“All right, Hari. I think I’ve been pretty patient. But if you don’t start explaining…”
Hari continued to act mysterious as we worked our way aft and entered the engine room. Finally, he waved at the inertial drives. “Look at those, Val. No, I mean really look that them.”
Puzzled, I followed his wave with my eyes. “They look a bit large for a ship this size, but they look conventional…” I began, but then I began to notice small differences. “Well, why would they…? Look how they…?” I turned to Hari. “What is this, Hari? These engines look all right at first glance, but then…”
Hari grinned. “You're beginning to get it.” He said. “Time hasn’t stopped out here. In fact, some of the most brilliant minds in the Empire ended up out here, where they were comparatively free to experiment. Take these engines. I’ve seen the specs and test results. I suspect that they’re better than Empire systems of five hundred years ago.”
I snorted. “Don't tell me that these rimworlders have that mythical superengine. It never existed.”
Hari nodded soberly. “You’re right, of course. There never was a superengine — just a slow decline in the capabilities of Empire manufacture. What these engines have is highly developed refinements of the standard system.” He patted one of the engines paternally. “These engines are powerful enough to require that the ships be equipped with gravity compensators. Figures I’ve seen indicate that they’re capable of over 3g constant boost, and nearly six in short bursts.”
I was jolted. “Are you serious? I mean, you’re saying these tramps could outrun a strengl fighter!”
Reflected light gleamed through thin hair as Hari shook his head. “True, but they can’t maneuver like a strengl. They’re not fighters. And that’s the point. I don’t think you understand how different things are out here. That’s really why I shanghaied you today. It’s vitally important that you understand the rim if you want to win this. Try to fight Jonas with Empire tactics, strategy and equipment, and you'll lose — he has the weight of metal. But the rim is different than you or he suspect. You have the chance to come up with completely new and unconventional tactics that can offset his advantage.
“You see, in the Empire, scientific and engineering development effectively stopped about four hundred years ago. A strengl fighter built last month is identical to the strengls used in the Horsehead Rebellion four hundred years ago.”
I nodded. “Except that a four-hundred-year-old strengl would be better built. I know, Hari. Sheol, look how much trouble we had finding techs qualified to rewind Valkyrie ’s jump engines! It’s one of the reasons I think Cord may be right.”
Hari was looking exasperated at my interruption. “My point is that the development you’re noticing applies to the whole vessel. They’re not based on any standard imperial design. They were designed from the ground up to trade here on the rim. They’re small, since except for a few grain haulers, the rim worlds don’t tend to trade in large shipments and bulk cargoes. They have oversize and better inertial drives because space isn’t crowded around rim planets, and their captains want to get to their jump points as quickly as possible. Their jump engines, on the other hand, are fairly small, since jumps are usually short. Their nav comps are specially designed for the rim. They’re fantastically accurate in computing short jumps, but would be almost useless for running a course from, say, here to Prime, where most jumps would be two or three times as long.”
He took a deep breath. “Taken individually, each design feature merely improves a bit on standard technology. However, put them together, and you have a vessel that’s bigger and less maneuverable than a fighter is, but faster than a corvette. They have the mass to mount some sizeable weapon power, and the speed and maneuverability to deliver it — if they can steer clear of the strengl s.”
This was the best news I’d had since enlisting with Cord. “Okay, so a strengl could outmaneuver them. But they have the advantage of being jump capable. We should be able to come up with some interesting tactics — if we can arm them. Now,” I teased, “tell me you’ve discovered a superweapon to arm them with!”
Hari shook his head. “No, no superweapons; but I think you'll find what we have interesting. The idea’s simple. Actually, the biggest problem we faced was making sure they had good enough targeting capabilities. Finally a young man here came up with one of those ‘why didn’t I think of that!’ solutions. Care to guess what it was?”
I grinned. “Nope. Suppose you just tell me.”
A wide grin split Hari's skull-like face. “People.”
I was puzzled. “People? What does that mean?”
“We both know that a ‘Gunner’ on an Empire warship is a tech manning a station monitoring targeting computers. Right?”
“Of course.”
“Well, there's a young man here that's addicted to ancient adventure stories; some of them he even claims are pre-spaceflight.”
I snorted. “Ridiculous!”
Hari shrugged. “Maybe. Anyway, according to him, projectile weapons called 'guns' were once mounted on seagoing ships and primitive aircars called ‘airplanes’. He found a description of one of these things, and showed it to us. These vessels had weapons that were mounted in turrets penetrating the hull, and those weapons were controlled by a man standing behind them and manually aiming them — the gunner.”
“Come on, Hari! No human can compute ballistics accurately or fast enough to control a space weapon! Besides, you'd have to have a person for each weapon.” That, of course, was the case with infantry weapons. But even infantry weapons have target-seeking and range-finding systems. Unaided humans control artillery? Or ship-mounted weapons in space, where relative speeds can run to thousands of kilometers per second?
Hari shook his head. “Of course no human can be as accurate or fast as a computer, Val. But for one thing, he doesn’t need to be. According to these books, gunners were highly trained to deal with such factors as wind, rain, and even gravity. However, in space, none of those things is very important. There is no wind or rain, of course. Gravity computations can be complex, but not at battle distances. Even at ranges up to several thousand kilometers, a human can control his weapon in space. A laser beam travels straight, regardless; and even a projectile wouldn’t be deflected enough that aim couldn’t be easily corrected.
“For another thing, humans can be trained to be quite accurate. We’ve done some experiments. Using a quick-firing projectile weapon, we’ve found that a man can quickly learn to observe the impact of his projectiles, and gradually correct his aim. We call it ‘walking’ the projectiles onto the target. And their initial accuracy continues to improve.”
I suppressed a snicker. Hari was an engineer, not a soldier. The rawest recruit learns to walk his fire onto his target within a few minutes — with infantry weapons.
By this time, he’d led me to what was obviously the inside of one of the strange bulges. A transparent ball some three meters in diameter was set into the hull, protruding through it. Most of the ball was crammed with interconnected boxes. The boxes filled all but a narrow, tunnel-like cleared space. The ball was set in a series of gimbals. The back of the ball was open, and three men were wrestling two long tubes into it. The tubes were attached at one end to a small, boxlike affair. As the tubes settled into their positions, I saw a rudimentary seat attached to the back of them.
Hari rested a hand on the transparent plas, which was almost ten centimeters thick. “We call this a ‘ball turret’,” he said. “Those tubes are quick firing projectile weapons.” He waved a rather intense-looking young man forward. The man appeared to be about twenty. “This is Jerith, the young genius who came up with all this.”
The man flushed. “I’m honored, Commodore. But I’m no genius. I just noticed something I thought we could use.”