Chapter 324: New Type of Frigate

Just then, the communicator built into Jason’s power armor suddenly buzzed. He glanced at the display and saw it was a direct line from the Security Department.

He didn’t dare ignore it and immediately answered, "This is Jason. What’s the situation?"

An urgent female voice came through the channel. "Captain, the first batch of frigates is complete and about to begin test flights. Minister Austin invites you to the hangar to observe."

"Oh, and there will also be live-fire tests for the new deep-space armaments," she added, briefly outlining the schedule.

Jason’s heart skipped a beat. Had the third-generation frigates already been finished? He vaguely recalled the timeline, but he had been so swamped with logistical work lately that the exact date had slipped his mind.

This was a massive milestone; he absolutely had to see it. True to his decisive nature, Jason quickly agreed over the command.

After hastily wrapping up his inspection of the supply vault and confirming everything was in order, he and his team immediately turned to leave.

"Come on, let’s head to the military sector to see the new warships! They’re running the maiden test flights today," he told his aides, secretly grateful he had recruited a team of athletic, energetic young men.

If he hadn’t, running all over the massive ship day in and day out would have left an average person’s legs completely paralyzed.

His wife, Lily, was officially still one of his aides. However, she was brilliant and highly capable, meaning her talents were much better suited for high-level engineering than running mundane administrative errands. Pulling her away from her work for something like this would have been a waste of her expertise.

"Wait, really? The new frigates?" Alex exclaimed, practically bouncing on his heels. As a massive military enthusiast, he couldn’t contain his excitement. "I read that one of the variants has a highly streamlined chassis and launches via an orbital railgun! It’s supposed to be able to breach a planet’s atmosphere at supersonic speeds!"

The rest of the aides enthusiastically joined the discussion. Jason smiled inwardly; youth truly was wonderful. They had so much boundless energy.

They took a maglev elevator back up to the standard gravity zone. Rather than waste time taking off their heavy power armor, they simply boarded a magnetic levitation transit train and headed straight for the outer military sector of The Ark.

About fifteen minutes later, the group arrived at the sprawling hangar bay, where four to five hundred engineers and technicians were bustling about.

Deep Space essentially functioned as a colossal aircraft carrier. Smaller vessels were housed inside its massive internal bays, while the larger ships were docked securely around its outer perimeter.

Jason immediately spotted familiar faces in the control center, including Austin, Marcus, and Lily, who was serving as the lead structural designer for the new generation of warships.

Jason and Lily caught each other’s eye from across the room, sharing a brief, knowing look, though they were both too busy to stop and chat.

Setting aside the behemoth that was Deep Space, these new vessels represented humanity’s third true generation of space-faring warships.

The first generation had been the A001 through A003 models developed by Dr. Roman. Later, the colonists on Nyx had engineered a second generation of ships, though those were primarily designed for heavy cargo transport.

Time had flown by, and now they were looking at the third generation, vessels boasting vastly superior performance and fully integrated combat features.

This generation was built strictly for war, and it didn’t just feature one design. There were three distinct variants!

The first variant, just as Alex had mentioned, was codenamed the Space Swallow.

It was relatively compact, only about twenty meters long and looked incredibly lightweight.

It featured a sharply pointed nose and stubby, swept-back wings. The chassis was a beautiful, hyper-streamlined teardrop shape, making it look far more elegant than anything from the previous two generations.

But that sleek design wasn’t just for aesthetics; it was engineered specifically to drastically reduce atmospheric drag.

The Space Swallow was designed for extreme high-speed atmospheric flight, functioning as a highly advanced nuclear-powered aircraft. Until engineers could figure out how to miniaturize fusion reactors, this ship represented the absolute pinnacle of fission-based propulsion!

"During atmospheric flight, a secondary nuclear reactor inside the Space Swallow engages," a senior technician explained to the gathered observers, outlining the engine’s core principles. "This reactor superheats a liquid metal core. High-speed intake air is funneled in and makes direct contact with the molten metal, instantly converting into a high-temperature, high-pressure plasma. This plasma is then channeled through the engine’s booster electromagnets and forcefully ejected, generating massive thrust."

Nuclear-powered atmospheric aircraft had been theoretical cutting-edge tech back on ancient Earth; now, they were standard issue.

Under standard Earth-like atmospheric pressure, the Space Swallow could sustain a constant 3g acceleration, reaching a top speed of Mach 20!

In the thinner air of a planet’s stratosphere, it could push Mach 40!

In the vacuum of space, relying purely on its primary ion thrusters, it could reach a maximum cruising speed of 0.16% the speed of light. If launched from the mothership’s massive railguns, its initial exit velocity would hit a staggering 2% the speed of light!

The second variant of frigate was significantly larger. At roughly 300 meters long, it looked like a floating mountain compared to the tiny Space Swallow.

Its codename was Leviathan.

Jason walked up to the observation deck window to inspect the docked Leviathan closely. The outer hull plating was forged from advanced nanomaterials, making the walls only a few millimeters thick.

Because of this, the massive ship was shockingly light, and visually, it almost looked flimsy. But Jason knew that if you struck that hull, you would instantly feel its terrifying hardness and tensile strength.

"If we can push our nanotechnology just a bit further, the next iteration will be even lighter and stronger. That’s the future of shipbuilding; shedding mass is the single best way to increase a vessel’s tactical maneuverability," Lily murmured, having walked over to stand beside him.

At 300 meters long, the Leviathan was essentially a fully equipped, self-sustaining mobile base.

Given enough fuel, it had the thrust required to forcefully enter the atmosphere of an Earth-gravity planet, engage in heavy combat operations, and achieve orbit again.

It carried significantly more missiles, possessed much larger energy reserves, and boasted far heavier firepower than the Space Swallow, including several capital-grade heavy laser batteries.

"Still, the size is a bit of an awkward middle ground," Lily noted, shaking her head slightly. "We still haven’t cracked miniature fusion reactors, which means we can’t use fusion drives for these... we’re stuck with fission until a breakthrough happens."

But Jason was more than satisfied. A 300-meter warship was the exact same size as an ancient Earth naval aircraft carrier!

This was a true space-faring destroyer! And the engineering team had designed and built it in a single year. How could he not be thrilled? The sheer technological difficulty of building a void-capable warship dwarfed the challenge of building a boat that merely floated on water.

More importantly, it proved that the Federation’s industrial base was now fully capable of mass-producing these warships.

Amidst the excited chatter, the live-fire tests officially commenced. A single Leviathan and a squadron of Space Swallows detached from the docks and accelerated away.

Driven by their ion engines, they became tiny blue specks against the void in less than a minute. Though they quickly vanished from the naked eye, the advanced radar and telemetry arrays on Deep Space tracked them perfectly.

The live feeds were projected onto the massive screens in the control room. The Space Swallows darted around with incredible agility, true to their namesake, while the Leviathan moved with an imposing, heavy grace. Each design clearly excelled in its specific role.

To test the weapon systems, a series of heavy metal targets had been pre-positioned in orbit around planet GB131.

The Space Swallows were loaded with tactical micro-nukes. Since humanity had perfected nuclear weapons centuries ago, the system barely needed testing; the pilots simply fired a few dummy warheads to calibrate their targeting locks.

The Leviathan was the main event. It powered up its heavy laser batteries, firing concentrated beams at a rate of roughly three pulses per second.

A target the size of an armored personnel carrier, floating tens of thousands of kilometers away, exploded like a firework the moment the beams connected, instantly turning into a cloud of molten slag.

"That heavy laser can effortlessly punch through three solid meters of high-density steel plating!" an engineer reported. "It is a massive energy drain, though, which is why the rate of fire is restricted."

"Accuracy is well within acceptable parameters..."

Next came the point-defense test using the light laser arrays. These were primarily designed to intercept incoming enemy projectiles.

Deep Space fired a volley of hardened aerogel slugs at the test ship, traveling at Mach 15. The moment the slugs crossed a 1,000-kilometer threshold, the Leviathan’s automated combat AI painted them, and the light lasers opened fire.

Flashes of dark red light strobed in the vacuum as the aerogel slugs were vaporized mid-flight.

Deep Space continuously ramped up the firing speed.

"Mach 15 projectiles are being intercepted at a near 100% success rate."

"Increasing projectile velocity to Mach 20."

"Pushing to Mach 30..."

"Activating heavy electronic countermeasures and localized jamming..."

As the test parameters became increasingly brutal, the automated interception grid finally began to lag, and the 100% kill rate dropped. Jason narrowed his eyes, analyzing the telemetry data scrolling across the screen.

The Leviathan easily outperformed the smaller fighters. Despite being a much larger target, its vastly superior power grid and heavy interception arrays meant it was statistically much harder to successfully hit.

Finally, the completed test diagnostics flooded the main monitors.

The entire purpose of the exercise had been to expose the flaws in the third-generation warships; absolute perfection on a maiden flight was impossible.

However, looking at the raw numbers, their overall combat effectiveness was more than 80% higher than the second-generation Nyx ships.

This was undeniable proof of humanity’s technological leap!

It also meant that the crude kinetic and energy weapons of any lower-tier civilization would pose absolutely zero threat to a Federation warship.

The control room erupted into thunderous, excited applause, everyone standing to pay their respects to the engineering teams that made it possible.