Board Thread:The Company/@comment-24930445-20140615054833/@comment-24866242-20140625023824

"Alright, tell me how this works."

Sandra and Lauren were in the cockpit of the Darwin. Sandra sat in the pilot's chair and Lauren was next to her in the copilot's seat.

"Basically, we were able to prove that there is an interference pattern generated between our devices and the original field," Lauren answered. This interference pattern wasn't observed in our original lab environment so we believe it has to do with a missing component in our copy that allows the original device and their copies to use the gathered energy. Joslynne's copies are working together somehow and ours are not. We think this is why the device they removed from Daisy burned out when she came into proximity of our copy."

Sandra nodded slowly, "I think I'm with you. So it will prevent their fields from disabling us like before?"

"Yes."

"And standard weapons?"

Lauren tilted her head slightly, not looking entirely confident about what she said next. "They may not be able to bring standard weapons to bear. A weapon beam originating from inside the field would be absorbed. That is definitely the case for our copies. Your own weapons are going to be useless while the device is enabled."

"That didn't seem to stop the intruders," Sandra observed. “Probably wouldn’t stop a torpedo launch either.”

"True," Lauren agreed. "So they may have found a way around that problem. Or maybe they were just holding their weapons far enough away from themselves that they could shoot."

"That doesn't fill me with confidence. Don't your copies tend to overload?"

"If they don't have someplace to dump the energy they're absorbing, yes. A bigger ship like Krita or Vextis has enough power capacity to allow us to dump the absorbed energy from a ship mounted weapon strike back into the power grid. A smaller ship like Darwin doesn't though, so we had to think of another way to use the power."

"And what did you come up with?"

“We think we can trigger a feedback loop back to any weapon source that hits the field. Theoretically it would send the energy back to the attacking weapons and destroy the source.”

“Theoretically.” Sandra wasn’t loving it. “Will that feedback loop make it through their field?”

“We think so. It should take on the same interference pattern, but we don’t have any way to test that. The test we’re about to run will only verify that our feedback loop works.”

Lawrence and Jarrid joined them. “Everything’s rigged,” Jarrid said. “We’re ready to take off.”

Sandra nodded and signalled hangar control. She got the nod from the man upstairs and powered up engines. Jarrid and Lawrence strapped in behind Sandra and Lauren. Chaz was below.

From their point of view inside of Darwin’s inertial dampening field, the hangar bay of the Vextis spun around them as the Darwin pointed herself at the bay doors. The huge room then dropped back behind the ship as they shot out into space. Below them on the once again functional Vextis runway, a pair of drones were being prepped for launch. In a few minutes those drones would attack the Darwin.

Sandra brought them out a few kilometers from Vextis before settling into a lunar orbit. “Vextis control, we’re in position.”

''“Acknowledged, Darwin. Drone one is launching now.”''

''“Darwin, this is Doctor Korbin. This first test will test the feedback mechanism with a non-lethal beam. If everything goes as planned we’ll proceed to test two.”''

Jarrid put a hand on the back of Sandra’s chair. “Uhmm… What did he mean by ‘first test’?”

Lawrence answered. “If the first test works the second drone will attack with a standard beam.”

“So we’re out here to get shot at? Why didn’t we do this the other way around? Put the device on the drone?”

Lauren smiled back at him, “If everything goes according to plan, you don’t want to be the attacker in this test.”

The sensors began pinging the first drone’s approach. Lawrence swiveled his chair to face the sensor console to his right and Lauren did the same at the copilot’s position, both of them monitoring their scans of the approaching robot craft.

''“Darwin, hold position. Drone will begin firing in ten seconds.”''

The craft approached from behind so they couldn’t see it in the cockpit windows, but Lawrence and Lauren both had scans up on their screens. Jarrid watched over Lawrence’s shoulder nervously as the little robot ship closed the distance and the seconds dragged on.

“The drone has fired,” Lawrence announced. They felt nothing, but Lawrence’s sensor display started pinging frantically, highlighting the beam emitters on the attacking craft. Lauren was replaying the readouts of the drone’s beam microsecond by microsecond. She glanced over her shoulder at Lawrence and nodded.

''“Darwin, this is Korbin. First test looks like a positive result from here. The drone’s beam emitters are completely disabled. We are ready to proceed to test two if you concur.”''

Lawrence nodded when Sandra glanced back at him and she pushed the button to respond. “Acknowledged. Proceed with the second run.”

This time she turned the Darwin to face the oncoming drone. The white skin of the craft brightly reflected the sunlight above and the moonlight below, leaving no part of the craft in shadow.

“Drone will fire in ten seconds,” Korbin advised them again.

Twin beams lanced out from under the belly of the drone, striking Darwin directly just left of the cockpit. Jarrid tensed as the beams struck, but the ship failed to explode under the onslaught. The cabin lights didn’t even flicker. There was a visible flicker in the beam, however. The beam cut out suddenly and there was a small explosion under the drone as its weapons pods burned out. The impact on the drone was great enough that the craft was knocked off course by the blast and started rotating as its momentum continued to carry it towards them.

“Looks like its guidance systems have burned out,” Lawrence advised. “It’s on a collision course.”

Sandra nodded and moved them out of the way.

“I would call this a good test,” Lauren smiled happily. “We can start work on larger versions for the bigger ships in the fleet.”

“Do you have all of the data you need?” Sandra asked her.

Lauren nodded.

“Good. I’m bringing you back to Vextis and then we’re leaving.”