The Stars Came Back (59 page)

Allonia: Looks like… drives gone, hull
breached. Decompression slowing. Airtight doors auto-shut.

Kaushik: No more main power.

Quiritis: Accel is zero. Drifting ballistic.

Helton: Looks like the first test
shot is a success. Let’s go see what the drives can do, now, shall we?

FADE TO BLACK

Six pack

FADE IN

INT - DAY - Engineering

Stenson and his team
are tired, unshaven, and excited.

They have been hard at work a while and are looking forward to a real test. The readouts are all in the green. Most are st
eady, some are fluctuating gently. The sound of the drives is an intense, slightly pulsing hum. Stenson nods in approval at what he sees.

Stenson: OK, three cores hot. Nominal. Bringing number four on line.

He taps a control, the sound changes, and other tone that doesn’t mix in very well overlays the hum. Then the noise starts to modulate and vary with increasing harshness.

Stenson: Number five
.

The modulation and harshness gets worse, and another
dissonant minor note joins in.

Stenson: Bringing number six on.

He hits another control. Another hum adds to the cacophony, and it turns harsh and screeching, pulsing up and down. The engineering team winces at the din grating on their ears. The readouts are now bouncing all around, many up into the red. Stenson rubs his chin, looking at the readouts, thinking hard, tapping controls, looking and thinking some more. The racket gets worse. The others in the room start looking nervous.

Helton: (OC, over PA)
Everything OK ?

Stenson: Nothing breaking
, just can’t sync them. Sounds like love-sick demons, but it’s not that bad. Gimme a minute.

Quiritis: (OC, over PA) Redneck tune
up?

Stenson thinks a moment,
eyeing displays, now almost all into the red.

Stenson:
Taj
, any ideas? How hard can we push it? Efficiency is pretty bad now. Any lower and we start having heat problems.

Ship AI: (OC) Not familiar with Quiri’s expression.

Stenson: Push it hard, force synchronization with power and acceleration rather than precision.

Ship AI: (OC) Risky.

Stenson: Could we still use the cores with the Sokolov drives if the Harmons crap out?

Ship AI: (OC) Maybe. A definite maybe. Too many unknowns to calculate reliably. Initial guess is
seventy percent chance, plus or minus ninety percent.

Stenson: Very helpful.
Don’t suppose the calc any easier with five drives, so we have one spare, just in case?

Ship AI: (OC) No. The balance is worse
. Thirty percent success, plus or minus oodles.

Stenson:
Oodles
? Since you’re the one riding heard on these drives, any bright ideas?

Ship AI: (OC) I’m not the genius around here.
You
thought of the breakthrough.

Stenson: Any better chance starting with the Sokolov end of the drives?

Ship AI: (OC) Unknown. Insufficient data.

Stenson: Feeling lucky?

Ship AI: (OC) I may not be the best one to ask that question.

Stenson: Guys?

The other team members look at him, one with fingers in his ears against the shriek, and they shrug, except for Alvarez, who nods slightly.

Quiritis: (OC)
Punch it, or just use earplugs?

Stenson: (
To the air) Captain, feeling lucky?

CUT TO

INT - DAY - Bridge

Helton and the rest are at their normal places.

Helton ponders it for a moment, looking at screens and people around him. He nods, grins.

Helton: A good ship. Let’s see if we can be great.

Quiritis nods, plays with the controls. The readouts get
angrier, the ship starts vibrating noticeably, and the screeching, pulsing dissonance of the unsynchronized drives worsens. Everyone cringes as the sound and vibration pound at them. The notes of the drive cores start shifting closer together, making them sound worse and worse. Readouts are wild, far into the red, then back into green, changing rapidly. Suddenly the sounds of the drives begins to converge on a chord that harmonizes, and suddenly with a CRASH it‘s much quieter. The background notes of the drives are subdued and pleasant, and the readouts all drop into the green. Everyone looks at the screens in front of them, assessing what they see.

Quiritis: (
Quietly) Wow.

Helton: (
Into mic) How’s it look, Henery?

Stenson: (OC, over PA) WOW! Gimme a sec! Never saw numbers like this. Need to sort it out. Don’t think we went nova, though. Never a good career move to
do that on a flight.

Helton: Qui
ri? Big picture?

Quiritis: Drive field strength is
huge. We might even be able to transition to FTL
now
.

Helton:
Now? You sure? Still pretty deep in the well.

Quiritis: If these numbers are right, we’d be able to transition at half the normal distance from the gravity centers.

Kaushik: But nothing can do it that close! Not even FTL torpedoes!

Quiritis: I
know that, but IF these numbers are right,
we
can. Field density is off the charts. Power and efficiency readings over one hundred percent.

Helton:
That can’t be right.

Quiritis: Dunno. Sounds wrong, but
seems to fit with the rest of the pieces.

Helton looks at the readouts in front of him.

Helton: Christ. More than a hundred Heinleins.

Quiritis: Yup.

Helton: OK, ease back the power a bit, let’s get a better handle on things. Don’t want to drive like a crazed teenager with new wheels and kill ourselves on something stupid.

Quiritis works the controls, and the readouts settle lower into the green.

CUT TO

Engineering

Stenson and his team are all excited, checking readings over with frantic movements and wide eyes. Stenson talks to half to himself he checks things, moving around the engineering section verifying and cross-checking what he sees. Most of the read outs are steady.

Stenson: Think I got it.
Rock solid. Linked, synced, locked in, and ROCKin’! We are golden, even if we never look at the Sokolov drives again. Best numbers I’ve ever seen. Stupid high efficiency rates. Field strength that’ll beat anything we might see. Space tugs have strong fields, but nothing like this.

Helton: (OC) Quiri says we can transition
now, this close. Agree?

Stenson: Think so. Yes. Just about certainly.

Helton: (OC) Want to try that first, or try out the Sokolovs, see what six of them can do?

Stenson: Still feeling lucky?

Helton: (OC) Just got married, sank a pirate, found out we’ve got planet killers on board, and the deepest transitioning self-aware ship in existence. When you’re on a roll, go with it. Ready for a transition?

Stenson:
Always playing it safe, eh?

CUT TO

Bridge

Helton: (Grins) Being on a roll doesn’t mean you have be a complete idiot.

He nods to Quiritis to make it happen.

Quiritis: OK, Mr. Married Man. Get ready to make history. Even if no one knows but us.

She works the controls. The sound of the drives changes, drops a bit, then the screens show a suddenly moving star
field.

CUT TO

EXT - DAY -
Space, near
Tajemnica

A planet in the distant background is moving slightly, and the space around her glows a cheery yellow
green, pulsing and rippling gently, like an Aurora Borealis. The light of the drive field extends much further and brighter than it ever has before. The field becomes brighter, pulls in closer,
Tajemnica
disappears from this universe, and the light fades.

FADE TO BLACK

Test Flight

FADE IN

INT - DAY -
Tajemnica
Bridge

The usual suspects are in their places. Stenson stands in the doorway.

Helton: I’m just the captain. You two are the flying geniuses. What do you want to do?

Stenson: Time dilation tests. Speed tests. Acceleration tests. Grav
well depth tests. Transition tests. Deep tests. Sensor tests. Conventional accelacomp tests. Interference tests. Verify field-strength readings, which I’m still not sure I believe.

Quiritis: And that’s just with what we have now. Run ‘em all again if we get two drives on a single core working, then again with multiple resonance cores in various combinations. We have
zero data and only the sketchy outline of a theory on how things will actually handle under those conditions. We need empirical data.

Stenson: We’re in the instrumented test
pilot realm here, with everything.

Helton: So, what are you waiting for? I failed my flight test, so I only kinda follow half the details you two throw out there. Set it up, work out the schedule with
Taj
, tell me what you need, set it in motion.

Quiritis: Really? That’s all you want to know?

Helton: You three are smart. Since the war’s pretty much over on NewOz, we can’t really go back, so while Lag and I figure out where we should go we’ve got nothing better to do. Make it happen. Tell me ahead of time if you think we are all about to die so I can get a goodbye kiss.

Allonia: Only if I can go find Dorek at the same time!

Helton: Deal. We also need to figure out the best
permanent
solution to the legal situation.

Bipasha: Emirate allows multiple wives, you know.

Helton: No, thanks. I’m quite sure just one is fine. Either one-

Allonia: (
Feigning a dramatic letdown) Married a week and he’s already rejecting me. Just one of either!

Helton: Kaminski complicates things, you know.

Quiritis: And I don’t?

Helton: No, you’re pretty uncomplicated, actually. I think. Maybe. Or am I putting my foot deep in my mouth? Seriously, though, we
should find a long-term solution that fills both the legal and social demands. I like simple, uncomplicated things.

Quiritis: (
Teasing) Now you’re calling me simple?!

Helton: No, I
… oh, hell, you know what I mean. Go figure out the test flight plan… So I can talk to Bipasha about what
her
wedding plans are, so when we-

Helton ducks an empty
zero-grav cup thrown at him by smiling Bipasha.

DISSOLVE TO

INT - DAY -
Garden

Allonia is humming along, pruning some of the plants on the many overflowing racks around her in the brightly lit room. Things are obviously growing well, and there are bushes, herbs, and all sorts of different shades of green, even some flowers. A
very green, happy place. Helton walks in just as the background noises take another change in note.

Helton: Kwon needs some sage.

Allonia points to a bush at the end of the rack she’s working on. He heads over to it, test smelling several different things along the way, then starts carefully picking some of the sage.

Allonia: How’s the testing going?

Helton: Pretty good.

Allonia: Every time they talk it makes my head hurt. It’s another language.

Helton: It is, but the basic ideas are pretty simple.

Allonia: Fill me in?

Helton: Sure. Harmon and Sokolov drives do basically the same thing, push on the fabric of the space-time multi-verse, but they do it differently. Synchronizing more than three drives is
very
difficult. Using even four is rare; only in racers, really. You can fly on one drive, but most use two because it’s more efficient and you have redundancy. Bigger ships can afford to support three, for redundancy and speed, but usually have the same or slightly lower efficiency. Very few ships use both Harmon
and
Sokolov drives. It’s expensive, takes up twice the room, and most ships are optimized for one sort of mission. Harmon drives create a more intense field and allow transition slightly deeper in the well, and they work better near planets. They are also faster for short hops between stars. Sokolov drives spread a wide field so they can grab a lot of space and allow greater acceleration. They work better in deep space, and because they allow better acceleration in subspace, they’re generally faster for long hauls. Stenson figured out how that analogue gizmo in engineering helps sync the drives and how the twist might allow us to use both at once on a single core. The hope is that together they can spread the field intense
and
wide, possibly having better time dilation control, be faster in universal time, come out of transition with some speed, and maybe even wade into the turbulent subspace of The Deep.