War Angel: part eight

As Jack and Sarah left the engine room, Richard heard her explaining the new power ratios the shields and biogel packs could now withstand, but he was past caring. That was not his project.

His project would undergo its own test the next day.

Early science fiction, of which Richard Park’s parents had fed him a steady diet, hoping to encourage their son’s imagination, had filled his mind with wonder. But it wasn’t aliens that captured his thoughts; Earth had fallen victim to their own, and there was no glory or mystery in the Omegans. No, for the young engineer nicknamed Clover because of his relentlessly poor fortunes, what intrigued him was speed.

Light speed. Warp speed. Hyperspace. Ships that rode shockwaves. The movies and literature he had been exposed to was full of concepts for rapid space travel. Indeed, technology reverse-engineered from the Omegans did allow for nearly light speed travel. Their journey to Pluto took a little over two and a half days. But if his project worked, travel to and from Pluto would shrink down to a matter of perhaps an hour.

“It’s called a tachyon scoop,” he explained to his committee. “Very simply, it works similar to a solar sail system. As you know, a solar sail contains microscopic mirrors that allow fast-moving particles to harmlessly bounce off of them while propelling the ship forward at tremendous speeds. The versions used by the Omegans are quite remarkable and we’ve adapted them for ourselves quite nicely. But I think I can take the idea to the next level.”

“How?” asked one of the Professors that would decide his fate.

Richard called up some diagrams on the monitor that hung on the wall behind him. “As you all know, tachyons are free-floating faster-than-light particles. The design I have on-screen right now, and I do have the specs ready for upload to your personal devices, it for a ‘catcher’, if you will. It extends from the ship’s hull and uses a tuned energy field to draw passing tachyons into the primary chamber. There, a null-field generator holds the particles in place, conserving their energies until such time the ship needs to use the drive. At that point, the scoop releases a tachyon into a secondary field and absorbs the particle’s speed, using basic conservation of momentum principles.”

The committee began talking amongst themselves, and Park began to worry slightly that they did not look properly impressed. Did they not see the genius of the design? Was he going to need to go over someone’s head?

“Mr. Park,” one of them said gravely. ‘Our concern here is very simple. While your device may indeed grant a ship greater speed than ever before, at that speed it would seem that even the smallest bit of rock or dust that the ship encountered would act as a bullet through the ship’s hull, possibly creating a massive fatality. So we’re afraid the answer is…”

“Wait!” Richard held up his hand. “There is a solution to that problem as well.” He had never been one for hitching his wagon to the fate of others. And he certainly didn’t have a great deal of love for his fellow students. But if this project was going to get approval, he was going to have to make a sacrifice.

“Are you familiar with the names Sarah Matto and Jack Keys?”

The call for dinner startled Richard as he finished making final adjustments to the tachyon scoop. Captain Morrison had insisted on maintaining a standard dinner time in which they would each not only “enjoy” meal rations, but also report upon their day’s activities to one another. Each member of the crew would maintain full knowledge of where all the projects stood, as each project could easily affect one or more of the others. Thus, Morrison reasoned, he could build discipline and esprit de corps at the same time.

Everyone had a stake in Project: War Angel. Everyone.

For Morrison, a successful trip would result in more respect for his leadership capabilities, and perhaps a promotion. He knew that he had been given this assignment for the precise opposite reasons; his service record was undistinguished when compared to many of his fellows. This was due, in part, to some poor luck; each time he had been sent into a skirmish, things had basically concluded before he and whatever charges he was leading at the time arrived, while plenty of his EAD fellows had seen actual combat. In a military run by survivors and heroes from an inter-planetary conflict, his lack of experience in battle held him back. Indeed, he only held the rank of Captain due to a governmental quota regarding war orphans.

This ship, and the students under his command, were going to change that, He could feel it. Albert Morrison was meant for bigger and better things, and this would prove it.

Morrison walked into the dining area and watched as the students stood up to meet his entrance. “At ease,” he said, holding up his hand in a halting gesture. “Let’s eat.” Morrison quickly scanned the room and realized someone was missing. “Wait a minute. Where is Miss Almond?”

Wilma spoke up. “She’s going to be late. Apparently, she found something today that she wants to share with all of us, but needs some extra time to get it ready.”

The Captain coughed. “Very well. Let’s eat, then we can go through progress reports.”

That night’s meal, the actual food portion, passed without incident. It began with Jack delivering a detailed take on his adjustments of the shields’ power flow issues, followed by Sarah’s triumphant take on inoculating the biogel packs against burnout. Then, Jack thought, things got interesting.

“Tomorrow,” Richard began, “we will be fully ready to test the tachyon scoop.” The group applauded and hooted for their unlucky colleague. He smiled graciously, then continued. “I should actually say that we are fully ready to test the propulsion capabilities of the tachyon scoop. A few hours ago, I extended the scoop, testing the hydraulic arm and retraction mechanisms. And while doing so… I turned on the device.”

He paused for effect. “You guys, it worked perfectly! Captured three tachyons, held them in the null field, where they sit at this very moment.”

His fellow students gave him the plaudits that he had always desired. “Genius!” “Awesome!” “Incredible!” “Remarkable!” There may have been other words, but Richard Park heard only the ones he had been longing to hear from the moment he entered the Corps. There were handshakes, backslaps, hugs. “This is,” he thought, “the best day of my life.”

“Until tomorrow,” his subconscious reminded him, “when we actually use the tachyons to accelerate ourselves for near-instantaneous travel. That,” he smiled inwardly, “is when I go down in the history books.”

After the hullabaloo died down, progress reports continued. “Well,” Kate began, “going after Richard feels pretty anti-climactic, but I’ll do what I can to entertain, nonetheless.”

Ben gave her thumbs up. “I’m sure it will be awesome,” he said, trying to display something near sincerity. She, in turn shot him a strikingly dirty look, quieting him quickly.

“Today,” she said with a hint of resignation, “I discovered that my experiments have worked out a little better – or a little worse, depending on where you stand – than expected. The sample of salmonella we dosed here turned incredibly viral.” She paused and shook her head. “Scratch that. I suppose the only word that truly works in this case is deadly.”

Dr. Gray interjected. “As all of you know, salmonella was responsible for untold numbers of food-borne deaths prior to this century. But humans developed a passive immunity to it over the past hundred years or so. That made it ideal for these experiments; it gives us a baseline look at something that was once deadly and allows Kate to examine evolution as well as radiation effects.”

Kate continued. “What I found today was remarkably scary. The sample we irradiated in the nitrogen/methane atmosphere evolved in a way neither Dr. Gray nor I thought possible. It evolved into something that’s almost a second organism. Aggressive, violent bacteria that attacks any nearby cell and consumes it with an almost evangelical fervor.”

Morrison popped out of his chair. “Goddamn. Are we in any danger?”

“Captain,” Kate said softly, “the basic answer is no. It’s being held in perfect stasis, as we took all appropriate quarantine measures in bringing it back onboard. That said, if it were released into the air supply?” She shuddered at the thought. “It would kill all of us within the span of a couple of days.”

There was a heavy pause in the air as Kate felt the weight of what she was about to say next. “I believe, sir, that I have created a biological weapon, which as we know, is banned by our planetary government. Therefore,” she took measure of her next words carefully, finally realizing where this line of thinking had led her, “I request permission to destroy the sample and in turn… remove myself from the honors track for graduation. Clearly, in violating the law, I have failed, sir.”

The War Angel crew went silent, stunned by what they had just heard from their shipmate. Each wanted to speak, but none did, waiting on the Captain to respond first, as was most appropriate. Morrison stood and began pacing around the table, all eyes watching him carefully. How much should he share with his charges? There would be security clearance issues to deal with upon their return, but conscience dictated his response.

“Permission denied, Stinson.” She started to protest, but he cut her off. “Kate… the law does indeed ban any form of biological weapon. But I think you get some latitude here. One, because this was not intentional. You set out to perform an experiment, and this was an accidental result.”

She bowed her head and spoke softly. “Yes, sir. But if I return with it, I won’t even be able to get it planetside. Regulations won’t allow it. So I fail either way.”

Morrison smiled grimly at his young student charge. “Getting it planetside won’t even be an issue, Miss Stinson. The law is quite clear in these matters, yes.” He stopped and addressed everyone at the table. “This is now a 1-A security moment and each of you will be required to sign documents acknowledging so when we get home, understood?” They all responded in assent. “The law is quite clear in these cases. But the EAD… we sometimes believe in a higher law and a higher calling, understand?”

“Sometimes, for the greater good, the law must be secondary.”

Kate stared at Morrison. “Sir?”

Morrison walked around the table and stood over the young woman. “Not only are you going to graduate with honors, Miss Stinson, you’re going to have an immediate job offer. Do you understand?”

She began to smile, slowly at first, then as she processed what he was saying, her face displayed a broad grin. “Yes, sir. I just got myself into some next-level stuff. Seriously next-level stuff.”

He wandered around back to his seat and plopped back down to the table. “Next-level stuff, indeed, Miss Stinson.”