Chapter 7: 007 Trials

"Alright kid, move from point to point in sequence. Get a handle for the mobility in low detectability mode, this is how you are gonna be using her for the most part."

In the vicinity of the asteroid ring, the fleet Don was assigned to was cruising through space. The only ship deployed from the carrier, it moved without any emissions, something conventionally understood as impossible. The only way that it could be detected was a frequency his active radar was emitting to let the fleet know he was there.

Inside the craft, Don was seated comfortably in the pilot's seat. Projected in front of him was an image of what was outside, with the exception of the bright colored markings with numbers underneath that indicated their ranges. Only one of these was the waypoint he was making his way to, it was colored bright blue. The other markers ranged from red to green. These were not virtual markers like his waypoints were, they were indicators of actual danger.

Asteroids, rocks, clouds of dust. A vast number of obstacles could ruin a smaller craft like his. Granted, the armor on this ship in particular meant that none of them were a threat should he run into them, but the disturbance in their motion would absolutely be detected by enemy sensors in battle.

"Gah, hit another one." The ship rocked slightly as he clipped another asteroid with the corner of his ship.

"Would you like to turn on depth mode to practice?"

"No. I need to get used to flying in the dark."

"But you aren't even used to the mobility in the light yet. Conventional knowledge suggests that acclimation to the controls in prime conditions is important to the improvement of overall control."

This was an argument that had been going on between the two for some time now. Currently he was flying 'in the dark'. This meant that all obstacles were displayed by a point on the screen with a color, an arrow, and a number. The color represented how close an object was. This was not a level of close represented by a distance, but by a time to intersection with the plane perpendicular to his vector of travel. Due to how objects interacted in the vacuum of space, an object that was further away from you could hit you first if its relative velocity was higher.

Red, naturally, represented danger, close and fast, with green being safe, far away.  The arrow pointed to the position in space where said object would connect with the ship if it continued in a straight line at its current speed. A triangle at the end of the line represented it was coming closer, a cross represented that it was moving away. In the case that it was moving away, collision would be considered impossible, so those were green and turned to yellow as they 'accelerated' towards him, only showing the position of the object attached to it in three seconds time.

These were called predictive markers, a system that had been refined over centuries of space travel. In the darker reaches of the solar system, it was impossible to navigate completely by visual light, so this system was widely used as a supplement to visual piloting to assure safety.

The number attached to the bottom was actually something relatively new. It had been introduced around 50 years prior, and it was a system of indicating risk to the ship if contact was made. Smaller objects or clouds of dust were labeled "1" as they posed little threat to a ships hull but could interfere with sensors. "5" represented sizable space rocks. If these happened to be more metallic in nature, it could spell disaster for less armored ships. "10" was actually something of a joke classification. It was assigned to planets, moons, or any large celestial entities which even large ships would not survive contact with.

It was through these that Don was navigating towards his objective.

"If you are struggling to handle the new mobility system you can turn on assisted mode." Doctor Helmsguard's voice once more came through the intercom. Donovan was flying unassisted by ARC. This was actually not recommended. Don was trained using a ship that's control system was vastly different from the one he was piloting, he had to manually correct the effects of rotation now and he had much more movement options outside of the long axis.

Because it turned electrical energy directly into kinetic energy, however the fuck that was possible, there was practically no delay between an input on the joystick and that command being done. To most pilots, this would be a boon rather than a bane, but for Don it was more of an annoyance.

Although he had only gone through training, the level of mobility he had achieved even with that old training craft was on the level of a seasoned fighter pilot. He was used to what felt like an infinitely longer delay on a much smaller craft. His problem was that he was reacting too early. He was getting better, but he still had a bit to go.

A few hours of rigorous maneuvering later, Don deemed himself proficient enough to move on with the program. He instructed ARC to send him through to the Doctor.

"Hey Doc! I think I got the controls down now."

"Full manual in 13 hours 23 minutes? I know you're something of a natural when it comes to flying but that's a bit fast to get used to a new class of ship even if it was using the same class of propulsion isn't it?"

"I mean it's really just a bigger fighter. Not that hard as long as you follow the general rules of flight, I just had to get used to how quick she responds. She's damn near instant on the bank and she really goes when I press the throttle."

"The way you talk makes me think you've never been with a woman."

"You and I both know I haven't"

"Really? I suppose you never got the chance to leave the house outside of attending school. I'll see if I can set you up with my granddaughter when we get back." Doctor Helmsguard chuckled a bit.

"Who? Diana? You would really subject her to me?"

"It's been five years since last you saw her, but I bet she's just your type. She's really developed well that girl. Large breasts, hourglass figure, gorgeous blond hair and a cute face to boot. You would be aaaaaallll over her."

"Are you sure you should be talking about your blood like that pops? Sounds more than just a little creepy coming from someone as, er, distinguished, as yourself." Don had some bad memories of referring to the Doctor as 'old'.

".....I'm worried about her. Even I can't see her as a cute little girl anymore. That just makes me wonder all the more about what those brats at the capitol who think with their groins are thinking. I swear, if any one of them has deflowered my little baby girl without my permission I will rip their spine from their body."

Don knew that he meant it. His granddaughter was something of an obsession of his. Not surprising though, his wife died while he was under his tutelage and his son-in-law was killed in a skirmish with the Dominion of Jupiter's forces not too long after his only daughter was born. Diana's mother was something of a mystery, his only child and daughter, but it was clear that she had died at some point.

As far as Donovan knew, Diana was the Doctor's only remaining family.

"That's enough banter for the moment. The admiral is gonna get mad at us if we keep her from running pre-patrol combat drills. Run through the gauntlet to get a final measurement of the ship's mobility then dock in the bow hangar. We'll get something to eat afterwards."

- - - - - -

Thompson was right, the mess hall food was really bad.

Probably the result of the focus on nutrition over taste, everyone agreed that it was less than desirable. For one, it was dehydrated. All of it.

Water was heavy after all, and more mass meant more energy required to move. The lack of water also meant that it would not go bad as quickly, and it also meant that more of it could be stored. As a consolation, there was at least a great variety of flavors of water.

Flavor packs did exist for the food, if you decided to waste your limited packing space to bring some, but the dry nature of the food often meant that you would get a mouthful of spice alongside a substance that fell apart in your mouth, and not in a good way.

Such was the life of the sailor, so how did they survive?

Easy, alcohol.

Alcohol was a ridiculously easy chemical for the fabricators to, well, fabricate, and the elements required were not exactly hard to come by. The navy even went through the painstaking process of figuring out how to make specific flavors of alcohol just to keep the sailors happy.

Why didn't they do the same for food? The answer was that it tasted worse than the dry stuff. Even if the materials were to be given to a master chef, the quality would make it undesirable, even to the men who lived in a box without windows. They would rather eat the shitty food and wash it down with mediocre booze than eat the slightly less shitty food and wash it down with slightly more shitty booze.

There really was no other way.

And so the navy managed to get really good at making nutritious food that tasted like shit and making as good of an alcohol as possible from nothing but basic elements.

Neither Donovan nor Draco Helmsguard enjoyed such a development. The doctor was old, and lived the vast majority of his life in-atmosphere. He was used to good food and barely drank alcohol. Donovan, while he generally ate whatever his dorm-master ate, always at least had the luxury of flavor. Donovan also swore off alcohol a long time ago.

He had sworn off ALL such drugs after witnessing the train wreck that his family was.

He stuck to the flavored water.

Thompson, on the other hand, had no such qualms.

"Sho lemme get dis sdraight. U phlew threw an astroid feeld uzin nuffin but zenzrz?"

""Yes."" Both Draco and Don were quite sick of the bumbling drunkard interrupting their talk with Admiral Adirondack.

"Fuggr." And then Thompson collapsed.

"...I'm sorry for that. I'll punish him later." Admiral Adirondack, Addie, was visibly ashamed of her subordinate's actions. Also quite tipsy. Don wondered what proof the alcohol they were drinking was.

"No need Addie. I know how it gets out here. My son was worse, assigned to one of those corvettes on patrol duty. I'd be the same if I was denied a social life for so long."

"Still, he IS on duty at the moment. I can't be having him do this." Despite how she talked about punishment, there was no hard look in her eyes.

"So you're saying you fancy him then?" Don poked a bit of fun at her dismay.

Much to his surprise she blushed. "Is it that obvious?"

The doctor's jaw dropped and Don burst out into laughter. "It was just a joke! I didn't think you actually would like a dude like that! You seem way too serious for him!"

"SSHHH! I don't want him to wake up..." Addie, a woman well into her forties, was acting like a maiden in love.

"Ah, youth. So when do you think he'll notice?"

"The rate this is going, never. I even give him special treatment. I even have some hands amongst the crew who have tried to bring it up in a more natural manner, but all I've ever heard them report is that he thinks I'm pretty, and a pain in his ass." She was starting to tear up.

"Man that really got to you huh."

"Please don't tell him about it! I have an image to uphold." It was pitiful.

"What's stopping you from telling him yourself? This isn't the twenty first century, women asking men out is hardly a rarity these days." Don started picking the scab, eager to get a response out of the now distressed Admiral.

He was stopped by the harrumph of his mentor. "And what would you know? All five years of your training and not once have I ever seen you take a woman home. Where do you get off being the one to give romantic advice?"

"What time did I have to court ladies? All the time I wasn't sleeping I was training, learning, or getting chewed out by some instructor for the buttons on my uniform being slightly out of line. As an added benefit, I don't think you would've much fancied the screams of the lady lucky enough to catch my fancy. Not that I think they would have agreed to enter a prison like that, Monsieur Warden."

Doctor Helmsguard took offence to his home being referred to as a prison. "I'll have you know that house is appraised as being a priceless work of architecture. Very few of it's style remain standing!"

"And good fucking riddance too. It's HIDEOUS. No wonder people didn't keep that design in fashion."

The doctor had no response to this, not because he felt Don was right, but because he knew that if he responded he would be called a fossil. Five years of living under the same roof meant they were familiar with the insults slung at each other and knew where they tended to lead.

Out of deference to the commanding officer, he decided to stop the argument from escalating further. This irritated him somewhat, as he knew that Don would be counting this as a victory. "Putting that aside for the moment Admiral, may we request a training session between your fleet communications officers and the ship. By this time you should have read the briefing on the prototype's role and rough capabilities. Doctrine aside, we need to make sure that the spatial coordinate reporting system is calibrated correctly. I would prefer it if the ranging tests were under my command and not yours."

Still a little red-eyed, the increasingly tipsy Admiral maintained a serious disposition. "What ships would you like to perform the tests with? I can't promise access to a dreadnought, but a large cruiser should have the energy and ammunition to spare."

"A large cruiser should do for the ranged precision calibration, but I would also like to request access to a destroyer, missile corvette, carrier strike group, and a tug."

Addie nodded her head as the requests were listed off. "I can give authorization for those, but I cannot allow for our strike craft to be released in the range of the asteroid belt. What will you be needing the tug for?"

"The tug is in case the ship gets hit."

- - - - - - - 

"Do you really think I'll get hit, Doc?" Don was speaking to the Doctor (located in the bridge of the Large Cruiser) from his seat piloting the ship.

"Do I think you will be hit? No. Do I recognize there is a non-zero chance? Absolutely. Your target area is gonna be around a thousand square meters at its largest, so while you don't take up much of the sky at the range you are at, you are a far larger target than most other ships out there."

"I guess that's true. Am I ready to start reporting targets?" After about a half hour of travel, he had reached the standard engagement range for most capital ships - 25 thousand kilometers.

At this range, the vast majority of sensors would give somewhat hazy readings due to both the range involved as well as any sort of interference performed on the behalf of the target. It is also considered to be the range where accuracy for the main battery drops below fifty percent.

What was truly impressive was the energy output of the railguns that achieved that level of accuracy, the capital class railgun. The projectile was a magnetized rod with a density of precisely 5,000 kilograms a cubic meter. If you were to simplify its shape and measure the volume as a cylinder, you would find it to have a diameter of exactly half a meter and a height of just over ten, meaning that the total mass of the projectile is almost exactly 10,000 kilograms.

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Most people, including the people in charge of designing them, call them railguns. That classification is not correct as there is no 'rail' involved in the projectile's acceleration. Instead it uses a series of fields to do the job. The instant the projectile, commonly referred to as a bolt, begins acceleration it is no longer in contact with any matter.

The field is not just contained within the emitters (the sections that look like cannon barrels) but also extended out from them. If all of the acceleration were to happen in a space of only 30 meters, the turrets would not be capable of withstanding the recoil of launching something of that weight close to a ten-thousandth the speed of light. For about a kilometer beyond the muzzle, there is a field similar to that within the emitter that exerts a force that weakens with distance.

The specific kinetic energies are given as estimates. No piece of hardware yet devised can withstand a direct hit from one and extract any meaningful data, and the intense amount of heat and noise created makes it difficult to figure out what fraction of the electrical energy used is turned into kinetic.

Truth be told though, the energies and penetration characteristics of a metal rod moving at that speed are purely academic. Anything they hit is guaranteed to have a bad time, whether or not they survive. In fact, that 'bad time' is what makes it so easy to spot hits at that extreme range.

It turns out that the ridiculous heat let off by either a glancing or non penetrating blow is similar to what it would be if something vital was hit, like a reactor or munitions bay. If you looked closely on the older ships in the fleet, you could see the scars of a few such impacts. Even if plating was replaced and a new coat of paint was added, the warping caused by such high velocity impacts is hard to fix.

"Assurance: Do not fear being hit. While it is true that deviancy is to be expected, our position should be far enough away from the main firing vector that only a monumental failure of a railgun's emitter system could put us in a firing cone."

"Thanks ARC." A genuine relief to Don. He trusted that the ship would be able to hold up to the impact (he had ARC's assurance) he was not eager to feel what is was like to have heavy cruiser class railguns make contact.

"If you think you have made proper preparations, designate one of the bigger asteroids as a target. I'm patching you through to the targeting station. Best of luck."

A click indicated the end of Doctor Helmsguard's instruction. The rest would be left to the experts in the core of the ship, the people who lived to throw ammunition down range.

"Hello hello. This is Gunnery Captain Dodder of the UES Ranger, to whom do I owe the pleasure?" A peppy voice continued where the doctor left off.

"Donovan Strauss, rank DS. Can't divulge much more than that." It wasn't that he couldn't divulge more than his name in rank, it was more like he wasn't sure what information was still classified.

"Understandable, I'm just glad to get the chance to drop some lead."

"Drop some lead?"

"Oh yeah! Letting loose with the main battery is a drug more addictive than heroin. Permission to fire, even if for the purpose of calibration, is rare these days. Send over the target data already!"

Some of the cheers in the background indicated that the gunnery captain was not the only one ready to lighten their ship.

"What size asteroid do you want to start off with? If you wouldn't mind, could you tell me some of the specifics of your ship and what data you want?"

The talk about specifics was more oriented to small talk and conversation, it was the data that was truly important here.

"Aaaaah yeah. We honestly don't care too much for anything other than velocity by center of mass, range, acceleration values, and the expected target area. Given we are to be shooting at glorified rocks the stuff like armor, profile, and mass estimations aren't necessary. Rotational data would be nice to give us an idea of where exactly we are hitting, but I don't expect it to hold together longer than four or five impacts at maximum. Start with a boulder about the size of an escort cruiser, we'll work our way down and away from there."

After locating a suitably sized asteroid, ARC began the process of transmitting coordinate data. A steady stream of information entered the cruiser's fire control system.

It was precise, a far more consistent than what the pylons would give them, but the staff aboard understood that this was a calibration run. This data was likely inaccurate. That inaccuracy would never be rectified without firing a shot to see though.

Loaded in the guns were a type of rod specialized for range finding. Every microsecond a chip mounted on the end would send a pulse. This could be used to divine the flight path of an otherwise untraceably fast hunk of metal.

"Fire."

The guns fired in parallel to each other, giving a consistent spread that would hopefully hit something.

They only ripped through space for a few short seconds before arriving in the target space, a miss.

Don noted the changes in the predictive lines for some of the bodies a fair bit away from his position.

"Miss. Waiting for computer to recalibrate taking shell path into account. How long until you are cooled and loaded?"

"Three minutes. How was fall of shot?"

"Center of shot was 4.32 kilometers from center of mass."

"Range is roughly 25,000 kilometers so deviancy is about two hundredths of a percent? That's already an order of magnitude more accurate than the standard expected starting salvo. Not bad."

"It's still not great though is it? I'm sitting at about 500 kilometers though, deviancy is closer to a full percent than a tenth, an order of magnitude greater."

"What the fuck are you doing that close? We aren't using our pylons! You could have been vaporized!"

"I'm still here aren't I?"

"Yeah, but you very well couldn't have been! I don't know what they teach at the academy these days, but our rules of engagement state that a friendly craft cant be within a two degree cone when firing on target. We will not be firing until you are outside of our firing cone. Send a ping when situated. We could have blown you out of the sky!" Dodder was furious.

Recalling some of his training, he did remember something about friendlies in in a 2 degree cone. His professors and instructors never implanted that as something to be mindful of though, even when he was trained to fire these weapons.

Maybe they thought he would never be in a position to hit allies? It would make sense if they had knowledge he would be positioned on a flank.

Still, he kept to protocol, moving to a position substantially further away before letting off a radar ping, confirming his location.

"Looks like you are sufficiently distanced. Do you have a new solution for us?" He still sounded irritated.

"Yeah, sending data through now."

A few seconds passed as ARC transmitted a new positional solution to the Ranger. A few more seconds passed as the Ranger's own fire control computer made up a firing solution.

"Guns loaded and target lock. Are you clear of firing lane?"

"Yessir."

"Firing."

A few seconds passed before the rods entered the target space. One of the rods clipped the edge of the asteroid in question, creating a magnificent flash on the thermal scope and imparting a substantial amount of rotational velocity to the asteroid. Shot tracking indicated it was one of the railguns on the edges of the volley that made impact.

"One hit. Clipped edge."

"Acknowledged, send refined solution."

The next three minutes passed in silence. It would appear Dodder was still mad at Don for putting himself at risk.

"Ready to fire. If four of forty hit we will switch to concentrated and sequential fire. Are you clear of firing lane?"

"Yessir."

"Firing."

Once again the rods ripped through the space around the asteroid. Several rods made direct impact with the asteroid, breaking it apart. ARC gave an estimate that eight out of the forty rods made contact based on the position tracker trails.

"Eight suspected hits. Nice shooting."

"Crew says thanks."

"We might have a bit of a problem though."

"You didn't get hit did you?" Don could her a few chuckles in the background.

"Nah, its more like there isn't much of an asteroid left to shoot at."

It turns out being hit by objects capable of ripping through the armor of something meant to take hits did not agree with the asteroid's structural integrity. A great many chunks of varying sizes were making their way off into the reaches of space at a considerable velocity.

"Then find another one, make it bigger than a corvette. Also, can you give us fall of shot data? All we see is dots from their firing lines. Information on which cannons were on target will be useful."

ARC immediately sent the relevant data.

"That was quick." In the fire control room, the officers in charge of target acquisition and solution refinement were looking over the data, trying to match the shot paths with the projections from their barrels. Even with the assistance of computers it was not an easy task, small rocks or clouds of dust that were not picked up by scanners could make a rod deviate from it's course. Identification was easier with a second perspective though.

2 minutes passed before they had an acceptable degree of certainty on which impact belonged to which turret. "It looks like both center sector turrets made full impact while the rear-center had a 75% hit rate. One shot from the forward-center sector either deviated or matched target profile. Off of center of mass it seems firing solutions are off by about 50 meters relative our aft."

"New firing solution ready. Smaller asteroid, about 300 kilometers further than last. You might need to turn a bit to get it in the crosshairs."

"Got it. We'll be firing sequential to get a solution down. Watch yourself."

"Yessir."

"Fire forward A!"

A direct hit. More flashing on the thermal receivers. "Hit. Nice shot."

"First shot with a new firing solution was a hit? Only two rods in the salvo as well? That's gotta be a fluke. Find another target."

Thirty seconds of searching resulted in a rock even smaller than the last one, albeit a bit closer.

"Sending in new target data, fire when ready."

"Fire Forward D!"

Another hit.

"Hit. Two impacts confirmed."

Cheering could be heard in the background of the Ranger's communication line. "I'll be damned kid. Looks like whatever software you got on that ship is the real deal. I remember hearing stories about how they used to use spotting planes to guide bombardment in the Second World War, but I didn't think it would be effective in space. It's a lot harder to keep a craft from getting shot in space. Find another target in the range of 40 to 50 thousand kilometers. I wanna see just how far we can take this."

"Might take me a while to get to that range."

"We have nothing but time. As much as I like a good bottle of booze, I prefer this. Feels more productive."

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