Hellhawk
Astarte had a recurring dream, one where she was falling endlessly through the galaxy, until right at the end when she would realize that it was all a dream, and she would then begin to soar. Flying in the Voidhawk felt just like that, one moment she was falling endlessly, and the next she was flying. She had flown many times before, but nothing came close to the exhilarating feeling she had right now. Maybe in her next life she would come back as a pilot.
Marshal certainly knew how to use his plane to its fullest, he seemed to dance through the air like a graceful ballerina. He pushed the angular craft to the limit of what a human body was capable of taking with very intricate and thrilling high-g maneuvers, Aster had felt her vision darken at the edges of her vision a couple times. She knew that a large part of the grace and speed came from the Voidhawk, a plane that easily passed mock-7 without shaking itself apart, but the rest came from his skill as a pilot.
He pushed the plane to its physical limits, and when they hit a speed that would have begun to literally melt the plane around them he flipped a switch to activate a shield projector. The specially shaped field was like a second skin, only millimeters off from the main hull, it absorbed the intense heat caused by air friction and redirected the energy in a beam of heat and light out the back side of the ship. She had never seen such an ingenious use for shield projectors.
Unlike ray shielding or EM shielding commonly imaged in science fiction the field of electrostatic shielding was blunter and far less complicated. The same principles that were behind spatial folding and warp fields could also be used to artificially create a bubble of solid ‘something’ outside out the ship. That ‘something’ didn’t have mass, and was technically ‘not there’, it could bounce off oncoming objects, absorb directed beams of energy, and even protect from almost all forms radiation. It was insanely good at taking on directed energy attacks and redirecting that energy to other points across the bubble to be radiated back out as visible light and heat. Using it to act as heat shielding and then redirecting the heat into a tight beam behind the ship was a genius innovation of preexisting technology that could one day very well open up marvelous new ways to use the technology. It might even be her answer to better cooling systems.
“Even if I don’t buy the ship, I would certainly be interested in potentially pursuing more uses for the shaped shield bubble you’ve invented.” She said through gritted teeth.
“That would be something I would love to discuss more formally, but for now would you like to see what she can do in space?”
Aster laughed “do you even need to ask?”
With that he pulled up on the joystick and the ship shot upwards through the atmosphere, there was a brief spout of turbulence as they past through the last remnants of the atmosphere. She watched through her AR helmet as the Voidhawk strafed past Deimos and continued to accelerate forward on sub-light engines five times faster than the Astaroth. In space there was no opposing force to slow a ship down or to fight back against acceleration, but the simple laws that bound all Newtonian physics did provide a check on the rate of acceleration. Simply put ships with a lot of mass didn’t accelerate as fast as others, the simple answer was more engines to provide more thrust, but those same engines also added more mass so eventually you met a dip of diminishing returns for every bank of thrusters you added. More efficient thrusters answered this conundrum by providing more thrust for the same amount of added mass, but the cost of truly powerful engines ballooned in price since only one company held all the blueprints and patents for that technology.
Doing the math in her head she could already tell that Penton had made another brilliant leap through in preexisting engine technology, because this speed just wasn’t possible with standard high grade Union ion engines. Both this ship’s atmospheric and sub-light capabilities could revolutionize the entire industry, and would be a great new weapon to add to her arsenal. But modern space warfare wasn’t about sub-light or atmospheric speeds, it was also about FTL speeds
“How fast is she at warp?” she asked.
Aster couldn’t see his face, but she knew there was a smug smile present as he changed their heading and pushed a lever forward and brought the ship into warp. Technically speaking going into warp didn’t add any extra g-force despite the speed, but Astarte could have sworn she felt her stomach sink as the modified Voidhawk accelerated. She watched with astonishment as the little eight-segment display ticked up, it passed 10 kilo-lights within seconds, passed 15, then 20, only stalling out at 24.78 kilo-lights.
“That’s insane!” she gasped “the fastest ship I own can only hit 22 kilo-lights.”
“There are some downsides, right now we’re at her max speed, but she can’t sustain this for too long. She’s more comfortable at 17-18 kilo-lights, and even then she only has about six hours of battery.”
“Can she recharge in the field?”
“Not yet, I’m currently working on a way to use an electrostatic field to absorb starlight and turn that into power, but that’s still in its early stages.” He explained.
“How early?” she asked.
“You need to get within spitting distance of the star, close enough to overwhelm rad-shielding and melt the ship.”
“Still, there are a lot of places you could reach with 3 hours at 17 kilo-lights. My ship can only hit 5 or so comfortably.”
“That’s still very impressive, as fast as most lane runners” his voice changed towards the end, like he was discreetly hinting at something.
Aster chose to ignore whatever he was insinuating at and pressed on “How often do you fly her; it must be a bother always checking your flight plans with the space controllers.”
He laughed “It would; if I ever bothered to. The stealth tech that made her so impressive in the 21st century is still enough to keep me off their radars, especially after the modifications I have made with new tech.”
Aster chuckled along with him as the he slowed the ship down, warp fields generally lit up in many different colors as it pushed through the interstellar medium due to the gas hitting the edge of the field. Those gases were then rapidly energized and transferred their charge back into the warp field, but at lower speeds the fantastic colors faded away and she could get a good glimpse of the trinary system of Alpha Centaury. At the onset of warp technology every scientific organization on earth had begun to seriously contemplate a journey to break past the hold of Sol and truly venture forth into the galaxy and touch the solar winds of Proxima Centaury. Warp capable missions to Mars, and the first stable Martian colonies were only the first step, like the launch of Vostok 1, it was only the beginning in a brave new chapter of space exploration. And now here she was, observing Sol’s closest neighbor on a whim, with technology that wasn’t truly Terran despite being added to a Terran vessel.
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Sometimes she felt like her people had their best years stolen from them, humanity had spent centuries dreaming of putting their best foot forward as they began exploring the stars. The best and brightest all coming together to bravely push past the darkness of the galaxy, illuminating the mysteries of the universe. But instead the Union had robbed them of that opportunity. They had terraformed Mars in only eight years, gave them a map of the stars, sold them warp technology that had blown any human achievements right out of the water. And then to add insult to injury the Union refused to acknowledge them as a species who had more to offer than just cheap labor and plentiful raw material.
Even after 178 years of Union membership there still weren’t any human diplomats, despite being the people who brought the Balikstro and Kaydic together and overcame centuries of fear and hysteria. Terra’s long military traditions and doctrines that could changed the entire nature of warfare and truly put an end to threats from pirates, slavers, and all the dark monstrosities that lurked in the void were ignored and shunned. Terran scientists were callously disregarded and left to dabble in their labs on Mars, big core world companies wouldn’t even give them the time of day. Marshal Penton had practically revolutionized three key technologies of ionic space travel in truly ingenious ways, but all he had to show for that was a black mark of ‘potential rebel sympathies’ on his permanent record.
Penton made a wide low warp arc around the star and began to bring them back home. They were both silent on the ride back as Aster made up her mind, she wanted this ship, this ship and many more like it. “Would you mind idling here for a little bit longer, the view is truly extraordinary.” She said softly as she stared at the three stars through the filtered display of her helmet.
“Not a problem, Voidhawks were built for extended deployments, our life support can easily keep us alive out here for months.” He said as he turned and flashed her another brilliant smile.
“Can you even still call it a Voidhawk with all the new modifications?” She teased.
“Of course I can, the real changes I made were the improved engines, warp emitters, and added a shield system, beyond that she’s still the same ship. This ship was designed to remain in service for a hundred years, the designers knew that technology would change drastically so they made her easily upgradable.”
Aster smiled a placed a hand against the interior “I guess your right; her frame and shape are still the same. If we had even half this tech at the battle of the belt then the course of human history would have been drastically different, hell just a few more of these would have won us the battle of the belt”
He looked uncomfortable and cleared his throat “yes well, maybe it was all for the best, otherwise the diplomatic mission to Sol would have ended in war”
She gave him a sly smile “We’re lightyears from anyone who might report us, might as well speak the truth. It wasn’t a diplomatic mission; it was an invasion. They destroyed the London without even bothering to send a hailing frequency, sank the Sankt Petersburg while the Obama’s admiral attempted to request a cease fire, and besieged Mars after cutting it off from vital supply drops.”
“Mars chose to join willing, and so did the rest of Earth” he protested weakly.
“Only because it was that or starve, and while many nations on earth fell peacefully the United States was very much coerced under extreme threats of total annihilation. It was the same with Russia and China.” Aster said forcefully.
His eyes narrowed as he stared her down “Why are you really interested in my ship?” he asked cautiously.
Astarte smiled “No point in hiding it any longer” she said as she reached within her robes and drew out the most valuable thing in her possession, a folded piece of paper officiated by two very powerful signatures.
She passed it over to Penton and watched with glee as his face lit up with barely restrained shock. “That signature… is it-“
“Real, of course. You can call him yourself to get the truth straight from his mouth if you want, just use the code phrase ‘better to rule in Hell, than serve in Heaven.’”
He looked alarmed, “but that would mean that your… that you really are a pirate!”
“The correct terminology is privateer, but yes. Besides, we both know that you had your suspicions, most do after they dig into my business as extensively as you did.”
“You knew?”
“Of course, I haven’t been able to get this far without having informants of my own. Though most who dig into my past are rarely ever heard from.” She said off handedly.
“You killed them?”
“Some, others go to a black sight where they make a nice life for themselves, it depends on their intentions.”
“Then why am I still here?”
“Because despite whatever bad reputation pirates have I’m not actually a bad person, you looked into my past only after I initiated contact, you were just being prudent. And besides, I reached out to you because I wanted to do business with you, can’t do that if your dead.” She smiled.
“And what’s to stop me from sending us both into that star and ending whatever mad mission you have concocted” he growled.
Aster smiled evilly and flipped up her eye patch, showing him the guttural scar down the side of her face and the blank unseeing void of a ruined eye. “Because it wont do a danm bit of good, despite my influence and power, I am expendable. And my ‘mad mission’ will go on without me, and because I think you sympathize with my ‘mad mission’.”
“It would mean all out war, with casualties in the millions!”
“And the cost of doing nothing might be billions!” she snapped back.
His eyes went wide as he caught her hidden meaning and realized where those ‘billions’ would come from.
Aster flipped her eyepatch back down and resumed her calm demeanor “And it wont have to be that bad, in war what matters more is annihilating the enemies ability to fight, we can minimize civilian casualties with proper weapons. My fleets are like a broad sword, big, deadly, and powerful with proper backing force, but they are not the most effective at small decisive strikes. This ship could be the prototype for a whole new generation of starfighters that will quintuple our effectiveness and versatility, and I’m going to need thousands of these.”
“Thousands!”
Aster quirked her head “Well, eventually, for now I’ll be happy with ten or twenty for training purposes, after that we’ll need 200 to fill Obama’s wings”
“You’re going to recommission the Obama?” he asked in complete befuddlement. Astarte really enjoyed flipping the tables on powerful people and forcing them into the back foot while she pressed onwards.
“Officially we’re renovating it into a luxury cruise ship, but unofficially we’re upgrading it with the most powerful equipment money can buy. And if you’ll agree to join us you’ll have all the funding and resources you need to further perfect the marvelous innovations you have made.”
He put his head in his hand and rubbed his temples “Join you? I’m on a rebel watch list, the Union wanted to confiscate this ship and shut down my whole company after I showed them what we could do. There’s no way I could build thousands without ringing a whole lot of alarms.”
Aster smiled and withdrew a folder from her robes and passed it to him “Enclosed you’ll find that keeping the build up a secret wont be as hard as you think, I and many other very powerful people have been putting a lot of effort into developing an out of the way deathworld as Terra’s first successful colony world. MDY just recently finished developing their first extrasolar facility with Temple Drive Yards. And I have put a lot of effort into making sure Pandemonium had the tools to build the machines that make the parts for other machines, in short I think we have the perfect place for your company to set up the appropriate facilities to fulfill our needs.”
She watched with glee as a glimmer of hope began to flicker behind his eyes, and she knew she had picked the right man for the job. It was well known among most people that Penton wasn’t fully supportive of the Union, and was very disgruntled and disillusioned after they had thoroughly shot down his idea for a new generation of space fighters. He had always been known to idealize the old days of jet fighters and the stunning airplanes his company used to produce, and wanted to return to those glory days. And now here was the opportunity of a lifetime to do just that.
He flipped through the small folder and lifted his head to face her head on and cleared his throat “Do you have a general idea of the kind of craft you’ll need?”
She withdrew the final folder she had brought to this meeting, a file labeled ‘Hellhawk’. “This is a general list of what we think it will need, but after seeing the work you’ve done with this ship I’m fairly confident we can improve on almost every one of those ideas until we have a proper strike fighter. Ideally it will need to be both a long-range strike bomber and a close in air support craft for fleet-on-fleet engagements, both roles will need to be fulfilled through unparalleled stealth tech.”
“Why not just have two different planes for both roles?”
“Because we need these ships as soon as possible, we’re building our air force from the ground up and will be lacking in experienced pilots for a while. Eventually I would love to have a wide arsenal of spacecraft at my beck and call for every possible mission type, but that is a dream for the distant future.” Aster explained, knowing that he had already fallen into her clutches and was fully onboard.
He frowned “I’ll need to consult my design teams on this, God I’m going to have to shut down several divisions and hire on more manpower just to get the first prototype up and ready.”
“Yes, I don’t think I need to really stress how important secrecy is.”
“Of course, lets head back, I’ve already got some basic ideas I want to sketch out with you.” That glimmer of hope had burst into a burning passion.
“By all means, take us home.” She said with a gesture to the control panel.