by Tori Harris
In the early twentieth century, the Guardian was faced with the decision of how best to deal with the Terrans’ rapidly increasing technological footprint on this region of the galaxy. Prior to that point, the weak radio signals emanating from the planet were of such low power that they were unlikely to be detected by their nearest, potentially dangerous neighbors. Fortunately, the Makers had provided the GCS with a great deal of flexibility regarding how such things should be handled under the cultivation program’s three mission directives. Taking all variables into account, the GCS had full authority to limit or entirely prevent all foreign contact with the cultivated species until they were unlikely to encounter a civilization more powerful than themselves. Ultimately, after a number of very close calls with premature first contact, the Guardian had deemed this type of isolation protocol to have the highest probability of success for the Sol system. Accordingly, all forms of contact with other species were prevented, inasmuch as it was technically possible to do so. Electronic communications, including radio and television broadcasts originating in other star systems, were surprisingly simple to block. A network of only eight devices of similar design to the Guardian’s own reconnaissance probe deployed at key locations around the system completely jammed these stray, extremely low power signals. Now, even fifty years after their first receipt of ETSI data, Humans had never detected any other signals proven to be extra-terrestrial in origin. Although not quite as effective at blocking the Terrans’ outbound signals, these were also reduced to a level that made detection significantly less likely.
Unfortunately, preventing direct contact with alien species, or at least their technology, was often more difficult than merely blocking stray electronic signals. In spite of all efforts to sequester the Humans, one species had actually managed to penetrate the Sol isolation zone long enough to perform some perfunctory reconnaissance. The Pelarans actually knew very little about these aliens other than the fact that they were not from this region of the galaxy, and indeed were classified as a candidate extra-galactic species. Although they had a numeric species designation, the Guardian preferred the rather simplistic, but descriptive name the Humans had assigned them: the "Greys." They had been encountered numerous times and, thus far at least, their behavior did not appear particularly aggressive. Strangely, however, some of their activities such as overflights and specimen collections, most likely related to scientific research, were deemed high risk for premature first contact with the Terrans.
Unfortunately, all Alliance efforts to communicate the nature of the cultivation program, or anything else for that matter, with these creatures had been ignored. Accordingly, per the rules of engagement, the Greys’ ships were summarily attacked upon entering the Sol isolation zone just as any other intruder would be. This had happened a number of times, and had usually resulted in the alien spacecraft leaving the area rather than choosing to return fire (assuming they were even armed). In mid-1947, however, a combination of some ingenious, but decidedly reckless tactics had allowed a damaged spacecraft to survive long enough to crash-land on the surface of Terra. Fortunately, the Human proclivity to divide themselves into regional and political groups and then hide as much information from each other as possible had served the Guardian’s purpose well. The GCS had detected no significant technological contamination resulting from the incident.
Now, the Area 51 Travel Center shook as the normally quiet afternoon sky over the Amargosa Valley thundered with a double sonic boom marking Starship Ingenuity’s arrival. Even though such sounds had been a common occurrence in the region since the late 1940s, the sound of such a huge ship entering the atmosphere was truly awe-inspiring and left little doubt as to its source. All over the region, eyes turned skyward in hopes of catching a glimpse of what was now perhaps the most well-known ship in Human history.
A lucky few, including those at the intersections of Highway 95 and 373, had been fortunate enough to see the ship’s initial, high-altitude approach from the south towards the rugged, isolated region of Nevada to the north. The position of the afternoon sun caused the ship’s shadow to pass directly over the intersection, followed shortly thereafter by the tremendous echoing booms of her passing. Other than the sonic booms, however, Ingenuity’s overflight was accompanied by no sound at all other than the dry mountain wind blowing through the creosote bushes that dotted the sandy floor of the Mojave Desert.
***
Although presumably more accustomed to the spectacle of exotic, ultra-secretive air and spacecraft than the tourists at the Area 51 Travel Center had been, the government and civilian employees at the real Area 51 were no less interested in Ingenuity’s arrival. After maintaining an altitude of five kilometers during her approach from the south, the ship executed a rapid descent as it crossed the boundaries of the R-4808N restricted airspace over Groom Lake. Approaching the bright white salt flats marking the facility’s eastern border, Ingenuity made a final turn to align with the massive runways outlined on the dry surface of the lakebed itself. From the perspective of the keenly interested spectators, the ship quickly resolved from little more than an indistinct speck in the sky to a shockingly large spacecraft hovering silently at two hundred meters above the center of the lakebed near the intersection of Runways 21 and 27.
***
"Captain, we have reached the initial point specified for the low level portion of our approach to the Yucca Mountain Shipyard," Ensign Fisher reported. "We are holding position at two hundred meters. Gravitic fields set at forty percent mass. All systems in the green. We are rigged for terrain following flight."
"Very well, Ensign," Prescott replied. "Lieutenant Dubashi, please signal Fleet that we are holding at the IP, looking for final approach and landing clearance. Please repeat that we will be hand flying the approach until the final approach fix just outside the shipyard. Once we arrive at the FAF, we will hold position and relinquish control to the AI for autolanding."
"Aye Captain, transmitting now."
"Lieutenant Lau, please keep an eye on our ventral sensors. Our grav field should only extend a few meters beyond the hull on this low level route, but if you see us start kicking up debris, we’ll need to make some adjustments."
"Aye, sir. Current maximum gravitic field extension beyond the hull is only five meters."
"Excellent. I’m not expecting a problem, but we still have that ‘new starship smell,’ and I’d like to keep it that way for a while, if possible," Prescott laughed. "Just out of curiosity, Fisher, what’s the min altitude and max speed the AI is projecting that we could transit this low level route?"
"Well, sir, it says we could do it as low as fifteen meters above terrain, but that would be a very rough ride with several 9 G plus excursions. At that altitude, it says our speed would be as high as three kilometers per second. That’s nearly nine times the speed of sound. We would most definitely be throwing up some ‘rooster tails’ behind us, and our shockwaves might even induce seismic activity in the area. At that speed, we could complete the ninety-kilometer route in just over thirty seconds. It would be pretty sporty, sir. I can’t recommend trying it, but we’d make quite an entrance if we did."
"It’s good to know we have some options in a pinch, but I think we’ll stick with the planned route and speed for today. What’s our transit time again?"
"Should be about nine minutes, sir. We’ll be traveling at a leisurely one hundred seventy meters per second, which is about half the speed of sound. That should make sure we don’t hurt anyone on the ground or damage any property. Our route mostly follows the old Nevada Test Site road network and sticks to the valley floor between mountains. There is one stretch where we should get a great view of one of the old nuclear weapons test ranges."
"Captain, we have received final clearance for approach and landing from Yucca Mountain," Dubashi announced from the Communications console.
"Very well, Lieutenant. Before we go, I think we may have drawn a crowd over near the end of the main taxiway. Can you en
large and pan that area?"
"Yes, sir." Lieutenant Dubashi quickly centered the main view screen on an area not too far from the point where Taxiway 32 met the edge of the dry lakebed about two kilometers away. As she zoomed the image, it was clear that several hundred people had gathered to get a look at the now famous ship in person.
"Quite a few of those folks played a role in this ship’s construction, but I’m sure most have never seen her fully assembled." Prescott paused, wondering if there was anything he could do to safely improve the crowd’s view of the ship. "Commander Logan, bridge."
"Logan here, Captain. Are you considering an airshow, sir?" the chief engineer teased. Clearly, Logan was closely monitoring activities taking place on the bridge, in addition to everything he had on his plate down in Engineering.
"The thought had crossed my mind, but I’d like to avoid a court martial, if possible. In our current configuration, what’s the closest we can safely approach personnel on the ground?"
"It’s actually pretty safe at this altitude, Captain," Logan replied. As long as we hold this configuration and don’t make any sudden control inputs, one hundred meters or so should be just fine."
"I don’t think we’ll get quite that close, but that’s great, thank you. Everything okay down there so far?"
"All in the green down here, Captain," the naturally superstitious engineer cringed, wishing his commanding officer would avoid tempting fate by asking such unfortunate questions.
"Excellent. Bridge out." Prescott glanced at his helmsman. "Alright, Ensign Fisher, the runway we’re sitting on that leads off to the southwest is Runway 21 and it ends about three hundred meters or so from that group of people. Give us a slow approach down to the end of the runway, hover for a few seconds, and then rotate three hundred and sixty degrees so they can see the entire ship. Once they’ve had a good look at us, take Taxiway 32 over there off to the northwest until it joins our route. We’ll hold off letting Yucca Mountain know that we have entered the route until then. Clear?"
"No problem, Captain," Blake answered eagerly, clearly thrilled at the prospect of showing the ship off for an appreciative crowd.
Over the next few minutes, Ingenuity made her most "public" appearance to date, albeit to an unusually captive audience made up largely of military personnel and engineers with some of the highest security clearances issued by the U.S. government. It occurred to Prescott that this was probably the only crowd of this size anywhere in the world where he could openly approach a group of spectators without video of the event showing up on multiple news outlets within minutes. This was still Area 51, after all, and every single person in the assembled crowd had been thoroughly searched as they entered the facility for work this morning. Accordingly, not a single tablet computer or other recording device captured the impromptu show.
Once the massive yet eerily silent starship had finished its pirouette maneuver for the delighted, cheering crowd, Ensign Fisher proceeded towards the end of Runway 21, making a graceful, banking, right-hand turn onto Taxiway 32. Ingenuity was, in fact, the first large spacecraft capable of executing such turns, regardless of whether in space or operating inside the atmosphere. Coordinated, banking turns allowed for more efficient use of the ship’s gravitic fields when counteracting turn-induced G forces. Perhaps more importantly, they were found to be more in keeping with what Human pilots expected. This was likely due to the fact that most pilots were still taught to fly inside the atmosphere before advancing to spacecraft. Not surprisingly, these pilots found that spacecraft designed to fly more like the aircraft in which they originally trained were much easier to master. This resulted in a significant performance improvement and an easier transition from aircraft to spacecraft. With the perfection of Cannae thrusters, fuel and propellant were no longer a limiting factor. It was simply a matter of programming the ship’s AI to translate the helmsman’s control inputs to apply the appropriate amount of thrust to the appropriate locations at the appropriate time. The dynamics of this process were immensely complex from an engineering perspective, but Ingenuity’s AI handled the task with a negligible use of its computing resources, mimicking the look and feel of a fixed-wing aircraft operating within Earth’s atmosphere. And, as most members of the normally jaded crowd of engineers would agree, it also made for one of the most impressive airshows ever performed.
"Captain, we are approaching the low level route," Ensign Fisher announced.
"You are clear to proceed. Lieutenant Dubashi, notify Fleet we are entering the route. ETA nine minutes."
"Aye Captain."
"Accelerating to route velocity," Fisher said as he banked the ship to the left for the ninety-degree-turn from Taxiway 32 onto the low level approach route leading away from Groom Lake. "Twenty-five seconds to first turn."
Even though Fisher was "manually" conning the ship from his position at the Helm console, a great deal of the process was still automated. His job was more about managing and monitoring the preprogrammed series of events that would ultimately result in the ship’s arrival at Yucca Mountain than it was about "flying" her in the traditional sense. In the event of an emergency, the Helm console did still include a joystick and throttle, but it was hard to imagine a real-world situation where these anachronistic controls could be successfully used. Just in case, however, Fisher had spent countless hours in the simulator practicing old fashioned "stick and throttle" control of the one-hundred-eighty-meter starship.
***
Just off Groom Lake Road, a U.S. Department of Energy maintenance employee leaned forward in the front seat of his pickup and peered at the sky to the east out his passenger side window. Dispatch had just issued a warning to all personnel in the area that Ingenuity would be overflying a portion of the Nevada Test Site road network to the west of Groom Lake within the next few minutes at high speed. Though he had seen more than his share of high speed aircraft flyovers, he still took such events seriously and knew that they were sometimes accompanied by deafening noise and potentially dangerous shockwaves. Dispatch had said that this would not be the case today, but he decided to get out of the vehicle and take cover behind the truck bed just in case. Hearing and seeing nothing, he glanced back to the south towards the maintenance shack he had just visited, then at his watch before looking back up into the sky just in time to see the enormous ship execute a banking right turn directly overhead before continuing due west along Groom Lake Road. He was amazed at the vessel’s size, but what surprised him most was the fact that he could easily have missed the ship’s passage entirely if he had not looked up when he did. In fact, had he not witnessed the flyover with his own eyes, he would have argued vehemently that no aircraft of any kind had passed overhead. Playing the event over in his mind, the only thing he remembered noticing was an indistinct swooshing sound, which he assumed was the air passing over the ship’s sleek hull.
Chapter 8
TFS Ingenuity, TFC Yucca Mountain Shipyard Facility
"Captain, that was our last turn on the low level route. Final approach fix arrival in ninety seconds," Ensign Fisher announced from the Helm console. The nine-minute ride from Groom Lake had gone precisely as planned, but with the imminent arrival at the Yucca Mountain Shipyard, tension on the bridge had once again mounted.
"Nice job so far, Ensign. Hold position and await further instructions. Lieutenant Dubashi, notify Fleet that we are arriving at the final approach fix and request autolanding cues."
"Aye, Captain."
Nothing about the terrain surrounding the final approach fix looked anything like a shipyard facility. Precisely on schedule, the ship rapidly decelerated, transitioning into a hover two hundred meters above an area that looked more like the parking lot at a large shopping center than a facility capable of performing depot-level maintenance on Ingenuity-class starships. The area was otherwise barren, apparently deserted, and devoid of manmade structures other than the ever-present access roads crisscrossing the site.
"I’m a little afraid to
ask what happens next," Reynolds muttered to herself.
"Perhaps young Ensign Fisher made a wrong turn somewhere," Prescott teased, working as usual to keep the atmosphere on the bridge focused, but relaxed.
"Captain, we have received final landing clearance and the AI has locked onto Yucca Mountain’s autolanding signal," Dubashi reported.
"Understood, Lieutenant. Please render honors for Vice Admirals Patterson and White."
Although firing guns in salute was not possible for the unarmed frigate, not to mention impractical given the current, clandestine location, naval customs were still very much alive in Terran Fleet Command. As Ingenuity prepared to approach the shipyard, she transmitted an electronic equivalent of the fifteen-gun salute appropriate for vice admirals.
"Aye, sir. Transmitted. Also, Admiral Patterson is requesting a bridge vidcon."
Without prompting, every member of the bridge crew adjusted in their seats to avoid any appearance of slouching in front of the chief of naval operations.
"One second, Dubashi. Ensign Fisher, have you received execution authority for autolanding at the Helm console?"
"I have, Captain. Standing by to execute."
"Excellent. Fisher, I know I don’t have to tell you to watch this approach very closely. If anything doesn’t look right to you, discontinue immediately and hold position. Got it?"
"Got it, sir."
"Alright. Everyone look sharp for the CNO. Lieutenant Dubashi, put the admiral on-screen."
