[Commanders and Esteemed Dignitaries, our test vessel reports that they are ready to begin the day's main event. We will be moving into position, and the viewing will begin in three minutes.] The android Pilot informed them using the polite tone Nico had programmed in that Max thought made it sound more like a Butler than a Pilot.
The excitement level reached a peak when the monitors came on, showing the modified vessel with the large weapon pod attached to the top and the assortment of various targets that had been arranged for the situation.
All of them were familiar to the gathered audience. A small group of Warriors, a Cathedral Vessel shuttle, various small alien ships, and finally, a large asteroid roughly fifty kilometres across.
While everyone understood that most of the targets would be no challenge for the weapon, given its size, the test was more about showing off its efficiency, so it was predicted that the output level would be minimized on every target, making it easier for everyone to calculate the efficiency.
That was close to what they were going to do, but what Nico was actually looking to measure was not the efficiency of the weapon at damaging the target, as they already had that base data from the previous generation of Disintegrator. What she was more interested in was how efficiently it could begin and sustain the chain reaction through the targets.
There was one that they couldn't replicate here, the Energy Beings, and that was actually the one that she was the most interested in, but for now, it would be enough to assure the gathered species that they had come up with something that was effective, and give vague promises about distributing it when it was fully finished.
They had already given the various species in this region plenty of weapons data that they were still working on adapting to their fleets, so nobody was actually rushing to get these ones up and running for general distribution, except the Reavers.
[Beginning testing now.]
The weapon pulsed with energy, though the beam was invisible to the naked eye, and the first target, the group of Warriors, vanished with a massive nuclear blast.
With even the group of five of them, that was a thousand kilograms of fissile material, and the blast was strong enough to destroy a small warship on its own.
The response was pure panic from most of the gathered species. They hadn't detected the Disintegrator beam, as their sensors weren't calibrated for it, so they only saw the weapon charge, and then the blast. They weren't any closer to understanding how it worked, only what its destructive potential was.
Or so they thought.
Once the first blast had faded and the research team had a moment to analyze their data, they sent the signal to the test vessel to fire again, targeting one of the alien ships that Max though looked entirely too much like a turd to be shown in public. It was just a lumpy tube with two pinched ends, and he had no idea what sort of logic would have led them to want that as their main attack ship.
It wasn't even efficient for warp travel.
The disturbing looking vessel did explode very well though, being five times the size of the warrior group, and again the reaction was shock and awe, with a side of confusion from the species who still hadn't managed to analyze what was going on.
Fortunately, their comrades were willing to fill them in, and the confusion in their minds was fading as they read through the analysis reports from the observers with better sensors.
One after another, the targets went down with massive explosions, tearing apart their hulls and obliterating everything inside.
"I get it, I have figured out what they did." One of the Reaver Commanders cheered just before the ship lined up on its last target, the asteroid roughly the size of a Colony Ship.
"Oh, really? Do tell the rest of us laymen." One of the other Reavers taunted.
"They've tuned the Disintegrator to cause a nuclear blast on contact with certain elements. That's why the outer hulls are exploding, but the interior bits are being shredded by the blast. It's not a matter of penetration, they are specifically targeting the enemy." The man confidently declared.
Max nodded and went over to shake his hand.
"That is impressive, how did you figure it out?" He asked
"My System Skill is [Analysis]. It watched every blast and gave me a set of results data, I just had to tie it all together once I understood what I was looking at. The Disintegrator is completely obliterating the outer hulls, but barely damaging the interior at the lower power output it is using. But the beam is wide, so it gets the whole object that it is targeting."
The other Commanders and dignitaries came over to congratulate him for clearing up the mystery for them in advance, since Max and Nico didn't seem to have any intention of explaining before the grand finale.
Knowing what they did now, the final blast was even more exciting. That chunk of rock was nearly a million tonnes of rock, and it had been placed well outside the galactic plane, hundreds of thousands of kilometres from any other object.
Many had assumed that it was a range test, but now that they knew how the weapon worked, they realized that it was a safety precaution to get the test vessel outside the predicted blast radius. The shockwave would carry in the void of space, but the impact should be negligible from the distance they had chosen.
[Final shot ready.]
Max sent out a number of messages to ships that had gotten inside the perimeter that they had deemed the safe zone and warned them to back up or increase their shielding to absorb the impact. Though he could tell that most of the leaders took his warning as a joke, they still did it, and either backed off or raised their shields.
[Firing.]
The blast was tremendous, like they had formed a second sun in the system, and the lingering aftereffects left a glowing orb of secondary reactions at the location where the asteroid had been. The blue light faded to yellow and then red before the reaction ended, leaving nothing but a shockwave that rocked all the ships in the spectator field, and sent small asteroids in the star's orbit tumbling, as well as causing a minor atmospheric storm on one of the outer planets.
[And that concludes our testing for the day. We will be compiling data for some time, but you are welcome to come to the human fleet's capital ship in orbit near Koleska station this evening for a celebratory dinner.]
That would be Celia's Love, the lead ship of the anomaly defence fleet, but there were too many people to party on the Cutter without rearranging the interior space to be more social function friendly, while the Destroyer had an event room that could hold tens of thousands.
He would have to send an apology letter and gift to the Admiral later.
