Chapter 4

Day 3

The one other thing that Sam and John accomplished while they were at the base, was a design for the gauss gun. It was much more advanced than the primitive rail gun that had been developed at Earth’s Power Labs.

The design resembled a Gatling gun. The rounds it fired, however, were spherical. They would be projected at speeds of two thousand to four thousand meters per second, depending upon the atmosphere, or the lack thereof. The rounds were seven centimeters in diameter, and were made of a Teflon coated depleted-uranium outer section, with a titanium core.

Each gun could fire up to fifteen hundred rounds per second. It had a replicator attached to the ammunition chamber, so that the gun had a ‘never-ending’ supply of rounds. Sam had helped in the design, but wondered if John was designing them for ground assault vehicles. When he told her that he was considering them as ship-to-ship or ship-to-ground weapons, Sam argued that the projectiles would never be able to breach the shield of another ship. John asked that they do some computer simulations, and find out for sure.

Sam complied. As she expected, the round bounced off the shield. John was not completely satisfied, and had her show a close up of the impact point on the shield. It showed a very slight indentation. John had her reset the test. This time, there would be two hundred rounds hitting the shield, at the maximum velocity they would be fired from the gun. Sam complied, and the results were encouraging. When the last round hit the shield, it had partially penetrated. The rounds had gone nearly halfway through the shield. Even Sam was intrigued, now.

John asked her if she had any of the Hruthian ship designs available to her. She had two Rhylertian frigates, and one that was a fighter class sized ship in her data storage. She explained that the Hruth were more likely to be in stolen ships, than in ships of their own design. John had her set it up, anyway. This simulation was to be more of what would happen in ship-to-ship combat. One of the new fighters would swoop in, and fire a one second burst at the Hruth fighter. He wanted to see what damage, if any, that the burst would cause. He also wanted to find out about any ricochet damage to their own ship.

As soon as Sam started the simulation, the enemy ship exploded! Sam started the simulation again, but slowed it down. This time, they saw what happened. After the 487th impact, the rounds penetrated the shield, and began bouncing around inside of it. They literally ripped apart the enemy ship, until its shield generator was destroyed. John spotted a couple of problems, though.

Firstly, the ship firing the weapon got hit by several ricochets, which did minor shield damage. Secondly, a little over a half second into the simulation, the rounds were passing through the other side of the shield. This meant that if there were friendly ships in the way, they would get hit.

They played around with the firing speed, and dialed it in at twelve hundred round per second. That was enough to totally destroy the fighter, without too many strays. However, it was a different story when they tried it on the frigate. Three out of the four simulations showed the frigate sustaining heavy damage, but it was still able to fire its weapons. After a few more adjustments, it was totally destroyed each time. John suggested that the guns would have to adjust for each class of ship they might encounter.

Sam countered with her own suggestion of timed bursts from the guns. John, not grasping the idea, had Sam explain. Sam elaborated by saying that it would be time consuming to adjust the firing rate of the gun itself, especially in battle. She further pressed her point by saying that no matter how fast the AI’s actions, it could cost a shot at an enemy ship while the AI was adjusting the guns. John nodded, letting her know that he was with her so far. She said that if the guns were set to where the firing rate was constant, and only the firing burst was timed, the AI would have a better chance of having the guns ready without a delay.

John’s reply was for her to show him. Sam changed the parameters of the guns back to their original setting, and ran simulations with timed bursts. It was just as effective. Sam offered that as they encountered new hostile ships, they could add to the preset times accordingly. John agreed with Sam’s idea, and she added the guns to the design of the new ship.

Now it was time to address the damage the ship received. John had an idea. Though he was catching up on the technology of Rhyler, he was still behind.

John explained to Sam that on Earth, electricity cycled sixty times per second. His idea for the shielding used that principle of cycling. Only, instead of the electricity cycling, the generator would randomly change the frequency of the shield. That way the shield would constantly renew itself.

The white board appeared again, and started filling itself with numbers and symbols. John kept up with the computations for a little while, and then they went beyond his understanding. Four new sections of white board appeared, as the previous ones were filled with calculations. Finally, Sam looked at him with a crooked smile.

“I take it my idea has some merit?”

“As I have said before, the creativity the people of your planet have shown is astounding. I have to wonder if it has something to do with the limits placed on your minds. It has forced your race to ... I believe the expression is: ‘think outside the box’. Even when you see something that works well, (in this case, the ship’s shields), you look for ways to improve it. To answer your question is that yes, it will work. I have the drones working on new shield generators as we speak. But, I see a problem that using the new shield will create.”

John raised his eyebrow as he looked at her, waiting for her to continue.

“With a multi-phasing shield, it would have to be dropped, before any weapon could be fired.”

John smiled. This was something to which he had actually given some thought, in case his idea worked. John had her save the gun designs, and then cleared the holographic clutter. He had learned enough physics to know that the shields were reactive. This meant they reacted either to impact, to explosions, or to high levels of energy. A person could walk through a shield. It would be uncomfortable. It would make every hair on the body stand on end. Still, it could be done without damaging the person. In the same way, an extendable turret could lower the weapon through the shield.

He had Sam bring up the design for the new ship. Then he added the turrets as he had envisioned. The guns would have nearly a 360-degree firing radius. Since there was a gun on each wing, he didn’t want them to be able to shoot each other.

Sam stepped up, and made some minor alterations. Not only would the guns rotate 360 degrees, but they would swivel up and down, also. This added to the firing range of the weapons. Then she added a lock out, so that the gun pointing at the other wouldn’t fire, but the one in the clear would. Naturally, the lockout wouldn’t let either gun fire at the ship.

John wanted to finish the weaponry on the ship, since the gauss gun was a short-range weapon. He asked Sam if the plasma cannon was a Rhylertian long-range weapon. She shook her head, and explained the plasma cannon was the Rhylertian’s short-range weapon. John rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and then decided to have Sam add plasma cannons to the arsenal anyway. He had her put them on an under-wing turret. He didn’t want to interrupt the shield during battle, at all.

He shared his reasoning for adding the plasma cannons with Sam. He explained that the gauss gun, though effective in simulation, had never been used in battle. She agreed, though she looked surprised when he wanted the plasma pulse cannons to be in the ten giga-joule range, since those were normally mounted only on heavy cruisers.

John headed off her argument by explaining that with all the modifications in the drives and designs that the ship, even with the extra weight, would still be very nimble. Sam looked thoughtful, and John knew her mainframe was crunching some numbers. A moment later, she smiled.

“You are right, John. Even with the added weight, this ship will be as nimble as the most maneuverable Rhylertian ship. It will maneuver almost as well as the one-man-fighter we designed.”

John returned her smile, and they continued on. Sam was describing the long range missiles the Rhylertians used on their ships. He had Sam move what they were working on to the side, to bring up a 3D image of the missiles. He immediately saw room for improvement. They worked on them, ‘till John was happy with the design. Actually, there were two designs variations of the original missile. The first used a standard missile, but with a small anti-matter warhead. The other was also an anti-matter warhead but the missile had a miniaturized cloaking mechanism. Then it was time for a coffee, and bathroom break.

When he returned, John asked how many of the missiles they could carry. Sam said six of any type. She brought up an image of the ship. It showed how the missiles and a loading/launching mechanism were mounted inside the wing.

John frowned. He didn’t like it. The new ship would be stuck with the same inherent problems that air jockeys on Earth dealt with. Once your missiles were gone, you had to get ‘up close and personal’ with the enemy’. When you did so, your odds of surviving the battle dropped drastically.

John asked a question that seemed so far off the subject that it caught Sam by surprise.

“How will you manufacture the missiles mounted in the ship?”

It only took Sam a moment to recover, but the stunned expression she’d had was quite cute.

“Normally, the base (or the battle cruiser where the fighter is stationed) has large replicators that create all of the ship’s armaments.”

“If the replicator only produced missiles, could it be downsized?”

“How small, Commander?”

“Small enough to fit into the wing of the new ship.”

John was hoping his guesswork was correct, but he could be wrong. Finally, Sam turned to him with a raised eyebrow.

“How did you know?”

John realized what she was asking, almost at once.

“Sam, I didn’t ‘know’. I made a few suppositions, and apparently I was correct. I guess I don’t have any preconceived ideas of what will or won’t work. I was lucky on this one. Calculate and compare the weight difference between three missiles with their load/launch system; and the replicator, with a load/launch system.”

Sam smiled and said, “Commander, I made some suppositions of my own. I assumed you would want a missile already in the launching mechanism, ready to be fired. I also assumed that you would also want the launcher on a turret, to be lowered through the shield. I went one step further, and provided the means to rotate the turret. That eliminates the need for any rear-facing weaponry. Even with that added to the weight of this system, the ship would be lighter than if we used the old system. I should warn you that with the replicator being downsized to fit, and with the complexity of the missiles, the system won’t be able to fire as quickly the old load/launch system. My calculations show it can fire a missile with a standard warhead, every ten seconds; a standard missile with an anti-matter warhead, every fifteen seconds; and finally, a cloaked anti-matter missile, every thirty seconds.”

After these additions were made, John was satisfied with the plans. Before leaving the moon, Sam took John into another room. This one was filled with round shiny orbs sitting on tripods. To John they looked like oversized lawn ornaments. This was exactly what he wanted. John wanted them to look as non-threatening as possible.

John approached several, and they opened up revealing a book with a computer DVD ROM disk, Blu-ray disk, and a single USB drive. When John asked about the added disk, Sam explained that it took a single DVD ROM or Blu-ray disk to be able to teach how to pronounce all Galactic Standard words, with translations into the other languages required for its destination. Sam went further to say that they could fit it all on one USB drive, but she was aware that not everyone had a device to use it. Whereas, a DVD ROM and Blu-ray disk was in every laptop of desktop computer made these days. She explained that the disks were interactive, and similar to the language aids sold on Earth. When she told him what would occur after the book and disks were removed, he laughed until tears were flowing down his face.

After seeing all of the probes sitting there waiting, John decided to have Sam launch the first one hundred and ninety-eight probes. Each one was to land at the government headquarters for each one of the countries. He also suggested that they land during the hours of darkness, because people would probably panic if they came down during the day.

John spent the next several hours zipping around the solar system. Finally he began to feel comfortable with the controls, and started enjoying his flights. He was glad he’d had the ‘hands-on controls’ designed into this new craft. Typing in vector commands wasn’t the same as the joy he had experienced with flight simulator games. Once back on the dark side of the moon, John went to the mess for supper. He ordered a ‘Joe’s style’ pizza, and a diet soda. The two ate and talked, and John gave Sam the assignments he wanted her to look into.

He wanted her to close out his retirement account, and have his things put into storage ... on Earth, for now ... until they had more room at the base. He also wanted her to see if there were ways for them to make money. There were things from the planet they were going to need. All of those things were items the replicator couldn’t produce.

Sam said she was also going to do a little reading on the subjects they had discussed that day. It took John by surprise to hear that Sam wanted to read the Bible, and the Torah. Then she mentioned ‘Chariots of the Gods’, and that she was going to check out the early history of man.

John realized that this had to be the first time he had ever heard those four subjects mentioned at the same time.

He went back to the ship to rest, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the pods had been replaced with beds. They were the same as the beds that were going to be on the new ship. John slipped out of his uniform, and was about to climb into bed, when Sam appeared. She reminded him of his earlier request to alter him so he had no body hair, and for the subcutaneous implants, he nodded his head. The light that emitted from the ceiling surrounded him for a very brief period. He expected a wave of exhaustion, that didn’t occur. He climbed under the covers and laid his head down.

“Commander, this is your third day on this ship without release, are you feeling sexually frustrated, yet?”

John was stunned into silence by the question, but Sam was not deterred by his lack of response.

“Commander, from what I have learned about the people on your planet, they tend to suppress their sexuality. I have to assume by your lack of response, that you have somehow been influenced by your upbringing. You should be aware that during my research, I have discerned that for the most part, the organized religions are responsible these restraints. For them, it is a form of control. Rhylertians were not inhibited in such a crude way. They embraced their sexuality. In fact, Commander, there were many studies done. It was discovered that regular sexual release improved job performance.”

John noticed that Sam kept referring to him as ‘Commander’, and realized that this must be something official, or had to do with the functions of the ship. The way that she began the conversation was almost as though it was a command imperative. After sliding around so the blanket was across his lap and his legs were over the side of the bed. He decided that honesty was the best policy in this situation and tried to set aside the uncomfortable feelings this line of discussion was causing.

“Well, Sam, I am not really in the mood to masturbate and...” with a wave of his arm he indicated the rest of the ship as he continued.

“I seem to be lacking in willing partners at the moment.”

He tried to control the pent up frustration from creeping into his voice, but only partially succeeded.

“Commander,” Sam said tenderly, “I am not trying to make you uncomfortable, or remind you of your loneliness. However, not all crew members aboard Rhylertian ship were compatible sexually. Sometimes it was sexual preference, and other times it was a lack of compatibility in their personalities. Rhylertians took this into consideration, when designing the ships that would be gone for long periods of time. I have added those considerations into the design of the new rest areas.”

“Okay, Sam. I was lost, before. Now I’m in the middle of nowhere, and the trail of bread crumbs is missing.”

Sam tilted her head to the side and asked, “John, I am unfamiliar with that terminology. Could you explain?”

John took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. At least this was something he was more comfortable with.

“Sam, it is a reference to Hansel and Gretel, a ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tale’. You should read them, sometime. They are scary as hell, especially if you take into consideration they were supposed to be read to young children.”

“Oh! I see. I will do as you suggest, but for now could you explain yourself?”

John simply nodded.

“Sam, from what I have been able to glean from what you have been telling me, you are referring to a ship’s function, and it has to do with sexual release. Beyond that I really don’t understand.”

Sam nodded as if she had come to a decision about something.

“Commander, I was trying to broach the subject as delicately as knowing how Earthlings view sexuality. I apologize for my approach.”

“Sam, now that we know the subject matter, why don’t you just tell me.”

Sam told him that like the ‘enhanced sleep’, he could also have interactive sexual fantasies. He would go to sleep as usual, but would dream. During this dream period, he could enjoy any sexual fantasy he had ever imagined.

John told her he was willing to try, though it seemed a bit weird. They talked for a while longer and Sam encouraged John to come up with an object of his fantasy. She even suggested maybe a popular actress. John’s mind went immediately to his favorite actress, but since Sam’s image was patterned after her it would have seemed too weird. So he ran some actresses through his mind and came up with several possibilities.

Then John thought of a more contemporary actress. She had played in several roles that he had enjoyed. John smiled as he thought of his two favorite roles that she played. In one movie she hunted and killed vampires, and in the other she was a vampire. Of the two, he preferred her role as a vampire. So he gave Sam her name, and some of the movies she had acted in, but made sure Sam understood which was his favorite. Hey, it was Sam who said he would enjoy himself a lot more if he were honest.

When their discussion was done, John laid back down on the bed, and covered himself with the sheet. About a meter above him, a covering pivoted and came down. It reached down to about waist high. It was transparent, and John assumed that it was made out of the same material as the clear covering on the tubes. The good news was that with the bed being larger, and the covering higher up, John felt no twinge of claustrophobia before he fell asleep.

He was unaware of the bowl-like cranial device that extended from the headboard of the bed on a swiveling arm. Nor did he stir when it cradled the top of his head, snugly. He was just as unaware of the tube like structure that rose up between his legs, and pulled his flaccid penis into itself. Its soft inner walls adjusted as his penis reacted, and became erect.

John found himself in a place surrounded by a dense fog. He had vacationed in London about five years earlier, and had left his hotel one evening to do a little sight seeing. The fog had been like this, at that time. He had started walking away from his hotel. He had made it about a block, before he realized that not only could he no longer see his hotel, he couldn’t see much else, either. He did the only thing he could think of ... back tracking towards the hotel.