Chapter Two Forty-Six Manned Orbit (Patreon)

March 3rd, 065 SDE:

Countryman slipped on his uniform, just as Vera stepped into the bathroom. She greeted him, still half asleep and barely dressed, “Morning.”

“Morning,” he replied, “Are you going to the lab today?”

She nodded, “I thought up a new variation on the reactive shielding we use in our latest armor designs.”

“Oh? Sounds interesting,” said Countryman recalling what Vera was talking about. The current gen four armor scheme was based on a design Vera had worked on decades ago, but they had made a few iterative improvements over the years. Not only did Gen 4 armor not have the thickness limitations of gen three armor, but it contained a new feature. Commonly referred to as reactive shielding, it was actually a proactive system. A series of triphasic force shield emitters were integrated into the plating, along with dozens of special capacitor cells called shield batteries. When sensors detect imminent impact, energy is drawn from the shield batteries and used to create a high density triphasic energy barrier right above the hull. The barrier acted much like an additional layer of armor, forcing the round to break up further than the dispersion fields already did. It was especially helpful against sustained beam weapons as these barriers helped disperse some of their energy before they actually interacted with the hull. After interacting with the hull, any additional energy is dealt with the same way gen three armor did. Energy absorbers absorbed some of the energy of the shot, while the AIF took the rest and maintained the armor plate integrity. 

Vera nodded, “Very, some of our more recent experiments are quite promising for generating practical hardlight energy barriers. I want to try using these barriers in a reactive shielding set up and see what I get.”

Countryman chuckled, Vera was clearly rather excited for this line of work, “Well, have fun. Keep me posted.” 

“I will, but what are you doing today?” she asked while turning on the water.

“We’ve nearly finished building out the Enterprise’s upper decks and last week’s engine test was good. Which means I have an inspection tour of the ship that must be done before I can sign off on the approval for the next phase of construction. If that wasn’t enough, I have two more ships in need of an inspection tour today. Only good news is that we are actually ahead of schedule.”

“Right, I heard something about that.”

“The Hammer class ships proved easier to build than expected, so we are almost ready to begin building out their industrial bays. I just need to make sure everything is to spec and go over it with Richards.”

“Fun,” she replied, while taking off her panties, “Well good luck.”

Countryman thanked her for that, and left her to take her shower. Making his way out into the rest of the living quarters. He could see a few of his daughters were already up and watching their children. He smiled a bit, it was nice to see his growing family. The girls looked quite happy as they played their games. It was a peaceful moment and one of the many he’d come to enjoy. A reminder of what he was building this fleet for, the children. His children and his grandchildren would have the room to grow. The new Enterprise would be a home to them all, and it would carry them to new lands. Somewhere out there they would find a new home where they could flourish and rebuild their number. Then one day they would come back and reclaim the Earth. It might be in ruins but it was their cradle, their birthright.

Renewed in spirit, he left his quarters and went into the corridor. Already it was busy with people going every which way, but he was able to reach the tram without much difficulty, and took it to the command center.

Xau shifted on her feet as she watched their latest rocket on the way up. This was the latest iteration they were testing and they’d made some progress since their previous failures. Now they could consistently put rockets in low orbit and some of them remained pretty stable up there. 

Today they were trying their first manned flight. Berxi had ended up being chosen as the pilot and now he was on the way up. Yet she couldn’t help feeling nervous about this. Not only that, but she was thinking about the recent news she’d heard. The military had launched a series of long-range rockets using their designs on Confederate shores, apparently in preparation for a massive military operation. The war had been dragging on with most of the fighting being in the south among the colonial territories, opening a new front on the continent of Eronadis would force the Confederates to defend their core territory, this might lead to a withdrawal of their forces in Myrva which would make her feel better. Seeing as their little lab was located on Myrva, a secure part sure, but the last few weeks had seen the Confederacy take several cities that just barely put their test facility in range of Confederacy bombers. If nothing changed soon they might be forced to relocate, which would set them back by weeks, possibly months. 

Her concerns about a possible attack here weren’t something she could solve, so she chose to focus on something else. Glancing at the radar display, she held her breath as the seconds ticked by and the rocket entered low orbit. “Orbital vector confirmed, no issues with module yet.”

She smiled, hearing that, and activated the radio, “How are you doing up there?”

Berxi replied a moment later, “A bit strange but alright.”

“Strange?”

“I’m floating, seems the lack of air ain’t the only thing different up here. Gravity is strange too.”

She sighed, “Were you?... Not paying attention? We already noticed that.”

“I guess I spaced on that. Still something to get used to and my stomach is a knot. Oh and that ride is a... quite something I’m not sure I want to repeat it.”

“Noted, keep us apprised, if you follow the previous rockets, you should have three passes before you reenter the atmosphere.”

“In that case, I better get started on those experiments we wanted to run.”

She nodded and let him off, while the others focused on getting telemetry from the ground. There was a lot to do, but she was honestly quite happy with their progress so far.

Countryman watched the monitor, they were tracking the latest Sarelfian Rocket. The two superpowers had been competing with rocket technology since they arrived, which was rather impressive really since their tech base was largely consistent with 1940s Earth, but they were behind in a few areas and ahead in others. They had been developing rapidly in Rocket technology and for the first time one of them had put a living being in orbit.

He glanced at Misaki, “So you sure about that?”

“Positive. There is a defect in their capsule heat shield; if they try to land, the module will break up.”

He sighed. It wasn’t the first time one or the other power had messed up. Usually, they ignored it unless the rocket was likely to hit a populated area. A manned capsule certainly changes things. “Right, well that changes things.”

“May I warn them?”

He thought about Star Trek, “That is a thought but there is the question of should we? The Sarelf are so far behind us, hell, Trek had their prime directive.”

Misaki chuckled, “I think we are well past worrying about something like that. The Sarelf are more than aware of us. Would it really change much if we actually made contact?”

“Perhaps not,” he sighed, “So how do you plan to contact them?”

Misaki gestured at her panel, “They have a radio, we might as well just hail them.”

“Not a bad plan,” replied Countryman after a moment of chewing on it.

Misaki turned to do just that. “Opening a channel to the alien rocket capsule.” Countryman figured it would be alright. The aliens already knew they were here. Actually talking to them really wouldn’t change much but there wasn’t much benefit to interacting with these less advanced aliens.

Berxi took some notes and set the pad down. Only to watch it float right off the capsule counter. That was something to get used to. He watched it for a second before the radio crackled. “Capsule, come in capsule,” came over the radio. The voice was female, but unfamiliar.

He frowned; no one but the team was supposed to know about this capsule. The accent, however, wasn’t confederacy. It was perfectly clear, and in the local language, or well, the language he was used to speaking at the facility. There were over a dozen languages spoken in the league, and even the Confederacy had a few different spoken languages based on where you were. Berxi knew a few different local tongues and could recognize the two most commonly spoken Confederate tongues. So he would have known if the speaker was confederate based on her accent, yet she didn’t have one.

Questions in his head he reached for the radio, only to tumble. Bumping his head on the floor, or was it the ceiling? It was hard to say, but after a moment to stabilize, and a few more calls over the radio, he reached the console, took a breath and responded, “Capsule, who is this?”

There was a pause on the line, “Names aren’t that important, but you might want to know your heat shield is defective.”

Berxi blinked, “And how would you know that?”

“I’d show you but your radio is a little too... primitive for video reception," she took a breath, “So I’ll just have to explain to you the basics of long range material analysis.”

What followed was a whirlwind explanation of how they’d found a defect in his heat shield, much of it went right over his head. Berxi was just glad he managed to grab his notebook before she lost him entirely and managed to write it all down. A quick check of the strange math that came with it however came up with similar numbers to the ones he was given.

He sighed, “So what you are saying is I’m a dead man, thanks to a manufacturing defect? Why didn’t I explode on the way up?”

The alien woman, at least he thought she was, replied, “Well the short of it is that your shield could take the friction of going up, but it's not going to be able to take the additional stress of going back down.”

“So I’m a dead man breathing, is that it?”

“Pretty much yes,” replied the woman, “but now that you know about the defect, you have a chance.”

“A chance?”

“You have a second capsule already on the ground, yes?”

He blinked, “You know about that?”

“We do, the second capsule has the same defect, but being on the ground means it can be fixed.” she paused, “If you have some paper, I’ll relay the instructions for the repair, and modifications to your airlock, then finally I’ll give you the launch window and burn times required for a successful rendezvous and docking maneuver, along with the modifications that capsule will need.” she took another breath, “and for these I will need you to conduct a thirty second burn in t-minus two minutes.”

He blinked then glanced at the navplot Xau had made for the capsule. “So if I understand that right, you want me to shift into a higher orbit?”

“It will buy the ground team an extra three days to make the modifications and the launch.”

“I don’t have the supplies for that!”

“Well we can fix that.”

“If you are who I think, you could likely take me down.”

“Oh sure, we can easily do that, but we won’t. I’ll have someone send a supply crate your way. I’m sure it will be a good chance for you to practice that spacewalk you planned.”

He blinked, “Do you have a spy in our base or something?”

She didn’t answer, only told him to make the burn, which he did and then gave him all the instructions which he relayed to the facility.