Chapter 51

"You want to do what?" said Slow in horrified tones.

"I want to put an MDM into "Vector" to test the defensive shield" repeated McCock.

"That's not what you said before, you said you wanted to fire a missile into "Vector"" Slow accused him.

"The shields are part of "Vector", aren't they?" McCock rejoined.

"They are, if they are raised," Slow was not letting McCock off the hook for giving her that fright, "and if they aren't raised, a missile will strike the ship."

"I think I'll start again." McCock said, "We, that is, "Vector", has been struck by two CL missiles without untoward effect but we weren't guarding the flux monitors at the time. I want to determine the strength of "Vector's" defensive shields. To do this, I intend to have a Gnat fire, first, an inert FNF missile and then a live missile. We will then calculate the energy exerted against the shield and the efficiency of its dispersion. An inert missile from an armed cutter will be tried, assessed and then a live HAC missile. If everything is ticketyboo, we will repeat using "Shriek". Assuming no problems, then "Sprightly" will load MDMs to fire at us and if that does no damage we will move onto cruise missiles.

We will be monitoring the shield flux values for each individual test.

We know the energy output of each of our missiles and running the information through the 'puters we will ascertain what energy output the shield will withstand and thus be able to make some sense out of the Solarian grading system — we are talking pomegranates to walnuts at present,

I then want to open a tunnel in the shield and allow a "Shriek" missile into it and then close down the tunnel and see what happens to the missile. I then want to explode a "Shriek" in the mouth of a tunnel and see what happens with the 'gel' between the shields."

"Why didn't you say so before" demanded Slow with just a touch of smugness. "Here," sliding a chip across to him, "it's laid on for day after tomorrow; I've been working on it for the past nine days."

McCock put the chip into his PDA and scanned the headings. Slow was way ahead of him. She had included investigation of the after barrier and also the effect of energy weapons. He also saw that Denny and Polack were supervising the shield monitors and Sir Henry was to provide the 'puter back up in real time. It was a well thought out plan stretching the envelopes with safety provisions incorporated.

"It has been circulating for past two days and briefing is tomorrow eight morning. You are invited, of course" Slow gurgled at McCock.

Left behind again; still good staff are always a step ahead of the chief.

Algy Hardman, being the careful soul that he was, had the first Gnat flown off loaded with blue painted SQR missiles only and had the Gnat firing circuit for the lasers disabled just in case the Gnat pilot got carried away. That postulate earned him a truly murderous stare from the Ghorkhali pilot at the briefing. It, however, resulted in the Ghorkhali pilot, Naik Bahadur Thapa, after flying his Gnat back on, rapidly moving from his control seat to the Hangar Deck and making a nuisance of himself until his Gnat's laser firing circuit was enabled. The Naik was also a trusting soul.

The practice missile was held in the outer shield and was used as an aiming point for the second Gnat's white painted SIM. The explosion dislodged the inert missile from the shield and transformed it into very small fragments. However the screen flux indicators didn't move. The Gnat did a laser attack which caused a glow at the point of impact. To spread the experience around, Algy had detailed a number of Gnats to make firing runs, each increasing the fired pulses. The last Gnat fired ten fast pulses into the same point of the screen and the effect was not discernably different from the first single pulse. Denny, Polack and Slow joined McCock, all making calculations on their PDAs and nodding appreciatively.

The HAC and "Shriek" missile attacks were no more damaging; the graser / laser blasts did cause the shields to momentarily glow at impact point.

"Sprightly" fired an MDM and on a second run, a cruise missile. As these were basically the same missile, the effects were basically similar — a glow lasting over several seconds spread over a twenty metre circle. The flux monitors did move off the base line but barely.

Whilst Denny and Polack expressed satisfaction, Sir Henry stated that the results did not enable him to calculate the peak energy loads the shield was capable of withstanding.

McCock was intrigued by the effect of the intra shield matrix; it appeared to dissipate most if not all of the energy impacting the outer shield. The outer shield itself appeared to be flexible to a limited degree and absorbed part of the energy of the impacting forces and withstanding the residual energy. To satisfy his curiousity, he spent some time in conversation with the inventors who were extremely interested in his results. The laboratory itself had not been able to test the composite wall; it had all been theoretical except that the shields each could withstand the latest Solarian missiles which unleashed energy equivalent to the latest Mounty missile class of Mark Ds.

What results had McCock had with the automatic point defence system on the behemoth, and had he tried the decoy system yet? The shield developer had not been involved in their development but had come in contact with the installation and had been fascinated by them. He had even gone so far as to get copies of the manufacturer's and developer's directions and the initial user manuals. McCock requested copies of the documents as they had not been provided and he was not sure if his people were maximally utilising the systems. That did not create a problem as his new found friend in the Old Earth laboratory was as intrigued as McCock as to how effective the systems were. The chip downloaded as they were chatting generally about the shields and McCock closed the conversation with a promise to pass on the results and general comments about "Gigantic".

McCock appeared preoccupied as he boarded the Barge for the journey home and responded abstractedly to attempts at conversation by Polack and Denny. He did put away his PDA during the meal and join the conversation around the table. He learned that David Murchien, Slow's peripatetic friend had relocated to Gorgipest and was co-habiting with Slow; he was now a junior partner with Sir Joshua with responsibility for the GMBH funds and the Trust accounts of GmBH. His monthly audited reports to the Trustees were carefully examined by the Avers and by MFH in Gorgipest for the Flock and he was managing the funds well with diverse investments outside GmBH Holdings. Matthius McCock expressed his satisfaction at the results; he had appointed himself unofficial assistant to David while they were in Settlement just to give himself something to do in semi retirement.

McCock called a Staff conference as soon as he boarded "Vector" the next moring. He instructed Sir Henry to find everything he had on the 'kiddy' 'puter and have it with him. He then commed Captain Harryfor Avers and requested his and his First Lieutenant's presence at the conference. Trojan distributed the coffee and munchies having been told that this was to be a brain storming meeting rather than to an agenda for which he usually provided nothing until afterwards.

After opening the meeting, McCock started it by innocently asking Denny about progress on "Vector's" decoy system.

"I don't think anymore that it has one" Denny replied; "for the first couple of weeks, I researched everything we had on chip or on the 'kiddy' 'puter. I even snuck down to Chagos while I was down there sitting in cosmic to hunt around the dock — nothing."

"Point defence?" asked McCock of no one in particular.

"Hasn't got any" said Slow and Polack nodded in agreement. "I took the opportunity to walk over the hull..." which statement cause chuckles from her listeners which Slow chose to ignore, "and there aren't any or if there are I couldn't find them and I looked. There are a number of radar and laser antennae mounted over the hull that seem to be more than necessary but I followed the connections and they are all joined to the detection bus bar. So, no; I think DDD was reliant upon those shields: remember he wasn't navy and probably didn't comprehend the possible need behind his shields."

"That's a point," conceded McCock, "but GEC are naval vessel builders and they would be a trifle hesitant to rely on experimental shields. Henry, have you anything?"