The Confederation Handbook (6 page)

Voidhawks used in Confederation Navy service courier duty have
additional fusion generators fitted in their cargo bays to supplement
their range, charging the patterning cells directly, although power
from this source still requires time to be distributed correctly
throughout the patterning cells—twenty minutes per swallow.
With or without additional power sources, voidhawks can easily
out-perform Adamist starships in most combat situations. Their only
real challenge comes from blackhawks.

Artificial production of
voidhawk eggs is now very rare, as very few refinements are being
incorporated. The Saturn habitat geneticists are working primarily on
methods to increase the gravitational counter-acceleration force
which voidhawks generate around the crew quarters in order to give
them a higher acceleration in normal space, and on extending their
life expectancy. If successful, batches of eggs incorporating these
improvements will be developed, and these new traits will gradually
feed into the main flock. Otherwise, reproduction now follows the
cycle originally designed into the species.

Voidhawks only reproduce once. Each craft has eight to twelve eggs
stored in its central section, which are hatched in the hours
preceding its death. All voidhawks know when their patterning cells
are faltering, and they return to Saturn to die. The first act of
germination is to load a human zygote into the egg, which includes a
womb analogue and hematopoiesis organs. This zygote is always the
offspring of the captain and his or her mate(s); the twelve zygotes
can be produced at any time, and are stored in zero-tau, waiting for
egg germination. After this act the voidhawk is abandoned by its
crew, and it flies down towards Saturn. It then absorbs a large
quantity of energy from the planet’s radiation field, which is
used to energize the eggs inside.

The mating flight through
the innermost rings which follows involves other voidhawks—as
many as are available at Saturn—following the dying craft, and
downloading their compositional paradigms (the software equivalents
of DNA) via affinity. The paradigms are incorporated into the eggs,
and used to format the cellular structure of the new voidhawks. As
only the most agile voidhawks can catch up with a craft on its mating
flight, this ensures that the breed is strengthened each time. Once
every egg has been energized and loaded with a paradigm, they are
ejected into orbit, and the parent voidhawk falls into the planet’s
atmosphere to burn up.

The egg which is left behind
begins life as a two-section unit: the infant voidhawk and a
nutrient-production segment. This segment is what supports the
voidhawk during the eighteen years required for it to reach maturity.
It has organic conductor cables similar to those of a habitat to
generate energy, and the weak magnetic field it produces gathers in
the planet’s ring particles for digestion. Its organs convert
this ice and carbon dust into usable proteins that then feed the
growing voidhawk. They also support the infant captain for the first
twelve months of gestation, allowing an exceptionally strong love
bond to be established between the two. After this first year, the
infant is removed and taken back to the habitat.

A voidhawk lives for its captain, and although it will accept flight
instructions from other Edenists it will only do so if it perceives
these instructions to be in the captain’s interest. Voidhawk
maturity is achieved at eighteen years, at which time its mechanical
systems are fitted, and it begins service. Voidhawk affinity range is
the greatest in the Edenist genealogy, typically reaching 30AU. Life
expectancy is 110 years.

Bitek starships were
initially derived from voidhawks by Rubra, the owner of Valisk, to be
used by his company Magellanic Itg as its transport fleet. Several
were sold to Adamists outside Rubra’s family line, and some
were allegedly constructed by quasi-legal biotechnology companies
across the Confederation. Origins are notoriously hard to pin down,
though Tropicana’s involvement in their development is widely
acknowledged. Although undoubtedly originating from voidhawk stock
(see Valisk,
page 208
),
blackhawks come in a variety of shapes, though there is unlikely to
be any truth in the rumor that xenoc games have been spliced into the
eggs at some time.

The commonest blackhawk profile is an onion shape, although lozenges,
spheres, tapering cylinders and even rings have been seen. One of the
reasons for this divergence (or evolution) from the voidhawk norm is
alterations spliced in to give the blackhawks an improved combat
performance. Although nominally listed as independent traders,
blackhawk captains pick up their major income by hiring themselves
out as mercenaries, certainly in their early flight years.

Blackhawks have a much
larger swallow range than their cousins, typically twenty
light-years, allowing them to jump easily out of navy voidhawk
interception range—although they can only store enough energy
to perform six to eight of these jumps sequentially. They can also
maneuver with high agility, but like voidhawks they are not able to
protect their crew from continuous acceleration above 3–4 gees.
However, most blackhawk crewmembers have nanonic-boosted bodies
specifically designed for high-gee resistance, allowing typical
combat speeds of 10–15 gees to be sustained over long periods.

Blackhawks use the five
independent habitats as bases for their mating flights, and the eggs
are sold to the highest bidder. The blackhawk captains do not have
the affinity gene, and instead use neuron symbionts to bond with the
ships—essentially duplicating the strong bond that exists
between voidhawks and their captains; although, given that blackhawk
captains will be much older when the process starts, this puts a
somewhat different slant on the relationship in that the blackhawk is
heavily influenced by its captain’s personality. Blackhawk
captains tend to stay in the base habitat while the blackhawk
matures.

Blackhawk life expectancy is around seventy-five years. The exact
numbers of blackhawks in the Confederation is unknown, but there are
probably around 10,000 currently operating; the exact figure is
difficult to determine because their registration is frequently
changed, and some fly with false CAB certificates.

Over 1,000,000 ZTT (zero
temporal transit) starships are currently in service. They use
solid-state jump nodes to generate a wormhole by distorting space
directly around the ship. Nodes are energized from onboard fusion
generators and then discharged into the patterning circuitry, which
creates the distortion by focusing energy density until it becomes
infinite. The nodes are arranged in a spherical lattice around the
hull, a geometry which creates the wormhole interstice around the
ship. In order to function correctly, the distortion must be
perfectly symmetrical, so that the force it exerts on the starship is
completely balanced. If the nodes are not positioned equidistantly,
or the discharge is not simultaneous, then the resulting asymmetrical
distortion will rip the ship apart in a spectacularly violent
fashion.

The compression effect of imploding infinite-density loci is often
powerful enough to initiate fusion within the ship’s atoms.
This is also the reason why starships cannot jump when they are
inside a planet’s (or star’s) gravity field; a strong
gravitational gradient will warp the distortion field into
instability. The nodes always have a small error-compensation ability
built in so that the inevitable minute discrepancies in geometry and
discharge timing do not pose any danger, and ensure that a node
failure in deep space is survivable, by allowing a starship to
complete its voyage with one or two defunct units.

When the node energy
discharge is triggered, an event horizon envelops the starship and it
translates virtually instantaneously, the wormhole terminus expanding
at the same rate as the initiation end collapses, typically.005
seconds. Orbital trajectory is maintained along the transit, i.e. the
starship jumps along its course vector. Attempts to equip Adamist
starships with nodes that can duplicate the tailored wormhole vector
which voidhawks generate have so far been unsuccessful, since
solid-state systems simply cannot match bitek for complexity; and by
volume the voidhawks are 80 percent energy-patterning cells, while
the node mass of an Adamist starship is typically 7 percent. However,
research programs continue, most notably in the Kulu Kingdom.

Starships will nearly always
use a planet to align themselves in preparation for an interstellar
jump, this method allowing considerable time and fuel to be saved.
This maneuver is particularly beneficial when departing an asteroid
settlement.

The measure of a ship’s performance is termed its delta-V,
which equates to the total velocity change which it is capable of
making. However efficient a starship’s fusion drive, it would
have to expend a considerable amount of its delta-V reserve in order
to insert itself into an orbit which will intersect its target star,
especially if that star is not in the section of space directly ahead
of the asteroid. To get around this the starship will perform a small
interplanetary jump to the nearest planet. Once in orbit, and when
the appropriate inclination has been achieved, the starship’s
vector will be aligned on the target star once during every
revolution. Considerable precision is required to initiate the jump
at precisely the correct moment, as even a half-second error will
result in a large wormhole terminus location discrepancy, which will
have to be countered before the second jump is initiated.

With typical jump distances
of ten light-years, a normal flight would see the starship jump
several times through interstellar space until it is about half a
light-year out from its target star. It is in this phase where the
most precise vector alignment is achieved, and considerable time is
taken to ensure the track is correct. As fuel and time equals money,
this is where a skillful captain can reduce costs by an appreciable
margin. When the starship is lined up correctly, it will jump into
the target planet’s emergence zone.

All ZTT starships are spherical when jumping, although sensors and
heat-dump panels are extended when flying between jump coordinates or
in orbit. A starship’s fusion generators, general systems,
tanks, reaction drive, cargo bay, and crew modules are contained
inside the lattice of jump nodes, which itself is covered by a hull
of monobonded silicon.

Starship functions vary
enormously, as does size. There are cargo ships, which form the
majority of Confederation ships, warships, scoutships, cruise liners,
colony vessels, private yachts, independent traders, astronomy
research vessels, etc. And with over 500 star systems producing their
own marques, all of these types have innumerable variants.

It is extremely difficult
and expensive to provide a ground-to-orbit capability for a sphere
which is primarily designed for deep-space operation, so many
starships also carry atmospheric flyers. The only exception to this
is warships, where cost and environmental concerns are not limiting
factors, though the number of assault cruisers capable of planetary
landings is very small. Certainly every Confederation planet
prohibits the use of fusion drives inside the atmosphere; indeed most
have a lower orbital altitude limit of 500km for fusion drive ships
of any kind.

Legally, only fusion drives may be used within Confederation
territory. He3and deuterium are available at every space port, and
fusion provides a more than adequate performance for legitimate
commercial and military operations. The amount of fuel used to power
a jump is negligible in comparison to the delta-V requirement to
match velocities with target star systems, and most commercial
starships carry enough fuel reserves for five voyages. Reaction
control is provided by hydrocarbon fluid similar to paraffin being
pumped into the exhaust nozzles, where it is vaporized by electricity
from the fusion generators.

Possession of antimatter is
a capital crime anywhere within the Confederation, and no other law
is enforced so rigorously. Confederation Navy captains have the legal
authority to execute any starship captain found carrying this
substance in his or her ship. However, ships can legally be fitted
with an antimatter drive, although moves are in progress in the
Confederation Assembly to eliminate this final legal loophole. A
small number do carry this system, mainly independent traders who
will hire out as mercenaries to any government or institution wishing
to wage covert war. The usual excuse by captains of such ships is
that they bought their craft with the system already fitted, and its
removal would cost too much.

An antimatter drive gives a starship a colossal delta-V reserve, and
provides a high-gee maneuvering capability, typically in excess of 15
gees. The upper limit is dictated by the ship’s structural
capacity and the crew’s endurance threshold (a cosmonik crew
can withstand up to 20 gees for limited periods). It should be noted
that a great many naval ships belonging to Confederation member
states, even though not assigned to Confederation Navy squadrons,
contain the necessary mountings, internal space, and control circuits
for an antimatter drive, and all are stressed to withstand an
acceleration exceeding that provided by their fusion drive.

These are hyper-gee attack
missiles fired by starships (both ZTT and voidhawk or blackhawk) to
engage their target. Starships are far too valuable to risk in direct
assaults, although most have integral beam weapons as a final-layer
defense against kinetic missiles. Combat wasps come in every size and
function, including both attack and defense, and once launched they
are fully autonomous. They carry a multitude of independent
submunitions, including beam weapons (energy and particle), kinetic
missiles, fusion bombs, decoy chaff, and electronic-warfare pods.