13 look who I found.

I have discovered that every thing has been made before. Out here every thing that is copy righted is protected for 400 years. You need a part made? You can find the components on Gal-Net. Most things that are made now a day are intellectual works like; "Bith, Bothans, and Banjos- 50 songs to haul cargo to." or maybe "50 shades of Dark Jedi- a History on 50 Jedi turned Bad" the other thing protected is new configurations of parts to serve in a new whole, like the A-wing, B-wing, D-wing, X-wing, or Y-wing. you can use those same part but useing a different hull configuration and then copy right your own version.

The way manufacturers make money is that things still need to be made for the average consumer. And few people have the capacity to make space ships. A swoop bike or pod-racer you can build in your garage. But then you have to tune the things so it runs right and not fly around in circles at 200 Gs.

So that means that all the parts I could possibly want are available at the component level. You just need to find out which type works the best for what you are doing. There are around 1213 sub-light engine configurations currently being made and sold around the galaxy at this time. They range in size from inches across to hundreds of feet across. They all use the same main components the difference comes in how they work in concert, the auxiliary parts, and size.

So I decided that I like the Normandy but its too big for a small crew. So I'm thinking of using the space shuttle as basis in shape with detachable pod. Going to extend the main hull out over the wings, so that the main hull will be 40' wide at its widest point. The craft is 80' wide at its widest. The height will be 60 feet and length will be 130 feet.

But first I need to build a prototype. I took the basic shape and made a drone with Dad. He helped me with the V.I., manufacturing, and installation of parts.

Mom came up with a set of procedures for us to follow.

(1) Prototype Mark (#) Will be towed to one AU from the ship before any ship functions are turned one with the exception of the Transmitter and transponder. Good thing too.

(2) After the 5th successful flight will the prototype be allowed to land and take off from the Mega-miner. Any changes to the Prototype reset the Flight counter

(3) Full scale craft will only be made after the 100th flight and 15 day powered flight around the system with live creatures on board.

Here are some honorable mentions.

Mark 1.

It didn't move it just sat there reporting all is well. I for got to add reaction mass

Mark 1b

It blew up. Well a better description is the engines went, the hull did not. That was when I found out the Mom set up some drones of her own to catch the wreckage from a failed prototype.

Mom went over the sensor data with me and showed me what happened.

Dad helped me make it better.

Mark 2

It worked! It didn't explode!

It didn't stop either. It became an Energizer bunny. It kept going, and going, and going, and going... and boom. self destruct activated. but not before it registered .7 C. or 130200 miles per second.

"Well at least it didn't explode from a deffect." Said Mom as she smiled at me once it was confirmed that my ship was unable to alter its course. "Repulse Drives work better in an atmosphere. and next time a scale unit would show better results. you dont need a drive fit for a battle ship in a small model like this."

Mark 3

Caught fire... Fuel containment issue.

Mark 4-17

Did well in initial tests but broke up while maneuvering.

Mark 6 became a high speed top and broke up at 3000 RPM.

Mark 12 folded its self in to a pretzel. Yeah don't know how that happened.

Mark 13 it disappeared. It went poof. No debris, no recordings, nothing. On moment hear the next gone.

Mark 15 was for fuel economy analysis using different Fuel imputes. Pure hydrogen worked best.

Mark 16 was in idea to use a combination of grave plates, sub-light, and repulser drives in different configurations. The best came from a sublight surrounded by alternating gravity plates (Grav- Plates) and repulser drives. It made exhaust gases appear to be %5000 more massive until it gets to a distance of 15 feet. Then it goes back to normal sensor reading at the previous speed. Mr. Newton, I broke it...

Mark 17 impacted an asteroid at 15 times the speed of sound. Yea was doing so well I had it dodging asteroids at 11500 MPH. Micro meteor got the sensors and it hit the next asteroid. For drives Mark 17 was going to be my choice.

Mark 18 got a reworking of sensors for increased fidelity. That sensor suite got taken down a rebuilt 37 times before I got 5 setups that I liked but needed full scale tests to make a better judgment. Mark 18-36 was the first to catch fire, I had set it on a rout to scan the asteroid belts when it over heated. I now have safeties built in. Mark 18-37 picked up an anomaly. I gave that information to Mom.

Mark 19-B was a weapons pod with targeting and tracking senors. We tested many weapons and came to some conclusions.

Explosive propelled projectiles- ammo takes up too much room.

Rail Gun-Nice as a main weapon. Needs full body length for best results. Tungsten coated ceramic with an explosive charge is the best general purpose round. Allows for the round to detonate after launch even if it misses, mitigating the risk on a miss.

Lasers-great for motionless targets and shields. While testing against moving targets, kept hearing a voice in my head. "Stay on target, Stay on target.." and then we lost target lock as it rotated out of sight.

Blasters- great for medium/short range shooting. Turns a gas in to such an excited state that it acts like light. Works best in space. Beam dissipates relatively quickly. Use Nobel Gas others have all kinds of issues.

Ion Cannons- Causes little damage. Disrupts and damages systems and memory.

Resonant Frequency Pulse Laser- great on artificial structures. Takes time to target, adjust beam frequency, and then attack at full power. Great against capitol ships. Sucks against fighters.

Ant-Matter- Lost containment, it went boom... yea, no.

Dark Matter- acts like a mass magnet. You have to know where everything is and approximate mass before you can make a shooting solution.

Missiles/Torpedoes- were real nice. Mission variable. Best kinds were the Anti fighter, Bunker buster, High Explosive, and Parent Child missel. The not so great ones were the ones that were too specialized. Hacking missiles- failure. Gas missiles- easier to eject in to a vacuum. Hardened Warhead Missiles- hard to his a missile with an ion cannon and no one uses EMPs. Even made a crazy missile with shields and another with point defense. They worked well in specific situations.

Gravity projector- you can launch any thing! Vagaries of projectile causes difficulties in targeting. With a standardized projectile, speeds don't match up to rail gun.

Beam. These were a prototype of my uncle. He called them Charged Exotic Energy Projectors. But CEEP sounds like a chicken noise. So I called it a Beam due to the white purple trail that follows the round. They take time to charge, but have a homing feature. Have a homing time of 10 seconds then if it has not struck something by this point the energy crosses back over to back ground levels and disappears. These beams act like magnets. The closer it is, the higher the tracking power. Its very hard to get a near miss, and the few we did had the beam round orbit the target before impacting or phasing out.

You may be wondering how we are producing somany test in such a small amount of time. well we have droids that make the scale hull for the flight tests and 10 drones for the different weapons test. each time one is exploded another is built within an hour. there are enough resources in Mega-Minner to build a thousand drones and prototype hulls, fully out fited with sensors, drives, and weapons. Fuel will be the only thing on the limited side. back to weapons and what i learned from all of these tests.

Over all I picked four weapons and there designated role.

Rail gun. This will be the Main cannon, the massive damage dealer. Centrally mounted, barrel runs length of ship. Aim ship to aim weapon.

Blasters. Four twin mounted turrets on the wings. They will be the main guns. They will have the ability to rotate in a 360 degree arc, 90 degrees up and 15 degrees down but unable to shoot at the hull with out depressing an over ride in the cockpit. Able to be manually fired or be slaved to the pilots console.

Beam. Two pods, one on each wing tip. Fire rate of once every 5 seconds. Great against small craft. Going to be used in special situations when I don't want to be found out or when im in a pickle.

Missiles. Small silo of 20 missiles with high explosive warheads.

Counter measures

Lasers are for point defense and communications. Lasers are great for taking out sensors, on the small scale able to track exceptionally well. At low power able to be used for secured point to point communications.

Chaff launchers. Two tubes located off the back that will shoot High energy packets in to space at an angle to disrupt and attract sensors. Works on most sensors. Note: doesn't work against Beams.

Electric Counter Measures (ECM). Broadcasts jamming signals to disrupt communications. Can also be used to lock on to and enhance signals to use them against the broad caster. I.e. Wireless cameras, low powered communications, tracking devices. And many others.

Heat sink. Has a heat storage tank that will hold the heat from all systems running at full power for15 minuets. If using minimal systems 24 hours. After this time period it becomes dangerous, the heat sink could explode. This limits our ability to be spotted by passive and active sensors.

Now its been about 6 months in testing just systems now I need to design the rest of the ship. While pondering in the galley with a large drawing pad sketching down different configurations on how I wanted the ship to look, and its external/internal lay out. When Mom came in.

"Well Eddie I had a drone intercept and examine the anomaly you found several weeks ago. It just got back with a survival pod."