“It’s a damned lucky break, considering the power of those missiles.” Garret leaned back in his chair rubbing his forehead. “Nelson, send the yeoman in with some analgesics.” He looked around the room. “Anyone else?” Most of those present nodded or raised a hand. “Nelson, make that a dozen doses.” Nelson was Garret’s virtual assistant. The AI’s code had been wiped clean as part of Gavin Stark’s plot to kidnap Garret during the rebellions. Nelson had managed to get a last message out to Admiral Compton, and he’d hidden a copy of the kernel, the primary component of his synthetic personality, in the transmission. After he was freed, Garret had ordered the AI reconstituted. The result was only a moderate success. The new system was very similar to the original Nelson, but Garret could tell the difference…it just wasn’t the same. The AIs weren’t human, but Garret still felt like he’d lost a friend.
“In order to press this advantage, I have had my team working on some enhancements to our existing ECM suites.” Sparks paused when the door opened, and the yeoman came in carrying a tray. The steward walked around the room, offering a small tab of tablets and a glass of water to each person seated at the table. Most of the room’s occupants took them.
Sparks waited until the door closed behind the yeoman. “As I was saying, we have developed some new features for our ECM suites, including a randomization routine that varies signals and frequencies.” He took a breath and wished he’d taken one of the painkillers. “We hope this will delay the enemy’s efforts to adapt to our ECM. The modifications are relatively easy to make, even in the field. I can have a team ready to ship out to Third Fleet in a week. We can upgrade Admiral West’s ordnance on station at Farpoint.”
Garret’s expression widened. “Good work, colonel. I didn’t expect anything deployable so quickly. Let me know what transport resources you need for your team.” He knew West was going to have a massive fight on her hands at Farpoint, and he wanted to get her any support he could.
“Thank you, sir.” Sparks looked at Holm, who nodded. Sparks was a Marine, and he reported to Holm, not Garret. “A small transport will be more than sufficient. It is mostly a programming change. The hardware upgrades required are minimal.”
“Send your orders back to Armstrong. I will have a vessel prepared for your people.” Garret paused then added, “I will also authorize any materials they need. Have them present their manifest, and they will be able to requisition whatever they require.
“Thank you, admiral. I will send the directive as soon as we are finished here.” Sparks was looking right at Garret. “We are also working on a new system, but it is not currently ready.” He glanced around the table. Every eye was on him. “We have preliminary designs on an ECM missile. Essentially, the missile mimics one of our vessels – power output, communications traffic…everything.”
He could see the questioning looks. “The purpose is to trick the enemy into expending their anti-matter weaponry while still out of range. Our examination of the enemy’s behavior in combat indicates that their tactical protocols call for deploying their heavy anti-matter ordnance at long range. Our studies further suggest that their forces are indeed supply-constrained with regard to anti-matter weaponry.” He paused and looked around the table. He could see from the expressions that they knew where he was going. “If we are able to convince the enemy our ships are closer than they are, we may be able to take the anti-matter weapons out of the equation.” Another pause. “Remember, these are not just the large warheads…we also believe they have anti-matter drives, which explains the massive thrust capacity of the enemy’s initial volleys.”
“If that system is effective, it will go a long way to giving us at least a fighting chance.” Garret glanced over at Compton, who nodded. “This system needs to be prioritized.” He looked back at Sparks. “Just let me know what you need, colonel.” Garret paused, looking into the Marine engineer’s eyes. “Anything.”
“Thank you, sir. I believe we are nearly finished with the design. After that is ready we will produce testable prototypes.” Sparks took a breath. “I’m afraid my normal facilities are not set up to manufacture ship to ship weaponry.” Anticipating the next question he continued, “With luck we may be able to deploy the system in four months.”
“Thank you, colonel.” Holm had a sledgehammer pounding through his skull. He’d taken the analgesics, but he’d be damned if he could tell what good they were doing. “I understand you are also working on some things for our Marines on the ground.” He was happy to share his engineering wunderkind with the navy, but his people needed help as well.
“Yes, general.” Spark’s voice perked up…developing systems for ground combat was his specialty. We are working on a number of moderate upgrades, mostly focused on increasing the impact power of our weapons. These things take a lot of punishment, and we need to be able to dish it out.” He clicked the controller again, and the screen displayed small schematics of the primary Marine weapon systems. “We are working on increasing the impact velocity of our mag-rifles as well as developing a weapon that delivers a larger projectile. We are also working on a series of small upgrades to our other systems.”
He looked back at Holm and then to Cain. “There is one other research project I would like to present. It was pre-existing in another form, but we were able to build on that prior design work to rush this to a prototype.” He clicked the controller again, and the screen displayed a monstrous suit of armor. More than armor. It had the shape of a fighting suit, but it was over three meters in height and massively broad across the mid-section. There were SAW-sized autocannons built into each arm and hyper-velocity missile launchers mounted on each shoulder. “Meet the Obliterator…our next-generation heavy armor.”
Everyone in the room stared at the screen. There was a long silence, and a tiny, self-satisfied smile crept onto Sparks’ lips. It was Cain who spoke first. “That is truly impressive, colonel. Is it realistic? Or just something conceptual?”
Sparks’ smile widened. “It is very realistic, general.” He looked at Holm then back to Cain. “In fact, we have built ten of them.”
There were a few gasps in the room. “You mean this actually exists?” It was General Holm this time. “I was aware of the enhanced armor research project…I assume that is what you built on…but this is quite a leap from where we were on that.”
“Yes, sir.” Sparks wiped the smile off his face. He was a little nervous – he’d exceeded his authority in going right to production. “As you know, sir, we backburnered the project. The proposed armor was simply too expensive and would have required too much additional training before deployment. Against our projected potential adversaries at the time, we determined the same resources could produce greater battlefield power with our existing weapons.” He paused then added, “In other words, we could get a section of normal Marines in the field for every enhanced suit…and the section was more effective.”
He glanced quickly at the naval officers then back to Holm and Cain. “Once I saw the footage of the enemy’s Reapers I knew our tactical needs had changed. We have to have something to match those monsters.” He clicked the controller, bringing up an enlarged schematic of the heavy armor, with arrows and small captions describing each system. “I upscaled the suits – the original ones were considerably smaller than this – and I added a second reactor. The extra power allowed us to load the thing with high-impact weapons…just what we need to take the enemy robots down.”