Personal Log, Captain Aria Wolfe



At Admiral Kadman's request, I went over the Colussus' heat dissipation and power grid tolerances, and I sent him the specs that the crew will need for overloading the main beams. If he intends to duel the Sathanas juggernaut, and blow it up before it simply jumps away, he will need a ton of extra firepower.

Fortunately, the beams won't require a total rebuild. They're designed to work for around twenty thousand shots before they require service, so it's easy to sacrifice some longevity for extra punch. The Colossus also has plenty of surplus power for this procedure.

What the ship lacks is heat dissipation. Thermally speaking, it's nearly maxed-out. The ship is going to have to operate with a minimal crew, and internal temperatures will soar above the boiling point in several uninhabited spaces. Some regions will have to be depressurized to insulate others from the heat. They need to use everything from plumbing to ventilation to control heat buildup. Compartments that contain the emitter heat exchangers will need to be waterproofed and flooded, to prevent them from thermally warping the Colossus' frame.

 I expected that Admiral Kadman would be dismissive of such extreme recommendations, but he is actually quite receptive to the bold and bizarre, and unafraid to expend any resource necessary to accomplish objectives. That is very rare for an admiral. I even learned that he requisitioned five thousand metric tons of antimatter for use in helios bombs - just in case anyone happens to need the extra firepower.

Anyway, this time spent away from the Kayser project has been...eye-opening. There is no doubt that the Alliance needs substantially better strikecraft weapons – but that alone isn't going to stop the next Shivan menace. We need more. A lot more. We got lucky that the plumbing in the Colossus happens to be ridiculously overbuilt. Next time we might not be as fortunate.

An idea came to me, when I was reading a research report published by the Hideki Institute: Micro-subspace drives. The GTSC Hawking's data seems to support the possibilty, at least on a theoretical basis. Such a drive would probably burn itself out after a single jump – but what if the drive carried a warhead instead of a spaceship as its payload? A single-use drive would be perfect for a 'subspace missile'.

I sent the idea to Admiral Kadman, along with some sketches and graphs. Maybe he can find someone at the Hideki Institute to look into it.
