The ARC System 2

Taking a seat in the cockpit, the model of the ship repositioned itself to be in front of him at an arms length away.

"As you can see, this is a model of the ship. It has no name. It has no serial number. It has no experimental designation. It is only to be referred to as the ship for the time being. Please understand this was a decision in regards to espionage and document classification."

"No problem. I will keep that in mind going further."

"Response: Non-Issue. What you say is largely irrelevant at this point. This campaign will be operated under DATA DARK. There is no risk of the information being leaked to outside sources."

There was one thing Don found annoying about ARC. That was that it always marked what type of sentence it was using by that annoying indicator at the beginning.

"ARC, if you don't mind, could you please stop using words like 'response' and 'addition' to clarify what your sentences are? I can tell even without you having a tone."

"Response: These clarifiers are not meant for you. I am still learning to speak. I have only been active for little under a year, and have not yet mastered the use of tone. To accommodate your requests, I will hold back on using them as much as will not impede my growth, but it will likely be a few weeks until I am able to dispense with them completely. Apologies."

Don let out an exasperated sigh. "It's not that much of a problem. Work on your growth. I take it you are at the same developmental stage as a child or whatever the computer equivalent is. I get the feeling we will be together for a long time, certainly long enough to rid you of that tic."

"Gratitude: Thank you." Don had to admit it was weird for a computer to feel something towards him, especially gratitude. "Query: Should we continue with the rundown of ship parameters?"

"Please."

"Acknowledged. I will start with mobility." The rotating model was stripped to show what appeared to be a series of wires and nodes in the rough shape of the ship. "This is the structure of the propulsion network. It uses a different method to enact a force on the ship than what you may be used to. Due to security concerns, all you are authorized to know about how it works is that it directly changes energy from electrical to kinetic."

"Forward acceleration ranges from 199.5 to 200.3 depending on the ammunition load remaining. Strafing and reversing are locked to a maximum of 30 as there are a few sensitive parts that are only rated for that level of force without the appropriate bracing or compensation. In an emergency, you may go over this limit but a few of these systems may be out of action for a time until I repair it."

Don creased his eyebrows. The level of secrecy around this ship is gonna make it hard for him to actually fight in the damn thing. "At the very least can you give me an multidirectional gradient visual? A list of some important numbers to not go over and the respective systems that would be damaged would also help. Can I get those?"

"Certainly. Rotational mobility is as follows. Pitching rate is 60 degrees a second per second at maximum. Rolling is capped at 90 for the safety of the electronics and loading system, no overage allowed on that front. Turning left to right is the slowest at 25 due to the profile of the ship. As per usual, turning on two axes will speed up rotation, but that too is hard-capped at 90."

"So that means that I am essentially going to be flying this thing more like a conventional aircraft than a modern fighter."

"That is what is recommended, yes. However, that will only be in the presumably rare case of a dogfight. This ship is not meant to fight smaller and more maneuverable craft, I have been told that turning rate is to give this ship the ability to track relatively fast moving targets with the autocannons."

"..."

Thinking about it in a more broad sense, that would be a better reason than for a scramble. He had to get the fighter pilot mentality out of his head. It had become obvious to him not long ago that this was not that type of ship.

"Do you have questions or concerns in regards to the maneuverability?"

Just one.

"From what you have said, it looks like this ship is going to be under quite a number of G's. Are we sure the inertial dampener can handle all of that? Are we sure *I* can handle that?"

This was his biggest concern. The inertial dampener was a big step for humanity. No longer did they have to worry about ships pulling themselves apart if they accelerated or turned to fast. They didn't have to worry about suffering from acceleration forces their body couldn't handle either.

The way it worked was that it 'tricked' the universe into thinking that a volume containing mass was actually a single 'point' or 'entity', so the force of acceleration would be spread relatively evenly throughout the ship. He didn't go to school for energy and field mechanics though, so that was the extent of his knowledge on the subject matter.

One thing he DID know was that it still had a limit. It was a DAMPENER, not a NEUTRALIZER. Only a certain magnitude of force could be dispersed evenly like that before it stopped having an effect. Most big ships in the navy were limited to an acceleration of only 30 before the effects of inertia would begin to be felt again.

"Answer: The dampener on this craft is designed only to cover the living quarters, energy core, weapons systems, inner armor casing, and a few other vital components. Moreover, it is calibrated to be more effective in the forward direction at the expense of all others. You can expect to experience up to 5 G's going full forward and 1 G in any other direction."

"This cannot be recalibrated as it is primarily a hardware set-up. There is a smaller backup dampener that will activate in case of emergencies and entrance into a gravity well. A burst dampener also exists, but that is only rated for use at milliseconds at a time and serves to mitigate heavy impacts."

'Heavy impacts.' In other words getting hit by really big projectiles.

"Thank you ARC. We can move on now."

Now that he had an idea of how strange this ship was going to be to handle, Don was more than eager to see what he got in return.