Solbidyum Wars Saga 7: Hunt for the Reduviids by Dale C. Musser Page B
Authors: Dale C. Musser
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everything all right?”
“Oh my yes, everything is fine. Cantolla has been back on Megelleon for some time now, working with the science team to launch the cloning project for the genetic materials you brought from Earth’s genome and seed banks.”
“Oh. Why is she helping them instead of working here on something else?” I asked without thinking.
“Tibby, you did make her the boss, remember? You put her in command of all your science teams. At the moment, that’s the largest project your science people have going on, so of course she’s there overseeing the work.”
“Oh yeah... right! You’ll have to forgive me, A’Lappe. I have so many things going on that I forget sometimes what I’ve said and done in the past.”
A’Lappe chuckled, “I understand, Tibby. Now how can I help you?”
“A’Lappe, we desperately need to realize a breakthrough that allows us match or even exceed the speed achieved by the Brotherhood ships. And now that they’ve discovered how to detect our cloaked ships, we need to develop a counter technology to solve that problem as well.”
“I’m working as hard as I can on your first request, but I’m stymied as to how to make our ships go faster. As for the second request, I need to know what means they are using to detect our ships. If it’s a Gravity-Mass Detector like we use, I may be able to create something that distorts the field. However, it’s more likely that they’re using a completely unrelated method, in which case field distortion wouldn’t work.”
“So you have reason to believe they’re using something other than Gravity-Mass Detection to spot our cloaked ships?”
“Yes. If they were, they would have figured out, almost by necessity, how to distort the fields around their own ships, rendering them more difficult to locate and target. They haven’t done so thus far – to my knowledge, anyway.”
“Well, I guess that’s good to know, but it doesn’t solve our problem,” I said.
“Bring me one of their devices or ships, and I’ll figure out what they’re doing, but until then, I’m as lost as you as to a solution.”
“You’re the second person to tell me we need to get our hands on one of their ships. I guess that’s what we’ll have to do," I said resolutely, thrusting my fists into my jacket pockets.
I then pressed the button on the cloaking device I had picked up from my office on the way to the lab and I vanished before A’Lappe’s eyes. A’Lappe looked startled for a moment and then howled with laughter, for I had used the same ploy on him that he had been playing on me and others in the crew for years, disappearing abruptly at the end of a meeting or conversation.
“Well played, Tibby! Well played indeed!” he called out as I left the lab.
Instead of returning to the MAXETTE, I went to my study on the NEW ORLEANS to stare into the giant aquarium from my office chair, while I sorted through my thoughts. Every major technological obstacle we were encountering was pointing to one solution – we had to get our hands on a newly built Brotherhood ship so we could reverse engineer their GW enhancements and cloak detection system. There were two ways to accomplish that goal – capture one in battle or steal one from a hangar or enemy base. Both methods involved extreme risk. It was a pointless exercise to assess degrees or likelihood of failure; failure meant almost certain death to anyone involved in the operation, and the likelihood of failure was absolute if there was any failure at all. We had no choice but to take action before the Brotherhood amassed enough ships to decimate the Federation entirely.
I found myself spinning inside an equation that Earth engineers used to calculate Risk Exposure:
The RISK EXPOSURE of any given risk equals the Probability of risk occurring multiplied by the total loss if risk occurs .
Between capturing and stealing a ship, stealing probably
“Oh my yes, everything is fine. Cantolla has been back on Megelleon for some time now, working with the science team to launch the cloning project for the genetic materials you brought from Earth’s genome and seed banks.”
“Oh. Why is she helping them instead of working here on something else?” I asked without thinking.
“Tibby, you did make her the boss, remember? You put her in command of all your science teams. At the moment, that’s the largest project your science people have going on, so of course she’s there overseeing the work.”
“Oh yeah... right! You’ll have to forgive me, A’Lappe. I have so many things going on that I forget sometimes what I’ve said and done in the past.”
A’Lappe chuckled, “I understand, Tibby. Now how can I help you?”
“A’Lappe, we desperately need to realize a breakthrough that allows us match or even exceed the speed achieved by the Brotherhood ships. And now that they’ve discovered how to detect our cloaked ships, we need to develop a counter technology to solve that problem as well.”
“I’m working as hard as I can on your first request, but I’m stymied as to how to make our ships go faster. As for the second request, I need to know what means they are using to detect our ships. If it’s a Gravity-Mass Detector like we use, I may be able to create something that distorts the field. However, it’s more likely that they’re using a completely unrelated method, in which case field distortion wouldn’t work.”
“So you have reason to believe they’re using something other than Gravity-Mass Detection to spot our cloaked ships?”
“Yes. If they were, they would have figured out, almost by necessity, how to distort the fields around their own ships, rendering them more difficult to locate and target. They haven’t done so thus far – to my knowledge, anyway.”
“Well, I guess that’s good to know, but it doesn’t solve our problem,” I said.
“Bring me one of their devices or ships, and I’ll figure out what they’re doing, but until then, I’m as lost as you as to a solution.”
“You’re the second person to tell me we need to get our hands on one of their ships. I guess that’s what we’ll have to do," I said resolutely, thrusting my fists into my jacket pockets.
I then pressed the button on the cloaking device I had picked up from my office on the way to the lab and I vanished before A’Lappe’s eyes. A’Lappe looked startled for a moment and then howled with laughter, for I had used the same ploy on him that he had been playing on me and others in the crew for years, disappearing abruptly at the end of a meeting or conversation.
“Well played, Tibby! Well played indeed!” he called out as I left the lab.
Instead of returning to the MAXETTE, I went to my study on the NEW ORLEANS to stare into the giant aquarium from my office chair, while I sorted through my thoughts. Every major technological obstacle we were encountering was pointing to one solution – we had to get our hands on a newly built Brotherhood ship so we could reverse engineer their GW enhancements and cloak detection system. There were two ways to accomplish that goal – capture one in battle or steal one from a hangar or enemy base. Both methods involved extreme risk. It was a pointless exercise to assess degrees or likelihood of failure; failure meant almost certain death to anyone involved in the operation, and the likelihood of failure was absolute if there was any failure at all. We had no choice but to take action before the Brotherhood amassed enough ships to decimate the Federation entirely.
I found myself spinning inside an equation that Earth engineers used to calculate Risk Exposure:
The RISK EXPOSURE of any given risk equals the Probability of risk occurring multiplied by the total loss if risk occurs .
Between capturing and stealing a ship, stealing probably
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