by Ricky Sides
***
“Jim, can you give me the latest information on the spread of the plague?” asked Bob Reager, president of Reager Industries over the radio. He’d contacted the Damroyal and asked to speak to Jim.
“It’s now in southern Illinois and portions of southern Indiana and Ohio. We expect that it will have reached southern Michigan within twenty days.”
“That soon?”
“I’m afraid so. How are your preparations coming along?” Jim asked.
“We’re as ready as anyone can be to ride out something like this. I’ve instructed our employees to stockpile food and prepare to stay inside their homes for an extended period until we give the all clear. There won’t be much of a company left of course. What good is a manufacturing company going to be when there’s no customer base?”
“There’ll be survivors, Bob. There are always some. But I see what you mean. Your people look to you for inspiration. It’s important that you give them a purpose to build toward. Give thought to a project that can occupy them for a year after this is all over.”
“Such as?” Bob asked with interest. As a successful entrepreneur, he understood something that not everyone did, and that was that people need a sense of purpose. He had always thought that retirees sometimes died shortly after retirement because they had lost their sense of purpose and because they stopped getting proper exercise that working supplemented.
“You know, just the other day I was thinking that if I were you, I’d give thought to the construction of a giant flying ferry to use to shuttle ore to your plant from the Upper Peninsula. You did say that the Mackinac is no longer safe, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Yes I did, but we bring in the ore with custom flying trucks now.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”
“It got to the point that we were shipping in only a couple of tons per load because of the condition of the bridge, so I had Detroit custom design a fleet of twenty trucks for us that could handle a ten ton load and dump it at the foundry. They tell me the hardest part was working out the dumping aspects of the trucks, but they managed. Now we can bring in five times the payload and do it faster and safer.”
“I guess you were ahead of the curve on that then,” Jim stated. “Congratulations.”
“I suppose it’s time to stop putting it off and ask you the question I contacted you to ask,” Bob said. “Has a decision been reached on the vaccine distribution?”
“Yes. Michigan gets three hundred thousand doses. That’s a disproportionately high number, considering the available supply, but Michigan is critical to any eventual recovery for the survivors. The Constitution will be arriving today to deliver it to you.”
“To me? Why me?”
“You’re the only person the council trusts to try to distribute it in a reasonably fair manner. Plus, we think you’re honest enough that you’ll warn people of the risk.”
“Yes, yes of course I will. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”
“We knew we could count on you. Just bear in mind that it’s for the whole state. You’d better start in the south and work your way north.”
“I’ll put teams on it the moment it reaches us,” Bob stated. There was a moment of silence, and then he said, “I know that you peacekeepers are planning something to protect yourself from the plague, and that information isn’t something you’d want discuss, but I’d like to ask if you plan to take the vaccine. Do you?”
“That will be up to the individuals. The survivors will need our help more than ever when this is over, so it’s imperative that our organization survive. We feel the peacekeepers have earned the right to a dose if they want it.”
“Will you and your family be taking it?” asked Bob.
“No. My son’s wife is pregnant. She’s already decided not to take it because there’s no way to know what it could do to the baby, and my son told me he won’t be taking it because she can’t.”
Jim didn’t tell Bob the rest of what Evan had said because it was too personal. But it was easy enough to figure out, so he wasn’t surprised when Bob said, “He probably doesn’t want to survive if she doesn’t. Congratulations on expecting a grandchild. You must be very happy.”
But Bob’s next words did surprise Jim, and reminded him that the man had a great intuitive mind when he said, “And you’re probably thinking that you can’t save everyone so you are going to refuse the dose for yourself to permit another to take it.”
Jim responded, “The likelihood of my becoming contaminated is low. There are others whose need is greater.”
“You’re a good man, doing an impossible job, Jim. May God bless you and your peacekeepers and keep you all safe, because you’re right. We will need you more than ever when this is over.”
“You can only count on the Michigan peacekeepers for another week, Bob. After that, we’ll be going into the shelters.”
“I understand. I assumed this was coming. I also assume it has something to do with all those Quonset huts you ordered.”
“That’s classified information, but I will say this on the matter. Build a platform of Huxley alloy and attach a battery system. Give the platform simple lift engines rated for one hundred feet. Cover that with the huts and then you can get above civilian traffic. Throw in a few guards with rifles and you can protect it if someone tweaks a flying car to fly that high.”
“The cars are bullet proof.”
“The men inside aren’t and they can’t hurt you until they get out of the cars or roll down windows.”
“Interesting, of course, you wouldn’t even need to build a platform. Your battle fortress could easily hold a hundred.”
“Six hundred with a bit of space between each, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just speculating. Maybe you could consider that for your motivational program while things get sorted out in the aftermath of this.”
“It has potential. A flying home you can move to any location you like.”
“Good luck, Bob. I’ve got to go get some work done.”
“Good luck. Thanks for the tip. Bob out.”
“You think he bought it?” asked Tim.
“Probably, it sounds just plausible enough to have credibility. Maybe now he’ll stop discreetly trying to find out what we’re doing with the huts,” Jim said. He was referring to the fact that Reager Industries had made several discreet inquiries about what had been done with the huts in the past four days.
“He’s probably trying to figure out if we were leaving the country or just trying to get to an out of the way location,” Tim speculated.
“That’s what I think too. I expect his main concern was that we were leaving the country for good. That would be a blow to his enterprises.”
Jim turned to Patricia and asked, “Has Evan checked in yet?”
“Yes, Admiral. He contacted us while you were on the radio with Bob. He says the people of Arley, Tennessee, thanked him. A few took doses of the vaccine, but most refused it because of the potential for failure. He warned those who took the medicine to isolate themselves from the rest of the community, because if they contracted the disease, then they could and would pass it on to the rest of the people because they’d be contagious. He even told them to isolate themselves from others taking the drug because it takes fourteen days for the protection to take effect, but less than that for the disease to manifest itself.”
“Good. It sounds as if he covered it all. Where is he headed next?”
“Salina, Kansas, sir.”
“Admiral, can I have a word with you and Captain Wilison in private please?” asked Pol.
Jim could see that Pol had a worried look on his face. He replied, “Certainly,” and walked off the bridge toward the conference room with Pol and Tim in tow.
Once they reached the conference room, Pol said, “I’ve been studying the figures and everything looks good. I think we are ready to test the Damroyal.”
“You make me nervous when you look nervous,
Pol. What’s wrong?” asked Jim.
“We are about to submerge a vessel that was not designed to be submerged and you ask me this question?” Pol asked.
“Correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t the only major difference between this ship and a submarine the ballast and life support systems?” asked Jim.
“Aside from operating systems, power generation, and size, yes, there are similarities.”
“Are you afraid that the life support buoys won’t work, or that they will prove to be inadequate?”
“They’ll work, but they may be our Achilles’ heel. An enemy could use them against us.”
“Then add a little extra buoyancy to the buoys. Provide enough to support the weight of a drone perched atop each buoy. Then you can land on them to change operators. They can be our eyes in the sky,” Jim said.
“That is a splendid suggestion. But I fear that isn’t my main concern.”
“Okay, I’m listening,” Jim said.
“We cannot pressurize the hull. It simply wasn’t designed for that. None of the apparatus is in place to do so. Retrofitting it might be possible, but not in the time we have available.”
“I thought the drive field was supposed to negate the need for pressurization. Isn’t that a part of the theory that you’re working on at the moment?” asked Tim.
“It is indeed, my friend, but I am concerned. To risk the Damroyal on pure speculation is disturbing.”
“Use a drone to test the theory,” Jim suggested.
Shaking his head in the negative, Pol said, “That won’t work in this case. The drones lack many elements such as hydraulic lines, doors that could trap personnel, and completely different windshield systems. Also their shapes are different, which would cause different turbulence and require separate configurations of the fields.”
“I’m relying on information from the experiments before the earthquakes to create working fusion reactors. The Tokamak reactors that were created used electromagnetic fields to compress the hydrogen fuel, but none of them could hold that compression for more than a second without leakage due to the tremendous pressures and the varying turbulence.”
“You mean,” Jim said, “that it was like trying to squeeze a balloon between your fingers and keeping sections from constantly popping out?”
“Why yes, exactly, Jim. Luckily, in our case, the water, instead of our fields is doing the compressing, so I could perform some simplifying assumptions on the equations. Before the quakes, I saw the preliminary results from the Oak Ridge fusion turbulence simulations on their Cray XT5 Jaguar supercomputer. The simulations were performed at two quadrillion calculations per second. I could use their results, since they were based on the principles of magneto hydrodynamics, which treat plasma as a fluid much like air or water, but even after a year they could not adequately solve the collapse problem, and with our different configuration ...”
“English, Pol!”
“In short, the results would have no meaning.”
Now Jim thought he understood the source of Pol’s discomfiture. Always the first to suggest the use of the drones on dangerous missions, Pol had no doubt already considered the option and discarded the drones as inadequate.
“I’ll test it with the Peacekeeper,” Tim said quietly.
“It’s too dangerous for you to test the unproven theory,” Jim said. “If Pol has serious reservations, then I think we should scrap the plan.”
“I want this one, Jim,” Tim said sincerely. “I was the first to test fly a fighter, and I want to be the first to test this concept. Look, we’re at Base 1, so there’s a good test site near us. The Peacekeeper is small enough that we can test her in the channel of the Tennessee River. That river is shallow enough that I could get out and swim to the surface if something goes wrong, and you can be there with an APC to affect a rescue.”
“You can bet your ass I’d be there,” Jim said contentiously. “What are you thinking? This is crazy. If Pol thinks it’s too dangerous, then why don’t we just link up in the air in some out of the way location?”
“I don’t know the reason. I just know that in the dream it was critical to Pol that he solved the problem. There has to be a reason he wanted to do that instead of just linking in the sky,” Tim said with his own anger flaring.
“I can answer that question for you, Admiral,” Pol stated.
Tearing his eyes away from his brother’s angry gaze, Jim said, “Well, I wish you would because this doesn’t make a bit of sense to me.”
“It’s about the mass to lift ratios, and the resulting compression of the interlocking fields you see...”
Jim held up his hands for silence, causing Pol to pause. “Yes, my friend?”
“Pol, are you about to give me the math?” Jim asked, and despite the anger he’d felt a moment before, a smile slowly crept on his face. It had been years since Pol had made that mistake with Jim. A matching smile crept onto the scientist’s face, and even Tim managed a grin.
The tension between the three men broken, Pol said, “All right, I’ll put it in laymen’s terms. We cannot link in the air because we’d be so heavy that the Damroyal would descend to the earth and the lower sections of her hull would crumple like a tin can under your foot.”
“Now, that’s a very good reason,” Jim stated.
“Likewise, we cannot just land on the ocean to do it, because we would still be so heavy we would sink. Therefore, we have to link just above the surface with the drive engaged and descend slowly until we achieve neutral buoyancy. That will vary with our forward speed. Theoretically, the faster we are traveling under the surface, the deeper we can descend. But, and I do stress the word but, this is all theoretical at this stage. We need a field test.”
“You see?” Tim said triumphantly.
Jim sighed and said, “Let me guess. We can’t test it with an APC because of the same problems you mentioned earlier. And we can’t test it with the other patrol ships because they have an entirely different drive system arrangement.”
“Correct on both counts. The original patrol ships only had a single drive array. Their energy field would have holes in the top that would permit the water to exert pressure on the hull. The drive array of the Peacekeeper with her battleship module is the next best choice. The Arizona was specifically designed for ocean surface travel as well as air travel. Therefore, the results would be tainted. The triple hull plating of the battleship Constitution would likewise yield tainted results because that’s not the way the Damroyal was engineered.”
“I also need to stress that any excessive turbulence or holes in the interlocking fields would cause a catastrophic collapse and water to crash onto the ship, leaving very little time for the crew to escape. The Peacekeeper can be operated by a single person, which minimizes the loss of life if something goes horribly wrong,” Pol added pointedly as he gazed at Tim with a stern expression on his face.
“When will you conduct the test?” Jim asked, yielding to Pol’s inescapable logic and his brother’s desire to be the test pilot.
“Now,” Tim said.
“Now!” Pol and Jim exclaimed in unison.
Chapter 14
“Are you certain about this Ramon?” asked his strike team leader.
“I do not plan to be a martyr if that is what you fear. I plan to enter the city and explain what the people need to do in order to survive. I will tell them that if they leave and are caught, then they will be killed on sight. Their best chance for survival is to remain in their homes.”
“All of these things you can tell them from the safety of the Havana,” observed the lieutenant. “There is no need to place your life at risk.”
“It is easy to tell a man to stay in such a position when you are safe. They will know this and they will resent it. If I enter the city and stay among them my words will have more weight in their minds because I share their fate.”
“You are the captain, sir. It is for you to decide.”
“Did you pr
epare a pack with rations and water as I asked,” Ramon inquired.
“It is ready. Will you need ammunition and a rifle?”
“No. I have my pistol and spare magazines. I will not enter their community armed to the teeth. I do need a flint and steel for building fires, and perhaps a poncho to wear when it rains.”
“The fire starting tools are in the side pouch. The poncho and a bedroll are tied to the top. A jungle knife and several canteens are hooked to the web belt.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. That will be all.”
“Sir, it would be safer if I went with you.”
“No. I want you to remain aboard the ship. If I die, the new captain will need you.”
“Captain, we are at the landing zone you selected,” the pilot stated. “Are you certain you don’t want me to fly you in closer? There are still several miles of rough terrain between us and the city.”
“No. This is close enough. I don’t want to risk contamination by taking the ship closer and opening the bay door.”
“Go with God, Captain,” said Mary, the communications officer.
Ramon nodded his thanks for the benediction, and then he walked into the hallway and back toward the cargo bay. He found the doctor waiting there with a small medical kit. The doctor opened the kit and pulled out a bottle of pills that had a red cap. “Be careful of these, Captain. They are strong. More than two would be fatal.”
Ramon nodded his understanding. The doctor was giving him a way out should he contract the disease. It was a way that Ramon didn’t think he could ever choose for religious reasons, but he did appreciate the doctor’s intentions, which were to prevent his suffering.
The captain took the bag of medical supplies and found space for it in his backpack. He put on his web belt and then he slipped into his pack. “Open the bay door, Lieutenant,” Ramon instructed.
He watched as the door descended to form a ramp, and then he walked down it and headed for the nearby trees.