In A Starship's Wake

Chapter 23: Last Modification

As they got closer to the ship, Joseph tried to think of anything that might increase the chance of damaging the corvette's Faster Than Light propulsion. They didn't know exactly where that drive was, but it would almost certainly be near the back in the bulged-out section that housed the standard propulsion and other drives. They would have to be firing head-on to hit the area at all. Their angle of approach gave a good view of the corvette's cargo bay, but would allow precious few such shots. That was when Joseph remembered the small stash of solid metal ammunition they had for Garden Variety Animal's guns.

"You know, it might be good to mix a few of our solid rounds in with the explosives for this," Joseph blurted as soon as he thought of it. "They'll ricochet around the inside, if the armor is any good. A few of them might bounce into the back. It would give us a little more chance of knocking out the FTL drive."

"That's a good idea, if we have any that are soft metal. We don't really have much call to use them, so I didn't think we had any on board."

"I know we have a few soft metal rounds. I don't remember when we got them, but I've seen them in the munitions box recently. I'm sure we haven't used them up since."

Most ammunition used in personal weapons was some kind of solid metal, but at the starship level solid rounds were useless for most applications. The exceptions were piercing armor or target shooting, depending on the metal used to make them. Both high-explosive and plasma rounds were far more popular. They were better for wearing down shields and did more damage per round, making them more economical. You could also maintain a higher degree of control over what you were damaging on a ship, ideal for when you didn't want to destroy your opponent.

The disadvantage here was that both were designed to break on contact in some way. Explosive rounds did exactly what their name implied. Impact triggered a fuse that would cause the round to detonate a fraction of a second later. Plasma rounds shattered, covering whatever they struck in the intensely hot substance. The energy was transferred to the impacted surface, hopefully softening and melting it.

Solid rounds, especially if made from metals softer than ship hulls, tended to bounce off if they struck at an angle. In most cases that made them ineffective against the armored hull of a starship, but this was a rare instance where it would be helpful. It would keep them inside the ship, breaking things. It was certainly no guarantee of getting a hit on the FTL drive, but it did increase the odds.

"Are there any of them in the magazines already?" Tyrone asked

"No, I'll have to go load them." Joseph pressed the release on his straps. "How long do I have?"

"A little more than ten minutes."

"That should be plenty of time." Joseph maneuvered himself out of the harness and headed for the door. "Back in a moment."

He ran down the corridors to the cargo bay and threaded his way aft through the mining equipment there. The turrets were mounted at the rear of the cargo bay, just fore of the engineering section. The gun wells containing them were right in the middle of the ship, with a metal ladder reaching between the two. The positioning of the gun wells, and especially that ladder, were among their few complaints about the design of the ship.

The narrower engineering bay wasn't divided from the cargo hold by any walls or bulkheads. The goal was to make it easier to store permanent "cargo" items without reducing the ship's load capacity. The main examples they had were the truck and cart they used in port, which were secured in the engineering bay. They'd had several near misses with the truck and the ladder.

The munitions box was a large locker set into the port wall of the engineering bay, specifically for storing ammunition. It was as close to the ladder as possible, which was still about twelve feet away. That had never been a problem before since they were rarely in a hurry when loading the magazines, but at this precise moment it seemed like a poor design choice to Joseph.