Giant of the Stars
27. Risktakers
- “Captain Pier, please go ahead!” — Victoria’s voice commanded attention as the participants were bickering between themselves, ignoring the pressing needs of the people on the ground.
- “As I was stating, the Giant will fall into the moon in 3 months. Their captain is dead, XO is in command of repairs, however…”
- “This conversation stay between us, I can ensure you. So anything you have on your mind, speak up! Am I right, Admiral?” — a silent nod ensured Victoria he is on board with it.
- “I am not sure if he can be trusted, maybe the trauma, maybe more.”
- “What you talk about, son? He was on top of his things based on our last call, you were there too.”
- “True, however, afterward… Nevermind, must be nothing. We have a problem accessing the Giant, and I can’t put my ship to further danger. Are there other ships nearby?”
- “Yes, though it is just a small shuttle arriving soon, a few more on their way and reporting less than a week to be on site.”
- “Well, better than nothing. Please urge everyone to render aid, almost everyone suffered some kind of injury. I think the ship experienced a large negative G force.”
- “We will do everything we can, Irondome out.” — Victoria left her office in a hurry, almost knocking over her first officer on the way out. — “Going to engineering, join me.”
She shared the sit rep on their way, the negative G sticking out for her the most.
- “We are approaching on a similar path, so we might run into the same thing.”
- “We don’t know if the cause was external, or an accident happened on board.” — her face darkened — “Best be prepared for anything, call the senior staff and come up with a plan to minimize effect of negative G on the crew. Have the alternatives on my desk in two days.”
- “Got it, ma’am.” — just as they entered the main engineering control to the buzz of the on shift crew.
- “Lieutenant D’Orsay.”
The head of engineering barely looked up from his screens to acknowledge the presence of his captain.
- “Yes, ma’am. We had a breach of coolant in the secondary reactors, but managed to contain, repairs under way. This does not affect our current speed.”
- “Thanks for the report. Though, we need to be faster.”
- “Hm, how much?”
- “We need to get there in 2 months.”
- “I got the reports from Captain Pier too, that would leave us a week to stop the Giant’s fall. However, it is impossible.”
- “Come on, Jack, we both know nothing is impossible. What would it take to speed up?”
- “We are talking about fifty percent higher energy output, maintaining the field is extreme too. I am afraid… well, there is one way. But it is experimental and untested on carriers.”
- “Let’s hear it.”
- “We can link up all four rings via the central clock, and put the secondary nav computer in sync too.”
- “In the common language please, I am not an engineer. And the double rings are only for backup, they were never operated together.” — Victoria knew her old friend likes to geek out, her smile betrayed to all that she was amused by the enthusiasm.
- “Of course, and yes, it was not done ever after we left Earth, but because we could not solve the synchronization reliably, so it was deemed not to try. However a few scientists in the navy took up the challenge a few years ago and managed to prove it on a small craft. They flew it twenty times and not once the 4 rings desynced.”
- “Okey, do you know how to replicate on our ship?”
- “I can get in contact with their leader. But it would take a week at least to apply it.”
- “And would it work? Confidence level?”
- “Well, fifty-fifty I would say.”
- “So, one to two chance we get there even later by a week, and same chance we get there a month early?”
- “Not exactly, there is some chance it fails catastrophically and well, we get there as stardust.”
- “Plus we have the negative G problem.” — first time the officer interjected to Victoria and Jack’s bouncing of ideas.
- “I have no clue what would happen to the ship if we impact the same thing the Giant did while we experiment with the engine.”
- “We don’t know what happened to the Giant at this point.” — Victoria walked aside for a few moments, inhaled deeply, then exhaled. Jack knew she made up her mind. — “We take the chance, make the modifications, but you have 5 days only. And make it secondary, if it is not ready in that time, we continue our way as it is. Understood?”
- “Yes, ma’am.” — sounded the chorus of Jack and the first officer. — “And…”
- “I am gonna handle the Admiral, and get you direct line to that lead scientist.”
Vince found Maria on their bridge, deep in a conversation with the virtual character. He knew it is a real person behind, but found it unnerving that he never saw the human beyond the graphics and animations. It seemed Maria was running extensive calculations in the background, even redirected the ring and nav computers’ capacity to it.
- “If I may ask, how, why the Steelgopher nickname? I mean, it just sounds goofy.” — Maria gave that teenage chuckle when you talk to your idol the first time fighting her own anxiety.
- “Actually that is the reason. As I am goofy. And I like those small furballs too. My parents had trouble at the beginning how to handle my paralysis, trying to raise a normal child so got a dog then a cat at first. Always had private teachers over the Net, at least had some physical contact beyond my nanny. Yet, you know, dogs and cats need to play, and move a lot. Not really for me. One day, maybe I was 8, one of my teacher showed different Earth animals as part of my biology class and first time seeing them, I knew I wanted one.” — the beeping of the computer, signaling the end of simulations interrupted Gopher’s story.
- “We will continue, let’s see the latest results.”
- “So ladies, do you have a plan how to save the Giant?”
- “Maybe, we were calculating a few scenarios, towing the it, using own power, if we can fire up the ion drives near the damaged ring. Gopher, you tell, your idea.”
- “Oh, you are sweet. Yeah, okey, hm, the ion drives may be the best options, if they are working, only half of them is enough to push the ship onto a stable orbit. Structure seems able to handle it, at least based on the sensor data I can access from here.”
- “This seems to be a great news, what is the catch?”
- “I don’t have access to any sensor data beyond the broken bow ring. And I think engineering neither, so they may be fully bust. And… I can’t leave my room to check.”
- “What do you mean? I know that you are…”
- “It is not just that, the room I am in is hermetically sealed. The corridors around me are in vacuum and don’t have a space suit.”
- “What, where are you? We need to send help.”
- “No, Maria, it is fine. It would take a lot of effort for a single life. And I am okey, have plenty of rations and I can be undisturbed in my VR rig. Besides, I lost all my friends during the concert.”
- “Actually, hope I can say this, you did not. Just gained a new one.”
- “That is sweet, actually.”
- “I won’t leave you there.”
- “Okey, but promise me, waste effort on me only after everyone else is safe!”
- “What, no…”
- “Promise!”
- “Fine…”
Vince could not make any sense of the pushback, anyone would have asked for immediate help. In some ways though, he admired the selflessness Gopher showed. Maybe there is a good reason why millions loved her concerts and watched the streams. Who would have thought, a good person being famous, rare gem.
Next alarm was the proximity sensor ringing in the artificial night. The shuttle Victoria referred to just dropped out of faster than light speed right next to them. Just a single ship with a five person crew, yet felt like the angels from high heaven on white horses came down to save everyone. At least it proved they are not alone and gave hope that others are coming too.
Vince had conversed with the fresh captain, discussing the ideas how to access the Giant and offering more supplies, and to guide them if they give him a quick ride. He would not risk the Perseus to dock inside, outside all the docks were broken or unusable. Yet they needed to have eyes on those ion drives.
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