Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [135]
“My research group has been studying the problem of how it might be possible to break the defenses that surround the Pitar. Very early in our discussions we came to the conclusion that this could not be done with existing weapons, not as long as the Pitar match ship for ship. Furthermore, any vessel mounting a radical and potentially advantageous new weapon would immediately be set upon by the Pitar in all their strength. Therefore it was decided that any new weapon must also incorporate into its scheme and make use of a corresponding shift in strategy.” The projection mutated.
Floating before the assembled audience was one of the smallest ships any of them had ever seen. It was, in fact, smaller than the lifeboats that were carried about most ships. But it was neither lifeboat nor repair vessel nor intership shuttle. There was the KK-drive field projection fan, severely shrunken and modified, and behind it—absurdly close behind it—the main body of the vessel. A single tiny weapons blister on a standard body-girdling belt ran around the median of the ship. Its diminutive size rendered it virtually inoffensive. Atop the craft was a structure that at first glance resembled a lifeboat launcher. In the context of the ship’s ridiculously small size it struck several of the onlookers as a structural extravagance.
Speaking in a mixture of Low Thranx, Terranglo, and Symbospeech, Couvinpasdar elaborated on the design. “We call this a stingship. As you can see, it is quite an unpretentious design. It is designed to carry a crew of two: one human and one thranx.” He indicated the locations on the schematic. “One here, and the other here, on opposite sides of the vessel. They are intended to complement, not back up, one another. To carry out its intended mission with maximum efficiency, the stingship is designed to be flown by two pilots operating in tandem.”
“Doing what, currukk?” a thranx member of the audience inquired. “The vessel is too small to do any real damage. Even a small Pitarian or AAnn warship would easily blast it out of the sky.” The questioner gestured at the center of the model. “It is not even large enough to generate its own defensive screen.”
“The stingship relies on agility for its defense,” Couvinpasdar replied.
“With a drive attenuated to that size,” one of the humans pointed out, “the vessel is not capable of interstellar travel.”
“It is not intended to be,” the physicist explained. “Stingships are meant to be carried, in sizable numbers, in the holds of larger craft. Dreadnought-class ships, or preferably, a new class of vessels specially built for the purpose.”
“How did you work out the physics of a KK-drive that size?” another of the humans wanted to know.
“Engineering on the subatomic level is an art among my colleagues,” Couvinpasdar informed her. “However, the proposed stingship propulsion system is still not the smallest drive we have contemplated. This is.”
So saying he ran his fingers through the projection. The stingship model gave way to something appreciably smaller. If it was another diminutive ship, several members of the audience felt, it would function well only as a joke.
“By the Final Tunnel,” the senior thranx scientist in the gathering clicked, “what is that supposed to be?”
“Maybe it’s a KK-drive powered coffin,” one of the humans commented drily, “for commending bodies to space who want to say their final farewells to their surviving comrades in a great big hurry.” This time the laughter, both human and thranx, was more general.
Couvinpasdar gestured polite acknowledgment of the amusement, but his tone did not change. “The KK-drive unit you see here is only theoretically possible. Something of this reduced size has never been brooded before, much less built.” His blue-green, hard-shelled fingers shuffled within the projection. “This is not a ship. Fitted behind the miniature drive is a sizable thermonuclear device. As you can see, the drive-driven explosive fits into the launcher on top of the stingship.