Void's Psionics (6 page)

“
The gravimetric field she
needs hasn’t been properly invented yet so I’m doing my best. Those
two ladies want me to effectively make a black hole in terms of
gravity to compress a sheet of metal so thin the atoms lock in
place. I tell you it is easier said than done and damn dangerous.
Damn dangerous indeed. I have to go slow with the machines I got to
make the specs Jess has figured out. I really needed this break
away from those two gals. They hover and I hate that. Leave me
alone to work. Is that too much to ask?”

“
If you want an assistant
I’ll help out. If you need something I can make better, don’t
forget I have this.” He lifted his right arm.

“
Boy, I completely forgot.
Now that you offered I can’t refuse to see that little toy in
action. When can you start?”

“
I’ll need about an hour to
check over the Flare’s systems, but then I should be free. Renee’s
been busy lately and I’m just learning how to project barriers so
I’ll need to do something with my hands to rest my
mind.”

“
Sounds good. It’s why I
love tinkering. It keeps me from thinking too much. When I’m idle
for too long I tend to get in trouble.”

“
Oh?”

Jacob leaned back to laugh. “Better believe
it. Last week I inadvertently shocked my mate when she was watching
a show and I was trying to increase power efficiency manually and
shocked the crap right out of her. She’s still pissed she streaked
her thong a little.”

The two men chuckled as Oliver flew inside
the docking bay and spun around inside to land easily. The hatch
lifted and Jacob hopped right out, being so short his eyes barely
cleared the lip of the cockpit. “Look forward to seeing you in an
hour, but call if something comes up.”

“
Will do.” Oliver
acknowledged, hearing ‘Thanks for the ride again.’ As he looked
over the ship’s internal readouts, checking for any sign of wear or
damage. Not all the bugs have been worked out as it was still
considered a prototype. As it so happened after flying Stephanie
earlier, Oliver began reconfiguring some of the ship’s software to
be slightly more efficient in some areas and loosen parameters on
others. Little by little he worked on perfecting the capabilities
of his fighter. It took time, but that wasn’t an issue.

Customizing and enhancing is instinctive.

When reports were fixed he did a visual
inspection and when the display matched the engine converter, he
closed it up and locked the Flare down from unauthorized opening.
Only he and the captain had access now.

It was little over an hour when it was done
and Oliver arrived on level five, the power station that ran
throughout the length of the Dorgenox. It was bright, but oddly
quiet except of a continuous and soft crackle of electricity
gathered from mostly the captain, but also from every crew member.
But from where Oliver exited he heard “I heard you the first time,
Woman! If you can do better then by all means…” He sighed, but
quickened his pace to find a junkyard of tools hanging on the walls
and cannibalized parts everywhere else. Some tools were
manufactured, but most seemed to be handmade by a skilled
craftsman. Around the corner he found Jacob Wrench about half
Jessica’s height glaring at each other. “I wouldn’t keep harping if
you’d just listen!” she said.

“
Enough!” the two seemed to
jump out of their skins as Oliver’s deep baritone voice
boomed.

Jessica had a hand over her heart and gasped
to say “Don’t do that, Oliver. You scared me half to death.”

“
Good job, Bub.” Jacob
chuckled and rubbed his shiny head.

“
What is the problem here?”
Oliver approached them and unhooked the indigo shield from his back
to lay against the table of assorted pieces.

“
I’m just trying to make
sure he doesn’t kill us all. My scans show he’s two
whole
microns off my
design specifications for the containment field we need so it
doesn’t collapse in on itself and make the ship implode down to the
size of a pea with us still in it. Even just one nanometer will
cause a catastrophic failure.”

Oliver looked at the holographic design
hovering over the work table and picked up a piece of metal to look
down at Jacob to ask “Were you planning to add a micro-bore
inflation strip?”

Jacob blinked a few times before a grin
spread over his whole face. “Finally someone who thinks like me.
Yes, in fact that was my next step before she measured and decided
to jump down my throat for the hundredth time.”

Jessica threw her auburn hair over a
shoulder, her hazel-green eyes confused. “What is this micro…
something.”

“
Tell her, Bub.” Jacob sat
down to enjoy her reactions.

“
Micro-bore inflation is a
process in which a thin piece of superheated ceramic is gradually
pushed through a non-magnetic metal in a gradual twisting motion.
Rather than squeezing out excess metal it heats the metal from the
inside out, thereby expanding the metal, strengthening it
fundamentally and leaving the smallest of holes to vent heat behind
when extracted. If he uses a point five micron strip in this part,
it’ll expand
exactly
two microns when cooled. It’ll also be twelve percent stronger
and pliable under extreme stress than done without this process.
Jacob will effectively make your idea more safe and reliable for
more than three or four uses.” Oliver sat the piece
down.

“
Is that true?”

“
Every word, Jess. Now
please
leave
me
alone. I’ll stick to your specs unless I or my new assistant here
find a better method.”

“
You’re pitching in?”
Jessica blinked as it registered.

“
It’s an interesting
concept. And if his instruments can’t create something, my
multi-tool likely can. And I hate to say it, but you yelling
doesn’t help him work any faster. If it is alright with you, can
you at least trust me to work it out? You know how fast I learn and
retain everything. Please trust me.”

Jessica looked between them to purse her lips
before saying “Fine, I know when I’m the third wheel. I need to
check on my wife anyway and see if her marbles are back in place
after the ride earlier. Sorry by the way.”

“
Don’t be. She just made
sure I remember to stock more barf bags for any passengers from now
on. And thank you.”

“
Need me, call me.” She
turned and left the pleasing junkyard.

“
Thanks for your help, Bub.
Peace and quiet at last. Hurry and familiarize yourself with what
I’m creating while I heat up the ceramic bore strip.” He got up and
slid on a pair of gloves.

Hand on the screen, Oliver
moved parts around and used the other hand to relax his gaze and
read through in flashes too fast for human eyes to follow let alone
understand. In his mind he recreated the idea and saw how it was
made of two spheres, one inside the other. The inner would do the
hard work and the outer would make sure no stray energy would
escape. He could almost see and envision it, but the mental
simulation had his jaw part. “No… not strong enough.
No
where near.”

“
What was that?” Jacob
paused halfway and turned hesitantly.

“
Both the inner and outer
containment will rip itself apart if only put under a quarter of
total output… unless the design is altered to fifty meters
tall.”

“
Jess doesn’t screw up
calculations. Programming is her forte.”

“
Trust me.” Amber eyes bore
with confidence and fright. “The design and execution is ideal for
using gravity to compress matter to thereby lock in atoms
themselves, but the reinforcement structures are lacking and will
tear apart the outer shell and once it ruptures the inner, with
even a crack, we’ll all be doomed at just a quarter of
power.”

“
I’ll believe you. It won’t
hurt at least to add more support.”

“
And power cycles need to be
sped up to
exactly
the speed of light and placed in a vacuum. Air pressure will
add more unneeded stress.”

“
Hmmm… I see you’re point.
We don’t really realize just how much air can put on something… I
can rig up a secondary power source out on a remotely operated
drone to send out to space. After I get started on the bore I’ll
get to working on remote operations. To be on the safe side we’ll
do all power tests safely away. You add what you think is necessary
and I’ll throw in any ideas later.”

“
Be sure to add a
kill-switch in the drone if anything happens.”

“
Always do.”

They got to work. Oliver first mentally made
hundreds of thousands of intellectual trials before coming across
the most promising and physically wrote down parts and new designs
on the holographic display. It took the rest of the day and half
the night before they said goodbye for the evening.

Midmorning of the next day Oliver called out
“Hello, Jacob. Wow, those parts came out looking great.” The
surprise in his tone had the ship’s chief engineer chuckle. He was
sitting at his desk tinkering with his back turned.

Jacob set down the parts and dark brown eyes
widened as soon as he looked up into the overgrown man. “Nice lip.
What happened?”

A split lip had already dried of blood and
closed well. Bruising wouldn’t occur thanks to nanites cleaning the
body of old, dead and burst cells. It still smarted with the
slightest movement and would rip open if smiling, but he didn’t see
that coming anytime soon. “Got it sparring with Stone this morning.
I tripped over my own feet and his boot met my teeth.” Oliver
widened his mouth to show many front teeth were completely missing.
Nine between the top and bottom to be accurate. “Just got away from
Renee pulling the shards all out. I’m just glad the roots are
already showing signs of regeneration. I’ll still have a gaping
smile for three more months before they grow back.”

“
Damn! I heard of kicking
your teeth in and Stone did a fine job. And here I thought you were
infallible. Are you up to working?”

In answer he took a much larger seat Jacob
must have brought in and raised the table to more comfortably work
for them both. Jacob merely raised the seat’s height and let his
feet dangle. Oliver’s brow wrinkled and with his missing teeth,
sounded funny, but still wasn’t one to laugh at. “Do I really give
you that impression that I’m… as you said, infallible?”

“
Well yeah, actually.” Jacob
grabbed a hammer with a square face that had a slight outward
curve. “Makes me feel better you’re like the rest of us and not
some deity some of my ancestors might have worshipped before our
Age of Logic gained momentum.”

“
But I am like you humans. I
feel like I’m human… or what I’ve read during my schooling studies
makes us extremely similar.”

“
Not compared to the rest of
us. Your speed, strength and mind are well above ours. Hell, even
after you turned in, I ran simulations on one of my engineering
programs from Jessica’s ingenious prototype compared to your own.
It took four hours to render all known scenarios and you were
right. You knew the failure was catastrophic after a few seconds of
familiarizing yourself with the physics. Your design has only a
four percent chance of failure in the first run while hers had a
one hundred at, as you said, a quarter output. My program was damn
expensive, but she didn’t have it and yet in seconds you found the
deadly error and corrected it. No human could do that with just
looking.”

“
True, but it is my
subconscious that did it and my consciousness translated it. Renee
ran thousands of tests on me and my awareness of pain is identical
to human and I feel just as strongly as the next person. When I
think normally my mind processes like everyone else. And as you can
see of my mouth, I’m just as prone to losing and accidents as the
next person.”

“
And it makes me feel a bit
more comfortable. Pass me that soldering wire please.” Oliver
passed the silvery coil and got a nod of thanks. “Parts are still
being cut and crystals grown to operate it.” He pointed over to a
large set of machines. One made entirely of clean titanium and
another the size of a boulder made of rose pink crystal shining
behind a draped over curtain to dim the light. The larger machine
cut out any form of metal from whatever is programmed. “All the
pieces will be ready by tomorrow morning. Crystal regulators
too.

“
So how did the micro-bore
turn out this morning?”

“
Double check my work.
Better you than little miss busybody.”

A pen scanner measured the individual parts
and the worrisome two microns were corrected perfectly, leaving an
unnoticeable hole drilled through the core. Some new pieces were
dangling as waves of heat radiated from ceramic pushed through
them. What parts that had finished overnight the two of them worked
well assembling together. Rarely talking. They found themselves
good partners and some of the finer aspects not even Jacob’s little
nimble hand would get to, Oliver’s telekinesis was up to the
task.

During the work the stable hum of the engine
room began to get just a shade louder and Jacob looked up to the
left, at the stream of light to say “We’re moving. Someone
initiated the sublight engines.” And a second later there came a
hiss of air from far back. “And we’re in FTL.”