Alexander finished swapping out the last ammo canister aboard Eden’s Fury. He needed to speak with Lucas or whoever was operating the security room to go easy on the remaining ammunition. This was the last of their supply and they didn’t have an easy way to produce more yet.
He could make gunpowder, which was easy enough, but it couldn’t be manufactured with the printer due to its volatile nature. Specialized machines needed to be manufactured to create the grains, and that meant designing and building a machine. He had built a few machines for manufacturing the high explosives used in the grenades, but it was actually safer and easier to produce the explosives than it was to produce gunpowder.
The explosive compound started as a wet mix that resembled something like soft clay and got extruded into the casing. The compound was safe under extreme pressure and heat. It took a very high-voltage spark to set it off.
Alexander would have preferred not to bother with explosives or gunpowders at all, but the compressed gas used in the flechette rifles didn’t have quite the same oomph as their big cousins which used magnetic propulsion. It was probably why the grenade launcher used electromagnetic coils to both fire and program the smart rounds. And also why the weapon was so heavy.
Alexander wasn’t sure why that design was used in particular over just a conventional gunpowder charge, except that maybe it was designed specifically to work in a vacuum or place where they worried about the gunpowder igniting properly.
That was all conjecture on his part. Using the coils did have the advantage of making the grenades smaller, without reducing their explosive potential, so there was one upside.
All that being said, Alexander didn’t want to waste time and materials building a fully functional gunpowder manufacturing line, just to scrap it when he moved away from these archaic autocannons.
He already had the initial stages of a laser design in his program. But those plans were put on hold as other projects became a priority. With the pirates returning, he quickly shifted to the laser project as his main focus.
As he was inspecting the ship, to see what the robots had managed in the last week or so, he thought about the design of the weapon. Like he had told the Hawks, building a laser was easy. It was just the ability to focus and amplify light properly. Alexander could easily create the lenses and focus medium to do this.
The issue he was running into was power.
Specifically, how much power to provide a laser, as well as how to provide this power. If he thought the orbital railguns were power-hungry, he got quite the wake-up call with the laser.
Dr. Lund came in very helpful in this respect. He provided her with the armor specifications of the Eden’s Fury, specifically the most heavily armored portion. And she provided him with a calculation on the amount of energy it would take to melt through it.
He took the figure she provided him and quadrupled it. A straight-on hit, even with a laser, was never really guaranteed. So he wanted to ensure the weapon would do as much damage as possible even with an angled blow.
The problem was, even if he built ten of his capacitor arrays, they would barely be able to provide the power needed for one shot at Lund’s provided power output, let alone his.
Not ideal, but it was doable. If he scaled that up to his power requirement, there wouldn’t be enough free space on the Fury to power all of the ship’s main weapons if he converted them all into lasers.
There were obvious ways around this. He could simply extend the duration of the beam, allowing for a weaker laser to burn through for longer. That was less than ideal considering the speeds, distance, and tempo of space battles he had witnessed thus far. The other idea he had was to simply shunt power directly from the reactor into the laser.
It was technically possible, considering compressed plasma ejection did something similar. But those reactors were designed with that in mind. He would need to test a lot of things to see if his idea would work. The main concerns would be if the reactor could handle the draw and if the laser could hold up to that much power being shunted into it.
As he stepped into the hangar, he decided to approach both paths. If his testing didn’t go well on the direct power shunt idea, he could at least replace one of Fury’s main weapons with a laser, giving it much more range and versatility.
The trip back to the surface was a quiet one. Branston, like everyone else on Eden’s End, was tense. They had all heard the alarm, and seen Damien’s people moving to secure the entrances. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on.
He couldn’t blame the residents, he was on edge as well. The last pirate attack was still pretty fresh in everyone’s mind.
“Thanks for the ride,” Alexander said as they touched down. “I hate to ask this of you, but could you remain in the shuttle for a few weeks?”
“…Um, you’re the boss. But can I ask why?”
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Alexander nodded to Branston. “If we get another unwanted visitor before I can upgrade the Fury, I want to be able to extract the crew of the Destiny instead of leaving them to the mercy of possible pirates.”
The man grimaced at his choice of words. “Nobody should have to suffer such a fate. I’ll stay in the shuttle for as long as needed. If someone can bring me some food and water, I’ll survive. While not the most comfortable place I’ve slept, I’ve experienced worse.”
Alexander squeezed the man’s shoulder lightly. “Thank you for this. I’ll make it up to you somehow.”
Branston snorted. “Promise me I get to be the first to fly any experimental ships you build, and we can call it even.”
Despite the tense mood, Alexander chuckled. “It’s a deal. I’ll have provisions brought out for you.”
***
“That’s the third one this week,” Lucas told his brother.
Damien grunted. “At least they came for Eden’s Fury this time and not those two derelicts like the last ship. Who knows what the pirates took from those ships before leaving again? And I can guarantee you they told others about us.”
Lucas nodded at that. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any weapon capable of reaching the Lagrange point, where those two ships were parked, to take out the last pirate that showed up. “Do you wanna notify Alex, or should I?” With the destruction of the first pirate ship, and the last ship jumping back out of the system, they all knew it would only be a matter of time before more pirates appeared.
“Will notifying him change anything?” his brother asked. “The man is already busy trying to get those two ships towed to the station so they can be covered by Eden’s guns. He should have just scuttled them instead of wasting his time. How’s his progress by the way?”
Instead of making fun of his brother’s worried tone, Lucas flipped the camera feed to the frigate. Six small points of light could seen in the video feed. Alex had apparently built two more of his construction robots and then built ion propulsion packs and a long tow cable to replace where their legs resided. Three were assigned to each vessel, slowly towing them toward the space station, where they would be attached to the Fury so they were protected by the guns.
“Slow,” Lucas stated after a minute.
His brother grunted and pressed the comm button for Shuttle 1. “Branston, you read?”
“This is Shuttle One. I read, what’s up?”
“We have another unknown ship in the system. Sending you the coordinates now.”
After a bit, the man responded. “Ok… What do you want me to do about it?”
“You’re armed aren’t you?” Damien replied tersely.
Branston chuckled over the radio. “The shuttle has a small cannon on it, but I wouldn’t call this tin can armed. At most, I can shoot down a missile or two with the ammo still on board. So if you expect me to throw myself at an unknown ship, you can forget about it.”
Before his brother could blow up over the radio at Branston, Lucas cut him off. “Let’s wait and see what this ship does. For now, they’re not doing anything aggressive. Maybe they will just leave?”
His brother fumed but eventually nodded his head slightly.
It was a good thing they decided to wait and see. A few hours later, they picked up a transmission from the ship.
“Eden’s End, this is Shall. Ya’ll ok down there?” There was a collective sigh of relief at hearing who the ship belonged to.
Shall was one of the freighter Captains who delivered goods to them occasionally. The man certainly wasn’t their friend, he made far more in trade than the items he traded were worth.
“We’re fine,” Lucas sent, after first sending the code phrase they had agreed upon the last time the old Captain was around. “Where’ve you been, anyway? It’s been over a year.”
Lucas verified the return code phrase and smiled.
“Yeah, well, this part of space has been rather too busy for my liking. Thought I would let things calm down a bit. Then I enter the system only to find whatever this is.” Lucas could practically see the man gesturing to all the new icons on his scanner.
“Yeah, things have changed a bit. You can turn your transponder back on, the system’s safe.” If anyone inside STO space learned Shall had an illegal mod to turn on and off his transponder, the best he could hope for was being arrested. With the pirates becoming more active, he was more likely to get destroyed by one side or the other though.
“Don’t look very safe,” he heard the man mutter. But soon his transponder code was picked up by the sensors. Lucas never much understood why Shall had named his ship Fool’s Gold. Then again, their uncle was an odd one, preferring to work alone.
The Fool’s Gold touched down on one of the empty landing pads a few days later, beating the ships Alex was pulling to the station.
A gruff older man with a scraggly beard tromped down the ship's ramp. Damien and Lucas had both come to greet the merchant.
“You trying to give this old man a heart attack by tracking him with those big bastard’s guns?”
“Protocol,” Damien responded coldly.
The merchant grunted and took a breath from the mask hanging around his neck. “I forgot how shit this atmo is. Still can’t believe you idiots chose this place to live. Although, you may not be here much longer if Char gets wind of it.”
“Have you heard something?” Damien asked.
The man chuckled. “I would have to be deaf not to. The whole black market is buzzing about some huge pirate score that’s about to go down.” The man deliberately looked at the new weapon emplacements when he said that. “Didn’t think it would be here though,” he sighed. “What have you idiots gotten yourselves into?”
“We could ask you the same, Uncle,” Lucas smiled.
The man rolled his eyes. “I told you not to call me that. Don’t matter that I’m your mother’s brother. The word makes me feel old.”
“You are old,” Damien stated flatly.
“Well, no shit! Doesn’t mean I need to be reminded of it. Now stop stalling and spit it out, what’s up with all this?” he gestured around.
“Someone bought the research facility,” Damien replied.
Shall’s eyebrows rose. “Well, that certainly is news. Going by all the new toys, I’m guessing this person is filthy rich?”
“Don’t even think about it, Uncle,” Lucas warned, which felt really weird coming from his mouth. That weirdness must have registered with Damien and his uncle, because they both just stared at him.
“Have the stars gone out, or is my hearing going? To think, my little nephew could have had his attitude changed so abruptly. This sounds like a story I need to hear.”
Lucas gave his uncle the middle finger and the two chuckled.
“Well, maybe not entirely. As for you,” he looked over Damien. “Where’s that pretty girl of yours?”
Damien narrowed his eyes. “Just because you’re old, doesn’t mean I won’t knock your ass out.”
Shall laughed. “I see you haven’t changed.” The man walked past them and headed toward the building. “You two coming, or you gonna stand out here all day staring into space?”
Lucas could hear his brother grinding his teeth in annoyance. “One of these days,” he heard Damien mutter under his breath. Lucas just shook his head and hurried to catch up with their uncle.