Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

Countryman made his way down the corridor. He had been called to the Forward Hangar. Since it wasn’t being used for cargo at the moment, Ruri had appropriated the hangar. He didn’t blame her it was designed to allow smaller cargo freighters to dock, and offload cargo. It also had the needed equipment to stow a number of cargo shuttles, and conduct repairs on any small craft docked here. Of course, since it could dock a small cargo freighter, that also meant frigate-sized ships could dock here. Well, not all frigate-sized ships some of them wouldn’t fit here. Regardless the bay was more than sufficient for what Ruri needed it for.

She was using the Forward hanger to build her prototypes, and the first warp four test ships were ready for launch. These test ships would like the ones that tested the original drive for the Enterprise would be unmanned. Not to mention unarmed, but they did have some protective armor. Just enough to protect them from translight impacts. As he recalled she planned to build six test vehicles for the warp engines.

There was also a series of test vehicles that she was building to carry her prototype cannons. This other set of ships wasn’t being fitted with a warp engine. They were little more than a gun with an engine. Each weapons test ship would be powered by a small fusion generator, and controlled remotely. An onboard computer and sensor system would record test data and transmit it back to the Enterprise. Ruri had five compressed particle cannon prototypes and two more for a compressed particle beam weapon. The beam weapon required a larger test vehicle. Thankfully since she wasn’t building a full array, but rather a single collimated emitter for the test she wasn’t going to need a frigate-sized ship for this. Rather it was mounted on a corvette-sized test vehicle, although there wasn’t room for anything more than the weapon and a minimal engine system. As the single emitter design only saved so much space. On a capital ship like the Enterprise arrays were in fact more space-efficient than single emitter cannons.

Regardless he was interested in the upcoming tests. Right now the ship was making some very intensive scans of the nearby planet. It was a rocky, icy world. More ice than rock really. A few minerals of interest, but it wasn’t much to talk about. He figured it would make a good test site for Ruri’s new weapon prototypes. The planet itself massed roughly double that of earth, with about sixty percent of that mass being ice. For weapons testing, that composition was largely irrelevant. If anything that large amount of ice would simply make it more visually impressive.

He entered the bay, and surveyed the armored cargo hangar. It was quite large with the main entrance on deck fifty, but it was actually several decks high, both above and below the entrance on deck fifty. On the lower levels were large cargo lifts designed for transferring cargo into the ship. There were processing facilities near the bay for processing any fuel or ore brought back by cargo and mining shuttles. Above his head were the stowage docks. That was where cargo and mining shuttles would be stowed when not in use. On the flight deck he noted the collection of test ships, all of them complete. What really caught his attention was the presence of an extra one. It didn’t have any nacelles so he figured it was a weapon test ship. While a nacelle wouldn’t be needed technically for the warp test, since they were used on the Enterprise it would be better for testing purposes to mount the warp engines on the test vehicles in the same configuration. It also saved them materials not bothering with outboard engines on their weapon test vehicles. Those ships were really barebones anyway. Just a weapon, and the bare minimum of an engine they needed.

Ruri was near the extra one seeming to inspect the engineering work. Countryman made his way down some stairs, toward her position. She noticed him approach, and when he got close greeted him happily. He idly remembered what she did in the nacelles the other day. Dealing with that had been interesting. He pushed the matter aside, as that was not what they were here to discuss.

He returned her greeting, and then said, “So what is with the extra test vehicle?”

She looked at it, and then turned to him, “As I was working on the compression weapons, I realized the same principles could be applied to our mining equipment, particularly the resonant particle beam. I would suggest testing this one last. If my math is right, its going to have some rather spectacular results when fired at the planet. Its not powerful enough to destroy it, but it could be if scaled up. At this size it will make a rather impressive crater.”

He looked it over, “Interesting. I take it, it operates much like standard ones with comparable range limitations. Likely not all that effective against an armored hull either.”

She replied, “That would be correct. The structural fields used to enhance the integrity of a ship’s superstructure and hull would largely nullify the destructive effect of the resonance pulse. As such it won’t be much different from firing an ordinary compressed particle beam at a ship.”

Countryman was familiar with resonance pulsed beam devices. They had been used for centuries now. They used a tuned resonance pulse to break down the structure of targeted matter. The pulsed beams were particularly effective mining tools due to their ability to bore through kilometers of solid rock in seconds. At full power, these devices were absolutely devastating. They were not just useful tools for mining, but they could be devastating during an orbital bombardment. Research had even been conducted to see if these could be made into some type of particle disruptor-type weapon. Not much ever came of it, however. The advent of structural integrity fields pretty much killed the project in its infancy. The reason being how the weapons work. In short they take advantage of structural weaknesses in the target to inflict their amazing damage. Structural fields nullify those weaknesses. Although ship armor does benefit more from them if no weakness is present in the first place. As such a great deal of effort is made to ensure there are no microfractures or similar defects present when the plating is installed.

He nodded, “that does sound like something to test last alright. How about the other prototypes?”

She smiled, “I am about finished with them. They should be ready for testing soon enough. I mainly wanted to show you them before we launch them into space.”

He looked over them. Before giving her the go-ahead. Already knowing where this was going. She led him to each prototype and allowed him to inspect them, while giving him a rundown of what she had done. She explained how each weapon ship was testing a different compression module design. Ruri only had two designs for the compression particle beams. She didn’t share the specifics, but she mounted one of them on the resonance beam ship, saying its characteristics indicated it would be better suited to the resonance beam model than the other. Countryman figured she was likely right about that.

The Enterprise after finishing her scans of the planet she was orbiting, launched the test ships. The warp ships, quickly went to warp after leaving the hanger. They were programmed by computer to make a run, and they were given coordinates for a rendezvous with the ship in two weeks. The sensor data on those tests would have to be physically collected later.

For much more immediate results, the other ships would do nicely. Countryman went ahead, and let people know they were testing weapons, and informed them of which viewports would give a good view. He figured plenty of people would enjoy the fireworks. Even if the only thing that happened was a test ship exploding. That wasn’t very likely, though. Ruri had done extensive simulation testing beforehand, and they had a pretty good idea of what would happen. Within a margin of error naturally. Simulations were only as good as the data you had.

The first armed test vehicle approached the planet, about ten minutes after he made the announcement. Kaori at tactical remotely controlled its targeting systems and programmed a bombardment. The drone obediently followed the new programming and charged its sole compression particle cannon.

In moments a volley of vibrant blue energy bolts was shot out from the drone. Each bolt slammed into the surface at the speed of light, delivering a highly concentrated charged particle bolt into the icy surface. Each impact was powerful, and vaporized ice and rock shot up in reaction. The gases shooting up into space seemed to glow. Ruri leaned over the bridge science console, eagerly reviewing the data as it came in.

It was not long before the drone finished its firing sequence, and Kaori announced that its capacitor had run dry. Given its rudimentary power plant it would take a few minutes to recharge. If the drone was actually intended as a military weapon and not a disposable test bed that would have been a problem. The recharge time was fine, and while that one was charging they could test the second design.

Again Kaori programmed the second drone, and that drone began a bombardment of the surface. It unleashed a fury of vibrant particle pulses into the surface. Jets of superheated rock and water erupted below. Ruri monitored the data, as it came in. When suddenly the drone stopped firing. Kaori looked up, “Automatics kicked in, and stopped the firing process. She was building to an overload.”

Ruri who was reading the data, commented, “So far both drones fired slower than standard particle weapons, but exhibited a significantly higher particle yield. The second one was particularly powerful, but that overload might be an issue. Something to look into.”

He nodded. Countryman was reviewing the data from his own console. That second design had promise for a particularly powerful particle weapon if they could solve the overload issue. In the meantime, he ordered for the next test to begin. The results were fairly disappointing compared to the last two. While test four wasn’t visually different from test number one.

The data told a different story about that. It delivered a similar impact with the same rate of fire. Although by some quirk consumed a couple terawatts less energy. That seemed notable, so they made note of it. Before moving on to the final test for the pulse fire compressed particle cannons.

The last one fired a rapid-fire volley that was almost as fast as normal cannons. The yield shown left much to be desired as the particle yield showed only a modest improvement over current-gen cannons. Compared to some of the previous tests, it wasn’t all that impressive. This last one had been Ruri’s attempt to accelerate the recharge cycle to more conventional levels. Afterall with conventional particle cannons, they could fire so quickly most targets were quickly reduced to swiss cheese. The reason for this was that they were already fairly powerful, and supported quite a rapid fire rate. None of the test designs could match that rate, but boasted higher yields. Allowing them to inflict more damage with each hit. Two of the designs looked promising for initial development, while one of them showed promise if they could work out the overload problem.

They moved on to the two drones with beam weapons. The first one charged up, and unleashed a focused cutting beam into the ice. The blue particle beam slammed into the surface with force. Jets of ice, and rock vapor shot up into the sky, as it swept over the surface in a line. The reading showed that it was delivering a much improved yield per second. Cutting deeper into the ice than older designs would have. Including the ones of the Enterprise, which were not all that different from standard designs. Merely modified to take advantage of the more powerful power plant the ship had access to. These were a clear step forward.

This became even more apparent when the beam finished its first cycle. The beam had fired for a full 48 seconds. That was longer than what current-gen cutting beams could be sustained for. After a mere two seconds compared to the standard four, the drone started firing again. He blinked.

Ruri looked up from her console, “This one I was particularly proud of. I used the improved cooling scheme, and the compression modules I was working on for it. Its working exactly as the simulations indicated. The improved cooling scheme keeps the weapon nice, and cool. Since it is continuous rather than pulsed the compression module has little effect on the recharge rate. I had to modify the particle accumulator to operate at a faster rate in order for the module to work properly. The weapon actually generates more heat per second than our current cutting beams, but thanks to the improved cooling scheme the weapon is no larger than a standard cutting beam. In fact its actually slightly smaller. As for the next design, I went a somewhat different route with that one.”

He saw what she meant minutes later when they started the test. The second beam drone powered up, and unleashed a powerful purple energy beam into the surface. It tore into the ice with ferocity sending up huge jets of vapor. The beam terminated after mere seconds. The drone remained silent for a while before firing again. Each strike was short but intense.

“With the second design, I focused on increasing the particle yield as much as possible. The result is an extremely potent particle beam. Although it can’t be maintained as long. Can’t much argue with the result. It is worth noting that both designs delivered the same amount of energy every time they fire, but the second design needs a full ten seconds to rest. While the first can fire again after two. Honestly the second would be more powerful, but its also much more stressful on the emitters.”

He nodded, he could see that. The second design was able to deliver more energy in a shorter period despite that longer recharge period. The data however indicated that the emitters were prone to burning out with the second design. Countryman felt the first was for the moment the better design. The second clearly needed more work before it was ready for implementation, but both had their advantages.

“Pocket that second one for now. We will be using the first one for now. Don’t abandon the second though. I want you to start looking into ways to improve it. Ten seconds is alright, but I think you can do better on the recharge cycle. The emitters on the other hand will need to be greatly improved first. I’m not going to take a weapon that risks burning out in the middle of a battle.”

Ruri nodded, “I was thinking along the same lines honestly. In fact, I am already looking into a way to combine the two designs. That way if needed you can supercharge the beam arrays to deliver a more potent energy stream if needed.”

That sounded agreeable. He would check in on her later to see how far along she was on that modification project. It seemed like it might be rather important. In the meantime, it was time they conducted the final test of the day.

On his order, the final drone charged up and focused its single beam emitter on the pockmarked surface of the planet. A pulsating resonance beam fired into the surface of the planet. Unlike the others, it didn’t use a sweeping pattern but instead stayed focused on one spot. Ice and vapor erupted, from the point of impact, but nothing seemed to be happening. Not at first, suddenly the ice began to crack around the point of impact. After a couple of moments that cracking expanded. Erupting with more outgassing. The process rapidly accelerated after that, as the ice began to disintegrate. Followed by increasingly more violent eruptions of steam, and shattered rock. With a seeming suddenness, a massive region the size of a continent erupted in a violent shower of steam and shattered rock. Just moments before the beam terminated. The result of that brief firing was a crater the size of Asia now marked the side of the planet. It was also quite deep, not deep enough to expose the core, but the mantle was exposed now. An impressive demonstration, but as a weapon it left something to be desired. He already had a few uses for it in mind.