Chapter Fifty-Seven - Shielded
Seeing as how the rest of her family was busy at the moment, Day decided to get to work salvaging the captured ships. Other than the frigate sent Night’s way recently, there were nine captured vessels left.
Day went from ship to ship with her repair drones and ripped out a few important components. Mostly the ship’s transponders and log computers. There was a small wealth of information there for her to sift through, and she didn’t want to lose it. The transponders ran off of modified Accord systems, and she imagined they might come in handy later. If they ever wanted to look and sound like Accord ships, then these would make it easy to pass themselves off as the enemy, or at least as civilian Accord ships as long as no one looked too closely.
Once everything she wanted to leave behind was placed in radiation-protecting boxes and shipped off to Ceres, Day realigned the ships into a neat row and slaved all of their systems together to her own hull. For the moment, Day was now a collection of ten ships, nine of which she had only moderate control over.
All ten ships started a very slow, very casual boost out of Ceres’ far orbit.
Day sent her goodbyes to Dawn and The Weeping of Mothers as she started to put distance between them.
There were facilities on Ceres for the deconstruction of these ships, of course, but at the moment they were working overtime putting together the hull of their next ship, a rather large, yet-unnamed, artillery destroyer that featured their first-generation MAC cannon.
Io Base, in the meantime, was currently finishing up work on the frigate Day had sent over a little while ago. Night was quite talented at tearing ships apart in orbit with nothing but repair drones and larger tug drones to keep the materials apart.
There was also NOVA QUANTUM on Io, who seemed keen to research Accord ships whenever she could, or at least their weapons.
Day imagined she’d be happy with this haul. The scavenger ships weren’t overly well-armed, but a number of them had particle cannons still and missile racks that had intact, if older, Accord style ship-to-ship missiles.
The trip was going to take a while at the speeds she was limiting herself at, so Day decided to be productive with her time.
The two Accord-style destroyers they’d captured were both clearly from different times. One of them was quite a bit bulkier than the other, with drives that seemed less effective, and a tighter crew compartment. There were a few other differences, even if the overall frame of the destroyers were similar. Some had to be modifications brought on by the scavengers. Things like robotic gripping arms weren’t part of the standard Accord fleet design, and both destroyers had such arms replacing some of their turret mounts.
What interested Day most though, were the ship’s shield systems.
The very same that had successfully bounced particle cannon rounds in the past. NOVA QUANTUM had simulated the shields well, hinting at their function, but this was the first time Day actually got to play with one of them herself.
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She activated one of the ship’s shields, then winced as she almost lost control of the vessel.
The electromagnetic ‘fuzz’ that wrapped around the ship was so loud from up close that it made her sensors whine in protest.
She shut it down for a moment, and considered what she’d just learned.
From up close, the shifting electromagnetism was awful for any kind of sensor system and disrupted anything but tight-beam communication and very powerful signals. That would make it terribly difficult to coordinate a fleet, she imagined.
It would also make it hell for a missile or torpedo to keep a steady lock on the ship within the fuzz. Things like proximity sensors might short out, and more delicate electronics would break down on entering the shield’s area.
So, it was a sort of rudimentary, but very potent, ECM at the same time?
She received a ping from Ceres, Dawn asking her if everything was all right.
Day sent back a report with what she’d learned so far, and told her not to worry.
Then she turned on the shield again and left it on while she tried to see what she could do to see through the fuzz. For the most part, it wouldn’t be a great counter to their torpedoes. Those had a blast radius measured in hundreds of metres, and while that was about how far the shield extended, it was quite weak on the outside of that range.
She imagined that this was much better against the sort of missile that the Accord used.
Day continued to poke at the shield with various sensors, but nothing came of it... until she tried to see what the other destroyer’s sensors were picking up. Accord sensor equipment was actually behind their own for the most part.
And yet the destroyer had a perfect view through its shielded copartriot’s electronic fuzz.
Day was surprised for a moment, then she saw behind the curtain.
The electromagnetic shielding was output at a specifically modulated frequency. By tuning their sensors to the opposite, they could see right through it.
On a whim, she modulated her communications the same way, and discovered it was as if there was no shield at all, other than a faint staticy buzz to the communications.
So, that was how the Accord did it. They created a... not quite perfect shield whose faults they could ignore.
It wasn’t ideal, of course, but it was relatively cheap. The devices creating the shield bubble were fairly small and placed across the hull of the destroyers. They weren’t even all that energy intensive.
Day shut the shield down again, then started to disassemble the device. She now had a clear idea of how it worked, all she needed now was to see the internals to confirm her hypothesis, then... well, the next time Day went in to upgrade herself, she suspected she was going to come out of it as a significantly better prepared warship.
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