by Jack L Knapp
NFI: New Frontiers, Inc.
Book Two, the New Frontiers Series
By Jack L Knapp
COPYRIGHT
NFI: New Frontiers, Inc.
Book Two, The New Frontiers Series
Copyright © 2016 by Jack L Knapp
Cover by Blair Howard
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Disclaimer: The persons and events depicted in this novel were created by the author’s imagination; no resemblance to actual persons or events is intended.
Product names, brands, and other trademarks referred to within this book are the property of the respective trademark holders. Unless otherwise specified, no association between the author and any trademark holder is expressed or implied. Nor does the use of such trademarks indicate an endorsement of the products, trademarks, or trademark holders unless so stated. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark, registered trademark, or service mark.
For Blair Howard
Critic, Confidant, Friend
Table of Contents
Prologue 6
Chapter One 8
Chapter Two 16
Chapter Three 21
Chapter Four 27
Chapter Five 32
Chapter Six 38
Chapter Seven 43
Chapter Eight 48
Chapter Nine 56
Chapter Ten 60
Chapter Eleven 65
Chapter Twelve 70
Chapter Thirteen 75
Chapter Fourteen 81
Chapter Fifteen 86
Chapter Sixteen 92
Chapter Seventeen 97
Chapter Eighteen 102
Chapter Nineteen 108
Chapter Twenty 114
Chapter Twenty-one 121
Chapter Twenty-two 126
Chapter Twenty-three 131
Chapter Twenty-four 135
Chapter Twenty-five 140
Chapter Twenty-six 144
Chapter Twenty-seven 149
Chapter Twenty-eight 153
Chapter Twenty-nine 158
Chapter Thirty 163
Chapter Thirty-one 168
Chapter Thirty-two 172
Chapter Thirty-three 179
Chapter Thirty-four 184
Chapter Thirty-five 189
Books by the author: 194
About the Author: 195
Prologue
The Sneyd-Tesla impeller was invented by Morton “Morty” Sneyd and his grandson Chuck, who based their work on an idea found in a Nikola Tesla journal. The device was subsequently sold to a company run by investor and CEO T. French “Frenchy” Fuqua. The company, known as New Frontiers, Incorporated (NFI), provided the money to develop Morty’s invention.
A group of industrialists realizes the device is a threat to their business model. Led by Sol Goldman, they attempt to prevent NFI from developing the impeller drive. Some of their efforts involve financial pressure, but some are more direct; Sol hires a criminal and orders him to stop NFI any way he can. The man rapes Lina, Frenchy’s daughter, in order to send a message, then later attempts to burn the factory. Chuck, a former Marine, responds by killing the arsonists.
Governments also become involved. The US Government’s DARPA wants to buy the drive system, Russians attempt to steal it. Despite their worst efforts, development continues; a tramp ship and an airplane are modified to use the impeller system, and a first-generation spaceship, SS Farside, is built.
Regulatory agencies, spurred by Congressional pressure, move in and shut down NFI’s factory. While this is underway, Russian agents attempt to seize the ship by a coup de main.
The crippled Farside escapes, taking with it most of NFI’s portable assets, including a supply of completed impellers. A huge cavern on Morty’s ranch provides concealment where the necessary repairs are completed.
Factories in Mexico build frames for the lifters that DARPA wants. Chuck’s team of engineers and mechanics install the impellers; to preserve the drive’s secret, NFI field engineers operate and maintain the lifters for the duration of the contract. The income from this contract finances further development.
The shut-down by the US Government forces NFI to diversify its operations. A Finnish company now produces completed hulls for new ships, bare units that are spaceworthy, but without the impeller drive system. The hulls are then shipped to Iceland for final preparation and installation of the flight control computers and impellers. Some flights are launched from Iceland, others from Finland.. A lot of money is involved, and other nations hope NFI will base future operations there. Larger nations such as Russia, China, and the US remain a threat; the company avoids their airspace.
Frenchy hopes that distributing the company’s operations around the world will avoid further trouble. He’s willing to purchase components from the world’s major nations, but refuses to base ships within their borders. A Chinese company produces components for NFI’s automated orbital refueling stations, US companies assemble them. The refueling stations are shipped to Germany for final preparation and NFI spaceships launch them into orbit. The first three refueling stations are now operational, and more are planned.
NFI also establishes branch offices in each country that has significant economic ties to the company; the company’s official headquarters is now located in Switzerland. The headquarters is an administrative and communications center as well as the official headquarters, which reduces taxes as well as preventing regulators from acquiring the drive system or shutting down the company. Most operations are done elsewhere.
SS Gypsy, one of the new ships, is now ready to haul spent nuclear fuel into space. The company intends to finance future growth in this way.
Japan, the first country to contract with NFI, vitrifies the active nuclear material by mixing it with silica, then fusing it into glass. The process is costly, but necessary for safe handling. The first cargo is ready, and the Japanese will provide ground handling equipment and personnel to help load it. Gypsy will transport the vitrified nuclear waste beyond Lunar orbit and launch it toward the sun, where it will eventually be destroyed.
The MV Tesla is no longer under the physical control of NFI. It’s quietly hauling cargo around the Atlantic, hoping not to be noticed while accumulating user data.
Such is the situation as our story opens.
Chapter One
T. French Fuqua, CEO of New Frontiers, Incorporated, washed his hands, then studied himself in the full-length mirror. Today he’d worn a charcoal three-piece suit to the office. The coat was hanging in the closet, allowing Frenchy to examine his appearance. Vest over white shirt, striped tie, medium-weight wool trousers, European styling. His hair had turned silvery-gray, and there was a pronounced widow’s peak in front, harbinger of eventual baldness. No surprise; his father had been almost totally bald by age sixty. Frenchy sighed; he was pushing sixty himself, and the job’s stress had changed him. He was
a man of medium height, no longer slender, and his new wrinkles reflected the stress of his job...had he gained another couple of pounds? Frenchy resolved to cut back on food and find more time for exercise.
But time was always in short supply. Too many of the world’s powerful insisted on speaking directly to NFI’s boss. The office reflected his status, deep pile carpet, original paintings by local artists, comfortable overstuffed chairs arranged to encourage informal conversation, an oversized antique desk and office chair. The receptionist and secretary in the outer office subtly emphasized the importance of the company.
Occasionally he found himself wondering what impulse had caused him to speak to Morty Sneyd. He hadn’t needed the money; his net worth at the time had been north of a billion dollars, but something about Morty’s story had piqued his interest. Perhaps it was the challenge, a chance to show up Sol Goldman. Maybe it had been the lure of the gamble, of the enormous payoff if he succeeded. Or maybe it was the chance to prove that he was as much a businessman as any of the others he knew. Well, he’d done that, in spades!
The impulse had cost him. His fortune had begun to melt away, his investments tied up in one struggling company. He’d set up an annuity for his daughter Lina, enough to care for her and the children she would likely bear, but he’d risked everything else.
Frenchy had come perilously close to bankruptcy. American financial institutions had refused to extend the company credit. Then had come the fortuitous event that turned things around; DARPA was interested in Morty’s discovery. Money trickled in, and soon he’d found that Asian and European banks were more willing than American banks had been. An initial visit to Deutsche Bank had led to a demonstration, where the bank representative had flown in the modified impeller-powered airplane. DB had cautiously agreed to a loan, and other lenders had followed. The video showing operating lifters had captured their interest, and revealing that NFI had an operating spacecraft was the icing on the cake. Banks would have preferred direct participation, but they had settled for loaning NFI the funds the company needed to expand.
Frenchy sat down behind the desk, then picked up one of the seemingly-endless reports from the waiting stack. The antique desk was huge, but even so, it was always cluttered. He needed to delegate more, that was clear; if only he could find able, trustworthy people!
Adelheid Laaksonen, Frenchy’s executive secretary, interrupted his musings with a call. She was a trim woman of a certain age, gray haired, but with fewer wrinkles than Frenchy. Perhaps it was the Finnish lifestyle. People exercised more, so comparatively few residents of Rovaniemi were overweight. They also enjoyed an efficient government, a successful economy, and a social safety net. Adelheid’s few wrinkles were at the corner of her eyes, indicating she smiled often.
“Frenchy, Chuck’s on Skype for you. You’ve got half an hour before your next appointment. Do you have time to talk to him?”
“Sure, put him on.”
Frenchy tapped the icon and brought Chuck up on the screen. The problem with having a son-in-law for a business partner was that Frenchy never knew why he was calling. “How’s Lina? Not bad news, is it?”
“No, other than the fact that we don’t see nearly enough of you, it’s actually good news. We completed the DARPA contract and they’ve released the rest of our money. They’re impressed with the lifters! I don’t think they ever really believed they worked the way we said, so they insisted on testing them to destruction, planned crashes, water landings, the works. The last was one of the big cargo lifters, the ‘flying trucks’. They insisted on flying it under remote control, and they wanted to take it high enough to clear buildings.”
“What happened?”
“Sideslip, the same thing that killed Mel. The instruments sent false data and the flight computer couldn’t recover in time. This crash was worse than the one that wrecked the Bedstead. We had to torch the frame to get the impellers off. We recovered the impellers from all the crashed units, by the way. That last flight also exceeded our recommended max load, and that’s probably what caused the sideslip. If the cargo isn’t perfectly balanced, you’re going to get problems as you approach max gross. Control gets mushy, and whatever the computer tries to do just makes the problem worse. Anyway, the contract’s finished. I’m sure they still want lifters, so what do you want to do? Offer to sell, or try to hang on to our monopoly? Do we know how long the banks will wait?”
“They’re being patient. I showed them the Japanese contract and that convinced them. They’d really like to underwrite an IPO, but I have no intention of converting to a public stock company. The bridge loans will keep us going. We’ll be completely out of debt in a year, maybe less. From then on, everything will be self-funded.”
“Frenchy, we owe them, in a sense. They kept us going, and it cost them. Congress cut their budget.”
“Yes, and no. They wanted to see what our lifters could do, we needed the money and their political influence. It didn’t matter in the end, we still got shut down, so I think I’m done with the US government. If you don’t want to see DARPA left out in the cold, suggest this: impellers are better, but there’s another way. Tell DARPA that using fans instead of impellers will also work. If the fans are powerful enough, the lifters won’t even need skirts to contain the ground pressure effect.”
Chuck nodded. “I’ll do that, Frenchy. By the way, we’re going to want lifters in space, something like a modified version of the California King with an enclosed cockpit. Think of it as a space-to-space shuttle for shifting cargo. Eventually, our ships will be larger. There’s a real chance they’ll be too large to land on Earth, so we’ll need a method of transferring payloads in space. That’s where the space transporters come in. It would be worth it to park a few on each ship, then use them the same way that seagoing ships use small boats. We’ll definitely need them on the moon.”
“That’s on my mind, putting a base on the moon. I want to get started as soon as we can afford it. Right now, most of our income will go toward servicing our debts and buying more ships. You’re probably right about owing the Defense Department; if they needed lifters bad enough, I suppose we could hand over the ones we were using in space.”
“Frenchy, sooner or later, they’ll invent their own impellers. Think Manhattan Project, except this time they’ll be after the impeller drive. It’s only a matter of putting enough people to work on it, now that they know it’s possible. At some point, I think we should offer to sell completed systems, lifters, converted airplanes, and spacecraft. The ships, the flight control system, we will have spent time and money on research and working out the bugs, so I think they’d be happy to buy from us. We could easily underbid any of the aerospace companies, because we’ve already invested the money. They would have to include research and development costs, which means we could underbid them and still recover our R&D investment.”
Frenchy nodded. “That’s always the threat, isn’t it? Knowing it’s possible, that’s most of the battle right there. Given enough incentive, they’ll look until they find it. By incentive I mean financial, of course. If governments are willing to invest instead of leasing or buying our technology, they’ll figure out how the impeller drive works.”
He looked down at his desk for a moment. “It just points up what we always knew, Chuck, we have to make money while we can. By reinvesting everything into the company, we’ve bought time to protect ourselves. NFI is in so many nations now, we’re so diversified, that we can’t be shut down. It’s the same with money, some of our accounts are in dollars, but the rest is in rubles, yuan, pounds, and euros. No nation, not even an alliance, can freeze all of our bank accounts. We’ve got the solid head start we wanted. Even with government backing, I don’t see anyone catching up in less than ten years. By then, while they’re taking the first trips to space, we’ll have orbital refueling stations, maybe even a base on the moon. That’s the ladder to space, Chuck, to Mars, the asteroids, the giant moons. Maybe even to terraforming Venus. If that succ
eeds, when it succeeds, we’ll own our own planet.” Frenchy’s tone was emphatic.
“Frenchy, forcing us to down our plant scared you, didn’t it?”
“Damned right! I had to really scramble to get the lifters for the DARPA contract. I was lucky to get the frames on credit. The Mexicans knew who I was, so they were willing to take a chance. And we already had the other components stored at...ah, Aladdinsville.” Aladdinsville was the conversational name for the huge cavern on Chuck’s ranch.
“I know what you mean. Anyway, Farside is as good as new. What say I make a few of those Japanese cargo flights?”
Frenchy was silent, thinking. “No, I’ve got Gypsy for that. We’ll have Wanderer operational within the month and more coming after that. The Finns promise to deliver a new hull every couple of months, as long as the money keeps coming. The current contract is for eighteen ships and it’s open-ended, so we can add more if we need them. The income from the Japanese fuel rod transfers is enough to pay for them and start paying down the loans. The contract is expensive, but the Japanese can’t afford to cancel it. That meltdown scared them.
“As for NFI, the impeller assembly line is working too. We’re buying components from around the world, then assembling them in our own shops. I keep a very close eye on those. We’re still in debt, but I think we’re finally over the hump. I’ve got enough ships to transport the canisters as fast as the Japanese can convert fuel rods, which takes them about two weeks. It takes the Finns two months to build a hull, another month for us to install the flight controls and impellers and take it on a shakedown cruise. Three months, start to finish, to produce a completed ship of the Farside class. Thirteen weeks, about, and unless the Japanese screw up, we can count on making at least six canister flights during that time. Bottom line, I don’t need Farside right now, the only holdup is Japan. I’d rather keep you to back up flights.”
