Connection (33 page)

“Sir. Blockade goods coming in or us going out. One hundred ships wouldn’t stop us from launching missions and they’ve said nothing to that effect.”

“Continue the countdown Colonel. Just because they haven’t done anything yet doesn’t mean they will not do so in the future. This is going to be a coordinated effort. We will seize all of Kobe Industries assets and control all his manufacturing facilities.”

“What do you think their response will be? Those are a lot of our former people.”

“Damn traitors if you ask me.

                                                                        ****

The mirrors and lenses had been purchased on Earth but the major laser components were now being built on Mars. The facility hired many people and the housing facilities were struggling to keep up with demand and infrastructure in an airless, arid – hostile environment. Only through fusion generators, and quantum folding of fuels/water were they able to function. The first twenty new ships had been fitted with the bias engines and weapons. The missiles were made in China and France and were excellent quality once the Chinese backdoors on the microprocessors were disabled. It took Cassandra to find the anomalies. The Idaho National Lab usually did that on Earth but they certainly weren’t going to do it for a Mars colony. If it hadn’t been for the constant stream of skilled immigrant workers and shipments of food from Earth – the colony could not have supported all the people. Titan supplied the H3, liquid hydrogen, and oxygen now that they were just an hour’s flight away by bias drive.

The tech approached Twlise. “Miss Twlise. May I have your autograph?”

She looked at her bodyguard who nodded. He obviously knew the worker and wasn’t worried. “Sure,” Twlise said and signed the paper with a flourish.

“Thanks,” he said and practically floated off he was so happy.

“That is so weird,” she said to her bodyguard. “I will never understand you people and it’s been getting worse with all the new people coming here.”

“You’re a celebrity ‘Lise,” said the bodyguard. “Practically the most famous person on Mars. Just be glad you’re not a famous singer – it’d be worse. I’ve protected band members. People ARE crazy around them. This is normal.”

“Hummpf,” Twlise said. “Normal? Zhast.”

The bodyguard laughed. “I’ve heard people saying that expression too.”

                                                                       ****

The security was much tighter in the laboratories since we got the influx of new colonists and new scientists. They had their own apartments, taverns, themed restaurants (only three), and a theatre. There were now almost 120 scientists and their familites with machine shops, 3D printers for polymers and metal, as well as ties to the larger production facilities at the Kobe shipyards. There was also microprocessor manufacturing plus a laser production facility. The new recruits from the universities were cranking out new ideas and innovations daily. Menlo Park, PARC, or old Bell Labs didn’t have anything on this place. This was a place where innovation happened and patents with licenses were often spun off. We, ‘course, kept the good stuff for ourselves…they’d tried to steal everything. Robert believed in management by walking around and decided it had been too long since he visited his prodigies.

The music was cranked up pretty high when Robert walked into the lab. Robert felt heavy and drained as he walked through the doorway. He thought he must be getting old. Kenny Nakamura and Steven Weathers came up to him as he struggled to walk in.

“What do you think boss?’ Kenny said while bubbling with enthusiasm.

“What do you mean? Sorry. I’m feeling run down all of a sudden,” Robert said.

Steven Weathers laughed openly and said, “You mean you feel weak and tired since you walked in here?”

“Yep,” Robert said suspiciously. “What have you two come up with?”

They both chuckled. “Feeling a bit heavier in here are you?” Nakamura said.
 

“Yep. What did you do?” Robert asked.

“Told you I could do more with those fields of yours. This was just an unexpected manifestation. We can cause variable gravity fields that either increase or decrease apparent gravity,” Steven said.

“So you know what gravity is and how to manipulate it?”

“Not really. We speculated that gravity might not be a pull but a push of standing   wave Planck frequency background radiation. That would also explain dark matter and why gravity is less over mountains than in valleys on a large planet. It also gives a much better explanation of tides on Earth than the convoluted fiction used to explain that now,” Steven explained. “Attenuation and absorption could explain ‘dark energy’ a heck of a lot easier than these voodoos theories we keep hearing.”

“I thought gravity was what pulled you down to a surface,” Robert said.

Nakamura explained, “Newton didn’t know either said that it was a push or a pull – he couldn’t discern which. He said he couldn’t see how anything worked instantly at a distance. Visualize that there is Planck frequency, standing-wave background radiation all around us. Large masses attenuate this a bit, so the Earth blocks some of this radiation as does the moon. The blocking releases neutrinos, which everyone thought was caused by ‘dark matter’. That blocked matter makes up 26% of the universe. Celestial bodies are pushed toward each other. Calculations show that visible matter in the universe wouldn’t hold it together so they came up with the fiction of dark matter. We just think this missing matter as attenuated gravity from the more massive celestial bodies. Look up the term ‘mass defect’ in the literature – massive bodies simply mass shadowing – same inverse square law.”

Robert was intrigued, “Copernicus’s believers had complicated ‘proof’ too showing the Earth as the center of the universe…he was just wrong. Obviously, it isn’t impossible since you have made it work. What can you do with it so far? Where are you going with this? What are the demonstratable effects? Energy requirements?”

“We can create a gravity field almost two times as strong as Earth’s – there seems to be a limitation with the way we are doing it – 2 Gs is our max so far. That is here on Mars. It isn’t hard to cover an area here with emitters. I’d suggest we do that to all the work areas so we don’t have as much adjustments going back to Earth. We could keep the sleeping quarters normal Mars gravity,” Nakamura said. “We can have training areas in higher

“Could we use this on ships?” Robert asked.

“Don’t see why not,” Steven said. “You want us to try it on the Nemesis. Shouldn’t be too big of a problem though I don’t know how it’s going to affect performance of the Hall or Bias Drives. The simulation shows some interesting characteristics when the field is maxed out.”

“Define interesting,” Robert said.
Cassandra. Are you and Nemesis listening to this?

[Robert. We are…I am now looking at their data and it is indeed interesting. They can vary the frequency beyond anything heretofore produced using quantum gates – they appear to have developed a new method. They used Planck scale quantum effects to produce gravity – this presents new ideas to me. This may give you a way to produce fields that impinge on kinetic masses.]

“Force fields that could stop kinetic projectiles. What effect would it have if we were to project lasers, neutron beams? Could you produce a helical antenna to project an alternating gravity beam to shear material apart?” Robert asked.

“Whoa boss,” Kenny the physicist said. “You’re getting ahead of the curve again. See Steven. Told you he’d go off on a thousand tangents we never thought about. Let’s try the gravity in space first and then the other effects. I take it Cassandra and Nemesis are willing.”

[Eager]

“They are eager. Can you lessen gravity too?”

“Maybe,” Steven said. “We were just altering our design to try that. Let you know in a few days. I think we can.”

[We think they can too. Ask them if they could use a few of our robots to do the heavy lifting. They could just say what they want them to do and we could direct them.]

“Could you use some of our robots on the installs and heavy lifting? Cassandra wanted to know.”

“Sure,” they both said simultaneously. “They could install the emitters for us – otherwise it's a huge drag of repetitive druggery.”

[We’ll send them over.]

“Good work guys. Always impressive…I do want full Earth gravity in my office and labs as soon as you can. Let me know when you are ready to test. I’ve been using weights on my arms and legs and get bruises and scrapes where the damn things hit me or scuff me up. Twlise hates them. Oh. Energy useage?”

“There is a surge when we first turn on the emitters but almost nothing to maintain. We get back-EMF surge when we cut it off though. Equal to earth gravity or a little heavier.” Kenny said.

“Start equally and gradually increase it to five percent stronger with each stage. Want our personnel to work up to 1.5 gravities for short periods. Have the sensors monitor each person and make sure they max out their physical stress whenever training as long as they don’t get overstressed – small increments and longer durations. Light gravity for off-duty periods and sleep.

                                                                    ****

“Okay Cassandra. Turn it on please. Very low level, please….ten percent.”

“Very well Doctor Weathers. Ten percent on gravity emitter field in five. Five, four, three, two, one – mark. Ten percent. I am registering a stronger field,” Cassandra stated.

“Whoo who…” Nakamura said. “You did it Steven. I can feel it. Fifty percent?”

“Cassandra. Increments of ten percent to fifty please,” Steven said.

“Very well Doctor. Increments to twenty, thirty, forty, and stop at fifty percent…Shall I hold five minutes between each to check stability?” Cassandra said.

“Affirmative Cassandra…but call me Steven.”

“Incrementing to twenty percent in five. Five, four, three, two, one, mark. Twenty percent.”

“Seems good. Cassandra?” Steven asked.

                                                                    ****

“We can use the fields with the Hall drive if we use that modification. Doctor Nakamura. I never would have thought you could sequentially layer fields so you could accelerate the Hall Drive effects. Those quantum gates can ripple the discharge like a wave in a series of pulses so fast that it feels continuous. You’ve really boosted our acceleration. Two hundred percent nominal increase on all areas…reducing to eighty-five percent…Preparing for localized gravity reduction with full Hall drive…initiating full Hall drive in five…five, four, three, two, one, mark,” Cassandra said.

“Wow. I didn’t feel a thing,” Nakamura said. “…and we’ve…no inertia. We can start and stop almost immediately. We will be more maneuverable than a fighter. We can protect against kinetic weapons so railguns would be ineffective against us. Lasers now? Kenny?”

“Not sure how that will work? We’ll try different frequencies. We also need to see how far from the hull we can extend the field.” Nakamura said.

“Field at max. Firing forward lasers…” Cassandra said.

“Cassandra?” Steven asked.

“We lose about ten percent effectiveness through the field and there is localized overheating from the lasers because we can’t radiate heat. We can increase cooling a bit but we cannot fire as often. We can also rotate laser turrets to allow them to cool,” Cassandra said. “The field does not offer much protection from radiation in those frequencies. We could use a fast neutron projector,” Cassandra said. “We would be vulnerable to radiation when trying to accelerate or maneuver.”