Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Nine: Questions, Reactors, Subassemblies, and Taxes

Once the legion of officials had left, Gideon called me, Armand, Elizabeth Giles and William Clegg into the conference room.

“Elizabeth and I had quite the discussion with our friends from Her Majesty’s most Brittanic government,” Gideon announced. “One that was filled with varying acts of anger, threats, tears, and various episodes of begging and pleading. Some of it even involved us.”

“What does that mean?” rumbled Clegg.

“It means the various departments are completely confused by what to do about our planned actions. Defence was deeply aggrieved about the suit delays, until I raised the payment delays. Then they became extraordinarily quiet and started making puppy-eyes at the boys from the Exchequer.”

“Does the government not have the funds to pay for the suits?” asked Armand, puzzlement in his voice.

“Not nearly enough. We sell them at a quarter-million per suit, after all, and the government doesn’t have three hundred and seventy-five million pounds in cash to spare for this right now. Which is when the Exchequer hit us with a tax demand.”

“Meaning?”

“If we’re going to ship octanitrocubane to the Indians, we have to pay tax on that.”

“Why are we paying tax?” I asked. “This is a humanitarian effort meant to save lives.”

“Sir, all our exports are taxable based on market value,” Elizabeth explained. “Market price of octanitrocubane is sixty-four pounds per gram. Two hundred and twenty-five thousand tons is - theoretically at least - worth fourteen-point-four trillion pounds.”

I blinked. “That’s… a lot of money.”

“Technically, it’s larger than the British GDP. Not just the defence GDP, the whole economy, from sliced bread to nuclear power plants, totals just over eight trillion pounds. The tax bill on that….”

“If we were using the stuff directly, it wouldn’t be a problem,” explained Gideon. “Internal consumption and all that. But if we sell this - or ship it overseas - then it’s treated as trade, and the taxes kick in. We’d have to pay nearly a hundred and twenty billion pounds in taxes - and I sure don’t have that much in profits saved up to date.”

“You mean we can’t help the Indians,” Armand frowned, “because we’ll be taxed to death if we do?”

“Technically, we got a good deal,” Elizabeth Giles reassured him. “Unfortunately, the market value of octanitrocubane is way too high. The value of the warhead in a Starfall missile - just the warheads, not the rest - is essentially one-point-six million pounds, and that’s only twenty-five kilos of ONC.”

“That’s insane,” I grumbled. “My missiles can’t be worth two million dollars each.”

“For something that can reliably kill a Lesser Carnotaur and arguably wound a Greater, that’s not too bad,” Gideon pointed out. “You have a hundred percent hit rate and the world record for kaiju kills. Then again, there’s a reason people use TNT in normal missiles instead.”

“As things stand, we are the only large-scale producer of octanitrocubane in the world,” Giles continued. “Which puts us in a precarious position. We need government cooperation to get the ONC made, and to get away without paying the ridiculous tax.”

“I proposed that we could get it reclassified as ‘pharmaceutical grade’ octanitrocubane, and price it lower,” Gideon explained. “Defence was willing if we agreed to ship two hundred suits in two weeks, and clear our order backlog - Windsor’s been pressing them to get a thousand suits more. The Department of Health is waffling but will go along with whatever Defence says. Trade was grumbling about the lost tax revenue and how reclassification could be seen as a political favour. The Exchequer was saying they don’t have the money for either. The Foreign Ministry folks were desperate to ship the stuff because they don’t want the Indians embarrassing us in the UN or at the upcoming Commonwealth meet.”

“Which they certainly would, if we held back medically vital supplies because BAE-Dragonfly wasn’t paying their taxes,” Giles added. “I think they’re more worried about the Koh-i-Noor, though.”

Clegg looked puzzled. “What’s the Crown Jewels got to do with it?”

“The East India Company took it from the Mughal emperor during the period of British rule in India. The Indians have been asking for it back for a while. It gets a bit complicated.”

“Leaving aside the many, many political tangents involved in this situation,” Gideon sighed, “the revised agreement is that we can send a thousand suits of Boar Armour to the Rapid Response Division, and then sell four hundred to the Indians. The four hundred suits will form an auxiliary regiment which will also be assigned to the Rapid Response Division for any future attacks, anywhere in the world. The Indian government will pay for it, in full and without taxes or additional offset requirements, provided we supply the octanitrocubane free of cost. The British government will reduce the taxes on octanitrocubane supply to the Indians to one point two billion pounds.”

“That’s… a lot of money,” Clegg observed. “Would the Indians reimburse us?”

“They will, if the drug works and the suits get delivered. However, it’ll be a while before we actually get the funds.”

“Does that mean we’re out of money?” I asked.

Gideon shook his head. “There’s this thing called banks, which are generally happy to lend money to BAE. I’ll be calling them up for a line of credit - one-and-a-half billion pounds worth, which should let us pay our taxes and wait it out while the Indians clear our bills. Though it’s going to be a hairy winter.”

“Feels good to have capitalism work for us for a change,” muttered Armand.

“That’s why Elizabeth and I were in the meeting for so long. Now, is there anything else we need to discuss?”

I raised a hand tentatively. “Back when I was working with Jetstream on certain … tech, I’d built him a microfusion reactor. I have an idea for a new, larger reactor. Do you think that’d help us with our funding problem?”

Gideon looked at Giles. “Elizabeth, do you have contacts in the power industry?”

“Quite a few, and they’re always looking for power plants. Belessar, how much capacity is the new design?”

I mentally pulled up the blueprint I’d just been awarded.

TYPE 5 FUSION REACTOR

OUTPUT CAPACITY: 300 MW

REQUIREMENTS:

2,000 SQ. M. NANOFIBRE WEAVE

1500 M. NANOFIBRE CORD

125 KG TUNGSTEN CARBIDE 

180 KG HAFNIUM CARBONITRIDE

50 KG FULLERSTEEL

25 GRAVITIC CONTROL ARRAYS

1x COMPUTER SYSTEM

800,000 MP.

ENERGY SYSTEMS LEVEL 12

CONSTRUCTION LEVEL 24

CHEMIST LEVEL 19

Eight hundred thousand MP. An insane amount, well beyond my ability to put together normally - except for one, tiny change that made it possible. 

The new skill I’d gained, Phased Assembly, glowed out at me. 

PHASED ASSEMBLY

LEVEL 1

TECHNOLOGY MARCHES ON, AND SO DO THE MENTAL ENERGY DEMANDS REQUIRED TO MAKE IT WORK. TO HAVE THE GREATEST INVENTORS HANDICAPPED BY LIMITED MP CAPACITY? THAT IS A TRAVESTY, AN AFFRONT TO THE NEED FOR COOL THINGS. 

FORTUNATELY, THE PATIENT INVENTOR’S PERSEVERANCE CAN BYPASS THIS REQUIREMENT.

WHEN CREATING A TECHNOLOGICAL ITEM WITH AN MP REQUIREMENT, YOU CAN SUPPLY THE MP IN PARTS OVER A STEADY PERIOD OF TIME, INSTEAD OF ALL AT ONCE. THE ITEM WILL BE FORGED ONCE THE SUM TOTAL OF MP IS SUPPLIED. 

THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF MP THAT CAN BE SUPPLIED DEPENDS ON THE SKILL LEVEL OF PHASED ASSEMBLY.

SOME MP IS LOST IN THE PROCESS; THE EFFICIENCY DEPENDS ON THE SKILL LEVEL OF PHASED ASSEMBLY.

CURRENT SKILL LEVEL: 1

MAXIMUM MP STORAGE: 1,000,000

EFFICIENCY: 10% CONVERSION. INCREASE LEVEL TO ENHANCE.

Phased Assembly would be a game-changer. It made every recipe I’d had to put on hold for lack of MP suddenly possible. 

Eight hundred thousand MP, at ten per cent efficiency, meant that I’d have to pump my full MP capacity into the plant for … fourteen thousand seconds at full recharge.

Meaning, four hours. 

I could make three of those plants in a day. Enough to power anything I wanted. 

Weapons, flight, armour - everything. 

And on the next day, I’d make three more. 

“How much,” I asked Giles, “would a three hundred megawatt fusion power reactor be worth to, say, a reasonable power generation firm? Primary fuel would be hydrogen, and the reactor would work issue-free for at least five years.”

Elizabeth blinked. “We could sell such a reactor for … three hundred and twenty million pounds. Any side effects?”

“No. I’ve used a smaller version in the Wolf, and here at the factory we’ve been using the Type Four for more than a year.”

Gideon acknowledged my idea with a nod. “I take it you want to build such a reactor?”

“Actually, I want to build ten.”

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

The Type Five Fusion Reactor was a beast.

It required Level 12 in Energy Systems, Level 24 in Construction, and Level 19 in Chemist - the last of which had revealed the design. I couldn’t fault the requirements, though. The sheer complexity of the system called for that degree of understanding of each discipline. 

Massive arrays of nanofibre weave, securing each of hundreds of ceramic bricks in a complex system used to control the fusion cavity, and lined with fullersteel frames for better structural strength, allowed the reactor’s fusion process to run at a far faster - and hotter - rate than ever before. The output from each reactor was immense, especially when hooked up to an array of Mega Power Packs to store the power generated. 

The Wolf Armour had possessed a similar system, only it had run on two Type 4 reactors, generating a hundred megawatts of power in total. 

Each Type Five generated three times as much. Parking it in a Wolf armour suit would be the equivalent of installing a Formula One engine on a minivan. The Wolf would still function perfectly, of course, but it wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the reactor’s true gift - the sheer, insane amount of power it could throw at a problem. 

Which made it a perfect fit for the design I was looking at right now. 

LEOPARD CLASS BODYPLATE

SUBASSEMBLIES:

• LEOPARD-GRADE EXOSKELETAL BODYFRAME

• TAURALLOY OUTER LAYERED ARMOUR 

• TAURALLOY / STEEL SANDWICHED INTERNAL ARMOUR

• TRIPLE REACTOR SUBASSEMBLY

• MECHA BATTLE COMPUTER 

• FOLDSPACE DEFLECTOR SUBASSEMBLY

REQUIREMENTS: 

2,000 KG TAURALLOY

4,000 KG STEEL

4,000 SQ. M. NANOFIBRE WEAVE

3 x FUSION REACTORS, MINIMUM CAPACITY 50 MW

1 x COMBAT COMPUTER

100 x GRAVITIC CONTROLLER ARRAYS

12 x GRAVITIC SENSORS

8 x VIDEO CAMERAS

12 x MICROPROCESSOR ARRAYS

15,000 METRES NANOFIBRE CORD

6 x FOCUSING CRYSTALS

Like the Wolf, the Leopard’s chassis couldn’t be built as a single component. Instead, each part of the massive mech consisted of multiple subassemblies, which I would put together from their base components, and then assemble with a judicious application of MP and construction cranes. 

All I needed, now, were materials and time. Well, and also a little space. Because, standing up, the Leopard Class Battle Armour would be no less than sixty feet tall.

It would tower over the Lesser Carnotaurs and come upto chest height on the Greater.

The greatest fear I’d had with the Leopard had been the power capacity. With three 50 MW reactors - the best Type 4 could provide - the Leopard would have been fast, but not fast enough to guarantee dodging every enemy attack. Its size and mass would slow it down.

Now, though…

I would put three Type Five reactors into the Bodyplate’s Reactor Subassembly. Each reactor was positioned at a separate location, allowing the Leopard to keep fighting even if two out of three reactors were destroyed. 

At full speed, the Shadowcat could jump, and bound a few feet in the air. 

With the three Type Fives, the Leopard would fly.

The armour on the Leopard was nothing to sneeze at, either. While the internal components were held together by a mesh of structural steel and carbon fibre, that wasn’t enough to hold off the firepower of aliens. 

So I’d gone with two completely independent shells of armour, which coated each of the six parts of the Leopard. The outer armour was a coating of Tauralloy, inches thick, and as tough as Greater Carnotaur skin. 

The inner armour was for weapons that could breach Carnotaur skin. 

Sandwich armour consists of plates separated by a thin wall of air. For the Leopard, alternating layers of Tauralloy and high-strength steel rested beneath the outer skin, with a thin layer of gas between them.

The gas in question was simple nitrogen, only pressurized to 290 pounds per square inch - roughly twenty times atmospheric pressure. Any time a layer of the armour was penetrated, the gas would explode outwards, pushing the intruding projectile back and reducing the damage. 

Of course, since this was Integrated Armour, any damage to one part of the armour would automatically get distributed amongst the whole of it, allowing steady erosion instead of localized cracks - a feature that somewhat diminished the overall effectiveness of the armour ‘sandwich’. However, the layering also meant that there was an upper limit to how much damage each attack could do. 

Put simply, to kill the Leopard, an enemy would have to peel off its armour one layer at a time. 

Which, in hindsight, would not matter if I ran into another Walking Fortress - those things were just unfair - but it would buy me a bit of time. 

Meanwhile, there were other things to build. 

Elizabeth Giles managed to successfully secure an order for my fusion power plants. Turns out that clean power has a lot of potential buyers, and coal prices had gone up a lot after the chaos in Australia. While I waited for the supplies for octanitrocubane to come in, the assembly line for Type Five Fusion Reactors took shape. 

To sum it up? 

There was a LOT of work to do, and very little time to do it. But the prize - once we got it done - would make it all worthwhile.

Because the Leopard Class Battle Mech would be beyond anything I’d ever built.

And it wouldn’t be alone.