Chapter Two Hundred and Seventy-One: Air Superiority

“Mr. Belessar?” the buzzer on my table sounded. “It’s Nancy from reception. Your ten o’clock is here.”

“Send them in, please, Nancy,” I replied, adjusting my armour. It wasn’t often that I suited up in the office, but meeting with other ultras - any ultras - always called for a certain degree of precautions.

Dyzer slash Grumman had been a wake-up call. 

The two ultras who came to my room were associated with much more pleasant memories. Both wore armour, of course, and their trademark capes - which was proof that they weren’t here for a fight.

Adelaar’s cape bore the symbol of the white-tailed eagle, on a blue background. A fitting cape for a flying ultra, at least for any occasion requiring a costume as opposed to practical combat armour. Falcao’s cape bore a similar symbol, that of a peregrine falcon. 

Both birds of prey, symbolic of the deadly nature of avian combat. 

“Belessar,” Adelaar greeted me in his thick Dutch accent. “It has been long.”

“Do we still call you Belessar?” asked Falcao. “Since you now use your true name, too.”

“Either works, Belessar or Andrew,” I said. “The rules for unmasked ultras are a bit uncertain, at the moment.”

“More like unknown,” Falcao said. “Adelaar and I were trying to figure out the - how do you say it? - rules of behaviour?”

“Etiquette?”

“Yes, the etiquette on our way here. What to call you and all that.”

“As long as it’s not something rude, I’m fine.”

Adelaar laughed. “Ve vud never do that, Belessar. Or you shoot us with your rockets.”

“Missiles, Adelaar,” sighed Falcao, “they are missiles.”

“I always think that make no sense. Missiles not have thrust, yes? Missiles and bullets, the same. Rockets have own thrust.”

“Belessar’s missiles do not push out hot gas from their backside. So, they are not rockets either.”

“Let’s call them Starfalls for now,” I said. “That’s their official name, after all.”

“Ah yes, the Starfalls,” Adelaar beamed. “Your missiles, very powerful. For their size. And very fast, too.”

“I’m always looking to make them faster. They’re not for sale, though, and you can probably get better ones from Raytheon.”

“We are not asking for missiles, Belessar,” Falcao said. “Your giant robot is the only thing that can launch those anyway. We want your help for building something else. An air - what is the word - superiority. Air superiority fighter.”

“Don’t air forces across the world have those?”

Falcao shook his head. “Air superiority fighter is the plane that shoots down anything else that flies. Right now, the Hierarchy Strikefighter is the best there is. We need something better than that.”

“‘We’ as in?”

“Adelaar and I are asked to help by the Stratospheric Guard. Single unit, proof of concept, is fine. Jetstream also gives us advice from Skyguard.”

“But ve talk, all us three,” Adelaar continued. “And ve realize there is fourth ultra who knows flying and fighting. You. Ve vant your ideas for air - super - fighter.”

“The Superfighter?” I grinned. “Isn’t that a rather ambitious name?”

“Depends on how good it is,” Falcao said. “We want your help.”

NEW QUEST ALERT: BUILD THE SUPERFIGHTER.

ADELAAR, FALCAO, AND JETSTREAM ARE WORKING TO BUILD A NEW GENERATION AIR SUPERIORITY FIGHTER, WHICH CAN TAKE ON THE HIERARCHY’S STRIKEFIGHTERS AT LEAST ONE-ON-ONE, AND ACHIEVE A REASONABLE KILL RATIO. THE SUPERFIGHTER WILL NEED TO INCORPORATE TECHNOLOGIES FAR BEYOND ANYTHING NORMAL R&D HAS DISCOVERED, AND DEMONSTRATE AN EFFECTIVE RECORD IN COMBAT.

OBJECTIVE: BUILD A PROTOTYPE OF THE FIRST TERRAN SUPERFIGHTER. 

REWARD: +5 INTELLIGENCE. +2 CHARISMA. +3 LUCK.

+250,000 XP.

SKILL UPGRADE: SPACECRAFT.

SKILL UPGRADE: MECHANIC.

BONUS OBJECTIVE: HAVE YOUR PROTOTYPE SHOOT DOWN AT LEAST 3 HIERARCHY STRIKEFIGHTERS IN A SINGLE MISSION WITHIN THREE MONTHS OF DEPLOYMENT. 

REWARD: +2,000,000 XP. +2 WISDOM.

SKILL UPGRADE: HOPEBRINGER.

ACCEPT? YES/NO

Even as Falcao had finished speaking, I’d clicked on Yes. I needed 29,000 XP to get to the next level - and succeeding, even if only in the main objective, would win me 10 stat points - including 5 in INT. Considering that I only got 1 per level, that was an impressive boost. 

Kitting out the Superfighter with enough gear to take out three Strikefighters would be a challenge, but one that could conceivably get me a chunk of the way to Level 82, and throw in another two bonus stats - to WIS, which would boost my MP capacity further.

My MP Regen depended on two things - my INT score and my level. Either going up pushed the total regen upwards, and thus the speed at which I could build new weapons or armour - or kill enemies. 

“Did you have a concept in mind?” I asked. “Any preliminary work?”

Adelaar unclipped his cape and undid a button. The cape parted, revealing - paper documents.

“Ve do not put this in electronic system,” he said. “Not yet.”

“He is paranoid about Gellatoid hacking,” Falcao explained. “All drawings by hand, manufacturing small, until we make the prototype.”

“I can’t fault him. However, I will need a copy to work with.”

“Your copy,” Adelaar slid the papers across the table to me. 

At first glance, the design looked impressive. A sleek, aerodynamic design with curved wings, a modern-looking cockpit with a crash couch for the pilot, an internal missile bay, and quad thrusters.

Which made it totally wrong.

“What’s the top speed on this thing?”

Falcao grimaced. “With modern jet engines - four in tandem - Mach 4, at best. At which point it is, how shall I put it, very easy to see.”

“Also very hard to manoeuvreren,” explained Adelaar. “The twist, the movement, it shocks the pilot.”

“Strikefighters will outspeed this,” I pointed out. “And outmanoeuvre it. They’re bigger, faster, and handle more nimbly in a fight.”

“Which is why we came to you,” Falcao said. “The design, it also has to be very light. And carry enough weapons to make a difference. And enough fuel.”

I glanced at the design again. “Fifty per cent of your internal space is fuel tanks. And ten per cent is life support for the pilot.”

“Yes. But only two hours of fuel.”

“... that’s all for two hours?”

Falcao nodded. “We can think aerodynamics. It will fly. It will manoeuvre - a little. But it will not carry much weapons. Or last long. This is where we are now.”

“If ve put in your antigravity thruster,” Adelaar pointed out, “then it improve movement.”

I thought for a moment. “Or, you could leave out the jet engines altogether. Drive it purely through antigravity thrusters.”

Falcao frowned. “Belessar, your thruster only pushes missiles, right?”

“It can do a lot more than that. We put in a bank of twelve antigrav thrusters for forward movement - and another four for vertical and horizontal.”

“You can do horizontal movement on that?” asked Falcao.

“There’s a technique called thrust vectoring - the Harrier jump-jet used it as far back as 1979. What I propose is more like gravity field vectoring. Twist gravitational forces around you, flip their direction, and use them to move in any direction you want. Sixteen thrusters…” I made a note, “and you’ll need an adequate energy supply. Ditch the fuel tanks, go with Power Banks… How much do you want this thing to weigh?”

“Eight tons unloaded at most,” Adelaar said. “Twelve tons with load.”

“What payload do you have in mind?”

“The military says they have a new missile, one that will take out a Strikefighter,” Falcao said. “It is top secret. Weighs two hundred kilograms. They want each fighter to carry six to eight.”

“A missile which can reach Mach 18? Because that’s the minimum speed you need to catch a Strikefighter in atmosphere. Not to mention that they dodge like hell.”

Falcao grinned. “You have a better weapon, don’t you?”

“I have … a concept of a weapon. You know we were adapting the Yogzune Maser Cannon for ground-to-orbit defense?”

“Yes, that was supposed to be the main weapon of the Earth Defence Bases.” Falcao’s eyes lit up. “Do you mean…”

“We can mount a Maser Cannon on the jet. Lightspeed beams. No chance for the enemy to dodge.” 

“Maser cannon needs lot of energy,” pointed out Adelaar. “Fuel not enough.”

“Actually, if we take out the jet engines completely… we don’t need fuel tanks. I can put in a few Power Packs that’ll give you decent endurance.”

Falcao frowned. “Belessar. This is a jet. Batteries do not have enough… energy density? For flight.”

“Mine do.” I took out a pen and started jotting notes at the bottom of the diagram. “Replace the internals with nanofibre weave, and add a titanium carbide outer coating to deal with heat. Add sixteen antigravity thrusters - each is six kilos - that’s ninety-six kilos to handle maneuvering. You want a speed of Mach 20 - that’s six kilometres per second - to keep pace with the enemy.”

“Strikefighters don’t do Mach 20 in the lower atmosphere.”

“Agreed, but you need to plan for that scenario. Let’s say you want to get the ship up to Mach 20 from a standing start. That’s…. 265,335 megajoules.” I pursed my lips. “Three Omega-class Power Packs, at full, will drain out just getting it up to that speed.”

“That’s six-and-a-half kilometres per second,” pointed out Falcao. “Most battles will not occur over such a wide area.”

“If speed is Mach 10,” Adelaar said, “ve need only a quarter that. How much power in your Omega pack? And how much weight?”

“An Omega-class Power Pack stores 100,000 megajoules and weighs twenty-five kilos.”

“Belessar,” Falcao smiled, “that is mad. No, crazy. One hundred thousand megajoules and twenty-five kilos?”

“Well… it’s a bit hard to make. And charge.”

“You can run entire plane on one pack. No thruster. How much power for maser cannon?”

“Each shot does three million damage - that’s roughly eighteen thousand megajoules. Six shots per Omega Power Pack, give or take, and we need some to power flight as well… One shot is enough to put down a Strikefighter for good. How about this - we ditch all the fuel, the internal missile racks, and the rest of the gear and simply fill the fighter up with Omega Power Packs?”

“How many of these can you make?”

“As many as we need. The Maser Cannon and its inbuilt feeds weigh about three tons. We put in twenty thrusters, eighty Omega Power Packs, and the outer armouring and avionics. What weight are we looking at?”

“Surface area,” Falcao calculated rapidly. “We shrink the size… but then the cockpit becomes too small. No, this is a problem.”

“Ditch the cockpit. Make it entirely fly-by-wire.”

“Drone?” Adelaar asked. “Can be hacked, no?”

“A killswitch,” I said. “Nanocloud can put in nanobots in a central chamber. They maintain the link. If the fighter goes rogue, they switch it off.”

“No need for a human pilot,” Falcao nodded. “No life support. Tiny cockpit, half an inch maybe, and we put a killswitch in there. Get Summoners to put their construct in cockpit to operate the killswitch.”

“Or just a mode switch,” I suggested. “Operate it remotely - or via combat AI - if the fighter isn’t hacked. If it is, the construct operates a switch and moves it to ‘manual’ mode. Gets it to land safely somewhere and reboots the OS.”

“Purging any viruses from the system,” nodded Falcao. “Much less life support space. And more intense turns can be done.”

“We replace all innards with fullersteel and nanofibre weave. Lighter, more flexible, and it can handle the strain of a 25 g’s turn,” I pointed out. 

“Weight?” asked Adelaar.

I counted off the numbers. “Eighty Omega Power Packs - two thousand kilos; fullersteel and nanofibre weave, another three hundred; sixteen antigravity thrusters, ninety-six kilos; three thousand kilograms for the maser cannon battery… how much is avionics and the reduced-size cockpit?”

“A hundred and fifty kilos, including radar and communications,” replied Falcao. “Also add landing gear - another hundred and fifty kilos. Five thousand six hundred kilos - half the weight we had planned.”

“But no rockets,” Adelaar said.

“With this, we need no rockets. Or missiles. How much power will it take to fly, Belessar?”

I thought for a moment. “With all systems active - each power pack will last for two hours in level flight. Or thirty seconds at full acceleration.”

“That is something of a wide range, Belessar.”

“Sorry. Actual combat is an energy hog, so the fighter will be draining the batteries at a rapid pace. I’ve seen the same problem with the Wolf - energy management is a problem.”

“Your Wolf had onboard reactor,” Adelaar said. “Not on this?”

“The Wolf didn’t use nearly this much power, Adelaar. Mechs are primarily ground combat assets that sometimes fly. I wouldn’t pit one against a dedicated air combat asset.”

Falcao smirked. “Belessar, you have the record for maximum Strikefighters shot down.”

“... That’s not important. Look - aircraft are a black hole for energy, and you’ve got the same set of Power Packs running everything on the fighter, from the thrusters to the avionics to the maser cannon. For mechs, they can be in the air for a few minutes every hour and fight from the ground the rest of the time. So, we spend a lot of time in ‘low-power’ mode. Aircraft don’t have a low-power mode.”

“And if you put a reactor on it?”

“I don’t have a reactor that can sustain continuous operations for an aircraft, Falcao. The reactor will take hours to recharge the power packs. Might as well swap…” I paused for a second. “Falcao, what if we swapped out the power packs?”

“.... In mid-air?” 

“Mid-air refuelling is a thing, right? What if we have the empty power packs replaced with full ones?”

“That could work. Would you be able to provide enough packs?”

“The packs themselves aren’t the problem. The main problem is getting them charged.”

“If only we knew a specialist in major power plants,” Falcao chuckled. 

I mentally revised upwards the number of Type Five Fusion Reactors I’d have to make….

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After Falcao and Adelaar had left, I walked over to Gideon’s office to explain the up-and-coming Superfighter.

Gideon was oddly philosophical about the idea. “It wouldn’t hurt to have something that can take on the Hierarchy in the air, other than you. The main constraint is the Omega-class Power Packs?”

“And the reactors needed to charge them. And a way to get them onto the Superfighter in mid-air. And a bit of fullersteel to reinforce the frames….”

“The demands on your wonder materials never cease,” Gideon nodded ruefully. “You’ve completed, what, two reactors so far? Is ten going to be enough?”

“I think I’ll have to make more, actually. Maybe twenty. Or thirty.”

“I’m curious why you picked this project up in particular, given your limited MP supplies.”

“Because if we make a working version of the air superiority fighter, it’ll increase my MP regen rate. And, consequently, how fast I can make things.”

“That makes sense, although I won’t pretend to understand why it works. You have another set of visitors planned for this week, right?” 

“Two, actually. Nanocloud - Anne - is bringing some friends over from school for a tour, and then we have some new recruits to the Rapid Response Division dropping by.”

“In addition to the detachment of armed guards Pemberley already sent us. I swear, there’s less factory personnel and more soldiers on the premises every day.”

“Feels like being a defence contractor,” I grinned cheekily.

Gideon rolled his eyes. “I’ve been a defence contractor longer than you’ve been alive, Belessar. In any case, as long as they don’t break anything or interfere with day-to-day operations, we should be good.”