Blue Star Enterprises-Chapter 213 - 4-29

Alexander knew he was procrastinating by starting work on the Stingray improvements instead of working on the defensive field project, but he was running into so many dead ends that progress had stalled on that research, and he needed a break.

That didn't mean he was doing nothing; he had multiple experiments running to try and glean a solution to that problem, which he would check on later, but he needed something he could see some actual progress on to improve his mood.

Alexander entered his empty workshop; his only companion was the hum of the machines in the background, which were producing more static field satellites. Now that he had enough of those satellites to cover the sky over the ground facility and the space stations, the project had been shifted over to surface manufacturing to free up his orbital printers.

In another change, the temporary orbital ring had been disassembled, and he had rebuilt the fueling station. It was now twice as large as the original, with the majority of that extra space relegated for the storage of raw materials.

The main space station was quickly taking shape as well. The substructure had finally been completed, and armored panels were being built to attach to the exterior walls, which were being installed.

There was still a long way to go before it was complete, but Alexander was glad to have some visual progress on such a massive project.

Once the station was complete, the docking ring would be over a mile in diameter and the station could permanently house up to a thousand individuals with room to temporarily house up to two thousand more.

Mainly it would just be the trading hub for the system, making that process go much smoother instead of having to rely on his robots to act as tugs to move stuff around.

Alexander brought up his design program and loaded all of his railgun schematics. They hadn't seen any love since before he left for Asgard, so not even his power flow improvements had been added to them.

Considering he wanted to move away from the weapon system, it seemed like a wise choice not to waste time on improving them. Now that he was sort of stuck with the weapons on his smaller ships, he might as well make them the best they could be.

The biggest issue with railguns… technically, there were two big issues. The first was the rails. Having to replace them after a thousand rounds was less than ideal. It was even less than that. A few of Wayward Soul's rails had failed during the battle with Harlow, and Alexander was certain that fewer than a thousand rounds had gone through them. The constant load and heat on them had caused them to deteriorate much quicker than anticipated.

The second issue was the reliance on sabots. Each casing made them take up nearly three times the space as the same size Gauss cannon round. Eliminating the casing was his goal. If he could triple the Stingray's onboard capacity, they could stay in the fight much longer.

He thought about simply adopting a bimetallic approach to the penetrator but decided against that, as using a softer material would reduce the effectiveness of the round at penetrating armor and could cause the materials to separate. The small size of the projectile was the same reason he hadn't bothered adding some sort of explosive compound to the interior of the round.

There just wasn't enough room inside the interior of the tungsten rod to add enough explosive compound to make any real difference to the overall effect of the weapon hitting a ship. And every ounce of material he took away to do so reduced the overall punch that the round had.

He wanted to keep using the same fin-stabilized rounds he used on his surface guns to reduce having to manufacture multiple different ammunition types and sizes, even if the fins were completely unnecessary in space. He already had three penetrator sizes to worry about, one for his smaller surface guns, one for the large anti-orbit railguns, and the third for the frigate-sized cannons.

The fins may be completely unnecessary, but they weren't a hindrance either, as they were only as wide as the exterior of the penetrator, so he saw no need to actually remove them other than to add a tiny bit more weight to the projectile. To Alexander, that wasn't worth setting up a separate ammunition stockpile for ground-based versus space-based.

With a few motions, the guns exploded into their component parts within the holo. Alexander threw away the rails and replaced them with a hardened ceramic barrel, which looked woefully undersized on the weapon.

Considering the design he was going for would use a fifth of the space as the rails and firing chamber had previously, it should feel smaller.

He decided to go with the industrial-grade ceramic because it was smooth and had an almost slippery surface after hardening. The material was designed for use in high-pressure mixed aggregate applications, not for firing hardened projectiles, but Alexander figured it would work well with what he had in mind.

Next, he wrapped the barrel in twenty rings of static field generators. He was going for a similar effect to a coilgun, but with a static field instead of an electromagnetic field.

Alexander printed out a test unit with two of the generators attached and tested it on low power. It wouldn't do to go any further unless he verified his hypothesis first. To do that, he would need a vacuum.

The design was based on the findings from the research that the computer had done in the lab. With much tweaking. The barrel was filled with micro-perforations to allow for the field to pass through into the interior. Otherwise, it wouldn't be able to interact with the projectile.

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The first test fired the plastic projectile across the vacuum chamber, causing the plastic ball to bounce harmlessly off the far wall. Turning on the second field coil caused the plastic ball to shatter against that same wall, sending fragments flying back far enough to hit him and the ceiling. It was safe to say he was on the right track and could continue.

Back in his workshop, he added a system that would charge the rounds so the field could interact with them properly. Normally, that process was handled by the primary field emitter, but that was big and bulky.

Alexander also planned on reversing the polarity of the charge. The reason for that was simple: all ships used the same positive and negative polarity for the primary and secondary fields of the static field array. By reversing it, he was essentially negating most of the field's ability to deflect or slow the rounds before they passed through the field.

About half of a railgun or Gauss cannon's projectile's velocity could be lost to the static field if you fired at the bow of a ship where the field was the strongest. Any seasoned captain knew that and would try to keep their bow pointed toward the enemy. By negating most of the field, he was essentially doubling the velocity of his rounds without adding any more energy to the weapon.

Not having to worry about the field was just another reason why lasers were a far better weapon in modern combat than railguns or Gauss cannons, but using them was not in the cards for the Stingray.

The completed design looked a lot like the aforementioned Gauss cannon. It would take an up-close inspection to see the differences.

One thing that railguns had over Gauss cannons was accuracy. It wasn't a huge difference at half a light second, which was their normal maximum range, but it grew pretty bad from that point on. With his new design, he would suffer that same issue, but there was no easy fix. Adding a coating could cause the micro-pores to clog up.

Alexander paused as a thought struck him. He already had a built-in solution for the accuracy issue.

Instead of adding a coating that would ensure the round was tightly held in the barrel, he simply modified the fields slightly to act as the coating, similar to how he used them to manipulate the printer material in the nano-assembler. The accuracy that the fields could hold would be unmatched by any material or barrel he could ever dream of printing. It also eliminated any source of direct contact of the round with the barrel.

He thought about changing the barrel material to something else now that he had the field to stabilize the round, but he decided to keep it in case the field acted up.

The new electronics to control the fields took up most of the space that once housed the rail charging system, but even that was smaller and lighter, leading to a more compact cannon.

Alexander slapped a vacuum pump on the prototype and got some aluminum foil to seal the end of the barrel. Once everything was printed, he called up Lucas.

"Hey, boss. What's up?"

"Wanna go to The Pit with me and test out a new weapon?" Alexander asked.

"As if you have to ask," the man chuckled. "What time are you planning on going?"

"Now."

"I'll be there shortly, don't leave without me."

The line cut out, and Alexander smiled. He knew Lucas would jump at the chance to fire a new weapon. The man may love his computers and programming, but he liked things that went boom almost as much.

Ten minutes later, Lucas came hurrying down the hallway, huffing and out of breath. "A little more warning next time. I'm not built for running."

"A little cardio is good for the heart," Alexander said with a smirk as he started toward the facility exit and the already-loaded shuttle.

"You going to fill me in on what it is we're testing?" The man asked as he hurried to catch up.

"Nope," Alexander replied.

They arrived at The Pit, and Lucas hadn't stopped pestering him about what was in the crates the entire time. Alexander stayed firm, though, and didn't tell the man anything.

He set the shuttle down off to the side so it would be out of the direct line of fire if something went catastrophically wrong.

They would also be using the bunker this time around instead of simply standing on the surface and firing weapons. He also wouldn't be standing in front of this new rail- weapon. He supposed it really wasn't a railgun anymore. At best, it could be classified as a coilgun. He decided to dub it the SFECG or static field-enhanced coilgun. It didn't quite roll off the tongue, but he could think of a better name for the weapon later.

Alexander would have invited Admiral Krieger to this test, but he wanted to make sure everything worked before presenting a finished product to the man.

A series of armored targets, similar to those he used way back when he built his first railgun prototype, were set up down range. There were also targets simulating frigate armor, destroyer armor, and a dual layer of corporate armor.

Those took a bit more time to set up, making Lucas anxious to see the actual weapon. Alexander had left it in a bio-locked crate to keep the man from peeking, but he knew if Lucas truly wanted to get inside the crate, he could have.

The first part of the weapon platform that went up was the tripod mount. It had a locked arc of fire of thirty degrees and a ten-degree gimbal to ensure it couldn't rotate towards anything it shouldn't. Twelve sandbags went onto the legs of the tripod to keep it from flipping over.

That along with the shock absorbers built into the weapon, should be more than enough to account for any possible recoil.

"Are you ready to see what I cooked up?" Alexander asked with a smirk, knowing full well the man had been ready since the moment he contacted him.

"Quit stalling," Lucas complained as he gave a hurry-up motion.

Alexander chuckled and unlocked the crate. He lifted the top off to expose the weapon within.

Lucas cocked his head slightly as he looked at the unassuming weapon. "A Gauss cannon?" he guessed.

Considering the penetrators that were packed along the side of the crate, it was a good guess.

"Nope," Alexander grinned. "I call it the SFECG."

As soon as the acronym came out of Alexander's mouth, Lucas groaned. "Please tell me that's a placeholder name."

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"It is," Alexander admitted. "It stands for Static Field-Enhanced Coilgun."

"Hmm," Lucas said in thought. "How bout we just call it the FE Cannon, or Field Effect Cannon? It's less of a mouthful to simply say FE or FEC."

Alexander thought about Lucas' suggestion and eventually nodded his avatar. "I like it. It's not technically correct, but that doesn't really matter. I'll set up the weapon if you want to finish setting up the measuring equipment."

It didn't take the pair long to complete their tasks. Soon, the FE Cannon was sitting atop the tripod, and the equipment designed to read the velocity of the projectile as well as capture images of it in flight to ensure it was flying properly was set up and ready to go.

"Did you get this idea from my close encounter with your experiment?" Lucas asked as they moved into the bunker.

"I did. I figured if one static field could move a metal ball around fast enough to dent walls, what would twenty do?"

"Twenty?" the man asked in shock. "Did you test this beforehand?"

Alexander nodded his avatar. "I was only able to test it with two field coils and a plastic ball, but the result was impressive. If my math was right, twenty should have around the same velocity as a railgun."

"And if your math is off?" Lucas asked as he powered up the observation cameras.

Alexander shrugged. "I guess we're about to find out."