Beyond Light

Ruptures and Spacetime Bending.

Admiral Frost looked at the screen hidden below the dais. The dreadnought would take a few minutes to get the engine ready to leap, and there were vital questions about the risks and security of his first Post-Accelerated Leap. Even though Doctor Weiber just stated that the risks were little to zero, before beginning the transmission, he had personally told William that the margin of error was actually larger than anyone wanted to admit.

But he was supposed to respond otherwise; to give responses based on a scientific basis to the general public. He would give vague answers that took advantage of the common ignorance, and answers that would be vague enough for those educated to counterargument.

Like most things involved in the government, Project Ad-Infinitum was not exempt from criticism and polemics. Various sensationalist media sources and some scientific institutions had accused the project to be too dangerous and ambitious; pandering to the unstable relationships with the PFSR. Doctor Weiber’s responses would serve to mitigate those and try to convince the general public that it was all under control.

William could only imagine how the doctor was feeling. He didn’t know much about him, but he looked like a person of integrity who would prefer the absolute truth. He read his first question. Doctor Weiber didn’t look eager to respond on the other side of the drone’s holographic screen.

“Doctor Weiber, what are the factors that may put in danger the mission? many ask if the Eternity of Return has enough power to supply the EPAL. Others are more concerned about the excessive levels of Cherenkov radiation and particle decay that the engine could generate during its travel. Is it true that the dreadnought’s massive mass makes him highly unsuited for this operation?”

“...Of course, Admiral,” Doctor Weiber stared vaguely at the camera. “no scientific project is exempt from risks and other hazards. Project Ad-Infinitum is the collaboration of many scientific branches, like quantum mechanics, space aeronautics, mechanical engineering, thermodynamics, and astrophysics. This creates a complicated scheme where we had to consider many factors, but we have made the necessary calculations and simulations to make sure the Eternity of Return will arrive safely at the Vita Nova system, or Hawking-616a, as its official classification.”

There was the first lie. The doctor took a small moment to drink water. William remembered his argument with President O’Donnell and Admiral Hopkins back in the admiral’s office. The doctor had argued that they didn’t have any time to run proper simulations, yet he had just stated otherwise. William felt a lump on his throat.

“...But to respond to your three questions, Admiral,” continued Doctor Weiber. “the EPAL installed on the Eternity of Return —designated Terrabringer— operates on a series of 80 Vega-Mako reactors that combine nuclear fission and fusion. Terrabringer can generate quantities of energy equivalent to 6000 gigawatts, more than enough to supply the south district of New Houston in Mars for at least two years.”

He drank water once again. William wondered how much a piece like that would have cost. “Almost needless to say, that energy is more than enough to make the Eternity of Return reach its destiny. However, Terrabringer is still a prototype. The Eternity of Return will only have enough power to go and return before the generators run out of energy fuel."

A prototype. They surely had rushed the mission if they were not even using a finished product. The Doctor made another pause before responding.

"As for the radiation, the levels of Cherenkov radiation and neutral pion decay aren’t what concerns us the most, as the EPAL counts with an extensive series of protection layers and fail-safe systems that guarantee those won’t represent a threat. Gamma radiation outbursts represent a bigger hazard, although they won’t put at risk the life of the crew nor the integrity of the ship. They should be fine as long as they take one year to let the radiation dissipate enough through the decay conducts. That’s the time they are planning to stay on the Vita Nova system."

"What about the size of the ship, Doctor? Would it have been better to use a smaller vessel? this is one of the main criticisms against Ad-Infinitum."

"As for the ship's size, Admiral, the Eternity of Return is built in an adequate shape to resist the series of leaps that it is about to execute. Terrabringer was designed specifically for the ship’s mass and physical dimensions. Besides, a smaller vessel would not be able of holding an EPAL big enough to carry this special mission, and neither the supplies that they are going to need once on the other side.”

The Eternity of Return on camera continued immobile, except that the tips of its two vertical, hexagonal propulsors were now shining in full vivid blue, opaquing half of the ship and blending with the atmosphere of Neptune. The small propulsors on the bottom were also turned on, and all of the smaller maintenance ships and vessels around began to fly away.

“What’s happening now, doctor?” asked Admiral Frost

“The Eternity of Return prepares to leap, Admiral. We are about to witness the results of 31 years of work.”

The two propulsors of the dreadnought now shined at full force, leaving small stellae of white light that seemed to distort space before them. In the form of a honeycomb-shaped ellipsoid, the ship’s shielding system glowed around the hull for a second before becoming invisible once again. The 8 propulsors on the bottom got detached from the hull and hovered away. William didn’t wink a for a second at the spectacle.

The ship then began to move at a slow pace. Blue traces of light formed a cone around it before it took off at speeds faster than the human eye could register. Another camera located further into the dreadnought’s trajectory focused him. The Eternity of Return was now surrounded by a cone of blue traces of light that opaqued all stars beyond.

A single, white hole probably no bigger than a reconnaissance corvette of 300 meters appeared on the horizon ahead.

The seven kilometers ship transversed it like a beam laser, and his shape looked as if it had just been spaghettified by a black hole. All the blue light and the white portal then evaporated in the middle of the vacuum, leaving nothing but a black image filled by countless stars.

The Eternity of Return had ultimately done what everyone had been eager to see. William felt a sensation of joy in his chest, although there was also one of concern. The mission was not over yet. Before declaring success, making sure that the dreadnought and his crew arrived safely to Hawking-616a was a priority.

He had almost forgotten that billions of people were still watching him live, as well as all the important figures in that ceremonial room. He looked at the screen below to remind himself where he was. Doctor Weiber took care of that.

“We have just observed the Eternity of Return make a successful leap," he said. "But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If everything goes as planned, we will be receiving news from Captain Cortez and his crew in about 30-40 minutes.”

“30 minutes?” asked William. “Doctor, is that the time they will take to arrive at Vita Nova? The fastest travel from Venus to Pluto takes about 24 hours. Could you explain how is that possible?”

“It’s a series of long and complex equations and mathematical operations, Admiral, but to put it in few words, because of the relativity of time and the way the EPAL operates, we will sense here in the solar system that only 30 minutes have passed for the Eternity of Return, but in reality, three whole years are going to pass for them before reaching Hawking-616a. The crew will spend that time in cryogenics. An AI will monitor them, as well as some personnel designated to stay on and give maintenance to the ship.”

“Excellent,” William desired to show more enthusiasm, but he needed to appear calm and formal before the cameras. “Could you tell us how the crew will communicate back to the Mission Control Center on Earth?”

“Naturally, light from Vita Nova takes 8000 years to travel to our system, so even if we tried to see them through a telescope, it would take us 8000 years to see them on the other site. To communicate quickly back to us, they are going to leave behind a series of more than 120+ Post-Accelerating Light Converter Buoys. They are highly amplified versions of the ones we use here in the solar system to make information travel quickly through the whole system. The EPAL operates on a similar principle as them, except that the buoys can only accelerate light and other waves, or at least give us the perception of it.”

“Very interesting, Doctor. How does the EPAL work in words that everyone can understand?”

The Doctor made a short pause, but he generated his answer before William could expect it.

“The Engine of Post Accelerating Leaps works on two principles, Admiral. The first one is creating spacetime ruptures to be used as shortcut tunnels. Then, the second principle gets put into action; spacetime bending. Black holes and other supermassive objects do similar things all the time. Think about space as a giant, tridimensional blanket. Now think of a ship equipped with an EPAL as a pen with a sharp ballpoint.

Stab the blanket with enough force with the ballpoint, and you will have successfully ruptured it. This is the first principle. Now, with the pen below the blanket, we need to rupture the cloth once again to return to normal space and our destiny location. You can do it straight away, but we can make the travel much faster. How so? By warping spacetime. Inside a rupture, the EPAL bends space and time around it to reduce the distance of travel massively.

Think about it as if you crumpled the blanket until the edge of it was near our pen, and then rupture it once again to get out. The blanket above would have remained the same, which doesn’t really work with this analogy, but thing is that you will have successfully traveled from one point to another without moving much, saving yourself lots of time, and not breaking the limits of the speed of light. This also allows you to pass over objects in the way of your trajectory without colliding with them. This all is what we call a Post-Accelerated Leap.”

William could only imagine how much science was behind there, and how many diagrams, equations, and uncountable series of numbers Doctor Weiber would have written on a virtualboard if he was explaining that to his students of Quantum Physics.

“Interesting, Doctor. Thanks for your explanation. It is often mentioned that the Eternity of Return is not going to make a single leap from here to Vita Nova, but rather a multiple series of them. Why is it?”

“Because leaping requires incredible levels of energy, Admiral, and it generates immense quantities of heat and other decay products. Our current EPAL technology is still unable of performing such a long leap. Instead, the Eternity of Return will make a series of 180 leaps over three years. This allows the engine to work at a level that doesn’t put it in danger any of its integrity, as it gives it enough time to get rid of all the decay products and dissipate heat.”

The way technology had improved made William feel an enthusiasm worthy of a kid, something he experimented with less and less way before he reached his sixth decade of life. He wondered if Doctor Weiber had been honest with his answers, or to be more exact, with the ciphers.

If he and his team had worked under pressure and had little time to make sure of various vital things —like simulations, some of the most important vectors— then it was also likely that they would have been demanded to make the EPAL work at powers beyond its capability. Soon they’d discover if the first manned leap would be a success or the biggest fail in history.