A Present 1

Leaving the office, Admiral Adirondack called Don once more.

"I almost forgot, but head to the central hangar. There is a present waiting there for you. Full disclosure, we really just needed somewhere to keep it, but I feel that you will appreciate it in light of some of the issues you reported while isolated in your ship."

"What is it?"

"Wouldn't be much of a surprise if just up and told you here. You are free to decline the gift or even return it later if it isn't working well in your ship, but I hope you wont have to."

"Thanks."

Closing the door on his way out, Don's face scrunched up in a bout of confusion. If they had something that could have helped him with his boredom and lack of social interaction before they left the supply zone, why the hell had it not been given to him? He had made it known a long time ago, well before the last supply ship had contact with them.

"Better late than never, I suppose." The rumors about logistical inefficiency and lack of notification of amenities he had heard of from some of his more veteran instructors appeared to be a reality. Unsurprising considering the hell that is spatial logistics, but it was a serious mood-killer when the issues reared their scaly faces.

Walking, more accurately strolling, his way towards the main hangar of the ship, Don couldn't help but analyze the interior layout of the behemoth. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of the space around the admiral's quarters are also living spaces or other such facilities. Much had changed since the days where 'naval' meant 'on water'.

For one, crew quarters were now placed within the heart of the ship. Without the presence of an atmosphere, it was imperative that the facilities that the people making the ship function be protected. This was to guarantee that the ship could actually fight in the case it took a direct hit.

It should be taken into account that a quarter of the carrier's total volume that was not relegated to armor or support structures was dedicated to power and thrust generation. This section needed to be protected as much as the crew quarters, which takes up roughly the same volume.

The space left for weaponry is then less than half of the total internal volume.

The ventral and dorsal hangar openings travelled a distance somewhere between a half and two thirds of the ship's total length, neatly centered on the forward third line of the ship. The astute observer will make a note that it would be impossible for the hangar to be perfectly in line with the ends of the hangar openings, there simply would not be enough space remaining.

The reason for this lies in the carrier's design.

First of all, the volatile and vital components like ammo and replacement parts are stored in the relative safety of the main armor belt, the awkward angle of incidence being unsuitable for craft. Closer to the rear, crew quarters are placed in a similar manner.

The other reason is the peculiarity of the way the thruster and power generation has to be set up, making them protrude well into the zone that would initially be considered hangar space from above.

If you were to strip the weaker top and bottom armor plates as well as the floors of the hangars, you would be left with a shape not terribly dissimilar to the tabs on top of soda cans. Furthermore, if you were to look at the relative armor density you would find it also follows a similar pattern.

Almost counterintuitively, the armor covering only the hangar is the weakest!

Of course calling it weak is only relative, Don was more than positive that, with the exception of the hangar doors, that armor plating was more that capable of holding out against the sustained fire of multiple light cruisers or perhaps a heavy cruiser, if it was lucky.

This was, naturally, on purpose. This dual opening set-up provided a few very desirable secondary effects.

The first of these was that a sort of 'assembly line' could be established with expended craft entering on one side and fully replenished craft leaving on the other.

Operational integrity was another big one. In the rare case one opening was rendered inoperable through either a mechanical failure or enemy fire, the other could still be used.

The final, and perhaps most important, effect, was one of survivability.

It bears repeating that with the current paradigm, Carriers are the only class of capital ship that hold large amounts of material labeled as 'conventionally explosive'. In other words, objects that either ignite or explode when exposed to high heats or sudden impacts.

While not something that is usually desired anywhere, this type of object is desired the least in spaceships.

What the layout of the carrier does in this sense is magical in a way. Doing away with the focus on combat capability, attention is instead placed on long term survivability. In the case of an internal magazine detonation, the vital regions of the carrier will be protected by armor while the lightly armored sides of the ship will quite literally 'blow-out'. This means that the carrier can run away after taking what would normally be catastrophic damage and have another hangar attached in a repair yard.

Ideally, you would never want to have to do that, but previous experiences of the alternative showed how over-armoring ends up being more deadly.

Reminiscing at such lessons he had learned in class, Don couldn't help but think about how incredibly convoluted and impossible to navigate the resulting internal passageways were.

He understood that if a structural beam needed to go somewhere then no amount of bitching and moaning was going to end up with a passageway through that area, but did there really have to be so many twists and turns?