Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary - Chapter 435

Chapter 435: Chapter 435 Carrier Ship Tour (3)
Avery let out an impressed whistle when he entered the bridge.

The design was reminiscent of the Dauntless’ cockpit but scaled up to a far larger size.

There were dozens of stations throughout the room, but the one that obviously caught Avery’s attention was the captain’s chair.

It was located on a slightly raised platform in the center of the bridge with two other chairs on either side of it for other command personnel.

“Is everything set up so that I can register myself as the owner and captain?” Avery asked.

“Yeah, it should be. I currently have the highest level of authority, so I can transfer over all rights to you without issue.” Ardesen replied.

Feeling excited, Avery practically dragged Storren Corp.’s Chief Technology Officer along with him to complete the process of obtaining ownership of the carrier ship.

At Ardesen’s instruction, he created several access codes useable only by him and registered his biometric data.

“Okay, that should be everything. This vessel is now yours. Though, there are a few more documents that you’ll need to sign in my office before the transfer is fully completed.”

Avery nodded along as he only half listened to what Ardesen was saying.

He was already engrossed in accessing the ship’s systems and checking through them.

‘Looks like even though there are stations for every system, I can access everything from the captain’s chair if needed. So, in the short term, I could control the entire vessel by myself. But even with my augmentations, it would be pretty difficult.’ Avery thought as he flipped through page after page of data on the console in front of him.

It was unlikely that anyone would ever need to pilot the entire carrier alone of course. Avery already had plans in motion to recruit a fairly sizable crew. Only in the most catastrophic events would one person ever need to stay behind while everyone else evacuated.

For a couple of minutes, Avery continued to go through his new craft’s capabilities like an excited kid who had just been given a fancy new toy.

Honestly, he could have just sat there for hours with a giant smile plastered on his face, but he knew that would not be fair to the others.

“Kasandra, Jasmine, I’ve figured out how to register the two of you as vice-captains. That will give you both access and operation permissions second only to me.”

At Avery’s beckoning, his two wives came over and entered their own data into the ship’s system.

Since he trusted both of them completely, he did not give their positions any restrictions. They both had full access to the vessel and all of its systems. The only thing that they could not do was register others as vice-captains. That was something that only Avery could do.

“Okay, what are the weapons looking like.” Kasandra said enthusiastically, accessing the console of the seat to the right of Avery.

“We should check our defenses first. This ship will be serving as our mobile base, so its security should be our top priority.”

After Jasmine brought up the carrier’s defenses, Ardesen lit up as if he had just remembered something and rushed over to them animatedly.

Seeing this, Avery raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

While he had been pretty specific with what weapons he wanted installed, he had only asked Ardesen to equip the carrier vessel with the best shielding and armor possible without sacrificing any of the other specifications he had wanted.

‘Considering how exhilarated he looks, Storren Corp. must have whipped up something special for us.’ Avery thought as he waited for Ardesen to start explaining.

Naturally, the enthusiastic Chief technology Officer began speaking quickly about all of the upgrades that he and his team had made to the carrier ship’s defenses.

He first explained how most vessels had only one shield that encapsulated the entire craft like a bubble.

“It takes a lot of energy just to maintain one shield, and adding a second creates all manner of complications. Some of the largest warships can get away with having two shields, an outer and inner one, but that’s it. Anymore just isn’t feasible normally. The shields need to be at least a certain distance from each other or they start interfering with each other and lose stability. So it’s not possible to just keep layering shields.” Ardesen explained.

However, after his short lesson, eh went on to tell them how Avery’s carrier had a new type of shielding that the best minds at Storren Corp. had been developing but had not quite been able to put into practice until now.

“While this vessel does have a typical full shield around it that is projected close to the hull, it has another portion as well.”

Ardesen pulled up a model of the carrier and displayed how its specialized shielding worked.

Instead of creating a second full bubble around the craft, there were multiple smaller shield generators through the ship that could create hexagonal shield plates.

They were set into multiple tiers so that they did not interfere with each other, and when all of them were activated, they created a powerful secondary layer of shielding that had no gaps from a far.

Of course, this design did come with both strengths and weaknesses.

If one of the hexagonal shields were destroyed, it would not cause any damage to the other ones. Making it far more difficult to simply overwhelm the carrier with sheer firepower.

When one of the shields was breached, it would be easy enough to maneuver the vessel to make it difficult to target that area. And the primary full shield would still serve as protection against any stray shots that got through.

Except, there was one clear weakness to the tiered design.

At close range there were gaps that could be flown through. Smaller ships could slip past the hexagonal shields completely if the pilot was skilled enough.

Then they could use the same strategy that Avery used to fight much larger vessels and stay close to the surface while attacking.

Obviously, Avery brought this up pointing out where he thought the carrier was must vulnerable.

“Yes, that’s true, and we did consider that. Which is why we stationed a large cluster of point defense turrets in those areas.” Ardesen said, pulling up a second model of the carrier to show where its point defense weapons were located.

Examining the two models side by side and then overlapping them, Avery could see now just how difficult it would be for smaller ships to truly assault his carrier.

‘I think that I could do it without too much trouble if I used my ability to its full potential, but otherwise it would definitely be tough. Myself, Ezra, Kasandra, and Liesel are probably the only ones on my team good enough to even attempt such an assault. We should not be going up against many groups with enough skilled pilots to be a threat. And even if we do, I can always deploy our own small craft to fight them off.’

Avery felt very satisfied with the design and felt that it would be possible to compensate for its few weaknesses.

“You never cease to impress, Ardesen.” Avery said, praising the man that had been the driving force behind realizing his ideal ship.