The Search for FTL

by Ted Iverson

  “I will. You do the same. Orion?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for the information today, the part that was directed at me. I’m grateful for what you learned. It’s nice to know and it’s a load off my shoulders. The reality is that Dad and I never talked about it. We both knew there was a communication problem, but neither of us talked it out, and that is something I can’t go back and correct.”

  “I can’t say that I know how you feel, because I don’t. But I do know he truly loved each one of us for who we are. Take care. Orion out.”

  Orion’s image turned to static. Alec sat there in his chair for a long moment, sorting out in his mind all he’d learned from Orion. What had prompted his parents to shut everyone out, including Ty, Orion, and Zach? After all, his three brothers would be the ones to run Space Tech once they were gone. Something or someone had his parents worried, and worried bad. Things were slowly adding up. Unfortunately for them, they were adding up to bad news.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Alec was up earlier than usual. As he stepped out of the back door of the house, he noticed that it was chillier than it had been the last few days. The frost on the ground was clearly visible.

  Something caught his eye. He set down his duffle, stepped off the porch, and squatted close to the ground. He gently felt the bent blades. The frost had stiffened the Kentucky bluegrass, but it clearly looked as though someone had walked over this area. Still crouched, he looked around slowly for any other signs, listening for any noise that didn’t belong. Nothing. Just the first robins of spring tweeting, while bouncing around and looking for a fat, juicy breakfast.

  The early bird does get the worm, he thought.

  Maybe he was jumping to conclusions. Maybe he was just being too cautious, but the prints did look like footsteps to him. He stood up slowly, reached for the duffle and slung it over his shoulder, then headed for the hangar. Today he would fly his ship for the first time. He made his way past the pond and eventually reached the hangar. With an outstretched palm, he activated the security. The hangar door slid open effortlessly and there, in all its beauty, was the Turtle.

  On top of the hillside overlooking the Bindls’ compound, a man sat with one hand on his binoculars. The other held a pen. He was watching Alec and taking notes. Setting the pen down, he began tapping a code into a touchpad on his dashboard.

  A quiet voice came through: “Well, what have you found out?”

  “Bindl’s going to the capital, but the bug was full of static. They must have some sort of repeater jamming device in the home. I could only make out some of what he was saying. Something about scouting and securing. My guess is he thinks he’ll be able to secure the area before his brother arrives on Sunday.”

  “How is he getting there?”

  “Looks like some sort of ship. He’s in the hangar as we speak. What next? I can take him out right now, sir.”

  “No, stay there. I would like you to turn your attention to his brother, Ty. I have other plans for Alec Bindl. Remember to stay out of sight. You’re only there to gather information. I have others to do the rest.”

  “Yes, sir.” The voice delivering the orders always gave him the chills. He decided to wait until the ship left the hangar before he continued on with his new task.

  Someday, he thought, he’d like to have a hand at the other job.

  From a chair in an observation area overlooking the capital, Axion sat with folded hands, viewing the city. Securing? He knew that securing anything in this city was impossible, but scouting? Scouting, no, snooping around is more than likely what Alec Bindl must be planning. Right at that moment he decided that finishing any of them off just wouldn’t do, not yet anyway. Spook them, humiliate them, and then annihilate them. Yes, that would be the road to take. He knew just who to contact next. Axion smiled and picked up his com link.

  Alec sat in the cockpit, readying the ship. He was excited. They’d all received extensive piloting lessons at a young age and each could fly almost anything. Ty was the only one who didn’t fly on a regular basis. Orion was a good pilot, and his experience probably helped him with his recent ordeal. Zach... well, not one of them really cared to fly with Zach. Cowboy, daredevil, call it what you will, he was plain nuts behind the stick. One thing was for sure though, the boy could fly. Alec smiled at the memories as he worked through the usual preflight checks. Everything looked great. This obviously wasn’t like the conventional crafts he was used to, but he had no problem remembering Zach’s tutorials from Luna.

  It was time for him to take out his ship. His ship, he loved the sound of that. He took a deep breath and touched a plasma button on the overhead console. The roof of the hangar split in two and slid open. As it opened, he poked at the plasma controls and the Turtle came to life, the engines screaming as if they were finally free of their bonds.

  With the roof now fully opened, the sky beckoned. Alec rotated the jet engines so they were vertical with the body and eased the throttle open. The ship shook and then rose upward slowly. Picking up speed, it cleared the building and hung in midair about a hundred feet above the hangar. As the roof closed behind him, Alec rotated the engines horizontal. As he did so, the ship inched forward until the engines were completely horizontal and locked in place. He throttled the engines up and moved back on the stick, and the ship instantly responded.

  As the Turtle crept up through morning haze, Alec decided he couldn’t wait any longer to test it. He jammed the throttle forward and pulled back on the stick hard. The ship cut through the air like a rocket, slamming him back into his seat. He hadn’t expected so much thrust with just the jets. He recovered quickly and stabilized the ship. Then he spent the next several minutes diving, turning, accelerating, and decelerating, just to get the feel of the ship. Then he relaxed and tapped coordinates into the computer. Feeling like a kid watching old Star Trek reruns, he raised his hand, gave a slight wave, and said aloud to himself, “Engage.” Ship and pilot then disappeared into the clouds with frightening speed.

  Zach had Orion on the holopad, sharing files as they had been for so many hours over the past few days. The urgency to put together at least a workable theory was beginning to show its strain. Zach threw up his hands. “We’ve been over these a thousand times, and we’re just not getting anywhere.”

  “Look, all we need to do is come up with a solid theory. Remember, we’re shooting for the grant right now.”

  “I know, Orion, but we’re running out of time, and it has to be feasible. Not some pie in the sky dream.” Sighing, Zach continued, “Okay, let’s go over this again. In the folder the articles are mostly about magnetic fields of stars. The notes are mostly about how each star has a magnetic signature, right?”

  “Yes, and we know that Dad took the star charts. I’ve been concentrating on the folder I found, the one with the charts he left. Let’s forget that. I’m enlarging the image of the model you sent me. Why don’t you do the same?”

  “All right.” Zach did what Orion asked. He was now staring at a 3-D image. “It’s really an elegant looking thing, isn’t it?”

  “It is indeed. Look at the rear: there are eight tubes. Four are heavily shielded, and I do mean heavily. Nothing was getting in or out of those. The other four have this very heavy cable coiled tightly around them. It reminds me of the wire wrapped around the nail to make a quick electromagnet. You remember that?”

  “Yes, I do. I think we both agree that they must be to produce or maybe store magnetism. The star charts would certainly indicate that. By each star’s polar region Dad had marked its polarity, positive or negative. So, what are the tubes? Are they part of a propulsion system? Or are they something else entirely?”

  “It clearly has two large plasmat engines on its wings,” Orion said, “and it sure looks as if there are five very large, conventional sub-light engines in the very rear. But those are never going to get to FTL speed. I’m guessing that those coils are for a third propulsion system.”

  �
�Right, and it must be a magnetic-based system. What intrigues me are the three floating rings in the center. Do you notice how the interior part of each ring is attached to the ship? And look at the amount of cables attached to the supports that run straight into the ship? Now look at the outer ring: it seems to be free-floating on top of the inner. It looks like the area in the middle of the ship, where the rings are located, is shielded by more protective plating,” Zach responded.

  “To help dampen the strong draw from the intense magnetism on the hull?”

  “Maybe so. If the tubes were creating an enormous amount of magnetism, and these rings were doing the same, there had to be stress on the outer hull for sure.”

  “So we can both agree that they were using magnetism for power. Was it being converted for internal engines or was there an external need? Those rings make me lean toward external. If it was for external use, what would they be attracted to? These,” Orion said, pointing to the three rings on the image, “aren’t your everyday magnets.”

  “Hey!” Zach suddenly exclaimed. “Orion, we’ve been looking for the science fiction way to achieve FTL speed. You know, flip a switch and the stars fly past. But that’s not it, I mean, not really. You’d have to achieve it by a continuing acceleration. You just figured it out, I think. It’s an external need. All the calculations in the folder? They’re the magnetic signatures of stars. North and south poles. What they must have done was to focus on a star’s magnetic signature. You know, whichever pole was tilted closer, and then create an opposite polarity with the coiled tubes.”

  “That sounds plausible.” Orion leaned closer to the holo. “As you said, you’d have to continue acceleration until you reach FTL speed. If you logically follow that theory, you could continue to accelerate past the speed of light, which would seem impossible.”

  “Absolutely. I agree, but look at our situation. I never thought it possible to be where we are now, but we’re living the impossible right here and now! Let’s take it to the next logical step. I think that accelerating to that type of velocity, quickly, would surely tear a ship apart.”

  “One would think so, but what if you were able to maintain a controlled acceleration? At that speed, you’d also have to have a controlled environment. Space dust, micrometeorites, anything that came in contact with the vehicle would destroy it. They must’ve had some sort of shield around the ship for protection and to maintain pressure.”

  Zach felt certain they were onto something. “You’re absolutely correct. If all this is based on magnetics, then a plasma shield wouldn’t be out of the question, would it?”

  “I suppose not. Something to consider for sure.”

  “Back to acceleration, think about this: what if you had gears, like in a conventional fuel-powered vehicle such as those on Earth? You hit a certain speed and shift into a higher gear to go faster, another, then another. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

  Orion’s face contorted in thought, then his eyes widened and he lightly hit his forehead. “Of course! Your gears are the rings! They probably could be turned on or off to enhance or reduce the ship’s magnetic energy. The more powerful a magnetic field you produce, the faster you’re attracted to the star. Not only that, but the closer you get, the faster you would go because of the stronger pull. Those rings, they must be electromagnetic enhancers! How about a power source for the rings? Could they be powered internally by the conventional engines? They would almost have to be. I don’t think batteries could produce the amount of power needed to maintain them.”

  “Hmmm, right again,” Zach said. “Probably fired up for a short time to start the process and then, once they’re moving, some sort of generator takes over. There’s no way you could keep the conventional engines going; it would waste fuel. Good call, Orion.”

  “Thanks. Hey, wait!”

  “What?”

  “Fired up for a short time you said, right?”

  “Yes?”

  “Didn’t you ever learn anything at the OBL?? Remember learning about SMES?”

  Zach drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment, and exhaled. “Superconducting magnetic energy storage. Of course!”

  “Yes, that’s it. Four of the eight tubes must be superconducting coils. The other four, the magnetic storage tanks. The power conditioning system and the cryogenic coolers must be inside under the most heavily protected of the shields. This would enable the transfer of short bursts of power to the enhancer rings!” Orion’s excitement grew.

  “Unless they found a way to convert it from short bursts to a longer more controlled energy draw. That would also explain why the solar panels are so large and why there’s a solar panel ring around the center of the ship. Orion, remember, SMES is a power source that can be recharged quickly, usually during the day. In space it would be possible to focus any star’s light for a recharge, thus explaining the need for so many solar panels.”

  “True, but there are times when you might be too far away to get the light you need.”

  “Light could be magnified by sliding huge, glass panels over the permanent solar panels, like a magnifying glass. When not in use, couldn’t the two halves slide like a patio door, back into recesses in the wings?”

  “Exactly, little brother!” Orion calmed down a little. “I think we are definitely on to something here. Any other ideas?”

  “Next, you’d need to have some sort of aiming or collecting device to focus on the planet or star of your desire.”

  “The dish-shaped devices on the front and rear of the vehicle seem to be made for just that sort of job. The arms holding them in place have ball sockets on them, most likely to move each dish into any position. Okay, looks like we can build on all this, but one more question, brother.”

  “Fire away.” Zach was grinning

  “How do you stop something that is moving faster than light?”

  Zach gave a little chuckle, “You go backwards. Think about it: to stop when you’re being drawn forward by a star’s magnetic signature, you’d normally fire forward thrusters or retro rockets, but in our case, we’d reverse the polarity on the ship. So if the star’s pole was positive, we’d switch ours to positive. We’d then be repelling away from the star, thus slowing us down as we enter its solar system, providing that it has one. The same goes for steering. It would be like dot to dot. You map out where you want to go, punch in each star’s signature. When you reached an appropriate distance from that star, the computer would activate the second signature, the focuser would change bearing and so on, and the ship would turn.”

  “I disagree with you on the steering. If you went star to star it would take too long to make your turn and it would result in a huge turning radius. It might even be possible to miss a turn altogether. You have the magnetic signature of the star, but you’d also have its coordinates. I think incremental use of the plasmats and conventional engines would work better. We have two powerful plasmats, one on each wing. Then we have the five sub-lights in the rear. The sequence of an engine or engines to be fired and for how long would be dictated by how fast and how tight the turn needed to be. Pretty standard.”

  “That would make more sense. Let’s call Ty and Alec and let them know what we’ve figured out!”

  Orion put his hands up. “Hold on. You’re jumping the gun. We need to create the schematics, run all the calculations, and make some computer models. Remember, we need to make sure that this is possible. Right now we’re just talking theories. There’s a grant at stake and we need to give Ty the best chance possible to get it. We have to take a 3-D image and make it a living, breathing, flying machine.

  “I hope you’re ready to burn the midnight oil, Zach. You have more people at your disposal than I do, so you’re going to have to take on the bulk of this project. I’ll work on the basic structure design, interior living quarters, and all electronics. I’ll have a small droid team to help me out in a couple of days, but I’ll make do until they get here. You get a few teams together, the best mi
nds we have. Bring them from Space Tech if you have to. You’ve got propulsion, plasmats, conventional engines, and all the magnetic issues. This includes the generators for the enhancer rings. We’ll need to stay in close contact. No matter what, don’t say anything to Ty about this. He has enough going on. Good luck.”

  “Right back at you, Orion. Zach out.”

  Orion sat back down in his chair. The StarDancer’s image was still rotating in midair. Staring at it, he wondered how he could get his part of the process completed. He was all alone, what with Lyet off getting some of the crew. He decided he couldn’t do it. He cleared the ship’s image and placed a call to Captain Lyet. The image of the man came over the holopad, showing him sitting in the pilot’s seat of his ship. “Hello, Cyrus. How goes it?”

  “Well, Orion, it’s going well, very well. I have some of our best droids. The crew received the news well and they can’t wait to get back to the outpost and work. Something I can do for you?”

  “Yes, there is. I’d like to upload some information to your crew. We have a severe time issue. If you could make sure they get the transmission and start to work on our little project, it would be great. I’ll pass along all that my brother Zach and I have theorized. I will also upload the 3-D image of the StarDancer. We’re starting almost from scratch and we have, at the latest, until Tuesday to get a plan to Ty, so I really could use the help.”

  “So you think you’ve got something?”

  “It’s really rough, but it’s something and we’re excited about it.”

  “Get it up to me and I’ll pass it along.”

  “Give me about thirty minutes to write up the plan and I’ll upload it to you. I’ll be looking forward to the company when you guys get back here.”

  “Roger. Lyet out.”

  Orion got up and made his way back to his quarters. There was a lot of work to be done.