My apologies for the very slow update rate for my various wordings, a combination of family things, little odds and ends of jobs, and so on has caused me to have little time to spare for much of the last two or three weeks. However, I have managed to produce the following with the aid of our Irish friend who is slightly too fond of the old pint here and there. So blame O'Make...
I do 
Leaning closer to the screen he was sitting in front of, Colin inspected the readings his equipment was displaying there, a small frown furrowing his brow. After spending some time scrolling back through the logged data, while slowly sipping from a cup of his special coffee brew which he'd flatly banned Assault from ever drinking again, he turned to another screen and brought up the interface to a different set of instruments which were mounted high up on the very top of the Rig above him. Inside a heavily screened and shock mounted box that was in theory isolated from almost everything, sat a collection of custom designed sensors he and Dragon had spent many months on.
Rerunning the calibration process just to be certain everything was correctly nulled out, he clicked a couple of icons, thought for a moment, typed in a few parameters, and set the system into operation. Then he leaned back and patiently waited, watching the results as the graviton scanner slowly collected an ultra high resolution sweep of the entirety of the city, extending quite a long way inland and over forty kilometers off shore. The synthesized 3D map built up line by line, while in another window the raw data streamed upwards at a rate too fast for even his trained eyes to make out more than a blur. Every now and then the background of near-black was broken by a pinpoint of color, each of them getting an overlaid icon from the computer as it attempted to identify what was causing it.
When the scan finally completed, he looked at the results with great interest, a finger coming up to hover over the high res screen as his other hand manipulated a spatial controller to spin and zoom the image. "Kid Win's hoverboard..." he muttered, nodding slightly as the computer correctly identified a well known signature. "Various known technology from other Tinkers here, here and here. This is Dragon's latest surveillance drone off shore, as expected. And
this..." He turned the image and embiggened it a little, his finger circling an area in the docks that he was all too well aware
of even if he was significantly lacking full details of what actually went on there. "…Is Gravtec's facility and various examples of their reference frame hardware. Interesting..."
The readings were so subtle compared to every other anti-gravity system he'd ever seen that the pair of them had needed to rework the sensory system six times to get it to pick the signal out of the background noise of the Earth's own gravitational field. He was almost certain that no one else currently had technology that could perform the same feat, with the likely exception of Gravtec and DARPA themselves. Even then, his sensors could only do even
this much if the mysterious company was running something fairly significant, and only at close range on top of that. Luckily the Rig was only a few kilometers away so it was feasible.
Another hazy cluster of near-noise-floor imagery was located at BBU's own gravitic research lab, which he was aware was essentially an academic offshoot of Gravtec in the first place, but whatever they did there was generally much less powerful than at the docks facility. Quite likely due to safety and logistical reasons, he thought.
By comparison to their devices, everyone
else's antigrav tech stood out like lightbulbs on a moonless night, and he was mildly amused that in his curiosity to see if he and his friend could even detect the GRF effect they'd almost accidentally build a very powerful and useful system that was well past state of the art for such things, yet was still barely adequate to do what they'd initially set out to achieve. It was likely to be quite helpful for a number of purposes when they worked out how to get the scan rate up to something a little more rapid.
Turning his head, he made a few notes on a possible method to manage that. Possibly dropping the resolution and accepting the trade-off versus scan speed would be a viable approach, although he was loathe to settle for inferior results if it could be avoided. A much more powerful computing system would help but they were already pushing the limits of Dragon's custom processing hardware, which was beyond cutting edge and likely the best available, so that direction to solving the problem was unlikely to be practical at the moment. He scribbled a few other ideas, then went back to looking thoughtfully at the scan results as the image updated about once every ten seconds.
"I wonder what
you are, though?" he finally mumbled to himself as he watched the thing that had initially caught his attention fade away over a couple of dozen updates. Whatever it was, it had emitted a short burst of nearly pure tau antineutrinos, which was something that he hadn't thought was even theoretically possible, and in the process done something very strange to the local graviton flux. Something very subtle, too, which was noticeably different from the by-now familiar faint signature from the GRF technology.
He didn't have the faintest idea what could have caused it, but he was as certain as he could be that it was both deliberate and something Gravtec were doing. It was certainly nothing that was related to any nucleonic process he was aware of, which left… what?
Whatever it was, it was coming from some distance below the facility, was very large in overall volume, and was almost certainly something that he was going to have absolutely no luck in determining the truth about due to it undoubtedly being classified so highly the President himself likely had to ask permission to know about it.
Armsmaster sighed faintly. He understood the secrecy, he really did, and indeed approved of it for a number of reasons. But at the same time he was
very curious about what they were actually
doing over there, and more than a little envious that he didn't get to join in…
Oh well.
Perhaps one day he'd find out. Perhaps not. At least he'd learned a lot of useful things from the patents he'd been allowed to study, which had set his own designs on a different and more effective path than he'd expected and if nothing else allowed this sensor system to be built. For now that would have to do.
Pouring himself another cup of his Tinker-grade blend, he saved the results of the scans under his personal, special, encryption key just in case, as he wasn't an idiot, cleared the screen, shut the sensor unit down having made a few more notes on possible improvements, then turned to the next task.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Taylor glanced to the side, looking at a small window on one of her high-res monitors, then smiled a little. Tapping a key she saved the logs that her graviton detector detector had provided, before going back to designing an improved gravity flux generator based on her study of the mass-effect-Earth's antigrav drives. It hadn't taken her long to derive their operating principles and in the process work out a number of places they could be made significantly better. She had no real need for such a thing as the GRF system was far more flexible and useful, but it might come in handy at some point. If only as something to offer this other human civilization if and when they made contact…
Plus it was a nice simple little project to keep her hands busy while she mulled over the next steps of the main work.
Beside her, Tali was deep into her own design project, concentrating hard on a computer that had been set up to replicate a Quarian system, based on the data she'd had in her omnitool. Even though she was now completely fluent in English and Gravtec's equipment, thanks to Taylor's neural induction teaching system, she still found it more intuitive to use the system she'd grown up with, which was entirely understandable. And it had to be said that in many ways it was significantly better, which is why DARPA had been extremely interested in studying it and incorporating any good ideas they could derive from a computer operating system that was the end result of several hundred years of work by a highly gifted species of born engineers.
It was likely that the end result would be a hybrid incorporating Taylor's optronic processing hardware, DARPA/Quarian operating system, and
possibly some of the better Geth algorithms. So far both Tali and Taylor were keeping that part quiet, but their discussions with the AI species had been absolutely fascinating to each of them for different reasons, and also produced quite a lot of data that wasn't
quite what Quarian historical records suggested. As far as they'd been able to determine, the Geth were being truthful about everything as well, which was interesting on a number of levels.
The Geth seemed oddly eager to talk to a real Quarian, and Taylor rather got the impression that they'd immediately become quite cheerful at the mere possibility, which was both a little worrying and somewhat amusing. There was no denying that the Morning War had happened, and much blame could be put on both sides, but the truth of the whole thing was… much more involved… than the records showed. And didn't cast certain long-dead Quarian authorities in the best light, it had to be said.
Tali had been very thoughtful since they'd started talking and Taylor strongly suspected that a number of things her friend had taken as gospel were being reassessed in light of new information. But then Tali was a very sensible and rational person, and would go with the evidence even if it went against tradition.
Whether the bulk of her people would was anyone's guess at this point and something that was going to take some careful consideration, of course. But at least the pair of them were laying the groundwork for
some sort of solution to the Geth issue, hopefully one that benefited everyone, and avoided conflict in the long term. Taylor didn't like conflict that could be avoided, it was inefficient and got in the way of data and doing science.
A mutter of mildly irritated Quarian made her look to the other side, grinning a little at the obscenity which was quite inventive. "Problem?" she queried mildly.
Tali pointed at the screen and grumbled, "I can't quite figure out which one of the seven possible dimensions for this equation is the one causing me to end up with a negative mass-energy value when I run the simulation. But it keeps crashing after a few trillion iterations and breaking the entire thing."
Taylor leaned over and studied the monitor closely, and after a few seconds nodded. "That's because it's actually eight dimensions that are required to fully describe the solution," she replied, reaching out and moving the mouse-like device that Tali had fabricated, then typing two-fingered on the Quarian keyboard. She quickly entered a few new equations, changed a couple of variables in the existing ones, then said, "I think that should work better."
Examining the screen, Tali slowly nodded. "Ahhh… I see. Yes. It's
almost Den'Zinka's Theorem of Gravitation, but extended… Interesting. All right, let's see what happens this time."
A few seconds of work later she reran the simulation, which this time didn't bail out with an error half a second into the run. Both of them watched the display fill with a colorful and slightly hard to look at multidimensional graphic that seemed to have more depth to it than it should have been able to manage. Tali smiled widely. "Excellent. That's fixed it. Thank you."
"No problem," Taylor replied with a smile of her own. Neither of them looked around as one of the techs who was walking past glanced at the screen and promptly tripped over his own feet, swearing under his breath as he got up and hastily moved away without repeating the glance. "Let's see if we can tweak it to clear up the vertical asymptote, which should solve the energy barrier issue nicely. Try setting the zeta value about… point zero zero two four percent lower, that should be in the right general area."
The Quarian stopped the simulation and quickly changed the relevant value, then restarted it. A different, even more bizarre graphic built up. Both of them studied it and sighed simultaneously. "Damn. Close, but not
quite there," Tali commented, stopping the sim once more. "How about if we do this..." She flipped through one of the notebooks at her elbow which were filled with the alien language and lots of calculations, then held it up and pointed at one page. "Maybe add this equation in place of
that one, which should in
theory compensate for the space-time warping we're getting?"
Taylor looked at the page, reading the equation and Tali's notes, then shrugged. "It looks valid. Try it and see what happens. We're nearly there, and I'd like to get this done before lunch."
As she was typing Tali snickered. "We're solving a design issue surrounding an FTL drive vastly more advanced than any Citadel species could hope to understand based on current knowledge, something that makes eezo drives look like a piston engine, and she's not only worried about it not being done in time for lunch, but is actually
capable of doing before lunch… Your planet is
weird, Taylor."
The girl giggled, shrugged, and watched as the simulation ran once more.
Half an hour later they were in the cafeteria eating and discussing another way to make what was currently known as the Stupidly Quick Universal Interstellar Drive even more efficient.
Because everyone wanted an efficient SQUID. It was only natural.
Although they were probably going to need to come up with a better name at some point…
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Next item." Emily looked at her folder, then raised her eyes and scanned the people present in the meeting. "Five days ago we got a report from Boston that a cell of the Elite was suspected to be working in Rochester. They allegedly had two Tinkers, Coldfire and Scrapper, along with an unnamed Brute and a teleporter, Jumpshift. Sources indicated that it was possible that their ultimate target was Brockton Bay, and we can be fairly certain that this means they're sniffing around Gravtec. We also have information that they attempted to hire Faultline and her people for some form of industrial espionage, but were turned down flat. What else have we learned about this?"
Assault, who was looking rather more serious than usual, replied, "I checked with Faultline directly. I've got… let's call it a certain mutual respect situation with her. She told me, and I'm almost sure she was being entirely honest about it, that for one thing she doesn't take jobs in or anywhere near Brockton Bay. She commented that even if she
was the sort to shit on her own doorstep, which she isn't, she wasn't going to risk pissing off the military, the DWU, or the Mayor. I'm not entirely certain which one she was more worried about, which is a little weird. All three at once was right out."
He shrugged, as everyone else stared at him, then exchanged looks. "But she meant it. And she also said that she didn't like the Elite to begin with and would turn them down on principle unless they offered her a
fuck load more money than they seemed willing to. And there was no price they
could offer her to pull an operation in the Bay."
"I see. So you're sure Faultline isn't going to help them?" Emily asked, making some notes. He shrugged again.
"As sure as I can be, and Faultline is usually very direct. She keeps her word, which is why her group has the reputation it does. If she says she's going to do, or not do, something that's pretty much it."
"All right." Looking around, she went on, "Anything else?"
Miss Militia nodded, saying, "An informant told me that the Elite cell had also been nosing around trying to hire the Undersiders, apparently they didn't realize those guys vanished months ago. No one's heard of them since. My source said they'd asked in a number of places and got the same answer, and finally gave up. Last he'd heard they were trying to find someone else with an equivalent skillset, but I doubt they'll manage it locally."
"Fine." Emily sighed faintly as she scribbled some more, then put the pen down. "Hopefully they'll give up before they get DARPA pissed enough to go after them and shut them down for good. We could do without
that level of insanity anywhere in the state, never mind right here. Keep monitoring the situation and let me know if anything changes. We might have to move on them if they push it."
Several people nodded and made notes of their own via different methods.
"OK, final item; Rannoch Industries, and Miss Tali Zorah. Any new data on that?" Emily looked at the photo in the folder, taken on the Boardwalk from fifty meters or so away, showing what seemed to be a Case 53 woman walking along in the company of the Dallon sisters and the daughter of Gravtec's CEO, Danny Hebert. A name she'd been well familiar with even
before that secretive company had sprung up out of nowhere.
"I looked into the company when we got the first report and as I said at the time, it's entirely legitimate," Armsmaster commented. "We have little real information on Miss Zorah herself, but as far as I can determine she's been working for Rannoch Industries for the last four years as an engineer with Tinker abilities, mostly relating to power and sensing systems. Their main customers appear to be military, primarily of course DARPA-related groups, and she has a security clearance that is so high
I don't have the clearance to know exactly what
hers is. All the indications are that she is a very talented and very respected engineer possessing significant skill regardless of any Tinker specialization."
"You think that the reason so little information is available on her is
because of the military connection?" Velocity asked with an interested expression visible on his face under his mask. Armsmaster glanced at him, with a thoughtful air, and eventually nodded.
"That would indeed seem likely. It's quite possible that DARPA have arranged to suppress any data that could prove dangerous to her, or their goals. They're certainly capable of that." He turned back to Emily, who was listening carefully. "She is staying with the Heberts, as she has been doing since she came to the city, but other than that I have no real information to add. My suspicion is that there is a very well trained protective detail also present when she is in public, probably at least two three-person teams based on past operations. It would only be sensible in a city like ours, of course, even with the current low crime rate. I highly doubt that if the Elite cell
did venture to do something foolish that they'd succeed regardless of whether we intervened in time or not. All indications are that the military is taking anything connected to Gravtec
very seriously and I would imagine that they most likely know at least as much about the possible threat as we do."
Thinking what he'd said over, Emily finally nodded. Writing a short paragraph on the relevant page, she closed her folder. "Ensure that we're keeping an eye open just in case someone decides to do something spectacularly stupid and we can get to them before the Marines take them out, because that would be embarrassing if nothing else. But other than that we'll stay well out of it. I don't have any inclination at all to borrow trouble." No one seemed inclined to disagree, she saw, so she added as she stood up, "Thank you, everyone. Dismissed."
Shortly she was heading back to her office with her documents under her arm, pondering which idiot it would be that would finally do something daft enough to provoke the sort of response she was pretty certain was waiting for them over in the general docks area.
Hopefully that wouldn't happen for a while. She was quite enjoying the current lack of drama and death, it made a nice change from what had been going on for all too long. Even
if the complete lack of the last few Endbringer attacks was making practically
everyone low-key paranoid that something ghastly was lurking in the background somewhere…
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Well, it's done," Angus commented as he leaned on the railing just inside the control room window and looked down at the rebuilt
Klaatu, which was now fully reassembled with all the new systems installed and ready for testing. The former Salarian science vessel was still recognizable as what it had started as, but it was twenty six meters longer now, putting it just over three hundred from bow to stern, and the profile had changed noticeably. The deletion of the spinal cannon had freed up quite a lot of space inside the ship, as had the removal of the fusion torch engines. Both primary reactors had been replaced with something Tali had designed with the aid of Taylor and a number of scientists from DARPA, including four of the best physicists in the world who had been approached and signed on eagerly after quite a lot of stunned shock.
The new power system gave nearly four hundred and fifty percent more energy output than the original version, putting the ship up into what in Tali's home galaxy's terms would be a heavy cruiser class at least from that point of view. There were also a pair of secondary reactors which could double that if required, but were kept as backups most of the time to reduce fuel usage. The Salarian battery design, which was closer to a supercapacitor/battery hybrid than a pure battery, had also been investigated with great interest and a couple of the BBU scientists had had a brainwave during this process, the end result being a near-tripling of the storage capacity with a fairly simple modification. All in all, they had power to burn compared to the original ship design.
Switching out the fusion engines for GRF generators, and replacing the eezo FTL drive with Taylor's SQUID unit, had left them with a ship that was much faster than it had started as at sublight speeds, and far more powerful,
vastly quicker at FTL velocities, and overall like comparing a tractor to an F1 car. With the gravitational shear field defense system in place of the original kinetic barriers, and the structural integrity field as well, their rebuilt ship could get shot at by the entire Turian navy until they ran out of ammo without taking any damage. And outrun anything in the other universe anyway, meaning it was highly unlikely that anyone hostile could actually
hit them to begin with. Plus, with the optical diversion field running, it was extremely unlikely that anyone would even be able to detect the ship in the first place. Not to mention the level of automation the ship had thanks to a huge amount of optronic processing and some nearly sentient programming to the point that it could be operated quite comfortably by one person.
In truth, it could probably work entirely autonomously, for that matter, but no one was really intending to utilize that aspect unless things went strange, or there was an emergency.
Of course, despite the vessel being too quick to catch, too heavily armored to defeat with known weapons,
and invisible at will, no one was stupid enough to assume that meant they were entirely impregnable. Shit happened, after all, people could make mistakes, and there was always the possibility of something no one saw coming happening. So there were multiply-redundant systems everywhere, using aerospace best practice, and internal defenses that should make it extraordinarily difficult for something like the attack that had left Tali where she'd ended up succeeding again even if the worst came true. No one thought it likely, but no one wanted to guarantee that it
couldn't…
If any hostile force
did get on board somehow, they were going to find things got
extremely difficult for them almost instantly.
Everyone had seen
Star Trek, and wondered how the enemies that always managed to get on board the ships seemed to be able to wander around practically unopposed. They'd put quite a lot of effort into making sure that if that sort of thing happened to
them the enemy was going to regret it. Very briefly.
An entire
series of meetings had spend many hours brainstorming every scenario they could think of, both the Gravtec people and the DARPA ones, and countermeasures against them. It had been a very odd but rather fun exercise and Angus was fairly certain several SF novels were going to result from it too.
Beside him, Brendan examined the gleaming ship with care, his face showing a small smile, and his eyes glinting with excitement. "Your people have done an
amazing job, Danny," he remarked, glancing at Taylor's father, who was on Angus's other side.
"So have yours," Danny replied with a smile. "Everyone did exceptionally well, and we all learned some very interesting things. I think it went together nicely, myself. It certainly
looks impressive."
The other two nodded, watching as a team of workers put the finishing touches on the hull of the ship, the four men carefully painting the final letter of the new name they'd given to their creation.
ARMSTRONG was written in three meter high characters on both sides of the hull at the nose, while on either side of the stern halfway up was the serial number
GT-0001. The bright red letters and numbers stood out against the dull silver-gray of the titanium alloy hull, easily readable from several kilometers. Standard aircraft-style navigation illumination had been fitted as well, along with all the required aerospace regulation equipment, and the hull had been modified on the underside to incorporate folding landing legs to allow the ship to easily set down on a planet. They weren't intending to do that
here of course, their work was still classified to a ridiculous level and would remain so for quite a while, but it would come in handy sooner or later.
The original Salarian design had the capability of a planetary landing but it wasn't meant for routine use, rather it was more or less an emergency thing. The former
Klaatu had once carried three small shuttles, about the size of a greyhound bus, which would have been used for transport from orbit to surface, but the pirates had taken them all when they'd finished raiding the ship. Replacements, based on the brand new F-202, were currently being developed but that was something they didn't need right now for the initial testing phase and as such it was a lower priority task.
And of course, they had also fitted the craft with the necessary beacons and equipment required to interface with the teleport system, which not only let them easily transport the ship to and from the big room below them to anywhere they wished, but would allow personnel and supplies to go back and forth without any trouble.
"I'm still not entirely convinced we needed to fit weapons, though," Danny added with a small frown. "Seems a little… aggressive."
Brendan shrugged slightly. "In one way I agree, in another I don't," he admitted. "I'd prefer not to require them at all. But it's another case of it's better to have them available just in case rather than be found wanting. Yes, we can run away, and in most cases that will undoubtedly be the right decision. But I can think of situations where being able to bite back would be required, and the Joint Chiefs and the President agreed. It's not strictly speaking a military vessel, but on the other hand it's not quite a civilian one either, and it was thought better to err slightly on the side of too much instead of too little."
"Well, she's certainly got teeth if required," Angus said with a sigh. "The shear projector will absolutely
wreck anything in range, even with those kinetic shields. Never mind the particle beam. The collapser missiles are just overkill."
"Some people are probably wanting to find out how well some of this stuff works in practice," Brendan told him. "Hopefully we can find that out on some asteroids or something, I have no wish to kill anyone if we can avoid it."
"If it's a Batarian ship I for one won't be
that fussed," Tali said from behind them, speaking for the first time. All three men looked at her causing her to shrug. "I'm… not entirely happy with the Batarians. For obvious reasons."
"Understandable, Tali," Angus remarked sympathetically. "However we should
probably avoid such actions unless we have no choice."
"Wait until you
meet some," she grumbled, but fell silent again. Next to her Taylor put her hand on her friend's shoulder in a sympathetic manner.
"We're pretty much ready for a flight test," the girl commented. "All the internal systems check out, the diagnostics are complete with no errors, all the consumables are full, and we can have the entire ship ready to go in under two hours once you decide where you want to do it."
Brendan nodded slowly. "We have the test crew on standby. They've practiced in the sims so much they could probably operate the ship blindfolded. Assuming the SQUID live test passes, we'll proceed to a crewed flight."
"Better work out where we're going to put her, then," Taylor smiled. "I somehow think we don't want to do this in
our solar system, just in case someone notices something weird happening."
"Or the Simurgh gets antsy," Angus added with a mild look of worry. "I'm still concerned that the bloody things seem to have just given up. It might be a Simurgh plot..."
"Pretty sure it isn't," Taylor grinned. He looked at her and smiled wryly.
"The confidence of youth," he replied sadly, shaking his head. "So often misplaced."
She winked at him, then headed for her station. "How about Alpha Centauri? It's traditional as a destination in science fiction, after all."
Shortly the entire control room was discussing the pros and cons of every star system within about fifty light years as a suitable test area for humanity's first interstellar ship.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
President Andrews, along with the entire Joint Chiefs, Secretary Robinson, a number of picked personnel from several agencies and all military branches, as well as a few carefully vetted civilian experts, all sat around the long table in a darkened room under the Pentagon and watched the large screen on the far wall in total silence. Everyone was concentrating on missing nothing.
"All internal diagnostics passed with no errors. Primary reactors running at nominal output. GRF systems online, local reference frame established. Structural reinforcement field active. Shear field generators on standby. SQUID self tests complete. Sensory instrumentation running. Optronic computing nodes all report ready status. Portal beacons locked for outbound transit. Armstrong ready for transportation to test site."
"Hold for final destination check. Probe one reports green status. Probe Two reports green status. Probe Four reports green status. Probe Five reports green status. All recording systems running. All operators, report go/no go."
"Transport is go."
"Sensory is go."
"Drive is go."
"Power is go."
"Weapons is go."
"Navigation is go."
"Shields is go."
"Life support is go."
"All operators report go status. Armstrong now live, local control active. Initiate transit."
"Transit to Alpha Centauri system in five… four… three… two… transiting."
On the screen, the image of the huge shiny part-Salarian, part-Human ship was swept away by the shimmering field of the transportation system, the whole process over just too fast to really focus on. The
Armstrong, which had been hanging under its own power in the center of the enormous Gravtec assembly bay, ten meters off the floor, was suddenly gone, leaving only the vast empty room behind. Several of those assembled blinked in shock at the rapidity of the effect, a couple of them audibly gasping.
"Transit complete. Probes One and Two recorded no anomalies. Armstrong telemetry nominal, no errors logged. Navigation system calibrating… calibration complete, destination correct to zero point zero two meter drift in any axis. Revised mass calculations derived and loaded for error nulling in further operations."
On the screen, four sub windows, two on each side, showed views from cameras in the probes being used to monitor the test from outside the ship. The pair on the left side showed two views of the arrival of the
Armstrong in the reverse of the transit field effect, leaving it floating in the void. A brilliant but distant pair of points of light that were the binary stars Alpha Centauri A and B illuminated the ship from below and behind, glinting from the titanium hull. The other pair only showed a star field.
"Bring SQUID to prefire condition."
"SQUID ready, twist field at idle."
"Load course for initial test."
"Course loaded, velocity capped to fifteen percent."
"Initiate SQUID."
"SQUID punchthrough initiation in five… four… three… two… Punchout successful. Armstrong reports velocity at six point eight seven five light years per hour as calculated. Power consumption nominal, twist field stable. Return to sublight velocity in ten seconds. Five… four… three… two… Punchin successful. Residual velocity nulled via GRF in four point two six milliseconds."
The left probe views witnessed the departure of the craft under its own power as a bizarrely pretty circular rainbow flickered into existence for a fraction of a second, then vanished, taking the
Armstrong with it. Under half a minute later the same thing happened on the right probe windows, leaving the ship floating placidly a few kilometers from them as if nothing had happened, running lights all glowing happily.
"Duration of test twenty five seconds. Distance covered during test three thousand and nineteen point two five seven AU. No errors logged, no biological incompatibilities detected, all systems report nominal status. Probes One and Two recorded punchout successfully. Probes Four and Five recorded punchin successfully. Test complete."
"Reset for return trip, cap velocity to thirty percent."
"Reset complete, course loaded, SQUID ready, twist field at idle."
"Initiate."
"SQUID punchthrough initiation in five… four… three… two… Punchout successful. Armstrong reports velocity at thirteen point seven five light years per hour. Power consumption nominal, twist field stable. Return to sublight velocity in ten seconds. Five… four… three… two… Punchin successful. Residual velocity nulled via GRF in three point one one milliseconds."
The same thing as the outbound trip occurred once more, the only difference being the elapsed time was just over twelve seconds this time. The observers, hundreds of kilometers from Brockton Bay, were hardly breathing by now, so engrossed by what they were seeing as they were.
"
Testing sequence paused. Hold for full data analysis. All operators report any warnings or anomalies. Sequence will restart once all data checks completed and probes Four and Five relocated."
No one said a thing while they waited for about ten minutes. They just stared at the screen and watched the ship, almost incomprehensibly distant yet only a tiny, tiny fraction of the galaxy away from them, hang in the black. Eventually the voices came back.
"Data analysis completed, results nominal across the board. Probes in position. Sequence restarting. Load course for test set two, cap velocity to fifty percent."
"Course loaded, SQUID ready, twist field at idle."
"Initiate."
Again, the ship disappeared, this time for considerably longer. The calm voices reported everything going to plan for a shade over fifteen minutes, until the
Armstrong's faster than light drive turned off once more. This time, the ship appeared against a backdrop including only one particularly bright star, this one a deep orange color.
"Jesus Christ," one of the astrophysicists breathed almost inaudibly. "That's Barnard's Star."
"In fifteen minutes from Alpha Centauri," someone else said in a strangled voice. "At
half speed."
They listened to the Gravtec control room run through the checklist again, then reset for the return trip, which passed without incident. Over the next two hours more tests were run, all successfully, with no problems noted in the process. Finally, one of the voices they'd become familiar with, a woman with a slightly unusual but faint accent, said,
"Uncrewed validation sequence completed. No errors logged, all systems working to specification, results nominal in all cases. Armstrong is now in long period orbit of Alpha Centauri, with Probes One, Two, Four, and Five tasked for observation while final data analysis completed. Crew embarkation scheduled for eighteen hundred hours Zulu. Thank you, everyone, for an excellent job."
Moments later the big screen cleared, leaving only the Gravtec logo slowly spinning on it, with clock ticking down from seven hours and twenty three minutes. Andrews exhaled very slowly, feeling like he'd run a marathon, then looked around at the rest of the people present as someone turned the lights up.
"Well..." he finally said, shaking his head in wonder.
Secretary Robinson met his eyes and smiled just a little, but he could see the same shock and awe in the other man's gaze that he was sure was visible in his own.
"I
think," Robinson said with a note of total satisfaction in his voice, "that we can definitely say
that was a success easily on a par with anything in history."
"It
was history," one of the military specialists commented, sounding utterly bemused, but very happy. "You don't often get to see it happen in front of you like that, though."
"No. No, you don't," Andrews agreed. He leaned back in his chair, then flexed his shoulders, which were stiff after the tension that had built up in the last few hours. "And I think I can guarantee this is only the beginning. We're going to end up going to some very interesting places a lot faster than I expected a couple of years ago." Standing, he looked around, then headed for the door and something to eat as he was absolutely ravenous. "It's going to be
fascinating to see what the next step brings."
Half the occupants of the room followed, the rest staying behind and quickly becoming heavily involved in dissecting what they'd seen and what the long term implications were, other than '
profound.'
All in all, no one was displeased with the way things were going...
