Chronicles of Sol: The Fall-Chapter 245 Two Hundred and Four Heavy Pulsar Torpedoes

February 23rd, 008 SDE:

Countryman walked down the lab corridors, passing several young men and women in lab coats as he passed the various labs. There were dozens on this deck, and many more on another. Ruri had recently informed him that a project was ready for demonstration.

Sadly not the big sensor project, he'd feel a bit better if that one was done. Especially since they were currently traveling between gravity wells, and from experience that meant eddies were more likely to occur. Right now they didn't see anything, but that meant nothing. Navigating blind made him feel a little nervous, which was strange since traveling between stars had always left them half-blind.

Reaching an armored door, Countryman thumbed the panel and headed on in. What greeted him was one of the largest labs on the ship, at the rear of which was a massive bay elevator used for moving small starships. This lab had been set up for starship development, it was here they'd done most of the work finishing the X-1208s, and it had been central to the fighter update program.

Now that he was here, it occurred to him that he hadn't been to the Starship development lab that often. It was a pretty nice lab, the walls were reinforced and the space of it large enough that someone had managed to fit an entire Vulcan class dropship in the room.

Ruri ran up to him, "Jac, we are just about ready."

"So what do we have?"

"The team really outdid themselves. The work they've done with the heavy pulsar torpedoes is nothing short of extraordinary. Most notable is their solution to the yield instability problem I mentioned when we first developed them."

"Right, you mentioned that. Something about the containment field, which at the time made larger warheads impossible. It's why we didn't outfit the Enterprise or our escorts with them."

"Yes, well they've had a novel solution to the problem, I see no reason we can't develop a larger heavier pulsar warhead. Throw in a starship-grade power plant and enough size to the projectors, it should make a good showing."

"Hmm sounds intriguing," commented Countryman.

"Quite, but of more immediate use is their calculations have shed light on new optimizations for our electro cannon technology, or I should say an evolution." She turned to the team, "Bev? Is our demonstration ready?"

"Sure is!" called a female scientist, in a lab coat and well not much else. Countryman ignored that as she finished up with a large cannon set on the floor. Then she rushed on over, "It's nice to meet you, captain, we made a wonderful breakthrough while working with the heavy pulsars."

"So what do we have?"

Bev gestured at the cannon, "Well Ruri gave us her notes and we'd recently ripped apart a Drathik Ion-Disruptor cannon, very intriguing tech. Anyway, we'd noted some interesting details about how they focus and contain the ion-disruptor charge. Details that shed light on some interesting theories we had to test, a few Ruri had detailed in her notes. What we came up with is basically a modification of the standard electro cannon, except now we run the plasma through an ionic phasing field before lensing it with a high-intensity photon-particle stream. The result is a much more focused energy burst."

Ruri interjected, "It's an interesting device, but I think you should see it in action."

Bev nodded, then turned to a console. Pressing a few keys, the turret turned, then fired. An electric whine filled the room, just a moment before it let out a focused white-blue pulse that cut through the room, before striking the wall, then arcing to hit the nearby Vulcan.

"The Electro-Lance is a variant of the Electro Cannon technology we've been using for the last eight years, there was no significant increase in power for a cannon of this size. In fact, a Pulsar of this size hits twice as hard, but the lance does have one advantage, range. We'll be able to hit targets at significantly greater ranges than before. In normal space it would have a range of about two hundred thousand kilometers."

"It looked pretty impressive, I presume it has the same impact on the usual targets?"

"Yup, very effective at collapsing shields and disrupting subsystems, minimal damage to hull as usual, but I wouldn't stand in the beam if I were you. It causes very nasty burns to organic tissue and causes havoc with the nervous system."

"Very nice, and the torpedoes?"

Bev nodded and hit a control, four turrets emerged on the top of the Vulcan, "We had to design a completely new turret to house them, but as you can see we've got a workable design, supporting a full arc of fire. Each turret can fit two of the new heavy pulsar projectors, and they fire an energy charge two and a half times more powerful than the torpedoes mounted on the Sparrow. This is a significant step forward in terms of firepower."

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"That's a bit more than I was expecting."

"Yes we made good progress there, and one of our test designs was even more powerful, but Richards vetoed putting it on the Vulcan, quoting power constraints and bulk. Basically she told me the bigger one was better suited to a light frigate than a large corvette like the Vulcan."

Countryman sighed, "We are rather lacking in frigate hulls, the only template in our inventory is a spy frigate and I'm not sure how well suited it is to combat." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Ruri nodded, "Right the X-1288, but as I recall, wasn't the X-1292 also a frigate?"

Countryman replied, "Yes, but the 1292 was deemed redundant and funds reallocated to other projects. No hulls were ever completed, and no significant work was done."

Bev frowned, "Are there not older hulls we could use? The main point of the twelve hundred series was they were built for FTL travel, but here in the storm, everything is sublight anyway."

"I guess that does open up the old eleven hundred series hulls, although they are seriously dated."

Ruri quickly agreed, "I remember, the Tokyo refit was a stopgap update to the venerable Osaka class. The Tokyos were only there to fill the gap while the twelve hundred series project produced their replacements."

Bev blinked, "I didn't mean as is, surely the hulls could be used as a starting point."

Countryman sighed, "We are still talking about a full-fledged starship development program and we just can't afford one. There is a reason the council and I put the other projects on hold, we just don't have the resources to develop and build new starship hulls. If we had it we'd be developing a corvette, not repurposing the Vulcan."

"Good point sir," then Bev let out a breath, "at least the bigger turret isn't a total waste, Richards did say she could use them for improving the defenses at Anchorage."

"They'd never be a total waste, if you could keep developing bigger ones, I'll find a use for them. Even if it does take us a while to develop ships that can actually use them. Hell if you get a mount that would make sense for use on the Enterprise that would be nice."

"I'll take it, the girls and I have been rather bored lately. Not much to do when Starship development is on hold."

Countryman took another look at the modified Vulcan, "Well, sorry about that. When you do get around to working again, try to be more reasonable with your proposals. The Battlehawk cruiser with three battleship grade armor belts was a bit much."

Bev scratched her head, "Yeah I told them. I did agree we needed more armor, but that was a bit much alright." She shifted her posture, "When you gave us our requirements, we started with the last commissioned cruisers, the Tokyo and Osaka. They were both 2200 hundred meters long, comparable if slightly smaller than the proposed size of the Battlehawk. They had similar protection as well, but somewhat different armaments, engine configurations and equipment. Now we did consider referencing twelve hundred series cruisers like X-1215, X-1220, and X-1225, but none of them saw action. The only starships in the series to see action were the X-1212 destroyers and the X-1250."

Countryman nodded, "Sounds about right, the X-1215 was a light cruiser, the X-1220 was an escort cruiser, while the 1225 was intended to be a next-generation heavy cruiser. As I recall no hulls were completed, but a few were close to completion at the time of the Battle for Earth."

"Right, but they were untested, but the ideas weren't useless either. Ultimately we chose working with the Tokyo as our main reference. The hull was solid, with good combat records in the Cathamari war. However we believed protection was insufficient, worse the 1225 was proposed to have armor not significantly thicker. In addition, the armaments proposed for the old X-1225 project are outdated now, we'd have to do an update. The Enterprise has already undergone several updates in the last eight years, including two complete rearmings."

"It's an understandable premise, no need to defend yourself," said Countryman before turning to Ruri, "Now is this Vulcan ready for trials?"

"Richards and I went over it, the new turrets required minimal alterations to the hull. We did have to rework a few power conduits, add a secondary set of capacitors and beef up the main power plant. While we were at it, we made a few adjustments to the bridge to accommodate the additional weaponry and engineering diagnostic data."

Bev commented, "Based on complaints from Reynolds and Drakes we also redesigned the engine room. It's larger and better optimized for those long-haul missions we've been putting the Vulcan through. Similar alterations were made to the cabin arrangements, again based on the feedback we've been getting from the two already in the field."

"Excellent, now why don't we see her in action?"

"I'll get her moved to the hanger," said Bev, "I presume you have a crew in mind?"

Countryman nodded, "I have a few, the storm may have taken a few but we still have some officers fit for the mission. Right now I'm thinking of Captain Eriko Dykes, former Captain of the EFS Velos, exemplary track record."

Ruri and Bev both shared looks, "Um, is she good?" asked Bev.

Ruri said something different, "I'm not really familiar with her."

Countryman nodded, "She's good. I've read her record, she took command of the Velos twelve years ago, and was present in most of the major battles during the Cathamari war."

Countryman thought back to the record: The EFS Velos wasn't a frontline cruiser or a heavy battleship; she was an O'Brien Class Destroyer. Five hundred forty-two meters long, she was armed with eight particle cannon batteries and fusion torpedoes. It didn't have the best protection either, only three meters of armor, but those old destroyers were quite fast and very maneuverable. "Despite the limitations of the O'Brien class, she not only brought her crew home after every battle, but she had one of the highest kill counts in the war. The Velos is attributed with the sinking of nearly a dozen Cathamari battleships and over two hundred battlecruisers."

Bev blinked, "Okay, that is pretty impressive, but what has she been doing since?"

"Playing mother," replied Countryman as he left the room.