Project Sail

by Anthony DeCosmo

  “Don’t worry, Commander,” Stein called out, which elicited a stern look from the Captain. “None of us on the boat get it, either. The Professor is the only one who understands.”

  Coffman’s face appeared again on the screen above Charles.

  “Captain, we will be ready to go in sixty minutes.”

  “Thank you, Professor.”

  Hawthorne asked, “And where are going, Captain?”

  Charles raised his finger and pointed forward.

  “Out there, Mr. Hawthorne.”

  23. There and Back

  At more than one hundred yards long, the engineering section of SE 185 occupied most of the lower deck from bow to stern and port side to starboard. A catwalk cut across the open space at a height of ten feet. Large round emitters lined the outer walls on both sides, half visible on the interior of the hull, the other half visible on the outside. Coils ran from each and attached to cisterns with additional tubes and conduits running from those tanks to generators.

  Together, those emitters, coils, tubes, and generators formed the diametric drive, and while the ship no longer moved, that drive worked at a furious pace, filling the room with a sharp buzz.

  Professor Coffman walked from the massive console monitoring that propulsion system to the massive console monitoring the other, exotic means of propulsion.

  The Alcubierre—Haruto drive started with the Rotating Field Power Generator, which resembled an iron sphere but was actually a unique composite created by nanobots, and constructed atom by atom.

  Conduits channeled the diametric drive’s output to the RFPG, priming it like a hand crank started the first automobiles centuries ago. Once the RFPG produced the needed power, that energy released to the A-H drive system, like releasing a taut rubber band on a slingshot and letting a stone fly.

  Coffman held his thumb to his chin and considered the chaos inside what his fellow developers had nicknamed “the furnace.”

  Within the sphere, gravitational fields did battle, pulling at each other in a continuous dance, generating energy on a nearly unimaginable scale. If they could ever lessen the danger of the power plant, one of these generators could provide energy for every human outpost across the solar system.

  An assistant interrupted before his mind could drift too far into the hypothetical.

  “Professor, isn’t it about time to shut down the emitters?”

  Of course about sounded like a-boat because Sheila Black purposely stressed her Canadian accent as her personal act of rebellion against the North American merger, a political realignment cemented two decades before the thirty-year-olds’ birth.

  He answered her question with a nod and Sheila moved off, her short dark ponytail swinging as she moved.

  While Coffman found her a capable physicist, she was not the perfect fit for his assistant. Her assignment had as much to do with her ability to assess mineral and chemical deposits as her engineering experience, another side effect of a crew required to multitask.

  Andy Phipps, the second of his two helpers, approached from the other direction. Like Coffman, Phipps had worked on the A-H prototypes, including the engine that powered Probe 581.

  He was a smart young man, but he lacked decisiveness and seemed constantly nervous, like a mouse fearing the house cat around every corner.

  But Phipps understood the complex and often-times disorientating fundamentals of the Alcubierre—Haruto drive like few others.

  Phipps’ appearance matched his personality. He was a thin man with a boyish face despite pushing forty. Hair still covered his head but his scalp peaked out in the center. Soon it would become a full-blown bald spot.

  “I examined the bow array,” Phipps reported. “Everything is green. That is what you wanted me to do, right? I mean, that is what you said.”

  “Ah! Thank you, Andy. If you could, double check the equations on the board,” and he patted the man on the back. “I could use a second pair of eyes on them.”

  “Me? Okay, of course, sir. I will do it right away.”

  As Andy scrolled through columns of numbers, Coffman opened a link with the bridge.

  “Captain, we are ready to go down here.”

  ---

  “Thank you, Frederick,” Charles replied to the screen and then spoke to his bridge crew. “Let’s give it one more look. Marvin, where are you taking us?”

  “Interstellar space, Captain. Computer estimates that we should find trace amounts of ionic gas and the possibly dust particles at the stop; nothing big.”

  “Excuse me,” Hawthorne felt like a kindergartner asking his first question of the school year. “What happens if a comet is in the neighborhood when we arrive?”

  “You do not have to worry about it, Commander,” Charles said. “Space is folding and then stretching for us. When the A-H drive turns off, the space around us flattens out and anything in our path smaller than a moon—”

  A new voice finished, “Will be blasted into stardust by the energy release when we arrive.”

  That voice belonged to Corporate Liaison Martin Chambers who walked onto the bridge as they prepared to test the drive.

  “So you’re saying not to worry about it then?”

  Captain Charles answered, “That is correct, Commander.”

  Hawthorne eased off the questioning, deciding to watch how Chambers’ arrival played out on the bridge. He was a sturdy-looking man with a presence—more than just physical—that dominated any room. That, of course, clashed with Captain Charles, who used his rank and sour disposition to do the same.

  Chambers asked, “How far today?”

  Charles turned his back to Chambers but answered, “One hour of operation.”

  “We should be doing more by now.”

  “Martin, we have our full complement on board now. They weren’t here yesterday. Before we start pushing this ship harder, we have to familiarize our new people with operations. Now if you don’t mind, I have a ship to run.”

  Hawthorne saw right away that these two men were not going to play well together. Then again, that should come as no surprise. From what he could tell, Chambers wielded authority over the mission in general while Charles captained the ship. A blurry line separated their zones of authority.

  “Helm, do you have the course?”

  “Yep.”

  “Stand by, I’m doing a quick double-check,” Charles responded. As he examined the numbers he asked, “Tell me Commander, what must I look for when double-checking this course?”

  “You said not to worry about ramming into any small stuff, so I guess you are checking the star charts so we don’t run into any suns or planets.”

  “True enough,” Charles kept his eyes on the monitor above his head, scrolling though lines of numbers and coordinates by waving his fingers. “But think about what you heard a moment ago.”

  “Something about a massive energy release.”

  The Captain explained, “As space stretches around us, particles will amass on the gravitational fields protecting our ship. When we stop and space returns to normal, those particles will be thrown forward, and anything in front of us will suffer a massive bombardment of gamma rays and high-energy particles.”

  Hawthorne said, “So you not only have to plot a destination, you have to ensure we don’t destroy a planet or ship when we arrive.”

  “Correct, and not a significant concern when we travel to interstellar space. But on our return trip we must ensure that our wash does not take out the station or, for that matter, half of Oberon.”

  Hawthorne said, “I can see where that might be a problem.”

  The Captain turned and made eye contact with Chambers.

  “Flying around with the A-H drive isn’t a walk in the park. One mistake could take out this ship…or a whole fleet of ships, or anything else. That is why we take this one step at a time.”

  The Corporate Liaison shot, “Are we ever going to take today’s step, Captain?”

  “Helm, link with engineer
ing and prepare to active the A-H drive.”

  A series of tones rang throughout the ship.

  “Set the clock, Billy,” the Captain ordered. “Give us a countdown.”

  “Yes sir. Activation in five…four…”

  Hawthorne’s hands clutched the armrests of his chair. He was seconds away from experiencing a new way to travel through space, driven by a form of propulsion he could not understand.

  “…three…two…one…”

  He could not help himself: he closed his eyes.

  Stein announced, “Drive activated.”

  A sound Hawthorne thought resembled a fire hose on full blast rose from the bottom of the ship. His stomach fluttered and his equilibrium wavered. Chambers, standing between Hawthorne and Warner, wobbled and nearly fell.

  After a few seconds, that rushing noise decreased and his feelings of disorientation eased, too. Whether that came from his body adjusting or the effect dissipating, Hawthorne did not know.

  Stein reported, “Drive activated to mission parameters.”

  “We’ll be coming out of this in an hour,” Captain Charles announced.

  Hawthorne—a hand to his head—asked, “Do we have to monitor progress? What happens while we travel?”

  Charles answered, “You could say we are just along for the ride.”

  ---

  During the flight, Charles reactivated Hawthorne’s controls to review their functions.

  While internal systems worked, external sensors were inactive; a timer was their only tool in estimating where they were and how soon they would arrive.

  Hawthorne found it maddening that pilot Bill Stein had no control once the A-H drive activated. Both he and their Martian navigator sat in their chairs playing puzzle games, waiting for sixty minutes to pass.

  The rushing noise lessened as they closed on their destination; by the time they arrived, it had faded completely.

  “Bow shock is away,” Stein announced as the cover over his window retracted, providing a view of their destination: a featureless void. “No sign of anything in its path.”

  Hawthorne glimpsed something moving away from the ship, a cluster of sparks and flashes, like a wave of fireworks. He realized that must have been their ‘wash’; the mass of deadly particles flung forward when the ship stopped.

  Charles pointed at one of his screens, activating the ship-wide intercom.

  “We have arrived at our destination and all systems are performing normally. We will begin preparations for the return trip that will begin in one-hour.”

  Then he left his station and came to Hawthorne’s.

  “Move aside, Commander.”

  The Executive Officer obliged.

  Charles opened a large drawer set in the wall. Inside was a heavy-looking cube made of metal, covered in prongs, and attached to a computer.

  “This is the QE connection.”

  “Quantum Entanglement? Yes, I heard about that when I was in the military.”

  “The particles inside the pincushion are connected to particles at Oberon by Quantum Entanglement. What we do here causes a reaction at Oberon and, based on a pre-arranged code, is unscrambled.” Charles tapped Hawthorne’s screens. “I am telling them we arrived safely and will return in two hours.”

  “Two hours?”

  “One hour to recharge and one hour for the return trip. Marvin—your Martian buddy—must now plot a course that won’t end with us killing people.”

  The Captain ran his eyes up and down his first officer and added, “Take a break; you look like you might puke.”

  He did not argue the point, and chose to leave the bridge hoping a change of scenery would clear his mind.

  Jonathan Hawthorne had spent years doing as little as possible by parlaying his hero status into a cushy job as a cruise ship captain. He had little money after the divorce but the Princess had been its own reward.

  Now he paid for those easy years.

  The Alcubierre—Haruto drive had stopped, but he did not feel at ease. This was beyond his experience, and his interest in trying new things extended only to sexual positions and possibly liquor.

  He exited the bridge and walked to stern, passing first the four project rooms and then the Captain’s quarters as well as a storage area that might have been the arsenal. Before he reached the cargo bay, he turned to his left and descended a set of stairs.

  That stairway took him to the crew deck that was divided into two parts. The forward half included the recreation and dining room on the starboard side and the medical center—behind doors—to port.

  The rear half offered a tight corridor with crew cabins on either side. Of course, the stairs continued down to the Engineering level, but he decided this was far enough.

  He drifted through the common room until standing in front of a closed observation port. His finger reached for the open button but stopped. He was not sure if he wanted to see what was outside.

  “Open it,” a voice came from behind. “Let’s see what deep space looks like.”

  The voice belonged to Bill Stein, the pilot with the rough skin, walking in to the common room and aiming for a drink dispenser.

  Hawthorne gave in and pressed, causing the protective sheath covering the horizontal window to slide open, revealing a wall of black pitch.

  “Nothing to see out here,” Stein said as he filled a cup with something hot. “You are a long way from home.”

  Hawthorne found that window of black mesmerizing but as he watched, pinpricks of light popped up one by one.

  “I can…I can see some stars,” he said, and found that relieving.

  “They are pretty far away right now,” and Stein came closer to share the view. “Uranus is out there but we would need one of the research scopes to see it. But hey, if we could you might see me. Two weeks ago, I did an EVA and we are fifteen light-days away from Oberon. If I had thought about it, I would have waved to my future self.”

  Stein considered, took a drink of what might have been coffee, and added, “Messes with your mind, doesn’t it? I could look back and see me.”

  Hawthorne considered that thought and said, “We should be able to turn around and see ourselves coming right? I mean, we moved faster than light.”

  “You really were sleeping yesterday, weren’t you? We did not travel faster than light, but sidestepped the whole thing. Einstein would be pissed.”

  Hawthorne did not enjoy this. On the cruise ship, he only needed to show the guests a good time and keep the games running. Now? A new means of travel had taken him into the empty void between star systems. He no longer knew the rules.

  He asked Stein, “Why were you doing an EVA at the station? Repairs?”

  “Nope, I just like floating around outside once and a while. I love it.”

  “Love what?” Hawthorne did not understand.

  “That,” Stein motioned his cup toward the observation window. “Space. That is why I am a pilot; I can’t get enough. Why do you think I have these scars and lumps?”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Hawthorne lied.

  “The radiation shots are not as effective on me because of something in my body chemistry, which is why the navy never wanted me.”

  “You’re commercial?”

  “Universal Visions gave me the chance to fly, regardless of my condition, so don’t expect to hear me speak badly about the company.”

  “How many times have you had cancer, Bill?”

  “Lost count. They keep managing to catch it in time or stop it before it spreads. To be honest though, I can’t decide if the cosmic rays or the anti-radiation drugs are my biggest problem.”

  Stein held his left hand out and examined two lumps and a trio of scars there.

  “I wish I could say that I got this lump doing the water tanker run from Ceres or that this one, here, was a souvenir from working construction on Phobos, but who knows the specifics, point is they are from a career of working in space.”

  Hawthorne’s eyes held on the
pinpricks of light scattered across the black void beyond the window.

  He spoke as much to himself as to Stein as he said, “Space is cold, dead, and empty. The only thing I have ever found out here is fighting and misery, but I am stuck here.”

  “You fought in a war,” Stein said, “so I can understand the attitude. But to me, space is freedom. It is big, but that just gives me more elbow room. Folks like Coffman see the universe as a box of secrets they hope to open. I see it as one big amusement park. I could spend the rest of my days flying around Saturn’s rings, asteroid hopping, and making daredevil runs at Mercury.”

  “And you are willing to risk cancer again and again for it?”

  “Cancer can get you but it’s not the same boogeyman from a few decades ago. Besides, we are all going to die, Commander, no point in being afraid of it, or you waste the days you do have.”

  Hawthorne remembered his friend Gerald—Lazarus--who had exchanged his body for sentient software because he wanted to avoid death. It hit him exactly how afraid Gerald must have been to take such a leap, risking death on his own terms to avoid facing it in the future.

  He said, “So this mission does not bother you, even though you do not know where we are headed?”

  Stein sipped his drink and then told him, “Commander, I don’t care about the destination. To me, it’s all about the ride getting there.”

  ---

  SE 185 returned to Oberon in a carefully plotted course that sent its arrival shock wave on a trajectory out of the solar system.

  They docked at the station and spent the next four hours in small training groups, some focused on the drive system, others practicing emergency repairs. Hawthorne spent the time learning the details of ship operations.

  Before he ended the day’s training, Charles announced over the ship’s intercom, “All hands will report at 0900 hours tomorrow morning to the briefing room. The time has come for you to find out where we are going.”

  24. Assignment

  It took effort, but Hawthorne managed to zip his blue coveralls. Dressing did not normally pose such a challenge, but normally he did not stay up all-night playing poker on the lower decks.