by Bob Blanton
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 DIBS
Chapter 2 Design
Chapter 3 Board Meeting – April 29th
Chapter 4 Press Conference
Chapter 5 Board Meeting – May 13th
Chapter 6 Commandos
Chapter 7 Prep for Space
Chapter 8 Board Meeting – May 27th
Chapter 9 Spaceflight
Chapter 10 Growing Pains
Chapter 11 Board Meeting – June 24th
Chapter 12 Maiden Flight
Chapter 13 Board Meeting – July 8th
Chapter 14 A Favor for Fred
Chapter 15 Board Meeting – July 22nd
Chapter 16 Exodus
Chapter 17 Board Meeting – Aug 5th
Chapter 18 Family Reunion
Chapter 19 Space Station Tourist
Chapter 20 Board Meeting – Aug 19th
Chapter 21 Meltdown
Chapter 22 Teenagers
Chapter 23 What Do We Know?
Chapter 24 They’re Coming
Chapter 25 Showdown
Afterword
Copyright © 2019 by Robert D. Blanton
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. Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2019. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
https://www.facebook.com/StarshipSakira/
Cover by Momir Borocki
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Chapter 1
DIBS
Marc McCormack had just finished explaining to his team why they needed to build a massive floating airport to accommodate a fleet of Oryxes, a C17 knockoff that could reach Low Earth Orbit. Everyone was staring at the rotating image of the massive space station, trying to absorb the enormity of what he had planned. His thirteen-year-old daughter, Catie, had just called ‘Dibs.’
“What do you mean, dibs?” Blake asked.
“I get to be the pilot,” Catie said.
Blake looked at Catie like she’d lost her mind, “Of a space station?” he asked, pointing at the image on the screen.
“No, dummy, of the Lynx.”
Marc raised his eyebrows and tilted his head down at Catie. “So, you know what I have in mind.”
“Oh yeah, I know,” Catie said.
“This is all too much,” said Samantha Newman, the legal counsel for McKenzie Discoveries and Marc’s girlfriend. Learning that her boss, Marc, and his brother, Blake, had discovered an alien spaceship almost one year ago had come as quite a shock, now his wanting to build a space station was pushing her over the edge.
“What does he have in mind?” Blake asked his niece, Catie.
“He’s got to go get a couple of asteroids,” Catie said.
“What? Why?”
“You can’t afford to lift that much mass into space. It would take too many ships and too much time,” Catie explained. “He needs an iron asteroid and a carbon one to have enough material to build the space station.”
“How is the Lynx going to be able to tow two asteroids to Earth?”
“How is the Lynx going to find two asteroids?” Fred asked. Fred Linton, another member of MacKenzie Discoveries and a pilot, was coordinating most of their production activities.
Marc nodded at Catie, signaling her to continue her explanation.
“The Lynx can easily accelerate at one-G in space. With a constant one-G acceleration to the halfway point and then a constant one-G deceleration after, it’s only like four days to the asteroid belt that’s just beyond Mars. Then you spend a few days cruising around until you find an asteroid you like, slap a fusion reactor and a three-gravity drive on it, leave a comm probe so ADI can steer it, and voilà, Asteroid Deliveries R Us starts operation.”
“And this digital intelligence…” Samantha started.
“Autonomous Digital Intelligence,” Catie corrected.
“Yes, this ADI can steer the asteroids?”
“Sure, she’s a ship computer, she’s designed to steer things in space.”
“Why not just send the Sakira?” Blake asked. The Sakira was the alien spaceship that Marc and Blake had found earlier under the ocean. It was the source of all the technology they were exploiting, and the Lynx was its captain’s launch.
“That’s a bit like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly. And I don’t want to risk exposing the Sakira.”
“Okay, so how long will it take to get the asteroids here?” Blake asked.
Marc nodded at Catie again.
“Ummm, depends,” Catie said. “Moving something as big as an asteroid would suggest low acceleration and lots of caution.” Catie paused as she closed her eyes and thought. “You’d want to aim it so that it hits the orbit you want at a tangent at just the right speed so it will get captured by the sun. Then you could bring it up to Earth and parallel the orbit. Would you bring it into Earth orbit?”
“What do you think?”
“People would go nuts if you put it in Earth orbit. I’d put it in the same solar orbit as Earth, but leading. Then I’d bring a third ice asteroid so we’d have plenty of water to fuel a fleet of Oryxes to bring the ore in for us,” Catie said.
“Why leading?” Marc asked.
“Easier and faster to accelerate while empty, you can use the Earth to help slow you down when you come back loaded.”
“Okay, so how long?”
“You don’t want to waste a lot of time and energy,” Catie said. “Bringing it into orbit at just the right speed would be best. You fly it at thirty kilometers per second to get here, so seventyish days plus half of the time it takes to accelerate up to speed, so I’d say add another fifteen days and plan on two-thousandths of a G acceleration.”
“Pretty good for a girl that used to complain about her math homework,” Marc said. “But?”
Catie put her hands on her hips and looked at her father in a huff. “I only complained about having to convince the teacher that my answers were right when they gave me extra assignments that they didn’t understand.”
“But?”
“You’ll probably need a couple of months to get them into the leading position, depending on where I find the asteroids we want.”
“Really good.”
Catie smiled at her father. “So, do I get the mission?”
“Who’s your copilot?”
“I don’t know, I figure I can have my pick,” she laughed.
“Who’s going to lug the gravity drives around?”
“They won’t weigh anything; you just have to deal with the mass; the EVA suits in the Sakira have jetpacks so anyone can do it. But I’ll take a beefy guy if you’ll give him clearance.”
“Wait! You’re not giving it to her?” Blake said.
“Come on, Uncle Blake,” Catie said with her little girl voice.
“She’s figured it out in five minutes,” Marc said. “Seems like she’s the one to lead it.”
Blake gulped a couple of times like a fish, “Damn that brain of hers.”
“But wait, that’s what you’re planning?” Samantha asked, looking around at everyone. Liz and Fred nodded their heads in support of her question.
“Pretty much,” Marc said.
“You are crazy.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Marc laughed. “What’s next?”
“I’ve got to figure out how to build a floating airport fast,” Blake said as he poured his third shot of scotch.
“I’ve got to figure out what Catie wants for the copilot slot,” Fred said as he left the room laughing.
&nb
sp; “Hey, what about the rest of us!” Liz yelped. Liz Farmer was one of their pilots and also doubled as Catie’s personal security.
“I think the copilot thing will work itself out,” Marc said. “Liz, do you want to help me figure out how to build the space station? The hull has to be formed in orbit.”
“Why is that?” Liz asked.
“Not having to lift the material for one. And that’s the difference between the polysteel we made down here and the Lynx’s hull. The Lynx’s hull absorbs any EM energy; it has a superconductor matrix under its skin that directs the energy into the batteries for storage. The space station will do the same thing, that way most of its power will come from the sun,” Marc said. “Of course, we’ll have a fusion reactor up there, but we need to do something with all that solar energy hitting the shell. We’d also like it to be stealthy.”
“That sounds like fun,” Liz said.
“Wait, can’t I help?” Catie asked.
“You’re our jet person, so why don’t you work on the Oryxes,” Marc said. “We’ll see how the workload goes. We have to keep our other projects going. We need money; we need an airport; we need planes; we need to be prepared for someone who wants to take any or all of that away from us.”
“Ohhh,” Samantha said.
“Sam?”
“That’s why you wanted the contract with the Cook Island government structured like a treaty,” Samantha said as she gave Marc a very knowing look. “You are so devious.”
“What?” Blake asked.
“He’s planning to declare the space station a free nation,” Samantha said.
“Just thinking about it,” Marc said.
Samantha’s head jerked with a start as she realized what else Marc might be planning. “What about Delphi City?”
“On the list.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Sir,” the captain knocked on Admiral Michaels’ door.
“Come in,” Admiral Michaels said. “So, we have more on our friends.”
“Yes sir,” the captain said as he entered the office. He stood in front of the admiral’s desk at parade rest.
“Relax, sit down.”
“Yes sir.”
“So, what have our friends been up to now?”
“Quite a bit, it seems. Our man in New Zealand reports that they have submitted the specs and necessary documents to certify a new executive jet design.”
“Why is that of interest?”
“It’s supersonic.”
“Oh, so it is their jet we hear about before.”
“Yes sir, but there more.”
“What?”
“The specs are very similar to what we picked up from the incident with the Chinese carrier.”
The admiral made a rolling motion with his hands to tell the captain to continue.
“It specifies a top speed of Mach four, and they say it doesn’t produce a supersonic shockwave.”
“No shockwaves!” the admiral repeated, his eyes wide in surprise. “Do they explain how they accomplish that?”
“No sir, the documents specify that it is proprietary technology, but they will demonstrate it during the qualifications.”
“I think we have to brief the secretary on this.”
“I would agree, but there is one more thing you should see first.”
“Okay.”
The captain opened his briefcase and pulled out a folder of photos, he laid four photos side by side on the admiral’s desk.
“What am I looking at here?” Admiral Michaels asked. “It looks like an offshore drilling platform.”
“That’s what the analyst thought, too, but if you look at the dimensions, sir.”
“Just tell me.”
“It started out two hundred fifty meters by two hundred fifty meters, sir. That’s three times bigger than a typical oil platform. It has since been expanded to six hundred fifty meters by six hundred fifty meters, and they’ve started to duplicate their production on it.”
“That is big,” the admiral said, nodding his head as he studied the pictures.
“It’s not done yet,” the captain said. “It looks like they’re planning on another three sections, making it about sixteen hundred by sixteen hundred meters, that’s almost a square mile.”
“These people are ambitious.”
“Yes sir. We also have these photos from our man on Rarotonga,” the captain added four more photos. They showed one of the pontoons being lowered into the water and two provided shots looking straight at the structure from the side.
“Okay, what am I supposed to notice here?”
“The spans are two hundred meters.”
“There are braces here,” the admiral pointed to the angled braces from the columns to the beams.
“Yes sir; even with those, you have a one-hundred-meter span. Also, note the size of the columns.”
“Okay.”
“They’re only five meters in diameter. Our engineers say it’s impossible for them to support the structure.”
“But they seem to be doing so.”
“Yes sir, possibly related to the material that the executive jet is made of.”
“What material?”
“They call it polysteel,” the captain said. “The specs they gave New Zealand make titanium look like plastic.”
“That good?”
“Half the weight and twice as strong, at least that’s what the documents they gave the Kiwis say.”
“Okay, are we ready to call a briefing?”
“There’s more, but it can wait for the briefing.”
The admiral buzzed his assistant, “Meg, please set up a briefing with Secretary Barrows and General Wilson.”
“Yes sir, when do you want to hold it?”
“At their earliest convenience, and invite Director Lassiter as well.”
“Yes sir.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Gentlemen, I apologize for the late hour, but this was the earliest time we could get all three of you together,” Admiral Michaels said as he entered the room. It was 10:30 p.m. EST in Washington D.C. Seated at the table was Secretary of Defense Jerry Barrows, Director of the CIA Bill Lassiter and National Security Advisor General John Wilson.
“Couldn’t this wait until tomorrow?” Secretary Barrows asked.
“Possibly, but I felt that sooner was better given the stunning nature of the data.”
“Okay, give it to us.”
“Please be seated. Would anyone like some refreshments?”
“Not yet. Get on with it.”
“Sirs, you all probably have been briefed on the incident in the Philippine Sea in March.”
“Yes, where the Chinese pilots claimed some super jet took them down.”
“That’s correct. We have an application to New Zealand for the certification of an executive jet that closely matches the claims of the Chinese pilots.”
“How so?”
“It specifies a speed of Mach four, is made of a new material called polysteel that is half the weight and over twice the strength of titanium.”
“Wait,” General Wilson said. “How is this possible, Jerry?” he asked, looking at the director of the CIA.
“We have no data showing that the Russians or any of our major allies have anything like that,” Director Lassiter said.
“That is probably correct,” Admiral Michaels said. “The application comes from a company called MacKenzie Discoveries. It’s run by Dr. Marc McCormack, who is the same fellow we purchased the new sonar technology from that we’re now installing in our submarine and surface fleets.”
“Aren’t they the ones who discovered that Portuguese shipwreck?”
“Yes, the Las Cinque Chagas,” Admiral Michaels said.
“Hold on here,” Secretary Barrows said. “Can you lay this out from beginning to end? I’d like some perspective here.”
“Yes sir, I can. Does everyone agree? It’s a long list.”
“Then, I definitely agree,” Gen
eral Wilson said as he sat back in his chair. Start at the beginning.
“Yes sir. Dr. Marc McCormack has a PhD. in mathematics. He wrote his dissertation on signal processing. He made some significant advances in the field, was offered, and accepted a department chair position at MIT. He was twenty-nine at the time.”
“Smart guy.”
“Yes. He worked at MIT for four years. We first became aware of him when he consulted with the DEA on a project where he modeled drug smuggling in an attempt to identify which vessels were actually smuggling drugs. It was his analysis that led to the series of big drug busts three-and-a-half years ago. Everyone was shocked at how much they recovered. He wound up getting the yacht and about two million as his commission. He and his brother, Commander Blake McCormack, repaired ...”
“Commander McCormack?” General Wilson interrupted. “The one who was awarded the Navy Cross?”
“Yes sir.”
“I thought I recognized the name. Please go on.”
“As I was saying, he and his brother restored the yacht over the next eighteen months. They then shipped it to Hawaii. Dr. McCormack left MIT and formed Hyperion Sonar. He and the commander moved to Hawaii, where Dr. McCormack developed the sonar system, and the commander did private charters on the yacht. A year later, Dr. McCormack contacted the Navy along with several major defense contractors to invite us all to review his new sonar technology.”
“I remember this,” Director Lassiter said.
“Yes, this is the first time that I met Dr. McCormack. When he showed us the technology, I declared it top secret, and we eventually bought his company.”
“This is all interesting, but how does it lead us to the new jet?”
“I’m getting to it, you asked that I start at the beginning, and it is important for you to see the pace of discovery here.”
“Yes, we all agreed we wanted the whole story,” Secretary Barrows said. “Go on, Admiral.”
“It was barely ten weeks later that they raised the Chagas. They accomplished this without any prior experience, and apparently without ever doing anything but cruise around the Azores.”
“What, and how would you know this?”
“The technology jump on the sonar was so dramatic that I thought it would be worth keeping an eye on Dr. McCormack. I had some of my assets follow him after we were briefed on the sonar. I kept them following him when he was in the Caribbean, the Azores, and Portugal.”
