The First Ceramic Steel Plate

Less than three days after those words were spoken, all staffing approval documents for the 811 Institute received their final seals.

Luo Qiming's office was sealed off by the Security Department.

Chen Weichang attempted to leave the country that night and was intercepted by the border control system.

The East Asia branch of Hualian Metallurgy discovered the next morning that all its bank accounts had been frozen.

March 27, C.E. 71.

On the second basement level of the 811 Institute's Materials Laboratory Building, Xu Yanqiu had already worked continuously for eleven days.

The temperature curve of the vacuum hot-press furnace had reached the far right side of the large wall display, while the complete data from the latest batch of ceramic steel samples filled the entire spectral analysis chart.

When Lin Yuan pushed open the laboratory door, Xu Yanqiu was repeatedly turning over a palm-sized dark gray armor plate, while the whiteboard was covered in dense annotations.

"Professor Xu."

"You came at just the right time." Xu Yanqiu set the armor plate heavily onto the table with a dull thud. "This thing worked."

Lin Yuan walked to the table and picked up the armor plate.

It was twice as heavy as the crude test piece from last time. Its surface was smooth and dense, with fine metallic lattice patterns glinting through the dark gray color. Its edges were neat, without any stress fractures.

"Crystal stability?"

"All three continuous thermal-cycle tests passed. Maximum heat resistance: eighteen hundred degrees Celsius. No obvious phase changes." Xu Yanqiu held up three fingers. "All three core indicators met the standard. Its hardness is another nine percent higher than that previous semi-finished piece. In repeated impact tests, its impact toughness declined by no more than three percent after twenty cycles. Most importantly, the crystallization process can be replicated."

"What does 'replicated' mean?"

"Using the same furnace temperature curve and the same raw-material ratio, we ran five samples in succession. Their performance variation stayed within two percent." Xu Yanqiu's eyes were bloodshot, but they shone brightly. "That means mass production is feasible. This isn't some one-off lab specimen. It's a product that can roll off an assembly line with stable output."

Lin Yuan put the armor plate back on the table.

"How does it compare to the Phase-Shift Armor from the G Project?"

Xu Yanqiu turned to another table, pulled out a comparison report, and tossed it over.

"I pulled every parameter for the Phase Shift Armor from the Spark Data and compared them item by item. The conclusion is clear."

Lin Yuan opened the report.

The first page covered beam resistance.

"With sufficient energy, Phase Shift Armor is completely immune to standard-caliber beam rifles. Ceramic steel can't do that. After more than three seconds of direct beam exposure, ablation craters will appear on its surface."

"So immunity is impossible."

"Right. But at standard combat range, the ablation depth does not exceed four millimeters. Four millimeters is nowhere near the penetration threshold for a sixty-millimeter ceramic steel external armor plate."

The second page covered ballistic resistance.

"Phase Shift Armor is almost completely immune to conventional ballistic weapons. But there's a condition: its energy supply cannot be interrupted. Once its power runs dry, Phase Shift Armor is just an ordinary alloy plate. A single armor-piercing shell can punch through it. Ceramic steel doesn't have that problem. It's passive defense, doesn't consume energy, and remains the same material no matter how long it gets shot at."

The third page covered weight and cost.

"For equal protective coverage, ceramic steel weighs 2.7 times as much as Phase Shift Armor. Its manufacturing cost is roughly one-third of Phase Shift Armor's."

Lin Yuan closed the report.

"Conclusion."

Xu Yanqiu leaned against the whiteboard, his fingers interlaced before his chest.

"The conclusion is that ceramic steel isn't as flashy as Phase Shift Armor. It doesn't shine, it doesn't change color, and when it gets hit, it just takes the blow. There's no such thing as complete immunity. But it's cheap, stable, and doesn't need a nuclear engine worth hundreds of millions to maintain its defensive state."

He raised a finger and tapped the tabletop.

"More importantly, it's suitable for mass production. One hot-press furnace production line can turn out one hundred and twenty standard external armor plates per month. What about Phase Shift Armor? The Atlantic Federation threw everything it had into it and built five G Weapons in a year."

Lin Yuan said nothing, his gaze resting on the dark gray armor plate.

Xu Yanqiu's voice slowed slightly.

"Lin Yuan, from the very beginning, you never intended to follow their path."

"East Asia has no Coordinators and no enhanced humans." Lin Yuan picked up the armor plate and tapped its surface with his knuckles, producing a low, crisp metallic ring. "My soldiers are ordinary people. When ordinary people climb into a machine, what I need is for them to still be standing after they take a hit. Not for them to jump higher, but to live longer."

Xu Yanqiu looked at him and fell silent for a moment.

"Fine. Then how are you setting the armor plan for the Black Iron prototype?"

"You tell me."

Xu Yanqiu walked to the whiteboard, erased an area, and began drawing.

"Full-body coverage is unrealistic. The weight would overwhelm the joint actuators. My plan is composite external armor. The core areas—the cockpit, chest power unit, and head sensors—will receive full coverage with sixty-millimeter standard ceramic steel plates. The limbs and backpack will use a thirty-millimeter lightweight version, sacrificing some protection to preserve a mobility margin."

"Can the thrust-to-weight ratio take it?"

"Compared with the current Dagger MS, mobility will drop by around thirty-five percent. The speed gap will be even greater compared with ZAFT's GINN Type."

"But its ability to take a beating?"

Xu Yanqiu turned around, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.

"A GINN Type's seventy-six-millimeter autocannon can score twenty consecutive hits at standard engagement range, and the probability of penetration is zero. The United Army's Dagger can fire its cut-down beam rifle at it, but it won't cause effective damage within three seconds."

Lin Yuan placed the armor plate back on the table.

"It's decided."

"Wait." Xu Yanqiu came back over. "There's one more problem. Ceramic steel's brittle fracture mode differs from that of a metal matrix. In extreme low-temperature conditions, such as the shadow zones of space, microscopic cracks will accumulate in the material. Long-term space operations require a surface-coating solution. I'm still running the data on that."

"How long?"

"Two weeks."

"One and a half weeks."

"You—" Xu Yanqiu's brows shot up.

"One and a half weeks." Lin Yuan's voice left no room for negotiation. "Because I may not have two weeks."

Xu Yanqiu stared at him for three seconds.

"What happened?"

Lin Yuan walked to a small screen in the corner of the laboratory and brought up a strategic situation map.

Seven new blue markers had appeared in the buffer zone between the L4 region of space and East Asia's controlled waters.

"The Atlantic Federation Pacific Fleet's Third Detachment departed Joshua Port forty-eight hours ago. It is currently advancing eastward along the boundary of the disputed waters. Its formation includes one Nelson-class Light Carrier, two Drake-class Frigates, and four transport ships carrying Dagger MS units."

Xu Yanqiu did not understand military affairs, but he understood numbers.

"Seven ships. They're coming for East Asia?"

"Not necessarily for East Asia." Lin Yuan turned off the screen. "It could be a patrol, an exercise, or perhaps Sykes filed some report after returning, and the United Army General Staff decided to show East Asia some color."

Xu Yanqiu clenched the whiteboard marker in his hand.

"So you need Black Iron to have something presentable before they make a move."

"I need them to know East Asia isn't merely a subcontractor that makes communications components."

Xu Yanqiu turned back to the whiteboard, erased the diagram he had just drawn, and started over.

"One and a half weeks. I'll run the coating plan in parallel and produce an initial low-temperature-resistant interim solution first. It won't be perfect, but it can withstand short-term exposure to space."

"That's enough."

Lin Yuan headed for the door.

Without looking back, Xu Yanqiu's voice came muffled from in front of the whiteboard.

"Lin Yuan."

"Go ahead."

"That Thunderclap Project of yours—the Bombard Gun—its fourth test firing succeeded, right?"

"Right."

"When will it be installed on Black Iron?"

"The same day the armor design is finalized."

Xu Yanqiu drew a heavy line across the whiteboard.

"If those United Army people really come to probe us, they probably won't expect East Asia's new machine to stay standing after taking their fire—and still be able to blast their cockpits, pilots and seats alike, into pieces with one shot."

Lin Yuan's hand rested on the doorknob.

"They will."

Xu Yanqiu stopped writing and turned his head.

"After they see Black Iron for the first time."