Chapter 551 Where No Human Has Gone Before


    Captain Miller and Commander Campbell had remained aboard ISA-EV-343398, waiting for their meeting time to arrive. Everything was proceeding apace, as it would be difficult for any imperial force to run ahead of or behind schedule thanks to the AIs in the background ensuring that “the trains ran on time.”


    They didn’t have to wait long before they received a notification with a link to a virtual meeting room. When they logged in, they found themselves in arge amphitheater-style room that would be instantly familiar to anyone who had attended college before: a lecture hall. Seated around them were hundreds of other ship captains and executive officers.


    No one was speaking; everyone simply gave each other courtesy nods when they made eye contact with someone else. But the silence didn’tst long before Huang Wei, the head of the imperial space agency, appeared on the stage in the front of the hall. Administrator Huang was a middle-aged Chinese man with salt and pepper hair and a regal bearing, dressed in the utility uniform of the exploration fleet, a pair of ck cks with light blue piping on the sides and a close-fitting, tailored coat with matching blue piping.


    (Ed note: If you’re interested in seeing what the uniforms look like, it’s very simr to the uniforms from David Weber’s Honorverse novels, specifically those of the Royal Manticoran Navy. The difference is that the uniforms in this novelck shoulder shes, rank insignia, awards, and any kind of headgear. Everything that would normally be disyed on a uniform is all disyed in augmented reality.)


    Everyone stood and saluted Administrator Huang, who returned the salute with a slight bow and said, “Please be seated. There’s a lot to cover in today’s meeting, and not much time to cover it in.


    “To give you the important part first: the ISA is about to undertake a mission that is of the utmost importance to the human species: you,dies and gentlemen, will be the first group of humans to ever pass the heliopause and engage in extrasr exploration.


    “As a semi-militarized fleet, you’ve all undergone all of the same training as the regrs in the Terran Space Fleet, and have inherited their professionalism and tradition. You onlyck the heavy weaponry that the TSF has in spades. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om


    “Sure, you each carry a small contingent of ARES troopers to defend against potential boarders, as well as act as guards for teams of researchers sent to the surface ofs. You even have a spook assigned as a general specialist. But your exploration cruisers are limited mostly to defensive batteries and a single gun that’s only effective against stationary targets or viable in knife fighting range.” Administrator Huang paused, noticing that most of his audience had gone ck-jawed and ssy-eyed.


    It was true, though—the exploration fleet was incredibly lightly armed. They had a few Mk. XIX Titan’s Wrath cannons, an updated version of the Mk. XIV Titan’s Wrath, which had proven its effectiveness in Imabad and Delhi, as well as Faisbad and Bhopal. The Mk. XIX, however, had been specifically designed for use in the harsh vacuum of space, especially for clearing potential environmental hazards out of their path.


    They also had a spinal-mount hybrid gun capable of unleashing streams of charged particles or switching to coilgun mode forrge target bombardment. The range of the particle beam was limited, though, and the coilgun was only capable of elerating projectiles up to 0.29c. And any moving target capable of interster travel would also be capable of dodging slow projectiles like those.


    The decision had been made for the exploration fleet’s primary armament to be energy-based for a few reasons, primarily uracy. Coilgun rounds were extremely damaging, if they hit, but that was an awfully big “if”. In order to be effective, a saturation attack would need to be carried out, and that had implications that Aron didn’t want to even think about.


    Any coilgun round of sufficient size and speed to take out an enemy vessel would eventually be another’s Chicxulub, after all, quite effectively ruining someone’s day, somewhere, somewhen. Maybe it would be hourster, or maybe it would be ten thousand yearster, but the only guarantee when dealing with projectile weapons in space is that those projectiles will always hit something.


    Sir Isaac Newton has always been, still is, and will forever be the deadliest son of a bitch in space.


    Administrator Huang judged that the attendees of the briefing should have digested his previous statements and continued, “As a result of your ships’ckingbat capability in the face of a potentially hostile gxy, orders havee down from above that you are to be escorted by the first batch of the Terran Space Navy to graduate from training. And today’s briefing is to give you an overview of the regr TSF ships and offensive capabilities.


    “First, let’s talk about guns. Your fleet is primarily armed with energy weapons, which are considered secondary armaments in the TSF. Even though beam coherence isn’t an issue that needs attention in the vacuum of space, the requirement in terms of energy generation and capacitors is simply too high for spacebat at distances that could measure up to millions of kilometers. Thus, the primary armament for vessels in the TSF is missiles.


    “Missiles have extreme range capability with multi-stage design, they’re stealthy, and they’re capable of engaging in maneuvers to increase their uracy. They can also carry different warheads, ranging from electronic countermeasures that blind targets all the way up to multidirectional bomb-pumped X-rayser warheads and beyond.


    “They also carry sophisticated sensor and targeting suits, as well ase equipped with robust electronic counter countermeasures (ECCM). But most importantly, they can bemand detonated to avoid coteral damage, unlike dumb rounds fired from coilguns and other kic weapons.”


    Administrator Huang swept his gaze across the captains in the lecture hall seats and paused, as what he had to say next would have to be delivered exactly right. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, then exhaled, opened his eyes again, and continued, “I have to notify you now that the information I am about to disclose next is ssified Top Secret, code word GRO J1655-40. You have all been preliminarily cleared for the information, should you choose to ept it. If you do not ept your new clearance level, please log out of the briefing now.”


    He stood ramrod straight in the middle of the lecture hall stage, waiting with his eyes closed for the five-minute logout procedure, in case any of the captains ormanders chose not to ept the remainder of the briefing.