Guardians of the Galactic Sentinel 1: The Deimos Artifact (8 page)

Chapter 8.
Physics Lessons.

Deep Space, Barnard's Star System, July 5, 2676

Zack and Beth went forward and grabbed their gear from the suit-prep area, near the main airlock, where they had dropped it when first boarding. They then threaded their way back up to their opulent quarters on deck three. After taking a couple of minutes to stow their gear, they joined back up on the bridge. Beth had gotten there first and was already at the pilot's station.

"Have a seat, Zack," she said, "You can watch while I get ready for our sublight transition."

Zack stepped up onto the command platform and slipped into the first officer's station where he watched as Beth consulted readouts and made subtle adjustments on her control consoles.

"I spent a lot of my time on the Starliner that brought me to Haven watching the stars while the ship was in sublight," said Zack. "Everything looked...different, distorted somehow, and there seemed to be a lot of stars shifting against a stationary backdrop. So, what exactly is a sublight drive?"

Beth thought for a moment before replying, "It's a special drive unit that interacts with the magnetic force lines of the galaxy itself. Do you know what 'surfing' is?"

"Yeah, I tried it a few times when I was a kid. There's not a lot of places on Haven where you can do it though."

"When we phase into sublight, we shift into a region that's outside of normal space but runs parallel to it. For lack of a better explanation, the ship sort of 'surfs' the currents there. Don't ask me how it all works, I don't know myself. What I do know is that while we're in sublight transition, we'll be traveling at a velocity somewhere between 0.11 and 0.215 of the speed of light, relative to normal space. The velocity varies from star system to star system but remains pretty much constant within the different systems. Once we go to sublight, I'll have to check our actual speed and have the navigation computer calculate how long it will take to get to the hyperjump zone. Then we let the computer bring us out of sublight at the proper distance. By the way, sublight currents here in the Haven system run at about 0.195."

"I had no idea it was that complicated," said Zack.

"Interplanetary and galactic space travel would be pretty much impossible without it."

"How so?"

Beth thought again for a few moments before replying, "It has to do with the extreme distances involved. The standard unit of interplanetary distance is the 'astronomical unit' or 'AU,' which is, believe it or not, the distance from Old Sol to the planet Earth. That's a distance of 150 million kilometers."

"Yeah," said Zack, "I remember that from high school."

"Good," replied Beth, "Now, if you could accelerate a ship up to the speed of light or 'c' -- which is impossible, by the way -- it would take you about eight minutes to cover that distance. At just under 0.2 c, you need five times as long to cover the same distance. That's around forty minutes."

"That makes sense," said Zack.

"Most inhabited star systems have a diameter between 60 and 90 AU which means the transition time to cross an entire system is something between 40 and 60 hours on sublight drive. What's more important to us is the distance between the inhabited planets and the hyperjump zones. That averages somewhere between 20 and 30 AU which makes the travel time somewhere around twelve to twenty-four hours, depending on the system you're in. Throw in a couple of hours on the reaction drives at either end because you can't go into sublight when you're close to a gravity well, and we're talking the better part of a day to a day and a half to reach the hyperzone from the inhabited regions of most systems."

By now Zack's head was reeling, but he plunged on with one more question, "Why can't we just use the reaction drives?"

"Good question," she replied. Apparently it was good enough that she had to think about her answer for a few moments. Finally she said, "Even though the best reaction drives can deliver about 5 G of acceleration, way more than enough to get you up to the speeds necessary for interplanetary travel, it still takes weeks to reach 0.2 c. Not only that, the amount of reaction mass you'd need is...beyond comprehension. Once you've accumulated all that velocity, you need an equal amount of time and reaction mass to slow yourself back down if you're going to accomplish anything at the other end of your journey.

By the way, because of these same limitations, we have to be really careful to limit how much velocity we generate with our own reaction drives or we won't have enough reaction mass remaining at the other end to speed up or slow down enough to match velocities with our destination."

"I see why Cliff wanted to top off the reaction fluid!" said Zack.

"You can never have too much reaction mass," said Beth.

"So the sublight drive gives you the speed without the reaction mass penalty?"

"That's absolutely right, Zack. Again, don't ask me how it works, but we come out of sublight at the same relative velocity we had when we went in."

"That's enough for today," said Zack, shaking his head as if to clear it, "Thanks for making the attempt."

"No problem," said Beth, returning to her instruments. Over the next several minutes she made a few minor adjustments to her control board before calling down to engineering. "Engineering?"

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"Is everything ready down there for sublight transition?"

"Everythin's go, Cap'n"

Beth flipped up a red cover protecting a large red toggle on her control console, "Switching to sublight in three...two...one...now!" At the end of the countdown, she flipped the big red switch.

Zack felt a gentle flip-flop in his stomach but little else as the ship made the transition to sublight space. He could feel a barely detectable thrumming vibration in the ship that hadn’t been there before and he could hear a subtle hiss that seemed to come from the outside of the ship.

Beth was busy at her console for the next five minutes or so and Zack watched her without speaking. Finally, she pressed a large button on her console. Afterwards, she arched her back and rolled her head to work out some of the cramps from all the sitting she'd been doing.

"The next several hours should be pretty quiet," she said, swiveling her chair to face him. "If I'm smart, I'll get some rest before we get to the jump zone." She caught Zack's eye, "I'd feel a lot more comfortable if you kept an eye on the bridge while I try to get some sleep, Zack."

"But...I haven't a clue what to do."

"It's okay. Just sit over here in the pilot's chair and if you see any red lights or hear any alarms go off, come and grab me. I'll be in my quarters."

"I guess I can do that."

"Good. Later then?" Beth got out of the pilot's seat, turned and stepped down from the small command platform, headed aft across the bridge and disappeared through the main hatch. Zack moved over to the pilot's chair where he took some time to check out the console before almost immediately realizing that there really wasn't much he could do. A few minutes later he decided that this might be a good time to have another look at the information on his uncle's memory chip. He slipped his tablet out of the pocket on his coverall, fanned it out to full size, inserted the chip and was once again presented with a long list of files. This time he selected and opened a file called "The Pangbourne Project," more because it had his uncle's name on it than for any other reason.

He had to start somewhere.

Chapter 9.
Pursuit

Barnard's Star System, July 5, 2676

Meanwhile, back at the Haven Orbital Station, another ship had departed just over two hours after the
Capri
. Now in open space, the ship was heading towards the alpha hyperlink point on her own sublight drive. The sleek, sinister-looking craft had a non-reflective, black hull and bore no markings. Nearly twice the size of the
Capri
, the ship was of a type that was usually outfitted and employed as a military courier. This ship, the
Soviet Peoples Ship (SPS)
Murmansk
, was no exception. She was heavily armed for her size, equipped as she was with a squat, flat turret mounted near the bow on her ventral side that contained a powerful, oversized, single-mount pulse projector. Several less powerful single mount weapons protected other strategic areas of the ship. She carried a crew of twelve along with several officers. She also carried a special passenger in one of the several cabins onboard that were outfitted for VIPs and other dignitaries.

The "
Soviet People's Ship"
designation indicated that the
Murmansk
was part of the Space Navy of the Union of Soviet Democratic Planets, a governing body that presided over two entire planets, portions of another four and was rumored to have designs on several others. While they were not actively at war with the United Federation of Planets, the two governments were fierce competitors and had clashed frequently in the past, to the detriment of both. While an uneasy peace currently prevailed between the Federation and the Soviets, neither quite trusted the other and the two rival regimes had been circling each other warily ever since their last altercation some ten years earlier.

Sergei Popov, Captain of the
Murmansk
, was making the rounds of his ship to check on everything and everyone after the transition to sublight. He stepped into the engineering section of the ship and was greeted by the Chief engineer, Alexander Travkin, who, because of the important nature of his duties, did not get up from his engineering console. Instead, he rendered a perfunctory salute from where he was sitting.

"Captain on the deck!" announced Travkin.

Across the chamber, engineering technician second class, Rudolph Lysenko practically fell all over himself as he spun ungracefully away from his console and came to attention, rendering a stiff but smart salute. Lysenko was a recent graduate of the New Moscow Engineering Institute and had only joined the crew of the
Murmansk
about a month ago.

Sergei managed to suppress a chuckle at the young man's eagerness but did allow the ghost of a smile to twitch at his lips momentarily. "At ease, Comrades. I assume that everything is in order down here?

"All is well, Captain," said Travkin, "This is truly a fine ship!"

"It is because you take such good care of her, Alex."

"I only do my duty," said the Chief engineer.

"Would that I had another dozen like you," said Sergei, "How fares our new engineer?"

"He needs a bit more seasoning," said Travkin, glancing over at Lysenko, "but we'll get him there."

Sergei looked at the newcomer, "Graduating from the New Moscow Institute is no mean feat, young man. Relax and listen to Alex here, and you'll do just fine."

The young engineer was not used to being the center of attention, especially with the Captain present. He managed to stammer out, "Thank you, Captain Popov," and then stopped himself before he said something stupid.

"I must finish my rounds," said Sergei, and turned to leave. He called out, "Carry on!" over his shoulder as he left the engineering section. Over the course of the next ten minutes, he checked in with several other crew members before, somewhat reluctantly, heading towards the passenger compartments of the courier ship.

He was met in the corridor by the ship's Political Officer, Major Dmitri Krupski, a rather odious little peacock of a man. Sergei had never had much time for Political Officers but this newly-assigned one was probably the most difficult of them he had ever had to deal with. Not only that, Major Krupski had responsibility for a foreign diplomat of some kind and was pointedly keeping Sergei in the dark regarding the significance of this mysterious "Ambassador."

"Where have you been, Captain Popov?" said Krupski, "I've been waiting here almost ten minutes."

Sergei managed to keep his face neutral, "Normal ship's activities," he said, "My apologies," he added, though he really didn't mean it.

"See that it doesn’t happen again," said Krupski. Again Sergei managed to keep his face neutral, only this time it required more effort.

The two of them went a short distance down the corridor and activated the visitor's chime on a control panel next to the door to the compartment containing their special passenger.

"Enter."

Sergei and Krupski entered the nearly pitch black room. Sergei touched a finger to the inner control panel and the hatch closed behind them. "We have departed Haven and are in pursuit of the private craft, Your Grace," said the Captain.

"Excellent," rasped a voice from the shadows, a reedy voice with an odd inflection, as though Standard were obviously not the speaker's first language. "You will be engaging them after the hyperjump?"

"That is our intent, Your Grace."

"You must take every precaution to leave that ship intact," ordered Krupski, "We must take no chances. The item we seek, if it is on that ship, must be retrieved undamaged."

"My people are some of the best in the business, Your Grace," said Sergei, pointedly addressing the Ambassador rather than the Political Officer, "They will do their jobs."

"Of that I have no doubt," came the raspy voice, "It is one of the reasons that we have chosen your government to be our ally. Do keep in mind that in any kind of conflict, matters do not always proceed as planned. You must advise your personnel to be extra careful."

"It shall be done, Your Grace."

"Very good. I have business with Major Krupski. You may leave us now."

Sergei gave a slight bow before turning and exiting the compartment. The Political Officer remained behind. As Captain of the
Murmansk,
Sergei was professional to the core and years of cold, unyielding experience had taught him to trust his instincts. Right now those instincts were telling him that the individuals in that room disturbed him at some basic level. He couldn't quite put a finger on why, but Sergei was absolutely certain that he didn't want to get crossways with his "ally" or the Politico.

***

Capri, Barnard's Star System, July 5, 2676

Zack performed a quick scan of the readouts on the Command Console of the
Capri
and, not seeing anything that seemed to demand his immediate attention, began to read through the file he had just opened on his tablet...

"The Pangbourne Project, a grant proposal presented to the Central Planets Historical Society by Professor Harold C. MacPherson, Ph.D., Colfax University and Mr. Marvin Pangbourne of Artifacts Inc. LLC."

In addition to dealing in antiquities, it appeared as though his uncle had been involved in an academic endeavor of some kind as well. Zack read on, wondering if something connected to this project could have led to his uncle's death. He plowed through several dense paragraphs of grant proposal boilerplate before something more interesting caught his eye. He went back and read it over again...

"One of the authors of this grant, a Mr. M. Pangbourne, has recently procured a unique artifact. The authors are not prepared to reveal their sources at this time but will, in due course, present evidence that this artifact, hereafter referred to as "The Deimos Artifact," was originally discovered and removed from somewhere on Deimos, the outermost and smaller of the two moons orbiting the planet Mars in the Sol System."

Zack sat back in the command chair and shook his head slowly. The Sol System was among the most remote and dangerous places in Human space. His mind roamed involuntarily back to his high school history lessons. It was general knowledge that the planet Earth had been the birthplace of Mankind but the planet had been rendered all but uninhabitable some five hundred years ago by an all-out nuclear war. Fortunately for Mankind, prior to that event, a steady stream of immigrants seeking a better life had begun leaving the planet and the system.

This mass migration was made possible by the almost simultaneous development of two landmark inventions. The first of these was the space elevator, which had made relatively inexpensive and reliable transportation of people and goods into space available. The second was the sublight/hyperdrive technology that had turned spaceships into starships and enabled travel among the stars that, for all practical purposes, exceeded the speed of light. These two inventions had allowed Mankind to establish populations on inhabitable planets in over a dozen star systems within the first fifty years of their having been invented.

Arriving with highly advanced technology already in hand, blessed with nearly unlimited resources and plenty of elbow room, the people forging their new homes on these colony worlds had thrived. Earth itself had continued to deteriorate. The planet had been grossly overpopulated and strained to the limit even before the migrations began. While the tsunami of colonists leaving had provided the critical masses of people needed to get a wide array of colonies up and running, it had done virtually nothing to ease the population burdens on the Home Planet. To make matters worse, having seen the handwriting on the wall, many of those leaving were the best and brightest that Mankind had to offer.

A solution, of sorts, to the problem finally and perhaps inevitably presented itself.

Earth had been devastated five centuries earlier when the ever-present conflicts over political and religious differences, combined with the planet's steadily declining supplies of land and natural resources, led to a series of nuclear exchanges. Exactly who had initiated the holocaust was still disputed, but the resulting conflagration and its deadly aftermath had the effect of brutally slashing the population of Earth by more than ninety-five percent while rendering vast areas of the planet uninhabitable.

There were still a fair number of people living in the Sol system and even on the planet itself; but for those remaining it was a hardscrabble existence. Now the system had a reputation as one of roughest places in known space. Anarchy prevailed, with bands of pirates and small, short-lived fiefdoms scattered throughout the ravaged system. No wonder Marv and Cliff had taken steps to arm the ship. If their plan had been to go to the Sol System, they were going to need to be prepared.

Zack read on...

"While we are not prepared to reveal our conclusions as yet, we have strong evidence to suggest that this "Deimos Artifact" was not planted on the Martian satellite to perpetuate a deliberate and elaborate hoax by persons unknown as some are suggesting. We will present evidence that the artifact is genuine and may have, in fact, a much more exotic origin."

Great, thought Zack, Marv had gotten mixed up in some kind of archeological pissing contest. Esoteric arguments were the bread and butter of that particular science. So was fraud, deceit, overblown egos and squandered fortunes. A lot of people had died, gone broke or been disgraced over the centuries in the name of Archeology. Zack began to wonder just what this "Deimos Artifact" had been and just as importantly, what had his uncle done with it? He continued to study the file, finding himself unexpectedly absorbed in the mystery.

Unaware that he had drifted off to sleep, he was awakened by activity on the command console in front of him. An indicator light was flashing on the console, accompanied by a soft chime. Zack looked at the time and was surprised to find that it was early morning. He had been studying the files from the memory chip and napping for more than eight hours. He collapsed his tablet down to its compact form before heading aft through the hatch and down to Beth's quarters. He touched the intercom panel next to her door.

"Beth? There's a red light on the Command Console."

"Okay," came the groggy reply, "I'll be right out. Don't touch anything!"

"Aye, Captain."

Zack headed back to the bridge and Beth joined him just a few minutes later. She ran her hands through her short, dark hair and put her baseball cap back on. Zack couldn't suppress the mental observation that she still looked quite attractive in spite of having just awakened. He took up his station in the first officer's chair to observe the pilot while she resumed operating the ship.

"What was that light?" asked Zack.

"Just a reminder that we're coming out of sublight in about a half hour and plan on executing a hyper jump shortly after that," she replied, "I set it so you'd have to come and wake me up."

"Oh."

Zack asked a question or two but mostly watched while Beth worked at her command console. After a few more minutes, the ship smoothly and automatically phased out of sublight space. Zack had gotten used to the gentle thrumming of the drive and the slight hiss from the hull and was surprised how quiet it was when they were suddenly absent.