Darkness Within
Z minus 3.2 hours: We have a thrust frame! A proper cylinder truss, even, because at this point, trying to take clever short-cuts would be very much a false economy, of the type that leads to embarrassingly anticipatable anoxia. And even so, I’m still running a full fourteen
Darkness Within
Noetic reinstantiation is in progress. Secondary noumenal systems and incrementing memory string load incomplete. Please wait, avoiding intensive cogitative activity. Please hold all queries until incrementing memory string load is complete. New associations may interfere with engram binding. Primary incrementing memory string load complete. Cross-loading and merging memory updates from
Darkness Within
Oh, this is very bad, Isif, very bad indeed. I have made one hell of a mess of the design of the thrust frame end. These beam stubs aren’t going to hold under the drive thrust. Static load, maybe. Dynamic load, not a chance. It’ll warp all to
Darkness Within
These tactical observation platforms are covered in multiple sensory modules, priced at something over a million esteyn each. That’s not even counting the ones that are too classified to have anything resembling a market price. This I know very well, as they’re part of the ship’s hardware
Darkness Within
The side beams are welded to the tank – and still no leaks, or for that matter explosions – and the chunks of hull plating bonded to the beams. For once, that went smoothly. I’ve even cut four extra short chunks of beam and welded them onto what will be the
Darkness Within
The remass tank is out. With the LOX tank pulled and the rest of the life-support machinery junked, pulling a few bulkhead panels let me into the for’ard maintenance compartment, and thanks to a bit of forethought on the parts of the designers, the fill, drain, and press connectors
Darkness Within
About that LOX tank… The least well defined part of this candle plan has always been how to stay breathing. Before leaving Gutpunch‘s hulk, I can recharge my suit reservoirs with the last of the oxygen and inert-mix1 from the emergency supplies. That would be enough for a local
Darkness Within
For those of you who read this for the space technology, it occurs to me that I should perhaps point out at this time that it’s only the militarized version of the Nelyn-class that comes with a nuclear-thermal attitude control system. The civilian one uses regular and more modestly
Darkness Within
MET-187-5+13 et. seq. That will go more easily if I can get in behind it and push it out, but that means exposing the forward maintenance compartment. Which will be a job in itself; a Nelyn’s a lot of spacecraft for its size, which has the unfortunate corollary
Darkness Within
MET 187-5+3 Or possibly I don’t need a new plan. Since I can’t think of a new plan, just a variation on the old plan, it would be very desirable that this is the case. To make it to the stargate, I would need a vector-control core,
Darkness Within
MET 186-23+4 So I’ve been running some numbers. At a best guess from the nav data available, Gutpunch had 18.5 hours1 to run at standard cruising acceleration, 9.6 standard gravities effective2. That in turn implies that I need something approaching six million m/s of delta
Darkness Within
FROM: CS UNDERBELT (FIELD FLEET RIMWARD) TO: FIELD FLEET RIMWARD COMMAND (CS ARMIGEROUS PROPERTARIAN) *** ROUTINE *** FLEET CONFIDENTIAL E256 *** OVERDUE 1. CS GUTPUNCH ATTACHED TO TASK GROUP R-4-118 HAS MISSED THREE (3) ROUTINE STATUS UPLOADS AND IS NOW CONSIDERED OVERDUE. 2. CS UNDERBELT AND COHORT PROCEEDING FROM CURRENT LOCATION (PARDERIC SYSTEM)