Starbound (3 page)

“My day was full of reports and system failures and general to-doing that should never have happened. I spent two hours down in Propulsion kicking some ass on their preflight performance drills,” she said.

“They aren't ready?” I asked. “Duane Longer reported to me otherwise.”

She shook her head. “Not even close as far as I'm concerned. I put Lieutenant Longer on notice. But it doesn't matter. We launch at 0700 anyway. Maclintock won't stand for anything else.”

“That he won't,” I said and took a drink of my wine.

“You seem pensive,” she said. It was like she could read my mind. “And I could tell you were avoiding me all day.”

I circled the rim of my wineglass with my thumb, looking down at the table.

“Come on, out with it. That's an order,” she said. I laughed, then sat back.

“I had a talk with Serosian today.”

“Well, it wouldn't be a conversation with our esteemed Historian if it didn't involve warning you about me again, would it?” she said.

I shrugged. “You shouldn't be so hard on him. He's actually trying to protect you,” I said.

“So he thinks,” she replied. “I'm a big girl, Peter, all grown up. I think by now I've proven that I know what I'm doing in this relationship, as well as with my career.”

“He's just concerned about my future political responsibilities, and how they might end up hurting you if we get too close,” I explained. She sat back at this, increasing the distance between us.

“I appreciate his concern, but I'm well capable of taking care of myself, thank you,” she said.

“I'm not taking his side, you know. Just relaying his concerns,” I answered.

“And so you have. Perhaps it's time we moved on to more pleasant activities than arguing about Serosian.” With that she put her glass down and came across the room. She took my glass from me, then straddled me on the chair, her hands on my shoulders. I looked up at her. She had a magic about her, though it certainly wasn't about her external beauty. It was something more, something deeper, that had its hooks in me.

“I learned a long time ago that I could get hurt in love, Peter. It hasn't stopped me from pursuing it, and it won't keep me away from you, unless that's what you want,” she said. “Right now I'm enjoying every minute we have together, and I'm taking it just that way, moment to moment. Don't let Serosian worry you. Do what feels right in the moment, and we'll both be safe, and happy, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. Then she started kissing me, and the body suit started to come off, and I was reminded again just why I thought she was such an extraordinary woman.

We were set and ready for launch by 0630. All of my system responsibilities checked in green a full forty minutes prior to departure.
Dobrina's reports took a bit longer but we were green to go with thirty minutes to spare.

Maclintock started the launch clock at 0645.

Serosian came up to his station five minutes before the hour. I took to my longscope station and clicked into our private com channel as I fired up my systems displays.

“You're nothing if not prompt,” I said sarcastically.

“There's always a critic,” he said back. That made me laugh, but only for a second. Maclintock demanded a final departure report.

“All systems green, Captain,” I said in response.

“Regretfully, Captain, I must disagree.” This came from Dobrina, seated next to the captain at her XO's station.

“Explain, XO.”

“We are green but we are not optimal, sir. The performance of the Propulsion team has been below accepted norms for the last two ship's cycles,” she said.

“Mr. Cochrane?” asked Maclintock, turning his attention back to me. I stepped away from the longscope and approached the captain's chair, looking down on Maclintock and Dobrina.

“Propulsion Officer Longer has reported both chemical impellers and sub-light HD drives are above acceptable minimums, sir. I trust that evaluation,” I stated.

“But the fact is that the unit as a whole is testing out at just eighty-four percent efficiency, isn't that true, Lieutenant Commander?” said Dobrina. I took her challenge.

“Your test evaluations are correct, XO. But I prefer to measure performance by actuals, not test evaluations,” I replied. Maclintock mulled this.

“Lieutenant Longer,” said the captain to the slightly pudgy, ginger-haired lead propulsion officer. Longer stood and faced the captain's chair from his post one level below the Command Deck. “Can
you guarantee we will outperform the XO's test evaluations in actual flight?”

Longer looked to me, and I gave him an assenting nod, guaranteeing him my support.

“I can, sir,” said Longer. “XO's evaluations are based on assumptions that we cannot compensate for a filtering problem with the chemical fuel infusers, sir. I believe we solved that problem late last night.”

“So you're
guarantee
ing
that we will outperform the eighty-four percent threshold?” asked the captain. Again Longer looked my way. I held my gaze firm.

“Guaranteed, sir,” he said.

“Good. I'll hold you to that. But as a matter of course, whenever a challenge is raised on my bridge there must be something put on the line as compensation to the winners. I propose that the loser of this little bet must provide the winners with something of value, perhaps dinner at the Cloud Room on Candle when we return,” he said. That was no small bet, especially for a junior officer. The Cloud Room was expensive.

“I'll take that bet, and I'll back the lieutenant on this one, sir,” I said.

“Done,” said Maclintock. “And so as not to leave the XO flailing alone in the wind, I will back her side of the bet.”

“Also done,” I replied, eyeing them both with a smile on my face. Maclintock smiled back.

“Very well then,” he said. “You have to keep your propulsion efficiency average over eighty-four percent for the duration of the voyage to Jenarus, gentlemen. Stations!” he called out. Then we all broke back to our duties, with George Layton taking us away from Candle and making for our jump point exit from our home system.

We were good on impellers for the two light-hours it took us to reach the exit of the Quantar system, but when we started to decelerate to the jump point, our propulsion efficiency began to drop.
Lieutenant Longer sent a note of it to my systems display as we slipped below our minimum. The damned infuser filters were probably clogging again. I looked over at Dobrina, who smiled and winked back from her monitoring board. I switched the com to Longer's channel.

“What are we gonna do?” he said, a bit panicky. “We're already dropping in performance.”

“Buck up, man. We stay the course. Once we enter the hyperdimensional bubble we'll engage the sub-light HD drive and that will carry us through until we exit into normal space again. You'll have almost two days to fix those infusers,” I said.

“But if we engaged the hybrid drive—”

“No.” I cut him off, looking around the bridge to see if Maclintock or Dobrina were eavesdropping on our conversation. When it was all clear, I said, “That's our ace in the hole. We're not using the hybrid drive until and unless we
have
to. Clear, Lieutenant?”

There was silence for a moment, then, “Clear, sir.”

“Good.”

The hybrid drive was something I'd had Longer working on for a couple of months, a way to increase the chemical impeller drive output by running the HD sub-light drive at the same time in standby mode. The impellers could then cultivate the electrons from the excess HD plasma, convert them to a gas, and run more efficiently. Basically it was a kinetic energy reclamation system. Of course there was the
slight
possibility that the resulting energy intermix could destroy the ship, but that was a less than .000086 probability. Those were numbers I was going to hold on to, for now.

Twenty minutes later, we shut down the impeller drive with our efficiency score running at 84.56 percent, barely over the bet minimum. Switching to the sub-light HD drive inside the bubble would help us, but our margin was razor thin.

Longer turned over control of ship's propulsion to Jenny Hogan at Astrogation with five minutes to go on the jump clock. She had
plotted our path to Jenarus through the hyperdimensional aether, and once we jumped, we wouldn't be able to exit traverse space until we reached our destination. I quietly hoped she was as good at interstellar geolocation as I thought she was as I strapped in for the transition. We were, after all, essentially jumping blind to a point in space 46.9 light-years distant.

“All systems green for the jump, Captain,” said Dobrina.

“Thank you, XO. Mr. Cochrane, A countdown if you please,” said Maclintock.

I checked my board one last time. Serosian had transferred jump control to my station, I had entered Lieutenant Hogan's calculations, and Longer had the interstellar hyperdimensional drive warm. We were cruising through jump space in our own star system and preparing to enter an alternate dimension before exiting two and a half days later at a point trillions of kilometers distant, without actually traversing the space in between. It was a terrible responsibility.

I looked down at my jump controller.

“Five . . .” I counted down.

“Four . . .”

“Three . . .”

“Two . . .”

“One . . .”

“Jump!” ordered the captain.

“Jumping!” I engaged the Hoagland Drive, and colors that had never been seen filled my mind, and I found myself wondering, as I always did, if I would awaken in this life, or the next.

The Traverse

I
t seemed li
ke days later, or se
conds, I was unsure,
when I came back to
my senses. My mind
felt like pieces of
a puzzle being put b
ack together in rand
om order, but then s
uddenly there was cl
arity, as if some un
seen hand had guided
everything that mad
e up my being back i
nto its proper place
.

I looked over at Serosian's station. His eyes were closed in deep meditation, as was his practice during jumps. I tried to focus on my board as the bridge crew started coming out of their joint trance.

The Hoagland Drive was operating in perfect sync within the protective field of the same name that kept us safe. Longer had timed the sub-light HD drive activation perfectly, and we were making .88 light within a bubble of space made of our own universe/dimension. What was outside that bubble was completely unknown, and I found myself uncurious about it. As long as the Hoagland Drive and Field kept
my
ship safe, I was happy.

Starbou
nd
had never done a traverse this way, with extended time in a bubble of normal space while actually traveling through another space/time dimension that existed outside of the bubble. Our
previous jumps had been local enough that they could be accomplished by jumping from one point in our host system to another point in a nearby star system. But the navy had discovered some time ago that the maximum safe distance for direct system-to-system jumping was about thirty-five light-years, and thus the need for long-distance traversing technology had arisen. Fortunately, the Earth Historians had just such a technology available, and had integrated it seamlessly into the Lightships at the design stage.
Valiant
was most experienced at the technique, as she was the navy's primary Survey and First Contact vessel.
Impul
se
had also made a traverse or two before her untimely demise, but this was our first, and we aboard
Starbound
were proud of the opportunity.

“Systems status,” demanded Maclintock of me.

“All green on my board, sir,” I said.

“Tactical,” he called.

“Safely inside the traverse bubble, Captain,” replied Dobrina. “All tucked in for the voyage to Jenarus.”

Maclintock nodded. “Just out of curiosity . . .” he started.

“I've got the visual display coming up now, sir,” I said, having anticipated his request. We all wanted our first look at traverse space. The primary display on the front of the bridge wall showed a charcoal gray backdrop with faintly visible black ripples passing through it in regular waves. I ran through all our external views and they showed the same pattern.

“Well, so much for that,” said Maclintock. I agreed with him. It was disappointing.

“And once again we have humanity's typical reaction to the miracles of the universe,” chimed in Serosian. The captain looked to him.

“Forgive me if I'm an aesthete,” he said. Serosian shrugged.

“It's typical, Captain, as I said, and not unexpected. Beyond that barrier are sights no man should see, and miracles no man could describe,” said the Historian.

Serosian's words, spoken in all seriousness, sent an involuntary chill up my spine. Maclintock just stared at the Historian.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Commander,” said Maclintock to me. “That's enough for now.”

“Aye, sir,” I said, and shut the display off, returning to a standard systems display. Maclintock stood.

“XO, you have the con. I've got a couple of dozen novels to catch up on,” he said. Dobrina rose to acknowledge.

“I have the con, aye, sir,” she said. “Enjoy your reading.”

With that the captain was gone off the bridge. I came and stood next to Dobrina.

“Looks like we'll have plenty of time for fencing the next two days,” I said quietly to her.

“Or other activities,” she deadpanned.

“Umm. Yes, well, I'd prefer to stay focused on my fitness for the moment. It makes those ‘other activities' even more enjoyable,” I said.

“Speak for yourself,” she said, then headed off to do a station-by-station walkthrough. I smiled. I decided getting in plenty of both wouldn't be a bad way to spend the next couple of days.

Two days later, we were four minutes from exiting traverse space into the Jenarus system. I was at my duty station sweeping across my boards looking for trouble, but finding none. That made me uncomfortable. I made a quick com call down to Duane Longer.

“How are we looking?” I asked, fishing for information.

“All nominal, sir. The sub-light HD drive is scheduled to cut off the moment we break the bubble in the Jenarus system. The chemical impellers will activate automatically and propel us out of the jump space tunnel and into normal space. From there our only concern should be winning the bet,” he said.

“Which you had better,” I replied. “Thanks, Duane.” Serosian chose just that moment to enter the bridge and take his station, firing up his board with a sweep of the hand. The confusing glut of shapes and colors were a complete mystery to me, and I was glad I'd never had to learn them.

We all buckled in with one minute to go. Maclintock turned the countdown over to Jenny Hogan at Astrogation.

“Thirty seconds,” she called on the shipwide com from her second-tier station. “All systems green. When we exit jump space we will have traveled farther than any Quantar ship in more than two centuries. We are making history.” That was something we could all be proud of.

I looked to Dobrina, our highest-ranking Carinthian officer, but she had her eyes fixed to her board. Although we had similar duties, monitoring systems and such, I was much more engaged in the smooth running of the systems and she much more in the application of those systems to overall ship's status. If she saw something she didn't like, it was within her prerogative to shut that system down. I didn't have that power, only the power to report problems and then to ride the lower ratings to get things running to her satisfaction.

“Ten seconds,” counted down Jenny Hogan. In that short amount of time she would disengage the hyperdimensional drive and shut down our protective Hoagland Field in the same instant, “dropping” us from a bubble of space in an unknown higher dimension and back into our dimension. Then our sub-light HD drive would cut out and our chemical impellers would kick back in, reengaging our mass in a forward motion to exit the large and unusual jump space tunnel at Jenarus. Only when we had exited the tunnel would we find ourselves totally in normal space again and able to navigate normally to the system's home planet.

I gripped the arms of my safety couch as Hogan counted down to zero. The cerebral scattering associated with entering a jump was
much different than when exiting. While all of our maneuvering actions of the ship were preprogrammed, we were not. We still needed a few seconds to reassociate ourselves to our own dimension, but it wasn't as profound an effect, for some reason, as when we jumped out of our own dimension.

I was quickly on my board demanding reports. Everything looked green except . . .

“Lieutenant Longer,” I said. “Why is the sub-light HD drive not shut down?” I watched him scramble his hands across his board.

“Unknown, sir,” he responded.

I unbuckled from my seat and was at the railing in a second.

“If that drive is still engaged we could be pulled back into the jump space tunnel, mister,” I said.

“Understood, sir. The HD drive is shut down but . . .”

“But what, man?” I demanded.

“It looks like residual neutrinos were generated by the full stop, sir. It kept the drive engaged for a few microseconds longer than planned, sir,” he said.

I turned to George Layton at the helm. “Where are we, Lieutenant?”

Layton's hand played across his board. “Point one five three AUs further into the tunnel than expected, sir,” he said.

“And what's our heading?”

“We're not in normal space, sir, we're in jump space, so it's difficult to tell, but it seems we're losing ground to the star.”

I spun around and reported to my captain. “Our position is not as expected, Captain. We're still in the jump space tunnel and appear to be drifting away from the exit, sir,” I said.

“How long until the impellers can pull us out?” asked Captain Maclintock. I looked to Longer, then over to Serosian.

“Uncertain that they can, sir,” I said honestly. “The chemical impellers are designed to work in normal space primarily, sir. We are significantly further inside the tunnel than anticipated. Excess
neutrinos generated when the HD drive didn't shut down properly appear to have displaced us from our landing point, sir.”

Dobrina stood up from her station. “Are you saying that the gravimetric energy of the Jenarus star is pulling us deeper into the tunnel?” she said.

“Yes, XO,” I replied. “The jump space tunnel magnifies the gravity pull of the star by a significant amount.” Maclintock looked to Serosian.

“Can we survive if we exit the tunnel inside the envelope of the star's corona?” he asked.

“Very uncertain, Captain. Even with the Hoagland Field,” said the Historian.

“Solutions?” asked Maclintock. The Historian shook his head.

“None readily available, Captain,” he said. “The impellers aren't strong enough to fight the pull of a star the mass of Jenarus. The jump space tunnel acts as a field magnifier for the gravity of the star. The more ground we lose to the exit point, the stronger the pull will be.”

“What about reengaging the Hoagland FTL drive?” asked Maclintock.

“That would actually make our situation worse. The gravitons generated by the drive spooling process would bond with those of the star, resulting again in a magnifying effect,” stated Serosian.

“And the sub-light hyperdimensional drive?”

“The sub-light HD drive generates neutrinos, which would cancel out the star's gravimetric pull to a degree, but not enough to pop us out of this jump space tunnel. It's highly unusual stellar topography,” commented Serosian.

“Are you implying that this tunnel might be artificial?” asked Dobrina. Serosian nodded.

“A possibility, Commander. But it would take a lot more study than we currently have time for,” he said. Maclintock stood and rubbed his face.

“So what you're all telling me is that we have three drives on this ship and none of them can get us out of our predicament?” he said.

“Four, actually, sir,” I said, and instantly regretted it. Maclintock, Serosian, and Dobrina all turned their eyes on me.

“Explain, Commander,” said Maclintock. I shuffled my feet and took in a deep breath.

“I've been working with Lieutenant Longer on a hybrid drive, mixing the impellers with the sub-light HD drive. I had intended to use it only if it was required to win the bet, sir,” I said.

“Well, that won't happen now,” said the captain. Then he motioned Longer to come up to the command deck and join us.

“Will this thing work, Lieutenant?” he asked. Longer's face went a little pale, but he answered readily enough.

“Theoretically, sir,” he said. “Essentially, it's a KERS, Kinetic Energy Reclamation System. The electrons generated by the HD drive can be processed in such a way that they can be mixed as a plasma with the chemical propulsion fuel cells. Sort of like a hyped-up hydrazine fuel source. In our tests we achieved almost a fifty-percent boost in output from the impellers, sir. But there is a risk of . . . a more explosive result, sir.”

The captain looked annoyed at that. “Say what you mean, Lieutenant. We don't have time for mincing words right now.” Longer swallowed and cleared his throat.

“There is a twenty-one percent chance the mixture will cause a burst from the mixed plasma, sir, a sort of ‘Big Bang' of energy before the plasma flow integrates and settles down. Theoretically it
should
be a powerful enough burst to get us out of this jump tunnel space, just a lot more violent than the impellers in a normal mode, sir,” said Longer.