Gravibombs
"Welcome, pilots!" Novinder Rhain, Commander airgroup, TMS Overlord spoke in brusque, clipped fashion. His pilots appreciated brevity, so it worked out fine.
"Aye-aye."
"This is the first live-fire exercise of a new, experimental weapon. Bushido has provided us with the experimental craft to launch this new weapon, against TMS Iwo Jima, ready to be scrapped. I'm warned that all friendlies must be further away than a klom from the target, the launching vehicle, or any points in between. I will not appreciate heroics, I'm told this weapon uses the laws of physics in creative, unbending ways. So, no thinking being a good enough pilot will save you, either. If I understood half of what I was told, it bends spacetime in order to both locate and destroy its target. Which is why we needed such a large target as Iwo Jima. Smaller targets might not engage its targeting, or might engage it, but not its full destructive force!"
"TMS Overlord, this is Test Squadron Castoldi, we are Juno-Gold-Sword-Utah-Omaha. I repeat, we are ready to launch, awaiting weapons release." "Confirm release, Castoldi-Squad, you are weapons-hot! Target area cleared." "Confirm clearance, Overlord-prime." "As expected, enemy units are attempting to claim target, Castoldi, you are to destroy them with prejudice." "Aye-aye, Overlord, Castoldi-prime out. Firing on TMS Iwo Jima, which has been evacuated, Castoldi-prime out." The gravitometer was detecting the huge mass of TMS Iwo Jima, all one-hundred-thousand tons of her. This was echoed by the gravitometer inside the weapon, eager to unleash mayhem. Uncovering it, and releasing the docking clamp that kept it attached to Castoldi-Prime's aircraft required no effort at all. "Operation Mosquito is a go! I repeat, mosquito is a go, evacuate, evacuate, evacuate." He repeated into the ether, but only on friendly frequencies, and the occupants of TMS Iwo Jima were not listening on those. The tracking computer actually developed a fault, thinking the projectile had exceeded the speed of light in a vacuum, which was not possible to its limited programming. Except, in a sense, it did. The gravity bands the projectile was following were bending space, reducing, shrinking the distance between it and the target. The hundred-thousand tons dry weight of the target meant the distance was closed faster than anyone could react, and to everyone's surprise, actually generated fission in the heavier elements of TMS Iwo Jima, who, briefly, became a point-source for gamma rays and x-rays as its fundamental building blocks developed intense hated for one another. There, the wisdom of saying all friendly units must be at least a kilometer away shone clearly, as should have any friendly unit be within a kilometer of Iwo Jima, the irradiation might have overloaded its shields. As it was, many got the 'warning, go to 2km distance' indicators in their huds, to prevent further damage to already taxed shields. Within the vacated hulk that was Iwo Jima, many processes were happening, Thorium cladding, usually thought safe for fission-type reactions, was just on the edge of a fusion-type reaction, where it'd acquire a few protons, turn into U239 and start going yeah-baby-yeah on actinide families not currently thought safe for polite company. The protons were coming from fusion reactions where hydrogen, deuterium and tritium were going yeah-baby-yeah themselves. That basically, the gravibomb itself had acquired enough mass to form its own event horizon, could be considered a black hole, and was undecided whether or not it should or could emit energy is left as an exercise to the reader. What hadn't been properly shared by Bushido is that a lighter mass of ship might have allowed a chain reaction, of either fusion, or fission, simply from differing temperatures. The bulk of Iwo Jima keeping the reaction products cool, and preventing the birth of a protostar, was probably saving a few lives in the Terran fleet. X-ray and Gamma-ray pulsars being very unpleasant neighbours for everything considered 'life' except the Tlalor and Vrinti, and their claim on 'life' was more contentious than most. Gravibombs were probably classified "safe" only by the thinnest of margins. They could initiate black holes! Castoldi-prime's pilot thought to himself heatedly. The nearly kilometer-long ship had contracted to a less-than-nanometer-sized sphere. The energy wasn't leaving the event horizon of the weapon, and he was thankful, otherwise, he'd have been obliterated, even two kilometers away! "TMS Overlord, TMS Overlord, please respond!" "TMS Overlord-prime, here, Castoldi-Squadron." "Sir! That's an event horizon, we created an artificial black hole!" "Confirmed, and theoretically possible, Castoldi-Squadron, but we had not expected it from the current size of the weapon." "TMS Overlord, that's schwarzchild radiation, please confirm."
"Hey Rachel." "Hey Adian, Sir." "Our Meritocracy friends are getting clever..." "I saw that, actual schwarzchild radiation?" "Better radiation than solving for the cat." "Solving for the cat?" "Finding yourself in an unknown quantum state, like Schroedinger's cat. It's apparently a hot joke among meritocracy scientists." "I don't think much of their sense of humour, as usual."
"TMS Overlord, this is Test Squadron Castoldi, we are Juno-Gold-Sword-Utah-Omaha. I repeat, we are ready to launch, awaiting weapons release." "Confirm release, Castoldi-Squad, you are weapons-hot! Target area cleared." "Confirm clearance, Overlord-prime." "As expected, enemy units are attempting to claim target, Castoldi, you are to destroy them with prejudice." "Aye-aye, Overlord, Castoldi-prime out. Firing on TMS Iwo Jima, which has been evacuated, Castoldi-prime out." The gravitometer was detecting the huge mass of TMS Iwo Jima, all one-hundred-thousand tons of her. This was echoed by the gravitometer inside the weapon, eager to unleash mayhem. Uncovering it, and releasing the docking clamp that kept it attached to Castoldi-Prime's aircraft required no effort at all. "Operation Mosquito is a go! I repeat, mosquito is a go, evacuate, evacuate, evacuate." He repeated into the ether, but only on friendly frequencies, and the occupants of TMS Iwo Jima were not listening on those. The tracking computer actually developed a fault, thinking the projectile had exceeded the speed of light in a vacuum, which was not possible to its limited programming. Except, in a sense, it did. The gravity bands the projectile was following were bending space, reducing, shrinking the distance between it and the target. The hundred-thousand tons dry weight of the target meant the distance was closed faster than anyone could react, and to everyone's surprise, actually generated fission in the heavier elements of TMS Iwo Jima, who, briefly, became a point-source for gamma rays and x-rays as its fundamental building blocks developed intense hated for one another. There, the wisdom of saying all friendly units must be at least a kilometer away shone clearly, as should have any friendly unit be within a kilometer of Iwo Jima, the irradiation might have overloaded its shields. As it was, many got the 'warning, go to 2km distance' indicators in their huds, to prevent further damage to already taxed shields. Within the vacated hulk that was Iwo Jima, many processes were happening, Thorium cladding, usually thought safe for fission-type reactions, was just on the edge of a fusion-type reaction, where it'd acquire a few protons, turn into U239 and start going yeah-baby-yeah on actinide families not currently thought safe for polite company. The protons were coming from fusion reactions where hydrogen, deuterium and tritium were going yeah-baby-yeah themselves. That basically, the gravibomb itself had acquired enough mass to form its own event horizon, could be considered a black hole, and was undecided whether or not it should or could emit energy is left as an exercise to the reader. What hadn't been properly shared by Bushido is that a lighter mass of ship might have allowed a chain reaction, of either fusion, or fission, simply from differing temperatures. The bulk of Iwo Jima keeping the reaction products cool, and preventing the birth of a protostar, was probably saving a few lives in the Terran fleet. X-ray and Gamma-ray pulsars being very unpleasant neighbours for everything considered 'life' except the Tlalor and Vrinti, and their claim on 'life' was more contentious than most. Gravibombs were probably classified "safe" only by the thinnest of margins. They could initiate black holes! Castoldi-prime's pilot thought to himself heatedly. The nearly kilometer-long ship had contracted to a less-than-nanometer-sized sphere. The energy wasn't leaving the event horizon of the weapon, and he was thankful, otherwise, he'd have been obliterated, even two kilometers away! "TMS Overlord, TMS Overlord, please respond!" "TMS Overlord-prime, here, Castoldi-Squadron." "Sir! That's an event horizon, we created an artificial black hole!" "Confirmed, and theoretically possible, Castoldi-Squadron, but we had not expected it from the current size of the weapon." "TMS Overlord, that's schwarzchild radiation, please confirm."
"Hey Rachel." "Hey Adian, Sir." "Our Meritocracy friends are getting clever..." "I saw that, actual schwarzchild radiation?" "Better radiation than solving for the cat." "Solving for the cat?" "Finding yourself in an unknown quantum state, like Schroedinger's cat. It's apparently a hot joke among meritocracy scientists." "I don't think much of their sense of humour, as usual."
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