“Hello, Admiral,” Ellis Nightingale shouted over the noise of Conquest’s manufactory. His nearby military subordinates leaped to attention. As a civilian, he wasn’t required to conform to these customs and courtesies, but he stood respectfully and held out his hand to clasp.
“At ease, everyone. Go back to work,” Absen shouted in turn as he looked around the heavily automated factory. He noticed how tired Nightingale looked as he drew him inside a glass-enclosed office where it was quieter. “I just wanted to see how the SLAMs are coming. We’re going to need them.”
“Yes, sir, and we’ve almost got the first one finished.” The big man led Absen over to an area containing dozens of multi-ton pieces of machinery. “We’ll assemble this prototype on the flight deck and grabship it out the launch bay doors. I hope later versions will have thruster suites so they can maneuver themselves like pinnaces. Once it’s out in space, it will line up on whatever we tell it to and engage the lightspeed drive, flying dead straight until it hits its target. If it misses, it will dump out of pulse and turn on its beacon. It will have a self-destruct to prevent recovery by the enemy.”
“What about creating dedicated launchers within Conquest?” Absen asked.
Nightingale shook his head. “Bad idea, sir. It’s the same issue as with normal missiles but worse. Anything that has to pass through the ship’s armor to be launched creates a vulnerability, both because of the weakened protection and the fact that one blocked tube traps lots of weapons behind it. We put our missiles in disposable launchers on the outside for a reason.”
“So we’re going to strap these babies onto Conquest like our box-launched missiles?”
Nightingale looked troubled. “We could, sir, but they are big and fragile. Maybe we could put them on the back, so they are protected during TacDrive and conventional maneuvers both. My understanding was these would be strategic weapons, though, not tactical, so we would just egress them from the main bay like ships. Then they line up and go.”
Absen rubbed his hands and rolled his shoulders as he paced in front of the pieces of the SLAM. “I had dreams of adding this to our tactical arsenal.”
“Sir, I’ll do what you tell me to, but we’re working like dogs here already, and the few liberated weapons engineers Leslie sent me from the Jupiter cadre are all hopelessly out of date. The Meme didn’t allow weapons research beyond simple efficiency improvements. Even Michelle’s processors are fully tasked, she tells me.”
Absen clapped Nightingale on the shoulder. “Just get me the SLAMs, as many as you can. How fast do you think you’ll be able to make them?”
“Not fast, sir. The lightspeed drive is just on the edge of our current technological ability. This is like building aircraft in 1910, sir – a long ways to go and no established infrastructure.”
“Just give me some numbers.”
Nightingale pursed his lips, thinking. “I’d say one a week.”
Absen made a sound of frustration. “What about the PVNs on Ceres? Can’t they help?”
“Also hopelessly out of date. It would take months to bring them up anywhere near to Conquest’s standards. Michelle’s got a telefactor team working on one, and when that’s upgraded it will be able to upgrade the next and so on in typical Von Neumann fashion, but it’s going to be a while before that gets going. No, sir, the best the PVNs can churn out is standard munitions and equipment. Marine battlesuits, Recluses, missiles, StormCrows.”
“But at least they can do that.” Absen looked around the enormous noise- and movement-filled room. “Do you have anything else in your box of tricks?”
“Sir, I have a dozen ideas, but no time. Once the operational SLAM design is finalized, my R&D team can move on to something else.”
Absen realized Nightingale’s bowed shoulders and sunken eyes meant he was nearing his limit. No matter how desperately he wanted more and better weapons, the man was already working as hard as he could. “All right, Ellis. Thanks for the incredible job you’re doing here.” He shook Nightingale’s hand again.
“The rest of my team could use hearing that too, sir,” Nightingale replied.
“Absolutely.” Absen turned to shake hands and slap backs, wishing he could do more.