by Bob Blanton
“Two nightclubs?”
“Yeah, one of them features some kind of music each night. Amazingly these construction workers keep it full. The other does comedy. Half the time, it’s a professional, the other half, it’s open mic. Some of these guys are pretty funny.”
“Everyone has their hidden talent,” Marc said. “Have there been any complaints?”
“The only one I’ve heard is that the booze isn’t free.”
“Well, that would be plain stupid,” Liz said.
“I agree,” Marc said. “Free booze, we’d be up to our necks in industrial accidents.”
Blake laughed. “Do you want to go up and see the pool?”
“I’ll see it some other time,” Catie said as she motioned to Liz.
“Are you serious?” Marc asked.
“Come on, Daddy. I never can get anyone to play.”
“And why do you think that is?”
Catie made a ‘who me’ face.
“Go ahead. Did you bring money?”
Catie nodded her head, then led Liz toward the elevator. They went up to deck six and started checking out the small public rooms. There had to be a card game somewhere.
Chapter 38
Lynx Test Flights
Catie was nervous as she taxied the Lynx onto Manuae’s runway. Blake was sitting next to her in the copilot’s seat, but he was keeping quiet. Slowly she ran through the various items on her checklist. Verifying that each system was working as expected. She finally got to the engines; she held the brakes as she pushed the throttle forward. The engines roared as the jet fuel flowed through the superheating coils and into the combustion chamber.
“Seems like she has plenty of power,” Blake said, finally breaking the tension in the cockpit.
“She’d better,” Catie said. “Are you ready for this?”
“As ready as I can be,” Blake laughed. “Do you want to call the tower?”
“Lynx Two to Manuae Control, requesting permission for takeoff.”
“Manuae Control, Lynx Two, skies are clear, you are cleared for takeoff.”
Catie released the brakes and pushed the throttle forward. The Lynx raced down the runway. After sixteen hundred meters, Catie adjusted the flaps and pulled the nose up gently, and the Lynx smoothly rose into the sky.
“Manuae Control, nice takeoff, have a good flight.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” Catie said.
Catie climbed to five thousand meters, then leveled off and started testing the Lynx’s turning. She did sweeping-turns in each direction, tightening the radius each time. “She turns nice.”
“That’s a good thing,” Blake said. “How does the yoke feel?”
“Steady as a rock,” Catie said. “I’m going to take her up to twenty thousand meters and Mach zero-point-nine, then we’ll head back.”
“Cautious,” Blake said.
“Of course. The ground crew will inspect everything tonight to make sure there are no stress cracks or loose components. Then tomorrow, if all checks out, we’ll do a supersonic run.”
“Hey, how did you do the other day on the Sky Princess? Did you find a poker game?”
“Yeah, we found two,” Catie said.
“Two!”
“Well, they don’t last that long,” Catie said. “So, after the first game ran out of money, we found a second one.”
“How much did you take them for?”
“Six hundred at the first game. They were nice guys.”
“And the second game?”
“Well, they started making comments and trying to push me out by betting big. They were kind of jerks.”
“So, how much?”
“Three thousand.”
“You are evil.”
“Not evil,” Catie said. “Just a little vindictive.”
“Okay, let’s go home, I’ve got a bottle of Champagne waiting for us.”
The whole board was inside the hangar waiting on them to taxi in and deplane. As soon as Catie stepped off the ramp, her father handed her half a glass of Champagne. “Here’s to a new era in aviation and the woman who launched it!”
“Cheers!”
Marc had a photographer taking pictures the whole time. Catie was surprised at how exhausted she felt. The excitement and tension of taking the new aircraft up for the first time was way more taxing than she had expected. And maybe she drank too much Champagne. “Half a glass, what a wimp,” she thought. But after an hour of chatting about the flight, all she wanted to do was go to bed.
◆ ◆ ◆
The ground crew had given the Lynx a glowing review. No problems were found, and now they were watching as Catie and Blake taxied to take her back up. This time they would go supersonic.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Blake said after Catie had finished her preflight checks.
“Lynx Two to Manuae Control, requesting permission for takeoff.”
“Manuae Control, Lynx Two, skies are clear, you are cleared for takeoff.”
“And away we go!” Blake said as Catie pushed the throttle forward.
The Lynx rose into the air quickly. This time Catie only used fourteen hundred meters of runway.
“Showoff,” Blake said.
“We are supposed to be testing its capabilities,” Catie shot back. She took the Lynx up to twenty thousand meters and leveled off. While both Catie and Blake carefully monitored the engine temperature and power ratings, Catie pushed the throttle forward.
“Approaching Mach one … Mach one-point-two … Mach one-point-four … Mach one-point-six.”
Catie held the throttle there and initiated some sweeping-turns. She adjusted the throttle to maintain their speed through the turns. After a few more turns, she straightened the Lynx out and started pushing the throttle forward more.
“Mach one-point-eight … Mach two-point-one … Mach two-point-three,” Blake read off.
At Mach two-point-eight, Catie ran the Lynx through another set of turns before straightening out and taking her up to Mach four. There she did another set of turns, then turned the Lynx back toward Manuae.
“What, we’re going to stop here?”
“We’re recording all this to submit to the Kiwis,” Catie said. “We’ll do a flight tomorrow that’s off the record.” Catie was referring to the fact that Lynx was actually designed to go Mach five, but they had a governor on the engines that would restrict the speed to Mach four. Mach four could only be exceeded if the pilot knew about it and could enter the code to disable the governor. Her father had decided that they would like to hold back some of the capabilities for the first year or so to give them an edge should something happen that threatened Delphi City. They had even hidden the fact that the Foxes could do Mach six-point-two when they had encountered the Chinese, not wanting to go above Mach five unless they had to.
After this landing, there was a lot less fanfare. Her father met her in the hangar and gave her a big hug, but then they all went back to work. Just a typical day at MacKenzie Discoveries.
Chapter 39
Board Meeting – April 15th
“I call this meeting to order,” Marc said as everyone settled around the table.
“Kal, what do you have?”
“We had a great training exercise last week,” Kal said. “We’re making good use of that paintball arena Blake put in. I’ve got another team just waiting to take on the A-team.”
“Bring it on,” Liz said. “We’ve been getting stale without a real challenge.”
“I’ll set it up for next week. Be careful, these are all ex-military.”
“I’m not scared,” Catie said.
“I didn’t think so,” Kal said. “I’ve got another four that will be ready next week.”
“Okay,” Marc said. “Liz, you’ve taken over the offshore manufacturing and sales; how’s it going?”
“Catie’s scooter design is up. Johansson built a couple of prototypes last month and has them certified in India, Mexico, Indonesia, and the Phili
ppines. China is still a problem. The first production run has just started; they’re popping off the line as we speak,” Liz reported.
“Cool,” Catie said. “When can we have a few around here?”
“Fred is going to bring some on his next trip,” Liz said, giving Fred a nod.
“That is if I’m properly compensated,” Fred said.
“What do you want?” Catie scoffed.
“I just want you to buy drinks for once,” Fred said.
“Done!”
“Back to Johansson. He has the car design done, so he’s hoping to get a prototype ready for road qualifications in the US and EU starting next month. He’s really burning through money -- good thing we’re selling batteries as fast as we can make them.”
“Catie, how was the test flight?”
“Things went perfect; we did three flights to get through all the tests. They’re part of the package we’re submitting to the Kiwis. Flybys by Fred verified we didn’t have a shockwave; that was a relief. She passed them all. We did an off-the-books one yesterday that took her up to Mach five. The second unit is about ready, and we’ll send this one to the Kiwis when they’re ready to do certification testing.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, education. Sam hired four teachers to be coaches for anyone homeschooling their children. There are me, the twins, and six other students inaugurating the process.”
“Okay,” Marc said. “Blake, care to add some more to your previous update?”
“Sure thing. We should have the first city section completed in two months,” Blake said. “It will take another two months to have the full four sections in place minus some of the infrastructure. We’ll add that as we need to.”
“What about our airport?” Marc asked
“Geez, aren’t you ever satisfied?”
“Not when I know I can have more!” Marc said.
“I’ve hired the guy who worked on Japan’s megafloat project. He wants to actually build one instead of just putting designs and prototypes together.”
“Why do we need another airport?” Samantha asked. “Most of our stuff comes in on cargo ships, there’s a perfectly good airport on Rarotonga, and you’ve got the small strips here and on Manuae that handle the G650.”
“She makes some good points there,” Blake said. “This airport is a huge investment. We’ll need to pull in another billion to get it done. The Lynxes could use our strip here, just need to upgrade it a little. Or if you really want a floating one, you could do a much smaller airport than this monstrosity you’re asking for.”
Marc just sat there, smiling. He laughed a bit then, folded his hands together, and leaned on the table with his forearms. “I’ve been working on a little design project of my own. After our bit of excitement last month, I think we need to accelerate some of our plans. We need the extra runway length and support systems for this.” He flicked up an image on the big screen using his HUD. Everyone turned and looked at it.
“What, you want to start using C17s to ship stuff?” Blake asked.
“That’s not a C17,” Liz said. “Look at the engines.”
“What the hell …”
“This is our new Oryx,” Marc said.
“Do we really need a supersonic transport?” Blake asked.
“It has to be supersonic,” Marc said. “How else is it going to make orbit?”
“Finally!” Catie shouted as she pumped her fist.
“Orbit?!” Samantha squeaked.
“There’s no way that thing can make orbit,” Fred said. “Even if you strapped spare tanks to it, it’d never carry enough fuel.”
“Ah, you make a fine point,” Marc said. “But since these will never land anywhere but our airport, they don’t need to be certified, so we can take some liberties with technology.”
“What technology?” Fred and Samantha asked at the same time.
Marc looked Samantha in the eyes and clasped her hands, “Dear Samantha, I’ve been holding out on you,” he chuckled.
Samantha tried to pull her hand free so she could slug Marc. “Spill, you bastard.”
“As you know, we have a couple of renowned nuclear physicists working for us. They’ve been working on a fusion reactor. What you don’t know is that we actually have a fusion reactor already; they’re just trying to reinvent it.”
“What, are you crazy!” Samantha was completely nonplussed.
“I don’t think so,” Marc said. “Blake and I found a spaceship last year; we’ve been working to introduce that technology to Earth. We’re hoping to catch up and maybe get ahead before the owners come looking for it.”
“You are crazy!”
“We’ll take you on a tour of it later,” Marc said. “But for now, just trust me. We, in fact, have several fusion reactors. One is small enough to fit in this plane and drive its engines. In fact, that’s what drives the Lynx, at least the original. The ones Catie is working on are going to have to use standard engines.”
Fred looked around the table; Catie, Blake, Liz, and Kal were just sitting there smiling. They acted no different than if Marc were telling them all that he’d just bought a new yacht.
“Marc, what’s wrong with you?” Samantha said. She had an almost terrified look on her face.
“Sam,” Fred said. “Sam, look at them.” He pointed to their friends.
Samantha looked around the table. “He’s not nuts?” she asked as she realized she was the only one showing any concern.
“Nope,” Liz said. “He let Kal and me see it right before Christmas. It is amazing.”
“And you’re going to tell me that ADI is some kind of alien,” Samantha said.
“No, Cer Sam, I’m an Autonomous Digital Intelligence,” ADI said. “Dr. Metra is the alien, as you say.”
“Ohhhh, I need a drink,” Samantha said.
“Coming right up,” Blake jumped up, grabbed a bottle of scotch and poured Samantha a healthy dose.
“What about me,” Fred yelped. “I’m in shock too.”
Blake laughed and poured another glass for Fred.
“We’re going to have trouble finishing this meeting if you keep pouring scotch,” Marc said.
“There’s always tomorrow,” Blake laughed as he poured a more moderate dose for the others at the table. Catie gave him a sour look. After getting a nod from Marc, Blake poured her a tiny dose.
“To the Oryx,” Blake toasted.
“To the Oryx!”
“And I haven’t even gotten to the very best part,” Marc said.
“What, there’s more?” Samantha groaned. She held her glass out to Blake for a refill.
“Why do you think we need a ship to fly into orbit?” Marc asked.
“To undercut SpaceX and Boeing?” Samantha said, hopefully.
Marc snorted. “No, to build Station Delphi.”
“Station Delphi?”
Marc used his HUD to flick the screen to the next image. Everyone gasped as they looked at the image of a space station as it rotated on the display. It was a tall cylindrical can surrounded by three rings.
“How big is that thing?” Fred asked. Samantha just groaned again.
“The hub has a diameter of two hundred meters and is one hundred meters tall. It’s for micro-G industry,” Marc continued. “The outer ring has a diameter of one thousand meters. The ring itself is an ellipsoid, it is fifty meters by thirty meters with the long axis parallel to the hub. The station rotates at one-point-three-five revolutions per minute. That gives the outer ring a gravity of one G; the middle ring gets three-quarter-G; the inner ring only half-G, and the hub will see one-fifth-G.”
“If it rotates, how do you have a zero-G industry?” Blake asked.
“The hub has an inner shell that isolates the zero-G area. It doesn’t rotate, it’s coupled to the outer shell via magnetic bearings along the axis. The spokes you see are elevators, so you have access between the three rings and the hub.”
“That’s huge!” Liz said.
“Yes it is,” Marc said. “It’s designed so we can stack four of them, one section on top of another to make it a bigger station if we need to.”
“How many people do you think will want to live in space?” Liz asked.
“It will depend on how much manufacturing we need to do up there,” Marc said. “Ten to eleven thousand people can live in the outer ring; depending on how many couples and children there are, three quarters that many in the middle,” Marc continued. “Maybe a few thousand in the inner ring. We’ll have to see how people feel about living in a half-G environment.”
“And how much public space we allocate,” Catie added.
“Correct,” Marc said. “We will probably see between twenty to thirty thousand per section. We’ll just have light-industry and some population in the half-G ring. So, the full station should house eighty to one hundred thousand people comfortably when it’s fully built out.”
“How are you going to lift that much material?” Blake asked.
Catie was squirming in her seat, beside herself with excitement.
“Do you have something to say?” Marc asked. He could tell she was bursting at the seams.
“Yes,” Catie said. “Dibs! Double Dibs!”
Afterword
Thanks for reading Delphi City!
I hope you’ve enjoyed the 2nd Book in the Delphi in Space series. The story continues in Delphi Station. If you would like to join my newsletter group, click here, Delphi in Space. The newsletter provides interesting science facts for SciFi fans, book recommendations based on books I truly loved reading, deals on books I think you'll like, and notification of when the next book in my series is available.
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Delphi Station is the third book in the exciting new adventure series Delphi in Space. Now the McCormacks are finally going to get into space. At least if the big governments on Earth don’t stop them. They’ve managed to accumulate enough money to build a city, and now they’re going to build a space station. That will create a safe place to manufacture their new technology, and a way to demonstrate to the world that humans have a future in space.