by Aer-ki Jyr
Every single person in the room made their way across what was essentially an empty receiving area and headed into the transition terminal, then across a short umbilical into the waiting starship. The starport was so new that it hadn’t been opened to the public yet, and without the throngs of civilians going every which way with hundreds of different agendas, the grandiose architecture of the Star Force installation seemed eerily silent.
Terry and the rest of the engineers tagged as the primary excursion team for the upcoming mission had also been prime team on the construction of this starport’s twin…situated 180 degrees around the orbital track and sitting on a straight line that passed through Earth, with the small planet blocking line of sight communications, though with the ever growing Star Force communications infrastructure that was never conceivably going to be a problem.
Star Force on a whole was growing exponentially, with the nations of Earth following suit, albeit at a much slower pace. The inner orbital tracks were filling up with installations quickly, with only Star Force’s enforced placement mandates keeping the whole mess from becoming a navigational hazard. As engine capabilities improved and more and more stations were needing to be constructed, the range of Earth’s colonization efforts began to stretch out, with the need for an external starport arising, given that maneuvering all the way down to low orbit was fast becoming a tedious and time consuming endeavor.
The two brand new inter-planetary starports had been placed on opposite sides of zone 13, at 675,000 km and the nearest zone of high orbit. Star Force marked Earth’s micro-system in 15 zones, ending at 1 million km, with a catchall zone 16 for everything beyond that. The clandestine military shipyard that had built Star Force’s military fleet sat at 650,000 km, previously making it the furthest reaching orbital installation, though now it was within the ‘civilian window’ and officially on the public charts.
Its existence was a moot point now, given that the existence of the fleet had been revealed and all of Star Force’s shipyards were now able to visibly construct warships. The command slip hadn’t been replicated, but to date the second gigantic starship under construction was being held up in anticipation of a new breakthrough in plasma engine research, so little work was being done there, though the nearby regular shipyard was still cranking out warships as fast as it could get the resources allocated.
Star Force had plans for more clandestine facilities, but they were going to have to be built elsewhere, as the public awareness began to push further and further out from Earth. Construction in the higher orbits wasn’t off the table, but it was time for Star Force to push its boundaries again…before the colonization creep filled in what had once been considered the ‘frontier.’
To that end the inter-planetary starports had been built, in part to denote an outer boundary to Earth’s orbital colonization efforts, as well as to facilitate the transit from one planet to another. The reason for having two was that any ship arriving to Earth wouldn’t have to cut across the orbital traffic of the lower zones to get to the starport currently on the other side of the planet during its 63 day orbit. With two spaced directly opposite each other, at least one would always be within line of sight, allowing for high speed decelerations directly up to the star-shaped starport.
The space station was the largest constructed yet…not counting the Orion. It had a massive flat disc at the center housing two opposite rotating gravity sections, circled by a ring of zero gravity levels, then six massive pylons stretching out to create the sunburst motif. Each pylon held an enormous amount of cargo storage, with some bays large enough to accommodate small starships, as well as the docking mechanisms for multiple attachments.
Currently all six of the pylons were in use, connected to the six inter-planetary starships readying to depart. A cluster of smaller starships were docked nearby, offloading cargo into the station before making runs back down the orbital ladder to pick up additional loads and bring them back out, ferrying supplies…and eventually people…out to the starport, establishing the facility’s link to the Star Force transportation grid.
When Terry and the others passed into the zero gravity section of the Cobra-class starship they were met by a dark blue uniformed rep and led down a series of halls until they came to the central column of the ship and were handed off to other ship’s personnel that took the passengers out through the sides of the column and into the massive gravity cylinders where they were given small, individual cabins for their longer than usual trip.
Altogether, the inside of the ship reminded Terry of the passenger transports that Star Force used to move personnel around, save for the lack of seats. Normally there would be large, theater like seats supported by auxiliary areas for the multi-hour trips, but this ship had been designed with longer transits in mind, meaning that Terry had a small bunk, video screen, desk, and closet to himself, with dozens of identical rooms packed alongside each other around the circumference of the cylinder.
When he got inside cabin 58 he saw that his luggage had already been delivered, resting inside his duffel on top of his bed. There was about 3 square meters of floor space running along the length of the bed, with the TV imbedded into the opposite wall. Terry sat down and leaned back, finding a backrest across the bunk, meaning that it was designed with the dual purpose of sleeping and functioning as a chair.
The engineer quickly discovered the pull down armrests, with the screen remote built in. He experimented with the device, looking through the available menus and finding a library of movies and TV series that he could watch, along with the time-stamped news broadcasts coming out from Earth in packet form, due to the signal lag. The ship’s computer would record and store the data stream as it came in, then make it available a few seconds later through ‘delayed broadcast’ or store it away for passengers to look through later, making for a visual newspaper of daily events.
After two minutes of exploring the limited living space, Terry walked out the lockless door and headed for one of the commons areas, which included restroom/shower facilities, cafeteria, a series of small lounges and game rooms, and a physical training area. Terry opted to head over to the cafeteria to grab a bite to eat, finding a few dozen of his fellow engineering team and ship’s crew had the same idea, but otherwise the massive commons area was empty, much as the starport had been.
Terry lingered there for the better part of an hour before a warning klaxon sounded, with the cafeteria workers springing into action to lock down the food serving areas and get everything secure. Retractable panels started to come down, closing kiosk after kiosk, and those remaining ship’s personnel began to walk out, while the engineers looked about quizzically.
“Acceleration warning,” a purple uniformed female officer offered as she walked by. “Commons areas are going to be locked down for a while. Best place to ride it out is your cabin or one of the lounges.”
“Are the restrooms going to be locked down?” someone beside Terry asked.
The woman half laughed. “Out of necessity, no, but unless you really have to go I wouldn’t recommend trying it,” she said, walking off.
Terry noted that a countdown clock had manifested itself at various places around the room, with just under 5 minutes till completion.
Taking the woman’s advice, Terry headed back to his cabin, making one quick stop in the restroom on the way, and slid into his chair with just under a minute remaining, as noted on another clock just above his video screen. He flipped on the TV and selected a movie to watch, noting when the countdown expired.
A moment later he felt a sudden lurch, with his body being pressed back into his seat as if he was sitting in a car accelerating down the road. Fortunately his chair was aligned with the axis of thrust, so it caused him little discomfort, though the sensation didn’t abate. It felt like the gravitational plane had shifted, and his body quickly adjusted to the difference. In fact, he eventually forgot about it entirely…until he tried to stand up after the movie was over and fell sideway
s onto his bed, rolling partway up the wall.
“Right,” he said, reminding himself to be more aware. He got an arm under him and pushed off, then rolled out of bed and stood up, leaning heavily towards the video screen. Wanting to stretch his legs a bit, Terry opened his door and walked outside, grabbing a useful handrail imbedded in a shallow cavity inside the wall so as not to protrude into the walkway.
Leaning forward comically he walked a bit, establishing a rhythm and cadence that was functional as he climbed ‘uphill’ until he eventually came to a cross hallway that had a 45 degree angle at the intersection of wall and floor that allowed him to walk almost normally…though he was stuck out sideways as far as the orientation of the corridor was concerned.
Terry made several laps, getting the feel for fighting the acceleration and exploring the dynamics of it from an engineer’s point of view until he eventually ended up at one of the lounges.
“Nice acceleration she’s got,” one of his colleagues commented as Terry walked inside, looking for all the world like he was leaning into a stiff wind.
“Tolerable,” he declared before grabbing an open chair, which thankfully was bolted into the floor.
“I don’t know, I’m starting to get a headache,” another engineer said, squeezing his eyes in obvious discomfort.
One of the ship’s crew nearby overhead the comment and gestured to another in an aqua-colored uniform. The man pointed to the reclining engineer and the other nodded in confirmation.
“Having some trouble?” the man asked, sliding over and down to a knee next to the man with the headache.
“A little,” he admitted. “I think the angle is throwing me off.”
“What’s your name?” the medic asked.
“Preston Cooper.”
“Well, Preston. If you’re up for a little walk, I think I can help you out. You’re not the first person to have acceleration sickness, and won’t be the last.”
“How?”
“Follow me and I’ll show you,” he urged, standing up and walking sideways to the nearest door.
“Come on,” Terry said, offering Preston his hand. “I’ll go with you.”
“Alright…but be warned, my stomach doesn’t feel too stable.”
“Slow steps,” the medic suggested, waiting patiently. When the two engineers finally got to him and left the lounge, he led them down into the central column, only to find that it was blocked off by security doors.
“Down here,” the medic said, showing them to another door that opened into a small elevator car. “During acceleration the hallway would be a death trap, so we’ve got this elevator to use,” he said, clicking one of the level buttons.
“I’m starting to feel better already,” Preston commented as the door closed, then thought better about having made the comment as the elevator seemed to drop out beneath his feet. The sensation only lasted a few seconds, then the door opened up again, revealing the slowly rotating access point into the zero gravity section of the ship.
Terry walked across the small circular floor to the hole in the center, where he found a slowly revolving ladder with hazard lights on top. The medic went down feet first, then waited for them some four meters below.
“There now, you should be able to get your feet under you. We have a small room down there for those who can’t handle the binary gravity. You’ve only got about half a g to worry about down here, and from one constant angle,” he explained as they walked to the nearby lounge, which was completely empty, though designed to hold upwards of 30 occupants.
Preston walked over to one of the lounge chairs and sat down, feeling his head buzz, but it was a good buzz, and within a few minutes of reaching equilibrium he was back to feeling normal.
“You’re probably wondering why we don’t halt the gravity spin altogether?” the medic asked as the three of them began watching packeted newscasts.
“We know why,” Terry commented, tugging at the dark green fabric of his uniform.
The medic inclined his chin. “Ah, techs. Of course.”
“Engineers, actually,” Terry corrected him.
“What’s the difference?”
Terry pointed to the thin gold stripes running the length of his sleeves and legs. “Techs are trained to handle existing equipment within established parameters, kind of like maintenance personnel. Engineers build new equipment.”
“Or troubleshoot,” Preston added.
“Or troubleshoot,” Terry repeated. “We have to know what’s happening and why. Techs just have to follow instructions.”
“So that earns you the gold stripes,” the medic mused. With so many Star Force uniform varieties he’d never learned the intricacies of all of them.
“One gold stripe. The other two we had to earn. The more stripes, the more experienced you are. Three denotes a prime crew.”
“Prime being what?”
“We build the important stuff,” Preston commented, his attention half on the conversation and half on the newsfeeds.
“We also get the prototypes, which is why we were assigned to this mission. Once we get the starport built, the lower level engineers can study our results and replicate the process.”
“First build away from Earth then?”
“Gotta make sure we get it right the first time,” Preston said, turning to face the medic. “Feeling much better, by the way. Thanks.”
“That’s why I’m posted here,” the man said with a casual smile. “You’ll get adjusted eventually if you keep spending small chunks of time in and out. I’ll even bet you’ll be acclimated by the end of the return trip.”
“Actually, we won’t be returning to Earth orbit any time soon,” Terry commented. “We’ve got a lot of building to do.”
“I imagine you do. In that case, find a ship’s medic on your return trip and they’ll show you how to get to one of these rooms until you do make the adjustment.”
Eleven days later the Cobra arrived in low Mars orbit along with 5 other inter-planetary starships, all flown by remote pilots onboard the personnel transport. All six ships were the same size, each a third larger than a Jaguar, with the difference being that only the personnel transport had the gravity cylinders, while the drone ships had additional zero g cargo bays to hold more than 3x the supplies onboard Terry’s ship, which looked like an elongated blockade runner from Star Wars with the two gravity cylinders stacked end on end in the middle/front of the ship behind a hammerhead zero g front portion.
The aft of the ship contained the cargo containers, ample fuel supply, and engine bank, which held a cluster of Star Force’s most powerful plasma engines, which were needed to get the inter-planetary starship up to sufficient speed to travel from one micro-system to another in a matter of days as opposed to the months it had taken the first American expedition to reach Mars.
The other four Cobra variants, designated as Cobra-B’s, had additional cargo compartments where the gravity cylinders were missing all the way up to the hammerhead forward module, which was covered in thick armor plating to catch or deflect small scale debris impacts resulting from the higher speeds of travel the ship was capable of.
While from a mathematical perspective speed was technically a relative measurement, within the presence of a gravity well all matter tended to move within a certain range, with those traveling faster eventually leaving the orbital tracks and flying off into interstellar space while those moving slower would eventually be swallowed up by the well itself.
Most material in orbit around Sol was traveling in the same speed band, meaning that the faster the starships traveled, the greater the speed of collision with dust, sand, or even pebble-sized debris…which could do serious damage to the hull of a lightly armored ship.
To diminish those odds, the hammerhead ‘plows’ had been created to take the brunt of the impacts, with no critical systems being built directly behind the armor. Instead there were only redundant systems, which the ship could afford to lose if the armor was breached
, making the whole forward section of the ship expendable in order to protect the lighter armored sections further aft.
One drawback of the design was the fact that when arriving at a destination the ship had to flip over and face engine-first in order to decelerate. Because of this there was additional armor surrounding the engines, but it was impossible to cover the exhaust vents themselves, though it was theorized that exhaust plume would interfere with debris well ahead of the ship, given that it would expand out for hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometers with sufficient mass to impact and deflect potential debris away from the ship’s flight line.
Given that was a best-case scenario, the Cobra-class ships were equipped with 18 plasma engines, ensuring that even if some became damaged, there would be others left operational to navigate with.
No such crippling incidents occurred on the journey out though, and Star Force made its first presence in Mars orbit an inspiring one. After having decelerated from their transit speeds at considerable time gaps between ships, all six rendezvoused together over the red planet and the engineers boarded small work craft and transitioned over to the drone ships to begin offloading prefab segments of what was going to be the first Martian starport.
A few of the engineering skiffs made their way over to the oddball of the drone ships, designated as a Cobra-C. Whereas its twins were full of cargo compartments, this inter-planetary starship had an empty section on the neck of the craft, just behind the protective hammerhead, where another pair of smaller starships had been attached.
Two unmanned Cougars were lashed onto the rigid frame of the Cobra and had ridden piggyback all the way to Mars to be used as orbital starships in Mars’s micro-system, rather than having to wait the agonizingly long time for a Martian shipyard to be constructed or attempt to send them on a slow trip between planets with low fuel reserves. To the Cobra, they were just more dead cargo weight, which its engines were more than able to haul about, allowing the smaller ships to leapfrog the inter-planetary doldrums and make the hop over to Mars in style.
