Nu Trilogy 1: The Esss Advance (9 page)

As Sted took a seat in front of Cam’s desk, he couldn’t help but be awestruck by the lunar landscape spread out before him. Cam’s office took up a full third of the top floor of the circular tower, and the entire outside wall was made of some kind of transparent material.

“What a view!” Sted exclaimed.

“I thought you might be impressed,” Cam said as he entered. “The two-inch thick transparent sapphire windows cost a small fortune, but I think the result is worth the price. My only reservation was the exposure to meteorite impact, and I’m sure you can understand why.”

“Well, you can’t live your life in fear,” Sted replied. “I’m not completely over the trauma from the meteorite that killed my friends and took my legs, but to go back into space as the captain of my own ship again far outweighs any of my fears. I would bet that the chance of being killed by a high speed impact in the belt is more than a thousand times greater than here on the moon.”

“Statistically, you’re being a little conservative. My insurance carrier tells me they didn’t even consider the risk of impact from a meteorite, because the chances of it happening were so infinitesimal. Just look at the rim of this crater, which has been here for over two billion years, and you can actually count the number of small impacts per square kilometer. It averages out to less than one impact per square kilometer every three thousand years.”

Sted nodded. “That desk top looks almost identical to the windows. Is that transparent sapphire as well?”

Cam thumped it with his knuckles. “Exactly. We ordered four extra glass panels in case of breakage during installation, and we got lucky. The construction crew only damaged one. The crane operator misjudged the momentum of the window panel as he was moving it into place, and it banged against the side of the tower. One corner of one panel was slightly damaged, so I decided to use it for my desktop. We just had the crew cut off thirty centimeters from the damaged end and then build a pedestal of nickel from the deposits left by the asteroid that formed this crater. Then our chief engineer designed my workstation to fit into the panel as seamlessly as possible.

“Speaking of our chief engineer,” Cam continued, “I would like to introduce him to you as soon as possible. His name is Aidan McBride, and he is currently on the factory floor working on the Delta class prototype. I can’t think of a better way to get you up to speed on the project than to get your two heads together. I just need you to palm these two employment forms on my workstation, and then we can head down to the factory floor. Later this evening, the three of us can get together in my apartment for some dinner and talk some shop about where we want to go with this project. Do you have any questions or objections?”

Sted shook his head. “I’m ready when you are.”

He stood up and took one last look at the spectacular lunar landscape before palming the forms.

Cam directed Sted back to the elevator lobby. “The elevator down from the tower actually extends four hundred meters below the level of the landing field, directly into the manufacturing facility, so we don’t have to change elevators on the way down.”

Cam pushed the button for the factory floor. “Coming up in the elevator is much easier than going down. The floor of the elevator is covered with a plush carpet designed to adhere ever so slightly to the standard walking shoes everyone at AMC wears on a daily basis. Without those shoes, you might become airborne as the elevator accelerates downward. I’ll just put a hand on your shoulder as we begin our descent. We can’t have our newest employee injured the first day on the job.”

On the extended ride down, Cam continued with his welcome talk. “We will supply you with appropriate shoes and clean room and assembly room uniforms this afternoon. You will have a locker in the executive changing room to hold the uniforms when you’re working in the plant. I also took the liberty of stocking the wardrobe in your new company apartment. You can discard or store all of your Navy-issued uniforms as you wish.”

When they got to the lowest level, Sted stepped out onto the assembly room floor. He was awestruck again by what he saw. The AMC shipbuilding facility on Luna was nothing like Sted expected. He was so used to the austere naval shipyards orbiting both Earth and the moon that he expected to find a miniature version buried beneath the lunar surface. The expected bare walls were covered with pastel-colored lighting panels that gave off just enough light to eliminate all shadows. The room extended for almost half a kilometer to either side of the elevator lobby, and the ceiling was fifty meters above the floor.

“We’re in the middle of the morning shift right now,” Cam pointed out. “As you can see, there is quite a bit of activity just to your right on our prototype Delta. Beyond the prototype on the right are the cradles for assembling four of the next five Deltas once we get
Delta One
up and running. To your left are five more cradles, allowing us to build ten Deltas simultaneously. Come over here and let me introduce you to Aidan.”

“Good morning Aidan,” Cam said as he walked up behind what appeared to be a bystander overlooking the assembly of the ship. “Let me introduce you to Captain Richardson.”

The tall, lanky Scotsman turned around with almost no expression on his face, as if he was lost in thought and had been disturbed prematurely before his thoughts were complete. Finally, he registered what was happening, but it was clear from his expression that he was annoyed as he was forced to catalog his thoughts before they escaped into the void.

“Hello, Cam,” Aidan said as he held out his hand in greeting. He turned to Sted. “So this is the famous fly-boy, Captain Richardson. I hope you have something constructive to offer with the design of our defenses. We have never designed a ship for combat before, so your perspective will be helpful.”

“I’ll certainly do my best, Aidan. Please call me Sted. I am no longer a captain in the Navy, and I won’t be ‘Captain Richardson’ again until we get this little masterpiece of yours up into space. I would love a tour of the ship when you get a chance. I‘ve reviewed the basic plans, but, as you must know, that doesn’t compare to getting your hands on the inner workings of such a complex piece of machinery.”

“Certainly,” Aidan replied. “If you can hold on for another ten minutes, we can finish bolting on the engine cradle. I was just wondering if we should weld those seams around the bolt housing to reduce vibration or just leave them as they are for easier maintenance or replacement. I’m leaning toward welding, because the cradle will probably never need to be replaced. The engine, on the other hand, will slide in and out of the cradle with little effort.”

“Do you mind if I have a look at the cradle?” Sted asked. “I know you’ve developed a miniaturized version of the fusion containment bottle, and I would love to see how the engine cradle was modified to handle the additional acceleration.”

“So you’re an engineer and designer as well as a ship’s captain?” Aidan asked with a definite note of sarcasm. “Cam didn’t tell me about those qualifications.”

Sted’s face darkened. “A Navy captain is responsible for the lives of everyone aboard his or her command, and the more the captain knows about how that equipment is put together and what kind of stresses it can withstand, the better the chance of everyone on board coming out of an engagement alive.”

“Well then, by all means, have a good close look at the cradle and let me know what you think,” Aidan said, obviously not expecting any helpful advice.

Sted walked over to the prototype and circled the engine cradle, examining the attachment point to the frame of the ship. He was particularly interested in how the engine was or was not protected with the double hull design.

After careful consideration, he looked up at Aidan. “How do you intend to maintain the engine and cradle with your double hull design? From what I see, both will be inside of the sphere of protection but not accessible for exterior maintenance. What good is the double hull if the engine has a problem and can’t be repaired?”

“I see your point,” Aidan conceded. “Who cares if the cradle is bolted or welded if the whole engine is not accessible from space? We are going to have to create an access panel in the outer hull and a way to drain the gel from between the two hulls at that point. I’m ashamed to say I did not consider that point when we enhanced the design, going from the Gamma class to the Delta class. There was no need to carry over the engine housing design at all. It should have been redesigned from scratch.”

Aidan walked over to Sted and offered his hand. “I wish to offer my apologies for assuming you were a simple fly-boy. Welcome to the design team. We won’t be able to change the prototype, but we can certainly change the design for the ten production ships. You just set that project back a good three months, but the final design should be much better when we make the change.”

The double hull design was great in theory but difficult to implement in practice. The outer hull had to be connected directly to the inner hull at enough points to maintain structural integrity during maximum acceleration, but each point of contact represented a bridge to the inner hull from an outside force.

Every experiment Aidan performed in the specially designed test chamber failed to protect the inner hull at the contact points. As an engineer, he did not get frustrated easily, but time pressures on finishing the prototype design were mounting, and he had to make a go/no-go decision on the double hull soon.

Over lunch in the factory cafeteria, Aidan expressed his concerns to Sted and asked for suggestions.

“Would it be possible to make the contact struts into telescoping pins?” Sted asked. “Perhaps then the pins would collapse under the pressure of an external explosive force and the gel would absorb the majority of the force.”

“If we did that, then we would have to create a way to shed the entire external shell after it was breached,” Aidan replied. “Perhaps the gel could be used to reflect the force off the interior hull and cause the entire outer shell to peel away. In fact, we could use the collapsing of the first pin to cause all pins to collapse simultaneously and detonate small skin-shedding explosions from the area of each of the pins. I think I’ll pass this idea to my engineering group and see what they can do with it!”

“How do we mount the defensive lasers on the inner hull so they can remain intact after the outer hull sloughs off?” Sted asked. “We have to maintain defensive capability throughout any contact with an enemy.”

“We’ll have to make transparent ports over the lasers so they can transmit directly through the outer hull,” Aidan replied. “Maybe we can use transparent sapphire ports. I know that many of our lasers use the same material for the lens to focus the light as it exits the light chamber. The laser should not lose much power if it passes through a sapphire port. I’ll get some measurements this afternoon on the attenuation of the laser beam through one of Cam’s extra window panels that we stored down here. That will give us some real world figures to work with.”

“Assuming this works, how long until we can get the outer hull manufactured and installed?”

Aidan thought for a moment. “We should be able to get a prototype built for testing within one month. If everything works as planned, it will take our machine shop another two weeks to manufacture the telescoping pins and brackets to fasten to both the inner and outer hulls. I would guess that we can be ready to layer on the outer hull in little more than two months. The transparent gel we’re using between the two hulls is already in the warehouse, so we should be ready to leave for our first field test in eight to nine weeks.”

Sted smiled. “I like the ‘we’ in ‘we should be able to leave’. With all of this new technology, you definitely need to be in the field with me.”

“Not a problem,” Aidan replied. “I really have to see this ship in action from the inside in our first field trials. While the crew is finishing the ship assembly, I’ll be building my test equipment to measure the stress on the telescoping pins during acceleration to make sure we don’t lose the outer hull by accident.”

Sted nodded. “Okay. I’ll head up to the tower to advise Cam that we are planning to field test the ship in eight to nine weeks. He and I are going to have to do a lot of planning between now and then to get the testing organized properly.”