tlb wrote:What specifically do you mean by a "fusion Rocket"? Everything bigger than a LAC is fusion powered; but those words suggest a plasma thruster with a fusion energy source to me. Since that would be a nuclear flare, it would definitely not be stealthy.
PS. Just a little bit of self congratulation, perhaps?
Theemile wrote:Didn't the text state the Ghosts used a strap on cold thrust system to exit the freighters, not their fusion thrusters?
TFLYTSNBN wrote:What is a "cold thrust" system? What is the Specific Impulse and exhaust temperature?
From
Storm from the Shadows, chapter 48:
"Yes, Sir." Masters looked at his astrogator and helmsman. "Take us out," he said simply, and Chameleon twitched ever so gently as the web of tractor and pressor beams which had held her exactly centered in the freighter Wallaby's cavernous Number Two hold were switched off at last.
A gentle puff of compressed air from the specially modified thruster packs strapped to her bow sent her drifting backward, without the pyrotechnics of her normal fusion-powered thrusters. That would have been . . . contraindicated inside a ship, Østby thought dryly while he watched the visual display as the hold's bulkheads went sliding by.
It was the first time they'd made an actual combat deployment, but Østby's captains and crews had practiced this same maneuver dozens of times before ever leaving the Mesa System. He had no concern at all about this part of the mission, and his mind strayed ahead to the rest of the mission.
No point worrying about any of that yet, he told himself firmly. Not even if you and Topolev did draw the harder target. But at least you didn't have quite as far to go as Colenso and Sung just to get to your objective. Sung won't even be deploying for another week!
The deployment maneuver took quite a while, but no one was in a tearing hurry, and no one wanted to risk a last-minute, potentially catastrophic accident. Wallaby had made her alpha translation thirty minutes ago, and she was still several hours away from the wormhole junction she'd ostensibly come here to transit. At this range, even a fully conventional ship Chameleon's size would almost certainly have been invisible even to Manticoran sensor arrays (assuming its skipper was smart enough not to bring up his wedge, at any rate). Not that anyone intended to take any chances.
Chameleon slid completely free of Wallaby, like an Old Earth shark sliding tail-first from its mother's womb, and the modified packs fell away as the jettisoning charges blew. They disappeared quickly into the Stygian gloom—this far out from the system primary, even the star gleam on Chameleon's own flanks was scarcely visible—and Østby continued to watch the visual display as the running light constellations bejeweling the clifflike immensity of the freighter's mammoth hull drew steadily away from them.
"Confirm clean separation, Sir," Masters' astrogator announced.
"Very good. Communications, do we have contact with the rest of the squadron?"
"Yes, Sir. Ghost just plugged into the net. Telemetry is up and nominal."
"Very good," Masters repeated, and looked at his executive officer. "Take us into stealth and bring up the spider, Chris," he said.
If they have pressor beams, then why weren't those used?
she can wear gloves with mini pistols as fingers. As part of a Batgirl-like latex skinsuit that glistens like a Salamander. 
