if at first you don't succeed use a bigger hammer!

Posted on Tue Sep 28, 2021 @ 7:53pm by Ensign Remmy Halstein & Lieutenant Sibyl Danzer

Mission: Episode 5: Escalation
Location: Armory
1108 words - 2.2 OF Standard Post Measure

Remmy had heard that the majority of the senior staff and the crew were deploying to the planet to fight the Borg. He was a tactical officer but he felt a little left out so he headed to the armory to speak with the Chief, he worked the night shift so he hadn't had the opportunity to speak with Sibyl much.

He entered his access codes into the outer door of the armory and stepped into a well lit and busy place. He looked around for the Lt spotting her at the torpedo modification station.

"Lieutenant Danzer" he said coming to attention "May I speak with you?"

Having just dismissed the Armory chief from a conversation about micro replicated anti-borg piercing rounds, Sibyl turned to find who was addressing her. "Of course Ensign...." She trailed off. "I'm sorry, I haven't learned everyone's names yet." She admitted.

"Ensign Remmy Halstein ma'am" he said not relaxing just yet. He was unsure about his new supervisor, on the Tesla he had been stud duck. But the Tesla was a science ship and the Eagle is a warship first, thus his 'just out the academy' experience was some what lacking. He did miss his security duties though. "I heard you were working on a way to counter the current Borg threat!"

"Trying out some of the usual containment scenarios with the goal of ventilating as many as we can." She pursed her lips in thought. "You seem like you're itching to contribute, Mr. Halstein. what have you got in mind?"

Remmy nodded, "A few months back a ship called the Potemkin encountered an Illiran ship that had been attacked by the Borg, they engaged Drone in that ship. The Illirans used ballistic weapons, designed to fire rounds that were all unique. Each one was loaded with a variable load of gunpowder, the bullet contained a tiny random amount of a light material and the refiling of the weapon was drilled in a manner that made the spin of the bullet different each time. If my research is right one weapon could fire 200'000 bullets before the Borg could adapt." He knew that they were tactical now but given their current deployment. "Maybe we could make that kind of thing work on a larger scale? Maybe modifying the Torpedo tubes to fire magnetically accelerated slug?"

Sibyl appeared impressed. "The changes to bullet replication should be straightforward enough. How long will it take to modify torpedo tubes?"

"I think, it should be a simple reworking of some of the firing coding. The projectile itself will be more of a concern, we will have the power to fire a round but the more power we can spare the faster we could launch it thus increasing the damage it would do."

Sibyl rubbed her chin. "More oomph in the punch?"

"Yes, a standard torpedo has more explosive power, but when it comes to a Borg ship the more damage we can do the better, a torpedo is like a grenade, sure it can do some heavy surface damage but a bullet will penetrate much deeper, and will break up sending fragments all over the place."

"Do you have the technical skills for that kind of rework, Mr. Halstein? What size team will you need?"

"I can do the programming Ma'am" he said "That shouldn't take very long at all, but engineering will need to free up another few gigawatts to power just one of them, but we will be able to switch between torpedoes and mag rounds as needed."

"Let's prepare the programming and the projected power expenditure schedules, so we have the option if we have the juice. This seems like the kind of thing I'd rather have loaded and ready to use and have no cause to, rather than to wish we did and not. Update me on your progress."

Remmy smiled "I have a similar saying." The big viking smiled and spun around. The armory was just a good a place to start on this as anywhere else. He took a seat at one of the spare stations out the way and logged on. He had a folder with dozens of programs he was writing, more of a hobby than a need. Selecting one of the files he opened it in a custom coding program he had created himself, it was much more user friendly than anything else in standard use within the fleet. On the screen a dozen boxes of code popped up, he stared at it for a moment considering how it could be adapted to suit his current need. The program had originally been designed as a way to change torpedo launch speed, a random speed to help combat the Borg. His thinking was that the more unknowns in a weapon system the harder it would be for the Borg to adapt to them.

What he had proposed was more about throwing something heavy at them and he needed to work out how to make the launchers throw said object as fast as they could, which is not what they were designed to do. But it was close, they did throw torpedoes in the same way, but they were only meant to throw said torpedo outside the ship at which point its own engines would take over.

After long minutes of thinking and toying he had a thought. "Lieutenant Danzer?" he asked turning to face her again.

Sibyl was reviewing the tactical gear orders for the teams she was assigning and looked up. "Yes Ensign?"

"Am I over thinking this? Would it be better to just create a torpedo that uses the guts of a normal one but with no explosives?"

Sibyl looked a little confused by the question. "Well, that would depend, wouldn't it? On the kind of damage you want out of the torpedo. Usually you're trying to deliver the firework on the inside of the vessel though."

"Well" he said "No, you are correct" he conceded "A torpedo has a warp maintainer engine, it has no ability to jump to warp on its own. We could push a high density round to" he looked off into nothingness for a moment, "About a quarter light speed, if the round was say made from osmium it would punch a hole through a cube, hell even titanium would mess a cube up a little."

"Big ol block of Borgish swiss cheese. I guess sometimes a bullet will just cut it. Less technology for the enemy to counteract."

He smiled, his new boss was okay. He turned back to his work, he would need to alter the magnetic field coils first.