TGoaW-110

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==Chapter 110 - The Glow of a Worm inside a Child's Eye==
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"The evidence is...
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...plain and prominent." Bryn Cooper reported to his Khan, Lynn McKenna. "I saw for myself, it is not a technology, except in the most elemental fashion. It was something else. The movements used by the Kowloonese are within the realm of theoretical possibility, but not within any sort of probability our own scientists in the Engineering or Astrophysical subcastes are willing to risk-and they were far too practiced for those to have been mere luck."
"This means..."
"This means that in space, at least, they are superior to anyone we have, or have faced." he said grimly. "Elizabeth Ngo is sibko aged and sickly. she led, and commanded the defending force in the trial...and did so brilliantly. Blackjack was not a fluke, if anything, they went easy on our Falcon allies and they went easy on our people."
"...and your assessment of why?" Lynn asked.
"Because they are flat better at it-though Elizabeth said something to the effect of her Coast Guards being 'Spacers who sometimes have to fight, instead of warriors who sometimes go into space'. It is not my belief she was trying to be insulting when she said it, but several times she commented on 'clumsy dirtyfeet'."
"The ships you want to buy are physically inferior to even out-of-production vessels we already have, Bryn." Lynn commented.
"They may be, at first glance." He agreed, "Especially when operating under 'exercise restrictions'."
"Clarify."
"Kowloonese load nuclear warheads as standard munitions, the Sampan II and III class vessels are optimized for a torpedo-boat role, They are not destroyers, nor even truly proper corvettes, they are more akin to something else...in ancient history, there was a time when Submarines terrorized the oceans of old earth as commerce raiders and stealth attackers. The combination of size and systems marks a similar role, the redundancies and, oddly enough, the compromises they made in the designs lend very well to a similar role in a space-based warfare context...also, they are inexpensive to build relative to more advanced designs, and suitably refit, would be a strong intermediary between fighter stars, and proper Warships for trials among the Clans-where the nuclear ordnance is not necessary or useful, and they are in current production, mass production, serving as a training step for the Federated Commonwealth's Naval forces-giving junior officers necessary experience in independent command and formation discipline before they are entrusted with senior levels of command aboard proper, sensible, warships."
"You want to buy them as Trainers?"
"Aff-a transition step between Dropship command and movement up to Fleet Corvettes-the operations cost outlines line up, I had our Merchant-factors check her numbers. The obvious advantage of having experienced officers helming critical warship assets-that is, officers experienced with warships cannot be oversold. We can produce more quality personnel than they can recruit, by using the Sibko system and carefully managing roles and castes...and the vessels can be used as trial-of-position without straining the Clan's resources, because they are currently in production. It gets the next generation out of the simulators and into the field."
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