dual engines and other shipboard needs, but the majority is reserved for the weapons. In terms of sheer firepower, if we exclude the main cannon, this ship qualifies as a high-end cruiser or low-end battle cruiser. Each and every manned post, L-pod or P-pod, will actually be operating anywhere from one to five slave-interfaced weapons pods at any one time, depending upon the severity of the current mission. Of the P-pods, we will be manning up to sixteen projectile posts during those missions, which means we will be firing from a bare minimum of sixteen up to a total of eighty P-pods staggered radially around the ship,” Ia informed her crew.
She had to pause while several people whistled softly. Others blinked in shock, and a few of the enlisted who specialized in gunnery posts whispered to each other. Just as they died down, she held up her hand…waited…circled her hand impatiently…and nodded as yet another rasping shudder rumbled through the bulkheads. It ended with a very loud
thunk
, and a brief dimming of the lights before they brightened again.
“…For those of you wondering what all that noise is, I’ve requested the fitting crews to install additional lifesupport bays,manufactory equipment, and other odds and ends we will be needing later on,” Ia told the men and women around her. “The fore, aft, and amidships sections are more or less complete, but they’re literally still rebuilding the interior bulkheads around us here in the bow and stern sections, after having ripped half of them out. This chamber was actually supposed to be a storage bay before I had it partitioned and reinforced into the company boardroom, with extra hydrofuel tanks beneath your seats. Above us is the OTL engineering compartment, and aft of us is one of our two shuttle bays.
“The original boardroom, located in the fore sector and sized to fit the original crew of five hundred, has since been redesigned into a recreation deck.” The schematic changed colors again, briefly illuminating each section. Returning to the discussion at hand, Ia relit the drawings of the ship with bright and dark red dots. “At the moment, this ship has only the barest minimum of lifesupport supplies, and no armaments beyond the laser turrets and a few installed projectile launchers. Rest assured, we
will
be fully fitted for war before we leave dry dock.
“Each ship sector also has four portable hydrogenerators, which can be converted within three minutes or less into catalytic payloads…and which can be launched from a standard P-pod bay, for a total of twenty nonradioactive hydrobombs, with payloads ranging from ten to fifty liter-tonnes. That’s enough power per hydrobomb to completely destroy any major modern supercity, such as Tokyo—both Upper
and
Lower Tokyo.” She let the gravity of that sink in, then added, “We
will
be using them in the future, and we
will
be using them on Salik targets. We cannot and will not stop the coming war…but we will be doing our best to break the most critical components of their war machine.”
For a moment, even the muffled sounds of construction outside the boardroom were absent, leaving them in grim silence. No one contested her statement. Each person in the room was a soldier, even the chaplain; they knew the Blockade wouldn’t hold forever, and most had heard of Ia’s efforts to stem the resumption of the old Salik War, at the Battle of the Banquet. She and the other escapees had killed many of the highest-ranked generals two months ago while trying to escape, but the enemy’s war machines were still out there somewhere, just waiting for strong enough leaders to reseize control.
Ia waited for a couple of faint thumping noises, then spoke. “Moving on to the laser cannonry, this ship has twice as many L-pods as P-pods: twelve Swordstrike-, twelve Skystrike-, and eight Starstrike-rated cannons. I am, of course, referring to the
manned
L-pod stations,” she added. “That means we can have
She had to pause while several people whistled softly. Others blinked in shock, and a few of the enlisted who specialized in gunnery posts whispered to each other. Just as they died down, she held up her hand…waited…circled her hand impatiently…and nodded as yet another rasping shudder rumbled through the bulkheads. It ended with a very loud
thunk
, and a brief dimming of the lights before they brightened again.
“…For those of you wondering what all that noise is, I’ve requested the fitting crews to install additional lifesupport bays,manufactory equipment, and other odds and ends we will be needing later on,” Ia told the men and women around her. “The fore, aft, and amidships sections are more or less complete, but they’re literally still rebuilding the interior bulkheads around us here in the bow and stern sections, after having ripped half of them out. This chamber was actually supposed to be a storage bay before I had it partitioned and reinforced into the company boardroom, with extra hydrofuel tanks beneath your seats. Above us is the OTL engineering compartment, and aft of us is one of our two shuttle bays.
“The original boardroom, located in the fore sector and sized to fit the original crew of five hundred, has since been redesigned into a recreation deck.” The schematic changed colors again, briefly illuminating each section. Returning to the discussion at hand, Ia relit the drawings of the ship with bright and dark red dots. “At the moment, this ship has only the barest minimum of lifesupport supplies, and no armaments beyond the laser turrets and a few installed projectile launchers. Rest assured, we
will
be fully fitted for war before we leave dry dock.
“Each ship sector also has four portable hydrogenerators, which can be converted within three minutes or less into catalytic payloads…and which can be launched from a standard P-pod bay, for a total of twenty nonradioactive hydrobombs, with payloads ranging from ten to fifty liter-tonnes. That’s enough power per hydrobomb to completely destroy any major modern supercity, such as Tokyo—both Upper
and
Lower Tokyo.” She let the gravity of that sink in, then added, “We
will
be using them in the future, and we
will
be using them on Salik targets. We cannot and will not stop the coming war…but we will be doing our best to break the most critical components of their war machine.”
For a moment, even the muffled sounds of construction outside the boardroom were absent, leaving them in grim silence. No one contested her statement. Each person in the room was a soldier, even the chaplain; they knew the Blockade wouldn’t hold forever, and most had heard of Ia’s efforts to stem the resumption of the old Salik War, at the Battle of the Banquet. She and the other escapees had killed many of the highest-ranked generals two months ago while trying to escape, but the enemy’s war machines were still out there somewhere, just waiting for strong enough leaders to reseize control.
Ia waited for a couple of faint thumping noises, then spoke. “Moving on to the laser cannonry, this ship has twice as many L-pods as P-pods: twelve Swordstrike-, twelve Skystrike-, and eight Starstrike-rated cannons. I am, of course, referring to the
manned
L-pod stations,” she added. “That means we can have
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