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The Tour (part 2)
Posted By: Traumatised Marine<rbecalick@hotmail.com>
Date: 16 March 2003, 3:04 PM
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The group entered a chamber with a grey-marble floor, matte-white walls and a white tiled ceiling.
It was about 10 feet long and extended triple that distance lengthways away from the door from which the group had entered the room through. At the end of the room were a set of holographic targets; it appeared to be a shooting range.
About two metres into the firing range was a set of curved weapons lockers that came up to the waist.
"Archimedes." Said the Professor, seemingly addressing the derelict space of the room, "Open the weapons lockers please."
There was a pause, then there issued a loud hiss from each of the weapons lockers, and the curved locker hatches whined backwards like doors on breadboxes.
From the weapons lockers emerged several exotic-looking devices, all displayed in the delicate grips of mechanical clamps that held the devices.
Professor Zolkievich waited until the Covenant weapons had fully emerged from the weapons lockers before he walked slowly over to one of the displayed weapons.
The weapon was a Covenant plasma pistol.
The Professor reached forward and grasped the weapon carefully.
The mechanical clasps released their grip and retracted like tamed snakes upon sensing the Professor's hands on the pistol.
The Professor held the weapon lovingly, admiring it's design for a moment, before walking back to the Supreme Chancellor.
"Here we are, Supreme Chancellor, the Covenant equivalent of our own military's standard issue pistol." He said, holding forward the pistol. "I shall explain how it works, and what we understand and don't understand about it's mechanics and power source."
The Professor pressed a small red button on the top rear of the device.
Upon doing this a small, circular, holographic gauge appeared around the button, and the device gave off the slightest hissing sound.
"Alright, the gun is activated." Said the Professor, "Now this weapon and the plasma rifle over there," the Professor indicated absently at the displayed plasma rifle, "Operate with a concept possibly simpler than our own weapons, although the means to get such 'simple' weapons to function is far from simple. Plasma, as you know, is a huge amount of negative charge that is so powerful that the atoms superheat. These plasma weapons achieve this by sending a surge of electrons in between these two prongs here. This creates a supercharge of electrons in the air between the prongs which is held in stasis by the electrical flow until the current ceases, upon which the charge is released."
And with that the Professor levelled the pistol with surprising steadiness and fired the weapon at one of the distant holographic targets.
The Professor was dazzled by the brilliant green flash and felt the heat wash over him like a split second brush fire, followed by the smell of burnt ozone.
The Scientists' and the Chancellor's eyes followed the whistling bolt of plasma, seeing it streak through the center of one of the targets and splash with a hiss against the distant, pockmarked, armoured wall.
"Good shot." Remarked Professor Hobson under his breath.
Professor Zolkievich summarised.
"These weapons basically use a powerful electric current to superheat air and use it as ammunition, simple. However it doesn't rely on an atmosphere to function, these pistols come with a small supply of compressed gas; Bromine."
The Chancellor nodded.
"Professor Julian" Said the Professor, addressing a handsome black man with his woolly hair tied back, "The plasma rifle if you please."
Professor Julian walked up to the plasma rifle and took it, then came to stand with it in his arms by Professor Zolkievich.
"As you can see," Said Professor Zolkievich, "This plasma rifle works on the same basis, however unlike the pistol it's current flow is designed for multiple bursts, rather like one of our automatic weapons. Another note about this weapons design is that it also comes with it's own supply of compressed gas to act as ammunition if there is no atmosphere, however these weapons use Nitrogen.
We are unsure why, it might just be the different gases work better with the two different firing applications."
Professor Zolkievich took the rifle from Julian and offered it to the Chancellor.
The Chancellor was taken aback slightly by the fact that she was being offered an alien weapon, however the Professor did not withdraw, and continued to hold out the weapon intently until she took it.
The Chancellor seemed surprised, it clearly wasn't as heavy as she'd imagined. She began to examine the smooth iridescence of the weapons chromed back.
"Yes, they are incredibly light" Said the Professor, giving the pistol a small brandish in the air, "The alloy is, unsurprisingly, alien to us. Now, to talk about the power source. As you know it takes a phenomenal amount of energy to generate Plasma, and we ourselves would not have the energy devices both powerful enough to generate plasma and small enough to fit into weapons such as these.
Needless to say, these weapons do not run on any form of chemical energy cell.
We have analysed the suspect power source of these weapons, and although we are unsure how it is done, it seems the Covenant have an efficient means to produce antiprotons. They use these to counteract the protons in a small but dense material located in the battery core. This means that the atoms of this material are now capable of remaining a neutral charge without the presence of electrons. So as soon as these antiprotons have been induced, we have a huge, huge number of unneeded electrons in an instant. And this flow of redundant electrons allows them to generate the plasma. It is a phenomenal amount, about 33% of the atomic mass in the battery material is turned into pure, free-flowing negative energy!"
The Chancellor examined the weapon for a moment more, nodding to confirm she understood.
The Professor's tone turned slightly.
"Of course this design does have certain problems, like any power source, the electron flow will eventually run out. However we have had significant problems in attempting to 'reload' these guns. You see for there to be a steady flow of electron release there must also be a steady flow of antipron induction. And the problem is that there seems to be some sort of excess antiproton dump procedure that must be activated before the power cell is removed, and we are unsure how this is done. You see atoms without electrons acting as a sort of marginal field between them are unable to remain stable if there is even just a single atom among them that has a varying charge, ie extra antiprotons. And if this happens, which it almost indefinitely does when you're dealing with numbers as large as these, the core material becomes unstable and it is extremely damaging to the weapon."
"I see..." Said the Chancellor slowly.
The Professor also added with a hint of disapproval in his voice.
"Also, it has been difficult for us to obtain undamaged examples of these weapons. You see, after field encounters with the Covenant troops, the UNSC Marines have been known to 'toy' around with the weapon examples they have brought back. One of the less obscure things they have done is to over-fire these weapons. For instance, if you hold the trigger down with the plasma rifle for longer then a reasonable burst it will fire with increasing sporadicy, ultimately causing damage to the power cell. I'm sure the Covenant troops are well taught never to bring their weapons to this point when in battle."
With that the Professor handed the pistol to one of the other Professors and held out his hands to the Chancellor for the plasma rifle.
The Chancellor handed it to him and he replaced it in the displaying grip of the mechanical clasps of it's weapons locker.
"Now, the Covenant have other weapons other than those using plasma, and we have also found out how these weapons work, and they are fascinating also."
The Professor went to a pair of mechanical clasps that held in the air a peculiarly shaped weapon that had two lobes that branched from a pivot. What's more, from the pivot protruded what was undoubtedly the gun barrel. The top lobe was shaped like the back of a beetle, and dotted across the top of this lobe were several holes like spots on a chitinous shell.
The Professor removed this weapon with one arm and he pressed a small square panel on the weapons locker.
Upon doing this there came a small beep and from the side of the weapons locker there ejected a casket not much bigger than a thermos flask. The top of the casket slid back to reveal a large, glittering pink jewel.
The Professor picked up the jewel and walked over to the Chancellor.
"This," He said, eyeing the weapon with a mixture of fascination and detest, "Is a fascinating, yet horrific weapon."
The Professor then handed the gun to Professor Hobson and held the jewel forward for the Chancellor to see.
"And this is its raw ammunition. This mineral is also unknown to us, but it has most extreme properties. It, like a diamond, is composed of carbon, however this is possibly even more densely composed of carbon than a diamond. Despite this, the atomic structure of this jewel gives it a trait which makes it useable in the weapon Professor Hobson is holding."
Professor Zolkievich reached into the pocket of his lab coat and removed a small mineral hammer, used to chip away at things like sandstone. He placed the jewel on the floor and gave it a smart tap with the hammer.
Upon doing this a web of fracture lines issued all across the jewels surface.
The Professor gave it a second tap and the jewel fragmented, leaving three large pieces and several splinter-like fragments.
The Professor delicately picked up one of these fragments and stood up.
The group watched as he took the razor-sharp fragment and drew it gently by the top of his middle finger.
He held the hand up for them to see.
A small scarlet slit in his finger remained after he had touched it with the fragment, it glistened and a drop of blood bulged from it until finally it's own tension could not hold it and it slid in a shallow spiral around his finger and down his palm, leaving a small streak of glistening red.
"Incredibly easy to shatter." Said the Professor, withdrawing his hand and wrapping it with an antiseptic strip he drew from his pocket. "And into indescribably sharp fragments. It is placed into the weapon and cut into fireable 'magazines' of crystal, that protrude from these holes here."
The Professor pointed at the holes on the top lobe of the gun.
"Now, as to how it actually functions. You may know that carbon is a very 'greedy' element, it will gladly gain more electrons to become negatively charged. Which means for a carbon atom to even be neutral it will have a large number of electrons. And with a material as densely filled with carbon as this, if antiprotons are induced, the crystal shall become hyper-charged with negative energy, i.e. plasma. But unlike the plasma weapons, this energy is forced to remain isolated in the crystal. The weapons inner mechanics that will involve handling the crystal once a piece has been cut, drawn in and induced with neutrons, function using a weak energy field to manipulate the crystal and then propel it from the weapon. These supercharged needles are razor sharp and several thousand degrees centigrade, they can embed themselves in most things. Upon contact with an object the needles will attempt to dump the super-charge of electrons upon the rest of the atoms they have come into contact with. However due to the 'greedy' nature of carbon, upon this surge of electrons there is a destabilisation that causes the needle to shatter violently.
These needles do have a restrictive range, as they pass through the air, the atoms in the gases they pass through cause the same destabilisation, and if the needles fly through the air long enough they will shatter anyway.
As you can imagine, these weapons can cause horrific injuries, and for someone who is hit with several of these projectiles it will be a particularly messy and agonising end."
The Chancellor now looked at the weapon in Professor Hobson's hands with mild disgust.
"Horrible, a truly evil creation." She said.
"Hmm..." Said the Professor, "But then any weapon can be an evil creation, can it not Supreme Chancellor? Though I do concur this weapon is particularly sadistic."
The Chancellor nodded.
The Professor continued,
"The Covenant have also got the technology to somehow get these needles and even the plasma from their pistols to follow targets. Guided plasma! It is incredible the technological advances of these aliens. Of course we are far from understanding how they can achieve this..."
The Chancellor acknowledged and then her eyes scanned the row of displayed weapons, and spotted a particularly large one. It was the size of a small barrel. Glowing on a circular rack, exposed from it's shiny surface were several glowing green rods.
"Ah..." Said the Professor, knowing which gun the Chancellor was staring at, "Yes that weapon is rather 'exclusive.' There is a certain Covenant species that have these weapons surgically attached to their arms. They work on the same principle as the needle weapons, though the ammunition is designed using a different material, meaning it will simply shatter upon impact with something and unleash the heat energy that they are charged with."
The Professor proceeded to take from a different locker a black, circular object the size of a small mine. And a small blue orb with a single button on it's patterned surface. Around this button there projected a small circular hologram.
"This is a plasma grenade. Simple enough, instead of using combustible explosives it uses a heavy build up charge of plasma."
The Professor handed the orb to Professor Moulinaux, who replaced it in the weapons locker.
Professor Zolkievich went on,
"And this," He held up the mine-like object, "Is a wrist-mounted shield projector. Used by a particular species..." He pressed a button on the surface of the device. With a sudden thrumming resonance, a translucent orange, circular shield projected, "...these devices provide defence. There are two kinds of shield technology we have discovered the Covenant to have implemented. This kind requires a far greater amount of energy than the other shield form, as well as a shield projector, and we have been unable to devise a power source that would make constructing these practical. These shields project a field of near absolute resilience, deflecting the kinetic energy of an object with about 97% reaction force. The projectors are elaborate and precision made, and easily damaged. If the power source is overloaded then even the spike of particle activity from the energy cell is enough to permanently damage them. The other shield type I will describe to you further on in our tour."
He deactivated the shield and handed it to Professor Moulinaux to put away.
"Of course there are other weapons that have been reported that we simply haven't been able to get our hands on, for instance plasma swords have been spoken of by Marines who have seen them being used by Covenant in the field. Maybe, in time, we shall receive one from ONI."
There was a pause in which the Professor surveyed the Chancellor.
She seemed satisfied.
"Well then, let's proceed to the vehicles and warships and then finally the specimens." Said the Professor.
And with that the group left the firing range.
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