Brilliant

by Rick Lakin

  Navvy Kelrithian and Jack Masing were sharing a drink after a long day.

  “The Hoclarth came from nowhere and jumped us. Brilliant was just not ready,” Jack said. “We weren't carrying the weapons we needed. We weren't carrying the crew we needed.”

  “You can't blame yourself, Jack. You couldn't have foreseen the Mendex coming in right at that moment,” Navvy said.

  “David's a solid pilot, Riley McMaster is one of the best engineers we've had, but I need a solid tactician. I need a First Officer who can see the big picture, plan out a mission, and see what's coming. I need you, Navvy. No one died today, but it was close.”

  “Jack, I'm seventy-four years old. I'm too worn out to be a space warrior,” Navvy said.

  “Seriously, old Friend, with you on board, the Brilliant was always one step ahead of any disaster.”

  “We wouldn't be here if I hadn't made that one mistake.”

  “Yes, there is that.”

  “If only I could’ve foreseen the gravity drive failure, we would still be on our timeline….”

  Aboard StarCruiser Brilliant - May 23, 2227

  The Great Energy Wars of 2025 were now over two-hundred years in the past. After a dark period when the world's population declined due to starvation and conflict, the Second Renaissance brought a century of progress and recovery.

  StarCruiser Brilliant was the crown jewel of the reawakening. Designed by Navilek “Navvy” Kelrithian of the United Space Exploration Academy, Brilliant would take humans to other star systems for the first time.

  The prototype was on her shakedown cruise. Captain Navvy Kelrithian and twenty-year-old Pilot Jack Masing were on a mission to test the gravity drive deep in the sun's gravity well. Navvy's wife, Hanna, acted as ship's engineer.

  “Pilot, we'll begin our outbound turn inside Mercury's orbit at my mark. Engage the gravity drive to point-one light-speed outbound.” Navvy said. “Engineer, report systems status.”

  “Em drive nominal. Gravity drive indicates ready. Stardrive available,” Hanna said.

  “Five seconds to turn.” Navvy looked at all the indicators, “Pilot, make your turn and engage the gravity drive.”

  The sun appeared as a giant yellow ball on the view screen. It moved to the left off screen, and Jack said, “Engaging.” Jack pushed the t-bar with his right hand to mid-range.

  Red lights flashed, audio signals blared. Hanna's eyebrows went upward, “Captain the main gravity drive relay has failed!”

  “Pilot, engage the em drive!”

  “Em drive at full power!”

  The navigation computer said, “Alert. Decaying orbit. Collision with the surface of the sun in 47 minutes.”

  “Hanna, can you fix it?!”

  “Captain, it will take me three hours to replace the relay.”

  “Navvy, we need to engage the stardrive!” Jack said.

  “The stardrive is untested; we don't know what will happen.”

  “I can't repair the relay in time, Nav!” Hanna said.

  Navvy and Hanna went down a deck to the gravity drive and inspected the failed relay and returned five minutes later. “The main relay is fried.”

  “Alert. Decaying orbit. Collision with the surface of the sun in 40 minutes,” Navigation said.

  “Navvy, we need to save our child!”

  Navvy turned his chair, and his eyes were wide open. “Hanna?!”

  “I woke up sick this morning. I tested. We're pregnant,” Hanna said.

  Navvy turned back with clenched fists and leaned forward, “Engineer, report when ready to engage the stardrive!”

  Navvy pressed the com button on his chair. “Academy, this is Brilliant. Our main gravity drive relay failed. I'm sending a complete data dump. We will engage the stardrive to escape the gravity well. We may not see you again, so hug our families for us and tell our parents that they will be grandparents. Brilliant out.”

  “Alert. Decaying orbit. Collision with the surface of the sun in 35 minutes.”

  “Captain, the stardrive is ready in all respects.”

  “Very well. Pilot, engage!”

  There was a flash on the screen. The starfield blurred and shifted.

  Two minutes later, “Pilot, disengage stardrive!”

  “Disengaged.”

  “Navigation, report position.”

  “We are six astronomical units from the sun.” Brilliant was outside the orbit of Jupiter.

  Navvy pressed the communicator, “Academy, this is Brilliant. Com check.”

  “There are no space wave frequencies active,” the coms computer said.

  “That's not good,” Navvy said. “Navigation, evaluate celestial positions and compute the exact time.”

  “It is 2:37 p.m.”

  “We’ve gone back two hours. We should be able to contact the Academy.” Navvy thought for a moment. “Navigation, what is the exact date?”

  “The current date is October 15, 2027.”

  “Omigod, two centuries?” Hanna said. “That's just two years after the nuclear wars.”

  “Let’s repair the gravity drive and go back to Earth.”

  Jennifer’s Home - 2067

  Jennifer arrived home about an hour after the explosion. As she climbed the hill, she visualized the feeling of success when she opened the mailbox. The large envelope would contain her invitation to the internship.

  Biting her lip, she worried about the fight that it would take to convince her mom.

  “So begins the rest of my life.” She opened the mailbox. She found a large number of letters, but no large packet. She pulled out the stack and began sorting. Bill. Congratulations, you’ve been selected… Bill. Cremation Ad. Tovar Studios.

  It was a simple white envelope from Tovar Studios that could only contain a very polite letter that will congratulate and thank the applicant in elegant business-like prose to soften the real message typed on the expensive cream-colored stationery: "REJECTED!!!"

  Jennifer turned her head away and looked over the valley without expression. Her valley. Her company town.

  Her hands were shaking as she held the mail. She struggled to get her keys out of her backpack and, unlike her, she fought back the tears.

  Two

  Growing Up Jennifer

  Three hours later, Jennifer walked into the kitchen; her mother was already home and looking concerned. “Did you get held up by that explosion on Long Valley Road?” her mother asked.

  “Yeah, I was close by when it happened. I watched for a bit and then had to take the long way around.” Jennifer kept looking down. She didn't want her mother to see how she was feeling right now.

  “The firemen say it might have been a gas explosion. They don't know the exact cause,” said Sheila.

  “Or it could have been a small meteorite,” Jennifer said.

  “You and your space-borne imagination,” replied her mother. “You are way too obsessed with that Brilliant movie.”

  “You never know.” But Jennifer did know. A spacecraft entered the atmosphere to the west and immediately shortly after an object from the sky hit that house. She saw the rock coming straight for her and Dandy.

  “Was there mail?” her mother asked.

  Jennifer looked away from her mother, “Yeah, nothing important.” She looked back to see if her mom knew she hadn't told the whole truth.

  Jennifer went back to her room. The letter sat propped up on the lamp on her desk. She stood looking at it with her arms folded over her chest hoping that it would somehow turn into the package she expected. It didn’t.

  “Oh, well. It looks like we are stuck here alone this summer, Pugs.”

  She entered her steveLearn system and searched for information about the explosion and fire. She viewed the event from several news drones that arrived several seconds after the explosion. There she was on the sidewalk holding Dandy as the firetrucks arrived.

  She searched the net for information about the cause. She googled the term “sonic boom.”


  She found this, “The Federal Aviation Administration released a statement saying that two Air Force fighters flying southbound from Edwards Air Force Base momentarily exceeded the speed of sound over the San Fernando Valley. They were practicing air combat maneuvers.”

  Seriously? she thought.

  She looked some more but found no more information connecting the sonic boom to the explosion. Then she remembered the letter and the discussion with Tayla after school.

  Jennifer filled out the web application for the summer internship at Tovar Studios in early March. She was able to do this behind the closed door of her bedroom. The next step was to fill out a written bio and essay in mid-April. The task became more difficult as she needed to intercept the mail before her mother got home. With her friend Tayla's help, she went to the studio for a thirty-minute interview with three studio executives in May. She told her mom she was going on an outing with her best friend Tayla and then took three buses into Hollywood and back without her mother becoming aware of the plan. The executives thanked her and said she would hear at the end of the month. Thus, on this 27th day of May, Jennifer envisioned that getting the internship was the easy part.

  The most challenging step was getting the permission of her mother, chief legal counsel at GGG. When Jennifer proposed the venture, her mother had forbidden it in no uncertain terms. She pleaded with her daughter to be reasonable and not even consider applying to Tovar Studios. Sheila had gone so far as to offer her an internship at GGG working with the computer engineers who created special effects. The argument was not resolved

  Jennifer’s academic credentials were impeccable. By the end of her junior year, her high school transcripts showed that she completed six courses at the Advanced Placement level, achieving a five on the test in four of them including Calculus BC, generally taken by seniors. She took the SATs a year early, making the 99th percentile in both Verbal and Math. But the truth was that she achieved much, much more.

  Growing up in the valley, all her friends had stars in their eyes. Each one expected someday to either marry a movie star or become one. At seven years old, Jennifer knew that she was much smarter than her classmates as well as being five inches taller.

  One day when she came home from school with scrapes and bruises. Sheila said, “Did you hurt yourself today?”

  “Mom, I try as hard as I can. I play hard. I try to be as good at sports like other kids, but I keep falling. I'm uncoordinated. And then the kids laugh and call me a nerd.”

  Sheila squatted down and looked directly at her, “Jen, you are tall for your age, and the kids are a little bit scared of how smart you are. But never quit trying. Never give up on meeting your standards.”

  Jennifer knew that her superpower was her fantastic intellect. She knew this long before her mother told her about the phone call. “Jen, the school psychologist called and you hit a high number on her test.”

  Jennifer stood up straight, “What was my IQ?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?” Sheila frowned as she deliberated whether to share the information.

  “I've taken IQ tests on the web, and I always ace them.”

  “That’s just what you did. You got a 175, but the psychologist recommends that we take you to UVN for more testing. Do you want to be a lab rat?”

  It wasn't the first time that Sheila Gallagher had an adult conversation with her precocious preteen. “Jen, do you want to go through a battery of tests in a laboratory with people in white coats?”

  At the age of seven, Jennifer said, “Why not? It sounds interesting, and I'm curious.” Her mother was happy and proud of her daughter’s standard answer when asked if she would like to participate in new and different experiences.

  Dr. Allen Goldstein was a practicing neurosurgeon at the University of Van Nuys Hospital with a second doctorate in Child Psychology. He was a friend and mentor of the psychologist who tested Jennifer at school. He was very interested when she told him about the seven-year-old prodigy. Dr. Goldstein received the referral and arranged to spend a day with Jennifer the summer after second grade. A few days later, he called her mother

  “Ms. Gallagher, we analyzed the results from last Tuesday, and found that Jennifer scored an IQ of two hundred and six, the highest score ever tabulated. Statistically, it means if she were in a room with all twelve point eight billion people in the world, she would likely be the smartest person in the room,” he said.

  “Two hundred and six?”

  “Also, we believe that Jennifer has an extremely rare form of eidetic memory we've never seen before. We believe that your daughter can remember one hundred percent of all that she sees, hears, and feels. You must understand that this is a blessing and a curse. You might consider enrolling your daughter in specialized counseling to check in and help Jennifer handle ongoing bad memories especially if she's experiencing nightmares. Also, Jennifer learns all that she can remember and when she learns something new she can conceptualize it in the context of all that she's able to remember. We would like you to bring your daughter down for three days of tests so that we can measure her intellectual capabilities more accurately.”

  At that point, Sheila made a prescient decision. “Dr. Goldstein, I don't believe that my daughter wants to become a lab rat so I'll decline at this time. But, let’s keep in touch. If after a couple of years of my daughter just being a kid UVN is willing to offer Jennifer some enrichment activities which will fulfill her curiosity, I'll allow you to participate and do your evaluations as a part of that.”

  Dr. Goldstein replied, “That’s a deal, and it will give me a chance to formulate a grant for my colleagues in the psychology department to form a proposal. From here out, call me Allen. I look forward to chatting with you and, of course, Jennifer.”

  “Allen, call me Sheila. Over time, my daughter’s precocity has forced me to look for more interesting outlets to occupy her mind. Her outgoing curiosity and friendly personality don't lend themselves to boredom, but I know that it's just a matter of time before friends, school, and our activities won’t be enough to keep her challenged.”

  “I'll work with our psychology department members and the university to develop a plan to keep her engaged as well as give us an opportunity to work with the unique mind that your daughter possesses.”

  Over the next few months, Dr. Goldstein developed a friendship with Sheila that led to periodic dinners.

  The summer after third grade, Jennifer’s mother sat down with Jennifer. “Dr. Allen called me to let you know that UVN has opened their undergraduate online course library to you. Some courses are off-limits because of your age, and some courses must be taken at the same time the course is offered on campus. The university will keep me informed of your progress and let me know of any problems, otherwise you will do this on your own. He said that the online catalog includes some college courses that are offered to advanced high school students and some courses that can be taken by regular high school students. Are you interested?”

  With a wide smile and gleaming eyes, Jennifer said, “Sure, Mom. When can I start?”

  “Dr. Allen sent me the link so you can start right after dinner for a couple of hours before bedtime. But, remember, I don’t want you to become obsessed and not take part in the summer activities that we planned,” her mother instructed. “And remember, you can browse as many courses as you want but don’t enroll unless you intend to complete it. And…no more than two at a time. Dr. Allen asked in exchange that I take you down for a couple of days each summer for some poking and prodding.”

  “That works, Mom, I'll participate as LabRat One,” Jennifer said.

  “Dr. Goldstein said that you would only have to eat rat pellets while you are in the cage.”

  “Eww, Mom,” Jennifer squinted her eyes harshly. “There's one more thing,” Jennifer tilted her head towards the garden. “My friends are starting to tease me sometimes. The kids are starting to notice that I'm a lot smarter than they are. I know that you want me to get a
ll A’s, and I do, but sometimes in class and on homework, I make dumb mistakes so that the other kids believe that I'm only a little bit smarter than they are.”

  Her mother raised her eyebrows, “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, I know that my mind is my superpower, but I don’t want to use it around my friends because they might not understand it and it might make them feel afraid or like I'm different,” Jennifer said.

  “I'm guessing that you have a solution?” her mom winked.

  “Mom, you know how, in the comic books, all of the superheroes have secret identities. You know, SuperGirl is Kara Danvers.” Sheila nodded. “Well, I'd like to have a secret identity when I take classes at UVN. And that way none of my friends or teachers at school would know about my superpower. I wouldn’t be totally stupid in class, but I might play the part from time to time. They would probably laugh at my mistakes, but they would be laughing with me. And…they wouldn’t pick on me…much.”

  Her mom considered. “Jennifer, that's a great idea, and you have given it a lot of contemplation but have you thought about how incredibly difficult it is for a superhero, even in the comics, to keep their identity secret. I mean, this is reality, and it might be a lot harder than on paper.”

  Jennifer bit her lip. “Mom, I’ve thought about it, and I know that I might slip up and ruin it but I like this idea better than becoming the intellectual supernerd at school and in front of my friends.”

  Her mom was now almost laughing, partly from nervousness and partly from shock and awe at this cerebral superstar who was her daughter. “So, what shall we call my daughter, the intellectual supernerd college kid?”