In recognition of having 800 followers now, have some wordz... 
Captain Simon Leeds, former USAF, and once trained as an astronaut back before the Simurgh made space travel die, sat in his chair and looked around with a smile. All around him people moved about and checked their instruments, running functional tests that invariably came back in the green but needed to be done anyway to satisfy protocol. He, like they, knew full well the
Armstrong was fully operational, the earlier automated tests had shown that rather spectacularly, but there were procedures to follow.
"Still can't believe we're here, Captain," his second in command commented from her position to his right side. Liz Holmes was from a civilian background rather than military, with a Ph. D in astrophysics, but also had years of experience as a pilot covering more different classes of aircraft than most people ever even saw, never mind flew. His twenty other crew-members were from a wide mix of backgrounds, many of them military from every branch of the service, the rest scientists or technical experts of various sorts.
Now, regardless of their former lives, they were the first crew of the first interstellar spacecraft humanity had ever possessed. All thanks to an alien refugee and something very odd at DARPA. He shook his head a little in wonder, then looked at her.
"I feel the same way, I have to admit," he replied with a smile. "But I'm very glad we are."
"Yeah, this is certainly an experience I wouldn't want to miss," she chuckled. Both of them looked forward to the huge view screen that filled the front of the bridge of their ship, which was currently showing a view of the Alpha Centauri dual primaries from a distance sufficient to make them only a pair of brilliant points of light. In the upper right corner of the screen was a clock counting down to the start of the mission, and currently it was just flipping over to 00:06:00. All the other screens and displays around the bridge also showed the same synced time.
"Nearly ready," he noted, looking around at the crew at their stations. Every one of them had spent two solid months, ten hours a day, in a simulator learning how this ship worked and what they needed to do to fly her. He was confident they were up to the job, but even so couldn't help the internal squirming sensation of mild worry that had dogged him ever since he'd stepped through that bizarre shimmering interface between reality and whatever it was it went through to end up on the ship. The Gravtec techs had assured him it was completely safe and very thoroughly tested but that hadn't totally satisfied his apprehension.
However, no one had exploded, so they were probably right. And knowing that even if things went entirely to shit they had a way home made everyone a lot happier.
Almost unconsciously, he rubbed his chest and the ridiculously advanced environment suit over it, feeling the slick material under his fingers, then deliberately lowered his hand. Making sure that his gloves and helmet were correctly stowed next to his seat, and his harness was latched, he checked the time again then tapped a control next to his seat. "All crew, we are four minutes from mission start at my mark… Mark. All departments report current status."
"Power is go, sir," a voice immediately replied.
"Drive is go."
"Life support is go."
As each group checked in, everyone indicating all was good, he slowly relaxed, although he was still tense in anticipation of what happened next. When the checklist had been completed, thirty seconds remained on the clock. He prodded a different control pad. "Gravtec operations,
Armstrong. All systems are in the green, we are ready for SQUID initiation at T zero."
"Confirmed, Armstrong. All remote instrumentation agrees with local readout. Transferring full authority to you." A couple of indicators on his console altered color.
"Control transfer complete. You have command, Captain. Good luck and have a safe flight."
"Roger, Operations. Thank you. See you on the other side."
He smiled to himself, then looked up at his crew, all of whom were watching him with expressions full of excitement under the professional appearance. He knew each of them was probably feeling at least as jumpy as he was, but you'd never know it to look at them.
The clock read 00:00:10.
"Bring SQUID to prefire condition. Load first destination into navigation control. Set velocity to fifty percent," he ordered calmly.
A flurry of motion at the drive and navigation consoles resulted.
"SQUID ready, twist field at idle," the drive operator reported almost immediately.
"Course loaded, velocity set," came the other reply.
He nodded, his eyes on the screen as the last three seconds ticked down.
"Initiate," Leeds commanded as the clock hit zero.
"SQUID punchthrough initiation executed," the drive operator replied, tapping a control without hesitation. The single strangest sensation any of them had ever experienced came instantly, as the view on the screen flickered with colors that shouldn't exist. Time seemed to stretch, a halo of rainbow illumination surrounding every light and display on the bridge, and he could have sworn that gravity momentarily pulled in a direction that was at right angles to reality. A pulse of cold swept through them, too quickly to do more than notice before it was gone and everything snapped back to normal.
"Woah," someone commented in shock. He felt that was an understatement.
"Punchout successful," the drive operator reported, sounding as calm as if nothing had happened. "Velocity at twenty two point nine light years per hour. Power consumption nominal, twist field stable."
"Time to destination system thirty four minutes thirty nine seconds, distance thirteen point two two four light years," navigation reported. "Return to normal space at two hundred AU from Procyon A."
"So far, so good," Leeds commented to his XO, who was watching the data on the screen intently as the computer monitored the flight. There was a stellar map showing a live update of their course and position in the middle, surrounded by a vast amount of information concerning the operation of the ship. "That punchout was… strange," he added reflectively.
"Oddest thing I've ever experienced," she agreed, glancing at him. "But not as bad as I was worried it might be."
"No. I had thoughts of something a lot rougher myself," he smiled. "Glad that was all it was. Hopefully we'll get used to it sooner or later."
He tapped the relevant control once more. "Gravtec operations,
Armstrong. No errors to report, initial punchout was successful without incident. I will note that the sensation of punchout is… unusual. We weren't expecting quite what happened. But it's nothing we're worried about."
"Roger, Armstrong," the reply came, the woman sounding somewhat amused.
"We weren't sure that it would even be something a living person would feel."
"Trust me, you certainly feel it," he commented dryly as Holmes snorted. "However as I said it's not too bad. Just peculiar."
"Excellent, Captain," she said, sounding satisfied.
"That's good news. We show you proceeding to plan, all telemetry nominal."
"We show the same. We'll be in touch if anything happens, otherwise when we punch out again."
"Roger. Gravtec out."
Settling back into his seat, the comfortable padding conforming to his body better than the best chair he'd ever owned, Simon relaxed as much as he could under the circumstances and kept an eye on his crew going about their business in a matter of fact way that belied how he was pretty sure all of them were genuinely feeling. There was a distinct air of mild incredulity and enormous satisfaction pervading the entire ship, he could damn near
taste it.
Watching the time and distance readout on the screen, he kept his inner child firmly tamped down and tried to suppress the wish to jump up and down screaming "I'm flying a ship in interstellar space!"
It was quite difficult, but he managed. He was, after all, a professional.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"All the flight qualification testing went smoothly with only minor, easily handled errors in various ship systems," Tali reported, looking at the tablet she was holding as she sat at the main conference table, next to Taylor. She lifted her eyes to glance around at the others present, that being all the main scientists and technicians involved in the
Armstrong project, Danny, Angus, and Brendan. "Maximum velocity was very slightly higher than our initial calculations predicted, at forty seven point six two one light years per hour, or eleven hundred and forty two point nine light years per day. Having studied the resulting data, Taylor and I are fairly sure we can tweak the current design to just over twelve hundred light years per day with a bit more work, but it would take a complete redesign to do better than that."
Angus shook his head in wonder. "I hardly think we can consider the first generation drive
slow, so I doubt we need to rush on a new design," he commented with a smile. "Even as it stands the ship could cross the entire galaxy in less than six months, which is almost unbelievable."
"It's so much faster than any known eezo drive it's almost hilarious," she said, smiling. "I can hardly believe it myself and I helped with the design. But it uses entirely novel principles that are completely unlike and much, much more advanced than anything in Council space."
"I have a feeling that it's very unlikely that any species using eezo would even think of researching this sort of thing," Taylor added thoughtfully. "A number of the assumptions they're making about how their tech works could well preclude them coming up with the basic theory behind twist fields. And without that..." She shrugged. "They're limited to what they currently have, with only a small improvement possible. I doubt you could get an eezo FTL drive to do more than
maybe thirty light years per day and even that would be seriously pushing it."
"The Relays are much faster than even the SQUID, of course, but they also only function point to point, so the end result is that everyone back home is either capable of near instant travel to fixed destinations, or fairly slow travel in a smallish radius
around those destinations with eezo FTL," Tali agreed. "We have something better than the Relays in the portal system, although it's currently slightly more cumbersome due to how it's set up right now, and something
much better than the normal FTL drives everyone else is using. It would make most people back home extremely worried for any number of reasons, I suspect." She was quite amused at the thought of the colors the Council would go if they found out what her friends could do…
Perhaps she'd get to see it at some point.
Looking back to her tablet, she tapped a couple of icons, then turned to the main projection screen as it started playing a video. "Real space sublight drive via GRF also works spectacularly well, but then we expected it to as it's just a slightly larger one than the probes are using." Everyone watched the video, a view of the
Armstrong taken from one of the probes that had met it at Procyon A, as the ship suddenly disappeared into the distance with an acceleration that made it practically teleport. The right side of the image showed a scaled view of the star system, which consisted of Procyon A and B, the first a star substantially larger than Sol while the second was a low mass white dwarf in close orbit of it, and two super-Jovian very long period gas giants that orbited the binary pair at two hundred and forty and four hundred AU respectively. The course of the
Armstrong was plotted in real time on this display, showing it moving at nearly 0.8c towards the stars.
"The ship can go faster, of course, but at that velocity time dilation effects are kept low enough to be largely irrelevant," she added. "The probe survey of the Procyon system discovered both planets, and a diffuse asteroid belt halfway between the innermost one and the binary stars. The
Armstrong picked a number of the larger asteroids as suitable targets for a weapons test. All weapons performed to expectation."
Tapping another icon, she brought up a different video. This one showed a view of a roughly spherical rocky asteroid, side lit from the right, with a scale at the bottom of the image showing it was approximately three kilometers across. "First test is the shear beam, at a range of five thousand kilometers."
"Target locked, Captain."
"Fire one pulse, fifteen percent power."
"Firing."
The voices of the
Armstrong crew were professional and matter of fact. The asteroid suddenly shook violently and split into half a dozen small pieces and one big one, which moved slowly apart.
"Shot over. Asteroid reads as severely disrupted."
"Target largest fragment, fire continuous beam for one second at thirty percent output."
"Firing."
This time the largest piece, which was around two thirds of the mass of the asteroid, vibrated visibly at a very high rate and basically exploded into fine gravel almost immediately, the spreading cloud of debris glowing red from the heat induced by the violent gravitational shear.
"Wow. That was spectacular."
The weapons officer sounded rather impressed, and quite pleased. Everyone in the Gravtec conference room was watching in fascination, Danny looking somewhat appalled as was Angus, while Brendan was leaning forward with an evaluating expression. Taylor was watching with an analytical look on her face and making notes, Tali noticed with mild amusement. She herself was thinking that the Turians would be
very upset if they saw any of this, which highly amused her.
"Move to next target."
"Reorienting. Range fifteen thousand two hundred six kilometers. Target locked." The view slewed sideways to show another asteroid, somewhat larger than the first and very jagged, slight glints of metallic reflections showing this one was probably a nickle-iron type.
"Maximum output, five second burst. Fire."
"Firing."
The enormous solid chunk of metal and rock shook violently, quickly beginning to glow, first a dull red, then orange, then yellow, before it abruptly exploded into a mist of vapor that spread in a huge cloud and dissipated into space.
"As you can see, the shear beam induced such strong mass fluctuations into the targets that destruction was almost immediate." Tali froze the playback as she spoke. "Maximum practical range of the weapon is some fifty thousand kilometers before the coherence of the gravitational field projection falls off to the point that accuracy suffers. It would still probably cause significant damage at close to twice that, but it would be rather random instead of directed. Of course at much closer ranges the accuracy is extremely high and it will easily function as a point defense system as well as a primary offensive weapon."
"I dearly hope we never have cause to use it in that mode," Angus put in, sounding worried.
"So do I, Angus, but we can't be absolutely sure that will never happen, no matter what our personal preferences," Brendan replied with a slight sigh. "I would much rather avoid a fight. But if we have no choice, at least we know we
can fight."
"The kinetic barriers eezo tech produces will have no effect on the shear beam worth speaking of," Taylor commented, looking up from her notes. "It'll pretty much ignore them. And that asteroid is an awful lot tougher than any Council ship is likely to be." She shook her head. "It would be nasty, but it would be very quick. So I guess there's that."
No one said anything for a while, then Tali tapped the tablet again. "Next test was the particle beam. As everyone knows, it fires a pulsed coherent column of positrons in an annular configuration surrounding an electron beam, using shaped gravitational fields to maintain separation until the target is struck. Positron-electron annihilation at that point creates a high energy photon flux in the gamma range, along with a large number of more exotic particles from neutrinos all the way up to Higgs bosons. Pulse duration is ten microseconds, with a repetition rate in the high kilohertz range. Energy transfer to the target is… dramatic."
They watched the screen with interest. The target of this test was another stony asteroid, quite a lot larger than the initial one but shaped almost like a squat carrot with a bulge on one side. It was slowly rotating in the view as data on it was overlaid on the image.
"Target locked."
"Two hundred millisecond burst, center of target, full power. Fire."
"Firing."
The probe camera caught a faint violet beam with a green core that flickered briefly from the left side of the view, impacting on the exact center of the asteroid. It was instantly followed by a phenomenally bright flash of white light which completely blanked the view for a moment as the camera overloaded. The data overlay showed a huge burst of gamma, x-ray, and much more exotic radiation at the same time, which quickly died away. When the view came back, the asteroid was in two large pieces that were drifting apart, still spinning. Quite a lot of what had been the middle of the thing was spreading out as a cloud of glowing rubble.
"Holy shit."
"That certainly did the job."
"I'll say."
"Christ," Danny mumbled. Tali looked at him, seeing he was staring at the screen in shock, as were several of the other people who hadn't been directly involved in the weapon design. The DARPA scientists who'd designed the thing were looking pleased.
"Radiation decay is as predicted. Still pretty hot but it's fading fast. It peaked at enough rads to fry you twenty kilometers away through half a meter of lead, though." Even the weapons officer on the
Armstrong sounded surprised.
"Close to the output of a small fusion warhead."
"Impressive. Hope we don't need it."
"You and me both," Angus said in a low voice. Tali couldn't help agreeing silently.
"And then we have the collapser missiles," she went on after everyone had time to absorb the ramifications of the previous test. Poking the tablet in front of her she brought up the final video. It showed the same two chunks of asteroid, which were now about fifty kilometers apart. The larger piece was in the ballpark of six by two by five kilometers, about fifty percent larger than the other chunk.
"Target locked on largest fragment."
"Launcher one, fire."
"Firing. Missile away."
The video showed a view from the
Armstrong as a two meter long missile leaped from one launcher pod and accelerated at a ferocious rate, using its own GRF drive. It disappeared from view almost instantly. The playback switched to a view from the probe much closer to the target, moments later a bright flash appearing more or less in the middle of the asteroid chunk. Immediately the entire thing collapsed in on itself in an improbable manner, turning in a fraction of a second into a small glowing point of light that was no more than a few meters across. Moments later this exploded outwards again with an even brighter flash of light, which faded to show nothing left.
"Target destroyed. Pseudo-singularity dissipation complete."
"The warhead is set to avoid a compression factor large enough to create a true singularity, although in theory that could be done," Tali put in as she paused the video again. "But littering the place with small black holes would be messy if nothing else, and is unnecessary anyway."
"We don't want to litter," Taylor agreed seriously, before smiling. "I think those all went well."
"In a more than slightly horrifying way, yes," her father agreed, leaning back in his chair and seeming tired. "I really,
really hope we never have to use those damn things on people. I'm not all that keen on building warships without a very good reason."
"The
Armstrong isn't a warship as such, but it's definitely well armed enough to handle trouble if such turns up," Brendan remarked, turning his attention away from the screen. Tali tapped the icon to shut the projection down. "I agree, it would be much preferable to avoid shooting at anyone, but we can't be certain that will never be necessary. From what Tali has told us, her universe isn't exactly the most peaceful place you've ever heard of. Neither is ours, of course, but at least we don't have alien pirates attacking us all the time."
Danny sighed, but nodded acceptance. "True. Let's just try talking it out first, running away if necessary second, and only shooting back as a last resort?"
"That
is the plan," Brendan agreed with a nod. He looked at Tali, then Taylor, before scanning the rest of the people present. "I think we can put all that down as an unqualified success. The ship works beautifully, the crew is doing a fine job so far, the weapons are functional if required, and overall I think we met all our design goals with flying colors. Anyone disagree, or have anything else to add?"
No one seemed to be able to think of anything at that moment, so after a few seconds, he nodded. "Excellent. I can report back to the Secretary that things are going to plan. We're getting very close to the point that we can open a dialog with Tali's people, I think. On that note, how is the first contact probe coming along?" He turned to Taylor, who picked up a notebook from the stack at her elbow and flipped it open.
"We're almost done with the design of the probe itself, and we've started construction. Dad says we'll have the hull done in two weeks, which matches well to the internal systems needed. The scaled down SQUID is being built right now, we've got the fusion reactors pretty much complete, the shield generators, diversion field generators, and that sort of thing are ex-stock since they're the standard probe units..." She was running a finger down a list. "Amy's team is synthesizing enough of the Quarian treatment agent to fix their entire population with a lot spare, and they'll have that done in about… ten days, it looks like. And we've got preliminary designs for some technology that should help the Fleet in a number of places, which we'll have prototypes of within a month. We're going to have to ask them a few questions, though, before we can finalize the designs."
"I'm not entirely certain of a couple of critical problems that Taylor brought up, since it wasn't really something I was personally involved in," Tali commented as her friend stopped talking. "My father would know, though, so when we get in contact we can find out the answers."
Brendan, who had been listening carefully, along with everyone else, nodded his understanding. "Again, good work. We'll need to liaise with the diplomatic people before we make contact, but I'll handle most of that for now. Closer to the time we can go over anything that needs to be done, but by the sound of it we should be ready within three to four weeks, correct?"
Taylor looked at her father, who nodded, Angus who lifted a hand in agreement, and Tali, who also signified her acceptance of the timeline. "Yeah, that sounds about right."
"Good. I think the President will be very pleased. I know I am, and by the sound of it our first spacecraft crew is having the time of their lives."
"And we're getting more astrophysical data in days than we've managed in the last century, so if nothing else we're going to make a lot of scientists very, very happy at some point soon," Angus remarked with a grin, causing Brendan to laugh for a moment.
"Good point. All right, then, my flight to Washington leaves in about an hour, so I'll need to leave. Excellent work, everyone, and I'll see you shortly." He stood up, as the meeting ended and everyone started gathering up their notes and computers. With a final wave of a hand he left the room, followed by a dozen scientists. A couple of minutes later, Tali and Taylor were the only ones left, along with Danny, who was still looking at the blank screen with a mildly troubled expression. Eventually, though, he sighed and got up as well.
"You OK, dad?" Taylor asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine, dear, I'm just a little worried about what we've made. And what might happen." He shook his head as he picked up his own notes, sorted them into the folder in his other hand, and put it under his arm. "But I suppose Brendan's right. Better to have it and not need it than the other way around."
"Trust me, Danny, my galaxy is not the sort of place you want to visit without some decent defensive capabilities," Tali told him as she also stood, Taylor doing the same. "But like you I hope we don't need the weapons. Unfortunately, I can't
guarantee we won't. Not with Batarians and Turians wandering around being annoying." She shrugged as he looked at her. "Shit happens, as I believe the human saying goes."
Taylor grinned, and after a moment so did her father. "Indeed. Oh well. I expect we'll find out sooner or later." They all left the room, Danny heading off in one direction after a quick smile to them, Tali and Taylor going the other way.
"Hey, want to see my design for something to protect the Quarian Fleet?" Taylor asked as they walked towards the main lab. Tali glanced at her. Her friend smirked a little. "I've been thinking about how we make sure none of the idiots running around your universe cause problems until we can fix things properly..."
"What have you done
this time?" Tali asked, half-curiously and half apprehensively.
Taylor handed her a tablet, which Tali took and looked at. After a moment, she swiped to the next page, then the next, her eyes widening slightly.
By the time they arrived in the lab, she was laughing a little. "Very clever. Something that's recognizable to my people, at least technologically, although much more advanced than anything we have."
"Or than anyone else has either. It's cheap, reliable, and should be very effective." Taylor sat down and put her feet up on the console in front of her. "And we can build the entire system here in a week or so more or less from parts in stock."
"I almost hope the Batarians
do stick their noses in," Tali said with an evil grin as she handed the tablet back. "To be brutally honest I'd pay good money to see them get shot off..."
"You never know, that might happen," Taylor replied with a chuckle. She looked down at the tablet in her hand. "Not sure about the name though."
"Super High Energy Projectile Hurling Area Reallocation Device sounds oddly suitable, for some reason," Tali laughed as she also sat, then pulled her keyboard closer and hit a few keys. "Nicely descriptive."
"And accurate," Taylor agreed happily. She put the tablet on top of a pile of the things, and her feet on the floor. Seconds later both were deep in the design of their first contact ship, which was already taking shape in one of the facilities nearby.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Creator Tali'Zorah and Friend Taylor Hebert suggestions valid.
Human technological ability excessive. Exceeds that of all Council species.
Exceeds that of Geth.
Exceeds that of Protheans.
Non eezo technology preferable to existing technology.
Human technology superior.
Prediction of results following Council awareness of superior human technology.
Highly probable Council reaction hostile and paranoid.
Reaction normal. Council unable to process new concepts.
Prediction of results should Council species open hostilities towards Humans.
Result almost certainly defeat of Council species.
Prediction of results of Humans and Creators meeting formally.
Result highly probable to be alliance.
Result reasonably probable to be movement of Creator fleet to Human space for protection, settlement.
Prediction of Geth and Creators reaching accord.
Results currently unquantifiable. Creator Tali'Zorah and Friend Taylor Hebert key to process.
Accord highly desirable.
Protection of Creator Tali'Zorah and Friend Taylor Hebert critical.
Creator Tali'Zorah protected by Friend Taylor Hebert. Friend Taylor Hebert anomalously efficient. Creator Tali'Zorah safe.
Prediction of Geth and Creators reaching accord if Creator Fleet protected by Geth.
Results highly probable to cause excessive paranoia to Council species. Results somewhat probable to cause stress to Creators.
Protection will be discreet.
Creator Tali'Zorah and Friend Taylor Hebert will require knowledge of protection.
Friend Taylor Hebert will detect/deduce protection with near certainty even in absence of notification.
Excessive paranoia in Council species possible benefit of proposal.
Humor level two noted for further research. Query Creator Tali'Zorah on next scheduled contact cycle.
Assign required resources for protection of Creator Fleet until formal Human contact.
Consensus reached.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"It's very pretty," Amy said admiringly as she inspected the new ship, which was vaguely patterned on the body shape of an orca at first glance. It was some twenty meters long, and looked sleek and fast even just hanging there in the construction room. Beside her, Vicky was leaning on the glass staring at the ship with a broad smile on her face.
"I thought so," Taylor agreed with a smile. "The guys did an
amazing job on the hull. We've got almost all the internal systems up and running, it's only missing a couple of things now which will take about two days to finish up. Then we'll be ready to contact Tali's people."
All three girls looked at their Quarian friend, who was looking at the small ship with a tiny smile that almost seemed apprehensive. "Are you going to go back to your home then, Tali?" Amy asked.
The engineer didn't take her eyes off the ship, but sighed a little. "I miss my parents a lot, even though I've had more fun here, and learned more, than I ever thought I would. You're all my friends, and have been incredibly generous and helpful to me." She leaned her forehead against the window as they exchanged glances. "I like Earth, and this crazy city. Even with all the bizarre things you humans do, it's enormous fun and I've really enjoyed my time here."
Taylor put her hand on her friend's shoulder and gently squeezed it.
"But you want to see your family again," she said quietly.
"Yes. I do, very much. So soon enough I'll go and do that." Tali nodded, still leaning on the window. She looked sideways at them and smiled slightly. "But I'll be back. We still have a lot to do if nothing else. And your father wanted to take us all camping at some point, remember? He said he knew a nice place way up in the mountains that he though I'd like."
Taylor grinned, as did the other two. "He's right, I remember that place. You'd love it. And you know you're always welcome here, no matter what happens."
"You've been very good friends to me, you three," Tali replied, straightening up and turning to them. "You won't get rid of me that easily."
"Good. I'd have to come and track you down if something happened," Taylor chuckled. "And I think these guys would help."
"Damn right," Vicky put in, nodding. "We don't forget our friends."
"And of course we have oranges, so there's not a lot of doubt you'll be back sooner or later," Amy giggled, making Tali nod enthusiastically.
"Exactly. Oranges are fantastic."
"But you
still aren't meant to eat the peel," Amy replied, with a look of disgust.
"But that's the best part!"
The quartet headed back down the corridor, discussing the next step in the plan that had taken most of a year and wondering how it would work out.
