The elephant in the living room: no maximum speed.
You may recall A Dagger at Efate, a story of a ship set to crash into an Imperial military base. That was Artan's work - he never was fully committed to the cause, never willing to make the big sacrifices. My plan was better - and now, with our forces in defeat on Efate, it is time I put it in operation.
I intend to send a clear message to the Duke and his nobles. I intend to take a simple scout/courier and jump into Regina system, a bit under 300 million miles from the planet. I have the planet's orbital information in my ship's computer. I intend to have the computer plot an intercept course for the planet, one that will have the ducal palace in the right position at about the time I arrive at the planet - after accelerating at 2g for two days.
I know I'm not likely to hit the palace, but I should be able to hit within a couple hundred kilometers of it. I'll be doing 3456 kps by that point. It will be 2 and a half minutes between the time the detection grid picks me up and the time I make impact. Perhaps they can bring their defenses to bear in that time, perhaps not, but they can not stop a falling mass from falling. My little ship, or its riddled hulk - it matters not which - will impact with the force of 10 million terajoules: 2.5 gigatons. Perhaps giving them a new volcano and altering the world's UPP code for a year or so will let them know we will not be silenced.
Stop me if you can.
You may recall A Dagger at Efate, a story of a ship set to crash into an Imperial military base. That was Artan's work - he never was fully committed to the cause, never willing to make the big sacrifices. My plan was better - and now, with our forces in defeat on Efate, it is time I put it in operation.
I intend to send a clear message to the Duke and his nobles. I intend to take a simple scout/courier and jump into Regina system, a bit under 300 million miles from the planet. I have the planet's orbital information in my ship's computer. I intend to have the computer plot an intercept course for the planet, one that will have the ducal palace in the right position at about the time I arrive at the planet - after accelerating at 2g for two days.
I know I'm not likely to hit the palace, but I should be able to hit within a couple hundred kilometers of it. I'll be doing 3456 kps by that point. It will be 2 and a half minutes between the time the detection grid picks me up and the time I make impact. Perhaps they can bring their defenses to bear in that time, perhaps not, but they can not stop a falling mass from falling. My little ship, or its riddled hulk - it matters not which - will impact with the force of 10 million terajoules: 2.5 gigatons. Perhaps giving them a new volcano and altering the world's UPP code for a year or so will let them know we will not be silenced.
Stop me if you can.