LIGHTNOVELONLINE 71. Lessons
That night after dinner I told Sarah what happened between me and Rebecca in the ship's lounge. And despite her curiosity I refused to go into the juicy details. I felt kind of guilty about it, like I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd cheated on my girlfriend.
Sarah didn't see it that way though, instead of being upset or disappointed she congratulated me. Not just for having sex with Rebecca, but for doing it in the ship's lounge, despite the risk of herself or Jenny showing up and catching us in the act.
In fact since the ship's internal sensors covered pretty much everything except the private cabins, Rebecca and I having sex in the lounge pretty much guaranteed Jenny saw the whole thing. That realization left me very embarassed, and also maybe a tiny bit excited. Meanwhile Sarah thought the whole thing was great, she even told me she felt kind of envious.
On the other hand she assured me she wasn't jealous, and she wasn't the least bit upset either. She was still hoping to get that close with Rebecca herself, and admitted the only reason she hadn't got that far with Jenny yet was the AI was still reluctant to try it.
I hadn't realized it but apparently much of the time they were working on the android upgrades, Jenny was actually connected to it via the diagnostic cable. So she was 'in the body' and could potentially feel and react to Sarah's touch while they were working on things together.
Sarah figured Jenny wanted to wait until all the upgrades were complete and she was able to take posession of the new chassis permanently, before she was ready to give those functions a try. I pointed out that maybe she just wasn't interested, but my girlfriend seemed confident that the AI was curious, albeit cautious and shy.
The following morning the boss was maybe a bit awkward around me at breakfast, then after Sarah and Jenny went back to their project Rebecca and I started out with some casual conversation. We even played cards for a bit. That didn't last long though, and by noon the two of us were naked in each others arms. We spent the rest of the afternoon together in the ship's lounge again, until we both needed to get cleaned up before dinner.
And that night my girlfriend did convince me to share the juicy details, which led to the two of us having a rather late night as she demanded a detailed reenactment.
I was almost worried that that was going to turn into a new routine, with Rebecca and Sarah conspiring to keep me exhausted all the time. It didn't turn out that way though, and I had some complicated feelings as I tried to figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Finally, the day before we were due to arrive at the Fuminja Cluster our captain announced that the four of us would be spending time in the cockpit after breakfast. She decided it was time she got us all up to speed on the ship's offensive and defensive systems.
As soon as we were done eating the four of us headed forward, through the sealed bulkheads and into the cockpit. I tried my best to ignore the patched window off to the right as I took my seat. Rebecca sat next to me, while Sarah and Jenny stood behind us looking over our shoulders.
"We'll start with the defensive kit," the captain said as she indicated the control panel in the centre of the main console, directly between her station and mine.
The panel was dominated by a display screen in the middle, with a row of controls down either side. Rebecca demonstrated how to power it up, then went on to explain what it was and how it all worked.
"The display basically ties into the ship's main sensors, but it's filtered to focus on active targets and threats. That's basically any ships or other objects in range which have a power source. It's set to monitor for specific energy signatures, like fire control sensors locking on to our ship, inbound missiles, and pulse or beam laser energy patterns."
She continued, "The ship has two main active defence systems, one for missiles and the other for lasers. These controls here enable and arm the laser defences, and those ones control the anti-missile system."
"What about kinetic weapons?" Jenny asked. "Like the tungsten projectiles you mentioned back at Ecclestone's world?"
Rebecca grimaced, "There really isn't any good defence against kinetic weapons, apart from not getting hit. And the Demeter's tough, but she's not that graceful. So we just hope nobody shoots at us with those."
That wasn't the most reassuring strategy, but there wasn't anything we could do about it.
Meanwhile the captain continued with her lesson, "All the Demeter's defences, and armaments too for that matter, are hidden under the outer layer of streamlined hull plating. Some of them are hidden in the open, disguised as additional manoeuvring thrusters. Others are covered by retractable panels, so they're only exposed when activated."
She continued the lecture, "Our anti-laser defences are your standard poppers. Also known as puffballs, also known as High Density Ablative Cloud Projectors. They shoot out a little canister that explodes into a cloud of tiny particles that absorb and scatter laser fire. They might not stop a laser from hitting us, but they'll reduce the damage a fair bit. Each one's good for five or six seconds, but they're less effective if we're manoeuvring. There's a total of twenty-four poppers on the hull, to cover pretty much every angle. Each one is good for four shots before it needs to be reloaded."
Sarah spoke up, "How do you reload them?"
"We don't," the boss stated. "We get them loaded at Mel's shipyard."
"Next up, the anti-missile defences are a pair of automated short-range point-defence pulse laser turrets. They're both hidden under retractable hull plating. Once they're activated they'll emerge and tie into the ship's sensors to scan for incoming missiles."
The captain continued, "They have a range of about two hundred and fifty kilometres, and each one's rated to take down two missiles every ninety seconds. One's positioned top-side forward starboard, basically just over our right shoulders outside the cockpit. The other's hidden next to the aft-most port-side landing gear. Between the two they can cover most of the ship."
"Finally the last line of defence is," she said with a bit of a smile, "The ship's just really damn tough. The keel's almost a solid mass between the main and lower deck, that runs the length of the ship from the forward tractor-repulser array straight back to the aft unit. The whole ship's built around that backbone. The inner hull is just as rugged, and the streamlined outer hull can act like an ablative layer. It'll take the damage before the inner hull or any sensitive equipment, but if we lose enough of the streamlined layer we'll be limited to landing on airless worlds or orbital platforms until we get it repaired."
She paused and glanced at me then back at Sarah and Jenny and asked, "Any questions so far?"
I shook my head as I stared at the defence controls. It all looked fairly straightforward, and most of it was automated once it was active.
Jenny was quiet too, but Sarah spoke up.
"I get that the point-defence lasers are meant for taking on incoming missiles, but could you repurpose those as weapons if you had to?"
Rebecca shrugged, "I suppose? I've never tried, but I bet you could work out a manual override for them? They're underpowered though, each is just a single pulse laser and like I said, the range is only good to a couple hundred kilometres. If you were trying to use them on another ship you'd need a very lucky shot to do any real damage."
My girlfriend nodded slowly, "Understood. I was mostly asking out of curiosity, but maybe after me and Jenny have finished her project we'll look at ways we can improve the ship's defences."
The captain grimaced slightly and suggested, "Maybe talk to Mel before you do anything like that? Him and his dad are responsible for most of those sorts of upgrades on the Demeter, and I don't want you two getting into a fight over who's the better engineer."
"Got it," Sarah replied with a smile. "I'll make sure not to step on his toes."
After that the conversation moved on to the ship's armaments. That was the lower console, another aftermarket addition in between the two front seats, down by our knees.
Rebecca pointed out the controls as she started explaining, "The Demeter's really not built for combat, and her computer's not exactly rated to handle fire control software. So the she can really only manage one designated target at a time. If we get into a situation where people are shooting at us, our best bet is to jump clear as fast as possible. In the rare occasion where we do need to shoot back, we've got two options."
She indicated the first set of controls, "There's two missiles loaded into a launcher hidden under the exterior hull plate along the starboard side. Minimum safe range to target is fifty kilometres, maximum effective range is two thousand kilometres. This will let you designate a target and launch one or both missiles. You can also use manual control if you want, but typically you'd rely on the built-in tracking sensors. Let the missiles do their job while you're plotting a jump."
"Both missiles have the same kind of warhead Lebeau tried to use on us," she added. "They're designed to detonate as close to the target hull as possible, then the fragments will rip it open."
The captain pointed to the other set of controls and smiled, "This is our secret weapon. Gabe called it the backfire, Mel calls it a tailpipe. Hidden under the hull plating in between the two main engine pods is a small autoloading rail-gun. It's a fixed mount, pointing aft."
She continued, "The idea is if someone's chasing us, trying to run us down or shooting at us, we turn tail run as fast as we can while we line this up on their bridge or cockpit. The charging coils are concealed in the engine assemblies, so on sensors it looks like we're overdriving the engines? They think we're preparing to make some big manoeuvre or something, maybe they focus more on our trajectory or try to anticipate where we're going to turn? That's when we let them have it."
With a grim smile she stated, "The tailpipe's got two magazines feeding it, each one holds six rounds. One's loaded with eighty-kilo solid tungsten penetrators, the other's tungsten penetrators with a high-explosive core. It takes about ten seconds to charge the coils and load a projectile, and it's only accurate to about five hundred kilometres. Less if you're actually manoeuvring. And where everything else I've shown you is basically automated, the tailpipe takes some skill to operate. When you get it right though, it's pretty damn effective."
Sarah and I were both silent as we stared at the tailpipe's controls. I had a feeling my girlfriend was thinking the same thing I was, that you didn't expect to find that kind of military hardware on a tugboat.
"Have you ever used it? The tailpipe I mean?" Jenny asked quietly.
Rebecca nodded, "A couple times. Most recent was seven or eight years ago? Me and Gabe got jumped by pirates out near Marshal's World. They were in a modified medium freighter, about twice the size of the Demeter. They had the thing kitted out with a couple laser turrets, and they converted one of the cargo holds into a fighter bay. They sent one of their fighters ahead to try and cut off our escape while the freighter and a second fighter meant to run us down."
"They ordered us to power down and surrender, or else they'd shoot holes in our hull till we ran out of air?" she continued. "So Gabe turned tail and got us running, but he kept the power down to about fifty-percent thrust. That way we let them get close, to about a hundred kilometres. Then Gabe turned it over to me, I got the tailpipe lined up, and pulled the trigger."
"What happened?" Sarah asked.
The captain had that grim smile on her face again, "I put a solid tungsten penetrator through their cockpit windows. It ran the length of the ship, straight through into their engine room. Hit the power-plant and the whole damn thing went up at once. They came apart so fast the blast took out the nearby fighter too. Honestly it was kind of annoying, there wasn't anything left worth salvaging."
She added, "At that point the other fighter was completely screwed. She suddenly found herself in a short-range craft with nowhere to dock and nowhere to land. Me and Gabe offered her a ride if she surrendered, so she did."
I asked, "What did you do with her?"
Rebecca shrugged, "We let her go on Ecclestone's World, apparently she had family there. We kept the fighter though."
"Anyways," she said as she gestured towards the controls again, "That's about it for the lesson. Any other questions?"
None of us could think of anything else, so class was dismissed. Sarah and Jenny headed back down to the workshop where they were hoping to finish phase two of the android project today, and I decided to spend some time tidying up our cabin.
