Chapter 18: Lunar Lunacy II
<strong>Complications </strong>
Most of the things onboard Seeker seemed to be the same as before. There were a few changes though, most notably that Mia wasnt standing watches anymore, but it made little difference as she was still on the bridge a lot of the time. Mia was careful though not to givemand instructions, and coursed any through the watchmand duty officer.
She alsomandeered Seekers smallest conference room, which happened to be on the deck below her quarters, and just two cabins over.
She had it converted to her new office and had Chief Haskell installmandmunications facilities. Haskell had also taken the initiative to cut through the two adjacent cabins, and cut through Mias own cabin so shed have direct ess to her new office. (The upants of the now-smaller cabins were moved to more spacious refitted cabins, the old contents of the refitted cabins moved to the now-smaller unusable ones.)
As soon as her new office was ready, Mia moved in, much to the relief of the entire bridge crew, and conducted most of her work from there. The First Ambassador was a frequent visitor, and Nick practically lived there - he found themunications facilities extremely convenient when working.
There were now guards posted at the door of her quarters and office, not really for security, but to control ess to her. As a sign of the times, many senior officers preferred having personal security. Mia did not like to have any but she at least acknowledged the need for having a few guards, if just to give her office that much-needed touch of ceremony. But Silverman and Romarkin did insist she at least find an assistant.
Since there was no way around it, she chose Nick since she had him around almost all the time anyway.
Nick epted the position of Mias Aide-de-Camp eagerly - he said it wasnt too big a change from his current work anyway, and besides, he wasnt too used to military life, and this would probably be a little better, and closer to what he was used to before being drafted. Mia joked that he probably just liked the gold-and-blue braided aiguillette that hed get to wear.
Once all of that was set, Mia started developing a routine, and she spent the remaining weeks they still had before arriving on Earth in her office, finishing up some more details before they got near Earth.
Her first meetings in her new office were spent working with Commander Devereaux, Commodore Oshiro and Marta Running-Streams people, as they got a handle on the EM Suppression Field technology. It was mostly Phase-Wave videocons but her new officesm facilities were great.
In hertest meeting, she found out Commander Devereauxs people had quickly finished their investigation of the abandoned escort ship and carrier, boosted them into a slow course towards Titan, and had started making their way back to Seeker.
Devereauxs people had found many keyponents of the cruisers FTL systems were taken out, mostly therge electromaic generators of the engines. This rendered her engines inoperable so they''d abandoned it, along with the empty fuel carrier.
As for Titans engineers, they found these subsystems retrofitted into the drive of one of the Tiros hulks, and Martas people confirmed that their interaction caused the field effect. Martas people also concluded that there would be some kind of Cherenkov-like effect, simr to a badly tuned FTL field or maybe like their inertia converters. This might be why they called it the Curtain of Light, but they wouldnt know until they made their own prototype.
Oshiros people also found out from the captured Empire personnel that the p-dash nature of the retrofit was problematic for its Tirosian crew. Microwave radiation burns caused by poorly assembled microwave shields affected a lot of their engineers. One of them died while they were interred because of untreated and unreported burns.
Microwave burns are simr to electrical burns - but they run deeper into tissues than normal thermal or chemical burns. They were simple to treat, actually, but with what they were dealing with at the time, not many of the affected Tirosians were able to get their burns treated even while they suffered more burns. Many died during their journey to Saturn, and a few more died while interred, mostly from infections, fluid loss or nerve damage.
The captured Tirosians readily gave up their secrets and their ships, and Martas people were able to quickly replicate the effect on a small scale. They were now in the process of building their own safer and far morepact versions. Marta herself was, in fact, unavable for the meeting since she was concentrating on creating their own prototype EM suppression generator. There actually very few captured Tirosians, and Mia wondered why.
As for how to protect against the EM suppression fields effects, they were not sessful. For now, there were no known ways of protecting against the EM field.
Mia left it to the PRC people to find out how tobat the field effects. For now, what she needed to work on was weaponry that worked inside the field.
During the Titan encounter, the things that they were able to use were rail guns, rockets and missiles, so she thought using rail guns would be a good idea.
As an older ship, Seeker still had rail guns - a total of eight individual rail guns in fact, each capable of firing projectiles at up to several thousand meters per second, giving each over 4,000 megajoules of energy, or over a kiloton of TNT. Their destructive energy was basically from the projectiles kic energy, but that could be increased if explosive projectiles were used.
Hermes and Constetion, like all Type-Ones and Type-Twos used more modern weaponry, but they did have at least one rail gun that fired through ten tubes, capable of firing projectiles at velocities that gave each about half the kic energy of Seekers. The rail guns were used to supplement their energy weapons and missiles - after all, FTL ships had enough power to generate the millions of amps needed, and the guns themselves were small enough and easily manufactured.
The ease with which rail guns could be manufactured made the humans wonder why the aliens didnt use them, which was confirmed by the alien hulks.
As for Earth fighters, they couldnt have rail guns - the energy required was just too much for the little spacecraft to produce. It was lucky Titan had several small, mothballed eighty-year-old railunchers that had independent power, so they were able to equip some of the Shrikes. But, Okonkwoined, where would they be able to find enough of the outdated mechanisms to outfit all their nes?
As for individual hand weapons, that was easier. Many handguns that used bullets propelled by exploding or expanding gases were still in wide use. There were none on board any of the ships, however, but it would be an easy matter to fabricate simr weapons.
Thest item on their daily agenda was the problem ofmunicating without using radio or Phase-Wave. Except for light andsermunication, the crew of the Seeker found no other ways that worked.
So they decided to look further intoserms.
Other than that, everything else that they tackled was mostly administrative, and they breezed through those items quickly: Mia hurried those along to keep her staff meetings down to a few hours only, so she could attend to the conferences that were still continuing - the so-called Channels A, B and C meetings.
Before the meeting broke up, though, OConnell brought up the matter of the admirals barge as theirst housekeeping item.
The term admirals barge was taken from the old 20th-century maritime term for the g officers personal boat that hed use to get ashore, or move from ship to ship. It would have been a captains gig, but since it was for Mia, and since the Seeker was the g carrier of the fleet, naturally, theyd have an admirals barge.
And thats what she called the Mud Turtle that Mia had asked to be refitted for her use when she needed to get around. Since the Fifth Fleet would be traveling between systems most of the time, it wasnt unreasonable that theyd need a ships boat dedicated for officers to move around, hence the admirals barge.
OConnell shed a picture on their screens.
The Barge was a Mud Turtle, like OConnell said, but it was re-done so that it now sported a radome on its roof, round Crystalline ports at the corners forserms, extra ports on the sides that she exined were mini-rail gun tubes, and a couple of round, stubby wings. They werent wings, actually, but the housing for maneuvering flywheels.
The ship also had a new paint job. It now sported a darker gray color than the normal gunmetal gray of Seekers shuttles and Shrike fighters, and had a narrow red trim running around its hull. The red trim wasnt just for aesthetic purposes it actually hid the piping for a spruced-up, reinforced Structural Integrity Field, or SIF.
On its port and starboard hulls near the bow, it sported two admirals sunbursts, and beside the painted sunbursts the words 01, Galileo DSC Seeker. The hull towards the stern had miniatures of the U.N. g, and the rear boarding hatch had the words EDF FIFTH FLEET DSC 05 SEEKER, FLAG.
We have never had captains gigs and admirals barges on any Earth spaceship. The only one that has something like that is Earthship Two. So my people had to do some research. These are authentic colors and livery for a barge.
Anyway, the Galileo is ready to go. And the reason Im showing her to you is that you might want to look her over the modifications may be useful, and you might want to retrofit the other ships in the same way.
The Galileo, Dupont mused. Where did you get the name, Capitaine OConnell?
It was suggested by the Admirals Aide-de-Camp. He says its from an old twentieth century television show. Also the name of an old Renaissance scientist.
I like it.
Mia grinned. Thank you, sir.
-----
Though the tech briefings on Channel A continued, the pace of the briefings had significantly slowed down. There was still a lot to learn from each other, but most everyone had suggested to end the briefings after a few days. The whiz-bang nature of the talks had petered out, and the researchers wanted to work on other things. So the briefings were discontinued.
To substitute for the briefings, the people from CETI transmitted to the aliens several tranted encyclopedias. They exined these were actually just books that everyone could buy. They just tranted them. Together with the documents Mia gave before, they suspected the aliens would take at least a few months getting through the books.
What the CETI people didnt tell them, of course, was that these were the original references made by the researchers responsible for the original transmission sent to the Federation. Those researchers hadbed through the material beforehand, of course, removing any sections or references that Mia (when she was still Bill) wanted to keep secret: like things about Phase-Wave, spacecraft numbers and details, weaponry, poption distribution, et cetera. The CETI people had been working on these since the original transmission was sent, and by now, they were so sanitized that they held no strategic value for the aliens whatsoever. They never did transmit them, and Jenn thought this was the opportune time to send them.
The Elyrans and Dixx epted them gratefully, and reciprocated by transmitting their own version of an encyclopedia as well. These were so much better than the first books they gave, and Jenn and her staff were d to receive them. What was more, they were also given Dixx as well as Elyran technical references on various subjects, allowing Jenn and her people to cross check/cross-reference them with each other.
To reciprocate, Sahsha sent some other stuff - she sent copies of some fashion and entertainment magazines.
There were a few magazines still publishing regr printed issues and Sahsha thought it might help the aliens understand them better if they could get copies. Jennifer approved it so they did quick scans and trantions and sent them off.
Ren and many of his friends in Talon were quite excited about the magazines, and they pored over the pictures and articles, amazed at the Earthers ideas on fashion and entertainment. It seems an interest in celebrity gossip was somethingmon to both races.
To Ben and his friends, Earther fashions seemed quite suggestive and risqu, and sometimes they found them scandalous. But they were professionals and made allowances. There was no ounting for taste, especially for aliens. But one thing they agreed on: they learned a new Earther word, and that word was sexy. Earther fashions were sexy.
They wanted to reciprocate, and Ben, the Princes closest friend on board, went though the entire science staff and scanned copies of their magazine collections.
Most publications on Elyra were still print-only so Ben had to scan them first, but that wasnt a problem, and he was able to transmit them in short order.
Sahsha was excited to receive the magazines, and could hardly wait. And when she received them, she was over the moon, and started poring over them as soon as theputer spit them out. She took half a day, and she was like a little girl looking through an old-fashioned fairy tale pop-up book. To Sahsha, Elyran styles looked very simr to seventeenth century French court fashion, and in her mind, she imagined herself dressing like Cindere or something, walking the halls of the castles of Elyra Prime.
She even went through the trouble of tuning in to the conferences and thanking Ben personally.
Mia, as did most that were there, listened in on their conversation, and she couldnt help but smile. It was like listening to two giggly adolescents excited by the idea of a shopping trip to a mall on Earth (she wondered if Elyra had malls). She could easily imagine these two bing best friends. Maybe she could bring them on a shopping trip to the New Mall of America in Minnesota or the New Mall of Asia in Man. Goodness knows she owed Sahsha at least one shopping trip from when she was still Bill.
She whispered to Nick, to make a note to ask the Secretary-General to make Sahsha a permanent member of the contact team, and to rece her trantor device with a smaller, more portable version. Her rapport with Ben could be very useful, and they definitely needed someone who was a good documenter.
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On Channel B, the newly reformatted channel B briefings had now morphed into what amounted to a social science and history ss. Prince Ren, his assistant Ben, their staff, and Professor Priestly now jointly managed it. Their efforts were supplemented by Jaxx, a Dixx scientist from Admiral Daxxs staff, Cale, the Dravidian from the Keepers staff that they first met during their encounter with the Keeper of the Heritage, plus two silent Erocii, also from the Keepers staff, that seemed to be there to assist Cale.
The attendees were usually the science staff of Fifth Fleet, Earther and Federation alike (Daxx and Reena assumed they were part of the Fifth Fleet, and Mia went along), plus arge contingent from CETI and many from the Earther universities.
Cale did a masterful job, and his portion was by far the most visually interesting. His presentation was thorough, and the graphics and illustrations his Erocii assistants put up gave everyone a lot of information, which covered Dravidian and Erocii history and culture, as well as a Dravidians take on the various major races in the Federation (the portions on the Dravidians and Erocii were particrly detailed, of course).
For the First Ambassadors people, they did it together - four of them did the lecture in what an Earther would have said was abination lecture and pantomime. The information was not as rich in reference material since everyone knew the Arachnians had lost everything, but they did their best, with the able assistance of Nick as friendly trantor/go-between, and all of the resources of Seeker at their disposal. It was surprisingly entertaining yet informative. The Arachnians were puzzled by what they were told was a standing ovation until the First Ambassador exined. So, under the First Ambassadors direction, they did a respectable version of a curtain call bow.
It was, in fact, very entertaining, and Jennifer was happy they did it that way. Any xenophobic feelings that people may have had were surely washed away by the humorous drama-sketches that they performed, with Nick as their straight man.
As for the Elyrans, during Rens lecture, he included a ckboard and pointer in his lecture, although he didnt use the traditional Earth-style green board and white chalk. What he used looked like a yellowish papyrus or some kind of woven straw mat tacked to a board, and what looked like charcoal sticks. He behaved like the absent-minded professor that Earther schoolchildren would instantly recognize. His part, Jennifer thought, was the most popr, especially among Earther females. He and his assistant Ben were extremely cute, after all.
Not to be outdone, during her part, Jennifer did the whole schoolteacher shtick as well. She couldnt find a ckboard or chalkboard so she used a standard Crystalline disy board and several UV markers. She finished it off with the stereotype teacher look - a long ruler in her hand, eyesses on a chain, long-sleeved white blouse, pencil skirt, tights and ck pumps.
Jennifer made sure, though, to keep the top buttons of her blouse unbuttoned. She also picked her favorite patent-leather high heels and one of her shortest short skirts. She wanted to y up to her Elyran audience, too, after all. The Earthersughed when Jennifer did the stereotype stern schoolteacher look, but she was sure she had as big an effect with the Elyran males as Ren did with the Earther women.
Mia took a little time to exin to the non-Earthers the cultural references for Jennifers outfit, and they seemed to understand. Ren exined that they had a simr male archetype in modern Elyran culture.
Young Miss Amelia! Jennifer mock-eximed, and pped her ruler in her hand several times. What do you think youre doing? Stop chatting with your ssmates! Back in your seat!
Yes, Maam, Mia said contritely, ying along. She scurried back to her seat, and everyoneughed.
Needless to say, Jennifers lecture was the most popr among the Elyrans.
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Upon Jennifers rmendation, Secretary-General Romarkin had shared recordings of the raw, unretouched recordings to all the legitimate news agencies with an audio trantion channel and a subtitle channel built in. There was, however, a thirty-minute dy before they sent it off so that CETI had time to cut out any security-sensitive material. The breaks caused by the deleted spots were quite irritating, actually, so most of theworks took the raw feeds and edited them, adding appropriatementary andmentators, music and other things to give them more mour and pizazz. They also re-transmitted them at more convenient viewing hours, and in more ptable, re-cut and rearranged fifteen-minute chunks. This also gave them a chance to sneak in theirmercials in between. Ren and the others watched the edited versions of their history sses and were bowled over by the quality of the shows. Ben giggled and said he was a video star now.
The sses became the most popr transmissions on the Sr Network at the time. The entire human poption was very curious about the aliens, and any material about them was gobbled up. But, more than that, these transmissions were the most popr ones since people had a chance to see the aliens live. They were especially popr among the younger viewers - they thought the Elyrans very attractive, especially Ren with the girls, and their ents were thought of as very cute (most preferred watching the videos subtitled instead of dubbed).
Some of Jennifer Priestlys people were worried about xenophobia, and they thought broadcasting the sses was a risk, but they were relieved when there were very few signs of this, as Jenn predicted there would be. She attributed the peoples eptance to the Seeker staffs friendly, casual and cordial rtionship with the aliens, especially Mia, which was so obvious in the ss. If a beautiful, intelligent, morous person like Mia could be close friends with what superficially looked like arge orange-and-white spider, they couldnt be all bad. There were even rumors that Mia and the First Ambassador had actually be close friends. Plus, the Elyrans were cute, the Erocii were likerge, colorfuldybugs, Cale the Dravidian looked like a big, cheerful bear and the Dixx looked like tall, regal birds with bright feathers.
Jennifer was actually a little worried about the reverse. Xenophilia wasnt really something she prepared for, but there were lots of signs, especially for the Elyrans. It wasn''t necessarily a bad thing, some may even say it was a good thing. But any good sociologist (and Jenn was the best) knew that this could be as bad as a xenophobic wave. Images of the cults and fanatics of Earths past were in her mind, and those were not good.
But that was probably not going to happen. Guess well see, Jenn thought.
-----
As for Channel C, the closed-door meetings were ably managed by Secretary-General Romarkin (when she was avable, which was seldom), Sahsha Delyer, and Admiral Daxx herself.
The discussions were fairly well along already, so the meetings usuallysted only for an hour or so nowadays. That was because the work they didtely was mostly to review and refine the wording of the treaties and other documents they had been working on. The documents were all mostly done, and they just needed to be finessed and approved. Their days were now spent mostly going over suggestions and modifications requested by various interest groups or certain Earth politicos.
The advantage the humans had over the aliens was that when a decision had to be made, the humans authorized to make decisions were avable to them, and therefore the decisions were fairly easily made. As for the Federation envoys, they were only empowered to approve certain things, and they were already at their limit. They had to disapprove most of the new changes pendingment by their people back home.
They were also working on another document, something they were calling the proposed Terran-Federation Treaty, or what Marc Bidwell called their wish list. It was their working draft of the treaty they would propose in case Terran membership to the Federation would be approved, patterned after the existing treaties currently enforced in the Gctic Federation, and predicated on best-case scenarios and the things the Earthers wanted: favorable trade positions, for example, right-of-way in trade routes, trade priorities, equitable mutual defense agreements, fair settlement rights and so many others. They had been heavily modifying this document using input from the First Ambassador, the Prince and Princess, and Admiral Daxx, about what they felt the other races in the Federation would or would not agree to. It was fortunate that the Arachnians were advising them - it was amon view in the Federation that Arachnians got the worst treatment from most. Not that there was anything remotely like overt oppression or discrimination among the races, but it was indisputable that the Arachnians hade out of most trade negotiations or arbitrations on the losing side. Things were improving for the Arachnians, however, as they were starting to be adept at how to deal with individualists instead of team yers, as Earthers would say. Romarkin and her people were reaping the benefits of all of their hard-earned lessons. The resulting document was one they felt would find easy approval by the Federation yet stack the cards in favor of the Earthers, and to a significant extent, the Elyrans, Arachnians and Dixx.
During the frequent lulls in the discussion, when one or the other person needed to concentrate on reading a newly edited section, the others would chat about the Isles of Scilly. The aliens were excited to see their new home on Earth, and were bowled over to find out that they were part of a duchy of the Lady Amelia, which she was allowing them to use. And when she was free, they would usually ask Mia to dial in and talk about them.
Mia dreaded it when the Elyrans, Arachnians and Dixx wanted to talk about the inds, but she did her best to be a credit to the Secretary-General, and to help forward her scheme: she had dutifully researched the Isles of Scilly, which she was informed was her duchy now. How could she take this seriously, she thought. And with a name like Scilly... It didnt really matter that the inds were supposedly hers - since they were mostly deserted, especially after the Third World War. There really was no real difference to anyone whether they were Mias or not.
There were still, however, several hundred hardy individuals who made the inds their home while they managed them for the British government and performed patrol, erosion prevention, agricultural recovery and weather monitoring work, as well as managing the next-to-nonexistent tourist facilities.
These hardy civil servants were surprised to find out just days ago that the isles they''d been living and working in was actually Mia''s duchy. They were not too suspicious, though, and did not question this - many records were lost in the war so reconstructing records and returning property held in trust by the government to their rightful owners happened from time to time. They werent as surprised as Mia was, of course, but she didnt contradict the British government.
The people living in and working on the inds were all given options to ept new government positions on the maind or to be part of the soon-to-be embassypound. Most jumped at the chance to stay, of course.
Admiral Silverman also had his people deploy personnel from the Seabees the Navy Engineering Corps - to the inds, and started doing what was necessary to prepare them for upancy, and to train the would-be embassy staff. They dutifully sent reports to Mia, and she dutifullymitted them to memory.
In meetings, Mia would tell the aliens that they were mostly upied by government personnel posted there to manage them. None were native to the inds since they were abandoned during the war, but all of their new residents were very fond of the ce.
The global government had started preparing the inds, she said, clearingnd and putting up temporary structures for their new guests.
She exined that the weather was mostly mild throughout the year, except when there were storms or in winter of course, and the Elyrans seemed excited as they listened to her.
Ren was curious about how Mia became their duchess, so Mia went into the song and dance that she had worked out with Romarkins people.
Well, Your Highness, I am notpletely sure, actually, she said. Many records were lost in the war, and families lost touch with each other. All I know is that the inds have been passed on to me because an ancestor on my mothers side was a duke, and I inherited the title and property. Truth be told, I havent been to the inds in a while, (try never, she thought) but I know how beautiful they are, and I am sure that you will enjoy your stay.
She then showed them pictures of the inds, most particrly St. Marys, which she imed was her ancestral home (she actually got the pictures from the Cornwall Tourist Board), and talked about the features of St. Marys and the other inds, taking most of her material from the tourist brochures she was given.
To Ren and Tasha, her exnations were all proof positive of Mias credentials, and they treated her from then on as a royal peer. Taking the lead from them, the rest of the Elyrans, Dixx and Arachnians all referred to her as Lady Amelia from then on, or My Lady or Lord Captain.
Mia sighed. With everything that was happening, she now had to endure this as well. And she knew her people would start doing the same. She sighed again. Complications... Life really was full ofplications...
<strong>Innovations </strong>
Over theing days, Mias people would make headway in developing EM suppression-proof equipment, and they did their best to push innovation to the edge.
The teams did the easiest things first. In order to provide their people withmunications, even ifparatively short-range, they retooled the helmets and armored headpieces of all their people and, using off-the-shelfponents, put sixteenser emitters and detectors in a silvered ring. The idea was, when theser system was engaged, it would fire invisible, harmless message-encodedser beams in a global pattern (they confirmed with the PRC people that the frequency of light they used was not affected by the EM suppression field). When a beam hit a detector on another helmet, that other helmet would re-transmit the message as well as transmit its wearers own message beams. In this way, the wearers would create their own real-timeser-basedmunication rywork. The user could even switch channels, and listen to specific people since everyone had their own encoding, or listen to everyone at the same time.
They also replicated the same concept onboard the three ships, their fighters and their shuttles, and if they received any of the encoded messages from the suits or the other ships, theyd act as repeaters as well.
One of the big things withsermunication was that the parties needed to be precisely lined up and targeted. Not with this new system. The two main limitations with their system however were that theirmunications could easily be intercepted and they had to have a minimum number of people to create awork and ry messages. But this shoring was thought a small trade-off to not having anymunications at all.
The next thing that they tackled was the individual sidearms for the crew.
When Mia asked what they hade up with, she was presented with two tubes - one of them six inches long and the other about a foot and a half long.
They were based on an idea someone from Hermes had. Essentially, they were blowguns powered by super-pressured gas cartridges, allowing precisely machined metallic slugs to be propelled at around two hundred meters per second. In the prototype, there was gas enough in each cartridge to fire up to two dozen rounds, and it was a simple matter to swap out a cartridge for a fresh one, with a protective valve that allowed it to operate in vacuum.
The tubes were to be mounted to their existing weapons, and would be fired by the same trigger. They also intended to mount a low-poweredser sight so all they need do was to shine thesers red dot on their target and fire, and theyd hit it every time (the frequency tuned to a filter in the soldiers visor, so she would be the only one to see her gunsser dot). It was an old-fashioned twenty-first century innovation, but one that had the virtue of working long-distance yet remaining impervious to the EM effect.
Mia wondered that, ifsers worked, why not makeser ray guns (Nick snickered at the term). The Hermes chief engineer exined that any beam with sufficient power to be used as an offensive weapon would just break down.
The more difficult item was thest one they tackled - equipping their small ships with rail guns.
The first thing Beths people did was to break down one of the twenty antique railunchers that the people from Titan had installed in the Shrikes. The gun itself was easy to fabricate but their problem, as before, was the power supply. They couldnt figure out how the oldunchers were able to store the necessary power to make them work. They seemed to be made from regrponents, but no one could figure out the trick. That is until they cracked open one of the enormous, ancient battery cells.
Each cell had a wire made of some alloy that wasnt used much anymore due to their brittleness in vacuum. They were wound around and through an armature made from a powdery substancepacted into a cylinder in a kind of crisscross pattern no one recognized.
Through experimentation, they found the cell was actually a capacitor, able to hold an enormous charge but only for a short period, which could only discharge it all in one go, and if not discharged in, at most, a minute, was liable to explode. Used as a battery, it was a failure. That was probably why the technology wasnt used anymore and why there were no references about it avable.
But for a device requiring a gigantic jolt of power, it came ready-to-order, provided, of course, one could generate the minimum power it required at the start. The capacitor that they cracked open for example, could only hold charges two hundred thousand amps up, but no less.
Another catch was it would take a second or so for it to charge enough to fire a round, even with a Shrikes or an Eagles semi-FTL engine. The rail guns rate of fire would therefore be around thirty to forty rounds per minute, at best.
Mias people were able to scrounge up enough of thepounds they needed to make batteries for just a few of their ships, but at least now they knew how to do it. When they were docked, they were sure they would be able to requisition enough raw materials.
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Mia also had other meetings to help her decide on the rest of her fleet. She originally thought of requisitioning four more ss J cruisers and converting them to ss J-Ones just like Seeker, but apparently, there were no others. Thest one was actually in the middle of being dismantled and recycled for its metal. Seeker was, unfortunately, thest of her kind.
Mia called up Marta Running-Stream for advice, but Marta said the other Legacy ship types were too much trouble to convert, so she advised Mia to just select from the Type-Ones.
That reminded her about Hermes and Constetion. She checked on their required upgrades, but Marta said it was a fairly straightforward upgrade.
Type-Ones didnt differ much from Type-Twos - they were basically the same design, except that Type-Ones had therger FTL engines meant for light-year velocities, and were outfitted with fewer Eagle Fighters and less Cobra shuttles. In fact, she said they already had the Type-One engines for Mias ships ready, and were just waiting for them to arrive. Once they did, Martas people could swap the engines out in a few days.
As for the new crew makeup, Mia wanted to get as many social scientists and CETI specialists as she can get, but that might not be possible. Still, though Phil didnt want to give up any of his staff, Mia felt she might be able to sweet-talk Jenn into giving up some of hers.
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Mia also spent a lot of time tuned in to Channel B and was fascinated by the material being discussed. It was a good idea that the briefings were reformatted. As for Channel C, after a few days, they had officially dered their workpleted. They were only waiting for the Earthers referendum to ratify the treaty now. To cap their work, Mia turned over a prototype Terran-Elyran trantor to the First Ambassador - one of many that the Earthers nned to use for the duration of the stay of their visitors on Earth. It was intended that the Arachnians test it out prior to their arrival.
The First Ambassador eagerly epted the duty to test-drive the prototype, and Ren just had to giggle at his excitement.
On Channel B, the lectures went well. Thest one to lecture was Jennifer. She took two whole days to lecture about the Earthers, and there were a lot of questions during and afterwards.
The lectures that the Elyrans gave also provided the Earthers with a lot of info, as did those of the Dixx, the Dravidian and the Arachnians. For example, they found that with the Elyrans, as with the Detterex, tradition and honor were important drivers for their lives. As for the Dixx, obedience to authority, and how well they were able to do so gave them their sense of fulfillment. For Dravidians, personal sess was important, as was following rules. The highest honor was achieved by attaining the highest personal sess yet still following the rules. As for the Arachnians and Erocii, to be part of a n or family gave them their fulfillment, but the Erocii found the need to establish their own dynasties instead of just being part of one an equally important drive. As for the Tirosians, it was amon view in the Federation that they were cunning and ruthless, willing to do anything to get their way, but onlymitted to engage an enemy if they had the advantage.
The aliens didnt see it, but the new information gave Earth strategists insights on how to manage them. Jenn said that the advantage of the human psyche, at least in this particr situation, was its multifacetedness. Compared to the Federation races, humans were unusually neurotic. But that was because humans were a lot less single-minded, which allowed them to second-guess the aliens, even to the extent of anticipating their actions.
Jenn thought, given a few thousand millennia, humans would probably be the same as the Federation - set in their ways and less willing to consider new methods of doing things. But as of this moment, the Earthers were the provincials that didnt know table manners but were also the ones that werent mired yet in Federation cultural narrow-mindedness, allowing them to explore ideas and concepts that would not have even urred to the aliens. Time would tell if Jenn was right.
For now, everyone was feeling good about the progress they were making, but the pessimist in Mia thought it couldntst. Unfortunately, she was correct.
Several days beforefall, a full fifteen days before the earliest expected arrival of the Empire ships, they received a message. It seemed radio signals all across the board had disappeared.