"Finally," said the Emperor, looking at the monumental machine, placed in the largest temporary sort-of-a-VAB built so far. "Finally! FINALLY!!!"
Officers, which were standing not too far away from this genius, but a crazy one at that, exchanged looks of understanding. After all, this was his dream made real, even if forced to be remade for destruction… and protection.
The ship itself - the first real, atomic explo-flyer, envisioned long ago, but built only recently - was truly a masterpiece of technology. Massing 4000 tons fully loaded, equipped with the most advanced sensors, protected by the arcanotech-enhanced composite armor, armed with railguns, howitzers, rotary cannons, space combat missiles and retro-missiles for planetary bombardment, this was the most powerful warmachine of the Soris Empire... so far.
The nuclear fission reactor of this ship was built with inclusions of components from the reactor of Space Lab 2, as a way to drive the point of revenge and attract the blessing from the Red Spirit (though barely anyone believed in this one). After all, according to the mythology, this spirit gave its blessing to anyone, who was fighting to avenge the fallen comrades.
Right now, the giant rocket was quietly sitting on the launchpad (built specifically for it) and receiving final checks. The first stage - the NUCLEUS booster - had simple, but pretty efficient chemfuel engines, which used liquid hydrogen as fuel and liquid oxygen as oxidizer. A titanic tank of fuel in center of rocket, a sectionalized torus-like oxidizer tank around it, a monstrous plug-cluster aerospike engine right in the middle of bottom and several blocks of control engines near the edges - all of that could lift two thousand tons to orbit just by itself and then safely come back and land. However, that was not needed - it only needed to raise the payload roughly halfway to the space...
The payload - the first manned interplanetary spaceship in the history of the world, remade into first space warship - had the nuclear pulse engine. When the separation happens, the shock absorbers, collapsed for the duration of the first phase of launch to make the rocket more compact, will first extend to full length, then the shaped-blast charge will be launched from gas gun between them and fly through the trapdoor in the pusher plate, before exploding and launching a wave of superheated nuclear plasma, which will impact the plate, protected by the layer of graphite, and transfer the momentum to the ship through two stages of shock absorbers. Then the auto-sprayers will apply the new layer of graphite, the new bomb will be launched and explode, and then it will repeat again and again...
"Comrades, I think those nine months of accelerated work weren't for naught!" the Emperor finally stopped laughing like maniac and got himself together. "Prepare to remove the building shell. Prepare to fuel the NUCLEUS booster. All cosmonauts - prepare to board the ship. Begin the launch countdown."
"Aye-aye, Your Majesty. Countdown begins, T-72 hours and counting. Beginning the launch pad preparations. Beginning the VAB final disassembly."
Most of the stuff in the giant building was already removed in the preparation for launch. Now, the only thing they've needed to do was to activate fast-disassembly mechanisms, which will safely collapse the roof and walls outwards, without damaging the launch pad and the monstrous ship on it.
----
Empress knew, that her husband was crazy.
She knew, that this launch can - and, likely, will - worsen the already-far-from-good terms, on which the Soris Empire now was with the Pokemon Nation (culture clash did not help, especially with the whole thing about decent amounts of nationals worshipping Legendaries and Mythicals).
She knew, that Nation can see it as an act of war.
But for some strange reason, she was nearly as excited to see this launch, as her husband was.
Or, actually, like the most of sorisians will be very, very soon, when the "Red Explorer" gets finally unveiled. After all, her internal political campaign about honoring the memory of 11th expedition to the Space Lab 2 really helped. The sheer growth of the metal processing and nuclear, chemical, arcanotechnological and many other industries, amongst other developments… it was wonderful.
Besides, this launch, should the ship survive the upcoming battle, will majorly lift her support. Even after all those years (The Shift not included), "Bread And Shows" still worked great time - both for the Soris Empire (some parts of the space program, along with most entertainment) and Pokemon Nation (League and Contests).
And if the Nation decides to try to attack them… well, that's what for the ship has several "Lightning" retro-missiles with city-buster warheads!
----
"Look at this," said one of the operators in the Mossdeep Space Center, showing the director, who was walking nearby, transmission from the kantonian research plane, which was flying near the Soris. Right now, the biggest building in the complex of Zemlino Space Center has just… fallen apart, slightly reminding them of a flower, and revealed a giant rocket inside.
This rocket was roughly comparable to those, which Pokemon Nation used for the Moon missions… except much, much thicker.
"Are you even sure, that this is a rocket?" wondered director. "It's so huge… How would it even take off?"
"No idea," replied the operator. "I suggest we get some Cornn Berries and watch the fireworks, when the Rayquaza destroys this thing!"
"Be careful with your words!" notified him superior, then quietly added, "I agree. If they didn't get yet, that as soon as it flies to strato - it dies, then we can have some good views. Though I wonder, what they are overcompensating for…"
----
"T-10 minutes and counting," announced one of the operators in Zemlino. After several very hard days of final workings and pre-flight checks, the "Red Explorer" was finally preparing to leave the ground. The nuclear reactor of the ship was now working at minimal capacity, cooling through external loop, the NUCLEUS booster was checking the thrust vectoring and aerodynamic control surfaces, the cosmonauts were getting more comfortable in their chairs… The final launch poll resulted in "go" and now there was only one way - the way up.
----
"… Seventeen, sixteen, water suppression system online, twelve, eleven, ten, nine, ignition sequence start, six, we have ignition, four, three, two, all engines are running!" reported the announcer. "Liftoff! We have a liftoff, thirty-two minutes past the hour, liftoff on "Red Explorer"!"
With a horrifying roar, the giant rocket started to slowly, but surely rise above the launchpad and accelerate, shock diamonds visible in the exhaust flames of working plug-cluster aerospike engine, rest of the launchpad clouded in steam, created by evaporating water from the water suppression system.
"Tower cleared!" happily screamed Emperor Ivan the Second, tearing the microphone from the hands of announcer, when the giant machine passed the tower - the last remain of VAB's scaffolding. "T plus ten seconds, tower cleared, speed increasing as planned! The roar is terrific! The building is shaking! Look at that beauty go!"
People, who were in this room, saw the Emperor going flat-out childish, jumping around while laughing like a madman and crying tears of joy. The last time he was like that was during the launch of Imperial Moon Mission on the Water Dragon rocket.
----
"Holy crap," mumbled one of the telescope operators in the Mossdeep Space Center. "Josh - do you see what I see?"
"If you're about the unreasonably giant rocket finally going up - yep, I do. Honestly, what in the name of Ray… sorry, but still, what is this thing?"
"No idea."
Image from kantonian observatory was quickly routed to the main screen, allowing everyone to have a nice view on the rocket.
Finally, the main engine in the first stage has gone silent.
"The stages separate… Wait, what? The first stage is actively decelerating, and the second… What it this? I don't even…"
The second stage indeed looked weirdly. Instead of the usual great bell of the rocket engine or the cluster of smaller engines, there was a thick plate with some kind of a tube in the middle of it, installed on several shock absorbers, a cone between the shock absorbers - and that's all.
On the screen, suddenly, something was launched from the cone, flew through the plate, and…
"Feed from O7 is dark. No idea, what the Reverse World was that, but the telescope's matrix is dead."
"Routing the SolOb6 to screen… Arceus the Original One, what the frak?"
"..." entire room got speechless, as the telescope camera, designed for studying the Sun, showed ship steadily accelerating on what seemed to be huge explosions - probably, nuclear in nature. Thick plate (which, for some reason, was varying in thickness as the explosions were going - probably, serving as an another shock absorber) and long piston-based shock absorbers served well to protect the giant ship from explosions and soften the acceleration. Blast after blast, the giant ship was surely rising higher and higher...
----
"Separation commencing," reported the pilot, looking at the screen, which displayed the data of active autopilot. "Separation complete. Booster is out of the danger zone. Initiating nuclear pulse propulsion. Stand by for acceleration. Bomb drive now firing."
Entire ship shook, when the drive bomb, launched from the gas gun, detonated behind the ship's aft.
Wave of superhot tungsten plasma, along with aerial overpressure wave, struck the plate, but thin layer of graphite worked well, ablating, but protecting the arcane-enhanced steel alloy underneath from getting damaged.
Under normal conditions, the sheer acceleration would've instantly killed the cosmonauts and collapsed the hull of the ship. However, thanks to the gas bags right behind the plate and heavy, two-staged hydropneumatic shock absorbers, the fraction of second of acceleration got elongated, proportionally lowering the loads on the machine and men inside it.
Milliseconds after the plasma from the detonation of the drive bomb dispersed, auto-sprayers deployed themselves and created a new layer of graphite on the plate, then retracted back, right before the new bomb was launched and exploded.
And then it repeated again, and again, and again, and again...
----
"So, if I'm understanding even remotely right, the first and, so far, only launch table for ultra-heavy rockets got destroyed by the exhaust?" Empress Svetlana asked her husband.
"Yep," replied Ivan in surprisingly jolly voice. "Launch Table ST-1 has partially melted now due to insufficient power of water suppression system, but the ship is in space and there is barely any radiation trail in the atmosphere! By the way, launch stage recovered successfully."
"That's good to know, but still, we've lost our only launch table for this kind of rockets and it'll take a long time to repair it."
"I know. It's not like the Sea Launch Platform was an option for us at that time, though…"
"On the topic of the sea launch - are you planning to use the Water Dragon rocket for building the replacement space station, since the Space Lab Two was destroyed by the Rayquaza? I've seen some suspicious increases in funding…"
"Yep. The NUCLEUS rocket will remain for launching explo-flyers mostly, while the Water Dragons take lesser operations. One of them is getting prepared right now for launching the supply block to the "Red Explorer", when it gets to the orbit."
"Uh-huh. And what about your spaceplane project?"
"The Project BLUEBIRD? So far, so good, tests of the final version should begin in a week or so. I must admit, the hypersonic hybrid air-breathing nuclear rocket engines are still somewhat problematic, but we are very close to ironing those problems out."
"Range?"
"Unmanned - all the way to the Red Planet. Manned - to the Moon in a reasonable amount of time."
"Docking to the "Red Explorer"?"
"Possible through the expandable top adapter, but the spaceplane won't be able to fit into the docking bay."
----
"We are on the action orbit now, comrade captain," said pilot, getting himself more comfortable in the acceleration chair. "Drive bomb magazines and propellant storages for the reaction control system are at optimal level after orbital injection, we can go to the Moon and back on those reserves in just a day!"
"Nuclear ordinance for anti-space engagements and planetary bombardment is nominal, awaiting codes and targets," reported weapons operator, scrolling through the lists and making some mental notes. "Point defense rotary cannons ready, main caliber railguns ready, Lance Howitzers ready."
"Targeting telescopes nominal, thermal scopes nominal, radars nominal," sounded the report from the sensors operator, who was already switching through the feeds, monitoring the surroundings.
"Radiators deployed, cooling system nominal, reactor nominal," said the engineer, feeling proud of his participation in creating power plant of this ship. "Shock absorbers are fine, pusher plate is fine, drive bomb launcher, graphite sprayers and plasma deflection cone are fine, RCS nominal. Oh, nearly forgot - life support is also nominal and will be in this condition for at least a year. We'll run out of food much earlier. And landers, along with space workpods, are also fine and ready."
"All comm systems are ready and tuned," added the comm officer, fiddling with headset, then suddenly turning pale. "Uh-oh. Comrade captain, FCC just told us, that Rayquaza is exiting the atmo and will engage us in few minutes, arrives from the east."
"Then all hands to battle stations!" ordered captain, feeling shivers. Of course, their ship was the technologies of tomorrow embodied, a state-of-art space warship, armed with the most advanced, yet reliable and efficient weaponry Empire has created, but their opponent was no less than the Sky High Pokemon itself, who was once considered by less developed humans to be god of the skies and even now, it remained a great force to be reckoned with. However, this battle was a decisive one. There can be only one winner… and all of the humans aboard the "Red Explorer" will do their best to make sure, that the Rayquaza won't be it.
"Aye-aye, comrade captain! Retracting the radiators, reactor output set to combat levels," reported the engineer, trying to keep his confidence in the great machine.
"Railguns and point defence are deployed, the capacitors are charging up, anti-space missiles are armed, Lance Howitzers are loaded," calmly stated the weapons officer. Among the fellow crew members, he was the calmest and most confident one - mainly because dozens of nuclear missiles and howitzer-launched shaped-blast bombs, along with electromagnetic railguns (with nuclear and canister shots) and rotary cannons, were now under his control.
"RCS and bomb drive are ready," said the somewhat unnerved, but slightly cocky pilot. The drive bomb counter and RCS propellant storages indicators told him, that the battle can go on for a decent amount of time - the NUCLEUS chemfuel booster allowed them to save a lot of bombs during the ascent.
"Radars located bandit retrograde-breaking the atmo west and a little south, but no definitive lock so…" began the sensor operator, suppressing his nervousness with deep focus on work. Calling the Rayquaza "bandit" helped all of the officers to distance themselves from the fact, that they were fighting an actual Legendary now. "Yeah, telescopes acquired it! Locked on!"
"SCMs away, 3 "Firestorms", 4 "Firelances"!" nearly screamed weapons operator, pressing the launch trigger.
On the ship's hull, several round armored hatches opened, revealing missile silos. Right after it, seven of the streamlined machines of death were ejected by small explosive charges, turned around and engaged their solid-fuel engines, accelerating at 100 g and doing their best to track and intercept the designated target. Even with remote guidance from the ship, sensors of which were far superior to those, which could be installed on space combat missiles, it was not an easy task.
The Sky High Pokemon, seeing several dots leave the more massive target, started to perform the evasion maneuver, as uneasy as it was during the already-ongoing Dragon Ascent. It was a wise decision and, probably, would've helped… were it not for the missiles with Lance warheads.
When four of the missiles, armed with shaped-blast charges, reached the optimal distance, the "Red Explorer" sent a very simple command to them - "detonate". Under normal circumstances, this command would have served only for performing self-destruct… but the circumstances now were anything but normal.
The small stars of exploding 10kt thermonuclear warheads grew for a split-second in space. It would've been a nearly-harmless firework for the Rayquaza… but, unfortunately for it, for each of the "stars", more than 80% of the thermonuclear power got channeled and concentrated onto a small tungsten disk. Even this metal could not withstand such a magnitude of energy, so, it turned into plasma and, shaped and accelerated by the still undergoing fury of the fusion reaction into a tight stream, flew in the desired direction at the recognizable fraction of the speed of light.
Four jets of very hot relativistic plasma impacted Rayquaza. Even with the energy of Dragon Ascent surrounding the Legendary, it still hurt major time… and then the rest of the missiles came.
When the Sky High Pokemon was distracted with the pain from the nuclear lances, warship directed the last three small machines of destruction to come in-close and detonate the neutron warheads. Even though the effects of fireballs were negligible (as it was with most of the nuclear detonations in space), the neutron flux from explosions was pretty decent, especially with overlapping irradiation areas. Now that the Rayquaza's body was irradiated like this, the combat capability of this Legendary will be lowering and lowering as the time goes, until the radiation poisoning takes the max effect and turns it into the agonizing wreck, before the death finally comes. As a nice bonus, those explosions have also caused enough of a shock to the Rayquaza to cancel out the Dragon Ascent.
"All hits scored. I think the battle has started pretty good, comrade captain," cheerfully reported the weapons operator.
"Don't get too cocky," warned them all commander of this ship, silently reminding, that they were still fighting a being of incredible power, which held the atmospheric and orbital superiority undisputed for who-knows-how-many years, only occasionally leaving its position and allowing a few travels up there.
"Bandit has recovered from the shock and prepares to use the Hyper Beam," grimly stated the sensors operator.
"Acknowledged, stand by for rotation. RCS now firing," warned everyone the pilot, slightly smiling to himself.
The relatively small attitude control jets expelled streams of superhot hydrogen, turning the massive ship around.
The Hyper Beam is a powerful move. Really powerful. But it has some drawbacks - the first one being exhausting user and forcing it to spend some time recovering and the second being relatively low velocity of the energy beam itself.
The space is big. Really big. Even in low Earth orbit, dozens of kilometers are still considered pretty small distances.
Between Rayquaza firing the Hyper Beam and it getting to the "Red Explorer", a pretty long time has passed. Long enough for the ship to turn and take the stream of destruction not the nose- or side-first, but on the pusher plate, built to withstand close nuclear explosions and covered by ablative layer of graphite.
"Attack over, no damage to drive. Graphite layer restored. Stand by for acceleration. Bomb drive now firing," reported pilot, smiling even wider.
Wham. Wham. Wham. Only the crew of the ship, who got pressed into acceleration chairs upon the drive's operation, heard those sounds, as the vessel began to change its trajectory.
"Railguns charged, #2 locked on, "Firecracker" loaded. Firing," said the weapons officer with a slight smirk, as he pressed the trigger.
Deep inside the ship, a one of three groups of electric capacitors of tremendous, well, capacity, already charged by the energy from ship's nuclear power plant, discharged all at once, transferring the power to the two parallel rails of one of the simplest electrodynamic mass drivers.
The railgun spat out a projectile with barely any fireworks (save for plasmified remains of launch assist armature). In the vacuum of space, there wasn't even a characteristic "crack" of sonic boom… and the projectile experienced no aerodynamic drag, keeping the velocity at constant level with no need for active propulsion. And since this velocity equaled more than 2503 meters per second, and the projectile carried a small nuclear warhead…
----
""Red Explorer" is firing "Thunderlance" railgun, "Firecracker" 1kt nuclear shell"- emotionlessly said one of the operators in the Zemlino's FCC. "Hostile Rayquaza's biological armor is being damaged."
"Is she always like this?" whispered Emperor to the FCC's director.
"Sometimes."
"Huh. You know, I'm still unpleased, that we weren't able to make guidance system being capable of directing more than seven space combat missiles and two howitzer charges at once before the ship was launched…"
----
"Bandit is temporarily inoperable, trajectory - full retrograde orbital, roughly similar to ours," reported the sensors operator. "The respite will be brief, assume re-intercept in 45 minutes."
"Acknowledged," said the engineer. "Deploying the radiators, beginning cooling."
Several small square hatches opened on the hull of the ship, allowing the thin metallic structures to unfold from them and start barely noticeably glowing dull-red, allowing the waste heat to leave the heat accumulators and prepare the machine for the new round of combat. Combat, which will need a lot of energy and leave a lot of waste heat.
----
The big digital timer above the main screens in the "rubber room" of the Zemlino Space Center ticked off the seconds since the launch of the "Red Explorer". When it passed half-hour, Emperor said, “Try it now.” He put on his own headset.
Far outside of the armored launch bunker, across the entire Empire, both on the ground and on the sea ships, many giant parabolic antennas started turning around, trying to lock onto signature of the first space warship and establish connection.
"Routing through the Grey Sea fleet… link established!" happily reported the comm operator.
"Dancer, this is Pothouse, report!" said the Emperor, deciding to use codenames of both ship and flight control center for some reason. Sometimes, it was really hard to understand this man.
"Pothouse, this is Dancer. No big scratches so far, re-intercepting bandit in five minutes or so. Radiators are now retracted, cooling is internal, preparing to launch SCMs."
"Dancer, this is Pothouse, acknowledged. Be careful - bandit is likely to employ new tactics, don't let it hit the shock absorbers!"
"Pothouse, this is Dancer, understood."
"That's good. May the Red and Green Spirits bless you, guys!"
"Thanks. Warning, bandit is in range, engaging!"
The link cut off, as the ship resumed the combat.
----
"Go, Dragon Lord, blast this thing!" young Draconid cheered, looking at the TV screen. An hour or so ago, the live broadcast of telescope and radar surveillance of the Imperial warship started and, less than an hour ago, Rayquaza started the battle with it. So far, the battle was going… strange.
The giant weaponized spaceship of the Soris Empire was constantly turning around, engaging her explosion drive from time to time and attempting to take beam and projectile attacks on the aft plate, which was more than capable of withstanding them without getting scratched, since the nuclear explosions were the primary method of propulsion for this ship. In addition to this, most weapons of this warship, as the TV commenter pointed out, were also using nuclear explosions to cause damage. Few Draconids knew about nuclear technology enough to understand full ramifications of it, but those, who did, were really worried. If the sorisians have harnessed the power of atom and truly mastered it, then even the mighty Lord Rayquaza was in danger.
----
"Bandit now re-engaging!" warned everyone sensors operator. "Ancient Power, two seconds!"
"Incoming projectile attack," noted weaponry operator, who was obviously enjoying this battle. "Point defence firing… Attack neutralized. Seven "Firelances" away… Hits scored."
"Warning, damage to the lander bay #2 armor!" reported engineer in somewhat worried voice, then eased up. "No penetration, no damage to contents."
"Stand by for acceleration and rotation," said pilot in steel voice, while his eyes were burning with excitement of being among those, who fought the Rayquaza itself. "RCS and bomb drive now firing."
Hiss. Hiss. Wham. Wham. Wham. Wham.
The whole battle turned into series of reports and memorized actions, which happened a dozens of times on the ground simulator already, combined with sounds of propulsion and reaction control systems, weaponry and occasional hits to other places, than the pusher plate. Rayquaza was a formidable opponent… but the ship, originally intended for peaceful space exploration, then remade into warship, was designed to be capable to take on even the most powerful opponents and be victorious.
Entire nuclear industry of Soris was recently redirected to supply the ship with enough propulsion bombs and weapons.
Hundreds of millions were watching their battle right now.
They've had no right to fail, lest the humanity forever become prisoners of this planet, with insanely territorial feral dragon ruling the skies and killing everyone, who dares to try to break free of gravity's hard embrace and turn their eyes towards the distant stars. Not to say anything about the Pokemon Nation, which, probably, will consider starting the war with Soris Empire, if the ship goes down, along with all the nuclear armament.
"Bandit prepares Dra-Met, five seconds," noted the sensors operator, monitoring feeds from targeting telescopes, radars and thermal scopes at the same time.
"Acknowledged, railguns charged, #1 locked on, "Dustbin" loaded. Firing…" half-reported, half-mumbled the weaponry operator, looking at his screens. "Draco Meteor dispersed and denied."
Indeed, shooting a canister shell, loaded with tiny pellets of depleted uranium - byproduct of nuclear industry - right in the direction of Rayquaza's mouth was not a bad way to prevent the dangerous attack from being performed. As a nice bonus, several pellets hit eyes of the Legendary, causing it great pain and making it squirm.
"Stand by for acceleration. Bomb drive now firing."
Wham. Wham. Wham.
----
The old dragon was hurt.
Really hurt.
For thousands upon thousands of years, it ruled sky undisputed. It showed the inferior beings their places. Even the Eon Duos were rightfully afraid of it.
A few… days? Weeks? Months? ago the Sky High Pokemon has destroyed the human constructions, which violated its territory. It thought, that this time, they'll learn, that higher skies and space are not meant for them… but they didn't.
They've decided, that they can force their point.
They've built a giant machine, far beyond any previous constructions. It wasn't like old ones, which were frail, sacrificing everything to save the weight - no, this one was huge and sturdy, capable of taking hits and unleashing inferno in return.
More than just capable, in fact.
The battle was going on for a several hours already, filled with constant flybys and intercepts, where the combatants did their best to injure the opponent as much as possible and don't get killed at the same time.
The whole body of the Legendary was either in pain, like from fire (even though the dragon's body should've been resistant to it), or slowly going numb. The machine, however, was still kicking with no visible major problems and unleashing attacks like no tomorrow.
In fact, for one of the combatants, there indeed will be no tomorrow. Someone will remain victorious and hold the control over skies, someone will be destroyed and burned upon re-entry.
The old dragon prepared for the final, death-or-glory attack… and suddenly the entire world for it turned blinding-white for less than a split-second, before everything disappeared and the complete abyss came.
----
"All nine hits with Lances scored - seven SCMs, two Howitzers with "Matchsticks"."
"Bandit… completely inoperable and will re-enter atmo in two hours," reported the shocked sensors operator. "Guys… did we just... win?"
"I hope so," replied the engineer. "I really hope so, since the heat accumulators are nearing critical and if it goes on like this for another dozen minutes or so - it's either scramming the reactor, dumping a decent amount of our hydrogen for open-cycle cooling or deploying radiators mid-battle!"
"Deploy the radiators," gave an order the captain. "Power down the weapon systems and retract the weapons. Set reactor output to non-combat level. Return the ship to patrol orbit. Activate the habitation centrifuge. Report to the ground… that we've secured this frontier and avenged the 11th expedition to the Space Lab 2. Red Spirit should be proud of us now."
"Aye-aye, comrade captain!" replied all officers in unison, before the attitude control jets hissed again, the pulse engine thumped a few more times and commlink received happy screams from the FCC.
Captain of the "Red Explorer" barely cared about all of that. He was just happy, that this battle ended with them as victors… and he also hoped, that, whatever this dragon was doing to keep the balance on this boulder, humans will be able to do just as fine.
"Comrade captain, FCC congratulates us! They say, that, when we return to the ground, Emperor and Empress themselves will give us the Medal of Skies!" happily screamed the comm officer, who still could barely believe, that they've done what was considered to be next to impossible - they've successfully defeated the higher-grade Legendary!
"Yeah? Okay then. And what shall we do now?"
"... Emperor told me, that we should just… "Soar over space"? What does that mean?"
"It means, pals, that we did fine and we can take a break. A well-deserved break. Tell the service team to start total damage evaluation and repair."
Author's notes:
Green Spirit - yet another mystical being in Sorisian mythology, which patrons those, who protect and help others.
Launch configuration of the "Red Explorer" and the "Red Explorer" itself were based on the data about the Orion Battleship, gained from here.
SCM-1 "Firestorm" - mid-range solid-chemfuel space combat missile with TD-ENF-10K-1 enhanced radiation thermonuclear warhead (a.k.a. "neutron warhead"), 10kt yield. Radio command guidance.
SCM-2 "Firelance" - mid-range solid-chemfuel space combat missile with TD-SB-10K-1 shaped-blast thermonuclear warhead (a.k.a. "Lance warhead", based on the real Casaba Howitzer project), 10kt yield. Radio command guidance.
PBRM-1 "Lightning" - planetary bombardment retro-missile with liquid-chemfuel engines, armed with TD-CB-25M-1 heavy "city buster" thermonuclear warhead, 25 megaton yield, or six TD-CB-1M-1 1mt yield "city buster" multiple independently targetable maneuverable reentry vehicles. Combined radio command/inertial/active terminal homing guidance.
Lance Howitzer - simple auto-loading mortar for firing "Matchstick" shaped-blast thermonuclear warheads.
STW-10K-1 "Matchstick" - shaped-blast 10kt thermonuclear warhead with basic radio command guidance system and some tiny attitude jets, launched from Lance Howitzer and detonated shortly after.
ERMA-2-S "Thunderlance" - 127mm electromagnetic rail mass accelerator (a.k.a. "railgun"), adapted for space and capable of accelerating shells up to 2506 m/s.
NRS-1K "Firecracker" - nuclear shell for the ERMA-2-S, 1kt yield. Contact/remote/timer detonation.
CRS-3 "Dustbin" - canister shot for the ERMA-2-S, depleted uranium pellets.
RC-6-20-S "Chestnut" - 6-barrelled 20mm rotary cannon, adapted for space and used in the PD-1-20-S "Sweeper" space-adapted point defence system.
