AN: 11 Advanced Chapters on my Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/cw/Crimson_Reapr
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As the days turned to weeks that were blurred by a haze of steel, sparks, and sleepless nights, the heavy frigate began taking shape. But Mark's focus had shrunken from the whole picture to the engines and the reactor of the ship. If Anahrin was to be considered the architect of the ship's body and shape, then Mark could be considered to be the plumber who was knee-deep in the shit that was Stellar Dynamic's Class 5 engines.
First of all, they were huge when compared to the rest of the ship, spanning 40 meters in height, 60 meters in width, and spanning a good 50 meters long, and were oval in shape. But as huge as they were, maybe even cutting-edge, to Mark, they were full of flaws that were common across every navy ship Anahrin had forced him to study.
The design choices were too conservative and left too much to be desired. First of all, they were too big for the power they produced; their power cubes were capped for safety margins, and the redundant systems that were meant to guarantee longevity were robbing the engines of power and efficiency. They weren't bad engines by any means, as a matter of fact, they were the most premium Class 5 engines available on the market, but they definitely lacked a lot.
"I understand settling for what's safe, but right now, safety is only an afterthought," Mark muttered to himself as he stood hunched over the display table where the engines floated as blue holograms. His fingers darted across the hologram, pulling parts apart, sliding connections out of place. He felt the same itch he used to get during simulator training in the academy, when he knew there was a better way to fly a ship and to attack than the instructors allowed. However, there was no instructor now, no chain of command, no one to tell him what was in the scope of safety.
Mark had spent an entire afternoon bumping into wall after wall when Anahrin came to check in on his progress. He noticed Mark's frustration while attempting to push the sublight engines to produce as much power and speed as possible. Anahrin silently leaned against a wall for support, his legs slightly shaking beneath him, an action that had gone unnoticed by Mark.
"Hey, don't just recklessly strip the engines in an attempt to make them go faster," Anahrin said, interrupting Mark's concentration. "Balance is what allows a weapon to last far beyond its intended years. If you keep on pushing for power and speed without taking into account how that affects other parts of the engine, then you're going to end up having to replace them in months rather than years."
Mark only grunted in response, not looking up from the holograms. "I know, I know. I'm just trying to make it so that this ship is untouchable in real space."
Anahrin laughed, but his laughter was cut short by a cough that had become more frequent as of late. It was a wet, rasping sound that made Mark's heart sink every time he heard it. "Yeah, well, you know better than anybody that the only thing outrunning railguns is a jump. So I don't understand this obsession you have with power and speed."
"Ani, you're smart," Mark said, pausing momentarily. "But sometimes I think you're an idiot, no offense."
Anahrin looked taken aback but replied nonetheless, "Hmm, none taken."
"You reminded me that the angling of the plating can lead to better deflection of the railguns," Mark said, looking up from the hologram and noticing Anahring leaning on the wall. "Hey man, you alright there?"
Anahrin gave Mark a dismissive wave. "I'm fine, continue on with your explanation."
Mark hesitated for a moment before continuing. "If you say so. As I was saying, the point of power and speed is to allow the ship to get to a different positioning that could force the angle of impact to be even more awkward, if that makes any sense."
"It doesn't, but go on."
Mark sighed deeply. "I'm thinking that in an environment where seconds matter, the speed a ship is traveling, and the power that is required to reach that speed, could determine whether you get hit in the center, closer to the rear of the ship and your reactor, or just the engines."
"I see," Anahrin said. "But how would you deal with a targeting system's predictive algorithm?"
Mark frowned, rubbing at his chin as if trying to pull the thought into coherence. "I don't know, I guess I just accelerate faster than the computer expects? Like, say it's prediction assumes a certain thrust curve, but then the engine suddenly ramps harder than it thought possible. Wouldn't that throw the whole calculation off?"
Anahrin let out a low, weary sigh, the kind that was half exasperation and half amusement. "No, Mark. That is not how tracking systems work. You know this. They are not blind calculators that only expect one set of data. Live tracking allows for firing ahead of where the ship will be, no matter the acceleration. You go faster, the tracker aims further ahead. Hell, you could burn out half your coils pushing beyond what they expect, and the computer would still place you within the cone of probability."
Mark deflated, dragging a hand down his face. "Yeah, yeah, I guess that does sound stupid when you put it that way."
"Yes, yes, it does," Anahrin agreed. "You will not outsmart a predictive algorithm with sheer speed and recklessness. Maybe you're able to weave out of the way after being fired upon, but that's about it."
Mark gave the hologram one last flick with his fingers before letting the projection shrink back into its neat oval form. "Alright, fine. Then maybe the answer isn't about dodging weapons at all. Maybe it's just… speed. Pure speed. If I can tune the engines for higher sustained thrust, I could cut travel time inside a system. Jump drives are one thing, but for everything in between, getting from station to station, being outside of jump points, every bit of speed matters."
That earned a slow nod from Anahrin. "Yes. That is acceptable reasoning."
Mark smirked, scratching the back of his head. "Guess that's progress, huh?"
Anahrin coughed lightly, one hand pressing against his chest as though steadying himself. "It is progress. Just... stop wasting time on useless fantasies and focus on making something you are happy with."
---
Mark spent the rest of the week trying different configurations and making changes to the smallest parts of the engine until he was finally satisfied with the estimated performance, according to the simulators.
The next morning, Mark stood before the nanoprinter's console, its display glowing pale blue across his tired face. The schematics he'd been tearing apart and rebuilding for 3 weeks now filled the screen, a new iteration of Stellar Dynamic's Class 5 engines. Only, they weren't Class 5s anymore. If they were to be reclassified, then they would be in a whole new classification of their own. There was also the fact that he was putting what were once Class 5 engines on a heavy frigate, something only ships that could be classified as destroyers would do.
"Alright," Mark muttered, patting a smaller 3-meter by 3-meter printer that he had made specifically for making the engines and other specialized parts, "time to get to printing."
The process to make engines with the help of a printer was much more monotonous than just printing wiring, plating, and beams. Nanoprinters, no matter how much they liked to mess with physics, couldn't be used to fully print engines and other delicate parts that were meant to be replaced. So Mark had to feed the alloy into the printer, and let it do its thing, piece by piece, part by part.
After a while, hundreds of different components lay separate in front of the printer. From power conduits coiled up to reinforced turbine rings and modified plasma injectors with precision channels that narrowed tolerances far beyond the conservative originals.
Anahrin came to stand beside Mark, his eyes scanning all the pieces and then making their way to the holographic display and scanning it as well. "You've stripped the redundancy from the secondary loop."
"Yeah," Mark admitted, crossing his arms. "I couldn't really see much of a gain to it, and it was eating efficiency like a hungry, hungry hippo... No? Not funny? ...Fine, I also rerouted everything into the primary loop, then designed an emergency cutoff that can isolate the whole section if it overheats. I figure that should be good enough."
Anahrin's lips twitched, not quite forming a smile. "Good enough? Perhaps. Kind of leaning on the edge of future catastrophic failure."
Mark shrugged. "Maybe. But I don't plan on having this ship be my one and only or my holy grail. It's my first ship, after all. There are more to be built. And with the plans I have in mind, she won't be limping along in service for forty years. She's going to be fighting something and winning, maybe doing a little bit of transportation on the side."
---
For days, the cycle repeated while Mark and the drones worked tirelessly, slotting each piece into the growing bulk of the engine while the printer was at work making more. The assembly chamber echoed with the sound of tools, the hiss of welds, and the grinding protest of massive sections being lowered into place.
Mark worked nonstop, sweat soaking through his clothes, his hands blackened with grease and scorched by sparks. Anahrin, though slower, would stop working on the rest of the ship, lending his precision when it mattered, steadying a frame with his tools, adjusting alignments, and correcting Mark's mistakes with small reminders.
By the end of the second week, one of the two engines lay finished in the chamber. Its polished casing reflected the overhead lights, hidden by some of the changes Mark had brought to it.
"It's nowhere near as tall as the original, and it looks meaner too," Mark said, leaning back against a railing, exhausted but proud of the new engine whose size had been reduced from a whopping 60 meters wide by 40 meters tall and 50 meters deep to a sleek 60 meters wide by 15 meters tall and 50 meters long. His hope was that reducing the astronomical height to about 35% of what it was would allow for less weight and for the engines to occupy less space, while at the very least maintaining the previous outputs.
The factory had a testing chamber that had largely been degraded, but they had managed to bring it back to okayish working order. They moved the engine into place with the help of cargo drones, clamping it into a massive test stand. They attached the conduits to the walls, feeding power and control into the engine.
Mark found his throat dry as he strapped himself into the control chair, fingers hovering above the ignition sequence. "Well… no guts, no glory, right?"
Anahrin stood behind a protective glass that was made out of some crystalline material that was unknown to humankind, yet Anahrin boasted that it was stronger than diamonds. He gave Mark a faint nod. "Proceed."
Mark keyed the startup sequence.
The chamber shuddered as the engine came alive. A low hum filled the air, slowly building up to a steady thrum that Mark could feel reverberating in his chest. Then, blue light flickered through the exhaust channels, cycling as the plasma injectors stabilized and numbers cascaded down the console.
"Power output at… one hundred and ten percent of SD's Class 5 engine," Mark muttered, a smile spreading across his face. "Stabilizing… no fluctuations and the heat levels are nominal."
He slid his finger up on the display, the throttle pushing further as the thrum deepened into a roar, forcing the reinforced walls to tremble as the engine exhaled raw force. The numbers across the console shifted constantly across the board in a green color that indicated safety, each system pushing harder and faster with every passing second.
"Power output reaching one hundred and thirty percent," Mark breathed. His smile disappeared as disbelief took over him. "Efficiency up thirty-seven… no, forty percent. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit."
Anahrin's hand rested against the glass, a sly smile tugging at his face. "Push it, what are you waiting for? Push it further."
Mark swallowed and shoved the throttle to maximum output. The roar of the engine became a scream, and the floor started to vibrate so violently that it rattled his teeth. Alarms flickered on the edge of the console, but the engine's systems held as the numbers just kept on climbing.
"One hundred and fifty percent output! The- the fucking thrust has increased forty-five percent above SD's Class 5, and its expected top velocity rating is…" He trailed off, blinking his eyes in awe. "Twenty-seven percent higher than the original design. Ani, I actually did it. I actually fucking-"
The engine gave a final, deafening roar before Mark slammed the cutoff, shutting the whole thing down and drowning the chamber in a sudden silence that was only interrupted by the ticking sound of cooling metal.
Mark leaned back in the chair, his chest heaving as sweat ran down his temples. A grin split his face. "Fuck me, Ani. I actually fucking did it."
Anahrin finally allowed himself a full smile as he looked at Mark. "It seems like my teachings weren't just going in one ear and slipping out the other. That being said, you have finally taken a very important step in a starship engineer's journey: testing a hypothetical design. Be it a full ship, a weapon, or even a small change that hadn't been thought of before, taking something from the hypothetical world of simulations and holograms and making it in the material world is a step filled with trial and error. And you... Mark, you managed to build something that heavily outperforms its predecessors while cutting down in size, rather than increasing it, in your first try. I, Xe!'n~r'th`n V'*ek^vor, am proud to call you my disciple."
Mark was filled with an overwhelming sense of joy after hearing Anahrin's words. "Ani... means more to me than you know." Mark stared up at Anahrin's glowing blue eyes before continuing. "If both engines perform like this, Ani… this ship won't just punch above her weight. She'll be untouchable in-system. No one will see it coming."
"Haha, yes," Anahrin chuckled, "only if you can build the second one without any mistakes."
Mark laughed. "I did it once already, what makes you think I can't replicate it."
---
Mark didn't waste any more time, getting right back to the printer after moving the engine to the chamber where the ship was being built. He fed alloys into the printer before the hum of it printing filled the chamber once more, and the first of the second engine's parts materialized. He moved faster and with more confidence this time, no longer second-guessing tolerances or recalculating stress curves. Every conduit he pulled from the printer and every turbine blade he set aside carried the confidence of someone who had proven his design.
As the parts accumulated, the chamber became a workshop of ordered chaos as conduits stacked in neat rows beside coils of wiring and injector heads gleamed in the light. Mark wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist as he kept going, barely pausing to rest.
Meanwhile, Anahrin had returned his focus to the rest of the ship itself. Every time Mark stole a glance at the forward sections, more of the ship had taken form. Beams that once seemed to just float in place had grown into corridors, corridors into bulkheads, and bulkheads into the skeletal outlines of rooms. Drone welders crawled along the framework, their sparks lighting up the bay as miles of wiring slithered through conduits, snaking throughout the entirety of he ship.
By the third week, what was now the twelfth month since Mark had met Anahrin, the frigate's entire front third appeared to be roughly completed. Compartments had already been carved into the framework with crew quarters, a mess hall, and a command bridge, all shaped by the wiring and plating that dictated the flow of the ship's interior. From the outside, it still looked like an angular husk, but inside it had already begun to feel like a ship.
Mark had barely noticed the changes at first since his world was filled with tightening bolts, welding sections, and testing connections, but one evening, as he craned his neck back from a pile of turbine coils, he realized he could see the faint outline of the bridge rising like a crown at the ship's prow. He could see Anahrin up there, half-silhouetted in the welding sparks.
He continued his work as the second engine came together faster than the first. Mark moved like a craftsman familiar with his trade rather than an inventor now, smoothly transitioning from doing one thing to the next. He no longer stopped to second-guess his actions, a single try being all he needed to completely familiarize himself with the engine, tightening bolts, sealing conduits, and sliding power cubes into their housings with a calm efficiency that made the work almost seem meditative.
By the time the massive casing was lowered into place, polished and sealed, the Ship's skeletal frame stretched forward like a spear's tip, almost half of it complete. It was still hollow in places, still missing its engine and reactor, but it was coming along beautifully.