The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #1, Inception (14 page)

First, her secondary skirt, as the engineers referred to the second teardrop, was essentially complete. In addition, the Yorktown sported two launch bays for fighters in addition to a standard shuttle bay.

The USC Bowman had been designed as a ship of exploration. Not so the Yorktown. She was built from the ground up as a ship of war. Where the Bowman had a single center mounted rail gun, the Yorktown had six. Three fired forward, and three fired to the rear.

In addition to thoroughly upgraded, reactive hull plating, the Yorktown was able to generate a displacement field, similar to that of the Bowman, which wrapped around the ship and diverted energy weapons. This shield was powered by twin fusion reactors, whose sole responsibility it was to pump the field density to unheard of levels. The 10,000 mega joule blast, that had holed the Bowman, would be easily handled by this new shielding. Small hyper field nubs dotted the surface. If Cat was correct, these would be hyper field dampeners, which could deprive an opponent of the ability to jump into hyper drive.

Finally, the new inertial dampeners, surrounding the hull, could be configured to either transfer momentum from a colliding mass to the entire ship or, and Cat liked this option, they could be set
to completely reverse the colliding objects momentum. This neat trick would effectively throw a kinetic missile back at the attacker.

Cat looked around the observation deck. There were several other small groups taking in the massive ship. Undoubtedly some would be crew. Others were likely visitors from Orbital One's habitat rings. Cat knew from her status briefing with the construction manager
that that the Yorktown was only a few days from being completed. For many on Orbital One this would be their last chance to see the pride of the USC up close.

Cat spotted the group she was interested in. The Admiral and his administrative officer, a Lieutenant Commander Sherry Melbourne
, were making their way to her position. The Admiral had requested she delay an inspection of the Yorktown until he could be present. Truth be known, Cat knew the design of this ship was his baby and he was justifiably very proud.

She and Ken executed sharp salutes when the Admiral arrived.

"So Captain, what do you think of our gal?" The Admiral remarked as the four officers shook hands in a sign of cordial friendship.

"I think she's impressive... Are those nubs hyper-field dampeners?"

"Damn," the Admiral's exec swore.

The Admiral, for his part, chuckled. "I told you, Sherry... She doesn't miss a trick... Especially when it comes to hyper-field dynamics - a science she practically invented."

"The Benjamin has already been transferred to your account, Sir... But you and I both know I'll be getting it right back once we get to the bridge."

The Admiral chuckled with a wink towards Cat and said, "We'll see."

***

The Yorktown was everything Cat and Ken expected, once they entered through one of the aft airlocks. The corridors were just a tad wider than those on the Bowman. The main mess was
huge. That made sense to Cat because, when her crew was on board, this ship would house nearly four hundred crew and fighter pilots.

To Cats delight the gym had weight rooms, handball courts, a variable gravity track and a small four lane, continuous flow swimming pool.

The medical bay was equally impressive with four surgical suites and an ER. Unlike the Bowman, which had a staff of two doctors and three nurses, the Yorktown was designed to act as a fully functional hospital in space. The Sickbay had a staff of twenty, of which six were doctors, six were physician assistants and the balance were nurses. The Yorktown also boasted a state-of-the-art diagnostic suite and a stocked pharmacy. 

Engineering was one of the few areas of the ship where the crew had already reported, and were engaged in activities to prepare the ship for her maiden voyage.
The Chief Engineer was a Brazilian woman named Commander Thais Figarero.

"Bom
dia," Cat said with a smile as the four visitors and the Chief Engineer exchanged greetings.

"Aye
você fala?"

"
Não," Cat admitted. “I know enough Portuguese to say 'good morning' and thanks, but that about taps me out."

"Then we'll have to teach you some more," the engineer joked as she led the group around the various engineering decks. Thais pointed out some of the more unusual or innovative design features as they continued their tour of engineering.

Thanks to the Heshe, the computer on the Yorktown was the first to utilize a fully realized quantum computing core. The system was many orders of magnitude faster than anything previous built by the hand of man. As a result, the Yorktown could calculate most hyper-field jump coordinates in minutes if not seconds. Her ability to micro-jump continuously, at ranges up to 10 kilometers, meant she could effectively travel in excess of 0.6c within the solar system. The Yorktown was the first spaceship built by the USC without any reaction mass propulsion system.

The Yorktown sported six petawatt fusion generators. Two powered the shields,
two powered the rail guns and antimatter particle beams, and two powered the hyper-field generators.

The hyper-field generators captivated Ken's attention. The minute he saw
them he hurried over to the control console. The generators themselves were larger than Cat had anticipated... even for a ship of the size of the Yorktown.

"Is
it me or do those generators seem a little too big for a ship this size?" Cat asked.

Ken answered before Thais
could. "Actually, Captain.. I was surprised they were this small.  To erect nested hyper fields, the inner field has to literally push the outer field out of the way. The only way High Field Dynamics can allow for that, is if the inner field is some multiple of the base frequency of the outer field. Since a displacement field and a jump field operate on vastly different frequencies, the only practical way to accomplish this is to multiple the field frequencies."

"Actually," Thais interjected, “we found a better way. Hyper-fields have a trans-dimensional component that allows them to interact in unusual ways. The two frequencies tend to drag on one another. We actually use the inner field to drag the outer field into the correct frequency range...
The math is really beastly, but the new Heshe computer designs are more than up to the task."

"There are some interesting implications here." Cat mused. "I suspect I know what your surprise on the Bridge is going to be."

Admiral Faragon smiled, as his exec asked the obvious question, "So just what are you expecting to find on the bridge?"

Cat looked at Sherry with a bemused smile that matched that of the Admiral's. "My guess is that the tech folks have used this principle of entangled hyper-fields to create a long range hyper drive sensor."

"Damn," was Sherry's only comment.

***

First of the First padded across the grass of his exercise yard on all six legs. It was considered rude to walk on all six, but if the pack leader of the D'lralu could not be comfortable in his own home, then what was the point of life?

A snarl at the gate let him know that his current mate was irritated. She was in heat and wanted nothing more than to make pups, but he had weightier matters on his mind... There would be time enough for pups later.

A messenger beacon had arrived from a great great grandson, Three of Nine. It had arrived several days ago. The message indicated a rather severe infestation of intelligent life forms. More worrisome was the fact that there had not been the expected follow up messages. Only death or equipment failure could explain the lack of additional messages.

The wind rustled his mane. He looked to where his mate stood twitching her long tail in irritation. Perhaps he would see to her need.  This would be the second time in thirty five cycles that one of his pups failed to report home... If three of nine was dead, then a replacement would be needed. Yes, he would see to her needs, and then begin the planning for the eradication campaign which the masters would insist on.

***

The bridge of the Yorktown had become Cat's new home. She spent the bulk of her day going over system after system in an effort to become, if not an expert, at least fully acquainted with their capabilities and shortcomings. It was amazing to her that the Bowman, which had been state-of-the-art just six months before, was now based on seriously dated technology.

One of the two turbo lift doors to the bridge swished open, and her First Officer, Ken Kirkland, entered the round room. If there was anybody on board who was working as hard to come up to speed on all the new technology, it was the Bowman's former Chief Engineer. He often referred to himself as a geek with a passion for God. Never was that more evident than when seeing the child-like delight on his face when he discovered some new technology, and had a chance to play with it. He had just such a look on his face now.

"Hey Cat... You'll never believe what I just discovered in Engineering."

"You found the quantum shift matter transporter they're installing behind the main computer core."

His face lit up in excitement. "Seriously! I missed that... Wow!" He looked at the smirk on her face... "Oh... you're kidding aren't you?"

She stuck her tongue out at him and smiled. "So tell me Commander... What did you find?"

Now it was Ken's turn to smile. "They have a complete collection of Doctor Who episodes on holographic disk... Clear through the twenty-eighth doctor!"

"Doctor who?"

"That's what I said, Doctor Who..." seeing the confused look on her face, her First Officer sighed in exasperation... "You're telling me you have never watched reruns of 'Doctor Who'... The longest running holo program of all time... It actually started off as black and white TV in the mid-twentieth century?"

"And this helps us get ready for launch in a week, how?"

"It's all a matter of priorities, Captain. The holographic projectors have a control node in central engineering. That's how I discovered the movies library... More to the point however, if for whatever reason we lose the link to engineering, we lose a major control interface to the rest of the ship. I'm not a big fan of a single point of failure for any major system."

"True," Cat said, "but there numerous redundant systems on the bridge, should the projectors go down."

"Here's my point... Housing the holographic projectors in engineering, is a throwback to the days when you needed the main computer core to do the real-time processing for the holograms... With the new Heshe computers that is just simply not the case. Let's install a small backup quantum core here in the bridge, that can handle the displays in the event of a failure. The holograms are far more efficient, and that could translate into lives if we get into trouble."

Cat thought about it for a moment. "It makes sense... Cal are you listening?"

"
Of course, Captain.
"

"Cal, can you help with the design... I'd actually like a core in place which can house a subset of you as a backup AI for the Yorktown."

"
May I make another suggestion?
"

"Absolutely"

"
Why not simply clone me?
"