“Yes. But the shimmering field technology doesn’t really stop the energy weapons, it dissipates them around their impact point, basically robbing the energy beam of its power. A powerful enough weapon would still transfer some of the energy through the field,” Ritsarni said.
“And an energy shield does what, exactly?” Laura asked, and immediately regretted her choice of words as she saw the look on Ritsarni’s face.
“Well,” Ritsarni started enthusiastically, “the shield matrix works in combination with the applied energy source to—” Laura stopped him by raising her right hand. She then covered her face with her other hand and took a deep breath.
“Could you explain it in layman’s terms, please?” she asked weakly. She had spent the last six hours being bombarded with terms and facts that she barely understood, and she could not take one more.
Ritsarni looked crestfallen, but Laura refused to be swayed, so he righted himself and started speaking.
“The shield basically negates the energy that comes in contact with it. It’s not really that simple; it doesn’t just negate energy, it makes it… It is a bit more complicated than that. It is—” He’d started to steer back into scientific talk, but one look from Laura made him focus. “Right. It negates energy by pushing with equal force from within, basically,” he said, and Laura could see that he wasn’t happy with his explanation.
“Alright,” Laura said. “Convince me that it is better than what we already have.”
“The People didn’t invent these shields as defenses against attacks; they were used for deep mining of suns,” Ritsarni said.
“Mining of the suns?” Laura asked incredulously.
“A certain type of sun, yes. Apparently some suns possess an element that was essential for their more advanced technology, and could only be found inside certain suns. Although later they discovered a means to make it artificially, but that was hundreds of thousands of years after. The energy shield allowed them to build their mining facilities inside the suns. The shield we are capable of building now won’t be able to do that, of course. We don’t have a power source strong enough to do that yet. That is the limit of these shields; the amount of power we can pump into them dictates the level of energy they can stop.”
“So, will they be better than the shimmering field?” Laura pressed.
“In some ways yes, in others no. The shimmering field doesn’t require an equal amount of energy to dissipate the attack. If an attack more powerful than our field hits it, it will still lose some of its power from the field. If an attack more powerful than the energy shield hits, it will disrupt the energy matrix and simply pass through.”
“That to me sounds like our field tech is superior.”
“As I said, in some ways yes, in others no. The greatest advantage I believe this technology holds is that it can be configured to stop kinetic energy,” Ritsarni added.
“It can stop kinetic weapons?” Laura asked, intrigued.
“Yes. It can rob the weapons of their energy, if the matrix is properly configured, making the attack effectively stop moving. The People used them on their world ships to stop dust or anything else that might impact their hulls. The shields are limited by our power-generating capabilities, but as the team on Sanctuary draws closer to building a working prototype of their old power source designs from the sphere, I think that we should take a look at energy shields as a possible addition to our newer ships.”
“Well, that is interesting. We won’t start building the new fleets for a few years, but yes… this can be something that we consider for that.” Laura nodded. “Thank you, Ritsarni. I will think on this, and we will see.”
Laura was at her home on Thanatos when a call came in for her. She sat down at her holo table and answered. A video window popped out above the desk and Adrian looked at her.
“Adrian!” she said. “I’m glad that you called. I have been wanting to speak with you.”
Adrian smiled at her words. They had of course been in contact almost daily, as he gave her reports on the offensive. But this wasn’t about Fleet business; it was a personal call.
“I didn’t have anything better to do, honestly. We are still waiting for the Third Fleet to arrive, and I have done as much to prepare as I can,” Adrian said.
The Second and the Vanguard Fleets were in a staging system, waiting on the Third Fleet and some more reinforcements from the Empire, preparing to attack the Sowir home system. The fleet had passed through seven Sowir systems in the last nineteen days before the Sowir had decided to abandon the other three and move all their assets to their home system. But as the fleets had passed through the abandoned systems, they’d found that the Sowir had already destroyed their own assets in them.
Laura glared at him in faux anger. “You want to say that you only called me because you are bored?” Adrian gave her a boyish grin that reminded her of a time when he was much younger, and her face softened. “How have you been?” she asked.
Adrian’s face changed, and she could see that he was tired.
“I’m good,” he said, and Laura gave him a look of disbelief. “Okay, I’m tired.” He grimaced. “The Sowir don’t know when to stop. Any sane race would have surrendered long ago. The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that we made a mistake when we broke our agreement with them. That made us untrustworthy in their eyes; they will not let themselves be fooled again. They would rather die than let what they believe we would do if they surrender happen.” He shook his head and his right hand made the Nel gesture for frustration.
Laura shared in his sentiment. At the time, it had been a good decision, and she would not allow herself to dwell on it. But she knew from their prisoners that the Sowir believed that the Empire was on the side of Nelus, as they knew that Nel were part of the Empire. And that, along with the fact that the Empire had broken its non-aggression agreement with them, made them think that humanity would allow the Nel to do the same thing to the Sowir as what they had done to the Nel and the other races of the Consortium. They might not have seen anything wrong with what they were doing, but they understood that the Nel did not share that opinion. They knew the Consortium laws; their crimes were unforgivable.
“Do you think that you can force them to surrender?” Laura asked.
“We can enforce a surrender even without their compliance; we just destroy every asset they have in space and blockade the planet. Even if they don’t want to talk with us, there is little that they can do. But I think that eventually, when they realize what we are doing, they will start responding to our attempts at communication, if only out of curiosity.”
Laura nodded. “Let’s not talk about them anymore. We spend most of our time with them on our minds as it is,” she said. “So… I hear you and Bethany have been talking again.” She feigned disinterest.
Adrian rolled his eyes at her. “It was just one lunch!” he said, then narrowed his eyes at her. “How did you even know? We were here, on Harbinger…” Then he raised his hand and looked at the bracer on it. “Iris? It was you, wasn’t it? I told you to stop doing that. Oh, and now you ignore me, of course you do.”
Laura smiled at his ramblings. “Don’t be mad at her, she worries about you.”
“There isn’t anything for her to worry about.”