Lost Among The Stars

CHAPTER 2 – SPACE REFIT-3

Like Tina, Gustav Shomberg was at first left speechless when Doctor Koomak, who had come along with his four compatriots and Tina, told him about his project to build a prototype interstellar craft. Then, the engineer surprised everybody by suddenly yelling loudly in approbation, a huge grin on his face.

‘’You are asking me if I am interested in building and testing the first interstellar ship in history? Of course I am interested! Building a true starship was my lifelong dream!’’

‘’Uh, I must remind you that there may be a few delicate political considerations about this, Gustav.’’ said gently Tina. That didn’t seem to faze off Shomberg, who gave her a sober look.

‘’Of course there will be political considerations, Tina: every major new invention have brought some such considerations in the past. You are after all talking about opening the road to the stars to Humanity…and to the Koorivars. So, Doctor Koomak, tell me more about your star drive.’’

‘’Well, if described in as simple terms as possible, it basically uses a process quite similar to the one involved in our anti-matter rocket but, instead of transforming matter into anti-matter, we will create a rip in the fabric of Space itself, a rip that will then suck up the ship carrying my device. That ship should then be instantly transported to the opposite side of that rip. The distance and direction traveled would basically depend on the intensity of the field created by my device and by the orientation of the ship at the time of the pulse. Basically, we would only need to point the ship in the right direction, dial in the field intensity and press the ‘jump’ button.’’

Shomberg’s mouth half opened as he measured the implications of Koomak’s words.

‘’But, that means that we wouldn’t even need to extensively modify a ship to give it an interstellar capability. We would only need to add the field generator to its bow.’’

‘’That is correct, Mister Shomberg.’’ said calmly Koomak. As for Tina, those words struck her much harder and her eyes opened wide.

‘’But, that means that my KOSTROMA should be able to be easily modified in order to turn it into a starship, right?’’

‘’If all goes well, yes!’’ replied Koomak. Shomberg then added to the drama with a few words.

‘’Since you based your invention on your anti-matter drive, then I suppose that you could easily draw as well the plans of an engine similar to the anti-matter engine that had propelled the VEON SHOURIA, right? Such engines would nearly be a must for any interstellar ship, in order for it to have a good cruising capability inside star systems.’’

‘’That is indeed a given, Mister Shomberg. To keep all this simple and quick, I would see such anti-matter rocket engines designed as simple add-on booster packs, to supplement the existing thermonuclear fusion rockets of Human ships. I would say that four such ‘booster packs’ could be quickly built and then be easily fitted to the KOSTROMA. They could in fact be fixed to the outer circumference of its stern gravity sail section, thus saving a lot of time and efforts. Since they can function with about any kind of fuel, cruising range would be nearly unlimited, even though simple lead pellets are still the best, most efficient and compact way to fuel them. Being able to convert all the mass of its fuel into energy, our Koorivar anti-matter drive would be way more efficient in terms of fuel than your existing fusion engines, where only a few percents of the fuel mass is converted into energy.’’

‘’We of course won’t expect you or your space yard to work for free on our behalf.’’ Added Sheraz. ‘’We have many tons of pure gold that we will be happy to use to pay for your services, Mister Shomberg.’’

‘’Gold will certainly do, Administrator Sheraz.’’ replied Shomberg with a wide smile.

09:28 (Greenwich Universal Time)

Tuesday, February 17, 2320

Command bridge of the A.M.S. KOSTROMA

Docked inside Dry Dock Number One of the Avalon Space Yards

With the ship being officially under refit and with most of its crew and occupants gone on extended shore leave on Earth, the bridge of the KOSTROMA was unusually quiet and deserted compared to when it was cruising around the Solar System. This morning, only Gustav Shomberg, Tina Forster, Doctor Koomak, Chief Engineer Shoumak, Captain Shanandar and Rose Tillman, the KOSTROMA’s chief engineer, were present on the bridge, anxiously watching a video feed retransmitted by one of the KOSTROMA’s cargo shuttles, which was presently flying alongside the prototype star craft in a high orbit well away from normal shipping lanes. Inside the cargo shuttle was its regular crew, plus Navigator Krennek and Dana Durning. Since the start of the project, only a few chosen persons had been made privy to it, in order to keep it as secret as possible. Even among the crew of the KOSTROMA, the number of persons in the know could be counted on the fingers of two hands. The construction of the prototype craft had been equally discreet, with all the building and fitting work done inside the KOSTROMA’s workshops and hangars instead of inside one of the space yards dry docks. The prototype craft was not even brand new. Instead, to save time and efforts, an elderly cutter ship due to be decommissioned at the yards had been extensively modified and refitted inside one of the large craft hangars situated in the stern gravity sail section of the cargo ship. Now, that old cutter was about to make history…if all went well.

‘’Cutter’s itinerary programmed and loaded. All its external sensors and special instrumentation are on and functioning. The cutter is now pointed towards its first destination and ready to go. I am now backing off to a safe distance.’’

Dana Durning’s calm voice only made Tina more nervous than she already was: so much was depending on this test flight. The Koorivars present on the bridge were equally nervous, while Gustav Shomberg watched like a hawk the data coming from the prototype craft and being displayed on the screens of the station he was occupying. After a few minutes, Dana’s voice came back on the radio.

‘’I am now some 600 kilometers away from the cutter and following a parallel course. We are ready here for the test.’’

‘’Understood!’’ replied Tina from her command chair. ‘’Stand by!’’

She then turned her head to look at Koomak, who was sitting at one of the control stations of the bridge that had been reconfigured for this test run.

‘’Ready when you are, Doctor Koomak.’’

‘’Thank you, Captain Foster. Initiating jump in three…two…one…NOW!’’

Watched by six pairs of anxious eyes, the video picture retransmitted by the cargo shuttle suddenly showed a kind of nebulous orange glow just ahead of the prototype craft. Then, both the glow and the cutter disappeared from the screen.

‘’Visual and radar contact lost with the cutter. I am now transmitting the readings from my instruments to you.’’

‘’Thanks, Dana!’’ said Tina before smiling to Koomak. ‘’Well, the prototype at least went somewhere. Hopefully, we will know exactly where in a few hours. How long do you think that it will take before we get news from the cutter, Doctor?’’

‘’The programmed course of the cutter called for thirty minutes of observation time after reemergence, in order to establish with certainty its new position, followed by a change of course to point the craft towards its second destination. Another thirty minutes are to be spent after the second reemergence before our cutter is supposed to point back at the Solar System for its return trip. If travel with my new drive is truly instantaneous, we should then see the cutter return after about 74 minutes or so. However, I must caution you that the precision of each jump, even if successful, is still unknown. Our cutter could well travel without incident to its two intended destinations, the Alpha Centauri system and Barnard’s Star system, and still reemerge about anywhere within our Solar System. I in fact would not be surprised to see it reemerge in a place as far as the Jupiter System.’’

‘’Hell, I hope that it won’t be the case. Imagine if the Jupiter Space Control Center sends us back our cutter with a fine for flying around without a valid flight plan.’’

That made Gustav Shomberg laugh briefly before he smiled to Tina.

‘’Well, in that case I will proudly display that fine notice in my office. How about we go take a break and try to relax a bit now? Our cutter won’t be back for at least one hour, so we might as well stand down for a moment.’’

‘’Not before I can analyze the data collected by your cargo shuttle’s instruments at the time of the jump.’’ cut in Koomak, who was already looking at a data stream running on his display screen. After a minute or so, he turned his chair around to look at the others.

‘’The instruments’ data basically corresponds to what I was expecting. The only thing we can do now is to wait.’’

That brought a sour look on Shomberg’s face.

‘’Waiting… I hate waiting! I am happy when things are happening, not when I have to wait for things to happen.’’

So they waited…and waited as the minutes passed by. Tension rose up by a few notches as the 75 minutes bar passed, with still no sign of the prototype craft. Tina’s nerves and those of the others were close to cracking when Dana Durning’s voice came back on the radio, sounding triumphant.

‘’I AM GETTING A TELEMETRY SIGNAL BACK FROM OUR CUTTER! IT COMES FROM BEYOND THE MOON, HALFWAY TO MARS!’’

A concert of cheers greeted that message on the bridge. On his part, Koomak blew air out in a most human way at this piece of news, then looked at the telemetry signal they were now receiving.

‘’Our cutter reemerged in our system some two million kilometers away from its intended return point. So much for precision navigation.’’

‘’After visiting two star systems? That is plenty fine with me!’’ replied Shanandar. ‘’Let’s see now if our cutter indeed reached Alpha Centauri and Barnard’s Star.’’

‘’We will also need to study the cutter down to its smallest detail, to ascertain if jumping around affected in any way its structure, and this down to the molecular level. Then, we will need to conduct more test flights.’’ said Koomak, somewhat throwing some cold water on his companions’ enthusiasm. ‘’Our work here is only starting, my friends.’’

17:03 (Greenwich Universal Time)

Monday, March 1, 2320

Tina Forster’s suite, Level 24

A.M.S. KOSTROMA, inside Dry Dock Number One

Avalon Space Yards

‘’To the success of Program Dice Throw!’’

‘’TO PROGRAM DICE THROW!’’ repeated out loud the fourteen Humans and five Koorivars present in Tina’s lounge, raising their cups of Champagne high. Everybody took a sip from their cups before Gustav Shomberg looked questioningly at Tina.

‘’Our prototype testing went as well as we could humanly expect. I believe that we now have enough test data to be able to design and build a custom-made Koomak Drive for your KOSTROMA.’’

‘’I agree! Rose, how is the building of anti-matter drive units for our ship and its auxiliary craft going?’’

Rose Tillman thought for a moment before answering.

‘’All four so-called ‘booster packs’ for the KOSTROMA have been completed and are presently being fixed to our stern section. As for our craft, six out of ten of our shuttles, plus our ship’s cutter, have been modified and are now propelled by anti-matter engines, which will tremendously boost their performances and will also allow them to much more easily self-start their engines. Give me another two weeks and both our ship and all our auxiliary craft will be ready, especially now that the planned initial refit work has been completed.’’

‘’What next, then?’’ asked Michel Koniev, Tina’s husband, who was now part of the tight circle of program participants. Tina smiled to her tall, athletic and most handsome spouse and raised a hand to caress his left cheek.

‘’Then, when we are fully ready to go, I will talk to our crew…all of our crew.’’

08:32 (Greenwich Universal Time)

Wednesday, April 7, 2320

Apartment 20283, Level 20

Outer ring of bow section, A.M.S. KOSTROMA

Floating on station off the Avalon Space Yards

Low Earth orbit

‘’Come on, Mother! We will be late if you don’t hurry up.’’

Ramya Mistry sighed at her eldest daughter’s impatience and took the time to finish adjusting her sari before turning towards Priya.

‘’I couldn’t go to a Captain’s general address in a botched dress, couldn’t I?’’

Priya, now 22 years old and a most beautiful young woman by all accounts, made a face at that.