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The Tour (part 3)
Posted By: Traumatised Marine<rbecalick@hotmail.com>
Date: 17 March 2003, 7:21 PM
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They entered a pitch-dark room. Despite this one could tell it was of colossal size for the echoing sounds of their footsteps upon the cold, hard floor.
The group stopped.
There was a five second pause of utter silence.
Finally the silence was broken by the Professor's angry voice.
"I shouldn't have to tell you to turn on the blasted lights, Archimedes!"
"I apologise, Professor Zolkievich." Came the AI's simulated voice.
Suddenly the room was brilliantly lit, by a set of floodlights that hung from it's distant ceiling.
The group squirmed slightly as their eyes adjusted to the brilliance.
After a few moments they could see what filled the room.
Arranged on the floor of the great hangar-like room were several Ghosts, Shadows and a single Wraith tank, all shone in the brilliant light with purple iridescence. The craft resembled a stampede of rhinos come insects.
There were also a good number of Shade gun turrets and many shield projectors.
Hanging from the ceiling from taught Titachord pylons were several Banshees, a Bandit dropship and most impressive, dominating the chamber- a Seraph Covenant fighter craft.
"These are examples of the Covenant craft, I shan't go into great detail over each one, because as you can see, certain ones follow the same basic principles."
Said the Professor, glancing at the ground vehicles.
"Well, I shall explain the highlights of the ground-based vehicles first."
Said the Professor, leading the group to the assortment of Covenant vehicles.
"The small one there has come to be known as a 'Ghost.' It is a recon vehicle. The two cannons at the front are of similar design to the plasma rifles, however they are, understandably, more powerful, about one hundred to two hundred and fifty kilowatts. The only new point of interest in these vehicles is how they move.
The Professor addressed Doctor Wardmen, whom was particularly practised at driving the hoverbike-like Ghost.
"Doctor Wardmen, if you could give us a demonstration."
"Gladly Professor." Replied the slightly unshaven doctor, promptly sitting down in the craft and activating it.
From beneath the craft it began to issue an ongoing wailing, whistling, whirring sound. And with this the craft rose to a good three feet from the ground.
"DRIVE IT TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HANGAR, DOCTOR!" Professor Zolkievich yelled over the sound of the Ghost.
Doctor Wardmen nodded and pressed his foot on the pedal, sending him flying down the other end of the corridor, his lab coat flapping crazily.
"Well," Said the Professor, "As you can see it hovers, and although the Covenant do know how to manipulate gravitational fields, it is not anti-gravity you are seeing there. You are no doubt aware that one of the first discoveries we were able to yield from the Covenant technology was artificial gravity, we discovered this from salvaged craft such as the Bandit dropships.
Well these craft do not use anti-grav, they are able to levitate with the aid of an unknown material core. We are truly clueless as to how they manage to hover using this material, hence we have been unable to incorporate hover technology into any new UNSC applications.
The Ghost began to make an oiled arc across the other end of the hangar and back to the group.
The Professor indicated to the Shadows and the single Wraith tank.
"Those two seater vehicles with the tri-plasma gun emplacements are infantry suppression vehicles, with a similar seating configuration to a UNSC 'Warthog.' As for the larger one, that is a Wraith, the heavy ground vehicle of the Covenant. Of some interest, the Wraith uses plasma mortars, velocity-propelled shells that act in a similar fashion to plasma grenades, however they are impact detonated.
These mortars come with their own gas and power supply."
The Ghost had now come to a stop and Doctor Wardmen had rejoined them.
The Professor continued.
"There is little of particular interest in these vehicles, but perhaps you would like to see the inside of one of the Covenant craft? Perhaps the dropship?"
"Thank you Professor, yes, I was hoping I could see the inside of one." The Chancellor replied.
"Follow me please, Supreme Chancellor." Said the Professor, who walked to an 8 square metre platform with rails along it's perimeter and a rather botched looking assortment of devices bolted to it's underside.
The Professor helped the Chancellor onto the platform.
"Professor Hobson took the liberty of taking a few pieces of excess Covenant hover technology and creating this hover platform." The Professor called to Professor Hobson, "I trust you were able to work out the stabilisation quirks?"
"It should be a smooth ride Professor." Replied Professor Hobson.
"Very well," Said Professor Zolkievich, "Archimedes, bring us up to be level with the Covenant dropships left hatch and open it when we get there."
"Yes Professor Zolkievich."
The platform shuddered, the engines beneath it whirred to life, and it made a steady, level rise up towards the ceiling.
"This is incredible..." Gasped the Chacellor, gingerly peering over one of the rails.
"Here we are." Announced the Professor.
The platform levelled with the hatch of the Covenant dropship, and Archimedes opened it.
The Professor and the Chancellor stepped awkwardly into the tusk of the craft.
"Interesting design," Said the Chancellor, "So this is how they drop off their troops?"
"Indeed," Replied the Professor, "I'll show you the cockpit, Supreme Chancellor."
The Professor lead her across the narrow tusk around a small corner and into the cramped cockpit.
Inside there were two seats, the one behind elevated about a foot above the one in front.
"The Pilot sits in the front seat, a holographic flight computer is projected in front of them. These craft also have a rear-mounted plasma canon, controlled by a gunner in the rear seat. This gunner will have a holographic targeting set up projected before him. I should like to give you a demonstration, but this hanger is too small, and obviously we are not permitted to fire the vehicle weapons in here."
The Chancellor asked,
"Do these craft use artificial gravity? Can they function in space?"
The Professor nodded,
"Yes of course, they have artificial gravity. And yes, they function perfectly well in space. When in an atmosphere they use the same hover systems as the ground vehicles, albeit far more powerful. In space they use plasma engine systems like the Covenant warships.
Another interesting function of these craft that we ourselves have been able to yield is the stasis field between the two tusks. We know how this works and it has been used to great effect in some aspects. One of these being Dr. Halsey's Spartan II project. You see, although the Covenant have created deflection energy shields (such as the one I showed you in the firing range,) these shields do require an amount of energy that is 'not to be sneezed at.' They also require a projection system.
Meanwhile these stasis fields can actually be used as shields also. They take much less energy to produce and don't require extensive projectors, as long as they have a field surface to follow. Hence they have been used in the MJOLINER project, as we are able to create enough energy from a fusion cell to make one of these 'stasis shields' function, and the fusion cell may be mounted on the MJOLINER armour backpack. We are not the first to think of this, the Covenant themselves also use these shields on a certain species of their own military. So while these shields require less energy, don't require an extensive projection system and can fully surround the form of an object, they do also have certain drawbacks."
"Such as?" Asked the Chancellor.
"Well, these 'stasis shields' function in a very different way to the other type of energy shield. The shields act more like a field of extremely intense friction, absorbing shots instead of using a 'rebound' effect and deflecting shots or dissipating them. This means that they are less powerful, and can be punctured if the shot is powerful enough. Particularly if the shot has an extremely small calibre, such as a sniper round or to a greater extent; needles from a Covenant needler. Do you understand?"
"Of course I do." Replied the Chancellor briskly, "May I see some of the other craft?"
"Of course Supreme Chancellor."
The Chancellor and the Professor got back onto the hover platform and Archimedes directed it to one of the Banshees.
The Professor gave a brief summary of the points of interest of the craft.
"These appear to be strictly atmosphere-based air craft. You can see that the pilot lies forward on it's front to pilot it. The craft is armed with a pair of plasma cannons of the same power ranges as those on the Ghost, and a fuel rod cannon similar to the large weapon you saw in the firing range."
The Chancellor pointed at the two pods, one on the edge of each wing.
"Are those how the craft flies?"
"Yes, correct, they are the same material as found in the ground vehicles, but each is at least double the size of any of the ground vehicle hover cores, they must be spaced so far apart to allow maximum manoeuvrability. As I said before, we are utterly clueless as to how these pods work."
The Chancellor turned to look at the Seraph.
"I should like to see the cockpit of that craft."
"Ah, yes well I'm afraid that won't be possible, you see it is a rather large craft for the size of this hangar, and half of the whole front of the ship lifts up to allow entrance to the cockpit, and we had to attach it to the ceiling in such a way that entrance is now obstructed."
"Oh." Said the Chancellor, tinged with slight disappointment.
"It is a dual seater craft, although it appears the craft could be piloted by a single Covenant. This is the smallest craft we have seen that has pulse lasers. We do know how these weapons work, in fact the UNSC had created prototype pulse lasers even before we met the Covenant, however they haven't been used in the field as we are unable to generate enough power to make them practical weapons.
It has two large pulse lasers that fire from those grooves you can see in the hull just behind on either side of the cockpit. It also has plasma weapons, namely a small supply of plasma torpedoes, projectiles that work in similar fashion to the plasma mortars of a tank, however with much greater speed and power. The craft does not have pulse plasma weapons, such weapons would probably just be deemed a waste of time in vaccum combat, to create plasma blasts strong enough to be significant enough when employed against warships one would require a very large amount of compressed gas to act as ammunition. The strength of it's weapons are quite impressive, particularly the pulse lasers, I would love to demonstrate to you, but as I said, we are in a hangar."
The Professor told Archimedes to bring the hover platform down.
"Well then, I believe that's the vehicles covered, now we'll go over what we know about the Covenant warships."
The group entered a dim room, there was a circular table built into the floor in the center with ten seats around it.
Set into this table were several holo projector crystals.
They all took their seats and the Professor called to Archimedes.
"Start the Covenant warship display program Archimedes!"
The AI replied,
"Yes Professor Zolkievich."
The holo projectors warmed and lit up, projecting into the center of the table three Covenant warships.
A cruiser, destroyer and a frigate, all rotating slowly, semi-transparent, a foot from the surface of the table.
The Professor indicated,
"A Covenant cruiser, destroyer and frigate. Firstly I shall tell you about the typical armament of these warships. They all will carry plasma torpedoes and pulse lasers emplacements in varying numbers.
We know about pulse lasers already, and the Plasma torpedoes describe themselves. There have also been reports of huge charges of guided plasma, and even of light-speed propelled energy lances that can pierce right through a fully enforced cruiser. As we have never been able to examine even a half intact Covenant warship, there is very little we know.
From particle readings picked up from scanners it seems they use some form of plasma engine drive in normal space. Effective though this might be, it would require a large amount of coolant to prevent critical overload of their reactors. They are able to travel faster and far more accurately in Fujikawa Shaw space than we can. You'll also no doubt be aware that these craft have force fields. They are of the 'stasis' variety, similar to the ones on the MJOLINER armour."
The Chancellor put her hand up to silence the Professor, then she asked.
"I don't understand, you know how these 'stasis' shields function, you've even used them in our own technology. So why was there no attempt to install them on our own warships, could they not generate enough power?"
The Professor gave a small smile.
"Supreme Chancellor it has been our priority one objective to be able to install these shields on our own warships. The problem is not power, indeed we have created new reactor systems that could easily cope with powering 'stasis' shields, however there is a problem we are yet to overcome. You see, we have learnt to manipulate these shields to a very high degree, we can increase field strength in some places, while reducing it in others. The problem encountered is when we try to create a temporary hole in the field, we can't do it, the field destabilises and overloads the field generators. These stasis shields work both ways, Supreme Chancellor, from outside in and inside out. It would be pointless for our ships to have shields if we were unable to create temporary breaches in the field to allow ourselves to actually fire our weapons, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, I see..." Said the Chancellor with a deep nod of understanding.
"ONI has been constantly urging us to discover how to do this, but we have not been able to find the way to overcome the problem. And now, with the loss of Reach, our major shipyard, it may be that even if we do find out how we will not be able to create enough new ships to turn the tide of this war, Earth's shipyards are not large enough to create a number of warships that we could truly turn Covenant encounters the other way."
At being reminded of how close humanity was to extinction, the Chancellor fell silent for a moment.
The Professor waited.
Finally he spoke up,
"I'm afraid there is little more we know of the Covenant ships that I can tell you, we should move on to the specimens."
The Chancellor sat up, the spark returning to her face.
"Thank you Professor."
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