Blue Star Enterprises

"More weapon testing?" Lucas asked in excitement. "It isn't even my birthday."

Before Alexander could comment, the younger man hurried off to grab another crate from the shuttle.

"Is he like this every time the pair of you come out here?" Krieger asked.

"Only when weapons are involved," Alexander replied as he set up the FE cannon once again.

"I can hear you!" Lucas yelled from the rear of the shuttle. "And who doesn't like to fire off a weapon?" he asked as he came down the ramp with a box of ammunition.

"Fair enough," Krieger admitted. "So, Alex, not that I'm ungrateful, but why did you decide to invite me this time around?"

"I wanted you to see the finished products in action."

"Products?" Krieger asked in intrigue. "Does it have anything to do with those mannequins wearing augment gear or that one that looks to be wearing a dress?"

While Krieger had been able to watch the previous tests through the video feed, Alexander hadn't told him what those were about. "You'll see soon enough."

Alexander hadn't only brought the FE cannon, but he had also brought the new FE rifles. They were sitting in a crate off to the side. The reason he had two augment suits was to test one versus the actual cannon. He doubted the static generator would do much to stop a round from something so large, but he wanted to see what effect it might have. The other two were to showcase the new field generator against the most powerful handheld projectile rifle ever developed.

The three moved inside the bunker for the cannon test.

That poor dummy was situated in front of the destroyer's armor mockup.

Lucas quickly grabbed ear protection, and Alexander handed a pair to the Admiral. "Trust me, you'll need these."

The man quickly placed them on, and the finalized FE cannon was activated. Unlike his earlier prototypes, the activation sequence of the fields had been optimized by the self-learning of his pseudo-computronics. He could have done it himself, but it would have taken far longer.

According to Lucas, the programs were nearing the point where they might be considered AI within the STO. That didn't mean they were sapient, though. With the way the code was designed, he didn't think that would ever be possible. If it had been, the corporations likely would have developed sentient AI a long time ago to gain an edge, since he knew some of them utilized AI extensively, especially Omni.

The pseudo-computronics were a bit like him, able to piece together the information they had available to come up with better alternatives. That did bring up the question of whether he was an AI all over again, but he decided it didn't much matter at this point. He felt human, and he had feelings, that's all that really counted.

The cannon quickly cycled through its self-check, and Alexander selected the first dummy as the target.

"This isn't the full targeting suite you might have aboard a ship," Alexander said, "but it helps to accurately align the gun. I don't want to have another instance of a round going rogue."

"I appreciate that," Krieger stated flatly. "What caused that in the first place anyway? I doubt you simply decided to point the gun at the storage building in orbit and take a shot."

Alexander sighed. "The field projected past the barrel slightly in our tests. Unfortunately, the projectile wasn't perfectly aligned with the center of the field as it exited. Once the final field activated, it shoved the projectile vertically instead of forward, and the rest you already know."

Krieger nodded. "Is that a concern we have to worry about going forward? The alignment, not the field being projected past the barrel. I assume you fixed that issue."

"I fixed both issues. The field emitters no longer project beyond the barrel, and the alignment is less touchy now. It did cost a bit of velocity to achieve that goal, but it's still well above what a railgun can achieve."

"Are we done playing twenty questions?" Lucas asked in annoyance. "You can do the boring stuff back home. Let's shoot this thing already."

Alexander just shook his avatar and handed the tablet to Krieger, earning a faux look of betrayal from Lucas. "You already had an opportunity to press the big red button," Alexander told the aggrieved man.

Lucas huffed but turned back toward the holo display that showed the test range.

"Here goes nothing," Krieger said before pressing the icon on the tablet.

If they weren't inside an atmosphere, the thing firing would have been nearly silent. Just a light ting sound as the Gauss accelerator kicked in to start the projectile on its way. That all changed when the projectile tore through the thin film over the barrel and crossed the short distance to the target in less than a heartbeat. The crack of the projectile cutting through the air was deafening, and Alexander was glad he didn't have ears or audio pickups that seemed affected by such things.

Thanks to cameras and sensors set up near the first dummy, Alexander could see that the field did engage to try and stop the projectile, but the white-hot metal cut through the static field, armor, and plastic body like it wasn't even there. It continued uninterrupted through the mockup plate of destroyer armor before blowing out the other side as a spray of molten metal.

"The projectile heating issue won't be as big of a concern in space," he stated.

"WHAT?!" Krieger yelled.

Even with the double layer of ear protection, the shockwave produced by the cannon was head-rattling.

Alexander sighed and took the tablet, writing a message on it that read 'Your hearing should return shortly.'

The pair joined him outside a few minutes later. Krieger was still shaking his ear with a finger and moving his jaw back and forth. "I THINK YOU NEED MORE SOUND PROOFING ON THAT BUNKER."

The three of them walked down range and inspected the remains of the dummy. By the time they arrived, Lucas and Krieger had regained most of their hearing.

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The dummy was still standing upright, but black smoke curled out from inside. Some of the plastic must still be smoldering.

The only thing you could see was a small hole neatly melted through the front and back armor. It really had given the projectile nearly zero resistance.

Thanks to the cameras, Alexander had been able to calculate how much of an effect the field generator had on the projectile. Not much was the answer. He wasn't sure if the field was simply inadequate to stop that much mass or if the field hadn't sprung up quickly enough.

Krieger quickly grew bored with examining the suit and moved over to the ship's armor. Being a commander, he would be more interested in how the weapon performed against ship armor. Considering Alexander hadn't filled him in about the new feature of the suit yet, his reaction was expected.

"The friction caused by the tungsten penetrator passing through armor as thick as that at such a high velocity is going to cause it to burst even without atmospheric heating. Will that be an issue?" Alexander asked as he watched the man examine the still-glowing hole.

Krieger stood up and turned to him. "An issue? Not at all. It'll actually be an advantage. It's rare to have a single railgun or Gauss round pass through undamaged armor. We have a term for that when it happens, they are referred to as a miracle shot. Normally, a ship has to put multiple rounds on the same spot to weaken armor for more rounds to smash through. Those rounds then simply keep going until they hit something that stops them, usually the other side of the ship or something that explodes. As you know, it takes a lot of shots to bring down a ship of equivalent size. Most of that is because the rounds remain intact when they pass through the weakened armor. Having them fragment like this means the damage they cause is multiplied quite a bit."

"Less shots, more damage," Alexander replied with a nod.

"Exactly," Krieger confirmed. "Have you gotten the new cannons installed on your test ship yet?"

"It's almost ready, but let's head back to the staging area. I'm pretty sure Lucas is about to vibrate apart with excitement if we don't."

The pair looked over at the man who was still examining the augmentation suit with a big grin on his face.

After heading back, Alexander picked up one of the rifles and handed it to Krieger.

"Oof, a bit heavy for a rifle, isn't it?" the man asked as he hefted the weapon.

"It'll mostly be used by people in augment suits, but it's light enough to be utilized by an unaugmented individual in a pinch. I couldn't make it any lighter without reducing its durability, trust me, I tried."

Lucas struggled a bit more with the weapon than the Admiral, but he still managed to get it on the table and the bipod legs set in place.

Krieger looked at the setup suspiciously. "How's the recoil? In basic training, they made us fire a crew-served railgun from a bipod while lying prone. I'm pretty sure I can still feel that to this day."

"It isn't all that much. Most is handled by the active recoil-damping systems inside the gun.

"So it's nearly recoilless!" Krieger stated in surprise, giving the weapon a second look.

"Not exactly. You'll still feel the initial hit from the Gauss system, but that should be minimal. If the field that suspends the rounds inside the barrel ever fails, then it'll probably break bones on an unaugmented person."

Krieger's look of awe quickly turned to one of wariness. "Let's hope that doesn't happen then."

It looked like Krieger had more questions, but Lucas was growing more impatient.

Alexander held his hand up to halt any further inquiry for the time being. "How about you two take some target practice on the other objects for a bit? Once you have a feel for the weapon, we can move to the mannequins."

"Bout time," he heard Lucas mutter.

Krieger simply nodded and loaded his weapon.

They both started on the lowest setting, plinking targets with the tungsten flechettes that Alexander had designed for the gun.

He would have gone with the steel ones that normal flechette rifles used, but they were not robust enough to hold up to the weapon's full power.

The guns were nearly silent at the lowest power. All you could hear was the ping of the Gauss accelerator as it launched the projectile out of the barrel.

Once the second setting was engaged, you could hear the light crack as the projectile crossed the sound barrier, but they were so small that it was quiet enough not to require hearing protection.

The third setting was full power. The crack of supersonic flight was louder, but it wasn't much more than you might expect from a hunting rifle.

Krieger had taken to firing at the frigate armor with the last of his rounds. Alexander could see small pits appearing in the armor as the rounds exploded against the exterior.

The Admiral removed the magazine and set the weapon to safe before turning to him. "Color me impressed. I'm not sure I would want to fire that at full power inside a ship, though. Do you think you could make a smaller version that included just the first two modes?"

"Sure, but don't you want something to deal with armored invaders?"

"If we are getting boarded, we have enough to worry about without adding panicked ship crew firing wildly with wall-penetrating rounds. There is still a use for the full-power models, though. Our tactical teams can have those. Pair them with your suit sensors, and I don't see why they can't simply fire through walls to pick off enemies in hiding when doing boarding operations."

Alexander hadn't considered that. He would need to add some sort of sync feature to the FE rifle that would allow it to show the person in the augment suit where to aim to hit a hidden target, but that shouldn't be too hard to incorporate.

"I'll take that into consideration." Alexander handed the Admiral another magazine. "Ready for the final test?"

Krieger accepted the ammo and turned to Lucas. "No complaint about being left out?"

"Nope, I got to shoot at Alex, so I'm good."

Krieger turned back to Alex with a concerned look.

"It was for testing, and we only used a flechette rifle," Alexander said.

That explanation didn't seem to mollify the Admiral. The man looked him over for damage before shaking his head and slapping the magazine into the weapon. "We'll discuss your idea of acceptable testing some other time. Which target do you want me to shoot first?"

"Using full power, fire as fast as you can at the armored target."

Needing no more encouragement, Krieger let loose. Alexander could see when the field generator finally failed as the mannequin started to rock when rounds peppered the armor.

By the time the weapon was empty, the target was riddled full of holes and leaning oddly to the side.

"Was that what I think it was?" Krieger asked.

Alexander smiled and handed him the tablet that showed a video of the target.

As the first rounds entered the video window, they came to a dead stop. More rounds joined the first before the field collapsed, dropping the inert rounds to the ground as more slammed into the armor. Six seconds was the best Alexander had managed with the generators, and they would take fifteen minutes to recharge, but it was enough to allow someone to run for cover.

"I knew you had a prototype, but I didn't think you had managed to miniaturize it enough to go into armor," Krieger said in surprise.

Alexander nodded his avatar up and down enthusiastically.

"Wait, don't tell me that dress has the same feature?"

"You tell me." Alexander handed the man another magazine, and Krieger quickly loaded it and began firing at the final target.

The man whistled as he watched the second replay, as the rounds simply stopped short of the dress.

"How?" he asked, flabbergasted by the result. "I assume the armor has the field generator buried inside the power pack on the back, but I don't see anything like that on the dress."

Alexander smiled. "Did you notice the necklace around the mannequin's neck?"

"You're shitting me. Really? I thought it was odd to have a necklace on the mannequin, but that's what's stopping the rounds. It seems so unassuming."

"That was the whole point," Alexander chuckled. "If you didn't realize it was a defensive item, that means our enemies won't either."

"You should've seen the size of the first prototype," Lucas chuckled.

"It wasn't that bad," Alexander grumped.

Krieger ignored the banter and asked a question Alexander had been expecting from the commander. "Any chance you could deploy this around a ship?"

Alexander shook his avatar. "Not in its current configuration. That doesn't mean I won't try to figure something out, though. There are also other things I could do with a field such as this, but that will have to wait until after I return from my trip."

Krieger nodded at that answer. "You haven't spoken about your trip much. I assume you wish for me to come with?"

"As much as I would appreciate you commanding the new ship, I think I have enough experience to handle that myself. I need you to stay here and keep things safe."

Krieger looked like he wanted to argue the point, but he paused and then nodded. "Probably for the best, I can't imagine the STO Navy would be thrilled to see me."