Just about the time David had reached the fifty-year mark, he was diagnosed with bone cancer. He had only been given months to live when his doctors were told of a radical untested therapy. David's knowledge and work were too important to lose, so David and the doctors were given the orders to undergo the treatment, no matter what the expense.
The procedure involved thirty-six complete bone marrow transplants over a two-month period, along with numerous blood transfusions and drug injections. The bone marrow and blood had been grown from a single vial of blood that had been taken from David during routine tests ten years before.
The operations were excruciatingly painful, and the recovery period was fraught with problems of infection. And even though the marrow was from his blood, there were problems of rejection by his body. The result had been a six-month downtime from his work, but the addition of another ten years or so to his life. He had just undergone the procedure for the fourth time a year earlier.
The work involved and the number of scientists and physicians required, along with the thirty-six rounds of bone marrow and blood transfusions, made the whole affair extremely expensive—so much so that there was little chance of it ever making its way into the general population. David Brenner had been worth the expense and was willing to go through the pain in order to continue his work. After all, his parents and almost everyone else he had known had been taken away from him by the aliens during the apocalypse. The usually mild-mannered David Brenner still had a score to settle.
One effect of the procedure was the renewal and repair of some of his DNA. This allowed most of his cells to continue to divide for another ten-year period. The area that was largely unaffected by the procedure was the brain. His brain was ninety, and it continued to age. His time with us was limited.
We continued on from the mess hall into the lounge, where Pop celebrated with his Tuesday beer. When our two hours were up, it was back to the classroom for our daily drilling. By the time our four-month classroom training period ended, the latest crews had reached as far as the asteroid belt... and had achieved one-quarter light speed.
There had also been one tragic mishap. Defender A000014 and its crew had been lost when it hit an asteroid at one-tenth the speed of light. The result had been that the ship had made it almost completely through before the active skin had failed. The tail end of the craft had been locked in the asteroid while the rest of it had torn away.
The contents of Defender A000014, including its crew, had been sucked into space at almost sixty-six million kilometers per hour, causing them to instantly disintegrate. After months on a high, we had all been brought back to reality. Our new toys were not toys, and space was once again a very dangerous place.
Just about the time of the lost Defender and crew, I had taken note of the budding romance between Bigg and Whip. Bigg was a giant when standing next to Whip's petite frame. But the attraction to one another was there. There was one problem with romance down in the chamber. It was strictly forbidden. If anyone was caught in any compromising situations, there was no hearing, no trial, and no court-martial, only prison and only solitary confinement, as the secrets we each knew were of the highest security level.
Bigg and Whip were professionals and had managed to keep the relationship under wraps, with only the occasional wink, nod, or mild arm hug. I could tell it was a strain to keep it on the up and up, but Bigg and Whip knew their priorities. And their priorities were to follow orders and complete the training before us.
I sympathized with them, as I had my own romantic problems with my handler. Ensign Braswell had been nothing but kind and attentive to my every training need, but she had not returned any of my winks or nods. I often felt a bit jilted, but I dared not bring the subject up when we were under such strict orders. I again feared that my family name would do me no good if I got out of line in the chamber.
As far as Pop was concerned, he saved his love for his Tuesday and Friday beers. He was also an avid audiophile. Almost everything of the day for music was highly compressed digital. Pop detested any sound that was not coming from an old analog-style amplifier.
Almost everyone had an audio implant stuck under the skin behind an ear except for Pop. He used the old-style earbuds and an external recording amp and comm device. I sometimes wondered if that was the reason he continued to grin unstoppably.
The implant served as a communication device as well as a radio, music player, and recorder. Commands to the implant were thought activated. You could change channels, pick a song or album, adjust volume, and make or receive comm calls. The telephone was now only found in museums and a few third-world countries. I could not imagine being without my implant for more than a few minutes.
Our final week of classroom training had been about the ship's life support systems. We would have to know the intimate details of how each and every system worked if we wanted to have any chance of a repair while in space. We could easily be unreachable and a billion kilometers away when the ship's systems went offline. There would be no rescue chopper and no tow truck to come to bring us home.
The ship's power was from a micro-reactor. It generated enough energy, when at full bore, to power a small town. The active skin and BHD were both power hogs, consuming as much energy as the micro-reactor could generate. The only maintenance we could do to the reactor was with the sodium feed going into it. If the reactor were to fail, we would be completely powerless and left floating in space.
Pop had already begun to toy with his own ideas of how to change the reactor feed. He had shown me a few of his sketches, but I had to say that the thought of changing around a system that we were completely dependent on made me nervous. If Pop's theories failed, there would be no way to restart the reactor without the energy capabilities of a full-sized reactor nearby.
"Lights out," as we called it, was a very bad thing. Without power, we would freeze to death in a matter of minutes. If we were lucky, we would be traveling at speed through an asteroid when the power was lost. The active skin would shut off, leaving us to instantly disintegrate like Defender A000014 and its crew.
Bigg had been busy trying to think of ways to increase our defensive capabilities, and Whip, our offensive ones. I was just happy at the time to steer the ship. Bigg's main creative focus had been on ways to extend the gravity shield by more than the current few meters. The aliens had done it, and he was intent on figuring out how.
For our final two weeks of classroom training, Bigg had been using our one-hour break to talk to the scientists in charge of the gravity shield. Whip had her own ideas. If Bigg was able to extend the gravity shield, she wanted to be able to use it behind the BHD to try to push the black holes of the drive outward as a new type of weapon.
With the black holes only lasting tiny fractions of a second, she would have her work cut out for her. Besides, black holes would react strangely with gravity, so she was not very hopeful about being able to weaponize them.
I was glad to be on a crew with people who had ideas. I was already overwhelmed by much of our classwork, which left my brain drained of any creativity by the time our day ended. If one of my crewmates came up with something significant, I felt I could at least contribute by running it past my great-uncle. That is, if he would even see me. We had not spoken since my initial arrival, because David Brenner was a very busy man.
Chapter 4
* * *
After four long months, our classroom training period was complete. We were all excited about having our first lessons in the holo-sims. From what we had been told, it was almost impossible to tell the difference between a sim and the real thing.
After I completed my morning stuffing in the mess hall, I joined the others by the sim training area of the chamber. There were thirty-two sim trainers, of which twenty-eight were continuously occupied. The remaining four were spares for use when there were technical issues. Seven of the trainers had freed up the day before, as that class of crewmen had graduated. They now had the priv
ilege of training in the real Defenders.
As I joined the others, we all stood for several minutes as we awaited our instructor’s guidance. Ensign Braswell and the other handlers for our team had been busy collecting the gear for our reclamation suits. I very much disliked the name, but it was what they were.
I had a moment of sadness as I wondered if the meal I had just consumed might be my last. I had heard rumors that once you went into the reclamation suit, you would remain there until the sim training was complete, four months later. That aspect was not something I looked forward to.
Our instructor, Commander Red Masters, then stepped up and greeted us one by one. For the next four months, we would be spending our waking hours under his supervision. Commander Masters was the opposite of Colonel Rogers. He was slight of build and soft spoken, but he knew the Defenders inside and out. He had been on the engineering team that had come up with the initial design.
Commander Masters ordered us to refer to him as Red. He had been given the nickname when just a kid. When he would get embarrassed about anything, his ears would turn bright red. I thought the story gave him the friendly personality that Colonel Rogers lacked.
Red then walked us to the trainer that would largely be our home for the next four months... S-A000055. It was identical to the real A000055 in every humanly discernible way. Each Defender simulator, or DSim, as they became known, had a micro-reactor and active skin. The BHD was a simulation, as well as the weapons and defensive systems, but we were told we would be unable to tell.
Our training schedules were now a bit different too. We would arise at 6:00 a.m., complete breakfast by 7:30 a.m., and be at our training station by 8:00 a.m. We then had a four-hour training session, followed by an hour break and then four more hours of training. At 5:00 p.m., we received another one-hour break.
From 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., it was free time in the DSims, where the teams were encouraged to discover, explore, and become intimately familiar with the ship's systems and capabilities. From 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., it was then fraternization time with the other teams, where we were encouraged to have discussions about strategies, tactics, and any discoveries or new ideas we might have come up with. It was then back to our personal quarters for the night. We would be back on twenty-four-hour schedules.
When the handlers returned, we were each taken to a dressing area, where we were outfitted with our reclamation suits. As we awaited personal adjustments, we were each visited by a physician. A spot on our side just above where the elbow would rest then received a local anesthetic and was cleaned and cut, and then a permanent IV port was installed. It was a little uncomfortable, but we were told we would soon forget it was even there. I doubted that statement.
Once the port install was complete, we were stripped naked, bio-washed, and then squeezed into the reclamation suit. As a final gesture, a physician’s tech then attached a hose to the suit. The air inside was vacuumed out and then a warm bio-gel pumped in. We were told it would help our bodies become accustomed to the long period of time we would be in the suit. It seemed my last-meal fears had come true.
We were then walked back to the DSim. Walking in the gel-filled reclamation suit could only be described as funky, but it wasn't unpleasant. Even though our classroom training had told us all about what the suit would do, I still felt the need to ask one last time. It was time to purge the liquids from my breakfast.
I was assured it was fine to go whenever I felt like it and that the suit could handle not being hooked up to the ship’s system for about five days. Things would then begin to get unpleasant. When I cut loose, my face turned a bit red, as the sensation of going in front of the team was something I was not prepared for. We all had a good laugh and then continued on into the back of the DSim.
We were excited about finally getting into the trainer. As each of us passed the glow and faint hum of the micro-reactor, we were left with a feeling of awe. This was our reactor for the next four months. I lingered for a moment at the energy device before Ensign Braswell put her hand on my shoulder and then gestured toward the chair. It would be my home for the next four hours.
The chair was a high-back leather recliner in style. There were adjustments for seating angle, lumbar, heating or cooling, side support, and, of course, the hookup for the reclamator. Paige had me seated and connected and the suit online within two minutes.
When connected to the system, the gel in the suit would become a liquid that was constantly being pumped and filtered. Again the suit left you with a bit of a funky feeling. We were then fitted with a visor that projected a holo-display of the ship’s controls for each of our stations. A simple long hand swipe to the left or the right would bring up the primary controls of the other crewmen. In the event of an emergency, all the ship’s systems could be controlled from one chair.
The simulator itself was in lock-down mode. Red encouraged us to start pushing buttons and changing views, as he assured us that nothing was currently being registered by the system. We each had one hour to become familiar with the controls of our station. Each control had a help guide that could be viewed on the holo-display.
Our handlers were sitting in their own control chairs outside the mock craft. They were there for support and the answering of any questions we might have. I had plenty. I immediately selected the BHD controls and went to full throttle. I watched contentedly as the drive went to 100 percent within fifteen seconds. I next turned to the navigation controls and began plotting our course to Neptune. We were like kids in a candy store.
When the hour of fun and familiarity was complete, Red then popped up in front of us on our holo-displays. We would now begin our flight training. The next hour was spent familiarizing ourselves with the preflight checklist. We would have to know not only what each system monitor was for, but also how to interpret what it was telling us.
We began with the reactor. It had a sodium supply with three feeds. The supply was monitored for level, while each of the three feeds was monitored for throughput, burn rate, and efficiency. The fusion reactor itself was about as simple of a device as there was.
An extreme magnetic field held the fusion reaction in place while the three sodium feeds dropped in a constant stream of sodium atoms. Three sodium atoms were electrically bonded together during the fusion process. The sodium reaction did not put off heat but instead pumped out a steady stream of electrons, just plain old electricity.
Our training next turned to the life support system. The system consisted of a tiny fission reactor that would take the fused sodium as fuel. The result of the fission process on the fused sodium left us with two oxygen atoms and six hydrogen atoms. This in turn gave us a supply of oxygen and hydrogen, which could in turn be fused into water if needed.
For each sodium atom injected into the system, we were left with enough particles for one water molecule and one spare hydrogen atom. The scientists were still trying to figure out how to make use of the extra hydrogen. The amount left over was small enough that it was easily compressed and stored. The life support system also monitored and cleansed our air.
Inside, the ship was open and there was no need for helmets, as once the skin was active, there would be no stepping outside. For our faces and hair, we were given a hose that gave us a sonic wash. I found its use both simpler than and preferable to a full sonic shower.
The reclamation and nutrition systems were also part of the life support system. Waste was collected through the suit and nutrition was returned through the IV. I was told we would be fed a continuous meal of the nutrients necessary for maintaining our health. I was also told I would likely be losing weight over the four-month period I would be in the suit.
Ensign Braswell would be monitoring and providing for my nutrition as she saw fit. I imagined the look on her face as she was setting the parameters of my IV, and the vision that constantly came up was one with her displaying a big smirk.
We then moved on to the navigation and propulsion systems. The nav s
ystem displayed a 3-D hologram of space surrounding the ship. The meter of hologram in front of us could be expanded to a diameter of a few hundred meters up to about thirty billion kilometers.
The nav system was only as accurate as the currently known field of monitored and tracked objects, which consisted of the planets, their moons, and the majority of large asteroids over five hundred meters in width. The demise of A000014 had come about due to a collision with a 650-meter-length unlogged asteroid. It was 150 meters wide and elongated in length, and A000014 had been just unlucky enough to hit it lengthwise.
With the nav system, the pilot was able to set waypoints, speeds, and automated orbits. Every maneuver the ship was capable of could be formed into a predefined flight plan. The visual and IR sensors along with the quantum computer on board were capable of tracking up to five hundred thousand objects at once. From there, the computer could automatically make small course adjustments in an attempt to avoid collisions.
The nav sensor arrays were located on the BHD rings on the front of the vessel. That was the only part of the ship that was exposed when the skin was active. At high speeds, when a collision was imminent, the BHD would drop offline and the active skin would encompass the sensors. It was the only way we had of fully protecting the external components. Without them we would be flying blind.
The propulsion system, while complex in its technology, was simple in its design and use. Five temporary black holes were either constantly being formed or not. Only create one black hole, and the ship would be pulled in that direction. With all five lit up, the ship would shoot straight forward like a banshee. By adjusting the frequency and duration of each of the holes, we could steer the ship in any direction.
SODIUM Trilogy Part One Page 32