William Zellmann - The Emperor's conspiracy

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yelled.

Hari just grinned. “Getting you out of that damned office,” he replied calmly. “And I’ve won ten credits doing it. I bet Jax I could get you to come out before dark.” Jax had been serving as my aide since our arrival.

I swelled up with indignation. Then the ridiculous image of me pounding down the hall cursing in pursuit of Hari made me dissolve into uncontrollable laughter. When I finally regained some composure, I said, “OK, Hari. But I think I ought to get half of those ten credits.”

The skull-like head shook. “Not a chance. I’m the one who took a chance on your temper.”

We laughed again. “Did you mean what you said? Have you figured out how to use the rim tramps? Come in and tell me about it.”

He shook his head again. “Nope. The other half of the bet was that I have to keep you out of the office all afternoon. If you want to find out what you have to fight with, you’ll have to come out to the shipyard with me. We’ve got a little demonstration set up for you.”

I started to protest about the pile of work on my desk when I realized that nothing on my desk, sheol, nothing on the planet was as important as Hari’s weapons research. I shrugged in defeat. “All right, Hari, let’s go see what kind of toys you've come up with.”

Unsurprisingly, we headed for Engineering as soon as the crushing pressure of liftoff eased. The rim tramp we had boarded at the shipyard was brand new. It had been finished, but not yet delivered, when we’d arrived. I’d immediately seized it in Cord’s name. We were using it as a test bed for Hari’s weapons designs. It looked normal enough. The only difference I could see between now and when we’d seized it was a ring of three equidistant bumps around her middle.

“All right, Hari. I think I’ve been pretty patient. But if you don’t start explaining…”

Hari continued to act mysterious as we worked our way aft and entered the engine room. Finally, he waved at the inertial drives. “Look at those, Val. No, I mean really look that them.”

Puzzled, I followed his wave with my eyes. “They look a bit large for a ship this size, but they look conventional…” I began, but then I began to notice small differences. “Well, why would they…? Look how they…?” I turned to Hari. “What is this, Hari? These engines look all right at first glance, but then…”

Hari grinned. “You're beginning to get it.” He said. “Time hasn’t stopped out here. In fact, some of the most brilliant minds in the Empire ended up out here, where they were comparatively free to experiment. Take these engines. I’ve seen the specs and test results. I suspect that they’re better than Empire systems of five hundred years ago.”

I snorted. “Don't tell me that these rimworlders have that mythical superengine. It never existed.”

Hari nodded soberly. “You’re right, of course. There never was a superengine — just a slow decline in the capabilities of Empire manufacture. What these engines have is highly developed refinements of the standard system.” He patted one of the engines paternally. “These engines are powerful enough to require that the ships be equipped with gravity compensators. Figures I’ve seen indicate that they’re capable of over 3g constant boost, and nearly six in short bursts.”

I was jolted. “Are you serious? I mean, you’re saying these tramps could outrun a strengl fighter!”

Reflected light gleamed through thin hair as Hari shook his head. “True, but they can’t maneuver like a strengl. They’re not fighters. And that’s the point. I don’t think you understand how different things are out here. That’s really why I shanghaied you today. It’s vitally important that you understand the rim if you want to win this. Try to fight Jonas with Empire tactics, strategy and equipment, and you'll lose — he has the weight of metal. But the rim is different than you or he suspect. You have the chance to come up with completely new and unconventional tactics that can offset his advantage.

“You see, in the Empire, scientific and engineering development effectively stopped about four hundred years ago. A strengl fighter built last month is identical to the strengls used in the Horsehead Rebellion four hundred years ago.”

I nodded. “Except that a four-hundred-year-old strengl would be better built. I know, Hari. Sheol, look how much trouble we had finding techs qualified to rewind Valkyrie ’s jump engines! It’s one of the reasons I think Cord may be right.”

Hari was looking exasperated at my interruption. “My point is that the development you’re noticing applies to the whole vessel. They’re not based on any standard imperial design. They were designed from the ground up to trade here on the rim. They’re small, since except for a few grain haulers, the rim worlds don’t tend to trade in large shipments and bulk cargoes. They have oversize and better inertial drives because space isn’t crowded around rim planets, and their captains want to get to their jump points as quickly as possible. Their jump engines, on the other hand, are fairly small, since jumps are usually short. Their nav comps are specially designed for the rim. They’re fantastically accurate in computing short jumps, but would be almost useless for running a course from, say, here to Prime, where most jumps would be two or three times as long.”

He took a deep breath. “Taken individually, each design feature merely improves a bit on standard technology. However, put them together, and you have a vessel that’s bigger and less maneuverable than a fighter is, but faster than a corvette. They have the mass to mount some sizeable weapon power, and the speed and maneuverability to deliver it — if they can steer clear of the strengl s.”

This was the best news I’d had since enlisting with Cord. “Okay, so a strengl could outmaneuver them. But they have the advantage of being jump capable. We should be able to come up with some interesting tactics — if we can arm them. Now,” I teased, “tell me you’ve discovered a superweapon to arm them with!”

Hari shook his head. “No, no superweapons; but I think you'll find what we have interesting. The idea’s simple. Actually, the biggest problem we faced was making sure they had good enough targeting capabilities. Finally a young man here came up with one of those ‘why didn’t I think of that!’ solutions. Care to guess what it was?”

I grinned. “Nope. Suppose you just tell me.”

A wide grin split Hari's skull-like face. “People.”

I was puzzled. “People? What does that mean?”

“We both know that a ‘Gunner’ on an Empire warship is a tech manning a station monitoring targeting computers. Right?”

“Of course.”

“Well, there's a young man here that's addicted to ancient adventure stories; some of them he even claims are pre-spaceflight.”

I snorted. “Ridiculous!”

Hari shrugged. “Maybe. Anyway, according to him, projectile weapons called 'guns' were once mounted on seagoing ships and primitive aircars called ‘airplanes’. He found a description of one of these things, and showed it to us. These vessels had weapons that were mounted in turrets penetrating the hull, and those weapons were controlled by a man standing behind them and manually aiming them — the gunner.”

“Come on, Hari! No human can compute ballistics accurately or fast enough to control a space weapon! Besides, you'd have to have a person for each weapon.” That, of course, was the case with infantry weapons. But even infantry weapons have target-seeking and range-finding systems. Unaided humans control artillery? Or ship-mounted weapons in space, where relative speeds can run to thousands of kilometers per second?