giving it a menacing look. It was one of the first non jump capable human dreadnoughts, pride of their era, but now retired and obsolete, and designated system monitors. The Orestes class vessel, was floating gracefully in space, waiting in silence for its fate. Alone? No. not alone, it was a prey. A prey from the greatest predator know to man, and it was several hundred kilometers in front of it. The surface of the ship illuminated milliseconds before being struck by a massive barrage of plasma weapons fire.
Eight heavy plasma bolts, followed closely by one hundred and sixty smaller bolts, hit the forward structure of the Clitemnestra, boiling the armor, and passing through the whole length of the ship, almost vaporizing it. The ship was broken in half from bow to stern, destroying the entire forward hangar and weapons mounts and the aft engine block. All that remained were two floating parts of the central command and missile block. One of them was tumbling away and showing in its structure two words: EAS Clitemnestra.
In front of its remains stood the EAS Persephone, prototype and first of the Nova II class of dreadnoughts. Its name, a tribute to the ship and crew lost in the first Battle of Tirrith.
"Admiral. Post alpha strike analysis shows all systems in the green. All four plasma conduits working within parameters, and weapon capacitors charging as expected." said the chief engineer
"Thank you son." said Admiral Donald Ferguson, while turning to see the Head of Warship Subdivision, "Impressive work Dr. McCluskey. The Nova proved to be an excellent warship against the Dilgar, but the Persephone subclass is on a league of its own. Impressive work."
"Thank you Admiral. You'll find the other upgrades suiting as well."
"I know I will, son." he said, while turning to see the Captain, "Captain, you have the con. Proceed with the shake down cruise and put her through her paces. I want all problems found and corrected, before full scale production begins in January. The second prototype. The Hamato, will be joining your Detachment within two weeks." he turned to see Douglas again, "Doctor. Our shuttle is waiting."
"Right behind you Admiral."
Several minutes later, the Admiral's shuttle undocked from the Persephone, it passed through its detachment of two Novas and five Hyperions as escorts, and one tanker and one tender as support ships for the operation, and reached the Admiral's transport, an old Oracle cruiser. This last vessel started moving away towards Earth, when several hyperspace windows lighten up the ship, taking away the Persephone's Detachment, towards is shake down cruise.
Proxima system – Earth Alliance
Proxima III colony - Orbital shipyards
October 3, 2234
If there was something of strategic importance outside of the Sol system, then it definitely was the Proxima system's shipyards. They weren't as impressive as those on Earth, and represented only a small fraction of military ship building capabilities, but they did produce nearly forty percent of every civilian ship travelling the space lanes. From small transport/freighters to the massive ore carriers and the majority of the Orion Space Stations.
Several thousand kilometers from the main orbital docks stood the EAMS Astrum, first of the Astrum class of Motherships, a stop gap solution for securing funding, while a new design was put forward. The Astrum had a Nova/Nova II class engine block in place of an Orion station's hangar. The engine block was followed by a nearly two kilometers in length tube, where four reinforced torus shaped counter rotating habitats, the same as those use on the Orion class of Space Stations, were connected via magnetic bearings. The first and third torus rotating in one direction, while the second and fourth rotated on the other, to avoid asymmetrical torque. At the end of the tube, were two hangars linked to each other, but one pointing upwards, while the other went downwards. Inside them a total of 72 Nova class starfuries, 36 to each hangar were positioned near the hangar doors and beyond the main shuttle docks. At the bow of the tube, the Astrum had the necessary connections and infrastructure required to add the modular shipyard.
The mothership was equipped with a total of eight Nova/Nova II class fusion reactors, four in the engine block, and one in between of each of the magnetic bearings. Its defensive and offensive systems, consisted of a total of 64 interceptors on the outer surface of the Toruses, and 16 interceptors in the inner part, to protect from fighters entering that area. It had a total of four turreted plasma Mortars located in the engine block, and four on the bow, mounted on the starboard and port sides of the hangars. At the stern of the Astrum, after the engine block and before the first torus, were missile launchers pointing outwards, and equipped with a total of 256 missiles. They were located at the stern, as they were designed to be used to cover a retreat. There was also a mine deploying tube, that run through the center of the four engines and with a magazine capacity of more than 500 small thermonuclear mines, that after firing its missiles in normal space and entering hyperspace, were design to make enemies think twice about following it and falling prey to hyperspace shockwaves created by the mines.
There were many shuttles coming and going from its hangars, some bringing colonists from the surface of Proxima III, while the majority were doing so from passenger ships that had arrived earlier from the Sol system. A total 32,000 people were to permanently live inside the luxurious space station. The four toruses had a total of 3 square kilometers of recently planted forest on the main level, followed by 6 levels of hydroponics with 18 square kilometers of space, enough to feed the entire population of the station and then some, allowing it to export nearly a third of its production. The rest of the levels had highly comfortable homes with personal gardens, and the infrastructure required to manage the colony, from educational facilities, to engineering and security stations. Every aspect of a colony had been taken care with a lot of redundancy. This made acquiring a position in one of these Motherships, a highly sought out event.
"Captain, the last shuttle just docked, we'll be ready to depart in approximately thirty minutes." said the Hangar controller.
"Good." said Captain Jaan Kruus, while turning to face his XO, "Commander, have the ship ready for departure, and signal our escorts that we are leaving in forty five minutes."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
The Mothership had been tested thoroughly, and had returned two days before from its shake down cruise. It was now ready to depart, to fulfil it mission by settling itself in an uncolonised solar system. Its four engines were started, and came to life with a bright blue gaze. It started to slowly accelerate the Mothership to 1G, while the toruses increased their spinning to 1.5G to compensate for the acceleration. Its escorts of four Hyperion class cruisers, cruised by its side en route to the jump gate, which opened a jump point into hyperspace after a slow but steady approach by the Mothership an its escorts.
Several days later, the Astrum an its escorts, transitioned to normal space through a massive hyperspace window, created by the Mothership. It settle in orbit of a non colonizable planet which, though didn't possess an atmosphere nor the gravity required for domed cities, did have the resources to create a mining infrastructure to provide for a future warship construction contingency.
The Astrum settled in orbit, with its hangar bays pointing to the planet, as to facilitate shuttle traffic that were going to develop the mining infrastructure.
The age of space colonization through Mothership deployment, and not subject to suitable planet findings, had arrived.