Three - Michael Jan Friedman [18]
His demeanor didn’t seem to have changed appreciably from the night before. He didn’t look at any of the weapons officers, even when he finally addressed them.
“I’d advise you to take your seats,” he announced. “Accidents have been known to happen, and the Type Nine is aimed directly at that tritanium section.”
Neither Vigo nor his colleagues had to be told twice. Depositing themselves in a row of chairs set up along one wall, they waited while Ejanix opened the magnetic locks on the black plastic container. A moment later, its two halves fell away, revealing the Type Nine.
It was more streamlined than Vigo had imagined, with rounded edges, a longer barrel, and a significantly [49] more compact body than the Type Eight, though it retained the basic Y shape of its predecessor. But none of them had made the trip to Wayland Prime to discuss esthetics.
“The Type Nine,” said Ejanix, “is a significant improvement over the Type Eight, which—as you know—has been the standard in starship design for the last dozen years. The Type Nine can produce more firepower, sustain that firepower for a longer period of time, and yet draw less plasma energy than any phaser emitter before it.”
Without any further introduction, Ejanix signaled to Riyyen to dim the lights. Then, with a press of a stud on the side of the device, he activated it.
Instantly, a seething red beam no more than a couple of centimeters thick shot through the hole in the transparent cube and speared the tritanium section, creating a small cloud of vapor at the point of contact.
“At this wattage and beam width,” said Ejanix, “a Type Eight would take nearly forty seconds to punch through an unshielded section of that thickness.”
He had barely gotten the last word out when he reached down and deactivated the emitter, causing the beam to vanish. The weapons officers looked at one another, wondering why the demonstration had ended so abruptly.
Ejanix emerged from the transparent cubicle and walked over to the tritanium section. Then, as Riyyen brought the lights up, he guided it along a narrow ceiling rail to the part of the room where Vigo and his colleagues were sitting.
[50] Vigo could see the hole the beam had dug into the section. It was blackened and bubbled around the edges.
“As you will see,” said Ejanix, drawing a calibrated metal rod from his pocket, “the Type Nine doesn’t require forty seconds to pierce a half-meter of tritanium.”
Inserting the rod into the hole, he showed them all how deep it went. Then he extracted it and held it in front of Runj.
The Vobilite noted the measurement on the rod. Turning to Vigo and Sebring, he said, “Eighty-five centimeters.” He glanced at Ejanix. “In what? Fifteen seconds?”
Ejanix nodded. “Approximately.”
Sebring looked more than a little impressed. “What’s its maximum effective tactical range?”
“Two hundred and seventy thousand kilometers,” said Ejanix. “But I’m working on extending that.”
The Type Nine was quite an accomplishment, Vigo reflected. But there was no hint of pride in Ejanix’s voice as he described the device, no passion, no evidence that he felt even the slightest sense of achievement.
Clearly, his resentment had superseded any other emotion. The old Ejanix would never have let that happen, but this was clearly not the old Ejanix.
“And how did you make this happen?” Sebring wondered. “Did you change the timing on the switching gates? Maybe reconfigure the emitter crystal?”
“Yes and yes,” Ejanix told him. “And a good deal more. I’ll make the data available to you as soon as I’ve completed my work. Any other questions?”
How could there be? Ejanix had made it plain that he wasn’t releasing any detailed information.
[51] “In that case,” he said, returning to the transparent enclosure, “I thank you for coming.”
Then he packed up the Type Nine and reactivated the cart’s antigrav capability. In a matter of seconds, he was guiding the device out of the cubicle.