by Jim Rudnick
Both responded, “aye,” and he went on to get that new tea. One and two sugars … and one and two creams … and the big stir. This tea was the oolong one, which he liked occasionally—he just hoped it’d be today.
Sitting back down in the captain’s chair, he grudgingly hit the next report, and surprise, it was about ordnance down on Deck Eight and the storage of same for their air wings. Seemed some of the restraining straps—guaranteed by the manufacturer—had busted wide open. Permission to contact them direct from Colonel Richards received a “good to go” from Tanner, and he knew he could cross this one off his list. Richards was more than capable in cutting a supplier a new one—and he’d have to try to remember to ask how this one had worked out.
Two more reports came in, and he realized that for everyone he got done, an new one was on its way to his INBOX.
He noted that the helm indicated that twice more, the cargo shuttle under the chief’s orders had disappeared and then reappeared in quick order, but he put that away for now.
An hour later, the chief appeared in person at his side on the bridge, and he quickly put the report on pause as he waved his crewman to follow him to his ready room. There, he sat down at the round side table and turned off the view-screen so that they would be alone in the room with no distractions.
“Chief,” he said, “you caused a bit of uneasiness when your cargo shuttle suddenly disappeared earlier—but we note that you came back. I must ask, what did you find, and more importantly, where did you go?”
The chief tugged on one of his very large earlobes and smiled at the captain. “Sir, you will remember that we were in the process of trying to determine the efficacy of the blue and copper plates and the resulting heights that anti-grav can achieve?”
Tanner nodded. It’d been just a month ago or so since that talk and the resulting dolly-rig to gain access to the terraformer foundries. And he remembered too the talk about the gravity well that the blue plate used to suspend the copper plate.
“Sir, we went further in our hypotheticals—we wondered if what we found on Ghayth was in fact the ‘real’ goods—or a de-tuned version? So we fitted out the cargo shuttle we used today, and here’s what we tested.”
He looked for permission to load a video onto the view-screen and got a positive nod from Tanner. Moments later the belly of the cargo ship was displayed.
“Sir, we first fitted out a satellite—dumb satellite with no Ansible nor controls really of any kind, other than stable placement AI. On it we attached the blue plate, and we used only the original purple gel we found on Ghayth too.”
The camera panned back, and the cargo shuttle was suddenly off Juno in high orbit and on the sunshine side of the planet. There appeared a small map of the RIM itself in the left-hand sidebar of the screen, and Tanner could see Juno lit up and Garnuth also, about ten lights away.
“We oriented the blue plate satellite out into space, we aimed its rear position directly at the Juno sun, and we put it out into space. It represented our hypothetical starting point,” he said.
“We aimed the cargo shuttle directly at the Garnuth system, Sir, and the helm and Ansible held us locked in that orientation.
“Then as we’d already fitted the cargo shuttle out with more than a ton of the purple gel, we added to that copper plate in individual stages hundreds of pounds of that gel. Well, not really, but there was a handful on the plate itself—that was hooked up via tubes to the master pails. We can simply hit a button to add a pound or a ton at an instant. But it’s what happened, Sir, when we hit the switch to start at what we reckon was seven hundred pounds.”
He looked at his captain and smiled. “We were suddenly in the Garnuthian system—in fact, a little past it, but still straight line from Juno to Garnuth.”
Tanner stared at his chief. “In no time? The shuttle went from Juno to Garnuth in less than a second? Ten lights in one second, Chief, is that what you’re telling me?” His voice was low but awed.
The chief nodded, smiled widely, and said, “Aye, Sir. Ten lights in a second.”
Tanner leaned back. “And to return?”
“We turned off the gel delivery, and we popped right back here. Our next tests will be to leave another satellite off Garnuth, with its own blue plate coordinates, and see if we can just jump right back to Juno, Sir.”
“No ill effects? Medical? Ship’s worries?”
“No, Sir, we’re fine and the shuttle is fine—reports coming to your console now.”
Tanner sat still. What had just been discovered—maybe borrowed was a better more honest term—was a new way to move among the stars. Instant travel. Star to star.
He shook his head. “Chief—this is so classified I don’t even want to think about it. Mum’s the word is the order. Take ALL of your videos and streams, and gather same and lock them up—with captain’s EYES ONLY as the class of docs. Talk to your crew too—this cannot get mentioned to anyone over any beers in any bar ever. Got that, Chief?” he asked.
“Wilco. Aye, Sir,” the chief replied.
Moments later, Tanner sat alone.
Alien technology—relics in fact—seemed to be bearing gifts.
He wondered about the comment that the chief thought what they’d found on Ghayth had been less than what the relics were actually created for—and that made him sit and think on it for a long, long time…
CHAPTER SEVEN
At the bar in the OneTon pub, Tanner got the eye from the bartender, but it was followed by a nod and then a free tall soda water with a slice of lemon on top.
Seems like they remember me, which is a good thing, maybe—maybe not, and he almost chuckled right out loud. Balancing that tall soda in one hand, he gathered up the three beers by their stein handles and carefully carried his round down the bar, off to the left around the seating, and into the backroom area where the pool tables were located. Moving around a shooter who was too interested in the seven ball to notice him, he eventually reached the wall shelf and set down the drinks.
“Nice … hope they’re cold,” Alver said and smiled at his captain.
The Atlas had been back on Neres now for over a month, and life had settled down considerably. Normal navy stuff went on, of course, and that included new upgrades for some of the Atlas hardware down in engineering and software updates for the Ansible systems as well. There was a new view-screen update for a display to handle up to 256,000 pixels, which was some detail, Tanner thought. Then there were all the personnel issues; with almost five hundred crewmembers, there were always issues and upsets and, yes, even military case work too.
All in all, normal navy life. He grinned at Bram who’d just made a very lucky shot and had potted the eight ball to win the current game.
“Nice one there, Bram. And I really do mean it, right?” he said and that got a laugh from Kondo, the Atlas XO, who was also on this evening’s outing. They’d all had a hell of a day earlier dealing with the quartermasters who ran the Barony Navy yards over at the navy port, and this was just to blow off some steam.
Bonding, I think they call it somewhere, Tanner thought, but these guys are all brothers … I’d trust them with my life.
He looked down at the break that Alver had just left him—they were playing partners on eight ball, and he saw the red five ball hovering over one pocket—that’s a duck, he knew. But when he sunk that one, that’d make his team solids—and the rest of the solid balls were all buried or cushioned up. “Bad idea, that five,” he said to himself, and instead he chalked up and took aim down the whole length of the table to try to cut the ten ball into the far end pocket.
Pop. Down it went, and by luck, his cue ball had then slid off the far bank to bang into a group of three more balls, freeing up the nine and thirteen. Pop. Pop.
“Whoa, we gotta shark here,” Bram said, tossing off a big gulp of beer, “and we’re getting our clock cleaned, I’d say.” He smiled then as he wiped his lips with his sleeve and came up to the table for his shot as Tanner mi
ssed on the twelve ball.
“Anyone know a music piece that features a shark,” he asked as he carefully potted that five ball. Then the seven, then the four, and only barely missed with the one ball.
Kondo laughed. ”What, us navy types know music? My own line is I turned my radio off twenty years ago and it’s been off since,” he said as he looked at what was left to him on the table.
Bram caught Tanner’s eye and tossed his head back toward the front of the pub. “Incoming, Sir,” he said, and sure enough, in just a minute more, Chief Warrant Officer Hartford presented himself to his captain and stiffened into full attention and snapped a salute.
“Sir, so sorry to bother you,” he said as he got a matching salute back from Tanner and stood easy as he’d just been told. “But you did say soonest on my report—and here it is, Sir.”
Tanner stared at him and then at the four friends out for the evening, and he nodded. “Kondo, your round, I believe—bring ‘em back to the far corner as we’re going to sit down to consider this as a group,” he said, and he led the way to a large booth that would hold up to six seated patrons.
Beside it was the jukebox ,and it played the usual heartache country songs and way too fast rap music, but there was also, Tanner noted, not a single person who could overhear the discussions. Serious discussions, he knew, and for that, the cowboys singing beside them would provide cover at least.
A few minutes later, Kondo returned with beers for all including the chief and that soda for Tanner. He sat and they all looked at their captain.
Tanner first frowned. He had to explain this—and that meant that his officers and friends would now also be on the inside of this secret. One he hoped that they could continue to hide for as long as necessary even though his gut was screaming at him to keep this close to his vest—that the fewer people who knew was the best way to be.
“Okay, first off—you’re all going to find out something that has been a closely guarded secret that the chief here discovered and has been working on now for months. The concept—what I’m going to tell you—has the ability, we both think, to change our galaxy. Yup, I know … way too big a line, and who really knows what might be big enough to affect the bazillions of worlds and people here in the Milky Way.”
He took a sip of his new soda. Oh nice, Kondo had gotten a lime wedge in this one.
“I trust each of you here with this secret—hell, I trust you all with my life as well. And here it is—as plainly as I can say it,” he said as he looked over at Alver.
“Alver, remember the stunned looks on our faces when on Ghayth we discovered the anti-grav devices? Remember how we were both elated but at the same time worried about this little secret getting out into the RIM?”
“Sir, yes, Sir—but it was hardly a ‘little secret,’ Sir,” Alver said and that got a smile out of Tanner.
“Well, actually it was, as we had the ‘wrong end of the stick’ as they say—what we thought we’d discovered was in fact not the secret at all. What we discovered was instant travel anywhere in the RIM, in the galaxy, and as far as I know, anywhere in the universe.
The puzzled looks on the four faces was the same, and Tanner nodded to the chief.
“Sir, yes—let me explain. There are three parts to the anti-grav device—blue plate as the base, copper plate as the movable part, and the use of a biosensor gel to ‘ignite’ the process of moving that copper plate.
“As you all know in the subsequent explorations on Ghayth, and our finding of more than a thousand of these sets of devices, we went on to test the normal anti-grav capabilities under various biosensor gels and other environments and ecosystems.
“But it was not ‘til we tried it in space itself, by anchoring a blue plate onto a satellite over Juno at the time. First, we aligned the shuttlecraft to that exact set of coordinates, and then we aligned the copper plate to the blue plate. Then dumping more than a hundred pounds of bioSensor gel all at once onto the copper plate, we learned what we had.
“Sirs, we didn’t have an anti-grav device at all. What we had found was instantaneous travel—as in less than ten seconds, the shuttle was not over Juno anymore—but over Garnuth. We traveled 11.9 lights in a few seconds. No motor. No fuel used. Just the blue and copper plates and the gel for ignition.”
He held up his hand for a split second as the table was ready to explode.
“To get back, we simply turned off the gel, and the shuttle was back over Juno in the same few seconds. And yes, I know all about small sample and larger scales too—my report here,” he said as he held up a stapled set of documents, “shows that in the past four months or so, my small team and the Atlas shuttle you all were questioning my department about us hogging its use, have done the following.”
He held up one of his clenched hands with those two thumbs and began to add a new finger as he counted off. “We have visited all forty of the RIM Confederacy realms, and near each system star is a new Barony satellite, part of our cosmic x-ray academic studies to read outputs and send those readings to the Barony labs here on Neres. At least that’s the public story as each also has a blue plate aligned and coordinates are carefully recorded by us. We have also, with the captain’s kind help and his ability to get us some great new programmers, created a new app—ready for insertion on any navy ship from any realm—that will allow the helm to line up on those coordinates for the ship’s use.
“Once we then allow the deployment of the new copper plates that will be hard-wired into place, that will allow anyone on any equipped ship to move anywhere on the RIM in seconds. Our slowest time was from Ghayth to Enki in the UrPoPo system—and that took, I think, nine seconds. My report lays all that out, and as you can see, it’s hard copy paper—there is no electronic copy out there at risk, Sir,” the chief said as he slid the documents over the table to come to rest in front of Tanner.
He had run out of fingers too, Tanner noted. The table was quiet. No one spoke for almost a minute.
The XO leaned in then. “Sir, this is, yes, a secret that I’d believe could turn the whole galaxy around. Plus, my gut is telling me that there will be double-dealings and lies and deceit and envy and jealousy by many who want to turn this into a revenue stream. Which means, yes, we at this table are all at risk,” he said, and his voice was soft, but one could tell that he was concerned.
“Ably spoken, XO. Which is why I okayed the deployment of the blue plate satellites all over the RIM first. And then the new navy app for any ship with matching copper plate coordinates.”
He took another sip of his soda and enjoyed once more the taste of lime. “And yes, yes—I’m a Barony captain. We found these ancient relics on their dime—we are paid staff of the Barony—and as you all know, we’ve been totally open with the Baroness, and the Captains Council too, on what we found. We hid nothing, so here is what I’m thinking—let me explain,” he said as he turned back to the chief.
“Chief—when you take a trip using this—oh—sure—this Barony Drive—does anything happen to the biosensor gel as a result of the use of same?”
“Sir, yes … as I reported a month and some back, there is a loss of about three percent of the total biosensor gel each time the Barony Drive is used. So each trip eats up, say, that same three percent. Eventually the user will need to get more—buy, I’d imagine, more biosensor gel.”
“Exactly—which is what I thought the Baroness will like the best. She gives the RIM Confederacy her Barony Drive for free and will make up for it with ongoing replacement sales of the biosensor gel. Something for the Barony Treasury and yet something for the RIM too …”
He looked around the table and said, “Comments here, lads?”
Alver was as amazed as everyone else was and asked about timelines until the full rollouts could be made, and the chief was very definite about that. Nothing could happen for one more month as the new app was still in beta testing, but then yes, the Barony ships should be outfitted first as a final test and then the new technology
opened up to the RIM itself.
Bram wanted to know if he could send word of this to the Master Adept too, and that got a positive reply from Tanner.
Kondo, however, raised one more point. “Sir, once this occurs—then travel here on the RIM becomes somewhat different. Who’s to say that the days of huge navy ships will continue when all you need is, say, a single seat fighter to travel anywhere at instant Barony Drive speeds. That’s a question that others will need to work on—my mind is still running around the idea of instant travel. This, Sir, is truly ‘mind blowing’ as they say,” and he half-smiled and downed the rest of his beer.
“Nuff said,” Tanner finished off the confidential discussion and said, “So, my break, right?” and they all moved back to the still empty pool table…cues in hand…
#####
The spring was great this year, and the Baroness wanted to know whom to congratulate for this—until she remembered that the climate was a thing that even a Baroness couldn’t control. Or have controlled. Or even ask to have changed.
Such is life, she thought and wondered if eight-forty-nine was too early to call for her sommelier.
She smiled to herself and instead asked an aide for another of those delightful oolong teas—that’d have to do until at least lunchtime. Lunchtime somewhere, and she secretly grinned to herself. And now, to whatever her captain had brought her this time.
That thought stopped her cold.
Captain Tanner Scott: ex-alcoholic, ex-PTSD sufferer, current lover of her stepdaughter, as if that might count, ex-RIM Navy man, and pseudo-diplomat over on Enki, who Ambassador Harmon claimed somehow had the ability to discover—find maybe—things that were open for others to see and find—yet not the opportunity that lay inside that find.
Least that’s what she thought, which brought her to a new idea.
Why couldn’t she do that too? Running a realm of more than a hundred billion citizens with now ten full planets—wasn’t that enough to give her the same chance? “But nope,” she said to herself, “that isn’t what it’s all about.”
