The Admiral walked back towards the main viewport, her shoulders straight. Tony took the opportunity to linger on the tube, once again he spotted something stir within the cloudy gases, something that looked alive. Commander Hernandez moved into his eye line and motioned him to look away. When he did, he found Captain Watts staring back at him.
“Since the good Lieutenant is so interested, let’s place him on the first recon flight.” The Captain turned back towards the main window where the Admiral waited, her entourage closing in. “The Admiral wants the Powell found, and either recovered or destroyed before Confed can gather any intel from it.”
Tony felt two centimetra tall all of a sudden. Despite the success of their recent raids, any recon into Confed territory was fraught with danger. The Predictor made things safer as it ensured the ability to make a speedy exit, but not if they were jumping into a trap. Then there were the inherent dangers of jumping into a planetary nebula.
Old vids made nebula look as dense as planetary clouds, but the truth was that they were still mostly empty space. Despite that, denser pockets of gases and other stellar cast-offs could throw off sensors and provide hiding places for enemies, or the Powell. Going on one scouting mission into a Confed nebula was bad enough, to get voluntold to take on more felt like the low point of this tour. It almost made him want to volunteer to transfer to the Inferno.
Tony turned towards the viewport and looked out at the Inferno. The mobile drydocks had started pulling away from it, exposing the massive cannon that had been mounted between the upper launch decks. That ancient ship was on its way to glory. The destruction of the Wolfsbane would be a career-making mark on every crew member's record. With that new cannon the Inferno would either destroy the Wolfsbane or itself. The next month and a half of space trials would hopefully prove that either way, and would allow the ship to jump back to Drobile unmolested.
Whatever the case, the destruction of the Wolfsbane would give the Barker a clear edge in the sector and Federation forces could move in en-masse. Then, it would be a simple matter to ship in more Pharad Portable Jump Points. If the Pharad could only find a way to control the movement of the jump points inside hyperspace, then the Galactic Federation would have a true means to end the war in weeks. As it stood, the jump points were even harder to track when being moved, even by the Predictor, and their stability suspect when first deployed. At least so he’d been told.
UCSB Date: 1005.335
Dropship Hangar, UCSBS-Wolfsbane, High Orbit Drobile Six, Drobile System
If this was a dream, then Gavit didn’t want to wake up. After decles of static engine tests, which he’d found encouraging, but that had left Chris, Dorik and his engineers debating how best to proceed, his old racer was about to fly free in space again for the first time. More than that, the Particle Duct Engine behind him would take him there.
His link crackled: Chris. “Gavit, TC, remember, take it easy out there. That last static engine test has me uneasy.”
Gavit shook his head and looked across the deck towards the flight control bay. Inside, Chris and the rest of Dorik’s team waited, analyzing the telemetry from the nimble little craft. “TC, Racer One, copy that.” He pulled up the flight test cards on his secondary screen.
The test called for a lethargic launch, taking him just outside the bay before he’d slowly throttle up in full vacuum. That hadn’t been on the original Flight Test Plan he’d helped draft. But they’d had to revise it following the static tests. If it had been up to Dorik, they’d have spent the next Tridec with the racer tied down to the hull to work out the bugs in the engine. The Captain had thankfully stopped that nonsense. He’d insisted that they make free flight as soon as possible, before the Phantom reappeared.
There’d been inconsistencies in the drive’s output when placed out into space. The static tests had been conducted in the hangar bay, but when pressurized or unpressurized it had experienced no such anomalies. Once held out into the void, however, the drive would lose power or surge at random.
Chris theorized it had to do with the inconsistencies in the density of local space. That made sense given what Gavit knew about how PDEs functioned. Those inconsistencies would explain why PDEs tended to break down in short order, and saw limited exo-atmospheric use.
Chris and Dorik came up with a solution to have the sensors analyze the density of space ahead of the craft, and automatically tune the drive accordingly. It was just a patch to the system to be sure, but enough to get the racer into space. For Gavit, that was enough.
Gavit keyed his link again. “TC, Racer One, I am ready for launch.”
“Standby Racer One,” Chris replied and came back a moment later. “Telemetry is good. We are a go to proceed.”
“Copy that.” Gavit switched over to the launch control link. “Launch Control, Racer One, ready for launch.”
“Copy Racer One. You are cleared to depart, assume vector 273 mark 315 after launch to avoid local traffic and proceed to test volume.”
“Confirmed control.”
Gavit took a deep breath and eased open the throttle. The racer started down the null gravity deck at a trot, while techs in magboots kept pace with him as he neared the exit. It took all his composure to not throw the throttle wide open. There was no minimum take-off speed in space, but the engineers were playing it safe. They said it was better for problems to crop up at a low velocity instead of a high one. “Slowest take-off ever,” Gavit muttered as he pierced the atmosphere shield. He looked up at the ship above him. He could count the hull plates. Were this a normal launch, they’d be a blur.
“Racer One, TC, you are cleared for throttle up. Slowly.”
Gavit tapped his screen to the next test card, and checked his throttle. He was at 5% thrust. He pressed the throttle up to 25%, and the racer responded, bucking forward like it’d been kicked before settling back down. Gavit looked around, he hadn’t expected such a hard kick. “Throttle at Two Five, angling towards prescribed vector.”
“Copy Racer One.”
Gavit adjusted course, thrusters firing to angle the craft. The engine cut out. Before Gavit could call in the problem he surged ahead, overshooting his set thrust for a moment before the craft settled again. “TC!”
“We see it. The course change interrupted particle flow. We are adjusting. Stand by.”
Gavit waited a long moment. The next step on his test card went grey before it reverted to white again. “TC?”
“We have it figured out Racer One. Proceed to Five Zero Percent thrust.”
“Copy Five Zero, throttling up.”
The racer lurched as Gavit applied more thrust. His main screen lit up with overthrust alerts as the engine output surged and ebbed. Gavit’s mouth went dry as his caution and warning panel blinked to life. The craft settled. Despite that, Gavit could feel it continue to surge and dip in power.
“I’m getting continual dips and surges in thrust here,” he reported. He looked around to see if any of the construction tugs were nearby, just in case. “I hope you guys can get these under control. I mean, I’m good, but this is beyond even me.”
There was a buzz of background conversation as Chris linked back in. “Understood, they’re discussing it here. The telemetry from the last throttle up has them spooked though. What’s your status?”
The craft continued to shudder as the thrust ebbed and spiked. Gavit could see nothing wrong beyond that. “Feels like I’m hitting turbulence. I’m good to proceed to seventy-five.”
“Understood, go for six zero percent.”
Gavit grumbled. He could take whatever this engine threw his way. He didn’t mind the rough ride. “Copy Six Zero,” he replied and pressed the throttle slightly forward.
The acceleration curve was smoother this time, with no overthrust. He did feel the power output drop at random as he approached the maneuvering volume. “Entering maneuvering volume, preparing to adjust course.”
“Copy position and course adjustment. You’re clear.
”
Gavit chopped the throttle to let his momentum carry him and twisted his nose towards his next vector before he eased it back open to sixty percent thrust. Gavit was never one who’d enjoyed riding animals. During one of his races he’d been challenged to ride an untamed neigh. Being young, headstrong, and foolish, he’d accepted the challenge. It had been a wild ride, but had gotten worse when the animal’s handler had let his herding bark loose. The bark had raced up and nipped the neigh in the testicles. Gavit remembered the beast had gone crazy after that, bucking and kicking until Gavit flew free.
He wished he was back on that neigh right now.
The racer was out of control. Thrust spiked past maximum then dropped to zero, before spiking again. Despite the annular thrust ring behind him, the racer kicked all about and attempted to tumble as Gavit fought the controls. The ring simply couldn’t deliver uniform thrust. Alerts flashed and then the fighter just died, casting Gavit adrift. A message flashed across Gavit’s screen: ‘SAFETY LIMITS EXCEEDED, SYSTEM SHUTDOWN.’
Gavit huffed and puffed in the resulting silence, trying his best to calm his hearts. Through the thudding in his ears he became dimly aware of Chris calling out to him. “Racer One here, what happened?”
“Thank God you’re alive,” Chris panted. “We’re still trying to figure that out, but it seems pretty obvious that we can’t continue like this. Using just raw ambient stellar mass is too volatile. We’re dispatching a tug to come get you.”
Gavit slammed his hand into his console, frustrated. “Copy that.”
The dream had died. He pushed back into his seat and waited, wondered if he could have done anything differently and eyed his fuel gauge of all things. When he’d flown the craft before it had had a plasma torch for use in short bursts. The engineers at Rokmas had replaced it with a slipstream bulb. That slipstream drive was key to Dorik’s vision. But the fuel tanks were still there. Instead of a hydrogen slurry, they held a compressed collection of stellar dust and gasses for use in the thrusters and as an overthrust reservoir. An idea struck him. “TC, Racer One, what about the overthrust reserves. Can we use that instead?”
The link remained silent for a moment. “I see what you’re thinking. We’re talking it over now.”
Gavit waited in silence. The screens blinked at him. One displayed lines of code. The engineers were figuring out and uploading some manner of fix in record time. He trusted them, but after this, he was still wary. He looked around for that tug. He didn’t want to get towed in. That would be humiliating, but it was better than dying.
“Racer One, TC, we have a fix in. Adjust your heading to keep in the test volume and apply thrust, slowly.”
“Copy TC,” Gavit replied with a smile and vectored back towards the Wolfsbane before pressing the throttle open. The acceleration curve was beyond smooth. It was just what he’d expected. The racer sailed across the volume with ease, a few bumps here and there as he passed through a pocket of stellar gas and dust. He looked down at the fuel gauge. It was dropping at a worrying rate. “TC, reaction mass is…”
“We’re aware, the reservoir is small. It wasn’t intended for continuous output.”
“Understood,” Gavit replied and chopped the throttle to coast. “Setting system to refill now.” When gliding across open space, he could utilize the PDE to collect more of the free stellar mass, miniscule as it might be. The gauge crawled up at a rate that would make a slug look fast. The PDE might be able to use a few atoms per cubic metra to propel the craft, but it couldn’t make them fill the tank in any kind of hurry.
“Racer One, TC. We’re analyzing the problem here, but there’s no easy fix. We’re looking at a complete tear down to manage this.”
“Damn,” Gavit hissed, his finger off the transmit key.
“Stand by,” Chris called. “I have an idea. Give me a pulse.” It was more like ten pulses before Chris came back on the link. Gavit could spot the running lights of a pair of tugs approaching as she came back on. “Racer One, TC. We are transitioning you back to raw intake mode with a fix in place. The tugs are there just in case. You are cleared to return.”
Gavit nodded. He hated that the test flight would be cut so short. This was no mere tweaking to Blazer’s old Splicer 1000 at the academy. Overthrusting the fighter was one thing. They were testing out a whole new paradigm-shifting engine technology. There were bound to be problems to solve. “Racer One copies. On my way home.”
Unsure of their fix, Gavit eased the throttle open, careful not to outrun the tugs. The thrust felt about right, there were still some hiccups, but nothing unexpected. It almost felt like when he’d fly the craft in atmosphere. A readout on his display showed data flowing in and out of the craft at a constant rate, faster than he could ever hope to understand. Still, something about the lines of code looked familiar. A line kept reappearing, and while he couldn’t read it because of how fast it would scroll off the screen, he knew it from somewhere.
Feeling a bit daring, he made rapid throttle adjustments and sharp course changes. The system responded, not quite as advertised, but he maintained thrust better than he’d had before. The power levels spiked during turns as the PDE not only accelerated the dust and gases but altered their courses as well.
“Racer One, TC. Knock that off and bring it home. The captain is requesting an immediate debrief.”
Captain’s Conference Room
Gavit had never been in the Captain’s conference room before. It was much smaller than he’d anticipated. It was dominated by a single table, no larger than the one in his mother’s dining room. It might be able to seat the heads of the major departments, but that was it. There was no way that Dorik’s whole team would be able to crowd into the chamber. Instead, just Gavit, Chris, Dorik, and Gokhead sat waiting for the Captain. The rest of Dorik’s team were buying themselves analyzing the data and servicing the racer. Gavit, Chris and Gokhead shot to their feet when the Captain and Commander Vetter entered.
“Take your seats,” Captain Sardenon called before he sat down at the head of the table. “I don’t have much time, and I was monitoring the flight. So let’s keep this short. What went wrong and how did you fix it?” he asked, his eyes drifting from Dorik to Gokhead.
All eyes turned to Dorik. He swallowed hard. Gavit knew how much he hated being the focus of attention, but he was the most knowledgeable on the system. “In plain terms, space is nowhere near uniform. Trace gases and dust are measured in atoms per cubic centi-metra, but that density can vary wildly. With our nearness to the gas giant, we’d assumed a near uniform particle density, but we were wrong. Had we been in deep space, it might have been worse.”
Chris cut in. “In short sir, the system couldn’t keep up with the changes in particle density and almost burned itself out. This is the same phenomena we see in almost all PDEs, even those on torpedoes. But in those cases, before launch, the WSO of the launching craft takes a sensor reading of the volume of space between them and the target. They then program the PDE to react accordingly, and in volumes of miniscule density have a reaction mass reserve.”
The Captain nodded. “I’m aware of that. How did you overcome it? I noticed Officer Markus wasn’t towed in.”
Gavit was curious about that too and turned back to Dorik, but Gokhead spoke up. “That would be because of me, sir.” The hologram projector burst to life displaying a model of the racer and multicolored clouds around it. “I was observing the flight and came to the same conclusion as the team. However, we also realized that I could assist, so, using my micomm, I weaved into the sensor feed and made real time adjustments to the PDE.” The hologram began to play forward, the energy output of the PDE adjusting as the racer approached and passed through pockets of different particle density. “We can begin working on an SI that could make these adjustments automatically, but that will take some time.”
Ever since Gokhead had become Que Dee’s new host, Gavit had had to really listen to tell which of the pair were speaking. He eyed the Dras
hig curiously, the light on the side of his head blinking slowly. That was typically the sign that Que Dee was idle, but he couldn’t be sure anymore. And that raised the question, was Gokhead making the adjustments or Que Dee? Could an organic mind make those adjustments, or would a synthetic sentient be needed?
The Captain steepled his fingers as he sat in thought. “I see. So, implementation and installation of this PDE tech will be limited to fighters with WSOs then?”
Gokhead looked to Dorik and nodded.
“More than likely, yes,” Dorik replied. “The sophistication needed for an SI to be able to make those decisions will require quite a bit of vetting.”
“What about using existing fuel tanks?” Gavit blurted out. He felt all eyes turn towards him. “I mean, it worked for us for a short time, and you always intended to use them from overthrust, to replace the existing afterburners.”
Dorik nodded. “It could work for single seat craft, yes. We could rework the system to collect mass as it goes, but couldn’t do that on the racer.”
Captain Sardenon looked at Commander Vetter. “I like where this is going, but I think we need to move it off-ship. Do you agree?”
Commander Vetter nodded, eyed Gokhead: he seemed to have clearly heard the difference in his voice.
“Good,” the Captain turned back to Dorik. “Get your team together. We’re going to send you home. It’s going to get too hot around here at any moment, and I can’t risk endangering your lives or the breakthroughs you’ve made.”
“I understand. And you will let High Command know?”
“Absolutely. You have the full backing of myself, the Admiral, and my command staff. You’ll have Command’s soon enough. I want to thank you for your hard work.”
Commander Vetter motioned back towards the door.
“And that is my signal, sorry to cut this short.” He and Commander Vetter headed to the door, but he stopped short and turned back to them. “I do not want to downplay what you’ve accomplished here. Go. Celebrate. Then get you and your team someplace safe. This is a technology that could turn the tide of this war.”
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