To Touch the Stars (Founding of the Federation Book 2)

by Chris Hechtl

  The captain nodded but looked thoughtfully to the XO. “Never underestimate the willingness of people to make more work for themselves,” he said.

  She grunted. “I was going to say the willingness to stick their nose into something … or maybe dig in,” she said as Ibraham's shoulders hunched a bit. The guy was a bit sensitive she realized, he had a thin skin. She nodded to him. “But you know your work schedule. If you can help, do so. But don't get in over your head. Especially when the probes get closer,” she warned.

  “Aye, ma'am,” he replied with a dutiful nod. “When the probes start launching subprobes, I'm really excited to see what they pick up. This is going to be awesome!” he said, practically quivering in delight. The chief engineer snorted softly.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  The ship's news was filled with reports daily from the probes as they discovered new things. The system had only rocky planets like Mercury and a pair of small sparsely populated asteroid belts. It had several asteroid moons, tiny things less than a couple kilometers in diameter. The excitement over the discovery of an unknown planet waned when they found out it was another dwarf planet on the edge of the inner most belt. She was battered, pockmarked by collision scars. According to Ibraham a rather large asteroid was on a collision course with it. It would impact in sixty years, most likely shattering both. The system's lack of heavenly bodies was a bit of a disappointment for some among the crew, but they knew they were going to get to see a “proper” system soon enough. Anticipation began to build over their next jump.

  Ibraham tried to remind them to not get their hopes up. A binary star system was not conductive to planetary formation. But the meme had stubbornly held for centuries that there would be planets in the Alpha Centauri system. Once his people were done scanning and cataloging the system, he turned some of his telescopes to their next destination with the hope of being proven wrong.

  It took two months to pass over the system and through her thin Oort cloud. While they transited the system the probes sent back mountains of data which they streamed live back to Sol for further analysis. The sub probes that had landed on sites on each of the planets reported no signs of life. Each of the rocky planets were barren disappointing rock. The Neptune class gas giants were equally disappointing, none had a moon capable of harboring life.

  They marked the occasion of passing through her heliopause to their next jump point with another party. The engineers took the time to unwind. The Captain turned a blind eye to the still the crew had set up, though he was malicious about everyone doing their duty the next day. Jamey had been tempted to try the rotgut, but Kathy had firmly told him no so he'd reluctantly obeyed. He was glad the next day; there was quite the line of groaning people waiting outside sickbay. From what he heard, there wasn't much sympathy from the medics on duty. Even Doctor Asurabi was a bit hungover. At least that was what the scuttlebutt said, pointing out his wearing sunglasses inside the ship as proof. Kathy was quite amused by that.

  When they were ready, they jumped the 0.2 light years to Alpha Centauri. Fortunately the journey would only take them four days as long as they didn't wander off course. Jamey set up a comparison bot to see how far they wandered off course so he and the navigator could find better ways to compensate. He was certain something was going on; they were zigging when they were supposed to zag or something else was off. He'd already tightened the variables up; he knew what the hyperdrive could do now with real world experience to back him. But something was still off on the navigational side, he was sure of it.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  The ship exited her hyperspace jump just outside the heliopause marker of Alpha Centauri, only a dozen AU outside their intended exit point. “Now that's more like it!” the XO crowed, patting the navigator on the shoulder. He nodded back to her as his face cracked into a grin of relief.

  Probes were sent out as the engineers swung back into action. Kathy oversaw the crews working on the dolphin life support before she headed off to her lunch date with Jamey.

  They were quiet, eating in companionable silence, listening to the crew chatter about one subject or another. Jamey groaned when he realized they had more tear downs in their future. Just about everything would be taken apart, checked over, documented, and then reassembled. Kathy kissed her husband on the cheek. “So, you'd better take a shower before you go to bed tonight. And clean under the fingernails good,” she said as she picked up her lunch tray.

  “I will,” he said dutifully, but she could see he was already distracted with the 100 and 1 things he had to do in the next half shift. She rolled her eyes but decided not to give him a hard time about his preoccupation.

  “See you at home later?” he asked as he got to his feet.

  “Of course,” she said. “My shift ends at the same time yours does. So, we might take that shower together,” she teased wickedly. He had the grace to blush. “Right?” She asked, hip bumping him.

  “Yes, ma'am,” he said, free hand straying to her flank. He gave it a gentle squeeze as she gave him a soft endearing smile. Then they were apart as he headed to the exit.

  The whisker laser had already been fired up and shot back home; it was all becoming routine she realized as she made her way to buss the tray. They planned to spend four to six months exploring the system before they returned to Sol.

  “Parades and such, ugh. Give me a good old fashioned life support tear down any day,” an engineer griped from a table nearby.

  “You know you'll love it,” another joked. “All the girls will be fawning over you,” she teased. He snorted but then got a thoughtful look. She winked at Kathy in passing. Kathy smiled as she continued on her way.

  She was looking forward to getting back to Sol if only because she and Jamey planned to remain. Their adventure was done; they'd discussed it. Now that he was certain it worked Jamey wanted to spend his time in the lab refining the new better designs. She wanted to get back to the dolphin community. She also wanted to do something she wasn't sure how to bring up with him, start a family. Even with modern medicine, her biological clock was ticking ever closer to menopause. She had seen what Aurelia had gone through, just catching it under the wire with Zack and the other kids. She didn't want to do that. She didn't want to go through menopause while dealing with a toddler.

  She wanted to pencil in some time to talk to him but didn't see or feel the urge to do it right away. Besides, with his preoccupation with the engineering tear downs he'd be grumpy she reasoned. She frowned thoughtfully.

  She paused to listen to a pair of sensor techs discussing the system. There were a hundred humans on board and a dozen dolphins. Apparently there had been some amused pipe dreams about starting an offshoot of the human race if a habitable world was found. That had been put to rest already, spectrographic analysis of the moons and planets had proven what astronomers had known for centuries, Alpha Centauri didn't have a habitable world. At least not one for humans, Kathy mused. Though, with a bit of tinkering they could terraform a few of the worlds she thought. She was amused when one of the techs brought it up.

  “Are we going to refuel?” Kathy asked them. They turned to her in surprise. “I mean, aren't we low?”

  “The ship was designed to jump five times I believe, ma'am. And we have enough fuel for us to maintain our station for at least four maybe five months,” Kermit told her.

  She nodded. Kermit Saint James was a good guy; he had a Louisiana southern drawl that was cute. He was tall and lean, he had to duck in some compartments. He had incredibly dark skin, almost jet black. “We have a healthy reserve. Okay, got that. But I mean, why not tank up? Top off I mean?”

  “Because we can't, ma'am,” the other tech who she barely knew said, trying not to roll his eyes to Kermit. “There are no tankers to refuel us here.”

  “No, I meant find a handy comet or water source.”

  “We can't, ma'am; we don't have the equipment,” Kermit said, shaking his head. “Sorry, Doc.”

  “Oh.”

/>   “Don't worry. We'll be just fine. We're not going to cross the system the skipper said, just sort of linger here and get the data from the probes. Once we're through we'll mosey on home. And now that the navigators got the bugs out, we should be home lickety split,” Kermit said with an infectious grin.

  “I do believe you’re right,” Kathy said, returning the smile with a small one of her own. She nodded to both gentlemen. “Thank you,” she murmured as she left them.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  “You know, it just occurred to me, why are we so short legged? Didn't the UN say we can't have star systems this close to Sol?” The XO asked the Captain as they kicked back after the evening meal. The Captain had insisted on a traditional meal with his senior officers; they usually had one every week time permitting. Jamey was substituting for Chief Shiku. The chief had gotten himself tied up in a backup generator tear down. Apparently the work crew had found a couple suspicious metal shavings, and he'd insisted on a more thorough check. The machine shop was on alert if parts were to be ordered.

  Jamey was fairly certain the chief had “found” the shavings in order to weasel his way out of the formal dinner. Wen didn't like Middle Eastern food, it didn't agree with his digestion. That was fine with him; he didn't mind standing in for the chief. But he wished Kathy could have come along as well. She had bowed out when Doctor Asurabi had made another acid comment directed to her patients the previous day. It was a pity since the good doctor had bowed out at the last minute as well; Kathy could have come.

  The captain frowned thoughtfully. He cocked his head to Jamey but the younger man was dabbing his mouth with a napkin. “I'm not sure, one hundred light years isn't too bad a range,” he said slowly. “I think we can pick up some speed, and of course once we shed some of the equipment and get more efficient we'll probably double or triple our range,” Captain Locke said, as they relaxed after the evening meal. He patted his stomach.

  “Actually, the additional sensors and equipment we have isn't amounting to much of a power drain. It is going into hyperspace that sucks up the most power. Maintaining it too, but getting into hyper is the big energy drain,” Jamey explained. “So, if we can keep on course and make the jumps longer, we'll be able to double the range easily. And yes,” he said, turning to the XO as she played with her wine glass. “We can't touch any star system in the one thousand light year range according to the UN. But then again, we're here and they are there …” he ended with a drawl and grin.

  “True,” the XO said with an answering grin.

  “Do you think Mister Lagroose will go back on their word?” Ben asked. Jamey shrugged.

  “Let's not get ahead of ourselves,” the Captain said carefully with an amused snort.

  “Why not?”

  “They'll get here eventually. And the people back there will know something is up when ships do short turn arounds,” the navigator replied. “I can't really blame them, I mean …” He shrugged helplessly.

  “First come first serve?” The XO asked. “We were here first after all.”

  “True.”

  “It's not like we follow a lot of their laws anyway. Some are so far out of date it isn't funny,” Andrea said, shaking her head. She'd rather have brandy but wine was as far as she was willing to push it with the Captain. He was a teetotaler due to his religion. They got along fine. She liked him, but she also liked her spirits.

  “This ship is a prototype. We're not really set up to carry a lot of people or goods. Remember, our shuttles are on the exterior of the inner hull!” the Captain said, shaking his head. He'd wondered about the wisdom of building the ship at her current size. A smaller ship would have meant less crew, but it would have had shorter legs. A larger ship though … “If we get rid of, oh say, half our machine shops, cut out a third of our spares and stores since the bosun packed everything under the sun in there … we can carry, what, about two dozen extra people? With the life support we currently have?” He frowned thoughtfully as Jamey nodded. His hands came together in a steeple. His index fingers tapped his chin as he thought about the problem. “Still, it is nowhere near enough to start a viable colony. Maybe a base, but that is an awful long way from home.”

  “And we wouldn't need to sit in a system and linger for so long. A ship normally spends its time in transit, and it can refuel on either end. If we worked that out, we'd triple our range right there,” he said with a smile. “And we normally don't have to cross a system either.”

  “We might. To get to another system beyond,” Andrea reminded him. He nodded.

  “Why did the starship cross the star system?” the Captain quipped with a small smile. That earned a soft chuckle.

  “I'm working on a proposal to have jump lanes. Jump points, whatever you want to call them. Areas of space where a ship can enter or exit hyper without obstructions near. That will keep turbulence and the danger of running into something in hyper down to a minimum,” Jamey said.

  “I'll endorse that,” Ben said. The Captain nodded in agreement.

  “I still don't understand how we can run into something in hyper. I mean, it's here, we're there …” the XO shook her head.

  Jamey smiled. “Everything has a cost. In this case we theorized that objects in real space project a mass shadow across hyperspace. We were correct. That is what is causing the shoals and other obstacles in hyperspace that the dolphins have to maneuver around. I think it will get more intense the further up the hyperbands we go since the compression will increase.”

  “Too true,” Ben murmured. He turned to Jamey. “I think we can figure out how to do this, the helm I mean, without a dolphin if we can refine the math. Now that we've got experience with it, it's possible,” he said doggedly. “We would free up a lot of space and power there too,” he said. Jamey froze. Ben's bigotry towards the dolphins was well known. He was hoping to get rid of them. It wasn't going to happen in Jamey's estimation. They'd loved piloting the ship.

  “The dolphins are doing their part admirably,” the XO said stoutly, making the navigator back off a bit as she shot a moderate glower his way. “I wish Kaku could be here to eat with us. He is an officer too.”

  “He has issues with gravity environments, ma'am,” Jamey replied smoothly. He wasn't sure what the fin's table manners were like and wasn't sure he wanted to find out in the confines of the wardroom. Though it might be fun to see the expression on Ben's face when the fin tore apart a fish steak …

  “How about you, are you and your wife going to be permanent residents?” the XO asked, changing the subject. Her long fingers lazily traced the rim of her glass.

  “I think not,” Jamey said then chuckled as she cocked her head. “No, I'm not interested in fame or glory. But like you said, this ship is a prototype. Now that I've got field experience and exobytes of data to go through, I and the other design board members can refine the next ship class. Kathy will stay home to return to work with the dolphins.”

  “I see. A new ship class though,” the XO smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Which eventually you'll probably get a chance to skipper,” the Captain said to the XO. She grinned at him. “If you behave.”

  “Oh that's the hard part,” she said lazily. That earned a chuckle. “Just keep me away from a bar and I'm good,” she said with a diffident shrug. That earned another chuckle.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  When Jamey had thought his eyes would bleed from staring at equations and simulations that weren't getting him any further … even Ibraham had given up … he had been pulled off the project to help retune the ship's artificial gravity and inertial dampeners.

  The two systems were interlinked. They had emitters strategically placed around the interior of the ship. They were low level force emitters, a new design Alec Niederman had come up with and one of the reasons they'd been delayed on their journey. Getting them just right was critical but a finicky process. The interaction of the fields was a major headache.

  The fields were weakest the fur
ther out you went from them, which was why they were in the center of corridors. Along the outer hull, the fields were at their weakest. But the inertial dampeners had to be fully functional there or the ship would rip itself apart under sudden acceleration.

  Another problem area was the dolphin habitat and passage to the bridge. They weren't quite in a null gravity field as some of the crew assumed. There were emitters set to a 0.05 gradient which forced the dolphins to “swim” to stay in the air while allowing things like water droplets and waste to eventually fall to the deck to be sucked up and recycled. The emitters were critical there too; they were also inertial dampeners. The fins of course didn't like the work involved in staying afloat. Chri'nick'trill constantly complained to Kathy about the sheer work involved when she was exhausted. Jamey had been concerned, but Kathy had merely given him a wink and sent him off to tune other emitters. Apparently it was a familiar whine.

  “You can't figure out a way to squeeze more oomph out of these babies?” Chief Shiku asked, teasing Jamey.

  Jamey shrugged. “Alec designed this system, I was focused on the drives. I know he had a better more efficient design, one that used less power, but it wasn't finished and we didn't want to wait,” he said.

  The engineering chief rolled his eyes. “That's true. I was about to climb the walls and eat the deck heads if we had another delay.”

  “If we kept delaying to get the latest tech or update we'd never leave,” Jamey said in agreement.

  “I'm wondering what they've come up with in our absence,” the chief said. He exhaled slowly in a long suffering sigh. “Something tells me we're going to be in for more than a regular overhaul when we get back. An upgrade too. Which means we'll have to relearn everything as we get the bugs out damn it,” he said in annoyance. Jamey shrugged. “Well, come on. We've got that field to work on near the starboard shuttle hatch. I'm concerned about stress fractures there.”

  “Okay, I think it's reinforced but we can go have a look,” Jamey said amiably. The chief nodded as he patted him on the shoulder, then waved the younger man on.