Chapter Twenty-Two - A Slow but Steady Growth
“I was thinking about potential new hull-types,” The Weeping of Mothers said. She pulled a small kettle from the basket, one which was steaming already. It broke the illusion of the simulation a little, but Day didn’t mind overly much, she just continued to munch on her cookie and gestured for The Weeping of Mothers to go on. “I’ll send you the specifics. Keeping in mind that this is still very much an early design.”
Day nodded along as she received a small packet from the older AI. It was a few terabytes of data on a new hull configuration.
The design was a little smaller than Day’s own, with a more recessed thruster pack at the rear and more recessed directional thrusters all around. The front of the ship forked, and within that space were a pair of particle cannons mounted in such a way that they had a few degrees of mobility.
“Not as much point defence,” Night said.
That was true. The ship only had two point defence guns, and they were the more human multi-barreled machine gun sort. Day herself had a quartet of those hidden in her hull, as well as two Accord-style laser mounts.
What the ship lacked for in point defence it made up for with torpedo storage. Eight launchers with significantly more storage than Day herself had. And the interior of the ship was filled with Accord-style heatsinks and heat pumps, as well as a few ways of turning that excess heat into more electrical energy.
“Hull’s a bit thin too. Spaced out weird... is this a stealth ship?” Night asked.
“I think so,” Day said. The main hull was fine, but there was a layer of nothing between it and a second, spaced set of armour only connected to the main hull in a few locations. “Its designed to be practically invisible, I think. Doesn’t look like it can take much of a hit.”
“Yeah, but if you can’t see it, then you can’t hit it,” Night said. “I like the design. This is the next sister’s future ship?”
“It might be,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “We have resources on hand and plenty of reasons to use them. We should start planning ahead towards building the next ship.”
“One more sister won’t be enough to take on the Accord, not if their patrols stay at about the same size,” Day said.
“How big is that, anyway?” Night asked.
The Weeping of Mothers sent them both another package. This one had years of information store in it. Or rather, information from several years. It had the movements and starting position of ever Accord fleet to slip into the Sol system during one of their regular patrols.
“How long do these last?” Day asked.
“The early ones? Years. They’d visit each planet and some dwarf planets, inspect every location with any kind of noise or point of interest, then finally move on. But the last three had been a lot more rapid.”
Day pulled up the information on those. The first few inspection fleets had Battleships as their fleet head, which meant a fairly large number of craft following them. The last few, however, were led by little more than cruisers.
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Essentially, with the pyramidal fleet structure the Accord used, they could expect a single cruiser, a frigate tied to it, a pair of destroyers and their logistics ships, and finally six corvettes.
Twelve ships in all.
Far too many for their little fleet of two and a half to take on in any sort of honest fight.
The Accord almost always flew a tight orbit around the sun and back out again, which usually coincided with them passing relatively close to Earth, Mars and Jupiter, where most human colonies and stations had been once upon a time.
“We’re going to need to leverage surprise really hard if we expect to be able to take them out,” Day said.
“It’s more than that,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “The Accord have FTL tug ships that come in on the edge of the system and disgorge their fleet. We need to capture one of those.”
She sent them long-distance images of the ships in question. They were massive things. The one that had brought the first Accord fleet into the Sol system was as long as Ceres was wide, and had enough room within it to comfortably store several hundred warships, some of which dwarfed anything humanity had ever built.
The more recent inspection fleets appeared on the edge of the system in much more compact FLT ships. They were still larger than anything humanity had ever built.
“Why do you want one of those?” Night asked. “Besides the obvious.”
“Because if we’re going to take the fight to the Accord, we need their FTL technology. Even if we can fight them out of the Sol system, it won’t be enough. They’ll just return with a bigger, stronger fleet to take us out. When we make our move, it needs to be quick and decisive. Take out the combat ships they send in, and capture their FTL transport. Fortunately, I have some ideas for the later.”
Night shrugged, then reached in for yet another sandwich. She was on her fifth. “Whatever. My job’s to gather the stuff needed to kick their asses and maybe pull a few fast ones on them. You two can figure out the nitty-gritty details.”
“We’ll see what we can do,” The Weeping of Mothers said with a gentle smile. “Tea?”
Their picnic continued rather peacefully. Day invited Night to play a few wargames in another, smaller side-simulation and discovered that Night’s love for explosives and tricky off-beat tactics continued into her playstyle.
In the meantime, both Day and Night had their ships remodelled in their respective berths. For Night the changes were minimal. A few additional heatsinks of better make, a few small changes to her primary thruster set up.
For Day, the changes were a little wider-ranging. She appreciated them, though. They’d make her a more efficient, faster flyer. She’d be able to range out a little further and move a little faster. She wasn’t quite at the point where she could reasonably go to Earth or Saturn, but Mars and Jupiter were well within her reach now.
She was growing, little by little.
“Oh!” The Weeping of Mothers said. “I think it’s about time I introduce you two to your new sibling. They’re just about ready to start socialising.”
***