Connection

CONNECTION

Ken R. Pence

CONNECTION

© 2015 Ken R. Pence

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form, or by any means without written permission of the author.

TRIAL VOYAGE

SPACE R US

LOCALS

Cassandra

LOCAL LOCKUP

BACK IN BUMWEET

FATHER

Twlise

Disruptive tech

Xale you say

SUBVERSION

NEGOTIATIONS

The outing

The Return

LEGALITIES

The Trial

INTERVENTION

KOBE SHIPYARD – MARS

ENGRAM

ARMAMENT

2011 SR52

UNIFIED COMBATANT COMMAND – DoD

REDIRECTION

THE NEW FLEET

FULLY FUNDeD PATROL

DETECTION

WELCOME TO OUR UNIVERSE

THE EARTH FLEET

Agreement and Merger

SULFUR – CINNAMON – and 47 TAU

TESTING: ONE, TWO, THREE

BACK?

Robert Kobe always exceeded everyone’s expectations as a young man. He had pursued non-conventional sports in spurts. He was easily bored and never stuck with anything too long. He would try one thing – master it and move on. He liked martial arts but wouldn’t stick with any style too long. He diligently studied Karate, Kung Fu, Capoeira, Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, Jiu Jitsu, Pencat Silat, Muay Thai, and Escrima a bit more than a year each. He would attend a school as soon as one opened near where he lived and stick it out ‘til he was pretty good. He even became pretty decent at fencing – saber and epee – but his interest flagged in each field as his skill grew. His six foot two inch frame was willowy yet rock hard.

He did the same thing with every discipline. He studied programming ‘til late every night in college and got an engineering degree from a second rate school but with a first rate record from there. He was sharp and picked up on the ins and outs quickly but treated school like a smorgasbord – he’d take what he liked – sample some and move on.  He was a successful entrepreneur at twenty-five – designing clever adaptations and then wholesale innovations. His inventions brought him millions and his savvy manipulation of finances turned his designer apps into multiple monopolies that threatened the status quo of other corporations and governments. He was always facing investigations and probes of his corporate activities. Robert turned his waning interest in Earthly projects, disgusting Earth politics, and set his sights on the stars.

We were just able to consistently reach Mars in ninety days using nuclear fusion – thermal rockets that used liquid hydrogen as a propellant. Robert knew we could do better and designed a new system that used radically new principles. His multinational corporation downplayed his control but used his designs throughout. His goal was to design a ship that would carry a crew of four to the stars. The power supply was a compact fusion reactor that would provide enough electricity to power a moderate sized city – that was a lot of power even in this day and time. The fuel was helium three from the government base on the moon. The fuel alone had caused Robert to liquidate many of his holdings. His ‘empire’ was heavily leveraged for this venture and the returns from the inventions didn’t show much marketing potential except for four items: the power plant, the combination drive, the radiation shielding, and the entertainment rights to any flight.

                                                                  ****

Skip Mullins was an adrenaline junkie. He admitted it. Fast cars, fast boats, fast planes, and fast women were part and parcel of his day-to-day life. That didn’t mean he wasn’t good at what he did – he was fantastic with reaction times ten percent faster than the norm. That may not seem like a lot but he was a fantastic pilot. When Robert Kobe had approached him about piloting a spacecraft – he thought the guy was some nut case. He checked him out on the Net and found out his main office was in Bakersfield, California but he had properties all over the globe. Skip was still dubious ‘til Robert had him to check out his new facilities. That tour of Robert’s Texas spaceport sold him. A year of training prepped him for his first deep space test of the bias drive.

The combination drive could transition from scramjet (Mach 16) orbital insertion, to by-product Hall Drive, to the bias drive. The scramjet could rapidly accelerate the craft but was limited by the fuel – large fuel volume caused more drag so the scramjet drive could only be used briefly and the hull had to be aerodynamically streamlined to minimize drag and produce lift at supersonic speeds. The scramjet had been theorized at the turn of the century but couldn’t be built until the special alloys and fabrication methods had been invented. It is one thing to design something but getting the fiddly details working was the hard part of engineering. The scramjet worked partially because the military designs had leaked from the Indian and Chinese missile tests. Once you know the general way to accomplish a goal – it made designing a much easier process. The fuel storage was the hard part because initial designs allowed for very few seconds worth of fuel. Richard had figured a unique way to store large volumes of fuel and that was his trade secret. He didn’t want to patent it because then everyone would steal his design and he’d be fighting court cases in Asia – a losing proposition. He had kept it secret so far so the government wouldn’t take over his design in the national interest. The scramjet let him reach escape velocity until his next system kicked in.

The Hall Drive would then accelerate the craft in low gravity areas until the bias drive could be used. The bias drive didn’t use reaction mass – though it did have a compact fusion reactor using helium three to produce prodigious amounts of electricity. The bias drive supposedly, modified space itself by modifying Newton’s constant, G, to produce an asymmetric bias. Simply put – the bias drive produced a local gradient across the vehicle’s field – less gravitational constant in the front than in the rear. This would produce a drive that accelerated a small mass forward without apparent inertial effects – at least in theory. Anything within the field should accelerate faster than light – they hadn’t been able to measure velocity and there were serious limitations on the design so far.

The unique radiation protection field he’d designed couldn’t surround much volume. His ship had to be small – much smaller than most reaction drive ships. There were limitations on each drive and his new drive was no exception. The inertialess drive couldn’t be used in a heavy gravity well – say…near a celestial body. The new, bias drive was designed not be used more than a few days at a time before fusion by-products had to be released. The actual by-products of fusion let the small ship produce a Hall particle drive which could produce a sub-light thrust near a planet. This sub-light, Hall Drive didn’t have the fuel limitation of chemical drives and could provide a higher velocity if given time… a small thrust over a long period. Testing it in deep space met Skip’s criteria – independent control in a terrifying environment. He was dying to test it soon.

Skip had been testing Robert’s scramjet engine design in atmosphere for the last several months and had hit escape velocity consistently. The craft was difficult to master because it was so sensitive to control input. Skip had flown the first flights so the computer could be programmed but he was needed less and less as the computer learned its job. The spacecraft had the ability to transition from scramjet to by-product Hall thruster for one orbital insertion and re-entry with a bit of extra reserve. Scramjet fuel was the 800-pound gorilla in the room. The fusion reactor could run for months on its fuel supply. It was Robert’s ingenious fuel storage method that allowed the craft to be as small as it was. Skip didn’t understand what ‘quantum folding’ was but knew from training lectures that it compressed the scramjet fuel volume while limiting inertial effects of a large mass. He had seen a ‘failure’ of a miniscule fuel storage container and to say it was ‘spectacular’ is like saying a nuke is a ‘big bang’. No radiation – but he figured he’d never know if fuel containment failed so what the hell. Today’s test was different – he had a passenger…Robert Kobe.

“How are you today Mister Kobe?” Skip said as he saw the figure approaching him in a silver flight suit like his own.

“Call me Robert, Skip…or Bob…or boss…don’t care,” Robert said as he firmly reached out and shook Skip’s hand.

Skip responded to the warm smile and lack of fear on his boss’s face. He was impressed. He’d, of course, seen Robert numerous times but not in this context – not in a flight suit sharing the risk.

Robert grinned seeing Skip’s surprised look. “Bet you didn’t think I’d go through with this trip. Everything I’ve done up to now has been preparing me for this – all my money, all my training – everything built up to this moment. …Been looking forward to it for the past seven years.”

Skip started to say something but shut his mouth as he spied the small entourage of media people moving toward them at a pace switching between a trot and a brisk walk.

“Mister Kobe. We had an agreement,” said Abey Winthon from the PBS Nova program. “You were supposed to give me unlimited access. I can’t believe you were going to go up without us recording it. We will get the interior and nose camera recordings won’t we.”

“Certainly Ms.Winthon,” Robert said smiling with his mouth but not his eyes. Abey was a cute 25 year old wan-t-be with more looks than talent. Robert had to give her credit for looks – she had that in spades, but talent…that lay in other areas he presumed.

“Hi Skip,” Abey said. “…Thought you were supposed to call me?” she said demurely and then turned ‘all’ faux mad. “Mister Kobe. Your launch crew said you were going to fly with Skip and go into orbit.”

“That’s right,” he said to the cameras. “Skip and I are supposed to have lunch in Australia in an hour so we have to run. Come on Skip,” Robert said grabbing Skip’s arm and nudging him toward the ship. “Let’s get this show on the road.” Robert saw Abey biting her lip in a little pout as they moved over to the ship. The media team stopped at the red line as they had been told and Robert breathed a sigh of relief.

Skip said, “Nice rescue boss. She is a lot of fun but clingy.”

Robert just nodded.

The launch crew was exiting the side dock ramp and the launch supervisor came up to Robert and Skip. “She’s all ready. Bring her back safe – you guys too. I like my job.”

“We’ll try our best Tod. Appreciate the quick turnaround you’ve been doing. Your folks have kept me on schedule. I’ll try to make sure they all get a little pay bump to show my appreciation,” Robert said.

“You ‘wanna’ record that before you leave?” Tod said with a little laugh.

“Nah,” Robert said. “Can wait ‘til we get back…gotta’ keep you honest somehow.”

They boarded the Cassandra, named by Robert because no one ever believed he would ever get this vehicle to work – just like no one believed the prophesies of the Oracle of Delphi. When someone would ask – he would just tell people ‘to look it up.’ Skip called off the pre-flight checklist to Robert and confirmed with the FAA controllers that Quantus wasn’t flying any of its Boeing blended wing Sonic Cruisers in commercial airspace – no military traffic in ‘Elephant Country’ either. This nickname was coined for all the large, slow-movers under flight level 1,000. Skip was the only pilot on staff with Robert that was a Federal Aviation Administration approved orbital pilot. Robert had his suborbital flight certificate and had passed his orbital flight rules exam but needed a couple more flights to get his orbital certificate. Robert finished the checklist and taxied down the runway. The Cassandra was soon in its sub-orbital climb over the Gulf of Mexico.

The launch facility was located on fifty acres just east of Los Fresnos, Texas and north of Brownsville. Robert had built his facility here because SpaceX already had an approved environmental study nearby. It was a no-brainer for the locals to approve another spaceport in the under-populated area. The blue water of the Gulf was beautiful as Robert turned toward his heading for Sydney. Ostensibly, the flight was to meet with a wealthy investor in Sydney for lunch and give him a tour of the ship. A little over an hour and forty minutes later they turned final at Kingsford Smith International and taxied to a stop at an adjacent terminal hangar. As always, a small contingent of onlookers had come over to see the Cassandra. Robert stepped off the ship as the security team and ground crew began to refuel the vehicle whose composite hull was already cool to the touch. Robert obligingly posed for a few photos with the curious and then went over to meet his investor, Thorton Mayby.

Thorton gushed as he viewed and snapped photos of the spacecraft. Robert allowed him to take pictures everywhere but the engines because Thorton was such a big investor. Robert took photos of Thorton in the pilot’s seat with his flight helmet on. It was a big hit. Thorton loved the tour and took them to a fine old Sydney restaurant. Thorton went to the trunk and pulled out a large box when they arrived back at the hangar. He struggled two boxes out of his car while wearing a big grin.

“I know you are a amante de café,” Thorton said.

Skip uncharacteristically jumped in. “A what?”

“A coffee lover,” Thorton grinned like a little kid. “…Plus some spices from India – all legal of course. Peppers, curries, chilies, bay leaf, mints, cinnamon, and cloves in the smaller box and coffees in the large box.”

Robert had been half paying attention because he had been thinking about the next flight that would get him his orbital license. He did love coffee though and he perked up when he heard the word, “Coffee?”

“Knew what would jerk your chain. Twenty of the best coffees in kilo paks:  Guatemala Antiqua Santos, Costa Rico Sonoran, Ethiopian Guji, Congos Caturra Espresso, Panama Lerida, Sumatra Mandheling Espresso, Kenya Gondo, Ethiopia Danch, Ethiopia Cheffe, Costa Rica Terra Bella, Hawaiian Kona, Jamaican Blue Mountain, Columbia Supremo, Peru Cepi, Tanzania Peabury…”