The demonstration began the following day, but as was their way, the An’Atee scientists did not just demonstrate their final results. They led Greg and the others through the progression they had followed themselves, leaving out most failures and reinforcing the successes. A large number of unmanned drone ships had been constructed for the project in order to limit the risks to crews. The drone ships were tiny, essentially just powerplants, drives, and computers.
“We know,” Dr. Tessle began, “that when a ship activates its StarDrive close to other ships, those ships disappear. Presumably they are destroyed, though the ship under StarDrive is untouched. That is how Greg escaped from the Harbok.” He looked around to make sure they were with him so far, then he continued. “We began our tests with inanimate objects. Here is what happened.”
He focused their attention on the main screen which showed, among other things, a lone drone ship surrounded by numerous asteroids placed in a spherical pattern, cluttering space about the drone. The drone received its command to jump, and it disappeared. Nothing else happened. The asteroids remained exactly as they had been.
“Our first test surprised us,” he explained triumphantly, “though it has not been our biggest surprise. As you can see, the rocks are unaffected. Ordinary matter is immune to whatever happens when we energize the StarDrive. Actually, that is nice to know. Our ships cannot hurt a planet, for example.”
Greg, Kannick, and Arlynn exchanged meaningful glances. Greg’s offer to vaporize Haldor, an offer made only to test the World Council of the An’Atee, would have failed. That was important knowledge.
“Our next experiment consists of two drone ships. One will activate its Drive and the other will not. Observe,” he stated, turning to the screen.
One ship instantly winked out of existence, but the other remained precisely where it had been.
Greg was stunned. “How can that be?” he demanded incredulously.
“Just another point of understanding,” Dr. Tessle smiled. “The second ship was powered-up, but it was coasting. Neither its normal drive nor its StarDrive were in use. The StarDrive treated the second ship as if it were an inanimate object, the same way it treated the asteroids. Something else to know, is it not?” he queried Greg with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Okay, I get the message,” Greg responded, chagrinned. “I can’t assume anything here, can I?”
“Definitely not,” Dr. Tessle replied. “We thought we’d get your attention with that one, but it was not shown to trick you. Again, it’s an essential point to understand. Surrounding ships are unaffected unless they are under way.”
Dr. Tessle placed his hands behind his back and paced for a moment. “The next most logical demonstration is to show you what happens when the command drone activates its StarDrive when in close proximity to another ship which is itself underway.” He paused to see if they were following him, and they were, so he continued. “We’d like to skip that step. These drones are not inexpensive,” he added, looking Greg in the eye.
“Did you get the results you anticipated?” Greg asked openly.
“Precisely the anticipated results. The second ship flares into oblivion. We’ll demonstrate if you would like.”
“No, we know what happens, and I’ve reviewed the recordings of my own escape. The ships surrounding me just disappeared in a flash.” He thought for a moment, then added, “How close do the other ships have to be?”
“Fairly close. Because of the costs involved, we discussed among ourselves showing you recordings of our experiments in an effort to save the drones, but we decided that you should get the full impact of our findings. The next demonstration will take about an hour to set up.”
Greg pursed his lips, knowing that all this came from his Alliance budget. He could have learned all this by watching a recording, yet he held his tongue. For some reason, Dr. Tessle wanted him to observe demonstrations in real time.
When the demonstration resumed, some one thousand drones were positioned about the primary drone in a spherical pattern ranging from a few miles to many thousands of miles. All the drones were underway and maintaining their position relative to the test drone.
Dr. Tessle looked around the bridge to assure himself that they were ready for the demonstration. “Go ahead,” he announced to the nearby prime ship that was running the test.
Space flared around the primary drone. When their eyes adjusted, they saw a significant hole in the sphere of drones. Dr. Tessle gave them time to ponder what they were seeing, then he clarified the test results. “That cost us about 30 drones,” he stated solemnly. “Everything within about 50 miles of the primary drone no longer exists.”
Greg, Arlynn, and Kannick each found their way to seats on shaky legs.
“Fifty miles!” Kannick exclaimed. “I see why we’ve required two hundred for our own ships all these years.”
“Indeed,” Dr. Tessle agreed. Then, in a subdued voice he added, “We’ve run extensive tests with varying numbers of ships. It does not matter how many ships we place within the 100-mile diameter volume of space. They all disappear every time. Would you like further demonstrations to assuage your curiosity?”
Greg looked to Arlynn and Kannick who shook their heads. “I guess not,” he responded, turning back to Dr. Tessle. His thoughts whirled, thinking about the tactical uses of what he had just seen. They had a lot of work ahead of them in simulators. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said. “Please let everyone involved with these tests know that I appreciate their efforts. You’ve done a great job.”
“We’re not done, Greg,” Dr. Tessle replied grimly. “We have two more demonstrations for you. Each of them will take a full day to set up.”
Greg stood up and approached the scientist. “Do I sense other concerns here, Doctor?”
“Of course you do. We know what you plan to do with the results of our work. We struggle daily with issues of morality and propriety.”
Greg appreciated Tessle’s issue—the An’Atee were fundamentally opposed to killing, and for the scientists and engineers who actually helped develop weapons that killed . . . well, it added a deeper dimension to their struggle.
“We’re in a fight for our very survival, and we might not win. Still, I understand, Doctor,” he said, “and I sympathize with you and your staff. I would thank them, but some of them would interpret my words as tasteless or inappropriate. Let them know that I know how hard this is for them. War is an ugly business in every way, but the Oort are creatures from your worst nightmare. They have to be stopped.”
Tessle sighed. “We know. You and I have been over this before. Discussion does not help. The science part of this is stimulating and challenging. The rest is . . . difficult. Nevertheless, we persevere. What you are going to see over the next couple of days will prove to you, and to the Harbok, that the An’Atee can make a material difference during a battle against the Oort.”
Greg recalled the stories about the scientists on the Manhattan Project who had developed the atom bomb. They, too, had faced a similar philosophical dilemma. Though this weapon bore no resemblance to the mass annihilation of civilians that the atom bomb portended, in the eyes of the An’Atee, there was no difference. To them, intelligent life was intelligent life. To them, there was no differentiation between whose side one was on. These scientists had to make a choice every day to continue their work, a choice that Greg understood and with which he empathized.
They gathered on the bridge again the next day. The screen showed drones placed precisely as they had been on the previous day, but this time there were two primary drones in the middle, separated by three hundred miles. Around them, drones were scattered out to thousands of miles.
Dr. Tessle began his presentation. “We assumed, based on the fact that the destructive field reaches some 50 miles from the primary drone, that each of these ships would create its own field of destruction within the sphere of drones. We were wrong, but let me regress slightly.” He operated controls, and vector arr
ows appeared on the screen attached to each of the primary drones. A box with course data appeared below each of them. “Most of our efforts out here focused on what you will see today and tomorrow. The previous experiments were quite simple, but these next two are not. In fact, you will remember that we needed the facilities of a baseship to develop and manufacture special equipment for the primary drones. We had to resolve two issues of critical importance. First, the primary drones must be on precisely the same vector. Second, and the hardest problem to resolve, was that they must activate their StarDrives at precisely the same instant. We’re talking nanoseconds here, folks. An activation signal from one drone to the other, even traveling at light speed, was not accurate enough. We had to synchronize the activating mechanisms on each ship to accuracies heretofore unheard of outside the laboratory.”
He touched controls, and a white line appeared between the two drones. “Though not visible to the naked eye, each ship is communicating with the other via light signals. Many, many signals go back and forth, pulling timepieces aboard each ship closer and closer to perfection with each iteration. Watch what happens.”
Space suddenly flared around the primary drones, momentarily washing out the screens aboard the prime ship. When the screens refreshed, a sphere some five hundred miles across was empty of drones.
Kannick, Arlynn, and Greg stared dumfounded at the results of the test. Dr. Tessle gave them time to digest the results, then he clarified what they had seen. “With two ships, the field of each merges with the other. The result is a logarithmic expansion of both fields. In other words, joining two fields creates a field much larger than its individual parts.”
“Awesome,” Greg stated, staring intently at the field empty of drones. “How have you managed to prevent your fleets from destroying themselves all these years?”
“We rarely travel in fleets, Greg,” Kannick replied. “Our fleets are carried inside the bellies of larger ships. On the occasions when multiple ships travel as a unit, each computes and executes its own jump. Seconds, rather than nanoseconds, separate the ships. Am I right, Doctor?”
“Precisely correct, Kannick. Compared to the complex timing you just observed, multiple ship units essentially activate their drives one at a time. Perhaps of intellectual value only, our measurements indicate that, although the two ships had considerable velocity relative to the drones, the hole they created was not stretched out along the direction of travel. In other words, the hole we created was not elongated along the flight path of the primary drones. The effect they create is essentially instantaneous in all directions.”
“You think,” Greg noted absently.
“No, we know the dimensions precisely. We have sacrificed a lot of drones in the process.”
“Does a baseship make a larger hole?” Greg asked.
“Sir! We wouldn’t even consider using manned ships in our experiments. What if our timing was a little off?”
Greg considered his next words carefully before speaking. “When do you move on to the next stage, Doctor?”
A slight sheen of sweat broke out on Dr. Tessle’s forehead. “When you give the word, Greg. That is our reason for bringing you out here. There is absolutely no room for error in this process. Any ship not tuned to perfection will be destroyed. So will everyone aboard that ship. Tomorrow you will gain a deeper understanding of what I mean.”
“It gets better?”
“It gets more complex. In answer to your earlier question, whether baseships have larger fields or not, the answer is probably yes. We have not tested a baseship field, but we have experimented with the field of a prime ship. The field is larger, though not significantly larger. Our experiments are not yet complete.”
Kannick asked, “What happens to the drones that are destroyed?”
“You’ve seen the flare-ups. We theorize that when the StarDrive field reacts with the drives aboard the drones, those drives turn into pure energy and take the rest of the ship with it.”
“Are you getting a better understanding of how the StarDrive works?”
“Only marginally. Our goal here, as established by the Alliance, does not include that. I would very much like to see our efforts expanded into that sphere.” He gave Greg a hard, suggestive look.
“The war comes first,” Greg said softly. “Subsequent investigation, at a more leisurely rate, will be possible in time, but you know as well as I do that you’ll get sidetracked from our purpose here if you digress into pure research. Let’s talk about it over dinner.”
During the night, project scientists prepared the demonstration for the next day. Again, Greg, Arlynn and Kannick gathered with Dr. Tessle in the control room of the prime ship. This time the prime ship was considerably farther away from the demonstration. The ship’s computers magnified the view of the demonstration area for their benefit.
“Today’s demonstration is a natural expansion of what you observed yesterday,” Dr. Tessle began. “The mechanics of the process are almost mind boggling.”
Greg observed two groups of drones approaching each other. A massive sphere of target drones simulated an enemy force that was spread across many thousands of miles. A small group of primary drones approached the target drones in a formation unlike anything he had seen before. Dr. Tessle had arranged them in three flat plates perpendicular to their flight path. The center plate contained 15 primary drones. When Dr. Tessle added the laser timing beams between drones, the large center plate resembled a snow flake. Out in front of the center plate, three additional primary drones in a triangular pattern led the formation. Three more primary drones followed behind the center plate. Bright white timing lines connected all the ships together, creating a stunningly beautiful array. The three flat plates of ships held their positions rigidly. They would soon intercept, then pass through the sphere of target drones.
“The purpose of the drones ahead of and behind the primary group is to shape the field created by the rest of the ships when they jump. Each ship is communicating with the command ship in the center and with each other, adjusting their timing mechanisms. The timing system is key, and it is incredibly sophisticated. Are you ready?”
They nodded. Dr. Tessle spoke to the communications officer. “All ships, point 6 shielding. Execute when ready.” He turned back to Greg and said, “We learned the hard way that we need extra shielding to protect the sensors aboard our ships. Observe.”
It happened quickly. The attacking drones merged with the sphere of target drones, then the screen flared as it had the day before. When it refreshed, space was empty. There were no drones, primary or otherwise on the display. Silence pervaded the bridge as shields returned to normal settings. Still, space remained empty where the drones had been.
“There you have it, Mr. Chairman,” Dr. Tessle stated.
Greg had difficulty finding words as his mind tried to grasp the significance of what he had just seen. He turned to Kannick who returned his look with glazed eyes. Greg took a deep breath. “Did what I think happened just happen?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” Dr. Tessle replied. “Actually, this was one of our more successful demonstrations. It appears that our improvements to the timing system worked. Usually, one or two of the primary drones remain behind, a result of failure of their timing systems to merge with the others. We programmed an emergency shutdown mode into each drone for just such an eventuality. Provided it deactivates its drive before the other ships jump, it is not harmed. If it fails to deactivate its drive, the field treats it the same way it treats the target drones. It’s one of many lessons we learned the hard way.”
“How do you know the others made it safely?” Kannick asked with concern, knowing that the drones would one day be manned fighting ships.
“We won’t know until they return tomorrow. Had those ships been manned, they would know the success or failure the moment they complete the jump.”
“And the attacking drones?” Greg asked.
“Gone. Every one of them. The field
you just observed extended out approximately one light-second in all directions from the attacking fleet.”
“You mean to say that 21 ships took out everything within 300,000 miles?” Greg asked, questioning his calculations.
“Actually, a bit more,” Dr. Tessle replied. “Are you satisfied with your weapon?” he queried, looking between the three of them with a grim expression.
Greg sighed outwardly, but inwardly, excitement gripped him. “Congratulations, Doctor,” he answered. “How soon will we know if it works with real ships?”
“It will work,” Dr. Tessle replied with a shake of his head. “Get your shipyards ready for fitting the new system. We’ll run more experiments, but there is nothing to prevent it from working with real ships. Unless you care to include the cost of failure.”
Chapter Thirteen
Phase one of the training for Grayson’s recruits ended before Greg returned from the test area. Years had fallen from Grayson and his recruits—the older people looked like they had lost thirty years, and they felt like they had lost even more. Everyone had completed customized programs of physical therapy, even children who needed it.
The An’Atee had approved the establishment of the Alliance, but Greg knew that most of them shut their eyes to the true reality of an Alliance whose purpose was to fight. For that reason, he kept the existence of the recruits from Earth as low key as he could. Following the completion of phase one, guides headed out to all quarters of the globe, leading recruits who they described as ‘pioneers’ to the general populace. Since pioneers from the colony planets did make visits to the home world from time to time, and since generations of colonists had grown up not ever having seen Ariall, this did not seem out of the ordinary.
Phase Two of the training began in earnest. Simulators and real ships stayed busy day and night. Alliance staff had expanded An’Atee training rooms and programs, and they had built additional simulators to supplement those already in existence, but real ships could be placed in their simulator modes to handle initial training as well. Recruits learned normal ship handling—takeoffs and landings, docking, navigation and flight planning, emergency procedures, and all the other skills needed to fly ships, then they moved on to tactical training.
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