Koros-3

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*♪ The next day ♪

Nano.

This scourge still familiar from the earth has taken up all my mindspace, off and on. Money is flowing, managers are in charge, and I'm here like a loner. I was going to start building high quality fleet ships, but that didn't work out. Not now.

- Nanodroids theoretically can be used in medicine, early diagnosis of diseases, treatment, even changing the genome or performing the functions of implants without implanting large foreign bodies. However, their price is not just high, it is beyond reasonable because the theoretical process of self-replication has encountered difficulties of an insurmountable nature. - Lin informed me.

I called Lin urgently and he came rushing into the office. I loaded him up and asked him to give me his professional report in a few hours. Yes, my practical skills in technical business were higher than Lin's, but he knew the theory better - he'd been working in this kitchen for years, and I was just an upstart.

- More details? - I asked.

- Self-replication requires the most complex processes and can not be carried out by a droid or its group, - nodded Lin, - One nanodroid can not build another because of the extreme complexity of the mechanism. And some of the droids will be emitted with irregularities, which can lead to serious consequences, because the error of even one droid working inside a complex mechanism or biological organism can lead to a cascade of errors of other droids. Therefore, to build a nanodroid requires a very complex nanofactory. Its level of complexity is comparable to a spaceship, only microscopic in size. The process in any case requires the constant participation of operators, engineers, complex production equipment and produces droids in batches, so that to create at least a thousand, you need a giant labour and the cost of a thousand nanodroids will be in the region of one and a half to two trillion credits. And this is not counting the production, design, programming, which in view of the specifics is not cheap.

I whistled. A thousand droids have no real value and can do nothing useful, and the price... such a price. Fantastic.

- So the subject is dead, right?

- Not exactly. Experiments to create nanodroids were conducted a hundred years ago. Self-replication was impossible, for the reason that technically a nanodroid is about the same as an ordinary small repair droid, and there are so many processes involved in making a simple droid from scratch that we've grown accustomed to ignoring them. In fact, it is the most complex electronics and complex systems, requiring the participation of many factories and plants, each of which has dozens and hundreds of workshops, the component base is created with great difficulty, and corporations only assemble their droids on the basis of unified and standardised components. That's why it seems simple - you put the parts together and you have a droid. But to do the same at the nanoscale, and also automated, and also working quickly, and plus, not giving defective parts... since nanodroids have no self-diagnostics and manually they can not be disassembled and looked at... In short, this task at least will be adequate in a couple of thousand years. Or a couple of tens of thousands of years, but not now. Although some people are still engaged in nanodroids, designing models and creating them in small batches... even in such a limited number, the cost of a hundred nanodroids is over two hundred billion, and very few people can afford it.

- I see," I breathed a sigh of relief, "what's the application? Say, if you have the ability to create and replicate nanodroids, what use would you find for them?

- Chief..." Lin's eyes rounded, "I understand that we're not saving money, but nanodroids are too much... it's not even worth a billionth of that, and I'm understating it!

- Lin, don't take me for an idiot," I smiled at the guy, "I'm not going to spend a lot of money on such a splurge. I'm going to look for ways to make production cheaper. Besides, the empire has other priorities financially - the navy, army, construction, law and order, and the social sphere.

Lin exhaled loudly and looked at me and said:

- Don't scare me like that, I thought you... or you, as you prefer.

- Your Imperial Majesty, - I waved my hand, - just kidding. In private, or in private, you can call me you, of course. I don't want to be accused of favouritism in front of the general public.

- Good," Lin nodded seriously, "and the answer to your question. It can be used in many ways. As a powerful scientific biological and medical tool. Theoretically, as a micro-assembler, but so far the experiments have been a failure - droids are extremely difficult to control with so many of them and the precision requirements. I don't vouch that it's impossible, but it's a challenge at the moment. As spy droids, they are worthless. Of course, we're talking about rather large droids, about the size of a biological cell.

- That's fine. That's fine. How many droids would it take to, say, cure a disease?

- Hundreds... thousands... depends on the task itself," Lin waved his hands.

- I see," I nodded, "I'll need material for research. Since everything works without me, I'll take care of the problem.

- You've said enough," Lin grinned, "There aren't more than a hundred scientists in the whole galaxy who actually work with nanodroids. The top of the techno-union, as it seems, something on this subject researched, though I have only general data.

- If there are hundreds, so much the better. Not just a few. Can you find an engineer who can design a nanodroid for me?

- Just design it? - Lin was surprised.

- I will suffer with assembly myself somehow. I need a designer-engineer with specific experience. I built my first droid when I was eight years old, out of junk, but it's a lot more complicated and specific.

- That's easier," Lin nodded, "There are more engineers than labs.

- About this one... it's advisable not to draw too much attention when bringing it to work. We need a specialist who will provide both designing droids, writing control programmes, and creating equipment for controlling droids. In other words, a professional team.

- For how long? A single contract, or...

- Long-term would be best, but for now, we've got nothing here. So we can't talk about a long-term hire yet. It's a one-time contract. And the rights to the droids must belong to the customer, which is me.

- Well, that's easier," Lin nodded, "I think I know where to find such people. It'll take me a week to find and negotiate, maybe more, it depends. It's a rare specialist.

- In that case, I won't rush you," I nodded, "but I'll ask you not to stay longer than necessary.

Lin stood up and nodded in agreement and went to the exit, but stopped as soon as the door opened.

- Wait. Chief, I have a question.

- Yes?" I looked up at him.

- The money. Do you want me to take it to Joey, or--

- Yes, the tranche from KMC should be here by now," I nodded in agreement, "just a second..." I opened the terminal where my accounts were managed. The amount of the tranche Joy had already distributed to the funds - according to the reports, seven hundred billion credits had arrived an hour ago. Twenty billion for reconstruction, ten for the military, ten for justice, two for communications, and... two hundred for transport. Why would Julian need that kind of money? I'll look into it later. It's a good thing Republican loans are monitored by the banking clans, so it's easy to control spending. I think Julian said something about a space cargo station. That's probably what he asked for the money for.

That leaves us with four hundred and fifty-eight billion credits. It's a lot of money, but I don't want to spend it right away. So I decided to go all-in.

- Wait, - I got up and went to the laboratory. There I chose the smallest crystal of corusca - just the cost of about ten billion. Although the others were much more expensive - this one was just the size of a pea. After packing it in a small container, in which I usually kept crystals for lightsabers, I returned back with it and handed the box to Lin:

- Take it. Offer them this for their work. The subject is strictly secret for now, so no one can know we're on it. Spending is monitored by Joy for now, and others can look at the empire's balance sheet if need be, so you'll pay with this.

- What's this? - Lin took the box and opened it. It froze.

- It's... it's...

- Corusca. Apparently the value of this crystal is in the region of ten billion, but I'm not a jeweller, I could be wrong. I wouldn't want to pay too high a price, so this is both a budget and a payment.

Lin carefully closed the box and placed it in his pocket in a very careful motion.

Looking at the back of the departing Lin until the door closed, I walked around the office. I'll bring up the nanodroid issue when the engineers themselves are here. In the meantime, I promised Sina I'd pay a visit to talk about the fleet and the army. After packing up and warning the droid that I wouldn't be there, I left in the direction of my fleetmaster. Cyn had taken over a few cabins on the yacht, and there was plenty of room to spare. It didn't take long to find him, he was where he usually was - in his sector of the ship, along with a dozen subordinates. So, from the looks of it, you couldn't say that the place was located on the ship - a large office, where there were a dozen specialists and a separate office for the chief. The specialists jumped at my appearance, but I gestured for them to sit back down and go about their business.

Shin stood up as soon as I entered his office.

- Your Majesty?

- Yes, good morning, Shin. How are things going?

- Just a second," he stepped out from behind his desk and came closer, "it's progressing, I just got the money from Joey, I'm starting work. I've got some ideas, have you taken a look at them?

- Yeah, go ahead," I nodded. Shin fiddled with his terminal and showed me a graph:

- Here's a rough percentage of the type of small ships the fleet needs. Fighters will be the most common, followed by troop transports, and bombers last.

- All right," I nodded, "have you got any samples or engineers?

- The fighter is supposed to be made by Incom. They have good experience in this business, but I'm not sure about that. There's also MandalMotors. MandalMotors is probably more experienced at designing fighters. We could put out a tender for a new fighter, or we could borrow existing ones.

- No, we don't need a tender or an old one. Let's find the right engineers and design a new model with our own participation in the design phase. I've got some ideas, but I need to test them in the lab first. What's next?

- Large ships," Shin nodded, "Here, look, I've selected this list," he turned the holomonitor towards me.

The first item on the list was the Gozanti.

- Is this a joke? - I poked at the monitor, - it's a good vessel for Justiciars, but ...

- For training purposes and border patrols it's just as good," Shin shrugged, "the border is small, but it's close to Coruscant, so we need a simple and reliable ship to hunt pirates. We can dock fighters to its hull, and its own armament can destroy almost any pirate ship. Besides, the galaxy has been in crisis and war for several years now, so these cruisers already have a lot of combat experience and optimal design.

- Okay," I agreed, "purely as light combat vehicles, they'll do.

- I also learnt from KMK that they can install more powerful engines and tractor beam projectors.

- That takes care of the patrol ship," I nodded and looked at what was next. Next was a dreadnought, but I cut it off at once: "You can cross that one out. It's too big a crew to feed so many mouths... and it's not exactly outstanding in terms of combat capabilities, to put it bluntly.

- All right," Shin sighed heavily.

- A reasonable crew for a ship of this efficiency is two thousand men. And it's not exactly a heavy cruiser. Okay, we'll have to come at this from a different angle. Describe roughly, or better, precisely, the structure of the fleet.

- Yes," Shin replied, "the structure is as follows. There's a supreme commander at the head. Shin went to the wall and switched on the holomonitor in the blackboard mode, drawing a rough diagram in the form of ovals connected by lines, - then there is a vertical line - the commfleet is subordinated to two departments - internal and general troops. The internal ones solve tasks within their own system, the general ones are intended for solving tasks in any other system of the galaxy.

- Stop, - I stopped him, - what exactly do internal troops fulfil what tasks?

- Watchmen, space control, border control, interception of unauthorised ships inside the system, protection of planets and sectors.

- Go on, - I nodded and Shin continued drawing circles:

- The general forces were decided to be divided into squadrons. Their number and composition depends on the nature of the tasks.

- I like it, - I nodded, - the minimum task of the external troops, or rather each squadron, to which they should be oriented - if necessary to take control or destroy any sector of the galaxy, - I remembered the example of older comrades in the face of the Imperials, - for these purposes will have to use both landing troops and powerful ship formations, capable of covering a large territory.

- That would make a large squadron of light cruisers," Shin nodded.

- No," I sighed, "you need all the nomenclature. From fighters to battleships. Some people have been talking about building heavy, large battleships with powerful detection systems and a powerful weapon, the axial superlaser.

Shin shook his head, "I've never heard of such a thing. It's not a bad idea, though... the turbolaser shots of cruisers and proton torpedoes wouldn't be enough to penetrate heavy armour....

- And if you add to it good reactors that support powerful shields, then it turns out that only another such battleship can fight with such a battleship. And if you add to that its action not alone, but as a part of a squadron - without at least line ships or hundreds of dreadnoughts it can't be dealt with by any forces. That's the point - that its characteristics and size would turn a battle with it from a tactical task into a strategic one.

Shin nodded:

- That's... an interesting idea. But a ship like that would need a lot of men. At least - thirty thousand. Though... it all depends on the mission, if it's just combat, five thousand will do the job.

- No, Shin, this ship needs to be versatile. To support the troops on the planet with shots from the superlaser destroying dangerous enemy defence objects, to break through the large structures of the enemy fleet, to get into its defence and destroy the plan of confrontation. It is also desirable to use it as a squadron headquarters and have a group of fighters on it. On one of these, I've already calculated, you can install very, very powerful scanners. And in battle, no matter how many ships the enemy has, if we see them five minutes before they see us, the surprise factor is impossible. Even on the contrary, our troops will have time to prepare for the meeting.

- It's already a good idea, - nodded the naval commander.

- Of the big ones... of the big ones, we'll still need heavy, cruisers and aircraft carriers. The first one is a little bigger than a cruiser, with heavy armour and armament, manoeuvrability can be sacrificed in favour of two qualities - survivability and armament. The second is an aircraft carrier, with good armament to protect the air group and armour. Judging by the price of fighters, one fully equipped aircraft carrier will cost us in the region of three hundred and fifty million. Two hundred of which is the price of the fighters.

- And how much did you estimate the fighter for? - Shin asked.

- Half a million. On average. Four hundred small ships on an aircraft carrier, two hundred million. And that's a small thing, it costs just as much to train a good pilot, so you'd have to build a well-defended carrier, with turrets, good shields. In general, the last two - aircraft carrier and heavy cruiser is better to do on the basis of one ship. Only in the cruiser full-fledged stuffing, and aircraft carrier cut version with hangars on the entire hull. And that they would act in pairs - aircraft carriers covered well armed cruisers.

Shin agreed again.

- In addition to large ships, small ships are an important part. I mean fighter, interceptor, landing shuttles....

- Okay, stop, - I raised my hand, - the fighter, I'm telling you right away, it's better to develop it yourself. There is nothing worthwhile on the market now, and besides, it is either underarmoured or insufficiently manoeuvrable. The same goes for the amphibious combat shuttle, it is better to develop it from scratch.

- It'll take time," Shin nodded.

- It's no big deal. We're not at war. Next, we need air support, that is, a powerful combat aerospider, armoured to the hilt and heavily armed - at least missiles, turbolasers, laser cannons, and an ion cannon.

- I think it's possible. So... that leaves light ships out of the mandatory programme. Any requests?

- I suppose not. Just one thing - don't skimp on defence and firepower. And as for armour, we mine almost all the armour materials, so we don't have to consider the economical factor at all - if necessary, I'll allocate the most valuable metals for the fleet.

With a sigh, Shin put away the already well-drawn flowchart and turned to me:

- In this case, the composition of the fleet is more or less decided. However, the tactics depend on large ships.

- I will take care of this problem as soon as I can, - I nodded, - if everything goes well, you will have all the agreed ships.

After saying goodbye to Sin, I went to my office. I still had to remember everything I remembered about Venators, Acclamators, Imperial destroyers and flagships. And it would be desirable to redraw everything, so that the engineer would more or less understand the design of future equipment, or better to make with the help of force figures-models on a scale of one to fuck knows how many.

I think I remember, there was such a development at MandalMotors - virago. I just can't remember where and when I saw it and heard about it, I think in one of the toys. The very appearance of the virago itself is memorable. Back in my bedroom, I set about making modellers, from memory.