SODIUM:3 Fusion (4 page)

The ship's power was from a micro-reactor. It generated enough energy when at full bore to power a small town. The active skin and BHD were both power hogs, consuming as much energy as the micro-reactor could generate. The only maintenance we could do to the reactor was with the Sodium feed going into it. If the reactor were to fail, we would be completely powerless and left floating in space.

Pop had already begun to toy with his own ideas of how to change the reactor feed. He had shown me a few of his sketches, but I had to say that the thought of changing around a system that we were completely dependent on made me nervous. If Pop's theories failed there would be no way to restart the reactor without the energy capabilities of a full sized reactor nearby.

"Lights out", as we called it, was a very bad thing. Without power we would freeze to death in a matter of minutes. If we were lucky, we would be traveling at speed through an asteroid when the power was lost. The active skin would shut off leaving us to instantly disintegrate like Defender A000014 and its crew.

Bigg had been busy trying to think of ways to increase our defensive capabilities and Whip our offensive ones. I was just happy at the time to steer the ship. Bigg's main creative focus had been on ways to extend the gravity shield by more than the current few meters. The aliens had done it and he was intent on figuring out how.

For our final two weeks of classroom training Bigg had been using our one hour break to talk to the scientists in charge of the gravity shield. Whip had her own ideas. If Bigg was able to extend the gravity shield she wanted to be able to use it behind the BHD to try to push the black holes of the drive outward as a new type of weapon.

With the black holes only lasting tiny fractions of a second she would have her work cut out for her. Besides, black holes would react strangely with gravity so she was not very hopeful about being able to weaponize them.

I was glad to be on a crew with people who had ideas. I was already overwhelmed by much of our classwork, leaving my brain drained of any creativity by the time our day ended. If one of my crew-mates came up with something significant, I felt I could at least contribute by running it past my Great Uncle. That is, if he would even see me. We had not spoken since my initial arrival, because David Brenner was a very busy man.

After four long months our classroom training period was complete. We were all excited about having our first lessons in the holo-sims. From what we had been told it was almost impossible to tell the difference between a sim and the real thing.

After I completed my morning stuffing in the mess hall, I joined the others by the sim training area of the chamber. There were 32 sim trainers of which 28 were continuously occupied. The remaining four were spares for use when there were technical issues. Seven of the trainers had freed up the day before as that class of crewmen had graduated. They now had the privilege of training in the real Defenders.

As I joined the others, we all stood for several minutes as we awaited our instructor’s guidance. Ensign Braswell and the other handlers for our team had been busy collecting the gear for our reclamation suits. I very much disliked the name, but it was what they were.

I had a moment of sadness as I wondered if the meal I had just consumed might be my last. I had heard rumors that once you went into the reclamation suit you would remain there until the sim training was complete in four months. It was not something that I looked forward to.

Our instructor, Commander Red Masters, then stepped up and greeted us one by one. For the next four months we would be spending our waking hours under his supervision. Commander Masters was the opposite of Colonel Rogers. He was slight of build and soft spoken, but he knew the Defenders inside and out. He had been on the engineering team that had come up with the initial design.

Commander Masters ordered us to refer to him as Red. He had been given the nickname when just a kid. When he would get embarrassed about anything his ears would turn bright red. I thought the story gave him the friendly personality that Colonel Rogers lacked.

Red then walked us to the trainer that would largely be our home for the next four months... S-A000055. It was identical to the real A000055 in every humanly discernible way. Each Defender simulator, or DSim as they became known as, had a micro-reactor and active skin. The BHD was a simulation as well as the weapons and defensive systems, but we were told we would be unable to tell.

Our training schedules were now a bit different too. We would arise at 6AM, complete breakfast by 7:30AM and be at our training station by 8AM. We then had a four hour training session, followed by an hour break and then four more hours of training. At 5PM we received another one hour break.

From 6PM to 8PM it was free time in the DSims where the teams were encouraged to discover, explore and become intimately familiar with the ship's systems and capabilities. From 8PM to 10PM it was then fraternization time with the other teams where we were encouraged to have discussions about strategies, tactics and any discoveries or new ideas we might have come up with. It was then back to our personal quarters for the night. We would be back on 24 hour schedules.

When the handlers returned we were each taken to a dressing area where we were outfitted with our reclamation suits. As we awaited personal adjustments we were each visited by a physician. A spot on our side just above where the elbow would rest then received a local anesthetic, was cleaned, cut and then a permanent IV port was installed. It was a little uncomfortable, but we were told that we would soon forget it was even there. I doubted that statement.

Once the port install was complete, we were stripped naked, bio-washed and then squeezed into the reclamation suit. As a final gesture a physician’s tech then attached a hose to the suit. The air inside was vacuumed out and then a warm bio-gel pumped in. We were told it would help our bodies become accustomed to the long period of time we would be in the suit. It seemed my last meal fears had come true.

We were then walked back to the DSim. Walking in the gel filled reclamation suit could only be described as funky, but it wasn't unpleasant. Even though our classroom training had told us all about what the suit would do, I still felt the need to ask one last time. It was time to purge the liquids from my breakfast.

I was assured it was fine to go whenever I felt like it and that the suit could handle not being hooked up to the ships system for about five days. Things would then begin to get unpleasant. When I cut loose, my face turned a bit red as the sensation of going in front of the team was something that I was not prepared for. We all had a good laugh and then continued on into the back of the DSim.

We were excited about finally getting into the trainer. As each of us passed the glow and faint hum of the micro-reactor we were left with a feeling of awe. This was our reactor for the next four months. I lingered for a moment at the reactor before Ensign Braswell put her hand on my shoulder and then gestured towards the chair. It would be my home for the next ten hours.

The chair was a high-back leather recliner in style. There were adjustments for seating angle, lumbar, heating or cooling, side support and of course the hookup for the reclamator. Paige had me seated, connected and the suit online within two minutes.

When connected to the system the gel in the suit would become a liquid that was constantly being pumped and filtered. Again the suit left you with a bit of a funky feeling. We were then fitted with a visor that projected a holo-display of the ship’s controls for each of our stations. A simple long hand swipe to the left or the right would bring up the primary controls of the other crewmen. In the event of an emergency all the ship’s systems could be controlled from one chair.

The simulator itself was in lock-down mode. Red encouraged us to start pushing buttons and changing views as he assured us that nothing was currently being registered by the system. We each had one hour to become familiar with the controls of our station. Each control had a help guide that could be viewed on the holo-display.

Our handlers were sitting in their own control chairs outside of the mock craft. They were there for support and the answering of any questions we might have, I had plenty. I immediately selected the BHD controls and went to full throttle. I watched contently as the drive went to 100% within 15 seconds. I next turned to the navigation controls and began plotting our course to Neptune. We were like kids in a candy store.

When the hour of fun and familiarity was complete, Red then popped up in front of us on our holo-displays. We would now begin our flight training. The next hour was spent familiarizing ourselves with the pre-flight checklist. We would have to know not only what each system monitor was for, but also how to interpret what it was telling us.

We began with the reactor. It had a Sodium supply with three feeds. The supply was monitored for level while each of the three feeds were monitored for throughput, burn-rate and efficiency. The fusion reactor itself was about as simple of a device as there was.

An extreme magnetic field held the fusion reaction in place while the three Sodium feeds dropped in a constant stream of Sodium atoms. Three Sodium atoms were electrically bonded together during the fusion process. The Sodium reaction did not put off heat but instead pumped out a steady stream of electrons, just plain old electricity.

Our training next turned to the life support system. The life support system consisted of a tiny fission reactor that would take the fused Sodium as fuel. The result of the fission process on the fused Sodium left us with two oxygen atoms and six hydrogen atoms. This in turn gave us a supply of oxygen and hydrogen which could in turn be fused into water if needed.

For each Sodium atom injected into the system we were left with enough particles for one water molecule and one spare hydrogen atom. The scientists were still trying to figure out how to make use of the extra hydrogen. The amount left over was small enough that it was easily compressed and stored. The life support system also monitored and cleansed our air.

Inside the ship was open and there was no need for helmets as once the skin was active there would be no stepping outside. For our faces and hair we were given a hose that gave us a sonic wash. I found its use both simpler than and preferable to a full sonic shower.

The reclamation and nutrition systems were also part of the life support system. Waste was collected through the suit and nutrition was returned through the IV. I was told we would be fed a continuous meal of the nutrients necessary for maintaining our health. I was also told that I would likely be losing weight over the four month period that I would be in the suit.

Ensign Braswell would be monitoring and providing for my nutrition as she saw fit. I imagined the look on her face as she was setting the parameters of my IV and the vision that constantly came up was one with her displaying a big smirk.

We then moved on to the navigation and propulsion systems. The nav system displayed a 3D hologram of space surrounding the ship. The meter of hologram in front of us could be expanded to represent from a few hundred meters diameter up to about 30 billion kilometers.

The nav system was only as accurate as the currently known field of monitored and tracked objects, which consisted of the planets, their moons and the majority of large asteroids over 500 meters in width. The demise of A000014 had come about due to a collision with a 650 meter length, unlogged asteroid. It was 150 meters wide and elongated in length and A000014 had been just unlucky enough to hit it lengthwise.

With the nav system, the pilot was able to set waypoints, speeds and automated orbits. Every maneuver the ship was capable of could be formed into a predefined flight-plan. The visual and IR sensors along with the quantum computer on-board were capable of tracking up to 500,000 objects at once. From there, the computer could automatically make small course adjustments in an attempt to avoid collisions.

The nav sensor arrays were located on the BHD rings on the front of the vessel. That was the only part of the ship that was exposed when the skin was active. At high speeds, when a collision was imminent, the BHD would drop off-line and the active skin would encompass the sensors. It was the only way we had of fully protecting the external components. Without them we would be flying blind.

The propulsion system, while complex in its technology, was simple in its design and use. Five temporary black holes were either constantly being formed or not. Only create one black hole and the ship would be pulled in that direction. With all five lit up the ship would shoot straight forward like a banshee. By adjusting the frequency and duration of each of the holes the ship could be steered in any direction.

The only drawback, and it was a big one, was that once the ship reached significant speeds it was extremely slow to turn. Turns were not tight, but were instead large predictable arcs. The alien fighters could easily outmaneuver our Defender even though we had a much higher top speed. The tactics and strategies that had been taught were constantly adjusted to compensate.

With the system checks out of the way we were all eager to fire up the DSim for our first mission. Red unfortunately had other ideas. We would each be practicing with our own sections until such time as they became like second nature to us. When Red thought we were ready we would receive our first mission. As it turned out, the DSim training was initially more like the classroom than I had hoped.

When our first week was complete, each of us were skilled at our station. We then switched to each of the other three stations for another week before Red finally gave us the green light for a mission. He was quite happy with our progress.

For our first mission we would be lifting, departing the hangar and then cruising around the tarmac. It was the simplest of missions and we were well prepared to begin. We pulled up our checklists and then one by one gave status to the others. The active skin was then turned on. The silvery white aluminum can that we had been sitting in for weeks suddenly became complete blackness inside.

It looked as though you could reach outward forever even though the wall was only a meter or so away. We were told that actually touching it with our bare skin would not be good. The boots and gloves of our suits were made to handle it if needed, but we had no plans of getting out of our chairs.

The nav system was then brought online and a meter diameter sphere appeared before each of us. The optics of the holo-displays made them invisible from the other chairs so that we were not distracted by anyone else's view.

I was then given the go-ahead to lift the craft. I felt a slight sensation as the monitors indicated lift on my status display. We leveled at a meter and then awaited the go-ahead for exit from the hangar.

Red gave the command. As I looked at my displays my shaky hand gave a tiny push to the throttle. The craft then shot through the side of the hangar and into a surrounding mountainside before alarms blasted and the active skin shut down. In my excitement, I had left a throttle multiplier setting on 10x and had forgotten to turn the ship towards the hangar doors.

The mishap was very embarrassing and the others were not laughing. We were all dead before our mission had even begun. I felt as though I had let the team down on my first attempt at piloting a Defender. I knew I was better than that. Everyone else was not so sure.

After a five minute lecture the mission was reset and again ready to go. This time my true piloting skills showed as we flew and reached every waypoint with the utmost of precision. We continued our drills with mission one for the remainder of the day. We then had a one hour break where I continuously apologized to the others. There was no excuse for my mistake.

During our first two hour free time the crew would normally continue practicing with simple DSim flights. In my guilt I volunteered that time to the others for their own mission practice. Whip jumped at the opportunity and suggested a scenario with gun-play. She was eager to unleash some hurt on fictitious targets.

We selected an advanced ground scenario where we were given various targets to destroy around Regents airbase. We risked another death, but the others were all eager to get an idea of what we might really be up against. We reasoned it better to have a simulated death than a real one.