Warp Speed

by Travis S. Taylor

  "HOSC, do you copy?" Tabitha repeated.

  "Come on, Jim, where are you?" I looked at Tabitha's DCM.

  "Give me the bad news, Anson."

  "We still have about three hours of air left. That is plenty of time." I assured her. Plenty of time for what neither of us would admit. It takes days at best, usually weeks, to get a Shuttle ready for launch and about the same time for a Russian rocket. It takes even longer for a Chinese rocket. We discussed the possibility of the Crew Return Vehicle on the ISS.

  "HOSC, are you there?" I said. "The CRV could never get to us in time. At full thrust I don't think it could make it to us in three hours."

  "Maybe, Anson. Don't give up."

  "Who's giving up? Jim, are you there?" I turned to her and approached. I hugged her suit as best I could and touched my faceplate to hers.

  "I love you, Tabitha."

  "Well, you may not live to regret that." She smiled.

  Twenty or so minutes had passed and still no response from the HOSC. We were beginning to think nobody would find the signal.

  "Jim, are you there? Huntsville, is anybody there? This is Anson Clemons--come in, Earth!" I was ready to try something else.

  "Roger that, Dr. Clemons. This is Mission Control being patched through the HOSC. Is Colonel Ames with you? And what has happened?" It wasn't Jim's voice, but we didn't care. Tabitha took command.

  "Mission Control, this is Shuttle Commander Tabitha Ames. The Shuttle Orbiter has been completely destroyed by some type of internal explosion. I repeat. The Shuttle Orbiter has been completely destroyed. The cause is unknown. Dr. Anson Clemons and I are the only survivors. We each have," she looked at her DCM readout, "roughly two hours and thirty-nine minutes of air left. Please advise on possible rescue scenario. The probe ACS thrusters are off-line and out of fuel and O2."

  "Roger that, Commander. Understand that we are working on escape possibilities. We will advise you momentarily," Control replied.

  "Roger, Houston."

  The response came five minutes later--it seemed like forever.

  "Colonel Ames, Tabitha, uh, we haven't got a working scenario that will save both of you. If you two have any suggestions, we're open for it down here." Hal Thompson was talking now. He was the boss down at Mission Control. I had met him a few times. He was shooting straight with us.

  "Houston, this is Clemons. What do you mean by you can't save us both?" I had an idea what he meant, but I had to hear it.

  "We don't have another Shuttle anywhere near ready for launch. We have called the Russians and the Chinese. The Chinese have one on the launch pad but they won't be ready for launch for at least another seven hours or so. The Crew Return Vehicle is your only hope. It's already enroute to your location. The Hohmann Transfer required will take about four hours to reach you and another couple of minutes to match velocities with you. That's all we have right now. Sorry." Hal truly sounded sorry. I knew he was right. I had been running rough order of magnitude calculations in my head. One of us would have to survive long enough for the CRV to make it to us. Only one of us could with the combination of air from both suits--it would be Tabitha. At least she would make it. I told her it had to be her.

  "No way! Anson, there's a better solution," Tabitha cried.

  "Tabitha. It is the only way. You have a daughter back home. There's no choice to be made here." Heinlein always said (through his character Lazarus Long) that he wasn't afraid of death and that he knew it was part of the deal. I can't say that I'm that philosophical about it. Maybe I'm just not the superman he was. Death scares the living hell out of me. But I had to make sure Tabitha made it home alive. If I didn't do that, what kind of husband would I be?

  "Stuff that, Anson. No way, period. End of that. You're the smart one--figure it out!"

  "Houston, how long until I have to stop using my oxygen in order to give Tabitha time to wait for the CRV plus a few minutes of extra air?"

  "Just a second on that, Anson," Hal replied solemnly.

  "We'll see how long we have to work other solutions," I told Tabitha.

  "Guys, this is Hal. Flight surgeon says that one of you would have to stop breathing in sixty-one minutes for the other to make it long enough for the CRV to get there."

  "Okay, Hal. We have an hour to work this out. Get Jim at the HOSC on the circuit now. He might can help."

  "Roger, Anson. It's already done." Hal replied.

  "Jim, here, buddy. I heard it all so far. This bites. What do you need from me?" Jim asked.

  "I don't know yet, Jim. I do have one question for you though."

  "Yeah, what is it?"

  "Will you be my best man at my wedding? Tabitha said yes!"

  "You got it, Anson! Congratulations. Let's get you home first." Jim said.

  No brilliant ideas hit any of us. The one idea I had was to use the large electromagnets in the warp coil to generate a magnetic sail from the material in the upper atmosphere at LEO. The sail would then surf along the Earth's magnetic field. The idea would be to set up a mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion (M2P2) system. The probe was far too massive and the coils would have to be reconfigured. Another task that couldn't be accomplished from an EMU. I decided then that if I survived this I was going to invent a better damn spacesuit or better yet some sort of magical warp bubble that would wrap around you like Spandex. But, first things first!

  "There is no way to adjust the coils to set up the magnetic sail at all? We can't get any thrust that way?" I asked Jim after we'd been through the math a few times. I looked at my DCM. I only had about ten minutes left before the big decision. Tabitha remained quiet most of the time.

  "Sorry, Anson. I don't see how you could get in there and redirect the field. Zephram was designed to warp space not build plasma balls. Too bad you can't just warp to the station. Damnit! What are we going to do?"

  "What did you say!?"

  "I said too bad--" Jim began again.

  "Skip it, Jim. I know what you said. That's the answer. We'll warp home!" I cried over the UHF. It could work! I would save Tabitha and myself!

  "Anson, you know as well as I do that you can't warp around the Earth. The rotation causes to much frame dragging for you to know where you would end up. You can't warp around the Earth to the ISS or the CRV. Our calculations just aren't sophisticated enough for that," Jim concluded sadly.

  "Jim, who said anything about the ISS. I said home. Earth!"

  "What?" Jim exclaimed.

  "The warp can be radially outward from the Earth so why can't it be radially inward to the Earth? We just never thought of that. Start running the numbers. Tabitha and I will start preflight on the probe."

  "Anson, are you serious? This could be risky. You might miscalculate and come out of warp too high or too low and smack!"

  "Jim don't forget that the warp position errors will be along the Earth's surface due to its rotation; the frame dragging problem will cause angular errors in our calculations by maybe as much as a kilometer or two. The radial position errors should only be a few meters or so. Theoretically at least," I responded.

  I adjusted my visor and looked at Tabitha. "Tabitha, I can't make this decision by myself. You can still make it to the CRV. My way is very risky. We could come out of warp too high above the ground and fall to our deaths or we could warp into the ground and who knows what that would cause?"

  "Then why not warp out over the ocean?" Jim interrupted.

  "Warping out over the ocean would have pretty much the same effect. Falling more than fifty feet into the ocean might not kill us, but we have no flotation gear so we will sink right to the bottom in these SAFER MMUs attached and the spacesuits at such a low inflation pressure we would be boat anchors. Also, if we ended up too deep we would be crushed by the pressure or just plain drown. Don't forget, we're out of air and these suits are heavy; the boat anchor thing is still the main problem! This spacecraft was only designed to fly in space so there aren't any flotation devices, landing gears, lifelines, or you na
me it; we're just going to have to do a controlled fall close enough to the ground. And one more thing, I would much rather try to walk home with a broken leg or something similar than swim home with one. Face it, anyway you look at it we're screwed, but it is the only way I can think of to get us both home. Tabitha, what do you think?"

  Tabitha pulled her visor up and looked me deep in the eyes. She didn't take her eyes off me as she spoke. "Jim, this is Tabitha. Not only that, I'm not sure the Navy could deploy to rescue us in time, we can't wait here without air and we can't wait in the water in these suits and no air to inflate them, Anson's right, we'll sink! I agree with Anson, I had rather take my chance walking home than swimming home. Get to work on those numbers Anson asked for. Houston you might as well call back the CRV. We won't be here when it arrives." Tabitha looked at me and said, "What the hell. Lets get this preflight started. You aren't getting out of marrying me that easy."

  CHAPTER 10

  It took almost all of the time we had left to prep the probe for warp since Tabitha was out of propellant and had to use the crawl, grab, and tether method. Tabitha looked at her DCM and whistled.

  "Cutting it close, Anson. I have about sixty minutes of air left. How are you doing?"

  "Not much less. I have about fifty-nine. My body weight is more than yours. No matter, we're about ready to fire this thing. Jim you got those last calculations completed?" I broadcast over the makeshift communications network.

  "Here comes, Anson. Gee zero one is zero point zero zero zero one seven. Copy that?"

  "Roger Jim. Gee zero one is zero point zero zero zero one seven. Go next sequence."

  "Gee zero three is zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero six zero one two five."

  "Got it. Gee zero three is zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero six zero one two five. Next sequence." This continued for about seven more sequences. We were rewriting our gravitational metric for an inward travel vector. Jim had--in just a few minutes--completed calculations that had taken mankind millions of years to achieve. He should have gotten accepted to MIT, Princeton, Harvard, or Yale. He didn't get a scholarship and he sure couldn't afford it. Neither could I. We were both products of the state university system. That's okay. We went to the Harvard Karate Open two years ago and put a couple of those Ivy League geeks in the emergency room. Yeah I know, karate is for self-defense and self-defense only. We both had axes to grind. We felt both better and worse afterwards. We never acted like that again and we sent cards to the guys we had fought. I think we both matured some because of that tournament. Besides none of those guys were even close to warping space. We were damn sure going to give it the old state college try.

  "Okay, Anson. That's it. All that's left is hitting the little red button," Jim said.

  "I hope our numbers are right, Jim."

  "Well, you were right about the frame dragging due to Earth's rotation causing position errors mostly along the surface. My calculations suggest maximum x and y position uncertainty of more than five kilometers, but errors in the z direction are only about two meters. And if you come out of warp just a couple of meters low you won't have that deep of a hole to crawl out of. And if you're high, that won't be too far to fall."

  "You guys better be waiting on us in New Mexico when we get there," I told him.

  We had decided to try and warp to the desert in case something went wrong we would probably be the only ones killed. Jim, of course, was kidding. There really is no red button on the probe. The sequence is automated and initiated either from the GUI interface or the uplink from Earth. Tabitha and I decide to do the initiation sequence ourselves. The only thing to do now was wait for New Mexico to roll up underneath us. According to Houston that would be in about fifteen minutes.

  "Tabitha, are you ready for this?" I asked her. I touched her helmet and looked at her.

  "Just as soon as New Mexico rears its ugly head." She laughed. "We'll punch a hole in it."

  "Jeeze! I hope not. The plan is to land gently," I told her.

  "Anson. What about the atmosphere? What happens when we slam into it at the speed of light or however fast it will be?" She looked concerned.

  "We've talked about this a little before remember. General Relativity and Causality won't allow anything to penetrate the forward and rearward portions of the warp bubble. We should be completely shielded."

  "What about Earth?"

  "Well that's why we're aiming for the desert. The air is a little less dense and nobody lives there. Mostly, nobody lives there."

  "Hal, this is Anson. Jim, Tabitha and I are go for the firing sequence. I can see the coast of Lower California," I claimed.

  "Roger Anson. Good luck you guys. God speed. Hal out."

  Jim piped up. "Good luck, you guys. See you soon. Anson, thanks for everything, you know?" He sounded sad.

  "I know, Jim. Don't worry. It's going to work." I held Tabitha's hand and depressed the warp sequence start command.

  "Warp sequence is go," I said.

  "Jim, if we don't make it tell my daughter and my parents that I love them!" Tabitha cried. Tears were slowly running down her cheeks. Tears were running down her cheeks!

  Then the communications went blank. I could see New Mexico rolling up beneath us, then Tabitha and I were in total darkness other than the GUI panel illumination.

  "It'll be just a few more seconds before the ECCs are powered up completely. The bubble must be forming nicely," I said as I surveyed the GUI panel. Then we were surrounded by a sphere of blue flashes of light.

  "When will we know if it worked--aheeey!" Tabitha screamed.

  The world got very bright all of the sudden and I could tell that I was falling. We were falling at one gee. We were at Earth, but where? Then something hit my back hard and rolled me over. Now I was facing downward and I could see that I was falling through a canopy of very thick pine trees. We were at least thirty feet from the ground. Another pine tree limb smacked my faceplate and cracked it, whiplashing me. The fall seemed as though it took hours. It really only took a few seconds for me to crash into the sand at the base of a very large tree. I had landed on my back staring upward. I heard Tabitha thud against the sand a few meters to my left.

  The probe had become entangled in the limbs of the tree and was hanging twenty feet or so above us. I did a quick survey of my body and could feel no breaks or puncture wounds, but I felt like one large bruise. My muscles were still slightly traumatized and I couldn't move yet. The EMU made moving even more difficult. My PLSS was buried no telling how deep in the sand.

  "Tabitha, are you okay? Tabitha?" I yelled. I was able to move my arm enough to open my sun visor, then I twisted and lifted the helmet free. Hot moist and very thick air rushed into my face and nearly choked me. It felt great to be home.

  "Anson, I'm okay, but I think I bruised or broke some ribs. I can't really move. I need help getting up."

  "Me too. I'm kind of stuck in the sand."

  Then the trees above us bent nearly over to the ground and swayed back upright several times. The wind had picked up so strong that several of the smaller pines in my peripheral vision snapped in half. One of the tops of the trees was airborne and collided with the probe in the trees above Tabitha and me. The collision was just enough to jar the probe loose. The wind whipped the trees around and the probe began a gravity-assisted plunge toward us. I screamed like a little girl, but the adrenaline rush from my fight or flight reflexes gave me the strength to roll over and bear-crawl out from under the crashing six-ton spacecraft. I hoped that Tabitha could move. Although I didn't count on it since the spacesuits weigh about three hundred pounds each in one gee of gravity.

  The probe crashed only inches behind me. I was able to stand to my feet with the strength from the adrenaline. I lost the PLSS, HUT, SSA, and helmet as quickly as possible. As quickly as possible was several minutes. I began removing my LCVG gloves and footies and a serious gust of wind caught me and threw me over the probe. My suit partially inflated from th
e hellacious wind but remained weighed down where I removed it. I grabbed at a tree as I flew by it and stabilized my fall.

  "This wind makes no sense at all," I said to myself. I thought possibly it might be some sort of wind vortices anomaly due to the warp bubble appearing then disappearing in the atmosphere. Whatever it was, the air was chaotic as hell now. The wind pushed me over again and I landed about two meters from Tabitha who hadn't moved when the probe fell. An ECC support tube was across her left leg. Fortunately she was lying in sand and the tube merely forced her deeper into the soft ground. I dug her out and dragged her from beneath the tube.

  "How are you?" I asked.

  "I'm okay. What is happening?"

  The bottom fell from the sky as torrential rainfall pounded us. The winds grew even stronger. The air was getting colder.

  "I ain't sure, Tabitha. Let's get you out of the suit and try to figure out where the hell we are." Pine trees don't grow in the desert, and it was way too humid for New Mexico. As we were getting Tabitha down to her LCVGs the weather turned for the worse. It began hailing golfball-to-baseball size chunks of ice. Tabitha and I crawled under one of the ECCs for protection. Then lightning struck a tree about ten feet away from us. The tree burst about five feet from the ground and fell over. It landed on one of the other ECCs with a loud crash and pieces of the device were scattered about. We huddled together under the protection of ECC two.

  I could hear even stronger winds and the lightning increased. The hail continued to pummel the ECC. Tabitha pointed out several treetops flying off into the sky.