while I’m away, Johan?”
“Yes, sir. Our jumpers finally figured out how the raiders were able to jam our ground-based lasers. It’s … well … I wanted you to see first thing.”
“Lead on.”
Shaw’s avatar was pulled across the desert toward a pillbox of lasers built into the ground. It was an escorted jump, so both he and Yang were being pulled along by Iverson. They could move around a little, within a few meters of the escort, but Shaw had found escorted jumps were a lot more painless if he just went with the flow, especially when he was using a ring. Escorted jumps weren’t so bad in a jumpbox with scrollwheels, where he could move around freely and easily. But this was one of the few areas where the ring’s interface came up short. It was easy enough to spin the ring on his finger and change the direction he was looking. And moving forward and backward wasn’t so hard. But he couldn’t do both very easily.
Iverson took them inside the pillbox, and to a bank of eight lasers inside.
“To refresh your memory, our ground-based lasers were off-line during the raid.”
“I remember it quite well,” Shaw said.
“Of course. Sorry, sir. I’m going to take us inside the laser to show you exactly what went wrong.”
The world grew around him, expanding and expanding until Shaw felt like he was the size of a cat … a mouse … a pea … a speck of dust …
“Just how small are we going, Iverson?” he asked. But by then they’d stopped shrinking.
“We’re at one-ten thousandth our normal size. I’ll take you inside the laser.”
Shaw’s avatar was pulled forward again, toward the closest laser—which at his new scale, seemed to fill the entirety of his field of vision, looming over their tiny avatars.
They passed through metal casings and hard plastic, and Shaw saw the immense central core of the laser that generated the weaponized light, illuminated by a green glow from the base of the laser. Of course, the laser wasn’t longer than a meter, but from this perspective inside of it—and amplified by the mirrors at either end—it was as if he were looking up inside an immense hollow skyscraper.
“The time is two days ago, just a few seconds before we spotted the hovercraft,” Iverson said. “Watch.”
Shaw watched. The chamber stayed empty. He spun his ring on his finger, circling his field of vision, looking for something to change.
“Above us!” Yang called.
Shaw looked up into the chamber above him. Specks of light filled the space—something glittering and shimmering, floating through the chamber and catching the green light like fireflies. They must have been infinitesimally small, considering the microscopic scale he himself was at? Where had these come from?
“What are they?” Shaw asked.
“Spheres.”
That was all it took. Their beauty was gone. How they caught the green light no longer interested him.
“We’re inside what’s called the gain medium,” Iverson said. “The light is amplified in here before it’s sent out.”
Iverson was cut off by an intense rumble, and the green light grew immensely brighter.
“Back at the Lattice, this is when I activated the lasers to track the hovercraft,” Iverson said when the initial rumble subsided. A low hum persisted.
A thin ray of green light shot through the middle of the chamber. It stayed there for half a moment, and then collapsed. Again, the green ray went through the chamber. It collapsed again.
“It’s trying to establish a beam,” Iverson said. “So that it’s ready to go when we give it the command.”
The beam appeared and collapsed, flickering maybe twenty times, Shaw thought, before it eventually stopped.
“Now it’s reporting a critical error back at the Lattice. It won’t be back online until someone can manually review it. And, of course, that didn’t happen until after the attack.”
“The spheres were blocking the beam?” Shaw asked, though it seemed pretty clear.
“Yes, sir.
“Yes, sir. Our jumpers finally figured out how the raiders were able to jam our ground-based lasers. It’s … well … I wanted you to see first thing.”
“Lead on.”
Shaw’s avatar was pulled across the desert toward a pillbox of lasers built into the ground. It was an escorted jump, so both he and Yang were being pulled along by Iverson. They could move around a little, within a few meters of the escort, but Shaw had found escorted jumps were a lot more painless if he just went with the flow, especially when he was using a ring. Escorted jumps weren’t so bad in a jumpbox with scrollwheels, where he could move around freely and easily. But this was one of the few areas where the ring’s interface came up short. It was easy enough to spin the ring on his finger and change the direction he was looking. And moving forward and backward wasn’t so hard. But he couldn’t do both very easily.
Iverson took them inside the pillbox, and to a bank of eight lasers inside.
“To refresh your memory, our ground-based lasers were off-line during the raid.”
“I remember it quite well,” Shaw said.
“Of course. Sorry, sir. I’m going to take us inside the laser to show you exactly what went wrong.”
The world grew around him, expanding and expanding until Shaw felt like he was the size of a cat … a mouse … a pea … a speck of dust …
“Just how small are we going, Iverson?” he asked. But by then they’d stopped shrinking.
“We’re at one-ten thousandth our normal size. I’ll take you inside the laser.”
Shaw’s avatar was pulled forward again, toward the closest laser—which at his new scale, seemed to fill the entirety of his field of vision, looming over their tiny avatars.
They passed through metal casings and hard plastic, and Shaw saw the immense central core of the laser that generated the weaponized light, illuminated by a green glow from the base of the laser. Of course, the laser wasn’t longer than a meter, but from this perspective inside of it—and amplified by the mirrors at either end—it was as if he were looking up inside an immense hollow skyscraper.
“The time is two days ago, just a few seconds before we spotted the hovercraft,” Iverson said. “Watch.”
Shaw watched. The chamber stayed empty. He spun his ring on his finger, circling his field of vision, looking for something to change.
“Above us!” Yang called.
Shaw looked up into the chamber above him. Specks of light filled the space—something glittering and shimmering, floating through the chamber and catching the green light like fireflies. They must have been infinitesimally small, considering the microscopic scale he himself was at? Where had these come from?
“What are they?” Shaw asked.
“Spheres.”
That was all it took. Their beauty was gone. How they caught the green light no longer interested him.
“We’re inside what’s called the gain medium,” Iverson said. “The light is amplified in here before it’s sent out.”
Iverson was cut off by an intense rumble, and the green light grew immensely brighter.
“Back at the Lattice, this is when I activated the lasers to track the hovercraft,” Iverson said when the initial rumble subsided. A low hum persisted.
A thin ray of green light shot through the middle of the chamber. It stayed there for half a moment, and then collapsed. Again, the green ray went through the chamber. It collapsed again.
“It’s trying to establish a beam,” Iverson said. “So that it’s ready to go when we give it the command.”
The beam appeared and collapsed, flickering maybe twenty times, Shaw thought, before it eventually stopped.
“Now it’s reporting a critical error back at the Lattice. It won’t be back online until someone can manually review it. And, of course, that didn’t happen until after the attack.”
“The spheres were blocking the beam?” Shaw asked, though it seemed pretty clear.
“Yes, sir.
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