Gravity Wielder - Book 2 of Re-Forge

Black Hole

Three days passed very slowly for Matt, even though he did his best to stay out of the way. The last thing servicing crews needed was to have the boss looking over their shoulder as they worked in the most stressful conditions. SP1 gave Matt continuous updates on progress, and Matt was able to watch the entire rebuilding process from any camera. He had never seen Storm in such organised disarray.

Access panels were open on every wall ceiling and floor, mostly with technicians performing critical adjustments to fine-tune every single system and machine on Storm.

Matt was feeling confident that Storm would be more potent than ever. Her weapons systems received an unfair amount of attention as Matt wanted to be sure all Storm's teeth were razor-sharp and battle-ready. Her 'Multi-Terra Watt' capable Lasers, Rail guns and missile systems were tested and finely tuned. Her fighter squadron AI's practised attacking targets, and fleet defence, firing the remaining 'non-graviton' missiles to calibrate targeting systems.

The same fine-tuning process was occurring in every warship across the system. Matt had indeed listened to SP1 and deep in his gut, He was feeling that sense of inevitable dread with a certainty that comes from being tested in battle. He knew the S-H-I-P was about to hit the fan.

Fresh supply ships arrived from the Lunar colony with additional food, clothing, and hundreds of freshly manufactured Graviton missiles. They bought tonnes and tonnes of raw minerals and stores of electronic components to bolster SP1's onboard manufacturing stocks.

Once the supply ships finished unloading, they returned to the Lunar colony to restock and head to Saturn and the colonies.

Matt sent tight beam orders to all warships throughout the Inner-System, including the Jupiter colonies, Mars, and asteroid mining colonies to order supplies, and, like Storm's fleet, re-tune and test every weapons system.

On the final day of the rebuild, several SP1 avatars began building an innovative stand-alone weapon for Storm. Matt welcomed any modification that increased firepower.

SP1 told Matt: "This is another example of Graviton technology turned to destructive power. In theory, the or 'APC' use Graviton projectors to smash uranium or plutonium into atoms, then graviton forces shatter those atoms into their smaller parts. The atomic blast that results is contained in gravitonic fields generated within the APC, and when peak pressure is achieved, the destructive force is released toward its target in controlled bursts."

SP1 said: "Theoretically, Neutrons, Protons and electrons travelling at, or close to the speed of light will impact against the objective with terra-tonne destructive force. The force is so powerful that the atomic structure of the target literally disintegrates."

SP1 said: "Admiral, I estimate the APC's effective range to be up to fifty thousand kilometres before the bursts dissipate enough to be ineffective. Storm has both Graviton Missiles and the APC in addition to her other weapons, to effectively increase her ability to destroy the enemy."

"However, the only drawback with the APC is power consumption. It has a starving need for power. So, it must become our 'last line of defence.' It is so power-hungry that it can only fire once every two hours as that is how long it takes to re-charge."

Matt said: "Nice work. Thanks, SP1." Then he thought: "Once Again, our achilleas heal is power consumption. Why is there never enough power? How can we fix that issue?"

After three days, SP1 announced the engine room complete. It was time for Matt and his senior officers to inspect the completed ship. 'Storm' was far too big for one person to examine in the time allocated, so he split up his officers and placed them in command of inspection teams charged with inspecting each other's areas. This process would take up a major part of one day and repairing anything found could take place while they continue to Saturn.