Chapter 45

Commander Mathews had given after lunch lectures in the past.

"Gentlemen, all the chairs and tables in the middle of the lounge. Now!"

"Good, now, Admiral Higgins lead your party at the double five laps around the lounge; Sir, we'll follow. That means everybody," eyeing the Flock who were edging away. The Flock actually handled the wake-up best; they did rigorous daily workouts when on "Trader".

Allowing his audience, now awake, to settle, the Commander began,

"There is no need for notes gentlemen; handouts will cover this series of lectures. This course is the one given to our engineer officers at our Academy...

When Admiral Rowan contacted us to conduct this course we were a little confused as to why come to Renmark for a basic course. Then RMN liaison officers in our branch briefed us. Not only did you not have fission, you are frightened of it. It truly took a while for this to fully permeate into our awareness. Our major concern with our power systems was what to do with our nuclear waste and how to dispose of it. The arrival and the aftermath of the Courtney negotiations introduced us to deep space and solved our problem; we direct our nuclear waste into a star's nuclear reaction where it recycles. To us reaction mass is not a factor in our navy; it was for space mariners and I admit we had a few chortles about your backwardness when Captain Cunningham requested bunkerage. We have learnt our lesson. Fission just cannot provide, weight for weight, the necessary power for large warships, CA and above. But for small ships it is ideal. Small size power plant, rapid and high acceleration and NO bunkerage – in a small ship that makes a tremendous difference...

For us, firing up a fission pile is a 'piece of cake'. We are perhaps too casual in our approach. There is potential for great damage if the pile escapes into a chain reaction – an unrestrained chain reaction...

To get into it, Lieutenant Clarson will re introduce you to the physics."

There followed a detailed summary of the chemistry and the physics of atoms at the high end of the Periodic Table. The meeting broke for dinner with the seating rearranged for meals. Admiral Higgins got the attention of the group,

"Gentlemen, unanswered questions abound regarding HCL and associated matters. Meeting here, last dog eight. Everybody!"

There was a cough from Hugh,

"Renmarks."

"Apologies, gentlemen. Please attend."

The Renmark officers had kept heir ears open and, suspecting a lively meeting, didn't need a specific invitation.

The lounge was as crowded as it would have been in its heyday. The Warrant Chef had the urns primed, loaded and ready to dispense.

Higgins took the chair, the Flock to his right and the Renmarks to his left. He exercised his privilege of rank and led with the question on every Manticorian minds,

"Aggy, justification for HCL main armament."

McCock looked absolutely startled which caused laughter from the serving officers. Such deep matters of theory were for Flag Officers and whilst Avers were interested it was as disinterested parties; they were the dirty hands end of any debate; they got the system and did the very best they could with it. Concepts and theory were where officers earned their pay. Captain Bronson, a weapons expert, snorted,

"That paper of yours – it's on the compulsory list of reading at the Crusher; papers that don't exist. Cunningham addressed Buships and tore us a wide gaping new one and covered every point you made some four or five years before. Even those who support Diana say it's an example of how to critique. Yet here you are with a hypercapable graser. Come on Aggy, give."

McCock looked about, the faces were not sullen nor antagonistic; these were open enquiring minds holding controversial matters.

"In a word, size. Energy weapons are knife range weapons and the bigger the target the bigger and more he has. "Forceful" was a CL, ten thousand tonnes, six hundred crew. That size, energy range, and no EW is going to hide you; and once you fire the grav-lance you're flashing beacons and waving flags saying here I am. A big target is not going to be destroyed no matter what happened to the Browne's flagship and it will have enough left to bite back. Take a smaller attack vessel and no one is going to send it up against a wall, but send a squadron of thirty, total crews three hundred, total tonnage thirty k tonnes, into energy range of CA's. They are a small target difficult to locate and harder to lock onto. High acceleration and manoeuvrability gets them out of energy range fast and against missiles they are nearly fireproof out of energy range. Blast open the sidewalls, pour in energy, CA destroyed and can't bite back. Even losses of twenty five percent of squadron and the HACs are ahead. A close encounter with BBs could cause triple that casualty rate but the bigboy is going to sustain heavy damage at least."