If all went to plan, the satellites would spend a lot of time trying to take out the smaller and more numerous kinetic missiles before it got around to the larger tactical ABMs. By then, hopefully it would be too late for even the powerful lasers aboard the satellites to penetrate the shielding on each of the remaining missiles, and at least a few would get through their defenses.

Hopefully.

It was from under the disembodied nose cone of one of these tactical behemoths that Martin now lay, requesting that Jack pass him the rivet gun. He was attaching a mock-up of the layered shielding they were designing so they could verify its specifications.

The captain grunted slightly as he lowered the powerful industrial rivet gun into the waiting hands of Martin lying on his sliding palette, ready to roll back under and start riveting the shield in place.

“Holy shit,” said Martin, as he took the weight of the machine off of Jack. He wheezed as he slid back under the big nose cone, the gun’s weight squeezing the air out of him.

“OK, plug her in.” he shouted, grunting as he maneuvered the big gun into place over the holes in the shielding.

The missile casing was mounted on a pallet that held the hefty chunk of steel from the inside, allowing the team to work on its outside. The focal point of the missile’s armor plating would need to be in the warhead case, the very front of the missile. After all, the lasers that would try to destroy each of their missiles would come from their targets, the satellites, and therefore would impact the front of the missile as it approached.

“OK,” shouted Captain Toranssen as he connected the power for the rivet gun. He heard one last grunt from Martin as he pushed the riveting machine into place against the casing and then a rending metal sound that was highly disturbing, followed by a resounding snap as the rivet’s central mandrel broke off. They were unpleasant, but thankfully those were the sounds the gun made when it worked properly.

“I’ll never get use to that.” shouted the captain, shaking his head and walking over to a second layer of shielding that was on a separate pallet to one side. It looked like another version of the structure Martin was under, the same shape. But it was critically different. Martin had just finished riveting a thin ceramic layer to the inner nose cone structure. Now they would overlay that with the composite layer of superconductor that Madeline had fabricated for them.

Due to the size constraints of the resonance chamber Madeline was working with, she had been forced to construct the superconducting sheath in overlapping sections with four shaped plates joined by a central nose cone. These had then been fixed into place on the inside of the standard outer casing of the missile.