Live Free or Die-ARC

by John Ringo

  Over the course of the next two hours they played with the glob of glass, forming various shapes on the basic concept of a disk but never letting it get too large.

  "Okay," Tyler said. "This was a good exercise but it is costing fuel like crazy. Let's just expand it. Carefully."

  "Applying more SAPL," Dr. Bell said.

  "Expansion rate of one meter radius per minute," Dr. Foster said. "Rotational momentum increasing . . . More SAPL to the center, less to the edges."

  "Aye, aye, Captain!" Dr. Bell said. "Inner thirty percent only."

  "Need to bring it out some more," Steve said. "You're getting a bulge along the middle section."

  "Rotational velocity now two hundred kilometers per hour. We're pulling some serious G at the edges."

  "More SAPL to the axis," Dr. Bell said. "And the bulge is going . . . going . . . gone . . . Full SAPL sweep . . ."

  "Radius now two hundred and twenty hundred meters," Dr. Foster said. "Rotational velocity two hundred and thirty . . . Expansion of three meters per minute. I'm getting some wobble."

  "Damping it out," the computer said. "Paws adjusted to manage wobble."

  "Cut the SAPL," Tyler said. "That's what's causing it to wobble."

  "If we cut the SAPL it's going to cool," Dr. Bell said.

  "Not fast," Tyler said. "It's in full sunshine. Hell, as big and thin as its getting, solar wind may be causing some of the wobble. We need this thing straight or this was an exercise in futility."

  "It's going to be straight," Dr. Foster said. "But I think we cut the SAPL just in time. Look at it."

  The disk was now expanding at an enormous rate, getting thinner and thinner.

  "Come on, baby," Dr. Bell said. "Hold together."

  "Withdraw the Paws," Tyler said. "We don't want them perturbing the material."

  "Damn," Dr. Foster said.

  The center of the disk had separated and the spinning glass was rapidly turning into a shape like a spare tire.

  "Damnit," Dr. Bell said. "Sorry. I probably applied too much laser."

  "What now?" Dr. Foster said.

  "Leave it," Tyler said, disgustedly. "If we can figure out how to get out the now enormous rotation, we can melt it again and try again when we've got a better feel for doing this."

  "Cut it," Steve said. "I mean, you might want to back up just in case and not be in the way if it comes apart totally. But if you cut it, it turns from a rapidly spinning disk into a less rapidly spinning cylinder. The longer it gets under those conditions, the slower it's going to spin. And it's going to be easier, less energy intensive, for the tugs to slow it."

  "Just cut it?" Tyler said.

  "If we can," Dr. Bell said. "It's pretty transparent."

  "Never know until you try," Steve said. "Scrape the outsides first, though."

  "Get off more of the impurities?" Dr. Foster said. "Good idea. Heavy metal contamination on the edges might have been the deciding factor in its failure. Modeling this is . . ."

  "Hell with modeling," Tyler said. "The Right Stuff's right. We'll cut it, damp the spin, melt the sucker and start over. Next time, though, with lower rotation and more control of the expansion rate. Dr. Bell, I believe you are the SAPL man."

  "We want to make sure there's complete deconfliction," Steve said. "It's going to snap open. It's possible it's cooled enough it's no longer completely amorphous. And even if it is, there's going to be enormous acceleration effects as it expands. That's where the potential energy of the spin is going to dump."

  "So we don't want to be in the way," Tyler said. "Got it. Comp, get the Paws and the Monkey at least one hundred thousand clicks away. Far enough, you think?"

  "Far enough," Steve said.

  "We need to keep it hot," Tyler said. "Keep the SAPL on it at thirty percent power. What's its temp?"

  "Fourteen twenty C," Dr. Foster said. "It peaked at two thousand."

  "Keep it at least twelve hundred," Tyler said. "Fourteen is probably about right for now. Viscosity neither too high nor too low. Just right. When we're all in position, we'll cut that sucker and see what happens."

  Moving the ships was a short matter. But then they figured out that they'd need the BDA array further back as well. That was both for safety reasons and because it was going to need to follow the now rapidly spinning ring of glass, keeping the beam on one point on its surface. So the tugs were sent to pick up and reposition the mirrors. The mirrors could, technically, do that on their own. If Tyler had wanted to wait.

  "Okay, comp," Tyler said. "You've got this, right?"

  "To the limits of system accuracy," the computer said. "The satellite packs on the Big Distributed Array mirrors are not terribly precise. I cannot guarantee continuous power on one spot."

  "And if it gets diffused the whole thing is going to tumble," Dr. Foster said.

  "Like I said," Tyler said. "We'll see what happens. Computer, you have my permission to fire."

  "Firing," the computer said.

  The crystal ring had hardly been visible against the star background. It was optically extremely pure. When the SAPL hit it, though, it flashed into light.

  "That is really pretty," Dr. Bell said. "I hope we're recording this. Because it's really pretty."

  The ring was a blaze of glory for a moment as the full power of the SAPL attempted to follow its rapidly spinning path and then.

  "Separation," the Monkey said.

  "Whoa," Steve said. "And ouch."

  The flashing ring had, indeed, separated. At a hundred different places. Shards of crystal were now flying away in every direction.

  "Comp," Tyler said. "Can you track all of that?"

  "Yes," the computer said. "The pieces that are large enough to be a major hazard. And there are some that we simply should pick up. But most of the rotational velocity was expended by material which is now in retrograde solar orbit. No great danger. Others have been kicked into higher orbit and are headed for outer system worlds or towards the VLA. The material twisted as it broke. At least one piece, one hundred meters long and four meters wide, is headed for your home world. It will arrive in . . . seventy three years and ten days."

  "Right," Tyler said. "Put the Paws on garbage duty. Just . . . put it back in one place as best you can. Okay, people, what have we learned here today?"

  "We don't know enough about making mirrors in space," Dr. Bell said.

  "We don't know enough about making big glass mirrors in space," Tyler pointed out. "We can probably make a small one. Next."

  "If we're going to be doing complicated stuff, we need better tracking systems," Steve said. "On the BDA mirrors especially."

  "Comp, do you have cycles available?"

  "I'm not that busy tracking if that's what you mean."

  "Are there better systems for the BDA available on Glalkod?"

  "Yes," the Monkey said. "Much better."

  "Add that to my next shopping list," Tyler said, grumpily. "Standard satpaks for the VLA, better ones for the BDA."

  "We need better mirrors, period," Dr. Foster said.

  "We'll have to talk to AMTAC," Tyler said. "It's about time for their next upgrade, anyway."

  "I'd say that we need better modeling," Steve said, "but the truth is a lot of this is going to be trial and error."

  "I have already modeled the failure," Monkey said. "The primary problem was an unnoticed concentration of low-density, low-viscosity impurities that remained at the center of the silica. It was those impurities, not the basic process, which caused an unexpectedly low surface tension for its temperature. In a similar situation, with some refinement of analysis of the composition of the material, I could probably control the SAPL such that there is not a failure. Again, this was a new situation for me. But having seen the failure and modeled it, and spent some cycles communicating with Parva the Gorku AI, I now have sufficient information to do the same process successfully."

  "And we now have one more lesson learned," Tyler said.

  "What?" Dr. Fost
er asked.

  "We have to spend more time looking in our crystal ball."

  Eight

  "Mr. Vernon Tyler?" the guard at the gate said, surprised. He was looking at the ID but clearly didn't believe it.

  "Last time I checked," Tyler said. It for some reason floored people that he often drove himself. He didn't know why, but it was still sort of funny. He looked at the guard's face, though, and realized that this was one who had had his humor bone surgically removed. "Yes. I am Tyler Vernon."

  "You're going to have to be escorted, sir," the guard said. "If you could park in visitor's parking, please?"

  It was called Phantom Works in a more or less direct rip-off of Lock-Mart's Skunk Works. Being honest, though, Boeing had had an advanced projects group around for years. One of the first such groups had invented the B-17, at the time the cutting edge of heavy bomber technology. They just didn't get the really cool name until Lockheed revealed Skunk Works.

  Technically it was distributed throughout all of Boeing's many many facilities scattered around the US. And there were people who worked for Phantom Works at other locations. There were people who worked for Phantom Works in various university research centers. The joke was that there were people who worked for Phantom Works that didn't even know they worked for Phantom Works. Because, you know, it was that secret.

  But most of the advanced design work was done at the main Boeing facility in St. Louis where, at this point over three thousand, engineers, scientists and various worker bees turned the future into reality.

  And today was the big day. They'd finished his shuttle.

  Well, they'd finished the prototype of the design structure of his shuttle. An actual shuttle was, you know, two iterations away. At most. Give or take.

  Tyler parked the car and sat on the trunk until a golf cart driven by a familiar figure came through the gate.

  "Astro," Tyler said, shaking the former astronaut's hand. "Good to see you again."

  "Good to see you, Ty," Steve said. "Welcome to Phantom Works."

  "Shhhh . . ." Tyler said. "Somebody might hear!"

  "There's a sign," Steve pointed out.

  "It's supposed to be Seeecret," Tyler said, getting in the golf cart.

  "What goes on is secret," Steve pointed out. "So we'll have to wait until we get inside to discuss it."

  "Or we can just comm it," Tyler commed.

  "Our security people hate these things," Astro commed back. "Every time we go in a shield room they freak out. They take away a guy's Blackberry but you can't exactly take away an implant. It's not so bad here, anymore. But every time I have to do a brief somewhere else their people have conniptions. Speaking of Connie, how's it going?"

  "Like clockwork," Tyler commed. "The nice part is that we can just transfer the material straight to Gorku ships off-planet. The Horvath are, I'm told, having a fit. Especially since asteroid 6178 1986 DA turns out to be relatively high in palladium. We're getting about point two percent by weight. Which doesn't sound like much. But we're stripping ninety-six tons of base nickel-iron per week. That's three hundred and eighty kilos a week. And that's not counting the rest of the materials. I'd say it's a gold mine but it's better than a gold mine. It's a palladium mine with a side of nickel, iron, copper and every damned thing else you can imagine."

  "So are you making your nut is the question?" Steve asked.

  "Not really," Tyler admitted. "But that's because of the cost of the mirrors. Getting them into space is easy. We just ship most of them up in the milk run from Glalkod and they shove them out the door. We've gotten better lift and drives for the BDAs by the way."

  "Heard about that," Steve said.

  "But the mirrors are still costing like crazy," Tyler commed. "I'm going up next week to see if I can do something about that."

  "Going to try to spin a mirror again?" Steve commed, grinning.

  "Going to try to spin small mirrors," Tyler said. "I want to get a system into place to manufacture the VLA mirrors. Then center all the BDA mirrors inwards to concentrate the light. Then pump it through a new mirror system we've developed called the DSA . . ."

  "DSA?"

  "Distributed Solar Array," Tyler commed, promptly. "A DSA mirror will take up to thirty BDA pushes which, in turn, will take up to thirty of the VLA. We're shooting for twenty to one to use the DSA mirrors for fine work."

  "What's it really stand for?" Steve asked.

  "Damned Scary Array. Each of the mirrors has to be able to handle two and a third terrawatts."

  "Six months ago we were only pushing a terrawatt," Steve pointed out.

  "Six months ago I hadn't gotten AMTAC and the subcontractors off the stick," Tyler said. "We're producing fifteen VLAs and a BDA a week, now. And we've got a new system in design called the Variable Scaled Array."

  "Very Scary Array?" Steve commed.

  "Got it in one," Tyler commed. "VSA mirrors are designed to handle thirty terrawatts per second. When we've got enough VLA and VSA we can start doing some serious stuff. Assuming I have ships to do it with."

  "Which we, sort of, have," Steve said, pulling up at a guarded hangar. "Sort of."

  "What does 'sort of' mean?" Tyler asked, getting out of the golf cart. Getting through the door to the offices attached to the hangar was harder than getting onto the base. But Tyler could tell the wheels had been greased.

  "There are . . . issues," Steve said.

  "What issues?" Tyler said.

  "The issues that we're going to discuss in the briefing," Steve said, waving him into a secure room. "I take it you're not wearing a Blackberry?"

  "Don't hold with them," Tyler said, nodding at the three people in the room. "Steve?"

  "Mr. Vernon," one of the suits said, walking over rapidly to shake his hand. "I'm Brian Gnad, Vice President of Phantom Works and I can't tell you how much we appreciate your assistance in developing Earth's first space ship."

  Gnad was forty-something with the look of former military. Probably Navy fighters given his intense nature. Fighters, anyway. He had that cocky 'I can lick the world' attitude.

  "You're welcome," Vernon said. "Introductions?"

  "This is Jory Eichholtz, Director of Programming for Project Three-One-Nine," Gnad said, gesturing to the other male suit.

  Eichholtz was pure vanilla IT geek executive type. Late thirties, early forties. Brown hair, eyes and beard. 'Big boned'. He really wasn't fat, just robust. Nice taste in suits. Better than his boss. Nice tie. Nice. Italian silk. Tyler knew because he had one just like it and his 'clothing advisor' had explained that it was Italian silk.

  "Mr. Eichholtz," Tyler said.

  "Mr. Tyler," Eichholtz said.

  "It's Doctor, Ty," Steve said.

  "If I can call you Astro, I can call him Mister by mistake," Tyler said. "And, sorry, Doctor Eichholtz."

  "Doesn't bother me one bit," Eichholtz said.

  "And this is Doctor Barbara Givens," the VP finished. "Head of our gravitics research and design team."

  Dr. Givens didn't have as good a taste in suits as Dr. Eichholtz but she didn't need it. She wasn't super-model gorgeous but she had the look of somebody who was going to hold their beauty. Mid thirties, brown hair and eyes, short hair in a simple style and seriously stacked. She looked like she worried a lot. About the safety of the world, whether she had missed the boat on her biological clock, kittens. She was definitely a worrier. But a stacked one.

  And she also didn't look particularly thrilled to meet the famous Maple Syrup King.

  "Mr. Tyler."

  "Doctor."

  "And I think we can get started," Gnad said. "Mr. Vernon, again, let me personally thank you, and thank you on behalf of Boeing and Phantom Works, for availing us of the technical data, not to mention the power system, obtained on Glalkod."

  "You're welcome," Tyler said. "And as soon as you can get me some useable ships I'll be making Boeing even happier by buying them faster than you can make them."

  "We do have a prototype, a te
st-bed really," Gnad said, smiling as enthusiastically as he could. "Which we'll be showing you in a few minutes. But we'd like to briefly discuss some of the issues which have arisen during the design phase. Dr. Asaro will start with a briefing on the power system. Dr. Asaro?"

  "I've got a power point," Asaro said. "You want it?"

  "Nope," Tyler said. "Not if I can avoid it. Is it good?"