Space Unicorn

Chapter 2

Lander One

On approach to JGSS Invisible Pink Unicorn

"Lander One, this is JGSS Invisible Pink Unicorn. You are clear to dock at bay one. We will begin chasing the insurgent tug immediately upon docking, so brace yourselves."

Marco stared out the tiny window, and sighed with relief as a ship – his ship – came into view.

The JGSS (Joint Government Space Ship) Invisible Pink Unicorn was an Azure Dragon (Qinglong青龍)-class "frigate". That is, it was a medium-sized multi-purpose warship, which traded ship-to-ship armament and armor for dropships, orbit-to-surface munitions, marines, and boarding craft. It also had provisions for a removable multi-purpose module, which at this moment was housing a mobile biological research laboratory, owned and operated by the Butterfly Corporation.

Space warships had grown substantially since the first space war of 1984. Thirty meters in diameter, and a hundred meters – thirty stories - from top to bottom, the frigate was the same size as the crude nuclear pulse battleships that had been the largest warships of that primitive era. Like those ships, the JGSS Invisible Pink Unicorn was segmented, modular, and armed to the teeth.

Like most high-acceleration-capable ships, the JGSS Invisible Pink Unicorn was laid out like an office tower. At the base of the spacecraft was the fusion torch. A hollow hemispherical cage of magnetic coils, open at the bottom, the fusion torch only barely contained the thermonuclear inferno that thrust the ship upwards.

Above it was an armored octagonal prism, containing water propellant tanks, missile pods, and habitat modules. Stubby point-defense laser turrets studded the prism, and seams of replaceable modules or missile pods were clearly visible.

Capping the vessel was a truncated pyramid, with four chamfered (squared-off) edges and four triangular faces, housing the ship's phased-array radars and particle-beam cannon. It was hoped that the steeply sloped armor the pyramid shape offered would improve survivability in a head-to-head space battle.

At the neck of the ship, where the chamfered edges of the pyramid met the faces of the prism, armored turrets sprouted from raised podiums. The two turrets mounting the ship's railguns were low, and sported thick, boxy barrels. The other two turrets were big, bulky cubes that protruded far from the body of the ship. Those housed the ship's ultraviolet ship-to-ship lasers. Each pair of weapons, mounted on opposite sides of the ship, had near-complete coverage of the sky.

Marco could not help but compare the general shape of his ship to the general shape of an Apollo Command and Service Module – the spacecraft that had brought Man to the moon so very long ago. If the Apollo CSM had had a sharper nose, octagonal cross section, and more bits and pieces sticking out...

Jackie looked out the window, and chuckled. "Hey guys! Who put the dunce cap on the monkey head?"

A marine responded to the crack. "Whoever it was, he was too lazy to finish the neck."

Chuckles spread throughout the cabin.

Star looked out the window. "Oh yeah, the ship does have big ears. And check out the proboscis on that long face!"

Marco rolled his eyes. "Those "ears" can vaporize a scooter from a thousand klicks off. And that "proboscis" fires guided slugs at nine kilometers per second."

Jackie put her hand on Marco's shoulder. "Relax, Commander Diaz. You run a good ship. We jarheads trust you to fly us anywhere without getting us killed. Isn't that right boys?!"

"Ooo-rah!" Nine voices rang out in unison. Not so long ago, it would have been fourteen.

"See?"

Marco smiled, and nodded.